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Then came Jock’s conversion to religion, a blazing affair, and his abandonment of public-houses. As tea-meetings alone would not keep him, he had started again in life, for the fifth or sixth time–as a herbalist now. It was a vocation which suited his delicate hands and his enthusiasm for humanity. At last, and quite lately, he had risen to be a local preacher. His first two sermons had impassioned the congregations, though there were critics to accuse him of theatricality. Accidents happened to him sometimes. On this very afternoon of the Friday before Martinmas an accident had happened to him. He had been playing the piano at the rehearsal of the Grand Annual Evening Concert of the Bursley Male Glee-Singers. The Bursley Male Glee-Singers, determined to beat records, had got a soprano with a foreign name down from Manchester. On seeing the shabby perky little man who was to accompany her songs the soprano had had a moment of terrible misgiving. But as soon as Jock, with a careful-careless glance at the music, which he had never seen before, had played the first chords (with a “How’s that for time, missis?”), she was reassured. At the end of the song her enthusiasm for the musical gifts of the local artist was such that she had sprung from the platform and simply but cordially kissed him. She was a stout, feverish lady. He liked a lady to be stout; and the kiss was pleasant and the compliment enormous. But what a calamity for a local preacher with a naughty past to be kissed in full rehearsal by a soprano from Manchester! He knew that he had to live that kiss down, and to live down also the charge of theatricality.

Here was a reason, and a very good one, why he deliberately sought the company of parsons in the middle of the Fair-ground. He had to protect himself against tongues.

III

“I don’t know,” said Jock-at-a-Venture to the parsons, gesturing with his hands and twisting his small, elegant feet, “I don’t know as I’m in favour of stopping these play-acting folk from making a living; stopping ’em by force, that is.”

He knew that he had said something shocking, something that when he joined the group he had not in the least meant to say. He knew that instead of protecting himself he was exposing himself to danger. But he did not care. When, as now, he was carried away by an idea, he cared for naught. And, moreover, he had the consciousness of being cleverer, acuter, than any of these ministers of religion, than anybody in the town! His sheer skill and resourcefulness in life had always borne him safely through every difficulty–from a prize-fight to a soprano’s embrace.

“A strange doctrine, Brother Smith!” said Jock’s own pastor.

The other two hummed and hawed, and brought the tips of their fingers together.

“Nay!” said Jock, persuasively smiling. “‘Stead o’ bringing ’em to starvation, bring ’em to the House o’ God! Preach the gospel to ’em, and then when ye’ve preached the gospel to ’em, happen they’ll change their ways o’ their own accord. Or happen they’ll put their play-acting to the service o’ God. If there’s plays agen drink, why shouldna’ there be plays agen the devil, and for Jesus Christ, our Blessed Redeemer?”

“Good day to you, brethren,” said one of the parsons, and departed. Thus only could he express his horror of Jock’s sentiments.

In those days churches and chapels were not so empty that parsons had to go forth beating up congregations. A pew was a privilege. And those who did not frequent the means of grace had at any rate the grace to be ashamed of not doing so. And, further, strolling players, in spite of John Wesley’s exhortations, were not considered salvable. The notion of trying to rescue them from merited perdition was too fantastic to be seriously entertained by serious Christians. Finally, the suggested connection between Jesus Christ and a stage-play was really too appalling! None but Jock-at-a-Venture would have been capable of such an idea.