A Second Coming Part 10

But Jones would not have it.

'My child's dying; this is the nearest way to her. I'm going this way.'

The officer persisted in his attempt to persuade him to change his mind.

'Don't be silly! You won't do your child any good by getting yourself knocked to pieces, will you?'

Tom Jones was obstinate.

'I'm going this way.'

Slipping past the constable, he moved towards the crowd. The people confronted him like a solid wall.

'Let me pa.s.s, you chaps.'

That moment the storm broke. The man's stolid demeanour, the complete indifference with which he faced their rage, might have had something to do with it. The effect of his request to be allowed to pa.s.s was as if he had dropped a lighted match into a powder-magazine. An explosion followed. The air was rent by curses; the people became all at once like madmen. Possessed with sudden frenzy, they crowded round the man, raining on him a hail of blows, each man struggling with his fellow in order to reach the object of his rage. Their very fury defeated their purpose. Not a few of the blows which were meant for Jones fell on their own companions. With the commencement of the attack Jones's stolidity completely vanished. He was transformed into a fiend, and behaved like one. His voice was heard above the others, pouring forth a flood of objurgations on the heads of his a.s.sailants.

His wife was his slavish disciple. Her shrill tones were mingled with his deeper ones; they were at least as audible. Her language was no better, her pa.s.sion was no less. The man and the woman fought like wild beasts. And so blinded by fury were the efforts of their a.s.sailants that the pair were able to give back much more than they received.

The attempts of the police at pacification were useless. They were not in sufficient force. And there is a point in the temper of a crowd at which its rage is not to be appeased until it has vented itself on the object of its fury. All that the officers succeeded in doing was to lose their own tempers. Under certain circ.u.mstances there is irresistible contagion in a madman's frenzy. Presently they themselves were mingling in the frantic melee, apparently with as little show of reason as the rest.

Suddenly the crowd gave way towards the centre. Those in the middle were borne down by those who persisted in pressing on. There was a struggling, heaving, mouthing ma.s.s upon the ground, with the Joneses underneath. And, as the writhings and contortions of this heap grew less and less, there came One, before whose touch men gave way, so that, before they knew it, He stood there, in their very midst, before them all. In His presence their rage was stilled. Ceasing to contend, they drew back, looking towards Him with their bloodshot eyes. Where had been the pile of living men was a clear s.p.a.ce, in which He stood. At His feet were two forms--Tom Jones and his wife.

The woman cried and groaned, twisting her limbs; but the man lay still.

'What is it that you would do?'

With the sorrowful inflexion of the voice was blended a satiric intonation which seemed to strike some of those who heard as with a thong. One man, a big, burly fellow, chose to take the question as addressed to himself. He still trembled with excess of rage; his voice was husky; from his mouth there came a volley of oaths.

'Bash the ---- to a jelly--that's what we'd like to do to his ---- carcase! It's through the likes of him that our homes are broken up, our kids starving, our wives with pretty near nothing on.

Killing's too good for such a----!'

'Who are you that you should judge your brother?'

The man spat on the pavement.

'He's no brother of mine--not much he ain't! If I'd a brother like him, I'd cut my throat!'

'Since all men are brethren, and this is a man, if he is not your brother, what, then, are you?'

'He's no man! If he is, I hope I ain't.'

The Stranger was for a moment silent, looking at the speaker, who, drawing the back of his hand across his mouth, averted his glance.

'You are a man--as he is. Would that you both were more than men, or less. Go, all of you that would shed innocent blood, knowing not what it is you do. Wash the stain from off your hands; for if your hands are clean, so also are your hearts. As your ignorance is great, so also is G.o.d's mercy. Go, I say, and learn who is your brother.'

And the people went, slinking off, for the most part, in little groups of threes and fours, muttering together. Some there were who made haste, and ran, thinking that the man was dead, and fearful of what might follow.

When they were all gone, the Stranger turned to the woman, who still cried and made a noise.

'Cease, woman, and go to your daughter, lest she be dead before you come.'

And stooping, he touched the man upon the shoulder, saying:

'Rise!'

And the man stood up, and the Stranger said to him:

'Haste, and go to your daughter, who calls for you continually.'

And the man and the woman went away together, without a word.

CHAPTER VII

IN PICCADILLY

It was past eleven. The people, streaming out of the theatres, poured into Piccadilly Circus. The night was fine, so that those on foot were disposed to take their time. The crowd was huge, its const.i.tuent parts people of all climes and countries, of all ranks and stations.

To the unaccustomed eye the confusion was bewildering; omnibuses rolled heavily in every direction; hansom cabs made efforts to break through what, to the eyes of their sanguine drivers, seemed breaks in the line of traffic; carriages filled with persons in evening-dress made such haste as they could. The pavements were crowded almost to the point of danger; even in the roadway foot-pa.s.sengers pa.s.sed hither and thither amidst the throng of vehicles, while on every side vendors of evening papers pushed and scrambled, shouting out, with stentorian lungs, what wares they had to sell.

The papers met with a brisk demand. Strange tales were told in them.

Readers were uncertain as to the light in which they ought to be regarded; editors were themselves in doubt as to the manner in which it would be proper to set them forth. Some wrote in a strain which was intended to be frankly humorous; others told the stories baldly, leaving readers to take them as they chose; while still a third set did their best to dish them up in the shape of a wild sensation.

It was currently reported that a Mysterious Stranger had appeared in London. During the last few hours He had been seen by large numbers of people. The occasions on which He had created the most remarkable impressions had been two. At St. John's Hall the Rev. Philip Evans had been preaching on the Second Coming, when, in the middle of the discourse, a Stranger had appeared upon the platform, actually claiming, so far as could be gathered, to be the Christ. In the operating theatre at St. Philip's Hospital, just as a subject--a woman--had succ.u.mbed under the surgeon's knife, a Stranger had come upon the scene, and, before all eyes, had restored the dead to life.

It was this story of the miracle, as it was called, at St. Philip's Hospital, which had been exciting London all that day. The thing was incredible; but the witnesses were so reputable, their statements so emphatic, the details given so precise, it was difficult to know what to make of it. And now in the evening papers there was a story of how a riot had taken place outside Messrs. Anthony's works. The strikers had attacked a blackleg. A stranger had come upon them while they were in the very thick of the fracas; at a word from Him the tumult ceased; before His presence the brawlers had scattered like chaff before the wind. The latest editions were full of the tale; it was in everybody's mouth.

Christ's name was in the air, the topic of the hour. The Stranger's claim was, of course, absurd, unspeakable. He was an impostor, some charlatan; at best, a religious maniac. Similar creatures had arisen before, notably in the United States, though we had not been without them here in England, and Roman Catholic countries had had their share. The story of the dead woman who had been restored to life at St. Philip's Hospital was odd, but it was capable of natural explanation. To doubt this would be to write one's self down a lunatic, a superst.i.tious fool, a relic of medieval ignorance. There is no going outside natural laws; the man who pretends to do so writes himself down a knave, and pays those to whom he appeals a very scanty compliment. Why, even the most pious of G.o.d's own ministers have agreed that there are no miracles, and never have been. Go to with your dead woman restored to life! Yet, the tale was an odd one, especially as it was so well attested. But then the thing was so well done that it seemed that those present were in a state of mind in which they would have been prepared to swear to anything.

Still, Christ's name was in the air--in an unusual sense. It came from unaccustomed lips. Even the women of the pavement spoke of Jesus, wondering if there was such a man, and what would happen if He were to come again.

'Suppose this fellow in the papers turned out to be Him, how would that be then?' one inquired of the other. Then both were silent, for they were uneasy; and at the first opportunity they solaced themselves with a drink.

The men for the most part were more outspoken in ribaldry than the women, especially those specimens of masculinity who frequented at that hour the purlieus of Piccadilly Circus. Common-sense was their stand-by. What was not in accordance with the teachings of common-sense was nothing. How could it be otherwise? Judged by this standard, the tales which were told were nonsense, sheer and absolute. Therefore, in so far as they were concerned, the scoffer's was the proper mental att.i.tude. The editors who wrote of them humorously were the level-headed men. They were only fit to be laughed at.

'If I'd been at St. Philip's, I'd have got hold of that very mysterious stranger, and I'd have kept hold until I'd got from him an explanation of that pretty little feat of hanky-panky.'

The speaker was standing at the Piccadilly corner of the Circus, by the draper's shop. He was a tall man, and held a cigar in his mouth.

His overcoat was open, revealing the evening dress beneath. The man to whom he spoke was shorter. He was dressed in tweeds; his soft felt hat, worn a little on one side of his head, lent to him a mocking air. When the other spoke, he laughed.

'I'd like to have a shy at him myself. I've seen beggars of his sort in India, where they do a lot of mischief, sometimes sending whole districts stark staring mad. But there they do believe in them; thank goodness we don't!'

'How do you make that out, when you read the names of the people who are prepared to swear to the truth of the St. Philip's tale?'

'My dear boy, long before this they're sorry. Fellows lost their heads--sort of moment of delirium, which will leave a bad taste in their mouths now they've got well out of it. If that mysterious gentleman ever comes their way again, they'll be every bit as ready to keep a tight hold of him as you could be.'

'I wonder.' The tall man puffed at his cigar. 'I'd give--well, Grey, I won't say how much, but I'd give a bit to have him stand in front of me just here and now. That kind of fellow makes me sick. The common or garden preacher I don't mind; he has his uses. But the kind of creature who tries to trade on the folly of the great majority, by trying to make out that he's something which he isn't--whenever he's about there ought to be a pump just handy. We're too lenient to cattle of his particular breed.'

'Suppose, Boyle, this mysterious stranger were to appear in Piccadilly now, what's the odds that you, for one, wouldn't try to plug him in the eye?'