Under St Paul's: A Romance

CHAPTER IX.

THE PILGRIMAGE TO ST PAUL'S

When it grew near the breakfast-hour of that day, George Osborne paused awhile in his walking, and, leaning against the parapet of London Bridge, thought for a few moments. 'She will miss me if I am not in for breakfast. My Marie will miss me if I do not go back now. Miss me.' Something in the word hurt his heart, and, instead of turning back into the City, he crossed the bridge and walked straight on. It was now day, and thousand after thousand of people passed him hurrying into the City for the day's work. The dull and listless condition of mind in which he had set out had gradually left him, and he was now looking about him, and trying to interest himself in the people and things surrounding him. How eager these people seemed hastening to their daily toil! They looked chiefly of the clerk class. What a dreadful thing it must be to live all the daylight of one's life over a desk! Never to see wooded valley or corn-plains! These men had less than three pounds a-week, and had to dress decently. Most of them were married men with families. How did they live? What pleasure could they take in their lives? Daily they rose at seven, ate breakfast, and hurried into the warehouses. There they drew laboured breath over dreary desks hour after hour, until the warehouse closed. There were hundreds of thousands of such men now in the City, or speeding towards it. And what was all this dull routine for? Merely that they might live. Nothing more. There was before ninety-nine out of a hundred clerks no chance of promotion. Here they were rushing by hundreds of battalions into their pent-up offices, merely that they might live another week. What object could life be to them? Why should they submit to such a lot for the mere privilege of drawing breath a few more hours, when there was no room for speculation in these hours? When there was an absolute certainty of future days being exact counterparts of past ones. It was humiliating to think of man, who was destined to rule the earth while upon it, and hereafter to- 'Ugh! that terrible thought again. What, could it be all things should come to nothingness? All things? All people? Philosophers had held life a comedy or a tragedy. Here, if there was anything in what had lately reached him, life was a farce, a hideous hollow farce. A wicked cruel farce. A farce for whose enjoyment? No. It can't be a farce played by man for his own amusement; for man is not aware it is a farce, and if he was it would only drive him to desperation. 'And yet the facts are so cogent, the reasoning is so close. I can make nothing of it. Nothing. Is the individuality of man nothing? Are my mother and my sisters, who are self-conscious and sympathetic now, endowed with beautiful spirits and ample faith, are they nothing but what we can see and feel and hear? Is man merely a machine for the carriage and use of five senses? Monstrous!' He put the thought away and occupied himself with the things around him. The Elephant and Castle, the best-known public-house in the world, had changed hands for forty thousand pounds. What an enormous price for one house of that size. Here again what surprising traffic! Day and night this goes on without cessation. Of course the people are fewer by night, but there are always some passing. There are always people of some kind passing this point. In the most quiet watches of the morning, from two to five, stragglers go by. Some coming home jaded after a night of pleasure, some heavy with the burden or the spoil of a night of crime, some to heal the sick, some to receive the last words of the dying, some to hear the first cry of the newborn, some flying from their homes for ever, some returning after an absence of many years, some fleeing in terror the scene of their first sin, some coming back after what is destined, though they know it not, to be a last carouse, some on their way to Bedlam, some on their way to Waterloo Bridge and the Morgue. London Road. What a world of suggestion there is in the name of this street, and what an arrogance! As though this were the only road leading to this enormous town. This vast concrement of humanity. Blow all the bugles of the British regular army. Sound the alarm: all the troops of the United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland that can be got together, are needed for the defence of London against a foreign foe. March them all in here, by this London Road. See the prodigious length they stretch to, the infantry in fours, the cavalry in twos, the artillery gun after waggon, waggon after gun. Men and horses, what a splendid show! Where will they find barrack-room, this army? Not in houses, surely. They must camp in the parks and squares. Mile after mile of men. Ten hours these men take to march through London Road, the infantry in fours, the cavalry in twos, the artillery waggon after gun, gun after waggon. Thirty miles of men, more than enough to allow a man for every ten yards in the circumference described within the twelve-mile radius. More than enough to stretch in a solid column marching in fours and twos from Her Majesty's Arsenal at Woolwich to Her Majesty's Castle at Windsor. This vast host, with all its baggage, could never find house-room even in vast London? As easily as a single traveller at a great hotel. Every year this town adds a greater number of souls to its millions that are in than army, absorbs a vastly greater number of horses, and ten times the personal baggage. For what are these thousands of men hurrying into this vast human camp every year? To seek employment, pleasure, oblivion, fame, instruction, solitude, wealth, friends-and to find in the end-a grave. Yearly an army equal to that just passed through London Road comes to increase London, over and above its yearly loss. Among those who had come into London to find pleasure and instruction was he himself. What had he found? Love. Oh Life, thou givest to us woman and earth. Oh Love, thou transmutest woman and earth into goddess and Paradise! Oh Life, thou givest to us full sensations in our pulses! Oh Death, thou takest Goddess and Paradise and sensations all away! Cruel Life, to give us woman and earth! Vile Love, to give us goddess and Paradise! Blessed be kindly Death, that putteth all our pains and all our longings, all our hopes and all our sorrows, all our memories and all our dreams away for ever in the great sable storehouse of forlorn void! Once more George Osborne banished thought as, leaving London Road, he passed through St George's Circus into Westminster Bridge Road. Here he confined himself to observing the surging traffic and the general broken-down look of shops, houses, people. He crossed Westminster Bridge, and stood at the end of the bridge under the Clock Tower. 'London Bridge, which I crossed this morning, is the bridge of commerce. This is the bridge of conquest and of power. At London Bridge begins the sea England rules; at Westminster Bridge lies the first rood of land England owns and legislates for. That is the bridge of enterprise, this of dominion. This is the bridge of contrasts. Here, in Westminster, are the richest and the poorest people of all England, cheek-by-jowl. Here all the laws for the country are made; here, under the shadow of this tower, new laws are first broken. Statesmen and legislators sit here night after night, giving their time and knowledge and experience and energy to framing laws against the predatory and murderous castes of the State. While the legislators are devising means for the protection of infant life, from the Terrace may be heard the splash of the helpless bundle of life dropped into the river by the murderous mother. She has walked quickly by the Millbank Penitentiary, and dropped her child over the wall of Millbank Row. In front of a prison, by night, is the most secure place for murder. While the light burns on that Tower where they are discussing the propriety of applying the cat-o'-nine-tails to the garroter, within view of that light shines another upon the bloodstained watch and chain passing from the hands of the garroter to the hand of the receiver of stolen goods. 'Here above me stand the Houses of Parliament, that hospital for diseases of the State. Across the water is that noble range of buildings for diseases of the body; and there behind stands the Abbey for diseases of the-behind there stands Westminster Abbey for-the burial, of the illustrious dead. Is that all the Abbey does for man? Good God! if that is so, what are the whole three worth?' He turned away from the parapet of the bridge, and, passing up Great George Street, continued his way by Birdcage Walk. He had not moved very rapidly. It was now eleven o'clock. He had paused frequently on the way, and more than once he had thought of telegraphing to her, but something, he did not try to find out, had stopped him. 'I can explain all when I see her,' he had two or three times said to himself. And then, with a mental shudder, he had added, 'Can I? Ah! can I?' He had a theory that nothing cleared up a man's mind so much as a long walk. The variety of objects and persons, the exhibition of various arts and trades and occupations in operation, dwarfed one's personality. The manifestation of multitudinous interests, the cries and sounds, the broken sentences caught from mouth after mouth as he went by, enlarged the horizon, and placed a man more in the position of an audience than an improvisatore. In a room, or any small circumscribed place, a man's own importance insisted on attention; but out in this great bustling world of London, who but a fool could think his own affairs, worldly or spiritual, of much moment? At Buckingham Palace he drew up. Although the day was dull and cheerless, and the streets and roads covered with a thin slippery layer of glutinous mud, many idle people were abroad. Here, at his back, was the town residence of the Sovereign, the most constitutional, the mightiest ruler in the world. Generation after generation had come down, through various channels, the noble blood which flowed in her veins. What history was so free from records of tyranny as that of England? In old times, when people knew no better, deplorable acts had been done. But then the general condition of things was, from our point of view, deplorable. Bit by bit our great Constitution had been put together. Bit by bit our great Empire had been built up. Over the great Council of this Empire for two hundred years the lawful sovereign had reigned in almost unbroken peace and security. There was no empire in the world in which it was not possible to realise a plot to dethrone the sovereign but England. One could conceive an outburst of socialism in Germany, attended with danger to the Emperor. But if any man said there was in England a conspiracy to remove the Queen from the throne, we should look upon him as one suffering from acute hallucination. The rulers of England had come down through generation after generation hand-in-hand with the people. Here was St James's Park, into which the windows of the royal residence looked, and in which Her Majesty could see many of the least rich or gifted of her subjects enjoying themselves quietly and innocently. What an anachronism these sentinels outside the Palace were! Did the wildest for a moment fancy anyone wanted to harm the Queen? But then there were those two mounted men at the Horse Guards; and yet it was to be supposed no one thought any burglar had an intention of carrying off the clock. What a glorious thing to see people and sovereign linked so together, keeping in the front rank of civilisation, and carrying civilisation and Christianity-carrying civilisation, Christianity- 'Great God, deliver me from this terrible haunting spirit of doubt! Give me back full faith and peace.' Now he began to hurry. He went up Constitution Hill, crossed Piccadilly, and entered the Park at Hyde Park Corner. There were very few people here now. It was dreary and desolate. The bare trees looked sad and deserted in the bleak grey air. They seemed the forgotten skeletons of funeral plumes that had waved over the dead season. Nothing here appealed to his imagination. He continued his walk. Having followed the Serpentine for some minutes, he broke off from it near the Humane Society's House, and found his way out of the Park in the Bayswater Road through the Victoria Gate. He walked to his left, and turned up into Kensington Garden Terrace, and thence into the Grand Junction Road. Keeping north and following the bend of the road, he came into the Marylebone Road. He held on until he came to Park Square; he turned into the west side of Park Square; then taking a wheel to the right, and then one to the left, he entered the Broad Walk of Regent's Park. 'The Zoological Gardens!' he exclaimed to himself, with an inward shudder. He was moving away to go, when he suddenly thought, 'Coward.' Am I a coward? Am I afraid to look any of God's creatures in the face?' He turned on his heel and entered the Gardens. Like the Park, they were almost deserted. But, unlike the Park, they were full of interest to him. Some of the books he had recently been looking into, had begun as treatises on natural history, and ended as indictments against faith. It was a little past two o'clock, and few people were in front of the cages, so he had every opportunity of inspecting the collection. He looked into cage after cage with steady disliking eyes. There was a feeling of impulsion towards the cages, and repulsion from the creatures behind the bars. The grey and gloomy day deadened his spirits. He had slept nothing the night before. He had eaten nothing that day. He did not notice the weather was dull. He did not remember he had not slept. He had no knowledge of whether he had eaten or not. All he knew was, he was trying to beat down his mind, and he thought open air and exercise were the best remedies for his disease. But this zoological collection had been thrown across his path like a challenge, and come what might, he had taken up the glove. For half-an-hour he wandered from cage to cage, until at last he stood in front of the monkey-house. He paused awhile here, looked from right to left, as though he would avoid the place if he could, then set his face resolutely, and entered. As with the rest of the place, the monkey-house was almost deserted. There were not more than a dozen people in it. In chill fear he wandered around, looking with mingled fascination and loathing at the chattering crew. Moment after moment his spirit sank lower until all the light and beauty had faded out of the world for him; and he stood in the presence of ruin and desolation more complete than reigns over the site of Carthage or Babylon. Stone by stone that splendid Palace of his dreams was falling. This shock made a rift, that shock cast down a tower. Now a delicate campanile fell, anon a noble dome collapsed. It was weary work watching these men and these creatures shaking the foundation of that beautiful Palace of Belief. All, all was going. All was gone. There was nothing but a dreary waste, a vast sandy void, littered here and there with the shaft of a shattered column, here and there a frieze, here the acme stone of an arch, there the copper of a cupola, here a marble altar-stone, and there a cross. One of the attendants touched him on the arm, saying, 'We have something new here, sir, if you care to see.' With a shudder, Osborne followed the man into a small room off the greater one. The man led him up to a large square box made of stout wood. In this was a bundle of rugs or skins; George could not see more, for the light was dim. The covering moved slightly; with a spasm of horror Osborne thought of that vision and that dream. What an appalling coincidence! Was he awake or asleep, sane or mad? The man bent over him and spoke in a low voice. 'They have just arrived from Africa. They came over in the stoke-hole of the steamer. They are perfectly quiet and friendly. On the passage over they lived in that box, where the female sat all day long minding her baby. But the male made great friends with the men, and, after a while, used to take the oil-can, crawl or swing himself in among the machinery, put the back of his left hand on the bearings, and then pour oil into the oil-wells.' The man drew away the covering. Osborne started back in disgust. 'I never saw Niggers like these before,' he whispered. 'Niggers!' said the man. 'These are no Niggers.' 'In the name of God, then, what are they?' 'Chimpanzees,' Those ruins of the old faith were no longer lifeless. Now over them leaped and bounded ten thousand forms of loathsome brutes. They leaped and danced, and howled and screamed and yelled, They grinned at him and grimaced. They took up the relics of that sacred palace, that holy fane, and smashed and tore and cast them about. They broke up the cross, and the most powerful and the most crafty of the brutes took a piece of the wood between his palms and, keeping one end of it in the smooth hollow of a stone, turned it and turned it, until it began to smoke and flame. Then each brute that had a piece of the wood lit his at the brand, and holding their flaming torches aloft, they formed a circle round the altar-stone, set upon the stone, the brute that had made the fire, and all bowed and worshipped him. 'The reign of the Beast! The reign of the Beast! The reign of the Beast!' Now he was walking once more through unknown streets, walking wildly, so that people turned to look after him, and policemen watched him with professional glances. He did not notice the streets; he did not see people or police. He was moving at a racing pace, in a north-easterly direction. His eyes were now blazing with the light of fever. That carnival of the Beast lay behind him; its sounds were in his ears. If he looked back he knew he should behold its sight once more. Anything was better than that. On, on, on! His face was flushed; the sweat rolled down his forehead; he was all bespattered with mud. If he met a group on the pathway he did not try to get through it, he sprang out into the roadway. In the neighbourhood of the Cattle Market he got into a blind street. When he reached the end he cast his eyes up at the wall, as though he were about to try to scale it. He stamped with impatience when he found he must retrace his steps. When he turned around he ran to the end of the street, and when he had cleared it walked, at his former high rate of speed, in a less northerly direction. To pause was to think; to think was to be lost. When he paused to think, he should come upon some idea more unendurable than those now haunting him. That final thought must be avoided at any hazard, any cost, On, in God's name, on! The clamour of that hideous rite of the Beasts was in his ears. He heard them chatter and jabber; he heard them still breaking up the last fragments of that noble temple, that superb palace, built by the love and faith and enduring self-sacrifice of ages. He could not hear the words they uttered, but they were appalling, like human words. He could hear them singing and clamouring around their hideous god! Ugh! 'On, on, on! Kill thought; dull those odious sounds in the clatter of one's feet, the beatings of one's heart. On, in God's name, on! Bride Street, Albion Road, Holloway Road, St Paul's Road, Grosvenor Road, Newington Green Road, Albion Road, Albion Grove, Victoria Road, Church Road; then to the right, then to the left, then to the left again. 'It is getting dark. Where am I?' It was not until night had begun to fall he asked that question of himself. He stood awhile to get breath; he wiped his forehead, and leaned against a lamp-post for support. The strain upon his physique began to tell now, and he felt a little exhausted. It was close upon five o'clock. After a few moments he stopped a passer-by, and asked, – 'What street is this?' 'London Road.' 'London Road! Can that be? Have I completed the circle-have I walked all the way round? But no; this is not the same place-I have not recrossed the river. Are you quite sure this is London Road?' 'Oh, perfectly sure; I live here. There is another London Road-at least, I know of one other; there may be several. Pray, where did you start from?' 'The London Road I speak of is at the Surrey side.' 'Quite right. That is London Road, Lambeth; this is London Road, Hackney. You are a good way from where you started; as the crow flies it can't be less than four to five miles.' 'I walked by Buckingham Palace and the Zoological Gardens.' 'By Jove! you have had a long walk! Good-night.' Another London Road! Another road arrogating the name of the great capital! This morning he saw pass by him a vast host of men, equal in number to the yearly increase of this one town. He had been walking ever since, and had never been out of London, Now he was in another London Road, and it was dark night! What solemn procession now approached? What vast host of sable forms now walked slowly by? They will go on walking thus for thirteen hours at quick march, and still they will not have all marched by. They will take two hours more than the host of the morning, and yet they will not have gone by. They have no horses, they have no baggage; they bear nothing in their hands, nothing on their backs; they have no haversacks slung at their sides, no water-bottles at their girdles; they bear no arms, no accoutrements, no ornaments, no decorations of any kind. Their hands hang by their sides, they do not look to the right or the left. They do not speak, or laugh, or curse; their jaws are tied securely up. This is the contingent marched by death out of London every year; these are the eighty thousand of our brethren who every twelve months leave London for the grave. The grave-the grave, Only the grave! Yes, a thousand times better the grave and darkness-nothingness-than life under the reign of the Beast. 'O God, look down upon me-have mercy upon me-have mercy… Yes, yes; I'll go there at once. The thought may be an answer to my prayer.' 'Which is the way to the City, please?' he asked a policeman. 'To the right, into Stoke Newington; then straight on to your left will bring you into Cornhill.' He started off once more at his old speed-He felt a little spent at first, but the excitement soon entered into him, and he swung along with even greater vigour than early in the day. 'I will think no more till I am there, I will think no more. Now then, if my limbs are ever to be of any use to me, let it be to-day, On past the flashing shops, over the slippery flags, out on the grimy road. Past lamp-post and cart, and barrow and cab, and private house and doctor's lamp, and policeman and civilians, and women and children, On, as though they were grass and I a whirlwind. A cab would take me there sooner, but it would not give me the relief this walking affords.' For half-an-hour he kept on this pace. Then he paused, and asked his way again. After going on a few hundred yards more he turned to the right out of Bishopsgate Street into Threadneedle Street, on through the Poultry, through Cheapside. At the end of Cheapside! It was close upon six o'clock when he reached the churchyard, and mounting the steps of the northern porch, entered St Paul's. The cathedral was dim, silent, solemn. He glanced up and around with a cowed, hunted look. It was only a few hours since he had been in that church. What a terrible night and day he had had since! Enough to break down a man's reason. Yes, this was the proper place to come to when one was in trouble. No book of reasons had so subtle an influence as this mighty pile, raised up by religious souls to be a calming canopy for mental woe and spiritual travail. He sat down awhile. Yes, he was growing calmer, cooler, more collected. He bent his head in prayer. Suddenly he looked around wildly, and gasped. There were few now in the cathedral, and no one near him. 'It will not come!' he cried mentally. 'It will not come! O God, be merciful to me, and do not drive me mad!' A hand was laid on his shoulder. He turned around, and looked up slowly. 'What, you, Nevill, here, alone!' 'Yes, here, alone,' with a quiet smile that flickered off his face in a moment, and left an anxious, worn expression behind. 'What are you doing here at this time?' 'I have been very anxious about a certain thing. I could not stay in the house. I have been here and there, and everywhere all day, and I came in here this instant to-' 'To what?' 'To ask a great favour from Heaven.' 'What, you!' cried Osborne. 'Yes, I.' 'What was the favour made you think of praying? I came here, too, to ask a great favour.' 'I came here to ask that I might be less irreligious in the future, and that-that one I have asked to marry may not refuse me.' 'Come away,' said Osborne. 'Come away; I can stay here no longer.' As they passed into the vestibule, Nevill said, – 'You look queer, Osborne. What is the matter?' 'I came, like you, to ask my faith back.' 'What, you!' 'Yes; and it has not come.'