The Luminaries

of the law—or so the gaoler phrased it. (Devlin would soon discover that he and Shepard differed very radically in their pedagogic sensibilities.) Having takena brief tour of the Police Camp and praised the style of its management , Devlin inquired whether he might take his lodging in the gaol-house each night, so as to sleep among the felons, and share their bread. The gaoler received this proposition with distaste. He did not exactly reject Devlin’s inquiry, but he paused, licked his lip with a pale, dry tongue, and then suggested that Devlin might do better to take up residence in one of Hokitika’s many hotels. Shepard went on to warn the chaplain that his Irish accent might invite demonstrations of partisanship from Englishmen, and the expectation of a Catholic sensibility from his fellow Irish; he advised him, finally, to be discerning when choosing his company, and still more discerning when choosing his words—and with this pronouncement, he welcomed Devlin to Hokitika, and promptly bid him good morning.
    But Cowell Devlin did not have funds enough to support several months’ lodging in a hotel, and it was not his habit, furthermore, to indulge another man’s pessimism about partisan displays. He did not take Shepard’s advice, and he did not heed his warning. He purchased a standard-issue miner’s tent, strung it up some fifty yards from the Hokitika beachfront, and weighted the calico pockets with stones. Then he made his way back to Revell-street, bought a mug of small beer at the most crowded hotel he could find, and began to introduce himself, to Englishmen and Irishmen alike.
    Cowell Devlin was, to all intents and purposes, a self-made man—but because this epithet is rarely used to describe members of the holy orders, we ought to clarify its usage here. The cleric spent the present moment in a state of constant visualisation, conjuring in his mind the untroubled future self he had determined that he would one day become. His theology, too, followed this pattern : he was a hopeful believer, and to his many disciples he spoke of a utopian future, a world without want. When he spoke, he freely interchanged the language of auspice with the language of dreams: there was no conflict, in Cowell Devlin’s mind, between reality as he wished to perceive it, and reality as it was otherwise perceived. Such an inclination might, in the context of another man’s temperament, be called ambition, but Devlin’s self-imagewas impregnable, even mythic, and he had long ago determined that he was not an ambitious man. As might be expected, he was given to bouts of very purposeful ignorance, and tended to pass over the harsher truths of human nature in favour of those that could be romanticised by whimsy and imagination. With respect to these latter articles, Devlin was an adept. He was an excellent storyteller , and therefore, an effective clergyman. His faith, like his self-image, was complete, equable, and almost clairvoyant in its expression—attributes that, as Balfour had already observed, occasionally made him seem rather smug.
    At eleven o’clock on the night of the 14th of January—the night that Alistair Lauderback arrived in Hokitika—Cowell Devlin was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the Hokitika gaol-house, speaking with the inmates about Paul. Sometime around sundown it had begun to rain, and the chaplain had decided to stay late, in the hope that the downpour was only a temporary one—for he was new to Hokitika, and did not yet understand the dogged persistence of the weather on the Coast. The governor was at work in his private study, and his wife abed. The prisoners were mostly awake. They had listened to Devlin’s sermon at first politely and then with real interest; they were now, at the chaplain’s encouragement, offering testimonies and philosophies of their own.
    Devlin was wondering whether he ought to retire for the night and venture out into the rain when there came a shout from the courtyard, and a thump against the door. This roused the gaoler, who emerged from his study with a linen cap upon his head and a rifle in his hand, a combination that ought to have been amusing, but was not. Devlin rose also, and followed Shepard to the door. They peered into the rain—and saw, just past the circle of light that was thrown by the gaoler’s lantern, the duty sergeant Ellis Drake. He had a woman in his arms.
    Shepard opened the door wider and invited the sergeant to step inside.