Brother Copas | Page 3

Francis, "This and none else it is that I account wide treasure; which
containeth nothing prepared by human hands, but all we have is of
God's own providence--as this bread we have begged, set out on a table
of stone so fine, beside a fountain so clear. Wherefore," said he, "let us
kneel together and pray God to increase our love of this holy Poverty,
which is so noble that thereunto God himself became a servitor."'

The declining sun, slanting in past the Banksia roses, touched the edge
of a giant amethyst which the Master wore, by inheritance of office, on
his forefinger; and, because his hand trembled a little with age, the gem
set the reflected ray dancing in a small pool of light, oval-shaped and
wine-coloured, on the white margin of the sermon. He stared at it for a
moment, tracing it mistakenly to a glass of Rhone wine--a Chateau
Neuf du Pape of a date before the phylloxera--that stood neglected on
the writing-table. (By his doctor's orders he took a glass of old wine
and a biscuit every afternoon at this hour as a gentle digestive.)
Thus reminded, he reached out a hand and raised the wine to his lips,
nodding as he sipped.
"In Common Room, Simeon, we used to say that no man was really
educated who preferred Burgundy to claret, but that on the lower
Rhone all tastes met in one ecstasy. . . . I'd like to have your opinion on
this, now; that is, if you will find the decanter and a glass in the
cupboard yonder--and if you have no conscientious objection."
Mr. Simeon murmured, amid his thanks, that he had no objection.
"I am glad to hear it. . . . Between ourselves, there is always something
lacking in an abstainer--as in a man who has never learnt Greek. It is
difficult with both to say what the lack precisely is; but with both it
includes an absolute insensibility to the shortcoming."
Mr. Simeon could not help wondering if this applied to poor men who
abstained of necessity. He thought not; being, for his part, conscious of
a number of shortcomings.
"Spirits," went on the Master, wheeling half-about in his
revolving-chair and crossing one shapely gaitered leg over another,
"Spirits--and especially whisky--eat out the health of a man and leave
him a sodden pulp. Beer is honest, but brutalising. Wine--certainly any
good wine that can trace its origin back beyond the Reformation--is one
with all good literature, and indeed with civilisation. Antiquam
exquirite matrem: all three come from the Mediterranean basin or from
around it, and it is only the ill-born who contemn descent."

"Brother Copas--" began Mr. Simeon, and came to a halt.
He lived sparely; he had fasted for many hours; and standing there he
could feel the generous liquor coursing through him--nay could almost
have reported its progress from ganglion to ganglion. He blessed it, and
at the same moment breathed a prayer that it might not affect his head.
"Brother Copas--?"
Mr. Simeon wished now that he had not begun his sentence. The
invigorating Chateau Neuf du Pape seemed to overtake and chase away
all uncharitable thoughts. But it was too late.
"Brother Copas--you were saying--?"
"I ought not to repeat it, sir. But I heard Brother Copas say the other
day that the teetotallers were in a hopeless case; being mostly religious
men, and yet having to explain in the last instance why Our Lord, in
Cana of Galilee, did not turn the water into ginger-pop."
The Master frowned and stroked his gaiters.
"Brother Copas's tongue is too incisive. Something must be forgiven to
one who, having started as a scholar and a gentleman, finds himself
toward the close of his days dependent on the bread of charity."
It was benignly spoken; and to Mr. Simeon, who questioned nothing
his patron said or did, no shade of misgiving occurred that, taken down
in writing, it might annotate somewhat oddly the sermon on the table. It
was spoken with insight too, for had not his own poverty, or the fear of
it, sharpened Mr. Simeon's tongue just now and prompted him to quote
Brother Copas detrimentally? The little man did not shape this
accusation clearly against himself, for he had a rambling head; but he
had also a sound heart, and it was uneasy.
"I ought not to have told it, sir. . . . I ask you to believe that I have no
ill-will against Brother Copas."

The Master had arisen, and stood gazing out of the window immersed
in his own thoughts.
"Eh? I beg your pardon?" said he absently.
"I--I feared, sir, you might think I said it to his prejudice."
"Prejudice?" the Master repeated, still with his back turned, and still
scarcely seeming to hear.