Thomas Wingfold, Curate | Page 9

almost winter, below, and the creepers that clung to the house waved in the now gentle wind like the straggling tresses of old age; but above was a sky that might have overhung the last melting of spring into summer. At the end of the street rose the great square tower of the church, seeming larger than in the daylight. There was something in it all that made the curate feel there ought to be more--as if the night knew something he did not; and he yielded himself to its invasion.
His companion having carefully lighted his cigar all round its extreme periphery, took it from his mouth, regarded its glowing end with a smile of satisfaction, and burst into a laugh. It was not a scornful laugh, neither was it a merry or a humorous laugh; it was one of satisfaction and amusement.
"Let me have a share in the fun," said the curate.
"You have it," said his companion--rudely, indeed, but not quite offensively, and put his cigar in his mouth again.
Wingfold was not one to take umbrage easily. He was not important enough in his own eyes for that, but he did not choose to go farther.
"That's a fine old church," he said, pointing to the dark mass invading the blue--so solid, yet so clear in outline.
"I am glad the mason-work is to your mind," returned Bascombe, almost compassionately. "It must be some satisfaction, perhaps consolation to you."
Before he had thus concluded the sentence a little scorn had crept into his tone.
"You make some allusion which I do not quite apprehend," said the curate.
"Now, I am going to be honest with you," said Bascombe abruptly, and stopping, he turned towards his companion, and took the full-flavoured Havannah from his lips. "I like you," he went on, "for you seem reasonable; and besides, a man ought to speak out what he thinks. So here goes!--Tell me honestly--do you believe one word of all that!"
And he in his turn pointed in the direction of the great tower.
The curate was taken by surprise and made no answer: it was as if he had received a sudden blow in the face. Recovering himself presently, however, he sought room to pass the question without direct encounter.
"How came the thing there?" he said, once more indicating the church-tower.
"By faith, no doubt," answered Bascombe, laughing,--"but not your faith; no, nor the faith of any of the last few generations."
"There are more churches built now, ten times over, than in any former period of our history."
"True; but of what sort? All imitation--never an original amongst them all!"
"If they had found out the right way, why change it?"
"Good! But it is rather ominous for the claim of a divine origin to your religion that it should be the only one thing that in these days takes the crab's move--backwards. You are indebted to your forefathers for your would-be belief, as well as for their genuine churches. You hardly know what your belief is. There is my aunt--as good a specimen as I know of what you call a Christian!--so accustomed is she to think and speak too after the forms of what you heard my cousin call heathenism, that she would never have discovered, had she been as wide awake as she was sound asleep, that the song I sung was anything but a good Christian ballad."
"Pardon me; I think you are wrong there."
"What! did you never remark how these Christian people, who profess to believe that their great man has conquered death, and all that rubbish--did you never observe the way they look if the least allusion is made to death, or the eternity they say they expect beyond it? Do they not stare as if you had committed a breach of manners? Religion itself is the same way: as much as you like about the church, but don't mention Christ! At the same time, to do them justice, it is only of death in the abstract they decline to hear; they will listen to the news of the death of a great and good man, without any such emotion. Look at the poetry of death--I mean the way Christian poets write of it! A dreamless sleep they call it--the bourne from whence, knows no waking. 'She is gone for ever!' cries the mother over her daughter. And that is why such things are not to be mentioned, because in their hearts they have no hope, and in their minds no courage to face the facts of existence. We haven't the pluck of the old fellows, who, that they might look death himself in the face without dismay, accustomed themselves, even at their banquets, to the sight of his most loathsome handiwork, his most significant symbol--and enjoyed their wine the better for it!--your friend Horace, for instance."
"But your