Geoffrey Hampstead: A Novel

by Stinson Jarvis

Canada is content, for the present at least, to see the English flag instead of our own.

As our friends came on deck the next morning (Sunday) they were able to enjoy this pleasant approach to Kingston. Mrs. Dusenall and others had wished to attend church if possible in the limestone city, and an early start had been made by the sailors long before the guests were awake. The wind came lightly from the southward, which allowed them to pick up the anchors without difficulty, and it took but a short time to sweep in past the city and "come to" off the barrack's wharf, where a gun was ceremoniously fired as the anchor was lowered from the catheads.

Mrs. Dusenall piped all hands for divine service. They came out of the ark two by two and filed up the streets in that order until the church was reached. The boys came out in "heavy marching order"—Sunday coats, and all that sort of thing—which made a vast change from the picturesque and rather buccaneer-like appearance they presented on the yacht.

If a traveling circus had proceeded up the center aisle of the attractively decorated edifice, no greater curiosity could have been exhibited among the worshipers. Mrs. Dusenall had some of the imposing mien of a drum-major as she led her gallant band to seats at the head of the church, and Charley was justly proud of the fine appearance they made. He had surveyed them all with pleasure while on the sidewalk outside, and had paid the usher half a dollar to lead them all together to front seats. Walk as lightly as they could, it was impossible in the stillness of the church to prevent their entrance from sounding like that of soldiery, and once the eyes of the worshipers rested on the noble troop they became fixed there for some time. There was a ruddy, bronzed look about the yachting men's faces which, innocent of limestone dust tended to deny the almost aggressive respectability which good tailoring and cruelty collars attempted to claim for them. In the hearts of the fair Kingstonians who glanced toward them there arose visions of lawn-tennis, boating, and buccaneer costumes suggested by that remarkably able-bodied and healthy appearance which a fashionable walk, bank trousers, and a gauzy umbrella may do much to modify but can not obliterate. As for the male devotees, it was touching to mark their interest in Margaret as she went up the aisle keeping step with the shortened pace of the long-limbed Geoffrey. The clergyman was just saying that the scriptures moved them in sundry places when all at once he became a mere cipher to them. After their first thrill at the beauty of her face, their eyes followed Margaret and that wonderful movement of hers that made her, as with a well-ordered regiment, almost as dangerous in the retreat as in the advance. But Nina came along close behind her, and those who, though disabled, survived the first volley were slaughtered to a man when the rich charms of her appearance won her a triumph all her own. Jack, walking by her side, full of gravity but happy, took in the situation with pride at her silent success. Then all the others followed, and when they were installed in a body in the three front pews, and after they had all bowed their heads and the gentlemen had carefully perused the legend printed in their hats—"Lincoln Bennett & Coy, Sackville Street, Piccadilly, London. Manufactured expressly for Jas. H. Rogers, Toronto and Winnipeg"—they got their books open and admitted that they had done things they ought not to have done and that there was no health in them.

The interior of the church was a luxury to the eye in its mellow coloring from stained-glass windows and carefully-arranged lights, and in its banners, altar-cloths, embroidery, and church millinery generally, it left little to be desired. The clergyman was a young unmarried offspring of a high-church college who, with a lofty disregard for general knowledge, had acquired a great deal of theology. He it was who arranged that dim religious light about the altar and walled up a neighboring window so that the burning of candles seemed to become necessary. Never having been out of America, it was difficult to imagine where he acquired the ultra-English pronunciation that had all those flowing "ah" sounds which after a while make all words so pleasantly alike in the high-pitched reading of prayers when, it may be inferred, that word-meanings are perhaps of minor import. It seemed that he alone was, from the holiness of his office, qualified to enter that mysterious place at the head of the chancel where, with his back to the congregation, at stated times he went through certain genuflexions and other movements in which the general public did not participate further than to admire the splendor of his back. The effect of the many mysteries on some of the Kingston men was to keep them away from the church. A few fathers of families and others came to please wives, sweethearts, or clients, and in the cool, agreeable edifice enjoyed some respectable slumber or watched the proceedings with mild curiosity or had their ears filled either with good music or the agreeable sound of the intoning.

The effect of the little mysteries on the well-to-do women of the church (for it was no place for a poor man's family) was varied. On the large-eyed, nervous, impressionable, and imaginative virgins—those who could always be found ready in the days of human sacrifices—the clergyman's mysteries and the exercise of the power of the Church, as exhibited in the continual working of his strong will upon them, had of course the usual results in enfeebling their judgment and in rendering them very subservient. In the case of some unimaginative matrons and more level-headed girls these attractions did not unfit them for every-day life more than continual theatre-going, and they took a pride in and enjoyed a sense of quasi-ownership in the man whom it tickled their fancy to clothe in gorgeous raiment. To these solid, pleasure-loving, good-natured women, whose religion was inextricably mixed up with romance, the mysteries, sideshows, and formalities of their splendid protégé brought satisfaction; and in their social gatherings they discussed the doings of their favorite much as a syndicate of owners might, in the pride of ownership, discuss their horse. It may be pleasing to be identified with the supernatural, but one's self-respect must need all such compensations to allow one to become a peg for admiring women to hang their embroidery on—to be largely dependent upon their gratuities, subject to some of their control, to put in, say, two fair days' work in seven, and spend the rest in fiddle-faddle.

"There is but one God. What directly concerns you, my friends, is that Mohammed is his Prophet—to interpret the supernatural for you." It would be interesting to find out if there ever existed a religion, savage or civilized, whose public proclamation did not contain a qualifying clause to retain the power in the priests.

The sermon on this occasion was on the observance of the Sabbath. It contained much church law and theology, and in quotations from different saints who had lived at various periods during the dark ages, and whose sayings did not seem to be chosen so much on account of their force as for the weight given by the names of the saints themselves, which were delivered ore rotundo. But it is doubtful whether the most erudite quotation from obscure mediæval saints is capable of carrying much conviction to the hearts of a Canadian audience, and Jack and Charley had to be kicked into consciousness from an uneasy slumber.

From the saints the priest descended to Chicago, a transition which awoke several. And he sought to illustrate the depravity of that city by commenting upon the large facilities there provided for Sabbath-breaking. He spoke of the street-cars he had seen there running on that day, and of the suburban trains that carried thousands of working-women and girls out of the city. He did not say that the cars were chiefly drawn by steam-power, nor that these poor, jaded, hollow-eyed girls worked harder in one day than he did in three weeks; nor did he speak of the weak women's hard struggle for existence in the life-consuming factories; nor of the freshness of the lake breezes in the spots where the trains dropped thousands of their overworked passengers.

Margaret Mackintosh had seen these dragged, dust-choked, narrow-chested, smoke-dried girls, with all the bloom of youth gone from them, trying to make their drawn faces smile as they go off together in their clean, Sunday print dresses, too jaded for anything save rest and fresh air. She knew that any man not devoid of the true essence of Christ might almost weep in the fullness of his sympathy with them. But the young priest convicted them of sacrilege, and did not say he was thankful for being privileged to witness such a sight, or that Chicago existed to shame the more priest-ridden cities of Canada.