The Wonderful Visit Part 26

The Vicar spent some time studying a pleasing array of model gentlemen.

They were all very nice-looking, but he found it hard to imagine the Angel so transfigured. For, although six days had pa.s.sed, the Angel remained without any suit of his own. The Vicar had vacillated between a project of driving the Angel into Portbroddock and getting him measured for a suit, and his absolute horror of the insinuating manners of the tailor he employed. He knew that tailor would demand an exhaustive explanation. Besides which, one never knew when the Angel might leave.

So the six days had pa.s.sed, and the Angel had grown steadily in the wisdom of this world and shrouded his brightness still in the ample retirement of the Vicar's newest clothes.

"_1 Soft Felt Hat, No. G. 7 (say), 8s 6d._

"_1 Silk Hat, 14s 6d. Hatbox?_"

("I suppose he ought to have a silk hat," said the Vicar; "it's the correct thing up there. Shape No. 3 seems best suited to his style. But it's dreadful to think of him all alone in that great city. Everyone will misunderstand him, and he will misunderstand everybody. However, I suppose it _must_ be. Where was I?)"

"_1 Toothbrush. 1 Brush and Comb. Razor?_

"_ doz. s.h.i.+rts (? measure his neck), 6s ea._

"_Socks? Pants?_

"_2 suits Pyjamas. Price? Say 15s._

"_1 doz. Collars ('The Life Guardsman'), 8s._

"_Braces. Oxon Patent Versatile, 1s 11d._"

("But how will he get them on?" said the Vicar.)

"_1 Rubber Stamp, T. Angel, and Marking Ink in box complete, 9d._

("Those washerwomen are certain to steal all his things.")

"_1 Single-bladed Penknife with Corkscrew, say 1s 6d._

"_N.B.--Don't forget Cuff Links, Collar Stud, &c._" (The Vicar loved "&c.", it gave things such a precise and business-like air.)

"_1 Leather Portmanteau (had better see these)._"

And so forth--meanderingly. It kept the Vicar busy until lunch time, though his heart ached.

The Angel did not return to lunch. This was not so very remarkable--once before he had missed the midday meal. Yet, considering how short was the time they would have together now, he might perhaps have come back.

Doubtless he had excellent reasons, though, for his absence. The Vicar made an indifferent lunch. In the afternoon he rested in his usual manner, and did a little more to the list of requirements. He did not begin to feel nervous about the Angel till tea-time. He waited, perhaps, half an hour before he took tea. "Odd," said the Vicar, feeling still more lonely as he drank his tea.

As the time for dinner crept on and no Angel appeared the Vicar's imagination began to trouble him. "He will come in to dinner, surely,"

said the Vicar, caressing his chin, and beginning to fret about the house upon inconsiderable errands, as his habit was when anything occurred to break his routine. The sun set, a gorgeous spectacle, amidst tumbled ma.s.ses of purple cloud. The gold and red faded into twilight; the evening star gathered her robe of light together from out the brightness of the sky in the West. Breaking the silence of evening that crept over the outer world, a corncrake began his whirring chant. The Vicar's face grew troubled; twice he went and stared at the darkening hillside, and then fretted back to the house again. Mrs Hinijer served dinner. "Your dinner's ready," she announced for the second time, with a reproachful intonation. "Yes, yes," said the Vicar, fussing off upstairs.

He came down and went into his study and lit his reading lamp, a patent affair with an incandescent wick, dropping the match into his waste-paper basket without stopping to see if it was extinguished. Then he fretted into the dining-room and began a desultory attack on the cooling dinner....

(Dear Reader, the time is almost ripe to say farewell to this little Vicar of ours.)

XLVIII.

Sir John Gotch (still smarting over the business of the barbed wire) was riding along one of the gra.s.sy ways through the preserves by the Sidder, when he saw, strolling slowly through the trees beyond the undergrowth, the one particular human being he did not want to see.

"I'm d.a.m.ned," said Sir John Gotch, with immense emphasis; "if this isn't altogether too much."

He raised himself in the stirrups. "Hi!" he shouted. "You there!"

The Angel turned smiling.

"Get out of this wood!" said Sir John Gotch.

"_Why?_" said the Angel.

"I'm ------," said Sir John Gotch, meditating some cataclysmal expletive. But he could think of nothing more than "d.a.m.ned." "Get out of this wood," he said.

The Angel's smile vanished. "Why should I get out of this wood?" he said, and stood still.

Neither spoke for a full half minute perhaps, and then Sir John Gotch dropped out of his saddle and stood by the horse.

(Now you must remember--lest the Angelic Hosts be discredited hereby--that this Angel had been breathing the poisonous air of this Struggle for Existence of ours for more than a week. It was not only his wings and the brightness of his face that suffered. He had eaten and slept and learnt the lesson of pain--had travelled so far on the road to humanity. All the length of his Visit he had been meeting more and more of the harshness and conflict of this world, and losing touch with the glorious alt.i.tudes of his own.)

"You won't go, eigh!" said Gotch, and began to lead his horse through the bushes towards the Angel. The Angel stood, all his muscles tight and his nerves quivering, watching his antagonist approach.

"Get out of this wood," said Gotch, stopping three yards away, his face white with rage, his bridle in one hand and his riding whip in the other.

Strange floods of emotion were running through the Angel. "Who are you," he said, in a low quivering voice; "who am I--that you should order me out of this place? What has the World done that men like you...."

"You're the fool who cut my barbed wire," said Gotch, threatening, "If you want to know!"

"_Your_ barbed wire," said the Angel. "Was that your barbed wire? Are you the man who put down that barbed wire? What right have you...."

"Don't you go talking Socialist rot," said Gotch in short gasps. "This wood's mine, and I've a right to protect it how I can. I know your kind of muck. Talking rot and stirring up discontent. And if you don't get out of it jolly sharp...."

"_Well!_" said the Angel, a br.i.m.m.i.n.g reservoir of unaccountable energy.

"Get out of this d.a.m.ned wood!" said Gotch, flas.h.i.+ng into the bully out of sheer alarm at the light in the Angel's face.

He made one step towards him, with the whip raised, and then something happened that neither he nor the Angel properly understood. The Angel seemed to leap into the air, a pair of grey wings flashed out at the Squire, he saw a face bearing down upon him, full of the wild beauty of pa.s.sionate anger. His riding whip was torn out of his hand. His horse reared behind him, pulled him over, gained his bridle and fled.

The whip cut across his face as he fell back, stung across his face again as he sat on the ground. He saw the Angel, radiant with anger, in the act to strike again. Gotch flung up his hands, pitched himself forward to save his eyes, and rolled on the ground under the pitiless fury of the blows that rained down upon him.

"You brute," cried the Angel, striking wherever he saw flesh to feel.

"You b.e.s.t.i.a.l thing of pride and lies! You who have overshadowed the souls of other men. You shallow fool with your horses and dogs! To lift your face against any living thing! Learn! Learn! Learn!"

Gotch began screaming for help. Twice he tried to clamber to his feet, got to his knees, and went headlong again under the ferocious anger of the Angel. Presently he made a strange noise in his throat, and ceased even to writhe under his punishment.

Then suddenly the Angel awakened from his wrath, and found himself standing, panting and trembling, one foot on a motionless figure, under the green stillness of the sunlit woods.

He stared about him, then down at his feet where, among the tangled dead leaves, the hair was matted with blood. The whip dropped from his hands, the hot colour fled from his face. "_Pain!_" he said. "Why does he lie so still?"