He raise his voice. The subject of Temperance was one very near to the curate’s heart. The vicar himself had complimented him only yesterday on the good his sermons against the drink evil were doing in the village, and the landlord of the Three Pigeons down the road had on several occasions spoken bitter things about blighters who came taking the living away from honest folks.
“It is easy enough to stop if you will but use a little resolution. You say to yourself, ‘Just one won’t hurt me!’ Perhaps not. But can you be content with just one? Ah! No, my man, there is no middle way for such as you. It must be all or nothing. Stop it now–now, while you still retain some semblance of humanity. Soon it will be too late! Kill that craving! Stifle it! Strangle it! Make up your mind now–now, that not another drop of the accursed stuff shall pass your lips….”
The curate paused. He perceived that enthusiasm was leading him away from the main issue. “A little perseverance,” he concluded rapidly, “and you will soon find that cocoa gives you exactly the same pleasure. And now will you please be getting along. You have frightened the young lady, and she cannot continue her walk unless I assure her that you have gone away.”
Fatigue, pain and the annoyance of having to listen to this man’s well-meant but ill-judged utterances had combined to induce in Percy a condition bordering on hysteria. He stamped his foot, and uttered a howl as the blister warned him with a sharp twinge that this sort of behaviour could not be permitted.
“Stop talking!” he bellowed. “Stop talking like an idiot! I’m going to stay here till that girl comes out, if have to wait all day!”
The curate regarded Percy thoughtfully. Percy was no Hercules: but then, neither was the curate. And in any case, though no Hercules, Percy was undeniably an ugly-looking brute. Strategy, rather than force, seemed to the curate to be indicated. He paused a while, as one who weighs pros and cons, then spoke briskly, with the air of the man who has decided to yield a point with a good grace.
“Dear, dear!” he said. “That won’t do! You say you are this young lady’s brother?”
“Yes, I do!”
“Then perhaps you had better come with me into the house and we will speak to her.”
“All right.”
“Follow me.”
Percy followed him. Down the trim gravel walk they passed, and up the neat stone steps. Maud, peeping through the curtains, thought herself the victim of a monstrous betrayal or equally monstrous blunder. But she did not know the Rev. Cyril Ferguson. No general, adroitly leading the enemy on by strategic retreat, ever had a situation more thoroughly in hand. Passing with his companion through the open door, he crossed the hall to another door, discreetly closed.
“Wait in here,” he said. Lord Belpher moved unsuspectingly forward. A hand pressed sharply against the small of his back. Behind him a door slammed and a key clicked. He was trapped. Groping in Egyptian darkness, his hands met a coat, then a hat, then an umbrella. Then he stumbled over a golf-club and fell against a wall. It was too dark to see anything, but his sense of touch told him all he needed to know. He had been added to the vicar’s collection of odds and ends in the closet reserved for that purpose.
He groped his way to the door and kicked it. He did not repeat the performance. His feet were in no shape for kicking things.
Percy’s gallant soul abandoned the struggle. With a feeble oath, he sat down on a box containing croquet implements, and gave himself up to thought.
“You’ll be quite safe now,” the curate was saying in the adjoining room, not without a touch of complacent self-approval such as becomes the victor in a battle of wits. “I have locked him in the cupboard. He will be quite happy there.” An incorrect statement this. “You may now continue your walk in perfect safety.”
“Thank you ever so much,” said Maud. “But I do hope he won’t be violent when you let him out.”