CHAPTER X.
SUNDAY.
I was produced on Sunday before the whole settlement; more strictly speaking, they produced themselves before me. The villagers were in the village, for the first time, at my hour of rising. There was an absolute cessation from labour, but there was hardly rest. They were in a flutter of joyous excitement, and ran from cottage to cottage, as though they were spreading good news. Yet there was no news, for who could need telling that it was Sunday, and that the sky was blue? For that matter, they needed no excuse to make free of each other’s houses. Property in their own roofs seemed the merest accident among them. One man’s arm-chair was another man’s arm-chair. They walked in and out, by the open doors—often into unguarded dwellings, when the owners were on a visit elsewhere—read the books, smelt the flowers, touched the harmonium, if they could, or cared, and came away. When you sought a man, you went into the nearest cottage; you never thought of going first to his own, unless it lay in your path. There was more of this curious house to house visiting to-day, because there was more time for it, and because there was a greater intensity of childlike happiness in movement and communion—that was all.
There seemed to be much borrowing and lending of the Sabbath finery of cleanliness. If you had no better coat for the day, why, your neighbour might have one to spare, and you asked him for it. Victoria lent two loose gowns, a kind of robe de chambre worn on state occasions over the scanty costume of the women. At the same time, she went into a neighbour’s garden, and helped herself freely to flowers for her hair, our own stock having suffered from the movements of some four-footed intruder during the night. If Proudhon had lived here, he would have written ‘property is vanity,’ the innermost truth. Victoria was very smart—a new ribbon for the navy button, beside the blossoms inwoven with her shining locks.
The church was a hut. I have seen St. Peter’s, too, yet I give this one the preference for majesty, taking its surroundings into account. For St. Peter’s, as the best thing in its quarter, all else meaner, leads nowhere beyond itself, while this island fane, backed first by a stately tropic grove, then by a towering cone of mountain, then by the clouds, carried the eye from height to height of beauty and of wonder, right up to Heaven.
We were rather late, and it was all the better, for now I could take in the whole population of the island at a glance. They were mostly of superb physique, men and women, and Victoria was but one finest example of them. Reuben, the young giant, who had helped me on the day of landing, was another. Among the women, however, some foolish hat, or trailing skirt, of civilisation here and there departed from the classic simplicity of Victoria’s dress. Most of the men wore shoes, in honour of the day; a few, like the Ancient, long trousers, instead of the loose knee-breeches of their working suits. Trousers seemed to be a sign of authority, or of the beginning of years. The priest, or ministrant, wore them, and indeed he might have been entitled to wear two pairs, for, I think, he was schoolmaster as well. The types varied from Victoria’s front of Western Europe to almost pure Tahiti, but always they had their point of unity in the large soft eyes.
For the service, never had I seen such fervour, such passion of prayer and praise! It was the Church of England form, I believe, but form of any kind was hardly to be recognised in the melting heat of their zeal. The poor old Litany seemed like a veritable audience at the throne of God. The Commandments came as His voice from our own mountain, thundering from the summit of the cone. Our hymns soared after Him to the very farthest heaven as He retired. One boy’s note, I think, must have got there first, so clear was it, so clean and pure and true, with nought of earth to keep it from the skies. It was a living faith, no mere specimen of what once had lived, dried for keeping, and not even dried in the sun. Here were the true Primitives, the joyous band of Galilean vagabonds, exulting in that new conception of the brotherhood of man whose secret we have for ever lost. Solemnity, as we understand it, seemed far from them; devoutness was swallowed up in joy. Often they laid their hands affectionately on each other’s shoulders as they sang: once I saw two children kiss after a prayer.
I had been completely ignored during the service, but, when it was over, my turn came. As we trooped back towards the village, I was the centre of a questioning crowd. I had come from England—that was enough, for England is their great archetype of power, wisdom, and beauty of life. Needless to say they have not seen it; I mean, of course, that circumstance has bound them to their rock. All that they know as best comes from England, from the great war ship, which they regard with almost the wonder of Indians, down to the harmonium in the cottage. It is not much to know, but a generous imagination easily does the rest. England has been good to them: England, then, is goodness. She is visibly strong: then she is strength. She has sent them Bibles; ah! she must be the Word made Flesh.
So it was one long bewildering inquisition. Would I tell them of the great churches, the great wonders manifold of that far-off Isle of the Saints? What of the rulers and statesmen, of the bishops, those captains of captains of the thousands of God, of the choirs of the faithful—five thousand strong, as they had heard—hymning Handel under a crystal dome? They seemed to see human life not at all as a mere struggle, but as a great race for a crown of virtue, in which Britain was first, and their poor island so decidedly nowhere that she could afford to sink rivalry in unqualified admiration. I winced, and winced, and winced again.
‘We are but poor things here, and we know it,’ said the schoolmaster.
‘You will improve,’ I said kindly.