“I beg your pardon,” he said, “but whom have I the honor of meeting?”
I gave him my name and he bowed with courtly grace.
“We are brothers,” he said, “all men are brothers but unfortunately our pride prevents us from acknowledging the truth.”
Then we drifted into conversation and I learned that he belonged to an excellent family in the north of Ireland. He had obtained his degree at Trinity College, Dublin, taken orders and proceeded to South Australia where the Bishop gave him a large parish in the pastoral country. Suddenly the relator became reticent and relapsed into silence. I divined the cause and pointed to the glasses. He hesitated and then drank off another but with the disgust shewn when one is compelled to take medicine. The effect of this potion was unexpected. The parson, for such I must call him, burst into song, at first sentimental and then comic. They were certainly not acquired at a divinity school. He fairly rollicked in the patter songs, so famous years ago in the London music halls. When he drew a comparison between a monkey and a dude, in which the monkey had the best of it, he was irresistible and I laughed till the tears ran down my cheeks. The reckless abandon, the rollicking gaiety, the quip and quirk,—all were perfect. I forgot who he was and what he was.
As the last patter song died on his lips he turned ashy pale and began to tremble violently. I handed him another glass but he dashed it from my hand and poured out upon me such curses as I had never heard before. They froze my blood and gave me a sight of the very soul of the man, reeking with blasphemy and hatred and a savage malevolence so vindictive that a fiend from the bottomless pit would have turned and fled. As I darted to the door he seized me and with the strength of a mad man hurled me into a chair, his horrible laugh ringing out with sardonic glee, piercing the ears and running into a mocking refrain. Turning to the table he swallowed all the laudanum which remained. Two minutes later he was another man. His mouth was that of a child with the pathetic pucker always seen before an infant bursts into tears. I forgot his violence, his obscenity, everything, in the new character before me, I felt that the curtain was up for the last act, when it fell there would be darkness, the light would fail and the green door come back.
“I have never told the story,” he exclaimed, “but the time has come when it must be told.” His voice was so low that I was compelled to bend forward and listen as the words fell from his lips. Then he dashed into the recital startling in its intensity.
“In my parish was one great squatter who made his home upon the estate, the other squatters living at Adelaide or Melbourne. John Bond held by the good old English practice and lived upon his estate. ‘If the land did so much for him,’ he said, ‘then he was bound to stand by the land.’ At my first visit I fell in love with John Bond’s daughter Helen. Up to that moment I had been bound up in the work of the church. Men called me an enthusiast, a dreamer. I believed and acted upon my belief. I know that I had a mission, tidings to impart, hope and comfort to offer. I was a priest consecrated to the work, not an interpreter. I believed that a priest should not marry. Twenty-four hours spent at John Bond’s house made me a new man. I looked back on the past as a dream. I saw myself a phantom, a church instrument, but for the first time I felt myself a man. I had been a slave, I became a living fire. I had dreamed of happiness for mankind, mankind were swallowed up in Helen Bond. She constituted the universe, my universe. I pouted out my passion and found my love returned, what more could priest or man demand? Half the summer I lived in a dream, an ecstasy, a delirium. I had not saved a sovereign, for my creed was, ‘Give all to the poor,’ that is, it had been my creed before I met Helen. She took absolute possession of my heart, my emotions. My first pang came when my would-be bride told me that the dream of her life had been Melbourne, when we married there we must live. I implored the Bishop of Adelaide to secure for me a parish in the great metropolis and received in reply to my letter a curt refusal, with an admonition relative to neglected duties. Helen was adamant, the condition was Melbourne. She suggested that I should appeal to her father for assistance but my pride revolted. At this juncture the news came describing the new gold fields of Western Australia. Helen whispered in my ear, it was but a hint. I caught at it and drove to Adelaide and tendered my resignation. The bishop refused to accept it and told me that I was mad and upbraided me for deserting a sacred cause for mammon. Stung by his reproaches I confessed my secret. I painted Helen as I saw her, her beauty, grace, sweetness, but nothing moved the ecclesiastic. I flung all to the winds and sailed for Perth on the next steamer. The terrible march to Coolgardie did not abate my ardour. At the mines I was one of the few successful. In four months I wrung out three thousand pounds, but at a fearful cost. The toil, the damp earth, the coarse food and the delirium which drove me on by day and harassed me by night, sapped the very springs of my life, ate up my imagination, devoured my sympathies, obliterated my faith, and planted in their stead a greed for gold behind which I saw the smiling face of Helen. The mail brought me no tidings, though I sent letter after letter down to the coast. Sleep forsook me. I resorted to opiates. My luck deserted me and this increased my fury. I was soon known as the mad miner. I laughed at the taunts. Was not a priceless reward before me? Helen ever beckoning me on. I saw her face in every nugget, her form in the little smoke clouds as they rolled away from the candle in my miner’s cap, her smile in the water running over the ripples. I could endure the torment no longer. With my treasure I started for the coast. I watched it by day and slept beside it at night. A thousand times I woke with a horrible start believing that it was gone. How much opium I used on that journey I shall never know. I landed at Larges Bay and hurried into Adelaide. The green belt which girts the city, the blue sky above, the camellias bursting into bloom made no appeal to me. I had burned up my capacity for enjoyment. I was no longer a man but a husk, a mere cinder, a bit of scoria sucked up by a mighty tempest and driven forward. At the Bank of Australia I drew up and as I did so Helen came tripping down the steps and smiling as only Helen could smile. I rushed forward and caught her in my arms, the next instant I was hurled half senseless into the gutter. The bishop, my bishop, stood towering over me in a rage.”
“‘How dare you sir, how dare you affront my wife in such a manner, you hair-brained?’ he exclaimed. He raised his hand to strike me, but Helen interposed. ‘Your grace, my dear, forgive him, we both know that he is not always responsible for his actions.’”
“Then they entered a carriage and drove away. When I turned and saw my box of gold how I cursed it. Once to-night I saw it again, pardon me if I shocked you. The box lies in the bank vaults at Adelaide, it has been there for five years, I shall never touch it again, never, never.”
“How have I lived?”