Russell Kirk by James E. Person

Author:James E. Person
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Madison Books
Published: 1999-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

RALPH BAIN

Kirk had given pride of place in the collection The Princess of All Lands to “Sorworth Place,” a traditional ghost story that introduces Ralph Bain, who is visiting a small town on the Scottish coast. An aimless wanderer and something of a wastrel, though good-hearted, Bain risks his life protecting a beautiful young widow, Ann Lurlin, from the one-year-in-the-grave corpse of her brutal husband, come hideously to life to reclaim her for his own. In “Saviourgate,” the final story in the collection, Kirk reintroduces Bain who, having crossed “the great divide,” is now living comfortably within a wrinkle in time, standing drinks for a lost man in the Crosskeys, a cozy pub on Saviourgate Street in London. Having blundered into Saviourgate while hurrying through the city’s unfamiliar streets, a certain Mark Findlay worries about a train he has to catch while Bain, who had scraped acquaintance with Findlay many years earlier, tries to get him to understand that he need not worry, saying that he can catch that train any time he so desires. He, Bain explains, has crossed “the Border” between time and the timeless—though by accident and before his time. Puzzled but comfortable within the warm pub, Findlay listens skeptically as one of Bain’s friends, Canon Hoodman, explains that

all the good moments or hours or days that you ever experienced are forever present to you, whenever you want them, after you’ve crossed the Border. We were told that we shall have bodies; we have them. You say that you’ve not yet crossed the Border, Findlay. Well, once you have crossed—and if really you’re still in Time, that may be a long while yet for you—then, God willing, you’ll understand as we two can’t make you understand.23

Bidding Bain and the priest farewell, Findlay steps out into the night air and, having been given directions, hurries toward his train. He discovers that the hour is nowhere near as late as he had earlier thought and that the Crosskeys, upon his looking back at it, is a pile of rubble, having been destroyed in the London Blitz many years earlier and never restored.

For Ralph Bain, an act of selfless heroism on behalf of a woman he could never possess has carried him across “the Border” into the scene of his young manhood’s fondest memories, not to be replayed recurrently like events captured on videotape, but real and present, to be enjoyed whenever he so chooses. To Findlay, the Saviour’s “gate” has been opened for a few minutes, and he has been granted a glimpse of godly acceptance and love that he may yet enjoy, should he so choose. Russell Kirk, always reticent about directly stating the how-to’s of entering into divine grace, nevertheless leaves a clear clue in the story; for to enter into the company of Bain and his friends Findlay must go by the sign of the cross, the key to everlasting bliss.

In Paradise, Piccarda dei Donati tells Dante that to spirits in Heaven it is “the essence

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