THE ERRANT KNIGHT.

NZ Truth, Issue 407, 12 April 1913, Page 5

THE ERRANT KNIGHT.

REV. BERTIE PEELS THE PURITANICAL PINCH. HIS TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS ON LAND AND SEA. His Claim to Sympathy —He is Deserving of None — Had One of His Flock Offended — Who Would Have Thrown the First Stone ? — The Runaway Parson and His Paramour — Their Arrival m Melbourne — Some Incidents of the Trip Out — The Story of His Flight Re-told —ls He Erotic or v ■'■■';:> Erratic?

The Rev, Albert— otherwise "Bertie"-^-Knight, who during the past few months has supplied the cable crammer with good sensational "copy," has at last landed In Melbourne, and he. stays m Melbourne, a theme for Wowser snorts and pietistical protest. Bertie appears to be a victim of the vagaries of a psychological phenomenon. He combined, as is often the case, the qualities of puritanism and. eroticism. Whether we call it lust or love, it is the same. As that grand old misin-j terpreter of things m general. Walter Scott, put it, "Love rules the Court, the camp, the grove, for love is heaven, and heaven is love." Also it upends the domestic arrangements of the manse, and sends Bertie a fugitive over the blue waters of, the great Illimitable ocean, and strands him m Melbourne (Vie.) . an equivocal cynosure—as said before, the subject of snort, and a passing pleasure to the bouncing, blooded Australasian, whose outstanding national characteristic is the habit of running away with his neighbor's wife, or if his. neighbor's wife inspires him to any such desperate derogation of what is called good citizenship. The' purist will whine on the smallest provocation if any roan, woman, or child rises out df^the ruck of the staid and \uiinspiring "decency," and ( gets drunk, plays two-upi or makes a picturesque exit from this vale of tears by senselessly attempting to stay the progress of a furious train with his small body. But the purist is actuated by the same spirit which prompts the victim of alcohol to sip tomato sauce, and chide, m suppressed anger,, the brother victim who. ravenously devours two rabbits and -17' slices of bacon. It passes through , all the various classes of the human family to judge your neighbor according to yourself. ' Thus the reverend Bertie, who did no more than a thousand other bright luminaries of the world's history have done, has landed himself to a maelstrom of pained, pious ejaculation. It is all so tragic when we have the audacity to throw out our chests and ask the stranger to look upon us as the Omega 1 of' sane and SOUND COMMONSENSE. Was it not Nelson, the demollsher of the great Napoleon, who scandalised the good old English "public" by buying chocolates for Lady Hamilton, to whose fair smile he had no claim than a coster of the old Kent-road? Did not the asture, the cold, the haughty, contemptuous and self-contained Parnell lay his reputation at the. feet of a female called O'Shea, whose Christian name is immat- ! erial? Did not one of Australasia's most worldly-wise Judges live openly witli a woman without going through the formallity of telling any parson that he would cherish and protect her till death stepped m and removed one or the other? Cannot the reverend Bertie stand m the marketplace and roll out a catalogue of great names as a justifying precedent for his affection for Miss Grimes? It is a consoling thought that lovely woman does not share m the male adoration of the s SUPERFICIALLY EXCELLENT. Here we have Bertie and his lady friend stealing steathily aboard the good ship which is to carry .them from the sneers and snuffle' of Bertie's Wowser parishioners. Analyse Bertie's feelings. He has been scorned and condemned; roasted, flailed, and pubUcally paraded as an object for ridicule and contempt. His last days have been haunted with the haughty look of pity which the good old Englishman can assume more than any other member of the genus homo. He has had the sustaining love of Fanny Grimes; but as an educated man he knows the instability of all things mundane. The very atmosphere is surcharged with recrimination. The youthful members pt the, Sunday school to whom, In other days, he has Imparted the gospel of charity and forbearance, pass him with every indication of recognition, but a total absence of salutation. The . TYRANNICAL SPIRIT of injured Wowserisni which cloaked Pamell's last days In gloom and sent the great leader of men to a premature sepulchre condemns Bertie to exile. It Is inexorable. He is forced to renounce all the ties and friendships which are the salt of life, and flee like a brutal murderer to the opposite end of the world. Why? Because Providence made him see the world through a wrong perspective. He dared to dally with the winsome graces of Fanny Grimes, and to take part m a drama-r-or comedy— of unholy love. It is as comical to the world as it is dramatic to the actors. ' Follow, if you can, Bertie aboard the Immigrant ship, thrown Into the promiscuous company of 650 Immigrants. Picture the man of culture fraternising with the Bow Bells Bludger, and discussing the possibility .of buying woodbines m "Orstralia." Imagine him wrestling with the enigmas of tho menu,, and falling ut- | terly to translate "SWAMPSEED AND MOLASSES" as treacle and rice, or to discover the etymological significance of "strike me blind and cold tar." It Is a startling experience to be taken right out of a natural environment and thrown haphazard into another. Here we have two souls linked by that afllnity which rises superior to rules and regulations, making every effort to join In the general geniality. Naturally their' thoughts and conversation drift to tho white .slave traffic, but tho exigencies of their position demand that they shall participate In quoits and deck cricket. Bertie has a natural inclination to both, but he is dubious. He has had a surfeit of cold v gcorn, and he shakes at the contemplation of rushing m to bo rebuffed. He quails In, much the same fashion as the victim of toothache trembles before the dentist. Fortunately tho boundless ocean has not one squares Inch for snuffle. Bertie' joins the crowd, and he is a favorite. He boxes With tho bludger, and wins; and that establishes him IN THE "TART'S" AFFECTION. He Ib the spirit of the ship. ihc vitalising force of the ship's community. Then comes Capetown. The low? arm of Wowserisni stretches across the cable and the wireless. At Capetown ihc Preps crowds jn on the happy community: and tho revcr"cnd Ber tin is cxpoFcd as .•» Ivvantlnff Lothario. Old the ehlp's women draw m their skirts nnd shudder at. Jiertle's approach. No. Lovely woman is a. strange ajilmal. Sho gazed adorlnßly at Hcrllu but she sakl that "Fanny Grimes weren't much." So

it is, ana always has-been, and always will be. Fanny felt the sting of injured virtue, but Bertie, '"the bloke,- was enshrined m a frame of glory, iHe had style, and his style was irresistible. They looked up at him m humble admiration. That is the women. The men admired him from the day he oat-boxed the blud • ger.- From Capeto-vm to Melbourne they ' received him with all the deference that is due to a professor of pugilism. That' is a' picture of- Bertie as he .would appear to any average man if he were other than be is; but.it is safe to assert that he could be relied- upon to rise up land cast the first stone if one of th« common herd followed his example. He ~ is one of those works with whose creation Nature occasionally amuses herself for the one patent purpose of confounding the student who wishes to know man. and to explain the whyfor of his every idlosyncracy. When Bertie took the first step m his fall from grace, he resorted to the usual method of dissimulation, and buflt up a. string of., stories to excuse 'his conduct. He posed as a pioneer m rescue work m Leeds, where he had his'tabernacle, and m the course of his pursuit of ' the sinner and the loafer he was forced ' to disguise himself, and generally mooch around public-houses. After his decline from . . . • PURITANICAIi EMINENCE. Bertie, took his wife on a six-mile tramp to a cliff from Bridlingtoh, and told her that he was going tp quit his circuit. He deposited his camera and gingham on the edge of the cliff, and commanded his shivering spouse to" go to the nearest farmhouse and say. he .had fallen to his death. The poor woman was terrorised Bertie had command of an emotional elo- ■, quence which raised his Leeds congregation from 200 to 600, and no single unprotected female, could resist his persuasiveness. His wife, being ignorant of the power of. Fanny Grinies, .carried out his instructions. Then the bubble burst, and all the world knew Bertie. . Bertie truly followed the line that waa expected of him. . He brazened out HIS ILLICIT ALLIANCE with Fanny with the excuse that, -U was i of the holiest and'- most- strictly moral order. His congregation was divided on the point, one side tacitly accepting his flimsy quibble, and the other rejecting it with violent contumely. ' In September. Fanny left Leeds and went to the South of England, and Bertie had .a short, respite from the scorn of his scandalised flock. But m the following autumn Fanny's fascination proved stronger than the dubious joy of fighting Satan, and Bertie took six weeks' vacation, which he spent . m Fanny's company. He alleged that he was engaged m a battle against the white slave ' traffic. .. Under the name of King, he rusticated at a farm m Sussex, learning the SECRETS OF REARING ROOSTERS, and after his sensational disappearance from Flamborough Head, he returned to the farm, and took Fanny Grimes, who had posed as his wife, to the s.s. Port Lincoln. He had previously spent week • ends and Christmas time m Sussex with the girl. He was a popular cricketer, footballer, and boxer. His 'missus has declared that on three occasions he attempted to strangle, poison, and drown her. : '"' There is Bertie's story, and it is interesting as showing how the hypocritical puritan will find excuses for his own conduct which he would condemn m the meanest member of his flock. We have it m Australasia, and we treat the reverend Bertie for no other reason than to showthat the erotic is incapable temperamentally of properly adjusting the morality of the world— whether it deals with the white slave traffic or the smaller question of social dancing. Precedent has come down from the beginning of thg world as a cloak for a multitude of madnesses and a furore of , folly. "Truth" has instanced Nelson and >Parne!l as men who . FELL BEFORE THE FEMININE because "Truth" holds that the hand of pity, should be extended to any man who has the misfortune to offend the recognised Ideas of law. order, or morality. But Bertie Knight places himself outside ■ that comprehensive pale. He is a purltan, and he has wandered off the path of Puritanism. He will stand m his pulpit and declaim m a dreary monotone of the alleged evils of gambling, and on the following morning take Fanny Grimes into his arms, and hand her the love which is legally duo to the wife whom he Is alleged to have attempted to poison, strangle, and drown. '"Truth" heartily condemns the attempt that was made to assert th« power of the Immigration Act to debar Bertie .from landing at Fremantle. but also -we will, do out utmost to preclude the parade of Bertie as a HERO AND A MARTYR. He is neither. He has simply tied hintself to one woman, and discovered tnat another Is more entrancing." Thousands have done that; But because he has preached piety and acted with an anarchical impiety, BertiS Is not entitled to a wreath of glory or a crown of sovereigns. There Is an appeal to the feminine m anything that displays originality; but Bertie has disqualified himself jffom the admiration of men by excusing himself. GENIAL AND UNAPOLOGETIC ' admission is the mark of genius. Apology Is equivalent to a plea of guilty; and It Is evidence that the offender appreciates the gravity of his offence, hut has not the strength to amend. We leave Bortle at that, satisfied that the people of Victoria will not be misled into any demonstration of maudlin sentiment or hero worship.— Melbourne "Truth."