The Walls of Jericho

Irish Jesuit Province

The Walls of JerichoAuthor(s): John SantSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 58, No. 690 (Dec., 1930), pp. 638-643Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20512917 .

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688

THE WALLS OF JERICHO.

Cx' TITH a sense of duty done, Henry Holland hurried away from Low Mass in the Mission Churchi he had given to Southworth, a suburb

on the outskirts of London. It was a red effiorescence of considered enterprise which had made him a rich man before he was forty.

The door of his luxurious saloon auto was opened and

shut for him by a chauffeur who had left the employment of an impoverished peer for his service.

Mr. Holland lit a cigar and sank back among the

cushions and mused. He would certainly give the cook notice to quit if she

over-cooked the bacon again. . . He would foreclose on those mortgages. . He would build another hundred houses, and then see the world, Egypt, America. People had to have houses to live in.

A not unfamiliar sense of his indispensability warmed his heart, as the car turned into the short drive of the

Manor Hou'se, the only note of dignity that remained in what had once been antique countryside.

After the usual walk round the garden, a glance at

the financial news, and midday dinner he promised himself a game of cards and a drink or two at the club. If the drinks extended to four or five, he felt it was a

matter of conscience, did this hard-headed man of busi ntess whose early days had passed in a teetotal Noncon formist atmosphere of the Baptist variety.

Life went according to plan, his plan. . Even the flowers and shrubs in the garden seemed to aet in accord

with his delegated authority. If other people would only put a little more punch and miethod into their affairs, he argued, it would be -better for them.

Muddlers never prospered. When dinner was an immediate memory the auto

sped into the autumn-tinted country-slowly, at first, because Mr. Holland liked to appraise his house



THL WALLS OF JERICHO 639

,property which lined the road for nearly a mile. But the sight of a man haranguing a crowd at a street corner caused him to stop the car abruptly.

The tub-thumper hesitated perceptibly, -a shade of self-consciousness passing over his rugged face, and then he coutinued:

I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that dreams can be more deadly than dynamite. The meek shall yet inherit the earth, if they will only organise under the right banner. . . A thought can be an event. The ex ploiters cannot dispossess you of the powver of thought. Think out your own salvation."

A smile of cynical aamusemnent camne to Mr. Holland's

clean-shaven lips. There was no accounting for taste, but really, he would never have thouoht this of his very

competent chief clerk, John Harty, for it was he who was wasting his Sunday afternoon in this tomfoolery. Still, mused the successful builder, hugging to himself the secret thought that it was in his power to throw the iconoclast into the street, this is a free country, and every man to his taste.

Mr. Holland ceased to look about him on gaining the open country. The pensive mnelancholy of autumn reached him and touched an old dream to life-a dream, and of a girl he had once intended to marry as soon as

he earned ?200 a year. She lived at home and helped her mother, and at that time he was a clerk in the office of a builders' merchant. She was a Child of Mary, while he was on the altar. At once he nipped reflection in the

bud, by entrenching himself again behind the conviction that he was not the marrying sort. Women interfered

with one's plans and comforts and babies were tiresome

and noisy. As the car threaded its way through a little grey town

that had played its part in history, his thoughts sped to the congregation at the Southworth M'ission Church,

more than half of whom were buying houses he had bui'lt, with the help of a building society These he had divided into good payers and bad. Some people never seemed to realise their obligations, and the priest,



640 THE IRISH MONTHLY

Father Mlartin, would try and butt in-a; nice, quiet fellow in his proper sphere, but

If Jones was naot at the club to partner him at

cards, he would have to fall back on Tomlinson, if he was on the premises. Pity Fooks had taken to drink, a good player, Fooks-got caught in that Fending crash, poor devil. Nothing like bricks, mortar and ground rents-dia,mond-edged securities, he called them. The best of cards was that it kept a man's thoughts on one

thing-kept him normal, if he limited his stakes. Some fellows never knew when to stop.

The auto was now in the heart of London. It slowed down to a standstill, but not opposite the handsome entrance of the 1940 Club, but fifty yards short of it.

Part of the street was in the possession of firemen and police, though the dispersing crowd suggested that the fire had been put out. Smashed windows, blackened stonework and water-drenched street bore witness to its possible severity. The ha-ndsome block of buildings in which his club was situated was in consequeniee closed till further notice.

This monstrous interference with his programme put Mr. Holland into a thoroughly bad temper. The chauf feur knew this by the way in which his lips twisted when he said he hoped no, one was hurt.

After a lonely tea at the Savoy, the whim seized him to take a short walk, stretching his legs he called it.

There wais at first a touch of real novelty about walking along the Strand, his enjoyment being added to by the fact that he was not -jostled by thronging

crowds as would have beena the case on a, week-day. His

feet had often. trodden the same pavement when, as a

young man, he had lunched in the district on a shilling a day.

The Strand and Fleet Street seemed to be in the pos session of young couples and family parties. A clergy

man came striding along, and as he passed, whispered

loudly in his ear, "Seek the Lord," and then two grirls who giggled "Balmy-he's always at it."

High new office blocks attracted his attention, and the



THE WALLS OF JERICHO 641

steel skeleton of one-to-be made his spirit do obeisanwe to the constructive engineer.

At Ludgate Circus he crossed the road, and returned past the Law Courts, haunted even then with some poor, half crazy litigant, mumbling a grievance.

Picking up the auto again at the Savoy, he determined to spend the evening in preparing the preliminaries of his case against the Stag Building Society. This would shorten the interview with his attorneys on the morrow, and be money in his pocket.

He was still rehearsing his case when the whole earth seemed to break into pieces, and a, steel hand-to wrencl him asunder, and then cast him into a pit of darkness, which extinguished the sense of his own identity.

". . . Unconscious of course he is. Wonder the gent ain't a goner-car hit sideways and half smashed."

"Who is he?" "Owner of ev'ry blinking house hereabouts, and a

hard nut if ever there was one, poor feller. The amber lance's a long time coming.

"Always is. When my old man-" "Where will they take him to?"

"Lives close by. Police know him, and one of their own magistrates, too."

"Anyway, his rents will go on automatic." So spoke the world of Southworth, while its seriouisly

injured owner lay unconscious on the pavement, under a carriage rug, a policeman supporting his head. . .

When Henry Holland really came to himself, as he thought, he was lying in his own bed, swathed in ban dages, a night nurse in alert attendance.

H'is eyes ranged round the room, picking out the familiar objects. But when they rested on the Crucifix, he gave a cry of horror: he could not see the Sacred Figure.

The nurse sprang to his side as his hand fluttered in its direction. He tried to explain, to ask a question, but the words expired in his throat. Waves of pain drove



642 THE IRISH MONTHLY

his consciousness on to a shore never before kniown, eased at last by a sleeping-draught.

How had he got into Trafalgar Square? But was it

Trafalgar Square? There was no Nelson Moniument in the centre but a large Cruicifix. As he gazed the Holy

Figuire descended from the Cross, and moving away, deliberately turned His back on him.

' Lord, Master, look at me. Hear me, Lord !"

The Holy Figuire turned and beckoned to him, and he ran forward. Then his eyes were touclhed by a cruci fied hand, and at that touch he saw the world with new

eyes. Revealed to himn were the heroes and heroines of the

workaday world, in work and out of it, striving, some times vainly, to keep the wolf from the door, struiggling to remain decent if not noble amid ig,noble circum stances. Strong mnen he saw bowed in tears; delicate women, dry-eyed, asking mechanically where God was that such misery shouild be allowed; small boys old be fore their time because of the pence they had to earn,

and young girls, unclhaste because their unchastity helped to pay the rent. And he saw, too, that where privations were most common, there mutual helpfulness was most prevalent. . .

As another day dawned aind advanced, spilling its radiance over the western world, a faint voice was heard

in the sick room: " Nurse." "You must lkeep very quiet, Mr. Holland, doctor's

orders." ii One qtuestion-is everything the same in this room

as it used to be? Has anything been disturbed, pictures atud what not?"

"No one would do such a thing." "Why not, when there's a sick man to look after.

Youi are quite sure there has been no accident to any thing?"

"c None, but you really must remain quiet," reproved the nurse, thinking he was still delirious.



THE WALLS OF JERICHO 4

"Just this-ring up Father Martin and ask him to see me."

"He has been round." "Ask him to come again, and as soon as possible.

I've a job of work to do about which I want his advice. And nurse," his voice was so weak that she had to bend

over the bed to hear him, " if you know of anyone who's

really up against it, let me know."

Of her own accord she took the Crucifix from the wall just before the priest and doctor arrived, and placed it in his hand.

" Still there, still there !" he murmured with relief, raising it adoringly.

While the morning was still young, Henry Holland died in the act of trying to make a good Confession. The priest had heard enough to assure himself that the courts of heaven resounded with angelic joy when those dimming eyes closed for ever.

JOHN SANT.

THE BARGAIN.

She stood on the hill in the moonlight, With her arms stretched out to the sea; There was never a lass in Tirconaill So wildly fair as she.

And 'twas strange to see the tear on her cheek, 'Twas strange to hear how she sighed.

Why does she weep, and whom does she seek Who to-morrow will be a bride?

She stood on the hill in the moonliglt, In the hush and peace of the moonlight; In the memories of the, moonlight

Her song ebbed out with the tide.

" He was bright and he was bonnie As ever stood six-foot-two, And what if he had no money! His eyes were fierce and true.



The Walls of Jericho

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