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Updated: June 26, 2025
A group watched him from the door. Before I suspected his object, he threw out the coils of a concealed whip, and springing upon Pendlam from behind, dealt him furious successive blows over the shoulders and head. I ran to the rescue. But already Horatio had seized the whip. "Good for evil," cried Pendlam, as I was on the point of throttling the assailant. "My friend, how have I injured you?"
You see where I am," said Pendlam. For Pendlam was the speaker. His companion was the Practical Organizer of the Initial Association of Free Disciples. I went home, filled with a multitude of reflections. Strong interest led me soon after to pay a visit to Pendlam's house. As I went in, I met a man coming out. He had a stout frame, keen eye, sensual mouth, sanguine complexion, muscular neck.
"The actress! On Sunday!" said Pendlam, with a shocked expression. "But you might have heard me in the morning." "In the morning we rode together," laughed Horatio. I knew all this was a fiction on the part of my friend, designed to mystify the minister. I said nothing, to avoid an introduction; I had stepped aside, and now stood, amused and observant, under the street lamp.
"Here," he cried, too excited to heed any words but his own, "are swine feeding upon golden fruit." "Oh, the swine! Oh, the precious, wasted, golden fruit!" "Here is one in words; it reads, Beware of falling from a balloon. It requires a peculiar experience," added Pendlam, with a smile, "to enable one to understand that beautiful symbol."
Did not lamentable events in the not far-off future give to the symbol a melancholy significance? "Come," I said, "leave these abstruse studies; take off that symbolic coat, that tinsel crown; wash, comb your hair, and walk with me." "I should enjoy a walk," replied Pendlam; "but I am directed to retain these symbols upon my person, and you would hardly wish me to appear in the street with them."
"But if I deserve whipping for doing my duty, I deserve a good deal more," cried Pendlam. "And if you are to be my castigator for each offence, you will find yourself pretty well employed. It would be less trouble, I should think, to do a little more, while you have your hand in. Meanwhile, take this tract upon the sin of Anger, carry it home with you, and read it carefully at your leisure."
He certainly knows more than anybody else, and I don't see how he can be wrong." She ended with a sob. "You are aware," I answered, "that Pendlam and I partly agree in every thing, and wholly agree in nothing. He is right, and he is wrong. He takes hold of what is a truth, but detaches it from universal truth, and so it becomes an error." I saw she did not comprehend.
It was during the following autumn that Horatio and I one day looked in upon a reform meeting, held at the Melodeon. The audience was thin, the speakers numerous. The platform was crowded with male and female reformers, among whom I recognized our clerical friend Pendlam. A celebrated female orator sat down, and Pendlam stood up. The audience cheered a little; the platform cheered a good deal.
She now made haste to atone for her long silence by talking freely of the pretty new church, and the people she saw out Sunday; and she seemed proud and happy when she brought out her wedding gifts, and I praised them. It was several weeks before I again saw Pendlam. I went with Horatio to hear him preach. The sermon surprised me.
"I am sorry to say she has gone with that rascal Clodman, who is travelling on business for the Association. Pendlam remains at home, hard at work on his book. I will now add what I did not wish you to know," said Horatio. "For some months Pendlam's family subsisted almost entirely upon funds advanced him by that rascal Clodman. They talk of his wonderful generosity!
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