Thorne Guy
The Angel

CHAPTER XIX
"AS A BRAND FROM THE BURNING"

Joseph pushed open the swing-doors of the big public-house and entered beneath a lamp marked "Saloon Bar."

His face was quite changed.

In the short time which had elapsed since he left Sir Augustus Kirwan's house he seemed another person. The great eyes which had looked upon the lovers with such kindly beneficence had now the strange fixity and inward light that always came to them when he was about his Master's business. The face was pale, and the whole attitude of the Teacher was as that of a man who is undergoing a great nervous strain.

He walked down a passage. To his left were the doors of mahogany and cut-glass which led into those boxes which are known as "private bars" in the smart drinking-shops of London. To his right was a wall of brightly glazed tiles, and in front of him, at the passage end, was the door which led into the saloon bar itself. Pushing this open, he entered.

He found himself in a largish room, brilliantly lit by the electric light, and triangular in shape.

Along two of the walls ran padded leather lounges, before the third was the shining semicircular bar, gleaming with mahogany, highly polished brass, and huge cut-glass urns of amber spirit.

In one corner of the room, seated at a marble topped table, a man was talking to an overdressed woman with a rouged face and pencilled eyebrows.

In front of the counter, seated upon a high cane stool, was a young man. He wore a long brown over-coat of a semi-fashionable cut and a bowler hat pushed back on his head. His fair hair was a little ruffled, and his weak, youthful, though as yet hardly vicious face, was flushed high up on the cheek-bones. He was smoking a cigarette of the ten-for-threepence type, and chattering with a somewhat futile arrogation of merriment and knowingness to the barmaid, who had just set a glass of whisky-and-water before him.

For a minute or two, hidden from view by an imitation palm in a pot of terra-cotta which stood upon the counter, Joseph escaped notice. He could hear part of the conversation from where he was – any one might have heard it.

It was the usual thing, vapid, meaningless, inane. A narrow intellect, destitute alike of experience and ideals, with one gift only, youth, imagined that it was seeing "life."

Two fools! Two weak, silly, unconsidered members of the rank and file, without knowledge, manners or charm.

Yet for these two Christ had died upon the Cross no less surely than He had died for prince or pope or potentate. It was thus Joseph thought.

The Teacher's eyes were wet with tears, a beautiful compassion dawned upon his face. He went up to the young man and touched him upon the shoulder.

At the touch the young fellow started and turned suddenly with a convulsive movement. His face was yellow with fear, his jaw dropped, his hands trembled; he was a repulsive picture of weak, nerveless, and uncontrollable terror.

The barmaid looked on in amazement. She marked the fear in her admirer's face, and with swift intuition knew from what cause it proceeded.

It was not the first time in her poor, stunted life, with its evil surroundings, that she had seen a gay young spark touched upon the shoulder; seen the acquaintance of a month vanish for ever, never to come within her ken again save only in a few brief paragraphs in the newspaper reports of the Central Criminal Court.

"Who's your friend, Charlie?" the girl said, with a sickly and inadequate attempt at merriment.

Joseph looked at her.

"My friend," he said, in his grave and beautiful voice, "I come to him with authority."

The girl gasped, then she turned and walked hurriedly to the other end of the bar, taking a newspaper from a drawer and holding it up with shaking fingers. She didn't want to be mixed up in the thing, at any cost she must pretend that she was unconcerned.

The great law of self-preservation – the animal law – had its way with her now. She was alone in the world; she had her living to get; she could not afford to be mixed up with any scandal. She acted after her kind, and fled as far as she could. Who shall blame her?

Joseph took the young man by the arm and led him to the farthest corner of the room. The man and woman who had been there when Joseph entered had gone by now; the place was quite empty.

"Charlie" found himself sitting side by side with the stranger who had led him so easily from the counter. In the shrewd, mean brain of the young man one emotion had been succeeded by another. He had realized after the first moment of terror that Joseph was not what he supposed. The enormous relief of this certainty was succeeded by resentment and puerile anger. He feared that he had given himself away in "Belle's" eyes.

"Now, look here," he said suddenly, "you startled me for a moment, and I won't deny you did. But a gentleman doesn't come and interrupt another gentleman when he's talking to a lady. Who on earth are you, anyhow?"

The high, piping voice, the silly expression, the uncertain, childish rage were unspeakably pitiable.

For answer Joseph put his hand into an inside pocket of his coat and produced a little leather bag.

It was full of sovereigns. While the young clerk stared at him with wondering, fascinated eyes, the Teacher took fourteen pounds from the bag and then returned it to his pocket.

He placed the money in the young man's hand.

"God sent me here to give you this," he said quietly. "It is the exact sum you have stolen from your firm. Replace it, and sin no more. God sends you this last opportunity."

The young fellow's face grew suddenly wet. He took the money with a hand that had lost all nervous force. He could hardly hold the coins.

"Who are you?" he said, in a faint whisper. "How did you know that I had sto – took the money?"

"The Holy Spirit brought me to you," Joseph answered very simply. "A short time ago I was leaving the house of some friends. A dear sister and brother of mine – I speak in the Christian, and not in the family sense – had just plighted their troth. They are to be united in happy and honorable wedlock. I was coming away with my thoughts full of them, and feeling very happy in their happiness. For, you must know, that I love those two people very dearly. Well, as I passed by this place, I was told that there was some one within it who was very miserable. I knew that I must come in and comfort you, and take you out of the net which had enmeshed your young life. Your mother sits at home in Balham, and longs for you. The small pittance that your father's insurance money has secured for her is just enough to support her; but it is not enough to bring any comfort or brightness into her life. But you never go home in the evenings until very late. She sits waiting for you, yearning over her only son, and praying to God for his reformation. But you never come. And when at last you go down home by the last available train, you are often more or less intoxicated, and your mind is always filled with debased images and ideals, disordered longings and evil hopes. And for that reason your mother can never get very near you in spirit. What you are becoming repels her and wounds her motherhood. And now you have begun to steal from your employers, and you walk in deadly fear. In the back of your mind you know that discovery is inevitable before very long. Yet you put the thought away, and try and persuade yourself that everything will come right somehow, though you have no idea how. And during the last fortnight the process of deterioration has been more and more rapid. You have been drinking heavily to deaden your conscience and alleviate your alarm. You have known the end is near. Is not all this the truth?"

The tears were rolling down the weak, young face. The flaccid mouth quivered; the neck was bowed.

"All this, sir," said the young man – "all this is true."

"A broken and contrite heart," the Teacher answered, "are not despised of God. By his great mercy I have been sent to you to save you. Restore the money you have stolen, but do far more. Turn from darkness; seek light. Come to Jesus Christ. Boy, you have heard of what is known as the 'Great Refusal'; you know how the young man with great possessions could not, and would not, give them up to follow the Son of God? But you deny Jesus for a pot of beer! You give up your hope of eternal life to come and the peace of God in this wicked world for nothing – nothing at all? Now come with me to my house in Bloomsbury, my house of godly men. There you shall pray and repent, and from there you shall go home cleansed and purged of your sin, filled with the Holy Spirit, ready and anxious to lead a new life, walking from henceforth in Christ Jesus."

They went out of the place together. The boy never cast a backward glance at his inamorata of a few minutes ago. He followed the Teacher in blind obedience. He was as one stunned. They came into the big old-fashioned square where was the house which Sir Thomas Ducaine had given to Joseph and his brethren. The windows were all lighted up, and there was a small crowd lingering in front of the door.

"They are all praying within," Joseph said. "To-morrow we are to go down into the worst places of the East End. A party of great people are coming with us. We have persuaded them to come, in order that they may see for themselves what these parts of London really are like."

He spoke quietly, and in a purely conversational tone, as if to an equal. He knew well what the poor lad who walked so humbly by his side was suffering. He knew of the remorse and shame, but also of the hope, which were pouring into the young man's heart. And he knew also that all this was but a preparation for what was to come – that there must, indeed, be a final agony of surrender, an absolute and utter "giving-in" to Jesus.

So, as they walked across the square, he tried to calm his captive's nerves by a quiet recital of the great and hopeful things that they were to do on the morrow.

Yet even to Joseph it was not then given to know what things the morrow would bring forth.

CHAPTER XX
MURDER AND SUDDEN DEATH

The big house was very plainly furnished. What was absolutely necessary had been put into it, but that was all. Sir Thomas Ducaine had been astounded at the simplicity of the arrangements. The wealthy young man, accustomed as he was to every luxury and amenity of life that riches bring, was most anxious to make the place more comfortable.

"My dear fellow," he said to Joseph, "you can't possibly live like this. Why, it's barer than a work-house! You must really let me send you some things in."

But the baronet had not in the least succeeded in altering the Teacher's determination.

"The Lord's work is to be done," Joseph had answered. "We are here to do it, and our thoughts are set on other matters. We have no need of these things."

"But you don't think comfort or luxury, I suppose you would call it, wrong?"

"Certainly not, if a man has earned it, is robbing nobody in acquiring it, and finds personal enjoyment in it. Christ sat at the rich man's feast. He took the gift of the precious ointment. But for us such things are unnecessary."

So the house, now more famous than perhaps any house in London, was a veritable hermit's cell in its appointments. There, however, the resemblance ceased entirely. The place hummed with varied activities. It was the centre of the many organizations that were springing into being under Joseph's direction; activities made possible by Sir Thomas Ducaine's magnificent gifts and the stream of outside donations that had followed in their wake.

Joseph and his young companion passed through the little crowd of loiterers and curious people that nearly always stood before the door of the mysterious house where the Teacher was now known to reside. There was a stir and movement as he came among them, nudgings of elbows, a universal pressure forward, whispers and remarks below the voice: "That's him!" "There's Joseph himself!"

Joseph passed through the crowd without taking any notice of it. On the doorstep he paused and turned as if to speak. The people – there may have been thirty or forty of them – pressed forward in a circle of eager faces. On the outskirts of the group there was a woman, dressed in black and past the middle-age. She seemed to hang back, as if reluctant, or too timid, to approach.

Joseph's eye fell upon her. Then he took a latchkey from his pocket and gave it to the young man.

"Open the door," he said, "and go into the house. Go into the room on the right-hand side of the hall, and I will meet you there."

The young man did as he was bidden, and disappeared.

Then Joseph spoke.

"Among you all," he said, "there is but one here that needs me. You have come to see a show, not to seek God and help to lead you to Him. Get you gone from this place, for there is no health in you!"

The voice rang out in stern command – a command which it seemed impossible to disobey. Without a word, the people turned and slunk away, melting like ghosts into the darkness of the square.

Only the woman in black remained, and she now came timidly up to the Teacher.

"Sir," she said, in a thin but clear and educated voice – "sir, I should like to speak with you, if I may."

"My friend," he answered. "I was waiting for you. Come within the house."

He led the woman into a small room on the left-hand side of the hall – an uncarpeted room, with nothing but a few chairs, a big table covered with papers, and a purring gas-stove upon the hearth.

At the Teacher's invitation the woman sat down, and revealed a thin, anxious face and eyes that seemed perpetually trembling upon the brink of tears.

"It is very kind of you to see me, sir," she said, "I never expected that I should have such good fortune. But I have read about you in the papers – that you go about doing good, just as our dear Lord did, and something within me moved me to seek you out, even if it were only just to look at you. For I am very unhappy, sir, and I have no one to confide in, no one whom I can ask about my trouble or obtain advice from."

"Tell me all about it," Joseph said gently. "When I stood at the door and looked at the people I felt in my heart that they were there out of idle curiosity. God in His wisdom has given me power to know these things. But something came straight from you to me that made me aware that you needed me. Tell me everything."

"It's about my son, sir," the woman said, not noticing the slight start that Joseph gave and the new light that came into his eyes. "I am a widow with one son. He is just twenty, and is employed as a clerk in a City House. But he is going wrong, sir. I can read the signs easily. He stays out late at night, he seems to be losing his love for me, and is impatient of anything I say to him. And more than once he has come home intoxicated lately. And in his room I have found programmes of the performances at music-halls and such places.

"I do not pry about, sir, nor am I foolishly severe and hard. Young men must have their amusements, and they must have their secrets, I suppose. I do not expect Charlie to tell me everything. And he only earns thirty shillings a week, part of which he gives to me for his board and lodging. He cannot possibly afford these amusements.

"I have a terrible fear that never leaves me that he has not been honest, that he must have been taking other people's money, and that he will be ruined. I have prayed and prayed, sir, but it really seems as if prayer is of no use, though, of course, I keep on."

"Don't say that," Joseph answered. "Prayer is still the greatest force in the world, however despondent we may become at times. But your prayers have been answered. Charlie is saved!"

The weeping mother gave a sudden cry, half of joy, half of incredulity.

"But, sir," she stammered, "how can you know that? Oh, if only it could be true!"

"It is true, my dear sister," he answered. "The Lord led me to a place where I found your son, not an hour ago. The Holy Ghost told my mind that there was a widow's son whom I could save. All you have been conjecturing is only too true. Charlie has done the things you say. He has taken money from his employers, but I have given him the sum that he may return it to them. He is here, in this house now, and I know that the leaven of repentance is working within him, and that he feels that he is rescued from both material and spiritual ruin. We are going to pray together. Come with me, and add your prayers to ours."

But when they crossed the hall and entered the room opposite, they found that the young man was already on his knees.

Day by day some such episode as this occurred. Joseph's power seemed more and more sure and wonderful. When he had sent away the widow and her son, tearful and happy, with something in the face of the young man that had never been there before, the Teacher went up the wide Georgian stairs to a large room on the first floor.

No one was there but old David Owen. All the other friends and companions of Joseph were out upon various efforts of compassion and salvation; only the old man remained, for he had a cold, and could not face the night air. A grey, knitted comforter was round his neck, and he was slowly eating his supper – a bowl of bread-and-milk. Before him, on the table, was a large Bible, and he was reading eagerly as he ate, reading with the avidity and concentrated interest that more ordinary people give to an engrossing romance.

He looked up as Joseph entered, and smiled at him.

"It's wonderful, Master!" he said. "It grows more and more wonderful every time I opens it. I've spent my life reading in the Holy Book, and I'm an old man now. But ten lives would be all too short!"

He pointed to the volume with gnarled, wrinkled fingers that trembled with emotion.

"Ah! 'Twas a bitter nailing!" he went on. "A bitter, bitter torture He bore for us. And remember, Joseph, He bore the sins of the whole world, too. I'm no scholar, and I can't see things like you can. All the time I'm reading an' yet I know I can only see a little bit of it. But even that's rending and tearing, Master. It's dreadful what He suffered for us! I can't understand why every one doesn't love Him. It's easy to understand folk doing wrong things. The flesh is very strong – man is full of wickedness. Satan, he goes about tempting the heart, with his dreadful cunning. But, whatever a man does, and is sorry for afterwards, I can't understand his not loving Jesus. And so few folk love Jesus in this wicked town!"

"The clouds are very dark, David," Joseph answered. "But they will break. The dawn of the Lord is at hand, and deliverance is sure. But I, too, at this moment, am full of gloom and sorrow. You know my bad hours, old friend. One of them is with me now. I fear some calamity, though I pray against it. But it is coming. Something tells me it is coming. It is as if I heard slow footsteps drawing nearer and nearer – "

David looked anxiously at his chief.

"I doubt but you've been doing something that's taken power from you, Master," he said. "It has ever been thus with you. Have you not told us of the night when we went to the theatre-house, the home of the ungodly, when you walked the streets of Babylon, and were full of doubt, though you had struck a blow for God that rang through England? And what happened then? Did you not meet the young man who is great in the eyes of the world – the young man who has given a fortune for our work – the young man who has come to Jesus at last?"

Joseph bowed his head.

"Yes, David," he replied; "it was even so, blessed be God. But to-night I feel differently. Then I was trembling upon the verge of doubt. My old disbelief had appeared again within me. It was as if a serpent slept in my brain and suddenly raised its head in coiled hate and enmity to the Light. But now it is not the same. I love and believe. The tortures of a martyrdom, of which I am not worthy, could not alter that. But I have a terrible apprehension – a fear of what to-morrow may bring forth. I cannot explain it; I do not understand it. But nevertheless it is there, and very real."

There was a silence in the big room.

The gas-jets shone upon the walls covered in faded crimson paper, the long table of deal where the brethren ate their simple meals, the single picture which hung over the fireplace – a reproduction of Christ knocking at the door of the human heart, by Holman Hunt.

There was no sound but that of a falling coal in the glowing fire.

Then old David spoke.

"Master," he said, "I think you've no call to be afraid or to fear the future. It's in God's hands, and there it is. But as far as a poor man can look into the matter, I think 'tis this way with you. We all know how blessed you have been. We all know – every one in Britain knows – that you are a special channel for the operations of the Holy Ghost in our land. Out of all men you have been mysteriously chosen to hear the heavenly voices and carry out their warnings. But all men are soul and body, too. You can't divide one from t'other while men live. Therefore it's bound to be that if your soul has been working hard on God's business, it has drained your body of its strength, and so you have these fearful thoughts. Eat and drink, and get back courage!"

Joseph smiled.

"You are right, David, I believe. I will have a bowl of milk-and-bread also. I must be strong for to-morrow. With God's blessing, it will be a great day for London. There has never been such a chance of doing good before. Yes, I must save myself for that!"

"Is it all arranged, Master?" the old man asked. "Are all the great people really coming?"

"Yes, David. And, please God, on the day after to-morrow the kingdom shall be thrilled. Sir Thomas Ducaine is coming to inspect his own property in the East End for the first time. Sir Augustus Kirwan is coming – a powerful and influential man. And the Duke of Dover is coming also. Then the Bishop of East London, though he knows very well – saint that he is – will be with us also. Our dear brother Hampson will be of the party, and also that very valiant soldier of Christ, that new recruit, Eric Black. Black and Hampson – God bless them! – will give the result of our pilgrimage to the world. It should wake all London to a storm of anger and indignation.

"These things have been discovered and published before, but only in isolated instances and at fugitive times, and the voice has always been stifled and obscured. The vested interests have been too strong. But now there is a real spiritual fervor in London. The Holy Spirit has descended on the city. There is a quickening on all sides, the air is full of the Redeemer's name. Therefore, I trust and pray that the results of our visit to-morrow will be far-reaching. Several other friends and well-wishers will accompany us in addition to the names of those I have mentioned."

"It is a fine thing to get these great people to go," said the old man simply. "Then how can you be downcast, Joseph? Surely here is yet another evidence of the favor and protection of God?"

"I do not know why this assails me," the Teacher answered; "but it does, and it is there. I cannot help it."

David Owen shut the Bible on the table in front of him, and rose to his feet.

"Dear Master," he said, "the Son of God was also troubled, in the Desert and in the Garden. But it is well – all is well. All is part of the beneficent ordering of the Father. There is but one medicine for your black thoughts, dear Master, and after you've taken it you'll let come what may."

"And that is, old friend?"

"The Lord's Prayer," answered the old gentleman, taking off his horn spectacles and placing them upon the table.

And, kneeling down, they said it together.

It was the middle of the morning and a dull, leaden day. There was no fog down in the breathing areas of town, but high above a leaden pall hung over the City of Dreadful Night, shutting out the clear light of the sun, livid, sinister and hopeless.

In the big room of the house in Bloomsbury a dozen people were gathered together. Sir Augustus Kirwan was talking to The Duke, a thick-set, clean-shaven man with a strong watchful face. Sir Thomas Ducaine and Eric Black the journalist stood together.

Several other notabilities stood in the big, bare room, and there were also three unobtrusive men with pointed beards, who stood together a little apart from the others. Detective-inspectors Alpha, Beta and Gamma, the real satraps and rulers of the lawless districts of Whitechapel and its environs.

All the men wore hard felt hats and dark overcoats, peer and policeman alike. It does not do to venture where these were going in anything but a very simple and unobtrusive dress.

Joseph and Hampson were talking earnestly together in one corner of the room. They were mapping out the terrible itinerary that should be taken, readjusting and remembering their own sad knowledge of the East, when they had walked starving down the Commercial Road.

"And now, my friends," Joseph said at length, in his deep, organ voice, "I think that all is prepared, and that we may start. Sir Thomas has some carriages waiting for us below."

Sir Augustus Kirwan answered the evangelist.

"My dear fellow," he said – "my dear Joseph, we shall all be delighted to come as soon as may be. But has it occurred to you that while we have all, doubtless, breakfasted, none of us have as yet lunched? It is lunch time now, you know; and though a piece of bread and cheese would do excellently for me, and no doubt for the rest of us, you can hardly expect the present company to penetrate into Whitechapel fasting!"

The Teacher looked at Sir Augustus with a startled face. Then he flushed slightly. It had never occurred to him that his guests must necessarily need refreshment. On his own part he had put away material needs as things of no moment for himself. He was sustained, even in body, by spiritual food. But he realized now how remiss he had been, and that all men were not as he was.

"Sir Augustus," he said, in a voice full of pain and contrition, "I have been absolutely stupid. It is quite abominable of me not to have thought of it, but there is, I am dreadfully afraid, no lunch at all!"

Sir Thomas Ducaine joined in the conversation.

"My dear Joseph," he said, "don't make yourself unhappy. There is plenty. Some of my people have brought lunch. Mary and I foresaw this little contretemps, and we made arrangements accordingly. In your burning eagerness to get us all down to see what you have to show us you forgot that we are but mortal, and that the body must be nourished if the eye is to see and the brain observe."

Joseph's face had cleared, but it wore a somewhat rueful expression.

"I can't thank you enough," he said, "for thinking of this. It is a fault in me that I did not do so myself. One is too apt to forget that we are all body and spirit also. Forgive me!"

They all fell to at the sandwiches and so forth which two of Sir Thomas Ducaine's servants brought into the room.

Only Joseph took nothing at all. He stood by himself, tall, beautiful, lost in a reverie that no one disturbed.

He was musing and dreaming still as the carriages took the party to the East End of London.

But when Bishopsgate was passed at last, he threw his thoughts from him with a great effort, and became once more the keen and eager leader of those people whom he had brought to see the ultimate horror of the Modern Babylon.

They sent the carriages away at a certain turning in the Whitechapel Road. Then they plunged into the dark.

And how dark that darkness is! Fiction can hardly tell – fiction must not tell, fearing to infringe upon the bitterness and the agony of the truth. For we who write of things as they are must always consider our audience. Ask General Booth, G. R. Sims, or Mr. Holmes, the police-court missionary, what is the measure of this darkness. Ask the modern martyrs of our day, of all sects and creeds, who labor in these hell-ridden places.

Ask, and you shall hear nothing but the tolling of a great bell, the deep and awful sound of immedicable misery, the iron pæan of the blackness of sin, the deep and ringing wail of the mighty bell – the iron bell – which tolls of hopelessness, and voices the cry of the downtrodden, the oppressed, the lost!

The slaves of the Modern Babylon! But with one difference. In the walled city of wickedness between the two great rivers, hope had not come. They could not know that our Lord was to be born of a pure Virgin to save them —

Thoughts akin to these were in the minds of all of them as they went in and out of the foul slums of the East.

Sir Thomas Ducaine was covered with shame as he saw the horrors all around – horrors existing upon his own property, long unregarded and unknown. But the young man was not the only one among them who registered a mental vow to do all that he could for the wretched beings they had come amongst.

Sir Augustus Kirwan, though he had taken the chair at many philanthropic meetings, and though his name often headed important subscription lists, had never really been brought in contact, in actual personal contact, with the great open wound of London.

The party had come to the mouth of a particularly evil-looking alley. There is character in brick and stone, and this place – "Wilson's Rents" by name – had a sinister cut-throat aspect in every line of it.

"What is in there?" Sir Augustus asked one of the police inspectors.

"It's a particularly bad street, Sir Augustus," the man answered. "A sort of great human rabbit-warren or rat's run, as you may say. The houses nearly all communicate through cellars and subterranean passages."

"Shall we go down here?" Sir Augustus asked Joseph.

"I should not advise it, sir," said the policeman. "The people are so dirty and degraded and disgusting in their habits that they hardly resemble human beings at all."

"Never mind that," Sir Augustus answered. "Now we have come I wish to see everything, however personally distasteful it may be. I am ashamed gentlemen, to think that I have shirked so obvious a duty as this for so long! I am sorry and ashamed of myself!"