Father Payne | Page 3

friends lived, with a vague idea of getting to know literary people; but they were not very easy to meet, and, when I did meet them, they did not betray any very marked interest in my designs and visions.
I was dining one night at a restaurant with a College friend of mine, Jack Vincent, whose tastes were much the same as my own, only more strenuous; his father and mother lived in London, and when I went there I generally stayed with them. They were well-to-do, good-natured people; but, beyond occasionally reminding Jack that he ought to be thinking about a profession, they left him very much to his own devices, and he had begun to write a novel, and a play, and two or three other masterpieces.
That particular night his father and mother were dining out, so we determined to go to a restaurant. And it was there that Vincent told me about "Father" Payne, as he was called by his friends, though he was a layman and an Anglican. He had heard all about him from an Oxford man, Leonard Barthrop, some years older than ourselves, who was one of the circle of men whom Father Payne had collected about him. Vincent was very full of the subject. He said that Father Payne was an elderly man, who had been for a good many years a rather unsuccessful teacher in London, and that he had unexpectedly inherited a little country estate in Northamptonshire. He had gradually gathered about him a small knot of men, mainly interested in literature, who were lodged and boarded free, and were a sort of informal community, bound by no very strict regulations, except that they were pledged to produce a certain amount of work at stated intervals for Father Payne's inspection. As long as they did this, they were allowed to work very much as they liked, and Father Payne was always ready to give criticism and advice. Father Payne reserved the right of dismissing them if they were idle, quarrelsome, or troublesome in any way, and exercised it decisively. But Barthrop had told him that it was a most delightful life; that Father Payne was a very interesting, good-natured, and amusing man; and that the whole thing was both pleasant and stimulating. There were certain rules about work and hours, and members of the circle were not allowed to absent themselves without leave, while Father Payne sometimes sent them off for a time, if he thought they required a change. "I gather," said Vincent, "that he is an absolute autocrat, and that you have to do what he tells you; but that he doesn't preach, and he doesn't fuss. Barthrop says he has never been so happy in his life." He went on to say that there were at least two vacancies in the circle--one of the number had lately married, and another had accepted a journalistic post. "Now what do you say," said Vincent, "to us two trying to go there for a bit? You can try it, I believe, without pledging yourself, for two or three months; and then if Father Payne approves, and you want to go on, you can regularly join."
I confess that it seemed to me a very attractive affair, and all that Vincent told me of the place, and particularly of Father Payne, attracted me. Vincent said that he had mentioned me to Barthrop, and that Barthrop had said that I might have a chance of getting in. It appeared that we should have to go down to the place to be interviewed.
We made up our minds to apply, and that night Vincent wrote to Barthrop. The answer was favourable. Two days later Vincent received a note from Father Payne, written in a big, finely-formed hand, to the effect that he would be glad to see Vincent any night that he could come down, and that I might also arrange an interview, if I wished, but that we were to come separately. "Mind," said the letter, "I can make no promises and can give no reasons; but I will not keep either of you waiting."
Vincent went first. He spent a night at Aveley Hall, as the place was called. I continued my visit to his people, and awaited his return with great interest.
He told me what had happened. He had been met at the station by an odd little trap, had driven up to the house--a biggish place, close to a small church, on the outskirts of a tiny village. It was dark when he arrived, and he had found Father Payne at tea with four or five men, in a flagged hall. There had been a good deal of talk and laughter. "He is a big man, Father Payne, with a beard, dressed rather badly,