Part 3

“Certainly! I often use telephones! Capital things! They have to do with the currents of the air, you know!--and other folks work on currents of the air besides Humans! Humans aren’t the only people in the universe! Don’t look so scared, McNason!--I won’t hurt you! As I remarked before, when I rang you up just now, I wondered what title I should take to ingratiate myself with you. You like titles, I know!--you’ve been thinking of a Peerage for yourself--quite right too! Get all you can, McNason!--get all you can that money will buy! But as I never deal in Honours now, I couldn’t pass myself off as a Duke or an Earl. The man that sells these things is more in your line than mine. And I gave up brewing beer and running ‘party’ newspapers long ago, so I could hardly be a Lord. Besides Lords are getting so common--frightfully common, McNason! In fact Lords are becoming Commons! Oh, Beelzebub! Excuse the joke! And as for being a ‘Sir’--oh, hoo-roo, hoo-roo!” And the Goblin, untwisting itself, beat its large paunch slowly in the fashion of a drum, evoking a dreary hollow sound which almost made McNason cry--“Only a provincial Mayor would accept it nowadays! I half thought I’d say I was a Colonel or a General,--but then you’d have taken me for an American,--and I wouldn’t be an American Bounder for twenty Next-Worlds! Then I decided I would be ‘Professor.’ ‘Professor’ struck me as being quite the proper thing;--nice-sounding, wise and imposing!--and anyone can call himself a Professor--even a palmist who robs poor silly dupes of money for telling their fortunes which neither he nor anybody knows! Hoo-roo! Hoo-roo! What humbugs there are in the world, McNason! _You_ know that! You’re one!”

“I’m not!” said Josiah, indignantly, aroused to sudden defiance. “How dare you say I am!”

“How dare I!--How dare I!” crooned the Goblin, clasping its legs again and rocking itself to and fro--“Oh, Beelzebub! How high and mighty we are! I dare do anything, McNason! Anything! I’ll skin your soul!”

Josiah gave a smothered cry of terror. Such eyes as were now bent upon him were like nothing in the world except railway signal lamps with the light in them very much intensified and enlarged.

“I’ll skin your soul!” repeated the Goblin, severely--“And you won’t like the process. Do you know what the process is called, McNason? No? Then I’ll tell you! It’s a blistering, flaying, scorching, boiling, steaming, tearing, crunching, blasting, stripping--(don’t groan like that, McNason!)--stabbing, cutting, piercing process called Truth! It will rip off all the lies in which you are so comfortably wadded, as lightning rips off the bark from a tree! And it will show you to be exactly what I say--a Humbug! A pious Fraud, McNason! A rich man who does no good with his money! A hard man who grinds down poor lives into ill-gotten gold! A cruel, avaricious, grasping, selfish man! And yet you go to Church every Sunday and pretend that you’re a Christian! Oh, hoo-roo! Uncharitable, mean, narrow-minded and hypocritical, you are anything but a good man, McNason!--and I’ve come to tell you so!”

Gathering up his courage under this volley of abuse McNason turned round in his chair and deliberately faced his accuser.

“You’re a Bad Dream!” he said slowly--“You’re the result of Cold and Indigestion! You’re--you’re Nothing! But if you were Anything, I should tell you you are an impudent scoundrel and liar! I should tell you to get out of this room before you are kicked out! But you are only an Illusion!--a horrible, horrible Fancy!--and--and you’ll Go!--presently!--in a little while--when I am better--when my brain recovers itself----”

Here he broke off, appalled at the indescribably hideous grimace with which his unpleasant companion favoured him.

“Your brain!” echoed the Goblin. “_Your_ brain indeed! Pooh! When you are better! Hoo-roo! You never will be better--never--not unless _I_ doctor you! I must sk--k----”

“No, no!” cried Josiah, seized by a paroxysm of fear--“Don’t skin me! Anything but that! Don’t,”--and his teeth clattered together--“don’t ski--i--in me!”

“Professor” Goblin relaxed its writhing features and smoothed them into a kind of wise impassibility such as is seen on the physiognomy of a Chinese idol.

“Now answer me, McNason,” it said, impressively--“Do you mean to say that you consider yourself a good man?”

Josiah looked at his inquisitor with one eye askew.

“As good as any man,”--he muttered--“And better than most!”

“Oh, hoo-roo!” and the dismal cry was like a hundred owls hooting in chorus--“Hoo-roo!--hoo-roo! How these conceited mortals deceive themselves!” Here it patted its paunch echoingly. “As good as any man, are you, McNason?--and better than most! Now what have you done in order to get such a very excellent opinion of yourself, eh?”

McNason hesitated. Then the recollection of his vast wealth, and of his wide-reaching business influence flashed across his mind and filled him with a sudden spirit of self-assertiveness.

“I’ve done a good deal in my time,”--he said, boldly--“For one thing, I’ve made my own way in the world!”

“Ah! And without assistance?” queried the Goblin--“Without trampling any poor person down? Without ‘sweating’ labour? Without cheating anybody less ‘sharp’ than yourself?”

McNason was silent.

“You _haven’t_ made your own way in the world!”--went on the Goblin relentlessly--“The men who have worked for you have made it! And you’ve screwed their lives down, McNason!--screwed them down hard and fast to pittance wages in order to wrest every penny you could for yourself out of their labour! And you’ve made a pile of money! Too big a pile by far, McNason! No man in the world makes such a pile without having wronged his fellow-men in some way or other! He has tried to tip the balance of justice falsely--but there’s one thing about that balance, McNason--it always rights itself! When a man is too rich--when a man has gotten his money through close-fistedness, harshness and avarice, then WE come in! We of Hell’s United Empire Club! We give a bloated millionaire fits, I can tell you! When he has got enough gold to gorge himself with expensive food and wine every day in the week if he likes, we take away his digestion! That’s capital fun! We take away his digestion, and the doctors come and limit him to milk and soda! Oh, hoo-roo!” And the Goblin doubled itself up in a writhing tangle of delight,--“And when he marries for Money _only_ and gets an heir to Money _only_, we take away the heir! And then by and bye he finds he can neither eat nor sleep, and that his Money isn’t such a valuable commodity as he thought it was, not even though it _can_ buy a Peerage! And when he is harsh and unkind and uncharitable, we sk--k--in his soul!”

“I’m _not_ uncharitable!” cried Josiah, goaded almost to frenzy by the darting menace of the terrible eyes that glared fixedly into his own--“Not even YOU can say that! I’ve given hundreds and hundreds of pounds away in charity----”

“On subscription lists--yes! I know you have!” and “Professor” Goblin nodded sagaciously--“I’ve seen your name writ large along with the names of a lot of other bounders who want the world to see how much they’ve given to a hospital! But that’s not charity!”

“Not charity!” echoed Josiah. “Then what is charity?”

“Shall I tell you?” said the Goblin. “You’ve heard, but you’ve forgotten!” And it repeated in a low, almost gentle voice--“‘Charity suffereth long and is kind, charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.’ That’s as unlike _your_ charity, McNason, as Heaven is unlike Hell!”

“Any devil can quote Scripture!” said McNason, contemptuously--“I hear all that in Church!”

“You hear, but you don’t listen,”--said the Goblin--“You go to Church every Sunday?”

“I do! My clergyman relies very much on my assistance.”

“Does he now?” and the Goblin put its head questioningly on one side--“Financial assistance, of course?”

McNason gave a short laugh.

“That’s the only kind of assistance he ever asks for!”

“Good man!” said the Goblin, thoughtfully--“And you help him?”

“Very considerably.” Here McNason drew himself up stiffly with an air of importance--“I’m a Churchwarden.”

At this “Professor” Goblin uttered a frightful yell.

“Hoo-roo, hoo-roo, HOO-ROO!” it cried, “The dear old days! The sweet familiar word!” And springing suddenly into the air, it turned a rapid somersault and came gravely squatting down again--“Oh, Beelzebub, McNason! I was once a Churchwarden!”

Josiah trembled in every limb, and his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth in sheer panic. The alarming abruptness of his unwelcome visitor’s movements almost paralysed him with terror. Somehow he had thought the Creature might be a kind of fixture to the arm of his chair,--an hallucination of his eye and brain which was likely perhaps to stay in one position,--but its eldritch screech and somersault upset his logic altogether and turned him sick and dizzy.

“I was once a Churchwarden!” said the Goblin, beginning to emit a spluttering laugh from a grimacing mouth--“Oh, hoo-roo! And I looked _so_ respectable! Tell me, McNason!--do you wear a top-hat on Sundays?”

The shuddering millionaire bent his head feebly in assent.

“So did I! So did I!” And the Goblin clasped its toes and hugged itself in a kind of ecstasy--“And a black frock-coat! So nicely brushed! So well-fitting! I had a figure in those days, McNason! And I walked into Church with brightly polished boots, creaking just a little to show they weren’t paid for--because it isn’t ‘gentlemanly’ to pay for what you wear right down on the nail, you know!--and I bent my back before all the people and breathed good little prayers into the crown of my top-hat, just where I could see the name of the hatter printed in gold on the silk lining! I did! Oh, they were happy days! Happy humbug days! Gone, gone, gone! I shall never be a Churchwarden any more!”

Here, unravelling its contorted body, it put its clawlike hands up to its face and began to weep.

“Oh, hoo-roo!” it blubbered--“When I was a Churchwarden people were all so respectful to me! I had a country seat--such as you have, McNason!--and a whole parish bowed down to me! Think of that! Farmers doffed their caps, and farmers’ wives curtsied to me! The clergyman spoke of me as his ‘high-minded and generous neighbour!’ Oh, hoo-roo! I was so proud of myself!--as proud as a Scotch landlord!--and nothing’s prouder than that! Hoo-roo! Hoo-roo! Those happy humbug days! I gave myself such airs!--such touch-me-not airs, McNason! I might have been an up-to-date Highland chief in a kilt, my airs were so superior! You know what an up-to-date Highland chief is, McNason?--a man who lets his ‘dear native home,’ and his ‘beloved’ moors and forests for all he can get, and lives a gay life in London on the profits! A proud and pompous creature, McNason!--and I was just such a one! I was really! Talk of patriotism and love of country! I had it all!--I was as parochial as a town clerk! I had such a grand manner!--so stand-offish! And now--and now----” Here it beat a dreary tattoo on its expressive Paunch--“Oh, hoo-roo!--I shall never be a Churchwarden any more!”

A clammy perspiration bedewed Josiah’s brow. That hollow drumming sound was dreadful!--if the horrible Creature would only stop it!----

“Don’t do that!”--he muttered, feebly, “I--I can’t bear it!”

“Can’t bear what?” demanded the Goblin, quite briskly.

“That sound you make on--on----”

“On my Tum-Tum? Oh, Beelzebub! You oughtn’t to mind that! Tum-Tums are what all you men live for nowadays! One of your dramatists has made a play out of a Tum-Tum. Poor old Shakespeare! He was never as clever as that! I always lived for my Tum-Tum--and of course it’s now the largest part of me. I have to tell it everything,--and when I beat it, it knows what I mean!”

Josiah huddled himself back into the depths of his easy chair and closed his eyes,--if he could only swoon away, he thought!--if he could but lose his sight and hearing in a merciful unconsciousness!--

A low snarling murmur, breathing through the casements, under the door, and down the chimney, now gave warning of the fresh and fiercer rising of the wind, and presently down it swooped with a terrific battery of hail, and such a scream and uproar of rage as is seldom heard save in tropical forests, when huge trees fall crashing under the blow of a storm, and torrents hurl themselves headlong from the summits of the mountains sweeping tons of granite with them like straws into the valley below. At that instant the clock began striking Midnight. One!--Two!--Three!--Four!--Five!--and to McNason’s horror the Goblin suddenly sprang upright. If it had looked uncanny before, it looked a thousand times more uncanny now. Poised on the arm of the chair its lean toes and legs began to stretch,--its body to lengthen,--taller and taller it grew, its Paunch showing as prominently and roundly as a full moon on a winter’s night,--its head with its oily hair, conical cap and tassel seemed to be rising steadily into the ceiling, and Josiah, clenching his hands convulsively, watched the process in fearful fascination,--was this the way the awful hallucination would vanish? Was it going?--would the horrible Nightmare elongate itself gradually into fine lines, and, mingling with the atmosphere, disappear altogether?

Six!--Seven!--Eight! The gale rampaged violently outside and shrieked like a drunken fury, battering at the casements as though meaning to break them in. Nine!--Ten!--Eleven!--and lo!--the Goblin all at once pounced down from the height to which it had ascended, and laid its detestable claw on the shuddering McNason’s shirt-front! Twelve! With a wild whistling yell, the storm burst open the long latticed windows at last, throwing them back with a savage BANG!--blowing aside the splendid damask curtains as though they were rags, and admitting a gust of bitter cold sleet and snow, while clear on the rushing blast came the sound of bells! Ding--dong!--ding!--dong! Do re mi--FA!--Sol la--si--DO! The rhythmic beat and liquid warble of rich tones melted into the wind and rain like a kind familiar voice arguing with angry children,--but Josiah McNason, half dead with fear at the sight of the hairy claw on his shirt-front and the knowledge that the red moon-like Paunch of the Goblin was almost touching his own shrunken one, heard nothing save the howling of the furious gale, and wondered how long this inexplicable torture of his body and brain would last!

“Christmas Day!” cried the Goblin,--“It’s Christmas Day, McNason! Hark to the bells! How they swing! How they ring! Come to church, McNason! It’s time! Come along!” And the round eyes glowed like balls of flame--“Come to Church! Come and sing ‘While Shepherds!’ You’re a Churchwarden, you know! Come along--come!”

“Not now--not now!” gasped the terrified Josiah, seeing that the Goblin was spreading out its long lean arms as though to envelop him in its embrace--“It’s not time!--it’s the middle of the night!----”

“No, no!--it’s Christmas Day!” reiterated the Goblin; “Come to Church, McNason! Come and hear my friend the Reverend Mr. Firebrand hold forth on the vanity of riches! Come in the spirit of One Timothy Two! That’s a text! ‘Grace, mercy, peace!’ Come along, McNason! All are welcome where _we_ are going! Hark! How the bells ring! One Timothy Two! One Timothy Two! Come and ‘sit under’ good Mr. Firebrand! Come!--come!”

And with a terrible downward clutch, the Goblin caught hold of McNason by the coat-collar.

“Mercy----mercy!” cried the wretched man--“Help!--Help!”

“Help!--help!” shouted the Goblin, derisively--“One Timothy Two! Come along, McNason! Come along!”

Catching up Josiah as easily as though he were a wooden mannikin, the Goblin unfurled a pair of bat-like wings and rose aloft in air.

“Here we go!” it yelled--“Up we go, and down we go! Off to Church! ME and the Churchwarden! Oh, hoo-roo, hoo-roo! Christmas Day and Christmas Bells, and a jolly Christmas altogether! One Timothy Two! Off we go!”

And with the rush and roar of the wind, the Goblin carrying the world-renowned millionaire as a bird of prey might carry a rabbit or a weasel, soared out on a wave of mingled sleet and snow into the stormy night!

* * * * *

What happened to him in that wild supernatural scurry through the air Josiah McNason never knew. He lived and was conscious,--conscious of being borne along at a furious rate not knowing whither,--conscious of the freezing cold,--the rain, the wind, that tossed him and his unearthly companion about like dead leaves on its angry breath with a “Hoo-roo!” louder than the cry peculiar to the Goblin itself,--conscious above all of the bells! O the Bells! How they trilled and trolled out their Christmas melody!--how they seemed to tumble one over the other in their haste to proclaim “Peace and Goodwill!”--how their metal throats palpitated and throbbed with the angelic message!--angelic still,--angelic always!--even though some mortals nowadays are so miserably-minded as to doubt its truth and sweetness! The Bells rang everywhere!--loudly to the scudding clouds,--softly to the darkened earth,--whisperingly among the chill showers of sleet and snow, and with an echoing clang like musical thunder above and around the shadowy drifting form of the Goblin as it flew along, gripping the quivering Josiah as a cat might grip a mouse, or an eagle a new-born lamb. All at once the rattle and rush of the warring elements rolled off in a pause of quietude, letting the Bells have it all their own way,--and--suddenly descending with lightning-like rapidity by sheer force of the Goblin’s imperative downward pressure, Josiah found himself standing on his feet in the middle of a vast building which looked like a Church, though there was no sacred emblem of religion to be seen anywhere in it save the Pulpit. The Pulpit stood out with singular obtrusiveness, for it was green,--a livid, wicked green like the glare of a serpent’s eye. Panels of white appeared to be inserted round it, but these could not be plainly discerned, at once. The green hue was its chief note of attraction, and McNason’s eyes fastened themselves upon this with a pertinacity surely inspired by some other influence than his own. Breathless, shivering and exhausted as he was, there was something about that Green Pulpit which, wholly against his will, compelled his attention,--and as he looked, he heard a sudden confused murmur of voices which, beginning softly at first, grew louder and louder till it rose into a perfect pandemonium of howling! The unhappy millionaire trembled. What new and nameless horror was there yet in store for him? Involuntarily he turned to look for the Goblin,--even _that_ uncanny Presence seemed kinder and more friendly than such a dreadful uproar of unknown tongues! And he was actually glad to see it still standing beside him, its round eyes sparkling with a strange light of mingled mirth and malice.

“Well, McNason, how do you feel after your airship voyage?” it inquired--“A bit air-sick?”

Here the howling voices grew fiercer and more shrill,--and yet the alarmed Josiah could see nothing. He felt desperately inclined to take hold of the Goblin’s claw for protection.

“What--what’s that?” he stammered.

“Only Church!” replied the Goblin--“Firebrand is a strong preacher! He ‘draws’ like a magnet--or a dentist. There’s always a crowded congregation to hear him.”

Church!--a strong preacher!--a crowded congregation! McNason stared and stared, seeing nothing but the Green Pulpit and empty space, till all at once the Goblin took off its conical cap and with the tasselled point of that headgear touched his eyes. Then--then--oh, then! But who can describe that “then”! Who in mere words can picture the amazing scene disclosed of which he, Josiah McNason, was a part, and to which he seemed to be the only human witness! All round him, in front of him and behind him were Goblins,--Goblins big, Goblins little, Goblins fat, Goblins lean, Goblins straight, Goblins crooked--Goblins of every imaginable size and shape--Goblins of every possible distortion or monstrosity that ever appeared on the pages of a child’s fairy book, were here in their scores, and all attired in the queerest motley. Some wore women’s enormous hats trimmed with fantastic bows of ribbon and big waggling plumes,--others had coloured caps like those which are put into very cheap Christmas crackers,--some were decked out with flashy tiaras and crowns that looked as if they were cut out of tin-foil,--others again had their strange sticky hair dressed as high as surely an hair, sticky or otherwise, could go, and surmounted with fantastic wreaths and garlands of bright coloured flowers apparently made of paper, under which they minced and grinned like female gymnasts at a rough country fair,--and all of them were jostling, pushing, squeezing, and crowding together, each one taking a seemingly mischievous delight in trying to elbow its neighbour out of place. It was a fearsome sight!--and still more fearsome did it become when a great ball of fire suddenly bounced down from Nowhere and burst with a loud report at the foot of the Green Pulpit, where, spreading out a peacock’s tail of vivid flame, it lit up the wicked livid colour of that edifice with blinding brilliancy. Josiah McNason’s soul froze within him. He was dead, he thought!--he must be dead!

In a swooning access of speechless terror he clung to the Goblin, and was in a vague way comforted when it tucked its hairy arm through his and leered at him quite amicably.

“Don’t be nervous, McNason!” it said, “It’s all right! Firebrand always likes the electricity turned on when he preaches! He’s the ‘star’ actor of the piece, you see,--the light must show him up more than anyone else. There he is!”

Josiah gazed at the Green Pulpit in quaking awe and aversion as a black figure suddenly sprang up in it like a jack-in-the-box,--a tall, lanky, clothes-prop sort of shape, with a head like a large mop, from which the hair, of a fiery red, hung down in disordered tangles. This Goblin’s best feature consisted in its attire, which was of a double-dyed inkiness, with a wonderfully smooth and silky ‘shine’ upon it, suggestive of black-lead. It was an unfortunate costume, however, so far as concerned its becomingness to the face of its wearer,--a face white as a bleached bone, with prominent eyes which appeared to goggle out of their cavernous sockets like pebbles rolling each on the edge of a hole,--and the sable clothing of the creature only intensified the awful pallor of its countenance, and brought out its worst points into the strongest possible relief. McNason had barely time to notice these details, which seemed to be insistently forced upon his attention, when his ears were again assailed by renewed howling and screeching, accompanied by a tremendous sound of drums, as if all the drummers that were ever born were drumming their way through the world. Every Goblin had a protuberant paunch,--and as “the Reverend Mr. Firebrand” arose in the pulpit they all started together beating a prolonged tattoo upon these appendages to their otherwise skeleton forms. And ever over the frightful noise rang the Bells!--always the Bells!--the Bells of Christmas,--the Bells of peace and goodwill! Do, re, mi, FA!--Sol, la, si--DO! Ding-dong!--ding-dong! Swinging and swaying, the echoes rose and fell--and in the midst of the pulsating chimes, the Goblins burst into a chorus of wild shouting--

“Firebrand!--Ha ha!”

“Good old Firebrand!”

“Order, order! Silence for Firebrand!”

“Ha-ha, HA! Ha-HA!”

“Firebrand! Hoo-roo! Hoo-roo!”