Free Mr. Fortune by Sylvia Townsend Warner

in the salt-meadows, passionately flying kites.
    The islanders were like that; enthusiastic and fickle, they would wear a whim to shreds and cast it away in the course of a week. Lueli was as bad; if it had not been for Mr. Fortune he would never have persevered in anything. It was provoking for a master to find his pupil so changeable and inconstant, all the more so because of Lueli’s extraordinary docility and aptitude in learning. Nothing could have exceeded the readiness with which he accepted a new idea; and finding him so swift to become a Christian Mr. Fortune used to wonder why the other islanders would not respond as pleasantly to his teaching, for at this time he was still in hopes of converting the whole island. He preached to them, he prayed among them, every night and morning he prayed for them, he gave them biscuits and showed them pictures. They behaved themselves to him most charmingly, tactfully overlooking his blunders in etiquette, accepting him as their friend, though an unaccountable one. But his message they would not accept, it slid off them as though their very innocence and guilelessness had spread a fine impermeable film over their souls.
    â€œAfter all,” thought Mr. Fortune, “I have not made a single convert in this island though it is now almost a year since I came. For I did not convert Lueli, God gave him to me (by the way I must remember to call him Theodore). And God still withholds the others.”
    This was a comfortable point of view. It satisfied Mr. Fortune, all the more so since it agreed so aptly with his psalm, of which the last verse runs: “And that Thou, Lord, art merciful: for Thou rewardest every man according to his work.” And he quoted this verse of it in the report which he handed to Archdeacon Mason on returning to St. Fabien to buy more stores and give an account of his ministry.
    The Archdeacon frowned slightly when he laid down the report, which was a pretty piece of work, for Mr. Fortune had written it in his neatest hand and Lueli (under his direction) had tinted blue, fawn-colour, and green the little sketch-map of the island which embellished it as a frontispiece.
    The next day Mr. Fortune called upon his superior. “My dear Fortune,” said he after a few polite questions about the soil of Fanua and its marriage ceremonies, “this is excellent” (here he tapped the report which lay on the table). “Indeed I may say it is idyllic. But you must allow me to make one comment, you must let me tell you that there is such a thing as being too modest. Believe me, conversions at the rate of one per annum are not an adequate reward of your works. God’s grace is infinite, and I am sure that your labours have been most truly conscientious; and yet you say you have made only one convert. This is not enough—mind, I would not speak a word of blame. I only say—if I may so express myself—that there must have been a leakage somewhere, a leakage!”
    He paused. Mr. Fortune looked at his hands and realised how sunburnt they had become.
    â€œCompel them to come in, you know.”
    Mr. Fortune wondered if he should confess to his superior the one so nearly disastrous occasion when he had tried to use compulsion. But the Archdeacon’s metaphor about the leakage had pained him and he decided not to. Instead he asked the Archdeacon how he would advise him to act in order to convert the whole island.
    It was rather a shock to him to be recommended to take a leaf out of the Jesuits’ book. However on the first evening of his return to the island he began to make some discreet inquiries of Lueli about what gods the islanders worshipped, though being very careful to convey by his tone and choice of words that he thought it a terrible pity that they should not worship his.
    â€œOh, they,” said Lueli, offering him some more fruit, which Mr. Fortune refused, since he had been stuffed with gifts in kind ever since the