“But I, monsieur, was referring to a very famous saint of the Christian church, which has for some while counted the Dukes of Puysange among its communicants, and is now our best-thought-of form of worship.”
“Oh, the Christians! Yes, I have heard of them. Indeed I now remember very well how Ork and Horrig came into these parts preaching everywhere the remarkable fancies of that sect until I discouraged them in the way which seemed most salutary.”
Florian could make nothing of this. He said, “But how could you, of all persons, have discouraged the spreading of Christianity?”
“I discouraged them with axes,” the saint replied, “and with thumbscrews, and with burning them at the stake. For it really does not pay to be subtle in dealing with people of that class: and you have to base your appeal to their better nature upon quite obvious arguments.”
“My faith, then, how it came about I cannot say, Monsieur Hoprig; but for hundreds upon hundreds of years you have been a Christian saint.”
“Dear me!” observed the saint, “so that must be the explanation of this halo. I noticed it of course. Still, our minds have been rather pre-empted since we woke up— But, dear me, now, I am astounded, and I know not what to say. I do say, though, that this is quite extraordinary news for you to be bringing a well-thought-of high-priest of Llaw Gyffes.”
“Nevertheless, monsieur, for all that you have never been anything but a high-priest of the heathen, and a persecutor of the true faith, I can assure you that you have, somehow, been canonized. And I am afraid that during the long while you have been asleep your actions must have been woefully misrepresented. Monsieur,” said Florian, hopefully, “at least, though, was it not true about your being in the barrel?”
“Why, but how could ever you,” the saint marveled, “have heard about that rain-barrel? The incident, in any case, has been made far too much of. You conceive, it was merely that the man came home most unexpectedly; and since all husbands are at times and in some circumstances so unreasonable—”
“Ah, monsieur,” said Florian, shaking his head, “I am afraid you do not speak of quite the barrel which is in your legend.”
“So I have a legend! Why, how delightful! But come,” said the saint, abeam with honest pleasure, and with his halo twinkling merrily, “come, be communicative; be copious, and tell me all about myself.”
Then Florian told Hoprig of how, after Hoprig’s supposed death, miracles had been worked at Hoprig’s putative tomb, near Gol, and this legend and that legend had grown up around his memory, and how these things had led to Hoprig’s being canonized. And Florian alluded also, with perfect tact but a little ruefully, to those fine donations he had been giving, year in and year out, to the Church of Holy Hoprig, under the impression that all the while the saint had been, instead of snoring at Brunbelois, looking out for Florian’s interests in heaven. And Hoprig now seemed rather pensive, and he inquired particularly about his tomb.
“I shall take this,” the saint said, at last, “to be the fit reward of my tender-heartedness. The tomb near Gol of which you tell me is the tomb in which I buried that Horrig about whom I was just talking, after we had settled our difference of opinion as to some points of theology. Ork was so widely scattered that any formal interment was quite out of the question. My priests are dear, well-meaning fellows. Still, you conceive, they are conscientious, and they enter with such zeal into the performance of any manifest if painful duty—”
Florian said: “They exhibited the archetypal zeal becoming to the ministers of an established church in the defence of their vested rights. They were, with primitive inadequacy, groping toward the methods of our Holy Inquisition and of civilized prelates everywhere—”
“—So they were quite tired out when we passed on to Horrig’s case. I do not deny that I was perhaps unduly lenient about Horrig. It was the general opinion that, tired as we were, this blasphemer against the religious principles of our fathers ought to be burned at the stake, and have his ashes scattered to the winds. But I was merciful. I had eaten an extremely light breakfast. So I merely had him broken on the wheel and decapitated, and we got through our morning’s work, after all, in good time for dinner: and I gave him a very nice tomb indeed, with his name on it in capital letters. Dear me!” observed Holy Hoprig, with a marked increase of his benevolent smile, “but how drolly things fall out! If the name had not been in capital letters, now, I would probably never have been wearing this halo which surprised me so this morning when I went to brush my hair—”
“But what has happened?” said the Queen.
“Why, madame,” replied the saint, “I take it that, with the passage of years, the tail of the first R in the poor dear fellow’s name was somewhat worn away. So when such miracles began to occur at his tomb as customarily emanate from the tombs of martyrs to any faith which later is taken up by really nice people, here were tangible and exact proofs, to the letter, of the holiness of Hoprig. In consequence, this Christian church has naturally canonized me.”
“That was quite civil of them of course, if this is considered the best-thought-of church. But. still,” the Queen said, doubtfully, “the miracles must have meant that Horrig was right, and you were wrong.”
“Certainly, madame, it would seem so, as a matter of purely academic interest. For now that his church is so well-thought-of everywhere and has canonized me, I must turn Christian, if only to show my appreciation of the compliment. So there is no possible harm done.”
“But in that case, it was Horrig that ought to have been made a saint of.”
“Now I, madame, for one, cherish humility too much to dare assert any such thing. For the ways of Providence are proverbially inscrutable: and it well may be that the abrasion of the tail of that R was also, in its quiet way, a direct intervention of Heaven to reward my mercifulness in according Horrig a comparatively pleasant martyrdom.”
“Yes, but it was he, after all, who had to put up with that martyrdom, on a dreadfully depressing rainy morning, too, I remember, whereas you get sainthood out of the affair without putting up with anything.” .
“Do I not have to put up with this halo? How can I now hope to go anywhere after dark without being observed? Ah, no, madame, I greatly fear this canonization will cost me a host of friends by adorning my visits with such conspicuous publicity. Nevertheless, I do not complain. Instead, I philosophically recognize that well-bred women must avoid all ostentation, and that the ways of Providence are inscrutable.”
“That is quite true,” observed King Helmas, at this point, “and I think that nothing is to be gained by you two discussing these ways any more. The poets and the philosophers in every place have for a long while now had a heaviness in their minds about Providence, and the friendly advice they have been giving is not yet all acted upon. So let us leave Providence to look out for itself, the way we would if Providence had wisdom teeth. And let us turn to other matters, and to hearing what reward is asked by the champion who has rescued us from our long sleeping.”
“I too,” replied Florian, “if I may make so bold as to borrow the phrase used by your Majesty just now—that phrase by which I was immeasurably impressed, that phrase which still remains to me a vocalisation of supreme wisdom in terms so apt and striking—”
“Wisdom,” said the King, “was miraculously bestowed upon me a great while ago as a free gift, which I had done nothing to earn and deserve no credit for not having been able to avoid. And my way of talking, and using similes and syntax,—along with phraseology and monostiches and aposiopesis and such-like things,—is another gift, also, which I employ without really noticing the astonishment and admiration of my hearers. So do you not talk so much, but come to the point.”