KINGDOM TOWN HALL, as ‘twas called of old, is a sleepy little congregation, as you all may know, upon the coast. Sleepy as it is now, it was once noisy enough, and what made the noise was — apostates. The place was so infested with them as to be scarce worth going to meetings. There wasn’t a hall or an assembly, a home or a closet, but they charmed their way into it. Not a Watchtower but they gnawed it hollow, not a publication but they discredited. Why, the very local McDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts in the town was not safe from them. They’d even interfere with the preaching, and down would go the new dubbies, and when they got to meetings they would crowd all the friends out by their numbers, and they would be each looking at the sex starved sisters with a gleam in their eyes.
Had they stopped here it might have been borne. But the apostate squeaking and shrieking, the hurrying and scurrying, so that you could neither hear the Lord or the slave speak nor get a wink of good honest sleep the livelong night! Not to mention that elders must needs sit up, and keep watch and ward over new dubs, or there’d have been a big ugly apostate running across the new fellow’s face, and doing who knows what mischief.
Why didn’t the good people of the town have elders? Well, they did, and there was a fair stand-up fight, but in the end the apostates were too many, and the elders were regularly driven from the field. Propaganda and spin, I hear you say? Why, they propagandaed so much that it fairly bred a disaster. Apostate catchers? Why there wasn’t a apostate catcher from Brooklyn to the Land’s End that hadn’t tried his luck. But do what they might, elders or propaganda, scorn or traps, there seemed to be more apostates than ever, and every day a fresh apostate was signing on Simon’s board and cocking his stuff or pricking his posts.
The Circuit Overseer and the town elders were at their wits’ end. As they were sitting one day in the hall racking their poor brains, and bewailing their hard fate, who should run in but the town beadle. ‘Please your eldership,’ says he, ‘here is a very queer fellow come to town. I don’t rightly know what to make of him.’ ‘Show him in,’ said the Circuit Overseer, and in he stepped. A queer fellow, truly. For there wasn’t a colour of the rainbow but you might find it in some corner of his tie, and he was tall and thin, and had keen piercing eyes along with a chrome attaché case.
‘I’m called Elder Lawyer Piper,’ he began. ‘And pray what might you be willing to pay Brooklyn, if I rid you of every single apostate in Kingdom Town Hall?’
Well, much as they feared the apostates, they feared parting with their money more, and fain would they have higgled and haggled. But Elder Lawyer Piper was not a man to stand nonsense, and the upshot was that fifty pounds were promised him to take back to Bethel (and it meant a lot of money in those old days) as soon as not a apostate was left to speak or scurry in Kingdom Town Hall.
Out of the hall stepped the Piper, and as he stepped he laid his pipe to his lips and a shrill keen tune sounded through street and house. And as each note pierced the air you might have seen a strange sight. For out of every hole the apostates came tumbling. There were none too old and none too young, none too big and none too little to crowd at the Piper’s heels and with eager feet and upturned noses to patter after him as he paced the streets. Nor was the Piper unmindful of the little toddling apostates, for every fifty yards he’d stop and give an extra flourish on his pipe just to give them time to keep up with the older and stronger of the band.
Up Silver Street he went, and down Gold Street, and at the end of Gold Street is the harbour and the broad coast beyond. And as he paced along, slowly and gravely, the Witnessfolk flocked to door and window, and many a blessing they called down upon his head.
As for getting near him, there were too many apostates. And now that he was at the water’s edge he stepped into a boat, and not a apostate, as he shoved off into deep water, piping shrilly all the while, but followed him, plashing, paddling, and wagging their bodies with delight. On and on he played and played until the tide went down, and each master apostate sank deeper and deeper in the slimy ooze of lawsuits, until every mother’s son of them was discouraged and smothered.
You may fancy the Witnessfolk had been throwing up their caps and hurrahing and stopping up apostate holes and setting the doorbells a-ringing. But when the Piper stepped ashore and not so much a single apostate was to be heard, the Circuit Overseer and the elders, and the Witnessfolk generally, began to hum and to ha and to shake their heads.
For the hall money chest had been sadly emptied of late, and where was the fifty pounds to come from? Such an easy job, too! Just getting into a boat and playing a pipe! Why the Circuit Overseer himself could have done that if only he had thought of it.
So he hummed and ha’d and at last, ‘Come, my good man,’ said he, ‘you see what poor folk we are; how can we manage to pay you fifty pounds? Will you not take twenty? When all is said and done, ‘twill be good pay for the trouble you’ve taken.’
‘Fifty pounds was what I bargained for,’ said Elder Piper shortly; ‘and if I were you I’d pay it quickly. For I can pipe many kinds of tunes, as folk sometimes find to their cost.’
‘Would you threaten us, you strolling Bethelite?’ shrieked the Circuit Overseer, and at the same time he winked to the elders; ‘the apostates are all gone and fearing lawsuits,’ muttered he; and so ‘You may do your worst, my good man’, and with that he turned short upon his heel.
‘Very well,’ said the Piper, and he smiled a quiet smile. With that he laid his pipe to his lips afresh, but now there came forth no shrill notes, as it were, of scraping and gnawing, and squeaking and scurrying, but the tune was joyous and resonant, full of happy laughter and merry play. And as he paced down the streets the elders mocked, but from school-room and playroom, from nursery and workshop, not a child but ran out with eager glee and shout, following gaily at the Piper’s call. Dancing, laughing, joining hands and tripping feet, the bright throng moved along up Gold Street and down Silver Street, and beyond Silver Street lay the cool green forest full of oaks and wide-spreading beeches. In and out among the oak trees you might catch glimpses of the Piper’s many-coloured tie. You might hear the laughter of the children break and fade and die away as deeper and deeper into the lone green wood the stranger went and the children followed.
All the while, the elders watched and waited. They mocked no longer now. And watch and wait as they might, never did they set their eyes again upon the Piper in his parti-coloured tie. Never were their hearts gladdened by the song and dance of the children issuing forth from amongst the ancient oaks of the forest for the children had all died. ------------------------------------------
What do you think? Will we ever see a Pied Piper come and take us out? Who would save the children then?
My thanks to TimB for the inspiration.
Skipper
No apostates were hurt in the making of this story