3 1822 01101 7845 
 
 LT 
 L 
 
 M. 
 
 NI
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Sisters of the Holy Names 
 of Jesus and Mary 
 
 _---r N J 
 
 HEART SCHOOL 
 , CAL.
 
 THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO 
 
 LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA 
 
 3 1822 01101 7845 
 
 GOO
 
 MYSTICS ALL
 
 WORKS BY ENID DINNIS 
 
 GOD'S FAIRY TALES. Stories of the 
 supernatural in every day life. 3rd 
 impression. Cr. 8vo. Price 4/6 net. 
 
 ONCE UPON ETERNITY. Tales. 
 Cr. 8vo. Trice 4/6 net. 
 
 MR. COLEMAN GENT. A Romance 
 of the days of Charles I. Cr. 8vo. 
 Price 4/6 net. 
 
 MYSTICS ALL. Tales. Cr. 8vo. 
 Price 4/6 net. 
 
 London : SANDS & CO. 
 
 15 King Street, Covent Garden, W.C. 
 
 37 Georgre Street, Edinburgh
 
 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 BY 
 
 ENID M. ,DINNIS 
 
 Author of "GocTs Fairy Tales" "Once upon Eternity, 
 "Mr. Coleman Gent," etc. 
 
 SECOND IMPRESSION 
 
 1922 
 
 SANDS & Co., 
 LONDON & EDINBURGH 
 
 B HERDER BOOK CO., 
 
 17 SOUTH BROADWAY 
 ST. LOUIS, MO.
 
 Printed in Great Britain.
 
 BeMcation 
 
 The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor is the ear 
 filled with hearing." 
 
 EYES that seeing cannot fill 
 Eyes that seek for vision still 
 In a world where few men fare, 
 Peering through the mystic's grille : 
 
 Ears a-strain for more than sound 
 Ears that long-sought things had found 
 Trespassing 'twixt Here and There 
 In the Seer's Tom Tiddler's Ground : 
 
 Hearts that seek a sturdier sooth 
 Than the tales of love-lorn youth, 
 Viewing life's fantastic span 
 From the angel's side of truth. 
 
 Take these mystic " tales from me 
 Things that happened, it might be, 
 In the wondrous heart of man 
 Once upon eternity.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CRAZY SAMMY ; OR, THE CLOCK THAT TOLD ETERNITY 9 
 
 MRS BLAKE'S MARY 39 
 
 THE SIGNORINA AND SISTER COLETTE -., 57 
 
 THE LITTLE GIRL WHO SMILED BACK , .84 
 
 THE BOOK OF BROTHER DONATUS -101 
 
 THE CONVERSION OF OLD NURSE -119 
 
 THE INTERVENER " 144 
 
 THE BROWN BEADS ' ' ' l6l 
 
 GRATIAS . . ./.--;... -187 
 
 THE LADY . . . . 204 
 
 THE ONE THAT FOLLOWED -218
 
 Several of the stones included in this 
 volume have appeared in the "Irish 
 Rosary," and one in the "Month." They 
 are reprinted by kind permission of the 
 respective Editors.
 
 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 CRAZY SAMMY ; OR, THE CLOCK 
 THAT TOLD ETERNITY 
 
 THE GUEST HOUSE, 
 LOUVAIN COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, 
 4th August, 192. 
 
 I. 
 
 MY DEAR , 
 
 You have set me no less than three questions to 
 answer in your last letter. You ask (1) Have I ever 
 experienced any phenomena as the result of prayer 
 and its efficacy? (2) Were not all the saints slightly 
 insane ? (3) Have the angels a sense of humour, and 
 if so, what kind of jokes do they appreciate ? 
 
 Now, I propose to answer all three questions at 
 once by perpetrating a memoir of an old school- 
 mate of mine whom we used to call "Crazy Sammy" 
 on account of his immunity from the ordinariness 
 of other children. It will incidentally contain an 
 answer to all your three questions, and I have 
 always felt that Sammy ought to be written up, 
 so you have provided me with a culminating excuse 
 for that outrage on the departed a biographical
 
 10 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 sketch. Remember, please, that this will be for 
 private perusal, supposing that you, yourself, succeed 
 in wading through the story of Crazy Sammy, 
 offered hi a spirit of debate, hi answer to a three- 
 fold thesis. 
 
 Sammy was certainly the most interesting and 
 engaging human being that I have ever come across, 
 and beyond all question the most amusing. Fore- 
 most among his various characteristics he was a 
 genius for one thing was his irrepressibility hi 
 dealing with the Unseen. I knew him from a tiny 
 child he was my first playmate and from the 
 first I associated him with novenas. Sammy made 
 cadging onslaughts on the denizens of heaven at 
 the age when the normal infant applies himself 
 to amenable uncles and aunts. He had a sturdy 
 and logical faith in Providence, and to Providence 
 he went for everything he fancied, from a Christmas- 
 tree to a catapult. Now, the curious thing about 
 Sammy's praying propensity was that it never 
 produced results. I can never once remember him 
 pulling oft anything through a novena. This was 
 the phenomenon connected with Crazy Sammy, 
 coupled with the fact that I never knew him to 
 be discouraged. He accepted the result with the 
 cheeriest optimism, and displayed considerable 
 ingenuity in explaining the behaviour of the saint 
 who had apparently failed him. I remember once, 
 when Sammy was a very small boy, he became
 
 CRAZY SAMMY 11 
 
 possessed of a cricket-ball. With his usual energy 
 he immediately set about making a novena to obtain 
 an accessory bat. The novena was made to St 
 Aloysius, who, we learned from our schoolmaster 
 (a sensible Jesuit, anxious to protect the Saint from 
 his chroniclers' calumnies), had been much addicted 
 to sports as a boy, and had even run them con- 
 currently with his prayers and ecstasies. Whether 
 the schoolmaster was wrong and the pious chroniclers 
 right, I do not know, but (on the face of it) St 
 Aloysius disapproved of Sammy's request, and 
 showed it rather markedly, for not only was the 
 bat not forthcoming, but on the ninth day of the 
 novena Sammy's playmates borrowed the ball (every 
 body borrowed Sammy's things), and knocked it 
 irreparably out of bounds. At first poor Sammy 
 appeared to be undone, but he pulled himself 
 together sturdily. St Aloysius, he declared, had 
 not given him a bat, true, but he had taken away 
 his ball so that he shouldn't want a bat, and that 
 was the same thing. A philosopher might have 
 told him that it was even better. Thomas-a-Kempis 
 would have been delighted with the answer, but 
 Sammy's comrades only said "Rats!" or something 
 in the prevailing vernacular to that effect, and 
 Sammy, being perhaps less saintly than his patron 
 (I say perhaps, for I have a great regard myself 
 for St Aloysius), gave the worst offender "what for" 
 with his fists, and began a novena the very next
 
 12 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 week to get a fine day for his picnic. So far as 
 I remember, it rained. 
 
 There was another repartee of Sammy's that 
 I remember which would have pleased the 
 theologians. We had a companion called Dicky 
 (his people lived next door to Sammy's), of whom 
 Sammy was very anxious to make a Catholic. 
 Dicky was a hardened pagan, but Sammy was 
 convinced that if we could but get him into church 
 during Benediction, the sight of the Blessed 
 Sacrament must instantly convert him to the truth. 
 I had my doubts, I am ashamed to say, but Sammy 
 had none, albeit that he had taken not a few 
 Protestant companions to church in his time. 
 Dicky took some persuading he had congenital 
 suspicions of Romanism but at length Sammy's 
 vigorous invocations succeeded so far that one day 
 Dicky consented to accompany us to Exposition. 
 We knelt at the far end of the church, and Sammy 
 prayed his best and hardest, while Dicky stared 
 in wonder at the blaze of candles and the strange 
 central object. At last, suddenly, and rather to our 
 alarm, Dicky spoke up. I can hear his shrill 
 child's treble breaking the dead silence. " But the 
 clock's got no hands!" he said. 
 
 I was totally without an answer. I didn't even 
 realise at first what he meant by the " clock," but 
 Sammy knew and was ready, if a little disconcerted 
 by the disappointing nature of the observation.
 
 CRAZY SAMMY 18 
 
 " It doesn't need hands," he retorted, in a didactic 
 undertone. " It isn't telling time, it's telling 
 eternity." 
 
 We neither of us forgot that answer. 
 
 Dicky's scepticism ought to have proved a damper 
 to Sammy's ardour. They were great friends, and 
 Dicky, in spite of his freethinking parentage, was 
 initiated into the meaning of novenas and the 
 intercessory offices of the saints, the friends of 
 God. They proved rather a stumbling block to 
 him, I am afraid, owing to the absence of sensa- 
 tional results. Dicky pursued a process of destructive 
 criticism as he and Sammy grew into their 'teens, 
 and out of them. " No, old man," he said to 
 Sammy, " that won't do about prayer only being 
 answered when it is good for you to receive the 
 thing you ask for. That's * heads I win, tails you 
 lose.' " As for the doctrine that prayer is good in 
 itself, apart from results, a pagan like Dicky could 
 not be expected to accept that. But even Dicky, 
 in the zenith of his intelligent 'teens, couldn't find 
 an answer to the phenomenon of Sammy's confidence 
 in the Providence that so rarely gave him what he 
 asked for. He even felt impelled to consider the 
 possibility that Crazy Sammy was receiving his 
 favours on the spiritual plane, for certainly a more 
 winning personality than Sammy's could not be 
 imagined. He got as far as creating in Dicky 
 a strong and sincere desire to believe the things
 
 14 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 that Sammy believed, but there Dicky's conversion 
 seemed to stop. Sammy had scores of friends, for, 
 as I have said, he was the most lovable person 
 imaginable; many besides Dicky must have waxed 
 curious as to the secret. Many of these were either 
 Anglicans or Agnostics, but it seemed to be part 
 of his peculiar fortune that he never succeeded in 
 bringing these actually into the Church, though, 
 no doubt, he offered perpetual novenas to Blessed 
 Edmund Campion or St Francis Xavier, as the case 
 might be, for their conversion. True, he never 
 argued religion, but after years of friendship with 
 Sammy, who always treated sympathetic outsiders 
 exactly as though they were of the fold he was 
 never acrimonious their conversion would be brought 
 about in some way with which Sammy had no 
 apparent connection by the brilliance of Father 
 This, or the writings of Monsignor That, it might be. 
 When Crazy Sammy was about twenty he fell 
 in love. Naturally, he made a no vena to gain 
 heavenly assistance before venturing to put the 
 fateful question to the lady of his devotion. He 
 chose St Philomena on this occasion. She possessed 
 a shrine in our parish church, surmounted by a 
 rather nice-looking statue. He promised the saint 
 a floral offering for her altar if his prayer were 
 granted, and it really did seem that this time Sammy 
 was going to succeed, for the young lady had the 
 good taste to accept him. The poor fellow was
 
 CRAZY SAMMY 15 
 
 beside himself with joy and astonishment. He 
 was the humblest soul alive. He hastened to St 
 Philomena's altar with his arms loaded with floral 
 tributes, and on the way thither he met his lady- 
 love. She naturally thought the flowers were 
 meant for herself, and when she learned their 
 destination she became exceedingly angry with 
 Sammy, who had scruples which prevented him 
 from diverting his offering. The upshot of it was 
 that the lady rescinded her acceptance of Sammy's 
 hand, and sent him about his business. So St 
 Philomena got her flowers on false pretences, which 
 was very " unethical " of her, Dick said. It did 
 seem that the saints poked fun at poor Sammy. 
 I remembered St Aloysius and the cricket-ball. 
 
 Poor Sammy was broken-hearted. It was no 
 laughing matter. I really thought that the miserable 
 hussy had done for poor old Sammy as a woman 
 can, even with a boy's calf love, but to my relief 
 he bulged out again, to use Dick's expression. 
 " You see, old man," he said to me one night, as 
 he sat staring with big, mournful eyes into the 
 fire, " after all, if she was as jealous as that of 
 a saint, she would have been very difficult to manage 
 if one ever did the civil thing to ordinary ladies." 
 
 We were fain to confess that St Philomena, 
 although she had displayed a certain whimsical 
 humour in getting the flowers, had really gained 
 for Sammy the thing that was for his greatest
 
 16 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 happiness. Even Dick admitted it, and went to 
 the length of presenting St Philomena with a 
 particularly large votive candle. 
 
 n. 
 
 I mentioned incidentally at the beginning of this 
 that Sammy was a genius. He possessed a passion for 
 architecture, and an extraordinary gift for interpret- 
 ing the stone poems of the mediaeval builders. He 
 travelled all over the Continent after he left college, 
 studying the various cathedrals. I accompanied 
 him on one of these occasions, and the companion- 
 ship of Crazy Sammy was an unmitigated joy. 
 His imagination ran riot among the glories of the 
 Gothic churches of Northern France and Belgium. 
 Mystical, fantastic, yet withal extraordinarily con- 
 vincing, he found a hidden meaning behind every- 
 thing that met the eye. He had an allegory for 
 every arch, and read parables into porticos. Beauty 
 to him was inevitably a sacrament of the Unseen. 
 Thus, in addition to his technical and archaeological 
 knowledge, Sammy was a delightful guide, possessed 
 of unique and exclusive information. His ambition 
 was to make a book, which he proposed to entitle 
 " Stones a-dreaming," in which he could embody the 
 vagrant fancies that overtook him, and reinterpret 
 the message of the old monkish masons, as well as 
 dilate on the wonders patent to the casual observer.
 
 CRAZY SAMMY 17 
 
 He travelled assiduously, and made multitudinous 
 notes, being fortunately independent of his profession 
 he had become an architect for a living. In 
 time he collected the material for a standard work, 
 hi which the great Cathedral of X, with its world 
 famed clock the clock that sends out Father Time, 
 a resplendent figure, to strike the hour would have 
 several chapters to itself. I visited X with Sammy, 
 and shall never forget his rapture over the ancient 
 library and its contents, and his delight at getting 
 a view of the famous X monstrance, which is older 
 than any written record of the custom of lifting up 
 the Blessed Sacrament for worship, and, therefore, 
 of theological as well as archaeological value. Of 
 all the Gothic churches, I think Sammy loved X 
 Cathedral the best. 
 
 When he had collected all the material for his 
 monumental undertaking (and, of course, made a 
 no vena !) Sammy retired to his lodgings and settled 
 down to write " Stones a-dreaming." Then there 
 came a characteristic digression. Sammy possessed 
 an acquaintance, a man considerably older than 
 himself, who had lapsed into Agnosticism from 
 Catholicism. He was a curious fellow, warm-hearted 
 and very self-willed. When he quarrelled with the 
 Christian creed Humanity became his religion, and 
 he devoted himself to Social Reform, living a life 
 of really admirable self-sacrifice among the poor. 
 That he still possessed hankerings after the Church 
 
 B
 
 18 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 of his boyhood, and its sacraments, was clear; and 
 this became clearer still when a fatal malady seized 
 hold of him and the specialist pronounced his death- 
 warrant. G quarrelled desperately with most of 
 
 his Catholic friends, but he rather liked Sammy. 
 I think it was because the latter never seemed 
 aware of his lapse, but talked to him exactly as 
 though he were a practising Catholic instead of an 
 outsider with a working knowledge of the truth 
 which made his " good faith " a doubtful question. 
 When he received his fiat he sent for Sammy and 
 invited him to come and "talk business." Sammy 
 prayed frantically that the business might be that 
 of the soul, and made a no vena to that purpose 
 to a new and very efficacious saint whose portrait 
 shows a rather suspicious twinkle in the eye. He 
 packed his bag for the week-end and went off to 
 the sick man in his country place in Hampshire. 
 
 The business proved to be pure business. G 
 
 wished to know if Sammy would be willing to 
 undertake the writing of the life of a certain 
 eminent Social Reformer, lately deceased, a man 
 of facts and statistics and revolutionary ideas, for 
 which he had collected the material. Now, Sammy 
 had no kind of turn for Social Reform. He 
 possessed no notion how the poor were housed, nor 
 did he sit on a single committee for their educational 
 betterment. He had rather fastidious tastes, too, 
 had Sammy, which made him not too anxious for
 
 CRAZY SAMMY 19 
 
 close contact with the details of overcrowding, etc. 
 I doubt if the author of " Stones a-dreaming " 
 attached any definite meaning to the blessed word 
 economics, but he realised at once that the writing 
 
 of this book under G 's supervision would keep 
 
 him in touch with the man who was approaching 
 his end hi conscious defiance of what one part of 
 him, at any rate, knew to be the truth. He thanked 
 the saint of the novena for this obvious answer, 
 and undertook the " Life " at what he admitted 
 
 afterwards was a sporting risk. G had still 
 
 some months of life before him. He was anxious 
 to see the work on its way, so it was arranged that 
 Sammy should take up his residence with him, and 
 
 apply himself to the writing of G 's book. 
 
 Sammy returned to his town diggings, packed 
 away " Stones a-dreaming," collected his wardrobe, 
 
 and betook himself back to G for an indefinite 
 
 period. 
 
 There he sat, by G 's bedside, smiling serenely, 
 
 and discussing the moribund Poor-Law system, and 
 hoping that the dying man would one day out with 
 the thing that was ever lurking at the back of his 
 mind, and make his peace with the Church of his 
 baptism. He knew that any attempt to hasten 
 matters would procure his banishment, so he just 
 waited, and smiled, and prayed, and never so much 
 as doubted that the other would one day tell him to 
 fetch a priest and end the quarrel with his Creator.
 
 20 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 It went on for months the compiling of matters of 
 fact relating to the deceased philanthropist, the 
 cheery discussion of trivialities, the waiting, and 
 the praying. I don't believe a man ever prayed as 
 Sammy prayed during those months. I saw him 
 once during the time, and, I declare, he looked as 
 ill and haggard as the sick man himself. I suppose 
 he made as many novenas, as there were nine-days 
 spells in that long-drawn agony ! With the sick 
 man himself he was always cheerful and confident 
 the very embodiment of the faith that the other had 
 subjected to a " higher criticism." 
 
 At the end of five months the book was well on its 
 way, the last stage of the illness had been entered 
 upon, and the rebel had received a " Kikuyu " 
 sacrament from the local Protestant parson, who, 
 being a true Christian, in his own sense of the term, 
 exacted neither profession nor confession from the 
 recipient of the mystery of which he was steward. 
 The rebel had scored a last sorry victory over 
 Dogma. He had received the sacrament of the 
 " Church " on his own terms. He died three days 
 later, and the kind little Kikuyu-minded parson 
 buried him, and Sammy returned home with the 
 half-completed book and a copy of the evangelical 
 Church paper, which contained the deceased rebel's 
 obituary notice, with an account of his conversion 
 and devout reception of the Lord's Supper. 
 
 For about a month I saw little of Sammy. He
 
 CRAZY SAMMY 21 
 
 was in rather a terrible state of mind he knew it 
 himself, and avoided his friends purposely. At the 
 end of that time he brightened up suddenly in a 
 most amazing way. I went in one evening to see 
 him, rather dreading it, I must confess. There was 
 something terrible about Sammy nowadays that 
 one was conscious of when one was near him. To 
 my astonishment I found him as gay as a sandboy. 
 He welcomed me with more than his old cheeriness. 
 "Put on your pipe," he said, "I've got something to 
 tell you." He pushed me into a cosy arm-chair, and 
 proceeded to give me his news. He was thinking 
 of joining a religious community called the Little 
 Brothers of St Anthony. It was a Franciscan 
 Tertiary movement, and the object was to establish 
 a kind of religious life in the slums to prove, in 
 fact, that the spiritual could be fostered amongst the 
 poorest and most degrading surroundings. The 
 Little Brothers would have a novitiate where they 
 would practise manual labour, and learn certain 
 facts as to how the working-man lives, so as to be in 
 real fellowship with their neighbours in the small 
 settlements to which they would be moved when 
 professed. Their life would be absolutely that of 
 the working classes plus religion " a hark back to 
 Nazareth," Sammy called it. 
 
 It was a fine ideal enough, but I sat and gasped. 
 What an amazing choice for a man of Crazy Sammy's 
 type ! a dreamer, with rather fastidious tastes. I
 
 22 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 had sometimes thought that he might become a 
 Benedictine, owing to his studious habits, but this 
 announcement fairly staggered me. 
 
 " Where on earth," I said, " did you get hold of 
 the idea ?" 
 
 " Nowhere on earth," was the prompt reply. 
 " The fact is, I've wanted to do something definite 
 with my life for years, but I wasn't certain what it 
 ought to be, so I went to an expert and told him 
 all about myself. I felt pretty sure he'd say 
 Benedictines, but he didn't; he was certain it was 
 these * Brown Brothers ' I was meant for, and I've 
 never known him to make a mistake. I had 
 promised myself that I would follow his advice as 
 vox Dei, so there it is !" 
 
 The craziness of Sammy was staggering ! 
 
 " And how about your writing?" I asked. " You 
 won't get any opportunity of writing hi that 
 existence." 
 
 "Of course, I shall have to finish the ' Life ' before 
 I go," he answered. " That's a clear duty." 
 
 "And how about * Stones a-dreaming?' " I queried. 
 
 " Oh," he replied, serenely, " I expect I shall find 
 time to finish it there by degrees." 
 
 "He be rightly called * Crazy Sammy,' " Dick 
 declaimed, shaking his head, sorrowfully, when he 
 heard the news. "It's rank suicide ! Sammy is as 
 mad as many hatters!" Dick had an enormous 
 affection for Sammy. He had watched the G
 
 CRAZY SAMMY 23 
 
 drama with a keen interest as to the upshot that 
 made me realise that the rebel's defection had had 
 a double issue. Dicky's congenital scepticism had 
 certainly not abated. 
 
 Sammy stuck to the " Life " for the next three 
 months, and talked of nothing else. He was incapable 
 of doing anything without whole-heartedness and 
 enthusiasm, and his task had become really congenial. 
 Dick and I began to hope that it had successfully 
 killed the preposterous Brown Brother idea, but 
 Sammy emerged from the task, bursting with 
 satisfaction over the result of his work, and immensely 
 excited as to its prospects, but as quietly convinced 
 as ever as to his religious vocation. He took the 
 book to a leading publisher. I had seen the MS., 
 and I must say it was a charming production. 
 Sammy had been able to work in some of his own 
 ideas, and to modify the doctrines of the social 
 reformer when desirable. It would certainly prove 
 a useful work from the Catholic point of view. 
 
 I think Sammy must have considered the " Life " 
 worth praying for, for he met with his typical "luck." 
 The leading publisher praised the book up to the 
 skies, and expressed his astonishment that its author 
 should not be aware that a life of the same individual, 
 written by the foremost living writer of Biography, 
 was already in the press. Sammy's book, admirable 
 as it was, would not have the ghost of a chance. 
 
 J was astounded at the cheery, matter-of-fact
 
 24 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 way in which Sammy imparted the information to 
 me. "You see," he said, sucking his pipe comfortably 
 as we sat over the fire in his rooms, " it doesn't 
 really matter. I did my part and carried out the 
 bargain it wouldn't have been playing the game to 
 
 chuck the book when G died and I did it 
 
 properly, it seems, so that's all right. The point of 
 the book was that it served its purpose and kept me 
 in touch with him." 
 
 "But what if it did?" I inquired bluntly. 
 
 "Nothing came of your keeping in touch with G ." 
 
 It was rather a brutal thing to say, and I felt it 
 directly I had spoken, remembering the Sammy of 
 
 the month succeeding G 's death, but my 
 
 companion simply surveyed me with his most 
 seraphic smile. 
 
 " G was all right," he said, " he got faith in 
 
 the end." He put his pipe down and leant over the 
 fire, gazing into the glowing coals. I can see him 
 now, the light playing on his face, and the expression 
 on it that made Crazy Sammy beloved among men. 
 
 "No!" I exclaimed. "You don't mean it! 
 
 However did you come to know ? I thought G 
 
 was unconscious for hours before he died?" 
 
 " I knew," Sammy answered, slowly, " about a 
 month after." He was speaking in a very low tone, 
 and I listened with all my ears, intensely interested, 
 in fact, bursting with curiosity. " For about a 
 month I felt awful about him, I can't explain
 
 CRAZY SAMMY 25 
 
 it I'm not a bigot but I couldn't be happy about 
 
 G . I knew it was something that I had to 
 
 stick, so I just stuck it, and kept away from you 
 fellows." Sammy made a long, eloquent pause, 
 and I noticed the deep lines on either side of the 
 mouth that was certainly firmer than a year ago. 
 
 "Then," he went on, "I suddenly got my marching 
 orders, and, of course, I knew it was all right with 
 
 G . You see, it was like this," he explained; 
 
 " I always felt that G was a much finer chap 
 
 than I, so when I prayed for him to get faith, I 
 always prayed for myself too, that I might get 
 well, works that I might do a bit of real good 
 in the world. It seemed to make it less patronising 
 
 somehow. G was such a magnificent chap for 
 
 a rotter like me to be helping. (Sammy looked 
 thoroughly abashed, and hurried on with his story.) 
 It came to me quite suddenly this feeling that I 
 would go into a religious Order and get my life 
 licked into shape. I had always had a vague idea 
 at the back of my mind about the Benedictines 
 their libraries attracted me but this was just the 
 difference between desire and will. It was the old 
 thing about the * buts ' and ' ifs.' I think, on the 
 whole, I desired it less than I had done many times 
 before, but I willed now to do it, whatever happened, 
 ajid not only that, but I knew I intended to go into 
 the thing that demanded the utmost sacrifice if it 
 were pointed out as the way. I had no reserves.
 
 26 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 I hoped it might be a learned Order, but it proved 
 to be this Brown Brother business quite a new 
 idea!" 
 
 " But, about G ," I reminded him. " Did he 
 
 make a sign, then an outward act of faith or 
 contrition?" 
 
 Sammy looked at me with something approaching 
 wonderment. 
 
 " No," he said, " but why should he? Can't you 
 see, he must have got his when I got mine ! Why, 
 man alive, the good God isn't a cynic !" 
 
 I sat silent and fairly amazed. Cheated out of 
 a sensational story, I was faced with this phenomenon 
 of Crazy Sammy's irrepressibility. Flattened out 
 more effectually than ever before in this appalling 
 soul-drama, this futile wrestling with the powers 
 of evil, he had "bulged out" again to an unprecedented 
 extent. I wanted to laugh, and I also wanted to 
 cry. I thought of a certain saint who called herself 
 the Holy Child's spinning-top. If playthings have 
 a part in the Divine economy, God had surely 
 made an india-rubber ball of Crazy Sammy ! 
 
 He came to me on the last night. He had got 
 rid of all his possessions, for the Brothers of St 
 Anthony may possess nothing, not a book nor a 
 picture of their own, and sentimental links with 
 the world. He brought me a pocket-book he 
 had no relatives with whom to deposit anything, or 
 with whom he would have cared to do so which he
 
 CRAZY SAMMY 27 
 
 asked me to take care of in case, as he put it, he 
 " got the boot " out of the Order. 
 
 " I've chanced it with everything else," he said, 
 " but I've kept these photos." 
 
 His voice was husky. I found it hard to let 
 Sammy go that night. 
 
 The pocket-book was not wrapped up. Its owner 
 had evidently made no secret from me of its contents. 
 When he had gone I took the photographs out and 
 looked at them. One was a likeness of the lady 
 who had been so disastrously jealous of St Philomena, 
 and the other was a remarkably characteristic 
 portrait of G . 
 
 in. 
 
 The Order that Sammy was about to enter had 
 established a house hi X, which in those days was 
 the industrial Utopia of Europe. The Brothers were 
 anxious to make a study of the social system 
 obtaining there, so it fell out that the compiler of 
 " Stones a-dreaming " found himself told off to the 
 famous city, where the monastery of the Brothers 
 of St. Anthony stood under the very shadow of 
 the Cathedral. I was delighted, for Sammy's sake, 
 when I heard the news, not that he would find 
 much opportunity for dreaming in his new life, but 
 the sight of the meditative towers would be a solace 
 to his poetic soul. 
 
 For five or more years we heard nothing of
 
 28 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 Sammy. He seemed to have gone completely out 
 of our lives. Then one night I dreamt of him. In 
 my dream I saw a monk who appeared to be having 
 a game with a little boy. The former was building 
 up a house of bricks with a remarkably high tower. 
 When it reached a certain height, the child, with a 
 delighted shout, swept his hand across the brow 
 of the tower and destroyed the entire erection, 
 whereupon the monk patiently started rebuilding. At 
 first I took the monk to be St Anthony, who, no 
 doubt, had games with his traditional Visitor, although 
 modern chroniclers might not think it decorous 
 to record it; but when he turned his head he 
 was laughing with the utmost good humour it 
 was Crazy Sammy. The dream was quite ordinary 
 but sufficiently vivid to bring my friend back to 
 my mind and produce a keen desire to see him 
 again. The upshot of it was that I suggested to 
 our old friend Dick that we should take a holiday on 
 the Continent together and look up Sammy en 
 route. Dick was delighted with the proposition, 
 so off we went. 
 
 We made straight for X, and discovered Sammy 
 in a rough brown habit, housed in a new yellow- 
 brick convent, something like the out-buildings of 
 a laundry. He looked as well and as merry as 
 possible. He certainly appeared to have found 
 his vocation. He had received ordination, and 
 was now a priest. Many of the Brothers, however,
 
 CRAZY SAMMY 29 
 
 were laymen of the working-class. He was plainly 
 disappointed to learn that Dick was still an " out- 
 sider." We made anxious inquiries about " Stones 
 a-dreaming," and were rejoiced to hear that it was 
 actually completed. Sammy had accomplished it 
 in the recreation hours of three years ! Dick 
 immediately undertook to place it with a publisher 
 for the author, if he wished, and his gratitude knew 
 no bounds. It was good to see Sammy again ! 
 
 " I'll pray you into the Church yet," he said 
 cheerily, to Dick as we parted. 
 
 We determined to stop a few days at X. There 
 were rumours of war abroad, and we hesitated 
 about continuing our journey. In a few days there 
 was no hesitation. War had been declared in 
 Europe, and tourists were hastening back to England 
 from all parts of the Continent. Dick and I were 
 in no hurry to return. It was impossible to anticipate 
 the events that happened. As it was, within a 
 few days we found ourselves in a beleaguered city 
 undergoing the horrors of bombardment. A few 
 days more and the investing army had entered the 
 city gates. And then there began the initial horrors 
 of the great war. X was looted. Houses were 
 set on fire, and citizens shot in cold blood. Dick 
 and I were in the midst of it, and we were terribly 
 anxious about Sammy. A number of priests had 
 been shot, and it was no surprise to me when Dick 
 came back to me one morning with the news that the
 
 80 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 monastery of the Brothers of St Anthony was in 
 flames. Dick was as pale as death. " All the 
 Brothers were safe," he said. They had been made 
 to come out and stand in the square while the 
 monastery was deliberately set on fire. " Stones 
 a-dreaming " had perished in the flames. 
 
 "It was Sammy's fault," Dick sighed; "he is as 
 mad as ever. They gave him leave to go back 
 to his cell and fetch his MS., and he was off like 
 a rocket, poor chap. I went with him. We had 
 to go right round to get to the back entrance, and 
 just as we turned the corner some miserable sinner 
 in the crowd was struck by a bit of falling timber, 
 and began shouting for a priest to confess his sins 
 to he had plenty, I dare say. I could see the 
 kind of cur he was by the way he shoved the women 
 and children to escape from the falling stuff. I 
 besought Sammy to get his MS. first, and then 
 attend to the fellow, but it was no good. Sammy 
 must needs go to him at once, and see to him, and 
 when he had finished with him the roof had fallen 
 in and there was no getting near the cells. If I 
 had known the way I'd have gone alone," Dick 
 said, with a groan. " 'Stones a-dreaming' was worth 
 fifty souls like that craven wretch's. I told Sammy 
 so, and, credit me, all he said was : ' It was a mercy 
 you hadn't taken the MS., for if I hadn't been 
 running round to get it, that poor chap would have 
 died without a priest he hadn't been to con-
 
 CRAZY SAMMY 81 
 
 fession for years/ I assure you he meant what he 
 said!" 
 
 That was a historic day for X for the whole 
 civilised world ; for that same evening, when the 
 conqueror had marched his forces out of the city, 
 and the terrified citizens were venturing out into 
 the streets once more, a great cry went suddenly 
 forth, " The Cathedral ! The Cathedral is on fire !" 
 
 Filled with horror, we dashed out of doors and 
 followed the crowd to the Market-place. Sure 
 enough, the unthinkable catastrophe had happened. 
 X Cathedral, with its adjacent Library, unmatched 
 hi the whole of Europe, was a mass of flames. It 
 has never been discovered whether the fire was an 
 intentional diabolical contrivance, or whether it arose 
 from an accidental cause, such as a bomb having fallen 
 on the woodwork of the roof, and slowly done the 
 deadly work which had culminated in a sudden 
 burst of enveloping flame. The crowd stood gazing 
 up at the smoking towers completely dazed. The 
 Blessed Sacrament had been actually exposed in 
 the Cathedral, in the famous monstrance, when the 
 fire broke out with such intensity that the watchers 
 had fled, horror-stricken by the loud explosion that 
 accompanied the sudden conflagration. 
 
 No one dared venture near the burning building 
 except on the south side, where the flames had not 
 yet reached the transept, over the door leading into 
 which the world-famed clock still stood intact.
 
 82 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 Dick and I took up our position and stood, as in 
 a dream, trying to realise the treasures that were 
 being wiped out of existence. It was something 
 more than the mind could grasp. The news was 
 passed along that the great Library, with its price- 
 less documents and manuscripts, was a raging furnace. 
 Not one volume had been saved. A groan went up 
 from the assembled citizens. The women wept out- 
 right, and the tears rolled down the men's cheeks 
 as they watched their great church perishing before 
 their eyes. Ever and anon there was a crash of 
 falling masonry, and some of the women shrieked 
 aloud, others keeping up a low moaning. The 
 Cathedral, the great guardian of the city, was like 
 something living the world itself must come to an 
 end with Notre Dame of X ! 
 
 Suddenly a fresh murmur ran through the crowd, 
 and a cry went up. ' Someone has gone inside ! A 
 monk ! He has gone into the Cathedral he is going 
 to try and save the Blessed Sacrament ! ' 
 
 A brown-habited figure had, indeed, darted through 
 the open south door, under the great clock. The 
 cry went round, "He will be burnt alive!" All 
 eyes were fixed on the door. Would the daring 
 monk return? Then there was a huge groan. A 
 a tongue of flame shot out of the window to the left, 
 and a volume of smoke poured out of the door. 
 A moment later a shrill child's voice cried out : 
 
 " But, see, the clock has no hands ! "
 
 CRAZY SAMMY 83 
 
 Trivial things have a way of striking the mind 
 at vital moments. The child's voice, the shrill 
 sudden tone albeit that it spoke in a different 
 language recalled another that had, years ago, in 
 the little church at home, made that same comment 
 " but the clock has no hands !" 
 
 Involuntarily I glanced at Dick. Did he also 
 remember the small pagan who had made a like 
 observation years ago. Yes. He caught my eye and 
 smiled. He had not forgotten the trivial little episode. 
 
 All eyes had turned to the clock. The flames 
 had reached it at last. The huge hands had fallen, 
 and the skeleton works stood displayed. That 
 marvel of mediaeval mechanism, the clock of X, 
 with its giant figure of Father Time, which per- 
 formed such amazing evolutions at the striking of 
 the hour, was a mass of melting iron. I shall 
 never forget the groan that went up from the crowd, 
 the passing of the clock seemed to epitomise the 
 cataclysm that they were witnessing. Their world 
 of substance had been changed into a nightmare 
 of shadow. Then there was a sudden, sharp cry, 
 "Look! Look!" 
 
 Framed in the huge face of the clock there stood 
 the figure of a man in a brown habit holding in 
 both hands something that glittered hi the glare 
 of the surrounding flames. It was the famous 
 monstrance, and the man who held it in his hands 
 was Crazy Sammy ! 
 
 C
 
 84 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 He had mounted the clock-loft with his precious 
 Burden, apparently seeking a means of escape. He 
 still had his cowl on, flying back over his shoulders. 
 He stood there, looking at the horror-ridden 
 populace, with his wonderful smile, as serene as 
 though he had been sitting in his den at St James's. 
 Quick as lightning Dick sprang forward into the 
 space before the door, and shouted up to the 
 imprisoned man above : 
 
 " Throw down your cloak. We'll hold it while 
 you jump !" The distance was not more than thirty 
 feet. 
 
 The cloak had already become detached. " Throw 
 it down !" Dick repeated. 
 
 An instinct of obedience, I take it, rather than 
 one of self-preservation, made the other do as he 
 was told. At any rate, he pushed the mantle with 
 his foot he was grasping the monstrance with both 
 hands and it fluttered slowly to the ground, envelop- 
 ing Dick's head and shoulders as he stood below. 
 A dozen men dashed forward and seized it in order 
 to hold it out, blanket-fashion, but the intense 
 heat was too much for them. Flames mingled with 
 the smoke, and they were compelled to retreat. 
 Sammy stood his ground, apparently unconscious of 
 their efforts. 
 
 Then a weird thing happened. The striking 
 apparatus of the clock made a last attempt to 
 perform the task of six centuries. It struck one
 
 CRAZY SAMMY 85 
 
 stroke normally then a harsh and buzzing note. 
 Then there was a crash, and a mass of twisted 
 metal which had been the imposing figure of Father 
 Time toppled over and fell to the ground. The 
 child's voice rose again, " The clock has no hands !" 
 
 The entire framework seemed to be subsiding, 
 but Sammy remained where he was. He held the 
 monstrance in his right hand and raised his left 
 with a swift gesture. A hush fell on the buzzing 
 crowd. In the tense silence his message fell on 
 their ears. In slow, ringing tones it came : 
 
 "Courage, my children. All this is nothing!" 
 He swept his hand backward at the " slain stones " 
 of the first Gothic church and the ashes of the 
 unduplicated treasures in the library. His face 
 was shining with its sweetest and happiest expres- 
 sion " Quidquid ceternum non est nihil est " 
 " That which is not eternal is nothing !" 
 
 Fresh flames burst out near him, and I looked 
 away horror-stricken. "My God!" a man near me 
 said, "the poor fellow's gone mad ! he's laughing!" 
 
 I looked back in frenzied fear. On Sammy's face, 
 as he stood there, there was something that could 
 only be described as mirth ! Something had amused 
 him ! Was it the nothingness of the " nothing " in 
 its comparison with the Eternal. 
 
 He raised the monstrance above his head he had 
 become decorously grave, though his eyes were still 
 shining and made the sign of the cross with it
 
 86 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 over the crowd. There was a general movement. 
 Men tore off their hats, women bowed their heads, 
 and those who were not too densely packed attempted 
 to kneel. Hat in hand, I looked round for Dick. 
 
 He was among the few who had got down on 
 to their knees. He, the incorrigible pagan, knelt 
 at my side ! The Clock did not need hands ; it was 
 " telling eternity!" 
 
 At last Crazy Sammy's prayers had received an 
 answer an amazing answer ! But, then, Crazy 
 Sammy himself lay under the burning ruins of the 
 south transept, buried beneath the debris of the 
 fallen tower of X Cathedral. , 
 
 The subsequent events of the war you know. 
 The enemy returned that night, and in the frantic 
 exodus of the inhabitants I lost sight of Dick, nor 
 was I able to get hi touch with him again. I 
 joined the colours almost immediately on returning 
 to England, and went on active service; and for 
 three years I was completely cut off from my friends. 
 At the beginning of this present year I found 
 myself at X. The place is unrecognisable. On the 
 site of the Cathedral, which they have not as yet 
 started to rebuild, there has been erected a large 
 temporary church, a hideous object, but that's by 
 the way. There is an immense run on church 
 accomodation now that all the population goes to 
 Mass the Cathedral never, since the ages of faith, 
 saw a congregation like that which fills this new
 
 CRAZY SAMMY 87 
 
 erection. I reached X early in the morning, and 
 was told I might be just in time for Mass if I 
 hurried. An English priest was saying it that 
 morning. As a matter of fact, I got in at the fag 
 end. The priest was hi the act of administering 
 Communion as I got there. He was standing facing 
 the people, holding up the Sacred Host, with the 
 words " Ecce agnus Dei !" as I entered. The voice 
 was familiar, and, as I looked at his face, I 
 recognised my old school-fellow Dick ! 
 
 And then, as I knelt there, on the spot where 
 the great church had stood which was now no more, 
 I knew that I was in the presence of two inde- 
 structible things the living faith of the dead man, 
 reborn in this one on whom he had thrown his 
 mantle, and the Sacred Victim, no longer in the 
 jewelled monstrance, which perished, with its crystal 
 pyx, in the furnace of fire, but the same Body of 
 Christ Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, 
 for ever. 
 
 Such is the story of Crazy Sammy, a long-spun 
 yarn that only hints at the personality which was 
 spared the mal-usage of a public appreciation in the 
 Press (even the episode of the " mad monk " was 
 swamped by greater sensations). I "hope it may 
 contain, incidentally, the answer to your questions, 
 although I make no apology for writing it, apart 
 from that. To your first, as to the results of prayer 
 as a witness to the reality of the unseen, I offer
 
 88 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 the excuse the term "unsquashableness" of Sammy 
 as a more unanswerable phenomenon than any 
 spectacle of favours received. Faith, self-existent 
 and independent of circumstance, is an objective 
 reality implying the substance of the thing hoped for. 
 As to the second, sanity has but one thing to 
 fall back upon when the world pursues its so-called 
 sanity to its logical end, and effaces its own glory 
 the insanity of the saints. 
 
 The third question, which I presume you asked 
 merely in a spirit of pious inquiry, I simply leave. 
 You will be able to answer it as you choose from 
 the story of Sammy's novenas, and of the clock 
 that had no hands.
 
 MRS. BLAKE'S MARY 
 
 SOME people may wonder why the story of Mrs 
 Blake's Mary comes to be written, being simply 
 an account of how a misapprehension on the part 
 of two worthy people led to a result particularly 
 gratifying to the Papistical mind, and particularly 
 irritating to others namely, a conversion. Some 
 of these latter might take it as an encouraging sign 
 of grace in an author with a distinct penchant for 
 miracles that the plain facts of the case of Mrs 
 Blake's Mary should be set forth with so much 
 frankness in matter as well as hi diction. Others, 
 knowing the unexampled subtlety of the mind in 
 question, would retain their suspicions. Catholic 
 readers may judge for themselves. Meanwhile, here 
 is the story of Mrs. Blake's Mary : 
 
 It is doubtful if anything beyond the tip of the 
 nose of Mrs Blake's Mary would have found its way 
 inside the shabby swing doors of the very shabby 
 Catholic church in Blanche Street, S.E. 34, had it not 
 been for the fact that Mrs Nappin, Mrs Blake's base- 
 ment lodger, had to go into the " 'Orspital." I can't
 
 40 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 remember what her exact complaint was not even 
 the name by which Mrs Nappin described it with 
 graphic inaccuracy to the lady next to her in the 
 tram-car but that doesn't in the least matter, there 
 will be enough of " itises " and of the " 'Orspital " 
 in this story later on. Mrs Nappin occupied the 
 position of cleaner at St Bridget's, and the appoint- 
 ment of an understudy to take her place during her 
 absence presented certain difficulties which required 
 manipulating. There were plenty of " ladies " 
 connected with St Bridget's who would willingly 
 have taken on Mrs Nappin's job, but the danger was 
 that these new brooms might, in the first place, 
 stiffen up the standard required of a church cleaner, 
 and secondly, step into the job themselves. So Mrs 
 Nappin turned from these members of the household 
 of Faith and fixed on Mrs Blake's Mary as an 
 innocuous deputy. Mary was a skimpy, undersized, 
 but very " willin' little gell," and if she were not a 
 Catholic, at least she wasn't anything else. Her 
 parents had been strict Baptists, but Mrs Blake 
 who had adopted her in her orphaned infancy, was 
 nothing in particular, so Mary had not been brought 
 up to go " anywheres." She was associated in the 
 minds of most people with a pail and a scrubbing- 
 brush. She made the housework her special and 
 unremitting business. There was generally a clout 
 somewhere about Mrs Blake's Mary, if one chanced 
 to meet her. The After-Care Lady had her views
 
 MRS BLAKE'S MARY 41 
 
 on the subject. Whilst Mary was at school she had 
 suffered from an attack of phlebitis. (Mrs Blake had 
 sniffed slightly at the imputation. "I know," she had 
 observed, " as they do get bitten shockin' at school, 
 but I hopes as I keeps my place free from 'em.") 
 Scrubbing was not, therefore, the ideal occupation 
 for one so delicate, and subject to a recurrence of 
 the complaint. But scrubbing was an instinct in 
 Mrs Blake's Mary. I believe it to be perfectly 
 correct that on the occasion when Mary was sent 
 with a message to the lodgings of her school teacher, 
 whom she adored, that she had been discovered by 
 the latter in the sitting-room, into which she had 
 been shown, vigorously polishing up the finger-plate 
 on the door with the moistened corner of her 
 pinafore. Mary never took flowers to her teacher 
 as the other children did. She was becomingly 
 conscious of what she owed to Mrs Blake, and 
 expressed her gratitude in terms of Universal Polish 
 and Chimpanzee soap. Mrs Nappin had noted Mary 
 working off her debt on the hall lino, and made her 
 application to Mrs Blake for the loan of the child's 
 services. Mrs Blake was agreeable to the suggestion ; 
 so, likewise, was Mrs Blake's Mary. She had often 
 peeped into the Popish church that queer place 
 which smelt of something, apart from people, and 
 where folks , knelt about in queer corners all by 
 themselves. It would be a new and thrilling 
 experience to enter it in an official capacity. Pail
 
 42 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 in hand, she might stalk (only Mrs Blake's Mary was 
 hardly likely to achieve a stalk with a pail of water 
 weighing her down) all round the eerie building and 
 inspect everything at her leisure. Peeping was 
 fraught with danger of ejection. 
 
 Mrs Nappin took Mary over to the church and 
 explained carefully what her duties would be. I 
 regret to say that the spirit of the old builders and 
 decorators of holy places had not descended on 
 Mrs Nappin. She instructed Mary to wash such 
 places as showed, especially the sanctuary steps, and 
 added that, if anyone happened to be praying in the 
 church at the time, Mary was to "do this " when 
 she passed the altar. " You can jist run a cloth 
 over that," Mrs Nappin observed, as they paused 
 before the font. " I only uses the hearthstone once 
 in a way." Mary was somewhat discomfited to find 
 a font there. A friend of hers had once shown her 
 round the big parish church, and had rounded off 
 her creditable explanation of the font and its uses 
 with the disdainful comment, "But that ain't nothink 
 ter do with you. Your parents was Baptists, and 
 you ain't never been baptised." Mary wished some- 
 how that there hadn't been a font it made her 
 feel an outside sort of feeling. Matters were not 
 improved by a conversation that she overheard 
 between Mrs Nappin and the rector, who chanced 
 to come along the aisle. Mrs Nappin was explaining 
 that she had found a " little gell " to do her work
 
 MRS BLAKE'S MARY 48 
 
 during her absence. " No, unfortunately the little 
 gell was not a Catholic." "Ah, well," the rector said, 
 " no doubt she's one of God's children. I suppose 
 she's been baptised ?" Mrs Nappin's answer did more 
 credit to her resourcefulness than to her sense of 
 veracity, for she knew of Mary's strictly Baptist 
 origin; but the latter had no room to be disedified, 
 she was taken up with the unpleasant consciousness 
 of being something that she ought not to be an 
 outsider, scrubbing flags and sweeping mattings 
 under false pretences ! 
 
 So Mrs Nappin entered the " 'Orspital " and Mrs 
 Blake's Mary took up her temporary duties as 
 cleaner at St Bridget's Church. The work was hi 
 addition to that required by the exigencies of Mrs 
 Blake's establishment, but it was not the tiredness 
 that troubled Mary it was the sight of the font. 
 At first the latter had a grim fascination for her. 
 She ran the cloth round the basin more often than 
 was required. Then the grimness wore off, and 
 only the fascination remained. She was there one 
 afternoon they brought a baby to be baptised, and 
 after that Mrs Blake's Mary took to hearthstoning 
 the font in the face of Mrs Nappin's dispensation. 
 
 Baptisms were the only services at which the 
 understudy assisted. She was a modest little girl, 
 and would not have intruded for worlds. Only on 
 one occasion, quite inadvertently, she got in tune 
 for the children's Benediction, which preceded
 
 44 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 Christenings. It was an experience for Mrs Blake's 
 Mary. She viewed the monstrance with a professional 
 eye, and wondered who had the job of keeping it 
 bright. It was quite a fruitful subject for meditation 
 during the prayers and singing. 
 
 The other thing which troubled Mary was " doing 
 this'* when she passed the altar. She tried at first 
 with the pail in her hand there was no one in the 
 church as a matter of fact, so she was in reality 
 overstepping her instructions, only she had got it 
 into her head that there was some one. At any 
 rate, she had a feeling that the thing had got to be 
 done. Now, a genuflection isn't a thing that comes 
 easy to a British knee pail or no pail. But Mary, 
 with a resourcefulness worthy of Mrs Nappin herself, 
 solved the difficulty by going down on both knees and 
 telling herself that she was going to clean the altar 
 steps. Later on she found this a way out from the 
 genuflecting business whenever she had occasion to 
 pass in front of the altar she would kneel down and 
 give the sanctuary step a passing rub over. It was 
 really quite a cunning arrangement. But Mary's 
 embarrassments were not destined to be over when 
 she had " got round the font," so to speak, with a 
 cloth, and manipulated the genuflection difficulty. A 
 new and even more complicated situation presented 
 itself to the outsider as time went on. The people who 
 said their prayers hi St Bridget's greatly interested 
 Mary. She had the utmost veneration for people
 
 MRS BLAKE'S MARY 45 
 
 who could say prayers. She had sometimes heard 
 prayers in chapel long ones, with long words and 
 phrases in them so intricate in their meaning that 
 they sometimes had to be explained to Almighty 
 God Himself. Ministers prayed, she knew, but 
 she had never seen ordinary people praying like 
 this all by themselves, and at all times of day. 
 She meditated on the wonder of being able to pray 
 like that whilst she eradicated wedding confetti 
 from the cocoanut matting. Even the lady who 
 lodged a complaint that the temporary child had 
 distracted her whilst she made the Stations of the 
 Cross by proceeding in front of her with a clattering 
 pail won respect from Mrs Blake's Mary. Mary 
 thought it must be wonderful to be able to say a 
 different prayer like that before each picture; and 
 she overheard the lady who had complained telling 
 someone that she had got what she prayed for in 
 spite of the distraction ! She contracted a habit of 
 scrubbing the space under the pictures where the 
 pious people knelt a task which Mrs Nappin would 
 never have dreamt of putting on her, nor anyone 
 else. It must always be borne in mind that Mrs 
 Blake's Mary absolutely overstepped her set duties. 
 It was through one of these praying-about people 
 who frequent the church at cleaning time that 
 Mrs Blake's Mary became involved in her next 
 embarrassment. Perhaps it would not be quite 
 correct to call him a praying person, though. He
 
 46 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 was a young man in khaki, and he specially interested 
 Mary inasmuch as he didn't seem to find it as easy 
 to pray as the others did. He would sit there, 
 gazing in front of him, and he looked rather 
 bewildered and unhappy. One day he came up 
 and spoke to her whilst she was scrubbing the font. 
 He asked a few questions about the clergy and the 
 time that they were to be seen ; and then he did 
 a terrible thing. Having asked her her name (he 
 had a kind face although he looked so unhappy), 
 he said, " So you're a Mary too. Will you say a 
 prayer for me to Her ?" and he indicated the statue 
 on the Lady-altar by an inclination of his head. 
 
 The mischief was that Mary, being a "willin' little 
 gell," she promptly and instinctively answered 
 " Yessir," and the contract was entered into before 
 she knew where she was. She didn't realise what 
 she had let herself in for until after he had gone. 
 Then her dilemma was a serious one. He had mis- 
 taken her for an insider and assumed that she knew 
 how to address the Virgin of the statue ! The dis- 
 comfited impersonator of official orthodoxy crept up 
 to the shrine from whence Our Lady looked down 
 on her accredited devotees. It was a beautiful face, 
 Mary thought, as she glanced up. She went down 
 on to her hardened housemaid's knees the attitude 
 was as natural to her as to the hermits in the 
 desert and felt that it might not be so very 
 difficult after all to speak to this lady to find
 
 MRS BLAKE'S MARY 47 
 
 something to say. Mrs Blake's Mary might, in 
 fact, have achieved a real prayer, sufficient at any 
 rate to justify her " Yessir," but at that moment 
 her eye caught sight of something that had hitherto 
 escaped it. It was a brass plate, green with mildew. 
 It was fixed on the wall, close up to the shrine 
 so as to be almost hidden from view. Mary's 
 professional side immediately asserted itself. In- 
 stinctively she got up, and wriggling herself into 
 the corner, applied her apron experimentally to the 
 discoloured surface. It was clearly a case for 
 Chimpanzee soap and a wash-leather. Off she went 
 in search of the latter, completely forgetful of her 
 undertaking to say a prayer to Our Lady for the 
 boy in Khaki. 
 
 It proved to be a long task, and a vigorous one, 
 taking the rust and mildew off the brass, but it 
 paid for doing. Bit by bit the obliterated inscription 
 came to light. It was quite a long one, and written 
 hi a queer foreign language. It began, "Memorare, 
 O piissima Virgo Maria," and there was quite a lot 
 of it; but Mary persevered with Chimpanzee soap, 
 Universal Polish, and elbow grease very much of 
 the last until the inscription had been brought 
 back to light, right up to the last word. She had 
 completely forgotten about the promised prayer, and 
 only remembered it when, a day or two later, she 
 happened to see the boy in khaki standing in front 
 of the Lady-altar. The plate had attracted his
 
 48 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 attention, and he was reading what was written 
 on it. Then Mrs Blake's Mary remembered her un- 
 fulfilled promise. She devoutly hoped that the young 
 gentleman would not wander round her way and 
 question her. She was almost sorry that she had 
 rubbed up the brass, it might remind him of his 
 request. But the boy in khaki remained absorbed 
 in the perusal of what was written there. He read 
 it over, and again a second time, and Mary could 
 see his lips moving as though he were saying the 
 words out loud. He was looking happier than usual, 
 and he went away without noticing Mrs Blake's 
 Mary. She felt glad somehow that she had polished 
 up the brass plate on the wall by Our Lady's altar. 
 
 Next day the boy reappeared again, and this 
 time Mary didn't escape. He found her scrubbing 
 I think it was in front of the fifth Station and 
 put the question straight to her he was looking 
 quite cheerful and rather eager " Did you do what 
 I asked you the other day?" he queried. " Do you 
 remember I asked you to pray for me to Our Lady?" 
 and in the confusion of the moment Mrs Blake's 
 Mary told what was, I fully believe, quite an in- 
 deliberate fib. She replied, "Ye es, sir." She 
 had indeed gone over and knelt at the altar, and 
 she had meant to try, only the brass plate had 
 caught her eye and, my ! it did need a doing ! 
 
 The boy was obviously pleased at the answer. 
 He thrust his hand into his pocket and brought
 
 MRS BLAKE'S MARY 49 
 
 out a little leather bag from which he produced 
 a rosary. "I found this in the street," he observed. 
 "It's very shabby, but would you like to have it ? 
 I don't exactly use one myself." 
 
 Mrs Blake's Mary thrust out an eager hand. Her 
 eyes glistened. One of the desires of her heart 
 was to possess a rosary like the people who prayed. 
 It was a queer fancy on her part. " I don't mind," 
 she answered modestly, in accordance with the 
 Blanche Street code of manners which observes 
 a becoming detachment in such cases, and the beads 
 passed into her possession. 
 
 Then, alack ! the donor continued, "You will pray 
 for me when you use it ?" And in the absorption of 
 the moment, for a third time, Mrs Blake's Mary 
 answered with a fortuitous " Yessir." It all came 
 of being such a very " willin' little gell." 
 
 The usual Nemesis overtook her after he had gone. 
 She slipped the little yellow bag into her pocket. 
 She durst not take the beads out just yet. It might 
 mean that she would have to " use them," and she 
 had not the remotest idea how to ! Yet, withal, she 
 felt a curious thrill at the thought of possessing them. 
 The rosary was a treasure that brought untold joy in 
 spite of the "Yessir," which was not an intentional fib. 
 
 Scrubbing was hard work that afternoon. Her 
 leg, the groggy one that had suffered from phlebitis, 
 had been giving her excruciating pain. It was a 
 dreadful business finishing the Stations, but she 
 
 D
 
 50 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 dragged on until she came to the Third fall, I 
 think it was and then Mrs Nappin's understudy 
 quietly gave out. One of the prayerful ladies found 
 her lying there an hour later, unable to move, and 
 the Presbytery people fetched a taxi and took her 
 to the " 'Orspital," the same one where Mrs Nappin 
 was completing her cure. 
 
 The kind nurses popped Mary into bed and made 
 her extraordinarily comfortable. One of them dis- 
 covered the beads in her pocket, and with real 
 thoughtfulness gave them to her. 
 
 " You'd like to have these to say your prayers 
 on," she said, for she had nursed a number of Irish 
 patients. Then she added, diplomatically, " You'll 
 lie quite quiet and promise not to move or sit up " 
 (for moving or sitting up can prove fatal in a case 
 of phlebitis). "I'm sure you'd like to say your 
 prayers," she repeated, with the subtlety of the 
 highly- trained nurse. 
 
 " Yes, m'm," Mrs Blake's Mary said, and stretched 
 out her lean hand for the treasure. The nurse 
 handed the beads to her in their little yellow bag. 
 
 When the rector of St Bridget's called to see her 
 in the evening he found her in a deep sleep it 
 was almost a state of coma. Mrs Nappin's under- 
 study was very, very tired. There was no danger 
 the nurse told him, except in the case of sudden exer- 
 tion. She was to be kept quiet. " I gave her her 
 beads," the nurse observed; "they were in her 
 pocket."
 
 MRS BLAKE'S MARY 51 
 
 The rector looked surprised. "So she has a rosary," 
 he said. "That's curious. The child isn't a Catholic." 
 
 " She was most anxious to have them," the nurse 
 answered. " She's got them in her hand now." 
 
 The rector of St Bridget's pondered. He looked 
 at the little wizened face. She had evidently 
 imbibed some idea of the Catholic Faith, else why 
 should she be using a rosary ? In all probability 
 she possessed the desire to be within the Fold. He 
 blamed himself for not having taken more notice 
 of the child, beyond praising her prowess as a 
 scrubber. The rector was troubled and remorseful. 
 He turned to the nurse. " Tell me," he said, " is 
 there any actual danger any possibility of any- 
 thing happening anything immediate?" 
 
 "Well, no," the nurse said; "only, you see, in this 
 complaint the slightest exertion may be fatal any 
 sudden movement and it's a full moon to-night, 
 the Germans may be here ; and we can't stop the 
 maroons." 
 
 The priest made up his mind on the spot. " I'm 
 going to baptise her conditionally," he said. "No. I 
 won't wake her. I'll come and see to her properly in 
 the morning, but I'm not going to risk to-night." So 
 he took water, and with it he conditionally baptised 
 Mrs Blake's Mary as she lay there unconscious, and 
 gave her conditional absolution. It was obvious that 
 she had the desire. The rosary spoke for that. What 
 a blessing it was that the nurse had mentioned it !
 
 52 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 There was no raid after all that night. Nothing 
 occurred to disturb the slumbers of the patients. 
 The night nurse, breathing a prayer of thanksgiving, 
 went round to take a last look at her charges before 
 going off duty. When she came to Mrs. Blake's 
 Mary she found that another had been on night duty 
 as well the soft-footed angel of Death. The child 
 lay calm and peaceful, the rosary clasped in one 
 toil-worn hand and the little yellow leather bag 
 hi the other. There was nothing to account for 
 the fatal turn that the illness had taken. The 
 patient had certainly not left her bed nor changed her 
 position. Well, she was better off, poor little thing ! 
 
 When the rector arrived to visit his charge, the 
 nurse told him what had happened and handed him 
 the rosary. The good padre's heart was full of 
 thanksgiving that he had been inspired to do what 
 had been a somewhat unconventional thing on the 
 impulse of the moment. 
 
 He bore the little yellow bag and its contents 
 home with him. He had an appointment with a 
 young soldier from the Front. The lad had been 
 to see him several times, but couldn't make up his 
 mind whether to embrace the " straight religion " 
 or not. He had stuck over the efficacy or 
 inefficacy of prayer, and seemed likely to stick 
 indefinitely. The priest found the latter awaiting 
 him in eager impatience. The waverer was actually 
 by way of arriving at a decision. The priest was
 
 MRS BLAKE'S MARY 58 
 
 as astonished as he was pleased. It seemed like a 
 miracle, for he had almost despaired of the young 
 man, who looked in vain for an answer to prayer to 
 remove his doubts and difficulties. 
 
 "Some one has been praying for you ?" he queried, 
 as he looked at the boy's changed face. 
 
 " You've hit it, Father," was the reply. " And 
 some one's prayers have been answered. That's what 
 has settled me, just about." 
 
 " A Catholic friend, I suppose," the Father said.. 
 " Or perhaps the French nuns you told me about ?" 
 
 " No," was the answer. " I'll tell you who it 
 was. It's the kiddie with the queer little face who 
 cleans up here. I asked her to pray for me to 
 the Blessed Virgin a few days ago, and sure enough 
 she Our Lady helped me on, and yesterday I 
 gave her some beads I had found and asked her to 
 pray for me again; and I'm certain she has, for it's 
 suddenly got all clear somehow. In the night as I lay 
 awake I suddenly seemed to get hold of it you know, 
 the give as well as the take faith, and all that. I 
 would like to know if the kiddie had been praying." 
 
 "She was probably praying at that very moment," 
 the priest replied softly. And then he told the boy 
 what had happened not the whole story, that would 
 come better later on, but he told him the main 
 thing how the little intermediary whom he had 
 chosen had died during the night with her rosary in 
 her hand, saying her prayers.
 
 54 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 It was an astoundingly direct answer to the 
 question in his mind. When he found words, his own 
 answer was to the point. " That settles it," the boy 
 said. The tears were in his eyes he had lost many 
 pals, and here was another gone. And then he added, 
 " I wonder if she was using the beads I gave her." 
 
 " I have them here," the padre said, and pulled 
 the beads out of his trousers-pocket. 
 
 The other took them and looked at them. A shadow 
 of disappointment crossed his face. " No," he said 
 " these are not mine. Mine were old and shabby. 
 Still, she was praying that's the main point. I 
 expect that kiddie was a saint, Father." 
 
 " Very likely," the Father acquiesced, and 
 thanked God in his heart that he had received into 
 the visible Fold this strange little outsider whose 
 prayers possessed the power of working miracles. 
 
 It was Mrs Nappin who solved the mystery 
 attached to the fatal termination to the illness of 
 Mrs Blake's Mary. When the nurse took Mrs Blake 
 into the mortuary to view the little body, Mrs Nappin 
 now at the point of discharge, was permitted to 
 accompany them. The rector had been there already 
 and replaced the rosary between the fingers of the 
 folded hands. 
 
 Mrs Nappin spotted it at once. 
 
 "My !" she said, "what's she doin' with a rosary ?" 
 The nurse explained. She had it in her hands when
 
 MRS BLAKE'S MARY 55 
 
 she died. She had been saying her prayers and 
 had taken the beads out of their little bag. She 
 handed the latter to Mrs Nappin. Meanwhile Mrs 
 Blake was fingering the rosary curiously as it lay 
 in the still hands of its owner. The beads were 
 bright and resplendent all save the last three of 
 the last decade. These were dull and lack-lustre, and 
 the chain was brown with rust. Mrs Blake 
 transferred her scrutiny to the little yellow wash- 
 leather bag that Mrs Nappin handed to her. There 
 were streaks right across it, curious rust-brown 
 markings. "Well, to be sure!" she exclaimed. 
 " That's what she was up to she was a-cleanin' of 
 it rubbin' it up with the little bit o' leather, and 
 that's what made an end of her!" She pointed to 
 the three dingy beads. It was towards the end of 
 the fifth decade that Mrs Blake's Mary had been 
 interrupted in the telling of her beads. 
 
 Mrs Nappin fingered the beads, comparing the 
 glistening decades with the unfinished portion. 
 " That took doin', I know," she said. 
 
 " She was always handy with her leather," Mrs 
 Blake observed. " A very willin' little gell was 
 Mary, and I knew as how she hadn't got religion. 
 Only the day before yesterday she did out the 
 parlour beautiful." 
 
 The matter ended there. It was nobody's business 
 to inform the rector of the strange and unusual 
 method by which Mrs Nappin 's understudy said her
 
 56 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 prayers. The nurse saw that neither of the ladies 
 possessed themselves of the rosary, and it was duly 
 buried with its owner, who received Catholic burial. 
 Mrs Blake, being nothing hi particular, took this 
 latter as a delicate attention on the part of the 
 Faithful towards the outsider who had understudied 
 their Mrs Nappin, and raised no objection. 
 
 The soldier-boy (who was received the other day) 
 still sets down his final grace to the prayers of Mrs 
 Blake's Mary, and the rector of St Bridget's, hi all 
 good faith, encourages him in the idea he has not 
 the faintest notion that the owner of the rosary to 
 whom he gave conditional baptism and absolution 
 had never said a prayer hi her life. He and the 
 soldier-boy continue to remain under an illusion 
 which Mrs Blake's Mary would have been the first 
 to deprecate, for there was nothing deliberately 
 fraudulent about Mrs Nappin 's understudy. 
 
 Yet it may be possible that the soldier-boy is not 
 so far out, after all, for do not the mystics tell us 
 that there are more kinds of prayer than one? 
 And as for the impulsive padre, personally we 
 venture to think that he was extraordinarily right 
 hi administering Baptism to Mrs Blake's Mary under 
 condition, for does there not exist what is theologically 
 known as " baptism of desire " ? And the mystics 
 might have told us something more about that too, 
 if they had seen the font at St Bridget's after Mrs 
 Blake's Mary had " gone round it" with a cloth,
 
 THE SIGNORINA AND SISTER 
 COLETTE 
 
 COLETTE loved to watch the English Signorina from 
 her corner of the little convent chapel, for she felt 
 certain that if she watched long enough she would 
 see the Signorina in ecstasy. She had a beautiful 
 ascetic face, the Signorina, and as she knelt there, 
 rigidly upright, with closed eyes and immobile lips, 
 Colette felt sure that she had passed from her own 
 elementary stage of vocal prayer into the state of 
 contemplation. Colette often thought that she would 
 have loved to have watched the Signorina after she 
 had received the Holy Communion surely then 
 she would be in ecstasy but the Signorina did not 
 communicate at the little village church : Colette had 
 seen her regularly at High Mass, but never in the 
 early morning. She seldom missed Benediction at 
 the Franciscan convent, so Colette, who never 
 missed by any chance, had plenty of opportunity of 
 observing the saint of her devotion. 
 
 As for the English Signorina, she had also taken 
 notice of Colette, and the eager-eyed girl who gazed
 
 58 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 so wistfully at the grille behind which the nuns 
 prayed appealed likewise to her interest she liked 
 to feel that Colette had lingered and was praying 
 while she herself knelt in the traditional attitude 
 and " absorbed the atmosphere of prayer." 
 
 This atmosphere of prayer was one of the things 
 that the English Signorina had discovered in Italy, 
 and it was interesting as a psychic experience. In 
 the year 1856 psychology had scarcely begun to 
 patronise religion, and to clothe the old "superstition" 
 in a permissibly intellectual garb. " These Italian 
 peasants will amuse you with their religious super- 
 stitions," the Signorina's brother, who was a " free- 
 thinker," wrote, "that is, if they don't disgust you." 
 The Signorina wrote back that she was quite well 
 amused. The Italians were charming, and so sincere 
 in their faith that they could never disgust one 
 like the English Christians did. A few weeks later 
 she had written : "The peasant folk are delightful. 
 I took part in one of their religious processions 
 yesterday, and carried a lighted candle ! They all 
 think I am one of the Faithful, and I feel rather 
 a hypocrite." The Signorina's brother chuckled 
 over the letter. He was a leading light among 
 the intellectuals who later on became known as 
 Agnostics, when their Pope, Professor Huxley, 
 formulated the dogma of the Unproveability of 
 God. 
 
 Colette had an intense longing to become person-
 
 THE SIGNORINA 59 
 
 ally acquainted with the Signorina with the beautiful 
 ascetic face. She heard stories of the lady's works 
 of mercy among the poor in the little town. The 
 beggars and children adored her. It would be a 
 privilege indeed to speak with this sweet St 
 Elizabeth-like lady, whose kindly voice Colette had 
 often listened to talking excellent Italian as she 
 walked behind the Signorina and her friends from 
 the church door. It may have been the novena 
 that she made to her patron, St Colette, that 
 produced the long-desired thing, but anyway, one 
 morning it was Corpus Christi Sunday, as a matter 
 of fact the Signorina turned and spoke to Colette 
 of her own accord, remarking on the weather and 
 the prospects for the afternoon's procession. Colette 
 flushed crimson with pleasure, and returned a shy 
 answer with a very pretty smile. The Signorina 
 was delighted with her. And so the acquaintance 
 began. They walked side by side that afternoon 
 in the procession, and henceforward the melody of 
 Lauda Sion was more than ever heavenly for Colette. 
 The Signorina wrote home to her brother : " I am 
 enjoying myself more than ever. The fairy tales 
 of our youth are nothing compared with the delicious 
 religious folklore of these dear people. I walked 
 in the Corpus Christi procession yesterday with a 
 delightful child who told me all about St Francis; 
 afterwards. He is a most charming saint, by the by, 
 as human as you or I, and even more humane ! This
 
 60 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 child thinks that I believe all that she does, and 
 it makes me feel a terrible fraud, but it would be 
 sacrilege to undeceive her." 
 
 She got back a letter of mock warning. " Re- 
 member," her brother wrote, "you are playing with 
 fire. These faerie folk may cast a spell over you 
 and when you return to prosaic England you will 
 be seeking admission to the Fold from the Reverend 
 Dr Wiseman !" 
 
 The Signorina read the letter, and felt a sudden 
 thrill if only fairy tales were true ! Then she 
 began to feel rather creepy. Spells are more easy 
 to believe in than other unseen influences. Suppose 
 that Fate intended her to become a Roman 
 Catholic? How queer! The menace was not with- 
 out its fascination. 
 
 One of the Signorina's chief pleasures was to hear 
 Colette talk. The latter had no idea that her listener 
 was anything but orthodox. I think the Signorina 
 was quite right not to undeceive her. She was the 
 most tender-hearted of women, and she would not 
 have upset the child's faith for worlds. The dis- 
 covery that the Signorina was not a Catholic would 
 have shaken Colette's universe, so she listened while 
 the girl poured out the story of her dreams and 
 aspirations, and did penance for her fraudulency by 
 an abiding qualm of conscience. 
 
 The Signorina soon found out that the reigning 
 desire in Colette's heart was to join the community
 
 THE SIGNORINA 61 
 
 at the convent. From a child it had been her dream, 
 but, alas ! Colette's parents, unwilling to lose their 
 child, placed an effective obstacle in her way by 
 declaring that they could not afford to pay the dot 
 required by the rule of the Order. Had they really 
 been poor folk, the Reverend Mother might have 
 waived the question of dowry, but where the ability 
 to pay existed, this could not be done, so poor 
 Colette seemed to have been baulked in her vocation. 
 The Signorina was touched by the girl's story. 
 The cloister was so obviously the place for this 
 simple, ardent soul who already helped to make its 
 atmosphere of prayer. She waxed highly indignant 
 with the selfish parents who were deliberately baulk- 
 ing their child's natural bent. The Signorina was 
 a lady who could be indignant with a whole heart 
 there were people who said that she enjoyed a fight 
 for its own sake. Anything in the shape of authority, 
 moreover, roused her instinctive opposition. The 
 Church's authoritative attitude counterbalanced for 
 her much of its "f eerie" charm, and effectively broke 
 the spell that might have drawn her towards the 
 parlour of Dr Wiseman. She pondered over the 
 matter, and finally determined to pay the dowry 
 herself "Just to serve the parents right," she told 
 herself. The Signorina told herself many things of 
 the same nature as those she told her brother, and 
 I believe she accepted them as readily as he did ! 
 She ascertained from Colette the sum required. It
 
 62 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 was not a large sum, and if the Signorina had been 
 a rich woman she need hardly have missed it, but 
 she was not a rich woman, and it meant a consider- 
 able sacrifice to provide the wherewithal for making 
 Colette a nun. She wrote to her brother and asked 
 him to see to the selling out of some of her stock, but 
 she didn't attempt to explain the purpose that she 
 proposed to put the money to not even as a joke. 
 
 When the Signorina told Colette what she meant 
 to do she gave the girl no chance of refusing the 
 latter 's joy and gratitude were beyond words. 
 "You've got to go," the Signorina said, solemnly; 
 " the obstacle has been removed. Providence has 
 arranged it." 
 
 Colette noted that it was the first time that the 
 Signorina had spoken to her definitely of the will of 
 the Lord in connection with her vocation. It 
 " bucked her up " wonderfully for the ordeal of 
 facing her parents, whose opposition would be 
 broken down by the Signorina's generosity. She 
 threw her arms round the latter's neck. " I will 
 pray for you always always!" she cried. "I will 
 ask God's best blessing for you." 
 
 " The greatest blessing is health," the Signorina 
 said. She had been ailing lately. Italy had not 
 done for her all that she expected, and ill-health 
 was the thing that she dreaded most. 
 
 " I will pray," Colette said, " that you get all 
 the things that you desire."
 
 THE SIGNORINA 63 
 
 " You will have to look after me," the other said, 
 with an embarrassed little laugh she was recalling 
 a wish that she had " wished " at the old wishing 
 well a few weeks before, when one of the party had 
 said, " Now, all wish!" she had wished that "the 
 fairy tale might be true " and then she added, 
 " I shall be your child now, Colette." 
 
 Colette laughed merrily at the Signorina's humour. 
 It was too comical ! The Signorina her child ? 
 The Signorina was her patroness, her patron saint ! 
 She gathered up the other's hands and kissed them ; 
 and then she kissed her on the cheeks once on 
 each cheek and back again, as the nuns did in 
 honour of the Blessed Trinity. For a moment the 
 Signorina held her in her arms. " I am your child," 
 Colette whispered. But the Signorina shook her 
 head. 
 
 Before the Signorina left for England Colette had 
 been clothed and become "Sister Colette," keeping 
 her saint's name. She was radiantly happy. She 
 had now to speak to the Signorina through a grille, 
 and it was no longer possible for the little nun who 
 " kept her eyes in order " to watch her patron in 
 contemplation; but what did all that matter? Life 
 was such a little moment. Soon she and the 
 Signorina would be walking together in the gardens 
 of Paradise, looking on the eternal hills; and when 
 she Colette' enjoyed the Beatific Vision, she would 
 assuredly put her hand out and find the Signorina's
 
 64 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 and they would clasp tight to communicate their 
 joy as they kept their eyes on the Vision, for the 
 latter, embracing all joy, would thus include 
 intercourse with those we had loved in Christ below. 
 So Sister Colette argued, and I think she was 
 theologically sound. 
 
 So Colette applied herself to her prayers, and the 
 Signorina returned to England. 
 
 Back in her native land, the Signorina grew 
 strangely home-sick for Umbria, and for the 
 Umbrian " Fairy Tale." She started to write a book 
 on Italian churches, and became the outspoken 
 champion of the form of Christianity which was hi 
 the minority in England. The Padre, who of course 
 knew her secret, had looked at her wistfully as she 
 bade him "Good-bye." " You will come into the 
 Church some day," he had said. 
 
 " Before I die," she had answered, smiling, " but 
 not before. I would gladly die in Holy Church, but 
 I could not live in it and do as I was told !" 
 
 The Padre had shaken his head. "Death jumps on 
 us unawares," he had replied, solemnly, " and the 
 dispositions change. Have a care, my daughter, 
 how you tempt God." 
 
 " But I mean to die a Catholic," the Signorina 
 said, smiling defiantly at him; " you must pray for 
 me Father!" It had been a comfort to feel that 
 she need not be a hypocrite with the Padre. He 
 knew her secret.
 
 THE SIGNORINA 65 
 
 The Umbrian home-sickness increased. The 
 Signorina began to ponder over the possible 
 consequences of establishing a praying sister to 
 introduce her cause into the Courts of the Unseen. 
 Suppose something did happen ? Suppose the 
 Infinite Improbability were really there on His 
 Throne, and faith were brought to her like a brace 
 of pheasants, "With Sister Colette's compliments" ? 
 Was there some " revenge " in store for the pagan 
 mummer who had carried a lighted taper on 
 Corpus Christi Day ? 
 
 The Signorina had certainly been playing with 
 fire. I do not know whether it was a spark from 
 one of the candles carried by the little children who 
 tempted Providence with their flimsy white veils, 
 or whether a generous appreciation of holy things 
 is bound to bring its reward, but she became 
 conscious of a still small voice speaking within her 
 soul the undeclarable Name of God. There should 
 have been no withstanding the still small voice; 
 but it must be borne in mind that the Signorina had 
 been brought up in the highly intellectual circle of 
 Agnostics whose search after truth is so exact and 
 accurate that it finally leads them to the conclusion 
 that truth does not exist. Her health had become 
 steadily worse since she had quitted Italy, and 
 " fairy tales " lose their glamour when one's mind 
 is at grips with severe physical pain. So the 
 Signorina continued to worship the " non-existible." 
 
 E
 
 66 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 and left the " sweet, impossible things " of religion 
 for a later date. She wrote to Sister Colette and 
 told her of her illness of the number of months 
 that the doctor had given her. " I shall die a 
 Catholic," she told herself was there not the 
 possibility of meeting the Galilean Shepherd with 
 His rod and staff in an undisputed Valley of the 
 Shadow ? It would be hard to have nothing to give 
 Him as He walked beside her if He were there 
 after all. The God of hell she had no fear of, but 
 would not this itself be hell to have no gift to 
 offer to be too late ? But it took great courage to 
 offer the gift of faith in England in the year 1856. 
 The Signorina waited her time. 
 
 The nuns in the convent in far-away Italy were 
 grieved to hear of the English Signorina's illness. 
 But Sister Colette was not surprised. All God's 
 saints without exception had undergone similar 
 sufferings. It was but the natural outcome of the 
 Signorina's sanctity. Colette wrote to this effect 
 to the sick lady, and begged her efficacious prayers 
 for that egregiously unsuffering little sinner, Sister 
 Colette. There was no answer to this letter; and 
 a little while later there came a communication from 
 the Signorina's relatives informing the Community 
 of her death. She had left instructions that they 
 should be told. 
 
 Colette did not weep. The cloister had not made 
 her unhuman, only perfectly simple and consistent.
 
 THE SIGNORINA 67 
 
 Why weep ? Sea and land would no longer divide 
 them. Letters would be no longer necessary. The 
 saints were within call the Church had its telephonic 
 communication before men invented their analogous 
 system. She could now talk to her beloved patron, 
 ask for her prayers, and picture her hi the Paradise 
 which was far more real to Sister Colette than 
 England. She took the little photographic likeness 
 out of her book and fixed it on to the wall of her 
 cell, near to the picture of St Colette, so that the 
 flowers that she placed near the latter on Feast days 
 might apply to both. St Colette, dear saint that 
 she was, would understand that the extra blossom 
 was meant for the Signorina. 
 
 Sister Colette was instructed to pray for the soul 
 of her deceased benefactor, and this she did, under 
 obedience, but she entertained no doubt whatever 
 as to the dead woman's sanctity. She lamented 
 that, living in a heretical country like England, 
 the Signorina would have none to bring her " cause " 
 forward for her beatification. England never produced 
 blesseds. Who could be expected to work miracles 
 in England ? For perhaps a month, or six weeks, 
 Sister Colette practised her private devotion to her 
 departed patron, passing on to " Ora pro me " from 
 an adequately conscientious " De Profundis," and 
 dreaming contentedly of the ever approaching day 
 of their reunion. Then there was an interruption. 
 One day the Padre brought a friend to see the
 
 68 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 convent, an English gentleman it was. The visitors 
 were offered hospitality, and Sister Colette was 
 told off to wait on the guests, who were feasted in 
 the parlour with true Franciscan bounty. As the 
 bell on the dinner-table only gave vent to a faint 
 tinkle, Sister Colette was instructed to wait outside 
 the door for her summons. The conversation between 
 the visitors was in Italian, and I don't in the least 
 mind confessing that Sister Colette listened un- 
 blushingly, with all her ears, as she waited. She 
 had no nice feelings in the matter. Soon their chat 
 assumed a most interesting character. The English 
 gentleman proved to be a friend of the Signorina's. 
 " Very sad her death was," the Padre commented. 
 "Is it really a fact that she never got the Faith after 
 all ?" 
 
 "Unfortunately, yes," the other replied. "I 
 enquired most stringently of her relatives. It seemed 
 incredible that she should have died outside the 
 Fold after getting so near, but they assured me 
 that she died, as she had lived, an unbeliever. It 
 was never any more than the aesthetic side that 
 attracted her. It was an idea, nothing more ; she 
 never got really near to believing. She treated 
 religion as a sort of game of play." 
 
 The Padre pondered. "I believed that she was 
 a Catholic for quite a long time," he said. " She 
 liked people to think that she was a Catholic. It was 
 pride that kept her outside, but I hoped that she
 
 THE SIGNORINA 69 
 
 would come in the end especially when God in His 
 mercy sent her the suffering." 
 
 The other sighed. " If anything," he said, " she 
 receded at the end. At one time she read spiritual 
 books, and even tried to pray, but there was nothing 
 of that at the end nothing." 
 
 " Ah, well," the Padre said, "Faith is a gift, after 
 all," and he dismissed the matter briskly by 
 striking the bell in front of him. Colette obeyed 
 its summons. The kindly Padre cracked a little 
 joke, and she smiled demurely. She changed the 
 soiled plates and fetched the second course of viands 
 from the kitchen. Then she took up her stand 
 again in the dark passage between the parlour and 
 the kitchen. 
 
 She listened no more to the conversation. The 
 place where she stood was pitch-dark, and a step 
 might land one in the abyss of the coal-cellar. It 
 was typical of Sister Colette's universe at that 
 moment. The ground had gone from under her 
 feet, and there was black horror all round. The 
 Signorina, her patron saint, no longer existed had 
 never existed. That was the horror. There stood 
 in her place a shallow deceiver a mocker of the 
 things she had appeared to love. 
 
 It was impossible to grasp it all at once. An 
 unbeliever, the Signorina, who had looked God in 
 the eyes at Benediction and bowed her head at 
 Mass ! The Englishman's words repeated themselves
 
 70 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 like hammer-blows on her brain. Sister Colette 
 could not have explained the subtle horror of it all, 
 the hideous irony, but she appreciated it to the 
 full. Mocking fiends reminded her of the Signorina's 
 " devotions " of her little room in the villa with its 
 exquisite statue of Our Lady, before which a lamp 
 was always burning. The Christ Himself had looked 
 down from its walls, carved in ivory, and hanging on 
 His Cross. And at the end there had been "nothing 
 of that, nothing at all." The bell tinkled again, and 
 Sister Colette performed her offices for the second 
 tie. " You look tired, child," the kind Padre said, 
 but Sister Colette assured him that she was not tired. 
 Tired ! Ah, but she was tired ! Tired of self, of life, 
 of God Himself, who had allowed her to pray for 
 the Signorina as one of His chosen ones while she 
 was merely making " a game of play " of His holy 
 things. She went through the rest of the day 
 mechanically doing her duties, which, mercifully, 
 were numerous. She repeated her Office, recited the 
 common prayers, and then she retired to her cell 
 and the pains of hell closed round her. She was 
 in the Valley of the Shadow with one who had 
 driven away the rod and the staff ! How could 
 the Good Shepherd walk beside one who had declined 
 His company ? God does not force Himself on souls 
 when they are no longer free agents, or to what end 
 does man possess free will ? She could not so much 
 as endure to look at the picture of the Signorina on
 
 THE SIGNORINA 71 
 
 the wall of her cell. The fiends were roaring with 
 laughter at the little bunch of flowers that St Colette 
 was sharing with the "saint" of Colette's bamboozled 
 imagination. 
 
 It may be reckoned that Sister Colette remained 
 in the Valley of the unmitigated Shadow for about 
 three days. She accepted the suffering as something 
 that was intended. It could not go on long. It 
 was too intense. God does not leave our souls in 
 hell. At the end of three days she took herself 
 in hand. She approached the picture of the 
 Signorina, the little faded photographic likeness, 
 and took it down and surveyed it bravely. The 
 shrewd, attractive face, with its wonderful eyes, 
 looked at her. Behind the eyes she read wistful- 
 ness, discontent, and appeal. There surged up a 
 great wave in her heart. Something was lifted. 
 The Signorina had wanted to believe. Pride had 
 kept her back ? Ah, but we all have pride, even 
 cloistered nuns, and faith is a gift. Sister Colette, 
 gazing at the still beloved face, recalled her niter- 
 course with its owner. She remembered that the 
 Signorina had never deliberately deceived her. She 
 Colette had assumed that she was a Catholic, and 
 the other had not gone out of her way to deny it. 
 That might well have been from a kindly desire 
 to spare her feelings. And the Signorina did love 
 Catholics and the Catholic Faith. She had looked 
 with holy eyes on holy things. Above all she had
 
 72 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 been instrumental in enabling Colette to follow her 
 holy vocation. The Signorina, in any case, had an 
 abiding claim on Sister Colette. Then the little 
 nun recalled the words, " You must look after me, 
 for I shall be your child now, Colette." She looked 
 into the eyes in the portrait and read the tragedy 
 there for the first time; and yet the Signorina had 
 looked exactly like that when she had said those 
 apparently playful words, "I shall be your child, 
 Colette." Colette sunk on to her knees and 
 pressed her hands to her bosom. A fierce thrill of 
 tenderness pierced her being. The "mother-feeling" 
 had been born in her. She could save her child, 
 even now ! There is a genius of resource that belongs 
 to motherhood. Colette argued to herself, Does not 
 all tune lie like a map under the eye of Almighty 
 God ? The Signorina might have got the grace of 
 faith at the last moment for who can say what 
 passes hi the soul of those who have passed into 
 apparent unconsciousness? She would pray, pray, 
 pray, that God might have whispered His name 
 into her ear, and that the Signorina might have 
 made her act of faith, and in God's " Now " her 
 tardy prayers might have been foreseen and 
 answered. It was not too late. She could pray, 
 aye and merit, for the Signorina in God's " Now." 
 She kissed the photograph and placed it in her 
 book of prayers. The Signorina would want so 
 many of them. Her sorrow was by no means
 
 THE SIGNORINA 73 
 
 removed. There was still the terrible recurring 
 dream in which the Padre and his friend would 
 repeat their conversation, and the dull pain on 
 waking up and remembering the deathbed where 
 there was "Nothing, nothing at all" ; but these pangs 
 Sister Colette offered up cheerfully for her intention, 
 and her life went on sweetly and serenely, and the 
 " motherly " little nun became a great favourite, 
 especially with those who needed comfort. 
 
 Sister Colette told no one what she had overheard 
 in the parlour. Very probably the nuns knew the 
 Signorina's secret, as the Padre had done, and had 
 refrained from telling her the true state of things; 
 but anyway the secret was hers and she kept it, 
 praying constantly that the Signorina might be in 
 enjoyment of the Vision which is for those who 
 have not turned away from the light. The recollection 
 of the Signorina kneeling in church " in contempla- 
 tion " must evermore bring its pang now in place 
 of sweetness. The face with the closed eyes turned 
 up towards the light ! Every tender memory was 
 changed, as it were, to a purgatorial pain. The light 
 that would lighten the eyes of the Signorina must 
 burn the heart of Sister Colette hi God's " Now." 
 
 It might have been a couple of years after the 
 visit paid to the convent by the Padre and the 
 Englishman that another English visitor presented 
 herself and asked to see one of the nuns. " Send
 
 74 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 Sister Colette," the Reverend Mother said, " she 
 speaks a little English," but before the messenger 
 had reached the door she called her back. " No," 
 she said, " Sister Colette will be wanted in the 
 laundry; send Sister Josephine." 
 
 So Sister Josephine went instead of Sister Colette 
 and interviewed the Englishwoman, who had heard 
 of the convent from a lady whom she had nursed 
 in England. Sister Josephine was a novice, and 
 novices have little intercourse with professed sisters, 
 so Sister Colette did not so much as learn that an 
 Englishwoman had visited the convent. Little 
 things are not repeated and talked over in convents 
 in the way outsiders imagine the life of contem- 
 platives, especially, is too busy for that sort of thing. 
 And so the years went on. 
 
 The things that really matter in convents are not 
 visits from the outside world. One day one of the 
 novices came to the Reverend Mother. She had 
 been instructed to exchange her book of devotions 
 for the worn and tattered one used by Sister Colette. 
 The novice had displayed an over-niceness about 
 the binding of books, so this was to be her discipline. 
 Sister Colette had parted with her book with the 
 utmost readiness, but on looking through it, its new 
 "holder" had discovered an old, faded photograph. 
 This she had hastened to return to Sister Colette, 
 but the latter had refused to take it back she was 
 a very holy nun on the ground that she had been
 
 THE SIGNORINA 75 
 
 told to exchange the book as it stood : nuns some- 
 times slip holy pictures into their prayer manuals, 
 and an exchange includes these menaces to a complete 
 detachment. The kind-hearted novice had come to 
 the Superior for instructions. The Reverend Mother 
 looked at the photograph, faded almost beyond 
 recognition. "That is the lady who paid Sister 
 Colette's dot," she said. "She is under an obligation 
 to pray for her, and this reminds her of it." So 
 she took the ancient photograph and wrote on the 
 back in her firm, legible handwriting, " For the use 
 of Sister Colette," and returned it to its former 
 guardian, to have and to hold for the term of her life, 
 under the rule of holy obedience. 
 
 Sister Colette was one of the oldest nuns in the 
 Community. She was hi her eightieth year, but 
 she still retained all her faculties in a wonderful 
 way, except that she was a little hard of hearing, 
 but even that infirmity was hardly apparent. Sister 
 Colette was a gentle, patient soul who bore all 
 things quietly and serenely. At the Conferences, 
 when the Reverend Mother, a very remarkable woman, 
 illustrated her subject with little well-told stories 
 and anecdotes, Sister Colette, unable to catch what 
 was being said, would sit quietly sewing, no one 
 even realising that she could not hear. As she was 
 never appealed to for an opinion, like the younger 
 nuns, who were of a somewhat intellectual type
 
 76 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 nowadays, it didn't really matter. Sometimes, 
 when a smile, or a little laugh, went round among 
 the listeners, for the Superior was a very witty 
 speaker, Sister Colette would look up wistfully, and 
 smile in sympathy with the rest without knowing 
 the joke. There was one story that the Reverend 
 Mother told rather effectively. It was a curious, 
 tragical story, in a way, and she always lowered her 
 melodious voice in the telling. Sister Colette, from 
 her place at the far end of the room, never caught 
 a syllable of it by any chance. The story was used 
 as an illustration of God's justice and His mercy 
 when they appear to contradict one another. The 
 Reverend Mother always repeated it for the benefit 
 of the new-comers, for the Conferences were for the 
 professed Sisters only. 
 
 There had been a Profession in the convent, and 
 four novices had taken then* vows. The new arrivals 
 were always placed next to the Reverend Mother 
 at their first Conference. As they were about to 
 take their places the latter noticed one of them, 
 Sister Angela, looking at her hesitatingly. She was 
 a beautiful girl, with an eager, intelligent face and 
 starry eyes that still held the vision of the morning. 
 
 " What is it that you want to say, Sister?" she 
 asked. 
 
 Sister Angela hesitated, but hesitation is an ill- 
 fulfiling of the rule of obedience, so she spoke up 
 frankly and without apology.
 
 THE SIGNORINA 77 
 
 "I was wondering," she said, blushing furiously 
 at her audacity, " if I might be allowed to change 
 places with Sister Colette. She's been telling me 
 that she never hears a word of the Conference from 
 where she sits. She is getting a little deaf, she 
 says." The Sister smiled. 
 
 "Why, poor old dear !" the Reverend Mother cried, 
 " I ought to have thought of that. She shall sit 
 close up to me, and I will take pains to speak very 
 distinctly. How thoughtless I have been!" The 
 Superior, being a very remarkable woman, was the 
 humblest of souls. Her self-reproach was perfectly 
 sincere. The result was that Sister Colette was 
 moved into a seat between the Reverend Mother and 
 Sister Angela, and all through the ensuing Conference 
 the former kept her voice at a certain pitch, never 
 once relapsing into the low, effective tone that the 
 nuns admired so much. 
 
 The subject of the Conference was God's mercy, 
 and how it is exalted above His justice, as St James 
 has it. The story which the Reverend Mother 
 always told to illustrate her point was familiar to 
 most of the hearers, but it was new to the brides of 
 the morning, for whose benefit it was being re-told, 
 and it was new to Sister Colette. 
 
 "Many many years ago," the narrator said, "there 
 came an English lady to stay in the village here. I 
 heard her story from our old Reverend Mother, and 
 from Sister Josephine (Sister Josephine was also de-
 
 78 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 ceased.) She was a woman of noble character, with 
 the highest ideals, but she was what is quaintly called 
 a 'free' thinker. That is to say, she was free to think 
 about anything she liked except Almighty God Al- 
 mighty God was, according to the dogma of the free- 
 thinkers, unthinkable. Consequently this English 
 Signorina had only thought about God as a dogmatic 
 negation when she came to Italy." The listeners 
 smiled all except Sister Colette. She heard the joke 
 this time for herself, and saw nothing to smile at. 
 "Italy, however," the speaker went on, "showed re- 
 ligion in a new light to this lady from England. Being 
 a noble-hearted woman, with natural religious in- 
 stincts, it made an instant appeal to her. She took an 
 immediate delight in the ceremonies of the Church, 
 and then, being possessed of a swift and powerful 
 intellect, she began to make a study of the Church's 
 teaching. Theology, natural, dogmatic, and mystical, 
 she found absorbingly interesting as a study. She 
 enjoyed herself among the books as much as she did 
 in the churches. She became familiar not only with 
 the ordinary treatises on Catholic doctrine, but with 
 the writings of St Theresa and St John of the Cross, 
 She devoured St Thomas Aquinas as well as Thomas- 
 a-Kempis ; and at the end of it all she looked on the 
 story of Immortality as unproven. She told our 
 old Reverend Mother, 'I shall die a Catholic, but I 
 have not yet got faith.' She said the same thing to 
 the Padre. And yet she had paid the dot of one of
 
 THE SIGNORINA 79 
 
 the nuns in the convent I think it must have been 
 Sister Josephine I was never told; but it was 
 Sister Josephine who heard the end of her story from 
 the woman who nursed her in her last illness." The 
 speaker broke off. 
 
 "Can you hear, Sister?" she enquired of Sister 
 Colette. 
 
 "Perfectly," the other answered. She had forgot- 
 ten her knitting, and her busy fingers were idle. 
 
 "Well, the lady returned to England," the speaker 
 continued, "and became the champion of Catholicism 
 against the Protestant bigotry of the age. This atti- 
 tude was permitted her since it involved no submission 
 to a truth outside the mind of the thinker. But 
 Almighty God does not allow Himself to remain ' a 
 hypothesis hi a soul into which He has infused 
 such noble qualities. This soul began to realise the 
 Person behind the idea, the Umbrian home-sickness 
 became a home-sickness of a larger kind. The illness 
 from which she had been suffering took a fatal turn. 
 She told her nurse that she intended to die in the 
 Catholic Church, but she made no effort to send for a 
 priest. 'Not yet,' she Would say when the nurse asked 
 if that were what she wanted for that she wanted 
 something was evident. And so the end crept nearer." 
 
 The narrator paused, but she did not lower her 
 voice. She continued hi the same distinct tones, 
 quite spoiling the artistic effect. She had not 
 forgotten that one of her listeners was hard of hearing.
 
 80 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 "At length," she said, "the sufferer fell into the state 
 of coma which precedes death, and from which, 
 according to normal medical experience, there is no 
 rousing the patient. It was about three o'clock in 
 the early morning. The nurse was keeping vigil by 
 the bedside. The dying woman's relations were in 
 bed, ready to be called if the change came, and there 
 was a next-door neighbour who had been very kind 
 and attentive, whose window could be reached from 
 the balcony of the sick-room. She was a very devout 
 woman a Protestant of the Quaker sect. Her only 
 son had become a Catholic and a priest, and was out 
 on the foreign missions. ' Call me if you require 
 help,' she had said. So the nurse sat and waited 
 for the change. Then, suddenly, the moribund woman 
 opened her eyes. * A priest,' she whispered * fetch 
 a priest, in case in case He is there. "Yea, though 
 I walk through the valley of the shadow" ' she was 
 quoting the psalms. * He may be there, with His 
 rod and staff.' The look of anguish in her eyes was 
 so intense that the nurse was terrified. The request 
 was repeated, but the nurse had no idea where a 
 priest was to be found. She had indeed taken the 
 precaution of asking the sick woman, but the latter 
 had always turned the question aside for the time 
 being. In her dilemma she rushed out on to the 
 balcony, and tapping on the next-door window, roused 
 the neighbour and told her what was happening. 
 " * I have my son at home with me,' the other
 
 THE SIGNORINA 81 
 
 replied. ( He is stopping in London for two nights. 
 He will be with you in less than five minutes.' 
 
 "And sure enough, in five minutes' time, the nurse 
 found the priest waiting on the doorstep. He 
 followed her upstairs. The patient was still con- 
 scious, and the eloquent eyes were still asking their 
 question. In another five minutes the waters of 
 baptism had flowed over the brow where the dews 
 of death had already gathered." The narrator's 
 voice, which should have been lowered at this period, 
 was slightly raised. She was doing artistic penance 
 for her forgetfulness of poor Sister Colette and her 
 infirmity. " Then a wonderful smile of joy over- 
 spread the dying face, and once again she repeated 
 the words, ' Yea, though I walk through the valley 
 of the shadow, I shall fear no evil no evil.' The 
 Signorina had made her act of faith, of submission; 
 she was now making her act of love. Then she closed 
 her eyes and went quietly back into her last sleep." 
 
 The hush was sudden, for the Reverend Mother 
 had been speaking loud. It was broken by a thud 
 which made some of the nervous nuns jump. Sister 
 Colette had let fall the heavy book of prayers 
 that lay on her lap. Sister Angela stooped quickly 
 and picked it up for her, together with something 
 that had fallen out of it. It was an old yellowish 
 card that might have been a photograph. Written 
 on the back, in faded ink, were the words : " For 
 the use of Sister Colette." 
 
 F
 
 82 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 "Did you manage to hear, Sister?" the Reverend 
 Mother asked. 
 
 " Every word," Sister Colette replied. She was 
 smiling very contentedly. 
 
 The speaker went on : 
 
 '* And now, I want to know how the story strikes 
 you." She addressed one of the newly professed 
 Sisters a girl with a good-looking, commonplace 
 countenance and a ready smile. 
 
 " I didn't expect the ending," was the candid 
 answer. " I thought the lady was going to die as 
 the priest entered the room." 
 
 The Mother smiled. " And you?" she asked of 
 another. 
 
 The Sister addressed puckered her brows. She 
 was troubled. 
 
 " It it doesn't seem quite right," she stammered. 
 " Not quite fair. I don't see how Almighty God 
 could do it, even if He wanted to. She according 
 to our lights she didn't deserve it. She took all 
 and gave nothing." 
 
 The Mother turned to Sister Angela, whose 
 starry eyes still retained the vision of the Bride- 
 groom. "And you, Sister Angela?" 
 
 " I think," Sister Angela answered, fixing her 
 bright eyes on the other, " that someone may have 
 deserved it for her. Someone who loved her so 
 much that they would not have grudged suffering 
 for her. She may have merited such a love by her
 
 THE SIGNORINA 83 
 
 goodness, so it would be quite fair in an indirect 
 sort of way " she stopped speaking and blushed. 
 
 The Mother's eyes shone. " You believe," she 
 said, " that we poor human beings may sometimes 
 be used to release God's mercy from the toils of 
 His justice ? So do I, and so, I believe, does the 
 Church. Someone may have earned that last grace 
 for the poor lady. Someone, as you say, who loved 
 her, for all vicarious suffering must be willing 
 suffering, and joyful suffering. . ." The discussion 
 drifted on till it was time for Compline, and after 
 Compline, bed. Sister Angela gave her arm to old 
 Sister Colette, for she appeared to be rather shaky. 
 She was rewarded by a radiant smile from the 
 old woman, who was looking extraordinarily young 
 and happy. Almost as young, and quite as happy, 
 as the nun whose bridal day it was. " God is good," 
 Sister Angela thought to herself, as she went to her 
 own cell, " to let me see how much pleasure I have 
 been able to get for the poor old dear by asking 
 Reverend Mother to let her have my seat." 
 
 As for Sister Colette, alone in her cell, she stood 
 for a moment rapt in thought. Then she threw out 
 her arms and drew them back as though she were 
 embracing something to her bosom ; and then, 
 unknowingly, for the first time after sixty years, she 
 broke the rule of the great silence that follows 
 Compline. "My child!" she cried out loud. "Oh, 
 my child ! my child ! My dear, dear, child !"
 
 THE LITTLE GIRL WHO SMILED 
 BACK 
 
 IMELDA behaved quite beautifully in the Corpus 
 Christi procession up to a certain point. The lady 
 in the wheeled chair occurred at the certain point, 
 and thereby hangs my story. 
 
 Imelda's inclusion in the procession had been a 
 problem with which the Sisters had been brought 
 face to face owing to the child's over- weening desire 
 to take part hi it. It was curious. Imelda was 
 not the kind of little girl who ought to have possessed 
 an over-weening desire to do anything so decorous 
 and little-girlified as to wear a white frock and 
 veil and behave becomingly. Imelda was a fidgety, 
 tiresome, quick-silver morsel of humanity. It was 
 certainly not the white frock and veil that had 
 tempted her, as it tempted normal little girls. White 
 frocks were a responsibility which Imelda incurred 
 with reluctance, and a veil was an appendage that 
 she could never be expected to negotiate properly; 
 yet the one desire of Imelda's life was to walk in the 
 Corpus Christi procession.
 
 THE LITTLE GIRL 85 
 
 It was certain that she could not go with the 
 other little girls of her own age who came immediately 
 in front of the canopy. Imelda would never achieve 
 a courtesy ! That was a foregone conclusion ; and 
 as to learning to walk backwards ? walking forwards 
 was difficulty enough with Imelda. She either 
 danced, pranced, or stumbled. She had a habit, too, 
 of suddenly standing still to take cognisance of 
 something that didn't in the least matter she was 
 an awful child to take out for a walk. She had 
 been known to completely disorganise the school 
 crocadile on its way to church. The problem was 
 finally solved by Imelda being placed in charge of 
 her two (comparatively) big sisters. Sister Mary 
 Philomena gave her instructions suited to her seven 
 years as to behaviour, particularly as to the custody 
 of the eyes. Imelda was told that, above all things, 
 she was not to look about. Sister Mary Philo- 
 mena rubbed this in assiduously, for Imelda was 
 madly interested hi things around her. She lacked 
 concentration, her teachers said, and I suppose they 
 knew. 
 
 So Imelda, duly instructed, walked in the proces- 
 sion round the church with Clare and Theresa, her 
 two exceedingly well-conducted sisters. The point at 
 which she ceased to behave, as I have said, was when 
 they were passing the lady in the wheeled chair. 
 The chair had been brought into church while the 
 children were being marshalled under the west
 
 86 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 gallery. It was carried bodily up the steps from 
 the vestibule by four stalwart male members of the 
 congregation there had been a regular rush to 
 perform this office, and Imelda was thrilled as she 
 watched. There was something curiously thrilling 
 to Imelda's mind in being thus carried into church, 
 just like God. She had always wondered how God 
 liked being carried about having to wait on the 
 altar until the priest fetched Him. It must be strange 
 to have a body that couldn't move one tiny bit of 
 itself. Most little girls would have felt sorry for the 
 occupant of the chair a little "oo-ah!" of 
 commiseration went round as the latter made its 
 appearance, but Imelda didn't feel like that a bit. 
 She thought it must be grand and wonderful and 
 thrilling to be just like God in church; and she 
 thought and thought until Sister Philomena tapped 
 her briskly on the shoulder and called her to attention. 
 Sister Philomena felt there would be trouble with 
 Imelda, with her inconsequent mind and roving eyes. 
 Imelda walked between her sisters and kept her 
 eyes admirably in order until her part of the 
 procession reached the space under the west gallery. 
 She was aching with curiosity to know what the 
 occupant of the wheeled chair looked like. Every- 
 body in the world was wildly interesting. What 
 would the human being in the wheeled chair be like ? 
 When they got close up to it the temptation proved 
 too much. Imelda lifted her bright black eyes from
 
 THE LITTLE GIRL 87 
 
 the tips of her fingers, devoutly placed together, and 
 darted a swift glance at the occupant of the chair. 
 
 She caught sight of a face, a pale face, a pair of 
 large forget-me-not blue eyes, and a smile ! That 
 was the strange part of it a smile and a big one, 
 in church, and at procession time ! What would 
 Sister Philomena say if she could see it ? And the 
 lady was smiling straight at her she was not 
 keeping the beautiful forget-me-not eyes in order a 
 bit, yet she was quite grown up oh, quite! She 
 was returning Imelda's gaze with the utmost interest, 
 and she smiled until Imelda found herself smiling 
 back. It was not really her fault. They turned the 
 chair a little as the procession passed, and Imelda 
 thought again of the good God who was also being 
 moved about. She wished that she could see Him 
 like she was seeing the lady in the chair; she 
 wondered if He was as beautiful as that. Oh, would 
 His eyes be as soft and loving as that, and would He 
 look as happy ? Oh, what a pity it was that no one 
 could see Him ! Imelda forgot everything else. All 
 Sister Philomena's careful instructions fled from the 
 flighty little head that Imelda frankly turned side- 
 ways as she looked at the lady in the chair, still 
 smiling in her direction. She took no notice of where 
 she was going. Suddenly the procession halted, and 
 Imelda, engrossed in wondering whether the lady 
 in the chair loved processions with Our Lord in them 
 as much as she did,walked on right into the child
 
 88 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 in front of her. Their veils became entangled, and 
 Imelda's very nearly came off. Her sisters were 
 dreadfully shocked. So was Imelda. A positive 
 terror overtook her. What dreadful thing had she 
 done ? She sought out Sister Philomena afterwards 
 and confessed that she had been looking at the lady 
 in the chair on wheels. Sister Philomena was really 
 shocked. It was dreadful to stare at a lady 
 in a chair. Ladies in chairs objected to be 
 stared at by little girls. One might almost have 
 imagined that Sister Philomena was more shocked at 
 Imelda 's bad manners than at the grave offence of 
 not remaining recollected on so solemn an occasion. 
 But it must be remembered that Sister Philomena 
 was a school-mistress as well as a nun. 
 
 " But the lady didn't mind," Imelda ventured to 
 argue, " she kept smiling at me, and " it was as 
 well to make a clean breast of everything " and I 
 smiled back." 
 
 Imelda went home grieved in spirit. Sunday 
 dinner was shorn of its joys by a conscience pain 
 which took away her appetite. Her sisters had 
 carried home the terrible story of her behaviour in 
 looking about her and tumbling over Jane Smith. 
 At afternoon catechism, however, she received some 
 consolation. The Father told them how Our Lord 
 sometimes appeared to the saints in the Blessed 
 Sacrament in the form of a little child. Imelda 
 swung her feet about in sheer joy at the idea that
 
 THE LITTLE GIRL 89 
 
 came to her. She propounded it afterwards to Clare 
 and Theresa on their way home. " Do you think," 
 she asked, "that Jesus could have been a little child 
 in the procession this morning?" 
 
 Clare and Theresa thought that it was quite 
 possible, having absorbed the instruction into their 
 well-ordered young minds. Imelda drew in a quick 
 breath. "A very little child ?" she queried. Clare 
 and Theresa thought it might be possible, the Father 
 had called Hun a babe. 
 
 "Then, perhaps," Imelda said, "He looked at the 
 lady in the chair, too, when He was carried past." 
 
 Clare was too shocked to reply, but Theresa had a 
 didactic mind. " He wouldn't need to look," she 
 said. " God can see everything without looking 
 about. He could see the lady in the chair if He 
 wanted without looking at her." 
 
 "He'd sure to want to," Imelda said, softly. Shei 
 was only partly comforted. It had been so grand 
 to walk in the procession, and she had tried so hard, 
 so very hard, to behave. 
 
 Imelda looked in vain on the succeeding Sundays 
 for the lady and the chair. The lady's face haunted 
 her. She dreamt of her at night, and made up 
 stories about her in the day-time. She somehow felt 
 that the lady was a friend of hers, although they had 
 only once smiled across at one another and that at 
 the wrong time, too ! 
 
 She was sure the lady was a princess or perhaps
 
 90 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 a saint ? Only, if the latter, why had she not kept 
 her eyes in order in church ? It was perplexing. 
 
 Then another thrilling thing happened. Imelda 
 was in church one afternoon all by herself it was 
 just after Benediction, and she was allowed to trot 
 home alone, so she had stopped on to look at the 
 tabernacle and think things things that no one ever 
 heard. Not Sister Philomena, and certainly not 
 Clare or Theresa. 
 
 Suddenly she noticed, kneeling near her, a woman 
 dressed like a nurse, whom she recognised as the 
 attendant of the lady in the chair. As Imelda watched 
 her, duly thrilled by the discovery, a most extra- 
 ordinary thing happened, and kept on happening. 
 First someone came up and whispered a question in 
 the nurse's ear, received an answer, and went 
 promptly off with a beaming countenance and set up 
 a candle before Our Lady. Then someone else crossed 
 over and did exactly the same thing. The kneeling 
 woman was again interrogated, and Our Lady got an- 
 other candle. This occurred with no less than half a 
 dozen people. Imelda watched with fascinated eyes 
 and longed to know what it all meant. She crept 
 nearer to the informative woman and contrived to hear 
 the question asked by the next inquirer. She gathered 
 from it that the lady whom the nurse looked after 
 had been very dangerously ill, but that she was now 
 out of danger. She would not die, the doctor said, 
 but it was more doubtful than ever if she would ever
 
 THE LITTLE GIRL 91 
 
 be able to walk. That accounted for the chair not 
 having appeared again. Imelda throbbed with 
 excitement. There were no less than a dozen candles 
 burning now before Our Lady. People had got the 
 news, one from another, Imelda's sharp eyes had 
 marked the whole thing, and all sorts of people 
 rich people, poor people, nice people, nasty people 
 (apparently) and they all put up candles to Our 
 Lady. They were all as glad as that, that the lady 
 in the chair wasn't going to die ! 
 
 Imelda crossed over to the Lady chapel. She 
 happened to possess a penny, and she longed to put 
 up her candle with the others. She, too, felt oh, 
 ever so glad that the lady in the chair wasn't going 
 to die. But, alas ! she remembered that she had been 
 forbidden to light candles ever since she had burnt 
 the sleeve of her best frock while setting up a candle 
 on the top ring for her best friend's puppy, sick of 
 the distemper. She stood, penny in hand, contem- 
 plating the illumination wistfully when there chanced 
 to come up the Funny Father. The Funny Father 
 was an old priest who said funny sort of things. 
 Even grown-up people didn't always understand him, 
 although he never used very long words. Most 
 people loved him, but some said that he was queer. 
 Some people didn't like the Funny Father at all. 
 Imelda admired him even when he bewildered her. 
 They were great friends. 
 
 " Well," he asked of her, " are you going to give
 
 92 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 Our Lady a candle ? What do you want her to give 
 you ?" 
 
 "It's a Thank-you candle," Imelda explained. 
 "All these are thank-you candles for the lady in the 
 chair because she isn't going to die." 
 
 The Funny Father guessed at once whom Imelda 
 meant he was quite sensible like that. He listened 
 while she told him the story of the origin of the 
 illumination, and, moreover, helped her out of her 
 difficulty by sticking her candle for her in the tip- 
 top socket. 
 
 " And so you know the lady in the chair," the 
 Funny Father observed. "Lucky little you!" 
 
 " I saw her when I looked up at the Corpus Christi 
 procession," Imelda reminded him she had already 
 been to confession to the Funny Father, and he had 
 been " very funny " when she had confessed to 
 " smiling back " oh, very funny indeed ! Imelda 
 adored the Funny Father. " And, please, Father," 
 she added, " is she a Princess? Where does she 
 live, please ?" 
 
 The Father looked at her in his odd way. "Yes," 
 he said, " she's a Princess of Fairyland God's 
 Fairyland and the place where she lives is called 
 the little Kingdom of Heaven." 
 
 " And where is the little Kingdom of Heaven, 
 please?" Imelda asked. 
 
 "It varies," the Funny Father said. "Sometimes 
 it's a big house full of grand people, and sometimes
 
 THE LITTLE GIRL 93 
 
 it's a big house full of sick people, and sometimes 
 it's a little house among poor people, but whichever 
 it is, it's always the little Kingdom of Heaven." 
 
 The Funny Father was as difficult to understand 
 as usual, but Imelda had extracted one practical 
 piece of information. She had got the lady's address. 
 How lovely it would be if she could write to her and 
 tell her that she had given Our Lady a thank-you 
 candle along with the others. Imelda longed to do 
 this, she felt so convinced that the Princess would be 
 pleased, but letter-writing is a grave undertaking 
 for a seven-year-old scribe, and in this case no 
 outside aid could be solicited Sister Philomena 
 would never approve or understand nobody ever did 
 understand anything that was worth understanding 
 but the Princess of Fairyland would the strange 
 fairy-saint who had smiled at her in church. 
 
 But Sister Philomena proved to be indirectly 
 useful. The latter was in the habit of giving her 
 charges as a hand-writing exercise the words : "Suffer 
 the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them 
 not, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." Imelda 
 had written them laboriously many hundreds of 
 times, and I am sorry to say all she retained, so far 
 as sense went, was a vague idea of little children 
 suffering. The letter killed in Imelda's case, but now 
 she suddenly remembered, when faced with the task 
 of writing the lady's address, that the necessary 
 words occurred hi her copy-book exercise the little
 
 94 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 children the Kingdom of Heaven it was all there, 
 and could be copied carefuly on an envelope. The 
 message itself was simple : " Please I put up a 
 candle for you I love you." The signature was a 
 problem. The lady could not be expected to know 
 who Imelda was. A happy inspiration solved the 
 difficulty. Imleda wrote laboriusly under her 
 message the words, "The little girl who smiled back." 
 She felt triumphant. Even if by any remote chance 
 some other little girl had been naughty enough to 
 look up and catch the lady's eye, it was unthinkable 
 that she would likewise have been guilty of the 
 depravity of "smiling back." 
 
 Imelda addressed the letter to " The Lady," that 
 would be enough she couldn't spell Princess, and 
 she added "The Little Kingdom of Heaven " in her 
 best copy-book hand; and since she knew from her 
 mother's correspondence that every letter bears the 
 final direction, "London, W.," she added London, 
 W. Then there came a brilliant idea in the posting 
 of the letter. There was the usual red letter-box in 
 the street, but Imelda had also noticed a letter-box 
 in church. There was a card on it with the word 
 " Questions," and Imelda saw a lot of people post 
 their letters there. It seemed likely to be safer for 
 the Princess's letter, so Imelda popped her missive 
 in with an increased sense of security, and there the 
 Funny Father found it when he opened the box 
 after the Friday evening address to non-Catholics.
 
 THE LITTLE GIRL 95 
 
 The Funny Father was a most reliable postman. 
 He carried the letter intact to the Little Kingdom 
 of Heaven I doubt if the postman would have 
 identified it it was quite an ordinary house, and the 
 lady's room was quite simply furnished. There 
 were lots of flowers about, that was all people 
 would send them so many flowers that it was 
 difficult to say which was the lady herself, so the 
 Funny Father told someone. He was an Irishman, 
 and like Father O'Flynn, being a priest didn't stop 
 that. 
 
 The lady read Imelda's letter and heard its history. 
 She was lying on a sofa, with pains mostly every- 
 where, but she laughed merrily over the address on 
 the envelope a little disjointed cadence of shaken- 
 out laughter like the Sanctus bell, as a poet once 
 observed to the Funny Father, who replied, 
 in his queer way, " Of course, my son, it is like the 
 Sanctus bell, for it always sounds in the presence of 
 the King." That was how the Princess came to 
 laugh over Imelda's letter, with the tears standing 
 in her blue eyes. 
 
 " I must get to know Imelda," she said. " I 
 remember her quite well a little black-eyed duck of 
 a child, with a quaint little eager face. If there 
 is a procession next Sunday I'll try to go." She 
 gave a little sigh. She had hoped at the last pro- 
 cession that there might have been a miracle that 
 she might have got out of her chair and walked
 
 96 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 home. She had had a curious feeling that when Our 
 Lord passed by her strength would be given back to 
 her. Next Sunday's procession would only be a pro- 
 cession in honour of Our Lady the Healing Christ 
 would not pass her way. Still she would make the 
 effort and go, and smile at the responsive little face 
 under the disarranged veil. 
 
 ImeJda was allowed to take part in the procession 
 of Our Lady after some demur on the part of the 
 Sisters. Once more she walked between Clare and 
 Theresa, and this time she was resolute about 
 keeping her eyes in order she had promised Our 
 Lady that she would. But what if the Princess 
 was there in her chair ? How hard, how desperately 
 hard it would be not to look up. The blue-eyed 
 lady was there in her chair ! It was the first thing 
 that Imelda "glimpsed" at the far end of the church. 
 Her heart gave a wild bound. But she had solemnly 
 promised Our Lady that she would not lift her eyes 
 once if she were allowed to walk in the procession. 
 Promises must be kept. Imelda wished that she 
 hadn't promised. 
 
 When they were actually passing the place where 
 the chair stood the temptation became excruciating. 
 It was the biggest thing that Imelda had ever under- 
 gone. In the violence of the momentary struggle 
 she suddenly thought of the little Christ who could 
 see everything without looking up, and she re- 
 membered how the nuns had told her that little
 
 THE LITTLE GIRL 97 
 
 children should try and be exactly like the Child 
 Jesus. She had made herself a little prayer (Imelda 
 made up her own prayers, it was much more 
 interesting), " Little Jesus, make me 'xactly like 
 you." She prayed it now, against the temptation; 
 and then she added, with beautiful frankness, " and 
 'cause then I should see the lady without looking 
 up." 
 
 The intensity of her praying brought Imelda 
 to a complete and sudden standstill. The girl 
 behind gave her a sharp poke. Clare and Theresa 
 seized" her hands and dragged her on, but the 
 procession was disorganised for at least three 
 seconds. It was exactly like Imelda. She stumbled 
 on, dazed and benumbed with the hard lines of it all. 
 She had tried so hard, and she received such a 
 scolding. Clare and Theresa split on her to Sister. 
 It was terribly hard luck, and the lady in the chair 
 had seen it all. Strangely enough, this last thought 
 rather comforted Imelda, although she would rather 
 have shocked anyone in the world than the lady in 
 the chair. 
 
 She removed her veil tearfully and resumed her 
 hat and crept back into church. Her sisters had 
 gone on with some other girls. Imelda was in 
 no hurry to follow them. She was crying, and 
 church is by far the best place to cry in. Everyone 
 had left the church when she slipped in. No. The 
 chair was still there. Imelda's heart bounded, but, 
 
 G
 
 98 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 alack ! the chair was empty. That was strange. 
 Imelda crept into the front bench nearest to 
 the tabernacle. Then she suddenly discovered that 
 someone was in the bench already. It was the lady 
 of the chair. She was kneeling, with her eyes fixed 
 on the altar, very still, but when Imelda gave a 
 little sob she turned round and forgot all about 
 her prayers. It was then that Imelda recognised 
 her. She moved up to the child. " Why, what is 
 the matter?" she asked, her eyes big with anxiety. 
 A child hi distress was a very terrible thing to the 
 lady, late of the chair. 
 
 Then she, too, recognised Imelda. " Why," she 
 said, " you are the little girl who smiled back at me 
 last time. You weren't hi the procession to-day. I 
 looked out for you." 
 
 Imelda forgot, as the other had evidently for- 
 gotten, that it is not right to talk hi church. " I 
 was there," she said, " with my sisters, among the 
 big ones." " Ah," the lady said, " I saw them; but 
 can you tell me who the little boy was who was 
 walking between them a darling little boy 
 in a white tunic, with thick golden hair ? He 
 smiled at me, just like you did last tune, and he 
 turned round and still smiled after he had passed." 
 
 " I never saw him," Imelda said, " but I had 
 promised our Lady not to look up, and I didn't 
 not once, but " and there and then she came out 
 with the whole story, how she had been desperately
 
 THE LITTLE GIRL 99 
 
 interested in the chair because of its occupant being 
 carried about like Our Lord, and how she had looked 
 up, and how Theresa had said that the little Christ 
 could see without looking up, and how she had 
 prayed to be exactly like Him when she passed the 
 chair. She poured out the whole story, snuggled 
 against the lady's side. God had indeed given her 
 a comforter. 
 
 When she came to the part where she had suddenly 
 stood still and Thereasa had given her a push she 
 felt the arm which had stolen round her tremble, 
 and the lady gave a little gasp. As a matter of 
 fact she was recalling the little boy whom she had 
 seen. He had stood still suddenly as He smiled 
 at her, and then He had gone forward quickly. 
 
 " You were praying then," she said, " when you 
 passed me ? " 
 
 "Yes," Imelda answered. "I was praying to 
 be 'xactly like little Jesus, so (with admirable 
 candour) I might see you without looking up." 
 
 The lady loved the human touch. She laughed, 
 there in church ! the soft Sanctus-bell laugh, but she 
 was very, very serious. 
 
 " Do you know," she told Imelda, " that a wonder- 
 ful wonderful thing has happened. I have walked 
 here from my chair, and I haven't walked for 
 eighteen months ! The doctors said that I should 
 never walk again. I had told my nurse to fetch me 
 in an hour's time, but I think I shall walk home."
 
 100 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 "Oh," Imelda cried, looking at the radiant face, 
 " Our Lady must have cured you ! Or perhaps " 
 the inspiration came to her " the little boy that 
 you saw was Our Lord, only (crestfallenly) He 
 wouldn't have looked about, or smiled back." 
 
 " I don't know about that," the lady said, " but 
 we will talk about it when you come to see me." 
 
 And that was how Imelda found her way into the 
 little Kingdom of Heaven.
 
 THE BOOK OF BROTHER DONATUS 
 
 THE original fair copy of the renowned Maxims of 
 Brother Donatus is still preserved in the library 
 of the ancient Abbey of Holy Cross. It contains 
 the quaint illustrations of his contemporary, Brother 
 Adrian, with the picture of a dead sparrow lying 
 in the snow as its frontispiece. Every literary 
 person, let alone every educated Catholic, is familiar 
 of course with the Maxims. It is not so generally 
 known, however, that these once formed the third 
 section of a work on the three mystical stages, which 
 is the reason why the MS. bears the curious title 
 of Union with God. This title, as well as the 
 irrelevant illustration representing, for the most 
 part, flowers and animals and children (or is it 
 elves ?) was bestowed on it by Brother Adrian, and 
 thereby hangs a tale which it would seem might 
 be included in this collection, for there are some who 
 will have it that Brother Adrian was a mystic as 
 well as Brother Donatus. 
 
 ***** * * 
 
 Brother Adrian was engaged in sweeping the 
 corridor. When he reached the cell of Brother
 
 102 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 Donatus he stooped and took off his sandals, not 
 because this was holy ground, although Brother 
 Adrian would have been the last to dispute such 
 a suggestion, but because his sandals happened to 
 squeak, and the sound of squeaking sandals had 
 a disastrous effect on the nerves of Brother Donatus, 
 who was busy in his cell completing his treatise 
 on Illumination. Time was when Brother Adrian 
 would have deliberately rattled his broom against 
 the wainscot in order to apprise Brother Donatus 
 of his vicinity, but that was in the days when 
 Brother Donatus was Guest-master and sat in the 
 cell next the guest-parlour holding himself in readi- 
 ness to interview the visitors who abounded at the 
 Abbey, which was famous for its hospitality. When 
 Brother Adrian had the task of sweeping the corridors 
 laid on him by a vindictive and non-comprehending 
 Novice-master, and had to lay aside his palette and 
 pencils for an implement he loathed, he would make 
 a great noise with the latter outside the cell where 
 the Guest-master sat occupying his free intervals 
 with setting down his stray thoughts on his tablets, 
 and Brother Donatus would emerge and invite the 
 young novice to come in and talk to him for a 
 moment, for Brother Adrian had been his pupil in 
 the school attached to the monastry. There Brother 
 Adrian would pour out the woes of his artist soul, 
 for Nature had ordained him to wield a brush of 
 other sorts than that which had summoned the
 
 BROTHER DONATUS 103 
 
 Guest-master from his meditations, and grace was 
 only more or less successful in its substitution of 
 the besom for the camel-hair. Brother Donatus 
 would sit there, with the tablets that held his 
 vagrant musings laid aside, and listen to the other's 
 grievance until some preposterous visitor came to 
 interrupt. But Brother Adrian would have got the 
 grievance off his chest to a safe confidant, and the 
 unfeeling Novice-master might continue to inflict his 
 brutalities on a sufficiently amenable subject. The 
 young novice contracted an immense veneration for 
 Brother Donatus, as did all the people who came 
 in contact with the gentle, kindly-mannered Guest- 
 master. Foremost among these were Robin and 
 Dickon. Robin was the youngest of the alumni 
 in the school attached to the Abbey. He was but 
 six years old, and possessed privileges in accordance 
 with his tender years. Inseparable from him 
 was the big, shaggy, sheep dog, Dickon, who 
 spent all his leisure and he was a respect-worthy 
 animal who possessed working hours with the 
 child whom he adored. Dickon was also a prime 
 favourite with Brother Donatus, who was immensely 
 friendly with the brute creation. When the Guest- 
 master gave Robin a rough ride to somewhere on 
 his knee, Dickon would stand by, looking on, and 
 quite entering into the spirit of the thing. Both 
 Robin and Dickon possessed the highest opinion of 
 the Guest-master.
 
 104 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 Then there came the new arrangement. The Prior 
 chanced to discover that the things which Brother 
 Donatus scribbled down in his odd moments 
 possessed considerable literary merit, besides being 
 deeply tinged with mysticism. The Prior was 
 not a literary man, much less a mystic; they had 
 made him Superior because he was eminently a 
 man of affairs, and as shrewd as a needle in judging 
 human nature the book most suited, after all, for 
 the perusal of a Superior. Being a practical man, 
 however, he willingly accepted the suggestion that 
 Brother Donatus possesed a gift which was being 
 sadly wasted, and took tentative action at once. 
 Brother Donatus received directions to sit in the 
 Scriptorium, at the far end, near the door, and write 
 (when not otherwise occupied) something as a part 
 of his purgation a species of mortification. 
 
 So the book of Brother Donatus was duly begun 
 under holy obedience. It was to treat of the three 
 mystical stages. He arranged his ideas and set them 
 down, and the good Prior perused them and had 
 a feeling that in all probability they were very 
 good. 
 
 It was a blow to Brother Adrian not to be able 
 to seek Brother Donatus at all hours and pour out 
 his woes, but he found solace in the fact that from 
 his position in the Scriptorium (when he was 
 permitted to use his pen and paints) he could 
 watch Brother Donatus at work, with, as Brother
 
 BROTHER DONATUS 105 
 
 Adrian felt sure, the inspiration pouring into his 
 soul. 
 
 Many others, too, were beginning to realise 
 the holiness of Brother Donatus. The old, dour 
 Ostiarius, Brother Jerome, still fetched the Guest- 
 master out to parlour, but it was only to interview 
 assorted visitors, whom he admitted with increasing 
 discretion. Brother Donatus accepted these inter- 
 ruptions, for he recognised them as such nowadays, 
 as part of his purgation a species of mortification, 
 like the continual fidget of having the adoring 
 sheep's eyes of Brother Adrian fixed on him every 
 time that he chanced to look up from his work. The 
 ideas which had overflowed in the Guest-master's 
 cell came less easily in the Scriptorium, and the 
 assorted visitors noticed a wan and harassed look on 
 the patient face of their host, and many curious 
 tales (more curious often to the narrator than to 
 the listener) withered on the lips of the complainant 
 faced by the far-away look hi the eyes of the long- 
 suffering Guest-master. The rumour went abroad 
 that Brother Donatus was a man of extraordinary 
 spirituality, and the visitors readily believed it. 
 
 Purgation, the first volume of Brother Donatus' 
 work, got finished under these auspices. The Prior 
 perused it and rubbed the shining top of his shaven 
 head. The pages submitted to him by the brother 
 with a mystical trend were something outside the 
 scope of his spiritualities. They might or they
 
 106 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 might not be the work of genius. He would have 
 to show them to the Father Provincial, but mean- 
 while, practical man that he was, he was not going 
 to rob the Abbey of its chance of producing a rival 
 to the vaunted Thomas of Aquin, or to the monk 
 Thomas of Kempen, of whom the Augustinians were 
 so egregiously proud. He readily assented to the 
 very humble request of Brother Donatus that he 
 might pursue his work in the solitude of his cell. 
 He relieved him of his post as Guest-master so 
 that the complete detachment from creatures for 
 which Brother Donatus craved might be procured. 
 Illumination was to give the great message of 
 God's dimensions, of His infinity His length and 
 breadth and depth and height. This could not be 
 achieved with the tales of the world ringing in the 
 ears of the "transcriber," or with the adoring eyes of 
 Brother Adrian fixed on him in sensual expectation 
 of a supernatural thrill. All this arranged, Brother 
 Donatus set about detaching himself from the world 
 of created things with unexampled severity. He 
 seldom appeared at recreation time, for the Prior had 
 dispensed him from the obligation of taking his 
 recreation in common. Brother Adrian, who was 
 now professed, sadly missed this opportunity of 
 submitting his sketches to the Brother who had quite 
 a tolerable eye for colour. Even when Brother 
 Donatus did appear, he wore so abstracted an ah* that 
 the idle advances of his companions were repelled
 
 BROTHER DONATUS 107 
 
 the tittle-tattle of the community-room no longer 
 reached his ear, and the pictorial fancies of Brother 
 Adrian remained forlornly in the folds of the latter's 
 ample sleeve. The young monk consoled himself by 
 making elaborate drawings for the decorating of the 
 fair copy of Purgation. Death, Judgement, and Hell 
 were represented hi these with a rather sour fidelity 
 Brother Adrian possessed the touch of a realist as 
 well as the temper of an artist ! 
 
 The advance in holiness on the part of Brother 
 Donatus made nowhere a greater impression than on 
 Robin and also, I might add, on his dog, Dickon. 
 Nowadays, when the pair happened to encounter 
 Brother Donatus, on his way to the chapel, Robin 
 would glance furtively at the preoccupied face of his 
 quondam playfellow, and Dickon would carry his 
 tail sedately and remain demurely at Robin's side. 
 Robin and Dickon had got into trouble with Brother 
 Adrian for their noisy play outside the chapel, 
 inasmuch as shouting disturbed Brother Donatus at 
 his prayers. Brother Adrian had divined this in the 
 same way that he had divined the torture of the 
 squeaking sandals, for the holy monk was the last 
 one to lodge complaints. 
 
 So Brother Adrian doffed his foot-gear, and Robin 
 and Dickon mitigated the exuberance of their frolics, 
 and the book of Brother Donatus progressed yet 
 less satisfactorily than might have been expected. 
 The author prayed for ulterior light. He fasted and
 
 108 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 kept vigil until his body became worn to a shadow, 
 and the sound of the human voice and the creak of 
 the conventual sandal became intensified to a degree 
 that strained the frayed nerves of the brother to 
 snapping-point. No instrumnt of penance invented 
 by himself could have proved half so efficacious. 
 Yet the book limped and halted. Profound, scholarly, 
 mystical, it yet lacked that very quality which its 
 intended title bespoke illumination. The author 
 was bitterly conscious of the thing lacking. He 
 spent hours hi church praying for light for a direct 
 message from God that should illumine the hearts of 
 men. He wished to convey to them the size, the 
 immensity of God to show men "God's dimensions" 
 but expression eluded him. He set it down, like 
 the holy man that he was, to his own spiritual short- 
 comings, and increased his austerities accordingly. 
 It was the mere shadow of a man that Robin met 
 walking across the extern cloister garth one morning 
 when he and Dickon were pursuing their way 
 towards the Infirmary to solicit the kind offices of 
 the Brother Infirmarian for the latter. The child 
 and the dog were walking as slowly and decorously 
 as the holy man himself, for a sad misfortune had 
 overtaken Dickon, and he was limping painfully on 
 three legs. There had been an encounter with the 
 taverner's bulldog, and Dickon had come badly to 
 grief. There was a wound in one of his front paws 
 that steadily refused to heal, for all the lavings and
 
 BROTHER DONATUS 109 
 
 bandaging that had been bestowed on it. Robin was 
 overcome with grief on his companion's behalf. He 
 said prayers to the best of his abilities, which were 
 not large, that Dickon might go on four legs again, 
 for a shepherd has no use for a dog that goes on 
 three legs even a sheep would flout such an animal 
 and Robin remembered the passing of old Roger, 
 Dickon's predecessor. There had been no pension 
 for old Roger. 
 
 Robin looked at the holy man and greatly longed 
 to tell him of the peril in which his favourite stood, 
 but Brother Donatus was absorbed in thought. He 
 seemed unconscious of the presence of the pair as 
 they passed by, albeit that it was at the sober pace 
 necessitated by the condition of Dickon's paw. 
 
 A couple of days later the same thing occurred 
 with a difference. This time Robin was alone. 
 Dickon's paw had become horribly worse. He had 
 been lying on the shepherd's hearth, for the snow lay 
 on the ground outside, and when Robin had invited 
 him to come for a walk on his three available legs he 
 had simply lifted his shaggy head, and looking 
 wistfully at his best-beloved human being, had 
 wagged his tail feebly and apologetically, and 
 dropped his nose back on to the ground with a heavy, 
 doggy sigh. 
 
 Robin watched Brother Donatus walking slowly 
 across the cloister garth. The holy man was more 
 preoccupied than ever. He never so much as noticed
 
 110 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 the small boy with the tears in his eyes. If only 
 he could get Brother Donatus to say a prayer for 
 Dickon, Robin thought, even now he might be made 
 to go on four legs again. He stood in enormous awe 
 of the monk on whose knee he had oh, fearsome 
 thought ! so often enjoyed a rough ride to some- 
 where; but the case was desperate. Dickon's days 
 were numbered unless God did something; only God 
 was so far off. They said this Holy Brother had 
 learned to get nearer to Him than anyone else hi 
 the monastery so near that he was going to write 
 a book called Union with God. Robin wished he 
 could get close up to God, just for once, so that he 
 might tell -Him about Dickon. He was shy of asking 
 Brother Donatus because he was so holy he 
 probably didn't take any count of dogs nowadays ; 
 but hadn't they told him that God watched the 
 sparrows fall ? If only he could attract God's 
 attention He might listen about Dickon, perhaps He 
 was not quite so holy as Brother Donatus ! As 
 the latter approached, Robin summoned up all his 
 courage and addressed him. " Will you please pray 
 for Dickon ? " he said, plucking diffidently at the 
 sleeve of the erstwhile Guest-master " that he may 
 run on four legs again and look after the sheep." 
 
 Brother Donatus turned his eyes vaguely on the 
 small suppliant. He laid his hand abstractedly on 
 his curly head. " Yes, my child, yes," he made 
 reply, and murmured a blessing; but Robin, with his
 
 BROTHER DONATUS 111 
 
 shrewd child's instinct, was not satisfied. He was 
 certain that the holy man had been too holy to hear 
 what he had said. He went off sadly. He must do 
 his own praying, that was clear. 
 
 As for Brother Donatus, he was more preoccupied 
 than ever that morning. He had wrestled all night 
 in prayer, and the feeling was on him that at last 
 God was about to answer him to show him the 
 hidden sin that obstructed the light that was to 
 illuminate the concluding pages of the book which 
 lay unfinished on his desk awaiting the final inspira- 
 tion that was to give life to the foregoing pages. 
 He had a premonition that the answer was coming 
 that he was at last about to learn "God's dimensions" ; 
 and that once learned, how gladly would he do lifer- 
 long penance for the secret sin which had kept out 
 the illuminating radiance the light which was also 
 life. 
 
 He made his way to the chapel with bent head and 
 clasped hands. There he threw himself on his knees 
 and fell into a state of prayer that brought every 
 fibre of his ill-used nervous system into tense activity. 
 He prayed that God would reveal Himself in His 
 true dimensions in His breadth and height; that 
 men might learn to know and love Him, though 
 that revelation might disclose his own unutterable 
 sin in all its immensity and horror. It was a big 
 prayer. 
 
 The silence of the chapel became intensified. The 
 very angels in the sanctuary appeared to be holding
 
 112 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 their breath and listening for the answer. Then, 
 as Brother Donatus knelt with dim, unseeing eyes, 
 and fiercely interlaced hands, the silence was broken. 
 From outside there came the shrill note of a child's 
 voice calling a name in a child's insistent way. It 
 smote like a lash across every nerve in the body of the 
 praying man. The agony of it ran through his veins. 
 The cry was repeated. The child was speaking to 
 somebody, shouting out something about his dog. 
 The shrill, reiterated call smote like hammer-blows 
 on the brain of Brother Donatus. He could have 
 screamed with the physical anguish of it. And it 
 was at that moment that the mystical experience 
 recounted in the narrative of Brother Adrian in his 
 Life of Brother Donatus took place. Brother Adrian 
 was no mystic experimentally, that is and his 
 description of what actually occurred is vague and 
 incoherent, and tallies with none of the mystical 
 experiences recorded by the saints. Brother Donatus 
 had been through all these. He had struggled with 
 doubts as to the very existence of God, and had 
 experienced the desolation in which a soul believes 
 itself to have been abandoned by God. The feeling 
 that God had turned away, and would not listen 
 had been one of the forms of trial that had come to 
 him many times, but the strange and terrible thing 
 that entered his soul now, at this moment, with an 
 awful suddenness, taking him unawares, was not 
 that God would not, but that He could not listen.
 
 BROTHER DONATUS 113 
 
 His prayer was unheard, not because God had no 
 existence with that thesis Brother Donatus could 
 grapple recognising its diabolical origin, but because 
 He possessed an existence which was subject to 
 limitations. He was not listening now because He 
 was otherwise occupied. The Infinite One had become 
 in some way the creature of circumstance. The 
 unmeasured, the unencompassed Being with whose 
 infinitely extended dimensions Brother Donatus had 
 been occupied through months of prayer and fasting 
 was at that moment devoid of His attribute of 
 omnipresence. And the horror of the thing lay in 
 the fact that in it Brother Donatus recognised 
 no diabolic suggestion. He accepted it without 
 question as a divine revelation or confession ! He 
 remained on his knees, his whole being dried up 
 
 swallowed in the abyss Then he rose to his 
 
 feet and felt his way out of the chapel. Outside he 
 caught sight of Robin, and in the way that trifles 
 have of intruding themselves at gigantic moments, 
 he remembered that he had promised the boy to say 
 a prayer for his dog. He remembered the animal 
 had had its front leg crushed. The child was standing 
 hi the middle of the garth looking at something that 
 lay on the ground at his feet on the thin sprinkling 
 of snow. He glanced up at the monk as the latter 
 approached. " Have you been talking to God?" he 
 asked. There was a flushed, eager look on his face, 
 and he had lost his shyness. 
 
 II
 
 114 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 '* Yes, but God didn't hear," the holy man 
 answered, propounding the amazing heresy without 
 a conscious qualm only with an indescribable 
 sorrow in his tone. 
 
 Robin was not hi the least shocked, or even 
 surprised. " No," he said. " He wouldn't. He 
 was out here watching the sparrow fall." He 
 pointed to a little dark patch on the snow. It was 
 a poor little pathetic bundle of feathers, a dead 
 sparrow, perished of cold and hunger. " I knew 
 He'd be watching it," Robin said, " because Jesus 
 Christ says that God watches the sparrows fall, so I 
 called out to Him to make Dickon run on four legs 
 again. I knew. He was there, you see, and 
 watching." 
 
 Brother Donatus was silent. There was sounding 
 in his ears the echo of that sharp reiterated cry that 
 had racked his body hi every nerve. He caught the 
 name in the echo. Robin had not been calling to a 
 playfellow. "God! God!" he heard the shrill 
 child's voice hi his ears. And he recalled, too, the 
 rest : " Make Dickon run on four legs, please 
 God! God!" 
 
 And it was at that moment that the great answer 
 had come to his prayer for he had indeed been 
 answered. He had learned his lesson. 
 
 He stooped down and picked up the little lifeless 
 body, scarcely heavier than its feather covering, and 
 at the sight of it so great a sorrow overwhelmed the
 
 BROTHER DONATUS 115 
 
 soul of Brother Donatus that he seemed to forget 
 everything else in the contemplation of the tragedy 
 in which all the tragedies of life and death appeared 
 at that moment to be encompassed. His heart was 
 wrung with a pang of pity that pierced it through 
 and through. 
 
 Then the boy suddenly gave another shout a 
 shrill cry of delight this time. Brother Donatus 
 turned from the contemplation of the pitiful little 
 symbol of helpless suffering, with its closed eyes and 
 drooping head. The child had been joined by his 
 dog, and the pair were rolling together in the snow, 
 locked in a tight embrace. 
 
 Brother Donatus looked beyond them. In the 
 snow, from the door of the shepherd's hut, through 
 the open gate, there was the track of canine foot- 
 prints, the firm, even impression of four feet. 
 Robin's prayer had been answered : Dickon was 
 running on four legs. 
 
 Up in the dortor Brother Adrian was looking after 
 the wants of crusty old Brother Jerome, who was 
 sick. He looked out of the window at the end of the 
 ward where he was standing and called to the other. 
 " See, Brother ! There is Brother Donatus out 
 yonder, and surely he is in ecstasy, for he is lifted 
 right up off his feet. He has surely seen a holy 
 vision!" 
 
 Brother Jerome looked out of the window at his 
 end of the dortor. It commanded a different aspect.
 
 116 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 " He hath seen the child playing with his dog," he 
 retorted drily. "Call you that a holy vision?" 
 
 ** I thought he was in ecstasy," Brother Adrian 
 answered, deeply disappointed, " for his face was 
 shining with the joy of it like light itself. 'Tis 
 passing strange." 
 
 That same evening the Prior met Brother Donatus 
 returning from the chapel. There was a curious 
 light glinting in his eyes. The Prior scrutinised him 
 keenly. He had seen a smilar light in the human 
 eye before there had been brothers who had gone 
 off their heads in the Abbey, and Brother Donatus 
 had been working his brain to the snapping-point. 
 His austerities had been severe too. Neurosis had 
 not, indeed, been invented in those days, but the 
 shrewd Prior knew in which way madness lies. The 
 look on the Brother's face however was of pure joy. 
 
 " Well, Brother," his Superior said, " hast thou 
 been saying a Te Deum ?" 
 
 " Yea, verily," Brother Donatus replied. His 
 hands were clasped and the strange light shot out 
 of his eyes. 
 
 " Ah, thou hast been making thanksgiving that 
 Illumination is at length completed?" the Prior 
 suggested. 
 
 " Nay," Brother Donatus replied, " it is for this 
 that Dickon, the sheep dog, runs once again on four 
 legs." 
 
 The Prior pulled his lips together. It was as he
 
 BROTHER DONATUS 117 
 
 suspected. The only question was, had Brother 
 Donatus overstrained his intellect in the perusal of 
 his task, or had his wits been out of joint all along ? 
 It was disappointing, for he had hoped for great 
 things from the book of Brother Donatus. 
 
 He sent for the MS. of Illumination and turned 
 the leaves over, wondering if its " mystical trend " 
 were but the outcome of a deranged mind. Then he 
 came on a loose scrap of paper on which Brother 
 Donatus had scribbled a rough note. It ran as 
 follows : " He surely hath failed to apprehend the 
 comprehensiveness of God, nor hath he compassed 
 Him in all His aspects and dimensions who hath not 
 realised that Almighty God not only created the 
 kitten but also taught it to play with its tail." 
 
 That settled the matter for the Prior. He was 
 a man of infinite tact and resource and real kindli- 
 ness of heart. He could still find a place for the 
 afflicted Brother so that he should not realise his 
 infirmity. Old Brother Jerome, the Ostiarius, was 
 past work ; Brother Donatus could take his place and 
 still imagine himself Guest-master although another 
 held that position. 
 
 So Brother Donatus retired from his literary work 
 to take up the post of Door-keeper. He delighted in 
 his new task, thanking the Prior with tears in his 
 eyes for the privelege. The only one who lamented 
 the change was Brother Adrian, for he was illumin- 
 ating the book, and the non-appearance of the third
 
 118 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 volume would surely spoil the whole. The third 
 volume indeed never got written, and the way in 
 which Brother Adrian overcame the difficulty is 
 typical of the naive age in which he lived. He made 
 a careful collection of all the quaint and wise sayings 
 of the Brother door-keeper, made either to himself or 
 in his hearing to those who came to the grille or to 
 Robin, it might be, for some of the most renowned of 
 the " Maxims ): are simple enough to have been 
 addressed to a child and these he made into a book 
 to which he gave the fortuitous title of Union with 
 God. And so the book of Brother Donatus 1 got 
 completed; and in the course of time it was read, 
 and the whole highly approved of, by the Father 
 Provincial, who was a man of deep learning and 
 piety, and a mighty theologian. But of the three 
 volumes one only has come down to posterity, and 
 that is the one which is known as The Maccims of 
 Brother Donatus, but to which Brother Adrian (who 
 painted the artless picture of a dead sparrow on its 
 frontispiece) gave the title of Union with God.
 
 THE CONVERSION OF OLD 
 NURSE 
 
 RONALD ELWIN sat up suddenly in bed. 
 
 "Nurse!" he cried, and a dainty white-capped 
 lady with the red cross on her apron front stepped 
 forward. The dying man turned his eyes on her. 
 " No," he said, " not you, I want Nurse). My head 
 is bad. She'll sit on my chair and I'll lie on the 
 hearthrug with my head in her lap she'll stroke 
 it that does it good. Ah, God ! " 
 
 "It's his old nurse," the sister explained to the 
 attendant doctor. " He told me about her. She was 
 a sort of mother to him. Poor fellow ! " 
 
 As he lay there the Roman Catholic chaplain 
 passed through the ward. He had been administer- 
 ing the last sacraments to one of his flock. He 
 looked across sympathetically at the unconscious 
 man, breathing away his last moments on earth, 
 alive, yet not alive. He knew him well a dear, 
 charming fellow. He remembered something he 
 had said once : "I expect your religion is well 
 worth studying."
 
 120 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 " Then why not study it ? " had been the quick 
 response. A shrug of the shoulders. "I'm such 
 a lazy chap. I never could study. Old Nurse used 
 to do my sums for me when I was a tiny kid 
 an awful swot it must have been for her, poor old 
 dear ! " " But no one can study religion for you," 
 the padre had answered " not even old Nurse ! " 
 He remembered it so well. Poor El win ! He had 
 got struck down in his first engagement. There had 
 been none of the tedious discipline of the trenches 
 for him. It consoled the priest to think that he 
 would carry before the judgment seat of God the 
 plea that he had died for his country. 
 
 A few hours later the sick man opened his eyes, 
 "Thanks, Nurse!" he said, and then closed them 
 
 again for ever. 
 
 ***** * * 
 
 Miss Hannah Finnigan occupied a room in a poor 
 district on the outskirts of London. She was an 
 elderly lady, and she enjoyed the old-age pension, 
 plus an equal sfum kindly added by her late 
 employer, Colonel Elwin, to whose children she 
 had acted as nurse for very many years. While 
 Ronald was in England her resources had been 
 augmented by an occasional gift. Ronald kept up 
 with his old nurse and came to see her periodically. 
 They were great pals, to use his own expression. 
 Sometimes he would bring a bird, or a pound of tea, 
 or, it might be we will be quite frank a bottle
 
 CONVERSION OF OLD NURSE 121 
 
 of Irish whiskey. Hannah Finnigan had been retired 
 from active service in Colonel Elwin's family when 
 Ronny was a biggish schoolboy, on the occasion 
 of the Colonel's second marriage, the new Mrs El win 
 disapproving of Hannah's position and influence with 
 her step-family. "A common, ignorant woman," she 
 termed her, and the description was perfectly accur- 
 ate. Hannah Finnigan was of unnecessarily humble 
 origin, even for a nurse, who may, and should be, 
 quite a superior person, nor was she of the order of 
 intelligence that improves on a poor education. The 
 Colonel's late lady had been a gay, butterfly-like 
 person, and she had deliberately chosen Hannah as a 
 nurse for her babies for the reason that she was 
 not likely to feed them up with religion. The 
 Colonel himself had suffered from a Calvinistic nurse 
 hi his childhood, and, being a kindly and humane 
 man, he concurred in the selection of Hannah, whose 
 character, admirable in all other respects, contained 
 the item that Hannah Finnigan did not take as 
 kindly as she should do to church-going. The 
 Colonel's lady absorbed this piece of information, 
 and hastily secured Hannah Finnigan, in spite of her 
 homeliness of mind and person. 
 
 Hannah became established in the family, and on 
 the death of Mrs Elwin brought up the motherless 
 boys and girls, pouring on them all the devotion 
 of her warm Irish heart. But Ronny was her 
 favourite. Lazy, loving Ronny-boy, with a strain
 
 122 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 of " naughtiness " in him that responded to the part 
 of Hannah that had, or should have, gone against 
 her in her character. Ronny loved fairy tales, and 
 Hannah loved telling them. Harold austere, 
 industrious Harold who had later gone into the 
 Anglican ministry and become a Canon at five-and 
 thirty, had held, from the age of five, that fairy tales 
 were untrue, but Ronny had wistfully hoped that 
 things might happen like fairy tales, and so did 
 Nurse. They were great friends and confidants 
 Nurse and Ronald. 
 
 It was the coming of the second Mrs Elwin that 
 upset Hannah's reign. The new mother was frankly 
 shocked at the theological attitude of the person 
 placed in charge of the tender and receptive minds 
 of her step-children. Born of a mother hailing from 
 the south of Ireland, who retained, though married 
 to a Protestant husband, and lapsed from her own 
 religion, many memories of her youth, Hannah had 
 acquired a curious medley of folk-lore and other 
 things among which her imagination ran riot. 
 Angels and fairies were on an equal footing to her. 
 The new Mrs Elwin was horrified to find Hannah 
 moulding the sensitive minds of her charges with 
 such medleys as the legend of the fairy changeling, 
 and of the infants who escaped this fate by being 
 born at midnight on Christmas Eve. Banshees and 
 saints, mercifully not biblical saints, were mentioned 
 in the same breath. Hannah was obviously a totally
 
 CONVERSION OF OLD NURSE 123 
 
 unfit person to be in contact with young people. 
 So the Colonel was persuaded to " retire her." It 
 was Ronny lazy Ronny, forsooth ! who raised a 
 revolt against the sentence on old Nurse but the new 
 Mrs El win had her way, and Ronny was sent to bed, 
 and old Nurse retired into private life with ten 
 shillings a week, and the promise of needlework 
 to augment her income. 
 
 It nearly broke old Nurse's heart to leave the 
 children, but most of all Ronny. But Ronny didn't 
 forget her. He was her boy still. He came to 
 see her hi the holidays, and when he had one of 
 his headaches he would still lie on her shabby 
 hearthrug and let her stroke his head as it lay in 
 her lap. He would tell her stories of the laughable 
 and diverting things that sometimes occurred during 
 school chapel. Hannah knew that it was her 
 omission to correct Ronny when he did these 
 indecorous things that had made her an unsuitable 
 person to be with the young, but she listened, and 
 smiled guiltily at Ronny 's story of the Dean tipping 
 his chair backward during the Bishop's long sermon, 
 and suddenly going head over heels. Nurse, in 
 her dreadful pagan way, sympathised with Ronny's 
 boredom. 
 
 "It's just all so stiff," she agreed, "church is. 
 Yet I've heard my mother say as how she used to 
 love church better than anything in the world when 
 she was a girl." There was a wistful look when
 
 124 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 Hannah said this. "Perhaps," she added "there are 
 churches somewhere that are nice. I'd like to find one 
 of 'em, Ronny-boy, that I would, but I never have." 
 
 It was obviously not the way to talk to a child 
 already addicted to taking live stag-beetles to church 
 to exercise during prayer-time. The second Mrs 
 Elwin was certainly justified in her action. 
 
 Then Ronald went to Sandhurst. 
 
 " Nurse, you old sinner," he said to her one day, 
 " don't you ever go to church?" 
 
 " I go sometimes, Ronny," Hannah replied. (It 
 was one of the new Mrs El win's grievances that 
 she addressed her " children " without a respectful 
 prefix.) " But I don't make head nor tail of it." 
 
 "You disreputable old woman !" Ronald answered, 
 " no wonder my revered step-mother gave you the 
 boot." 
 
 Hannah never saw a joke that was why Ronald 
 delighted to chaff her. 
 
 " My mother loved her religion," she mused, "till 
 she got with father. I daresay it's all right some- 
 where," she sighed wistfully. 
 
 " Now," Ronny went on, hi the same vein, " if 
 only you were pious, Nurse, you could go to church 
 for me like you used to do my sums. How I 
 used to sweat you, selfish little devil that I was ! 
 But I believe you're right, Nursey. It's all right 
 somewhere, only we haven't got hold of it. (He had 
 changed his tone.) I believe we were nearest to
 
 CONVERSION OF OLD NURSE 125 
 
 it when you told me the fairy tales of the bog-folk 
 and their little people. Do you remember the 
 changelings, and the song about the Christ-child 
 protecting the babies born on Christmas night? 
 
 " Oh, the starry skies of blue ! 
 Oh, the midnight skies of blue ! 
 Mary Queen will guard my baby, 
 Christ was born at midnight, too!"* 
 
 He sang it softly. "At any rate," he said, "that had 
 more of the supernatural hi it than our catechism 
 at school. We got up against God we did, really 
 I expect it's all to be found somewhere, and if I 
 wasn't a lazy devil I'd hunt it out it's probably the 
 only thing worth knowing." He was intensely 
 serious now, so of course old Nurse began to smile 
 and look for the joke. Old dear ! She was so non- 
 understanding, up to a certain point, and after that 
 all-understanding from the instinct that is sometimes 
 accorded to common and ignorant people who 
 greatly love. 
 
 Then she gave up looking for the joke and 
 understood. 
 
 Soon after the War began Ronald's regiment was 
 ordered to the front, and a terrible season of sus- 
 pence started for poor Hannah. The news came early 
 in December. The clergyman of the parish in which 
 Hannah lived was a kind old man. He had heard 
 
 *The refrain of a poem in the Ave Maria.
 
 126 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 from Hannah that she had been nurse in Colonel 
 Elwin's family, and when he saw Ronald's death 
 recorded in the casualty lists he called on Miss 
 Finnigan purposely to offer his condolences a very 
 understanding act of Christian courtesy, by the way. 
 He did his best to comfort the stricken woman, who 
 had been a mother to the motherless boy. He 
 tried texts. He always found them efficacious in 
 these cases. 
 
 " He is not dead," he reminded Hannah, gently, 
 "but sleeping." 
 
 But old Nurse shook her head. " He never was 
 one for sleep," she said, with conviction. " He 
 would wake up at five in the morning when he was 
 a little chap sleeping in my room, and then there 
 was no peace till I let him get up. No, sir, he 
 wouldn't be sleeping." 
 
 The old parson tried another text. " You must 
 remember," he said, " the words, * Blessed are the 
 dead who die in the Lord for they shall rest from 
 their labours.' ' 
 
 But Hannah's grief was unsolaced. " He never 
 laboured," she answered. " Master Ronny was 
 always one to amuse himself bless him ! he's got 
 no labours to rest from. He just had a good tune, 
 thank the Lord!" 
 
 The old clergyman was a tiny bit horrified. Miss 
 Finnigan was not the usual type of defiant heathen, 
 frequent enough to be met with. He was somewhat
 
 CONVERSION OF OLD NURSE 127 
 
 at a loss how to treat her. " Well, he's having a 
 very blessed time now in Heaven, with the saints," 
 hje observed, ignoring the previous slumbrous 
 hypothesis. But Miss Finnigan shook her head for 
 a second tune. 
 
 " Ronny had his faults," she said. " He was no 
 saint, bless him ! There are many things he had to 
 learn. ' You'll learn all about that, Ronny,' I used 
 to say to him, * when you've had your bit o' trouble' 
 but he never had his bit o' trouble " 
 
 "I expect you fenced him off from it," the pastor 
 observed shrewdly, and Hannah liked him for that 
 comment. 
 
 " I always helped him out of his scrapes," she 
 answered, warming towards her would-be comforter. 
 " Oh, sir, if only I could help him still ! He seems 
 so gone from me when I can't help him. When he 
 was there, fighting, I was able to make him socks 
 and the like. Madam, Mrs Elwin that is, wrote to 
 me when she heard, that knitted belts was wrong, 
 'cause they harboured the creatures, but I didn't 
 mind. I'd worked for him, God bless him ! and I 
 know he wouldn't clean his horse down with the 
 socks his old Nurse sent him. But now I can't do 
 nothing to help him my boy, my Ronny!" 
 
 The old parson left her to have her cry out, after 
 telling her of the Memorial Service that was to be 
 held hi Ronald's honour in the fashionable church 
 attended by his family.
 
 128 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 Old Nurse went to the Memorial Service. There 
 was beautiful music, and an address in which 
 Ronny's virtues were recounted his courtesy in 
 thanking his nurse with his last breath was alluded 
 to. " Thanks, Nurse," had been his last words. It 
 was a beautiful address, full of allusion to the grief 
 of the survivors that usually appeals to the bereaved. 
 It failed to comfort old Nurse. She was not 
 thinking of herself, she was thinking of Ronny. 
 Ronny must be wanting her help, or he would no 
 longer be Ronny an annihilating thought ! She 
 had always been able to help Ronny. Even when 
 he was in India she had looked after Vic, his ancient 
 terrier, just as she had taken over his surreptitious 
 pets after the holidays when he was a school-boy, 
 Vic, released from his infirmities, slept (one might 
 apply the term to him, poor brute !) in her back 
 garden, buried with her own hands. Distance had 
 never cut Ronald off from his old Nurse. There was 
 a hymn at the end of the service beginning with the 
 words, "Who are these like stars appearing?" but 
 poor old Nurse was convinced that, whoever they 
 were, Ronny wasn't among them, appearing like a 
 star in a dazzling white robe. It carried no convic- 
 tion to her sore heart, albeit that Ronny was a hero 
 who had died for his country. The poor take 
 sacrifice more as a matter of course than do the rich. 
 To Hannah it seemed that dying for one's country 
 couldn't change careless, faulty, happy-go-lucky
 
 CONVERSION OF OLD NURSE 129 
 
 Ronny into a starry being like those alluded to in 
 the hymn. Old Nurse left the chruch with the old 
 wistful feeling that something was to be found 
 somewhere. Ronald had felt like that, too. Church 
 had always been a disappointment to him. In his 
 heart he expected something from church. On her 
 way home she passed an open door. It led into 
 another kind of church to that which Nurse had 
 just left. A little stuffy building it was. Old Nurse 
 turned in to have a look round, and a rest. It was 
 a curious place. She guessed shrewdly from the 
 number of painted idols about that it was a papistical 
 place of worship. Inside the door, just over a basin 
 of very soiled water, were pinned a number of black- 
 edged cards, with curling corners, some of them 
 yellow with age, others quite new. One of the 
 latter caught Hannah's eye. Printed at the top were 
 the words, " Jesu, mercy !" and below, in large type 
 visible to Hannah's eyes, unspectacled as she was, 
 the words : "Of your charity pray for the soul of 
 
 Michael Leary, of the Fusiliers, who was killed 
 
 in action, November, the , 1914." Then there 
 
 followed a series of sentences printed in small type. 
 Old Nurse had her spectacles in her pocket. She 
 got them out and proceeded to read the small print. 
 It didn't get her much for'arder, but it made her 
 exceedingly curious. There were printed a succession 
 of ejaculations and short prayers, and under each 
 was the cryptic statement " 100 days ind." 
 
 l
 
 180 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 Hannah, with swift instinct, connected these 
 mystic phrases with the soul of Michael Leary, who 
 was, in charity, to be prayed for. He was a 
 soldier, like her boy. Why could not her boy 
 Ronny be prayed for likewise, and this spell 
 uttered over him? Of course, the words formed 
 some sort of spell. 
 
 A smallish boy appeared on the -scene at that 
 moment. 
 
 Somehow he reminded her of Ronald in his youth. 
 " Sonny," she said, beckoning to him, "can you tell 
 me what that means?" 
 
 The boy was in the act of putting on his cap. 
 He removed it again, and scratched his head. This 
 was a facer ! Perhaps he was not the first Catholic 
 to be embarrassed by a request from an outsider to 
 explain the doctrine of Indulgences off-hand. He 
 formulated his answer hi his mind he was a very 
 intelligent little boy. " It means," he said, " that 
 he's (indicating Michael Leary) dead, and you says 
 them prayers for him to get 'is soul * light and 
 refreshment.' ' 
 
 " And what might fifty days ind. mean ?" the 
 inquirer asked. 
 
 The smallish boy began to grow hot. He had a 
 vague recollection of an instruction in which a warn- 
 ing had been given against a wrong explanation. 
 Being an intelligent lad he grappled the point 
 admirably. " It means," he said valiantly, " that if 
 you pray them prayers for 'im (he made a smudge
 
 CONVERSION OF OLD NURSE 181 
 
 with his finger on the name of Michael Leary) you 
 do 'im as much good as if he 'ad behaved extra well 
 for a hundred days, maybe." 
 
 He was, I think, justifiably pleased with himself 
 and took heart to enlarge on the subject. " You 
 see," he said, " the dead can't help theirselves, so 
 we has to help them instead. The dead is as 'elpless 
 as babies, so we 'as to 'elp them by praying for 
 them see ?" 
 
 " As helpless as babies, so we have to help them." 
 Old Nurse listened to the words as though to 
 exquisite music. 
 
 " And could you help him if you said those 
 prayers ?" she asked of her informer. 
 
 "Why yes," was the answer. " I knows 'em all 
 by heart, too." 
 
 Old Nurse deliberated. " Could you say them 
 for anyone?" she further inquired. 
 
 The smallish boy was no bigot. " Yes," he 
 answered. "Anyone dead." His theology was 
 excellent, on the whole. 
 
 " Could you," old Nurse said, after a moment or 
 two, " could you say 'em every day for a week for 
 someone called Ronald if I were to give you a penny 
 for doing it ?" 
 
 The nod was quite emphatic, and forthwith the 
 bargain was made. Walter Stanislaus Filson, which 
 he told her was his name, in full, agreed to say the 
 indulgenced prayers every day for a week, at the
 
 182 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 end of which time Miss Finnigan would meet him 
 at the church door and pay him the sum of one 
 penny. 
 
 Old Nurse left the stuffy little sanctuary in a 
 state of guilty triumph. She had done something 
 for her boy. She felt sure it was something naughty 
 this dealings with charms and magic words yet 
 it was a wonderful comfort, and perhaps God would 
 not be so hard on her as the second Mrs El win. At 
 the end of the week she paid Walter Stanislaus his 
 stipend, and they entered upon a permanent 
 arrangement. 
 
 Old Nurse would go and sit sometimes in the 
 church where Ronny was being prayed for. She 
 felt a queer sort of interest in it, and wondered what 
 all the strange things meant. At the end of a 
 month, however, the contract with Walter Stanislaus 
 was brought to a close. The latter possessed a 
 remarkably tender conscience. One day he was 
 overtaken by a scruple. His teacher happened to be 
 giving a lesson on the Reformation, and mentioned 
 that the charge of having told people that an 
 indulgence could be bought with money had been 
 brought by the " reformers " against the Pope. 
 Walter Stanislaus became filled with vague appre- 
 hensions as to the legitimacy of his weekly penny. 
 The sin of simony loomed large before him. Like a 
 sensible lad he carried his scruple to the priest in the 
 confessional. " A lady had given him a penny to
 
 CONVERSION OF OLD NURSE 188 
 
 say indulgenced prayers for her. Had he been 
 wicked when he took it ?" 
 
 The priest smiled to himself behind the perforated 
 screen. He did not enter into the theology of the 
 case Mass stipends, alms given to a convent in 
 support of a praying Sister, etc. He simply said : 
 "Well, if I were you, I'd tell the old lady to 
 put her penny in the purgatory box, and if she 
 wants to know what that means, she had better 
 come and ask me; and don't worry, you've done no 
 harm." 
 
 So Walter Stanislaus forewent his stipend, and 
 told old Nurse what the priest had said, and the 
 episode ended. 
 
 But old Nurse was not to be baulked so easily. 
 A precious opportunity of helping Ronny was not to 
 be given up lightly. A great idea occurred to her one 
 day when she happened to be passing a stationer's 
 shop. In the window was a specimen black-edged 
 card, similar to those on the church door. She 
 marched in and purchased a packet, and when the 
 lady-from-the-church called next Miss Finnigan had 
 a favour to ask of her. The lady-from-the-church 
 was an accomplished pen woman. She printed out 
 all the tea-meeting tickets with her own hands ! 
 Miss Finnigan asked her if she would be so kind as 
 to print her out something on a card. The lady was 
 more than willing, and Hannah produced her black- 
 edged card.
 
 184 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 "What shall I write?" the young lady asked, 
 with the pen poised in the air. 
 
 " Write here," Hannah said, indicating the spot, 
 " * Jesu mercy !' 
 
 The young lady looked slightly embarrassed. She 
 was not hi the habit of approaching religion so 
 directly. It was like the dissenters. She seldom got 
 nearer the supernatural than a reference to even-song. 
 This was really rather indecent. In Miss Finnigan's 
 parlour on a week-day ! She wrote it, however. 
 " Now," Hannah said, " please write under it, ' Of 
 your charity pray for the soul of Ronald Elwin.' ' 
 
 The young-lady-from-the-church dropped the pen. 
 "But, Miss Finnigan," she cried, "you shouldn't say 
 such things ! I can't write that. I'm sure the Vicar 
 wouldn't like it!" 
 
 Hannah stood rebuked. She was not surprised 
 to find out that this new comfort was a bit of the 
 depravity that was hi her nature, and had been hi 
 Ronny's too. The same that had made her unfit to 
 bring up Mrs El win's children. She might have 
 known that this way of helping a Ronald who still 
 existed somewhere, very much himself, would be 
 "naughtiness." Ah, well! the thought of surrep- 
 titiously putting up a card for Ronny at the door of 
 the Popish church would have to be given up. 
 
 But old Nurse hadn't been beaten. 
 
 She had taken to attending services at the church 
 where they prayed for the dead men. She didn't
 
 CONVERSION OF OLD NURSE 135 
 
 understand anything, but she was conscious of what 
 a wistful outsider, a poet, has called 
 
 " The strange unearthly passion, 
 The mystery of worship." 
 
 Hannah was moved by the strange unearthly 
 passion as she knelt before the smoke-dimmed 
 sanctuary and heard the De Profundis recited (in 
 the vernacular) for those fallen in action. She had 
 no desire to learn more. She was quite satisfied to 
 peep into the strange country, so like the fairyland 
 of the tales that Ronny had loved. He would have 
 loved this kind of worship. She felt sure he would 
 not have laughed at it nor been bored to wickedness. 
 He would doubtless have called her a " wicked old 
 sinner" for going there, but he would have loved it 
 
 all the same. 
 
 She came to associate church-going with Ronny, 
 on account of the prayers for the soldiers, living and 
 dead. One day it was given out that a plenary 
 indulgence applicable to the souls in Purgatory could 
 be obtained by visiting the church of a certain religi- 
 ous Order in the neighbourhood. The indulgence 
 could be gained on three occasions in the year, of 
 which this was one. Old Nurse pricked up her ears. 
 That sounded simple visiting a church. She was 
 diffident about reciting prayers, but any heathen 
 could visit a church she could sit there all day, if 
 need be, to make sure. Still ignorant of the most
 
 186 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 elementary truths of Christianity, she had acquired 
 an idea of the meaning of a plenary indulgence. It 
 meant complete refreshment for the soul to whom 
 it was applied. Hannah had salvaged much infor- 
 mation on the subject of the holy souls and their 
 condition from the bewildering sea of words that 
 flowed from the pulpit. She knew now that Ronald 
 might require rest from the strenuous labours of 
 purgation. " Blessed are the dead that die in the 
 Lord, for they shall rest from their labours." 
 
 The services of Walter Stanislaus were again 
 requisitioned. He was offered the sum of twopence 
 to guide Miss Finnigan to the church where the 
 indulgence was to be gained. Hannah had, to use 
 her expression, gone to pieces since the death of 
 Ronald. She was very slow and feeble nowadays. 
 Walter Stanislaus had no scruples on this occasion, 
 and he conducted her at a brisk pace to a church 
 some distance off. Old Nurse reached her bourn 
 breathless and fagged out. Then Walter Stanislaus 
 put the question to her. "What are you going to do 
 in church?" 
 
 " I'm going to gain the indulgence," Hannah re- 
 plied with shining eyes. 
 
 "You can't," Walter Stanislaus replied tersely. 
 " You have to be a Catholic to gain an indulgence. 
 You have to go to Confession and Communion." 
 
 "You might have told me that sooner," the poor 
 old soul answered.
 
 CONVERSION OF OLD NURSE 137 
 
 She crept into the church to rest her weary old 
 body. Walter Stanislaus regarded his twopence, 
 paid hi advance, but I regret to say he had no 
 conscience on this occasion. He had discreetly 
 suppressed his curiosity as to Hannah's intentions 
 until the twopence was earned. 
 
 Old Nurse sat quite still, gazing at the lighted 
 altar (there was Exposition) until she felt better. 
 Then she made up her mind what was to be done, 
 Walter had told her on a former occasion that the 
 priest had invited her to go and see him. She 
 got out of her seat. The peace and quietness of 
 the place, where the wonder centred in the White 
 Object that she had been regarding, had refreshed 
 her. She toiled back to the other church, and, knock- 
 ing at the Presbytery door, asked to see the priest. 
 She was dog-tired, but there was no tune to be lost. 
 
 "What can I do for you, my friend?" the priest 
 asked. 
 
 " I want to be made a Catholic," Hannah said. 
 
 The shrewd old cleric scrutinised her. 
 
 "Why?" he asked, laconically. There were 
 blankets and bread tickets about and elderly women 
 do not, as a rule, want to be made Catholics 1 so 
 abruptly. 
 
 "Because Catholics pray for the dead," Hannah 
 answered, with corresponding crispness. 
 
 It was a sufficiently good answer, but the priest 
 still demurred. A sentimental emotion is not lasting
 
 138 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 enough to build a confession of faith upon. The 
 priest asked Hannah many questions of a searching 
 nature. Her sincerity impressed him, on the whole. 
 Her disappointment at finding that she could not be 
 received on the spot was intense, but there was a 
 suspicion of now or never about her attitude that 
 again put the priest, with the soup and blankets in 
 his mind, on his guard. As a matter of fact, Hannah 
 when she found that there was no possibility of her 
 becoming a Catholic there and then, was fain to 
 give up the idea of " qualifying " since it would be 
 too late. Then she remembered that the indulgence 
 was to be obtained three times a year. She might 
 become a Catholic in time for the next occasion, 
 which would only be a few months off. So the priest 
 discovered that the inquirer was willing to be 
 instructed. She was still an enigma to him. She 
 appeared to possess no inkling of the religion that 
 she desired to embrace. She had no Catholic friends 
 nothing to draw her except that the Church 
 prayed for the dead. 
 
 At last the Reverend Father referred her to the 
 community of nuns who devoted themselves to the 
 instruction of converts. He warned the Sisters of 
 the suspicion of loaves and fishes in connection with 
 the would-be convert, and instructed them to go 
 very slowly and cautiously with Hannah Finnigan. 
 The nuns were as shrewd as the priest, so it came 
 about that all the chaff of a loaves-and-fishy motive
 
 CONVERSION OF OLD NURSE 139 
 
 was to be winnowed from the soul of Hannah by a 
 stern process of religious instruction which would 
 effectively try the gold of her resolution. 
 
 Poor Hannah ! It was a stiff task indeed. The 
 nuns were kind and patient, but Penny Catechism 
 was unspeakably dreary and hard to the compre- 
 hension of Old Nurse, whose intellectual parts were 
 not at all remarkable. Ronny would have called 
 it a " swot," and it was indeed worse than Ronny 's 
 sums, but, like the latter, it was being done for 
 Ronny. That was what gave zest to the task. It 
 was something that would help Ronny. Old Nurse 
 went into her undertaking with a whole-hearted 
 desire to succeed. Did the highly intelligent ladies 
 who instructed her realise what it meant to poor old 
 Hannah Finnigan to master the simple answers to 
 the plain questions in the Catechism ? I doubt it. 
 The way is not made hard for all slow-witted 
 catechumens, but in Hannah's case it was by much 
 tribulation that she arrived at the desired goal. In 
 time, and with pains forte and dure, she arrived 
 at a knowledge of the Christian verities that the 
 second Mrs Elwin might well have envied, albeit 
 that it contained some verities' that she would not 
 have approved of. 
 
 It took Hannah quite a long time to realise that 
 the Catholic faith was not naughtiness, akin to the 
 recitation of charms, and like pagan practices. The 
 nuns, however, showed old Nurse many things apart
 
 140 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 from the Penny Catechism. She learned the beauty 
 of holiness the sweetness and happiness begotten 
 of the true faith. The nuns, in short, introduced 
 her to the " magic of the sanctuary." Old Nurse 
 sought refuge from the brain-racking sentences of 
 men in the knowledge that God, in the hollow of 
 whose hand Ronny lay, was domiciled here on the 
 altar before which his old Nurse knelt, realising the 
 fact that something far more wonderful than a fairy 
 tale was true ah, how true ! 
 
 At the end of four months the priest received 
 Hannah into the Church. She chose the day for 
 her First Communion. It was the day on which 
 the indulgence could be gained by visiting the church 
 already mentioned. The nuns did not know why 
 she settled on that particular day. They concluded 
 it would be some anniversary. Hannah was to make 
 her First Communion at the Convent Chapel. It 
 would be a great occasion. The little sanctuary was 
 specially decorated, and there were white flowers on 
 the breakfast-table in the parlour afterwards where 
 a feast was set out in Hannah's honour. How old 
 Nurse longed to share her joy with Ronald ! But she 
 would share it ! The greatness of the occasion had 
 not served to make Hannah forget the end that was 
 to be served by that once-in-a-lifetime event, her 
 First Communion. Confession and Communion were 
 conditions for gaining the Plenary Indulgence. That 
 very day she would gain it for Ronny. They had
 
 CONVERSION OF OLD NURSE 141 
 
 spared Hannah on the subject of indulgences that 
 might well be explained later, the instructress held, 
 so her knowledge of that point of doctrine was still 
 restricted to what she had already gleaned. What 
 Hannah knew was that she could now gain a plenary 
 indulgence applicable to a soul in Purgatory by 
 visiting the church in question, and praying for the 
 Pope's intentions. That was all she wanted to know. 
 
 The joy and excitement of the morning took it out 
 of Hannah. She had become very feeble during the 
 last few months in fact, the Sisters had urged on 
 the priest the desirability of receiving her without 
 full instruction in case the poor old soul went off 
 suddenly, which was quite a possible contingency. 
 
 " Go home now, and go to bed," the Reverend 
 Mother told her. Hannah went home, but not to 
 bed. She had other business on hand. She was 
 feeling dreadfully " queer," so she must get it over 
 in case she got worse. 
 
 It was a longish way to the church of the 
 indulgence. Without Walter Stanislaus she was 
 able to take her time, but even then it was a toil- 
 some matter getting there. She sank down on to her 
 knees when she got inside the church. There was 
 Exposition. The joy of the morning was throbbing 
 in her heart. Oh, if only Ronny were there ! But 
 Ronny was to be attended to without delay. Five 
 " Our Father's " is a simple condition, yet an "Our 
 Father" takes some saying if you want to be certain
 
 142 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 that it's properly done. Old Nurse repeated each 
 clause carefully and conscientiously. 
 
 " Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them 
 that trespass against us." She thought of the "new" 
 Mrs Elwin and forgave her for her dismissal, after 
 twenty years. It was necessary for Ronny's sake. 
 The prayer acheived, old Nurse gave a great sigh. 
 She was trying to realise her triumph. She had 
 helped Ronny. He would be sharing her happiness 
 in the peace, light, and refreshment that she had 
 secured for him she, Hannah, for her own boy 
 Ronny ! She dragged herself up from her knees. 
 She was very, very tired. "If you were to die 
 to-day, Granny," one of the nuns had said to her, 
 "you would go straight to Paradise, because it's the 
 day of your First Communion." She longed for 
 rest sleep no, not sleep, for then she would not be 
 able to see Ronny en joy ing himself. Light, not sleep, 
 not sleep. Was that Ronny asking her to let him 
 put his head against her knees. She sat up straight, 
 and her feeble old hands began to feel about her 
 knees for something. They fell limply on either 
 side. Old Nurse had exhausted her stock of vitality 
 in the orgy of the day the greatest day of her life. 
 
 One of the Fathers at the church had just returned 
 from the front. He noticed the curious attitude 
 of the figure in the corner seat. It was a familiar 
 one he had been right into the trenches. He called 
 assistance, and they carried the lifeless old body into
 
 CONVERSION OF OLD NURSE 143 
 
 the sacristy. There was a prayer book in the dead 
 woman's pocket a Garden of the Soul "presented 
 to Hannah Finnigan in memory of her First 
 Communion." The date followed the date of that 
 very day. 
 
 The Father from the front read the name, and a 
 memory flashed across his mind. Ronald El win had 
 told him that he had an old Nurse living in his old 
 parish Hannah Finnigan. The name, for some 
 reason, has stuck hi his memory. This must be poor 
 Ronald's old Nurse ! 
 
 " I know the old soul," one of the Fathers said : 
 " the nuns told me about her. She was received the 
 other day. She became a Catholic because she 
 discovered that Catholics pray for the dead, and she 
 had lost a son or somebody in the War. She took 
 a lot of instructing, poor old dear." 
 
 The Father from the front was recalling a remark 
 he had made, when young Elwin had laughingly told 
 him that his old Nurse had done his sums for him in 
 the old days. " No one can learn your religion for 
 you, not even old Nurse." 
 
 It almost seemed as though old Nurse had 
 tried to !
 
 THE INTERVENER 
 
 ONE of the many strange, inexplicable things 
 connected with good people which used to trouble 
 Therese when she was a little girl was the lack of 
 good, of decently good manners, displayed by those 
 folk who used to meet one another by arrangement 
 at the Calvary at the foot of the hill leading up to 
 the village. The Calvary at the cross-roads was the 
 traditional trysting-place. Lovers always made their 
 rendezvous there it would have been considered 
 eccentric to choose any other place but it worried 
 Therese because she noted that those who met at the 
 foot of the Calvary seldom, if ever, had a word to 
 say to Our Lord, let alone going there on purpose to 
 speak to Hun. This struck Therese as an awful 
 well solecism ! Therese didn't belong to the 
 noblesse her father was a farmer but the nuns 
 had taught her the things which pertain to good- 
 breeding, concerning which they themselves possessed 
 what one might call " privileged information " and 
 to her mind it seemed shockingly bad manners to 
 behave to the Christ in that way. People setting
 
 THE INTERVENER 145 
 
 out on a journey would kneel there and say a prayer 
 it was true, but it was always to the effect that they 
 might meet somebody else safely at the journey 'send. 
 No one ever went to see the Christ, or spoke to Him 
 entirely for his own sake. He hung there, with His 
 wistful eyes looking downward, and watched the 
 friends and lovers greet each other and pass along, 
 and Therese knew exactly how He felt because of an 
 incident in her own experience. Once she had 
 invited two little friends to spend her name-day with 
 her. The two little friends had also been friends of 
 one another very great friends and they lived 
 each a long way out on either side of Therese 's home. 
 The latter formed a convenient meeting-place, and 
 Therese 's invitation was accepted. The two little 
 friends came and met, and discussed people and 
 things of which Therese possessed no cognisance 
 whilst they ate Therese 's cake. After they had 
 departed Therese came out with one of her odd 
 observations. " My mother," she said, " I think I 
 know how Our Lord feels when people go to the 
 Calvary just to meet each other." 
 
 But it was not until the occasion of the picnic that 
 Therese actually went to the length of paying the 
 Christ on the Calvary a real courtesy visit on her 
 own account. The picnic was a great affair arranged 
 by the young folk from the mill, under the auspices 
 of the miller himself. The big cart was to be loaded 
 with youngsters and provisions and the party taken 
 
 K
 
 146 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 to some distant woods on a nutting expedition. The 
 children were to collect and be picked up at the 
 Calvary. Therese was one of those invited, and her 
 excitement was boundless. She possessed a positively 
 terrific capacity for enjoying things. But, alas ! 
 when the day arrived there was an emergency at 
 home. It was baking day, and Marie was laid up 
 with one of her headaches. Therese could not 
 possibly be spared. The latter stood, with very red 
 eyes, at the gate which commanded a view of the 
 downward trailing road, and watched in the distance 
 the gay little company embark on board the miller's 
 cart. Of course no one had taken any notice of the 
 Christ on the Calvary. 
 
 Then it was that the thought came to The"rese. 
 She would go that very afternoon, all by herself, and 
 pay the Christ a special visit, while the others were 
 enjoying themselves at the picnic. It was a grand 
 idea ! It almost compensated for the loss of the 
 day's pleasuring almost, not quite. So that after- 
 noon, when she was no longer needed, Therese 
 slipped out and ran down to the foot of the climbing 
 road, and, kneeling before the Calvary, made the 
 great amend for the bad manners of the picnickers. 
 It was quite thrilling to feel that whilst the others 
 were en joy ing themselves she (Therese) was devoting 
 herself to Our Lord in His loneliness. But, alas ! 
 the thrill did not last long. Therese's uncomfortable 
 way of looking at things straight dispelled the
 
 THE INTERVENER 147 
 
 illusion. Something inside her reminded her that, 
 all said and done, it was only because she had been 
 stopped from going to the picnic that she happened 
 to be here. It was accident, not choice. She asked 
 herself, with dreadful outspokenness (or did Our 
 Lord ask it of her ?) , would she have been willing to 
 give up the picnic hi order to make the amend for 
 the bad manners of the others ? Therese thought. 
 She peered up at the gentle, searching eyesi of the 
 Christ and dropped her own again. Her satisfaction 
 was turned to dust and ashes, and yet more than 
 ever she longed to give the Christ on the Calvary all 
 that He could desire. All that the lovers and friends 
 who met there gave one another to make the great 
 amend. It was not what she had expected, but 
 something, something big, had happened inside 
 Therese, although her act of courtesy had, so to 
 speak, been a failure, for were not incompleteness 
 and failure the same thing? Therese went back 
 to her baking, slowly, for it was up the hill this 
 time, but there was something lifting her up in her 
 heart. It was better than the eager journey down 
 the hill. 
 
 Therese paid no more courtesy visits to the 
 Calvary until the occasion for which she was waiting 
 presented itself. A second picnic was arranged, and 
 this tune there was nothing to prevent her from 
 joining the others. To her mother's astonishment 
 however, Therese declared that she had no wish to
 
 148 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 go. The mother set it down to a quarrel with a 
 playmate and let her have her way. The foolish 
 little one could bite off her nose to spite her face if 
 she wished. Therese was a strange child. The 
 latter found it prodigiously hard to keep a bright 
 face on the morning of the picnic. There was the 
 dismal, lone, " kept-out " feeling in addition to the 
 actual loss of the magnificent joy-day; and her 
 mother's attitude made her feel " naughty." 
 
 "Run along, run along, silly child!" the parent 
 said, "and tell them you've changed your mind" and 
 Therese was sorely tempted. It is hard lines to be 
 thought sulky when you are only just oh ! wanting 
 something ever so, and aching inside. Therese could 
 not take her mother into her confidence explain 
 how the feelings of the Christ had been hurt her 
 mother had not been to school with the nuns to learn 
 what was comme il faut what a king expected. 
 She realised her loneliness more now than she had 
 ever done before. If only there had been just one 
 person that she might tell. 
 
 Therese chose the hour when the festivities in the 
 woods would be at their height for her courtesy visit 
 to the Calvary. She knelt there, a little lone figure, 
 and thought of the feast in process. Of the fun and 
 the laughter and the ride home. And then she 
 remembered that this time she had achieved the big 
 thing. She could tell Our Lord, verily and truly, 
 that she had come to see Him by choice. Yes,
 
 THE INTERVENER 149 
 
 instead of doing the very loveliest thing in the 
 world ! She lifted her tear-stained face from her 
 hands and smiled up at the face on the cross. 
 Therese had never felt happy like this in the 
 whole course of her life. 
 
 There happened to be a traveller, a young man 
 dressed in dark student's clothes approaching at that 
 moment. He caught sight of the little shining face 
 turned up towards the Christ, and it arrested his 
 attention the sheer beauty and wonder of it. He 
 was a poet as well as a good, a very good Catholic. 
 He stopped and stood watching. It was a picture 
 a poem ! 
 
 Old Francois, the shepherd, passing also at that 
 moment through the field beyond, went home and 
 observed, "There was a petite fille praying at the 
 Calvary, and a bon gargon was standing watching 
 her, and he had a face like an angel." 
 
 Then the stranger went and knelt likewise before 
 the Christ and said his own prayers. Therese 
 wondered who it might be that was kneeling beside 
 her. A little later he overtook her on the road and 
 asked her the way to the market town. She 
 surveyed him with interest, as they walked along 
 together. There was a sort of fellow-feeling between 
 them since they had knelt side by side. She was 
 aching with curiosity to know something, and there 
 was a kind, merry, whimsical look in his eyes 
 that gave her courage to be most extraordinarily
 
 150 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 " impossible." " If you please," she asked him, 
 "would you mind telling me if you were praying for 
 a good journey just now ? I mean, are you going to 
 somebody else, or were you just speaking to Our 
 Lord ?" She stopped, covered with blushes. Further 
 explanation was absolutely necessary, and his "How 
 do you mean ?" was quite encouraging, so she 
 plunged into it desperately, and told the young man 
 with the face that reminded her somehow of the 
 picture of Cure" d'Ars in the Salon all about how 
 the people who prayed before the Calvary were 
 always thinking of somebody else; and how they 
 never came to see Him, the Christ, except when they 
 wanted to meet someone else. Fancy telling all that 
 to a stranger ! But the stranger was a most 
 wonderful person. He guessed at once. 
 
 "And so you come here to make up for them ?" he 
 queried, and then the whole story came out. All 
 about the first picnic, and how the visit had not been 
 good enough because it was not what Our Lord 
 wanted, and how she had waited for the second 
 picnic and then she had been able to give the real 
 thing. He listened, and he understood oh ! abso- 
 lutely. M. le Cure would never have understood. 
 He would have called her a silly little girl, and told 
 her to be sure and go and enjoy herself next time. 
 But this stranger said nothing of the kind. He said 
 very little at first, but he made Therese say crowds 
 of things that she had never been able to say to
 
 THE INTERVENER 151 
 
 anyone else, and when he did speak he spoke of Our 
 Lord in such a way that it seemed almost as though 
 the figure on the cross had spoken to her Himself. 
 It was all so true and real. Surely Our Lord had 
 sent along this stranger to tell her things about 
 Himself because she had come to Him all by herself 
 instead of going to the picnic ? The other told her 
 
 that he was bound for the Monastery at X . He 
 
 was going to try his vocation. People told him that 
 he was too much of a poet to be a monk they called 
 him a spiritual vagabond but he meant to try. 
 Then he recited some of the verses that he had 
 written about the woods and the birds and the 
 creeping things, and the goodness of God, as they 
 went along, until Therese felt her heart thrill with 
 gratitude to the Christ on the wayside cross Who 
 had sent this new, wonderful friend. What a joy- 
 day it had proved to be ! She recalled the perfect 
 joy of that moment when she had looked the Christ 
 in the face and known that she had achieved the big 
 thing. And then He had sent M. Jules (that was his 
 name) to tell her more about Him. Therese paid 
 many courtesy visits to the Calvary in the days that 
 followed. Perhapsi on one of these occasions the 
 Lord would send M. Jules again to tell her more 
 about Him in magical songs or quaint little turns of 
 speech that made things she knew already so fresh 
 and real and wonderful, and oh, so lovable ! 
 
 It proved that people were right about M. Jules,
 
 152 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 Not many weeks later there came a visitor to the 
 farm, a literary gentleman who wished to write 
 his books there in the quiet. Therese's mother 
 took in visitors during the summer months. Therese 
 pictured some ancient and altogether snuffy person- 
 age, but a truly wonderful thing happened. When 
 the visitor arrived who should he prove to be but her 
 friend of the road ! Jules had been found to have 
 no vocation to the priesthood, but his was a spiritual 
 vocation withal that of writing in prose and verse 
 for the good of souls. He possessed a remarkable 
 gift for giving new expression to the great spiritual 
 truths, and he might do wonderful things in leading 
 souls to God in that way. It would be his life-work 
 his vocation. Therese found M. Jules by far the 
 most easy person to talk to about religion that she 
 had ever met. She was for ever thinking of God, 
 and there were crowds of unanswered questions in 
 her mind. M. Jules had an answer for them all. 
 They became great friends, nor was the friendship 
 to end with the summer months. It so fell out that 
 Jules' parents took a chateau in the neighbourhood, 
 and their son went and made his home with them. 
 Jules' mother took an abiding fancy to the dainty, 
 exquisite-mannered little maiden from the farm who 
 was assuredly one of Nature's gentlewomen, and had 
 the child constantly over to the chateau. 
 
 A curious thing happened about this time which put 
 a stop to Therese's visits to the Calvary. Whether
 
 THE INTERVENER 158 
 
 it was an act of sacrilege or some atmosphere effect 
 it was never known, but one day the figure on the 
 wayside cross was found to have suffered so severe a 
 defacement that it was necessary to remove it. The 
 naked cross was left standing, and still remained the 
 approved trysting-place of lovers. There was, there- 
 fore, no Christ on the cross at the foot of which 
 Therese, as she grew into young womanhood, would 
 meet Jules when the latter had a new poem which he 
 wished to read to her, or when Therese wished to 
 consult him about those things which he understood 
 so well. Therese knew that it was to Jules that she 
 owed the deeper knowledge of spiritual things that 
 she possessed. Every day, she told herself, he 
 was leading her nearer to the Christ to Whom 
 her child's heart had been given. She told herself 
 this often and with great firmness, for there were 
 those who would have counselled her to place herself 
 somewhere where there would be no Jules to help 
 her with his magic gift of inspiration his wonderful 
 thoughts and inspiring words. People told Therese 
 that she possessed a religious vocation. The Sisters 
 of Charity the only nuns left in France cast 
 covetous eyes on the girl who was a born nurse 
 and devoted to the poor. Her vocation was the one 
 subject that Therese never mentioned to Jules. He 
 never broached it to her, although they met and 
 talked ever about spiritual things. Jules had become 
 a brilliant writer in defence of the Church. His
 
 154 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 mystical poems were read by all for the sake of their 
 exquisite inspiration. Jules' mother had definitely 
 settled in her mind what was to happen. She 
 watched her son with a mother's eye, and all her 
 mother's heart cared for was his happiness in this 
 world. There was no spiritual method of hood- 
 winking the maternal eye of Madame the Mother 
 of Jules. Therese loved her as she loved her own 
 mother. When the war broke out and Jules went 
 off to fight, Therese was one of those who attached 
 themselves to the Sisters as lay assistants in their 
 work of nursing the wounded. She proved magnifi- 
 cently successful, both with the sick in body and 
 the sick in mind. The Sisters told Therese that she 
 had most certainly found her vocation. The good 
 God most certainly intended her to join their Order. 
 When they told her this Therese smiled to herself. 
 How little the good Sisters knew how her spiritual 
 life was suffering, deprived of the inspiration that 
 it received from the presence of Jules. How she 
 missed his voice "telling of the kingdom of Heaven." 
 The Sisters were so busy, so overdone with their 
 good works, that they had no time to speak of 
 the things of which she and Jules held sweet 
 discourse together. How desperately she longed 
 to see him, to hear his dear voice. She knew that he 
 would look with the bright eyes of faith on the 
 terrible scenes around them, and sing brave songs 
 pf hope and consolation. The world had very great
 
 THE INTERVENER 155 
 
 need of Jules just now. And she oh, what great 
 need ! She was more than ever convinced that Jules 
 alone could lead her up to Christ. 
 
 Therese prayed to her namesake the little Carmelite 
 nun, for the safety of Jules, and in the course of 
 tune, news came that he had been wounded in the 
 knee. There was no apparent danger, but the hurt 
 would disqualify him for further service in the field. 
 Therese felt that her namesake had procured quite 
 the best thing for Jules in thus placing him out 
 of danger. She made her thank-offering, feeling at 
 the same time that the Little Flower of Jesus knew 
 and understood how essential Jules was to her 
 spiritual well-being. Therese reminded herself of 
 this latter fact, of the spiritual aspect of the favour, 
 very many times. The hospital where she was 
 stationed was in a part of the country distant from 
 her home. Jules had been sent back to his people 
 to be nursed. Therese began to long for the day 
 when she would get leave to return and see her 
 parents. The mails had gone wrong and letters 
 went permanently astray. No further news came 
 from the far-away little village where Jules was 
 being nursed back to health. Sometimes she 
 wondered if he would meet her on crutches. Most 
 probably he would. But what did that matter? 
 He was safe, and lameness wouldn't interfere with 
 his career as an author. 
 
 Therese got her leave more or less of a sudden,
 
 156 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 She wrote home, and she wrote to Jules. To the 
 latter she gave the hour of her probable arrival, and 
 she told him that she would be at the trysting-place 
 at a time specified. She must meet him first alone, 
 after all these poignant months during which they 
 had experienced such big things. He would explain 
 to her in ringing words the meaning of it all and 
 sing her a joy-song of the sorrows of the world. 
 Jules would show her the Christ for whom the Holy 
 Sisters themselves hardly seemed to find time. He 
 had receded from her during these busy over-wrought 
 months, but Jules would bring Him back. The 
 nuns parted with her affectionately. " Ah, my 
 child," Ma Soeur said, "I'm thinking that when 
 you return it will be to Our Lord Himself. You 
 will come back to us to be a Sister of Charity, 
 Therese. Our Lord means to have you!" and she 
 bustled off to see to something in the " enclosure " 
 of her Order, whose cloister is the Presence of 
 God. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon when Therese 
 approached the foot of the road leading up to the 
 farm. Her journey had taken longer than she had 
 reckoned for. She had expected to be able to go 
 home and see her mother and father, and then, later 
 in the day, to keep her tryst with Jules, but she had 
 only arrived in time to do the latter. She would 
 go on home after she had seen Jules. 
 
 As she crossed the meadow, carrying her little
 
 THE INTERVENER 157 
 
 handbag, she could see the tall wayside cross in the 
 distance, its back towards her. The dear, familiar 
 scene brought back the days of her childhood the 
 lonely days before she had known Jules, or known 
 God properly. Yet she had been a fervent little soul 
 in her way. She recalled the foregone picnic, and 
 her first meeting with Jules. What a wonderful 
 day that had been the rapture of that moment 
 when she had realised that her act of courtesy had 
 been a perfect one. Was not that, indeed, the 
 memory that bathed that distant day in gold ? Then 
 Jules had come to show her the Christ to Whom she 
 had made her sterling offering. He was no longer 
 hanging on the cross. Therese remembered this with 
 something that was curiously akin to relief. She 
 recalled that other afternoon when she had sped 
 down the road (the upward winding lane that lay 
 before her with her old home nestling among the 
 trees high on the hillside) with the pain and the joy 
 mingling in her heart, knowing that this time her 
 visit to the Crucified would be a real and perfect act 
 of courtesy. She could not be visiting the Christ 
 now, for He was gone, but Jules, she told herself, 
 would help her to that sweet realisation of Him that 
 she had ever prayed for. She hastened her steps. 
 He (Jules) would not be there yet, for she was early. 
 She scanned the road. He was not yet in sight. 
 She was standing now by the side of the cross. It 
 was early, but her lover yes, Jules was her lover
 
 158 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 might come upon her even now. Where was he. 
 her beloved ? Again she scanned the road, the road 
 along which the miller's cart had trundled, the road 
 that led to the chateau. There was no lover in 
 sight, but as she turned and glanced for the first 
 time at the cross she gave a little cry. It was no 
 longer without its burden. The Christ was hanging 
 there as He had hung in the days of her childhood, 
 looking down with wistful eyes on those who passed 
 by or kept their lovers' tryst. At first she thought 
 it was a vision. She knelt down trembling and 
 buried her face in her hands. Then she looked up. 
 It was no vision. The figure had simply been 
 replaced by a facsimile of the former one. It was 
 quite new and fresh, and there was a brass plate 
 below it. Therese half leant forward to read what 
 was written there, but the light was failing, and her 
 heart was too full for such details. What did it 
 matter if the figure were real or a vision ? The one 
 real thing was there. The Christ, not Jules, was 
 keeping tryst with her at the meeting-place of the 
 betrothed. Her mind was flooded with reality. The 
 Therese of the first picnic visit was once again 
 looking Truth straight in the face; and again some- 
 thing turned to dust and ashes. The conflict had 
 commenced. Would the Therese of the second picnic 
 visit conquer? There went on at the foot of the 
 Calvary a mighty struggle. She knelt there, rigid 
 and motionless, making her resolution seeing
 
 THE INTERVENER 159 
 
 straight. The Therese who had succeeded in 
 deceiving herself through the years of her budding 
 womanhood was no longer there. 
 
 Well, Jules would understand. He would not 
 blame her. No, no ! he would be glad. He had 
 always known it, down hi his heart, but he loved 
 her so. Poor Jules ! How well they had both 
 known it but he had loved her, and he was a poet 
 with the defects of his ardent nature. He had 
 meant to lead her to the Christ but he was a poet ! 
 They had said he was too much of a poet to make 
 a monk, but he had made a religious of many 
 another. So Ma Sceur had been right. 
 
 She started and looked round. Surely that was 
 Jules ? He had come up to her unheard and was 
 standing there. But, no. There was no one. He 
 had not come yet. Then she looked up at the 
 Christ, and there rushed into her heart that exquisite 
 joy which had been hers once before. She knew its 
 proper name now. It was the Peace of God which 
 surpasses understanding. 
 
 Then her eyes fell on the brass plate. There was 
 a little more light now. The evening after-glow 
 shone upon the cross, and she was able to read what 
 was written there. She did so mechanically. It 
 ran : "Of your charity pray for the soul of Jules 
 
 de V , who died from the results of a wound 
 
 received whilst fighting for his country." 
 
 Therese knelt there reading and re-reading the
 
 160 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 words. Then she looked up at the infinitely gracious 
 figure of the Christ. 
 
 The thank-offering was mute in its intensity. 
 What words had she for this infinitely gracious act 
 of divine courtesy? The words read a moment 
 sooner, and what would she have had to give but 
 the imperfect gift. Had she read these words when 
 her eye first fell on them she could not have made 
 the perfect act of courtesy of love of joy. What 
 had He not given her in the taking this exquisitely 
 courteous Christ ? He had given her Jules, for Jules 
 had indeed fulfilled his vocation he had led her 
 to the Christ; Jules, in whose memory the cross 
 had been made to regain its burden. She had been 
 in grave danger, indeed, of losing him, but the 
 Christ had intervened. 
 
 Old Fran9ois he was a very, very old man now 
 made his way home that same evening past the 
 Calvary. He was so old that his memory played 
 him strange tricks. Ten or twelve years ago was 
 fresher in his mind than yesterday, or an hour 
 since. " I was passing the Calvary," he crooned as 
 he crouched in his chair over the fire, " and there 
 was a little girl praying there, and a young man was 
 watching her, and he had a face like an angel."
 
 THE BROWN BEADS 
 
 I HAVE just taken from my treasure-trove a rosary 
 of brown beads, and the air has suddenly become 
 filled with a strange, sweet perfume, subtle and 
 indescribably exquisite ; and I am wondering if under 
 cover of that gorgeously scientific term, " psychic 
 emanation," I may venture to tell the tale of the 
 brown rosary, for it is one that demands telling, but 
 which possesses the perilous quality of pointing a 
 moral ! I can only hope, as my friend Sigurdson 
 would say, that the " psychological " will atone for 
 the merely " spiritual " element, and gain the ear of 
 the scientific reader bent on psychical research. 
 
 All travelled Americans, and some English folk, 
 know the little town of St Mary's in the south of 
 England. It takes its name from the magnificent 
 Minster about which it has ranged itself. Every- 
 thing in the town is relative to the Priory church. 
 The ancient houses have an air of spectators crowding 
 round a central object the shops appear to exist 
 in order to supply the visitor to the Minster either 
 with refreshment, or with pictorial postcards 
 
 L
 
 162 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 containing views of the exterior or interior, or of 
 reproductions of the famous fresco of the Abbot 
 William presenting his new church in outstretched 
 hands to Our Lady. One Wesleyan chapel displays 
 a fleur-de-lys in defiance of the Christian symbolism 
 of the cruciform pile; and on the outskirts of the 
 town a small iron building surmounted by a wooden 
 cross puts forth the defiant legend, " St Mary's 
 Catholic Church." These are the two instances in 
 which St Mary's the town may not be said to be in 
 deferential relation to St Mary's the Minster. As a 
 matter of fact, some zealous Catholics liked to say 
 that the little priest who had been " hung up " at St 
 Mary's for fifteen years had become contaminated 
 with the local subservience, and that he tolerated 
 the Anglican aggression with a deplorably good 
 grace, and ministered in his little " tin tabernacle " 
 with as much contentment as though he had been 
 saying Mass under the arches of the Minster built 
 by his fathers in the Faith. " A most innocuous 
 little man," one of the Deans had been known to call 
 him the holder of the benefice enjoys the title of 
 Dean. At the time of which I am writing that snug 
 office was held by a youngish man, a High Church- 
 man, who had earned some reputation as a writer 
 of spiritual and mystical works wonderfully Catholic 
 in tone and sympathy. I met him frequently at the 
 house of my friend Sigurdson, who lived, and still 
 lives, at St. Mary's, and I always contrived to get
 
 THE BROWN BEADS 168 
 
 on well with him, for I felt that our ideals, at least, 
 were identical. Our host belonged to a type which 
 is becoming commoner every day. Apparently in 
 full sympathy with the Church, a sturdy champion 
 of her principles and action, and a devout admirer 
 of her ritual, John Sigurdson still remained outside 
 the fold through a fundamental difficulty in accept- 
 ing not the last, but the first article of the Christian 
 Creed. Catholic and Anglican alike endeavoured to 
 secure him, and he, for his part, took an elvish 
 delight in disappointing both., He would infuriate 
 the "English Catholic" party by speaking of 
 Catholics without the Roman in his writings (he had 
 a great reputation as a man of letters,) and then 
 after spending a week with Monsignor Philpot, a 
 most persuasive controversialist, would attend a 
 High Church function in the pious character of an 
 Anglican layman. It was this strain of elvishness 
 in Sigurdson that caused him to invite a certain 
 young fellow of our acquaintance who had recently 
 been received into the Church to stay at St Mary's. 
 Edwy Anstruther was a graduate of Balliol a very 
 brilliant youngster, and, of course, bubbling over 
 with apostolic zeal, which took the form of acute 
 controversy : Sigurdson called it the virulent stage. 
 "You never had it, my dear chap," he informed me; 
 " but fools all do most clever men are fools." 
 
 During Anstruther 's visit Sigurdson invited the 
 Dean in every night to dinner. The latter was a
 
 164 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 bachelor, like ourselves, and only too glad to avail 
 himself of the invitation. He rather hoped, I believe, 
 to get our host " on the rails," as he termed it, 
 and John Sigurdson chastened this hope periodically 
 by contributing towards the support of the little 
 iron church where " schism " was so very mildly 
 rampant. 
 
 " Of course, you'll go on Sunday and hear Father 
 Knox preach?" Edwy's host remarked. I could see 
 the mischief in his eye. I had myself heard little 
 Father Knox preach many times. 
 
 "Is he good ?" the young man from Farm Street 
 asked eagerly, his mind running on some provincial 
 edition of the eminent Jesuit who had set his 
 difficulties at rest. 
 
 " He's as good as gold," was the evasive answer, 
 and Edwy Anstruther went on Sunday to Mass at 
 the little " tin " church instead of cycling to Dry- 
 chester, and came back fuming. 
 
 " If that's a specimen of our priests," he moaned, 
 " Heaven convert England, for we won't ! He 
 hadn't two ideas of his own. His sermon was simply 
 an outline lesson for a Sunday-chool. And what a 
 church ! Surely if the man had any energy he could 
 raise the money to build a decent place to say Holy 
 Mass in!" 
 
 " He had a try fifteen years ago," Sigurdson said, 
 " but it came to nothing. Living in isolation in a 
 place like this doesn't tend to nourish enthusiasm,
 
 THE BROWN BEADS 165 
 
 but his own people are very fond of him, and there 
 is no leakage." 
 
 " We'll have to change it," Anstruther said com- 
 placently. "Fancy! in the shadow of that great 
 church. Our fathers were made of different stuff." 
 
 "Have you been over the Minster yet ?" Sigurdson 
 asked slyly. " We'll go to-morrow if you haven't. 
 Brian will come with us. He rather admires the 
 high altar." 
 
 Edwy sniffed. "I'm not keen on seeing the 
 place," he remarked. "It rather sickens me. After 
 all, it's only the shell left." 
 
 On the following day we went over the Minster. 
 The place was hi the process of restoration, and the 
 work was certainly being admirably carried out with 
 a view to preserving the antiquity of the matchless 
 pile. The whole thing got on Anstruther 's nerves. 
 There was no doubting his sincerity. "It's like a 
 corpse !" he groaned. "The place cries out for what 
 it was built for. It has eyes and sees not ! There 
 is all the grue of a dead body about it !" 
 
 A shabby little clergyman I couldn't see his face 
 was standing with his back to us, gazing up at 
 the work in process in the clerestory. I wondered 
 what he thought of Anstruther's utterances. The 
 latter's feelings had now been brought to a climax 
 by a display of cheap literature exposed for sale in a 
 wooden receptacle. Edwy's eye fell on a pamphlet. 
 Its title ran, "English Catholic or Romanist?" I
 
 166 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 had never seen anyone so near to foaming at the 
 mouth. " It certainly is adding insult to injury," 
 Sigurdson admitted. He looked quite a little sorry 
 for Edwy. "If I believed in Absolute Truth that 
 would annoy me." 
 
 "Pah!" Anstruther said, "the dead thing stinks! 
 Let's come out of this. D their impudence!" 
 
 " S-sh !" someone said. It was the shabby cleric, 
 who had been near us all the time. I saw his front 
 view now, and, to my surprise, it proved to be no 
 other than Father Knox, the Catholic rector of St 
 Mary's. 
 
 Austruther recognised him too. " I beg your 
 pardon, Father," he said, moderately abashed, "but 
 to a Catholic this is rather sickening." 
 
 The other smiled. He was an ordinary-looking 
 little man with rather flabby cheeks. " The place is 
 very reverently kept," he observed. " We ought to 
 remember that. The restoration of the clerestory 
 has been wonderfully managed. The Dean has 
 kindly given me permission to go up and watch the 
 work being done." 
 
 Anstruther regarded the guardian of the Faith 
 with something verging on contempt. "I'm afraid 
 I can't enter into your view," he said coldly. "The 
 symbol is nothing to me apart from the thing 
 symbolised." 
 
 " Quite right," the other responded. "I am glad 
 that you feel like that, sir, for you won't despise my
 
 THE BROWN BEADS 167 
 
 poor little church, if you are stopping over Sunday 
 so many Catholic visitors go over to Drychester to 
 the pro-Cathedral." At this unconscious score on 
 the little priest's part Sigurdson nudged me glee- 
 fully. I couldn't help being amused at Edwy's 
 crestfallen countenance. 
 
 " I'm hi for attending his church next Sunday," 
 he said to us, ruefully, as we left the Minster. " It 
 isn't tbe place I mind the Mass is all I want it's 
 the excellent man's preaching." 
 
 "Suffer it instead of wearing your hair-shirt," 
 Sigurdson suggested; "or if you've mislaid your 
 scourge." 
 
 Edwy rather enjoyed this joke at his own expense. 
 Hair-shirts and disciplines had a peculiar joy for him, 
 conversationally, in those early days. His nerves 
 were so jarred that I was inclined to dread his 
 treatment of my friend the Dean that evening. By 
 dinner-time, however, he had quite recovered his 
 usual form. He was never long out of humour. 
 
 After dinner that evening, as we sat over the 
 library fire, the conversation turned on certain occult 
 subjects. The Dean was intensely psychic. Edwy 
 had failed to precipitate his conversion by getting 
 him on the subject of miracles having been held to 
 have ceased with Bible tunes. The Dean of St 
 Mary's believed in all the mediaeval miracles ! It 
 was disheartening for our young friend, especially 
 when the heretical cleric met the reminder that
 
 168 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 miracles did not occur among English Churchmen 
 with the frank admission that the English Church 
 " had lost many good things, but still managed to 
 rub along!" We continued the subject. Both 
 Sigurdson and myself were researchers within 
 legitimate limits, and to Edwy all things were 
 possible the boy's raw enthusiasm was not without 
 its charm. 
 
 We were discussing the sweet odours that the 
 relics of saints are said to exude, and how psychology 
 admits somewhat similar phenomena, when Sigurdson 
 suddenly got up and went over to his bureau. He 
 came back carrying a brown rosary in his hand 
 the ordinary cheap beads that the peasants use in 
 Italy. " There's a queer thing about these beads," 
 he said, " that I can't account for. I picked them 
 up on the beach at Pegwell Bay about a year ago. 
 I wonder if any of you will notice anything peculiar 
 about them?" 
 
 Anstruther took the beads and held them up close 
 to his eyes to examine them, being short-sighted. 
 " There's an extraordinary scent about them," he 
 said, " like some sort of flower or, not a flower 
 quite. What is it ?" He handed the beads on to 
 the Dean with the question. 
 
 The latter took them in his palm and brought his 
 thin, aristocratic nose into contact with the symbol 
 of a " foreign " devotion. 
 
 He drew a long whiff. "It's exquisite!" he
 
 THE BROWN BEADS 169 
 
 exclaimed. "It's heavenly ! Neither roses nor lilies 
 more like a sweet spice, yet not quite that. 
 Whatever is it?" He raised his head and passed 
 the rosary on to me reluctantly. Then I had my 
 turn. It was indeed a remarkable scent, pungent, 
 yet elusive. I could imagine it becoming intoxicat- 
 ing to the spirit, that expresses it best. It had 
 the opposite qualities of certain material perfumes. 
 
 "Do you know," Sigurdson said, "this scent is 
 very seldom perceptible. Nineteen times out of 
 twenty it is not there. I have frequently tested it 
 hi every conceivable way, with different temperatures, 
 and after shutting it up hi a drawer or leaving it 
 out hi the air, and I can't place the circumstances in 
 which it acquires this extraordinary quality of giving 
 out a perfume. I discovered it quite accidentally 
 one evening when I was at the drawer where I keep 
 it. I don't know, by the way, why I bothered to 
 keep it at all, only one has a feeling about these 
 things that have been connected with someone's 
 devotions." The Dean nodded vigorously. " The 
 scent was quite overwhelming. I took them out 
 again next morning, and there was no more perfume 
 about them than those fire-irons. I suppose the 
 scent has been there a dozen tunes, or less, and I 
 used to take it out constantly to see." 
 
 " We'll try again to-morrow," Anstruther said, 
 when Sigurdson replaced the rosary in his bureau. 
 " The thing is certainly worth going into with
 
 170 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 witnesses. What wouldn't I give to know its 
 history ?" 
 
 Accordingly, on the following evening, directly 
 we got into the library, the beads were brought out 
 and tested. No vestige of the gorgeous perfume 
 remained ! And so it was next morning when 
 Anstruther, impatient as usual, insisted on testing 
 them again. We repeated the experiment the same 
 evening just before we went off to bed, but with the 
 same result the brown rosary had no message of 
 ethereal delicacies to give us. As a matter of fact, 
 it smelt of tobacco when it had been duly examined. 
 
 On the following evening we were about to start 
 bridge. "Let's have the beads out first," Anstruther 
 said, and Sigurdson fetched them from his bureau. 
 I guessed from the light in his eye what had 
 happened. The Dean took them first, but even 
 from where I sat I could detect the dim, delicious 
 perfume that we had noticed on the first occasion. 
 The Dean passed the rosary to me without a word. 
 There were positively tears in his eyes ! "God ! how 
 beautiful!" Edwy murmured, when his turn came. 
 
 I felt like the Dean, that the exquisiteness of the 
 thing had almost unmanned me. 
 
 "I'd give the world to find out their history," 
 Anstruther repeated. "I wonder you don't sleep 
 with them under your pillow, John, and see if they 
 affect your dreams." 
 
 " I did try for a long time," Sigurdson answered,
 
 THE BROWN BEADS 171 
 
 "but nothing happened, and I only detected the 
 scent once when I went to bed early with the tooth- 
 ache." 
 
 " Did they cure your toothache?" I asked. 
 
 " Well," Sigurdson said, " It did get better, as a 
 matter of fact, but I'm not vouching for a miracle. 
 One would like to know the history of the thing. 
 It's impossible even to get at its age. The sea-water 
 has evidently rusted it. One medal attached to it is 
 rather curious St Hubert, as far as I can make out, 
 the patron saint of dogs." (What Sigurdson knew 
 of saint-lore might have been the envy of many 
 Catholics.) 
 
 Edwy had lost himself in a reverie. I imagined 
 that a hermit's cell, or possibly a vision of an 
 ascetic individual in the garb of a byegone age, was 
 before his eyes. I did not credit him with the 
 very practical and astute line of thought that he was 
 following. "Keep the beads out," he said, " and let 
 us see how long the scent lasts." Sigurdson laid the 
 rosary on his desk, and we applied ourselves to 
 bridge. At the end of half an hour Anstruther got 
 up and went over to the desk, returning with the 
 beads. He passed them round without comment. 
 The perfume had absolutely disappeared. When our 
 rubber was over Edwy reverted to the subject. "If 
 I am not greatly mistaken," he said, " I've hit on 
 one link in the chain. Didn't you tell me, John, that 
 you had never noticed the perfume in the morning?"
 
 172 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 "No, I never have, as a matter of fact,'* Sigurdson 
 said. 
 
 "And you only noticed it in bed when you turned 
 in extra early?" 
 
 " Yes, that's so," was the puzzled reply. 
 
 " We'll try again to-morrow evening," Anstruther 
 said, "and keep it under observation." On the first 
 occasion when we noticed the scent it was just about 
 nine-thirty ; on the other occasions when we tested it, 
 it has been either earlier or later hi the evening, and 
 Sigurdson had never noticed the scent hi the day-tune. 
 
 "I remember, it was exactly half-past nine on that 
 evening when we first remarked the scent," the Dean 
 said. "I had just looked at the clock to see how the 
 time was going." 
 
 " Ton my word !" Sigurdson said, " it always has 
 been in the middle of the evening when I have 
 noticed the scent. I can't think why it didn't strike 
 me." 
 
 "It is certainly queer," Edwy said. " But we'll 
 put it to the proof to-morrow evening." 
 
 I looked forward to the morrow's investigation 
 with a certain sense of expectancy, not unmixed with 
 a feeling of incongruity. Investigation is a word 
 that jars where one feels that one is treading on holy 
 ground. Fortunately, we were all four of us 
 " sympathetic," and the atmosphere would hold 
 nothing repugnant to the strange thing inherent in 
 the old brown rosary.
 
 THE BROWN BEADS 173 
 
 I knew from Sigurdson's face at dinner next day 
 that something had happened. He had been to 
 Dry Chester in the afternoon. There was a peculiar 
 twinkle in his eye that I knew well. Sigurdson's 
 profundity of wisdom twinkled in his eye. " When 
 Sigurdson grasps the inwardness of the Christian 
 verities," Edwy remarked to me once, " his eyes 
 will twinkle ever so." On this particular occasion 
 Sigurdson's eye was full of knowingness. I knew 
 that he was enjoying something, and that his some- 
 thing was better than a joke. Sigurdson had been 
 touched somewhere, and by someone or something. 
 
 When we got into the library he started in his 
 most elvish vein another sign that his inner man 
 had been touched and was in hiding ! 
 
 I wondered who would be the victim, Edwy or the 
 Dean, for we had waxed theological during dinner, 
 and both of the latter had exhibited their defective 
 side. Edwy had been aggressive, and the Dean had 
 been smugly and deliberately forbearing, with a 
 conscious air of superiority and self-approval. Soon 
 after nine o'clock Anstruther adverted to the subject 
 of our investigations we had talked assiduously of 
 other things by a sort of tacit consent. " Do you 
 think we might get out the beads ?" he suggested to 
 Sigurdson. " We ought to have them at hand when 
 the thing happens." There was a tone of scientific 
 enquiry about the whole thing that rather irked me 
 I somehow felt that our action was an offence
 
 174 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 against the mystical thing that had, as it were, 
 strayed from a higher plane and so opened itself to 
 desecration. 
 
 "I'm sorry," Sigurdson said, "but I haven't got 
 them. The fact is, queerly enough, I discovered the 
 owner of the beads to-day quite by accident, and, of 
 course, I returned them." 
 
 We all sat gaping at him, the sense of being 
 disappointed in being baulked in the pursuit of our 
 object being more than tempered by the thought 
 that our curiosity as to the history of the beads was 
 to be satisfied. 
 
 " Who do they belong to ? Did you discover their 
 history?" Anstruther asked breathlessly. "How 
 did it all happen? What a queer thing!" 
 
 "They belong to Father Knox," Sigurdson replied. 
 "He dropped them on the beach at Ramsgate last 
 year." He paused, with a deliberateness that I felt 
 was a snare for the unwary. Anstruther was ever 
 unwary. 
 
 "Where did he get it from? Is it very ancient?" 
 he asked. 
 
 " A Protestant friend gave it to him," Sigurdson 
 replied. " Brought it as a souvenir from Italy. 
 No, my dear fellow, it was brand new, and not even 
 blessed by the Holy Father ! and the Italian who sold 
 it to Knox's friend cheated him horribly, it seems." 
 
 The Dean smiled with benignity. " A little way 
 they have," he chuckled.
 
 THE BROWN BEADS 175 
 
 "You had no business to be handling them, Dean," 
 Sigurdson said, turning on the cleric with much 
 gravity. " They were schismatic beads ; they had 
 not been washed across a neutral ocean from a land 
 where the rosary is approved of." 
 
 "The rosary is not an English devotion," the Dean 
 replied complacently. 
 
 " So the beads haven't got a history," I chipped 
 in, anxious to get the conversation on to less contro- 
 versial ground, for both Edwy and the Dean were 
 looking dangerous. 
 
 " Well," Sigurdson said, surveying us all with an 
 air of mild benevolence that made me wonder what 
 was coming, " as a matter of fact, they have got a 
 sort of history. I'll tell you the story as I got it 
 to-day from the little priest in the train. There is 
 just one queer point about it that makes it worth 
 telling from the psychic point of view the rest is 
 merely spiritual," he added, with a twinkle in his 
 eye; " besides, I promised that I would pass it on 
 it was told me on that condition. It was quite by a 
 chance that I got the story out of the little man. 
 I'll tell it you in his own words as much as 
 possible." Sigurdson 's manner had become just a 
 trifle embarrassed. "I was hi the train coming 
 home from Dry Chester," he went on. "Just as we 
 were starting someone tumbled into the carriage. It 
 was little Father Knox. He was as shabby as ever, 
 and was carrying a brown-paper parcel that too
 
 176 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 obviously contained a cheese " (Sigurdson made a 
 face). "When he had settled down he commenced to 
 take snuff a vile habit that all your clergy contract, 
 Brian; even the Verts get contaminated with it!" 
 Here the Dean fitted in another smile, and Edwy, 
 I could see, began to be exquisitely uncomfortable as 
 to what was coming next. 
 
 " I exchanged a greeting with the Father," 
 Sigurdson continued, " and got behind my paper. 
 Then I bethought myself of the rosary I suppose 
 the priest put it into my mind. I had the beads in 
 my pocket. I wanted to subject them to a change 
 of atmosphere with a view to the evening's observa- 
 tions. I pulled them out of my pocket, and in doing 
 so I managed to detach the little dented medal of 
 St Hubert. It rolled across the floor of the carriage, 
 and the Father evidently thought that I had dropped 
 a coin, for he politely went down on all-fours to 
 search for it. He picked up the medal and made a 
 hasty exclamation as he looked at it. He was just 
 going to ask me where I had got it, I suppose, when 
 he caught sight of the rosary in my hand. Well, let 
 me get on with the story. He recognised the beads 
 with evident delight as well as surprise. I told 
 him where I had found them, and naturally offered 
 to return them to him. He was so prolific in his 
 thanks that he aroused my curiosity, and I was 
 tempted to ask him if the beads possessed any history 
 that made them of special value I wondered if he,
 
 THE BROWN BEADS 177 
 
 too, had noticed the strange scent. He told me that 
 their value was purely sentimental, and I felt it 
 incumbent on me to explain my apparently impertin- 
 ent question by telling him about the queer pheno- 
 menon we had all remarked my friends as well as 
 myself. He listened quite politely. * It might be 
 seaweed,' he suggested brilliantly. I told him that 
 we had thought of something rather less prosaic, and 
 imagined that some sort of history would be attached 
 to the beads. 
 
 " He smiled and shook his head. * Their story is 
 very simple,' he said, ' yet is the young man who 
 was in the Minster the other day one of the friends 
 who is interested in them ?' I told him it was so, 
 and he paused and thought a moment. * I've been 
 worrying about him,' he said. 'I'm afraid I disedified 
 him the other day that I threw cold water on his 
 admirable zeal.' " The Dean looked interrogative. 
 Anstruther was mounted well on the defensive. 
 Sigurdson seemed almost to have forgotten the 
 presence of either. It was distinctly awkward ! He 
 went on : " ' Now, I wonder, sir, if I told you the 
 little story connected with the rosary, if you would 
 mind repeating it to your young friend. It might 
 undo the harm I did. It is not right to let people 
 misunderstand one; it gives scandal. That young 
 man has been much on my mind.' ' Edwy snorted 
 amusedly at this point, and the Dean spread his 
 finely chiselled mouth across his thin face and 
 
 M
 
 178 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 looked as any Dean would wish to look in a 
 photograph. 
 
 "I'm going to tell you the story exactly in the 
 little priest's words," Sigurdson said. "Here goes!" 
 
 " ' That rosary was given to me nearly twenty 
 years ago by a Protestant friend of mine who had 
 been travelling in Italy. I put it away at the time 
 because I was rather piqued at the tone of semi- 
 contempt that he assumed in giving it to me he was 
 careful to tell me that the man who sold it to him 
 had cheated him, and he attached the little medal 
 that I recognised it by as a present to my dog Caesar. 
 My dog Caesar made the dent in it with his teeth, by 
 the way, when it was introduced to his notice. I was 
 inclined to be touchy hi those days. I had been 
 sent to St Mary's, and the mission was even poorer 
 than it is now. I didn't always get cheese to eat 
 even' he glanced at the eloquent package as he 
 said this. * I had met with discouragement, too. I 
 had tried to raise the money to erect a brick building 
 in place of the iron church, and a Catholic gentleman 
 in the neighbourhood had promised me a large sum 
 towards it, on the strength of which I got an 
 architect to draw up the plan of a neat little Gothic 
 structure. I was beside myself with delight at the 
 prospect when my benefactor died suddenly, and the 
 estate passed to a Protestant who, when I told him 
 of his kinsman's intention, promptly gave an 
 equivalent sum to the Minster. All this tended to
 
 THE BROWN BEADS 179 
 
 make me rather bitter. Like your friend, the very 
 sight of the Minster was more than I could bear. 
 I relieved my feelings by writing trenchant articles 
 for the Catholic press, which I am sorry to say were 
 considered smart journalism. They were very widely 
 read. All I remember was that there was very 
 little Christianity in them. They were highly 
 praised from the controversial point of view.' " 
 
 Sigurdson smiled at us. " You are trying to 
 apply the idea of a trenchant writer of scathing 
 polymics to our little friend?" he said. "That's 
 precisely what I did, and I nearly lost the thread 
 of the narrative in trying to reconcile that state- 
 ment with the story that the worthy man was 
 pouring in my ear. Let me try and tell it exactly 
 as I heard it. Picture to yourselves that I am little 
 Father Knox." 
 
 The Dean smiled, with slightly lifted eyebrows. 
 "I'll try," he said meekly. 
 
 Sigurdson turned his chair round and addressed 
 the fire. "One day, it was the eve of Candlemas, I 
 was feeling particularly bitter. I had walked into 
 Drychester to buy candles. I had been saving up 
 so as to get a good quantity, and just as I got back 
 to St Mary's I came over queerish. The Minster 
 was near at hand, and the door open, which was 
 not always the case in those days as it is now, and 
 so I thought I had better go hi and sit down for a 
 bit I didn't want to be seen reeling in the streets,
 
 180 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 it might have been misinterpreted ! Well, I went 
 into the Minster. It was about seven o'clock and 
 the place was lighted up. I suppose they were 
 preparing for a choir practice or something. There 
 was nobody about. I crept into the chantry of 
 Abbot William, where you see the fresco of the 
 Abbot offering his church to Our Lady, and sat 
 down quietly. Soon I began to feel better, but as 
 I looked at the magnificent proportions of the great 
 choir and thought of my poor, mean little sanctuary, 
 my heart grew hot within me, and I thought some 
 very hard things, some very hard things indeed, of 
 those who were in possession of all this, and yet had 
 no use for it. Then I turned my thoughts to my 
 sermon for the morrow.' Sigurdson suddenly 
 broke off. "I forget what the little chap's words 
 were exactly," he said rather lamely. " My mind 
 went off on to those slashing controversial papers 
 while he was telling me this part, but the gist of 
 it was that he fell to wondering how the Blessed 
 Virgin felt when she saw the rich Hebrew ladies 
 making their offerings against which her two doves 
 showed up so poorly? And then " (Sigurdson's 
 tone had become very gruff, and he spoke 
 hurriedly) " he suddenly seemed to realise that she 
 wouldn't have minded at all, because, after all, 
 he had got God to offer to God, while they had only 
 their human gifts. And then, while he was soaking 
 in this idea, a rather queer thing seems to have
 
 THE BROWN BEADS 181 
 
 happened." (Sigurdson 's tone had become natural 
 again. He addressed us instead of the fireplace.) 
 " He found himself looking at the fresco, and he 
 became aware that there was something different 
 about it. He got up notice this, he wasn't asleep 
 and went nearer, and then he declares that the 
 figure of the Abbot appeared to be holding in its 
 outstretched hands, not a model of the Minster, but 
 of the little tin Catholic Church of Our Lady. It 
 gave him such a shock that he let go of his parcel, 
 and all the candles, the string giving way, fell out 
 and rolled on to the ground. He started picking 
 them up they had rolled all over the place, and 
 they were pretty precious and when he had done 
 so, he looked again at Abbot William, but he had 
 got his own church back and all was the same as usual. 
 
 "This part of the story," Sigurdson said, "inter- 
 ested me so much that the little man took fright lest 
 I should take it that he had been seeing visions. * It 
 was just an illusion,' he hastened to explain. 1 1 
 was half-famished, and capable of imagining any- 
 thing, but it had a very strange effect.' " Sigurdson 
 suddenly wheeled his chair round and addressed the 
 glowing logs. We had to lean forward to catch his 
 words. He had set himself the task of telling the 
 tale, and he went on sturdily. 
 
 "'I seemed to realise suddenly what I possessed, 
 and a new, wild joy took hold of me. I felt how I 
 was to be envied by those who had nothing to offer
 
 182 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 to Almighty God but human things walls and 
 arches and stained glass. I, with the Tabernacle on 
 my poor little altar ! and the Holy Sacrifice in my 
 hands!'" 
 
 The Dean cleared his throat, but interruption 
 would have been impossible. 
 
 " * I could have sung with the fulness of my joy. 
 It came to me like a great new gift, this knowledge 
 that I had possessed all along. But, sir, how I 
 pitied those who had not my possessions ! A terrible 
 remorse overtook me for all my hard thoughts 
 towards those who deserved all gentleness the 
 "have-not" of the good God's dispensation. Well, 
 I went home like a man in a dream, feeling as though 
 someone had left me a fortune, and I went straight 
 into my little church and made a thanksgiving; and 
 before I left I said five decades of the rosary for the 
 health and happiness and welfare of those who were 
 in possession of Abbot William's church. And that 
 evening I registered a vow that I would say a rosary 
 every day for that same intention in expiation of 
 my sin of uncharity. Then I remembered the non- 
 Catholic friend who had given me the rosary and I 
 got a fancy to use the brown beads for this purpose 
 I felt somehow it would bring him into it. Years 
 afterwards I heard that he had had the good fortune 
 to meet Monsignor Whitman, who, of course, 
 succeeded in bringing him into the Church.' ' 
 Sigurdson smiled slyly across at me. The Monsignor
 
 THE BROWN BEADS 188 
 
 had been an intimate friend of his for many years. 
 His tone became slow and deliberate : 
 
 * ' For fifteen years I have never missed saying 
 that rosary, and I always used the brown beads up 
 till a year ago, when I had the misfortune to drop 
 them on the beach when I was on my holiday at 
 Ramsgate. Perhaps it was just as well; I was 
 getting almost superstitiously attached to those 
 beads as though they could have had a particular 
 virtue of their own.' This idea tickled him 
 mightily. 
 
 " ' But how on earth did you manage to keep it 
 up?' I asked him. 
 
 "'Method, sir,' he answered. 'Our Church 
 achieves everything by method, and her enemies 
 call it mechanical ! I arranged with myself always 
 to say those five decades at the same hour as that 
 on which I first said them, and I have scarcely ever 
 failed, except in cases of emergency, in saying it at 
 that hour.' 
 
 " ' And what hour was that, Father?' " I asked. 
 
 "He told me." Sigurdson suddenly turned round 
 and faced us. 
 
 "It was half-past nine in the evening." 
 
 He continued : " Well, I naturally had to give up 
 the beads. He took them and stuffed them in the 
 pocket where he kept the snuff-box. ' It's just a 
 silly fancy,' he said, * but I expect I shall use them 
 again to-night.' I know what those beads have been
 
 184 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 smelling of since " Sigurdson's tone hurled defiance 
 at us all "snuff!" 
 
 Then the clock struck the half hour after nine. 
 He had timed his story well. 
 
 The Dean broke the silence that was getting too 
 tense for comfort. " I think I'll be getting home," 
 he said. He shook hands with us all, an unusual 
 proceeding when we met daily. 
 
 "Ah," Sigurdson said, "you're wise to be getting 
 to bed. I can hear a cold coming. You've got it 
 from me. You'll excuse me coming out; Brian will 
 see you off the premises." 
 
 I accompanied the Dean to the door and we 
 walked the length of the drive together. Neither 
 of us spoke but we clasped hands again at the gate. 
 
 I stood watching his retreating figure. The house 
 stood on high ground outside the town. The road 
 forked a little lower down. On the left lay the 
 Minster, standing out in all its beauty against the 
 starlit sky. On the right the cluster of outlying 
 cottages, hi the midst of which stood the little "tin" 
 church and the yellow brick presbytery where, at 
 that moment, the spiritual descendent of William 
 the Abbot knelt telling his beads for the health, 
 happiness, and welfare of those who ministered 
 according to their lights in the great church yonder. 
 And as I stood there, watching the retreating figure 
 approaching the divided way, the air seemed filled 
 with fragrance a pot-pourri from the heavenly
 
 THE BROWN BEADS 185 
 
 flower garden the odour of Charity the scent of 
 the brown beads. 
 
 That is the story of the rosary which lies in my 
 hand. It came into my possession on the death of 
 Father Knox, together with some MSS., which he 
 instructed me to destroy after reading. " I would 
 trust no other but you with it." he said, lying there 
 on his death-bed. " It was my safety-valve. I got 
 things off my chest that way and it avoided uncharity, 
 as no one read it." The papers contained some of 
 the finest controversial squibs that I have ever met. 
 They were addressed to So-and-so, "apropos of what 
 you said the other day." Their value to the 
 literature of polemics is a thing I hardly dare to 
 contemplate, for I kept my word and destroyed 
 them. I offered the brown rosary to Sigurdson, 
 but he refused to accept it on the grounds that he 
 was " still outside the Church." He is still outside 
 the Church, but since the little Father's death I have 
 seen a real change in him, and I have at last become 
 assured that his coming is a practical certainty he 
 has at last found faith, the fundamental that he 
 lacked, and which the Dean, with all his prejudices, 
 possessed. (The Dean, by the way, has resigned 
 his living on the grounds of ill-health and gone to 
 live in Italy. This happened some time before the 
 death of Father Knox.) 
 
 So I think of my friend Sigurdson as I look at
 
 186 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 the brown beads, and from force of association there 
 seems to arise from the latter an ever-present 
 delicious perfume that once haunted it at certain 
 times and seasons the odour of Charity; and I am 
 tempted to ask if the wonder worked in the mind 
 of my friend is not a miracle wrought by prayer 
 the efficacious prayer of one who no longer sees 
 through a glass darkly, but knows exactly as he is 
 known.
 
 GRATIAS 
 
 THE shrine of Our Lady of Grace, which stands hi a 
 big Catholic Church, up a very shy side street, hi 
 a very fashionable neighbourhood somewhere in 
 England, has a private reputation for being miracu- 
 lous. The reputation is a strictly private and 
 unofficial one ; the clergy are very particular that 
 it should be so, for unauthenticated " miracles " 
 frequently lead to disedification. The walls of the 
 chapel of Our Lady are lined with votive tablets 
 attesting to favours received, and it has been 
 suggested that some of these were erected in a 
 hurry that the recipients of the favours were 
 "too previous." The big marble slab bearing the 
 inscription "Gratias," in huge lettering, is a case hi 
 point. The miracle it commemorates is said to have 
 proved to have been only temporary in its nature. 
 Personally, I disagree with the " devil's advocate " 
 on that point. I have the whole story from the client 
 himself, and if I set it down the reader may be able 
 to form his own judgment hi the matter, for there 
 has been much discussion as to whether the tablet 
 ought not to be removed.
 
 188 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 As this narrative is intended for the thoughtful 
 grown-up reader, I must apologise for asking him 
 to get inside the mind of a child to begin with. 
 Phoebe is the little blue-eyed girl who sits with her 
 mother in the side aisle of the Church of Our Lady 
 of Grace. For years, ever since she learnt to read, 
 the tablets on the walls of the Lady Chapel have 
 proved a great boon to Phoebe. During a long 
 sermon, and the sermons at Sunday High Mass are 
 always long stiff, controversial discourses it is 
 possible to make up all kinds of stories about the 
 different tablets, and the people who put them up. 
 Phoebe used to do this assiduously until the khaki 
 man in the seat in front distracted her attention. 
 The live khaki man was as bread to her imagination 
 compared with a stone. He was really little more 
 than a boy, but to Phoebe he was magnificently 
 grown up. He became her hero during a course of 
 sermons preached by Monsignor Chrysostom. These 
 sermons were very long, so were the words of which 
 they were made up, but Phoebe didn't mind after 
 she discovered the khaki man. He evidently enjoyed 
 the sermons, for he always kept listening, although 
 he did not behave as nicely at other times as he 
 might have done. He never crossed himself at the 
 Gospel, for instance, and he only half knelt at the 
 Consecration. He had particularly nice eyes that 
 twinkled when he was amused. A pleasant inter- 
 course was established between Phoebe and the
 
 GRATIAS 189 
 
 khaki man through the latter's stumbling over her 
 as he came out of his seat. She was genuflecting 
 and he didn't attempt to do so the result being that 
 he came on the top of Phoebe. After that they 
 smiled when they encountered one another. It was 
 very thrilling if Phoebe had been one whit less 
 devout than she was she would have been tempted 
 to feel glad that the khaki man's mother had been 
 wicked enough to forget to teach him to genuflect. 
 As it was, their friendship ripened into a word of 
 greeting when they met outside church. 
 
 When the khaki man ceased to put in his 
 appearance, Phoebe had a terrible fear that he had 
 gone to the front. As it happened, she was right. 
 Then, a very few weeks later, he reappeared. But, 
 alas ! the twinkling eyes were covered by a bandage. 
 Phoebe's hero had been wounded, and perhaps he 
 was going to be blind for ever and ever ! He had 
 a friend with him, and as they walked away from 
 church Phoebe and her mother walked just behind 
 the pair. They were talking to one another, and 
 Phoebe listened to what they were saying. 
 
 " You Catholics are as bad as the rest of us," the 
 khaki boy said. " You believe in mascots and 
 charms. If I were the sort of fellow who wears a 
 bit of touchwood, I'd have a shot at your * Lady of 
 Grace,' and ask her to cure my eyes." 
 
 "And supposing she did cure them?" the other 
 queried.
 
 190 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 The khaki boy thought a moment. 
 
 "I'd call it coincidence," he said. "It could only 
 be coincidence. But," he added (no doubt his eyes 
 would have twinkled if they had retained their 
 efficiency), "I'd give her the tablet of marble, or 
 whatever else I'd vowed it wouldn't be cricket not 
 to. We'd play the game." 
 
 Phoebe had never heard anyone talk hi such a 
 queer way, except Monsignor Chrysostom, perhaps. 
 It was rather like Monsignor Chrysostom. She 
 hadn't the remotest idea what he meant, but his 
 curious words gave her an idea. Why should not 
 she ask Our Lady of Grace to cure her hero's eyes 
 make him see ? She would promise Our Lady a big 
 marble slab with " Gratias !" written on it, like one 
 that she specially admired. Her governess had 
 taught her that gr alias meant "thank you!" She 
 possessed a money-box with five entire shillings in 
 it. For so vast a sum as five shillings the finest of 
 tablets could surely be purchased ! It was, indeed 
 a great idea. Phoebe made all haste to present her 
 petition to Our Lady of Grace. She knelt before 
 the altar in the marble-lined chapel, and promised 
 and vowed to Our Lady a fine, proper marble tablet 
 on which should be duly graven the Latin word 
 Gratias, meaning "Thank you!" 
 
 Phoebe made her compact with the utmost 
 formality, using the longest words she knew, 
 although, as a rule, she was quite homely with Our
 
 GRATIAS 191 
 
 Lady. She went away feeling very important. It 
 was quite the biggest thing she had undertaken. 
 Our Lady of Grace had become a queenly and awe- 
 inspiring figure. Others have felt the same who 
 have deliberately entered into a bargain in the way 
 Phoebe had done. 
 
 Phoebe made a novena of prayers on her hero's 
 behalf. "Please, Holy Mother, make him see!" her 
 prayer ran; and on the tenth day a magnificent 
 thing happened. A stupefying thing ! She was 
 kneeling at Our Lady's altar (she was allowed out 
 alone to visit the church, which was quite near her 
 home), when who should approach but the khaki 
 man and his friend ; and, lo ! the former was no 
 longer wearing the bandage ! His eyes looked a 
 little queer, perhaps, but he could plainly see with 
 them. She had asked Our Lady that he might see. 
 The two men came and stood close by where she 
 was kneeling. 
 
 "There!" the khaki man said to his companion, 
 "if I'd prayed for a miracle to your Lady of Grace, 
 you'd have attributed this to her doing. The doctors 
 call it a miracle. They can't account for it. You 
 didn't happen to pray to her on my account, did 
 you, by the way ?" 
 
 The other was obliged to admit that he had not 
 thought of doing so. "But supposing I had?" he 
 asked. "How would you have felt about it?" 
 
 The khaki boy thought for a long time, and his
 
 192 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 answer was rather lame. " But the fact remains 
 that you didn't," he said. "The ' miracle ' has been 
 accomplished without any supernatural agency, like 
 all so-called miracles. No doubt, all the favours 
 commemorated on these tablets are coincidences, 
 but one can forgive it it's an uncommonly pretty 
 idea." 
 
 The other spoke up warmly. 
 
 "About the last thing Our Lady would forgive," 
 he said, "would be a ' pretty idea ' that encroached 
 on Truth. I can tell you that this place deals in 
 awful realities. I should not advise anyone to 
 exploit 'pretty ideas' here." The khaki boy was 
 silent. He remembered Monsignor Chrysostom 
 saying something of the kind in one of his sermons 
 how the Mother of Divine Truth was " as terrible 
 as an army set hi array." 
 
 Phoebe didn't try to understand what they were 
 saying. All she knew was that Our Lady of Grace 
 had made her hero see. It was more wonderful 
 than anything in a story-book. Then, being a very 
 conscientious little girl, she immediately turned her 
 thoughts to her side of the bargain. She must make 
 haste and get her "Thank you!" tablet set up in 
 its place. So anxious was she to discharge this 
 obligation that she barely waited to say her verbal 
 " Gratias !" She ran out of the church, across the 
 road, and into the shop of a stone-mason which good 
 fortune had placed there, within the pale of her 
 unattended peregrinations.
 
 GRATIAS 198 
 
 The gentleman in the shop sacred to tombstones 
 was a suave and melancholy person, with a manner 
 to match his calling. He surveyed Phoebe with 
 stupendous gravity. 
 
 "Please," the latter gasped breathlessly, "I 
 want a big piece of marble to stick on a wall with 
 the word ' Gratias ' on it. If you please, how much 
 will it cost?" 
 
 " You mean a mural tablet," the melancholy 
 person said, and a slight note of perplexity crept 
 into his smooth, resigned tones. Children of tender 
 years were not his normal customers. 
 
 "What did you say you wanted written on it ?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "' Gratias!' It means 'Thank you!' " Phoebe 
 explained. 
 
 The mason was a Protestant, with a Protestant 
 connection. He began to look suspicious. "Gratias" 
 might be a German word, and his client the off- 
 spring of a German spy. The whole thing was 
 abnormal ! but the business instinct held good. If 
 a Zeppelin bomb had conveyed the message, " What 
 price tombstones?" Mr Graves would have quoted 
 prices, as per catalogue. 
 
 "Grat-i-as," he repeated. "Lettering comes to 
 something under a shilling a letter. It would be 
 about five shilling extra for the inscription." 
 
 Phoebe felt her heart sink into her shoes. "Please, 
 what would the whole cost, then ?" she asked faintly. 
 
 N
 
 194 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 The melancholy man named a sum beyond the 
 dreams of avarice. Never in her wildest dreams 
 could Phoebe hope to accumulate such a sum in 
 her money-box. "Thank you," she whispered very 
 meekly, and crept out of the tombstone shop dismally 
 enlightened in the economics of mural decoration. 
 She was feeling terribly, horribly guilty. What 
 would Our Lady think of her? Phoebe's bringing- 
 up had been on lines that put truth and sincerity 
 in the highest place. Her father had been a soldier 
 and died for his country years ago. A strict sense 
 of honour had been inculcated into his daughter. 
 Broken promises promises made rashly with no 
 intention of fulfilment these were cardinal sins. 
 Never say what you don't mean to anyone, had been 
 a nursery maxim, and now it looked uncommonly 
 as though Phoebe had said what she didn't mean 
 to Our Lady herself. Had not she just been hearing 
 her hero's friend saying how Our Lady loathed 
 shams ? And, oh, shame ! had not her hero himself 
 said once in her hearing that if Our Lady did cure 
 his eyes he would carry out whatever he had 
 promised, whatever happened. He had said some- 
 thing funny, but it had been something to the effect 
 that it would be particularly mean not to keep one's 
 word in such a case. 
 
 Poor Phoebe ! She had indeed obtained her 
 favour, but she had obtained it on false pretences. 
 What would her father say her dead father,
 
 GRATIAS 195 
 
 whose Victoria Cross hung on the drawing-room 
 wall in a glass case ? 
 
 For some days she had a detestably bad time. Then 
 she suddenly received comfort from an unexpected 
 quarter. Monsignor Chrysostom was giving a series 
 of sermons on Church History. He used longer 
 words than ever " continuity " came in again and 
 again but on one point he was thrillingly interest- 
 ing. It more than compensated for the absence 
 of the khaki man, who no longer occupied the seat 
 in front. The preacher was describing the condition 
 of the Catholic Church in England during the penal 
 days. He described, among other things, the 
 substitute for an altar stone used by the missionary 
 priests. It consisted of a piece of common slate, like 
 a child's school slate, on which five crosses were 
 scratched ; and, in God's sight, this was exactly the 
 same as a marble altar. The marble was not an 
 essential the Mass was. That was the point the 
 preacher brought out, and Phoebe listened in a 
 rapture of joy. It was all perfectly simple. All 
 she had to do was to take her old schoolroom slate 
 and write "Gratias!" on it, and present it to Our 
 Lady with the explanation that it was the best she 
 could do. 
 
 The plan was quite easily carried out. That same 
 afternoon, Phoebe, bearing under her arm her lessons 
 slate, on which she had laboriously inscribed the 
 word "Gratias !" in her best copy-book hand, sought
 
 196 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 an audience of the Rector. She must, of course, ask 
 him to place her mural monument for her in the 
 Lady Chapel. The space which she selected 
 in her mind for its reception had stared her out 
 of countenance for days past like an empty eye- 
 socket. 
 
 The Rector, tired after a long day, was making 
 his evening sermon when Phoebe asked to see him. 
 Her mother was an old friend. He concluded it was 
 a message, and Phoebe was admitted. I'm afraid he 
 didn't listen very much to what she had to say. He 
 smiled at the slate, shook his head, and told her 
 to run home, after giving a little trite advice to the 
 effect that Our Lady liked little girls who tried 
 to please her by being obedient, and so on, and so on. 
 He didn't understand in the least that Our Lady 
 loathed and despised dishonourable little girls who 
 broke their word. 
 
 Phoebe was heart-broken. She went back into 
 church from the sacristy, and, kneeling down before 
 Our Lady's altar with her despised make-shift at her 
 side, wept copiously. 
 
 "Is anything the matter?" 
 
 It was the voice of her khaki man at her side, 
 He was regarding her with his kind, though still 
 rather peculiar-looking eyes. 
 
 Phoebe blushed furiously, but he was so kind and 
 insistent that she found herself blurting out her 
 story in a guarded fashion, of course. She had
 
 GRATIAS 197 
 
 asked Our Lady to make someone see, and she had 
 done so, and then the tragedy of the mural monu- 
 ment, and the subsequent substitution of the 
 slate, on the principle followed by the martyr 
 priests, into which she went at some length, for 
 the khaki boy was an exquisite listener, and 
 they had retired to a bench where they could talk 
 all right. 
 
 The khaki man's merry eyes twinkled. It was 
 very snobbish of the Rector, he opined unreason- 
 ably, not to accept the substitute. " And can your 
 friend really see all right?" he queried. 
 
 "Why, yes!" Phoebe retorted then, her training 
 hi accuracy of speech asserting itself, she added 
 hastily : " You can see all right, can't you ?" 
 
 She had given herself away hopelessly. She 
 blushed as red as a lobster, and became dumb with 
 embarrassment. The khaki man ought to have 
 been amused at the naive manner in which the client 
 of Our Lady of Grace had given away her secret, but 
 he remained serious, and looked just a little bit 
 startled. Humour and pathos were prominent hi the 
 simple recital, but there was another feeling that 
 swamped both for the moment. Someone had really 
 prayed for him. His miracle had, in truth, been 
 preceded by prayer to the Lady of Wonders. His 
 assertion that there had been no supernatural agency 
 had been belied by this unconscious little maiden, 
 whose prayers were surely as pure and heart-whole
 
 198 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 as any ever offered. To put them in the same 
 category as the occult rites of people who touch 
 wood, or attach an inexplicable value to a string of 
 rosary beads, borrowed from a Catholic in the 
 trenches, as a mascot against the enemy's bullet, 
 was to see the two in contrast. 
 
 " So I owe my sight to you," he said, and offered 
 her his big brown hand. He could not decently be 
 sceptical with her, and he was inexpressibly touched 
 by the generosity that had offered the entire wealth 
 of the money-box to procure the desired end. 
 
 There were two ways open to him, as he sat there 
 before the shrine of Our Lady of Grace. He could 
 accept the miracle and make his confession of faith 
 he was actually at the threshold of the Church, but 
 something, which he called intellectual doubts, held 
 him back or he could thrust his tongue into his 
 cheek and say " Thank you !" in marble to the Lady 
 of Grace. There was no third way. In common 
 decency he must set his little would-be benefactor's 
 mind at rest by seeing that the promised tablet was 
 duly erected. 
 
 He arranged it all with Phoebe there and then. 
 The marble tablet should be ordered and duly set 
 up, and he would pay for it, and she should give him 
 her slate as a souvenir. That was quite fair. Surely 
 his eyes were well worth it ? 
 
 Phoebe fixed her big blue Irish eyes on him while 
 he said this, and suddenly he felt ashamed of himself.
 
 GRATIAS 199 
 
 He was " rotting " her. What a fraudulent cad he 
 was. And he was " rotting " someone else the 
 Lady, Mother of Divine Truth, who was "as terrible 
 as an army set in array." 
 
 For the moment, there, with the atmosphere of the 
 chapel about him, he was quite wholesomely ashamed, 
 but when he got free of the little wonder-corner that 
 the clergy have to guard so assiduously from idle 
 and superstitious inquirers, the feeling wore off. 
 Perhaps there was a spice of defiance in the attitude 
 of mind in which he set about ordering a more 
 than usually imposing tablet. This attraction to 
 the Catholic Church was a palpable and personal 
 onslaught. He got on the defensive, and his 
 weapon, like that of many a one with his back to 
 the wall, was flippancy. Of course, he must " play 
 the game." Our Lady should have a perfectly 
 correct votive offering. The idea was quite " pretty 
 and picturesque." It would please the little blue- 
 eyed ladykin, too, with her sturdy sense of honour. 
 
 So the mural monument was duly ordered and 
 set up in the Chapel of Our Lady, and the despised 
 slate found a place on the khaki man's mantelpiece 
 among the priceless oddments that an exceedingly 
 wealthy and highly artistic young man gets together, 
 and glories in. The khaki boy sat in his luxurious 
 arm-chair in front of the fire, and meditated on the 
 new addition to his curios. He remembered what 
 Phoebe had told him about the missionary priests
 
 200 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 and their pieces of slate "that didn't matter, because 
 it was only the Mass that mattered." He had received 
 the usual English schoolboy's doses of " doctored " 
 history, and he had never come across the Church of 
 the persecution days hi his studies of Catholicism. 
 As he looked at the slate, there crept over him an 
 uncomfortable sense of an " unrealised reality " 
 lying behind the externals that for him made up the 
 Roman Catholic Church. It was fascinating, this 
 new idea, if it was discomfiting. A few days 
 later, when calling on his Catholic friend, he came 
 across a volume on the latter's book-shelves which 
 proved to be a history of the Elizabethan Missionary 
 priests. "Could you lend me this, old chap ?" he 
 said, " I'd rather like to have a look at it." 
 
 " Delighted," the other replied, " but the doctors 
 have knocked off your reading, haven't they ? And 
 the print of that book you've got hold of isn't up to 
 much. It's a fat book, too." 
 
 " Oh that's all right," the khaki boy said, " 111 
 only dip into it. I only want to see one or two 
 things." 
 
 But he didn't dip. He sat up and read the entire 
 fat volume off at a sitting. The Romance of the 
 English martyr-priest is the most thrilling chivalric 
 record in the language. It went straight to the 
 imagination of the khaki boy, who had been one of 
 the first to " chuck " his life of pleasurable pursuits 
 and join Kitchener's Army. Set in relief against the
 
 GRATIAS 201 
 
 pomp and circumstance of the Church's normal 
 ceremonial, the pageant of the secret Mass, devoid of 
 every unessential adjunct, is the touch of genius that 
 brings the reality of the faith home to the mind of 
 the outsider. It made him see. 
 
 The next day the khaki boy's eyes were inflamed. 
 The doctor examined them and ordered the patient 
 back into a dark room. Now, sitting in a dark 
 room gives a rare opportunity for cogitating. The 
 khaki boy digested his reading in an environment 
 conducive to meditation. After a while he sent a 
 request to the Very Reverend Monsignor Chrysostom 
 to pay a visit to a poor blind soldier. The Monsignor 
 came, and they had the first of many long talks. 
 The English martyrs, the knight-errant of the 
 Church in England, had gripped the warrior spirit of 
 the khaki boy. 
 
 One day, some weeks later, there was a little 
 round table with a white cloth set out in the Chapel 
 of Our Lady of Grace. It held a glass basin 
 containing water, and a book of the Gospels lay on 
 it. The Sacristan cleared the church of stray 
 prayerful people. There was going to be a convert 
 received, a not uncommon happening. Presently 
 the khaki boy was led in, and up to the Lady 
 Chapel. His eyes were unbandaged, but they saw 
 nothing. On the wall was a dazzling new marble 
 tablet, bearing the word "Gratias!" in large 
 letters, but the khaki boy could not see it, for his
 
 202 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 " miracle " had been a temporary one, and he was 
 stone blind. 
 
 The question of the tablet's remaining in its place 
 occupied the minds of two people, the Rector and 
 Phoebe. The latter had been completely nonplussed 
 by Our Lady's strange action. It were not as 
 though she, Phoebe, had really broken her rashly- 
 given word, for there stood the tablet, grand beyond 
 her wildest dreams of stone-embodied gratitude. 
 She had become great friends with her khaki hero. 
 He had asked her mother to let her go in and be 
 eyes to him, and they were the best pals imaginable. 
 " Don't you think," she asked him, "that Our Lady 
 would rather that you took the tablet back? I 
 would in her place, wouldn't you?" 
 
 "But why?" he asked. " You asked Our Lady 
 to make me see, didn't you? Well, she has made 
 me see. It's like this " he leant forward in his 
 chair, and fixed his unseeing eyes on something 
 "I can't see the Tabernacle now, it's true, but I can 
 see what's inside it; and that's most certainly 
 Our Lady's doing." 
 
 The Rector made a similar suggestion to him in 
 regard to the tablet. 
 
 "My dear Father," the khaki boy said, "so far 
 from removing that bit of marble, I am having a 
 much more complete thankoffering to Our Lady of 
 Grace fixed up hi my house hi the country. I'm 
 going to have an oratory lined with marble all over
 
 GRATIAS 208 
 
 the walls except in one place, where I'm going to 
 have that piece of slate let in." He pointed in the 
 direction of the mantelpiece, and the Rector saw 
 there a child's school-slate, on which was written, 
 in a large, laboured round hand, the word 
 "Gratias!"
 
 THE LADY 
 
 You have asked me, Marcella, to write down the 
 story of how I came to believe in the Christ exactly 
 in the words in which I tell it; and then you say 
 that you mean to transcribe it from papyrus to 
 imperishable parchment so that it may live for ever ! 
 You say that you will have it buried with you so 
 that it may be in a safe place where the Lord can 
 find it, if He wants it, until the end of the world, 
 which may not be so very near after all. It is 
 easier to tell a simple tale, and mine is so very 
 simple, with the tongue than with the pen. It will 
 look strange, methinks, on parchment, like the 
 writings of the divines and doctors yet I will try. 
 I will tell my little story just as though you and I 
 were sitting in the Garden which the Lord loved, 
 talking of the things that will happen over the 
 eternal hills. 
 
 It was sixty years ago, when I was a girl of twenty 
 or so, that I first came in contact with Christianity, 
 as we call it nowadays. In the days when our 
 blessed Father Paul was preaching, and holy John
 
 THE LADY 205 
 
 was still in Jerusalem, I was living at Antioch 
 with my parents. There were many hi those days 
 who had actually seen the Lord men of His own 
 generation. I heard the story of Jesus of Nazareth 
 first from a friend of our family who had joined the 
 Christian sect. When my father discovered that 
 Demetrius was a Christian he immediately put an 
 end to the intimacy. He and my mother, and my 
 sister Diana, were terribly shocked. We all liked 
 Demetrius. No, this is not a love story ! Perhaps 
 I liked him less than the others did, but his story of 
 the Christ held me spell-bound. I longed to hear 
 more. My father and mother were too horrified at 
 the idea of Christianity, for to them it meant a 
 lawless and seditious fanaticism, deeply tinged with 
 vice, to even suspect that one of their children 
 would be fascinated by its teachings. In secret I 
 learned all I could of the new, strange, enthralling 
 ideals that Christianity embodied. I loved and 
 worshipped them, but I could not bring myself to 
 believe that it was all actually true. My father had 
 given me a magnificent intellectual training, and I 
 trusted much to my reasoning faculties which he 
 had so carefully and patiently cultivated. I went 
 in secret to hear the Christian preachers. Some of 
 these moved me for the moment. Peter's sincerity, 
 for instance, no one could doubt, yet I asked myself, 
 might he not be deluded ? Demetrius introduced me 
 to converts full of zeal and learning, with whom I
 
 206 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 had arguments. None of these had actually seen 
 the Lord. What manner of man, I wondered, was 
 the Christ Himself? Oh, to have seen Him as Peter 
 had done ! To know the manner of man that He 
 was. 
 
 I came to possess a very tender and wistful regard 
 for the Christians. It cut me to the quick to hear 
 them discussed at my father's table with such ter- 
 rible misapprehension. It hurt me unbearably even 
 while I had doubts as to the sanity of Peter, and while 
 the written words of Paul were ever conveying, like 
 an echo, the rejoinder, " but it is not true, not true! 
 For could not a genius like Saul of Tarsus construct 
 all this on an idea manufacture the evidence hi his 
 abnormal brain ? I loved discussing the subject with 
 Demetrius. He was so adroit in argument, one could 
 admire where one disagreed, yet he too failed to help 
 me after a certain stage. I think his emphatic way 
 of putting things rather made one differ instinctively. 
 It would certainly hurt my pride to give in to Deme- 
 trius, much as I longed to believe. He was remark- 
 ably learned hi the law of the Jews, and could show 
 me how all the ancient prophecies had been fulfilled. 
 I have seldom met a clearer or keener thinker. 
 
 As time went on the Christian belief became to me 
 something more than an interesting hypothesis. It 
 began to trouble me. I had learned all that there 
 was to be learnt. Yet, I told myself, I could not 
 believe. I had reached the stage when I could no
 
 THE LADY 207 
 
 longer bear to hear the followers of Christ maligned 
 in silence. I shall never forget the first occasion on 
 which the members of my family realised that I 
 had fallen under the Christian spell. I suddenly 
 came out with a vehement utterance it was one of 
 those little incidents that form milestones in our 
 lives. I brought it out in spite of myself, for I was 
 morbidly sensitive to home criticism. I think what 
 I said was this : "If Christianity is not true, then 
 I'm very sorry, that's all." My mother glanced at 
 me, and then looked quickly across at my sister. 
 Then she gave a heavy sigh. She was a 
 gentle-hearted woman who dreaded unseemly 
 happenings. She knew, poor soul ! that I possessed 
 a trend towards the unconventional. My father 
 was a grand man upright and self-disciplined. I 
 never knew him to correct in temper, or to punish a 
 mistake, but when he came up against real wrong- 
 doing he could be severe beyond mere temper. He 
 had never been angry with me before. Now he 
 turned his eyes on me with the cold steel of 
 disapproval in them. He made no comment. To 
 him Christianity stood for all that is base. To 
 embrace it meant to wilfully debase the higher 
 parts of man. As for my sister Diana, she had 
 heard the stories they told about the worshippers of 
 Christ. She knew me not to be vile by nature, and 
 I knew that she concluded that the hero-worshipping 
 tendency which had displayed itself at school (Diana
 
 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 had never been known to adore a preceptress) had 
 drawn me into a trap laid by some cunning individual 
 who had cast the spell of personality over me. She 
 looked absolutely physically, sick. I think Diana's 
 attitude was hardest of all to bear. 
 
 I went out that day with an overwhelming sense 
 of loneliness of bitter isolation. I had become an 
 alien, a rather nauseating alien, in my own home. 
 Nay, more, a stranger, and a very unpleasant, 
 unfamiliar stranger, to myself. It was the acme of 
 desolation that clearing out of my soul for what it 
 was to receive. 
 
 We had then come to live in Jerusalem, quite 
 recently, from Antioch. I no longer had Demetrius 
 to go to, and I doubt if I would have done so in my 
 present state. Demetrius rankled in my mind in 
 connection with Diana's obvious and unfounded 
 suspicions. I could recall now many oblique 
 allusions that stung me like burning arrows. 
 Christianity had lost its magic. Yet where was I 
 to go? I had a letter of introduction to the elders 
 of the Church in Jerusalem that Demetrius had 
 given me. I told myself, grimly, that now was the 
 time to test my convictions now, when the 
 intellectual side alone remained when my dangerous 
 emotions were benumbed by the sting of the home 
 wound. 
 
 Doggedly I turned my steps to the corner of the 
 city where the Christian elder lived to whom my
 
 THE LADY 209 
 
 introduction was addressed. He proved to be a 
 gentle, scholarly man, very kind and patient. He 
 listened to my difficulties, which seemed to rise up 
 with seven-fold force, and answered them as 
 skilfully as Demetrius would have done. He, too, 
 showed me the law and the prophets and explained 
 the prophecies. He was a wonderful thinker, and 
 the strange sanctity that all the more matured 
 members of the Christian Church seemed to possess 
 was very marked in him. But my undersanding 
 was hardened, or my heart. I could not be convinced. 
 My instructor took infinite pains. Presently he 
 went and fetched another presbyter, and they 
 conversed together at a little distance off. I heard 
 them mention the name of the great doctor, John. 
 At that tune he was still in Jerusalem and had not 
 yet elaborated his famous theme of the Logos, but 
 his high doctrine was known privately to the more 
 scholarly portion of the Church. Demetrius revelled, 
 with his Greek way of thinking, hi the wonderful 
 exposition of the central Christian truth afterwards 
 given to the Church at large. I grew greatly 
 excited at the thought that I was to be referred to 
 this great doctor. I was also more than a little 
 afraid. I wanted to do my education justice, and 
 my head was buzzing with the pros and cons of our 
 recent conversation. After a short consultation my 
 instructor returned to me with a scrip hi his hand. 
 This he gave me, and bade me bear it to the house 
 
 o
 
 210 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 of John, to which latter place a servant would guide 
 me. So I set out for the great teacher's house, 
 feeling, as I have said, half afraid. They said the 
 Christ had loved this man for his charity, but was 
 it not also he who denounced idols, and was not my 
 father's house full of idols ? What would he require 
 of me hi that fierce zeal for what he held to be the 
 truth ? 
 
 The servant conducted me to a still more obscure 
 corner of the city. The entrance to the preacher's 
 house was in a little courtyard. It was a mean 
 place, and surrounded by places of no good repute. 
 What would my mother have said could she have 
 seen me there ? or Diana ? I did not have long to 
 wait on the threshold. Soon the figure of a woman 
 approached from within. In the dun light I could 
 not see much of her I suppose I was nervous, but 
 I seemed able to grasp very little except that she 
 was smiling at me. 
 
 " You are Agatha," she said simply, not asking a 
 question, but stating a fact, and I followed her in, 
 wondering how on earth they had prepared her for 
 my visit. The room she took me into was poor and 
 bare. A newly-kindled fire burned on the hearth, 
 for it was a cold day, but otherwise nothing was 
 suggested but the utmost poverty. And yet, there 
 was an air of dignity about the place that I could 
 not account for that I have tried to reproduce 
 since in other places by banishing all unnecessary
 
 THE LADY 211 
 
 furniture from an apartment. But I have never 
 achieved that majestic result. , 
 
 The lady led me to a seat by the fireside. She 
 sat down opposite me. I saw that I would have to 
 wait for my " audience," and this, of course, I 
 was quite prepared for. I glanced at the face 
 before me. It was in the shadow a worn, 
 curiously beautiful face. I could form no idea of 
 its owner's age. 
 
 She regarded me for a few moments. " So you 
 are not a Christian yet," she said, in the same tone 
 of stating a fact. It drew forth an answer more 
 irresistibly than any question could have done. % 
 gave my reason : 
 
 " No," I replied, " I am not yet able to believe." 
 
 She went on regarding me quietly, with shrewd 
 eyes, into which there crept a smile. 
 
 "And why not?" she asked. And she sat there 
 smiling at me steadily while I racked my brains to 
 formulate my principal reasons for remaining 
 outside the Christian Church. They suddenly 
 seemed to have become rather paltry, I discovered, 
 and I had a feeling, furthermore, that she could 
 fathom their paltriness, yet it was with the gentlest 
 interest that she was awaiting my answer. There 
 was no scorn in her amusement. 
 
 When my answer came it was a curious one one 
 I had never cited before, never dreamt of acknowledg- 
 ing. " My parents are worshippers of Diana," I
 
 212 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 said ; " I don't know what would happen if I became 
 a Christian." 
 
 She looked at me, still silent, but listening with 
 indescribable intentness. It had the effect of 
 making me scrupulously accurate she seemed to be 
 setting so much value on what I was saying. 
 
 "I don't mean," I explained hastily, "that I should 
 suffer persecution. My father would protect me 
 he is a good man, but he believes the things that 
 they say of the Christians, and he wouldn't, he 
 couldn't understand." 
 
 My voice trailed off. I looked down at my thumbs. 
 It sounded such a feeble little reason. I had an 
 idea that she would be once again smiling that 
 shrewd smile at my poor mean confession of 
 paltriness. 
 
 I heard her give a quick, sharp sigh. I looked 
 up. She was grave, and her face was full of the 
 tenderest sympathy and concern. 
 
 " But that is hard," she murmured, almost to 
 herself. " Harder than persecution." Then she 
 added softly, " There are seven kinds of sorrow, and 
 seventy-seven kinds of suffering." I think that was 
 how she put it, but I cannot quite remember. I 
 know that, once again, what she said had that same 
 authority as though she knew. I looked into her 
 face, and then I understood the extraordinary, 
 uncommon beauty, something that a foolish 
 portrait-maker would have touched out, but which
 
 THE LADY 218 
 
 an artist would have given his days to be able to 
 reproduce. 
 
 Then she began to ask me about myself and my 
 home, listening quietly, with very little comment, 
 while I found myself pouring out my story, the 
 story, not of my intellectual difficulties, but of my 
 ideals and aspirations of the strong desire to 
 believe that existed in part of me, at least (some- 
 thing in her way of listening made me punctiliously 
 careful to speak the truth to represent myself as 
 I was). I told her everything all about my little 
 petty troubles, and how petty they were ! And the 
 pettier, the more she seemed to sympathise, as 
 though she had actually experienced them all. Yet 
 she said little. I can scarcely, as a matter of fact, 
 recall a single sentence of what she did say. I only 
 know that she drew the story out of me, bit by bit. 
 I could not have conceived it possible beforehand 
 that I could have unburdened myself thus. I 
 seemed to get to know myself as I talked. She sat 
 looking, sometimes at me, sometimes at the fire. 
 Her eyes, at times smiling, at tunes full of gentle, 
 tearful sympathy, seemed to draw out all that 
 my heart contained. I had forgotten all about 
 the metaphysics and philosophy. This Lady had 
 intervened ! 
 
 It is strange that I can recall so little of what she 
 said, for when it came, it was always positive, yet 
 not like the opinions of Demetrius which courted
 
 214 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 contradiction by their very assurance. The memory 
 is, in a way, blurred, like a dream. I can best 
 revive it in a fashion which may make you smile. 
 I was wearing a string of barbaric beads round my 
 neck, and as I talked I had a nervous habit of 
 slipping them through my fingers. It was a trick 
 that might have fidgeted some people. Once I 
 thought I had fidgeted her, for she paused suddenly, 
 as though arrested by my action. Then she flashed 
 out a curious smile I have often wondered what it 
 meant. After all these years I have only to take 
 these beads (I have always kept them) and pass 
 them through my fingers, and at once I seem to feel 
 her listening, and to see again that wonderful look 
 of rapt attention on her face. This seems a foolish 
 detail, indeed, to set down to be copied on parch- 
 ment, but you ask for the story as I tell it. Per- 
 haps the unborn generations may guess the secret of 
 why she smiled at my little trick with my string of 
 beads ! 
 
 Mine was an unconscionably long story. I told 
 her how the Christian ideal had filled a great void in 
 my heart of the strange feeling of absolute restful- 
 ness that came over me when I felt the atmosphere 
 of the Christian communities to which Demetrius 
 introduced me of my groping after the light which 
 I felt was shining there, although I could not see it. 
 " That, though," I added hastily, "is a contra- 
 diction, for darkness is dispelled by light."
 
 THE LADY 215 
 
 I can remember what she answered then. 
 " No," she rejoined, quickly. " The light shines 
 in the darkness and the darkness comprehends 
 it not." 
 
 " If only I could see the Christ," I cried, as I 
 had so often cried to myself. "You knew Him, 
 perhaps?" I suddenly hazarded. 
 
 " Yes, I knew Him," she said. " I know Him." 
 
 I noted how she substituted the present tense. I 
 gazed up at her in awe, but I was arrested by the 
 tired, worn expression on her face. I had fagged 
 her out with the endless tale of my troubles. It had 
 become twilight. It must be getting late. I gazed 
 at her in the flickering firelight, and as I gazed I felt 
 my heart thrill within me. " Tell me what He was 
 like," I whispered. 
 
 She made no reply. She simply sat smiling at 
 me. I had amused her again somehow. And then, 
 suddenly I knew I knew what He was like. ' J 
 almost got the idea that He was there before me. 
 Was I scanning a vision that memory had called up 
 in her mind ? 
 
 " You knew Him well ?" I breathed the question 
 very diffidently. 
 
 " I am His Mother," she replied. 
 
 So she sat there, smiling at me, and holding my 
 very soul with her smile. 
 
 I was without speech. I knew now that I 
 believed and I knew what He was like. His
 
 216 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 Mother ! That was the secret of this adorable Lady, 
 this exquisite listener. 
 
 I found myself on my knees at her side. 
 
 "You will be brave," she said, answering my 
 unspoken confession of faith. 
 
 Then I was daring and smiled back at her. 
 
 " I don't need to be brave," I cried; " it's quite 
 easy now. I'm not afraid. I know now. I believe 
 and I love " I took her hand shyly and kissed it 
 "I love Him!" 
 
 She kept hold of my hand, and of my eyes with 
 her eyes. She only said one thing, very gently : 
 " Can't you feel Him very near?" .... 
 
 I knew that the time had come for me to go. The 
 thing was accomplished. I rose and she rose. She 
 did not detain me. She took me to the door and let 
 me out. I would have knelt and kissed the hem of 
 her garment, but she had turned and glided back 
 quietly into the shadowed room. The servant was 
 awaiting me to conduct me back to the respectable 
 part of the city. I had not been instructed in the 
 Mystery of the Eternal Logos after all. I had 
 received no sublime disquisition on the Word made 
 Flesh in the House of John, but I had found the 
 Christ, and I had found Him as the shepherds had 
 found Him with His mother. 
 
 This will be a strange screed, indeed, Marcella, to 
 inscribe on imperishable parchment, but here it is I
 
 THE LADY 217 
 
 And if so be, take my string of beads, likewise, and 
 keep them with it, for who knows but that some 
 other desolate soul, holding them in her hand as she 
 tells her story, may not thus obtain a vision of the 
 Listener ?
 
 THE ONE THAT FOLLOWED 
 
 I AM going to tell the world the story of my two 
 big pictures of the first, the "Transfiguration," 
 which made my name for a tune and the story 
 of the one that followed. 
 
 I shall tell it quite simply. I have no time for fine 
 writing, nor for any of the fine arts, for the matter 
 of that. I must tell you that I possess a rather 
 curious faculty (I believe others have it too) for 
 seeing pictures with my mind's eye when I am 
 listening to music. The music seems to translate 
 itself into visualised forms, landscapes, or figures, 
 as the case may be. Its message is conveyed to me 
 that way; I see it, as it were, with my mental eye. 
 That was the way in which my first big picture, the 
 " Transfiguration," came to be painted. 
 
 I was staying in an Italian town where everyone 
 had gone mad over the singing of a certain Signor- 
 ina X. The Signorina's singing was something quite 
 out of the common more than a glorious organ 
 and faultless voice production. " Something more 
 than Art and diviner than genius," one enthusiast
 
 THE ONE THAT FOLLOWED 219 
 
 said to me, and I became wildly curious to hear the 
 Signorina X. 
 
 I was a young man, full of ideals and ambitions. 
 My burning desire was to paint a big religious 
 picture a "Light of the World," or something of 
 the kind which would make me a shining light 
 among my fellows. 
 
 I discovered that the Signorina was giving a 
 farewell concert. She was leaving Italy, and, some 
 people said, the concert platform as well, but 
 admission to the concert was by invitation only. 
 No tickets were to be- sold. 
 
 So strictly was the spirit of the edict adhered to 
 that when I went to the length of presenting myself 
 at the concert hall and endeavoured to bribe the 
 door-keeper, no sum of money that I offered could 
 tempt him to pass me through. When at length I 
 did succeed in persuading him to let me slip hi and 
 stand at the back, it was out of sheer pity that he 
 did it. 
 
 The audience in the hall was one of the most curious 
 that I have ever seen. Both rich and poor were 
 represented some were of the poorest, but there 
 were wealthy folk too. There were several wheeled 
 chairs containing invalids, and I noticed a number 
 of blind people. I felt more of an intruder than I 
 had expected to do. 
 
 The Signorina X came forward to sing as I slipped 
 quietly into my " shy " corner a dazzling person-
 
 220 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 ality, slender and graceful, with a delicately beauti- 
 ful face. She was gorgeously dressed in shimmering 
 white. 
 
 The voice was like a bird's, full, vibrant, thrilling, 
 yet with a quality of tenderness I can't think of 
 the other word. Surely the singer had Irish blood 
 in her veins ? 
 
 The next moment I had forgotten the singer. I 
 had forgotten the music it was a Russian hymn of 
 praise, I believe, a strange, grave yet rapturous, 
 melody I was ascending Mount Thabor ! I saw 
 clearly, in detail, with my mental eye the picture 
 which I afterwards reproduced for the world. 
 Slowly, deliberately, it formed itself. The back- 
 ground, the atmosphere, the prostrate forms, and 
 the three radiant figures. Everything else was 
 obliterated by the vision. I rushed from the hall 
 during the ensuing applause, carry ing with me my 
 glimpse of glory. I had got it down on canvas 
 before the vision faded from my memory. 
 
 That was how "Transfiguration" came to be 
 painted. Its success was amazing. It was ex- 
 hibited in a gallery by itself, and all the world came 
 to look at it. I had made my name as a religious 
 painter. But the question was how to follow up my 
 success unless the inspiration were repeated. My 
 next picture was a relapse into the mediocre. "Trans- 
 figuration" promised to be an isolated triumph. 
 The world would soon forget its painter.
 
 THE ONE THAT FOLLOWED 221 
 
 I cherished a conviction that if only I could hear 
 the Signorina X sing again a similar inspiration 
 might come to me. There had been something 
 behind the enthralling melody and the exquisite 
 voice which had made the Signorina 's singing 
 magical something "higher than Art and diviner 
 than genius." If only I might hear her sing again! 
 
 I revisited the town where I had heard her, 
 hoping to trace her whereabouts, but Signorina X 
 had retired from the public ken. Nobody 
 knew her real name even. Some said that she 
 belonged to a princely Italian family, some that she 
 was not Italian at all. 
 
 Then after many months, the "accident" occurred 
 which is even more frequent in real life than in 
 fiction. My " Transfiguration " picture was being 
 exhibited hi Paris, and I happened to visit the salon 
 where it was being shown. Whilst I was there 
 a lady entered and stood in contemplation before 
 my picture. 
 
 It was Signorina X. 
 
 No doubt the association with the picture helped 
 me to recognise her I had carried away no distinct 
 recollection of her; and yet, as I looked at the 
 delicate, refined face, with its peculiarly " intent " 
 expression, I marvelled that I should have forgotten 
 it even in my dreams ! 
 
 She was dressed very quietly in black. My 
 "Transfiguration" evidently impressed her. I could
 
 222 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 not lose the opportunity. Taking my courage in both 
 hands I approached her, and introducing myself as 
 the painter, I told her the story of the picture. 
 
 She was desperately interested. I have never 
 known such a listener. I told her more than I had 
 meant to about myself. She had a wonderful 
 way with her. Surely the obsession of the Vision 
 alone had prevented me from dreaming of the 
 Signorina X ! 
 
 " But," she asked, " I don't understand how you 
 came to be at that farewell concert. They were all 
 my special friends there all the poor, or sad, or 
 unhappy folk that I knew." 
 
 I smiled at her. 
 
 " I expect," I said, "that the door-keeper thought 
 that I looked pitiable enough to merit admission, 
 when I found I .was to be excluded from hearing 
 you sing." 
 
 She laughed merrily. 
 
 " That was the last time that I sang to a big 
 assembly," she said. " I never sing now for show." 
 
 I must have looked aghast, for she went on : 
 
 " I still sing, but only to poor people, or sick folk 
 in their homes." 
 
 "But, Signorina," I cried, "there must be some- 
 where where I can hear you sing again ? I want 
 another inspiration." 
 
 " I sometimes sing to the poor mad folk in the 
 asylums," she went on. Was she laughing at me?
 
 THE ONE THAT FOLLOWED 223 
 
 "I want to hear you sing," I repeated petulantly. 
 " I must give the world another great sacred 
 picture." 
 
 She looked at me. She was quite grave now. 
 
 " Why must you give the world another great 
 sacred picture ?" 
 
 I don't know whether her eyes were truth-com- 
 pelling, or whether her voice, even in speaking, 
 possessed magic, but I answered with extraordinary 
 frankness, according to the man I had not known 
 myself to be : 
 
 " I want to keep up my reputation," I said. 
 " I thought I had become famous, but now 
 people are forgetting this picture, and I'm I'm 
 nobody." 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "No," she said, "I won't sing to you. That's not 
 good enough. If you had been poor wanting food 
 it would have been different, but not that. Go and 
 paint ordinary pictures." 
 
 It was said sternly. She had drawn her delicate 
 mouth into a firm, straight line. Her eyes were 
 looking at me " with the lid off!" Yet they were 
 the gentlest eyes that I have ever looked into; and 
 they were not unfriendly. 
 
 The salon was empty. I stooped and kissed her 
 hand. There was nothing else for it. " When you 
 include really despicable folk among your clients," 
 I said, " you will sing to me."
 
 224 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 And then I went home and painted ordinary 
 pictures. 
 
 I painted M.P.'s wives, and successful tradesmen 
 in hunting pink, and landscapes for the dealers. 
 I did it for perhaps a couple of years; and then 
 there came a night when I was feeling more depressed 
 than usual. 
 
 It was a hot June night, and I had been 
 sitting up late reading. To add to my depres- 
 sion, caused by the contemplation of a blank 
 canvas waiting to receive the features of a society 
 dame discreetly tinkered by my subservient brush, 
 there was a woman dying in the flat opposite my 
 studio. 
 
 An Italian woman with a sinister reputation as an 
 " escaped " nun, who had more than made up for 
 lost time. 
 
 The landlady would gladly have seized on the 
 excuse for sending her to the infirmary, but there 
 had appeared an the scene a lady, a compatriot 
 of the sick woman's, who begged to be allowed to 
 look after her in her last hours, now rapidly 
 approaching. I had heard the soft footfall of the 
 good Samaritan as she passed to and fro, and once 
 I had caught sight of a slender figure dressed in 
 black. That was all. 
 
 I sat and surveyed my canvas ; and a burning 
 desire to paint another great picture seized hold 
 of me simply for the joy of painting it, of doing
 
 THE ONE THAT FOLLOWED 225 
 
 good work. And as I sat gazing, there broke upon 
 my ear the sound of someone singing. 
 
 It came from the room opposite. It was a Latin 
 psalm, chanted in a simple plain-song melody, 
 perhaps three notes, but it recalled a memory. The 
 notes were rich and vibrant, low, and singularly 
 pure. In a moment I had recognised the figure 
 I had seen in the corridor. The face of the Signor- 
 ina X rose before me. Yet, no it was a man's face, 
 and it came as in a vision, a music-picture. 
 
 All through the remaining dark hours I worked 
 on the canvas, outlining the picture before me. The 
 chanting continued almost without cessation, the 
 voice growing thin and tired. When daylight came 
 I painted in a frenzy, and the tired voice kept on. 
 Now it was Miserere; now Dominus regit me, " the 
 Lord is my Shepherd " ; and now Magnificat. 
 
 Nothing distracted me. Hasty footsteps passed 
 the door. A man's. They must have been for the 
 doctor; but I worked on. 
 
 I stepped back from the canvas, dizzy. I had 
 finished my task. I must eat. In an ordinary way 
 I would have taken a brandy and soda, but I felt 
 I must possess my soul. My strength must be me, 
 my own. 
 
 I went out to a coffee-shop and fed. Half-an-hour 
 later, when I returned to my studio, I retained no 
 recollection of the vision that I had transferred to 
 my canvas. It had completely gone. I dashed
 
 226 MYSTICS ALL 
 
 back, fully expecting to find either a blank canvas, 
 or a mass of smudges, the work of a demented man. 
 
 On the stairs I met a foreign priest an Italian. 
 I stopped to inquire after the occupant of the room 
 opposite mine. 
 
 "She has made her peace with God," he answered. 
 " The lady, when everything else failed, chanted the 
 nuns' office to her, and it broke the ice. It was a 
 wonderful thought of hers, but the Signorina is a 
 wonderful woman." 
 
 I had left my studio door open. Standing in it I 
 saw a lady. She was absorbed in contemplation of 
 the canvas on my easel. It contained a picture. 
 The study of a head. A tear-stained face, and the 
 brow crowned with thorns. 
 
 I knew as I met the compelling eyes of the 
 pictured face that I had achieved my masterpiece 
 the unwitting work of my hands. I knew, in a 
 flash, that " Transfiguration" had been left far 
 behind. That a world-fame would be mine. I was 
 immortal ! 
 
 The lady stood regarding the picture, her eyes big 
 with worship. 
 
 " I've just finished it," I whispered. " I worked 
 all night whilst you were singing." 
 
 " What will you call it ?" she asked. It was the 
 first time she had spoken. Her voice was thin and 
 husky. I noted how ill and worn she looked with 
 watching. The eyes were bright and strained.
 
 THE ONE THAT FOLLOWED 227 
 
 I picked up a piece of charcoal and scrawled the 
 title across the canvas. It came to me, like the 
 picture, from outside. 
 
 "Follow Me." 
 
 She stood a little longer looking at the picture, 
 and then she turned to me. She had recognised me, 
 and her eyes were full of friendship and bright with 
 triumph. 
 
 "Well done!" she said. 
 
 * * # * * * * 
 
 That is the story of the picture that followed 
 *' Transfiguration." I can't tell you any more about 
 it. I finished it in a few details, and gave it into 
 the charge of a friend. I executed my commissioned 
 portrait, settled up my affairs, and then I followed. 
 
 I never knew what the Art critics said about 
 < 'Follow Me." One doesn't hear much of that sort 
 of thing in a Carthusian Monastery, but someone 
 has said "Well done!" and that has spoiled me for 
 the Art critics. 
 
 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BT W. JOLLY AND SONS, LTD., ABERDEEN.
 
 University of California 
 
 from which It was borrowed 
 
 IOMI 
 OCT141996 
 REC'D LD-URl 
 
 APR 2 5 1996 
 
 a 39 
 
 Libr.
 
 Unive 
 
 So 
 
 L