Two or three of the villagers came in, and the boy who was pulling the bell-rope by the font abandoned his task and walked quickly up the aisle, going into the tiny vestry, from which he presently emerged to light two of the altar-candles with a taper. Then he returned to the vestry, coming back a moment later with the missal in his hands, followed by the rector, vested, and bearing the sacred vessels. They made a reverence to the altar, and the Mass began.
When it was over, Hamilton remained on his knees, lost in wonder. His critical sense quite gone, he had been caught up once more in the tremendous drama of the great act of sacrifice, and swept unresisting into the very heart of faith. The hard shell of worldliness which had grown around his heart was broken, and he was a child again. Deep humility filled his whole being, and a devout thankfulness for the mercy which had led him, all unknowing, to this place. There were tears in his eyes as he lifted his head, to find the rector, now in his threadbare cassock, standing beside him.
“Good morning, Mr. Hamilton,” said the old man. “Will you join me at breakfast?”
Collecting himself, the other thanked him, and together they passed out into the dazzling sunshine.
From the churchyard a little gate led into the rectory garden, and within a couple of minutes they were sitting in the dining-room of the old house, the rector pouring out coffee, while his housekeeper bustled about the table.
“You are soon back, Mr. Hamilton,” he remarked.
“Yes, Father. It seemed that I had arrived at an inopportune moment. Tony is at a vital point in his new studies, so as soon as I decently could I came away.”
The rector raised his eyebrows.
“What studies?” he asked.
“Dr. Gaunt is teaching him some kind of occult business — theurgic mysticism was the term, I think. It’s apparently necessary that he should be able to assist Vaughan with the expulsion of the curse, and he must know what to do.”
“I don’t quite like the sound of that,” said the priest slowly. “He is taking it very seriously, then?”
“Yes, he seems quite wrapped up in it. Talks of a new life, and so on.”
“He is accepting this occult teaching as a philosophy of life, I take it, and not simply as a means to an end?”
“Evidently. They plan to attack the curse on the day of its anniversary — September 25th — but Tony talks of years of study after his initiation.”
“Ah!” The rector laid down his knife and fork and leaned forward. “Initiation, eh? Into what, I wonder?”
“There is apparently a secret society, or Order, of which Gaunt is the head in this country, which preserves this mysterious ancient wisdom,” Hamilton explained.
The old man shook his head.
“It’s a sad thing, Mr. Hamilton,” he said, “the way some people turn to these outlandish beliefs as an escape from reality, when the Church can show them how to comprehend reality. This very human desire to know has been the undoing of many a man, simply through his getting on the wrong road to knowledge.”
“Then there really is something in this occultist stuff, Father?”
“Oh yes, there’s a great deal in it. It has haunted mankind since the world first began. Forbidden fruit, you know. The Serpent in Eden. It was enshrined in the faith of Egypt; it was the whole of the mystery religions which flourished around the Mediterranean. It has troubled Christianity for centuries; the Gnostic heresy, the Christian Cabalists, the Brethren of the Free Spirit, the Rosicrucians — all professed to have this secret knowledge. And still it goes on.”
“But is there any real harm in it, Father? It’s only make-believe, surely? Just bringing about an abnormal state of mind by an effort of wilclass="underline" purely subjective.”
“I’m not at all sure about that, Mr. Hamilton. The limitless power of the human will has always been acknowledged. You will remember Our Lord’s words: ‘If ye had faith, so much as a grain of mustard seed, ye would say to yonder mountain, Be thou removed hence, and cast into the sea, and it would be so’? “
“Yes, but I always thought that was just a figure of speech.”
“That’s the general comment on Christ’s words, isn’t it? Figures of speech not meant to be taken literally. ‘This is My Body’: figure of speech, say you! But I know that the substance of the bread which I consecrated on yonder altar an hour ago was annihilated, and became the very substance of the Godhead bodily. Do you believe that, Mr. Hamilton?”
“Yes, Father, I do.” Hamilton’s voice was humble. “But this is different, surely?”
“How different? If I, having been consecrated a priest, can perform a miracle, why should not these others, by means of ancient formulae and systems, be also able to perform miracles: lesser ones than that, naturally, but miraculous, nevertheless?”
“But that would be magic, Father.”
“Well, what of it? There’s magic everywhere. By ritual words and gestures water is made holy, a man is made a priest, bread is made God. That’s Divine magic — or, more strictly, grace. But there is a lesser kind also. I tell you, Mr. Hamilton, that the spirit of magic was never more widespread than it is today: Christian Science, Spiritualism, Menticulture, Couéism — all magic. Even Lourdes, Loretto, and our own Walsingham effect their cures by a process akin to magic.”
Hamilton rubbed his chin.
“I’d never thought of it like that,” he admitted. “I must say it sounds very feasible.”
“It is feasible. But don’t misunderstand me. Your real magician, your true Hermetic philosopher, though he may be able to effect material results, does not study his books, and train his will, merely to perform vulgar marvels. He leaves that to the conjurer on the variety stage. No, his is a real science of life, a perpetual striving to blend the macrocosm with the microcosm, to plumb all the mysteries of nature by attaining higher planes of being. That’s the mystic way.”
“But there were Catholic mystics, Father.”
“Of course: St. Theresa, St. John of the Cross, and countless more. But theirs was not the way of magic. They always endeavoured to pass the plane upon which the magician works — the astral plane, I think they call it — going higher and ever higher, until at last they achieved union with the ultimate reality, God Himself. No, my son, the real danger of magic is that it leads to egotism, and arrogant pride of one’s own knowledge and power. Seeking after the many, it forgets the One. It strives to know instead of to be. What said Eliphas Levi, perhaps the greatest of the Hermetic philosophers? ‘Too deep a study of the mysteries of nature may estrange from God the careless investigator, in whom mental fatigue paralyses the ardour of the heart.’ And Levi became a Catholic at the last, you know.”
“I’m afraid I know very little of these things, Father.”
“The less the better, my son. Tell me, what manner of man is this Nicholas Gaunt?”
They had finished breakfast, and were sitting smoking Hamilton’s tobacco. The latter thought for a while before replying; then:
“He’s a charming man, Father. Brilliant; tremendous will-power; amazing knowledge of practically any subject. A fascinating character. Kindly, too, or appears to be. I think he’s honest, and is really fond of Tony.
“H’m. He’s evidently made a good impression on you, at all events. I must confess I liked what I saw of him at the funeral. And this friend of his, Simon Vaughan — he doesn’t seem to have impressed the Dykes much, from all accounts.”
“No, he strikes one as rather repulsive at first sight. He’s a short, enormously fat chap; flabby, you know. Head like a toad, rather: bald and flat. Small eyes, with heavy lids. Thick red lips that scarcely move when he speaks, slurring his words. But after you’ve been talking to him for a while he is so polished and delightful that you soon forget his appearance and think what a fool you were to notice it.”