When I reached the House, I told Sybil of my arrangement. For the first time since my arrival she smiled. “It’s very kind of him, but I am afraid he won’t do much good. Bob will frighten him away.”
“I fancy he won’t. The man is strong in his self-confidence and remarkably dense. He’ll probably exasperate Bob into sanity. In any case I’ll be back by Friday morning.”
As I drove away the trap arrived at the door, bringing Mr. Oliphant and his portmanteau.
The events of the next twenty-four hours, during which I was travelling in the Scotch express or transacting dreary business in my chambers, are known only from the narrative of the minister. He wrote it out some weeks after at my request, for I wished to have all the links in the tale. I propose to give the gist of it, as he wrote it, stripped of certain reflections on human life and an inscrutable Providence, with which he had garnished it.
Narrative of the Reverend Mr. Oliphant
I arrived at the House of More at a quarter-past eight on the Wednesday evening. The family had dined early, as Mr. Grey was leaving for London, and when I arrived I was taken to the library, where I found Mr. Ladlaw. I had not seen him for some time, and thought him looking pale and a little haggard. He seemed glad to see me, and made me sit down in a chair on his left and draw it up close to him. I wondered at his manner, for though we had always been on good terms he had never admitted me to any close intimacy. But now he was more than amiable. He made me ring for toddy, and though he refused to taste it himself, he pressed the beverage on me. Then he gave me a large cigar, at which I trembled, and finally he said that we should play at picquet. I declined resolutely, for it is part of my conscience to refuse to join in any card games; but he made no trouble, and indeed in a moment seemed to have forgotten his proposition.
The next thing he did startled my composure. For he asked abruptly, “Do you believe in a living personal Devil, Oliphant?”
I was taken aback, but answered that to the best of my light I did not.
“And why not?” he asked sharply.
I explained that it was an old, false, anthropomorphic fiction, and that the modern belief was infinitely more impressive. I quoted the words of Dr. Rintoul, one of our Church leaders. I am sorry to say that Mr. Ladlaw’s words were, “Dr. Rintoul be d⸺d!”
“Who the deuce are you to change the belief of centuries?” he cried. “Our forefathers believed in him. They saw him at evening slinking about the folds and peat-stacks, or wrapped up in a black gown standing in the pulpits of the Kirk. Are we wiser men than they?”
I answered that culture had undoubtedly advanced in our day.
Mr. Ladlaw replied with blasphemous words on modern culture. I had imagined him to be a gentleman of considerable refinement, and I knew he had taken a good degree at college. Consequently, I was disagreeably surprised at his new manner.
“You are nothing better than an ignorant parson,”—these were his words—“and you haven’t even the merits of your stupid profession. The old Scots ministers were Calvinists to the backbone, and they were strong men—strong men, do you hear?—and they left their mark upon the nation. But your new tea-meeting kind of parson, who has nothing but a smattering of bad German to commend him, is a nuisance to God and man. And they don’t believe in the Devil! Well, he’ll get them safe enough some day.”
I implored him to remember my cloth, and curb his bad language.
“I say the Devil will get you all safe enough some day,” he repeated.
I rose to retire in as dignified a manner as possible, but he was before me and closed the door. I began to be genuinely frightened.
“For God’s sake, don’t go!” he cried. “Don’t leave me alone. Do sit down, Oliphant, like a good chap, and I promise to hold my tongue. You don’t know how horrible it is to be left alone.”
I sat down again, though my composure was shaken. I remembered Mr. Grey’s words about the strange sickness.
Then Mr. Ladlaw fell into an extraordinary moodiness. He sat huddled up in his chair, his face turned away from me, and for some time neither of us spoke a word. I thought that I had seriously offended him, and prepared to apologise, so I touched his left shoulder to attract his attention. Instantly he jumped to his feet, screaming, and turned on me a face of utter terror. I could do nothing but stare at him, and in a second he quieted down and returned to his seat.
Then he became partially sane, and murmured a sort of excuse. I thought that I would discover what truth lay in Mr. Grey’s singular hypothesis. I did not ask him bluntly, as an ordinary man would have done, what was his malady, but tactfully, as I thought then, I led the conversation to demoniacal possession in the olden time, and quoted Pellinger’s theory on the Scriptural cases. He answered with extraordinary vehemence, showing a childish credulity I little expected from an educated man.
“I see that you hold to the old interpretation,” I said pleasantly. “Nowadays, we tend to find the solution in natural causes.”
“Heavens, man!” he cried. “What do you mean by natural? You haven’t the most rudimentary knowledge of nature. Listen to me, and I will tell you something.”
And with this he began a long rambling account of something which I could not understand. He talked much about a name which sounded like Canaan, and then he wandered to another subject and talked about Proserpina, whom I remembered from Mr. Matthew
