CHAPTER XXIII

THE CRANKS’ CORNER

In the sombre days of December a double gloom settled down upon the sacred precincts of Mayfair. But little incense was being heaped on the shrine of luxury and pride. The fire of fashion burnt low, smouldering and smoky beneath the lowering clouds. Even Billy of Mayfair, who was usually as light of heart as he was agile of leg, felt the oppressive influence of things. His friend Joe had become an absolute pessimist for the time being, and even had high words with the wife of his bosom concerning the proposed baptism of his third-born child. Then Mrs Joe craftily enlisted the aid of Father Francis. Joe had a reasonable respect for the clergy, and a still profounder reverence for the peerage. Father Francis, he knew, was the Duke of Portsdown’s son; he had been to Dorking for an excursion, and had some acquaintance with the ducal grooms. So, though he showed fight, he touched his bare forehead, quite prepared for a theological crusher, though not necessarily to be convinced.

“Look ’ere, sir,” said Joe, “what’s the good of it, that’s wot I want to know. Wot’s the blessed good of pouring a little water on a baby’s ’ead?”

It was an inspiration that enabled Father Francis to give the very answer that appealed to Joe.

“Well, my friend,” said he, “we’ve all got to obey somebody’s orders, haven’t we?”

“That’s right enough,” agreed Joe, tightening his belt.

“Well, our Lord commanded it.”

Joe brightened instantly; it simplified the position wonderfully.

“Blest if that ain’t the best answer I’ve ’eard,” said the stableman cheerfully. And the child was called Francis Joseph--not after the Emperor of Austria, of whom the parents knew nothing, but after the curate in charge of St Stephen’s Church, and Joseph, the infant’s father.

It was about this time that Billy also began to feel that Father Francis was a friend, though he still avoided church and schools, just as he had learnt to dodge the school attendance officer and Policeman X. In summer weather he had spent most of his Sundays in the Green Park which was close at hand, or watching the wild-fowl on the ornamental water of St James’s, but about noonday on these winter Sundays, he might generally be found at the Cranks’ Corner in Hyde Park, listening with more or less wondering looks to the wild and whirling words of the competing speakers. Here, on the battleground won for free speech in many a contest with authority, the cranks let off the steam according to the measure of their crankiness. The pitches were so close together that the groups of listeners almost blended, and an auditor quick of hearing had presented to him a sort of mosaic of oratory that was, to say the least, bewildering. One speaker would be raving against the worthlessness and wickedness of vaccination, while another volleyed and thundered against the Education Act. But, mostly, the changes were rung on Religion, Atheism, and Socialism. Each cult had its champion every Sunday. There was a crank who had his own peculiar interpretation of the Book of Revelation, undertaking to tell his hearers what was signified by the beasts with many eyes, the vials of wrath, and the sealing of the servants of the Lord. He knew who were the horned kings of the Apocalypse, or, at least, some of them,--the Kaiser, the Czar, and the Mikado. He knew, or thought he did, all about the battle of Armageddon, that terrible conflict, transcending in its terrors every bloody war that men had waged on earth. The war of Michael and his angels against the dragon and his angels, “who prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil and Satan which deceiveth the whole world.”

“And where was the great dragon sent?” cried the speaker, “and where had he been at work ever since? ’Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea: for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.’ Perhaps they didn’t think it was a short time,” said the speaker, who could be shrewd and logical at times, “but time must not be measured by the little span of a man’s earthly life. What was a thousand years in the boundless depths of eternity? And why need there be so much talk about eternity when time itself was so immeasurable--the time of the geological periods, the time of the solar system,--unthinkable, like the distances from star to star.

“And yet some people,” the speaker went on, “said that it was all a fable; that there was no such being as the Prince of Darkness. If men looked around they would see plenty of his handiwork. If there were good spirits, why shouldn’t there be evil spirits; spirits not all alike in power or characteristics, but rank and file, with leaders and commanders--Satan, Beelzebub, Moloch?” Then he quoted from _Paradise Lost_:--

“First Moloch, horrid king, besmear’d with blood Of human sacrifice, and parents’ tears, Though for the noise of drums and timbrels loud Their children’s cries unheard, that past through fire, To his grim idol.”

And Billy, amongst others, heard and trembled. It was a comfort after that to hear another preacher yonder telling his hearers of One in whose presence the devils, believing, could not but tremble; of One who cast out devils from the souls of men and boys; who loved to have the children round Him, and rebuked those who would have kept them from Him.

When Billy found that this same lover of men’s souls was put to death by those whom He had sought to serve, that the Jews had shouted “Crucify Him!” and the Roman soldiers had nailed Him to a cross, the boy’s heart was hot within him, and his eyes were wet with tears. He had met with many Jews--the dirty, unkempt Jews of Petticoat Lane and Whitechapel, and the rich Jews of the West End, heavy of nose and watch-chain, silk-hatted, frock-coated, owners of splendid horses, which Joe cleaned down in the mews. And in his childish imagination there sprang up a strange, fantastic picture of a mixed and savage mob of these Jews of modern times assailing with cries and blows their lonely and forsaken King.

“I don’t like them Jews,” he said one day to his friend Joe.

The stableman rubbed his bullet-head reflectively.

“There’s good Jews and there’s bad ’uns,” he remarked, as one speaking with authority, “just the same as there is in t’other lot. When a Jew’s good, he’s uncommon good. When he’s a bad ’un, he’s a cove as can get the blood out of a stone; he’s a chap as’ll squeeze ye dry, like that there sponge”--throwing one into his zinc bucket. “And, mark my word, Billy, there’s plenty of Christians as’ll do the same. Six of one and half a dozen of t’other, that’s what it is, my lad.”