The Prelude to Adventure Part 2

The reaction was hysterical. To expect a summons to death and public shame, to find--Bunning. Bunning--that soft, blithering, emotional, religious, middle-cla.s.s maniac--Bunning! "Soft-faced" Bunning, as he was called, was the man of Olva's year in whom the world at large found most entertainment. The son of some country clergyman, kicked and battered through the slow, dreary years at some small Public School, he had come up to Saul's with an intense, burning desire to make a mark. He was stupid, useless at games, having only somewhere behind his fat ugly body a longing to be connected with some cause, some movement, some person of whom he might make a hero.

He had, of course, within the first fortnight of his arrival, plunged himself into dire disgrace. He had asked Lawrence, coming like a young G.o.d from Marlborough, in to coffee; they had made him drunk and laughed at his hysterical tears: in his desire for popularity he had held a gathering in his room, with the original intention of coffee, cakes and gentle conversation; the evening had ended with the arrival of all his furniture and personal effects upon the gra.s.s of the court below his windows.

He had been despised by the Dons, buffeted and derided by his fellow undergraduates. Especially had Carfax and Cardillac made his life a burden to him, and whenever it seemed that there was nothing especial to do, the cry arose, "Let's go and rag Bunning," and five minutes later that fat body would tremble at the sound of many men climbing the wooden stairs, at the loud banging on his wooden door, at the cry, "Hullo, Bunning--we've come for some coffee."

Then, towards the end of the first year, the Cambridge Christian Union flung out its net and caught him. His attempt at personal popularity had failed here as thoroughly as it had failed at school--now for his soul.

He found that the gentlemen of his college who were members of the Christian Union were eager for his company. They did not laugh at his conversation nor mock his proffered hospitalities. They talked to him, persuaded him that his soul was in jeopardy, and carried him off during part of the Long Vacation to the Norfolk Broads, where prayer-meetings, collisions with other sea-faring craft, and tinned meats were the order of the day.

Olva had watched him with that amused incredulity that he so frequently bestowed upon his fellow-creatures. How was this kind of animal, with its cowardice, its stupidity, its ugliness, its uselessness, possible?

He had never spoken to Bunning, although he had once received a note from him asking him to coffee--a piece of very considerable impertinence. He had never a.s.sisted Carfax and Cards in their raiding expeditions, but that was only because he considered such things tiresome and childish.

And now, behold, there in his doorway--incredible vision!--was the creature--at this moment of--all others!

"Come in," said Olva again.

Bunning brought his large quivering body into the room and stood there, turning his cap round and round in his hands.

"Oh, I say---" and there he stopped.

"Won't you sit down?"

"No--thanks--I----"

"In what way can I be of use to you?"

"Oh! I say---"

Senseless giggles, and then Bunning's mouth opened and remained open.

His eyes stared at Dune.

"Well, what is it?"

"Oh--my word--you know---"

"Look here," said Olva quietly, "if you don't get on and tell me what you want I shall do you some bodily damage. I've got work to do. Another time, perhaps, when I am less busy----"

Bunning was nearly in tears. "Oh, yes, I know--it's most awful cheek--I----"

There was a desperate silence and then he plunged out with--"Well, you know, I--that is--we-I--sort of wondered whether, you know, you'd care--not if you're awfully busy of course--but whether you'd care to come and hear Med. Tetloe preach to-night. I know it's most awful cheek----" He was nearly in tears.

Olva kept an amazed silence. Life! What an amusing thing!--that he, with his foot on the edge of disaster, death, should be invited by Bunning to a revival meeting. He understood it, of course. Bunning had been sent, as an ardent missionary is sent into the heart of West Africa, to invite Olva to consider his soul. He was expecting, poor creature, to be kicked violently down the twisting wooden stairs. On another occasion he would be sent to Lawrence or Cardillac, and then his expectations would be most certainly fulfilled. But it was for the cause--at least these sinners should be given the opportunity of considering their souls. If they refused to consider them, they must not complain if they find the next world but little to their fancy.

No one had ever attacked Olva before on this subject. His reserve had been more alarming to the Soul Hunters than the coa.r.s.e violence of a Cardillac or a Carfax. And now Bunning--Bunning of all people in this ridiculous world--had ventured. Well, there was pluck necessary for that. Bunning, the coward, had done a braver thing than many more stalwart men would have cared to do. There was bravery there!

Moreover, why should not Olva go? He could not sit alone in his room, his nerves would soon be too many for him. What did it matter? His last evening of freedom should be spent as no other evening of his life had been spent. . . . Moreover, might there not be something behind this business? Might he not, perhaps, be shown to-night some clue to the presence of that Power that had spoken to him in the wood? Through all the tangled confusion of his thoughts, through the fear and courage there ran this note-where was G.o.d? . . . G.o.d the only person to Whom he now could speak, because G.o.d knew.

Might not this idiot of a Bunning have been shown the way to the mystery?

"Yes," said Olva, smiling. "I'll come, if you won't mind sitting down and smoking for a quarter of an hour, while I finish this--have a drink, will you?"

Bunning's consternation at Olva's acceptance was amusing. He dropped his cap, stopped to pick it up, gasped. That Dune should really come!

"You'll come?" he spluttered out. Never in his wildest imaginings had he fancied such a thing. Dune, the most secret, reserved, mysterious man in the college--Dune, whose sarcastic smile was considered more terrifying than Lawrence's mailed fist--Dune, towards whom in the back of his mind there had been paid that reverence that belongs only to those who are of another world.

Never, in anything that had happened to him, had Bunning been so terrified as he had been by this visit to Dune. Watson Morley, the Christian Union man, had insisted that it was his duty and therefore he had come, but it had taken him ten minutes of agony to climb those stairs. And now Dune had accepted. . . .

The colour flooded his cheeks and faded again. He sat down clumsily in a chair, felt for a pipe that he smoked unwillingly because it was the manly thing to do, spurted some Apollinaris into a gla.s.s and over the tablecloth, struck many matches vainly, dropped tobacco on to the carpet. His heart was beating like a hammer!

How men would stare when they saw him with Dune. In his heart was the uneasy knowledge that had Dune proposed staying there in his rooms and talking instead of going to Little St. Agnes and listening to the Reverend Med. Tetloe, he would have stayed. This was not right, it was not Christian. The world gaped below Bunning's heavy feet.

At last Dune said: "I'm ready, let's go." They went out.

2

Little St. Agnes was apparently so named because it was the largest church in Cambridge. It was of no ancient date, but it was grim, grey, dark--admirably suited to an occasion like the present. Under the high roof, lost in a grey cloud, resolving themselves into rows of white, intense faces, sat hundreds of undergraduates.

They were seated on uncomfortable, unstable chairs, and the noise of their uneasy movements sent squeaks up and down the building as though it had been a barn filled with terrified rats.

Far in the distance, perched on a high pulpit, was a little white figure--an old gaunt man with a bony hand and a grey beard. Behind him again there was darkness. Only, in all the vast place, the white body and rows of white faces raised to it.

Olva and Bunning found seats in a corner. A slight soft voice said, with the mysterious importance of one about to deliver an immense secret, "You will look in the Mission Books, Hymn 330. 'Oh! for the arms of Jesus.' I want you to think for a moment of the meaning of the words before you sing."

There followed the rustling of many pages and then a heavy, emotional silence. Olva read the words and found them very sentimental, very bad verse and rather unpleasantly fall of blood and pain. Every one stood; the chairs creaked from one end of the building to the other, an immense volume of sound rose to the roof.

Olva felt that the entire church was seized with emotion. He saw that Bunning's hand was trembling, he knew that many eyes were filled with tears. For himself, he understood at once that that distant figure in white was here to make a dramatic appeal--dramatic as certainly as the appeal that a famous actor might make in London. That was his job-- he was out for it---and anything in the way of silence or noise, of darkness or light, that could add to the effect would be utilized. Olva knew also that nine-tenths of the undergraduates were present there for the same purpose. They wished to have their emotions played upon; they wished also to be rea.s.sured about life; they wished to confuse this dramatic emotion with a sincere desire for salvation. They wished, it is true, to be good, but they wished, a great deal more, to be dramatically stirred.

Olva was reminded of the tensity of the atmosphere at a bull-fight that he had once seen in Madrid. Here again was the same intensity. . . .

He saw, therefore, in this first singing of the hymn, that this place, this appeal, would be of no use in his own particular need. This deliberate evoking of dramatic effect had nothing to do with that silent consciousness of G.o.d. This place, this appeal, was fantastic, childish, beside that event that had that afternoon sent Carfax into s.p.a.ce. Let these men hurry to the wood, let them find the sodden body, let them face then the reality of Life. . . .

Again, as before in Hall, he was tempted to rise and cry out: "I have killed Carfax. I have killed Carfax. What of all your theories now?"

That trembling a.s.s, Bunning, singing now at the top of his voice, shaking with the fervour of it, let him know that he had brought a murderer to the sacred gathering--again Olva had to concentrate all his mind, his force, his power upon the conquest of his nerves. For a moment it seemed as though he would lose all control; he stood, his knees quivering beneath him--then strength came back to him.

After the hymn the address. There was tense, rapt silence. The little voice went on, soft, low, sweet, pleading, very clear. There must be many men who had not yet found G.o.d. There were those, perhaps, in the Church tonight who had not even thought about G.o.d. There were those again who, maybe, had some crime on their conscience and did not know how to get rid of it. Would they not come to Christ and ask His help?

Stories were told. Story of the young man who cursed his mother, broke his leg, and arrived home just too late to see her alive. Story of the friend who died to save another friend, and how many souls were saved by this self-sacrifice. Story of the Undergraduate who gambled and drank and was converted by a barmaid and eventually became a Bishop.

All these examples of G.o.d's guidance. Then, for an instant, there is a great silence. The emotion is now beating in waves against the wall. The faces are whiter now, hands are clenched, lips bitten. Suddenly there leaps upon them all that gentle voice, now a trumpet. "Who is for the Lord? Who is for the Lord?"

Then gently again,--"Let us pray in silence for a few minutes." . . .

A great creaking of chairs, more intense silence. At last the voice again--"Will those who are sure that they are saved stand up?" Dead silence--no one moves. "Will those who wish to be saved stand up?" With one movement every one--save only Olva, dark in his corner--stands up.

Bunning's eyes are flaming, his body is trembling from head to foot.

"Christ is amongst you! Christ is in the midst of you!"

Suddenly, somewhere amongst the shadows a voice breaks out--"Oh! my G.o.d!

Oh! my G.o.d!" Some one is crying--some one else is crying. All about the building men are falling on to their knees. Bunning has crashed on to his--his face buried in his hands.