But this was not an ordinary Christian. He was a relation. A relation!
That meant that one must show fight for him, if only for the sake of
public appearances.
He held a hurried council with his family and, half an hour later, a
second one with the more influential members of the priesthood. It was
decided, in both cases, that the occasion was favourable for a
long-deferred contest between the Powers of Light and the powers of
darkness, the Catholic Church and modernism, the Clergy of Nepenthe and
the secular authority of law and order as personified by that judge in
whom all evil, public and private, flowed together. A noble parting
cheque which he had just received from Mr. van Koppen for some urgent
repairs to the parish organ came in handy. It would enable him to face
the adversary with good hopes of success. To his friends he said:
"An insult to my family! I shall not take it lying down. Let them see
what a humble servant of God can do."
So saying, he girded his loins for the fray, walked in person to the
post office and wrote out a lengthy telegram to the redoubtable Don
Giustino Morena, the parliamentary representative of Nepenthe who, as
readers of the newspapers were aware, happened to be taking a brief
holiday among his own people in the South.
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