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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10364-h.zip b/10364-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f69c14b --- /dev/null +++ b/10364-h.zip diff --git a/10364-h/10364-h.htm b/10364-h/10364-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d432a75 --- /dev/null +++ b/10364-h/10364-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,9616 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Yeast: A Problem</title> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Yeast: A Problem, by Charles Kingsley</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Yeast: A Problem, by Charles Kingsley + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Yeast: A Problem + +Author: Charles Kingsley + +Release Date: December 2, 2003 [eBook #10364] + +Language: English + +Chatacter set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YEAST: A PROBLEM*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h1>YEAST: A PROBLEM</h1> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h2>PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>This book was written nearly twelve years ago; and so many things +have changed since then, that it is hardly fair to send it into the +world afresh, without some notice of the improvement—if such there +be—which has taken place meanwhile in those southern counties +of England, with which alone this book deals.</p> +<p>I believe that things are improved. Twelve years more of the +new Poor Law have taught the labouring men greater self-help and independence; +I hope that those virtues may not be destroyed in them once more, by +the boundless and indiscriminate almsgiving which has become the fashion +of the day, in most parishes where there are resident gentry. +If half the money which is now given away in different forms to the +agricultural poor could be spent in making their dwellings fit for honest +men to live in, then life, morals, and poor-rates, would be saved to +an immense amount. But as I do not see how to carry out such a +plan, I have no right to complain of others for not seeing.</p> +<p>Meanwhile cottage improvement, and sanitary reform, throughout the +country districts, are going on at a fearfully slow rate. Here +and there high-hearted landlords, like the Duke of Bedford, are doing +their duty like men; but in general, the apathy of the educated classes +is most disgraceful.</p> +<p>But the labourers, during the last ten years, are altogether better +off. Free trade has increased their food, without lessening their +employment. The politician who wishes to know the effect on agricultural +life of that wise and just measure, may find it in Mr. Grey of Dilston’s +answers to the queries of the French Government. The country parson +will not need to seek so far. He will see it (if he be an observant +man) in the faces and figures of his school-children. He will +see a rosier, fatter, bigger-boned race growing up, which bids fair +to surpass in bulk the puny and ill-fed generation of 1815-45, and equal, +perhaps, in thew and sinew, to the men who saved Europe in the old French +war.</p> +<p>If it should be so (as God grant it may), there is little fear but +that the labouring men of England will find their aristocracy able to +lead them in the battle-field, and to develop the agriculture of the +land at home, even better than did their grandfathers of the old war +time.</p> +<p>To a thoughtful man, no point of the social horizon is more full +of light, than the altered temper of the young gentlemen. They +have their faults and follies still—for when will young blood +be other than hot blood? But when one finds, more and more, swearing +banished from the hunting-field, foul songs from the universities, drunkenness +and gambling from the barracks; when one finds everywhere, whether at +college, in camp, or by the cover-side, more and more, young men desirous +to learn their duty as Englishmen, and if possible to do it; when one +hears their altered tone toward the middle classes, and that word ‘snob’ +(thanks very much to Mr. Thackeray) used by them in its true sense, +without regard of rank; when one watches, as at Aldershott, the care +and kindness of officers toward their men; and over and above all this, +when one finds in every profession (in that of the soldier as much as +any) young men who are not only ‘in the world,’ but (in +religious phraseology) ‘of the world,’ living God-fearing, +virtuous, and useful lives, as Christian men should: then indeed one +looks forward with hope and confidence to the day when these men shall +settle down in life, and become, as holders of the land, the leaders +of agricultural progress, and the guides and guardians of the labouring +man.</p> +<p>I am bound to speak of the farmer, as I know him in the South of +England. In the North he is a man of altogether higher education +and breeding: but he is, even in the South, a much better man than it +is the fashion to believe him. No doubt, he has given heavy cause +of complaint. He was demoralised, as surely, if not as deeply, +as his own labourers, by the old Poor Law. He was bewildered—to +use the mildest term—by promises of Protection from men who knew +better. But his worst fault after all has been, that young or +old, he has copied his landlord too closely, and acted on his maxims +and example. And now that his landlord is growing wiser, he is +growing wiser too. Experience of the new Poor Law, and experience +of Free-trade, are helping him to show himself what he always was at +heart, an honest Englishman. All his brave persistence and industry, +his sturdy independence and self-help, and last, but not least, his +strong sense of justice, and his vast good-nature, are coming out more +and more, and working better and better upon the land and the labourer; +while among his sons I see many growing up brave, manly, prudent young +men, with a steadily increasing knowledge of what is required of them, +both as manufacturers of food, and employers of human labour.</p> +<p>The country clergy, again, are steadily improving. I do not +mean merely in morality—for public opinion now demands that as +a sine quà non—but in actual efficiency. Every fresh +appointment seems to me, on the whole, a better one than the last. +They are gaining more and more the love and respect of their flocks; +they are becoming more and more centres of civilisation and morality +to their parishes; they are working, for the most part, very hard, each +in his own way; indeed their great danger is, that they should trust +too much in that outward ‘business’ work which they do so +heartily; that they should fancy that the administration of schools +and charities is their chief business, and literally leave the Word +of God to serve tables. Would that we clergymen could learn (some +of us are learning already) that influence over our people is not to +be gained by perpetual interference in their private affairs, too often +inquisitorial, irritating, and degrading to both parties, but by showing +ourselves their personal friends, of like passions with them. +Let a priest do that. Let us make our people feel that we speak +to them, and feel to them, as men to men, and then the more cottages +we enter the better. If we go into our neighbours’ houses +only as judges, inquisitors, or at best gossips, we are best—as +too many are—at home in our studies. Would, too, that we +would recollect this—that our duty is, among other things, to +preach the Gospel; and consider firstly whether what we commonly preach +be any Gospel or good news at all, and not rather the worst possible +news; and secondly, whether we preach at all; whether our sermons are +not utterly unintelligible (being delivered in an unknown tongue), and +also of a dulness not to be surpassed; and whether, therefore, it might +not be worth our while to spend a little time in studying the English +tongue, and the art of touching human hearts and minds.</p> +<p>But to return: this improved tone (if the truth must be told) is +owing, far more than people themselves are aware, to the triumphs of +those liberal principles, for which the Whigs have fought for the last +forty years, and of that sounder natural philosophy of which they have +been the consistent patrons. England has become Whig; and the +death of the Whig party is the best proof of its victory. It has +ceased to exist, because it has done its work; because its principles +are accepted by its ancient enemies; because the political economy and +the physical science, which grew up under its patronage, are leavening +the thoughts and acts of Anglican and of Evangelical alike, and supplying +them with methods for carrying out their own schemes. Lord Shaftesbury’s +truly noble speech on Sanitary Reform at Liverpool is a striking proof +of the extent to which the Evangelical leaders have given in their adherence +to those scientific laws, the original preachers of which have been +called by his Lordship’s party heretics and infidels, materialists +and rationalists. Be it so. Provided truth be preached, +what matter who preaches it? Provided the leaven of sound inductive +science leaven the whole lump, what matter who sets it working? +Better, perhaps, because more likely to produce practical success, that +these novel truths should be instilled into the minds of the educated +classes by men who share somewhat in their prejudices and superstitions, +and doled out to them in such measure as will not terrify or disgust +them. The child will take its medicine from the nurse’s +hand trustfully enough, when it would scream itself into convulsions +at the sight of the doctor, and so do itself more harm than the medicine +would do it good. The doctor meanwhile (unless he be one of Hesiod’s +‘fools, who know not how much more half is than the whole’) +is content enough to see any part of his prescription got down, by any +hands whatsoever.</p> +<p>But there is another cause for the improved tone of the Landlord +class, and of the young men of what is commonly called the aristocracy; +and that is, a growing moral earnestness; which is in great part owing +(that justice may be done on all sides) to the Anglican movement. +How much soever Neo-Anglicanism may have failed as an Ecclesiastical +or Theological system; how much soever it may have proved itself, both +by the national dislike of it, and by the defection of all its master-minds, +to be radically un-English, it has at least awakened hundreds, perhaps +thousands, of cultivated men and women to ask themselves whether God +sent them into the world merely to eat, drink, and be merry, and to +have ‘their souls saved’ upon the Spurgeon method, after +they die; and has taught them an answer to that question not unworthy +of English Christians.</p> +<p>The Anglican movement, when it dies out, will leave behind at least +a legacy of grand old authors disinterred, of art, of music; of churches +too, schools, cottages, and charitable institutions, which will form +so many centres of future civilisation, and will entitle it to the respect, +if not to the allegiance, of the future generation. And more than +this; it has sown in the hearts of young gentlemen and young ladies +seed which will not perish; which, though it may develop into forms +little expected by those who sowed it, will develop at least into a +virtue more stately and reverent, more chivalrous and self-sacrificing, +more genial and human, than can be learnt from that religion of the +Stock Exchange, which reigned triumphant—for a year and a day—in +the popular pulpits.</p> +<p>I have said, that Neo-Anglicanism has proved a failure, as seventeenth-century +Anglicanism did. The causes of that failure this book has tried +to point out: and not one word which is spoken of it therein, but has +been drawn from personal and too-intimate experience. But now—peace +to its ashes. Is it so great a sin, to have been dazzled by the +splendour of an impossible ideal? Is it so great a sin, to have +had courage and conduct enough to attempt the enforcing of that ideal, +in the face of the prejudices of a whole nation? And if that ideal +was too narrow for the English nation, and for the modern needs of mankind, +is that either so great a sin? Are other extant ideals, then, +so very comprehensive? Does Mr. Spurgeon, then, take so much broader +or nobler views of the capacities and destinies of his race, than that +great genius, John Henry Newman? If the world cannot answer that +question now, it will answer it promptly enough in another five-and-twenty +years. And meanwhile let not the party and the system which has +conquered boast itself too loudly. Let it take warning by the +Whigs; and suspect (as many a looker-on more than suspects) that its +triumph may be, as with the Whigs, its ruin; and that, having done the +work for which it was sent into the world, there may only remain for +it, to decay and die.</p> +<p>And die it surely will, if (as seems too probable) there succeeds +to this late thirty years of peace a thirty years of storm.</p> +<p>For it has lost all hold upon the young, the active, the daring. +It has sunk into a compromise between originally opposite dogmas. +It has become a religion for Jacob the smooth man; adapted to the maxims +of the market, and leaving him full liberty to supplant his brother +by all methods lawful in that market. No longer can it embrace +and explain all known facts of God and man, in heaven and earth, and +satisfy utterly such minds and hearts as those of Cromwell’s Ironsides, +or the Scotch Covenanters, or even of a Newton and a Colonel Gardiner. +Let it make the most of its Hedley Vicars and its Havelock, and sound +its own trumpet as loudly as it can, in sounding theirs; for they are +the last specimens of heroism which it is likely to beget—if indeed +it did in any true sense beget them, and if their gallantry was really +owing to their creed, and not to the simple fact of their being—like +others—English gentlemen. Well may Jacob’s chaplains +cackle in delighted surprise over their noble memories, like geese who +have unwittingly hatched a swan!</p> +<p>But on Esau in general:—on poor rough Esau, who sails Jacob’s +ships, digs Jacob’s mines, founds Jacob’s colonies, pours +out his blood for him in those wars which Jacob himself has stirred +up—while his sleek brother sits at home in his counting-house, +enjoying at once ‘the means of grace’ and the produce of +Esau’s labour—on him Jacob’s chaplains have less and +less influence; for him they have less and less good news. He +is afraid of them, and they of him; the two do not comprehend one another, +sympathise with one another; they do not even understand one another’s +speech. The same social and moral gulf has opened between them, +as parted the cultivated and wealthy Pharisee of Jerusalem from the +rough fishers of the Galilæan Lake: and yet the Galilæan +fishers (if we are to trust Josephus and the Gospels) were trusty, generous, +affectionate—and it was not from among the Pharisees, it is said, +that the Apostles were chosen.</p> +<p>Be that as it may, Esau has a birthright; and this book, like all +books which I have ever written, is written to tell him so; and, I trust, +has not been written in vain. But it is not this book, or any +man’s book, or any man at all, who can tell Esau the whole truth +about himself, his powers, his duty, and his God. Woman must do +it, and not man. His mother, his sister, the maid whom he may +love; and failing all these (as they often will fail him, in the wild +wandering life which he must live), those human angels of whom it is +written—‘The barren hath many more children than she who +has an husband.’ And such will not be wanting. As +long as England can produce at once two such women as Florence Nightingale +and Catherine Marsh, there is good hope that Esau will not be defrauded +of his birthright; and that by the time that Jacob comes crouching to +him, to defend him against the enemies who are near at hand, Esau, instead +of borrowing Jacob’s religion, may be able to teach Jacob his; +and the two brothers face together the superstition and anarchy of Europe, +in the strength of a lofty and enlightened Christianity, which shall +be thoroughly human, and therefore thoroughly divine.</p> +<p>C. K.<br /><i>February</i> 17<i>th</i>, 1859.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>This little tale was written between two and three years ago, in +the hope that it might help to call the attention of wiser and better +men than I am, to the questions which are now agitating the minds of +the rising generation, and to the absolute necessity of solving them +at once and earnestly, unless we would see the faith of our forefathers +crumble away beneath the combined influence of new truths which are +fancied to be incompatible with it, and new mistakes as to its real +essence. That this can be done I believe and know: if I had not +believed it, I would never have put pen to paper on the subject.</p> +<p>I believe that the ancient Creed, the Eternal Gospel, will stand, +and conquer, and prove its might in this age, as it has in every other +for eighteen hundred years, by claiming, and subduing, and organising +those young anarchic forces, which now, unconscious of their parentage, +rebel against Him to whom they owe their being.</p> +<p>But for the time being, the young men and women of our day are fast +parting from their parents and each other; the more thoughtful are wandering +either towards Rome, towards sheer materialism, or towards an unchristian +and unphilosophic spiritualism. Epicurism which, in my eyes, is +the worst evil spirit of the three, precisely because it looks at first +sight most like an angel of light. The mass, again, are fancying +that they are still adhering to the old creeds, the old church, to the +honoured patriarchs of English Protestantism. I wish I could agree +with them in their belief about themselves. To me they seem—with +a small sprinkling of those noble and cheering exceptions to popular +error which are to be found in every age of Christ’s church—to +be losing most fearfully and rapidly the living spirit of Christianity, +and to be, for that very reason, clinging all the more convulsively—and +who can blame them?—to the outward letter of it, whether High +Church or Evangelical; unconscious, all the while, that they are sinking +out of real living belief, into that dead self-deceiving belief-in-believing, +which has been always heretofore, and is becoming in England now, the +parent of the most blind, dishonest, and pitiless bigotry.</p> +<p>In the following pages I have attempted to show what some at least +of the young in these days are really thinking and feeling. I +know well that my sketch is inadequate and partial: I have every reason +to believe, from the criticisms which I have received since its first +publication, that it is, as far as it goes, correct. I put it +as a problem. It would be the height of arrogance in me to do +more than indicate the direction in which I think a solution may be +found. I fear that my elder readers may complain that I have no +right to start doubts without answering them. I can only answer,—Would +that I had started them! would that I was not seeing them daily around +me, under some form or other, in just the very hearts for whom one would +most wish the peace and strength of a fixed and healthy faith. +To the young, this book can do no harm; for it will put into their minds +little but what is there already. To the elder, it may do good; +for it may teach some of them, as I earnestly hope, something of the +real, but too often utterly unsuspected, state of their own children’s +minds; something of the reasons of that calamitous estrangement between +themselves and those who will succeed them, which is often too painful +and oppressive to be confessed to their own hearts! Whatever amount +of obloquy this book may bring upon me, I shall think that a light price +to pay, if by it I shall have helped, even in a single case, to ‘turn +the hearts of the parents to the children, and the hearts of the children +to the parents, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come,’—as +come it surely will, if we persist much longer in substituting denunciation +for sympathy, instruction for education, and Pharisaism for the Good +News of the Kingdom of God.</p> +<p>1851.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER I: THE PHILOSOPHY OF FOX-HUNTING</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>As this my story will probably run counter to more than one fashion +of the day, literary and other, it is prudent to bow to those fashions +wherever I honestly can; and therefore to begin with a scrap of description.</p> +<p>The edge of a great fox-cover; a flat wilderness of low leafless +oaks fortified by a long, dreary, thorn capped clay ditch, with sour +red water oozing out at every yard; a broken gate leading into a straight +wood ride, ragged with dead grasses and black with fallen leaves, the +centre mashed into a quagmire by innumerable horsehoofs; some forty +red coats and some four black; a sprinkling of young-farmers, resplendent +in gold buttons and green; a pair of sleek drab stable-keepers, showing +off horses for sale; the surgeon of the union, in Mackintosh and antigropelos; +two holiday schoolboys with trousers strapped down to bursting point, +like a penny steamer’s safety-valve; a midshipman, the only merry +one in the field, bumping about on a fretting, sweating hack, with its +nose a foot above its ears; and Lancelot Smith, who then kept two good +horses, and ‘rode forward’ as a fine young fellow of three-and-twenty +who can afford it, and ‘has nothing else to do,’ has a very +good right to ride.</p> +<p>But what is a description, without a sketch of the weather?—In +these Pantheist days especially, when a hero or heroine’s moral +state must entirely depend on the barometer, and authors talk as if +Christians were cabbages, and a man’s soul as well as his lungs +might be saved by sea-breezes and sunshine; or his character developed +by wearing guano in his shoes, and training himself against a south +wall—we must have a weather description, though, as I shall presently +show, one in flat contradiction of the popular theory. Luckily +for our information, Lancelot was very much given to watch both the +weather and himself, and had indeed, while in his teens, combined the +two in a sort of a soul-almanack on the principles just mentioned—somewhat +in this style:—</p> +<p>‘<i>Monday</i>, 21<i>st</i>.—Wind S.W., bright sun, mercury +at 30½ inches. Felt my heart expanded towards the universe. +Organs of veneration and benevolence pleasingly excited; and gave a +shilling to a tramp. An inexpressible joy bounded through every +vein, and the soft air breathed purity and self-sacrifice through my +soul. As I watched the beetles, those children of the sun, who, +as divine Shelley says, “laden with light and odour, pass over +the gleam of the living grass,” I gained an Eden-glimpse of the +pleasures of virtue.</p> +<p>‘<i>N.B</i>. Found the tramp drunk in a ditch. +I could not have degraded myself on such a day—ah! how could he?</p> +<p>‘Tuesday, 22d.—Barometer rapidly falling. Heavy +clouds in the south-east. My heart sank into gloomy forebodings. +Read <i>Manfred</i>, and doubted whether I should live long. The +laden weight of destiny seemed to crush down my aching forehead, till +the thunderstorm burst, and peace was restored to my troubled soul.’</p> +<p>This was very bad; but to do justice to Lancelot, he had grown out +of it at the time when my story begins. He was now in the fifth +act of his ‘Werterean’ stage; that sentimental measles, +which all clever men must catch once in their lives, and which, generally, +like the physical measles, if taken early, settles their constitution +for good or evil; if taken late, goes far towards killing them. +Lancelot had found Byron and Shelley pall on his taste and commenced +devouring Bulwer and worshipping <i>Ernest Maltravers</i>. He +had left Bulwer for old ballads and romances, and Mr. Carlyle’s +reviews; was next alternately chivalry-mad; and Germany-mad; was now +reading hard at physical science; and on the whole, trying to become +a great man, without any very clear notion of what a great man ought +to be. Real education he never had had. Bred up at home +under his father, a rich merchant, he had gone to college with a large +stock of general information, and a particular mania for dried plants, +fossils, butterflies, and sketching, and some such creed as this:—</p> +<p>That he was very clever.</p> +<p>That he ought to make his fortune.</p> +<p>That a great many things were very pleasant—beautiful things +among the rest.</p> +<p>That it was a fine thing to be ‘superior,’ gentleman-like, +generous, and courageous.</p> +<p>That a man ought to be religious.</p> +<p>And left college with a good smattering of classics and mathematics, +picked up in the intervals of boat-racing and hunting, and much the +same creed as he brought with him, except in regard to the last article. +The scenery-and-natural-history mania was now somewhat at a discount. +He had discovered a new natural object, including in itself all—more +than all—yet found beauties and wonders—woman!</p> +<p>Draw, draw the veil and weep, guardian angel! if such there be. +What was to be expected? Pleasant things were pleasant—there +was no doubt of that, whatever else might be doubtful. He had +read Byron by stealth; he had been flogged into reading Ovid and Tibullus; +and commanded by his private tutor to read Martial and Juvenal ‘for +the improvement of his style.’ All conversation on the subject +of love had been prudishly avoided, as usual, by his parents and teacher. +The parts of the Bible which spoke of it had been always kept out of +his sight. Love had been to him, practically, ground tabooed and +‘carnal.’ What was to be expected? Just what +happened—if woman’s beauty had nothing holy in it, why should +his fondness for it? Just what happens every day—that he +had to sow his wild oats for himself, and eat the fruit thereof, and +the dirt thereof also.</p> +<p>O fathers! fathers! and you, clergymen, who monopolise education! +either tell boys the truth about love, or do not put into their hands, +without note or comment, the foul devil’s lies about it, which +make up the mass of the Latin poets—and then go, fresh from teaching +Juvenal and Ovid, to declaim at Exeter Hall against poor Peter Dens’s +well-meaning prurience! Had we not better take the beam out of +our own eye before we meddle with the mote in the Jesuit’s?</p> +<p>But where is my description of the weather all this time?</p> +<p>I cannot, I am sorry to say, give any very cheerful account of the +weather that day. But what matter? Are Englishmen hedge-gnats, +who only take their sport when the sun shines? Is it not, on the +contrary, symbolical of our national character, that almost all our +field amusements are wintry ones? Our fowling, our hunting, our +punt-shooting (pastime for Hymir himself and the frost giants)—our +golf and skating,—our very cricket, and boat-racing, and jack +and grayling fishing, carried on till we are fairly frozen out. +We are a stern people, and winter suits us. Nature then retires +modestly into the background, and spares us the obtrusive glitter of +summer, leaving us to think and work; and therefore it happens that +in England, it may be taken as a general rule, that whenever all the +rest of the world is in-doors, we are out and busy, and on the whole, +the worse the day, the better the deed.</p> +<p>The weather that day, the first day Lancelot ever saw his beloved, +was truly national. A silent, dim, distanceless, steaming, rotting +day in March. The last brown oak-leaf which had stood out the +winter’s frost, spun and quivered plump down, and then lay; as +if ashamed to have broken for a moment the ghastly stillness, like an +awkward guest at a great dumb dinner-party. A cold suck of wind +just proved its existence, by toothaches on the north side of all faces. +The spiders having been weather-bewitched the night before, had unanimously +agreed to cover every brake and brier with gossamer-cradles, and never +a fly to be caught in them; like Manchester cotton-spinners madly glutting +the markets in the teeth of ‘no demand.’ The steam +crawled out of the dank turf, and reeked off the flanks and nostrils +of the shivering horses, and clung with clammy paws to frosted hats +and dripping boughs. A soulless, skyless, catarrhal day, as if +that bustling dowager, old mother Earth—what with match-making +in spring, and <i>fêtes champêtres</i> in summer, and dinner-giving +in autumn—was fairly worn out, and put to bed with the influenza, +under wet blankets and the cold-water cure.</p> +<p>There sat Lancelot by the cover-side, his knees aching with cold +and wet, thanking his stars that he was not one of the whippers-in who +were lashing about in the dripping cover, laying up for themselves, +in catering for the amusement of their betters, a probable old age of +bed-ridden torture, in the form of rheumatic gout. Not that he +was at all happy—indeed, he had no reason to be so; for, first, +the hounds would not find; next, he had left half-finished at home a +review article on the Silurian System, which he had solemnly promised +an abject and beseeching editor to send to post that night; next, he +was on the windward side of the cover, and dare not light a cigar; and +lastly, his mucous membrane in general was not in the happiest condition, +seeing that he had been dining the evening before with Mr. Vaurien of +Rottenpalings, a young gentleman of a convivial and melodious turn of +mind, who sang—and played also—as singing men are wont—in +more senses than one, and had ‘ladies and gentlemen’ down +from town to stay with him; and they sang and played too; and so somehow +between vingt-un and champagne-punch, Lancelot had not arrived at home +till seven o’clock that morning, and was in a fit state to appreciate +the feelings of our grandfathers, when, after the third bottle of port, +they used to put the black silk tights into their pockets, slip on the +leathers and boots, and ride the crop-tailed hack thirty miles on a +winter’s night, to meet the hounds in the next county by ten in +the morning. They are ‘gone down to Hades, even many stalwart +souls of heroes,’ with John Warde of Squerries at their head—the +fathers of the men who conquered at Waterloo; and we their degenerate +grandsons are left instead, with puny arms, and polished leather boots, +and a considerable taint of hereditary disease, to sit in club-houses, +and celebrate the progress of the species.</p> +<p>Whether Lancelot or his horse, under these depressing circumstances, +fell asleep; or whether thoughts pertaining to such a life, and its +fitness for a clever and ardent young fellow in the nineteenth century, +became gradually too painful, and had to be peremptorily shaken off, +this deponent sayeth not; but certainly, after five-and-thirty minutes +of idleness and shivering, Lancelot opened his eyes with a sudden start, +and struck spurs into his hunter without due cause shown; whereat Shiver-the-timbers, +who was no Griselda in temper—(Lancelot had bought him out of +the Pytchley for half his value, as unrideably vicious, when he had +killed a groom, and fallen backwards on a rough-rider, the first season +after he came up from Horncastle)—responded by a furious kick +or two, threw his head up, put his foot into a drain, and sprawled down +all but on his nose, pitching Lancelot unawares shamefully on the pommel +of his saddle. A certain fatality, by the bye, had lately attended +all Lancelot’s efforts to shine; he never bought a new coat without +tearing it mysteriously next day, or tried to make a joke without bursting +out coughing in the middle . . . and now the whole field were looking +on at his mishap; between disgust and the start he turned almost sick, +and felt the blood rush into his cheeks and forehead as he heard a shout +of coarse jovial laughter burst out close to him, and the old master +of the hounds, Squire Lavington, roared aloud—</p> +<p>‘A pretty sportsman you are, Mr. Smith, to fall asleep by the +cover-side and let your horse down—and your pockets, too! +What’s that book on the ground? Sapping and studying still? +I let nobody come out with my hounds with their pocket full of learning. +Hand it up here, Tom; we’ll see what it is. French, as I +am no scholar! Translate for us, Colonel Bracebridge!’</p> +<p>And, amid shouts of laughter, the gay Guardsman read out,—</p> +<p>‘St. Francis de Sales: Introduction to a Devout Life.’</p> +<p>Poor Lancelot! Wishing himself fathoms under-ground, ashamed +of his book, still more ashamed of himself for his shame, he had to +sit there ten physical seconds, or spiritual years, while the colonel +solemnly returned him the book, complimenting him on the proofs of its +purifying influence which he had given the night before, in helping +to throw the turnpike-gate into the river.</p> +<p>But ‘all things do end,’ and so did this; and the silence +of the hounds also; and a faint but knowing whimper drove St. Francis +out of all heads, and Lancelot began to stalk slowly with a dozen horsemen +up the wood-ride, to a fitful accompaniment of wandering hound-music, +where the choristers were as invisible as nightingales among the thick +cover. And hark! just as the book was returned to his pocket, +the sweet hubbub suddenly crashed out into one jubilant shriek, and +then swept away fainter and fainter among the trees. The walk +became a trot—the trot a canter. Then a faint melancholy +shout at a distance, answered by a ‘Stole away!’ from the +fields; a doleful ‘toot!’ of the horn; the dull thunder +of many horsehoofs rolling along the farther woodside. Then red +coats, flashing like sparks of fire across the gray gap of mist at the +ride’s-mouth, then a whipper-in, bringing up a belated hound, +burst into the pathway, smashing and plunging, with shut eyes, through +ash-saplings and hassock-grass; then a fat farmer, sedulously pounding +through the mud, was overtaken and bespattered in spite of all his struggles;—until +the line streamed out into the wide rushy pasture, startling up pewits +and curlews, as horsemen poured in from every side, and cunning old +farmers rode off at inexplicable angles to some well-known haunts of +pug: and right ahead, chiming and jangling sweet madness, the dappled +pack glanced and wavered through the veil of soft grey mist. ‘What’s +the use of this hurry?’ growled Lancelot. ‘They will +all be back again. I never have the luck to see a run.’</p> +<p>But no; on and on—down the wind and down the vale; and the +canter became a gallop, and the gallop a long straining stride; and +a hundred horsehoofs crackled like flame among the stubbles, and thundered +fetlock-deep along the heavy meadows; and every fence thinned the cavalcade, +till the madness began to stir all bloods, and with grim earnest silent +faces, the initiated few settled themselves to their work, and with +the colonel and Lancelot at their head, ‘took their pleasure sadly, +after the manner of their nation,’ as old Froissart has it.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘Thorough bush, through brier,<br />Thorough park, through +pale;’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>till the rolling grass-lands spread out into flat black open fallows, +crossed with grassy baulks, and here and there a long melancholy line +of tall elms, while before them the high chalk ranges gleamed above +the mist like a vast wall of emerald enamelled with snow, and the winding +river glittering at their feet.</p> +<p>‘A polite fox!’ observed the colonel. ‘He’s +leading the squire straight home to Whitford, just in time for dinner.’</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>They were in the last meadow, with the stream before them. +A line of struggling heads in the swollen and milky current showed the +hounds’ opinion of Reynard’s course. The sportsmen +galloped off towards the nearest bridge. Bracebridge looked back +at Lancelot, who had been keeping by his side in sulky rivalry, following +him successfully through all manner of desperate places, and more and +more angry with himself and the guiltless colonel, because he only followed, +while the colonel’s quicker and unembarrassed wit, which lived +wholly in the present moment, saw long before Lancelot, ‘how to +cut out his work,’ in every field.</p> +<p>‘I shan’t go round,’ quietly observed the colonel.</p> +<p>‘Do you fancy I shall?’ growled Lancelot, who took for +granted—poor thin-skinned soul! that the words were meant as a +hit at himself.</p> +<p>‘You’re a brace of geese,’ politely observed the +old squire; ‘and you’ll find it out in rheumatic fever. +There—“one fool makes many!” You’ll kill +Smith before you’re done, colonel!’ and the old man wheeled +away up the meadow, as Bracebridge shouted after him,—</p> +<p>‘Oh, he’ll make a fine rider—in time!’</p> +<p>‘In time!’ Lancelot could have knocked the unsuspecting +colonel down for the word. It just expressed the contrast, which +had fretted him ever since he began to hunt with the Whitford Priors +hounds. The colonel’s long practice and consummate skill +in all he took in hand,—his experience of all society, from the +prairie Indian to Crockford’s, from the prize-ring to the continental +courts,—his varied and ready store of information and anecdote,—the +harmony and completeness of the man,—his consistency with his +own small ideal, and his consequent apparent superiority everywhere +and in everything to the huge awkward Titan-cub, who, though immeasurably +beyond Bracebridge in intellect and heart, was still in a state of convulsive +dyspepsia, ‘swallowing formulæ,’ and daily well-nigh +choked; diseased throughout with that morbid self-consciousness and +lust of praise, for which God prepares, with His elect, a bitter cure. +Alas! poor Lancelot! an unlicked bear, ‘with all his sorrows before +him!’—</p> +<p>‘Come along,’ quoth Bracebridge, between snatches of +a tune, his coolness maddening Lancelot. ‘Old Lavington +will find us dry clothes, a bottle of port, and a brace of charming +daughters, at the Priory. In with you, little Mustang of the prairie! +Neck or nothing!’—</p> +<p>And in an instant the small wiry American, and the huge Horncastle-bred +hunter, were wallowing and staggering in the yeasty stream, till they +floated into a deep reach, and swam steadily down to a low place in +the bank. They crossed the stream, passed the Priory Shrubberies, +leapt the gate into the park, and then on and upward, called by the +unseen Ariel’s music before them.—Up, into the hills; past +white crumbling chalk-pits, fringed with feathered juniper and tottering +ashes, their floors strewed with knolls of fallen soil and vegetation, +like wooded islets in a sea of milk.—Up, between steep ridges +of tuft crested with black fir-woods and silver beech, and here and +there a huge yew standing out alone, the advanced sentry of the forest, +with its luscious fretwork of green velvet, like a mountain of Gothic +spires and pinnacles, all glittering and steaming as the sun drank up +the dew-drops. The lark sprang upward into song, and called merrily +to the new-opened sunbeams, while the wreaths and flakes of mist lingered +reluctantly about the hollows, and clung with dewy fingers to every +knoll and belt of pine.—Up into the labyrinthine bosom of the +hills,—but who can describe them? Is not all nature indescribable? +every leaf infinite and transcendental? How much more those mighty +downs, with their enormous sheets of spotless turf, where the dizzy +eye loses all standard of size and distance before the awful simplicity, +the delicate vastness, of those grand curves and swells, soft as the +outlines of a Greek Venus, as if the great goddess-mother Hertha had +laid herself down among the hills to sleep, her Titan limbs wrapt in +a thin veil of silvery green.</p> +<p>Up, into a vast amphitheatre of sward, whose walls banked out the +narrow sky above. And here, in the focus of the huge ring, an +object appeared which stirred strange melancholy in Lancelot,—a +little chapel, ivy-grown, girded with a few yews, and elders, and grassy +graves. A climbing rose over the porch, and iron railings round +the churchyard, told of human care; and from the graveyard itself burst +up one of those noble springs known as winter-bournes in the chalk ranges, +which, awakened in autumn from the abysses to which it had shrunk during +the summer’s drought, was hurrying down upon its six months’ +course, a broad sheet of oily silver over a temporary channel of smooth +greensward.</p> +<p>The hounds had checked in the woods behind; now they poured down +the hillside, so close together ‘that you might have covered them +with a sheet,’ straight for the little chapel.</p> +<p>A saddened tone of feeling spread itself through Lancelot’s +heart. There were the everlasting hills around, even as they had +grown and grown for countless ages, beneath the still depths of the +primeval chalk ocean, in the milky youth of this great English land. +And here was he, the insect of a day, fox-hunting upon <i>them</i>! +He felt ashamed, and more ashamed when the inner voice whispered—‘Fox-hunting +is not the shame—thou art the shame. If thou art the insect +of a day, it is thy sin that thou art one.’</p> +<p>And his sadness, foolish as it may seem, grew as he watched a brown +speck fleet rapidly up the opposite hill, and heard a gay view-halloo +burst from the colonel at his side. The chase lost its charm for +him the moment the game was seen. Then vanished that mysterious +delight of pursuing an invisible object, which gives to hunting and +fishing their unutterable and almost spiritual charm; which made Shakespeare +a nightly poacher; Davy and Chantrey the patriarchs of fly-fishing; +by which the twelve-foot rod is transfigured into an enchanter’s +wand, potent over the unseen wonders of the water-world, to ‘call +up spirits from the vasty deep,’ which will really ‘come +if you do call for them’—at least if the conjuration be +orthodox—and they there. That spell was broken by the sight +of poor wearied pug, his once gracefully-floating brush all draggled +and drooping, as he toiled up the sheep-paths towards the open down +above.</p> +<p>But Lancelot’s sadness reached its crisis, as he met the hounds +just outside the churchyard. Another moment—they had leaped +the rails; and there they swept round under the gray wall, leaping and +yelling, like Berserk fiends among the frowning tombstones, over the +cradles of the quiet dead.</p> +<p>Lancelot shuddered—the thing was not wrong—‘it +was no one’s fault,’—but there was a ghastly discord +in it. Peace and strife, time and eternity—the mad noisy +flesh, and the silent immortal spirit,—the frivolous game of life’s +outside show, and the terrible earnest of its inward abysses, jarred +together without and within him. He pulled his horse up violently, +and stood as if rooted to the place, gazing at he knew not what.</p> +<p>The hounds caught sight of the fox, burst into one frantic shriek +of joy—and then a sudden and ghastly stillness, as, mute and breathless, +they toiled up the hillside, gaining on their victim at every stride. +The patter of the horsehoofs and the rattle of rolling flints died away +above. Lancelot looked up, startled at the silence; laughed aloud, +he knew not why, and sat, regardless of his pawing and straining horse, +still staring at the chapel and the graves.</p> +<p>On a sudden the chapel-door opened, and a figure, timidly yet loftily +stepped out without observing him, and suddenly turning round, met him +full, face to face, and stood fixed with surprise as completely as Lancelot +himself.</p> +<p>That face and figure, and the spirit which spoke through them, entered +his heart at once, never again to leave it. Her features were +aquiline and grand, without a shade of harshness; her eyes shone out +like twain lakes of still azure, beneath a broad marble cliff of polished +forehead; her rich chestnut hair rippled downward round the towering +neck. With her perfect masque and queenly figure, and earnest, +upward gaze, she might have been the very model from which Raphael conceived +his glorious St. Catherine—the ideal of the highest womanly genius, +softened into self-forgetfulness by girlish devotion. She was +simply, almost coarsely dressed; but a glance told him that she was +a lady, by the courtesy of man as well as by the will of God.</p> +<p>They gazed one moment more at each other—but what is time to +spirits? With them, as with their Father, ‘one day is as +a thousand years.’ But that eye-wedlock was cut short the +next instant by the decided interference of the horse, who, thoroughly +disgusted at his master’s whole conduct, gave a significant shake +of his head, and shamming frightened (as both women and horses will +do when only cross), commenced a war-dance, which drove Argemone Lavington +into the porch, and gave the bewildered Lancelot an excuse for dashing +madly up the hill after his companions.</p> +<p>‘What a horrible ugly face!’ said Argemone to herself, +‘but so clever, and so unhappy!’</p> +<p>Blest pity! true mother of that graceless scamp, young Love, who +is ashamed of his real pedigree, and swears to this day that he is the +child of Venus!—the coxcomb!</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>[Here, for the sake of the reader, we omit, or rather postpone a +long dissertation on the famous Erototheogonic chorus of Aristophanes’s +Birds, with illustrations taken from all earth and heaven, from the +Vedas and Proclus to Jacob Boëhmen and Saint Theresa.]</p> +<p>‘The dichotomy of Lancelot’s personality,’ as the +Germans would call it, returned as he dashed on. His understanding +was trying to ride, while his spirit was left behind with Argemone. +Hence loose reins and a looser seat. He rolled about like a tipsy +man, holding on, in fact, far more by his spurs than by his knees, to +the utter infuriation of Shiver-the-timbers, who kicked and snorted +over the down like one of Mephistopheles’s Demon-steeds. +They had mounted the hill—the deer fled before them in terror—they +neared the park palings. In the road beyond them the hounds were +just killing their fox, struggling and growling in fierce groups for +the red gobbets of fur, a panting, steaming ring of horses round them. +Half a dozen voices hailed him as he came up.</p> +<p>‘Where have you been?’ ‘He’ll tumble +off!’ ‘He’s had a fall!’ ‘No +he hasn’t!’ ‘’Ware hounds, man alive!’ +‘He’ll break his neck!’</p> +<p>‘He has broken it, at last!’ shouted the colonel, as +Shiver-the-timbers rushed at the high pales, out of breath, and blind +with rage. Lancelot saw and heard nothing till he was awakened +from his dream by the long heave of the huge brute’s shoulder, +and the maddening sensation of sweeping through the air over the fence. +He started, checked the curb, the horse threw up his head, fulfilling +his name by driving his knees like a battering-ram against the pales—the +top-bar bent like a withe, flew out into a hundred splinters, and man +and horse rolled over headlong into the hard flint-road.</p> +<p>For one long sickening second Lancelot watched the blue sky between +his own knees. Then a crash as if a shell had burst in his face—a +horrible grind—a sheet of flame—and the blackness of night. +Did you ever feel it, reader?</p> +<p>When he awoke, he found himself lying in bed, with Squire Lavington +sitting by him. There was real sorrow in the old man’s face, +‘Come to himself!’ and a great joyful oath rolled out. +‘The boldest rider of them all! I wouldn’t have lost +him for a dozen ready-made spick and span Colonel Bracebridges!’</p> +<p>‘Quite right, squire!’ answered a laughing voice from +behind the curtain. ‘Smith has a clear two thousand a year, +and I live by my wits!’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER II: SPRING YEARNINGS</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I heard a story the other day of our most earnest and genial humorist, +who is just now proving himself also our most earnest and genial novelist. +‘I like your novel exceedingly,’ said a lady; ‘the +characters are so natural—all but the baronet, and he surely is +overdrawn: it is impossible to find such coarseness in his rank of life!’</p> +<p>The artist laughed. ‘And that character,’ said +he, ‘is almost the only exact portrait in the whole book.’</p> +<p>So it is. People do not see the strange things which pass them +every day. ‘The romance of real life’ is only one +to the romantic spirit. And then they set up for critics, instead +of pupils; as if the artist’s business was not just to see what +they cannot see—to open their eyes to the harmonies and the discords, +the miracles and the absurdities, which seem to them one uniform gray +fog of commonplaces.</p> +<p>Then let the reader believe, that whatsoever is commonplace in my +story is my own invention. Whatsoever may seem extravagant or +startling is most likely to be historic fact, else I should not have +dared to write it down, finding God’s actual dealings here much +too wonderful to dare to invent many fresh ones for myself.</p> +<p>Lancelot, who had had a severe concussion of the brain and a broken +leg, kept his bed for a few weeks, and his room for a few more. +Colonel Bracebridge installed himself at the Priory, and nursed him +with indefatigable good-humour and few thanks. He brought Lancelot +his breakfast before hunting, described the run to him when he returned, +read him to sleep, told him stories of grizzly bear and buffalo-hunts, +made him laugh in spite of himself at extempore comic medleys, kept +his tables covered with flowers from the conservatory, warmed his chocolate, +and even his bed. Nothing came amiss to him, and he to nothing. +Lancelot longed at first every hour to be rid of him, and eyed him about +the room as a bulldog does the monkey who rides him. In his dreams +he was Sinbad the Sailor, and Bracebridge the Old Man of the Sea; but +he could not hold out against the colonel’s merry bustling kindliness, +and the almost womanish tenderness of his nursing. The ice thawed +rapidly; and one evening it split up altogether, when Bracebridge, who +was sitting drawing by Lancelot’s sofa, instead of amusing himself +with the ladies below, suddenly threw his pencil into the fire, and +broke out, <i>à propos de rien</i>—</p> +<p>‘What a strange pair we are, Smith! I think you just +the best fellow I ever met, and you hate me like poison—you can’t +deny it.’</p> +<p>There was something in the colonel’s tone so utterly different +from his usual courtly and measured speech, that Lancelot was taken +completely by surprise, and stammered out,—</p> +<p>‘I—I—I—no—no. I know I am very +foolish—ungrateful. But I do hate you,’ he said, with +a sudden impulse, ‘and I’ll tell you why.’</p> +<p>‘Give me your hand,’ quoth the colonel: ‘I like +that. Now we shall see our way with each other, at least.’</p> +<p>‘Because,’ said Lancelot slowly, ‘because you are +cleverer than I, readier than I, superior to me in every point.’</p> +<p>The colonel laughed, not quite merrily. Lancelot went on, holding +down his shaggy brows.</p> +<p>‘I am a brute and an ass!—And yet I do not like to tell +you so. For if I am an ass, what are you?’</p> +<p>‘Heyday!’</p> +<p>‘Look here.—I am wasting my time and brains on ribaldry, +but I am worth nothing better—at least, I think so at times; but +you, who can do anything you put your hand to, what business have you, +in the devil’s name, to be throwing yourself away on gimcracks +and fox-hunting foolery? Heavens! If I had your talents, +I’d be—I’d make a name for myself before I died, if +I died to make it.’ The colonel griped his hand hard, rose, +and looked out of the window for a few minutes. There was a dead, +brooding silence, till he turned to Lancelot,—</p> +<p>‘Mr. Smith, I thank you for your honesty, but good advice may +come too late. I am no saint, and God only knows how much less +of one I may become; but mark my words,—if you are ever tempted +by passion, and vanity, and fine ladies, to form <i>liaisons</i>, as +the Jezebels call them, snares, and nets, and labyrinths of blind ditches, +to keep you down through life, stumbling and grovelling, hating yourself +and hating the chain to which you cling—in that hour pray—pray +as if the devil had you by the throat,—to Almighty God, to help +you out of that cursed slough! There is nothing else for it!—pray, +I tell you!’</p> +<p>There was a terrible earnestness about the guardsman’s face +which could not be mistaken. Lancelot looked at him for a moment, +and then dropped his eyes ashamed, as if he had intruded on the speaker’s +confidence by witnessing his emotion.</p> +<p>In a moment the colonel had returned to his smile and his polish.</p> +<p>‘And now, my dear invalid, I must beg your pardon for sermonising. +What do you say to a game of <i>écarté</i>? We must +play for love, or we shall excite ourselves, and scandalise Mrs. Lavington’s +piety.’ And the colonel pulled a pack of cards out of his +pocket, and seeing that Lancelot was too thoughtful for play, commenced +all manner of juggler’s tricks, and chuckled over them like any +schoolboy.</p> +<p>‘Happy man!’ thought Lancelot, ‘to have the strength +of will which can thrust its thoughts away once and for all.’ +No, Lancelot! more happy are they whom God will not allow to thrust +their thoughts from them till the bitter draught has done its work.</p> +<p>From that day, however, there was a cordial understanding between +the two. They never alluded to the subject; but they had known +the bottom of each other’s heart. Lancelot’s sick-room +was now pleasant enough, and he drank in daily his new friend’s +perpetual stream of anecdote, till March and hunting were past, and +April was half over. The old squire came up after dinner regularly +(during March he had hunted every day, and slept every evening); and +the trio chatted along merrily enough, by the help of whist and backgammon, +upon the surface of this little island of life,—which is, like +Sinbad’s, after all only the back of a floating whale, ready to +dive at any moment.—And then?—</p> +<p>But what was Argemone doing all this time? Argemone was busy +in her boudoir (too often a true boudoir to her) among books and statuettes, +and dried flowers, fancying herself, and not unfairly, very intellectual. +She had four new manias every year; her last winter’s one had +been that bottle-and-squirt mania, miscalled chemistry; her spring madness +was for the Greek drama. She had devoured Schlegel’s lectures, +and thought them divine; and now she was hard at work on Sophocles, +with a little help from translations, and thought she understood him +every word. Then she was somewhat High-Church in her notions, +and used to go up every Wednesday and Friday to the chapel in the hills, +where Lancelot had met her, for an hour’s mystic devotion, set +off by a little graceful asceticism. As for Lancelot, she never +thought of him but as an empty-headed fox-hunter who had met with his +deserts; and the brilliant accounts which the all smoothing colonel +gave at dinner of Lancelot’s physical well doing and agreeable +conversation only made her set him down the sooner as a twin clever-do-nothing +to the despised Bracebridge, whom she hated for keeping her father in +a roar of laughter.</p> +<p>But her sister, little Honoria, had all the while been busy messing +and cooking with her own hands for the invalid; and almost fell in love +with the colonel for his watchful kindness. And here a word about +Honoria, to whom Nature, according to her wont with sisters, had given +almost everything which Argemone wanted, and denied almost everything +which Argemone had, except beauty. And even in that, the many-sided +mother had made her a perfect contrast to her sister,—tiny and +luscious, dark-eyed and dark-haired; as full of wild simple passion +as an Italian, thinking little, except where she felt much—which +was, indeed, everywhere; for she lived in a perpetual April-shower of +exaggerated sympathy for all suffering, whether in novels or in life; +and daily gave the lie to that shallow old calumny, that ‘fictitious +sorrows harden the heart to real ones.’</p> +<p>Argemone was almost angry with her sometimes, when she trotted whole +days about the village from school to sick-room: perhaps conscience +hinted to her that her duty, too, lay rather there than among her luxurious +day-dreams. But, alas! though she would have indignantly repelled +the accusation of selfishness, yet in self and for self alone she lived; +and while she had force of will for any so-called ‘self-denial,’ +and would fast herself cross and stupefied, and quite enjoy kneeling +thinly clad and barefoot on the freezing chapel-floor on a winter’s +morning, yet her fastidious delicacy revolted at sitting, like Honoria, +beside the bed of the ploughman’s consumptive daughter, in a reeking, +stifling, lean-to garret, in which had slept the night before, the father, +mother, and two grown-up boys, not to mention a new-married couple, +the sick girl, and, alas! her baby. And of such bedchambers there +were too many in Whitford Priors.</p> +<p>The first evening that Lancelot came downstairs, Honoria clapped +her hands outright for joy as he entered, and ran up and down for ten +minutes, fetching and carrying endless unnecessary cushions and footstools; +while Argemone greeted him with a cold distant bow, and a fine-lady +drawl of carefully commonplace congratulations. Her heart smote +her though, as she saw the wan face and the wild, melancholy, moonstruck +eyes once more glaring through and through her; she found a comfort +in thinking his stare impertinent, drew herself up, and turned away; +once, indeed, she could not help listening, as Lancelot thanked Mrs. +Lavington for all the pious and edifying books with which the good lady +had kept his room rather than his brain furnished for the last six weeks; +he was going to say more, but he saw the colonel’s quaint foxy +eye peering at him, remembered St. Francis de Sales, and held his tongue.</p> +<p>But, as her destiny was, Argemone found herself, in the course of +the evening, alone with Lancelot, at the open window. It was a +still, hot, heavy night, after long easterly drought; sheet-lightning +glimmered on the far horizon over the dark woodlands; the coming shower +had sent forward as his herald a whispering draught of fragrant air.</p> +<p>‘What a delicious shiver is creeping over those limes!’ +said Lancelot, half to himself.</p> +<p>The expression struck Argemone: it was the right one, and it seemed +to open vistas of feeling and observation in the speaker which she had +not suspected. There was a rich melancholy in the voice;—she +turned to look at him.</p> +<p>‘Ay,’ he went on; ‘and the same heat which crisps +those thirsty leaves must breed the thunder-shower which cools them? +But so it is throughout the universe: every yearning proves the existence +of an object meant to satisfy it; the same law creates both the giver +and the receiver, the longing and its home.’</p> +<p>‘If one could but know sometimes what it is for which one is +longing!’ said Argemone, without knowing that she was speaking +from her inmost heart: but thus does the soul involuntarily lay bare +its most unspoken depths in the presence of its yet unknown mate, and +then shudders at its own <i>abandon</i> as it first tries on the wedding +garment of Paradise.</p> +<p>Lancelot was not yet past the era at which young geniuses are apt +to ‘talk book’ at little.</p> +<p>‘For what?’ he answered, flashing up according to his +fashion. ‘To be;—to be great; to have done one mighty +work before we die, and live, unloved or loved, upon the lips of men. +For this all long who are not mere apes and wall-flies.’</p> +<p>‘So longed the founders of Babel,’ answered Argemone, +carelessly, to this tirade. She had risen a strange fish, the +cunning beauty, and now she was trying her fancy flies over him one +by one.</p> +<p>‘And were they so far wrong?’ answered he. ‘From +the Babel society sprung our architecture, our astronomy, politics, +and colonisation. No doubt the old Hebrew sheiks thought them +impious enough, for daring to build brick walls instead of keeping to +the good old-fashioned tents, and gathering themselves into a nation +instead of remaining a mere family horde; and gave their own account +of the myth, just as the antediluvian savages gave theirs of that strange +Eden scene, by the common interpretation of which the devil is made +the first inventor of modesty. Men are all conservatives; everything +new is impious, till we get accustomed to it; and if it fails, the mob +piously discover a divine vengeance in the mischance, from Babel to +Catholic Emancipation.’</p> +<p>Lancelot had stuttered horribly during the latter part of this most +heterodox outburst, for he had begun to think about himself, and try +to say a fine thing, suspecting all the while that it might not be true. +But Argemone did not remark the stammering: the new thoughts startled +and pained her; but there was a daring grace about them. She tried, +as women will, to answer him with arguments, and failed, as women will +fail. She was accustomed to lay down the law <i>à la</i> +Madame de Staël, to <i>savants</i> and <i>non-savants</i> and be +heard with reverence, as a woman should be. But poor truth-seeking +Lancelot did not see what sex had to do with logic; he flew at her as +if she had been a very barrister, and hunted her mercilessly up and +down through all sorts of charming sophisms, as she begged the question, +and shifted her ground, as thoroughly right in her conclusion as she +was wrong in her reasoning, till she grew quite confused and pettish.—And +then Lancelot suddenly shrank into his shell, claws and all, like an +affrighted soldier-crab, hung down his head, and stammered out some +incoherencies,—‘N-n-not accustomed to talk to women—ladies, +I mean. F-forgot myself.—Pray forgive me!’ And +he looked up, and her eyes, half-amused, met his, and she saw that they +were filled with tears.</p> +<p>‘What have I to forgive?’ she said, more gently, wondering +on what sort of strange sportsman she had fallen. ‘You treat +me like an equal; you will deign to argue with me. But men in +general—oh, they hide their contempt for us, if not their own +ignorance, under that mask of chivalrous deference!’ and then +in the nasal fine ladies’ key, which was her shell, as bitter +<i>brusquerie</i> was his, she added, with an Amazon queen’s toss +of the head,—‘You must come and see us often. We shall +suit each other, I see, better than most whom we see here.’</p> +<p>A sneer and a blush passed together over Lancelot’s ugliness.</p> +<p>‘What, better than the glib Colonel Bracebridge yonder?’</p> +<p>‘Oh, he is witty enough, but he lives on the surface of everything! +He is altogether shallow and <i>blasé</i>. His good-nature +is the fruit of want of feeling; between his gracefulness and his sneering +persiflage he is a perfect Mephistopheles-Apollo.’</p> +<p>What a snare a decently-good nickname is! Out it must come, +though it carry a lie on its back. But the truth was, Argemone +thought herself infinitely superior to the colonel, for which simple +reason she could not in the least understand him.</p> +<p>[By the bye, how subtly Mr. Tennyson has embodied all this in <i>The +Princess</i>. How he shows us the woman, when she takes her stand +on the false masculine ground of intellect, working out her own moral +punishment, by destroying in herself the tender heart of flesh, which +is either woman’s highest blessing or her bitterest curse; how +she loses all feminine sensibility to the under-current of feeling in +us poor world-worn, case-hardened men, and falls from pride to sternness, +from sternness to sheer inhumanity. I should have honoured myself +by pleading guilty to stealing much of Argemone’s character from +<i>The Princess</i>, had not the idea been conceived, and fairly worked +out, long before the appearance of that noble poem.]</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>They said no more to each other that evening. Argemone was +called to the piano; and Lancelot took up the Sporting Magazine, and +read himself to sleep till the party separated for the night.</p> +<p>Argemone went up thoughtfully to her own room. The shower had +fallen, and the moon was shining bright, while every budding leaf and +knot of mould steamed up cool perfume, borrowed from the treasures of +the thundercloud. All around was working the infinite mystery +of birth and growth, of giving and taking, of beauty and use. +All things were harmonious—all things reciprocal without. +Argemone felt herself needless, lonely, and out of tune with herself +and nature.</p> +<p>She sat in the window, and listlessly read over to herself a fragment +of her own poetry:—</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>SAPPHO</p> +<p>She lay among the myrtles on the cliff;<br />Above her glared the +moon; beneath, the sea.<br />Upon the white horizon Athos’ peak<br />Weltered +in burning haze; all airs were dead;<br />The sicale slept among the +tamarisk’s hair;<br />The birds sat dumb and drooping. Far +below<br />The lazy sea-weed glistened in the sun:<br />The lazy sea-fowl +dried their steaming wings;<br />The lazy swell crept whispering up +the ledge,<br />And sank again. Great Pan was laid to rest;<br />And +mother Earth watched by him as he slept,<br />And hushed her myriad +children for awhile.</p> +<p>She lay among the myrtles on the cliff;<br />And sighed for sleep, +for sleep that would not hear,<br />But left her tossing still: for +night and day<br />A mighty hunger yearned within her heart,<br />Till +all her veins ran fever, and her cheek,<br />Her long thin hands, and +ivory-channell’d feet,<br />Were wasted with the wasting of her +soul.<br />Then peevishly she flung her on her face,<br />And hid her +eyeballs from the blinding glare,<br />And fingered at the grass, and +tried to cool<br />Her crisp hot lips against the crisp hot sward:<br />And +then she raised her head, and upward cast<br />Wild looks from homeless +eyes, whose liquid light<br />Gleamed out between deep folds of blue-black +hair,<br />As gleam twin lakes between the purple peaks<br />Of deep +Parnassus, at the mournful moon.<br />Beside her lay a lyre. She +snatched the shell,<br />And waked wild music from its silver strings;<br />Then +tossed it sadly by,—‘Ah, hush!’ she cries,<br />‘Dead +offspring of the tortoise and the mine!<br />Why mock my discords with +thine harmonies?<br />‘Although a thrice-Olympian lot be thine,<br />Only +to echo back in every tone,<br />The moods of nobler natures than thine +own.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘No!’ she said. ‘That soft and rounded rhyme +suits ill with Sappho’s fitful and wayward agonies. She +should burst out at once into wild passionate life-weariness, and disgust +at that universe, with whose beauty she has filled her eyes in vain, +to find it always a dead picture, unsatisfying, unloving—as I +have found it.’</p> +<p>Sweet self-deceiver! had you no other reason for choosing as your +heroine Sappho, the victim of the idolatry of intellect—trying +in vain to fill her heart with the friendship of her own sex, and then +sinking into mere passion for a handsome boy, and so down into self-contempt +and suicide?</p> +<p>She was conscious, I do believe, of no other reason than that she +gave; but consciousness is a dim candle—over a deep mine.</p> +<p>‘After all,’ she said pettishly, ‘people will call +it a mere imitation of Shelley’s <i>Alastor</i>. And what +harm if it is? Is there to be no female Alastor? Has not +the woman as good a right as the man to long after ideal beauty—to +pine and die if she cannot find it; and regenerate herself in its light?’</p> +<p>‘Yo-hoo-oo-oo! Youp, youp! Oh-hooo!’ arose +doleful through the echoing shrubbery.</p> +<p>Argemone started and looked out. It was not a banshee, but +a forgotten fox-hound puppy, sitting mournfully on the gravel-walk beneath, +staring at the clear ghastly moon.</p> +<p>She laughed and blushed—there was a rebuke in it. She +turned to go to rest; and as she knelt and prayed at her velvet faldstool, +among all the nicknacks which now-a-days make a luxury of devotion, +was it strange if, after she had prayed for the fate of nations and +churches, and for those who, as she thought, were fighting at Oxford +the cause of universal truth and reverend antiquity, she remembered +in her petitions the poor godless youth, with his troubled and troubling +eloquence? But it was strange that she blushed when she mentioned +his name—why should she not pray for him as she prayed for others?</p> +<p>Perhaps she felt that she did not pray for him as she prayed for +others.</p> +<p>She left the Æolian harp in the window, as a luxury if she +should wake, and coiled herself up among lace pillows and eider blemos; +and the hound coiled himself up on the gravel-walk, after a solemn vesper-ceremony +of three turns round in his own length, looking vainly for a ‘soft +stone.’ The finest of us are animals after all, and live +by eating and sleeping: and, taken as animals, not so badly off either—unless +we happen to be Dorsetshire labourers—or Spitalfields weavers—or +colliery children—or marching soldiers—or, I am afraid, +one half of English souls this day.</p> +<p>And Argemone dreamed;—that she was a fox, flying for her life +through a churchyard—and Lancelot was a hound, yelling and leaping, +in a red coat and white buckskins, close upon her—and she felt +his hot breath, and saw his white teeth glare. . . . And then +her father was there: and he was an Italian boy, and played the organ—and +Lancelot was a dancing dog, and stood up and danced to the tune of ‘<i>C’est +l’amour, l’amour, l’amour</i>,’ pitifully enough, +in his red coat—and she stood up and danced too; but she found +her fox-fur dress insufficient, and begged hard for a paper frill—which +was denied her: whereat she cried bitterly and woke; and saw the Night +peeping in with her bright diamond eyes, and blushed, and hid her beautiful +face in the pillows, and fell asleep again.</p> +<p>What the little imp, who managed this puppet-show on Argemone’s +brain-stage, may have intended to symbolise thereby, and whence he stole +his actors and stage-properties, and whether he got up the interlude +for his own private fun, or for that of a choir of brother Eulenspiegels, +or, finally, for the edification of Argemone as to her own history, +past, present, or future, are questions which we must leave unanswered, +till physicians have become a little more of metaphysicians, and have +given up their present plan of ignoring for nine hundred and ninety-nine +pages that most awful and significant custom of dreaming, and then in +the thousandth page talking the boldest materialist twaddle about it.</p> +<p>In the meantime, Lancelot, contrary to the colonel’s express +commands, was sitting up to indite the following letter to his cousin, +the Tractarian curate:—</p> +<p>‘You complain that I waste my time in field-sports: how do +you know that I waste my time? I find within myself certain appetites; +and I suppose that the God whom you say made me, made those appetites +as a part of me. Why are they to be crushed any more than any +other part of me? I am the whole of what I find in myself—am +I to pick and choose myself out of myself? And besides, I feel +that the exercise of freedom, activity, foresight, daring, independent +self-determination, even in a few minutes’ burst across country, +strengthens me in mind as well as in body. It might not do so +to you; but you are of a different constitution, and, from all I see, +the power of a man’s muscles, the excitability of his nerves, +the shape and balance of his brain, make him what he is. Else +what is the meaning of physiognomy? Every man’s destiny, +as the Turks say, stands written on his forehead. One does not +need two glances at your face to know that you would not enjoy fox-hunting, +that you would enjoy book-learning and “refined repose,” +as they are pleased to call it. Every man carries his character +in his brain. You all know that, and act upon it when you have +to deal with a man for sixpence; but your religious dogmas, which make +out that everyman comes into the world equally brutish and fiendish, +make you afraid to confess it. I don’t quarrel with a “douce” +man like you, with a large organ of veneration, for following your bent. +But if I am fiery, with a huge cerebellum, why am I not to follow mine?—For +that is what you do, after all—what you like best. It is +all very easy for a man to talk of conquering his appetites, when he +has none to conquer. Try and conquer your organ of veneration, +or of benevolence, or of calculation—then I will call you an ascetic. +Why not!—The same Power which made the front of one’s head +made the back, I suppose?</p> +<p>‘And, I tell you, hunting does me good. It awakens me +out of my dreary mill-round of metaphysics. It sweeps away that +infernal web of self-consciousness, and absorbs me in outward objects; +and my red-hot Perillus’s bull cools in proportion as my horse +warms. I tell you, I never saw a man who could cut out his way +across country who could not cut his way through better things when +his turn came. The cleverest and noblest fellows are sure to be +the best riders in the long run. And as for bad company and “the +world,” when you take to going in the first-class carriages for +fear of meeting a swearing sailor in the second-class—when those +who have “renounced the world” give up buying and selling +in the funds—when my uncle, the pious banker, who will only “associate” +with the truly religious, gives up dealing with any scoundrel or heathen +who can “do business” with him—then you may quote +pious people’s opinions to me. In God’s name, if the +Stock Exchange, and railway stagging, and the advertisements in the +Protestant Hue-and-Cry, and the frantic Mammon-hunting which has been +for the last fifty years the peculiar pursuit of the majority of Quakers, +Dissenters, and Religious Churchmen, are not <i>The World</i>, what +is? I don’t complain of them, though; Puritanism has interdicted +to them all art, all excitement, all amusement—except money-making. +It is their <i>dernier ressort</i>, poor souls!</p> +<p>‘But you must explain to us naughty fox-hunters how all this +agrees with the good book. We see plainly enough, in the meantime, +how it agrees with “poor human nature.” We see that +the “religious world,” like the “great world,” +and the “sporting world,” and the “literary world,”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Compounds for sins she is inclined to,<br />By damning those +she has no mind to;”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>and that because England is a money-making country, and money-making +is an effeminate pursuit, therefore all sedentary and spoony sins, like +covetousness, slander, bigotry, and self-conceit, are to be cockered +and plastered over, while the more masculine vices, and no-vices also, +are mercilessly hunted down by your cold-blooded, soft-handed religionists.</p> +<p>‘This is a more quiet letter than usual from me, my dear coz, +for many of your reproofs cut me home: they angered me at the time; +but I deserve them. I am miserable, self-disgusted, self-helpless, +craving for freedom, and yet crying aloud for some one to come and guide +me, and teach me; and <i>who is there in these days who could teach +a fast man, even if he would try</i>? Be sure, that as long as +you and yours make piety a synonym for unmanliness, you will never convert +either me or any other good sportsman.</p> +<p>‘By the bye, my dear fellow, was I asleep or awake when I seemed +to read in the postscript of your last letter, something about “being +driven to Rome after all”? . . . Why thither, of all places +in heaven or earth? You know, I have no party interest in the +question. All creeds are very much alike to me just now. +But allow me to ask, in a spirit of the most tolerant curiosity, what +possible celestial bait, either of the useful or the agreeable kind, +can the present excellent Pope, or his adherents, hold out to you in +compensation for the solid earthly pudding which you would have to desert? +. . . I daresay, though, that I shall not comprehend your answer +when it comes. I am, you know, utterly deficient in that sixth +sense of the angelic or supralunar beautiful, which fills your soul +with ecstasy. You, I know, expect and long to become an angel +after death: I am under the strange hallucination that my body is part +of me, and in spite of old Plotinus, look with horror at a disembodiment +till the giving of that new body, the great perfection of which, in +your eyes, and those of every one else, seems to be, that it will be +less, and not more of a body, than our present one. . . . Is this +hope, to me at once inconceivable and contradictory, palpable and valuable +enough to you to send you to that Italian Avernus, to get it made a +little more certain? If so, I despair of your making your meaning +intelligible to a poor fellow wallowing, like me, in the Hylic Borboros—or +whatever else you may choose to call the unfortunate fact of being flesh +and blood. . . . Still, write.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER III: NEW ACTORS, AND A NEW STAGE</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>When Argemone rose in the morning, her first thought was of Lancelot. +His face haunted her. The wild brilliance of his intellect struggling +through foul smoke-clouds, had haunted her still more. She had +heard of his profligacy, his bursts of fierce Berserk-madness; and yet +now these very faults, instead of repelling, seemed to attract her, +and intensify her longing to save him. She would convert him; +purify him; harmonise his discords. And that very wish gave her +a peace she had never felt before. She had formed her idea; she +had now a purpose for which to live, and she determined to concentrate +herself for the work, and longed for the moment when she should meet +Lancelot, and begin—how, she did not very clearly see.</p> +<p>It is an old jest—the fair devotee trying to convert the young +rake. Men of the world laugh heartily at it; and so does the devil, +no doubt. If any readers wish to be fellow-jesters with that personage, +they may; but, as sure as old Saxon women-worship remains for ever a +blessed and healing law of life, the devotee may yet convert the rake—and, +perhaps, herself into the bargain.</p> +<p>Argemone looked almost angrily round at her beloved books and drawings; +for they spoke a message to her which they had never spoken before, +of self-centred ambition. ‘Yes,’ she said aloud to +herself, ‘I have been selfish, utterly! Art, poetry, science—I +believe, after all, that I have only loved them for my own sake, not +for theirs, because they would make me something, feed my conceit of +my own talents. How infinitely more glorious to find my work-field +and my prize, not in dead forms and colours, or ink-and-paper theories, +but in a living, immortal, human spirit! I will study no more, +except the human heart, and only that to purify and ennoble it.’</p> +<p>True, Argemone; and yet, like all resolutions, somewhat less than +the truth. That morning, indeed, her purpose was simple as God’s +own light. She never dreamed of exciting Lancelot’s admiration, +even his friendship for herself. She would have started as from +a snake, from the issue which the reader very clearly foresees, that +Lancelot would fall in love, not with Young Englandism, but with Argemone +Lavington. But yet self is not eradicated even from a woman’s +heart in one morning before breakfast. Besides, it is not ‘benevolence,’ +but love—the real Cupid of flesh and blood, who can first</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘Touch the chord of self which, trembling,<br />Passes in music +out of sight.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>But a time for all things; and it is now time for Argemone to go +down to breakfast, having prepared some dozen imaginary dialogues between +herself and Lancelot, in which, of course, her eloquence always had +the victory. She had yet to learn, that it is better sometimes +not to settle in one’s heart what we shall speak, for the Everlasting +Will has good works ready prepared for us to walk in, by what we call +fortunate accident; and it shall be given us in that day and that hour +what we shall speak.</p> +<p>Lancelot, in the meantime, shrank from meeting Argemone; and was +quite glad of the weakness which kept him upstairs. Whether he +was afraid of her—whether he was ashamed of himself or of his +crutches, I cannot tell, but I daresay, reader, you are getting tired +of all this soul-dissecting. So we will have a bit of action again, +for the sake of variety, if for nothing better.</p> +<p>Of all the species of lovely scenery which England holds, none, perhaps, +is more exquisite than the banks of the chalk-rivers—the perfect +limpidity of the water, the gay and luxuriant vegetation of the banks +and ditches, the masses of noble wood embosoming the villages, the unique +beauty of the water-meadows, living sheets of emerald and silver, tinkling +and sparkling, cool under the fiercest sun, brilliant under the blackest +clouds.—There, if anywhere, one would have expected to find Arcadia +among fertility, loveliness, industry, and wealth. But, alas for +the sad reality! the cool breath of those glittering water-meadows too +often floats laden with poisonous miasma. Those picturesque villages +are generally the perennial hotbeds of fever and ague, of squalid penury, +sottish profligacy, dull discontent too stale for words. There +is luxury in the park, wealth in the huge farm-steadings, knowledge +in the parsonage: but the poor? those by whose dull labour all that +luxury and wealth, ay, even that knowledge, is made possible—what +are they? We shall see, please God, ere the story’s end.</p> +<p>But of all this Lancelot as yet thought nothing. He, too, had +to be emancipated, as much as Argemone, from selfish dreams; to learn +to work trustfully in the living Present, not to gloat sentimentally +over the unreturning Past. But his time was not yet come; and +little he thought of all the work which lay ready for him within a mile +of the Priory, as he watched the ladies go out for the afternoon, and +slipped down to the Nun’s-pool on his crutches to smoke and fish, +and build castles in the air.</p> +<p>The Priory, with its rambling courts and gardens, stood on an island +in the river. The upper stream flowed in a straight artificial +channel through the garden, still and broad, towards the Priory mill; +while just above the Priory wall half the river fell over a high weir, +with all its appendages of bucks and hatchways, and eel-baskets, into +the Nun’s-pool, and then swept round under the ivied walls, with +their fantastic turrets and gables, and little loopholed windows, peering +out over the stream, as it hurried down over the shallows to join the +race below the mill. A postern door in the walls opened on an +ornamental wooden bridge across the weir-head—a favourite haunt +of all fishers and sketchers who were admitted to the dragon-guarded +Elysium of Whitford Priors. Thither Lancelot went, congratulating +himself, strange to say, in having escaped the only human being whom +he loved on earth.</p> +<p>He found on the weir-bridge two of the keepers. The younger +one, Tregarva, was a stately, thoughtful-looking Cornishman, some six +feet three in height, with thews and sinews in proportion. He +was sitting on the bridge looking over a basket of eel-lines, and listening +silently to the chat of his companion.</p> +<p>Old Harry Verney, the other keeper, was a character in his way, and +a very bad character too, though he was a patriarch among all the gamekeepers +of the vale. He was a short, wiry, bandy-legged, ferret-visaged +old man, with grizzled hair, and a wizened face tanned brown and purple +by constant exposure. Between rheumatism and constant handling +the rod and gun, his fingers were crooked like a hawk’s claws. +He kept his left eye always shut, apparently to save trouble in shooting; +and squinted, and sniffed, and peered, with a stooping back and protruded +chin, as if he were perpetually on the watch for fish, flesh, and fowl, +vermin and Christian. The friendship between himself and the Scotch +terrier at his heels would have been easily explained by Lessing, for +in the transmigration of souls the spirit of Harry Verney had evidently +once animated a dog of that breed. He was dressed in a huge thick +fustian jacket, scratched, stained, and patched, with bulging, greasy +pockets; a cast of flies round a battered hat, riddled with shot-holes, +a dog-whistle at his button-hole, and an old gun cut short over his +arm, bespoke his business.</p> +<p>‘I seed that ’ere Crawy against Ashy Down Plantations +last night, I’ll be sworn,’ said he, in a squeaking, sneaking +tone.</p> +<p>‘Well, what harm was the man doing?’</p> +<p>‘Oh, ay, that’s the way you young ’uns talk. +If he warn’t doing mischief, he’d a been glad to have been +doing it, I’ll warrant. If I’d been as young as you, +I’d have picked a quarrel with him soon enough, and found a cause +for tackling him. It’s worth a brace of sovereigns with +the squire to haul him up. Eh? eh? Ain’t old Harry +right now?’</p> +<p>‘Humph!’ growled the younger man.</p> +<p>‘There, then, you get me a snare and a hare by to-morrow night,’ +went on old Harry, ‘and see if I don’t nab him. It +won’t lay long under the plantation afore he picks it up. +You mind to snare me a hare to-night, now!’</p> +<p>‘I’ll do no such thing, nor help to bring fake accusations +against any man!’</p> +<p>‘False accusations!’ answered Harry, in his cringing +way. ‘Look at that now, for a keeper to say! Why, +if he don’t happen to have a snare just there, he has somewhere +else, you know. Eh? Ain’t old Harry right now, eh?’</p> +<p>‘Maybe.’</p> +<p>‘There, don’t say I don’t know nothing then. +Eh? What matter who put the snare down, or the hare in, perwided +he takes it up, man? If ’twas his’n he’d be +all the better pleased. The most notoriousest poacher as walks +unhung!’ And old Harry lifted up his crooked hands in pious +indignation.</p> +<p>‘I’ll have no more gamekeeping, Harry. What with +hunting down Christians as if they were vermin, all night, and being +cursed by the squire all day, I’d sooner be a sheriff’s +runner, or a negro slave.’</p> +<p>‘Ay, ay! that’s the way the young dogs always bark afore +they’re broke in, and gets to like it, as the eels does skinning. +Haven’t I bounced pretty near out of my skin many a time afore +now, on this here very bridge, with “Harry, jump in, you stupid +hound!” and “Harry, get out, you one-eyed tailor!” + And then, if one of the gentlemen lost a fish with their clumsiness—Oh, +Father! to hear ’em let out at me and my landing-net, and curse +fit to fright the devil! Dash their sarcy tongues! Eh! +Don’t old Harry know their ways? Don’t he know ’em, +now?’</p> +<p>‘Ay,’ said the young man, bitterly. ‘We break +the dogs, and we load the guns, and we find the game, and mark the game,—and +then they call themselves sportsmen; we choose the flies, and we bait +the spinning-hooks, and we show them where the fish lie, and then when +they’ve hooked them, they can’t get them out without us +and the spoonnet; and then they go home to the ladies and boast of the +lot of fish they killed—and who thinks of the keeper?’</p> +<p>‘Oh! ah! Then don’t say old Harry knows nothing, +then. How nicely, now, you and I might get a living off this ’ere +manor, if the landlords was served like the French ones was. Eh, +Paul?’ chuckled old Harry. ‘Wouldn’t we pay +our taxes with pheasants and grayling, that’s all, eh? Ain’t +old Harry right now, eh?’</p> +<p>The old fox was fishing for an assent, not for its own sake, for +he was a fierce Tory, and would have stood up to be shot at any day, +not only for his master’s sake, but for the sake of a single pheasant +of his master’s; but he hated Tregarva for many reasons, and was +daily on the watch to entrap him on some of his peculiar points, whereof +he had, as we shall find, a good many.</p> +<p>What would have been Tregarva’s answer, I cannot tell; but +Lancelot, who had unintentionally overheard the greater part of the +conversation, disliked being any longer a listener, and came close to +them.</p> +<p>‘Here’s your gudgeons and minnows, sir, as you bespoke,’ +quoth Harry; ‘and here’s that paternoster as you gave me +to rig up. Beautiful minnows, sir, white as a silver spoon.—They’re +the ones now, ain’t they, sir, eh?’</p> +<p>‘They’ll do!’</p> +<p>‘Well, then, don’t say old Harry don’t know nothing, +that’s all, eh?’ and the old fellow toddled off, peering +and twisting his head about like a starling.</p> +<p>‘An odd old fellow that, Tregarva,’ said Lancelot.</p> +<p>‘Very, sir, considering who made him,’ answered the Cornishman, +touching his hat, and then thrusting his nose deeper than ever into +the eel-basket.</p> +<p>‘Beautiful stream this,’ said Lancelot, who had a continual +longing—right or wrong—to chat with his inferiors; and was +proportionately sulky and reserved to his superiors.</p> +<p>‘Beautiful enough, sir,’ said the keeper, with an emphasis +on the first word.</p> +<p>‘Why, has it any other fault?’</p> +<p>‘Not so wholesome as pretty, sir.’</p> +<p>‘What harm does it do?’</p> +<p>‘Fever, and ague, and rheumatism, sir.’</p> +<p>‘Where?’ asked Lancelot, a little amused by the man’s +laconic answers.</p> +<p>‘Wherever the white fog spreads, sir.’</p> +<p>‘Where’s that?’</p> +<p>‘Everywhere, sir.’</p> +<p>‘And when?’</p> +<p>‘Always, sir.’</p> +<p>Lancelot burst out laughing. The man looked up at him slowly +and seriously.</p> +<p>‘You wouldn’t laugh, sir, if you’d seen much of +the inside of these cottages round.’</p> +<p>‘Really,’ said Lancelot, ‘I was only laughing at +our making such very short work of such a long and serious story. +Do you mean that the unhealthiness of this country is wholly caused +by the river?’</p> +<p>‘No, sir. The river-damps are God’s sending; and +so they are not too bad to bear. But there’s more of man’s +sending, that is too bad to bear.’</p> +<p>‘What do you mean?’</p> +<p>‘Are men likely to be healthy when they are worse housed than +a pig?’</p> +<p>‘No.’</p> +<p>‘And worse fed than a hound?’</p> +<p>‘Good heavens! No!’</p> +<p>‘Or packed together to sleep, like pilchards in a barrel?’</p> +<p>‘But, my good fellow, do you mean that the labourers here are +in that state?’</p> +<p>‘It isn’t far to walk, sir. Perhaps some day, when +the May-fly is gone off, and the fish won’t rise awhile, you could +walk down and see. I beg your pardon, sir, though, for thinking +of such a thing. They are not places fit for gentlemen, that’s +certain.’ There was a staid irony in his tone, which Lancelot +felt.</p> +<p>‘But the clergyman goes?’</p> +<p>‘Yes, sir.’</p> +<p>‘And Miss Honoria goes?’</p> +<p>‘Yes, God Almighty bless her!’</p> +<p>‘And do not they see that all goes right?’</p> +<p>The giant twisted his huge limbs, as if trying to avoid an answer, +and yet not daring to do so.</p> +<p>‘Do clergymen go about among the poor much, sir, at college, +before they are ordained?’</p> +<p>Lancelot smiled, and shook his head.</p> +<p>‘I thought so, sir. Our good vicar is like the rest hereabouts. +God knows, he stints neither time nor money—the souls of the poor +are well looked after, and their bodies too—as far as his purse +will go; but that’s not far.’</p> +<p>‘Is he ill-off, then?’</p> +<p>‘The living’s worth some forty pounds a year. The +great tithes, they say, are worth better than twelve hundred; but Squire +Lavington has them.’</p> +<p>‘Oh, I see!’ said Lancelot.</p> +<p>‘I’m glad you do, sir, for I don’t,’ meekly +answered Tregarva. ‘But the vicar, sir, he is a kind man, +and a good; but the poor don’t understand him, nor he them. +He is too learned, sir, and, saving your presence, too fond of his prayer-book.’</p> +<p>‘One can’t be too fond of a good thing.’</p> +<p>‘Not unless you make an idol of it, sir, and fancy that men’s +souls were made for the prayer-book, and not the prayer-book for them.’</p> +<p>‘But cannot he expose and redress these evils, if they exist?’</p> +<p>Tregarva twisted about again.</p> +<p>‘I do not say that I think it, sir; but this I know, that every +poor man in the vale thinks it—that the parsons are afraid of +the landlords. They must see these things, for they are not blind; +and they try to plaster them up out of their own pockets.’</p> +<p>‘But why, in God’s name, don’t they strike at the +root of the matter, and go straight to the landlords and tell them the +truth?’ asked Lancelot.</p> +<p>‘So people say, sir. I see no reason for it except the +one which I gave you. Besides, sir, you must remember, that a +man can’t quarrel with his own kin; and so many of them are their +squire’s brothers, or sons, or nephews.’</p> +<p>‘Or good friends with him, at least.’</p> +<p>‘Ay, sir, and, to do them justice, they had need, for the poor’s +sake, to keep good friends with the squire. How else are they +to get a farthing for schools, or coal-subscriptions, or lying-in societies, +or lending libraries, or penny clubs? If they spoke their minds +to the great ones, sir, how could they keep the parish together?’</p> +<p>‘You seem to see both sides of a question, certainly. +But what a miserable state of things, that the labouring man should +require all these societies, and charities, and helps from the rich!—that +an industrious freeman cannot live without alms!’</p> +<p>‘So I have thought this long time,’ quietly answered +Tregarva.</p> +<p>‘But Miss Honoria,—she is not afraid to tell her father +the truth?’</p> +<p>‘Suppose, sir, when Adam and Eve were in the garden, that all +the devils had come up and played their fiends’ tricks before +them,—do you think they’d have seen any shame in it?’</p> +<p>‘I really cannot tell,’ said Lancelot, smiling.</p> +<p>‘Then I can, sir. They’d have seen no more harm +in it than there was harm already in themselves; and that was none. +A man’s eyes can only see what they’ve learnt to see.’</p> +<p>Lancelot started: it was a favourite dictum of his in Carlyle’s +works.</p> +<p>‘Where did you get that thought, my friend’</p> +<p>‘By seeing, sir.’</p> +<p>‘But what has that to do with Miss Honoria?’</p> +<p>‘She is an angel of holiness herself, sir; and, therefore, +she goes on without blushing or suspecting, where our blood would boil +again. She sees people in want, and thinks it must be so, and +pities them and relieves them. But she don’t know want herself; +and, therefore, she don’t know that it makes men beasts and devils. +She’s as pure as God’s light herself; and, therefore, she +fancies every one is as spotless as she is. And there’s +another mistake in your charitable great people, sir. When they +see poor folk sick or hungry before their eyes, they pull out their +purses fast enough, God bless them; for they wouldn’t like to +be so themselves. But the oppression that goes on all the year +round, and the want that goes on all the year round, and the filth, +and the lying, and the swearing, and the profligacy, that go on all +the year round, and the sickening weight of debt, and the miserable +grinding anxiety from rent-day to rent-day, and Saturday night to Saturday +night, that crushes a man’s soul down, and drives every thought +out of his head but how he is to fill his stomach and warm his back, +and keep a house over his head, till he daren’t for his life take +his thoughts one moment off the meat that perisheth—oh, sir, they +never felt this; and, therefore, they never dream that there are thousands +who pass them in their daily walks who feel this, and feel nothing else!’</p> +<p>This outburst was uttered with an earnestness and majesty which astonished +Lancelot. He forgot the subject in the speaker.</p> +<p>‘You are a very extraordinary gamekeeper!’ said he.</p> +<p>‘When the Lord shows a man a thing, he can’t well help +seeing it,’ answered Tregarva, in his usual staid tone.</p> +<p>There was a pause. The keeper looked at him with a glance, +before which Lancelot’s eyes fell.</p> +<p>‘Hell is paved with hearsays, sir, and as all this talk of +mine is hearsay, if you are in earnest, sir, go and see for yourself. +I know you have a kind heart, and they tell me that you are a great +scholar, which would to God I was! so you ought not to condescend to +take my word for anything which you can look into yourself;’ with +which sound piece of common-sense Tregarva returned busily to his eel-lines.</p> +<p>‘Hand me the rod and can, and help me out along the buck-stage,’ +said Lancelot; ‘I must have some more talk with you, my fine fellow.’</p> +<p>‘Amen,’ answered Tregarva, as he assisted our lame hero +along a huge beam which stretched out into the pool; and having settled +him there, returned mechanically to his work, humming a Wesleyan hymn-tune.</p> +<p>Lancelot sat and tried to catch perch, but Tregarva’s words +haunted him. He lighted his cigar, and tried to think earnestly +over the matter, but he had got into the wrong place for thinking. +All his thoughts, all his sympathies, were drowned in the rush and whirl +of the water. He forgot everything else in the mere animal enjoyment +of sight and sound. Like many young men at his crisis of life, +he had given himself up to the mere contemplation of Nature till he +had become her slave; and now a luscious scene, a singing bird, were +enough to allure his mind away from the most earnest and awful thoughts. +He tried to think, but the river would not let him. It thundered +and spouted out behind him from the hatches, and leapt madly past him, +and caught his eyes in spite of him, and swept them away down its dancing +waves, and let them go again only to sweep them down again and again, +till his brain felt a delicious dizziness from the everlasting rush +and the everlasting roar. And then below, how it spread, and writhed, +and whirled into transparent fans, hissing and twining snakes, polished +glass-wreaths, huge crystal bells, which boiled up from the bottom, +and dived again beneath long threads of creamy foam, and swung round +posts and roots, and rushed blackening under dark weed-fringed boughs, +and gnawed at the marly banks, and shook the ever-restless bulrushes, +till it was swept away and down over the white pebbles and olive weeds, +in one broad rippling sheet of molten silver, towards the distant sea. +Downwards it fleeted ever, and bore his thoughts floating on its oily +stream; and the great trout, with their yellow sides and peacock backs, +lounged among the eddies, and the silver grayling dimpled and wandered +upon the shallows, and the may-flies flickered and rustled round him +like water fairies, with their green gauzy wings; the coot clanked musically +among the reeds; the frogs hummed their ceaseless vesper-monotone; the +kingfisher darted from his hole in the bank like a blue spark of electric +light; the swallows’ bills snapped as they twined and hawked above +the pool; the swift’s wings whirred like musket-balls, as they +rushed screaming past his head; and ever the river fleeted by, bearing +his eyes away down the current, till its wild eddies began to glow with +crimson beneath the setting sun. The complex harmony of sights +and sounds slid softly over his soul, and he sank away into a still +daydream, too passive for imagination, too deep for meditation, and</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘Beauty born of murmuring sound,<br />Did pass into his face.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Blame him not. There are more things in a man’s heart +than ever get in through his thoughts.</p> +<p>On a sudden, a soft voice behind him startled him.</p> +<p>‘Can a poor cockney artist venture himself along this timber +without falling in?’</p> +<p>Lancelot turned.</p> +<p>‘Come out to me, and if you stumble, the naiads will rise out +of their depths, and “hold up their pearled wrists” to save +their favourite.’</p> +<p>The artist walked timidly out along the beams, and sat down beside +Lancelot, who shook him warmly by the hand.</p> +<p>‘Welcome, Claude Mellot, and all lovely enthusiasms and symbolisms! +Expound to me, now, the meaning of that water-lily leaf and its grand +simple curve, as it lies sleeping there in the back eddy.’</p> +<p>‘Oh, I am too amused to philosophise. The fair Argemone +has just been treating me to her three hundred and sixty-fifth philippic +against my unoffending beard.’</p> +<p>‘Why, what fault can she find with such a graceful and natural +ornament?’</p> +<p>‘Just this, my dear fellow, that it is natural. As it +is, she considers me only “intelligent-looking.” If +the beard were away, my face, she says, would be “so refined!” +And, I suppose, if I was just a little more effeminate and pale, with +a nice retreating under-jaw and a drooping lip, and a meek, peaking +simper, like your starved Romish saints, I should be “so spiritual!” +And if, again, to complete the climax, I did but shave my head like +a Chinese, I should be a model for St. Francis himself!’</p> +<p>‘But really, after all, why make yourself so singular by this +said beard?’</p> +<p>‘I wear it for a testimony and a sign that a man has no right +to be ashamed of the mark of manhood. Oh, that one or two of your +Protestant clergymen, who ought to be perfect ideal men, would have +the courage to get up into the pulpit in a long beard, and testify that +the very essential idea of Protestantism is the dignity and divinity +of man as God made him! Our forefathers were not ashamed of their +beards; but now even the soldier is only allowed to keep his moustache, +while our quill-driving masses shave themselves as close as they can; +and in proportion to a man’s piety he wears less hair, from the +young curate who shaves off his whiskers, to the Popish priest who shaves +his crown!’</p> +<p>‘What do you say, then, to cutting off nuns’ hair?’</p> +<p>‘I say, that extremes meet, and prudish Manichæism always +ends in sheer indecency. Those Papists have forgotten what woman +was made for, and therefore, they have forgotten that a woman’s +hair is her glory, for it was given to her for a covering: as says your +friend, Paul the Hebrew, who, by the bye, had as fine theories of art +as he had of society, if he had only lived fifteen hundred years later, +and had a chance of working them out.’</p> +<p>‘How remarkably orthodox you are!’ said Lancelot, smiling.</p> +<p>‘How do you know that I am not? You never heard me deny +the old creed. But what if an artist ought to be of all creeds +at once? My business is to represent the beautiful, and therefore +to accept it wherever I find it. Yours is to be a philosopher, +and find the true.’</p> +<p>‘But the beautiful must be truly beautiful to be worth anything; +and so you, too, must search for the true.’</p> +<p>‘Yes; truth of form, colour, chiaroscuro. They are worthy +to occupy me a life; for they are eternal—or at least that which +they express: and if I am to get at the symbolised unseen, it must be +through the beauty of the symbolising phenomenon. If I, who live +by art, for art, in art, or you either, who seem as much a born artist +as myself, am to have a religion, it must be a worship of the fountain +of art—of the</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Spirit of beauty, who doth consecrate<br />With his own hues +whate’er he shines upon.”’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘As poor Shelley has it; and much peace of mind it gave him!’ +answered Lancelot. ‘I have grown sick lately of such dreary +tinsel abstractions. When you look through the glitter of the +words, your “spirit of beauty” simply means certain shapes +and colours which please you in beautiful things and in beautiful people.’</p> +<p>‘Vile nominalist! renegade from the ideal and all its glories!’ +said Claude, laughing.</p> +<p>‘I don’t care sixpence now for the ideal! I want +not beauty, but some beautiful thing—a woman perhaps,’ and +he sighed. ‘But at least a person—a living, loving +person—all lovely itself, and giving loveliness to all things! +If I must have an ideal, let it be, for mercy’s sake, a realised +one.’</p> +<p>Claude opened his sketch-book.</p> +<p>‘We shall get swamped in these metaphysical oceans, my dear +dreamer. But lo, here come a couple, as near ideals as any in +these degenerate days—the two poles of beauty: the <i>milieu</i> +of which would be Venus with us Pagans, or the Virgin Mary with the +Catholics. Look at them! Honoria the dark—symbolic +of passionate depth; Argemone the fair, type of intellectual light! +Oh, that I were a Zeuxis to unite them instead of having to paint them +in two separate pictures, and split perfection in half, as everything +is split in this piecemeal world!’</p> +<p>‘You will have the honour of a sitting this afternoon, I suppose, +from both beauties?’</p> +<p>‘I hope so, for my own sake. There is no path left to +immortality, or bread either, now for us poor artists but portrait-painting.’</p> +<p>‘I envy you your path, when it leads through such Elysiums,’ +said Lancelot.</p> +<p>‘Come here, gentlemen both!’ cried Argemone from the +bridge.</p> +<p>‘Fairly caught!’ grumbled Lancelot. ‘You +must go, at least; my lameness will excuse me, I hope.’</p> +<p>The two ladies were accompanied by Bracebridge, a gazelle which he +had given Argemone, and a certain miserable cur of Honoria’s adopting, +who plays an important part in this story, and, therefore, deserves +a little notice. Honoria had rescued him from a watery death in +the village pond, by means of the colonel, who had revenged himself +for a pair of wet feet by utterly corrupting the dog’s morals, +and teaching him every week to answer to some fresh scandalous name.</p> +<p>But Lancelot was not to escape. Instead of moving on, as he +had hoped, the party stood looking over the bridge, and talking—he +took for granted, poor thin-skinned fellow—of him. And for +once his suspicions were right; for he overheard Argemone say—</p> +<p>‘I wonder how Mr. Smith can be so rude as to sit there in my +presence over his stupid perch! Smoking those horrid cigars, too! +How selfish those field-sports do make men!’</p> +<p>‘Thank you!’ said the colonel, with a low bow. +Lancelot rose.</p> +<p>‘If a country girl, now, had spoken in that tone,’ said +he to himself, ‘it would have been called at least “saucy”—but +Mammon’s elect ones may do anything. Well—here I come, +limping to my new tyrant’s feet, like Goethe’s bear to Lili’s.’</p> +<p>She drew him away, as women only know how, from the rest of the party, +who were chatting and laughing with Claude. She had shown off +her fancied indifference to Lancelot before them, and now began in a +softer voice—</p> +<p>‘Why will you be so shy and lonely, Mr. Smith?’</p> +<p>‘Because I am not fit for your society.’</p> +<p>‘Who tells you so? Why will you not become so?’</p> +<p>Lancelot hung down his head.</p> +<p>‘As long as fish and game are your only society, you will become +more and more <i>morne</i> and self-absorbed.’</p> +<p>‘Really fish were the last things of which I was thinking when +you came. My whole heart was filled with the beauty of nature, +and nothing else.’</p> +<p>There was an opening for one of Argemone’s preconcerted orations.</p> +<p>‘Had you no better occupation,’ she said gently, ‘than +nature, the first day of returning to the open air after so frightful +and dangerous an accident? Were there no thanks due to One above?’</p> +<p>Lancelot understood her.</p> +<p>‘How do you know that I was not even then showing my thankfulness?’</p> +<p>‘What! with a cigar and a fishing-rod?’</p> +<p>‘Certainly. Why not?’</p> +<p>Argemone really could not tell at the moment. The answer upset +her scheme entirely.</p> +<p>‘Might not that very admiration of nature have been an act +of worship?’ continued our hero. ‘How can we better +glorify the worker than by delighting in his work?’</p> +<p>‘Ah!’ sighed the lady, ‘why trust to these self-willed +methods, and neglect the noble and exquisite forms which the Church +has prepared for us as embodiments for every feeling of our hearts?’</p> +<p>‘<i>Every</i> feeling, Miss Lavington?’</p> +<p>Argemone hesitated. She had made the good old stock assertion, +as in duty bound; but she could not help recollecting that there were +several Popish books of devotion at that moment on her table, which +seemed to her to patch a gap or two in the Prayer-book.</p> +<p>‘My temple as yet,’ said Lancelot, ‘is only the +heaven and the earth; my church-music I can hear all day long, whenever +I have the sense to be silent, and “hear my mother sing;” +my priests and preachers are every bird and bee, every flower and cloud. +Am I not well enough furnished? Do you want to reduce my circular +infinite chapel to an oblong hundred-foot one? My sphere harmonies +to the Gregorian tones in four parts? My world-wide priesthood, +with their endless variety of costume, to one not over-educated gentleman +in a white sheet? And my dreams of naiads and flower-fairies, +and the blue-bells ringing God’s praises, as they do in “The +story without an End,” for the gross reality of naughty charity +children, with their pockets full of apples, bawling out Hebrew psalms +of which they neither feel nor understand a word?’</p> +<p>Argemone tried to look very much shocked at this piece of bombast. +Lancelot evidently meant it as such, but he eyed her all the while as +if there was solemn earnest under the surface.</p> +<p>‘Oh, Mr. Smith!’ she said, ‘how can you dare talk +so of a liturgy compiled by the wisest and holiest of all countries +and ages! You revile that of whose beauty you are not qualified +to judge!’</p> +<p>‘There must be a beauty in it all, or such as you are would +not love it.’</p> +<p>‘Oh,’ she said hopefully, ‘that you would but try +the Church system! How you would find it harmonise and methodise +every day, every thought for you! But I cannot explain myself. +Why not go to our vicar and open your doubts to him?’</p> +<p>‘Pardon, but you must excuse me.’</p> +<p>‘Why? He is one of the saintliest of men!’</p> +<p>‘To tell the truth, I have been to him already.’</p> +<p>‘You do not mean it! And what did he tell you?’</p> +<p>‘What the rest of the world does—hearsays.’</p> +<p>‘But did you not find him most kind?’</p> +<p>‘I went to him to be comforted and guided. He received +me as a criminal. He told me that my first duty was penitence; +that as long as I lived the life I did, he could not dare to cast his +pearls before swine by answering my doubts; that I was in a state incapable +of appreciating spiritual truths; and, therefore, he had no right to +tell me any.’</p> +<p>‘And what did he tell you?’</p> +<p>‘Several spiritual lies instead, I thought. He told me, +hearing me quote Schiller, to beware of the Germans, for they were all +Pantheists at heart. I asked him whether he included Lange and +Bunsen, and it appeared that he had never read a German book in his +life. He then flew furiously at Mr. Carlyle, and I found that +all he knew of him was from a certain review in the <i>Quarterly</i>. +He called Boehmen a theosophic Atheist. I should have burst out +at that, had I not read the very words in a High Church review the day +before, and hoped that he was not aware of the impudent falsehood which +he was retailing. Whenever I feebly interposed an objection to +anything he said (for, after all, he talked on), he told me to hear +the Catholic Church. I asked him which Catholic Church? +He said the English. I asked him whether it was to be the Church +of the sixth century, or the thirteenth, or the seventeenth or the eighteenth? +He told me the one and eternal Church which belonged as much to the +nineteenth century as to the first. I begged to know whether, +then, I was to hear the Church according to Simeon, or according to +Newman, or according to St. Paul; for they seemed to me a little at +variance? He told me, austerely enough, that the mind of the Church +was embodied in her Liturgy and Articles. To which I answered, +that the mind of the episcopal clergy might, perhaps, be; but, then, +how happened it that they were always quarrelling and calling hard names +about the sense of those very documents? And so I left him, assuring +him that, living in the nineteenth century, I wanted to hear the Church +of the nineteenth century, and no other; and should be most happy to +listen to her, as soon as she had made up her mind what to say.’</p> +<p>Argemone was angry and disappointed. She felt she could not +cope with Lancelot’s quaint logic, which, however unsound, cut +deeper into questions than she had yet looked for herself. Somehow, +too, she was tongue-tied before him just when she wanted to be most +eloquent in behalf of her principles; and that fretted her still more. +But his manner puzzled her most of all. First he would run on +with his face turned away, as if soliloquising out into the air, and +then suddenly look round at her with most fascinating humility; and, +then, in a moment, a dark shade would pass over his countenance, and +he would look like one possessed, and his lips wreathe in a sinister +artificial smile, and his wild eyes glare through and through her with +such cunning understanding of himself and her, that, for the first time +in her life, she quailed and felt frightened, as if in the power of +a madman. She turned hastily away to shake off the spell.</p> +<p>He sprang after her, almost on his knees, and looked up into her +beautiful face with an imploring cry.</p> +<p>‘What, do you, too, throw me off? Will you, too, treat +the poor wild uneducated sportsman as a Pariah and an outcast, because +he is not ashamed to be a man?—because he cannot stuff his soul’s +hunger with cut-and-dried hearsays, but dares to think for himself?—because +he wants to believe things, and dare not be satisfied with only believing +that he ought to believe them?’</p> +<p>She paused, astonished.</p> +<p>‘Ah, yes,’ he went on, ‘I hoped too much! +What right had I to expect that you would understand me? What +right, still more, to expect that you would stoop, any more than the +rest of the world, to speak to me, as if I could become anything better +than the wild hog I seem? Oh yes!—the chrysalis has no butterfly +in it, of course! Stamp on the ugly motionless thing! And +yet—you look so beautiful and good!—are all my dreams to +perish, about the Alrunen and prophet-maidens, how they charmed our +old fighting, hunting forefathers into purity and sweet obedience among +their Saxon forests? Has woman forgotten her mission—to +look at the heart and have mercy, while cold man looks at the act and +condemns? Do you, too, like the rest of mankind, think no-belief +better than misbelief; and smile on hypocrisy, lip-assent, practical +Atheism, sooner than on the unpardonable sin of making a mistake? +Will you, like the rest of this wise world, let a man’s spirit +rot asleep into the pit, if he will only lie quiet and not disturb your +smooth respectabilities; but if he dares, in waking, to yawn in an unorthodox +manner, knock him on the head at once, and “break the bruised +reed,” and “quench the smoking flax”? And yet +you churchgoers have “renounced the world”!’</p> +<p>‘What do you want, in Heaven’s name?’ asked Argemone, +half terrified.</p> +<p>‘I want <i>you</i> to tell me that. Here I am, with youth, +health, strength, money, every blessing of life but one; and I am utterly +miserable. I want some one to tell me what I want.’</p> +<p>‘Is it not that you want—religion?’</p> +<p>‘I see hundreds who have what you call religion, with whom +I should scorn to change my irreligion.’</p> +<p>‘But, Mr. Smith, are you not—are you not wicked?—They +tell me so,’ said Argemone, with an effort, ‘And is that +not the cause of your disease?’</p> +<p>Lancelot laughed.</p> +<p>‘No, fairest prophetess, it is the disease itself. “Why +am I what I am, when I know more and more daily what I could be?”—That +is the mystery; and my sins are the fruit, and not the root of it. +Who will explain that?’</p> +<p>Argemone began,—</p> +<p>‘The Church—’</p> +<p>‘Oh, Miss Lavington,’ cried he, impatiently, ‘will +you, too, send me back to that cold abstraction? I came to you, +however presumptuous, for living, human advice to a living, human heart; +and will you pass off on me that Proteus-dream the Church, which in +every man’s mouth has a different meaning? In one book, +meaning a method of education, only it has never been carried out; in +another, a system of polity,—only it has never been realised;—now +a set of words written in books, on whose meaning all are divided; now +a body of men who are daily excommunicating each other as heretics and +apostates; now a universal idea; now the narrowest and most exclusive +of all parties. Really, before you ask me to hear the Church, +I have a right to ask you to define what the Church is.’</p> +<p>‘Our Articles define it,’ said Argemone drily.</p> +<p>‘The “Visible Church,” at least, it defines as +“a company of faithful men, in which,” etc. But how +does it define the “Invisible” one? And what does +“faithful” mean? What if I thought Cromwell and Pierre +Leroux infinitely more faithful men in their way, and better members +of the “Invisible Church,” than the torturer-pedant Laud, +or the facing bothways Protestant-Manichee Taylor?’</p> +<p>It was lucky for the life of young Love that the discussion went +no further: Argemone was becoming scandalised beyond all measure. +But, happily, the colonel interposed,—</p> +<p>‘Look here; tell me if you know for whom this sketch is meant?’</p> +<p>‘Tregarva, the keeper: who can doubt?’ answered they +both at once.</p> +<p>‘Has not Mellot succeeded perfectly?’</p> +<p>‘Yes,’ said Lancelot. ‘But what wonder, with +such a noble subject! What a grand benevolence is enthroned on +that lofty forehead!’</p> +<p>‘Oh, you would say so, indeed,’ interposed Honoria, ‘if +you knew him! The stories that I could tell you about him! +How he would go into cottages, read to sick people by the hour, dress +the children, cook the food for them, as tenderly as any woman! +I found out, last winter, if you will believe it, that he lived on bread +and water, to give out of his own wages—which are barely twelve +shillings a week—five shillings a week for more than two months +to a poor labouring man, to prevent his going to the workhouse, and +being parted from his wife and children.’</p> +<p>‘Noble, indeed!’ said Lancelot. ‘I do not +wonder now at the effect his conversation just now had on me.’</p> +<p>‘Has he been talking to you?’ said Honoria eagerly. +‘He seldom speaks to any one.’</p> +<p>‘He has to me; and so well, that were I sure that the poor +were as ill off as he says, and that I had the power of altering the +system a hair, I could find it in my heart to excuse all political grievance-mongers, +and turn one myself.’</p> +<p>Claude Mellot clapped his white woman-like hands.</p> +<p>‘Bravo! bravo! O wonderful conversion! Lancelot +has at last discovered that, besides the “glorious Past,” +there is a Present worthy of his sublime notice! We may now hope, +in time, that he will discover the existence of a Future!’</p> +<p>‘But, Mr. Mellot,’ said Honoria, ‘why have you +been so unfaithful to your original? why have you, like all artists, +been trying to soften and refine on your model?’</p> +<p>‘Because, my dear lady, we are bound to see everything in its +ideal—not as it is, but as it ought to be, and will be, when the +vices of this pitiful civilised world are exploded, and sanitary reform, +and a variety of occupation, and harmonious education, let each man +fulfil in body and soul the ideal which God embodied in him.’</p> +<p>‘Fourierist!’ cried Lancelot, laughing. ‘But +surely you never saw a face which had lost by wear less of the divine +image? How thoroughly it exemplifies your great law of Protestant +art, that “the Ideal is best manifested in the Peculiar.” +How classic, how independent of clime or race, is its bland, majestic +self-possession! how thoroughly Norse its massive squareness!’</p> +<p>‘And yet, as a Cornishman, he should be no Norseman.’</p> +<p>‘I beg your pardon! Like all noble races, the Cornish +owe their nobleness to the impurity of their blood—to its perpetual +loans from foreign veins. See how the serpentine curve of his +nose, his long nostril, and protruding, sharp-cut lips, mark his share +of Phœnician or Jewish blood! how Norse, again, that dome-shaped +forehead! how Celtic those dark curls, that restless gray eye, with +its “swinden blicken,” like Von Troneg Hagen’s in +the <i>Niebelungen Lied</i>!’</p> +<p>He turned: Honoria was devouring his words. He saw it, for +he was in love, and young love makes man’s senses as keen as woman’s.</p> +<p>‘Look! look at him now!’ said Claude, in a low voice. +‘How he sits, with his hands on his knees, the enormous size of +his limbs quite concealed by the careless grace, with his Egyptian face, +like some dumb granite Memnon!’</p> +<p>‘Only waiting,’ said Lancelot, ‘for the day-star +to arise on him and awake him into voice.’</p> +<p>He looked at Honoria as he spoke. She blushed angrily; and +yet a sort of sympathy arose from that moment between Lancelot and herself.</p> +<p>Our hero feared he had gone too far, and tried to turn the subject +off.</p> +<p>The smooth mill-head was alive with rising trout.</p> +<p>‘What a huge fish leapt then!’ said Lancelot carelessly; +‘and close to the bridge, too!’</p> +<p>Honoria looked round, and uttered a piercing scream.</p> +<p>‘Oh, my dog! my dog! Mops is in the river! That +horrid gazelle has butted him in, and he’ll be drowned!’</p> +<p>Alas! it was too true. There, a yard above the one open hatchway, +through which the whole force of the stream was rushing, was the unhappy +Mops, <i>alias</i> Scratch, <i>alias</i> Dirty Dick, <i>alias</i> Jack +Sheppard, paddling, and sneezing, and winking, his little bald muzzle +turned piteously upward to the sky.</p> +<p>‘He will be drowned!’ quoth the colonel.</p> +<p>There was no doubt of it; and so Mops thought, as, shivering and +whining, he plied every leg, while the glassy current dragged him back +and back, and Honoria sobbed like a child.</p> +<p>The colonel lay down on the bridge, and caught at him: his arm was +a foot too short. In a moment the huge form of Tregarva plunged +solemnly into the water, with a splash like seven salmon, and Mops was +jerked out over the colonel’s head high and dry on to the bridge.</p> +<p>‘You’ll be drowned, at least!’ shouted the colonel, +with an oath of Uncle Toby’s own.</p> +<p>Tregarva saw his danger, made one desperate bound upward, and missed +the bridge. The colonel caught at him, tore off a piece of his +collar—the calm, solemn face of the keeper flashed past beneath +him, and disappeared through the roaring gate.</p> +<p>They rushed to the other side of the bridge—caught one glimpse +of a dark body fleeting and roaring down the foam-way. The colonel +leapt the bridge-rail like a deer, rushed out along the buck-stage, +tore off his coat, and sprung headlong into the boiling pool, ‘rejoicing +in his might,’ as old Homer would say.</p> +<p>Lancelot, forgetting his crutches, was dashing after him, when he +felt a soft hand clutching at his arm.</p> +<p>‘Lancelot! Mr. Smith!’ cried Argemone. ‘You +shall not go! You are too ill—weak—’</p> +<p>‘A fellow-creature’s life!’</p> +<p>‘What is his life to yours?’ she cried, in a tone of +deep passion. And then, imperiously, ‘Stay here, I command +you!’</p> +<p>The magnetic touch of her hand thrilled through his whole frame. +She had called him Lancelot! He shrank down, and stood spell-bound.</p> +<p>‘Good heavens!’ she cried; ‘look at my sister!’</p> +<p>Out on the extremity of the buck-stage (how she got there neither +they nor she ever knew) crouched Honoria, her face idiotic with terror, +while she stared with bursting eyes into the foam. A shriek of +disappointment rose from her lips, as in a moment the colonel’s +weather-worn head reappeared above, looking for all the world like an +old gray shiny-painted seal.</p> +<p>‘Poof! tally-ho! Poof! poof! Heave me a piece of +wood, Lancelot, my boy!’ And he disappeared again.</p> +<p>They looked round, there was not a loose bit near. Claude ran +off towards the house. Lancelot, desperate, seized the bridge-rail, +tore it off by sheer strength, and hurled it far into the pool. +Argemone saw it, and remembered it, like a true woman. Ay, be +as Manichæan-sentimental as you will, fair ladies, physical prowess, +that Eden-right of manhood, is sure to tell upon your hearts!</p> +<p>Again the colonel’s grizzled head reappeared,—and, oh +joy! beneath it a draggled knot of black curls. In another instant +he had hold of the rail, and quietly floating down to the shallow, dragged +the lifeless giant high and dry on a patch of gravel.</p> +<p>Honoria never spoke. She rose, walked quietly back along the +beam, passed Argemone and Lancelot without seeing them, and firmly but +hurriedly led the way round the pool-side.</p> +<p>Before they arrived at the bank, the colonel had carried Tregarva +to it. Lancelot and two or three workmen, whom his cries had attracted, +lifted the body on to the meadow.</p> +<p>Honoria knelt quietly down on the grass, and watched, silent and +motionless, the dead face, with her wide, awestruck eyes.</p> +<p>‘God bless her for a kind soul!’ whispered the wan weather-beaten +field drudges, as they crowded round the body.</p> +<p>‘Get out of the way, my men!’ quoth the colonel. +‘Too many cooks spoil the broth.’ And he packed off +one here and another there for necessaries, and commenced trying every +restorative means with the ready coolness of a practised surgeon; while +Lancelot, whom he ordered about like a baby, gulped down a great choking +lump of envy, and then tasted the rich delight of forgetting himself +in admiring obedience to a real superior.</p> +<p>But there Tregarva lay lifeless, with folded hands, and a quiet satisfied +smile, while Honoria watched and watched with parted lips, unconscious +of the presence of every one.</p> +<p>Five minutes!—ten!</p> +<p>‘Carry him to the house,’ said the colonel, in a despairing +tone, after another attempt.</p> +<p>‘He moves!’ ‘No!’ ‘He does!’ +‘He breathes!’ ‘Look at his eyelids!’</p> +<p>Slowly his eyes opened.</p> +<p>‘Where am I? All gone? Sweet dreams—blessed +dreams!’</p> +<p>His eye met Honoria’s. One big deep sigh swelled to his +lips and burst. She seemed to recollect herself, rose, passed +her arm through Argemone’s, and walked slowly away.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER IV: AN ‘INGLORIOUS MILTON’</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Argemone, sweet prude, thought herself bound to read Honoria a lecture +that night, on her reckless exhibition of feeling; but it profited little. +The most consummate cunning could not have baffled Argemone’s +suspicions more completely than her sister’s utter simplicity. +She cried just as bitterly about Mops’s danger as about the keeper’s, +and then laughed heartily at Argemone’s solemnity; till at last, +when pushed a little too hard, she broke out into something very like +a passion, and told her sister, bitterly enough, that ‘she was +not accustomed to see men drowned every day, and begged to hear no more +about the subject.’ Whereat Argemone prudently held her +tongue, knowing that under all Honoria’s tenderness lay a volcano +of passionate determination, which was generally kept down by her affections, +but was just as likely to be maddened by them. And so this conversation +only went to increase the unconscious estrangement between them, though +they continued, as sisters will do, to lavish upon each other the most +extravagant protestations of affection—vowing to live and die +only for each other—and believing honestly, sweet souls, that +they felt all they said; till real imperious Love came in, in one case +of the two at least, shouldering all other affections right and left; +and then the two beauties discovered, as others do, that it is not so +possible or reasonable as they thought for a woman to sacrifice herself +and her lover for the sake of her sister or her friend. Next morning +Lancelot and the colonel started out to Tregarva’s cottage, on +a mission of inquiry. They found the giant propped up in bed with +pillows, his magnificent features looking in their paleness more than +ever like a granite Memnon. Before him lay an open <i>Pilgrim’s +Progress</i>, and a drawer filled with feathers and furs, which he was +busily manufacturing into trout flies, reading as he worked. The +room was filled with nets, guns, and keepers’ tackle, while a +well-filled shelf of books hung by the wall.</p> +<p>‘Excuse my rising, gentlemen,’ he said, in his slow, +staid voice, ‘but I am very weak, in spite of the Lord’s +goodness to me. You are very kind to think of coming to my poor +cottage,’</p> +<p>‘Well, my man,’ said the colonel, ‘and how are +you after your cold bath? You are the heaviest fish I ever landed!’</p> +<p>‘Pretty well, thank God, and you, sir. I am in your debt, +sir, for the dear life. How shall I ever repay you?’</p> +<p>‘Repay, my good fellow? You would have done as much for +me.’</p> +<p>‘May be; but you did not think of that when you jumped in; +and no more must I in thanking you. God knows how a poor miner’s +son will ever reward you; but the mouse repaid the lion, says the story, +and, at all events, I can pray for you. By the bye, gentlemen, +I hope you have brought up some trolling-tackle?’</p> +<p>‘We came up to see you, and not to fish,’ said Lancelot, +charmed with the stately courtesy of the man.</p> +<p>‘Many thanks, gentlemen; but old Harry Verney was in here just +now, and had seen a great jack strike, at the tail of the lower reeds. +With this fresh wind he will run till noon; and you are sure of him +with a dace. After that, he will not be up again on the shallows +till sunset. He works the works of darkness, and comes not to +the light, because his deeds are evil.’</p> +<p>Lancelot laughed. ‘He does but follow his kind, poor +fellow.’</p> +<p>‘No doubt, sir, no doubt; all the Lord’s works are good: +but it is a wonder why He should have made wasps, now, and blights, +and vermin, and jack, and such evil-featured things, that carry spite +and cruelty in their very faces—a great wonder. Do you think, +sir, all those creatures were in the Garden of Eden?’</p> +<p>‘You are getting too deep for me,’ said Lancelot. +‘But why trouble your head about fishing?’</p> +<p>‘I beg your pardon for preaching to you, sir. I’m +sure I forgot myself. If you will let me, I’ll get up and +get you a couple of bait from the stew. You’ll do us keepers +a kindness, and prevent sin, sir, if you’ll catch him. The +squire will swear sadly—the Lord forgive him—if he hears +of a pike in the trout-runs. I’ll get up, if I may trouble +you to go into the next room a minute.’</p> +<p>‘Lie still, for Heaven’s sake. Why bother your +head about pike now?’</p> +<p>‘It is my business, sir, and I am paid for it, and I must do +it thoroughly;—and abide in the calling wherein I am called,’ +he added, in a sadder tone.</p> +<p>‘You seem to be fond enough of it, and to know enough about +it, at all events,’ said the colonel, ‘tying flies here +on a sick-bed.’</p> +<p>‘As for being fond of it, sir—those creatures of the +water teach a man many lessons; and when I tie flies, I earn books.’</p> +<p>‘How then?’</p> +<p>‘I send my flies all over the country, sir, to Salisbury and +Hungerford, and up to Winchester, even; and the money buys me many a +wise book—all my delight is in reading; perhaps so much the worse +for me.’</p> +<p>‘So much the better, say,’ answered Lancelot warmly. +‘I’ll give you an order for a couple of pounds’ worth +of flies at once.’</p> +<p>‘The Lord reward you, sir,’ answered the giant.</p> +<p>‘And you shall make me the same quantity,’ said the colonel. +‘You can make salmon-flies?’</p> +<p>‘I made a lot by pattern for an Irish gent, sir.’</p> +<p>‘Well, then, we’ll send you some Norway patterns, and +some golden pheasant and parrot feathers. We’re going to +Norway this summer, you know, Lancelot—’</p> +<p>Tregarva looked up with a quaint, solemn hesitation.</p> +<p>‘If you please, gentlemen, you’ll forgive a man’s +conscience.’</p> +<p>‘Well?’</p> +<p>‘But I’d not like to be a party to the making of Norway +flies.’</p> +<p>‘Here’s a Protectionist, with a vengeance!’ laughed +the colonel. ‘Do you want to keep all us fishermen in England? +eh? to fee English keepers?</p> +<p>‘No, sir. There’s pretty fishing in Norway, I hear, +and poor folk that want money more than we keepers. God knows +we get too much—we that hang about great houses and serve great +folks’ pleasure—you toss the money down our throats, without +our deserving it; and we spend it as we get it—a deal too fast—while +hard-working labourers are starving.’</p> +<p>‘And yet you would keep us in England?’</p> +<p>‘Would God I could!’</p> +<p>‘Why then, my good fellow?’ asked Lancelot, who was getting +intensely interested with the calm, self-possessed earnestness of the +man, and longed to draw him out.</p> +<p>The colonel yawned.</p> +<p>‘Well, I’ll go and get myself a couple of bait. +Don’t you stir, my good parson-keeper. Down charge, I say! +Odd if I don’t find a bait-net, and a rod for myself, under the +verandah.’</p> +<p>‘You will, colonel. I remember, now, I set it there last +morning; but the water washed many things out of my brains, and some +things into them—and I forgot it like a goose.’</p> +<p>‘Well, good-bye, and lie still. I know what a drowning +is, and more than one. A day and a night have I been in the deep, +like the man in the good book; and bed is the best of medicine for a +ducking;’ and the colonel shook him kindly by the hand and disappeared.</p> +<p>Lancelot sat down by the keeper’s bed.</p> +<p>‘You’ll get those fish-hooks into your trousers, sir; +and this is a poor place to sit down in.’</p> +<p>‘I want you to say your say out, friend, fish-hooks or none.’</p> +<p>The keeper looked warily at the door, and when the colonel had passed +the window, balancing the trolling-rod on his chin, and whistling merrily, +he began,—</p> +<p>‘“A day and a night have I been in the deep!”—and +brought back no more from it! And yet the Psalms say how they +that go down to the sea in ships see the works of the Lord!—If +the Lord has opened their eyes to see them, that must mean—’</p> +<p>Lancelot waited.</p> +<p>‘What a gallant gentleman that is, and a valiant man of war, +I’ll warrant,—and to have seen all the wonders he has, and +yet to be wasting his span of life like that!’</p> +<p>Lancelot’s heart smote him.</p> +<p>‘One would think, sir,—You’ll pardon me for speaking +out.’ And the noble face worked, as he murmured to himself, +‘When ye are brought before kings and princes for my name’s +sake.—I dare not hold my tongue, sir. I am as one risen +from the dead,’—and his face flashed up into sudden enthusiasm—‘and +woe to me if I speak not. Oh, why, why are you gentlemen running +off to Norway, and foreign parts, whither God has not called you! +Are there no graves in Egypt, that you must go out to die in the wilderness!’</p> +<p>Lancelot, quite unaccustomed to the language of the Dissenting poor, +felt keenly the bad taste of the allusion.</p> +<p>‘What can you mean?’ he asked.</p> +<p>‘Pardon me, sir, if I cannot speak plainly; but are there not +temptations enough here in England that you must go to waste all your +gifts, your scholarship, and your rank, far away there out of the sound +of a church-going bell? I don’t deny it’s a great +temptation. I have read of Norway wonders in a book of one Miss +Martineau, with a strange name.’</p> +<p>‘<i>Feats on the Fiord</i>?’</p> +<p>‘That’s it, sir. Her books are grand books to set +one a-thinking; but she don’t seem to see the Lord in all things, +does she, sir?’</p> +<p>Lancelot parried the question.</p> +<p>‘You are wandering a little from the point.’</p> +<p>‘So I am, and thank you for the rebuke. There’s +where I find you scholars have the advantage of us poor fellows, who +pick up knowledge as we can. Your book-learning makes you stick +to the point so much better. You are taught how to think. +After all—God forgive me if I’m wrong! but I sometimes think +that there must be more good in that human wisdom, and philosophy falsely +so called, than we Wesleyans hold. Oh, sir, what a blessing is +a good education! What you gentlemen might do with it, if you +did but see your own power! Are there no fish in England, sir, +to be caught? precious fish, with immortal souls? And is there +not One who has said, “Come with me, and I will make you fishers +of men?”’</p> +<p>‘Would you have us all turn parsons?’</p> +<p>‘Is no one to do God’s work except the parson, sir? +Oh, the game that you rich folks have in your hands, if you would but +play it! Such a man as Colonel Bracebridge now, with the tongue +of the serpent, who can charm any living soul he likes to his will, +as a stoat charms a rabbit. Or you, sir, with your tongue:—you +have charmed one precious creature already. I can see it: though +neither of you know it, yet I know it.’</p> +<p>Lancelot started, and blushed crimson.</p> +<p>‘Oh, that I had your tongue, sir!’ And the keeper +blushed crimson, too, and went on hastily,—</p> +<p>‘But why could you not charm all alike! Do not the poor +want you as well as the rich?’</p> +<p>‘What can I do for the poor, my good fellow? And what +do they want? Have they not houses, work, a church, and schools,—and +poor-rates to fall back on?’</p> +<p>The keeper smiled sadly.</p> +<p>‘To fall back on, indeed! and down on, too. At all events, +you rich might help to make Christians of them, and men of them. +For I’m beginning to fancy strangely, in spite of all the preachers +say, that, before ever you can make them Christians, you must make them +men and women.’</p> +<p>‘Are they not so already?’</p> +<p>‘Oh, sir, go and see! How can a man be a man in those +crowded styes, sleeping packed together like Irish pigs in a steamer, +never out of the fear of want, never knowing any higher amusement than +the beer-shop? Those old Greeks and Romans, as I read, were more +like men than half our English labourers. Go and see! Ask +that sweet heavenly angel, Miss Honoria,’—and the keeper +again blushed,—‘And she, too, will tell you. I think +sometimes if she had been born and bred like her father’s tenants’ +daughters, to sleep where they sleep, and hear the talk they hear, and +see the things they see, what would she have been now? We mustn’t +think of it.’ And the keeper turned his head away, and fairly +burst into tears.</p> +<p>Lancelot was moved.</p> +<p>‘Are the poor very immoral, then?’</p> +<p>‘You ask the rector, sir, how many children hereabouts are +born within six months of the wedding-day. None of them marry, +sir, till the devil forces them. There’s no sadder sight +than a labourer’s wedding now-a-days. You never see the +parents come with them. They just get another couple, that are +keeping company, like themselves, and come sneaking into church, looking +all over as if they were ashamed of it—and well they may be!’</p> +<p>‘Is it possible?’</p> +<p>‘I say, sir, that God makes you gentlemen, gentlemen, that +you may see into these things. You give away your charities kindly +enough, but you don’t know the folks you give to. If a few +of you would but be like the blessed Lord, and stoop to go out of the +road, just behind the hedge, for once, among the publicans and harlots! +Were you ever at a country fair, sir? Though I suppose I am rude +for fancying that you could demean yourself to such company.’</p> +<p>‘I should not think it demeaning myself,’ said Lancelot, +smiling; ‘but I never was at one, and I should like for once to +see the real manners of the poor.’</p> +<p>‘I’m no haunter of such places myself, God knows; but—I +see you’re in earnest now—will you come with me, sir,—for +once? for God’s sake and the poor’s sake?’</p> +<p>‘I shall be delighted.’</p> +<p>‘Not after you’ve been there, I am afraid.’</p> +<p>‘Well, it’s a bargain when you are recovered. And, +in the meantime, the squire’s orders are, that you lie by for +a few days to rest; and Miss Honoria’s, too; and she has sent +you down some wine.’</p> +<p>‘She thought of me, did she?’ And the still sad +face blazed out radiant with pleasure, and then collapsed as suddenly +into deep melancholy.</p> +<p>Lancelot saw it, but said nothing; and shaking him heartily by the +hand, had his shake returned by an iron grasp, and slipped silently +out of the cottage.</p> +<p>The keeper lay still, gazing on vacancy. Once he murmured to +himself,—</p> +<p>‘Through strange ways—strange ways—and though he +let them wander out of the road in the wilderness;—we know how +that goes on—’</p> +<p>And then he fell into a mixed meditation—perhaps into a prayer.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER V: A SHAM IS WORSE THAN NOTHING</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>At last, after Lancelot had waited long in vain, came his cousin’s +answer to the letter which I gave in my second chapter.</p> +<p>‘You are not fair to me, good cousin . . . but I have given +up expecting fairness from Protestants. I do not say that the +front and the back of my head have different makers, any more than that +doves and vipers have . . . and yet I kill the viper when I meet him +. . . and so do you. . . . And yet, are we not taught that our +animal nature is throughout equally viperous? . . . The Catholic +Church, at least, so teaches. . . . She believes in the corruption +of human nature. She believes in the literal meaning of Scripture. +She has no wish to paraphrase away St. Paul’s awful words, that +“in his flesh dwelleth no good thing,” by the unscientific +euphemisms of “fallen nature” or “corrupt humanity.” +The boasted discovery of phrenologists, that thought, feeling, and passion +reside in this material brain and nerves of ours, has ages ago been +anticipated by her simple faith in the letter of Scripture; a faith +which puts to shame the irreverent vagueness and fantastic private interpretations +of those who make an idol of that very letter which they dare not take +literally, because it makes against their self-willed theories. . .</p> +<p>‘And so you call me <i>douce</i> and meek? . . . You +should remember what I once was, Lancelot . . . I, at least, have not +forgotten . . . I have not forgotten how that very animal nature, on +the possession of which you seem to pride yourself, was in me only the +parent of remorse., . . I know it too well not to hate and fear +it. Why do you reproach me, if I try to abjure it, and cast away +the burden which I am too weak to bear? I am weak—Would +you have me say that I am strong? Would you have me try to be +a Prometheus, while I am longing to be once more an infant on a mother’s +breast? Let me alone . . . I am a weary child, who knows +nothing, can do nothing, except lose its way in arguings and reasonings, +and “find no end, in wandering mazes lost.” Will you +reproach me, because when I see a soft cradle lying open for me . . +. with a Virgin Mother’s face smiling down all woman’s love +about it . . . I long to crawl into it, and sleep awhile? +I want loving, indulgent sympathy . . . I want detailed, explicit +guidance . . . Have you, then, found so much of them in our former +creed, that you forbid me to go to seek them elsewhere, in the Church +which not only professes them as an organised system, but practises +them . . . as you would find in your first half-hour’s talk with +one of Her priests . . . true priests . . . who know the heart of man, +and pity, and console, and bear for their flock the burdens which they +cannot bear themselves? You ask me who will teach a fast young +man? . . . I answer, the Jesuit. Ay, start and sneer, at that +delicate woman-like tenderness, that subtle instinctive sympathy, which +you have never felt . . . which is as new to me, alas, as it would be +to you! For if there be none now-a-days to teach such as you, +who is there who will teach such as me? Do not fancy that I have +not craved and searched for teachers . . . I went to one party +long ago, and they commanded me, as the price of their sympathy, even +of anything but their denunciations, to ignore, if not to abjure, all +the very points on which I came for light—my love for the Beautiful +and the Symbolic—my desire to consecrate and christianise it—my +longing for a human voice to tell me with authority that I was forgiven—my +desire to find some practical and palpable communion between myself +and the saints of old. They told me to cast away, as an accursed +chaos, a thousand years of Christian history, and believe that the devil +had been for ages . . . just the ages I thought noblest, most faithful, +most interpenetrated with the thought of God . . . triumphant over that +church with which He had promised to be till the end of the world. +No . . . by the bye, they made two exceptions—of their own choosing. +One in favour of the Albigenses . . . who seemed to me, from the original +documents, to have been very profligate Infidels, of whom the world +was well rid . . . and the Piedmontese . . . poor, simple, ill-used +folk enough, but who certainly cannot be said to have exercised much +influence on the destinies of mankind . . . and all the rest was chaos +and the pit. There never had been, never would be, a kingdom of +God on earth, but only a few scattered individuals, each selfishly intent +on the salvation of his own soul—without organisation, without +unity, without common purpose, without even a masonic sign whereby to +know one another when they chanced to meet . . . except Shibboleths +which the hypocrite could ape, and virtues which the heathen have performed +. . . Would <i>you</i> have had me accept such a “Philosophy +of History”?</p> +<p>‘And then I went to another school . . . or rather wandered +up and down between those whom I have just described, and those who +boast on their side prescriptive right, and apostolic succession . . +. and I found that their ancient charter went back—just three +hundred years . . . and there derived its transmitted virtue, it seemed +to me, by something very like obtaining goods on false pretences, from +the very church which it now anathematises. Disheartened, but +not hopeless, I asked how it was that the priesthood, whose hands bestowed +the grace of ordination, could not withdraw it . . . whether, at least, +the schismatic did not forfeit it by the very act of schism . . . and +instead of any real answer to that fearful spiritual dilemma, they set +me down to folios of Nag’s head controversies . . . and myths +of an independent British Church, now represented, strangely enough, +by those Saxons who, after its wicked refusal to communicate with them, +exterminated it with fire and sword, and derived its own order from +St. Gregory . . . and decisions of mythical old councils (held by bishops +of a different faith and practice from their own), from which I was +to pick the one point which made for them, and omit the nine which made +against them, while I was to believe, by a stretch of imagination . +. . or common honesty . . ., which I leave you to conceive, that the +Church of Syria in the fourth century was, in doctrine, practice, and +constitution, like that of England in the nineteenth? . . . And +what was I to gain by all this? . . . For the sake of what was +I to strain logic and conscience? To believe myself a member of +the same body with all the Christian nations of the earth?—to +be able to hail the Frenchman, the Italian, the Spaniard, as a brother—to +have hopes even of the German and the Swede . . . if not in this life, +still in the life to come? No . . . to be able still to sit apart +from all Christendom in the exclusive pride of insular Pharisaism; to +claim for the modern littleness of England the infallibility which I +denied to the primæval mother of Christendom, not to enlarge my +communion to the Catholic, but excommunicate, to all practical purposes, +over and above the Catholics, all other Protestants except my own sect +. . . or rather, in practice, except my own party in my own sect. . +. . And this was believing in one Catholic and Apostolic church! +. . . this was to be my share of the communion of saints! And +these were the theories which were to satisfy a soul which longed for +a kingdom of God on earth, which felt that unless the highest of His +promises are a mythic dream, there must be some system on the earth +commissioned to fulfil those promises; some authority divinely appointed +to regenerate, and rule, and guide the lives of men, and the destinies +of nations; who must go mad, unless he finds that history is not a dreary +aimless procession of lost spirits descending into the pit, or that +the salvation of millions does not depend on an obscure and controverted +hair’s breadth of ecclesiastic law.</p> +<p>‘I have tried them both, Lancelot, and found them wanting; +and now but one road remains. . . . Home, to the fountain-head; +to the mother of all the churches whose fancied cruelty to her children +can no more destroy her motherhood, than their confest rebellion can. +. . . Shall I not hear her voice, when she, and she alone cries +to me, “I have authority and commission from the King of kings +to regenerate the world. History is a chaos, only because mankind +has been ever rebelling against me, its lawful ruler . . . and yet not +a chaos . . . for I still stand, and grow rooted on the rock of ages, +and under my boughs are fowl of every wing. I alone have been +and am consistent, progressive, expansive, welcoming every race, and +intellect and character into its proper place in my great organism . +. . meeting alike the wants of the king and the beggar, the artist and +the devotee . . . there is free room for all within my heaven-wide bosom. +Infallibility is not the exclusive heritage of one proud and ignorant +Island, but of a system which knows no distinction of language, race, +or clime. The communion of saints is not a bygone tale, for my +saints, redeemed from every age and every nation under heaven, still +live, and love, and help and intercede. The union of heaven and +earth is not a barbaric myth; for I have still my miracles, my Host, +my exorcism, my absolution. The present rule of God is still, +as ever, a living reality; for I rule in His name, and fulfil all His +will.”</p> +<p>‘How can I turn away from such a voice? What if some +of her doctrines may startle my untutored and ignorant understanding? +. . . If she is the appointed teacher, she will know best what +truths to teach. . . . The disciple is not above his master . +. . or wise in requiring him to demonstrate the abstrusest problems +. . . spiritual problems, too . . . before he allows his right to teach +the elements. Humbly I must enter the temple porch; gradually +and trustfully proceed with my initiation. . . . When that is +past, and not before . . . shall I be a fit judge of the mysteries of +the inner shrine.</p> +<p>‘There . . . I have written a long letter . . . with +my own heart’s blood. . . . Think over it well, before you +despise it. . . . And if you can refute it for me, and sweep the +whole away like a wild dream when one awakes, none will be more thankful—paradoxical +as it may seem—than your unhappy Cousin.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>And Lancelot did consider that letter, and answered it as follows:—</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘It is a relief to me at least, dear Luke, that you are going +to Rome in search of a great idea, and not merely from selfish superstitious +terror (as I should call it) about the “salvation of your soul.” +And it is a new and very important thought to me, that Rome’s +scheme of this world, rather than of the next, forms her chief allurement. +But as for that flesh and spirit question, or the apostolic succession +one either; all you seem to me, as a looker on, to have logically proved, +is that Protestants, orthodox and unorthodox, must be a little more +scientific and careful in their use of the terms. But as for adopting +your use of them, and the consequences thereof—you must pardon +me, and I suspect, them too. Not that. Anything but that. +Whatever is right, that is wrong. Better to be inconsistent in +truth, than consistent in a mistake. And your Romish idea of man +is a mistake—utterly wrong and absurd—except in the one +requirement of righteousness and godliness, which Protestants and heathen +philosophers have required and do require just as much as you. +My dear Luke, your ideal men and women won’t do—for they +are not men and women at all, but what you call “saints” +. . . Your Calendar, your historic list of the Earth’s worthies, +won’t do—not they, but others, are the people who have brought +Humanity thus far. I don’t deny that there are great souls +among them; Beckets, and Hugh Grostêtes, and Elizabeths of Hungary. +But you are the last people to praise them, for you don’t understand +them. Thierry honours Thomas à Becket more than all Canonisations +and worshippers do, because he does see where the man’s true greatness +lay, and you don’t. Why, you may hunt all Surius for such +a biography of a mediaeval worthy as Carlyle has given of your Abbot +Samson. I have read, or tried to read your Surius, and Alban Butler, +and so forth—and they seemed to me bats and asses—One really +pitied the poor saints and martyrs for having such blind biographers—such +dunghill cocks, who overlooked the pearl of real human love and nobleness +in them, in their greediness to snatch up and parade the rotten chaff +of superstition, and self-torture, and spiritual dyspepsia, which had +overlaid it. My dear fellow, that Calendar ruins your cause—you +are “sacrés aristocrates”—kings and queens, +bishops and virgins by the hundred at one end; a beggar or two at the +other; and but one real human lay St. Homobonus to fill up the great +gulf between—A pretty list to allure the English middle classes, +or the Lancashire working-men!—Almost as charmingly suited to +England as the present free, industrious, enlightened, and moral state +of that Eternal City, which has been blest with the visible presence +and peculiar rule, temporal as well as spiritual, too, of your Dalai +Lama. His pills do not seem to have had much practical effect +there. . . . My good Luke, till he can show us a little better +specimen of the kingdom of Heaven organised and realised on earth, in +the country which does belong to him, soil and people, body and soul, +we must decline his assistance in realising that kingdom in countries +which don’t belong to him. If the state of Rome don’t +show his idea of man and society to be a rotten lie, what proof would +you have? . . . perhaps the charming results of a century of Jesuitocracy, +as they were represented on a French stage in the year 1793? I +can’t answer his arguments, you see, or yours either; I am an +Englishman, and not a controversialist. The only answer I give +is John Bull’s old dumb instinctive “Everlasting No!” +which he will stand by, if need be, with sharp shot and cold steel—“Not +that; anything but that. No kingdom of Heaven at all for us, if +the kingdom of Heaven is like that. No heroes at all for us, if +their heroism is to consist in their being not-men. Better no +society at all, but only a competitive wild-beast’s den, than +a sham society. Better no faith, no hope, no love, no God, than +shams thereof.” I take my stand on fact and nature; you +may call them idols and phantoms; I say they need be so no longer to +any man, since Bacon has taught us to discover the Eternal Laws under +the outward phenomena. Here on blank materialism will I stand, +and testify against all Religions and Gods whatsoever, if they must +needs be like that Roman religion, that Roman God. I don’t +believe they need—not I. But if they need, they must go. +We cannot have a “Deus quidam deceptor.” If there +be a God, these trees and stones, these beasts and birds must be His +will, whatever else is not. My body, and brain, and faculties, +and appetites must be His will, whatever else is not. Whatsoever +I can do with them in accordance with the constitution of them and nature +must be His will, whatever else is not. Those laws of Nature must +reveal Him, and be revealed by Him, whatever else is not. Man’s +scientific conquest of nature must be one phase of His Kingdom on Earth, +whatever else is not. I don’t deny that there are spiritual +laws which man is meant to obey—How can I, who feel in my own +daily and inexplicable unhappiness the fruits of having broken them?—But +I do say, that those spiritual laws must be in perfect harmony with +every fresh physical law which we discover: that they cannot be intended +to compete self-destructively with each other; that the spiritual cannot +be intended to be perfected by ignoring or crushing the physical, unless +God is a deceiver, and His universe a self-contradiction. And +by this test alone will I try all theories, and dogmas, and spiritualities +whatsoever—Are they in accordance with the laws of nature? +And therefore when your party compare sneeringly Romish Sanctity, and +English Civilisation, I say, “Take you the Sanctity, and give +me the Civilisation!” The one may be a dream, for it is +unnatural; the other cannot be, for it is natural; and not an evil in +it at which you sneer but is discovered, day by day, to be owing to +some infringement of the laws of nature. When we “draw bills +on nature,” as Carlyle says, “she honours them,”—our +ships do sail; our mills do work; our doctors do cure; our soldiers +do fight. And she does not honour yours; for your Jesuits have, +by their own confession, to lie, to swindle, to get even man to accept +theirs for them. So give me the political economist, the sanitary +reformer, the engineer; and take your saints and virgins, relics and +miracles. The spinning-jenny and the railroad, Cunard’s +liners and the electric telegraph, are to me, if not to you, signs that +we are, on some points at least, in harmony with the universe; that +there is a mighty spirit working among us, who cannot be your anarchic +and destroying Devil, and therefore may be the Ordering and Creating +God.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Which of them do you think, reader, had most right on his side?</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER VI: VOGUE LA GALÈRE</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Lancelot was now so far improved in health as to return to his little +cottage <i>ornée</i>. He gave himself up freely to his +new passion. With his comfortable fortune and good connections, +the future seemed bright and possible enough as to circumstances. +He knew that Argemone felt for him; how much it seemed presumptuous +even to speculate, and as yet no golden-visaged meteor had arisen portentous +in his amatory zodiac. No rich man had stepped in to snatch, in +spite of all his own flocks and herds, at the poor man’s own ewe-lamb, +and set him barking at all the world, as many a poor lover has to do +in defence of his morsel of enjoyment, now turned into a mere bone of +contention and loadstone for all hungry kites and crows.</p> +<p>All that had to be done was to render himself worthy of her, and +in doing so, to win her. And now he began to feel more painfully +his ignorance of society, of practical life, and the outward present. +He blamed himself angrily for having, as he now thought, wasted his +time on ancient histories and foreign travels, while he neglected the +living wonderful present, which weltered daily round him, every face +embodying a living soul. For now he began to feel that those faces +did hide living souls; formerly he had half believed—he had tried, +but from laziness, to make himself wholly believe—that they were +all empty masks, phantasies, without interest or significance for him. +But, somehow, in the light of his new love for Argemone, the whole human +race seemed glorified, brought nearer, endeared to him. So it +must be. He had spoken of a law wider than he thought in his fancy, +that the angels might learn love for all by love for an individual. +Do we not all learn love so? Is it not the first touch of the +mother’s bosom which awakens in the infant’s heart that +spark of affection which is hereafter to spread itself out towards every +human being, and to lose none of its devotion for its first object, +as it expands itself to innumerable new ones? Is it not by love, +too—by looking into loving human eyes, by feeling the care of +loving hands,—that the infant first learns that there exist other +beings beside itself?—that every body which it sees expresses +a heart and will like its own? Be sure of it. Be sure that +to have found the key to one heart is to have found the key to all; +that truly to love is truly to know; and truly to love one, is the first +step towards truly loving all who bear the same flesh and blood with +the beloved. Like children, we must dress up even our unseen future +in stage properties borrowed from the tried and palpable present, ere +we can look at it without horror. We fear and hate the utterly +unknown, and it only. Even pain we hate only when we cannot <i>know</i> +it; when we can only feel it, without explaining it, and making it harmonise +with our notions of our own deserts and destiny. And as for human +beings, there surely it stands true, wherever else it may not, that +all knowledge is love, and all love knowledge; that even with the meanest, +we cannot gain a glimpse into their inward trials and struggles, without +an increase of sympathy and affection.</p> +<p>Whether he reasoned thus or not, Lancelot found that his new interest +in the working classes was strangely quickened by his passion. +It seemed the shortest and clearest way toward a practical knowledge +of the present. ‘Here,’ he said to himself, ‘in +the investigation of existing relations between poor and rich, I shall +gain more real acquaintance with English society, than by dawdling centuries +in exclusive drawing-rooms.’</p> +<p>The inquiry had not yet presented itself to him as a duty; perhaps +so much the better, that it might be the more thoroughly a free-will +offering of love. At least it opened a new field of amusement +and knowledge; it promised him new studies of human life; and as he +lay on his sofa and let his thoughts flow, Tregarva’s dark revelations +began to mix themselves with dreams about the regeneration of the Whitford +poor, and those again with dreams about the heiress of Whitford; and +many a luscious scene and noble plan rose brightly detailed in his exuberant +imagination. For Lancelot, like all born artists, could only think +in a concrete form. He never worked out a subject without embodying +it in some set oration, dialogue, or dramatic castle in the air.</p> +<p>But the more he dreamt, the more he felt that a material beauty of +flesh and blood required a material house, baths, and boudoirs, conservatories, +and carriages; a safe material purse, and fixed material society; law +and order, and the established frame-work of society, gained an importance +in his eyes which they had never had before.</p> +<p>‘Well,’ he said to himself, ‘I am turning quite +practical and auld-warld. Those old Greeks were not so far wrong +when they said that what made men citizens, patriots, heroes, was the +love of wedded wife and child.’</p> +<p>‘Wedded wife and child!’—He shrank in from the +daring of the delicious thought, as if he had intruded without invitation +into a hidden sanctuary, and looked round for a book to drive away the +dazzling picture. But even there his thoughts were haunted by +Argemone’s face, and</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p> ‘When his regard<br />Was raised by intense +pensiveness, two eyes,<br />Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thought,<br />And +seemed, with their serene and azure smiles,<br />To beckon him.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>He took up, with a new interest ‘Chartism,’ which alone +of all Mr. Carlyle’s works he had hitherto disliked, because his +own luxurious day-dreams had always flowed in such sad discord with +the terrible warnings of the modern seer, and his dark vistas of starvation, +crime, neglect, and discontent.</p> +<p>‘Well,’ he said to himself, as he closed the book, ‘I +suppose it is good for us easy-going ones now and then to face the possibility +of a change. Gold has grown on my back as feathers do on geese, +without my own will or deed; but considering that gold, like feathers, +is equally useful to those who have and those who have not, why, it +is worth while for the goose to remember that he may possibly one day +be plucked. And what remains? “Io,” as Medea +says. . . . But Argemone?’ . . . And Lancelot felt, +for the moment, as conservative as the tutelary genius of all special +constables.</p> +<p>As the last thought passed through his brain, Bracebridge’s +little mustang slouched past the window, ridden (without a saddle) by +a horseman whom there was no mistaking for no one but the immaculate +colonel, the <i>chevalier sans peur et sans reproche</i>, dared to go +about the country ‘such a figure.’ A minute afterwards +he walked in, in a student’s felt hat, a ragged heather-coloured +coatee, and old white ‘regulation drills,’ shrunk half-way +up his legs, a pair of embroidered Indian mocassins, and an enormous +meerschaum at his button-hole.</p> +<p>‘Where have you been this last week?’</p> +<p>‘Over head and ears in Young England, till I fled to you for +a week’s common sense. A glass of cider, for mercy’s +sake, “to take the taste of it out of my mouth,” as Bill +Sykes has it.’</p> +<p>‘Where have you been staying?’</p> +<p>‘With young Lord Vieuxbois, among high art and painted glass, +spade farms, and model smell-traps, rubricalities and sanitary reforms, +and all other inventions, possible and impossible, for “stretching +the old formula to meet the new fact,” as your favourite prophet +says.’</p> +<p>‘Till the old formula cracks under the tension.’</p> +<p>‘And cracks its devotees, too, I think. Here comes the +cider!’</p> +<p>‘But, my dear fellow, you must not laugh at all this. +Young England or Peelite, this is all right and noble. What a +yet unspoken poetry there is in that very sanitary reform! It +is the great fact of the age. We shall have men arise and write +epics on it, when they have learnt that “to the pure all things +are pure,” and that science and usefulness contain a divine element, +even in their lowest appliances.’</p> +<p>‘Write one yourself, and call it the <i>Chadwickiad</i>.’</p> +<p>‘Why not?</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘Smells and the Man I sing.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>There’s a beginning at once. Why don’t <i>you</i> +rather, with your practical power, turn sanitary reformer—the +only true soldier—and conquer those real devils and “natural +enemies” of Englishmen, carbonic acid and sulphuretted hydrogen?’</p> +<p>‘<i>Ce n’est pas mon métier</i>, my dear fellow. +I am miserably behind the age. People are getting so cursedly +in earnest now-a-days, that I shall have to bolt to the backwoods to +amuse myself in peace; or else sham dumb as the monkeys do, lest folks +should find out that I’m rational, and set me to work.’</p> +<p>Lancelot laughed and sighed.</p> +<p>‘But how on earth do you contrive to get on so well with men +with whom you have not an idea in common!’</p> +<p>‘<i>Savoir faire</i>, O infant Hercules! own daddy to <i>savoir +vivre</i>. I am a good listener; and, therefore, the most perfect, +because the most silent, of flatterers. When they talk Puginesquery, +I stick my head on one side attentively, and “think the more,” +like the lady’s parrot. I have been all the morning looking +over a set of drawings for my lord’s new chapel; and every soul +in the party fancies me a great antiquary, just because I have been +retailing to B as my own everything that A told me the moment before.’</p> +<p>‘I envy you your tact, at all events.’</p> +<p>‘Why the deuce should you? You may rise in time to something +better than tact; to what the good book, I suppose, means by “wisdom.” +Young geniuses like you, who have been green enough to sell your souls +to “truth,” must not meddle with tact, unless you wish to +fare as the donkey did when he tried to play lap-dog.’</p> +<p>‘At all events, I would sooner remain cub till they run me +down and eat me, than give up speaking my mind,’ said Lancelot. +‘Fool I may be, but the devil himself shan’t make me knave.’</p> +<p>‘Quite proper. On two thousand a year a man can afford +to be honest. Kick out lustily right and left!—After all, +the world is like a spaniel; the more you beat it, the better it likes +you—if you have money. Only don’t kick too hard; for, +after all, it has a hundred million pair of shins to your one.’</p> +<p>‘Don’t fear that I shall run a-muck against society just +now. I am too thoroughly out of my own good books. I have +been for years laughing at Young England, and yet its little finger +is thicker than my whole body, for it is trying to do something; and +I, alas, am doing utterly nothing. I should be really glad to +take a lesson of these men and their plans for social improvement.’</p> +<p>‘You will have a fine opportunity this evening. Don’t +you dine at Minchampstead?’</p> +<p>‘Yes. Do you?’</p> +<p>‘Mr. Jingle dines everywhere, except at home. Will you +take me over in your trap?’</p> +<p>‘Done. But whom shall we meet there?’</p> +<p>‘The Lavingtons, and Vieuxbois, and Vaurien, and a parson or +two, I suppose. But between Saint Venus and Vieuxbois you may +soon learn enough to make you a sadder man, if not a wiser one.’</p> +<p>‘Why not a wiser one? Sadder than now I cannot be; or +less wise, God knows.’</p> +<p>The colonel looked at Lancelot with one of those kindly thoughtful +smiles, which came over him whenever his better child’s heart +could bubble up through the thick crust of worldliness.</p> +<p>‘My young friend, you have been a little too much on the stilts +heretofore. Take care that, now you are off them, you don’t +lie down and sleep, instead of walking honestly on your legs. +Have faith in yourself; pick these men’s brains, and all men’s. +You can do it. Say to yourself boldly, as the false prophet in +India said to the missionary, “I have fire enough in my stomach +to burn up” a dozen stucco and filigree reformers and “assimilate +their ashes into the bargain, like one of Liebig’s cabbages.”’</p> +<p>‘How can I have faith in myself, when I am playing traitor +to myself every hour in the day? And yet faith in something I +must have: in woman, perhaps.’</p> +<p>‘Never!’ said the colonel, energetically. ‘In +anything but woman? She must be led, not leader. If you +love a woman, make her have faith in you. If you lean on her, +you will ruin yourself, and her as well.’</p> +<p>Lancelot shook his head. There was a pause.</p> +<p>‘After all, colonel, I think there must be a meaning in those +old words our mothers used to teach us about “having faith in +God.”’</p> +<p>The colonel shrugged his shoulders.</p> +<p>‘<i>Quien sabe</i>? said the Spanish girl, when they asked +her who was her child’s father. But here comes my kit on +a clod’s back, and it is time to dress for dinner.’</p> +<p>So to the dinner-party they went.</p> +<p>Lord Minchampstead was one of the few noblemen Lancelot had ever +met who had aroused in him a thorough feeling of respect. He was +always and in all things a strong man. Naturally keen, ready, +business-like, daring, he had carved out his own way through life, and +opened his oyster—the world, neither with sword nor pen, but with +steam and cotton. His father was Mr. Obadiah Newbroom, of the +well-known manufacturing firm of Newbroom, Stag, and Playforall. +A stanch Dissenter himself, he saw with a slight pang his son Thomas +turn Churchman, as soon as the young man had worked his way up to be +the real head of the firm. But this was the only sorrow which +Thomas Newbroom, now Lord Minchampstead, had ever given his father. +‘I stood behind a loom myself, my boy, when I began life; and +you must do with great means what I did with little ones. I have +made a gentleman of you, you must make a nobleman of yourself.’ +Those were almost the last words of the stern, thrifty, old Puritan +craftsman, and his son never forgot them. From a mill-owner he +grew to coal-owner, shipowner, banker, railway director, money-lender +to kings and princes; and last of all, as the summit of his own and +his compeer’s ambition, to land-owner. He had half a dozen +estates in as many different counties. He had added house to house, +and field to field; and at last bought Minchampstead Park and ten thousand +acres, for two-thirds its real value, from that enthusiastic sportsman +Lord Peu de Cervelle, whose family had come in with the Conqueror, and +gone out with George IV. So, at least, they always said; but it +was remarkable that their name could never be traced farther back than +the dissolution of the monasteries: and Calumnious Dryasdusts would +sometimes insolently father their title on James I. and one of his batches +of bought peerages. But let the dead bury their dead. There +was now a new lord in Minchampstead; and every country Caliban was finding, +to his disgust, that he had ‘got a new master,’ and must +perforce ‘be a new man.’ Oh! how the squires swore +and the farmers chuckled, when the ‘Parvenu’ sold the Minchampstead +hounds, and celebrated his 1st of September by exterminating every hare +and pheasant on the estate! How the farmers swore and the labourers +chuckled when he took all the cottages into his own hands and rebuilt +them, set up a first-rate industrial school, gave every man a pig and +a garden, and broke up all the commons ‘to thin the labour-market.’ +Oh, how the labourers swore and the farmers chuckled, when he put up +steam-engines on all his farms, refused to give away a farthing in alms, +and enforced the new Poor-law to the very letter. How the country +tradesmen swore, when he called them ‘a pack of dilatory jobbers,’ +and announced his intention of employing only London workmen for his +improvements. Oh! how they all swore together (behind his back, +of course, for his dinners were worth eating), and the very ladies said +naughty words, when the stern political economist proclaimed at his +own table that ‘he had bought Minchampstead for merely commercial +purposes, as a profitable investment of capital, and he would see that, +whatever else it did, it should <i>pay</i>.’</p> +<p>But the new lord heard of all the hard words with a quiet self-possessed +smile. He had formed his narrow theory of the universe, and he +was methodically and conscientiously carrying it out. True, too +often, like poor Keats’s merchant brothers,—</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘Half-ignorant, he turned an easy wheel,<br />Which set sharp +racks at work to pinch and peel.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>But of the harm which he did he was unconscious; in the good which +he did he was consistent and indefatigable; infinitely superior, with +all his defects, to the ignorant, extravagant do-nothing Squire Lavingtons +around him. At heart, however, Mammoth-blinded, he was kindly +and upright. A man of a stately presence; a broad, honest north-country +face; a high square forehead, bland and unwrinkled. I sketch him +here once for all, because I have no part for him after this scene in +my <i>corps de ballet</i>.</p> +<p>Lord Minchampstead had many reasons for patronising Lancelot. +In the first place, he had a true eye for a strong man wherever he met +him; in the next place, Lancelot’s uncle the banker, was a stanch +Whig ally of his in the House. ‘In the rotten-borough times, +Mr. Smith,’ he once said to Lancelot, ‘we could have made +a senator of you at once; but, for the sake of finality, we were forced +to relinquish that organ of influence. The Tories had abused it, +really, a little too far; and now we can only make a commissioner of +you—which, after all, is a more useful post, and a more lucrative +one.’ But Lancelot had not as yet ‘Galliolised,’ +as the Irish schoolmaster used to call it, and cared very little to +play a political ninth fiddle.</p> +<p>The first thing which caught his eyes as he entered the drawing-room +before dinner was Argemone listening in absorbed reverence to her favourite +vicar,—a stern, prim, close-shaven, dyspeptic man, with a meek, +cold smile, which might have become a cruel one. He watched and +watched in vain, hoping to catch her eye; but no—there she stood, +and talked and listened—</p> +<p>‘Ah,’ said Bracebridge, smiling, ‘it is in vain, +Smith! When did you know a woman leave the Church for one of us +poor laymen?’</p> +<p>‘Good heavens!’ said Lancelot, impatiently, ‘why +will they make such fools of themselves with clergymen?’</p> +<p>‘They are quite right. They always like the strong men—the +fighters and the workers. In Voltaire’s time they all ran +after the philosophers. In the middle ages, books tell us, they +worshipped the knights errant. They are always on the winning +side, the cunning little beauties. In the war-time, when the soldiers +had to play the world’s game, the ladies all caught the red-coat +fever; now, in these talking and thinking days (and be hanged to them +for bores), they have the black-coat fever for the same reason. +The parsons are the workers now-a-days—or rather, all the world +expects them to be so. They have the game in their own hands, +if they did but know how to play it.’</p> +<p>Lancelot stood still, sulking over many thoughts. The colonel +lounged across the room towards Lord Vieuxbois, a quiet, truly high-bred +young man, with a sweet open countenance, and an ample forehead, whose +size would have vouched for great talents, had not the promise been +contradicted by the weakness of the over-delicate mouth and chin.</p> +<p>‘Who is that with whom you came into the room, Bracebridge?’ +asked Lord Vieuxbois. ‘I am sure I know his face.’</p> +<p>‘Lancelot Smith, the man who has taken the shooting-box at +Lower Whitford.’</p> +<p>‘Oh, I remember him well enough at Cambridge! He was +one of a set who tried to look like blackguards, and really succeeded +tolerably. They used to eschew gloves, and drink nothing but beer, +and smoke disgusting short pipes; and when we established the Coverley +Club in Trinity, they set up an opposition, and called themselves the +Navvies. And they used to make piratical expeditions down to Lynn +in eight oars, to attack bargemen, and fen girls, and shoot ducks, and +sleep under turf-stacks, and come home when they had drank all the public-house +taps dry. I remember the man perfectly.’</p> +<p>‘Navvy or none,’ said the colonel, ‘he has just +the longest head and the noblest heart of any man I ever met. +If he does not distinguish himself before he dies, I know nothing of +human nature.’</p> +<p>‘Ah yes, I believe he is clever enough!—took a good degree, +a better one than I did—but horribly eclectic; full of mesmerism, +and German metaphysics, and all that sort of thing. I heard of +him one night last spring, on which he had been seen, if you will believe +it, going successively into a Swedenborgian chapel, the Garrick’s +Head, and one of Elliotson’s magnetic <i>soirées</i>. +What can you expect after that?’</p> +<p>‘A great deal,’ said Bracebridge drily. ‘With +such a head as he carries on his shoulders the man might be another +Mirabeau, if he held the right cards in the right rubber. And +he really ought to suit you, for he raves about the middle ages, and +chivalry, and has edited a book full of old ballads.’</p> +<p>‘Oh, all the eclectics do that sort of thing; and small thanks +to them. However, I will speak to him after dinner, and see what +there is in him.’</p> +<p>And Lord Vieuxbois turned away, and, alas for Lancelot! sat next +to Argemone at dinner. Lancelot, who was cross with everybody +for what was nobody’s fault, revenged himself all dinner-time +by never speaking a word to his next neighbour, Miss Newbroom, who was +longing with all her heart to talk sentiment to him about the Exhibition; +and when Argemone, in the midst of a brilliant word-skirmish with Lord +Vieuxbois, stole a glance at him, he chose to fancy that they were both +talking of him, and looked more cross than ever.</p> +<p>After the ladies retired, Lancelot, in his sulky way, made up his +mind that the conversation was going to be ineffably stupid; and set +to to dream, sip claret, and count the minutes till he found himself +in the drawing-room with Argemone. But he soon discovered, as +I suppose we all have, that ‘it never rains but it pours,’ +and that one cannot fall in with a new fact or a new acquaintance but +next day twenty fresh things shall spring up as if by magic, throwing +unexpected light on one’s new phenomenon. Lancelot’s +head was full of the condition-of-the-poor question, and lo! everybody +seemed destined to talk about it.</p> +<p>‘Well, Lord Vieuxbois,’ said the host, casually, ‘my +girls are raving about your new school. They say it is a perfect +antiquarian gem.’</p> +<p>‘Yes, tolerable, I believe. But Wales has disappointed +me a little. That vile modernist naturalism is creeping back even +into our painted glass. I could have wished that the artist’s +designs for the windows had been a little more Catholic.’</p> +<p>‘How then?’ asked the host, with a puzzled face.</p> +<p>‘Oh, he means,’ said Bracebridge, ‘that the figures’ +wrists and ankles were not sufficiently dislocated, and the patron saint +did not look quite like a starved rabbit with its neck wrung. +Some of the faces, I am sorry to say, were positively like good-looking +men and women.’</p> +<p>‘Oh, I understand,’ said Lord Minchampstead; ‘Bracebridge’s +tongue is privileged, you know, Lord Vieuxbois, so you must not be angry.’</p> +<p>‘I don’t see my way into all this,’ said Squire +Lavington (which was very likely to be true, considering that he never +looked for his way). ‘I don’t see how all these painted +windows, and crosses, and chanting, and the deuce and the Pope only +know what else, are to make boys any better.’</p> +<p>‘We have it on the highest authority,’ said Vieuxbois, +‘that pictures and music are the books of the unlearned. +I do not think that we have any right in the nineteenth century to contest +an opinion which the fathers of the Church gave in the fourth.’</p> +<p>‘At all events,’ said Lancelot, ‘it is by pictures +and music, by art and song, and symbolic representations, that all nations +have been educated in their adolescence! and as the youth of the individual +is exactly analogous to the youth of the collective race, we should +employ the same means of instruction with our children which succeeded +in the early ages with the whole world.’</p> +<p>Lancelot might as well have held his tongue—nobody understood +him but Vieuxbois, and he had been taught to scent German neology in +everything, as some folks are taught to scent Jesuitry, especially when +it involved an inductive law, and not a mere red-tape precedent, and, +therefore, could not see that Lancelot was arguing for him. ‘All +very fine, Smith,’ said the squire; ‘it’s a pity you +won’t leave off puzzling your head with books, and stick to fox-hunting. +All you young gentlemen will do is to turn the heads of the poor with +your cursed education.’ The national oath followed, of course. +‘Pictures and chanting! Why, when I was a boy, a good honest +labouring man wanted to see nothing better than a halfpenny ballad, +with a wood-cut at the top, and they worked very well then, and wanted +for nothing.’</p> +<p>‘Oh, we shall give them the halfpenny ballads in time!’ +said Vieuxbois, smiling.</p> +<p>‘You will do a very good deed, then,’ said mine host. +‘But I am sorry to say that, as far as I can find from my agents, +when the upper classes write cheap publications, the lower classes will +not read them.’</p> +<p>‘Too true,’ said Vieuxbois.</p> +<p>‘Is not the cause,’ asked Lancelot, ‘just that +the upper classes do write them?’</p> +<p>‘The writings of working men, certainly,’ said Lord Minchampstead, +‘have an enormous sale among their own class.’</p> +<p>‘Just because they express the feelings of that class, of which +I am beginning to fear that we know very little. Look again, what +a noble literature of people’s songs and hymns Germany has. +Some of Lord Vieuxbois’s friends, I know, are busy translating +many of them.’</p> +<p>‘As many of them, that is to say,’ said Vieuxbois, ‘as +are compatible with a real Church spirit.’</p> +<p>‘Be it so; but who wrote them? Not the German aristocracy +for the people, but the German people for themselves. There is +the secret of their power. Why not educate the people up to such +a standard that they should be able to write their own literature?’</p> +<p>‘What,’ said Mr. Chalklands, of Chalklands, who sat opposite, +‘would you have working men turn ballad writers? There would +be an end of work, then, I think.’</p> +<p>‘I have not heard,’ said Lancelot, ‘that the young +women—<i>ladies</i>, I ought to say, if the word mean anything—who +wrote the “Lowell Offering,” spun less or worse cotton than +their neighbours.’</p> +<p>‘On the contrary,” said Lord Minchampstead, ‘we +have the most noble accounts of heroic industry and self-sacrifice in +girls whose education, to judge by its fruits, might shame that of most +English young ladies.’</p> +<p>Mr. Chalklands expressed certain confused notions that, in America, +factory girls carried green silk parasols, put the legs of pianos into +trousers, and were too prudish to make a shirt, or to call it a shirt +after it was made, he did not quite remember which.</p> +<p>‘It is a great pity,’ said Lord Minchampstead, ‘that +our factory girls are not in the same state of civilisation. But +it is socially impossible. America is in an abnormal state. +In a young country the laws of political economy do not make themselves +fully felt. Here, where we have no uncleared world to drain the +labour-market, we may pity and alleviate the condition of the working-classes, +but we can do nothing more. All the modern schemes for the amelioration +which ignore the laws of competition, must end either in pauperisation’—(with +a glance at Lord Vieuxbois),—‘or in the destruction of property.’</p> +<p>Lancelot said nothing, but thought the more. It did strike +him at the moment that the few might, possibly, be made for the many, +and not the many for the few; and that property was made for man, not +man for property. But he contented himself with asking,—</p> +<p>‘You think, then, my lord, that in the present state of society, +no dead-lift can be given to the condition—in plain English, the +wages—of working men, without the destruction of property?’</p> +<p>Lord Minchampstead smiled, and parried the question.</p> +<p>‘There may be other dead-lift ameliorations, my young friend, +besides a dead-lift of wages.’</p> +<p>So Lancelot thought, also; but Lord Minchampstead would have been +a little startled could he have seen Lancelot’s notion of a dead-lift. +Lord Minchampstead was thinking of cheap bread and sugar. Do you +think that I will tell you of what Lancelot was thinking?</p> +<p>But here Vieuxbois spurred in to break a last lance. He had +been very much disgusted with the turn the conversation was taking, +for he considered nothing more heterodox than the notion that the poor +were to educate themselves. In his scheme, of course the clergy +and the gentry were to educate the poor, who were to take down thankfully +as much as it was thought proper to give them: and all beyond was ‘self-will’ +and ‘private judgment,’ the fathers of Dissent and Chartism, +Trades’-union strikes, and French Revolutions, <i>et si qua alia</i>.</p> +<p>‘And pray, Mr. Smith, may I ask what limit you would put to +education?’</p> +<p>‘The capacities of each man,’ said Lancelot. ‘If +man living in civilised society has one right which he can demand it +is this, that the State which exists by his labour shall enable him +to develop, or, at least, not hinder his developing, his whole faculties +to their very utmost, however lofty that may be. While a man who +might be an author remains a spade-drudge, or a journeyman while he +has capacities for a master; while any man able to rise in life remains +by social circumstances lower than he is willing to place himself, that +man has a right to complain of the State’s injustice and neglect.’</p> +<p>‘Really, I do not see,’ said Vieuxbois, ‘why people +should wish to rise in life. They had no such self-willed fancy +in the good old times. The whole notion is a product of these +modern days—’</p> +<p>He would have said more, but he luckily remembered at whose table +he was sitting.</p> +<p>‘I think, honestly,’ said Lancelot, whose blood was up, +‘that we gentlemen all run into the same fallacy. We fancy +ourselves the fixed and necessary element in society, to which all others +are to accommodate themselves. “Given the rights of the +few rich, to find the condition of the many poor.” It seems +to me that other postulate is quite as fair: “Given the rights +of the many poor, to find the condition of the few rich.”’</p> +<p>Lord Minchampstead laughed.</p> +<p>‘If you hit us so hard, Mr. Smith, I must really denounce you +as a Communist. Lord Vieuxbois, shall we join the ladies?’</p> +<p>In the drawing-room, poor Lancelot, after rejecting overtures of +fraternity from several young ladies, set himself steadily again against +the wall to sulk and watch Argemone. But this time she spied in +a few minutes his melancholy, moonstruck face, swam up to him, and said +something kind and commonplace. She spoke in the simplicity of +her heart, but he chose to think she was patronising him—she had +not talked commonplaces to the vicar. He tried to say something +smart and cutting,—stuttered, broke down, blushed, and shrank +back again to the wall, fancying that every eye in the room was on him; +and for one moment a flash of sheer hatred to Argemone swept through +him.</p> +<p>Was Argemone patronising him? Of course she was. True, +she was but three-and-twenty, and he was of the same age; but, spiritually +and socially, the girl develops ten years earlier than the boy. +She was flattered and worshipped by gray-headed men, and in her simplicity +she thought it a noble self-sacrifice to stoop to notice the poor awkward +youth. And yet if he could have seen the pure moonlight of sisterly +pity which filled all her heart as she retreated, with something of +a blush and something of a sigh, and her heart fluttered and fell, would +he have been content? Not he. It was her love he wanted, +and not her pity; it was to conquer her and possess her, and inform +himself with her image, and her with his own; though as yet he did not +know it; though the moment that she turned away he cursed himself for +selfish vanity, and moroseness and conceit.</p> +<p>‘Who am I to demand her all to myself? Her, the glorious, +the saintly, the unfallen! Is not a look, a word, infinitely more +than I deserve? And yet I pretend to admire tales of chivalry! +Old knightly hearts would have fought and wandered for years to earn +a tithe of the favours which have been bestowed on me unasked.’—</p> +<p>Peace! poor Lancelot! Thy egg is by no means addle; but the +chick is breaking the shell in somewhat a cross-grained fashion.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER VII: THE DRIVE HOME, AND WHAT CAME OF IT</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Now it was not extraordinary that Squire Lavington had ‘assimilated’ +a couple of bottles of Carbonel’s best port; for however abstemious +the new lord himself might be, he felt for the habits, and for the vote +of an old-fashioned Whig squire. Nor was it extraordinary that +he fell fast asleep the moment he got into the carriage; nor, again, +that his wife and daughters were not solicitous about waking him; nor, +on the other hand, that the coachman and footman, who were like all +the squire’s servants, of the good old sort, honest, faithful, +boozing, extravagant, happy-go-lucky souls, who had ‘been about +the place these forty years,’ were somewhat owlish and unsteady +on the box. Nor was it extraordinary that there was a heavy storm +of lightning, for that happened three times a-week in the chalk hills +the summer through; nor, again, that under these circumstances the horses, +who were of the squire’s own breeding, and never thoroughly broke +(nothing was done thoroughly at Whitford), went rather wildly home, +and that the carriage swung alarmingly down the steep hills, and the +boughs brushed the windows rather too often. But it was extraordinary +that Mrs. Lavington had cast off her usual primness, and seemed to-night, +for the first time in her life, in an exuberant good humour, which she +evinced by snubbing her usual favourite Honoria, and lavishing caresses +on Argemone, whose vagaries she usually regarded with a sort of puzzled +terror, like a hen who has hatched a duckling.</p> +<p>‘Honoria, take your feet off my dress. Argemone, my child, +I hope you spent a pleasant evening?’</p> +<p>Argemone answered by some tossy commonplace.</p> +<p>A pause—and then Mrs. Lavington recommenced,—</p> +<p>‘How very pleasing that poor young Lord Vieuxbois is, after +all!’</p> +<p>‘I thought you disliked him so much.’</p> +<p>‘His opinions, my child; but we must hope for the best. +He seems moral and well inclined, and really desirous of doing good +in his way; and so successful in the House, too, I hear.’</p> +<p>‘To me,’ said Argemone, ‘he seems to want life, +originality, depth, everything that makes a great man. He knows +nothing but what he has picked up ready-made from books. After +all, his opinions are the one redeeming point in him.’</p> +<p>‘Ah, my dear, when it pleases Heaven to open your eyes, you +will see as I do!’</p> +<p>Poor Mrs. Lavington! Unconscious spokeswoman for the ninety-nine +hundredths of the human race! What are we all doing from morning +to night, but setting up our own fancies as the measure of all heaven +and earth, and saying, each in his own dialect, Whig, Radical, or Tory, +Papist or Protestant, ‘When it pleases Heaven to open your eyes +you will see as I do’?</p> +<p>‘It is a great pity,’ went on Mrs. Lavington, meditatively, +‘to see a young man so benighted and thrown away. With his +vast fortune, too—such a means of good! Really we ought +to have seen a little more of him. I think Mr. O’Blareaway’s +conversation might be a blessing to him. I think of asking him +over to stay a week at Whitford, to meet that sainted young man.’</p> +<p>Now Argemone did not think the Reverend Panurgus O’Blareaway, +incumbent of Lower Whitford, at all a sainted young man, but, on the +contrary, a very vulgar, slippery Irishman; and she had, somehow, tired +of her late favourite, Lord Vieuxbois; so she answered tossily enough,—</p> +<p>‘Really, mamma, a week of Lord Vieuxbois will be too much. +We shall be bored to death with the Cambridge Camden Society, and ballads +for the people.’</p> +<p>‘I think, my dear,’ said Mrs. Lavington (who had, half +unconsciously to herself, more reasons than one for bringing the young +lord to Whitford), ‘I think, my dear, that his conversation, with +all its faults, will be a very improving change for your father. +I hope he’s asleep.’</p> +<p>The squire’s nose answered for itself.</p> +<p>‘Really, what between Mr. Smith, and Colonel Bracebridge, and +their very ineligible friend, Mr. Mellot, whom I should never have allowed +to enter my house if I had suspected his religious views, the place +has become a hotbed of false doctrine and heresy. I have been +quite frightened when I have heard their conversation at dinner, lest +the footmen should turn infidels!’</p> +<p>‘Perhaps, mamma,’ said Honoria, slyly, ‘Lord Vieuxbois +might convert them to something quite as bad. How shocking if +old Giles, the butler, should turn Papist!’</p> +<p>‘Honoria, you are very silly. Lord Vieuxbois, at least +can be trusted. He has no liking for low companions. <i>He</i> +is above joking with grooms, and taking country walks with gamekeepers.’</p> +<p>It was lucky that it was dark, for Honoria and Argemone both blushed +crimson.</p> +<p>‘Your poor father’s mind has been quite unsettled by +all their ribaldry. They have kept him so continually amused, +that all my efforts to bring him to a sense of his awful state have +been more unavailing than ever.’</p> +<p>Poor Mrs. Lavington! She had married, at eighteen, a man far +her inferior in intellect; and had become—as often happens in +such cases—a prude and a devotee. The squire, who really +admired and respected her, confined his disgust to sly curses at the +Methodists (under which name he used to include every species of religious +earnestness, from Quakerism to that of Mr. Newman). Mrs. Lavington +used at first to dignify these disagreeables by the name of persecution, +and now she was trying to convert the old man by coldness, severity, +and long curtain-lectures, utterly unintelligible to their victim, because +couched in the peculiar conventional phraseology of a certain school. +She forgot, poor earnest soul, that the same form of religion which +had captivated a disappointed girl of twenty, might not be the most +attractive one for a jovial old man of sixty.</p> +<p>Argemone, who a fortnight before would have chimed in with all her +mother’s lamentations, now felt a little nettled and jealous. +She could not bear to hear Lancelot classed with the colonel.</p> +<p>‘Indeed,’ she said, ‘if amusement is bad for my +father, he is not likely to get much of it during Lord Vieuxbois’s +stay. But, of course, mamma, you will do as you please.’</p> +<p>‘Of course I shall, my dear,’ answered the good lady, +in a tragedy-queen tone. ‘I shall only take the liberty +of adding, that it is very painful to me to find you adding to the anxiety +which your unfortunate opinions give me, by throwing every possible +obstacle in the way of my plans for your good.’</p> +<p>Argemone burst into proud tears (she often did so after a conversation +with her mother). ‘Plans for my good!’—And an +unworthy suspicion about her mother crossed her mind, and was peremptorily +expelled again. What turn the conversation would have taken next, +I know not, but at that moment Honoria and her mother uttered a fearful +shriek, as their side of the carriage jolted half-way up the bank, and +stuck still in that pleasant position.</p> +<p>The squire awoke, and the ladies simultaneously clapped their hands +to their ears, knowing what was coming. He thrust his head out +of the window, and discharged a broadside of at least ten pounds’ +worth of oaths (Bow Street valuation) at the servants, who were examining +the broken wheel, with a side volley or two at Mrs. Lavington for being +frightened. He often treated her and Honoria to that style of +oratory. At Argemone he had never sworn but once since she left +the nursery, and was so frightened at the consequences, that he took +care never to do it again.</p> +<p>But there they were fast, with a broken wheel, plunging horses, and +a drunken coachman. Luckily for them, the colonel and Lancelot +were following close behind, and came to their assistance.</p> +<p>The colonel, as usual, solved the problem.</p> +<p>‘Your dog-cart will carry four, Smith?’</p> +<p>‘It will.’</p> +<p>‘Then let the ladies get in, and Mr. Lavington drive them home.’</p> +<p>‘What?’ said the squire, ‘with both my hands red-hot +with the gout? You must drive three of us, colonel, and one of +us must walk.’</p> +<p>‘I will walk,’ said Argemone, in her determined way.</p> +<p>Mrs. Lavington began something about propriety, but was stopped with +another pound’s worth of oaths by the squire, who, however, had +tolerably recovered his good humour, and hurried Mrs. Lavington and +Honoria, laughingly, into the dog-cart, saying—</p> +<p>‘Argemone’s safe enough with Smith; the servants will +lead the horses behind them. It’s only three miles home, +and I should like to see any one speak to her twice while Smith’s +fists are in the way.’</p> +<p>Lancelot thought so too.</p> +<p>‘You can trust yourself to me, Miss Lavington?’</p> +<p>‘By all means. I shall enjoy the walk after—:’ +and she stopped. In a moment the dog-cart had rattled off, with +a parting curse from the squire to the servants, who were unharnessing +the horses.</p> +<p>Argemone took Lancelot’s arm; the soft touch thrilled through +and through him; and Argemone felt, she knew not why, a new sensation +run through her frame. She shuddered—not with pain.</p> +<p>‘You are cold, Miss Lavington?’</p> +<p>‘Oh, not in the least.’ Cold! when every vein was +boiling so strangely! A soft luscious melancholy crept over her. +She had always had a terror of darkness; but now she felt quite safe +in his strength. The thought of her own unprotected girlhood drew +her heart closer to him. She remembered with pleasure the stories +of his personal prowess, which had once made her think him coarse and +brutal. For the first time in her life she knew the delight of +dependence—the holy charm of weakness. And as they paced +on silently together, through the black awful night, while the servants +lingered, far out of sight, about the horses, she found out how utterly +she trusted to him.</p> +<p>‘Listen!’ she said. A nightingale was close to +them, pouring out his whole soul in song.</p> +<p>‘Is it not very late in the year for a nightingale?’</p> +<p>‘He is waiting for his mate. She is rearing a late brood, +I suppose.’</p> +<p>‘What do you think it is which can stir him up to such an ecstasy +of joy, and transfigure his whole heart into melody?’</p> +<p>‘What but love, the fulness of all joy, the evoker of all song?’</p> +<p>‘All song?—The angels sing in heaven.’</p> +<p>‘So they say: but the angels must love if they sing.’</p> +<p>‘They love God!’</p> +<p>‘And no one else?’</p> +<p>‘Oh yes: but that is universal, spiritual love; not earthly +love—a narrow passion for an individual.’</p> +<p>‘How do we know that they do not learn to love all by first +loving one?’</p> +<p>‘Oh, the angelic life is single!’</p> +<p>‘Who told you so, Miss Lavington?’</p> +<p>She quoted the stock text, of course:—‘“In heaven +they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels.”’</p> +<p>‘“As the tree falls, so it lies.” And God +forbid that those who have been true lovers on earth should contract +new marriages in the next world. Love is eternal. Death +may part lovers, but not love. And how do we know that these angels, +as they call them, if they be really persons, may not be united in pairs +by some marriage bond, infinitely more perfect than any we can dream +of on earth?’</p> +<p>‘That is a very wild view, Mr. Smith, and not sanctioned by +the Church,’ said Argemone, severely. (Curious and significant +it is, how severe ladies are apt to be whenever they talk of the Church.)</p> +<p>‘In plain historic fact, the early fathers and the middle-age +monks did not sanction it: and are not they the very last persons to +whom one would go to be taught about marriage? Strange! that people +should take their notions of love from the very men who prided themselves +on being bound, by their own vows, to know nothing about it!’</p> +<p>‘They were very holy men.’</p> +<p>‘But still men, as I take it. And do you not see that +Love is, like all spiritual things, only to be understood by experience—by +loving?’</p> +<p>‘But is love spiritual?’</p> +<p>‘Pardon me, but what a question for one who believes that “God +is love!”’</p> +<p>‘But the divines tell us that the love of human beings is earthly.’</p> +<p>‘How did they know? They had never tried. Oh, Miss +Lavington! cannot you see that in those barbarous and profligate ages +of the later empire, it was impossible for men to discern the spiritual +beauty of marriage, degraded as it had been by heathen brutality? +Do you not see that there must have been a continual tendency in the +minds of a celibate clergy to look with contempt, almost with spite, +on pleasures which were forbidden to them?’</p> +<p>Another pause.</p> +<p>‘It must be very delicious,’ said Argemone, thoughtfully, +‘for any one who believes it, to think that marriage can last +through eternity. But, then, what becomes of entire love to God? +How can we part our hearts between him and his creatures?’</p> +<p>‘It is a sin, then, to love your sister? or your friend? +What a low, material view of love, to fancy that you can cut it up into +so many pieces, like a cake, and give to one person one tit-bit, and +another to another, as the Popish books would have you believe! +Love is like flame—light as many fresh flames at it as you will, +it grows, instead of diminishing, by the dispersion.’</p> +<p>‘It is a beautiful imagination.’</p> +<p>‘But, oh, how miserable and tantalising a thought, Miss Lavington, +to those who know that a priceless spirit is near them, which might +be one with theirs through all eternity, like twin stars in one common +atmosphere, for ever giving and receiving wisdom and might, beauty and +bliss, and yet are barred from their bliss by some invisible adamantine +wall, against which they must beat themselves to death, like butterflies +against the window-pane, gazing, and longing, and unable to guess why +they are forbidden to enjoy!’</p> +<p>Why did Argemone withdraw her arm from his? He knew, and he +felt that she was entrusted to him. He turned away from the subject.</p> +<p>‘I wonder whether they are safe home by this time?’</p> +<p>‘I hope my father will not catch cold. How sad, Mr. Smith, +that he will swear so. I do not like to say it; and yet you must +have heard him too often yourself.’</p> +<p>‘It is hardly a sin with him now, I think. He has become +so habituated to it, that he attaches no meaning or notion whatsoever +to his own oaths. I have heard him do it with a smiling face to +the very beggar to whom he was giving half-a-crown. We must not +judge a man of his school by the standard of our own day.’</p> +<p>‘Let us hope so,’ said Argemone, sadly.</p> +<p>There was another pause. At a turn of the hill road the black +masses of beech-wood opened, and showed the Priory lights twinkling +right below. Strange that Argemone felt sorry to find herself +so near home.</p> +<p>‘We shall go to town next week,’ said she; “and +then—You are going to Norway this summer, are you not?’</p> +<p>‘No. I have learnt that my duty lies nearer home.’</p> +<p>‘What are you going to do?’</p> +<p>‘I wish this summer, for the first time in my life, to try +and do some good—to examine a little into the real condition of +English working men.’</p> +<p>‘I am afraid, Mr. Smith, that I did not teach you that duty.’</p> +<p>‘Oh, you have taught me priceless things! You have taught +me beauty is the sacrament of heaven, and love its gate; that that which +is the most luscious is also the most pure.’</p> +<p>‘But I never spoke a word to you on such subjects.’</p> +<p>‘There are those, Miss Lavington, to whom a human face can +speak truths too deep for books.’</p> +<p>Argemone was silent; but she understood him. Why did she not +withdraw her arm a second time?</p> +<p>In a moment more the colonel hailed them from the dog-cart and behind +him came the britschka with a relay of servants.</p> +<p>They parted with a long, lingering pressure of the hand, which haunted +her young palm all night in dreams. Argemone got into the carriage, +Lancelot jumped into the dog-cart, took the reins, and relieved his +heart by galloping Sandy up the hill, and frightening the returning +coachman down one bank and his led horses up the other.</p> +<p>‘<i>Vogue la Galère</i>, Lancelot? I hope you +have made good use of your time?’</p> +<p>But Lancelot spoke no word all the way home, and wandered till dawn +in the woods around his cottage, kissing the hand which Argemone’s +palm had pressed.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII: WHITHER?</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Some three months slipped away—right dreary months for Lancelot, +for the Lavingtons went to Baden-Baden for the summer. ‘The +waters were necessary for their health.’ . . . How wonderful +it is, by the bye, that those German Brunnen are never necessary for +poor people’s health! . . . and they did not return till the end +of August. So Lancelot buried himself up to the eyes in the Condition-of-the-Poor +question—that is, in blue books, red books, sanitary reports, +mine reports, factory reports; and came to the conclusion, which is +now pretty generally entertained, that something was the matter—but +what, no man knew, or, if they knew, thought proper to declare. +Hopeless and bewildered, he left the books, and wandered day after day +from farm to hamlet, and from field to tramper’s tent, in hopes +of finding out the secret for himself. What he saw, of course +I must not say; for if I did the reviewers would declare, as usual, +one and all, that I copied out of the <i>Morning Chronicle</i>; and +the fact that these pages, ninety-nine hundredths of them at least, +were written two years before the <i>Morning Chronicle</i> began its +invaluable investigations, would be contemptuously put aside as at once +impossible and arrogant. I shall therefore only say, that he saw +what every one else has seen, at least heard of, and got tired of hearing—though +alas! they have not got tired of seeing it; and so proceed with my story, +only mentioning therein certain particulars which folks seem, to me, +somewhat strangely, to have generally overlooked.</p> +<p>But whatever Lancelot saw, or thought he saw, I cannot say that it +brought him any nearer to a solution of the question; and he at last +ended by a sulky acquiescence in Sam Weller’s memorable dictum: +‘Who it is I can’t say; but all I can say is that <i>somebody</i> +ought to be wopped for this!’</p> +<p>But one day, turning over, as hopelessly as he was beginning to turn +over everything else, a new work of Mr. Carlyle’s, he fell on +some such words as these:—</p> +<p>‘The beginning and the end of what is the matter with us in +these days is—that <i>we have forgotten God</i>.’</p> +<p>Forgotten God? That was at least a defect of which blue books +had taken no note. And it was one which, on the whole—granting, +for the sake of argument, any real, living, or practical existence to +That Being, might be a radical one—it brought him many hours of +thought, that saying; and when they were over, he rose up and went to +find—Tregarva.</p> +<p>‘Yes, he is the man. He is the only man with whom I have +ever met, of whom I could be sure, that independent of his own interest, +without the allurements of respectability and decency, of habit and +custom, he believes in God. And he too is a poor man; he has known +the struggles, temptations, sorrows of the poor. I will go to +him.’</p> +<p>But as Lancelot rose to find him, there was put into his hand a letter, +which kept him at home a while longer—none other, in fact, than +the long-expected answer from Luke.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘WELL, MY DEAR COUSIN—You may possibly have some logical +ground from which to deny Popery, if you deny all other religions with +it; but how those who hold any received form of Christianity whatsoever +can fairly side with you against Rome, I cannot see. I am sure +I have been sent to Rome by them, not drawn thither by Jesuits. +Not merely by their defects and inconsistencies; not merely because +they go on taunting us, and shrieking at us with the cry that we ought +to go to Rome, till we at last, wearied out, take them at their word, +and do at their bidding the thing we used to shrink from with terror—not +this merely but the very doctrines we hold in common with them, have +sent me to Rome. For would these men have known of them if Rome +had not been? The Trinity—the Atonement—the Inspiration +of Scripture.—A future state—that point on which the present +generation, without a smattering of psychological science, without even +the old belief in apparitions, dogmatises so narrowly and arrogantly—what +would they have known of them but for Rome? And she says there +are three realms in the future state . . . heaven, hell, and purgatory +. . . What right have they to throw away the latter, and arbitrarily +retain the two former? I am told that Scripture gives no warrant +for a third state. She says that it does—that it teaches +that implicitly, as it teaches other, the very highest doctrines; some +hold, the Trinity itself. . . . It may be proved from Scripture; +for it may be proved from the love and justice of God revealed in Scripture. +The Protestants divide—in theory, that is—mankind into two +classes, the righteous, who are destined to infinite bliss; the wicked, +who are doomed to infinite torment; in which latter class, to make their +arbitrary division exhaustive, they put of course nine hundred and ninety-nine +out of the thousand, and doom to everlasting companionship with Borgias +and Cagliostros, the gentle, frivolous girl, or the peevish boy, who +would have shrunk, in life, with horror from the contact. . . . +Well, at least, their hell is hellish enough . . . if it were but just. +. . . But I, Lancelot, I cannot believe it! I will not believe +it! I had a brother once—affectionate, simple, generous, +full of noble aspirations—but without, alas! a thought of God; +yielding in a hundred little points, and some great ones, to the infernal +temptations of a public school. . . . He died at seventeen. +Where is he now? Lancelot! where is he now? Never for a +day has that thought left my mind for years. Not in heaven—for +he has no right there; Protestants would say that as well as I. . . +. Where, then?—Lancelot! not in that other place. I cannot, +I will not believe it. For the sake of God’s honour, as +well as of my own sanity, I will not believe it! There must be +some third place—some intermediate chance, some door of hope—some +purifying and redeeming process beyond the grave. . . . Why not +a purifying fire? Ages of that are surely punishment enough—and +if there be a fire of hell, why not a fire of purgatory? . . . +After all, the idea of purgatory as a fire is only an opinion, not a +dogma of the Church. . . . But if the gross flesh which has sinned +is to be punished by the matter which it has abused, why may it not +be purified by it?’</p> +<p>‘You may laugh, if you will, at both, and say again, as I have +heard you say ere now, that the popular Christian paradise and hell +are but a Pagan Olympus and Tartarus, as grossly material as Mahomet’s, +without the honest thorough-going sexuality, which you thought made +his notion logical and consistent. . . . Well, you may say that, +but Protestants cannot; for their idea of heaven and ours is the same—with +this exception, that theirs will contain but a thin band of saved ones, +while ours will fill and grow to all eternity. . . . I tell you, Lancelot, +it is just the very doctrines for which England most curses Rome, and +this very purgatory at the head of them, which constitute her strength +and her allurement; which appeal to the reason, the conscience, the +heart of men, like me, who have revolted from the novel superstition +which looks pitilessly on at the fond memories of the brother, the prayers +of the orphan, the doubled desolation of the widow, with its cold terrible +assurance, “There is no hope for thy loved and lost ones—no +hope, but hell for evermore!”</p> +<p>‘I do not expect to convert you. You have your metempsychosis, +and your theories of progressive incarnation, and your monads, and your +spirits of the stars and flowers. I have not forgotten a certain +talk of ours over Falk Von Müller’s <i>Recollections of Goethe</i>, +and how you materialists are often the most fantastic of theorists. +. . . I do not expect, I say, to convert you. I only want +to show you there is no use trying to show the self-satisfied Pharisees +of the popular sect—why, in spite of all their curses, men still +go back to Rome.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Lancelot read this, and re-read it; and smiled, but sadly—and +the more he read, the stronger its arguments seemed to him, and he rejoiced +thereat. For there is a bad pleasure—happy he who has not +felt it—in a pitiless reductio ad absurdum, which asks tauntingly, +‘Why do you not follow out your own conclusions?’—instead +of thanking God that people do not follow them out, and that their hearts +are sounder than their heads. Was it with this feeling that the +fancy took possession of him, to show the letter to Tregarva? +I hope not—perhaps he did not altogether wish to lead him into +temptation, any more than I wish to lead my readers, but only to make +him, just as I wish to make them, face manfully a real awful question +now racking the hearts of hundreds, and see how they will be able to +answer the sophist fiend—for honestly, such he is—when their +time comes, as come it will. At least he wanted to test at once +Tregarva’s knowledge and his logic. As for his ‘faith,’ +alas! he had not so much reverence for it as to care what effect Luke’s +arguments might have there. ‘The whole man,’ quoth +Lancelot to himself, ‘is a novel phenomenon; and all phenomena, +however magnificent, are surely fair subjects for experiment. +Magendie may have gone too far, certainly, in dissecting a live dog—but +what harm in my pulling the mane of a dead lion?’</p> +<p>So he showed the letter to Tregarva as they were fishing together +one day—for Lancelot had been installed duly in the Whitford trout +preserves’—Tregarva read it slowly; asked, shrewdly enough, +the meaning of a word or two as he went on; at last folded it up deliberately, +and returned it to its owner with a deep sigh. Lancelot said nothing +for a few minutes; but the giant seemed so little inclined to open the +conversation, that he was forced at last to ask him what he thought +of it.</p> +<p>‘It isn’t a matter for thinking, sir, to my mind—There’s +a nice fish on the feed there, just over-right that alder.’</p> +<p>‘Hang the fish! Why not a matter for thinking?’</p> +<p>‘To my mind, sir, a man may think a deal too much about many +matters that come in his way.’</p> +<p>‘What should he do with them, then?’</p> +<p>‘Mind his own business.’</p> +<p>‘Pleasant for those whom they concern!—That’s rather +a cold-blooded speech for you, Tregarva!’</p> +<p>The Cornishman looked up at him earnestly. His eyes were glittering—was +it with tears?</p> +<p>‘Don’t fancy I don’t feel for the poor young gentleman—God +help him!—I’ve been through it all—or not through +it, that’s to say. I had a brother once, as fine a young +fellow as ever handled pick, as kind-hearted as a woman, and as honest +as the sun in Heaven.—But he would drink, sir;—that one +temptation, he never could stand it. And one day at the shaft’s +mouth, reaching after the kibble-chain—maybe he was in liquor, +maybe not—the Lord knows; but—’</p> +<p>‘I didn’t know him again, sir, when we picked him up, +any more than—’ and the strong man shuddered from head to +foot, and beat impatiently on the ground with his heavy heel, as if +to crush down the rising horror.</p> +<p>‘Where is he, sir?’</p> +<p>A long pause.</p> +<p>‘Do you think I didn’t ask that, sir, for years and years +after, of God, and my own soul, and heaven and earth, and the things +under the earth, too? For many a night did I go down that mine +out of my turn, and sat for hours in that level, watching and watching, +if perhaps the spirit of him might haunt about, and tell his poor brother +one word of news—one way or the other—anything would have +been a comfort—but the doubt I couldn’t bear. And +yet at last I learnt to bear it—and what’s more, I learnt +not to care for it. It’s a bold word—there’s +one who knows whether or not it is a true one.’</p> +<p>‘Good Heavens!—and what then did you say to yourself?’</p> +<p>‘I said this, sir—or rather, one came as I was on my +knees, and said it to me—What’s done you can’t mend. +What’s left, you can. Whatever has happened is God’s +concern now, and none but His. Do you see that as far as you can +no such thing ever happen again, on the face of His earth. And +from that day, sir, I gave myself up to that one thing, and will until +I die, to save the poor young fellows like myself, who are left now-a-days +to the Devil, body and soul, just when they are in the prime of their +power to work for God.’</p> +<p>‘Ah!’ said Lancelot—‘if poor Luke’s +spirit were but as strong as yours!’</p> +<p>‘I strong?’ answered he, with a sad smile; ‘and +so you think, sir. But it’s written, and it’s true—“The +heart knoweth its own bitterness.”’</p> +<p>‘Then you absolutely refuse to try to fancy your—his +present state?’</p> +<p>‘Yes, sir, because if I did fancy it, that would be a certain +sign I didn’t know it. If we can’t conceive what God +has prepared for those that we know loved Him, how much less can we +for them of whom we don’t know whether they loved Him or not?’</p> +<p>‘Well,’ thought Lancelot to himself, ‘I did not +do so very wrong in trusting your intellect to cut through a sophism.’</p> +<p>‘But what do you believe, Tregarva?’</p> +<p>‘I believe this, sir—and your cousin will believe the +same, if he will only give up, as I am sore afraid he will need to some +day, sticking to arguments and doctrines about the Lord, and love and +trust the Lord himself. I believe, sir, that the judge of all +the earth will do right—and what’s right can’t be +wrong, nor cruel either, else it would not be like Him who loved us +to the death, that’s all I know; and that’s enough for me. +To whom little is given, of him is little required. He that didn’t +know his Master’s will, will be beaten with few stripes, and he +that did know it, as I do, will be beaten with many, if he neglects +it—and that latter, not the former, is my concern.’</p> +<p>‘Well,’ thought Lancelot to himself, ‘this great +heart has gone down to the root of the matter—the right and wrong +of it. He, at least, has not forgotten God. Well, I would +give up all the Teleologies and cosmogonies that I ever dreamt or read, +just to believe what he believes—Heigho and well-a-day!—Paul! +hist? I’ll swear that was an otter!’</p> +<p>‘I hope not, sir, I’m sure. I haven’t seen +the spraint of one here this two years.’</p> +<p>‘There again—don’t you see something move under +that marl bank?’</p> +<p>Tregarva watched a moment, and then ran up to the spot, and throwing +himself on his face on the edge, leant over, grappled something—and +was instantly, to Lancelot’s astonishment, grappled in his turn +by a rough, lank, white dog, whose teeth, however, could not get through +the velveteen sleeve.</p> +<p>‘I’ll give in, keeper! I’ll give in. +Doan’t ye harm the dog! he’s deaf as a post, you knows.’</p> +<p>‘I won’t harm him if you take him off, and come up quietly.’</p> +<p>This mysterious conversation was carried on with a human head, which +peeped above the water, its arms supporting from beneath the growling +cur—such a visage as only worn-out poachers, or trampling drovers, +or London chiffonniers carry; pear-shaped and retreating to a narrow +peak above, while below, the bleared cheeks, and drooping lips, and +peering purblind eyes, perplexed, hopeless, defiant, and yet sneaking, +bespeak <i>their</i> share in the ‘inheritance of the kingdom +of heaven.’—Savages without the resources of a savage—slaves +without the protection of a master—to whom the cart-whip and the +rice-swamp would be a change for the better—for there, at least, +is food and shelter.</p> +<p>Slowly and distrustfully a dripping scarecrow of rags and bones rose +from his hiding-place in the water, and then stopped suddenly, and seemed +inclined to dash through the river; but Tregarva held him fast.</p> +<p>‘There’s two on ye! That’s a shame! +I’ll surrender to no man but you, Paul. Hold off, or I’ll +set the dog on ye!’</p> +<p>‘It’s a gentleman fishing. He won’t tell—will +you, sir?’ And he turned to Lancelot. ‘Have +pity on the poor creature, sir, for God’s sake—it isn’t +often he gets it.’</p> +<p>‘I won’t tell, my man. I’ve not seen you +doing any harm. Come out like a man, and let’s have a look +at you.’</p> +<p>The creature crawled up the bank, and stood, abject and shivering, +with the dog growling from between his legs.</p> +<p>‘I was only looking for a kingfisher’s nest: indeed now, +I was, Paul Tregarva.’</p> +<p>‘Don’t lie, you were setting night-lines. I saw +a minnow lie on the bank as I came up. Don’t lie; I hate +liars.’</p> +<p>‘Well indeed, then—a man must live somehow.’</p> +<p>‘You don’t seem to live by this trade, my friend,’ +quoth Lancelot; ‘I cannot say it seems a prosperous business, +by the look of your coat and trousers.’</p> +<p>‘That Tim Goddard stole all my clothes, and no good may they +do him; last time as I went to gaol I gave them him to kep, and he went +off for a navvy meantime; so there I am.’</p> +<p>‘If you will play with the dogs,’ quoth Tregarva, ‘you +know what you will be bit by. Haven’t I warned you? +Of course you won’t prosper: as you make your bed, so you must +lie in it. The Lord can’t be expected to let those prosper +that forget Him. What mercy would it be to you if He did let you +prosper by setting snares all church-time, as you were last Sunday, +instead of going to church?’</p> +<p>‘I say, Paul Tregarva, I’ve told you my mind about that +afore. If I don’t do what I knows to be right and good already, +there ain’t no use in me a damning myself all the deeper by going +to church to hear more.’</p> +<p>‘God help you!’ quoth poor Paul.</p> +<p>‘Now, I say,’ quoth Crawy, with the air of a man who +took the whole thing as a matter of course, no more to be repined at +than the rain and wind—‘what be you a going to do with me +this time? I do hope you won’t have me up to bench. +’Tain’t a month now as I’m out o’ prizzum along +o’ they fir-toppings, and I should, you see—’ with +a look up and down and round at the gay hay-meadows, and the fleet water, +and the soft gleaming clouds, which to Lancelot seemed most pathetic,—‘I +should like to ha’ a spell o’ fresh air, like, afore I goes +in again.’</p> +<p>Tregarva stood over him and looked down at him, like some huge stately +bloodhound on a trembling mangy cur. ‘Good heavens!’ +thought Lancelot, as his eye wandered from the sad steadfast dignity +of the one, to the dogged helpless misery of the other—‘can +those two be really fellow-citizens? fellow-Christians?—even animals +of the same species? Hard to believe!’</p> +<p>True, Lancelot; but to quote you against yourself, Bacon, or rather +the instinct which taught Bacon, teaches you to discern the invisible +common law under the deceitful phenomena of sense.</p> +<p>‘I must have those night-lines, Crawy,’ quoth Tregarva, +at length.</p> +<p>‘Then I must starve. You might ever so well take away +the dog. They’re the life of me.’</p> +<p>‘They’re the death of you. Why don’t you +go and work, instead of idling about, stealing trout?’</p> +<p>‘Be you a laughing at a poor fellow in his trouble? Who’d +gie me a day’s work, I’d like to know? It’s +twenty year too late for that!’</p> +<p>Lancelot stood listening. Yes, that wretch, too, was a man +and a brother—at least so books used to say. Time was, when +he had looked on a poacher as a Pariah ‘hostem humani generis’—and +only deplored that the law forbade him to shoot them down, like cats +and otters; but he had begun to change his mind.</p> +<p>He had learnt, and learnt rightly, the self-indulgence, the danger, +the cruelty, of indiscriminate alms. It looked well enough in +theory, on paper. ‘But—but—but,’ thought +Lancelot, ‘in practice, one can’t help feeling a little +of that un-economic feeling called pity. No doubt the fellow has +committed an unpardonable sin in daring to come into the world when +there was no call for him; one used to think, certainly, that children’s +opinions were not consulted on such points before they were born, and +that therefore it might be hard to visit the sins of the fathers on +the children, even though the labour-market were a little overstocked—“mais +nous avons changé tout cela,” like M. Jourdain’s +doctors. No doubt, too, the fellow might have got work if he had +chosen—in Kamschatka or the Cannibal Islands; for the political +economists have proved, beyond a doubt, that there is work somewhere +or other for every one who chooses to work. But as, unfortunately, +society has neglected to inform him of the state of the Cannibal Island +labour-market, or to pay his passage thither when informed thereof, +he has had to choose in the somewhat limited labour-field of the Whitford +Priors’ union, whose workhouse is already every winter filled +with abler-bodied men than he, between starvation—and this—. +Well, as for employing him, one would have thought that there was a +little work waiting to be done in those five miles of heather and snipe-bog, +which I used to tramp over last winter—but those, it seems, are +still on the “margin of cultivation,” and not a remunerative +investment—that is, to capitalists. I wonder if any one +had made Crawy a present of ten acres of them when he came of age, and +commanded him to till that or be hanged, whether he would not have found +it a profitable investment? But bygones are bygones, and there +he is, and the moors, thanks to the rights of property—in this +case the rights of the dog in the manger—belong to poor old Lavington—that +is, the game and timber on them; and neither Crawy nor any one else +can touch them. What can I do for him? Convert him? to what? +For the next life, even Tregarva’s talisman seems to fail. +And for this life—perhaps if he had had a few more practical proofs +of a divine justice and government—that “kingdom of heaven” +of which Luke talks, in the sensible bodily matters which he does appreciate, +he might not be so unwilling to trust to it for the invisible spiritual +matters which he does not appreciate. At all events, one has but +one chance of winning him, and that is, through those five senses which +he has left. What if he does spend the money in gross animal enjoyment? +What will the amount of it be, compared with the animal enjoyments which +my station allows me daily without reproach! A little more bacon—a +little more beer—a little more tobacco; at all events they will +be more important to him than a pair of new boots or an extra box of +cigars to me.’—And Lancelot put his hand in his pocket, +and pulled out a sovereign. No doubt he was a great goose; but +if you can answer his arguments, reader, I cannot.</p> +<p>‘Look here—what are your night-lines worth?’</p> +<p>‘A matter of seven shilling; ain’t they now, Paul Tregarva?’</p> +<p>‘I should suppose they are.’</p> +<p>‘Then do you give me the lines, one and all, and there’s +a sovereign for you.—No, I can’t trust you with it all at +once. I’ll give it to Tregarva, and he shall allow you four +shillings a week as long as it lasts, if you’ll promise to keep +off Squire Lavington’s river.’</p> +<p>It was pathetic, and yet disgusting, to see the abject joy of the +poor creature. ‘Well,’ thought Lancelot, ‘if +he deserves to be wretched, so do I—why, therefore, if we are +one as bad as the other, should I not make his wretchedness a little +less for the time being?’</p> +<p>‘I waint come a-near the water. You trust me—I +minds them as is kind to me’—and a thought seemed suddenly +to lighten up his dull intelligence.</p> +<p>‘I say, Paul, hark you here. I see that Bantam into D +* * * t’other day.’</p> +<p>‘What! is he down already?’</p> +<p>‘With a dog-cart; he and another of his pals; and I see ’em +take out a silk flue, I did. So, says I, you maunt be trying that +ere along o’ the Whitford trout; they kepers is out o’ nights +so sure as the moon.’</p> +<p>‘You didn’t know that. Lying again!’</p> +<p>‘No, but I sayed it in course. I didn’t want they +a-robbing here; so I think they worked mainly up Squire Vaurien’s +water.’</p> +<p>‘I wish I’d caught them here,’ quoth Tregarva, +grimly enough; ‘though I don’t think they came, or I should +have seen the track on the banks.’</p> +<p>‘But he sayed like, as how he should be down here again about +pheasant shooting.’</p> +<p>‘Trust him for it. Let us know, now, if you see him.’</p> +<p>‘And that I will, too. I wouldn’t save a feather +for that ’ere old rascal, Harry. If the devil don’t +have he, I don’t see no use in keeping no devil. But I minds +them as has mercy on me, though my name is Crawy. Ay,’ he +added, bitterly, ‘’tain’t so many kind turns as I +gets in this life, that I can afford to forget e’er a one.’ +And he sneaked off, with the deaf dog at his heels.</p> +<p>‘How did that fellow get his name, Tregarva?’</p> +<p>‘Oh, most of them have nicknames round here. Some of +them hardly know their own real names, sir.’ (‘A sure +sign of low civilisation,’ thought Lancelot.) ‘But +he got his a foolish way; and yet it was the ruin of him. When +he was a boy of fifteen, he got miching away in church-time, as boys +will, and took off his clothes to get in somewhere here in this very +river, groping in the banks after craw-fish; and as the devil—for +I can think no less—would have it, a big one catches hold of him +by the fingers with one claw, and a root with the other, and holds him +there till Squire Lavington comes out to take his walk after church, +and there he caught the boy, and gave him a thrashing there and then, +naked as he stood. And the story got wind, and all the chaps round +called him Crawy ever afterwards, and the poor fellow got quite reckless +from that day, and never looked any one in the face again; and being +ashamed of himself, you see, sir, was never ashamed of anything else—and +there he is. That dog’s his only friend, and gets a livelihood +for them both. It’s growing old now; and when it dies, he’ll +starve.’</p> +<p>‘Well—the world has no right to blame him for not doing +his duty, till it has done its own by him a little better.’</p> +<p>‘But the world will, sir, because it hates its duty, and cries +all day long, like Cain, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”’</p> +<p>‘Do you think it knows its duty? I have found it easy +enough to see that something is diseased, Tregarva; but to find the +medicine first, and to administer it afterwards, is a very different +matter.’</p> +<p>‘Well—I suppose the world will never be mended till the +day of judgment.’</p> +<p>‘In plain English, not mended till it is destroyed. Hopeful +for the poor world! I should fancy, if I believed that, that the +devil in the old history—which you believe—had had the best +of it with a vengeance, when he brought sin into the world, and ruined +it. I dare not believe that. How dare you, who say that +God sent His Son into the world to defeat the devil?’</p> +<p>Tregarva was silent a while.</p> +<p>‘Learning and the Gospel together ought to do something, sir, +towards mending it. One would think so. But the prophecies +are against that.’</p> +<p>‘As folks happen to read them just now. A hundred years +hence they may be finding the very opposite meaning in them. Come, +Tregarva,—Suppose I teach you a little of the learning, and you +teach me a little of the Gospel—do you think we two could mend +the world between us, or even mend Whitford Priors?’</p> +<p>‘God knows, sir,’ said Tregarva.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>‘Tregarva,’ said Lancelot, as they were landing the next +trout, ‘where will that Crawy go, when he dies?’</p> +<p>‘God knows, sir,’ said Tregarva.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>Lancelot went thoughtful home, and sat down—not to answer Luke’s +letter—for he knew no answer but Tregarva’s, and that, alas! +he could not give, for he did not believe it, but only longed to believe +it. So he turned off the subject by a question—</p> +<p>‘You speak of yourself as being already a member of the Romish +communion. How is this? Have you given up your curacy? +Have you told your father? I fancy that if you had done so I must +have heard of it ere now. I entreat you to tell me the state of +the case, for, heathen as I am, I am still an Englishman; and there +are certain old superstitions still lingering among us—whencesoever +we may have got them first—about truth and common honesty—you +understand me.—</p> +<p>‘Do not be angry. But there is a prejudice against the +truthfulness of Romish priests and Romish converts.—It’s +no affair of mine. I see quite enough Protestant rogues and liars, +to prevent my having any pleasure in proving Romanists, or any other +persons, rogues and liars also. But I am—if not fond of +you—at least sufficiently fond to be anxious for your good name. +You used to be an open-hearted fellow enough. Do prove to the +world that cœlum, non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER IX: HARRY VERNEY HEARS HIS LAST SHOT FIRED</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The day after the Lavingtons’ return, when Lancelot walked +up to the Priory with a fluttering heart to inquire after all parties, +and see one, he found the squire in a great state of excitement.</p> +<p>A large gang of poachers, who had come down from London by rail, +had been devastating all the covers round, to stock the London markets +by the first of October, and intended, as Tregarva had discovered, to +pay Mr. Lavington’s preserves a visit that night. They didn’t +care for country justices, not they. Weren’t all their fines +paid by highly respectable game-dealers at the West end? They +owned three dog-carts among them; a parcel by railway would bring them +down bail to any amount; they tossed their money away at the public-houses, +like gentlemen; thanks to the Game Laws, their profits ran high, and +when they had swept the country pretty clean of game, why, they would +just finish off the season by a stray highway robbery or two, and vanish +into Babylon and their native night.</p> +<p>Such was Harry Verney’s information as he strutted about the +courtyard waiting for the squire’s orders.</p> +<p>‘But they’ve put their nose into a furze-bush, Muster +Smith, they have. We’ve got our posse-commontaturs, fourteen +men, sir, as’ll play the whole vale to cricket, and whap them; +and every one’ll fight, for they’re half poachers themselves, +you see’ (and Harry winked and chuckled); ‘and they can’t +abide no interlopers to come down and take the sport out of their mouths.’</p> +<p>‘But are you sure they’ll come to-night?’</p> +<p>‘That ’ere Paul says so. Wonder how he found out—some +of his underhand, colloguing, Methodist ways, I’ll warrant. +I seed him preaching to that ’ere Crawy, three or four times when +he ought to have hauled him up. He consorts with them poachers, +sir, uncommon. I hope he ben’t one himself, that’s +all.’</p> +<p>‘Nonsense, Harry!’</p> +<p>‘Oh? Eh? Don’t say old Harry don’t +know nothing, that’s all. I’ve fixed his flint, anyhow.’</p> +<p>‘Ah! Smith!’ shouted the squire out of his study +window, with a cheerful and appropriate oath. ‘The very +man I wanted to see! You must lead these keepers for me to-night. +They always fight better with a gentleman among them. Breeding +tells, you know—breeding tells.’</p> +<p>Lancelot felt a strong disgust at the occupation, but he was under +too many obligations to the squire to refuse.</p> +<p>‘Ay, I knew you were game,’ said the old man. ‘And +you’ll find it capital fun. I used to think it so, I know, +when I was young. Many a shindy have I had here in my uncle’s +time, under the very windows, before the chase was disparked, when the +fellows used to come down after the deer.’</p> +<p>Just then Lancelot turned and saw Argemone standing close to him. +He almost sprang towards her—and retreated, for he saw that she +had overheard the conversation between him and her father.</p> +<p>‘What! Mr. Smith!’ said she in a tone in which +tenderness and contempt, pity and affected carelessness, were strangely +mingled. ‘So! you are going to turn gamekeeper to-night?’</p> +<p>Lancelot was blundering out something, when the squire interposed.</p> +<p>‘Let her alone, Smith. Women will be tender-hearted, +you know. Quite right—but they don’t understand these +things. They fight with their tongues, and we with our fists; +and then they fancy their weapons don’t hurt—Ha! ha! ha!’</p> +<p>‘Mr. Smith,’ said Argemone, in a low, determined voice, +‘if you have promised my father to go on this horrid business—go. +But promise me, too, that you will only look on, or I will never—’</p> +<p>Argemone had not time to finish her sentence before Lancelot had +promised seven times over, and meant to keep his promise, as we all +do.</p> +<p>About ten o’clock that evening Lancelot and Tregarva were walking +stealthily up a ride in one of the home-covers, at the head of some +fifteen fine young fellows, keepers, grooms, and <i>not extempore</i> +‘watchers,’ whom old Harry was marshalling and tutoring, +with exhortations as many and as animated as if their ambition was ‘<i>Mourir +pour la patrie</i>.’</p> +<p>‘How does this sort of work suit you, Tregarva, for I don’t +like it at all! The fighting’s all very well, but it’s +a poor cause.’</p> +<p>‘Oh, sir, I have no mercy on these Londoners. If it was +these poor half-starved labourers, that snare the same hares that have +been eating up their garden-stuff all the week, I can’t touch +them, sir, and that’s truth; but these ruffians—And yet, +sir, wouldn’t it be better for the parsons to preach to them, +than for the keepers to break their heads?’</p> +<p>‘Oh?’ said Lancelot, ‘the parsons say all to them +that they can.’</p> +<p>Tregarva shook his head.</p> +<p>‘I doubt that, sir. But, no doubt, there’s a great +change for the better in the parsons. I remember the time, sir, +that there wasn’t an earnest clergyman in the vale; and now every +other man you meet is trying to do his best. But those London +parsons, sir, what’s the matter with them? For all their +societies and their schools, the devil seems to keep ahead of them sadly. +I doubt they haven’t found the right fly yet for publicans and +sinners to rise at.’</p> +<p>A distant shot in the cover.</p> +<p>‘There they are, sir. I thought that Crawy wouldn’t +lead me false when I let him off.’</p> +<p>‘Well, fight away, then, and win. I have promised Miss +Lavington not to lift a hand in the business.’</p> +<p>‘Then you’re a lucky man, sir. But the squire’s +game is his own, and we must do our duty by our master.’</p> +<p>There was a rustle in the bushes, and a tramp of feet on the turf.</p> +<p>‘There they are, sir, sure enough. The Lord keep us from +murder this night!’ And Tregarva pulled off his neckcloth, +and shook his huge limbs, as if to feel that they were all in their +places, in a way that augured ill for the man who came across him.</p> +<p>They turned the corner of a ride, and, in an instant, found themselves +face to face with five or six armed men, with blackened faces, who, +without speaking a word, dashed at them, and the fight began; reinforcements +came up on each side, and the engagement became general.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘The forest-laws were sharp and stern,<br /> The +forest blood was keen,<br />They lashed together for life and death<br /> Beneath +the hollies green.</p> +<p>‘The metal good and the walnut-wood<br /> Did +soon in splinters flee;<br />They tossed the orts to south and north,<br /> And +grappled knee to knee.</p> +<p>‘They wrestled up, they wrestled down,<br /> They +wrestled still and sore;<br />The herbage sweet beneath their feet<br /> Was +stamped to mud and gore.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>And all the while the broad still moon stared down on them grim and +cold, as if with a saturnine sneer at the whole humbug; and the silly +birds about whom all this butchery went on, slept quietly over their +heads, every one with his head under his wing. Oh! if pheasants +had but understanding, how they would split their sides with chuckling +and crowing at the follies which civilised Christian men perpetrate +for their precious sake!</p> +<p>Had I the pen of Homer (though they say he never used one), or even +that of the worthy who wasted precious years in writing a <i>Homer Burlesqued</i>, +what heroic exploits might not I immortalise! In every stupid +serf and cunning ruffian there, there was a heart as brave as Ajax’s +own; but then they fought with sticks instead of lances, and hammered +away on fustian jackets instead of brazen shields; and, therefore, poor +fellows, they were beneath ‘the dignity of poetry,’ whatever +that may mean. If one of your squeamish ‘dignity-of-poetry’ +critics had just had his head among the gun-stocks for five minutes +that night, he would have found it grim tragic earnest enough; not without +a touch of fun though, here and there.</p> +<p>Lancelot leant against a tree and watched the riot with folded arms, +mindful of his promise to Argemone, and envied Tregarva as he hurled +his assailants right and left with immense strength, and led the van +of battle royally. Little would Argemone have valued the real +proof of love which he was giving her as he looked on sulkily, while +his fingers tingled with longing to be up and doing. Strange—that +mere lust of fighting, common to man and animals, whose traces even +the lamb and the civilised child evince in their mock-fights, the earliest +and most natural form of play. Is it, after all, the one human +propensity which is utterly evil, incapable of being turned to any righteous +use? Gross and animal, no doubt it is, but not the less really +pleasant, as every Irishman and many an Englishman knows well enough. +A curious instance of this, by the bye, occurred in Paris during the +February Revolution. A fat English coachman went out, from mere +curiosity, to see the fighting. As he stood and watched, a new +passion crept over him; he grew madder and madder as the bullets whistled +past him; at last, when men began to drop by his side, he could stand +it no longer, seized a musket, and rushed in, careless which side he +took,—</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘To drink delight of battle with his peers.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>He was not heard of for a day or two, and then they found him stiff +and cold, lying on his face across a barricade, with a bullet through +his heart. Sedentary persons may call him a sinful fool. +Be it so. <i>Homo sum: humani nihil à me alienum puto</i>.</p> +<p>Lancelot, I verily believe, would have kept his promise, though he +saw that the keepers gave ground, finding Cockney skill too much for +their clumsy strength; but at last Harry Verney, who had been fighting +as venomously as a wild cat, and had been once before saved from a broken +skull by Tregarva, rolled over at his very feet with a couple of poachers +on him.</p> +<p>‘You won’t see an old man murdered, Mr. Smith?’ +cried he, imploringly.</p> +<p>Lancelot tore the ruffians off the old man right and left. +One of them struck him; he returned the blow; and, in an instant, promises +and Argemone, philosophy and anti-game-law prejudices, were swept out +of his head, and ‘he went,’ as the old romances say, ‘hurling +into the midst of the press,’ as mere a wild animal for the moment +as angry bull or boar. An instant afterwards, though, he burst +out laughing, in spite of himself, as ‘The Battersea Bantam,’ +who had been ineffectually dancing round Tregarva like a gamecock spurring +at a bull, turned off with a voice of ineffable disgust,—</p> +<p>‘That big cove’s a yokel; ta’nt creditable to waste +science on him. You’re my man, if you please, sir,’—and +the little wiry lump of courage and conceit, rascality and good humour, +flew at Lancelot, who was twice his size, ‘with a heroism worthy +of a better cause,’ as respectable papers, when they are not too +frightened, say of the French.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>‘Do you want any more?’ asked Lancelot.</p> +<p>‘Quite a pleasure, sir, to meet a scientific gen’lman. +Beg your pardon, sir; stay a moment while I wipes my face. Now, +sir, time, if you please.’</p> +<p>Alas for the little man! in another moment he tumbled over and lay +senseless—Lancelot thought he had killed him. The gang saw +their champion fall, gave ground, and limped off, leaving three of their +party groaning on the ground, beside as many Whitford men.</p> +<p>As it was in the beginning, so is it to be to the end, my foolish +brothers! From the poacher to the prime minister—wearying +yourselves for very vanity! The soldier is not the only man in +England who is fool enough to be shot at for a shilling a day.</p> +<p>But while all the rest were busy picking up the wounded men and securing +the prisoners, Harry Verney alone held on, and as the poachers retreated +slowly up the ride, he followed them, peering into the gloom, as if +in hopes of recognising some old enemy.</p> +<p>‘Stand back, Harry Verney; we know you, and we’d be loth +to harm an old man,’ cried a voice out of the darkness.</p> +<p>‘Eh? Do you think old Harry’d turn back when he +was once on the track of ye? You soft-fisted, gin-drinking, counter-skipping +Cockney rascals, that fancy you’re to carry the county before +you, because you get your fines paid by London-tradesmen! Eh? +What do you take old Harry for?’</p> +<p>‘Go back, you old fool!’ and a volley of oaths followed. +‘If you follow us, we’ll fire at you, as sure as the moon’s +in heaven!’</p> +<p>‘Fire away, then! I’ll follow you to—!’ +and the old man paced stealthily but firmly up to them.</p> +<p>Tregarva saw his danger and sprang forward, but it was too late.</p> +<p>‘What, you will have it, then?’</p> +<p>A sharp crack followed,—a bright flash in the darkness—every +white birch-stem and jagged oak-leaf shone out for a moment as bright +as day—and in front of the glare Lancelot saw the old man throw +his arms wildly upward, fall forward, and disappear on the dark ground.</p> +<p>‘You’ve done it! off with you!’ And the rascals +rushed off up the ride.</p> +<p>In a moment Tregarva was by the old man’s side, and lifted +him tenderly up.</p> +<p>‘They’ve done for me, Paul. Old Harry’s got +his gruel. He’s heard his last shot fired. I knowed +it ’ud come to this, and I said it. Eh? Didn’t +I, now, Paul?’ And as the old man spoke, the workings of +his lungs pumped great jets of blood out over the still heather-flowers +as they slept in the moonshine, and dabbled them with smoking gore.</p> +<p>‘Here, men,’ shouted the colonel, ‘up with him +at once, and home! Here, put a brace of your guns together, muzzle +and lock. Help him to sit on them, Lancelot. There, Harry, +put your arms round their necks. Tregarva, hold him up behind. +Now then, men, left legs foremost—keep step—march!’ +And they moved off towards the Priory.</p> +<p>‘You seem to know everything, colonel,’ said Lancelot.</p> +<p>The colonel did not answer for a moment.</p> +<p>‘Lancelot, I learnt this dodge from the only friend I ever +had in the world, or ever shall have; and a week after I marched him +home to his deathbed in this very way.’</p> +<p>‘Paul—Paul Tregarva,’ whispered old Harry, ‘put +your head down here: wipe my mouth, there’s a man; it’s +wet, uncommon wet.’ It was his own life-blood. ‘I’ve +been a beast to you, Paul. I’ve hated you, and envied you, +and tried to ruin you. And now you’ve saved my life once +this night; and here you be a-nursing of me as my own son might do, +if he was here, poor fellow! I’ve ruined you, Paul; the +Lord forgive me!’</p> +<p>‘Pray! pray!’ said Paul, ‘and He will forgive you. +He is all mercy. He pardoned the thief on the cross—’</p> +<p>‘No, Paul, no thief,—not so bad as that, I hope, anyhow; +never touched a feather of the squire’s. But you dropped +a song, Paul, a bit of writing.’</p> +<p>Paul turned pale.</p> +<p>‘And—the Lord forgive me!—I put it in the squire’s +fly-book.’</p> +<p>‘The Lord forgive you! Amen!’ said Paul, solemnly.</p> +<p>Wearily and slowly they stepped on towards the old man’s cottage. +A messenger had gone on before, and in a few minutes the squire, Mrs. +Lavington, and the girls, were round the bed of their old retainer.</p> +<p>They sent off right and left for the doctor and the vicar; the squire +was in a frenzy of rage and grief.</p> +<p>‘Don’t take on, master, don’t take on,’ said +old Harry, as he lay; while the colonel and Honoria in vain endeavoured +to stanch the wound. ‘I knowed it would be so, sooner or +later; ’tis all in the way of business. They haven’t +carried off a bird, squire, not a bird; we was too many for ’em—eh, +Paul, eh?’</p> +<p>‘Where is that cursed doctor?’ said the squire. +‘Save him, colonel, save him; and I’ll give you—’</p> +<p>Alas! the charge of shot at a few feet distance had entered like +a bullet, tearing a great ragged hole.—There was no hope, and +the colonel knew it; but he said nothing.</p> +<p>‘The second keeper,’ sighed Argemone, ‘who has +been killed here! Oh, Mr. Smith, must this be? Is God’s +blessing on all this?’</p> +<p>Lancelot said nothing. The old man lighted up at Argemone’s +voice.</p> +<p>‘There’s the beauty, there’s the pride of Whitford. +And sweet Miss Honor, too,—so kind to nurse a poor old man! +But she never would let him teach her to catch perch, would she? +She was always too tender-hearted. Ah, squire, when we’re +dead and gone,—dead and gone,—squire, they’ll be the +pride of Whitford still! And they’ll keep up the old place—won’t +you, my darlings? And the old name, too! For, you know, +there must always be a Lavington in Whitford Priors, till the Nun’s +pool runs up to Ashy Down.’</p> +<p>‘And a curse upon the Lavingtons,’ sighed Argemone to +herself in an undertone.</p> +<p>Lancelot heard what she said.</p> +<p>The vicar entered, but he was too late. The old man’s +strength was failing, and his mind began to wander.</p> +<p>‘Windy,’ he murmured to himself, ‘windy, dark and +windy—birds won’t lie—not old Harry’s fault. +How black it grows! We must be gone by nightfall, squire. +Where’s that young dog gone? Arter the larks, the brute.’</p> +<p>Old Squire Lavington sobbed like a child.</p> +<p>‘You will soon be home, my man,’ said the vicar. +‘Remember that you have a Saviour in heaven. Cast yourself +on His mercy.’</p> +<p>Harry shook his head.</p> +<p>‘Very good words, very kind,—very heavy gamebag, though. +Never get home, never any more at all. Where’s my boy Tom +to carry it? Send for my boy Tom. He was always a good boy +till he got along with them poachers.’</p> +<p>‘Listen,’ he said, ‘listen! There’s +bells a-ringing—ringing in my head. Come you here, Paul +Tregarva.’</p> +<p>He pulled Tregarva’s face down to his own, and whispered,—</p> +<p>‘Them’s the bells a-ringing for Miss Honor’s wedding.’</p> +<p>Paul started and drew back. Harry chuckled and grinned for +a moment in his old foxy, peering way, and then wandered off again.</p> +<p>‘What’s that thumping and roaring?’ Alas! +it was the failing pulsation of his own heart. ‘It’s +the weir, the weir—a-washing me away—thundering over me.—Squire, +I’m drowning,—drowning and choking! Oh, Lord, how +deep! Now it’s running quieter—now I can breathe again—swift +and oily—running on, running on, down to the sea. See how +the grayling sparkle! There’s a pike! ’Tain’t +my fault, squire, so help me—Don’t swear, now, squire; old +men and dying maun’t swear, squire. How steady the river +runs down? Lower and slower—lower and slower: now it’s +quite still—still—still—’</p> +<p>His voice sank away—he was dead!</p> +<p>No! once more the light flashed up in the socket. He sprang +upright in the bed, and held out his withered paw with a kind of wild +majesty, as he shouted,—</p> +<p>‘There ain’t such a head of hares on any manor in the +county. And them’s the last words of Harry Verney!’</p> +<p>He fell back—shuddered—a rattle in his throat—another—and +all was over.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER X: ‘MURDER WILL OUT,’ AND LOVE TOO</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Argemone need never have known of Lancelot’s share in the poaching +affray; but he dared not conceal anything from her. And so he +boldly went up the next day to the Priory, not to beg pardon, but to +justify himself, and succeeded. And, before long, he found himself +fairly installed as her pupil, nominally in spiritual matters, but really +in subjects of which she little dreamed.</p> +<p>Every day he came to read and talk with her, and whatever objections +Mrs. Lavington expressed were silenced by Argemone. She would +have it so, and her mother neither dared nor knew how to control her. +The daughter had utterly out-read and out-thought her less educated +parent, who was clinging in honest bigotry to the old forms, while Argemone +was wandering forth over the chaos of the strange new age,—a poor +homeless Noah’s dove, seeking rest for the sole of her foot and +finding none. And now all motherly influence and sympathy had +vanished, and Mrs. Lavington, in fear and wonder, let her daughter go +her own way. She could not have done better, perhaps; for Providence +had found for Argemone a better guide than her mother could have done, +and her new pupil was rapidly becoming her teacher. She was matched, +for the first time, with a man who was her own equal in intellect and +knowledge; and she felt how real was that sexual difference which she +had been accustomed to consider as an insolent calumny against woman. +Proudly and indignantly she struggled against the conviction, but in +vain. Again and again she argued with him, and was vanquished,—or, +at least, what is far better, made to see how many different sides there +are to every question. All appeals to authority he answered with +a contemptuous smile. ‘The best authorities?’ he used +to say. ‘On what question do not the best authorities flatly +contradict each other? And why? Because every man believes +just what it suits him to believe. Don’t fancy that men +reason themselves into convictions; the prejudices and feelings of their +hearts give them some idea or theory, and then they find facts at their +leisure to prove their theory true. Every man sees facts through +narrow spectacles, red, or green, or blue, as his nation or his temperament +colours them: and he is quite right, only he must allow us the liberty +of having our spectacles too. Authority is only good for proving +facts. We must draw our own conclusions.’ And Argemone +began to suspect that he was right,—at least to see that her opinions +were mere hearsays, picked up at her own will and fancy; while his were +living, daily-growing ideas. Her mind was beside his as the vase +of cut flowers by the side of the rugged tree, whose roots are feeding +deep in the mother earth. In him she first learnt how one great +truth received into the depths of the soul germinates there, and bears +fruit a thousandfold; explaining, and connecting, and glorifying innumerable +things, apparently the most unlike and insignificant; and daily she +became a more reverent listener, and gave herself up, half against her +will and conscience, to the guidance of a man whom she knew to be her +inferior in morals and in orthodoxy. She had worshipped intellect, +and now it had become her tyrant; and she was ready to give up every +belief which she once had prized, to flutter like a moth round its fascinating +brilliance.</p> +<p>Who can blame her, poor girl? For Lancelot’s humility +was even more irresistible than his eloquence. He assumed no superiority. +He demanded her assent to truths, not because they were his opinions, +but simply for the truth’s sake; and on all points which touched +the heart he looked up to her as infallible and inspired. In questions +of morality, of taste, of feeling, he listened not as a lover to his +mistress, but rather as a baby to its mother; and thus, half unconsciously +to himself, he taught her where her true kingdom lay,—that the +heart, and not the brain, enshrines the priceless pearl of womanhood, +the oracular jewel, the ‘Urim and Thummim,’ before which +gross man can only inquire and adore.</p> +<p>And, in the meantime, a change was passing upon Lancelot. His +morbid vanity—that brawl-begotten child of struggling self-conceit +and self-disgust—was vanishing away; and as Mr. Tennyson says +in one of those priceless idyls of his, before which the shade of Theocritus +must hide his diminished head,—</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘He was altered, and began<br /> To move about +the house with joy,<br />And with the certain step of man.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>He had, at last, found one person who could appreciate him. +And in deliberate confidence he set to work to conquer her, and make +her his own. It was a traitorous return, but a very natural one. +And she, sweet creature! walked straight into the pleasant snare, utterly +blind, because she fancied that she saw clearly. In the pride +of her mysticism, she had fancied herself above so commonplace a passion +as love. It was a curious feature of lower humanity, which she +might investigate and analyse harmlessly as a cold scientific spectator; +and, in her mingled pride and purity, she used to indulge Lancelot in +metaphysical disquisitions about love and beauty, like that first one +in their walk home from Minchampstead, from which a less celestially +innocent soul would have shrunk. She thought, forsooth, as the +old proverb says, that she could deal in honey, without putting her +hand to her mouth. But Lancelot knew better, and marked her for +his own. And daily his self-confidence and sense of rightful power +developed, and with them, paradoxical as it may seem, the bitterest +self-abasement. The contact of her stainless innocence, the growing +certainty that the destiny of that innocence was irrevocably bound up +with his own, made him shrink from her whenever he remembered his own +guilty career. To remember that there were passages in it which +she must never know—that she would cast him from her with abhorrence +if she once really understood their vileness? To think that, amid +all the closest bonds of love, there must for ever be an awful, silent +gulf in the past, of which they must never speak!—That she would +bring to him what he could never, never bring to her!—The thought +was unbearable. And as hideous recollections used to rise before +him, devilish caricatures of his former self, mopping and mowing at +him in his dreams, he would start from his lonely bed, and pace the +room for hours, or saddle his horse, and ride all night long aimlessly +through the awful woods, vainly trying to escape himself. How +gladly, at those moments, he would have welcomed centuries of a material +hell, to escape from the more awful spiritual hell within him,—to +buy back that pearl of innocence which he had cast recklessly to be +trampled under the feet of his own swinish passions! But, no; +that which was done could never be undone,—never, to all eternity. +And more than once, as he wandered restlessly from one room to another, +the barrels of his pistols seemed to glitter with a cold, devilish smile, +and call to him,—</p> +<p>‘Come to us! and with one touch of your finger, send that bursting +spirit which throbs against your brow to flit forth free, and nevermore +to defile her purity by your presence!’</p> +<p>But no, again: a voice within seemed to command him to go on, and +claim her, and win her, spite of his own vileness. And in after +years, slowly, and in fear and trembling, he knew it for the voice of +God, who had been leading him to become worthy of her through that bitter +shame of his own unworthiness.</p> +<p>As One higher than them would have it, she took a fancy to read Homer +in the original, and Lancelot could do no less than offer his services +as translator. She would prepare for him portions of the Odyssey, +and every day that he came up to the Priory he used to comment on it +to her; and so for many a week, in the dark wainscoted library, and +in the clipt yew-alleys of the old gardens, and under the brown autumn +trees, they quarried together in that unexhausted mine, among the records +of the rich Titan-youth of man. And step by step Lancelot opened +to her the everlasting significance of the poem; the unconscious purity +which lingers in it, like the last rays of the Paradise dawn; its sense +of the dignity of man as man; the religious reverence with which it +speaks of all human ties, human strength and beauty—ay, even of +merely animal human appetites, as God-given and Godlike symbols. +She could not but listen and admire, when he introduced her to the sheer +paganism of Schiller’s Gods of Greece; for on this subject he +was more eloquent than on any. He had gradually, in fact, as we +have seen, dropped all faith in anything but Nature; the slightest fact +about a bone or a weed was more important to him than all the books +of divinity which Argemone lent him—to be laid by unread.</p> +<p>‘What <i>do</i> you believe in?’ she asked him one day, +sadly.</p> +<p>‘In <i>this</i>!’ he said, stamping his foot on the ground. +‘In the earth I stand on, and the things I see walking and growing +on it. There may be something beside it—what you call a +spiritual world. But if He who made me intended me to think of +spirit first, He would have let me see it first. But as He has +given me material senses, and put me in a material world, I take it +as a fair hint that I am meant to use those senses first, whatever may +come after. I may be intended to understand the unseen world, +but if so, it must be, as I suspect, by understanding the visible one: +and there are enough wonders there to occupy me for some time to come.’</p> +<p>‘But the Bible?’ (Argemone had given up long ago wasting +words about the ‘Church.’)</p> +<p>‘My only Bible as yet is Bacon. I know that he is right, +whoever is wrong. If that Hebrew Bible is to be believed by me, +it must agree with what I know already from science.’</p> +<p>What was to be done with so intractable a heretic? Call him +an infidel and a Materialist, of course, and cast him off with horror. +But Argemone was beginning to find out that, when people are really +in earnest, it may be better sometimes to leave God’s methods +of educating them alone, instead of calling the poor honest seekers +hard names, which the speakers themselves don’t understand.</p> +<p>But words would fail sometimes, and in default of them Lancelot had +recourse to drawings, and manifested in them a talent for thinking in +visible forms which put the climax to all Argemone’s wonder. +A single profile, even a mere mathematical figure, would, in his hands, +become the illustration of a spiritual truth. And, in time, every +fresh lesson on the Odyssey was accompanied by its illustration,—some +bold and simple outline drawing. In Argemone’s eyes, the +sketches were immaculate and inspired; for their chief, almost their +only fault, was just those mere anatomical slips which a woman would +hardly perceive, provided the forms were generally graceful and bold.</p> +<p>One day his fancy attempted a bolder flight. He brought a large +pen-and-ink drawing, and laying it silently on the table before her, +fixed his eyes intensely on her face. The sketch was labelled, +the ‘Triumph of Woman.’ In the foreground, to the +right and left, were scattered groups of men, in the dresses and insignia +of every period and occupation. The distance showed, in a few +bold outlines, a dreary desert, broken by alpine ridges, and furrowed +here and there by a wandering watercourse. Long shadows pointed +to the half-risen sun, whose disc was climbing above the waste horizon. +And in front of the sun, down the path of the morning beams, came Woman, +clothed only in the armour of her own loveliness. Her bearing +was stately, and yet modest; in her face pensive tenderness seemed wedded +with earnest joy. In her right hand lay a cross, the emblem of +self-sacrifice. Her path across the desert was marked by the flowers +which sprang up beneath her steps; the wild gazelle stept forward trustingly +to lick her hand; a single wandering butterfly fluttered round her head. +As the group, one by one, caught sight of her, a human tenderness and +intelligence seemed to light up every face. The scholar dropt +his book, the miser his gold, the savage his weapons; even in the visage +of the half-slumbering sot some nobler recollection seemed wistfully +to struggle into life. The artist caught up his pencil, the poet +his lyre, with eyes that beamed forth sudden inspiration. The +sage, whose broad brow rose above the group like some torrent furrowed +Alp, scathed with all the temptations and all the sorrows of his race, +watched with a thoughtful smile that preacher more mighty than himself. +A youth, decked out in the most fantastic fopperies of the middle age, +stood with clasped hands and brimming eyes, as remorse and pleasure +struggled in his face; and as he looked, the fierce sensual features +seemed to melt, and his flesh came again to him like the flesh of a +little child. The slave forgot his fetters; little children clapped +their hands; and the toil-worn, stunted, savage woman sprung forward +to kneel at her feet, and see herself transfigured in that new and divine +ideal of her sex.</p> +<p>Descriptions of drawings are clumsy things at best; the reader must +fill up the sketch for himself by the eye of faith.</p> +<p>Entranced in wonder and pleasure, Argemone let her eyes wander over +the drawing. And her feelings for Lancelot amounted almost to +worship, as she apprehended the harmonious unity of the manifold conception,—the +rugged boldness of the groups in front, the soft grandeur of the figure +which was the lodestar of all their emotions—the virginal purity +of the whole. And when she fancied that she traced in those bland +aquiline lineaments, and in the crisp ringlets which floated like a +cloud down to the knees of the figure, some traces of her own likeness, +a dream of a new destiny flitted before her,—she blushed to her +very neck; and as she bent her face over the drawing and gazed, her +whole soul seemed to rise into her eyes, and a single tear dropped upon +the paper. She laid her hand over it, and then turned hastily +away.</p> +<p>‘You do not like it! I have been too bold,’—said +Lancelot, fearfully.</p> +<p>‘Oh, no! no! It is so beautiful—so full of deep +wisdom! But—but—You may leave it.’</p> +<p>Lancelot slipped silently out of the room, he hardly knew why; and +when he was gone, Argemone caught up the drawing, pressed it to her +bosom, covered it with kisses, and hid it, as too precious for any eyes +but her own, in the farthest corner of her secrétaire.</p> +<p>And yet she fancied that she was not in love!</p> +<p>The vicar saw the growth of this intimacy with a fast-lengthening +face; for it was very evident that Argemone could not serve two masters +so utterly contradictory as himself and Lancelot, and that either the +lover or the father-confessor must speedily resign office. The +vicar had had great disadvantages, by the bye, in fulfilling the latter +function; for his visits at the Priory had been all but forbidden; and +Argemone’s ‘spiritual state’ had been directed by +means of a secret correspondence,—a method which some clergymen, +and some young ladies too, have discovered, in the last few years, to +be quite consistent with moral delicacy and filial obedience. +John Bull, like a stupid fellow as he is, has still his doubts upon +the point; but he should remember that though St. Paul tells women when +they want advice to ask their husbands at home, yet if the poor woman +has no husband, or, as often happens, her husband’s advice is +unpleasant, to whom is she to go but to the next best substitute, her +spiritual cicisbeo, or favourite clergyman? In sad earnest, neither +husband nor parent deserves pity in the immense majority of such cases. +Woman will have guidance. It is her delight and glory to be led; +and if her husband or her parents will not meet the cravings of her +intellect, she must go elsewhere to find a teacher, and run into the +wildest extravagances of private judgment, in the very hope of getting +rid of it, just as poor Argemone had been led to do.</p> +<p>And, indeed, she had, of late, wandered into very strange paths: +would to God they were as uncommon as strange! Both she and the +vicar had a great wish that she should lead a ‘devoted life;’ +but then they both disdained to use common means for their object. +The good old English plan of district visiting, by which ladies can +have mercy on the bodies and souls of those below them, without casting +off the holy discipline which a home, even the most ungenial, alone +supplies, savoured too much of mere ‘Protestantism.’ +It might be God’s plan for christianising England just now, but +that was no reason, alas! for its being their plan: they wanted something +more ‘Catholic,’ more in accordance with Church principles +(for, indeed, is it not the business of the Church to correct the errors +of Providence!); and what they sought they found at once in a certain +favourite establishment of the vicar’s, a Church-of-England <i>béguinage</i>, +or quasi-Protestant nunnery, which he fostered in a neighbouring city, +and went thither on all high tides to confess the young ladies, who +were in all things nuns, but bound by no vows, except, of course, such +as they might choose to make for themselves in private.</p> +<p>Here they laboured among the lowest haunts of misery and sin, piously +and self-denyingly enough, sweet souls! in hope of ‘the peculiar +crown,’ and a higher place in heaven than the relations whom they +had left behind them ‘in the world,’ and unshackled by the +interference of parents, and other such merely fleshly relationships, +which, as they cannot have been instituted by God merely to be trampled +under foot on the path to holiness, and cannot well have instituted +themselves (unless, after all, the Materialists are right, and this +world does grind of itself, except when its Maker happens to interfere +once every thousand years), must needs have been instituted by the devil. +And so more than one girl in that nunnery, and out of it, too, believed +in her inmost heart, though her ‘Catholic principles,’ by +a happy inconsistency, forbade her to say so.</p> +<p>In a moment of excitement, fascinated by the romance of the notion, +Argemone had proposed to her mother to allow her to enter this <i>béguinage</i>, +and called in the vicar as advocate; which produced a correspondence +between him and Mrs. Lavington, stormy on her side, provokingly calm +on his: and when the poor lady, tired of raging, had descended to an +affecting appeal to his human sympathies, entreating him to spare a +mother’s feelings, he had answered with the same impassive fanaticism, +that ‘he was surprised at her putting a mother’s selfish +feelings in competition with the sanctity of her child,’ and that +‘had his own daughter shown such a desire for a higher vocation, +he should have esteemed it the very highest honour;’ to which +Mrs. Lavington answered, naively enough, that ‘it depended very +much on what his daughter was like.’—So he was all but forbidden +the house. Nevertheless he contrived, by means of this same secret +correspondence, to keep alive in Argemone’s mind the longing to +turn nun, and fancied honestly that he was doing God service, while +he was pampering the poor girl’s lust for singularity and self-glorification.</p> +<p>But, lately, Argemone’s letters had become less frequent and +less confiding; and the vicar, who well knew the reason, had resolved +to bring the matter to a crisis.</p> +<p>So he wrote earnestly and peremptorily to his pupil, urging her, +with all his subtle and refined eloquence, to make a final appeal to +her mother, and if that failed, to act ‘as her conscience should +direct her;’ and enclosed an answer from the superior of the convent, +to a letter which Argemone had in a mad moment asked him to write. +The superior’s letter spoke of Argemone’s joining her as +a settled matter, and of her room as ready for her, while it lauded +to the skies the peaceful activity and usefulness of the establishment. +This letter troubled Argemone exceedingly. She had never before +been compelled to face her own feelings, either about the nunnery or +about Lancelot. She had taken up the fancy of becoming a Sister +of Charity, not as Honoria might have done, from genuine love of the +poor, but from ‘a sense of duty.’ Almsgiving and visiting +the sick were one of the methods of earning heaven prescribed by her +new creed. She was ashamed of her own laziness by the side of +Honoria’s simple benevolence; and, sad though it may be to have +to say it, she longed to outdo her by some signal act of self-sacrifice. +She had looked to this nunnery, too, as an escape, once and for all, +from her own luxury, just as people who have not strength to be temperate +take refuge in teetotalism; and the thought of menial services towards +the poor, however distasteful to her, came in quite prettily to fill +up the little ideal of a life of romantic asceticisms and mystic contemplation, +which gave the true charm in her eyes to her wild project. But +now—just as a field had opened to her cravings after poetry and +art, wider and richer than she had ever imagined—just as those +simple childlike views of man and nature, which she had learnt to despise, +were assuming an awful holiness in her eyes—just as she had found +a human soul to whose regeneration she could devote all her energies,—to +be required to give all up, perhaps for ever (and she felt that if at +all, it ought to be for ever);—it was too much for her little +heart to bear; and she cried bitterly; and tried to pray, and could +not; and longed for a strong and tender bosom on which to lay her head, +and pour out all her doubts and struggles; and there was none. +Her mother did not understand—hardly loved her. Honoria +loved her; but understood her even less than her mother. Pride—the +pride of intellect, the pride of self-will—had long since sealed +her lips to her own family. . . .</p> +<p>And then, out of the darkness of her heart, Lancelot’s image +rose before her stronger than all, tenderer than all; and as she remembered +his magical faculty of anticipating all her thoughts, embodying for +her all her vague surmises, he seemed to beckon her towards him.—She +shuddered and turned away. And now she first became conscious +how he had haunted her thoughts in the last few months, not as a soul +to be saved, but as a living man—his face, his figure, his voice, +his every gesture and expression, rising clear before her, in spite +of herself, by day and night.</p> +<p>And then she thought of his last drawing, and the looks which had +accompanied it,—unmistakable looks of passionate and adoring love. +There was no denying it—she had always known that he loved her, +but she had never dared to confess it to herself. But now the +earthquake was come, and all the secrets of her heart burst upward to +the light, and she faced the thought in shame and terror. ‘How +unjust I have been to him! how cruel! thus to entice him on in hopeless +love!’</p> +<p>She lifted up her eyes, and saw in the mirror opposite the reflection +of her own exquisite beauty.</p> +<p>‘I could have known what I was doing! I knew all the +while! And yet it is so delicious to feel that any one loves me! +Is it selfishness? It is selfishness, to pamper my vanity on an +affection which I do not, will not return. I will not be thus +in debt to him, even for his love. I do not love him—I do +not; and even if I did, to give myself up to a man of whom I know so +little, who is not even a Christian, much less a Churchman! Ay! +and to give up my will to any man! to become the subject, the slave, +of another human being! I, who have worshipped the belief in woman’s +independence, the hope of woman’s enfranchisement, who have felt +how glorious it is to live like the angels, single and self-sustained! +What if I cut the Gordian knot, and here make, once for all, a vow of +perpetual celibacy?’</p> +<p>She flung herself on her knees—she could not collect her thoughts.</p> +<p>‘No,’ she said, ‘I am not prepared for this. +It is too solemn to be undertaken in this miserable whirlwind of passion. +I will fast, and meditate, and go up formally to the little chapel, +and there devote myself to God; and, in the meantime, to write at once +to the superior of the Béguines; to go to my mother, and tell +her once for all—What? Must I lose him?—must I give +him up? Not his love—I cannot give up that—would that +I could! but no! he will love me for ever. I know it as well as +if an angel told me. But to give up him! Never to see him! +never to hear his voice! never to walk with him among the beech woods +any more! Oh, Argemone! Argemone! miserable girl! and is +it come to this?’ And she threw herself on the sofa, and +hid her face in her hands.</p> +<p>Yes, Argemone, it is come to this; and the best thing you can do, +is just what you are doing—to lie there and cry yourself to sleep, +while the angels are laughing kindly (if a solemn public, who settles +everything for them, will permit them to laugh) at the rickety old windmill +of sham-Popery which you have taken for a real giant.</p> +<p>At that same day and hour, as it chanced, Lancelot, little dreaming +what the said windmill was grinding for him, was scribbling a hasty +and angry answer to a letter of Luke’s, which, perhaps, came that +very morning in order to put him into a proper temper for the demolishing +of windmills. It ran thus,—</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘Ay, my good Cousin,—So I expected—</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘Suave mari magno turbantibus æquora ventis<br />E terra +magnum alterius spectare laborem . . .</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Pleasant and easy for you Protestants (for I will call you what you +are, in spite of your own denials, a truly consistent and logical Protestant—and +therefore a Materialist)—easy for you, I say, to sit on the shore, +in cold, cruel self-satisfaction, and tell the poor wretch buffeting +with the waves what he ought to do while he is choking and drowning. +. . . Thank Heaven, the storm has stranded me upon the everlasting +Rock of Peter;—but it has been a sore trouble to reach it. +Protestants, who look at creeds as things to be changed like coats, +whenever they seem not to fit them, little know what we Catholic-hearted +ones suffer. . . . If they did, they would be more merciful and +more chary in the requirements of us, just as we are in the very throe +of a new-born existence. The excellent man, to whose care I have +committed myself, has a wise and a tender heart . . . he saw no harm +in my concealing from my father the spiritual reason of my giving up +my curacy (for I have given it up), and only giving the outward, but +equally true reason, that I found it on the whole an ineligible and +distressing post. . . . I know you will apply to such an act that +disgusting monosyllable of which Protestants are so fond. He felt +with me and for me—for my horror of giving pain to my father, +and for my wearied and excited state of mind; and strangely enough—to +show how differently, according to the difference of the organs, the +same object may appear to two people—he quoted in my favour that +very verse which you wrest against me. He wished me to show my +father that I had only changed my heaven, and not my character, by becoming +an Ultramontane-Catholic . . . that, as far as his esteem and affection +were founded on anything in me, the ground of it did not vanish with +my conversion. If I had told him at once of my altered opinions, +he would have henceforth viewed every word and action with a perjudiced +eye. . . . Protestants are so bigoted . . . but if, after seeing +me for a month or two the same Luke that he had ever known me, he were +gradually informed that I had all the while held that creed which he +had considered incompatible with such a life as I hope mine would be—you +must see the effect which it ought to have. . . . I don’t doubt +that you will complain of all this. . . . All I can say is, that +I cannot sympathise with that superstitious reverence for mere verbal +truth, which is so common among Protestants. . . . It seems to me they +throw away the spirit of truth, in their idolatry of its letter. +For instance,—what is the use of informing a man of a true fact +but to induce a true opinion in him? But if, by clinging to the +exact letter of the fact, you create a false opinion in his mind, as +I should do in my father’s case, if by telling him at once of +my change, I gave him an unjust horror of Catholicism,—you do +not tell him the truth. . . . You may speak what is true to you,—but +it becomes an error when received into his mind. . . . If his mind is +a refracting and polarising medium—if the crystalline lens of +his soul’s eye has been changed into tourmaline or Labrador spar—the +only way to give him a true image of the fact, is to present it to him +already properly altered in form, and adapted to suit the obliquity +of his vision; in order that the very refractive power of his faculties +may, instead of distorting it, correct it, and make it straight for +him; and so a verbal wrong in fact may possess him with a right opinion. +. . .</p> +<p>‘You see the whole question turns on your Protestant deification +of the intellect. . . . If you really believed, as you all say +you do, that the nature of man, and therefore his intellect among the +rest, was utterly corrupt, you would not be so superstitiously careful +to tell the truth . . . as you call it; because you would know that +man’s heart, if not his head, would needs turn the truth into +a lie by its own corruption. . . . The proper use of reasoning +is to produce opinion,—and if the subject in which you wish to +produce the opinion is diseased, you must adapt the medicine accordingly.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>To all which Lancelot, with several strong curses, scrawled the following +answer:—</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘And this is my Cousin Luke!—Well, I shall believe henceforward +that there is, after all, a thousand times greater moral gulf fixed +between Popery and Tractarianism, than between Tractarianism and the +extremest Protestantism. My dear fellow,—I won’t bother +you, by cutting up your charming ambiguous middle terms, which make +reason and reasoning identical, or your theory that the office of reasoning +is to induce opinions—(the devil take opinions, right or wrong—I +want facts, faith in real facts!)—or about deifying the intellect—as +if all sound intellect was not in itself divine light—a revelation +to man of absolute laws independent of him, as the very heathens hold. +But this I will do—thank you most sincerely for the compliment +you pay us Cismontane heretics. We do retain some dim belief in +a God—even I am beginning to believe in believing in Him. +And therefore, as I begin to suppose, it is, that we reverence facts, +as the work of God, His acted words and will, which we dare not falsify; +which we believe will tell their own story better than we can tell it +for them. If our eyes are dimmed, we think it safer to clear them, +which do belong to us, than to bedevil, by the light of those very <i>already +dimmed</i> eyes, the objects round, which do not belong to us. +Whether we are consistent or not about the corruptness of man, we are +about the incorruptness of God; and therefore about that of the facts +by which God teaches men: and believe, and will continue to believe, +that the blackest of all sins, the deepest of all Atheisms, that which, +above all things, proves no faith in God’s government of the universe, +no sense of His presence, no understanding of His character, is—a +lie.</p> +<p>‘One word more—Unless you tell your father within twenty-four +hours after receiving this letter, I will. And I, being a Protestant +(if cursing Popery means Protestantism), mean what I say.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>As Lancelot walked up to the Priory that morning, the Reverend Panurgus +O’Blareaway dashed out of a cottage by the roadside, and seized +him unceremoniously by the shoulders. He was a specimen of humanity +which Lancelot could not help at once liking and despising; a quaint +mixture of conceit and earnestness, uniting the shrewdness of a stockjobber +with the frolic of a schoolboy broke loose. He was rector of a +place in the west of Ireland, containing some ten Protestants and some +thousand Papists. Being, unfortunately for himself, a red-hot +Orangeman, he had thought fit to quarrel with the priest, in consequence +of which he found himself deprived both of tithes and congregation; +and after receiving three or four Rockite letters, and a charge of slugs +through his hat (of which he always talked as if being shot at was the +most pleasant and amusing feature of Irish life), he repaired to England, +and there, after trying to set up as popular preacher in London, declaiming +at Exeter Hall, and writing for all the third-rate magazines, found +himself incumbent of Lower Whitford. He worked there, as he said +himself, ‘like a horse;’ spent his mornings in the schools, +his afternoons in the cottages; preached four or five extempore sermons +every week to overflowing congregations; took the lead, by virtue of +the ‘gift of the gab,’ at all ‘religious’ meetings +for ten miles round; and really did a great deal of good in his way. +He had an unblushing candour about his own worldly ambition, with a +tremendous brogue; and prided himself on exaggerating deliberately both +of these excellences.</p> +<p>‘The top of the morning to ye, Mr. Smith. Ye haven’t +such a thing as a cegar about ye? I’ve been preaching to +school-children till me throat’s as dry as the slave of a lime-burner’s +coat.’</p> +<p>‘I am very sorry; but, really, I have left my case at home.’</p> +<p>‘Oh! ah! faix and I forgot. Ye mustn’t be smokin’ +the nasty things going up to the castle. Och, Mr. Smith, but you’re +the lucky man!’</p> +<p>‘I am much obliged to you for the compliment,’ said Lancelot, +gruffly; ‘but really I don’t see how I deserve it.’</p> +<p>‘Desarve it! Sure luck’s all, and that’s +your luck, and not your deserts at all. To have the handsomest +girl in the county dying for love of ye’—(Panurgus had a +happy knack of blurting out truths—when they were pleasant ones). +‘And she just the beautifulest creature that ever spilte shoe-leather, +barring Lady Philandria Mountflunkey, of Castle Mountflunkey, Quane’s +County, that shall be nameless.’</p> +<p>‘Upon my word, O’Blareaway, you seem to be better acquainted +with my matters than I am. Don’t you think, on the whole, +it might be better to mind your own business?’</p> +<p>‘Me own business! Poker o’ Moses! and ain’t +it me own business? Haven’t ye spilte my tenderest hopes? +And good luck to ye in that same, for ye’re as pretty a rider +as ever kicked coping-stones out of a wall; and poor Paddy loves a sportsman +by nature. Och! but ye’ve got a hand of trumps this time. +Didn’t I mate the vicar the other day, and spake my mind to him?’</p> +<p>‘What do you mean?’ asked Lancelot, with a strong expletive.</p> +<p>‘Faix, I told him he might as well <i>Faugh a ballagh</i>—make +a rid road, and get out of that, with his bowings and his crossings, +and his Popery made asy for small minds, for there was a gun a-field +that would wipe his eye,—maning yourself, ye Prathestant.’</p> +<p>‘All I can say is, that you had really better mind your own +business, and I’ll mind my own.’</p> +<p>‘Och,’ said the good-natured Irishman, ‘and it’s +you must mind my business, and I’ll mind yours; and that’s +all fair and aqual. Ye’ve cut me out intirely at the Priory, +ye Tory, and so ye’re bound to give me a lift somehow. Couldn’t +ye look me out a fine fat widow, with an illigant little fortune? +For what’s England made for except to find poor Paddy a wife and +money? Ah, ye may laugh, but I’d buy me a chapel at the +West-end: me talents are thrown away here intirely, wasting me swateness +on the desert air, as Tom Moore says’ (Panurgus used to attribute +all quotations whatsoever to Irish geniuses); ‘and I flatter meself +I’m the boy to shute the Gospel to the aristocracy.’</p> +<p>Lancelot burst into a roar of laughter, and escaped over the next +gate: but the Irishman’s coarse hints stuck by him as they were +intended to do. ‘Dying for the love of me!’ +He knew it was an impudent exaggeration, but, somehow, it gave him confidence; +‘there is no smoke,’ he thought, ‘without fire.’ +And his heart beat high with new hopes, for which he laughed at himself +all the while. It was just the cordial which he needed. +That conversation determined the history of his life.</p> +<p>He met Argemone that morning in the library, as usual; but he soon +found that she was not thinking of Homer. She was moody and abstracted; +and he could not help at last saying,—</p> +<p>‘I am afraid I and my classics are <i>de trop</i> this morning, +Miss Lavington.’</p> +<p>‘Oh, no, no. Never that.’ She turned away +her head. He fancied that it was to hide a tear.</p> +<p>Suddenly she rose, and turned to him with a clear, calm, gentle gaze.</p> +<p>‘Listen to me, Mr. Smith. We must part to-day, and for +ever. This intimacy has gone on—too long, I am afraid, for +your happiness. And now, like all pleasant things in this miserable +world, it must cease. I cannot tell you why; but you will trust +me. I thank you for it—I thank God for it. I have +learnt things from it which I shall never forget. I have learnt, +at least from it, to esteem and honour you. You have vast powers. +Nothing, nothing, I believe, is too high for you to attempt and succeed. +But we must part; and now, God be with you. Oh, that you would +but believe that these glorious talents are His loan! That you +would but be a true and loyal knight to him who said—“Learn +of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto +your souls!”—Ay,’ she went on, more and more passionately, +for she felt that not she, but One mightier than herself was speaking +through her, ‘then you might be great indeed. Then I might +watch your name from afar, rising higher and higher daily in the ranks +of God’s own heroes. I see it—and you have taught +me to see it—that you are meant for a faith nobler and deeper +than all doctrines and systems can give. You must become the philosopher, +who can discover new truths—the artist who can embody them in +new forms, while poor I—And that is another reason why we should +part.—Hush! hear me out. I must not be a clog, to drag you +down in your course. Take this, and farewell; and remember that +you once had a friend called Argemone.’</p> +<p>She put into his hands a little Bible. He took it, and laid +it down on the table.</p> +<p>For a minute he stood silent and rooted to the spot. Disappointment, +shame, rage, hatred, all boiled up madly within him. The bitterest +insults rose to his lips—‘Flirt, cold-hearted pedant, fanatic!’ +but they sank again unspoken, as he looked into the celestial azure +of those eyes, calm and pure as a soft evening sky. A mighty struggle +between good and evil shook his heart to the roots; and, for the first +time in his life, his soul breathed out one real prayer, that God would +help him now or never to play the man. And in a moment the darkness +passed; a new spirit called out all the latent strength within him; +and gently and proudly he answered her,—</p> +<p>‘Yes, I will go. I have had mad dreams, conceited and +insolent, and have met with my deserts. Brute and fool as I am, +I have aspired even to you! And I have gained, in the sunshine +of your condescension, strength and purity.—Is not that enough +for me? And now I will show you that I love you—by obeying +you. You tell me to depart—I go for ever.’</p> +<p>He turned away. Why did she almost spring after him?</p> +<p>‘Lancelot! one word! Do not misunderstand me, as I know +you will. You will think me so cold, heartless, fickle.—Oh, +you do not know—you never can know—how much I, too, have +felt!’</p> +<p>He stopped, spell-bound. In an instant his conversation with +the Irishman flashed up before him with new force and meaning. +A thousand petty incidents, which he had driven contemptuously from +his mind, returned as triumphant evidences; and, with an impetuous determination, +he cried out,—</p> +<p>‘I see—I see it all, Argemone! We love each other! +You are mine, never to be parted!’</p> +<p>What was her womanhood, that it could stand against the energy of +his manly will! The almost coarse simplicity of his words silenced +her with a delicious violence. She could only bury her face in +her hands and sob out,—</p> +<p>‘Oh, Lancelot, Lancelot, whither are you forcing me?’</p> +<p>‘I am forcing you no whither. God, the Father of spirits, +is leading you! You, who believe in Him, how dare you fight against +Him?’</p> +<p>‘Lancelot, I cannot—I cannot listen to you—read +that!’ And she handed him the vicar’s letter. +He read it, tossed it on the carpet, and crushed it with his heel.</p> +<p>‘Wretched pedant! Can your intellect be deluded by such +barefaced sophistries? “God’s will,” forsooth! +And if your mother’s opposition is not a sign that God’s +will—if it mean anything except your own will, or that—that +man’s—is against this mad project, and not for it, what +sign would you have? So “celibacy is the highest state!” +And why? Because “it is the safest and the easiest road +to heaven?” A pretty reason, vicar! I should have +thought that that was a sign of a lower state and not a higher. +Noble spirits show their nobleness by daring the most difficult paths. +And even if marriage was but one weed-field of temptations, as these +miserable pedants say, who have either never tried it, or misused it +to their own shame, it would be a greater deed to conquer its temptations +than to flee from them in cowardly longings after ease and safety!’</p> +<p>She did not answer him, but kept her face buried in her hands.</p> +<p>‘Again, I say, Argemone, will you fight against Fate—Providence—God—call +it what you will? Who made us meet at the chapel? Who made +me, by my accident, a guest in your father’s house! Who +put it into your heart to care for my poor soul? Who gave us this +strange attraction towards each other, in spite of our unlikeness? +Wonderful that the very chain of circumstances which you seem to fancy +the offspring of chance or the devil, should have first taught me to +believe that there is a God who guides us! Argemone! speak, tell +me, if you will, to go for ever; but tell me first the truth—You +love me!’</p> +<p>A strong shudder ran through her frame—the ice of artificial +years cracked, and the clear stream of her woman’s nature welled +up to the light, as pure as when she first lay on her mother’s +bosom: she lifted up her eyes, and with one long look of passionate +tenderness she faltered out,—</p> +<p>‘I love you!’</p> +<p>He did not stir, but watched her with clasped hands, like one who +in dreams finds himself in some fairy palace, and fears that a movement +may break the spell.</p> +<p>‘Now, go,’ she said; ‘go, and let me collect my +thoughts. All this has been too much for me. Do not look +sad—you may come again to-morrow.’</p> +<p>She smiled and held out her hand. He caught it, covered it +with kisses, and pressed it to his heart. She half drew it back, +frightened. The sensation was new to her. Again the delicious +feeling of being utterly in his power came over her, and she left her +hand upon his heart, and blushed as she felt its passionate throbbings.</p> +<p>He turned to go—not as before. She followed with greedy +eyes her new-found treasure; and as the door closed behind him, she +felt as if Lancelot was the whole world, and there was nothing beside +him, and wondered how a moment had made him all in all to her; and then +she sank upon her knees, and folded her hands upon her bosom, and her +prayers for him were like the prayers of a little child.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XI: THUNDERSTORM THE FIRST</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>But what had become of the ‘bit of writing’ which Harry +Verney, by the instigation of his evil genius, had put into the squire’s +fly-book? Tregarva had waited in terrible suspense for many weeks, +expecting the explosion which he knew must follow its discovery. +He had confided to Lancelot the contents of the paper, and Lancelot +had tried many stratagems to get possession of it, but all in vain. +Tregarva took this as calmly as he did everything else. Only once, +on the morning of the <i>éclaircissement</i> between Lancelot +and Argemone, he talked to Lancelot of leaving his place, and going +out to seek his fortune; but some spell, which he did not explain, seemed +to chain him to the Priory. Lancelot thought it was the want of +money, and offered to lend him ten pounds whenever he liked; but Tregarva +shook his head.</p> +<p>‘You have treated me, sir, as no one else has done—like +a man and a friend; but I am not going to make a market of your generosity. +I will owe no man anything, save to love one another.’</p> +<p>‘But how do you intend to live?’ asked Lancelot, as they +stood together in the cloisters.</p> +<p>‘There’s enough of me, sir, to make a good navigator +if all trades fail.’</p> +<p>‘Nonsense! you must not throw yourself away so.’</p> +<p>‘Oh, sir, there’s good to be done, believe me, among +those poor fellows. They wander up and down the land like hogs +and heathens, and no one tells them that they have a soul to be saved. +Not one parson in a thousand gives a thought to them. They can +manage old folks and little children, sir, but, somehow, they never +can get hold of the young men—just those who want them most. +There’s a talk about ragged schools, now. Why don’t +they try ragged churches, sir, and a ragged service?’</p> +<p>‘What do you mean?’</p> +<p>‘Why, sir, the parsons are ready enough to save souls, but +it must be only according to rule and regulation. Before the Gospel +can be preached there must be three thousand pounds got together for +a church, and a thousand for an endowment, not to mention the thousand +pounds that the clergyman’s education costs: I don’t think +of his own keep, sir; that’s little enough, often; and those that +work hardest get least pay, it seems to me. But after all that +expense, when they’ve built the church, it’s the tradesmen, +and the gentry, and the old folk that fill it, and the working men never +come near it from one year’s end to another.’</p> +<p>‘What’s the cause, do you think?’ asked Lancelot, +who had himself remarked the same thing more than once.</p> +<p>‘Half of the reason, sir, I do believe, is that same Prayer-book. +Not that the Prayer-book ain’t a fine book enough, and a true +one; but, don’t you see, sir, to understand the virtue of it, +the poor fellows ought to be already just what you want to make them.’</p> +<p>‘You mean that they ought to be thorough Christians already, +to appreciate the spirituality of the liturgy.’</p> +<p>‘You’ve hit it, sir. And see what comes of the +present plan; how a navvy drops into a church by accident, and there +he has to sit like a fish out of water, through that hour’s service, +staring or sleeping, before he can hear a word that he understands; +and, sir, when the sermon does come at last, it’s not many of +them can make much out of those fine book-words and long sentences. +Why don’t they have a short simple service, now and then, that +might catch the ears of the roughs and the blowens, without tiring out +the poor thoughtless creatures’ patience, as they do now?’</p> +<p>‘Because,’ said Lancelot,—‘because—I +really don’t know why.—But I think there is a simpler plan +than even a ragged service.’</p> +<p>‘What, then, sir?’</p> +<p>‘Field-preaching. If the mountain won’t come to +Mahomet, let Mahomet go to the mountain.’</p> +<p>‘Right, sir; right you are. “Go out into the highways +and hedges, and compel them to come in.” And why are they +to speak to them only one by one? Why not by the dozen and the +hundred? We Wesleyans know, sir,—for the matter of that, +every soldier knows,—what virtue there is in getting a lot of +men together; how good and evil spread like wildfire through a crowd; +and one man, if you can stir him up, will become leaven to leaven the +whole lump. Oh why, sir, are they so afraid of field-preaching? +Was not their Master and mine the prince of all field-preachers? +Think, if the Apostles had waited to collect subscriptions for a church +before they spoke to the poor heathens, where should we have been now?’</p> +<p>Lancelot could not but agree. But at that moment a footman +came up, and, with a face half laughing, half terrified, said,—</p> +<p>‘Tregarva, master wants you in the study. And please, +sir, I think you had better go in too; master knows you’re here, +and you might speak a word for good, for he’s raging like a mad +bull.’</p> +<p>‘I knew it would come at last,’ said Tregarva, quietly, +as he followed Lancelot into the house.</p> +<p>It had come at last. The squire was sitting in his study, purple +with rage, while his daughters were trying vainly to pacify him. +All the men-servants, grooms, and helpers, were drawn up in line along +the wall, and greeted Tregarva, whom they all heartily liked, with sly +and sorrowful looks of warning,</p> +<p>‘Here, you sir; you—, look at this! Is this the +way you repay me? I, who have kept you out of the workhouse, treated +you like my own child? And then to go and write filthy, rascally, +Radical ballads on me and mine! This comes of your Methodism, +you canting, sneaking hypocrite!—you viper—you adder—you +snake—you—!’ And the squire, whose vocabulary +was not large, at a loss for another synonym, rounded off his oration +by a torrent of oaths; at which Argemone, taking Honoria’s hand, +walked proudly out of the room, with one glance at Lancelot of mingled +shame and love. ‘This is your handwriting, you villain! +you know it’ (and the squire tossed the fatal paper across the +table); ‘though I suppose you’ll lie about it. How +can you depend on fellows who speak evil of their betters? But +all the servants are ready to swear it’s your handwriting.’</p> +<p>‘Beg your pardon, sir,’ interposed the old butler, ‘we +didn’t quite say that; but we’ll all swear it isn’t +ours.’</p> +<p>‘The paper is mine,’ said Tregarva.</p> +<p>‘Confound your coolness! He’s no more ashamed of +it than—Read it out, Smith, read it out every word; and let them +all hear how this pauper, this ballad-singing vagabond, whom I have +bred up to insult me, dares to abuse his own master.’</p> +<p>‘I have not abused you, sir,’ answered Tregarva. +‘I will be heard, sir!’ he went on in a voice which made +the old man start from his seat and clench his fist but he sat down +again. ‘Not a word in it is meant for you. You have +been a kind and a good master to me. Ask where you will if I was +ever heard to say a word against you. I would have cut off my +right hand sooner than write about you or yours. But what I had +to say about others lies there, and I am not ashamed of it.’</p> +<p>‘Not against me? Read it out, Smith, and see if every +word of it don’t hit at me, and at my daughters, too, by—, +worst of all! Read it out, I say!’</p> +<p>Lancelot hesitated; but the squire, who was utterly beside himself, +began to swear at him also, as masters of hounds are privileged to do; +and Lancelot, to whom the whole scene was becoming every moment more +and more intensely ludicrous, thought it best to take up the paper and +begin:—</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘A ROUGH RHYME ON A ROUGH MATTER.</p> +<p>‘The merry brown hares came leaping<br /> Over +the crest of the hill,<br />Where the clover and corn lay sleeping<br /> Under +the moonlight still.</p> +<p>‘Leaping late and early,<br /> Till under +their bite and their tread<br />The swedes, and the wheat, and the barley,<br /> Lay +cankered, and trampled, and dead.</p> +<p>‘A poacher’s widow sat sighing<br /> On +the side of the white chalk bank,<br />Where under the gloomy fir-woods<br /> One +spot in the ley throve rank.</p> +<p>‘She watched a long tuft of clover,<br /> Where +rabbit or hare never ran;<br />For its black sour haulm covered over<br /> The +blood of a murdered man.</p> +<p>‘She thought of the dark plantation,<br /> And +the hares and her husband’s blood,<br />And the voice of her indignation<br /> Rose +up to the throne of God.</p> +<p>‘“I am long past wailing and whining—<br /> I +have wept too much in my life:<br />I’ve had twenty years of pining<br /> As +an English labourer’s wife.</p> +<p>‘“A labourer in Christian England,<br /> Where +they cant of a Saviour’s name,<br />And yet waste men’s +lives like the vermin’s<br /> For a few more +brace of game.</p> +<p>‘“There’s blood on your new foreign shrubs, squire;<br /> There’s +blood on your pointer’s feet;<br />There’s blood on the +game you sell, squire,<br /> And there’s blood +on the game you eat!”’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘You villain!’ interposed the squire, ‘when did +I ever sell a head of game?’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘“You have sold the labouring man, squire,<br /> Body +and soul to shame,<br />To pay for your seat in the House, squire,<br /> And +to pay for the feed of your game.</p> +<p>“‘You made him a poacher yourself, squire,<br /> When +you’d give neither work nor meat;<br />And your barley-fed hares +robbed the garden<br /> At our starving children’s +feet;</p> +<p>‘“When packed in one reeking chamber,<br /> Man, +maid, mother, and little ones lay;<br />While the rain pattered in on +the rotting bride-bed,<br /> And the walls let in the +day;</p> +<p>‘“When we lay in the burning fever<br /> On +the mud of the cold clay floor,<br />Till you parted us all for three +months, squire,<br /> At the cursed workhouse door.</p> +<p>“‘We quarrelled like brutes, and who wonders?<br /> What +self-respect could we keep,<br />Worse housed than your hacks and your +pointers,<br /> Worse fed than your hogs and your sheep?”’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘And yet he has the impudence to say he don’t mean me!’ +grumbled the old man. Tregarva winced a good deal—as if +he knew what was coming next; and then looked up relieved when he found +Lancelot had omitted a stanza—which I shall not omit.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘“Our daughters with base-born babies<br /> Have +wandered away in their shame;<br />If your misses had slept, squire, +where they did,<br /> Your misses might do the same.</p> +<p>“‘Can your lady patch hearts that are breaking<br /> With +handfuls of coals and rice,<br />Or by dealing out flannel and sheeting<br /> A +little below cost price?</p> +<p>“‘You may tire of the gaol and the workhouse,<br /> And +take to allotments and schools,<br />But you’ve run up a debt +that will never<br /> Be repaid us by penny-club rules.</p> +<p>‘“In the season of shame and sadness,<br /> In +the dark and dreary day<br />When scrofula, gout, and madness,<br /> Are +eating your race away;</p> +<p>“‘When to kennels and liveried varlets<br /> You +have cast your daughters’ bread;<br />And worn out with liquor +and harlots,<br /> Your heir at your feet lies dead;</p> +<p>“‘When your youngest, the mealy-mouthed rector,<br /> Lets +your soul rot asleep to the grave,<br />You will find in your God the +protector<br /> Of the freeman you fancied your slave.”</p> +<p>‘She looked at the tuft of clover,<br /> And +wept till her heart grew light;<br />And at last, when her passion was +over,<br /> Went wandering into the night.</p> +<p>‘But the merry brown hares came leaping<br /> Over +the uplands still,<br />Where the clover and corn lay sleeping<br /> On +the side of the white chalk hill.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘Surely, sir,’ said Lancelot, ‘you cannot suppose +that this latter part applies to you. or your family?’</p> +<p>‘If it don’t, it applies to half the gentlemen in the +vale, and that’s just as bad. What right has the fellow +to speak evil of dignities?’ continued he, quoting the only text +in the Bible which he was inclined to make a ‘rule absolute.’ +‘What does such an insolent dog deserve? What don’t +he deserve, I say?’</p> +<p>‘I think,’ quoth Lancelot, ambiguously, ‘that a +man who can write such ballads is not fit to be your gamekeeper, and +I think he feels so himself;’ and Lancelot stole an encouraging +look at Tregarva.</p> +<p>‘And I say, sir,’ the keeper answered, with an effort, +‘that I leave Mr. Lavington’s service here on the spot, +once and for all.’</p> +<p>‘And that you may do, my fine fellow!’ roared the squire. +‘Pay the rascal his wages, steward, and then duck him soundly +in the weir-pool. He had better have stayed there when he fell +in last.’</p> +<p>‘So I had, indeed, I think. But I’ll take none +of your money. The day Harry Verney was buried I vowed that I’d +touch no more of the wages of blood. I’m going, sir; I never +harmed you, or meant a hard word of all this for you, or dreamt that +you or any living soul would ever see it. But what I’ve +seen myself, in spite of myself, I’ve set down here, and am not +ashamed of it. And woe,’ he went on with an almost prophetic +solemnity in his tone and gesture—‘woe to those who do these +things! and woe to those also who, though they dare not do them themselves, +yet excuse and defend them who dare, just because the world calls them +gentlemen, and not tyrants and oppressors.’</p> +<p>He turned to go. The squire, bursting with passion, sprang +up with a terrible oath, turned deadly pale, staggered, and dropped +senseless on the floor.</p> +<p>They all rushed to lift him up. Tregarva was the first to take +him in his arms and place him tenderly in his chair, where he lay back +with glassy eyes, snoring heavily in a fit of apoplexy.</p> +<p>‘Go; for God’s sake, go,’ whispered Lancelot to +the keeper, ‘and wait for me at Lower Whitford. I must see +you before you stir.’</p> +<p>The keeper slipped away sadly. The ladies rushed in—a +groom galloped off for the doctor—met him luckily in the village, +and, in a few minutes, the squire was bled and put to bed, and showed +hopeful signs of returning consciousness. And as Argemone and +Lancelot leant together over his pillow, her hair touched her lover’s, +and her fragrant breath was warm upon his cheek; and her bright eyes +met his and drank light from them, like glittering planets gazing at +their sun.</p> +<p>The obnoxious ballad produced the most opposite effects on Argemone +and on Honoria. Argemone, whose reverence for the formalities +and the respectabilities of society, never very great, had, of late, +utterly vanished before Lancelot’s bad counsel, could think of +it only as a work of art, and conceived the most romantic longing to +raise Tregarva into some station where his talents might have free play. +To Honoria, on the other hand, it appeared only as a very fierce, coarse, +and impertinent satire, which had nearly killed her father. True, +there was not a thought in it which had not at some time or other crossed +her own mind; but that made her dislike all the more to see those thoughts +put into plain English. That very intense tenderness and excitability +which made her toil herself among the poor, and had called out both +her admiration of Tregarva and her extravagant passion at his danger, +made her also shrink with disgust from anything which thrust on her +a painful reality, which she could not remedy. She was a staunch +believer, too, in that peculiar creed which allows every one to feel +for the poor, except themselves, and considers that to plead the cause +of working-men is, in a gentleman, the perfection of virtue, but in +a working-man himself, sheer high treason. And so beside her father’s +sick-bed she thought of the keeper only as a scorpion whom she had helped +to warm into life; and sighing assent to her mother, when she said, +‘That wretch, and he seemed so pious and so obliging! who would +have dreamt that he was such a horrid Radical?’ she let him vanish +from her mind and out of Whitford Priors, little knowing the sore weight +of manly love he bore with him.</p> +<p>As soon as Lancelot could leave the Priory, he hastened home to find +Tregarva. The keeper had packed up all his small possessions and +brought them down to Lower Whitford, through which the London coach +passed. He was determined to go to London and seek his fortune. +He talked of turning coal-heaver, Methodist preacher, anything that +came to hand, provided that he could but keep independence and a clear +conscience. And all the while the man seemed to be struggling +with some great purpose,—to feel that he had a work to do, though +what it was, and how it was to be done, he did not see.</p> +<p>‘I am a tall man,’ he said, ‘like Saul the son +of Kish; and I am going forth, like him, sir, to find my father’s +asses. I doubt I shan’t have to look far for some of them.’</p> +<p>‘And perhaps,’ said Lancelot, laughing, ‘to find +a kingdom.’</p> +<p>‘May be so, sir. I have found one already, by God’s +grace, and I’m much mistaken if I don’t begin to see my +way towards another.’</p> +<p>‘And what is that?’</p> +<p>‘The kingdom of God on earth, sir, as well as in heaven. +Come it must, sir, and come it will some day.’</p> +<p>Lancelot shook his head.</p> +<p>Tregarva lifted up his eyes and said,—</p> +<p>‘Are we not taught to pray for the coming of His kingdom, sir? +And do you fancy that He who gave the lesson would have set all mankind +to pray for what He never meant should come to pass?’</p> +<p>Lancelot was silent. The words gained a new and blessed meaning +in his eyes.</p> +<p>‘Well,’ he said, ‘the time, at least, of their +fulfilment is far enough off. Union-workhouses and child-murder +don’t look much like it. Talking of that, Tregarva, what +is to become of your promise to take me to a village wake, and show +me what the poor are like?’</p> +<p>‘I can keep it this night, sir. There is a revel at Bone-sake, +about five miles up the river. Will you go with a discharged gamekeeper?’</p> +<p>‘I will go with Paul Tregarva, whom I honour and esteem as +one of God’s own noblemen; who has taught me what a man can be, +and what I am not,’—and Lancelot grasped the keeper’s +hand warmly. Tregarva brushed his hand across his eyes, and answered,—</p> +<p>‘“I said in my haste, All men are liars;” and God +has just given me the lie back in my own teeth. Well, sir, we +will go to-night. You are not ashamed of putting on a smock-frock? +For if you go as a gentleman, you will hear no more of them than a hawk +does of a covey of partridges.’</p> +<p>So the expedition was agreed on, and Lancelot and the keeper parted +until the evening.</p> +<p>But why had the vicar been rambling on all that morning through pouring +rain, on the top of the London coach? And why was he so anxious +in his inquiries as to the certainty of catching the up-train? +Because he had had considerable experience in that wisdom of the serpent, +whose combination with the innocence of the dove, in somewhat ultramontane +proportions, is recommended by certain late leaders of his school. +He had made up his mind, after his conversation with the Irishman, that +he must either oust Lancelot at once, or submit to be ousted by him, +and he was now on his way to Lancelot’s uncle and trustee, the +London banker.</p> +<p>He knew that the banker had some influence with his nephew, whose +whole property was invested in the bank, and who had besides a deep +respect for the kindly and upright practical mind of the veteran Mammonite. +And the vicar knew, too, that he himself had some influence with the +banker, whose son Luke had been his pupil at college. And when +the young man lay sick of a dangerous illness, brought on by debauchery, +into which weakness rather than vice had tempted him, the vicar had +watched and prayed by his bed, nursed him as tenderly as a mother, and +so won over his better heart that he became completely reclaimed, and +took holy orders with the most earnest intention to play the man therein, +as repentant rakes will often do, half from a mere revulsion to asceticism, +half from real gratitude for their deliverance. This good deed +had placed the banker in the vicar’s debt, and he loved and reverenced +him in spite of his dread of ‘Popish novelties.’ And +now the good priest was going to open to him just as much of his heart +as should seem fit; and by saying a great deal about Lancelot’s +evil doings, opinions, and companions, and nothing at all about the +heiress of Whitford, persuade the banker to use all his influence in +drawing Lancelot up to London, and leaving a clear stage for his plans +on Argemone. He caught the up-train, he arrived safe and sound +in town, but what he did there must be told in another chapter.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XII: THUNDERSTORM THE SECOND</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Weary with many thoughts, the vicar came to the door of the bank. +There were several carriages there, and a crowd of people swarming in +and out, like bees round a hive-door, entering with anxious faces, and +returning with cheerful ones, to stop and talk earnestly in groups round +the door. Every moment the mass thickened—there was a run +on the bank. An old friend accosted him on the steps,—</p> +<p>‘What! have you, too, money here, then?’</p> +<p>‘Neither here nor anywhere else, thank Heaven!’ said +the vicar. ‘But is anything wrong?’</p> +<p>‘Have not you heard? The house has sustained a frightful +blow this week—railway speculations, so they say—and is +hardly expected to survive the day. So we are all getting our +money out as fast as possible.’</p> +<p>‘By way of binding up the bruised reed, eh?’</p> +<p>‘Oh! every man for himself. A man is under no obligation +to his banker, that I know of.’ And the good man bustled +off with his pockets full of gold.</p> +<p>The vicar entered. All was hurry and anxiety. The clerks +seemed trying to brazen out their own terror, and shovelled the rapidly +lessening gold and notes across the counter with an air of indignant +nonchalance. The vicar asked to see the principal.</p> +<p>‘If you want your money, sir—’ answered the official, +with a disdainful look.</p> +<p>‘I want no money. I must see Mr. Smith on private business, +and instantly.’</p> +<p>‘He is particularly engaged.’</p> +<p>‘I know it, and, therefore, I must see him. Take in my +card, and he will not refuse me.’ A new vista had opened +itself before him.</p> +<p>He was ushered into a private room: and, as he waited for the banker, +he breathed a prayer. For what? That his own will might +be done—a very common style of petition.</p> +<p>Mr. Smith entered, hurried and troubled. He caught the vicar +eagerly by the hand, as if glad to see a face which did not glare on +him with the cold selfish stamp of ‘business,’ and then +drew back again, afraid to commit himself by any sign of emotion.</p> +<p>The vicar had settled his plan of attack, and determined boldly to +show his knowledge of the banker’s distress.</p> +<p>‘I am very sorry to trouble you at such an unfortunate moment, +sir, and I will be brief; but, as your nephew’s spiritual pastor—’ +(He knew the banker was a stout Churchman.)</p> +<p>‘What of my nephew, sir! No fresh misfortunes, I hope?’</p> +<p>‘Not so much misfortune, sir, as misconduct—I might say +frailty—but frailty which may become ruinous.’</p> +<p>‘How? how? Some <i>mésalliance</i>?’ interrupted +Mr. Smith, in a peevish, excited tone. ‘I thought there +was some heiress on the <i>tapis</i>—at least, so I heard from +my unfortunate son, who has just gone over to Rome. There’s +another misfortune.—Nothing but misfortunes; and your teaching, +sir, by the bye, I am afraid, has helped me to that one.’</p> +<p>‘Gone over to Rome?’ asked the vicar, slowly.</p> +<p>‘Yes, sir, gone to Rome—to the pope, sir! to the devil, +sir! I should have thought you likely to know of it before I did!’</p> +<p>The vicar stared fixedly at him a moment, and burst into honest tears. +The banker was moved.</p> +<p>‘’Pon my honour, sir, I beg your pardon. I did +not mean to be rude, but—but—To be plain with a clergyman, +sir, so many things coming together have quite unmanned me. Pooh, +pooh,’ and he shook himself as if to throw off a weight; and, +with a face once more quiet and business-like, asked, ‘And now, +my dear sir, what of my nephew?’</p> +<p>‘As for that young lady, sir, of whom you spoke, I can assure +you, once for all, as her clergyman, and therefore more or less her +confidant, that your nephew has not the slightest chance or hope in +that quarter.’</p> +<p>‘How, sir? You will not throw obstacles in the way?’</p> +<p>‘Heaven, sir, I think, has interposed far more insuperable +obstacles—in the young lady’s own heart—than I could +ever have done. Your nephew’s character and opinions, I +am sorry to say, are not such as are likely to command the respect and +affection of a pure and pious Churchwoman.’</p> +<p>‘Opinions, sir? What, is he turning Papist, too?’</p> +<p>‘I am afraid, sir, and more than afraid, for he makes no secret +of it himself, that his views tend rather in the opposite direction; +to an infidelity so subversive of the commonest principles of morality, +that I expect, weekly, to hear of some unblushing and disgraceful outrage +against decency, committed by him under its fancied sanction. +And you know, as well as myself, the double danger of some profligate +outbreak, which always attends the miseries of a disappointed earthly +passion.’</p> +<p>‘True, very true. We must get the boy out of the way, +sir. I must have him under my eye.’</p> +<p>‘Exactly so, sir,’ said the subtle vicar, who had been +driving at this very point. ‘How much better for him to +be here, using his great talents to the advantage of his family in an +honourable profession, than to remain where he is, debauching body and +mind by hopeless dreams, godless studies, and frivolous excesses.’</p> +<p>‘When do you return, sir?’</p> +<p>‘An hour hence, if I can be of service to you.’</p> +<p>The banker paused a moment.</p> +<p>‘You are a gentleman’ (with emphasis on the word), ‘and +as such I can trust you.’</p> +<p>‘Say, rather, as a clergyman.’</p> +<p>‘Pardon me, but I have found your cloth give little additional +cause for confidence. I have been as much bitten by clergymen—I +have seen as sharp practice among them, in money matters as well as +in religious squabbles, as I have in any class. Whether it is +that their book education leaves them very often ignorant of the plain +rules of honour which bind men of the world, or whether their zeal makes +them think that the end justifies the means, I cannot tell; but—’</p> +<p>‘But,’ said the vicar, half smiling, half severely, ‘you +must not disparage the priesthood before a priest.’</p> +<p>‘I know it, I know it; and I beg your pardon: but if you knew +the cause I have to complain. The slipperiness, sir, of one staggering +parson, has set rolling this very avalanche, which gathers size every +moment, and threatens to overwhelm me now, unless that idle dog Lancelot +will condescend to bestir himself, and help me.’</p> +<p>The vicar heard, but said nothing.</p> +<p>‘Me, at least, you can trust,’ he answered proudly; and +honestly, too—for he was a gentleman by birth and breeding, unselfish +and chivalrous to a fault—and yet, when he heard the banker’s +words, it was as if the inner voice had whispered to him, ‘Thou +art the man!’</p> +<p>‘When do you go down?’ again asked Mr. Smith. ‘To +tell you the truth, I was writing to Lancelot when you were announced! +but the post will not reach him till to-morrow at noon, and we are all +so busy here, that I have no one whom I can trust to carry down an express.’</p> +<p>The vicar saw what was coming. Was it his good angel which +prompted him to interpose?</p> +<p>‘Why not send a parcel by rail?’</p> +<p>‘I can trust the rail as far as D—; but I cannot trust +those coaches. If you could do me so great a kindness—’</p> +<p>‘I will. I can start by the one o’clock train, +and by ten o’clock to-night I shall be in Whitford.’</p> +<p>‘Are you certain?’</p> +<p>‘If God shall please, I am certain.’</p> +<p>‘And you will take charge of a letter? Perhaps, too, +you could see him yourself; and tell him—you see I trust you with +everything—that my fortune, his own fortune, depends on his being +here to-morrow morning. He must start to-night, sir—to-night, +tell him, if there were twenty Miss Lavingtons in Whitford—or +he is a ruined man!’</p> +<p>The letter was written, and put into the vicar’s hands, with +a hundred entreaties from the terrified banker. A cab was called, +and the clergyman rattled off to the railway terminus.</p> +<p>‘Well,’ said he to himself, ‘God has indeed blessed +my errand; giving, as always, “exceeding abundantly more than +we are able to ask or think!” For some weeks, at least, +this poor lamb is safe from the destroyer’s clutches. I +must improve to the utmost those few precious days in strengthening +her in her holy purpose. But, after all, he will return, daring +and cunning as ever; and then will not the fascination recommence?’</p> +<p>And, as he mused, a little fiend passed by, and whispered, ‘Unless +he comes up to-night, he is a ruined man.’</p> +<p>It was Friday, and the vicar had thought it a fit preparation for +so important an errand to taste no food that day. Weakness and +hunger, joined to the roar and bustle of London, had made him excited, +nervous, unable to control his thoughts, or fight against a stupifying +headache; and his self-weakened will punished him, by yielding him up +an easy prey to his own fancies.</p> +<p>‘Ay,’ he thought, ‘if he were ruined, after all, +it would be well for God’s cause. The Lavingtons, at least, +would find no temptation in his wealth: and Argemone—she is too +proud, too luxurious, to marry a beggar. She might embrace a holy +poverty for the sake of her own soul; but for the gratification of an +earthly passion, never! Base and carnal delights would never tempt +her so far.’</p> +<p>Alas, poor pedant! Among all that thy books taught thee, they +did not open to thee much of the depths of that human heart which thy +dogmas taught thee to despise as diabolic.</p> +<p>Again the little fiend whispered,—</p> +<p>‘Unless he comes up to-night, he is a ruined man.’</p> +<p>‘And what if he is?’ thought the vicar. ‘Riches +are a curse; and poverty a blessing. Is it not his wealth which +is ruining his soul? Idleness and fulness of bread have made him +what he is—a luxurious and self-willed dreamer, battening on his +own fancies. Were it not rather a boon to him to take from him +the root of all evil?’</p> +<p>Most true, vicar. And yet the devil was at that moment transforming +himself into an angel of light for thee.</p> +<p>But the vicar was yet honest. If he had thought that by cutting +off his right hand he could have saved Lancelot’s soul (by canonical +methods, of course; for who would wish to save souls in any other?), +he would have done it without hesitation.</p> +<p>Again the little fiend whispered,—</p> +<p>‘Unless he comes up to-night he is a ruined man.’</p> +<p>A terrible sensation seized him.—Why should he give the letter +to-night?</p> +<p>‘You promised,’ whispered the inner voice.</p> +<p>‘No, I did not promise exactly, in so many words; that is, +I only said I would be at home to-night, if God pleased. And what +if God should not please?—I promised for his good. What +if, on second thoughts, it should be better for him not to keep my promise?’ +A moment afterwards, he tossed the temptation from him indignantly: +but back it came. At every gaudy shop, at every smoke-grimed manufactory, +at the face of every anxious victim of Mammon, of every sturdy, cheerful +artisan, the fiend winked and pointed, crying, ‘And what if he +be ruined? Look at the thousands who have, and are miserable—at +the millions who have not, and are no sadder than their own tyrants.’</p> +<p>Again and again he thrust the thought from him, but more and more +weakly. His whole frame shook; the perspiration stood on his forehead. +As he took his railway ticket, his look was so haggard and painful that +the clerk asked him whether he were ill. The train was just starting; +he threw himself into a carriage—he would have locked himself +in if he could; and felt an inexpressible relief when he found himself +rushing past houses and market-gardens, whirled onward, whether he would +or not, in the right path—homeward.</p> +<p>But was it the right path? for again the temptation flitted past +him. He threw himself back, and tried to ask counsel of One above; +but there was no answer, nor any that regarded. His heart was +silent, and dark as midnight fog. Why should there have been an +answer? He had not listened to the voice within. Did he +wish for a miracle to show him his duty?</p> +<p>‘Not that I care for detection,’ he said to himself. +‘What is shame to me? Is it not a glory to be evil-spoken +of in the cause of God? How can the world appreciate the motives +of those who are not of the world?—the divine wisdom of the serpent—at +once the saint’s peculiar weapon, and a part of his peculiar cross, +when men call him a deceiver, because they confound, forsooth, his spiritual +subtlety with their earthly cunning. Have I not been called “liar,” +“hypocrite,” “Jesuit,” often enough already, +to harden me towards bearing that name once again?’</p> +<p>That led him into sad thoughts of his last few years’ career,—of +the friends and pupils whose secession to Rome had been attributed to +his hypocrisy, his ‘disguised Romanism;’ and then the remembrance +of poor Luke Smith flashed across him for the first time since he left +the bank.</p> +<p>‘I must see him,’ he said to himself; ‘I must argue +with him face to face. Who knows but that it may be given even +to my unworthiness to snatch him from this accursed slough?’</p> +<p>And then he remembered that his way home lay through the city in +which the new convert’s parish was—that the coach stopped +there to change horses; and again the temptation leapt up again, stronger +than ever, under the garb of an imperative call of duty.</p> +<p>He made no determination for or against it. He was too weak +in body and mind to resist; and in a half sleep, broken with an aching, +terrified sense of something wanting which he could not find, he was +swept down the line, got on the coach, and mechanically, almost without +knowing it, found himself set down at the city of A—, and the +coach rattling away down the street.</p> +<p>He sprang from his stupor, and called madly after it—ran a +few steps—</p> +<p>‘You might as well try to catch the clouds, sir,’ said +the ostler. ‘Gemmen should make up their minds afore they +gets down.’</p> +<p>Alas! so thought the vicar. But it was too late; and, with +a heavy heart, he asked the way to the late curate’s house.</p> +<p>Thither he went. Mr. Luke Smith was just at dinner, but the +vicar was, nevertheless, shown into the bachelor’s little dining-room. +But what was his disgust and disappointment at finding his late pupil +<i>tête-à-tête</i> over a comfortable fish-dinner, +opposite a burly, vulgar, cunning-eyed man, with a narrow rim of muslin +turned down over his stiff cravat, of whose profession there could be +no doubt.</p> +<p>‘My dearest sir,’ said the new convert, springing up +with an air of extreme <i>empressement</i>, ‘what an unexpected +pleasure! Allow me to introduce you to my excellent friend, Padre +Bugiardo!’</p> +<p>The padre rose, bowed obsequiously, ‘was overwhelmed with delight +at being at last introduced to one of whom he had heard so much,’ +sat down again, and poured himself out a bumper of sherry; while the +vicar commenced making the best of a bad matter by joining in the now +necessary business of eating.</p> +<p>He had not a word to say for himself. Poor Luke was particularly +jovial and flippant, and startlingly unlike his former self. The +padre went on staring out of the window, and talking in a loud forced +tone about the astonishing miracles of the ‘Ecstatica’ and +‘Addolorata;’ and the poor vicar, finding the purpose for +which he had sacrificed his own word of honour utterly frustrated by +the priest’s presence, sat silent and crestfallen the whole evening.</p> +<p>The priest had no intention of stirring. The late father-confessor +tried to outstay his new rival, but in vain; the padre deliberately +announced his intention of taking a bed, and the vicar, with a heavy +heart, rose to go to his inn.</p> +<p>As he went out at the door, he caught an opportunity of saying one +word to the convert.</p> +<p>‘My poor Luke! and are you happy? Tell me honestly, in +God’s sight tell me!’</p> +<p>‘Happier than ever I was in my life! No more self-torture, +physical or mental, now. These good priests thoroughly understand +poor human nature, I can assure you.’</p> +<p>The vicar sighed, for the speech was evidently meant as a gentle +rebuke to himself. But the young man ran on, half laughing,—</p> +<p>‘You know how you and the rest used to tell us what a sad thing +it was that we were all cursed with consciences,—what a fearful +miserable burden moral responsibility was; but that we must submit to +it as an inevitable evil. Now that burden is gone, thank God. +We of the True Church have some one to keep our consciences for us. +The padre settles all about what is right or wrong, and we slip on as +easily as—’</p> +<p>‘A hog or a butterfly!’ said the vicar, bitterly.</p> +<p>‘Exactly,’ answered Luke. ‘And, on your own +showing, are clean gainers of a happy life here, not to mention heaven +hereafter. God bless you! We shall soon see you one of us.’</p> +<p>‘Never, so help me God!’ said the vicar; all the more +fiercely because he was almost at that moment of the young man’s +opinion.</p> +<p>The vicar stepped out into the night. The rain, which had given +place during the afternoon to a bright sun and clear chilly evening, +had returned with double fury. The wind was sweeping and howling +down the lonely streets, and lashed the rain into his face, while gray +clouds were rushing past the moon like terrified ghosts across the awful +void of the black heaven. Above him gaunt poplars groaned and +bent, like giants cowering from the wrath of Heaven, yet rooted by grim +necessity to their place of torture. The roar and tumult without +him harmonised strangely with the discord within. He staggered +and strode along the plashy pavement, muttering to himself at intervals,—</p> +<p>‘Rest for the soul? peace of mind? I have been promising +them all my life to others—have I found them myself? And +here is this poor boy saying that he has gained them—in the very +barbarian superstition which I have been anathematising to him! +What is true, at this rate? What is false? Is anything right +or wrong? except in as far as men feel it to be right or wrong. +Else whence does this poor fellow’s peace come, or the peace of +many a convert more? They have all, one by one, told me the same +story. And is not a religion to be known by its fruits? +Are they not right in going where they can get peace of mind?’</p> +<p>Certainly, vicar. If peace of mind be the <i>summum bonum</i>, +and religion is merely the science of self-satisfaction, they are right; +and your wisest plan will be to follow them at once, or failing that, +to apply to the next best substitute that can be discovered—alcohol +and opium.</p> +<p>As he went on, talking wildly to himself, he passed the Union Workhouse. +Opposite the gate, under the lee of a wall, some twenty men, women, +and children, were huddled together on the bare ground. They had +been refused lodging in the workhouse, and were going to pass the night +in that situation. As he came up to them, coarse jests, and snatches +of low drinking-songs, ghastly as the laughter of lost spirits in the +pit, mingled with the feeble wailings of some child of shame. +The vicar recollected how he had seen the same sight at the door of +Kensington Workhouse, walking home one night in company with Luke Smith; +and how, too, he had commented to him on that fearful sign of the times, +and had somewhat unfairly drawn a contrast between the niggard cruelty +of ‘popular Protestantism,’ and the fancied ‘liberality +of the middle age.’ What wonder if his pupil had taken him +at his word?</p> +<p>Delighted to escape from his own thoughts by anything like action, +he pulled out his purse to give an alms. There was no silver in +it, but only some fifteen or twenty sovereigns, which he that day received +as payment for some bitter reviews in a leading religious periodical. +Everything that night seemed to shame and confound him more. As +he touched the money, there sprang up in his mind in an instant the +thought of the articles which had procured it; by one of those terrible, +searching inspirations, in which the light which lighteth every man +awakes as a lightning-flash of judgment, he saw them, and his own heart, +for one moment, as they were;—their blind prejudice; their reckless +imputations of motives; their wilful concealment of any palliating clauses; +their party nicknames, given without a shudder at the terrible accusations +which they conveyed. And then the indignation, the shame, the +reciprocal bitterness which those articles would excite, tearing still +wider the bleeding wounds of that Church which they professed to defend! +And then, in this case, too, the thought rushed across him, ‘What +if I should have been wrong and my adversary right? What if I +have made the heart of the righteous sad whom God has not made sad? +I! to have been dealing out Heaven’s thunders, as if I were infallible! +I! who am certain at this moment of no fact in heaven or earth, except +my own untruth! God! who am I that I should judge another?’ +And the coins seemed to him like the price of blood—he fancied +that he felt them red-hot to his hand, and, in his eagerness to get +rid of the accursed thing, he dealt it away fiercely to the astonished +group, amid whining and flattery, wrangling and ribaldry; and then, +not daring to wait and see the use to which his money would be put, +hurried off to the inn, and tried in uneasy slumbers to forget the time, +until the mail passed through at daybreak on its way to Whitford.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XIII: THE VILLAGE REVEL</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>At dusk that same evening the two had started for the village fair. +A velveteen shooting-jacket, a pair of corduroy trousers, and a waistcoat, +furnished by Tregarva, covered with flowers of every imaginable hue, +tolerably disguised Lancelot, who was recommended by his conductor to +keep his hands in his pockets as much as possible, lest their delicacy, +which was, as it happened, not very remarkable, might betray him. +As they walked together along the plashy turnpike road, overtaking, +now and then, groups of two or three who were out on the same errand +as themselves, Lancelot could not help remarking to the keeper how superior +was the look of comfort in the boys and young men, with their ruddy +cheeks and smart dresses, to the worn and haggard appearance of the +elder men.</p> +<p>‘Let them alone, poor fellows,’ said Tregarva; ‘it +won’t last long. When they’ve got two or three children +at their heels, they’ll look as thin and shabby as their own fathers.’</p> +<p>‘They must spend a great deal of money on their clothes.’</p> +<p>‘And on their stomachs, too, sir. They never lay by a +farthing; and I don’t see how they can, when their club-money’s +paid, and their insides are well filled.’</p> +<p>‘Do you mean to say that they actually have not as much to +eat after they marry?’</p> +<p>‘Indeed and I do, sir. They get no more wages afterwards +round here, and have four or five to clothe and feed off the same money +that used to keep one; and that sum won’t take long to work out, +I think.’</p> +<p>‘But do they not in some places pay the married men higher +wages than the unmarried?’</p> +<p>‘That’s a worse trick still, sir; for it tempts the poor +thoughtless boys to go and marry the first girl they can get hold of; +and it don’t want much persuasion to make them do that at any +time.’</p> +<p>‘But why don’t the clergymen teach them to put into the +savings banks?’</p> +<p>‘One here and there, sir, says what he can, though it’s +of very little use. Besides, every one is afraid of savings banks +now; not a year but one reads of some breaking and the lawyers going +off with the earnings of the poor. And if they didn’t, youth’s +a foolish time at best; and the carnal man will be hankering after amusement, +sir—amusement.’</p> +<p>‘And no wonder,’ said Lancelot; ‘at all events, +I should not think they got much of it. But it does seem strange +that no other amusement can be found for them than the beer-shop. +Can’t they read? Can’t they practise light and interesting +handicrafts at home, as the German peasantry do?’</p> +<p>‘Who’ll teach ’em, sir? From the plough-tail +to the reaping-hook, and back again, is all they know. Besides, +sir, they are not like us Cornish; they are a stupid pigheaded generation +at the best, these south countrymen. They’re grown-up babies +who want the parson and the squire to be leading them, and preaching +to them, and spurring them on, and coaxing them up, every moment. +And as for scholarship, sir, a boy leaves school at nine or ten to follow +the horses; and between that time and his wedding-day he forgets every +word he ever learnt, and becomes, for the most part, as thorough a heathen +savage at heart as those wild Indians in the Brazils used to be.’</p> +<p>‘And then we call them civilised Englishmen!’ said Lancelot. +‘We can see that your Indian is a savage, because he wears skins +and feathers; but your Irish cottar or your English labourer, because +he happens to wear a coat and trousers, is to be considered a civilised +man.’</p> +<p>‘It’s the way of the world, sir,’ said Tregarva, +‘judging carnal judgment, according to the sight of its own eyes; +always looking at the outsides of things and men, sir, and never much +deeper. But as for reading, sir, it’s all very well for +me, who have been a keeper and dawdled about like a gentleman with a +gun over my arm; but did you ever do a good day’s farm-work in +your life? If you had, man or boy, you wouldn’t have been +game for much reading when you got home; you’d do just what these +poor fellows do,—tumble into bed at eight o’clock, hardly +waiting to take your clothes off, knowing that you must turn up again +at five o’clock the next morning to get a breakfast of bread, +and, perhaps, a dab of the squire’s dripping, and then back to +work again; and so on, day after day, sir, week after week, year after +year, without a hope or a chance of being anything but what you are, +and only too thankful if you can get work to break your back, and catch +the rheumatism over.’</p> +<p>‘But do you mean to say that their labour is so severe and +incessant?’</p> +<p>‘It’s only God’s blessing if it is incessant, sir, +for if it stops, they starve, or go to the house to be worse fed than +the thieves in gaol. And as for its being severe, there’s +many a boy, as their mothers will tell you, comes home night after night, +too tired to eat their suppers, and tumble, fasting, to bed in the same +foul shirt which they’ve been working in all the day, never changing +their rag of calico from week’s end to week’s end, or washing +the skin that’s under it once in seven years.’</p> +<p>‘No wonder,’ said Lancelot, ‘that such a life of +drudgery makes them brutal and reckless.’</p> +<p>‘No wonder, indeed, sir: they’ve no time to think; they’re +born to be machines, and machines they must be; and I think, sir,’ +he added bitterly, ‘it’s God’s mercy that they daren’t +think. It’s God’s mercy that they don’t feel. +Men that write books and talk at elections call this a free country, +and say that the poorest and meanest has a free opening to rise and +become prime minister, if he can. But you see, sir, the misfortune +is, that in practice he can’t; for one who gets into a gentleman’s +family, or into a little shop, and so saves a few pounds, fifty know +that they’ve no chance before them, but day-labourer born, day-labourer +live, from hand to mouth, scraping and pinching to get not meat and +beer even, but bread and potatoes; and then, at the end of it all, for +a worthy reward, half-a-crown a-week of parish pay—or the workhouse. +That’s a lively hopeful prospect for a Christian man!’</p> +<p>‘But,’ said Lancelot, ‘I thought this New Poor-law +was to stir them up to independence?’</p> +<p>‘Oh, sir, the old law has bit too deep: it made them slaves +and beggars at heart. It taught them not to be ashamed of parish +pay—to demand it as a right.’</p> +<p>‘And so it is their right,’ said Lancelot. ‘In +God’s name, if a country is so ill-constituted that it cannot +find its own citizens in work, it is bound to find them in food.’</p> +<p>‘Maybe, sir, maybe. God knows I don’t grudge it +them. It’s a poor pittance at best, when they have got it. +But don’t you see, sir, how all poor-laws, old or new either, +suck the independent spirit out of a man; how they make the poor wretch +reckless; how they tempt him to spend every extra farthing in amusement?’</p> +<p>‘How then?’</p> +<p>‘Why, he is always tempted to say to himself, “Whatever +happens to me, the parish must keep me. If I am sick it must doctor +me; if I am worn out it must feed me; if I die it must bury me; if I +leave my children paupers the parish must look after them, and they’ll +be as well off with the parish as they were with me. Now they’ve +only got just enough to keep body and soul together, and the parish +can’t give them less than that. What’s the use of +cutting myself off from sixpenny-worth of pleasure here, and sixpenny-worth +there. I’m not saving money for my children, I’m only +saving the farmers’ rates.” There it is, sir,’ +said Tregarva; ‘that’s the bottom of it, sir,—“I’m +only saving the farmers’ rates. Let us eat and drink, for +to-morrow we die!”’</p> +<p>‘I don’t see my way out of it,’ said Lancelot.</p> +<p>‘So says everybody, sir. But I should have thought those +members of parliament, and statesmen, and university scholars have been +set up in the high places, out of the wood where we are all struggling +and scrambling, just that they might see their way out of it; and if +they don’t, sir, and that soon, as sure as God is in heaven, these +poor fellows will cut their way out of it.’</p> +<p>‘And blindfolded and ignorant as they are,’ said Lancelot, +‘they will be certain to cut their way out just in the wrong direction.’</p> +<p>‘I’m not so sure of that, sir,’ said Tregarva, +lowering his voice. ‘What is written’? That +there is One who hears the desire of the poor. “Lord, Thou +preparest their hearts and Thine ear hearkeneth thereto, to help the +fatherless and poor unto their right, that the man of the earth be no +more exalted against them.”’</p> +<p>‘Why, you are talking like any Chartist, Tregarva!’</p> +<p>‘Am I, sir? I haven’t heard much Scripture quoted +among them myself, poor fellows; but to tell you the truth, sir, I don’t +know what I am becoming. I’m getting half mad with all I +see going on and not going on; and you will agree, sir, that what’s +happened this day can’t have done much to cool my temper or brighten +my hopes; though, God’s my witness, there’s no spite in +me for my own sake. But what makes me maddest of all, sir, is +to see that everybody sees these evils, except just the men who can +cure them—the squires and the clergy.’</p> +<p>‘Why surely, Tregarva, there are hundreds, if not thousands, +of clergymen and landlords working heart and soul at this moment, to +better the condition of the labouring classes!’</p> +<p>‘Ay, sir, they see the evils, and yet they don’t see +them. They do not see what is the matter with the poor man; and +the proof of it is, sir, that the poor have no confidence in them. +They’ll take their alms, but they’ll hardly take their schooling, +and their advice they won’t take at all. And why is it, +sir? Because the poor have got in their heads in these days a +strange confused fancy, maybe, but still a deep and a fierce one, that +they haven’t got what they call their rights. If you were +to raise the wages of every man in this country from nine to twelve +shillings a-week to-morrow, you wouldn’t satisfy them; at least, +the only ones whom you would satisfy would be the mere hogs among them, +who, as long as they can get a full stomach, care for nothing else.’</p> +<p>‘What, in Heaven’s name, do they want?’ asked Lancelot.</p> +<p>‘They hardly know yet, sir; but they know well what they don’t +want. The question with them, sir, believe me, is not so much, +How shall we get better fed and better housed, but whom shall we depend +upon for our food and for our house? Why should we depend on the +will and fancy of any man for our rights? They are asking ugly +questions among themselves, sir, about what those two words, rent and +taxes, mean, and about what that same strange word, freedom, means. +Eight or wrong, they’ve got the thought into their heads, and +it’s growing there, and they will find an answer for it. +Depend upon it, sir, I tell you a truth, and they expect a change. +You will hear them talk of it to-night, sir, if you’ve luck.’</p> +<p>‘We all expect a change, for that matter,’ said Lancelot. +‘That feeling is common to all classes and parties just now.’</p> +<p>Tregarva took off his hat.</p> +<p>‘“For the word of the Lord hath spoken it.” +Do you know, sir, I long at times that I did agree with those Chartists? +If I did, I’d turn lecturer to-morrow. How a man could speak +out then! If he saw any door of hope, any way of salvation for +these poor fellows, even if it was nothing better than salvation by +Act of Parliament!’</p> +<p>‘But why don’t you trust the truly worthy among the clergy +and the gentry to leaven their own ranks and bring all right in time?’</p> +<p>‘Because, sir, they seem to be going the way only to make things +worse. The people have been so dependent on them heretofore, that +they have become thorough beggars. You can have no knowledge, +sir, of the whining, canting, deceit, and lies which those poor miserable +labourers’ wives palm on charitable ladies. If they weren’t +angels, some of them, they’d lock up their purses and never give +away another farthing. And, sir, these free-schools, and these +penny-clubs, and clothing clubs, and these heaps of money which are +given away, all make the matter worse and worse. They make the +labourer fancy that he is not to depend upon God and his own right hand, +but on what his wife can worm out of the good nature of the rich. +Why, sir, they growl as insolently now at the parson or the squire’s +wife if they don’t get as much money as their neighbours, as they +used to at the parish vestrymen under the old law. Look at that +Lord Vieuxbois, sir, as sweet a gentleman as ever God made. It +used to do me good to walk behind him when he came over here shooting, +just to hear the gentle kind-hearted way in which he used to speak to +every old soul he met. He spends his whole life and time about +the poor, I hear. But, sir, as sure as you live he’s making +his people slaves and humbugs. He doesn’t see, sir, that +they want to be raised bodily out of this miserable hand-to-mouth state, +to be brought nearer up to him, and set on a footing where they can +shift for themselves. Without meaning it, sir, all his boundless +charities are keeping the people down, and telling them they must stay +down, and not help themselves, but wait for what he gives them. +He fats prize-labourers, sir, just as Lord Minchampstead fats prize-oxen +and pigs.’</p> +<p>Lancelot could not help thinking of that amusingly inconsistent, +however well-meant, scene in <i>Coningsby</i>, in which Mr. Lyle is +represented as trying to restore ‘the independent order of peasantry,’ +by making them the receivers of public alms at his own gate, as if they +had been middle-age serfs or vagabonds, and not citizens of modern England.</p> +<p>‘It may suit the Mr. Lyles of this age,’ thought Lancelot, +‘to make the people constantly and visibly comprehend that property +is their protector and their friend, but I question whether it will +suit the people themselves, unless they can make property understand +that it owes them something more definite than protection.’</p> +<p>Saddened by this conversation, which had helped to give another shake +to the easy-going complacency with which Lancelot had been used to contemplate +the world below him, and look on its evils as necessaries, ancient and +fixed as the universe, he entered the village fair, and was a little +disappointed at his first glimpse of the village-green. Certainly +his expectations had not been very exalted; but there had run through +them a hope of something melodramatic, dreams of May-pole dancing and +athletic games, somewhat of village-belle rivalry, of the Corin and +Sylvia school; or, failing that, a few Touchstones and Audreys, some +genial earnest buffo humour here and there. But there did not +seem much likelihood of it. Two or three apple and gingerbread +stalls, from which draggled children were turning slowly and wistfully +away to go home; a booth full of trumpery fairings, in front of which +tawdry girls were coaxing maudlin youths, with faded southernwood in +their button-holes; another long low booth, from every crevice of which +reeked odours of stale beer and smoke, by courtesy denominated tobacco, +to the treble accompaniment of a jigging fiddle and a tambourine, and +the bass one of grumbled oaths and curses within—these were the +means of relaxation which the piety, freedom, and civilisation of fourteen +centuries, from Hengist to Queen Victoria, had devised and made possible +for the English peasant!</p> +<p>‘There seems very little here to see,’ said Lancelot, +half peevishly.</p> +<p>‘I think, sir,’ quoth Tregarva, ‘that very thing +is what’s most worth seeing.’</p> +<p>Lancelot could not help, even at the risk of detection, investing +capital enough in sugar-plums and gingerbread, to furnish the urchins +around with the material for a whole carnival of stomach-aches; and +he felt a great inclination to clear the fairing-stall in a like manner, +on behalf of the poor bedizened sickly-looking girls round, but he was +afraid of the jealousy of some beer-bemuddled swain. The ill-looks +of the young girls surprised him much. Here and there smiled a +plump rosy face enough; but the majority seemed under-sized, under-fed, +utterly wanting in grace, vigour, and what the penny-a-liners call ‘rude +health.’ He remarked it to Tregarva. The keeper smiled +mournfully.</p> +<p>‘You see those little creatures dragging home babies in arms +nearly as big as themselves, sir. That and bad food, want of milk +especially, accounts for their growing up no bigger than they do; and +as for their sad countenances, sir, most of them must carry a lighter +conscience before they carry a brighter face.’</p> +<p>‘What do you mean?’ asked Lancelot.</p> +<p>‘The clergyman who enters the weddings and the baptisms knows +well enough what I mean, sir. But we’ll go into that booth, +if you want to see the thick of it, sir; that’s to say, if you’re +not ashamed.’</p> +<p>‘I hope we need neither of us do anything to be ashamed of +there; and as for seeing, I begin to agree with you, that what makes +the whole thing most curious is its intense dulness.’</p> +<p>‘What upon earth is that?’</p> +<p>‘I say, look out there!’</p> +<p>‘Well, you look out yourself!’</p> +<p>This was caused by a violent blow across the shins with a thick stick, +the deed of certain drunken wiseacres who were persisting in playing +in the dark the never very lucrative game of three sticks a penny, conducted +by a couple of gipsies. Poor fellows! there was one excuse for +them. It was the only thing there to play at, except a set of +skittles; and on those they had lost their money every Saturday night +for the last seven years each at his own village beer-shop.</p> +<p>So into the booth they turned; and as soon as Lancelot’s eyes +were accustomed to the reeking atmosphere, he saw seated at two long +temporary tables of board, fifty or sixty of ‘My Brethren,’ +as clergymen call them in their sermons, wrangling, stupid, beery, with +sodden eyes and drooping lips—interspersed with more girls and +brazen-faced women, with dirty flowers in their caps, whose whole business +seemed to be to cast jealous looks at each other, and defend themselves +from the coarse overtures of their swains.</p> +<p>Lancelot had been already perfectly astonished at the foulness of +language which prevailed; and the utter absence of anything like chivalrous +respect, almost of common decency, towards women. But lo! the +language of the elder women was quite as disgusting as that of the men, +if not worse. He whispered a remark on the point to Tregarva, +who shook his head.</p> +<p>‘It’s the field-work, sir—the field-work, that +does it all. They get accustomed there from their childhood to +hear words whose very meanings they shouldn’t know; and the older +teach the younger ones, and the married ones are worst of all. +It wears them out in body, sir, that field-work, and makes them brutes +in soul and in manners.’</p> +<p>‘Why don’t they give it up? Why don’t the +respectable ones set their faces against it?’</p> +<p>‘They can’t afford it, sir. They must go a-field, +or go hungered, most of them. And they get to like the gossip +and scandal, and coarse fun of it, while their children are left at +home to play in the roads, or fall into the fire, as plenty do every +year.’</p> +<p>‘Why not at school?’</p> +<p>‘The big ones are kept at home, sir, to play at nursing those +little ones who are too young to go. Oh, sir,’ he added, +in a tone of deep feeling, ‘it is very little of a father’s +care, or a mother’s love, that a labourer’s child knows +in these days!’</p> +<p>Lancelot looked round the booth with a hopeless feeling. There +was awkward dancing going on at the upper end. He was too much +sickened to go and look at it. He began examining the faces and +foreheads of the company, and was astonished at the first glance by +the lofty and ample development of brain in at least one half. +There were intellects there—or rather capacities of intellect, +capable, surely, of anything, had not the promise of the brow been almost +always belied by the loose and sensual lower features. They were +evidently rather a degraded than an undeveloped race. ‘The +low forehead of the Kabyle and Koord,’ thought Lancelot, ‘is +compensated by the grim sharp lip, and glittering eye, which prove that +all the small capabilities of the man have been called out into clear +and vigorous action: but here the very features themselves, both by +what they have and what they want, testify against that society which +carelessly wastes her most precious wealth, the manhood of her masses! +Tregarva! you have observed a good many things—did you ever observe +whether the men with the large foreheads were better than the men with +the small ones?’</p> +<p>‘Ay, sir, I know what you are driving at. I’ve +heard of that new-fangled notion of scholars, which, if you’ll +forgive my plain speaking, expects man’s brains to do the work +of God’s grace.’</p> +<p>‘But what have you remarked?’</p> +<p>‘All I ever saw was, that the stupid-looking ones were the +greatest blackguards, and the clever-looking ones the greatest rogues.’</p> +<p>Lancelot was rebuked, but not surprised. He had been for some +time past suspecting, from the bitter experience of his own heart, the +favourite modern theory which revives the Neo-Platonism of Alexandria, +by making intellect synonymous with virtue, and then jumbling, like +poor bewildered Proclus, the ‘physical understanding’ of +the brain with the pure ‘intellect’ of the spirit.</p> +<p>‘You’ll see something, if you look round, sir, a great +deal easier to explain—and, I should have thought, a great deal +easier to cure—than want of wits.’</p> +<p>‘And what is that?’</p> +<p>‘How different-looking the young ones are from their fathers, +and still more from their grandfathers! Look at those three or +four old grammers talking together there. For all their being +shrunk with age and weather, you won’t see such fine-grown men +anywhere else in this booth.’</p> +<p>It was too true. Lancelot recollected now having remarked it +before when at church; and having wondered why almost all the youths +were so much smaller, clumsier, lower-brained, and weaker-jawed than +their elders.</p> +<p>‘Why is it, Tregarva?’</p> +<p>‘Worse food, worse lodging, worse nursing—and, I’m +sore afraid, worse blood. There was too much filthiness and drunkenness +went on in the old war-times, not to leave a taint behind it, for many +a generation. The prosperity of fools shall destroy them!’</p> +<p>‘Oh!’ thought Lancelot, ‘for some young sturdy +Lancashire or Lothian blood, to put new life into the old frozen South +Saxon veins! Even a drop of the warm enthusiastic Celtic would +be better than none. Perhaps this Irish immigration may do some +good, after all.’</p> +<p>Perhaps it may, Lancelot. Let us hope so, since it is pretty +nearly inevitable.</p> +<p>Sadder and sadder, Lancelot tried to listen to the conversation of +the men round him. To his astonishment he hardly understood a +word of it. It was half articulate, nasal, guttural, made up almost +entirely of vowels, like the speech of savages. He had never before +been struck with the significant contrast between the sharp, clearly-defined +articulation, the vivid and varied tones of the gentleman, or even of +the London street-boy when compared with the coarse, half-formed growls, +as of a company of seals, which he heard round him. That single +fact struck him, perhaps, more deeply than any; it connected itself +with many of his physiological fancies; it was the parent of many thoughts +and plans of his after-life. Here and there he could distinguish +a half sentence. An old shrunken man opposite him was drawing +figures in the spilt beer with his pipe-stem, and discoursing of the +glorious times before the great war, ‘when there was more food +than there were mouths, and more work than there were hands.’ +‘Poor human nature!’ thought Lancelot, as he tried to follow +one of those unintelligible discussions about the relative prices of +the loaf and the bushel of flour, which ended, as usual, in more swearing, +and more quarrelling, and more beer to make it up—‘Poor +human nature! always looking back, as the German sage says, to some +fancied golden age, never looking forward to the real one which is coming!’</p> +<p>‘But I say, vather,’ drawled out some one, ‘they +say there’s a sight more money in England now, than there was +afore the war-time.’</p> +<p>‘Eees, booy,’ said the old man; ‘but <i>its got +into too few hands</i>.’</p> +<p>‘Well,’ thought Lancelot, ‘there’s a glimpse +of practical sense, at least.’ And a pedlar who sat next +him, a bold, black-whiskered bully, from the Potteries, hazarded a joke,—</p> +<p>‘It’s all along of this new sky-and-tough-it farming. +They used to spread the money broadcast, but now they drills it all +in one place, like bone-dust under their fancy plants, and we poor self-sown +chaps gets none.’</p> +<p>This garland of fancies was received with great applause; whereat +the pedlar, emboldened, proceeded to observe, mysteriously, that ‘donkeys +took a beating, but horses kicked at it; and that they’d found +out that in Staffordshire long ago. You want a good Chartist lecturer +down here, my covies, to show you donkeys of labouring men that you +have got iron on your heels, if you only know’d how to use it.’</p> +<p>‘And what’s the use of rioting?’ asked some one, +querulously.</p> +<p>‘Why, if you don’t riot, the farmers will starve you.’</p> +<p>‘And if we do, they’d turn sodgers—yeomanry, as +they call it, though there ain’t a yeoman among them in these +parts; and then they takes sword and kills us. So, riot or none, +they has it all their own way.’</p> +<p>Lancelot heard many more scraps of this sort. He was very much +struck with their dread of violence. It did not seem cowardice. +It was not loyalty—the English labourer has fallen below the capability +of so spiritual a feeling; Lancelot had found out that already. +It could not be apathy, for he heard nothing but complaint upon complaint +bandied from mouth to mouth the whole evening. They seemed rather +sunk too low in body and mind,—too stupefied and spiritless, to +follow the example of the manufacturing districts; above all, they were +too ill-informed. It is not mere starvation which goads the Leicester +weaver to madness. It is starvation with education,—an empty +stomach and a cultivated, even though miscultivated, mind.</p> +<p>At that instant, a huge hulking farm-boy rolled into the booth, roaring, +dolefully, the end of a song, with a punctuation of his own invention—</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘He’ll maak me a lady. Zo . Vine to be zyure.<br />And, +vaithfully; love me. Although; I; be-e; poor-r-r-r.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Lancelot would have laughed heartily at him anywhere else; but the +whole scene was past a jest; and a gleam of pathos and tenderness seemed +to shine even from that doggerel,—a vista, as it were, of true +genial nature, in the far distance. But as he looked round again, +‘What hope,’ he thought, ‘of its realisation? +Arcadian dreams of pastoral innocence and graceful industry, I suppose, +are to be henceforth monopolised by the stage or the boudoir? +Never, so help me, God!’</p> +<p>The ursine howls of the new-comer seemed to have awakened the spirit +of music in the party.</p> +<p>‘Coom, Blackburd, gi’ us zong, Blackburd, bo’!’ +cried a dozen voices to an impish, dark-eyed gipsy boy, of some thirteen +years old.</p> +<p>‘Put ’n on taable. Now, then, pipe up!’</p> +<p>‘What will ’ee ha’?’</p> +<p>‘Mary; gi’ us Mary.’</p> +<p>‘I shall make a’ girls cry,’ quoth Blackbird, with +a grin.</p> +<p>‘Do’n good, too; they likes it: zing away.’</p> +<p>And the boy began, in a broad country twang, which could not overpower +the sad melody of the air, or the rich sweetness of his flute-like voice,—</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘Young Mary walked sadly down through the green clover,<br /> And +sighed as she looked at the babe at her breast;<br />“My roses +are faded, my false love a rover,<br /> The green graves +they call me, ‘Come home to your rest.’”</p> +<p>‘Then by rode a soldier in gorgeous arraying,<br /> And +“Where is your bride-ring, my fair maid?” he cried;<br />“I +ne’er had a bride-ring, by false man’s betraying,<br /> Nor +token of love but this babe at my side.</p> +<p>‘“Tho’ gold could not buy me, sweet words could +deceive me;<br /> So faithful and lonely till death +I must roam.”<br />“Oh, Mary, sweet Mary, look up and forgive +me,<br /> With wealth and with glory your true love +comes home;</p> +<p>‘“So give me my own babe, those soft arms adorning,<br /> I’ll +wed you and cherish you, never to stray;<br />For it’s many a +dark and a wild cloudy morning,<br /> Turns out by +the noon-time a sunshiny day.”’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘A bad moral that, sir,’ whispered Tregarva.</p> +<p>‘Better than none,’ answered Lancelot.</p> +<p>‘It’s well if you are right, sir, for you’ll hear +no other.’</p> +<p>The keeper spoke truly; in a dozen different songs, more or less +coarsely, but, in general, with a dash of pathetic sentiment, the same +case of lawless love was embodied. It seemed to be their only +notion of the romantic. Now and then there was a poaching song; +then one of the lowest flash London school—filth and all—was +roared in chorus in presence of the women.</p> +<p>‘I am afraid that you do not thank me for having brought you +to any place so unfit for a gentleman,’ said Tregarva, seeing +Lancelot’s sad face.</p> +<p>‘Because it is so unfit for a gentleman, therefore I do thank +you. It is right to know what one’s own flesh and blood +are doing.’</p> +<p>‘Hark to that song, sir! that’s an old one. I didn’t +think they’d get on to singing that.’</p> +<p>The Blackbird was again on the table, but seemed this time disinclined +to exhibit.</p> +<p>‘Out wi’ un, boy; it wain’t burn thy mouth!’</p> +<p>‘I be afeard.’</p> +<p>‘O’ who?’</p> +<p>‘Keeper there.’</p> +<p>He pointed to Tregarva; there was a fierce growl round the room.</p> +<p>‘I am no keeper,’ shouted Tregarva, starting up. +‘I was turned off this morning for speaking my mind about the +squires, and now I’m one of you, to live and die.’</p> +<p>This answer was received with a murmur of applause; and a fellow +in a scarlet merino neckerchief, three waistcoats, and a fancy shooting-jacket, +who had been eyeing Lancelot for some time, sidled up behind them, and +whispered in Tregarva’s ear,—</p> +<p>‘Perhaps you’d like an engagement in our line, young +man, and your friend there, he seems a sporting gent too.—We could +show him very pretty shooting.’</p> +<p>Tregarva answered by the first and last oath Lancelot ever heard +from him, and turning to him, as the rascal sneaked off,—</p> +<p>‘That’s a poaching crimp from London, sir; tempting these +poor boys to sin, and deceit, and drunkenness, and theft, and the hulks.’</p> +<p>‘I fancy I saw him somewhere the night of our row—you +understand?’</p> +<p>‘So do I, sir, but there’s no use talking of it.’</p> +<p>Blackbird was by this time prevailed on to sing, and burst out as +melodious as ever, while all heads were cocked on one side in delighted +attention.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘I zeed a vire o’ Monday night,<br /> A +vire both great and high;<br />But I wool not tell you where, my boys,<br /> Nor +wool not tell you why.<br />The varmer he comes screeching out,<br /> To +zave ’uns new brood mare;<br />Zays I, “You and your stock +may roast,<br /> Vor aught us poor chaps care.”</p> +<p>‘Coorus, boys, coorus!’</p> +<p>And the chorus burst out,—</p> +<p>‘Then here’s a curse on varmers all<br /> As +rob and grind the poor;<br />To re’p the fruit of all their works<br /> In +**** for evermoor-r-r-r.</p> +<p>‘A blind owld dame come to the vire,<br /> Zo +near as she could get;<br />Zays, “Here’s a luck I warn’t +asleep<br /> To lose this blessed hett.</p> +<p>‘“They robs us of our turfing rights,<br /> Our +bits of chips and sticks,<br />Till poor folks now can’t warm +their hands,<br /> Except by varmer’s ricks.”<br /> ‘Then, +etc.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>And again the boy’s delicate voice rung out the ferocious chorus, +with something, Lancelot fancied, of fiendish exultation, and every +worn face lighted up with a coarse laugh, that indicated no malice—but +also no mercy.</p> +<p>Lancelot was sickened, and rose to go.</p> +<p>As he turned, his arm was seized suddenly and firmly. He looked +round, and saw a coarse, handsome, showily-dressed girl, looking intently +into his face. He shook her angrily off.</p> +<p>‘You needn’t be so proud, Mr. Smith; I’ve had my +hand on the arm of as good as you. Ah, you needn’t start! +I know you—I know you, I say, well enough. You used to be +with him. Where is he?’</p> +<p>‘Whom do you mean?’</p> +<p>‘He!’ answered the girl, with a fierce, surprised look, +as if there could be no one else in the world.</p> +<p>‘Colonel Bracebridge,’ whispered Tregarva.</p> +<p>‘Ay, he it is! And now walk further off, bloodhound! +and let me speak to Mr. Smith. He is in Norway,’ she ran +on eagerly. ‘When will he be back? When?’</p> +<p>‘Why do you want to know?’ asked Lancelot.</p> +<p>‘When will he be back?’—she kept on fiercely repeating +the question; and then burst out,—‘Curse you gentlemen all! +Cowards! you are all in a league against us poor girls! You can +hunt alone when you betray us, and lie fast enough then? But when +we come for justice, you all herd together like a flock of rooks; and +turn so delicate and honourable all of a sudden—to each other! +When will he be back, I say?’</p> +<p>‘In a month,’ answered Lancelot, who saw that something +really important lay behind the girl’s wildness.</p> +<p>‘Too late!’ she cried, wildly, clapping her hands together; +‘too late! Here—tell him you saw me; tell him you +saw Mary; tell him where and in what a pretty place, too, for maid, +master, or man! What are you doing here?’</p> +<p>‘What is that to you, my good girl?’</p> +<p>‘True. Tell him you saw me here; and tell him, when next +he hears of me, it will be in a very different place.’</p> +<p>She turned and vanished among the crowd. Lancelot almost ran +out into the night,—into a triad of fights, two drunken men, two +jealous wives, and a brute who struck a poor, thin, worn-out woman, +for trying to coax him home. Lancelot rushed up to interfere, +but a man seized his uplifted arm.</p> +<p>‘He’ll only beat her all the more when he getteth home.’</p> +<p>‘She has stood that every Saturday night for the last seven +years, to my knowledge,’ said Tregarva; ‘and worse, too, +at times.’</p> +<p>‘Good God! is there no escape for her from her tyrant?’</p> +<p>‘No, sir. It’s only you gentlefolks who can afford +such luxuries; your poor man may be tied to a harlot, or your poor woman +to a ruffian, but once done, done for ever.’</p> +<p>‘Well,’ thought Lancelot, ‘we English have a characteristic +way of proving the holiness of the marriage tie. The angel of +Justice and Pity cannot sever it, only the stronger demon of Money.’</p> +<p>Their way home lay over Ashy Down, a lofty chalk promontory, round +whose foot the river made a sudden bend. As they paced along over +the dreary hedgeless stubbles, they both started, as a ghostly ‘Ha! +ha! ha!’ rang through the air over their heads, and was answered +by a like cry, faint and distant, across the wolds.</p> +<p>‘That’s those stone-curlews—at least, so I hope,’ +said Tregarva. ‘He’ll be round again in a minute.’</p> +<p>And again, right between them and the clear, cold moon, ‘Ha! +ha! ha!’ resounded over their heads. They gazed up into +the cloudless star-bespangled sky, but there was no sign of living thing.</p> +<p>‘It’s an old sign to me,’ quoth Tregarva; ‘God +grant that I may remember it in this black day of mine.’</p> +<p>‘How so!’ asked Lancelot; ‘I should not have fancied +you a superstitious man.’</p> +<p>‘Names go for nothing, sir, and what my forefathers believed +in I am not going to be conceited enough to disbelieve in a hurry. +But if you heard my story you would think I had reason enough to remember +that devil’s laugh up there.’</p> +<p>‘Let me hear it then.’</p> +<p>‘Well, sir, it may be a long story to you, but it was a short +one to me, for it was the making of me, out of hand, there and then, +blessed be God! But if you will have it—’</p> +<p>‘And I will have it, friend Tregarva,’ quoth Lancelot, +lighting his cigar.</p> +<p>‘I was about sixteen years old, just after I came home from +the Brazils—’</p> +<p>‘What! have you been in the Brazils?’</p> +<p>‘Indeed and I have, sir, for three years; and one thing I learnt +there, at least, that’s worth going for.’</p> +<p>‘What’s that?’</p> +<p>‘What the Garden of Eden must have been like. But those +Brazils, under God, were the cause of my being here; for my father, +who was a mine-captain, lost all his money there, by no man’s +fault but his own, and not his either, the world would say, and when +we came back to Cornwall he could not stand the bal work, nor I neither. +Out of that burning sun, sir, to come home here, and work in the levels, +up to our knees in warm water, with the thermometer at 85°, and +then up a thousand feet of ladder to grass, reeking wet with heat, and +find the easterly sleet driving across those open furze-crofts—he +couldn’t stand it, sir—few stand it long, even of those +who stay in Cornwall. We miners have a short lease of life; consumption +and strains break us down before we’re fifty.’</p> +<p>‘But how came you here?’</p> +<p>‘The doctor told my father, and me too, sir, that we must give +up mining, or die of decline: so he came up here, to a sister of his +that was married to the squire’s gardener, and here he died; and +the squire, God bless him and forgive him, took a fancy to me, and made +me under-keeper. And I loved the life, for it took me among the +woods and the rivers, where I could think of the Brazils, and fancy +myself back again. But mustn’t talk of that—where +God wills is all right. And it is a fine life for reading and +thinking, a gamekeeper’s, for it’s an idle life at best. +Now that’s over,’ he added, with a sigh, ‘and the +Lord has fulfilled His words to me, that He spoke the first night that +ever I heard a stone-plover cry.’</p> +<p>‘What on earth can you mean?’ asked Lancelot, deeply +interested.</p> +<p>‘Why, sir, it was a wild, whirling gray night, with the air +full of sleet and rain, and my father sent me over to Redruth town to +bring home some trade or other. And as I came back I got blinded +with the sleet, and I lost my way across the moors. You know those +Cornish furze-moors, sir?’</p> +<p>‘No.’</p> +<p>‘Well, then, they are burrowed like a rabbit-warren with old +mine-shafts. You can’t go in some places ten yards without +finding great, ghastly black holes, covered in with furze, and weeds, +and bits of rotting timber; and when I was a boy I couldn’t keep +from them. Something seemed to draw me to go and peep down, and +drop pebbles in, to hear them rattle against the sides, fathoms below, +till they plumped into the ugly black still water at the bottom. +And I used to be always after them in my dreams, when I was young, falling +down them, down, down, all night long, till I woke screaming; for I +fancied they were hell’s mouth, every one of them. And it +stands to reason, sir; we miners hold that the lake of fire can’t +be far below. For we find it grow warmer, and warmer, and warmer, +the farther we sink a shaft; and the learned gentlemen have proved, +sir, that it’s not the blasting powder, nor the men’s breaths, +that heat the mine.’</p> +<p>Lancelot could but listen.</p> +<p>‘Well, sir, I got into a great furze-croft, full of deads (those +are the earth-heaps they throw out of the shafts), where no man in his +senses dare go forward or back in the dark, for fear of the shafts; +and the wind and the snow were so sharp, they made me quite stupid and +sleepy; and I knew if I stayed there I should be frozen to death, and +if I went on, there were the shafts ready to swallow me up: and what +with fear and the howling and raging of the wind, I was like a mazed +boy, sir. And I knelt down and tried to pray; and then, in one +moment, all the evil things I’d ever done, and the bad words and +thoughts that ever crossed me, rose up together as clear as one page +of a print-book; and I knew that if I died that minute I should go to +hell. And then I saw through the ground all the water in the shafts +glaring like blood, and all the sides of the shafts fierce red-hot, +as if hell was coming up. And I heard the knockers knocking, or +thought I heard them, as plain as I hear that grasshopper in the hedge +now.’</p> +<p>‘What are the knockers?’</p> +<p>‘They are the ghosts, the miners hold, of the old Jews, sir, +that crucified our Lord, and were sent for slaves by the Roman emperors +to work the mines; and we find their old smelting-houses, which we call +Jews’ houses, and their blocks of tin, at the bottom of the great +bogs, which we call Jews’ tin; and there’s a town among +us, too, which we call Market-Jew—but the old name was Marazion; +that means the Bitterness of Zion, they tell me. Isn’t it +so, sir?’</p> +<p>‘I believe it is,’ said Lancelot, utterly puzzled in +this new field of romance.</p> +<p>‘And bitter work it was for them, no doubt, poor souls! +We used to break into the old shafts and adits which they had made, +and find old stags’-horn pickaxes, that crumbled to pieces when +we brought them to grass; and they say, that if a man will listen, sir, +of a still night, about those old shafts, he may hear the ghosts of +them at working, knocking, and picking, as clear as if there was a man +at work in the next level. It may be all an old fancy. I +suppose it is. But I believed it when I was a boy; and it helped +the work in me that night. But I’ll go on with my story.’</p> +<p>‘Go on with what you like,’ said Lancelot.</p> +<p>‘Well, sir, I was down on my knees among the furze-bushes, +and I tried to pray; but I was too frightened, for I felt the beast +I had been, sir; and I expected the ground to open and let me down every +moment; and then there came by over my head a rushing, and a cry. +“Ha! ha! ha! Paul!” it said; and it seemed as if all +the devils and witches were out on the wind, a-laughing at my misery. +“Oh, I’ll mend—I’ll repent,” I said, “indeed +I will:” and again it came back,—“Ha! ha! ha! +Paul!” it said. I knew afterwards that it was a bird; but +the Lord sent it to me for a messenger, no less, that night. And +I shook like a reed in the water; and then, all at once a thought struck +me. “Why should I be a coward? Why should I be afraid +of shafts, or devils, or hell, or anything else? If I am a miserable +sinner, there’s One died for me—I owe him love, not fear +at all. I’ll not be frightened into doing right—that’s +a rascally reason for repentance.” And so it was, sir, that +I rose up like a man, and said to the Lord Jesus, right out into the +black, dumb air,—“If you’ll be on my side this night, +good Lord, that died for me, I’ll be on your side for ever, villain +as I am, if I’m worth making any use of.” And there +and then, sir, I saw a light come over the bushes, brighter, and brighter, +up to me; and there rose up a voice within me, and spoke to me, quite +soft and sweet,—“Fear not, Paul, for I will send thee far +hence unto the Gentiles.” And what more happened I can’t +tell, for when I woke I was safe at home. My father and his folk +had been out with lanterns after me; and there they found me, sure enough, +in a dead faint on the ground. But this I know, sir, that those +words have never left my mind since for a day together; and I know that +they will be fulfilled in me this tide, or never.’</p> +<p>Lancelot was silent a few minutes.</p> +<p>‘I suppose, Tregarva, that you would call this your conversion?’</p> +<p>‘I should call it one, sir, because it was one.’</p> +<p>‘Tell me now, honestly, did any real, practical change in your +behaviour take place after that night?’</p> +<p>‘As much, sir, as if you put a soul into a hog, and told him +that he was a gentleman’s son; and, if every time he remembered +that, he got spirit enough to conquer his hoggishness, and behave like +a man, till the hoggishness died out of him, and the manliness grew +up and bore fruit in him, more and more each day.’</p> +<p>Lancelot half understood him, and sighed.</p> +<p>A long silence followed, as they paced on past lonely farmyards, +from which the rich manure-water was draining across the road in foul +black streams, festering and steaming in the chill night air. +Lancelot sighed as he saw the fruitful materials of food running to +waste, and thought of the ‘over-population’ cry; and then +he looked across to the miles of brown moorland on the opposite side +of the valley, that lay idle and dreary under the autumn moon, except +where here and there a squatter’s cottage and rood of fruitful +garden gave the lie to the laziness and ignorance of man, who pretends +that it is not worth his while to cultivate the soil which God has given +him. ‘Good heavens!’ he thought, ‘had our forefathers +had no more enterprise than modern landlords, where should we all have +been at this moment? Everywhere waste? Waste of manure, +waste of land, waste of muscle, waste of brain, waste of population—and +we call ourselves the workshop of the world!’</p> +<p>As they passed through the miserable hamlet-street of Ashy, they +saw a light burning in window. At the door below, a haggard woman +was looking anxiously down the village.</p> +<p>‘What’s the matter, Mistress Cooper?’ asked Tregarva.</p> +<p>‘Here’s Mrs. Grane’s poor girl lying sick of the +fever—the Lord help her! and the boy died of it last week. +We sent for the doctor this afternoon, and he’s busy with a poor +soul that’s in her trouble; and now we’ve sent down to the +squire’s, and the young ladies, God bless them! sent answer they’d +come themselves straightway.’</p> +<p>‘No wonder you have typhus here,’ said Lancelot, ‘with +this filthy open drain running right before the door. Why can’t +you clean it out?’</p> +<p>‘Why, what harm does that do?’ answered the woman, peevishly. +‘Besides, here’s my master gets up to his work by five in +the morning, and not back till seven at night, and by then he ain’t +in no humour to clean out gutters. And where’s the water +to come from to keep a place clean? It costs many a one of us +here a shilling a week the summer through to pay fetching water up the +hill. We’ve work enough to fill our kettles. The muck +must just lie in the road, smell or none, till the rain carries it away.’</p> +<p>Lancelot sighed again.</p> +<p>‘It would be a good thing for Ashy, Tregarva, if the weir-pool +did, some fine morning, run up to Ashy Down, as poor Harry Verney said +on his deathbed.’</p> +<p>‘There won’t be much of Ashy left by that time, sir, +if the landlords go on pulling down cottages at their present rate; +driving the people into the towns, to herd together there like hogs, +and walk out to their work four or five miles every morning.’</p> +<p>‘Why,’ said Lancelot, ‘wherever one goes one sees +commodious new cottages springing up.’</p> +<p>‘Wherever you go, sir; but what of wherever you don’t +go? Along the roadsides, and round the gentlemen’s parks, +where the cottages are in sight, it’s all very smart; but just +go into the outlying hamlets—a whited sepulchre, sir, is many +a great estate; outwardly swept and garnished, and inwardly full of +all uncleanliness, and dead men’s bones.’</p> +<p>At this moment two cloaked and veiled figures came up to the door, +followed by a servant. There was no mistaking those delicate footsteps, +and the two young men drew back with fluttering hearts, and breathed +out silent blessings on the ministering angels, as they entered the +crazy and reeking house.</p> +<p>‘I’m thinking, sir,’ said Tregarva, as they walked +slowly and reluctantly away, ‘that it is hard of the gentlemen +to leave all God’s work to the ladies, as nine-tenths of them +do.’</p> +<p>‘And I am thinking, Tregarva, that both for ladies and gentlemen, +prevention is better than cure.’</p> +<p>‘There’s a great change come over Miss Argemone, sir. +She used not to be so ready to start out at midnight to visit dying +folk. A blessed change!’</p> +<p>Lancelot thought so too, and he thought that he knew the cause of +it.</p> +<p>Argemone’s appearance, and their late conversation, had started +a new covey of strange fancies. Lancelot followed them over hill +and dale, glad to escape a moment from the mournful lessons of that +evening; but even over them there was a cloud of sadness. Harry +Verney’s last words, and Argemone’s accidental whisper about +‘a curse upon the Lavingtons,’ rose to his mind. He +longed to ask Tregarva, but he was afraid—not of the man, for +there was a delicacy in his truthfulness which encouraged the most utter +confidence; but of the subject itself; but curiosity conquered.</p> +<p>‘What did Old Harry mean about the Nun-pool?’ he said +at last. ‘Every one seemed to understand him.’</p> +<p>‘Ah, sir, he oughtn’t to have talked of it! But +dying men, at times, see over the dark water into deep things—deeper +than they think themselves. Perhaps there’s one speaks through +them. But I thought every one knew the story.’</p> +<p>‘I do not, at least.’</p> +<p>‘Perhaps it’s so much the better, sir.’</p> +<p>‘Why? I must insist on knowing. It is necessary—proper, +that is—that I should hear everything that concerns—’</p> +<p>‘I understand, sir; so it is; and I’ll tell you. +The story goes, that in the old Popish times, when the nuns held Whitford +Priors, the first Mr. Lavington that ever was came from the king with +a warrant to turn them all out, poor souls, and take the lands for his +own. And they say the head lady of them—prioress, or abbess, +as they called her—withstood him, and cursed him, in the name +of the Lord, for a hypocrite who robbed harmless women under the cloak +of punishing them for sins they’d never committed (for they say, +sir, he went up to court, and slandered the nuns there for drunkards +and worse). And she told him, “That the curse of the nuns +of Whitford should be on him and his, till they helped the poor in the +spirit of the nuns of Whitford, and the Nun-pool ran up to Ashy Down.’”</p> +<p>‘That time is not come yet,’ said Lancelot.</p> +<p>‘But the worst is to come, sir. For he or his, sir, that +night, said or did something to the lady, that was more than woman’s +heart could bear: and the next morning she was found dead and cold, +drowned in that weir-pool. And there the gentleman’s eldest +son was drowned, and more than one Lavington beside. Miss Argemone’s +only brother, that was the heir, was drowned there too, when he was +a little one.’</p> +<p>‘I never heard that she had a brother.’</p> +<p>‘No, sir, no one talks of it. There are many things happen +in the great house that you must go to the little house to hear of. +But the country-folk believe, sir, that the nun’s curse holds +true; and they say, that Whitford folks have been getting poorer and +wickeder ever since that time, and will, till the Nun-pool runs up to +Ashy, and the Lavingtons’ name goes out of Whitford Priors.’</p> +<p>Lancelot said nothing. A presentiment of evil hung over him. +He was utterly down-hearted about Tregarva, about Argemone, about the +poor. The truth was, he could not shake off the impression of +the scene he had left, utterly disappointed and disgusted with the ‘revel.’ +He had expected, as I said before, at least to hear something of pastoral +sentiment, and of genial frolicsome humour; to see some innocent, simple +enjoyment: but instead, what had he seen but vanity, jealousy, hoggish +sensuality, dull vacuity? drudges struggling for one night to forget +their drudgery. And yet withal, those songs, and the effect which +they produced, showed that in these poor creatures, too, lay the germs +of pathos, taste, melody, soft and noble affections. ‘What +right have we,’ thought he, ‘to hinder their development? +Art, poetry, music, science,—ay, even those athletic and graceful +exercises on which we all pride ourselves, which we consider necessary +to soften and refine ourselves, what God has given us a monopoly of +them?—what is good for the rich man is good for the poor. +Over-education? And what of that? What if the poor be raised +above “their station”? What right have we to keep +them down? How long have they been our born thralls in soul, as +well as in body? What right have we to say that they shall know +no higher recreation than the hogs, because, forsooth, if we raised +them, they might refuse to work—<i>for us</i>? Are <i>we</i> +to fix how far their minds may be developed? Has not God fixed +it for us, when He gave them the same passions, talents, tastes, as +our own?’</p> +<p>Tregarva’s meditations must have been running in a very different +channel, for he suddenly burst out, after a long silence—</p> +<p>‘It’s a pity these fairs can’t be put down. +They do a lot of harm; ruin all the young girls round, the Dissenters’ +children especially, for they run utterly wild; their parents have no +hold on them at all.’</p> +<p>‘They tell them that they are children of the devil,’ +said Lancelot. ‘What wonder if the children take them at +their word, and act accordingly?’</p> +<p>‘The parson here, sir, who is a God-fearing man enough, tried +hard to put down this one, but the innkeepers were too strong for him.’</p> +<p>‘To take away their only amusement, in short. He had +much better have set to work to amuse them himself.’</p> +<p>‘His business is to save souls, sir, and not to amuse them. +I don’t see, sir, what Christian people want with such vanities.’</p> +<p>Lancelot did not argue the point, for he knew the prejudices of Dissenters +on the subject; but it did strike him that if Tregarva’s brain +had been a little less preponderant, he, too, might have found the need +of some recreation besides books and thought.</p> +<p>By this time they were at Lancelot’s door. He bid the +keeper a hearty good-night, made him promise to see him next day, and +went to bed and slept till nearly noon.</p> +<p>When he walked into his breakfast-room, he found a note on the table +in his uncle’s handwriting. The vicar’s servant had +left it an hour before. He opened it listlessly, rang the bell +furiously, ordered out his best horse, and, huddling on his clothes, +galloped to the nearest station, caught the train, and arrived at his +uncle’s bank—it had stopped payment two hours before.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XIV: WHAT’S TO BE DONE?</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Yes! the bank had stopped. The ancient firm of Smith, Brown, +Jones, Robinson, and Co., which had been for some years past expanding +from a solid golden organism into a cobweb-tissue and huge balloon of +threadbare paper, had at last worn through and collapsed, dropping its +car and human contents miserably into the Thames mud. Why detail +the pitiable post-mortem examination resulting? Lancelot sickened +over it for many a long day; not, indeed, mourning at his private losses, +but at the thorough hollowness of the system which it exposed, about +which he spoke his mind pretty freely to his uncle, who bore it good-humouredly +enough. Indeed, the discussions to which it gave rise rather comforted +the good man, by turning his thought from his own losses to general +principles. ‘I have ruined you, my poor boy,’ he used +to say; ‘so you may as well take your money’s worth out +of me in bullying.’ Nothing, indeed, could surpass his honest +and manly sorrow for having been the cause of Lancelot’s beggary; +but as for persuading him that his system was wrong, it was quite impossible. +Not that Lancelot was hard upon him; on the contrary, he assured him, +repeatedly, of his conviction, that the precepts of the Bible had nothing +to do with the laws of commerce; that though the Jews were forbidden +to take interest of Jews, Christians had a perfect right to be as hard +as they liked on ‘brother’ Christians; that there could +not be the least harm in share-jobbing, for though it did, to be sure, +add nothing to the wealth of the community—only conjure money +out of your neighbour’s pocket into your own—yet was not +that all fair in trade? If a man did not know the real value of +the shares he sold you, you were not bound to tell him. Again, +Lancelot quite agreed with his uncle, that though covetousness might +be idolatry, yet money-making could not be called covetousness; and +that, on the whole, though making haste to be rich was denounced as +a dangerous and ruinous temptation in St. Paul’s times, that was +not the slightest reason why it should be so now. All these concessions +were made with a freedom which caused the good banker to suspect at +times that his shrewd nephew was laughing at him in his sleeve, but +he could not but subscribe to them for the sake of consistency; though +as a staunch Protestant, it puzzled him a little at times to find it +necessary to justify himself by getting his ‘infidel’ nephew +to explain away so much of the Bible for him. But men are accustomed +to do that now-a-days, and so was he.</p> +<p>Once only did Lancelot break out with his real sentiments when the +banker was planning how to re-establish his credit; to set to work, +in fact, to blow over again the same bubble which had already burst +under him.</p> +<p>‘If I were a Christian,’ said Lancelot, ‘like you, +I would call this credit system of yours the devil’s selfish counterfeit +of God’s order of mutual love and trust; the child of that miserable +dream, which, as Dr. Chalmers well said, expects universal selfishness +to do the work of universal love. Look at your credit system, +how—not in its abuse, but in its very essence—it carries +the seeds of self-destruction. In the first place, a man’s +credit depends, not upon his real worth and property, but upon his reputation +for property; daily and hourly he is tempted, he is forced, to puff +himself, to pretend to be richer than he is.’</p> +<p>The banker sighed and shrugged his shoulders. ‘We all +do it, my dear boy.’</p> +<p>‘I know it. You must do it, or be more than human. +There is lie the first, and look at lie the second. This credit +system is founded on the universal faith and honour of men towards men. +But do you think faith and honour can be the children of selfishness? +Men must be chivalrous and disinterested to be honourable. And +you expect them all to join in universal faith—each for his own +selfish interest? You forget that if that is the prime motive, +men will be honourable only as long as it suits that same self-interest.’</p> +<p>The banker shrugged his shoulders again.</p> +<p>‘Yes, my dear uncle,’ said Lancelot, ‘you all forget +it, though you suffer for it daily and hourly; though the honourable +men among you complain of the stain which has fallen on the old chivalrous +good faith of English commerce, and say that now, abroad as well as +at home, an Englishman’s word is no longer worth other men’s +bonds. You see the evil, and you deplore it in disgust. +Ask yourself honestly, how can you battle against it, while you allow +in practice, and in theory too, except in church on Sundays, the very +falsehood from which it all springs?—that a man is bound to get +wealth, not for his country, but for himself; that, in short, not patriotism, +but selfishness, is the bond of all society. Selfishness can collect, +not unite, a herd of cowardly wild cattle, that they may feed together, +breed together, keep off the wolf and bear together. But when +one of your wild cattle falls sick, what becomes of the corporate feelings +of the herd then? For one man of your class who is nobly helped +by his fellows, are not the thousand left behind to perish? Your +Bible talks of society, not as a herd, but as a living tree, an organic +individual body, a holy brotherhood, and kingdom of God. And here +is an idol which you have set up instead of it!’</p> +<p>But the banker was deaf to all arguments. No doubt he had plenty, +for he was himself a just and generous—ay, and a God-fearing man +in his way, only he regarded Lancelot’s young fancies as too visionary +to deserve an answer; which they most probably are; else, having been +broached as often as they have been, they would surely, ere now, have +provoked the complete refutation which can, no doubt, be given to them +by hundreds of learned votaries of so-called commerce. And here +I beg my readers to recollect that I am in no way answerable for the +speculations, either of Lancelot or any of his acquaintances; and that +these papers have been, from beginning to end, as in name, so in nature, +Yeast—an honest sample of the questions, which, good or bad, are +fermenting in the minds of the young of this day, and are rapidly leavening +the minds of the rising generation. No doubt they are all as full +of fallacies as possible, but as long as the saying of the German sage +stands true, that ‘the destiny of any nation, at any given moment, +depends on the opinions of its young men under five-and-twenty,’ +so long it must be worth while for those who wish to preserve the present +order of society to justify its acknowledged evils somewhat, not only +to the few young men who are interested in preserving them, but also +to the many who are not.</p> +<p>Though, therefore, I am neither Plymouth Brother nor Communist, and +as thoroughly convinced as the newspapers can make me, that to assert +the duties of property is only to plot its destruction, and that a community +of goods must needs imply a community of wives (as every one knows was +the case with the apostolic Christians), I shall take the liberty of +narrating Lancelot’s fanatical conduct, without execratory comment, +certain that he will still receive his just reward of condemnation; +and that, if I find facts, a sensible public will find abhorrence for +them. His behaviour was, indeed, most singular; he absolutely +refused a good commercial situation which his uncle procured him. +He did not believe in being ‘cured by a hair of the dog that bit +him;’ and he refused, also, the really generous offers of the +creditors, to allow him a sufficient maintenance.</p> +<p>‘No,’ he said, ‘no more pay without work for me. +I will earn my bread or starve. It seems God’s will to teach +me what poverty is—I will see that His intention is not left half +fulfilled. I have sinned, and only in the stern delight of a just +penance can I gain self-respect.’</p> +<p>‘But, my dear madman,’ said his uncle, ‘you are +just the innocent one among us all. You, at least, were only a +sleeping partner.’</p> +<p>‘And therein lies my sin; I took money which I never earned, +and cared as little how it was gained as how I spent it. Henceforth +I shall touch no farthing which is the fruit of a system which I cannot +approve. I accuse no one. Actions may vary in rightfulness, +according to the age and the person. But what may be right for +you, because you think it right, is surely wrong for me because I think +it wrong.’</p> +<p>So, with grim determination, he sent to the hammer every article +he possessed, till he had literally nothing left but the clothes in +which he stood. ‘He could not rest,’ he said, ‘till +he had pulled out all his borrowed peacock’s feathers. When +they were gone he should be able to see, at last, whether he was jackdaw +or eagle.’ And wonder not, reader, at this same strength +of will. The very genius, which too often makes its possessor +self-indulgent in common matters, from the intense capability of enjoyment +which it brings, may also, when once his whole being is stirred into +motion by some great object, transform him into a hero.</p> +<p>And he carried a letter, too, in his bosom, night and day, which +routed all coward fears and sad forebodings as soon as they arose, and +converted the lonely and squalid lodging to which he had retired, into +a fairy palace peopled with bright phantoms of future bliss. I +need not say from whom it came.</p> +<p>‘Beloved!’ (it ran) ‘Darling! you need not pain +yourself to tell me anything. I know all; and I know, too (do +not ask me how), your noble determination to drink the wholesome cup +of poverty to the very dregs.</p> +<p>‘Oh that I were with you! Oh that I could give you my +fortune! but that is not yet, alas! in my own power. No! rather +would I share that poverty with you, and strengthen you in your purpose. +And yet, I cannot bear the thought of you, lonely—perhaps miserable. +But, courage! though you have lost all, you have found me; and now you +are knitting me to you for ever—justifying my own love to me by +your nobleness; and am I not worth all the world to you? I dare +say this to you; you will not think me conceited. Can we misunderstand +each other’s hearts? And all this while you are alone! +Oh! I have mourned for you! Since I heard of your misfortune I +have not tasted pleasure. The light of heaven has been black to +me, and I have lived only upon love. I will not taste comfort +while you are wretched. Would that I could be poor like you! +Every night upon the bare floor I lie down to sleep, and fancy you in +your little chamber, and nestle to you, and cover that dear face with +kisses. Strange! that I should dare to speak thus to you, whom +a few months ago I had never heard of! Wonderful simplicity of +love! How all that is prudish and artificial flees before it! +I seem to have begun a new life. If I could play now, it would +be only with little children. Farewell! be great—a glorious +future is before you and me in you!’</p> +<p>Lancelot’s answer must remain untold; perhaps the veil has +been already too far lifted which hides the sanctuary of such love. +But, alas! to his letter no second had been returned; and he felt—though +he dared not confess it to himself—a gloomy presentiment of evil +flit across him, as he thought of his fallen fortunes, and the altered +light in which his suit would be regarded by Argemone’s parents. +Once he blamed himself bitterly for not having gone to Mr. Lavington +the moment he discovered Argemone’s affection, and insuring—as +he then might have done—his consent. But again he felt that +no sloth had kept him back, but adoring reverence for his God-given +treasure, and humble astonishment at his own happiness; and he fled +from the thought into renewed examination into the state of the masses, +the effect of which was only to deepen his own determination to share +their lot.</p> +<p>But at the same time it seemed to him but fair to live, as long as +it would last, on that part of his capital which his creditors would +have given nothing for—namely, his information; and he set to +work to write. But, alas! he had but a ‘small literary connection;’ +and the <i>entrée</i> of the initiated ring is not obtained in +a day. . . . Besides, he would not write trash.—He was in +far too grim a humour for that; and if he wrote on important subjects, +able editors always were in the habit of entrusting them to old contributors,—men, +in short, in whose judgment they had confidence—not to say anything +which would commit the magazine to anything but its own little party-theory. +And behold! poor Lancelot found himself of no party whatsoever. +He was in a minority of one against the whole world, on all points, +right or wrong. He had the unhappiest knack (as all geniuses have) +of seeing connections, humorous or awful, between the most seemingly +antipodal things; of illustrating every subject from three or four different +spheres which it is anathema to mention in the same page. If he +wrote a physical-science article, able editors asked him what the deuce +a scrap of high-churchism did in the middle of it? If he took +the same article to a high-church magazine, the editor could not commit +himself to any theory which made the earth more than six thousand years +old, and was afraid that the public taste would not approve of the allusions +to free-masonry and Soyer’s soup. . . . And worse than that, +one and all—Jew, Turk, infidel, and heretic, as well as the orthodox—joined +in pious horror at his irreverence;—the shocking way he had of +jumbling religion and politics—the human and the divine—the +theories of the pulpit with the facts of the exchange. . . . The +very atheists, who laughed at him for believing in a God, agreed that +that, at least, was inconsistent with the dignity of the God—who +did not exist. . . . It was Syncretism . . . Pantheism. +. . .</p> +<p>‘Very well, friends,’ quoth Lancelot to himself, in bitter +rage, one day, ‘if you choose to be without God in the world, +and to honour Him by denying Him . . . do so! You shall have your +way; and go to the place whither it seems leading you just now, at railroad +pace. But I must live. . . . Well, at least, there is some +old college nonsense of mine, written three years ago, when I believed, +like you, that all heaven and earth was put together out of separate +bits, like a child’s puzzle, and that each topic ought to have +its private little pigeon-hole all to itself in a man’s brain, +like drugs in a chemist’s shop. Perhaps it will suit you, +friends; perhaps it will be system-frozen, and narrow, and dogmatic, +and cowardly, and godless enough for you.’ . . . So +he went forth with them to market; and behold! they were bought forthwith. +There was verily a demand for such; . . . and in spite of the ten thousand +ink-fountains which were daily pouring out similar Stygian liquors, +the public thirst remained unslaked. ‘Well,’ thought +Lancelot, ‘the negro race is not the only one which is afflicted +with manias for eating dirt. . . . By the bye, where is poor Luke?’</p> +<p>Ah! where was poor Luke? Lancelot had received from him one +short and hurried note, blotted with tears, which told how he had informed +his father; and how his father had refused to see him, and had forbid +him the house; and how he had offered him an allowance of fifty pounds +a year (it should have been five hundred, he said, if he had possessed +it), which Luke’s director, sensibly enough, had compelled him +to accept. . . . And there the letter ended, abruptly, leaving +the writer evidently in lower depths than he had either experienced +already, or expected at all.</p> +<p>Lancelot had often pleaded for him with his father; but in vain. +Not that the good man was hard-hearted: he would cry like a child about +it all to Lancelot when they sat together after dinner. But he +was utterly beside himself, what with grief, shame, terror, and astonishment. +On the whole, the sorrow was a real comfort to him: it gave him something +beside his bankruptcy to think of; and, distracted between the two different +griefs, he could brood over neither. But of the two, certainly +his son’s conversion was the worst in his eyes. The bankruptcy +was intelligible—measurable; it was something known and classified—part +of the ills which flesh (or, at least, commercial flesh) is heir to. +But going to Rome!—</p> +<p>‘I can’t understand it. I won’t believe it. +It’s so foolish, you see, Lancelot—so foolish—like +an ass that eats thistles! . . . There must be some reason;—there +must be—something we don’t know, sir! Do you think +they could have promised to make him a cardinal?’</p> +<p>Lancelot quite agreed that there were reasons for it, that they—or, +at least, the banker—did not know. . . .</p> +<p>‘Depend upon it, they promised him something—some prince-bishopric, +perhaps. Else why on earth could a man go over! It’s +out of the course of nature!’</p> +<p>Lancelot tried in vain to make him understand that a man might sacrifice +everything to conscience, and actually give up all worldly weal for +what he thought right. The banker turned on him with angry resignation—</p> +<p>‘Very well—I suppose he’s done right then! +I suppose you’ll go next! Take up a false religion, and +give up everything for it! Why, then, he must be honest; and if +he’s honest, he’s in the right; and I suppose I’d +better go too!’</p> +<p>Lancelot argued: but in vain. The idea of disinterested sacrifice +was so utterly foreign to the good man’s own creed and practice, +that he could but see one pair of alternatives.</p> +<p>‘Either he is a good man, or he’s a hypocrite. +Either he’s right, or he’s gone over for some vile selfish +end; and what can that be but money?’</p> +<p>Lancelot gently hinted that there might be other selfish ends besides +pecuniary ones—saving one’s soul, for instance.</p> +<p>‘Why, if he wants to save his soul, he’s right. +What ought we all to do, but try to save our souls? I tell you +there’s some sinister reason. They’ve told him that +they expect to convert England—I should like to see them do it!—and +that he’ll be made a bishop. Don’t argue with me, +or you’ll drive me mad. I know those Jesuits!’</p> +<p>And as soon as he began upon the Jesuits, Lancelot prudently held +his tongue. The good man had worked himself up into a perfect +frenzy of terror and suspicion about them. He suspected concealed +Jesuits among his footmen and his housemaids; Jesuits in his counting-house, +Jesuits in his duns. . . .</p> +<p>‘Hang it, sir! how do I know that there ain’t a Jesuit +listening to us now behind the curtain?’</p> +<p>‘I’ll go and look,’ quoth Lancelot, and suited +the action to the word.</p> +<p>‘Well, if there ain’t there might be. They’re +everywhere, I tell you. That vicar of Whitford was a Jesuit. +I was sure of it all along; but the man seemed so pious; and certainly +he did my poor dear boy a deal of good. But he ruined you, you +know. And I’m convinced—no, don’t contradict +me; I tell you, I won’t stand it—I’m convinced that +this whole mess of mine is a plot of those rascals;—I’m +as certain of it as if they’d told me!’</p> +<p>‘For what end?’</p> +<p>‘How the deuce can I tell? Am I a Jesuit, to understand +their sneaking, underhand—pah! I’m sick of life! +Nothing but rogues wherever one turns!’</p> +<p>And then Lancelot used to try to persuade him to take poor Luke back +again. But vague terror had steeled his heart.</p> +<p>‘What! Why, he’d convert us all! He’d +convert his sisters! He’d bring his priests in here, or +his nuns disguised as ladies’ maids, and we should all go over, +every one of us, like a set of nine-pins!’</p> +<p>‘You seem to think Protestantism a rather shaky cause, if it +is so easy to be upset.’</p> +<p>‘Sir! Protestantism is the cause of England and Christianity, +and civilisation, and freedom, and common sense, sir! and that’s +the very reason why it’s so easy to pervert men from it; and the +very reason why it’s a lost cause, and popery, and Antichrist, +and the gates of hell are coming in like a flood to prevail against +it!’</p> +<p>‘Well,’ thought Lancelot, ‘that is the very strangest +reason for it’s being a lost cause! Perhaps if my poor uncle +believed it really to be the cause of God Himself, he would not be in +such extreme fear for it, or fancy it required such a hotbed and greenhouse +culture. . . . Really, if his sisters were little girls of ten +years old, who looked up to him as an oracle, there would be some reason +in it. . . . But those tall, ball-going, flirting, self-satisfied +cousins of mine—who would have been glad enough, either of them, +two months ago, to snap up me, infidelity, bad character, and all, as +a charming rich young <i>roué</i>—if they have not learnt +enough Protestantism in the last five-and-twenty years to take care +of themselves, Protestantism must have very few allurements, or else +be very badly carried out in practice by those who talk loudest in favour +of it. . . . I heard them praising O’Blareaway’s “ministry,” +by the bye, the other day. So he is up in town at last—at +the summit of his ambition. Well, he may suit them. I wonder +how many young creatures like Argemone and Luke he would keep from Popery!’</p> +<p>But there was no use arguing with a man in such a state of mind; +and gradually Lancelot gave it up, in hopes that time would bring the +good man to his sane wits again, and that a father’s feelings +would prove themselves stronger, because more divine, than a so-called +Protestant’s fears, though that would have been, in the banker’s +eyes, and in the Jesuit’s also—so do extremes meet—the +very reason for expecting them to be the weaker; for it is the rule +with all bigots, that the right cause is always a lost cause, and therefore +requires—God’s weapons of love, truth, and reason being +well known to be too weak—to be defended, if it is to be saved, +with the devil’s weapons of bad logic, spite, and calumny.</p> +<p>At last, in despair of obtaining tidings of his cousin by any other +method, Lancelot made up his mind to apply to a certain remarkable man, +whose ‘conversion’ had preceded Luke’s about a year, +and had, indeed, mainly caused it.</p> +<p>He went, . . . and was not disappointed. With the most winning +courtesy and sweetness, his story and his request were patiently listened +to.</p> +<p>‘The outcome of your speech, then, my dear sir, as I apprehend +it, is a request to me to send back the fugitive lamb into the jaws +of the well-meaning, but still lupine wolf?’</p> +<p>This was spoken with so sweet and arch a smile, that it was impossible +to be angry.</p> +<p>‘On my honour, I have no wish to convert him. All I want +is to have human speech of him—to hear from his own lips that +he is content. Whither should I convert him? Not to my own +platform—for I am nowhere. Not to that which he has left, +. . . for if he could have found standing ground there, he would not +have gone elsewhere for rest.’</p> +<p>‘Therefore they went out from you, because they were not of +you,’ said the ‘Father,’ half aside.</p> +<p>‘Most true, sir. I have felt long that argument was bootless +with those whose root-ideas of Deity, man, earth, and heaven, were as +utterly different from my own, as if we had been created by two different +beings.’</p> +<p>‘Do you include in that catalogue those ideas of truth, love, +and justice, which are Deity itself? Have you no common ground +in them?’</p> +<p>‘You are an elder and a better man than I. . . . It would +be insolent in me to answer that question, except in one way, . . . +and—’</p> +<p>‘In that you cannot answer it. Be it so. . . . +You shall see your cousin. You may make what efforts you will +for his re-conversion. The Catholic Church,’ continued he, +with one of his arch, deep-meaning smiles, ‘is not, like popular +Protestantism, driven into shrieking terror at the approach of a foe. +She has too much faith in herself, and in Him who gives to her the power +of truth, to expect every gay meadow to allure away her lambs from the +fold.’</p> +<p>‘I assure you that your gallant permission is unnecessary. +I am beginning, at least, to believe that there is a Father in Heaven +who educates His children; and I have no wish to interfere with His +methods. Let my cousin go his way . . . he will learn something +which he wanted, I doubt not, on his present path, even as I shall on +mine. “Se tu segui la tua stella” is my motto. . . +. Let it be his too, wherever the star may guide him. If +it be a will-o’-the-wisp, and lead to the morass, he will only +learn how to avoid morasses better for the future.’</p> +<p>‘Ave Maris stella! It is the star of Bethlehem which +he follows . . . the star of Mary, immaculate, all-loving!’ . +. . And he bowed his head reverently. ‘Would that +you, too, would submit yourself to that guidance! . . . You, too, +would seem to want some loving heart whereon to rest.’ . . .</p> +<p>Lancelot sighed. ‘I am not a child, but a man; I want +not a mother to pet, but a man to rule me.’</p> +<p>Slowly his companion raised his thin hand, and pointed to the crucifix, +which stood at the other end of the apartment.</p> +<p>‘Behold him!’ and he bowed his head once more . . . and +Lancelot, he knew not why, did the same . . . and yet in an instant +he threw his head up proudly, and answered with George Fox’s old +reply to the Puritans,—</p> +<p>‘I want a live Christ, not a dead one. . . . That is +noble . . . beautiful . . . it may be true. . . . But it has no +message for me.’</p> +<p>‘He died for you.’</p> +<p>‘I care for the world, and not myself.’</p> +<p>‘He died for the world.’</p> +<p>‘And has deserted it, as folks say now, and become—an +absentee, performing His work by deputies. . . . Do not start; +the blasphemy is not mine, but those who preach it. No wonder +that the owners of the soil think it no shame to desert their estates, +when preachers tell them that He to whom they say, all power is given +in heaven and earth, has deserted His.’</p> +<p>‘What would you have, my dear sir?’ asked the father.</p> +<p>‘What the Jews had. A king of my nation, and of the hearts +of my nation, who would teach soldiers, artists, craftsmen, statesmen, +poets, priests, if priests there must be. I want a human lord, +who understands me and the millions round me, pities us, teaches us, +orders our history, civilisation, development for us. I come to +you, full of manhood, and you send me to a woman. I go to the +Protestants, full of desires to right the world—and they begin +to talk of the next life, and give up this as lost!’</p> +<p>A quiet smile lighted up the thin wan face, full of unfathomable +thoughts; and he replied, again half to himself,—</p> +<p>‘Am I God, to kill or to make alive, that thou sendest to me +to recover a man of his leprosy? Farewell. You shall see +your cousin here at noon to-morrow. You will not refuse my blessing, +or my prayers, even though they be offered to a mother?’</p> +<p>‘I will refuse nothing in the form of human love.’ +And the father blessed him fervently, and he went out. . . .</p> +<p>‘What a man!’ said he to himself, ‘or rather the +wreck of what a man! Oh, for such a heart, with the thews and +sinews of a truly English brain!’</p> +<p>Next day he met Luke in that room. Their talk was short and +sad. Luke was on the point of entering an order devoted especially +to the worship of the Blessed Virgin.</p> +<p>‘My father has cast me out . . . I must go to her feet. +She will have mercy, though man has none.’</p> +<p>‘But why enter the order? Why take an irrevocable step?’</p> +<p>‘Because it is irrevocable; because I shall enter an utterly +new life, in which old things shall pass away, and all things become +new, and I shall forget the very names of Parent, Englishman, Citizen,—the +very existence of that strange Babel of man’s building, whose +roar and moan oppress me every time I walk the street. Oh, for +solitude, meditation, penance! Oh, to make up by bitter self-punishment +my ingratitude to her who has been leading me unseen, for years, home +to her bosom!—The all-prevailing mother, daughter of Gabriel, +spouse of Deity, flower of the earth, whom I have so long despised! +Oh, to follow the example of the blessed Mary of Oignies, who every +day inflicted on her most holy person eleven hundred stripes in honour +of that all-perfect maiden!’</p> +<p>‘Such an honour, I could have thought, would have pleased better +Kali, the murder-goddess of the Thugs,’ thought Lancelot to himself; +but he had not the heart to say it, and he only replied,—</p> +<p>‘So torture propitiates the Virgin? That explains the +strange story I read lately, of her having appeared in the Cevennes, +and informed the peasantry that she had sent the potato disease on account +of their neglecting her shrines; that unless they repented, she would +next year destroy their cattle; and the third year, themselves.’</p> +<p>‘Why not?’ asked poor Luke.</p> +<p>‘Why not, indeed? If God is to be capricious, proud, +revengeful, why not the Son of God? And if the Son of God, why +not His mother?’</p> +<p>‘You judge spiritual feelings by the carnal test of the understanding; +your Protestant horror of asceticism lies at the root of all you say. +How can you comprehend the self-satisfaction, the absolute delight, +of self-punishment?’</p> +<p>‘So far from it, I have always had an infinite respect for +asceticism, as a noble and manful thing—the only manful thing +to my eyes left in popery; and fast dying out of that under Jesuit influence. +You recollect the quarrel between the Tablet and the Jesuits, over Faber’s +unlucky honesty about St. Rose of Lima? . . . But, really, as +long as you honour asceticism as a means of appeasing the angry deities, +I shall prefer to St. Dominic’s cuirass or St. Hedwiga’s +chilblains, John Mytton’s two hours’ crawl on the ice in +his shirt, after a flock of wild ducks. They both endured like +heroes; but the former for a selfish, if not a blasphemous end; the +latter, as a man should, to test and strengthen his own powers of endurance. +. . . There, I will say no more. Go your way, in God’s +name. There must be lessons to be learnt in all strong and self-restraining +action. . . . So you will learn something from the scourge and +the hair-shirt. We must all take the bitter medicine of suffering, +I suppose.’</p> +<p>‘And, therefore, I am the wiser, in forcing the draught on +myself.’</p> +<p>‘Provided it be the right draught, and do not require another +and still bitterer one to expel the effects of the poison. I have +no faith in people’s doctoring themselves, either physically or +spiritually.’</p> +<p>‘I am not my own physician; I follow the rules of an infallible +Church, and the examples of her canonised saints.’</p> +<p>‘Well . . . perhaps they may have known what was best for themselves. +. . . But as for you and me here, in the year 1849. . . . +However, we shall argue on for ever. Forgive me if I have offended +you.’</p> +<p>‘I am not offended. The Catholic Church has always been +a persecuted one.’</p> +<p>‘Then walk with me a little way, and I will persecute you no +more.’</p> +<p>‘Where are you going?’</p> +<p>‘To . . . To—’ Lancelot had not the heart +to say whither.</p> +<p>‘To my father’s! Ah! what a son I would have been +to him now, in his extreme need! . . . And he will not let me! +Lancelot, is it impossible to move him? I do not want to go home +again . . . to live there . . . I could not face that, though +I longed but this moment to do it. I cannot face the self-satisfied, +pitying looks . . . the everlasting suspicion that they suspect me to +be speaking untruths, or proselytising in secret. . . . Cruel +and unjust!’</p> +<p>Lancelot thought of a certain letter of Luke’s . . . but who +was he, to break the bruised reed?</p> +<p>‘No; I will not see him. Better thus; better vanish, +and be known only according to the spirit by the spirits of saints and +confessors, and their successors upon earth. No! I will +die, and give no sign.’</p> +<p>‘I must see somewhat more of you, indeed.’</p> +<p>‘I will meet you here, then, two hours hence. Near that +house—even along the way which leads to it—I cannot go. +It would be too painful: too painful to think that you were walking +towards it,—the old house where I was born and bred . . . and +I shut out,—even though it be for the sake of the kingdom of heaven!’</p> +<p>‘Or for the sake of your own share therein, my poor cousin!’ +thought Lancelot to himself, ‘which is a very different matter.’</p> +<p>‘Whither, after you have been—?’ Luke could +not get out the word home.</p> +<p>‘To Claude Mellot’s.’</p> +<p>‘I will walk part of the way thither with you. But he +is a very bad companion for you.’</p> +<p>‘I can’t help that. I cannot live; and I am going +to turn painter. It is not the road in which to find a fortune; +but still, the very sign-painters live somehow, I suppose. I am +going this very afternoon to Claude Mellot, and enlist. I sold +the last of my treasured MSS. to a fifth-rate magazine this morning, +for what it would fetch. It has been like eating one’s own +children—but, at least, they have fed me. So now “to +fresh fields and pastures new.”’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XV: DEUS E MACHINÂ</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>When Lancelot reached the banker’s a letter was put into his +hand; it bore the Whitford postmark, and Mrs. Lavington’s handwriting. +He tore it open; it contained a letter from Argemone, which, it is needless +to say, he read before her mother’s:—</p> +<p>‘My beloved! my husband!—Yes—though you may fancy +me fickle and proud—I will call you so to the last; for were I +fickle, I could have saved myself the agony of writing this; and as +for pride, oh! how that darling vice has been crushed out of me! +I have rolled at my mother’s feet with bitter tears, and vain +entreaties—and been refused; and yet I have obeyed her after all. +We must write to each other no more. This one last letter must +explain the forced silence which has been driving me mad with fears +that you would suspect me. And now you may call me weak; but it +is your love which has made me strong to do this—which has taught +me to see with new intensity my duty, not only to you, but to every +human being—to my parents. By this self-sacrifice alone +can I atone to them for all my past undutifulness. Let me, then, +thus be worthy of you. Hope that by this submission we may win +even her to change. How calmly I write! but it is only my hand +that is calm. As for my heart, read Tennyson’s Fatima, and +then know how I feel towards you! Yes, I love you—madly, +the world would say. I seem to understand now how women have died +of love. Ay, that indeed would be blessed; for then my spirit +would seek out yours, and hover over it for ever! Farewell, beloved! +and let me hear of you through your deeds. A feeling at my heart, +which should not be, although it is, a sad one, tells me that we shall +meet soon—soon.’</p> +<p>Stupefied and sickened, Lancelot turned carelessly to Mrs. Lavington’s +cover, whose blameless respectability thus uttered itself:—</p> +<p>‘I cannot deceive you or myself by saying I regret that providential +circumstances should have been permitted to break off a connection which +I always felt to be most unsuitable; and I rejoice that the intercourse +my dear child has had with you has not so far undermined her principles +as to prevent her yielding the most filial obedience to my wishes on +the point of her future correspondence with you. Hoping that all +that has occurred will be truly blessed to you, and lead your thoughts +to another world, and to a true concern for the safety of your immortal +soul,</p> +<p>‘I remain, yours truly,</p> +<p>‘C. LAVINGTON.’</p> +<p>‘Another world!’ said Lancelot to himself. ‘It +is most merciful of you, certainly, my dear madame, to put one in mind +of the existence of another world, while such as you have their own +way in this one!’ and thrusting the latter epistle into the fire, +he tried to collect his thoughts.</p> +<p>What had he lost? The oftener he asked himself, the less he +found to unman him. Argemone’s letters were so new a want, +that the craving for them was not yet established. His intense +imagination, resting on the delicious certainty of her faith, seemed +ready to fill the silence with bright hopes and noble purposes. +She herself had said that he would see her soon. But yet—but +yet—why did that allusion to death strike chilly through him? +They were but words,—a melancholy fancy, such as women love at +times to play with. He would toss it from him. At least +here was another reason for bestirring himself at once to win fame in +the noble profession he had chosen.</p> +<p>And yet his brain reeled as he went upstairs to his uncle’s +private room.</p> +<p>There, however, he found a person closeted with the banker, whose +remarkable appearance drove everything else out of his mind. He +was a huge, shaggy, toil-worn man, the deep melancholy earnestness of +whose rugged features reminded him almost ludicrously of one of Land-seer’s +bloodhounds. But withal there was a tenderness—a genial, +though covert humour playing about his massive features, which awakened +in Lancelot at first sight a fantastic longing to open his whole heart +to him. He was dressed like a foreigner, but spoke English with +perfect fluency. The banker sat listening, quite crestfallen, +beneath his intense and melancholy gaze, in which, nevertheless, there +twinkled some rays of kindly sympathy.</p> +<p>‘It was all those foreign railways,’ said Mr. Smith pensively.</p> +<p>‘And it serves you quite right,’ answered the stranger. +‘Did I not warn you of the folly and sin of sinking capital in +foreign countries while English land was crying out for tillage, and +English poor for employment?’</p> +<p>‘My dear friend’ (in a deprecatory tone), ‘it was +the best possible investment I could make.’</p> +<p>‘And pray, who told you that you were sent into the world to +make investments?’</p> +<p>‘But—’</p> +<p>‘But me no buts, or I won’t stir a finger towards helping +you. What are you going to do with this money if I procure it +for you?’</p> +<p>‘Work till I can pay back that poor fellow’s fortune,’ +said the banker, earnestly pointing to Lancelot. ‘And if +I could clear my conscience of that, I would not care if I starved myself, +hardly if my own children did.’</p> +<p>‘Spoken like a man!’ answered the stranger; ‘work +for that and I’ll help you. Be a new man, once and for all, +my friend. Don’t even make this younker your first object. +Say to yourself, not “I will invest this money where it shall +pay me most, but I will invest it where it shall give most employment +to English hands, and produce most manufactures for English bodies.” +In short, seek first the kingdom of God and His justice with this money +of yours, and see if all other things, profits and suchlike included, +are not added unto you.’</p> +<p>‘And you are certain you can obtain the money?’</p> +<p>‘My good friend the Begum of the Cannibal Islands has more +than she knows what to do with; and she owes me a good turn, you know.’</p> +<p>‘What are you jesting about now?’</p> +<p>‘Did I never tell you? The new king of the Cannibal Islands, +just like your European ones, ran away, and would neither govern himself +nor let any one else govern; so one morning his ministers, getting impatient, +ate him, and then asked my advice. I recommended them to put his +mother on the throne, who, being old and tough, would run less danger; +and since then everything has gone on smoothly as anywhere else.’</p> +<p>‘Are you mad?’ thought Lancelot to himself, as he stared +at the speaker’s matter-of-fact face.</p> +<p>‘No, I am not mad, my young friend,’ quoth he, facing +right round upon him, as if he had divined his thoughts.</p> +<p>‘I—I beg your pardon, I did not speak,’ stammered +Lancelot, abashed at a pair of eyes which could have looked down the +boldest mesmerist in three seconds.</p> +<p>‘I am perfectly well aware that you did not. I must have +some talk with you: I’ve heard a good deal about you. You +wrote those articles in the --- Review about George Sand, did you not?’</p> +<p>‘I did.’</p> +<p>‘Well, there was a great deal of noble feeling in them, and +a great deal of abominable nonsense. You seem to be very anxious +to reform society?’</p> +<p>‘I am.’</p> +<p>‘Don’t you think you had better begin by reforming yourself?’</p> +<p>‘Really, sir,’ answered Lancelot, ‘I am too old +for that worn-out quibble. The root of all my sins has been selfishness +and sloth. Am I to cure them by becoming still more selfish and +slothful? What part of myself can I reform except my actions? +and the very sin of my actions has been, as I take it, that I’ve +been doing nothing to reform others; never fighting against the world, +the flesh, and the devil, as your Prayer-book has it.’</p> +<p>‘<i>My</i> Prayer-book?’ answered the stranger, with +a quaint smile.</p> +<p>‘Upon my word, Lancelot,’ interposed the banker, with +a frightened look, ‘you must not get into an argument: you must +be more respectful: you don’t know to whom you are speaking.’</p> +<p>‘And I don’t much care,’ answered he. ‘Life +is really too grim earnest in these days to stand on ceremony. +I am sick of blind leaders of the blind, of respectable preachers to +the respectable, who drawl out second-hand trivialities, which they +neither practise nor wish to see practised. I’ve had enough +all my life of Scribes and Pharisees in white cravats, laying on man +heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, and then not touching them +themselves with one of their fingers.’</p> +<p>‘Silence, sir!’ roared the banker, while the stranger +threw himself into a chair, and burst into a storm of laughter.</p> +<p>‘Upon my word, friend Mammon, here’s another of Hans +Andersen’s ugly ducks!’</p> +<p>‘I really do not mean to be rude,’ said Lancelot, recollecting +himself, ‘but I am nearly desperate. If your heart is in +the right place, you will understand me! if not, the less we talk to +each other the better.’</p> +<p>‘Most true,’ answered the stranger; ‘and I do understand +you; and if, as I hope, we see more of each other henceforth, we will +see if we cannot solve one or two of these problems between us.’</p> +<p>At this moment Lancelot was summoned downstairs, and found, to his +great pleasure, Tregarva waiting for him. That worthy personage +bowed to Lancelot reverently and distantly.</p> +<p>‘I am quite ashamed to intrude myself upon you, sir, but I +could not rest without coming to ask whether you have had any news.’—He +broke down at this point in the sentence, but Lancelot understood him.</p> +<p>‘I have no news,’ he said. ‘But what do you +mean by standing off in that way, as if we were not old and fast friends? +Remember, I am as poor as you are now; you may look me in the face and +call me your equal, if you will, or your inferior; I shall not deny +it.’</p> +<p>‘Pardon me, sir,’ answered Tregarva; ‘but I never +felt what a real substantial thing rank is, as I have since this sad +misfortune of yours.’</p> +<p>‘And I have never till now found out its worthlessness.’</p> +<p>‘You’re wrong, sir, you are wrong; look at the difference +between yourself and me. When you’ve lost all you have, +and seven times more, you’re still a gentleman. No man can +take that from you. You may look the proudest duchess in the land +in the face, and claim her as your equal; while I, sir,—I don’t +mean, though, to talk of myself—but suppose that you had loved +a pious and a beautiful lady, and among all your worship of her, and +your awe of her, had felt that you were worthy of her, that you could +become her comforter, and her pride, and her joy, if it wasn’t +for that accursed gulf that men had put between you, that you were no +gentleman; that you didn’t know how to walk, and how to pronounce, +and when to speak, and when to be silent, not even how to handle your +own knife and fork without disgusting her, or how to keep your own body +clean and sweet—Ah, sir, I see it now as I never did before, what +a wall all these little defects build up round a poor man; how he longs +and struggles to show himself as he is at heart, and cannot, till he +feels sometimes as if he was enchanted, pent up, like folks in fairy +tales, in the body of some dumb beast. But, sir,’ he went +on, with a concentrated bitterness which Lancelot had never seen in +him before, ‘just because this gulf which rank makes is such a +deep one, therefore it looks to me all the more devilish; not that I +want to pull down any man to my level; I despise my own level too much; +I want to rise; I want those like me to rise with me. Let the +rich be as rich as they will.—I, and those like me, covet not +money, but manners. Why should not the workman be a gentleman, +and a workman still? Why are they to be shut out from all that +is beautiful, and delicate, and winning, and stately?’</p> +<p>‘Now perhaps,’ said Lancelot, ‘you begin to understand +what I was driving at on that night of the revel?’</p> +<p>‘It has come home to me lately, sir, bitterly enough. +If you knew what had gone on in me this last fortnight, you would know +that I had cause to curse the state of things which brings a man up +a savage against his will, and cuts him off, as if he were an ape or +a monster, from those for whom the same Lord died, and on whom the same +Spirit rests. Is that God’s will, sir? No, it is the +devil’s will. “Those whom God hath joined, let no +man put asunder.”’</p> +<p>Lancelot coloured, for he remembered with how much less reason he +had been lately invoking in his own cause those very words. He +was at a loss for an answer; but seeing, to his relief, that Tregarva +had returned to his usual impassive calm, he forced him to sit down, +and began questioning him as to his own prospects and employment.</p> +<p>About them Tregarva seemed hopeful enough. He had found out +a Wesleyan minister in town who knew him, and had, by his means, after +assisting for a week or two in the London City Mission, got some similar +appointment in a large manufacturing town. Of the state of things +he spoke more sadly than ever. ‘The rich cannot guess, sir, +how high ill-feeling is rising in these days. It’s not only +those who are outwardly poorest who long for change; the middling people, +sir, the small town shopkeepers especially, are nearly past all patience. +One of the City Mission assured me that he has been watching them these +several years past, and that nothing could beat their fortitude and +industry, and their determination to stand peaceably by law and order; +but yet, this last year or two, things are growing too bad to bear. +Do what they will, they cannot get their bread; and when a man cannot +get that, sir—’</p> +<p>‘But what do you think is the reason of it?’</p> +<p>‘How should I tell, sir? But if I had to say, I should +say this—just what they say themselves—that there are too +many of them. Go where you will, in town or country, you’ll +find half-a-dozen shops struggling for a custom that would only keep +up one, and so they’re forced to undersell one another. +And when they’ve got down prices all they can by fair means, they’re +forced to get them down lower by foul—to sand the sugar, and sloe-leave +the tea, and put—Satan only that prompts ’em knows what—into +the bread; and then they don’t thrive—they can’t thrive; +God’s curse must be on them. They begin by trying to oust +each other, and eat each other up; and while they’re eating up +their neighbours, their neighbours eat up them; and so they all come +to ruin together.’</p> +<p>‘Why, you talk like Mr. Mill himself, Tregarva; you ought to +have been a political economist, and not a City missionary. By +the bye, I don’t like that profession for you.’</p> +<p>‘It’s the Lord’s work, sir. It’s the +very sending to the Gentiles that the Lord promised me.’</p> +<p>‘I don’t doubt it, Paul; but you are meant for other +things, if not better. There are plenty of smaller men than you +to do that work. Do you think that God would have given you that +strength, that brain, to waste on a work which could be done without +them? Those limbs would certainly be good capital for you, if +you turned a live model at the Academy. Perhaps you’d better +be mine; but you can’t even be that if you go to Manchester.’</p> +<p>The giant looked hopelessly down at his huge limbs. ‘Well! +God only knows what use they are of just now. But as for the brains, +sir—in much learning is much sorrow. One had much better +work than read, I find. If I read much more about what men might +be, and are not, and what English soil might be, and is not, I shall +go mad. And that puts me in mind of one thing I came here for, +though, like a poor rude country fellow as I am, I clean forgot it a +thinking of—Look here, sir; you’ve given me a sight of books +in my time, and God bless you for it. But now I hear that—that +you are determined to be a poor man like us; and that you shan’t +be, while Paul Tregarva has ought of yours. So I’ve just +brought all the books back, and there they lie in the hall; and may +God reward you for the loan of them to his poor child! And so, +sir, farewell;’ and he rose to go.</p> +<p>‘No, Paul; the books and you shall never part.’</p> +<p>‘And I say, sir, the books and you shall never part.’</p> +<p>‘Then we two can never part’—and a sudden impulse +flashed over him—‘and we will not part, Paul! The +only man whom I utterly love, and trust, and respect on the face of +God’s earth, is you; and I cannot lose sight of you. If +we are to earn our bread, let us earn it together; if we are to endure +poverty, and sorrow, and struggle to find out the way of bettering these +wretched millions round us, let us learn our lesson together, and help +each other to spell it out.’</p> +<p>‘Do you mean what you say?’ asked Paul slowly.</p> +<p>‘I do.’</p> +<p>‘Then I say what you say. Where thou goest, I will go; +and where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Come what will, I will be +your servant, for good luck or bad, for ever.’</p> +<p>‘My equal, Paul, not my servant.’</p> +<p>‘I know my place, sir. When I am as learned and as well-bred +as you, I shall not refuse to call myself your equal; and the sooner +that day comes, the better I shall be pleased. Till then I am +your friend and your brother; but I am your scholar too, and I shall +not set up myself against my master.’</p> +<p>‘I have learnt more of you, Paul, than ever you have learnt +of me. But be it as you will; only whatever you may call yourself, +we must eat at the same table, live in the same room, and share alike +all this world’s good things—or we shall have no right to +share together this world’s bad things. If that is your +bargain, there is my hand on it.’</p> +<p>‘Amen!’ quoth Tregarva; and the two young men joined +hands in that sacred bond—now growing rarer and rarer year by +year—the utter friendship of two equal manful hearts.</p> +<p>‘And now, sir, I have promised—and you would have me +keep my promise—to go and work for the City Mission in Manchester—at +least, for the next month, till a young man’s place who has just +left, is filled up. Will you let me go for that time? and then, +if you hold your present mind, we will join home and fortunes thenceforth, +and go wherever the Lord shall send us. There’s work enough +of His waiting to be done. I don’t doubt but if we are willing +and able, He will set us about the thing we’re meant for.’</p> +<p>As Lancelot opened the door for him, he lingered on the steps, and +grasping his hand, said, in a low, earnest voice: ‘The Lord be +with you, sir. Be sure that He has mighty things in store for +you, or He would not have brought you so low in the days of your youth.’</p> +<p>‘And so,’ as John Bunyan has it, ‘he went on his +way;’ and Lancelot saw him no more till—but I must not outrun +the order of time.</p> +<p>After all, this visit came to Lancelot timely. It had roused +him to hope, and turned off his feelings from the startling news he +had just heard. He stepped along arm in arm with Luke, cheerful, +and fate-defiant, and as he thought of Tregarva’s complaints,—</p> +<p>‘The beautiful?’ he said to himself, ‘they shall +have it! At least they shall be awakened to feel their need of +it, their right to it. What a high destiny, to be the artist of +the people! to devote one’s powers of painting, not to mimicking +obsolete legends, Pagan or Popish, but to representing to the working +men of England the triumphs of the Past and the yet greater triumphs +of the Future!’</p> +<p>Luke began at once questioning him about his father.</p> +<p>‘And is he contrite and humbled? Does he see that he +has sinned?’</p> +<p>‘In what?’</p> +<p>‘It is not for us to judge; but surely it must have been some +sin or other of his which has drawn down such a sore judgment on him.’</p> +<p>Lancelot smiled; but Luke went on, not perceiving him.</p> +<p>‘Ah! we cannot find out for him. Nor has he, alas! as +a Protestant, much likelihood of finding out for himself. In our +holy church he would have been compelled to discriminate his faults +by methodic self-examination, and lay them one by one before his priest +for advice and pardon, and so start a new and free man once more.’</p> +<p>‘Do you think,’ asked Lancelot with a smile, ‘that +he who will not confess his faults either to God or to himself, would +confess them to man? And would his priest honestly tell him what +he really wants to know? which sin of his has called down this so-called +judgment? It would be imputed, I suppose, to some vague generality, +to inattention to religious duties, to idolatry of the world, and so +forth. But a Romish priest would be the last person, I should +think, who could tell him fairly, in the present case, the cause of +his affliction; and I question whether he would give a patient hearing +to any one who told it him.’</p> +<p>‘How so? Though, indeed, I have remarked that people +are perfectly willing to be told they are miserable sinners, and to +confess themselves such, in a general way; but if the preacher once +begins to specify, to fix on any particular act or habit, he is accused +of personality or uncharitableness; his hearers are ready to confess +guilty to any sin but the very one with which he charges them. +But, surely, this is just what I am urging against you Protestants—just +what the Catholic use of confession obviates.’</p> +<p>‘Attempts to do so, you mean!’ answered Lancelot. +‘But what if your religion preaches formally that which only remains +in our religion as a fast-dying superstition?—That those judgments +of God, as you call them, are not judgments at all in any fair use of +the word, but capricious acts of punishment on the part of Heaven, which +have no more reference to the fault which provokes them, than if you +cut off a man’s finger because he made a bad use of his tongue. +That is part, but only a part, of what I meant just now, by saying that +people represent God as capricious, proud, revengeful.’</p> +<p>‘But do not Protestants themselves confess that our sins provoke +God’s anger?’</p> +<p>‘Your common creed, when it talks rightly of God as one “who +has no passions,” ought to make you speak more reverently of the +possibility of any act of ours disturbing the everlasting equanimity +of the absolute Love. Why will men so often impute to God the +miseries which they bring upon themselves?’</p> +<p>‘Because, I suppose, their pride makes them more willing to +confess themselves sinners than fools.’</p> +<p>‘Right, my friend; they will not remember that it is of “their +pleasant vices that God makes whips to scourge them.” Oh, +I at least have felt the deep wisdom of that saying of Wilhelm Meister’s +harper, that it is</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Voices from the depth of <i>Nature</i> borne<br />Which woe +upon the guilty head proclaim.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Of nature—of those eternal laws of hers which we daily break. +Yes! it is not because God’s temper changes, but because God’s +universe is unchangeable, that such as I, such as your poor father, +having sown the wind, must reap the whirlwind. I have fed my self-esteem +with luxuries and not with virtue, and, losing them, have nothing left. +He has sold himself to a system which is its own punishment. And +yet the last place in which he will look for the cause of his misery +is in that very money-mongering to which he now clings as frantically +as ever. But so it is throughout the world. Only look down +over that bridge-parapet, at that huge black-mouthed sewer, vomiting +its pestilential riches across the mud. There it runs, and will +run, hurrying to the sea vast stores of wealth, elaborated by Nature’s +chemistry into the ready materials of food; which proclaim, too, by +their own foul smell, God’s will that they should be buried out +of sight in the fruitful all-regenerating grave of earth: there it runs, +turning them all into the seeds of pestilence, filth, and drunkenness.—And +then, when it obeys the laws which we despise, and the pestilence is +come at last, men will pray against it, and confess it to be “a +judgment for their sins;” but if you ask <i>what</i> sin, people +will talk about “les voiles d’airain,” as Fourier +says, and tell you that it is presumptuous to pry into God’s secret +counsels, unless, perhaps, some fanatic should inform you that the cholera +has been drawn down on the poor by the endowment of Maynooth by the +rich.’</p> +<p>‘It is most fearful, indeed, to think that these diseases should +be confined to the poor—that a man should be exposed to cholera, +typhus, and a host of attendant diseases, simply because he is born +into the world an artisan; while the rich, by the mere fact of money, +are exempt from such curses, except when they come in contact with those +whom they call on Sunday “their brethren,” and on week days +the “masses.”</p> +<p>‘Thank Heaven that you do see that,—that in a country +calling itself civilised and Christian, pestilence should be the peculiar +heritage of the poor! It is past all comment.’</p> +<p>‘And yet are not these pestilences a judgment, even on them, +for their dirt and profligacy?’</p> +<p>‘And how should they be clean without water? And how +can you wonder if their appetites, sickened with filth and self-disgust, +crave after the gin-shop for temporary strength, and then for temporary +forgetfulness? Every London doctor knows that I speak the truth; +would that every London preacher would tell that truth from his pulpit!’</p> +<p>‘Then would you too say, that God punishes one class for the +sins of another?’</p> +<p>‘Some would say,’ answered Lancelot, half aside, ‘that +He may be punishing them for not demanding their <i>right</i> to live +like human beings, to all those social circumstances which shall not +make their children’s life one long disease. But are not +these pestilences a judgment on the rich, too, in the truest sense of +the word? Are they not the broad, unmistakable seal to God’s +opinion of a state of society which confesses its economic relations +to be so utterly rotten and confused, that it actually cannot afford +to save yearly millions of pounds’ worth of the materials of food, +not to mention thousands of human lives? Is not every man who +allows such things hastening the ruin of the society in which he lives, +by helping to foster the indignation and fury of its victims? +Look at that group of stunted, haggard artisans, who are passing us. +What if one day they should call to account the landlords whose coveteousness +and ignorance make their dwellings hells on earth?’</p> +<p>By this time they had reached the artist’s house.</p> +<p>Luke refused to enter. . . . ‘He had done with this world, +and the painters of this world.’ . . . And with a +tearful last farewell, he turned away up the street, leaving Lancelot +to gaze at his slow, painful steps, and abject, earth-fixed mien.</p> +<p>‘Ah!’ thought Lancelot, ‘here is the end of <i>your</i> +anthropology! At first, your ideal man is an angel. But +your angel is merely an unsexed woman; and so you are forced to go back +to the humanity after all—but to a woman, not a man? And +this, in the nineteenth century, when men are telling us that the poetic +and enthusiastic have become impossible, and that the only possible +state of the world henceforward will be a universal good-humoured hive, +of the Franklin-Benthamite religion . . . a vast prosaic Cockaigne of +steam mills for grinding sausages—for those who can get at them. +And all the while, in spite of all Manchester schools, and high and +dry orthodox schools, here are the strangest phantasms, new and old, +sane and insane, starting up suddenly into live practical power, to +give their prosaic theories the lie—Popish conversions, Mormonisms, +Mesmerisms, Californias, Continental revolutions, Paris days of June +. . . Ye hypocrites! ye can discern the face of the sky, and yet ye +cannot discern the signs of this time!’</p> +<p>He was ushered upstairs to the door of his studio, at which he knocked, +and was answered by a loud ‘Come in.’ Lancelot heard +a rustle as he entered, and caught sight of a most charming little white +foot retreating hastily through the folding doors into the inner room.</p> +<p>The artist, who was seated at his easel, held up his brush as a signal +of silence, and did not even raise his eyes till he had finished the +touches on which he was engaged.</p> +<p>‘And now—what do I see!—the last man I should have +expected! I thought you were far down in the country. And +what brings you to me with such serious and business-like looks?’</p> +<p>‘I am a penniless youth—’</p> +<p>‘What?’</p> +<p>‘Ruined to my last shilling, and I want to turn artist.’</p> +<p>‘Oh, ye gracious powers! Come to my arms, brother at +last with me in the holy order of those who must work or starve. +Long have I wept in secret over the pernicious fulness of your purse!’</p> +<p>‘Dry your tears, then, now,’ said Lancelot, ‘for +I neither have ten pounds in the world, nor intend to have till I can +earn them.’</p> +<p>‘Artist!’ ran on Mellot; ‘ah! you shall be an artist, +indeed! You shall stay with me and become the English Michael +Angelo; or, if you are fool enough, go to Rome, and utterly eclipse +Overbeck, and throw Schadow for ever into the shade.’</p> +<p>‘I fine you a supper,’ said Lancelot, ‘for that +execrable attempt at a pun.’</p> +<p>‘Agreed! Here, Sabina, send to Covent Garden for huge +nosegays, and get out the best bottle of Burgundy. We will pass +an evening worthy of Horace, and with garlands and libations honour +the muse of painting.’</p> +<p>‘Luxurious dog!’ said Lancelot, ‘with all your +cant about poverty.’</p> +<p>As he spoke, the folding doors opened, and an exquisite little brunette +danced in from the inner room, in which, by the bye, had been going +on all the while a suspicious rustling, as of garments hastily arranged. +She was dressed gracefully in a loose French morning-gown, down which +Lancelot’s eye glanced towards the little foot, which, however, +was now hidden in a tiny velvet slipper. The artist’s wife +was a real beauty, though without a single perfect feature, except a +most delicious little mouth, a skin like velvet, and clear brown eyes, +from which beamed earnest simplicity and arch good humour. She +darted forward to her husband’s friend, while her rippling brown +hair, fantastically arranged, fluttered about her neck, and seizing +Lancelot’s hands successively in both of hers, broke out in an +accent prettily tinged with French,—</p> +<p>‘Charming!—delightful! And so you are really going +to turn painter! And I have longed so to be introduced to you! +Claude has been raving about you these two years; you already seem to +me the oldest friend in the world. You must not go to Rome. +We shall keep you, Mr. Lancelot; positively you must come and live with +us—we shall be the happiest trio in London. I will make +you so comfortable: you must let me cater for you—cook for you.’</p> +<p>‘And be my study sometimes?’ said Lancelot, smiling.</p> +<p>‘Ah,’ she said, blushing, and shaking her pretty little +fist at Claude, ‘that madcap! how he has betrayed me! When +he is at his easel, he is so in the seventh heaven, that he sees nothing, +thinks of nothing, but his own dreams.’</p> +<p>At this moment a heavy step sounded on the stairs, the door opened, +and there entered, to Lancelot’s astonishment, the stranger who +had just puzzled him so much at his uncle’s.</p> +<p>Claude rose reverentially, and came forward, but Sabina was beforehand +with him, and running up to her visitor, kissed his hand again and again, +almost kneeling to him.</p> +<p>‘The dear master!’ she cried; ‘what a delightful +surprise! we have not seen you this fortnight past, and gave you up +for lost.’</p> +<p>‘Where do you come from, my dear master?’ asked Claude.</p> +<p>‘From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and +down in it,’ answered he, smiling, and laying his finger on his +lips, ‘my dear pupils. And you are both well and happy?’</p> +<p>‘Perfectly, and doubly delighted at your presence to-day, for +your advice will come in a providential moment for my friend here.’</p> +<p>‘Ah!’ said the strange man, ‘well met once more! +So you are going to turn painter?’</p> +<p>He bent a severe and searching look on Lancelot.</p> +<p>‘You have a painter’s face, young man,’ he said; +‘go on and prosper. What branch of art do you intend to +study?’</p> +<p>‘The ancient Italian painters, as my first step.’</p> +<p>‘Ancient? it is not four hundred years since Perugino died. +But I should suppose you do not intend to ignore classic art?’</p> +<p>‘You have divined rightly. I wish, in the study of the +antique, to arrive at the primeval laws of unfallen human beauty.’</p> +<p>‘Were Phidias and Praxiteles, then, so primeval? the world +had lasted many a thousand years before their turn came. If you +intend to begin at the beginning, why not go back at once to the garden +of Eden, and there study the true antique?’</p> +<p>‘If there were but any relics of it,’ said Lancelot, +puzzled, and laughing.</p> +<p>‘You would find it very near you, young man, if you had but +eyes to see it.’</p> +<p>Claude Mellot laughed significantly, and Sabina clapped her little +hands.</p> +<p>‘Yet till you take him with you, master, and show it to him, +he must needs be content with the Royal Academy and the Elgin marbles.’</p> +<p>‘But to what branch of painting, pray,’ said the master +to Lancelot, ‘will you apply your knowledge of the antique? +Will you, like this foolish fellow here’ (with a kindly glance +at Claude), ‘fritter yourself away on Nymphs and Venuses, in which +neither he nor any one else believes?’</p> +<p>‘Historic art, as the highest,’ answered Lancelot, ‘is +my ambition.’</p> +<p>‘It is well to aim at the highest, but only when it is possible +for us. And how can such a school exist in England now? +You English must learn to understand your own history before you paint +it. Rather follow in the steps of your Turners, and Landseers, +and Standfields, and Creswicks, and add your contribution to the present +noble school of naturalist painters. That is the niche in the +temple which God has set you English to fill up just now. These +men’s patient, reverent faith in Nature as they see her, their +knowledge that the ideal is neither to be invented nor abstracted, but +found and left where God has put it, and where alone it can be represented, +in actual and individual phenomena;—in these lies an honest development +of the true idea of Protestantism, which is paving the way to the mesothetic +art of the future.’</p> +<p>‘Glorious!’ said Sabina: ‘not a single word that +we poor creatures can understand!’</p> +<p>But our hero, who always took a virtuous delight in hearing what +he could not comprehend, went on to question the orator.</p> +<p>‘What, then, is the true idea of Protestantism?’ said +he.</p> +<p>‘The universal symbolism and dignity of matter, whether in +man or nature.’</p> +<p>‘But the Puritans—?’</p> +<p>‘Were inconsistent with themselves and with Protestantism, +and therefore God would not allow them to proceed. Yet their repudiation +of all art was better than the Judas-kiss which Romanism bestows on +it, in the meagre eclecticism of the ancient religious schools, and +of your modern Overbecks and Pugins. The only really wholesome +designer of great power whom I have seen in Germany is Kaulbach; and +perhaps every one would not agree with my reasons for admiring him, +in this whitewashed age. But you, young sir, were meant for better +things than art. Many young geniuses have an early hankering, +as Goethe had, to turn painters. It seems the shortest and easiest +method of embodying their conceptions in visible form; but they get +wiser afterwards, when they find in themselves thoughts that cannot +be laid upon the canvas. Come with me—I like striking while +the iron is hot; walk with me towards my lodgings, and we will discuss +this weighty matter.’</p> +<p>And with a gay farewell to the adoring little Sabina, he passed an +iron arm through Lancelot’s, and marched him down into the street.</p> +<p>Lancelot was surprised and almost nettled at the sudden influence +which he found this quaint personage was exerting over him. But +he had, of late, tasted the high delight of feeling himself under the +guidance of a superior mind, and longed to enjoy it once more. +Perhaps they were reminiscences of this kind which stirred in him the +strange fancy of a connection, almost of a likeness, between his new +acquaintance and Argemone. He asked, humbly enough, why Art was +to be a forbidden path to him?</p> +<p>‘Besides you are an Englishman, and a man of uncommon talent, +unless your physiognomy belies you; and one, too, for whom God has strange +things in store, or He would not have so suddenly and strangely overthrown +you.’</p> +<p>Lancelot started. He remembered that Tregarva had said just +the same thing to him that very morning, and the (to him) strange coincidence +sank deep into his heart.</p> +<p>‘You must be a politician,’ the stranger went on. +‘You are bound to it as your birthright. It has been England’s +privilege hitherto to solve all political questions as they arise for +the rest of the world; it is her duty now. Here, or nowhere, must +the solution be attempted of those social problems which are convulsing +more and more all Christendom. She cannot afford to waste brains +like yours, while in thousands of reeking alleys, such as that one opposite +us, heathens and savages are demanding the rights of citizenship. +Whether they be right or wrong, is what you, and such as you, have to +find out at this day.’</p> +<p>Silent and thoughtful, Lancelot walked on by his side.</p> +<p>‘What is become of your friend Tregarva? I met him this +morning after he parted from you, and had some talk with him. +I was sorely minded to enlist him. Perhaps I shall; in the meantime, +I shall busy myself with you.’</p> +<p>‘In what way,’ asked Lancelot, ‘most strange sir, +of whose name, much less of whose occupation, I can gain no tidings.’</p> +<p>‘My name for the time being is Barnakill. And as for +business, as it is your English fashion to call new things obstinately +by old names, careless whether they apply or not, you may consider me +as a recruiting-sergeant; which trade, indeed, I follow, though I am +no more like the popular red-coated ones than your present “glorious +constitution” is like William the Third’s, or Overbeck’s +high art like Fra Angelico’s. Farewell! When I want +you, which will be most likely when you want me, I shall find you again.’</p> +<p>The evening was passed, as Claude had promised, in a truly Horatian +manner. Sabina was most piquante, and Claude interspersed his +genial and enthusiastic eloquence with various wise saws of ‘the +prophet.’</p> +<p>‘But why on earth,’ quoth Lancelot, at last, ‘do +you call him a prophet?’</p> +<p>‘Because he is one; it’s his business, his calling. +He gets his living thereby, as the showman did by his elephant.’</p> +<p>‘But what does he foretell?’</p> +<p>‘Oh, son of the earth! And you went to Cambridge—are +reported to have gone in for the thing, or phantom, called the tripos, +and taken a first class! . . . Did you ever look out the word +“prophetes” in Liddell and Scott?’</p> +<p>‘Why, what do you know about Liddell and Scott?’</p> +<p>‘Nothing, thank goodness; I never had time to waste over the +crooked letters. But I have heard say that prophetes means, not +a foreteller, but an out-teller—one who declares the will of a +deity, and interprets his oracles. Is it not so?’</p> +<p>‘Undeniably.’</p> +<p>‘And that he became a foreteller among heathens at least—as +I consider, among all peoples whatsoever—because knowing the real +bearing of what had happened, and what was happening, he could discern +the signs of the times, and so had what the world calls a shrewd guess—what +I, like a Pantheist as I am denominated, should call a divine and inspired +foresight—of what was going to happen.’</p> +<p>‘A new notion, and a pleasant one, for it looks something like +a law.’</p> +<p>‘I am no scollard, as they would say in Whitford, you know; +but it has often struck me, that if folks would but believe that the +Apostles talked not such very bad Greek, and had some slight notion +of the received meaning of the words they used, and of the absurdity +of using the same term to express nineteen different things, the New +Testament would be found to be a much simpler and more severely philosophic +book than “Theologians” (“Anthropo-sophists” +I call them) fancy.’</p> +<p>‘Where on earth did you get all this wisdom, or foolishness?’</p> +<p>‘From the prophet, a fortnight ago.’</p> +<p>‘Who is this prophet? I will know.’</p> +<p>‘Then you will know more than I do. Sabina—light +my meerschaum, there’s a darling; it will taste the sweeter after +your lips.’ And Claude laid his delicate woman-like limbs +upon the sofa, and looked the very picture of luxurious nonchalance.</p> +<p>‘What is he, you pitiless wretch?’</p> +<p>‘Fairest Hebe, fill our Prometheus Vinctus another glass of +Burgundy, and find your guitar, to silence him.’</p> +<p>‘It was the ocean nymphs who came to comfort Prometheus—and +unsandalled, too, if I recollect right,’ said Lancelot, smiling +at Sabina. ‘Come, now, if he will not tell me, perhaps you +will?’</p> +<p>Sabina only blushed, and laughed mysteriously.</p> +<p>‘You surely are intimate with him, Claude? When and where +did you meet him first?’</p> +<p>‘Seventeen years ago, on the barricades of the three days, +in the charming little pandemonium called Paris, he picked me out of +a gutter, a boy of fifteen, with a musket-ball through my body; mended +me, and sent me to a painter’s studio. . . . The next séjour +I had with him began in sight of the Demawend. Sabina, perhaps +you might like to relate to Mr. Smith that interview, and the circumstances +under which you made your first sketch of that magnificent and little-known +volcano?’</p> +<p>Sabina blushed again—this time scarlet; and, to Lancelot’s +astonishment, pulled off her slipper, and brandishing it daintily, uttered +some unintelligible threat, in an Oriental language, at the laughing +Claude.</p> +<p>‘Why, you must have been in the East?’</p> +<p>‘Why not! Do you think that figure and that walk were +picked up in stay-ridden, toe-pinching England? . . . Ay, in the +East; and why not elsewhere? Do you think I got my knowledge of +the human figure from the live-model in the Royal Academy?’</p> +<p>‘I certainly have always had my doubts of it. You are +the only man I know who can paint muscle in motion.’</p> +<p>‘Because I am almost the only man in England who has ever seen +it. Artists should go to the Cannibal Islands for that. . . . +J’ai fait le grand tour. I should not wonder if the prophet +made you take it.’</p> +<p>‘That would be very much as I chose.’</p> +<p>‘Or otherwise.’</p> +<p>‘What do you mean?’</p> +<p>‘That if he wills you to go, I defy you to stay. Eh, +Sabina!’</p> +<p>‘Well, you are a very mysterious pair,—and a very charming +one.’</p> +<p>‘So we think ourselves—as to the charmingness. . . . +and as for the mystery . . . “Omnia exeunt in mysterium,” +says somebody, somewhere—or if he don’t, ought to, seeing +that it is so. You will be a mystery some day, and a myth, and +a thousand years hence pious old ladies will be pulling caps as to whether +you were a saint or a devil, and whether you did really work miracles +or not, as corroborations of your ex-supra-lunar illumination on social +questions. . . . Yes . . . you will have to submit, and see Bogy, +and enter the Eleusinian mysteries. Eh, Sabina?’</p> +<p>‘My dear Claude, what between the Burgundy and your usual foolishness, +you seem very much inclined to divulge the Eleusinian mysteries.’</p> +<p>‘I can’t well do that, my beauty, seeing that, if you +recollect, we were both turned back at the vestibule, for a pair of +naughty children as we are.’</p> +<p>‘Do be quiet! and let me enjoy, for once, my woman’s +right to the last word!’</p> +<p>And in this hopeful state of mystification, Lancelot went home, and +dreamt of Argemone.</p> +<p>His uncle would, and, indeed, as it seemed, could, give him very +little information on the question which had so excited his curiosity. +He had met the man in India many years before, had received there from +him most important kindnesses, and considered him, from experience, +of oracular wisdom. He seemed to have an unlimited command of +money, though most frugal in his private habits; visited England for +a short time every few years, and always under a different appellation; +but as for his real name, habitation, or business, here or at home, +the good banker knew nothing, except that whenever questioned on them, +he wandered off into Pantagruelist jokes, and ended in Cloud-land. +So that Lancelot was fain to give up his questions and content himself +with longing for the reappearance of this inexplicable sage.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XVI: ONCE IN A WAY</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>A few mornings afterwards, Lancelot, as he glanced his eye over the +columns of <i>The Times</i>, stopped short at the beloved name of Whitford. +To his disgust and disappointment, it only occurred in one of those +miserable cases, now of weekly occurrence, of concealing the birth of +a child. He was turning from it, when he saw Bracebridge’s +name. Another look sufficed to show him that he ought to go at +once to the colonel, who had returned the day before from Norway.</p> +<p>A few minutes brought him to his friend’s lodging, but <i>The +Times</i> had arrived there before him. Bracebridge was sitting +over his untasted breakfast, his face buried in his hands.</p> +<p>‘Do not speak to me,’ he said, without looking up. +‘It was right of you to come—kind of you; but it is too +late.’</p> +<p>He started, and looked wildly round him, as if listening for some +sound which he expected, and then laid his head down on the table. +Lancelot turned to go.</p> +<p>‘No—do not leave me! Not alone, for God’s +sake, not alone!’</p> +<p>Lancelot sat down. There was a fearful alteration in Bracebridge. +His old keen self-confident look had vanished. He was haggard, +life-weary, shame-stricken, almost abject. His limbs looked quite +shrunk and powerless, as he rested his head on the table before him, +and murmured incoherently from time to time,—</p> +<p>‘My own child! And I never shall have another! +No second chance for those who—Oh Mary! Mary! you might +have waited—you might have trusted me! And why should you?—ay, +why, indeed? And such a pretty baby, too!—just like his +father!’</p> +<p>Lancelot laid his hand kindly on his shoulder.</p> +<p>‘My dearest Bracebridge, the evidence proves that the child +was born dead.’</p> +<p>‘They lie!’ he said, fiercely, starting up. ‘It +cried twice after it was born!’</p> +<p>Lancelot stood horror-struck.</p> +<p>‘I heard it last night, and the night before that, and the +night before that again, under my pillow, shrieking—stifling—two +little squeaks, like a caught hare; and I tore the pillows off it—I +did; and once I saw it, and it had beautiful black eyes—just like +its father—just like a little miniature that used to lie on my +mother’s table, when I knelt at her knee, before they sent me +out “to see life,” and Eton, and the army, and Crockford’s, +and Newmarket, and fine gentlemen, and fine ladies, and luxury, and +flattery, brought me to this! Oh, father! father! was that the +only way to make a gentleman of your son?—There it is again! +Don’t you hear it?—under the sofa cushions! Tear them +off! Curse you! Save it!’</p> +<p>And, with a fearful oath, the wretched man sent Lancelot staggering +across the room, and madly tore up the cushions.</p> +<p>A long postman’s knock at the door.—He suddenly rose +up quite collected.</p> +<p>‘The letter! I knew it would come. She need not +have written it: I know what is in it.’</p> +<p>The servant’s step came up the stairs. Poor Bracebridge +turned to Lancelot with something of his own stately determination.</p> +<p>‘I must be alone when I receive this letter. Stay here.’ +And with compressed lips and fixed eyes he stalked out at the door, +and shut it.</p> +<p>Lancelot heard him stop; then the servant’s footsteps down +the stairs; then the colonel’s treading, slowly and heavily, went +step by step up to the room above. He shut that door too. +A dead silence followed. Lancelot stood in fearful suspense, and +held his breath to listen. Perhaps he had fainted? No, for +then he would have heard a fall. Perhaps he had fallen on the +bed? He would go and see. No, he would wait a little longer. +Perhaps he was praying? He had told Lancelot to pray once—he +dared not interrupt him now. A slight stir—a noise as of +an opening box. Thank God, he was, at least, alive! Nonsense! +Why should he not be alive? What could happen to him? And yet +he knew that something was going to happen. The silence was ominous—unbearable; +the air of the room felt heavy and stifling, as if a thunderstorm were +about to burst. He longed to hear the man raging and stamping. +And yet he could not connect the thought of one so gay and full of gallant +life, with the terrible dread that was creeping over him—with +the terrible scene which he had just witnessed. It must be all +a temporary excitement—a mistake—a hideous dream, which +the next post would sweep away. He would go and tell him so. +No, he could not stir. His limbs seemed leaden, his feet felt +rooted to the ground, as in long nightmare. And still the intolerable +silence brooded overhead.</p> +<p>What broke it? A dull, stifled report, as of a pistol fired +against the ground; a heavy fall; and again the silence of death.</p> +<p>He rushed upstairs. A corpse lay on its face upon the floor, +and from among its hair, a crimson thread crept slowly across the carpet. +It was all over. He bent over the head, but one look was sufficient. +He did not try to lift it up.</p> +<p>On the table lay the fatal letter. Lancelot knew that he had +a right to read it. It was scrawled, mis-spelt—but there +were no tear-blots on the paper:—</p> +<p>‘Sir—I am in prison—and where are you? Cruel +man! Where were you all those miserable weeks, while I was coming +nearer and nearer to my shame? Murdering dumb beasts in foreign +lands. You have murdered more than them. How I loved you +once! How I hate you now! But I have my revenge. <i>Your +baby cried twice after it was born</i>!’</p> +<p>Lancelot tore the letter into a hundred pieces, and swallowed them, +for every foot in the house was on the stairs.</p> +<p>So there was terror, and confusion, and running in and out: but there +were no wet eyes there except those of Bracebridge’s groom, who +threw himself on the body, and would not stir. And then there +was a coroner’s inquest; and it came out in the evidence how ‘the +deceased had been for several days very much depressed, and had talked +of voices and apparitions;’ whereat the jury—as twelve honest, +good-natured Christians were bound to do—returned a verdict of +temporary insanity; and in a week more the penny-a-liners grew tired; +and the world, too, who never expects anything, not even French revolutions, +grew tired also of repeating,—‘Dear me! who would have expected +it?’ and having filled up the colonel’s place, swaggered +on as usual, arm-in-arm with the flesh and the devil.</p> +<p>Bracebridge’s death had, of course, a great effect on Lancelot’s +spirit. Not in the way of warning, though—such events seldom +act in that way, on the highest as well as on the lowest minds. +After all, your ‘Rakes’ Progresses,’ and ‘Atheists’ +Deathbeds,’ do no more good than noble George Cruikshank’s +‘Bottle’ will, because every one knows that they are the +exception, and not the rule; that the Atheist generally dies with a +conscience as comfortably callous as a rhinocerous-hide; and the rake, +when old age stops his power of sinning, becomes generally rather more +respectable than his neighbours. The New Testament deals very +little in appeals <i>ad terrorem</i>; and it would be well if some, +who fancy that they follow it, would do the same, and by abstaining +from making ‘hell-fire’ the chief incentive to virtue, cease +from tempting many a poor fellow to enlist on the devil’s side +the only manly feeling he has left—personal courage.</p> +<p>But yet Lancelot was affected. And when, on the night of the +colonel’s funeral, he opened, at hazard, Argemone’s Bible, +and his eyes fell on the passage which tells how ‘one shall be +taken and another left,’ great honest tears of gratitude dropped +upon the page; and he fell on his knees, and in bitter self-reproach +thanked the new found Upper Powers, who, as he began to hope, were leading +him not in vain,—that he had yet a life before him wherein to +play the man.</p> +<p>And now he felt that the last link was broken between him and all +his late frivolous companions. All had deserted him in his ruin +but this one—and he was silent in the grave. And now, from +the world and all its toys and revelry, he was parted once and for ever; +and he stood alone in the desert, like the last Arab of a plague-stricken +tribe, looking over the wreck of ancient cities, across barren sands, +where far rivers gleamed in the distance, that seemed to beckon him +away into other climes, other hopes, other duties. Old things +had passed away—when would all things become new?</p> +<p>Not yet, Lancelot. Thou hast still one selfish hope, one dream +of bliss, however impossible, yet still cherished. Thou art a +changed man—but for whose sake? For Argemone’s. +Is she to be thy god, then? Art thou to live for her, or for the +sake of One greater than she? All thine idols are broken—swiftly +the desert sands are drifting over them, and covering them in.—All +but one—must that, too, be taken from thee?</p> +<p>One morning a letter was put into Lancelot’s hands, bearing +the Whitford postmark. Tremblingly he tore it open. It contained +a few passionate words from Honoria. Argemone was dying of typhus +fever, and entreating to see him once again; and Honoria had, with some +difficulty, as she hinted, obtained leave from her parents to send for +him. His last bank note carried him down to Whitford; and, calm +and determined, as one who feels that he has nothing more to lose on +earth, and whose torment must henceforth become his element, he entered +the Priory that evening.</p> +<p>He hardly spoke or looked at a soul; he felt that he was there on +an errand which none understood; that he was moving towards Argemone +through a spiritual world, in which he and she were alone; that, in +his utter poverty and hopelessness, he stood above all the luxury, even +above all the sorrow, around him; that she belonged to him, and to him +alone; and the broken-hearted beggar followed the weeping Honoria towards +his lady’s chamber, with the step and bearing of a lord. +He was wrong; there were pride and fierceness enough in his heart, mingled +with that sense of nothingness of rank, money, chance and change, yea, +death itself, of all but Love;—mingled even with that intense +belief that his sorrows were but his just deserts, which now possessed +all his soul. And in after years he knew that he was wrong; but +so he felt at the time; and even then the strength was not all of earth +which bore him manlike through that hour.</p> +<p>He entered the room; the darkness, the silence, the cool scent of +vinegar, struck a shudder through him. The squire was sitting +half idiotic and helpless, in his arm-chair. His face lighted +up as Lancelot entered, and he tried to hold out his palsied hand. +Lancelot did not see him. Mrs. Lavington moved proudly and primly +back from the bed, with a face that seemed to say through its tears, +‘I at least am responsible for nothing that occurs from this interview.’ +Lancelot did not see her either: he walked straight up towards the bed +as if he were treading on his own ground. His heart was between +his lips, and yet his whole soul felt as dry and hard as some burnt-out +volcano-crater.</p> +<p>A faint voice—oh, how faint, how changed!—called him +from within the closed curtains.</p> +<p>‘He is there! I know it is he! Lancelot! my Lancelot!’</p> +<p>Silently still he drew aside the curtain; the light fell full upon +her face. What a sight! Her beautiful hair cut close, a +ghastly white handkerchief round her head, those bright eyes sunk and +lustreless, those ripe lips baked, and black and drawn; her thin hand +fingering uneasily the coverlid.—It was too much for him. +He shuddered and turned his face away. Quick-sighted that love +is, even to the last! slight as the gesture was, she saw it in an instant.</p> +<p>‘You are not afraid of infection?’ she said, faintly. +‘I was not.’</p> +<p>Lancelot laughed aloud, as men will at strangest moments, sprung +towards her with open arms, and threw himself on his knees beside the +bed. With sudden strength she rose upright, and clasped him in +her arms.</p> +<p>‘Once more!’ she sighed, in a whisper to herself, ‘Once +more on earth!’ And the room, and the spectators, and disease +itself faded from around them like vain dreams, as she nestled closer +and closer to him, and gazed into his eyes, and passed her shrunken +hand over his cheeks, and toyed with his hair, and seemed to drink in +magnetic life from his embrace.</p> +<p>No one spoke or stirred. They felt that an awful and blessed +spirit overshadowed the lovers, and were hushed, as if in the sanctuary +of God.</p> +<p>Suddenly again she raised her head from his bosom, and in a tone, +in which her old queenliness mingled strangely with the saddest tenderness,—</p> +<p>‘All of you go away now; I must talk to my husband alone.’</p> +<p>They went, leading out the squire, who cast puzzled glances toward +the pair, and murmured to himself that ‘she was sure to get well +now Smith was come: everything went right when he was in the way.’</p> +<p>So they were left alone.</p> +<p>‘I do not look so very ugly, my darling, do I? Not so +very ugly? though they have cut off all my poor hair, and I told them +so often not! But I kept a lock for you;’ and feebly she +drew from under the pillow a long auburn tress, and tried to wreathe +it round his neck, but could not, and sunk back.</p> +<p>Poor fellow! he could bear no more. He hid his face in his +hands, and burst into a long low weeping.</p> +<p>‘I am very thirsty, darling; reach me—No, I will drink +no more, except from your dear lips.’</p> +<p>He lifted up his head, and breathed his whole soul upon her lips; +his tears fell on her closed eyelids.</p> +<p>‘Weeping? No.—You must not cry. See how comfortable +I am. They are all so kind—soft bed, cool room, fresh air, +sweet drinks, sweet scents. Oh, so different from <i>that</i> +room!’</p> +<p>‘What room?—my own!’</p> +<p>‘Listen, and I will tell you. Sit down—put your +arm under my head—so. When I am on your bosom I feel so +strong. God! let me last to tell him all. It was for that +I sent for him.’</p> +<p>And then, in broken words, she told him how she had gone up to the +fever patient at Ashy, on the fatal night on which Lancelot had last +seen her. Shuddering, she hinted at the horrible filth and misery +she had seen, at the foul scents which had sickened her. A madness +of remorse, she said, had seized her. She had gone, in spite of +her disgust, to several houses which she found open. There were +worse cottages there than even her father’s; some tradesmen in +a neighbouring town had been allowed to run up a set of rack rent hovels.—Another +shudder seized her when she spoke of them; and from that point in her +story all was fitful, broken, like the images of a hideous dream. +‘Every instant those foul memories were defiling her nostrils. +A horrible loathing had taken possession of her, recurring from time +to time, till it ended in delirium and fever. A scent-fiend was +haunting her night and day,’ she said. ‘And now the +curse of the Lavingtons had truly come upon her. To perish by +the people whom they made. Their neglect, cupidity, oppression, +are avenged on me! Why not? Have I not wantoned in down +and perfumes, while they, by whose labour my luxuries were bought, were +pining among scents and sounds,—one day of which would have driven +me mad! And then they wonder why men turn Chartists! There +are those horrible scents again! Save me from them! Lancelot—darling! +Take me to the fresh air! I choke! I am festering away! +The Nun-pool! Take all the water, every drop, and wash Ashy clean +again! Make a great fountain in it—beautiful marble—to +bubble and gurgle, and trickle and foam, for ever and ever, and wash +away the sins of the Lavingtons, that the little rosy children may play +round it, and the poor toil-bent woman may wash—and wash—and +drink—Water! water! I am dying of thirst!’</p> +<p>He gave her water, and then she lay back and babbled about the Nun-pool +sweeping ‘all the houses of Ashy into one beautiful palace, among +great flower-gardens, where the school children will sit and sing such +merry hymns, and never struggle with great pails of water up the hill +of Ashy any more.’</p> +<p>‘You will do it! darling! Strong, wise, noble-hearted +that you are! Why do you look at me? You will be rich some +day. You will own land, for you are worthy to own it. Oh +that I could give you Whitford! No! It was mine too long—therefore +I die! because I—Lord Jesus! have I not repented of my sin?’</p> +<p>Then she grew calm once more. A soft smile crept over her face, +as it grew sharper and paler every moment. Faintly she sank back +on the pillows, and faintly whispered to him to kneel and pray. +He obeyed her mechanically. . . . ‘No—not for me, +for them—for them, and for yourself—that you may save them +whom I never dreamt that I was bound to save!’</p> +<p>And he knelt and prayed . . . what, he alone and those who heard +his prayer, can tell. . . .</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>When he lifted up his head at last, he saw that Argemone lay motionless. +For a moment he thought she was dead, and frantically sprang to the +bell. The family rushed in with the physician. She gave +some faint token of life, but none of consciousness. The doctor +sighed, and said that her end was near. Lancelot had known that +all along.</p> +<p>‘I think, sir, you had better leave the room,’ said Mrs. +Lavington; and followed him into the passage.</p> +<p>What she was about to say remained unspoken; for Lancelot seized +her hand in spite of her, with frantic thanks for having allowed him +this one interview, and entreaties that he might see her again, if but +for one moment.</p> +<p>Mrs. Lavington, somewhat more softly than usual, said,—‘That +the result of this visit had not been such as to make a second desirable—that +she had no wish to disturb her daughter’s mind at such a moment +with earthly regrets.’</p> +<p>‘Earthly regrets!’ How little she knew what had +passed there! But if she had known, would she have been one whit +softened? For, indeed, Argemone’s spirituality was not in +her mother’s language. And yet the good woman had prayed, +and prayed, and wept bitter tears, by her daughter’s bedside, +day after day; but she had never heard her pronounce the talismanic +formula of words, necessary in her eyes to ensure salvation; and so +she was almost without hope for her. Oh, Bigotry! Devil, +who turnest God’s love into man’s curse! are not human hearts +hard and blind enough of themselves, without thy cursed help?</p> +<p>For one moment a storm of unutterable pride and rage convulsed Lancelot—the +next instant love conquered; and the strong proud man threw himself +on his knees at the feet of the woman he despised, and with wild sobs +entreated for one moment more—one only!</p> +<p>At that instant a shriek from Honoria resounded from the sick chamber. +Lancelot knew what it meant, and sprang up, as men do when shot through +the heart.—In a moment he was himself again. A new life +had begun for him—alone.</p> +<p>‘You will not need to grant my prayer, madam,’ he said, +calmly: ‘Argemone is dead.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XVII: THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Let us pass over the period of dull, stupefied misery that followed, +when Lancelot had returned to his lonely lodging, and the excitement +of his feelings had died away. It is impossible to describe that +which could not be separated into parts, in which there was no foreground, +no distance, but only one dead, black, colourless present. After +a time, however, he began to find that fancies, almost ridiculously +trivial, arrested and absorbed his attention; even as when our eyes +have become accustomed to darkness, every light-coloured mote shows +luminous against the void blackness of night. So we are tempted +to unseemly frivolity in churches, and at funerals, and all most solemn +moments; and so Lancelot found his imagination fluttering back, half +amused, to every smallest circumstance of the last few weeks, as objects +of mere curiosity, and found with astonishment that they had lost their +power of paining him. Just as victims on the rack have fallen, +it is said, by length of torture, into insensibility, and even calm +repose, his brain had been wrought until all feeling was benumbed. +He began to think what an interesting autobiography his life might make; +and the events of the last few years began to arrange themselves in +a most attractive dramatic form. He began even to work out a scene +or two, and where ‘motives’ seemed wanting, to invent them +here and there. He sat thus for hours silent over his fire, playing +with his old self, as though it were a thing which did not belong to +him—a suit of clothes which he had put off, and which,</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘For that it was too rich to hang by the wall,<br />It must +be ripped,’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>and then pieced and dizened out afresh as a toy. And then again +he started away from his own thoughts, at finding himself on the edge +of that very gulf, which, as Mellot had lately told him, Barnakill denounced +as the true hell of genius, where Art is regarded as an end and not +a means, and objects are interesting, not in as far as they form our +spirits, but in proportion as they can be shaped into effective parts +of some beautiful whole. But whether it was a temptation or none, +the desire recurred to him again and again. He even attempted +to write, but sickened at the sight of the first words. He turned +to his pencil, and tried to represent with it one scene at least; and +with the horrible calmness of some self-torturing ascetic, he sat down +to sketch a drawing of himself and Argemone on her dying day, with her +head upon his bosom for the last time—and then tossed it angrily +into the fire, partly because he felt just as he had in his attempts +to write, that there was something more in all these events than he +could utter by pen or pencil, than he could even understand; principally +because he could not arrange the attitudes gracefully enough. +And now, in front of the stern realities of sorrow and death, he began +to see a meaning in another mysterious saying of Barnakill’s, +which Mellot was continually quoting, that ‘Art was never Art +till it was more than Art; that the Finite only existed as a body of +the Infinite; and that the man of genius must first know the Infinite, +unless he wished to become not a poet, but a maker of idols.’ +Still he felt in himself a capability, nay, an infinite longing to speak; +though what he should utter, or how—whether as poet, social theorist, +preacher, he could not yet decide. Barnakill had forbidden him +painting, and though he hardly knew why, he dared not disobey him. +But Argemone’s dying words lay on him as a divine command to labour. +All his doubts, his social observations, his dreams of the beautiful +and the blissful, his intense perception of social evils, his new-born +hope—faith it could not yet be called—in a ruler and deliverer +of the world, all urged him on to labour: but at what? He felt +as if he were the demon in the legend, condemned to twine endless ropes +of sand. The world, outside which he now stood for good and evil, +seemed to him like some frantic whirling waltz; some serried struggling +crowd, which rushed past him in aimless confusion, without allowing +him time or opening to take his place among their ranks: and as for +wings to rise above, and to look down upon the uproar, where were they? +His melancholy paralysed him more and more. He was too listless +even to cater for his daily bread by writing his articles for the magazines. +Why should he? He had nothing to say. Why should he pour +out words and empty sound, and add one more futility to the herd of +‘prophets that had become wind, and had no truth in them’? +Those who could write without a conscience, without an object except +that of seeing their own fine words, and filling their own pockets—let +them do it: for his part he would have none of it. But his purse +was empty, and so was his stomach; and as for asking assistance of his +uncle, it was returning like the dog to his vomit. So one day +he settled all bills with his last shilling, tied up his remaining clothes +in a bundle, and stoutly stepped forth into the street to find a job—to +hold a horse, if nothing better offered; when, behold! on the threshold +he met Barnakill himself.</p> +<p>‘Whither away?’ said that strange personage. ‘I +was just going to call on you.’</p> +<p>‘To earn my bread by the labour of my hands. So our fathers +all began.’</p> +<p>‘And so their sons must all end. Do you want work?’</p> +<p>‘Yes, if you have any.’</p> +<p>‘Follow me, and carry a trunk home from a shop to my lodgings.’</p> +<p>He strode off, with Lancelot after him; entered a mathematical instrument +maker’s shop in the neighbouring street, and pointed out a heavy +corded case to Lancelot, who, with the assistance of the shopman, got +it on his shoulders; and trudging forth through the streets after his +employer, who walked before him silent and unregarding, felt himself +for the first time in his life in the same situation as nine hundred +and ninety-nine out of every thousand of Adam’s descendants, and +discovered somewhat to his satisfaction that when he could once rid +his mind of its old superstition that every one was looking at him, +it mattered very little whether the burden carried were a deal trunk +or a Downing Street despatch-box.</p> +<p>His employer’s lodgings were in St. Paul’s Churchyard. +Lancelot set the trunk down inside the door.</p> +<p>‘What do you charge?’</p> +<p>‘Sixpence.’</p> +<p>Barnakill looked him steadily in the face, gave him the sixpence, +went in, and shut the door.</p> +<p>Lancelot wandered down the street, half amused at the simple test +which had just been applied to him, and yet sickened with disappointment; +for he had cherished a mysterious fancy that with this strange being +all his hopes of future activity were bound up. Tregarva’s +month was nearly over, and yet no tidings of him had come. Mellot +had left London on some mysterious errand of the prophet’s, and +for the first time in his life he seemed to stand utterly alone. +He was at one pole, and the whole universe at the other. It was +in vain to tell himself that his own act had placed him there; that +he had friends to whom he might appeal. He would not, he dare +not, accept outward help, even outward friendship, however hearty and +sincere, at that crisis of his existence. It seemed a desecration +of its awfulness to find comfort in anything but the highest and the +deepest. And the glimpse of that which he had attained seemed +to have passed away from him again,—seemed to be something which, +as it had arisen with Argemone, was lost with her also,—one speck +of the far blue sky which the rolling clouds had covered in again. +As he passed under the shadow of the huge soot-blackened cathedral, +and looked at its grim spiked railings and closed doors, it seemed to +him a symbol of the spiritual world, clouded and barred from him. +He stopped and looked up, and tried to think. The rays of the +setting sun lighted up in clear radiance the huge cross on the summit. +Was it an omen? Lancelot thought so; but at that instant he felt +a hand on his shoulder, and looked round. It was that strange +man again.</p> +<p>‘So far well,’ said he. ‘You are making a +better day’s work than you fancy, and earning more wages. +For instance, here is a packet for you.’</p> +<p>Lancelot seized it, trembling, and tore it open. It was directed +in Honoria’s handwriting.</p> +<p>‘Whence had you this?’ said he.</p> +<p>‘Through Mellot, through whom I can return your answer, if +one be needed.’</p> +<p>The letter was significant of Honoria’s character. It +busied itself entirely about facts, and showed the depth of her sorrow +by making no allusion to it. ‘Argemone, as Lancelot was +probably aware, had bequeathed to him the whole of her own fortune at +Mrs. Lavington’s death, and had directed that various precious +things of hers should be delivered over to him immediately. Her +mother, however, kept her chamber under lock and key, and refused to +allow an article to be removed from its accustomed place. It was +natural in the first burst of her sorrow, and Lancelot would pardon.’ +All his drawings and letters had been, by Argemone’s desire, placed +with her in her coffin. Honoria had been only able to obey her +in sending a favourite ring of hers, and with it the last stanzas which +she had composed before her death:—</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘Twin stars, aloft in ether clear,<br /> Around +each other roll away,<br />Within one common atmosphere<br /> Of +their own mutual light and day.</p> +<p>‘And myriad happy eyes are bent<br /> Upon +their changeless love alway;<br />As, strengthened by their one intent,<br /> They +pour the flood of life and day,</p> +<p>‘So we, through this world’s waning night,<br /> Shall, +hand in hand, pursue our way;<br />Shed round us order, love, and light,<br /> And +shine unto the perfect day.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The precious relic, with all its shattered hopes, came at the right +moment to soften his hard-worn heart. The sight, the touch of +it, shot like an electric spark through the black stifling thunder-cloud +of his soul, and dissolved it in refreshing showers of tears.</p> +<p>Barnakill led him gently within the area of the railings, where he +might conceal his emotion, and it was but a few seconds before Lancelot +had recovered his self-possession and followed him up the steps through +the wicket door.</p> +<p>They entered. The afternoon service was proceeding. The +organ droned sadly in its iron cage to a few musical amateurs. +Some nursery maids and foreign sailors stared about within the spiked +felon’s dock which shut off the body of the cathedral, and tried +in vain to hear what was going on inside the choir. As a wise +author—a Protestant, too—has lately said, ‘the scanty +service rattled in the vast building, like a dried kernel too small +for its shell.’ The place breathed imbecility, and unreality, +and sleepy life-in-death, while the whole nineteenth century went roaring +on its way outside. And as Lancelot thought, though only as a +<i>dilettante</i>, of old St. Paul’s, the morning star and focal +beacon of England through centuries and dynasties, from old Augustine +and Mellitus, up to those Paul’s Cross sermons whose thunders +shook thrones, and to noble Wren’s masterpiece of art, he asked, +‘Whither all this? Coleridge’s dictum, that a cathedral +is a petrified religion, may be taken to bear more meanings than one. +When will life return to this cathedral system?’</p> +<p>‘When was it ever a living system?’ answered the other. +‘When was it ever anything but a transitionary makeshift since +the dissolution of the monasteries?’</p> +<p>‘Why, then, not away with it at once?’</p> +<p>‘You English have not done with it yet. At all events, +it is keeping your cathedrals rain-proof for you, till you can put them +to some better use than now.’</p> +<p>‘And in the meantime?’</p> +<p>‘In the meantime there is life enough in them; life that will +wake the dead some day. Do you hear what those choristers are +chanting now?’</p> +<p>‘Not I,’ said Lancelot; ‘nor any one round us, +I should think.’</p> +<p>‘That is our own fault, after all; for we were not good churchmen +enough to come in time for vespers.’</p> +<p>‘Are you a churchman then?’</p> +<p>‘Yes, thank God. There may be other churches than those +of Europe or Syria, and right Catholic ones, too. But, shall I +tell you what they are singing? “He hath put down the mighty +from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath +filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He hath sent empty +away.” Is there no life, think you, in those words, spoken +here every afternoon in the name of God?’</p> +<p>‘By hirelings, who neither care nor understand—’</p> +<p>‘Hush. Be not hasty with imputations of evil, within +walls dedicated to and preserved by the All-good. Even should +the speakers forget the meaning of their own words, to my sense, perhaps, +that may just now leave the words more entirely God’s. At +all events, confess that whatever accidental husks may have clustered +round it, here is a germ of Eternal Truth. No, I dare not despair +of you English, as long as I hear your priesthood forced by Providence, +even in spite of themselves, thus to speak God’s words about an +age in which the condition of the poor, and the rights and duties of +man, are becoming the rallying-point for all thought and all organisation.’</p> +<p>‘But does it not make the case more hopeless that such words +have been spoken for centuries, and no man regards them?’</p> +<p>‘You have to blame for that the people, rather than the priest. +As they are, so will he be, in every age and country. He is but +the index which the changes of their spiritual state move up and down +the scale: and as they will become in England in the next half century, +so will he become also.’</p> +<p>‘And can these dry bones live?’ asked Lancelot, scornfully.</p> +<p>‘Who are you to ask? What were you three months ago? +for I know well your story. But do you remember what the prophet +saw in the Valley of Vision? How first that those same dry bones +shook and clashed together, as if uneasy because they were disorganised; +and how they then found flesh and stood upright: and yet there was no +life in them, till at last the Spirit came down and entered into them? +Surely there is shaking enough among the bones now! It is happening +to the body of your England as it did to Adam’s after he was made. +It lay on earth, the rabbis say, forty days before the breath of life +was put into it, and the devil came and kicked it; and it sounded hollow, +as England is doing now; but that did not prevent the breath of life +coming in good time, nor will it in England’s case.’</p> +<p>Lancelot looked at him with a puzzled face.</p> +<p>‘You must not speak in such deep parables to so young a learner.’</p> +<p>‘Is my parable so hard, then? Look around you and see +what is the characteristic of your country and of your generation at +this moment. What a yearning, what an expectation, amid infinite +falsehoods and confusions, of some nobler, more chivalrous, more godlike +state! Your very costermonger trolls out his belief that “there’s +a good time coming,” and the hearts of <i>gamins</i>, as well +as millenarians, answer, “True!” Is not that a clashing +among the dry bones? And as for flesh, what new materials are +springing up among you every month, spiritual and physical, for a state +such as “eye hath not seen nor ear heard?”—railroads, +electric telegraphs, associate-lodging-houses, club-houses, sanitary +reforms, experimental schools, chemical agriculture, a matchless school +of inductive science, an equally matchless school of naturalist painters,—and +all this in the very workshop of the world! Look, again, at the +healthy craving after religious art and ceremonial,—the strong +desire to preserve that which has stood the test of time; and on the +other hand, at the manful resolution of your middle classes to stand +or fall by the Bible alone,—to admit no innovations in worship +which are empty of instinctive meaning. Look at the enormous amount +of practical benevolence which now struggles in vain against evil, only +because it is as yet private, desultory, divided. How dare you, +young man, despair of your own nation, while its nobles can produce +a Carlisle, an Ellesmere, an Ashley, a Robert Grosvenor,—while +its middle classes can beget a Faraday, a Stephenson, a Brooke, an Elizabeth +Fry? See, I say, what a chaos of noble materials is here,—all +confused, it is true,—polarised, jarring, and chaotic,—here +bigotry, there self-will, superstition, sheer Atheism often, but only +waiting for the one inspiring Spirit to organise, and unite, and consecrate +this chaos into the noblest polity the world ever saw realised! +What a destiny may be that of your land, if you have but the faith to +see your own honour! Were I not of my own country, I would be +an Englishman this day.’</p> +<p>‘And what is your country?’ asked Lancelot. ‘It +should be a noble one which breeds such men as you.’</p> +<p>The stranger smiled.</p> +<p>‘Will you go thither with me?’</p> +<p>‘Why not? I long for travel, and truly I am sick of my +own country. When the Spirit of which you speak,’ he went +on, bitterly, ‘shall descend, I may return; till then England +is no place for the penniless.’</p> +<p>‘How know you that the Spirit is not even now poured out? +Must your English Pharisees and Sadducees, too, have signs and wonders +ere they believe? Will man never know that “the kingdom +of God comes not by observation”? that now, as ever, His promise +stands true,—“Lo! I am with you alway, even unto the +end of the world”? How many inspired hearts even now may +be cherishing in secret the idea which shall reform the age, and fulfil +at once the longings of every sect and rank?’</p> +<p>‘Name it to me, then!’</p> +<p>‘Who can name it? Who can even see it, but those who +are like Him from whom it comes? Them a long and stern discipline +awaits. Would you be of them, you must, like the Highest who ever +trod this earth, go fasting into the wilderness, and, among the wild +beasts, stand alone face to face with the powers of Nature.’</p> +<p>‘I will go where you shall bid me. I will turn shepherd +among the Scottish mountains—live as an anchorite in the solitudes +of Dartmoor. But to what purpose? I have listened long to +Nature’s voice, but even the whispers of a spiritual presence +which haunted my childhood have died away, and I hear nothing in her +but the grinding of the iron wheels of mechanical necessity.’</p> +<p>‘Which is the will of God. Henceforth you shall study, +not Nature, but Him. Yet as for place—I do not like your +English primitive formations, where earth, worn out with struggling, +has fallen wearily asleep. No, you shall rather come to Asia, +the oldest and yet the youngest continent,—to our volcanic mountain +ranges, where her bosom still heaves with the creative energy of youth, +around the primeval cradle of the most ancient race of men. Then, +when you have learnt the wondrous harmony between man and his dwelling-place, +I will lead you to a land where you shall see the highest spiritual +cultivation in triumphant contact with the fiercest energies of matter; +where men have learnt to tame and use alike the volcano and the human +heart, where the body and the spirit, the beautiful and the useful, +the human and the divine, are no longer separate, and men have embodied +to themselves on earth an image of the “city not made with hands, +eternal in the heavens.”’</p> +<p>‘Where is this land?’ said Lancelot eagerly.</p> +<p>‘Poor human nature must have its name for everything. +You have heard of the country of Prester John, that mysterious Christian +empire, rarely visited by European eye?’</p> +<p>‘There are legends of two such,’ said Lancelot, ‘an +Ethiopian and an Asiatic one; and the Ethiopian, if we are to believe +Colonel Harris’s Journey to Shoa, is a sufficiently miserable +failure.’</p> +<p>‘True; the day of the Chamitic race is past; you will not say +the same of our Caucasian empire. To our race the present belongs,—to +England, France, Germany, America,—to us. Will you see what +we have done, and, perhaps, bring home, after long wanderings, a message +for your country which may help to unravel the tangled web of this strange +time?’</p> +<p>‘I will,’ said Lancelot, ‘now, this moment. +And yet, no. There is one with whom I have promised to share all +future weal and woe. Without him I can take no step.’</p> +<p>‘Tregarva?’</p> +<p>‘Yes—he. What made you guess that I spoke of him?’</p> +<p>‘Mellot told me of him, and of you, too, six weeks ago. +He is now gone to fetch him from Manchester. I cannot trust him +here in England yet. The country made him sad; London has made +him mad; Manchester may make him bad. It is too fearful a trial +even for his faith. I must take him with us.’</p> +<p>‘What interest in him—not to say what authority over +him—have you?’</p> +<p>‘The same which I have over you. You will come with me; +so will he. It is my business, as my name signifies, to save the +children alive whom European society leaves carelessly and ignorantly +to die. And as for my power, I come,’ said he, with a smile, +‘from a country which sends no one on its errands without first +thoroughly satisfying itself as to his power of fulfilling them.’</p> +<p>‘If he goes, I go with you.’</p> +<p>‘And he will go. And yet, think what you do. It +is a fearful journey. They who travel it, even as they came naked +out of their mother’s womb—even as they return thither, +and carry nothing with them of all which they have gotten in this life, +so must those who travel to my land.’</p> +<p>‘What? Tregarva? Is he, too, to give up all? +I had thought that I saw in him a precious possession, one for which +I would barter all my scholarship, my talents,—ay—my life +itself.’</p> +<p>‘A possession worth your life? What then?’</p> +<p>‘Faith in an unseen God.’</p> +<p>‘Ask him whether he would call that a possession—his +own in any sense?’</p> +<p>‘He would call it a revelation to him.’</p> +<p>‘That is, a taking of the veil from something which was behind +the veil already.’</p> +<p>‘Yes.’</p> +<p>‘And which may therefore just as really be behind the veil +in other cases without its presence being suspected.’</p> +<p>‘Certainly.’</p> +<p>‘In what sense, now, is that a possession? Do you possess +the sun because you see it? Did Herschel create Uranus by discovering +it; or even increase, by an atom, its attraction on one particle of +his own body?”</p> +<p>‘Whither is all this tending?’</p> +<p>‘Hither. Tregarva does not possess his Father and his +Lord; he is possessed by them.’</p> +<p>‘But he would say—and I should believe him—that +he has seen and known them, not with his bodily eyes, but with his soul, +heart, imagination—call it what you will. All I know is, +that between him and me there is a great gulf fixed.’</p> +<p>‘What! seen and known them utterly? comprehended them? +Are they not infinite, incomprehensible? Can the less comprehend +the greater?’</p> +<p>‘He knows, at least, enough of them to make him what I am not.’</p> +<p>‘That is, he knows something of them. And may not you +know something of them also?—enough to make you what he is not?’</p> +<p>Lancelot shook his head in silence.</p> +<p>‘Suppose that you had met and spoken with your father, and +loved him when you saw him, and yet were not aware of the relation in +which you stood to him, still you would know him?’</p> +<p>‘Not the most important thing of all—that he was my father.’</p> +<p>‘Is that the most important thing? Is it not more important +that he should know that you were his son? That he should support, +guide, educate you, even though unseen? Do you not know that some +one has been doing that?’</p> +<p>‘That I have been supported, guided, educated, I know full +well; but by whom I know not. And I know, too, that I have been +punished. And therefore—therefore I cannot free the thought +of a Him—of a Person—only of a Destiny, of Laws and Powers, +which have no faces wherewith to frown awful wrath upon me! If +it be a Person who has been leading me, I must go mad, or know that +He has forgiven!’</p> +<p>‘I conceive that it is He, and not punishment which you fear?’</p> +<p>Lancelot was silent a moment. . . . ‘Yes. He, and +not hell at all, is what I fear. He can inflict no punishment +on me worse than the inner hell which I have felt already, many and +many a time.’</p> +<p>‘Bona verba! That is an awful thing to say: but better +this extreme than the other. . . . And you would—what?’</p> +<p>‘Be pardoned.’</p> +<p>‘If He loves you, He has pardoned you already.’</p> +<p>‘How do I know that He loves me?’</p> +<p>‘How does Tregarva?’</p> +<p>‘He is a righteous man, and I—’</p> +<p>‘Am a sinner. He would, and rightly, call himself the +same.’</p> +<p>‘But he knows that God loves him—that he is God’s +child.’</p> +<p>‘So, then, God did not love him till he caused God to love +him, by knowing that He loved him? He was not God’s child +till he made himself one, by believing that he was one when as yet he +was not? I appeal to common sense and logic . . . It was revealed +to Tregarva that God had been loving him while he was yet a bad man. +If He loved him, in spite of his sin, why should He not have loved you?’</p> +<p>‘If He had loved me, would He have left me in ignorance of +Himself? For if He be, to know Him is the highest good.’</p> +<p>‘Had he left Tregarva in ignorance of Himself?’</p> +<p>‘No. . . . Certainly, Tregarva spoke of his conversion +as of a turning to one of whom he had known all along, and disregarded.’</p> +<p>‘Then do you turn like him, to Him whom you have known all +along, and disregarded.’</p> +<p>‘I?’</p> +<p>‘Yes—you! If half I have heard and seen of you +be true, He has been telling you more, and not less, of Himself than +He does to most men. You, for aught I know, may know more of Him +than Tregarva does. The gulf between you and him is this: he has +obeyed what he knew—and you have not.’ . . .</p> +<p>Lancelot paused a moment, then—</p> +<p>‘No!—do not cheat me! You said once that you were +a churchman.’</p> +<p>‘So I am. A Catholic of the Catholics. What then?’</p> +<p>‘Who is He to whom you ask me to turn? You talk to me +of Him as my Father; but you talk of Him to men of your own creed as +The Father. You have mysterious dogmas of a Three in One. +I know them . . . I have admired them. In all their forms—in +the Vedas, in the Neo-Platonists, in Jacob Boëhmen, in your Catholic +creeds, in Coleridge, and the Germans from whom he borrowed, I have +looked at them, and found in them beautiful phantasms of philosophy, +. . . all but scientific necessities; . . . but—’</p> +<p>‘But what?’</p> +<p>‘I do not want cold abstract necessities of logic: I want living +practical facts. If those mysterious dogmas speak of real and +necessary properties of His being, they must be necessarily interwoven +in practice with His revelation of Himself?’</p> +<p>‘Most true. But how would you have Him unveil Himself?’</p> +<p>‘By unveiling Himself.’</p> +<p>‘What? To your simple intuition? That was Semele’s +ambition. . . . You recollect the end of that myth. You +recollect, too, as you have read the Neo-Platonists, the result of their +similar attempt.’</p> +<p>‘Idolatry and magic.’</p> +<p>‘True; and yet, such is the ambition of man, you who were just +now envying Tregarva, are already longing to climb even higher than +Saint Theresa.’</p> +<p>‘I do not often indulge in such an ambition. But I have +read in your Schoolmen tales of a Beatific Vision; how that the highest +good for man was to see God.’</p> +<p>‘And did you believe that?’</p> +<p>‘One cannot believe the impossible—only regret its impossibility.’</p> +<p>‘Impossibility? You can only see the Uncreate in the +Create—the Infinite in the Finite—the absolute good in that +which is like the good. Does Tregarva pretend to more? He +sees God in His own thoughts and consciousnesses, and in the events +of the world around him, imaged in the mirror of his own mind. +Is your mirror, then, so much narrower than his?’</p> +<p>‘I have none. I see but myself, and the world, and far +above them, a dim awful Unity, which is but a notion.’</p> +<p>‘Fool!—and slow of heart to believe! Where else +would you see Him but in yourself and in the world? They are all +things cognisable to you. Where else, but everywhere, would you +see Him whom no man hath seen, or can see?’</p> +<p>‘When He shows Himself to me in them, then I may see Him. +But now—’</p> +<p>‘You have seen Him; and because you do not know the name of +what you see—or rather will not acknowledge it—you fancy +that it is not there.’</p> +<p>‘How in His name? What have I seen?’</p> +<p>‘Ask yourself. Have you not seen, in your fancy, at least, +an ideal of man, for which you spurned (for Mellot has told me all) +the merely negative angelic—the merely receptive and indulgent +feminine-ideals of humanity, and longed to be a man, like that ideal +and perfect man?’</p> +<p>‘I have.’</p> +<p>‘And what was your misery all along? Was it not that +you felt you ought to be a person with a one inner unity, a one practical +will, purpose, and business given to you—not invented by yourself—in +the great order and harmony of the universe,—and that you were +not one?—That your self-willed fancies, and self-pleasing passions, +had torn you in pieces, and left you inconsistent, dismembered, helpless, +purposeless? That, in short, you were below your ideal, just in +proportion as you were not a person?’</p> +<p>‘God knows you speak truth!’</p> +<p>‘Then must not that ideal of humanity be a person himself?—Else +how can he be the ideal man? Where is your logic? An impersonal +ideal of a personal species! . . . And what is the most special +peculiarity of man? Is it not that he alone of creation is a son, +with a Father to love and to obey? Then must not the ideal man +be a son also? And last, but not least, is it not the very property +of man that he is a spirit invested with flesh and blood? Then +must not the ideal man have, once at least, taken on himself flesh and +blood also? Else, how could he fulfil his own idea?’</p> +<p>‘Yes . . . Yes . . . That thought, too, has glanced +through my mind at moments, like a lightning-flash; till I have envied +the old Greeks their faith in a human Zeus, son of Kronos—a human +Phoibos, son of Zeus. But I could not rest in them. They +are noble. But are they—are any—perfect ideals? +The one thing I did, and do, and will believe, is the one which they +do not fulfil—that man is meant to be the conqueror of the earth, +matter, nature, decay, death itself, and to conquer them, as Bacon says, +by obeying them.’</p> +<p>‘Hold it fast;—but follow it out, and say boldly, the +ideal of humanity must be one who has conquered nature—one who +rules the universe—one who has vanquished death itself; and conquered +them, as Bacon says, not by violating, but by submitting to them. +Have you never heard of one who is said to have done this? How +do you know that in this ideal which you have seen, you have not seen +the Son—the perfect Man, who died and rose again, and sits for +ever Healer, and Lord, and Ruler of the universe? . . . Stay—do +not answer me. Have you not, besides, had dreams of an all-Father—from +whom, in some mysterious way, all things and beings must derive their +source, and that Son—if my theory be true—among the rest, +and above all the rest?’</p> +<p>‘Who has not? But what more dim or distant—more +drearily, hopelessly notional, than that thought?’</p> +<p>‘Only the thought that there is none. But the dreariness +was only in your own inconsistency. If He be the Father of all, +He must be the Father of persons—He Himself therefore a Person. +He must be the Father of all in whom dwell personal qualities, power, +wisdom, creative energy, love, justice, pity. Can He be their +Father, unless all these very qualities are infinitely His? Does +He now look so terrible to you?’</p> +<p>‘I have had this dream, too; but I turned away from it in dread.’</p> +<p>‘Doubtless you did. Some day you will know why. +Does that former dream of a human Son relieve this dream of none of +its awfulness? May not the type be beloved for the sake of its +Antitype, even if the very name of All-Father is no guarantee for His +paternal pity! . . . But you have had this dream. How know +you, that in it you were not allowed a glimpse, however dim and distant, +of Him whom the Catholics call the Father?’</p> +<p>‘It may be; but—’</p> +<p>‘Stay again. Had you never the sense of a Spirit in you—a +will, an energy, an inspiration, deeper than the region of consciousness +and reflection, which, like the wind, blew where it listed, and you +heard the sound of it ringing through your whole consciousness, and +yet knew not whence it came, or whither it went, or why it drove you +on to dare and suffer, to love and hate; to be a fighter, a sportsman, +an artist—’</p> +<p>‘And a drunkard!’ added Lancelot, sadly.</p> +<p>‘And a drunkard. But did it never seem to you that this +strange wayward spirit, if anything, was the very root and core of your +own personality? And had you never a craving for the help of some +higher, mightier spirit, to guide and strengthen yours; to regulate +and civilise its savage and spasmodic self-will; to teach you your rightful +place in the great order of the universe around; to fill you with a +continuous purpose and with a continuous will to do it? Have you +never had a dream of an Inspirer?—a spirit of all spirits?’</p> +<p>Lancelot turned away with a shudder.</p> +<p>‘Talk of anything but that! Little you know—and +yet you seem to know everything—the agony of craving with which +I have longed for guidance; the rage and disgust which possessed me +when I tried one pretended teacher after another, and found in myself +depths which their spirits could not, or rather would not, touch. +I have been irreverent to the false, from very longing to worship the +true; I have been a rebel to sham leaders, for very desire to be loyal +to a real one; I have envied my poor cousin his Jesuits; I have envied +my own pointers their slavery to my whip and whistle; I have fled, as +a last resource, to brandy and opium, for the inspiration which neither +man nor demon would bestow. . . . Then I found . . . you know +my story. . . . And when I looked to her to guide and inspire +me, behold! I found myself, by the very laws of humanity, compelled +to guide and inspire her;—blind, to lead the blind!—Thank +God, for her sake, that she was taken from me!’</p> +<p>‘Did you ever mistake these substitutes, even the noblest of +them, for the reality? Did not your very dissatisfaction with +them show you that the true inspirer ought to be, if he were to satisfy +your cravings, a person, truly—else how could he inspire and teach +you, a person yourself!—but an utterly infinite, omniscient, eternal +person? How know you that in that dream He was not unveiling Himself +to you—He, The Spirit, who is the Lord and Giver of Life; The +Spirit, who teaches men their duty and relation to those above, around, +beneath them; the Spirit of order, obedience, loyalty, brotherhood, +mercy, condescension?’</p> +<p>‘But I never could distinguish these dreams from each other; +the moment that I essayed to separate them, I seemed to break up the +thought of an absolute one ground of all things, without which the universe +would have seemed a piecemeal chaos; and they receded to infinite distance, +and became transparent, barren, notional shadows of my own brain, even +as your words are now.’</p> +<p>‘How know you that you were meant to distinguish them? +How know you that that very impossibility was not the testimony of fact +and experience to that old Catholic dogma, for the sake of which you +just now shrank from my teaching? I say that this is so. +How do you know that it is not?’</p> +<p>‘But how do I know that it is? I want proof.’</p> +<p>‘And you are the man who was, five minutes ago, crying out +for practical facts, and disdaining cold abstract necessities of logic! +Can you prove that your body exists?’</p> +<p>‘No.’</p> +<p>‘Can you prove that your spirit exists?’</p> +<p>‘No.’</p> +<p>‘And yet know that they both exist. And how?’</p> +<p>‘Solvitur ambulando.’</p> +<p>‘Exactly. When you try to prove either of them without +the other, you fail. You arrive, if at anything, at some barren +polar notion. By action alone you prove the mesothetic fact which +underlies and unites them.’</p> +<p>‘Quorsum hæc?’</p> +<p>‘Hither. I am not going to demonstrate the indemonstrable—to +give you intellectual notions which, after all, will be but reflexes +of my own peculiar brain, and so add the green of my spectacles to the +orange of yours, and make night hideous by fresh monsters. I may +help you to think yourself into a theoretical Tritheism, or a theoretical +Sabellianism; I cannot make you think yourself into practical and living +Catholicism. As you of anthropology, so I say of theology,—Solvitur +ambulando. Don’t believe Catholic doctrine unless you like; +faith is free. But see if you can reclaim either society or yourself +without it; see if He will let you reclaim them. Take Catholic +doctrine for granted; act on it; and see if you will not reclaim them!’</p> +<p>‘Take for granted? Am I to come, after all, to implicit +faith?’</p> +<p>‘Implicit fiddlesticks! Did you ever read the <i>Novum +Organum</i>? Mellot told me that you were a geologist.’</p> +<p>‘Well?’</p> +<p>‘You took for granted what you read in geological books, and +went to the mine and the quarry afterwards, to verify it in practice; +and according as you found fact correspond to theory, you retained or +rejected. Was that implicit faith, or common sense, common humility, +and sound induction?’</p> +<p>‘Sound induction, at least.’</p> +<p>‘Then go now, and do likewise. Believe that the learned, +wise, and good, for 1800 years, may possibly have found out somewhat, +or have been taught somewhat, on this matter, and test their theory +by practice. If a theory on such a point is worth anything at +all, it is omnipotent and all-explaining. If it will not work, +of course there is no use keeping it a moment. Perhaps it will +work. I say it will.’</p> +<p>‘But I shall not work it; I still dread my own spectacles. +I dare not trust myself alone to verify a theory of Murchison’s +or Lyell’s. How dare I trust myself in this?’</p> +<p>‘Then do not trust yourself alone: come and see what others +are doing. Come, and become a member of a body which is verifying, +by united action, those universal and eternal truths, which are too +great for the grasp of any one time-ridden individual. Not that +we claim the gift of infallibility, any more than I do that of perfect +utterance of the little which we do know.’</p> +<p>‘Then what do you promise me in asking me to go with you?’</p> +<p>‘Practical proof that these my words are true,—practical +proof that they can make a nation all that England might be and is not,—the +sight of what a people might become who, knowing thus far, do what they +know. We believe no more than you, but we believe it. Come +and see!—and yet you will not see; facts, and the reasons of them, +will be as impalpable to you there as here, unless you can again obey +your Novum Organum.’</p> +<p>‘How then?’</p> +<p>‘By renouncing all your idols—the idols of the race and +of the market, of the study and of the theatre. Every national +prejudice, every vulgar superstition, every remnant of pedantic system, +every sentimental like or dislike, must be left behind you, for the +induction of the world problem. You must empty yourself before +God will fill you.’</p> +<p>‘Of what can I strip myself more? I know nothing; I can +do nothing; I hope nothing; I fear nothing; I am nothing.’</p> +<p>‘And you would gain something. But for what purpose?—for +on that depends your whole success. To be famous, great, glorious, +powerful, beneficent?’</p> +<p>‘As I live, the height of my ambition, small though it be, +is only to find my place, though it were but as a sweeper of chimneys. +If I dare wish—if I dare choose, it would be only this—to +regenerate one little parish in the whole world . . . To do that, and +die, for aught I care, without ever being recognised as the author of +my own deeds . . . to hear them, if need be, imputed to another, and +myself accursed as a fool, if I can but atone for the sins of . . .</p> +<p>He paused; but his teacher understood him.</p> +<p>‘It is enough,’ he said. ‘Come with me; Tregarva +waits for us near. Again I warn you; you will hear nothing new; +you shall only see what you, and all around you, have known and not +done, known and done. We have no peculiar doctrines or systems; +the old creeds are enough for us. But we have obeyed the teaching +which we received in each and every age, and allowed ourselves to be +built up, generation by generation—as the rest of Christendom +might have done—into a living temple, on the foundation which +is laid already, and other than which no man can lay.’</p> +<p>‘And what is that?’</p> +<p>‘Jesus Christ—THE MAN.’</p> +<p>He took Lancelot by the hand. A peaceful warmth diffused itself +over his limbs; the droning of the organ sounded fainter and more faint; +the marble monuments grew dim and distant; and, half unconsciously, +he followed like a child through the cathedral door.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>EPILOGUE</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I can foresee many criticisms, and those not unreasonable ones, on +this little book—let it be some excuse at least for me, that I +have foreseen them. Readers will complain, I doubt not, of the +very mythical and mysterious dénouement of a story which began +by things so gross and palpable as field-sports and pauperism. +But is it not true that, sooner or later, ‘omnia exeunt in mysterium’? +Out of mystery we all came at our birth, fox-hunters and paupers, sages +and saints; into mystery we shall all return . . . at all events, when +we die; probably, as it seems to me, some of us will return thither +before we die. For if the signs of the times mean anything, they +portend, I humbly submit, a somewhat mysterious and mythical dénouement +to this very age, and to those struggles of it which I have herein attempted, +clumsily enough, to sketch. We are entering fast, I both hope +and fear, into the region of prodigy, true and false; and our great-grandchildren +will look back on the latter half of this century, and ask, if it were +possible that such things could happen in an organised planet? +The Benthamites will receive this announcement, if it ever meets their +eyes, with shouts of laughter. Be it so . . . nous verrons . . +. In the year 1847, if they will recollect, they were congratulating +themselves on the nations having grown too wise to go to war any more +. . . and in 1848? So it has been from the beginning. What +did philosophers expect in 1792? What did they see in 1793? +Popery was to be eternal: but the Reformation came nevertheless. +Rome was to be eternal: but Alaric came. Jerusalem was to be eternal: +but Titus came. Gomorrha was to be eternal, I doubt not; but the +fire-floods came. . . . ‘As it was in the days of Noah, +so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating, +drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage; and the flood came and swept +them all away.’ Of course they did not expect it. +They went on saying, ‘Where is the promise of his coming? +For all things continue as they were from the beginning.’ +Most true; but what if they were from the beginning—over a volcano’s +mouth? What if the method whereon things have proceeded since +the creation were, as geology as well as history proclaims, a <i>cataclysmic</i> +method? What then? Why should not this age, as all others +like it have done, end in a cataclysm, and a prodigy, and a mystery? +And why should not my little book do likewise?</p> +<p>Again—Readers will probably complain of the fragmentary and +unconnected form of the book. Let them first be sure that that +is not an integral feature of the subject itself, and therefore the +very form the book should take. Do not young men think, speak, +act, just now, in this very incoherent, fragmentary way; without methodic +education or habits of thought; with the various stereotyped systems +which they have received by tradition, breaking up under them like ice +in a thaw; with a thousand facts and notions, which they know not how +to classify, pouring in on them like a flood?—a very Yeasty state +of mind altogether, like a mountain burn in a spring rain, carrying +down with it stones, sticks, peat-water, addle grouse-eggs and drowned +kingfishers, fertilising salts and vegetable poisons—not, alas! +without a large crust, here and there, of sheer froth. Yet no +heterogeneous confused flood-deposit, no fertile meadows below. +And no high water, no fishing. It is in the long black droughts, +when the water is foul from lowness, and not from height, that Hydras +and Desmidiæ, and Rotifers, and all uncouth pseud-organisms, bred +of putridity, begin to multiply, and the fish are sick for want of a +fresh, and the cunningest artificial fly is of no avail, and the shrewdest +angler will do nothing—except with a gross fleshly gilt-tailed +worm, or the cannibal bait of roe, whereby parent fishes, like competitive +barbarisms, devour each other’s flesh and blood—perhaps +their own. It is when the stream is clearing after a flood, that +the fish will rise. . . . When will the flood clear, and the fish +come on the feed again?</p> +<p>Next; I shall be blamed for having left untold the fate of those +characters who have acted throughout as Lancelot’s satellites. +But indeed their only purpose consisted in their influence on his development, +and that of Tregarva; I do not see that we have any need to follow them +farther. The reader can surely conjecture their history for himself. +. . . He may be pretty certain that they have gone the way of +the world . . . abierunt ad plures . . . for this life or for the next. +They have done—very much what he or I might have done in their +place—nothing. Nature brings very few of her children to +perfection, in these days or any other. . . . And for Grace, which +does bring its children to perfection, the quantity and quality of the +perfection must depend on the quantity and quality of the grace, and +that again, to an awful extent—The Giver only knows to how great +an extent—on the will of the recipients, and therefore in exact +proportion to their lowness in the human scale, on the circumstances +which environ them. So my characters are now—very much what +the reader might expect them to be. I confess them to be unsatisfactory; +so are most things: but how can I solve problems which fact has not +yet solved for me? How am I to extricate my antitypal characters, +when their living types have not yet extricated themselves? When +the age moves on, my story shall move on with it. Let it be enough, +that my puppets have retreated in good order, and that I am willing +to give to those readers who have conceived something of human interest +for them, the latest accounts of their doings.</p> +<p>With the exception, that is, of Mellot and Sabina. Them I confess +to be an utterly mysterious, fragmentary little couple. Why not? +Do you not meet with twenty such in the course of your life?—Charming +people, who for aught you know may be opera folk from Paris, or emissaries +from the Czar, or disguised Jesuits, or disguised Angels . . . who evidently +‘have a history,’ and a strange one, which you never expect +or attempt to fathom; who interest you intensely for a while, and then +are whirled away again in the great world-waltz, and lost in the crowd +for ever? Why should you wish my story to be more complete than +theirs is, or less romantic than theirs may be? There are more +things in London, as well as in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of +in our philosophy. If you but knew the secret history of that +dull gentleman opposite whom you sat at dinner yesterday!—the +real thoughts of that chattering girl whom you took down!—‘Omnia +exeunt in mysterium,’ I say again. Every human being is +a romance, a miracle to himself now; and will appear as one to all the +world in That Day.</p> +<p>But now for the rest; and Squire Lavington first. He is a very +fair sample of the fate of the British public; for he is dead and buried: +and readers would not have me extricate him out of that situation. +If you ask news of the reason and manner of his end, I can only answer, +that like many others, he went out—as candles do. I believe +he expressed general repentance for all his sins—all, at least, +of which he was aware. To confess and repent of the state of the +Whitford Priors estate, and of the poor thereon, was of course more +than any minister, of any denomination whatsoever, could be required +to demand of him; seeing that would have involved a recognition of those +duties of property, of which the good old gentleman was to the last +a staunch denier; and which are as yet seldom supposed to be included +in any Christian creed, Catholic or other. Two sermons were preached +in Whitford on the day of his funeral; one by Mr. O’Blareaway, +on the text from Job, provided for such occasions; ‘When the ear +heard him, then it blessed him,’ etc. etc.: the other by the Baptist +preacher, on two verses of the forty-ninth Psalm—</p> +<p>‘They fancy that their houses shall endure for ever, and call +the lands after their own names.</p> +<p>‘Yet man being in honour hath no understanding, but is compared +to the beasts that perish.’</p> +<p>Waiving the good taste, which was probably on a par in both cases, +the reader is left to decide which of the two texts was most applicable.</p> +<p>Mrs. Lavington is Mrs. Lavington no longer. She has married, +to the astonishment of the world in general, that ‘excellent man,’ +Mr. O’Blareaway, who has been discovered not to be quite as young +as he appeared, his graces being principally owing to a Brutus wig, +which he has now wisely discarded. Mrs. Lavington now sits in +state under her husband’s ministry, as the leader of the religious +world in the fashionable watering-place of Steamingbath, and derives +her notions of the past, present, and future state of the universe principally +from those two meek and unbiased periodicals, the <i>Protestant Hue-and-Cry</i> +and the <i>Christian Satirist</i>, to both of which O’Blareaway +is a constant contributor. She has taken such an aversion to Whitford +since Argemone’s death, that she has ceased to have any connection +with that unhealthy locality, beyond the popular and easy one of rent-receiving. +O’Blareaway has never entered the parish to his knowledge since +Mr. Lavington’s funeral; and was much pleased, the last time I +rode with him, at my informing him that a certain picturesque moorland +which he had been greatly admiring, was his own possession. . . . +After all, he is ‘an excellent man;’ and when I met a large +party at his house the other day, and beheld dory and surmullet, champagne +and lachryma Christi, amid all the glory of the Whitford plate . . . +(some of it said to have belonged to the altar of the Priory Church +four hundred years ago), I was deeply moved by the impressive tone in +which, at the end of a long grace, he prayed ‘that the daily bread +of our less favoured brethren might be mercifully vouchsafed to them.’ +. . . My dear readers, would you have me, even if I could, extricate +him from such an Elysium by any denouement whatsoever?</p> +<p>Poor dear Luke, again, is said to be painting lean frescoes for the +Something-or-other-Kirche at Munich; and the vicar, under the name of +Father Stylites, of the order of St. Philumena, is preaching impassioned +sermons to crowded congregations at St. George’s, Bedlam. +How can I extricate them from that? No one has come forth of it +yet, to my knowledge, except by paths whereof I shall use Lessing’s +saying, ‘I may have my whole hand full of truth, and yet find +good to open only my little finger.’ But who cares for their +coming out? They are but two more added to the five hundred, at +whose moral suicide, and dive into the Roman Avernus, a quasi-Protestant +public looks on with a sort of savage satisfaction, crying only, ‘Didn’t +we tell you so?’—and more than half hopes that they will +not come back again, lest they should be discovered to have learnt anything +while they were there. What are two among that five hundred? much +more among the five thousand who seem destined shortly to follow them?</p> +<p>The banker, thanks to Barnakill’s assistance, is rapidly getting +rich again—who would wish to stop him? However, he is wiser, +on some points at least, than he was of yore. He has taken up +the flax movement violently of late—perhaps owing to some hint +of Barnakill’s—talks of nothing but Chevalier Claussen and +Mr. Donellan, and is very anxious to advance capital to any landlord +who will grow flax on Mr. Warnes’s method, either in England or +Ireland. . . . John Bull, however, has not yet awakened sufficiently +to listen to his overtures, but sits up in bed, dolefully rubbing his +eyes, and bemoaning the evanishment of his protectionist dream—altogether +realising tolerably, he and his land, Dr. Watts’ well-known moral +song concerning the sluggard and his garden.</p> +<p>Lord Minchampstead again prospers. Either the nuns of Minchampstead +have left no Nemesis behind them, like those of Whitford, or a certain +wisdom and righteousness of his, however dim and imperfect, averts it +for a time. So, as I said, he prospers, and is hated; especially +by his farmers, to whom he has just offered long leases, and a sliding +corn-rent. They would have hated him just the same if he had kept +them at rack-rents; and he has not forgotten that; but they have. +They looked shy at the leases, because they bind them to farm high, +which they do not know how to do; and at the corn-rent, because they +think that he expects wheat to rise again—which, being a sensible +man, he very probably does. But for my story—I certainly +do not see how to extricate him or any one else from farmers’ +stupidity, greed, and ill-will. . . . That question must have +seven years’ more free-trade to settle it, before I can say anything +thereon. Still less can I foreshadow the fate of his eldest son, +who has just been rusticated from Christ Church for riding one of Simmon’s +hacks through a china-shop window; especially as the youth is reported +to be given to piquette and strong liquors, and, like many noblemen’s +eldest sons, is considered ‘not to have the talent of his father.’ +As for the old lord himself, I have no wish to change or develop him +in any way—except to cut slips off him, as you do off a willow, +and plant two or three in every county in England. Let him alone +to work out his own plot . . . we have not seen the end of it yet; but +whatever it will be, England has need of him as a transition-stage between +feudalism and * * * * ; for many a day to come. If he be not the +ideal landlord, he is nearer it than any we are like yet to see. . . +.</p> +<p>Except one; and that, after all, is Lord Vieuxbois. Let him +go on, like a gallant gentleman as he is, and prosper. And he +will prosper, for he fears God, and God is with him. He has much +to learn; and a little to unlearn. He has to learn that God is +a living God now, as well as in the middle ages; to learn to trust not +in antique precedents, but in eternal laws: to learn that his tenants, +just because they are children of God, are not to be kept children, +but developed and educated into sons; to learn that God’s grace, +like His love, is free, and that His spirit bloweth where it listeth, +and vindicates its own free-will against our narrow systems, by revealing, +at times, even to nominal Heretics and Infidels, truths which the Catholic +Church must humbly receive, as the message of Him who is wider, deeper, +more tolerant, than even she can be. . . And he is in the way to learn +all this. Let him go on. At what conclusions he will attain, +he knows not, nor do I. But this I know, that he is on the path +to great and true conclusions. . . . And he is just about to be +married, too. That surely should teach him something. The +papers inform me that his bride elect is Lord Minchampstead’s +youngest daughter. That should be a noble mixture; there should +be stalwart offspring, spiritual as well as physical, born of that intermarriage +of the old and the new. We will hope it: perhaps some of my readers, +who enter into my inner meaning, may also pray for it.</p> +<p>Whom have I to account for besides? Crawy—though some +of my readers may consider the mention of him superfluous. But +to those who do not, I may impart the news, that last month, in the +union workhouse—he died; and may, for aught we know, have ere +this met Squire Lavington . . . He is supposed, or at least said, to +have had a soul to be saved . . . as I think, a body to be saved also. +But what is one more among so many? And in an over-peopled country +like this, too. . . . One must learn to look at things—and +paupers—in the mass.</p> +<p>The poor of Whitford also? My dear readers, I trust you will +not ask me just now to draw the horoscope of the Whitford poor, or of +any others. Really that depends principally on yourselves. . . +. But for the present, the poor of Whitford, owing, as it seems +to them and me, to quite other causes than an ‘overstocked labour-market,’ +or too rapid ‘multiplication of their species,’ are growing +more profligate, reckless, pauperised, year by year. O’Blareaway +complained sadly to me the other day that the poor-rates were becoming +‘heavier and heavier’—had nearly reached, indeed, +what they were under the old law. . . .</p> +<p>But there is one who does not complain, but gives and gives, and +stints herself to give, and weeps in silence and unseen over the evils +which she has yearly less and less power to stem.</p> +<p>For in a darkened chamber of the fine house at Steamingbath, lies +on a sofa Honoria Lavington—beautiful no more; the victim of some +mysterious and agonising disease, about which the physicians agree on +one point only—that it is hopeless. The ‘curse of +the Lavingtons’ is on her; and she bears it. There she lies, +and prays, and reads, and arranges her charities, and writes little +books for children, full of the Beloved Name which is for ever on her +lips. She suffers—none but herself knows how much, or how +strangely—yet she is never heard to sigh. She weeps in secret—she +has long ceased to plead—for others, not for herself; and prays +for them too—perhaps some day her prayers will yet he answered. +But she greets all visitors with a smile fresh from heaven; and all +who enter that room leave it saddened, and yet happy, like those who +have lingered a moment at the gates of paradise, and seen angels ascending +and descending upon earth. There she lies—who could wish +her otherwise? Even Doctor Autotheus Maresnest, the celebrated +mesmeriser, who, though he laughs at the Resurrection of the Lord, is +confidently reported to have raised more than one corpse to life himself, +was heard to say, after having attended her professionally, that her +waking bliss and peace, although unfortunately unattributable even to +autocatalepsy, much less to somnambulist exaltation, was on the whole, +however unscientific, almost as enviable.</p> +<p>There she lies—and will lie till she dies—the type of +thousands more, ‘the martyrs by the pang without the palm,’ +who find no mates in this life . . . and yet may find them in the life +to come., . . Poor Paul Tregarva! Little he fancies how +her days run by! . . .</p> +<p>At least, there has been no news since that last scene in St. Paul’s +Cathedral, either of him or Lancelot. How their strange teacher +has fulfilled his promise of guiding their education; whether they have +yet reached the country of Prester John; whether, indeed, that Caucasian +Utopia has a local and bodily existence, or was only used by Barnakill +to shadow out that Ideal which is, as he said of the Garden of Eden, +always near us, underlying the Actual, as the spirit does its body, +exhibiting itself step by step through all the falsehoods and confusions +of history and society, giving life to all in it which is not falsehood +and decay; on all these questions I can give my readers no sort of answer; +perhaps I may as yet have no answer to give; perhaps I may be afraid +of giving one; perhaps the times themselves are giving, at once cheerfully +and sadly, in strange destructions and strange births, a better answer +than I can give. I have set forth, as far as in me lay, the data +of my problem: and surely, if the premises be given, wise men will not +have to look far for the conclusion. In homely English I have +given my readers Yeast; if they be what I take them for, they will be +able to bake with it themselves.</p> +<p>And yet I have brought Lancelot, at least—perhaps Tregarva +too—to a conclusion, and an all-important one, which whoso reads +may find fairly printed in these pages. Henceforth his life must +begin anew. Were I to carry on the thread of his story continuously +he would still seem to have overleaped as vast a gulf as if I had re-introduced +him as a gray-haired man. Strange! that the death of one of the +lovers should seem no complete termination to their history, when their +marriage would have been accepted by all as the legitimate dénouement, +beyond which no information was to be expected. As if the history +of love always ended at the altar! Oftener it only begins there; +and all before it is but a mere longing to love. Why should readers +complain of being refused the future history of one life, when they +are in most novels cut short by the marriage finale from the biography +of two?</p> +<p>But if, over and above this, any reader should be wroth at my having +left Lancelot’s history unfinished on questions in his opinion +more important than that of love, let me entreat him to set manfully +about finishing his own history—a far more important one to him +than Lancelot’s. If he shall complain that doubts are raised +for which no solution is given, that my hero is brought into contradictory +beliefs without present means of bringing them to accord, into passive +acquiescence in vast truths without seeing any possibility of practically +applying them—let him consider well whether such be not his own +case; let him, if he be as most are, thank God when he finds out that +such is his case, when he knows at last that those are most blind who +say they see, when he becomes at last conscious how little he believes, +how little he acts up to that small belief. Let him try to right +somewhat of the doubt, confusion, custom-worship, inconsistency, idolatry, +within him—some of the greed, bigotry, recklessness, respectably +superstitious atheism around him; and perhaps before his new task is +finished, Lancelot and Tregarva may have returned with a message, if +not for him—for that depends upon him having ears to hear it—yet +possibly for strong Lord Minchampstead, probably for good Lord Vieuxbois, +and surely for the sinners and the slaves of Whitford Priors. +What it will be, I know not altogether; but this I know, that if my +heroes go on as they have set forth, looking with single mind for some +one ground of human light and love, some everlasting rock whereon to +build, utterly careless what the building may be, howsoever contrary +to precedent and prejudice, and the idols of the day, provided God, +and nature, and the accumulated lessons of all the ages, help them in +its construction—then they will find in time the thing they seek, +and see how the will of God may at last be done on earth, even as it +is done in heaven. But, alas! between them and it are waste raging +waters, foul mud banks, thick with dragons and sirens; and many a bitter +day and blinding night, in cold and hunger, spiritual and perhaps physical, +await them. For it was a true vision which John Bunyan saw, and +one which, as the visions of wise men are wont to do, meant far more +than the seer fancied, when he beheld in his dream that there was indeed +a land of Beulah, and Arcadian Shepherd Paradise, on whose mountain +tops the everlasting sunshine lay; but that the way to it, as these +last three years are preaching to us, went past the mouth of Hell, and +through the valley of the Shadow of Death.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YEAST: A PROBLEM***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 10364-h.htm or 10364-h.zip ****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/3/6/10364 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Yeast: A Problem + +Author: Charles Kingsley + +Release Date: December 2, 2003 [eBook #10364] + +Language: English + +Chatacter set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YEAST: A PROBLEM*** + + +Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + +YEAST: A PROBLEM + + + + +PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION + + + +This book was written nearly twelve years ago; and so many things +have changed since then, that it is hardly fair to send it into the +world afresh, without some notice of the improvement--if such there +be--which has taken place meanwhile in those southern counties of +England, with which alone this book deals. + +I believe that things are improved. Twelve years more of the new +Poor Law have taught the labouring men greater self-help and +independence; I hope that those virtues may not be destroyed in them +once more, by the boundless and indiscriminate almsgiving which has +become the fashion of the day, in most parishes where there are +resident gentry. If half the money which is now given away in +different forms to the agricultural poor could be spent in making +their dwellings fit for honest men to live in, then life, morals, +and poor-rates, would be saved to an immense amount. But as I do +not see how to carry out such a plan, I have no right to complain of +others for not seeing. + +Meanwhile cottage improvement, and sanitary reform, throughout the +country districts, are going on at a fearfully slow rate. Here and +there high-hearted landlords, like the Duke of Bedford, are doing +their duty like men; but in general, the apathy of the educated +classes is most disgraceful. + +But the labourers, during the last ten years, are altogether better +off. Free trade has increased their food, without lessening their +employment. The politician who wishes to know the effect on +agricultural life of that wise and just measure, may find it in Mr. +Grey of Dilston's answers to the queries of the French Government. +The country parson will not need to seek so far. He will see it (if +he be an observant man) in the faces and figures of his school- +children. He will see a rosier, fatter, bigger-boned race growing +up, which bids fair to surpass in bulk the puny and ill-fed +generation of 1815-45, and equal, perhaps, in thew and sinew, to the +men who saved Europe in the old French war. + +If it should be so (as God grant it may), there is little fear but +that the labouring men of England will find their aristocracy able +to lead them in the battle-field, and to develop the agriculture of +the land at home, even better than did their grandfathers of the old +war time. + +To a thoughtful man, no point of the social horizon is more full of +light, than the altered temper of the young gentlemen. They have +their faults and follies still--for when will young blood be other +than hot blood? But when one finds, more and more, swearing +banished from the hunting-field, foul songs from the universities, +drunkenness and gambling from the barracks; when one finds +everywhere, whether at college, in camp, or by the cover-side, more +and more, young men desirous to learn their duty as Englishmen, and +if possible to do it; when one hears their altered tone toward the +middle classes, and that word 'snob' (thanks very much to Mr. +Thackeray) used by them in its true sense, without regard of rank; +when one watches, as at Aldershott, the care and kindness of +officers toward their men; and over and above all this, when one +finds in every profession (in that of the soldier as much as any) +young men who are not only 'in the world,' but (in religious +phraseology) 'of the world,' living God-fearing, virtuous, and +useful lives, as Christian men should: then indeed one looks +forward with hope and confidence to the day when these men shall +settle down in life, and become, as holders of the land, the leaders +of agricultural progress, and the guides and guardians of the +labouring man. + +I am bound to speak of the farmer, as I know him in the South of +England. In the North he is a man of altogether higher education +and breeding: but he is, even in the South, a much better man than +it is the fashion to believe him. No doubt, he has given heavy +cause of complaint. He was demoralised, as surely, if not as +deeply, as his own labourers, by the old Poor Law. He was +bewildered--to use the mildest term--by promises of Protection from +men who knew better. But his worst fault after all has been, that +young or old, he has copied his landlord too closely, and acted on +his maxims and example. And now that his landlord is growing wiser, +he is growing wiser too. Experience of the new Poor Law, and +experience of Free-trade, are helping him to show himself what he +always was at heart, an honest Englishman. All his brave +persistence and industry, his sturdy independence and self-help, and +last, but not least, his strong sense of justice, and his vast good- +nature, are coming out more and more, and working better and better +upon the land and the labourer; while among his sons I see many +growing up brave, manly, prudent young men, with a steadily +increasing knowledge of what is required of them, both as +manufacturers of food, and employers of human labour. + +The country clergy, again, are steadily improving. I do not mean +merely in morality--for public opinion now demands that as a sine +qua non--but in actual efficiency. Every fresh appointment seems to +me, on the whole, a better one than the last. They are gaining more +and more the love and respect of their flocks; they are becoming +more and more centres of civilisation and morality to their +parishes; they are working, for the most part, very hard, each in +his own way; indeed their great danger is, that they should trust +too much in that outward 'business' work which they do so heartily; +that they should fancy that the administration of schools and +charities is their chief business, and literally leave the Word of +God to serve tables. Would that we clergymen could learn (some of +us are learning already) that influence over our people is not to be +gained by perpetual interference in their private affairs, too often +inquisitorial, irritating, and degrading to both parties, but by +showing ourselves their personal friends, of like passions with +them. Let a priest do that. Let us make our people feel that we +speak to them, and feel to them, as men to men, and then the more +cottages we enter the better. If we go into our neighbours' houses +only as judges, inquisitors, or at best gossips, we are best--as too +many are--at home in our studies. Would, too, that we would +recollect this--that our duty is, among other things, to preach the +Gospel; and consider firstly whether what we commonly preach be any +Gospel or good news at all, and not rather the worst possible news; +and secondly, whether we preach at all; whether our sermons are not +utterly unintelligible (being delivered in an unknown tongue), and +also of a dulness not to be surpassed; and whether, therefore, it +might not be worth our while to spend a little time in studying the +English tongue, and the art of touching human hearts and minds. + +But to return: this improved tone (if the truth must be told) is +owing, far more than people themselves are aware, to the triumphs of +those liberal principles, for which the Whigs have fought for the +last forty years, and of that sounder natural philosophy of which +they have been the consistent patrons. England has become Whig; and +the death of the Whig party is the best proof of its victory. It +has ceased to exist, because it has done its work; because its +principles are accepted by its ancient enemies; because the +political economy and the physical science, which grew up under its +patronage, are leavening the thoughts and acts of Anglican and of +Evangelical alike, and supplying them with methods for carrying out +their own schemes. Lord Shaftesbury's truly noble speech on +Sanitary Reform at Liverpool is a striking proof of the extent to +which the Evangelical leaders have given in their adherence to those +scientific laws, the original preachers of which have been called by +his Lordship's party heretics and infidels, materialists and +rationalists. Be it so. Provided truth be preached, what matter +who preaches it? Provided the leaven of sound inductive science +leaven the whole lump, what matter who sets it working? Better, +perhaps, because more likely to produce practical success, that +these novel truths should be instilled into the minds of the +educated classes by men who share somewhat in their prejudices and +superstitions, and doled out to them in such measure as will not +terrify or disgust them. The child will take its medicine from the +nurse's hand trustfully enough, when it would scream itself into +convulsions at the sight of the doctor, and so do itself more harm +than the medicine would do it good. The doctor meanwhile (unless he +be one of Hesiod's 'fools, who know not how much more half is than +the whole') is content enough to see any part of his prescription +got down, by any hands whatsoever. + +But there is another cause for the improved tone of the Landlord +class, and of the young men of what is commonly called the +aristocracy; and that is, a growing moral earnestness; which is in +great part owing (that justice may be done on all sides) to the +Anglican movement. How much soever Neo-Anglicanism may have failed +as an Ecclesiastical or Theological system; how much soever it may +have proved itself, both by the national dislike of it, and by the +defection of all its master-minds, to be radically un-English, it +has at least awakened hundreds, perhaps thousands, of cultivated men +and women to ask themselves whether God sent them into the world +merely to eat, drink, and be merry, and to have 'their souls saved' +upon the Spurgeon method, after they die; and has taught them an +answer to that question not unworthy of English Christians. + +The Anglican movement, when it dies out, will leave behind at least +a legacy of grand old authors disinterred, of art, of music; of +churches too, schools, cottages, and charitable institutions, which +will form so many centres of future civilisation, and will entitle +it to the respect, if not to the allegiance, of the future +generation. And more than this; it has sown in the hearts of young +gentlemen and young ladies seed which will not perish; which, though +it may develop into forms little expected by those who sowed it, +will develop at least into a virtue more stately and reverent, more +chivalrous and self-sacrificing, more genial and human, than can be +learnt from that religion of the Stock Exchange, which reigned +triumphant--for a year and a day--in the popular pulpits. + +I have said, that Neo-Anglicanism has proved a failure, as +seventeenth-century Anglicanism did. The causes of that failure +this book has tried to point out: and not one word which is spoken +of it therein, but has been drawn from personal and too-intimate +experience. But now--peace to its ashes. Is it so great a sin, to +have been dazzled by the splendour of an impossible ideal? Is it so +great a sin, to have had courage and conduct enough to attempt the +enforcing of that ideal, in the face of the prejudices of a whole +nation? And if that ideal was too narrow for the English nation, +and for the modern needs of mankind, is that either so great a sin? +Are other extant ideals, then, so very comprehensive? Does Mr. +Spurgeon, then, take so much broader or nobler views of the +capacities and destinies of his race, than that great genius, John +Henry Newman? If the world cannot answer that question now, it will +answer it promptly enough in another five-and-twenty years. And +meanwhile let not the party and the system which has conquered boast +itself too loudly. Let it take warning by the Whigs; and suspect +(as many a looker-on more than suspects) that its triumph may be, as +with the Whigs, its ruin; and that, having done the work for which +it was sent into the world, there may only remain for it, to decay +and die. + +And die it surely will, if (as seems too probable) there succeeds to +this late thirty years of peace a thirty years of storm. + +For it has lost all hold upon the young, the active, the daring. It +has sunk into a compromise between originally opposite dogmas. It +has become a religion for Jacob the smooth man; adapted to the +maxims of the market, and leaving him full liberty to supplant his +brother by all methods lawful in that market. No longer can it +embrace and explain all known facts of God and man, in heaven and +earth, and satisfy utterly such minds and hearts as those of +Cromwell's Ironsides, or the Scotch Covenanters, or even of a Newton +and a Colonel Gardiner. Let it make the most of its Hedley Vicars +and its Havelock, and sound its own trumpet as loudly as it can, in +sounding theirs; for they are the last specimens of heroism which it +is likely to beget--if indeed it did in any true sense beget them, +and if their gallantry was really owing to their creed, and not to +the simple fact of their being--like others--English gentlemen. +Well may Jacob's chaplains cackle in delighted surprise over their +noble memories, like geese who have unwittingly hatched a swan! + +But on Esau in general:--on poor rough Esau, who sails Jacob's +ships, digs Jacob's mines, founds Jacob's colonies, pours out his +blood for him in those wars which Jacob himself has stirred up-- +while his sleek brother sits at home in his counting-house, enjoying +at once 'the means of grace' and the produce of Esau's labour--on +him Jacob's chaplains have less and less influence; for him they +have less and less good news. He is afraid of them, and they of +him; the two do not comprehend one another, sympathise with one +another; they do not even understand one another's speech. The same +social and moral gulf has opened between them, as parted the +cultivated and wealthy Pharisee of Jerusalem from the rough fishers +of the Galilaean Lake: and yet the Galilaean fishers (if we are to +trust Josephus and the Gospels) were trusty, generous, affectionate- +-and it was not from among the Pharisees, it is said, that the +Apostles were chosen. + +Be that as it may, Esau has a birthright; and this book, like all +books which I have ever written, is written to tell him so; and, I +trust, has not been written in vain. But it is not this book, or +any man's book, or any man at all, who can tell Esau the whole truth +about himself, his powers, his duty, and his God. Woman must do it, +and not man. His mother, his sister, the maid whom he may love; and +failing all these (as they often will fail him, in the wild +wandering life which he must live), those human angels of whom it is +written--'The barren hath many more children than she who has an +husband.' And such will not be wanting. As long as England can +produce at once two such women as Florence Nightingale and Catherine +Marsh, there is good hope that Esau will not be defrauded of his +birthright; and that by the time that Jacob comes crouching to him, +to defend him against the enemies who are near at hand, Esau, +instead of borrowing Jacob's religion, may be able to teach Jacob +his; and the two brothers face together the superstition and anarchy +of Europe, in the strength of a lofty and enlightened Christianity, +which shall be thoroughly human, and therefore thoroughly divine. + +C. K. +February 17th, 1859. + + + +PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION + + + +This little tale was written between two and three years ago, in the +hope that it might help to call the attention of wiser and better +men than I am, to the questions which are now agitating the minds of +the rising generation, and to the absolute necessity of solving them +at once and earnestly, unless we would see the faith of our +forefathers crumble away beneath the combined influence of new +truths which are fancied to be incompatible with it, and new +mistakes as to its real essence. That this can be done I believe +and know: if I had not believed it, I would never have put pen to +paper on the subject. + +I believe that the ancient Creed, the Eternal Gospel, will stand, +and conquer, and prove its might in this age, as it has in every +other for eighteen hundred years, by claiming, and subduing, and +organising those young anarchic forces, which now, unconscious of +their parentage, rebel against Him to whom they owe their being. + +But for the time being, the young men and women of our day are fast +parting from their parents and each other; the more thoughtful are +wandering either towards Rome, towards sheer materialism, or towards +an unchristian and unphilosophic spiritualism. Epicurism which, in +my eyes, is the worst evil spirit of the three, precisely because it +looks at first sight most like an angel of light. The mass, again, +are fancying that they are still adhering to the old creeds, the old +church, to the honoured patriarchs of English Protestantism. I wish +I could agree with them in their belief about themselves. To me +they seem--with a small sprinkling of those noble and cheering +exceptions to popular error which are to be found in every age of +Christ's church--to be losing most fearfully and rapidly the living +spirit of Christianity, and to be, for that very reason, clinging +all the more convulsively--and who can blame them?--to the outward +letter of it, whether High Church or Evangelical; unconscious, all +the while, that they are sinking out of real living belief, into +that dead self-deceiving belief-in-believing, which has been always +heretofore, and is becoming in England now, the parent of the most +blind, dishonest, and pitiless bigotry. + +In the following pages I have attempted to show what some at least +of the young in these days are really thinking and feeling. I know +well that my sketch is inadequate and partial: I have every reason +to believe, from the criticisms which I have received since its +first publication, that it is, as far as it goes, correct. I put it +as a problem. It would be the height of arrogance in me to do more +than indicate the direction in which I think a solution may be +found. I fear that my elder readers may complain that I have no +right to start doubts without answering them. I can only answer,-- +Would that I had started them! would that I was not seeing them +daily around me, under some form or other, in just the very hearts +for whom one would most wish the peace and strength of a fixed and +healthy faith. To the young, this book can do no harm; for it will +put into their minds little but what is there already. To the +elder, it may do good; for it may teach some of them, as I earnestly +hope, something of the real, but too often utterly unsuspected, +state of their own children's minds; something of the reasons of +that calamitous estrangement between themselves and those who will +succeed them, which is often too painful and oppressive to be +confessed to their own hearts! Whatever amount of obloquy this book +may bring upon me, I shall think that a light price to pay, if by it +I shall have helped, even in a single case, to 'turn the hearts of +the parents to the children, and the hearts of the children to the +parents, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come,'--as +come it surely will, if we persist much longer in substituting +denunciation for sympathy, instruction for education, and Pharisaism +for the Good News of the Kingdom of God. + +1851. + + + +CHAPTER I: THE PHILOSOPHY OF FOX-HUNTING + + + +As this my story will probably run counter to more than one fashion +of the day, literary and other, it is prudent to bow to those +fashions wherever I honestly can; and therefore to begin with a +scrap of description. + +The edge of a great fox-cover; a flat wilderness of low leafless +oaks fortified by a long, dreary, thorn capped clay ditch, with sour +red water oozing out at every yard; a broken gate leading into a +straight wood ride, ragged with dead grasses and black with fallen +leaves, the centre mashed into a quagmire by innumerable horsehoofs; +some forty red coats and some four black; a sprinkling of young- +farmers, resplendent in gold buttons and green; a pair of sleek drab +stable-keepers, showing off horses for sale; the surgeon of the +union, in Mackintosh and antigropelos; two holiday schoolboys with +trousers strapped down to bursting point, like a penny steamer's +safety-valve; a midshipman, the only merry one in the field, bumping +about on a fretting, sweating hack, with its nose a foot above its +ears; and Lancelot Smith, who then kept two good horses, and 'rode +forward' as a fine young fellow of three-and-twenty who can afford +it, and 'has nothing else to do,' has a very good right to ride. + +But what is a description, without a sketch of the weather?--In +these Pantheist days especially, when a hero or heroine's moral +state must entirely depend on the barometer, and authors talk as if +Christians were cabbages, and a man's soul as well as his lungs +might be saved by sea-breezes and sunshine; or his character +developed by wearing guano in his shoes, and training himself +against a south wall--we must have a weather description, though, as +I shall presently show, one in flat contradiction of the popular +theory. Luckily for our information, Lancelot was very much given +to watch both the weather and himself, and had indeed, while in his +teens, combined the two in a sort of a soul-almanack on the +principles just mentioned--somewhat in this style:-- + +'Monday, 21st.--Wind S.W., bright sun, mercury at 30.5 inches. Felt +my heart expanded towards the universe. Organs of veneration and +benevolence pleasingly excited; and gave a shilling to a tramp. An +inexpressible joy bounded through every vein, and the soft air +breathed purity and self-sacrifice through my soul. As I watched +the beetles, those children of the sun, who, as divine Shelley says, +"laden with light and odour, pass over the gleam of the living +grass," I gained an Eden-glimpse of the pleasures of virtue. + +'N.B. Found the tramp drunk in a ditch. I could not have degraded +myself on such a day--ah! how could he? + +'Tuesday, 22d.--Barometer rapidly falling. Heavy clouds in the +south-east. My heart sank into gloomy forebodings. Read Manfred, +and doubted whether I should live long. The laden weight of destiny +seemed to crush down my aching forehead, till the thunderstorm +burst, and peace was restored to my troubled soul.' + +This was very bad; but to do justice to Lancelot, he had grown out +of it at the time when my story begins. He was now in the fifth act +of his 'Werterean' stage; that sentimental measles, which all clever +men must catch once in their lives, and which, generally, like the +physical measles, if taken early, settles their constitution for +good or evil; if taken late, goes far towards killing them. +Lancelot had found Byron and Shelley pall on his taste and commenced +devouring Bulwer and worshipping Ernest Maltravers. He had left +Bulwer for old ballads and romances, and Mr. Carlyle's reviews; was +next alternately chivalry-mad; and Germany-mad; was now reading hard +at physical science; and on the whole, trying to become a great man, +without any very clear notion of what a great man ought to be. Real +education he never had had. Bred up at home under his father, a +rich merchant, he had gone to college with a large stock of general +information, and a particular mania for dried plants, fossils, +butterflies, and sketching, and some such creed as this:-- + +That he was very clever. + +That he ought to make his fortune. + +That a great many things were very pleasant--beautiful things among +the rest. + +That it was a fine thing to be 'superior,' gentleman-like, generous, +and courageous. + +That a man ought to be religious. + +And left college with a good smattering of classics and mathematics, +picked up in the intervals of boat-racing and hunting, and much the +same creed as he brought with him, except in regard to the last +article. The scenery-and-natural-history mania was now somewhat at +a discount. He had discovered a new natural object, including in +itself all--more than all--yet found beauties and wonders--woman! + +Draw, draw the veil and weep, guardian angel! if such there be. +What was to be expected? Pleasant things were pleasant--there was +no doubt of that, whatever else might be doubtful. He had read +Byron by stealth; he had been flogged into reading Ovid and +Tibullus; and commanded by his private tutor to read Martial and +Juvenal 'for the improvement of his style.' All conversation on the +subject of love had been prudishly avoided, as usual, by his parents +and teacher. The parts of the Bible which spoke of it had been +always kept out of his sight. Love had been to him, practically, +ground tabooed and 'carnal.' What was to be expected? Just what +happened--if woman's beauty had nothing holy in it, why should his +fondness for it? Just what happens every day--that he had to sow +his wild oats for himself, and eat the fruit thereof, and the dirt +thereof also. + +O fathers! fathers! and you, clergymen, who monopolise education! +either tell boys the truth about love, or do not put into their +hands, without note or comment, the foul devil's lies about it, +which make up the mass of the Latin poets--and then go, fresh from +teaching Juvenal and Ovid, to declaim at Exeter Hall against poor +Peter Dens's well-meaning prurience! Had we not better take the +beam out of our own eye before we meddle with the mote in the +Jesuit's? + +But where is my description of the weather all this time? + +I cannot, I am sorry to say, give any very cheerful account of the +weather that day. But what matter? Are Englishmen hedge-gnats, who +only take their sport when the sun shines? Is it not, on the +contrary, symbolical of our national character, that almost all our +field amusements are wintry ones? Our fowling, our hunting, our +punt-shooting (pastime for Hymir himself and the frost giants)--our +golf and skating,--our very cricket, and boat-racing, and jack and +grayling fishing, carried on till we are fairly frozen out. We are +a stern people, and winter suits us. Nature then retires modestly +into the background, and spares us the obtrusive glitter of summer, +leaving us to think and work; and therefore it happens that in +England, it may be taken as a general rule, that whenever all the +rest of the world is in-doors, we are out and busy, and on the +whole, the worse the day, the better the deed. + +The weather that day, the first day Lancelot ever saw his beloved, +was truly national. A silent, dim, distanceless, steaming, rotting +day in March. The last brown oak-leaf which had stood out the +winter's frost, spun and quivered plump down, and then lay; as if +ashamed to have broken for a moment the ghastly stillness, like an +awkward guest at a great dumb dinner-party. A cold suck of wind +just proved its existence, by toothaches on the north side of all +faces. The spiders having been weather-bewitched the night before, +had unanimously agreed to cover every brake and brier with gossamer- +cradles, and never a fly to be caught in them; like Manchester +cotton-spinners madly glutting the markets in the teeth of 'no +demand.' The steam crawled out of the dank turf, and reeked off the +flanks and nostrils of the shivering horses, and clung with clammy +paws to frosted hats and dripping boughs. A soulless, skyless, +catarrhal day, as if that bustling dowager, old mother Earth--what +with match-making in spring, and fetes champetres in summer, and +dinner-giving in autumn--was fairly worn out, and put to bed with +the influenza, under wet blankets and the cold-water cure. + +There sat Lancelot by the cover-side, his knees aching with cold and +wet, thanking his stars that he was not one of the whippers-in who +were lashing about in the dripping cover, laying up for themselves, +in catering for the amusement of their betters, a probable old age +of bed-ridden torture, in the form of rheumatic gout. Not that he +was at all happy--indeed, he had no reason to be so; for, first, the +hounds would not find; next, he had left half-finished at home a +review article on the Silurian System, which he had solemnly +promised an abject and beseeching editor to send to post that night; +next, he was on the windward side of the cover, and dare not light a +cigar; and lastly, his mucous membrane in general was not in the +happiest condition, seeing that he had been dining the evening +before with Mr. Vaurien of Rottenpalings, a young gentleman of a +convivial and melodious turn of mind, who sang--and played also--as +singing men are wont--in more senses than one, and had 'ladies and +gentlemen' down from town to stay with him; and they sang and played +too; and so somehow between vingt-un and champagne-punch, Lancelot +had not arrived at home till seven o'clock that morning, and was in +a fit state to appreciate the feelings of our grandfathers, when, +after the third bottle of port, they used to put the black silk +tights into their pockets, slip on the leathers and boots, and ride +the crop-tailed hack thirty miles on a winter's night, to meet the +hounds in the next county by ten in the morning. They are 'gone +down to Hades, even many stalwart souls of heroes,' with John Warde +of Squerries at their head--the fathers of the men who conquered at +Waterloo; and we their degenerate grandsons are left instead, with +puny arms, and polished leather boots, and a considerable taint of +hereditary disease, to sit in club-houses, and celebrate the +progress of the species. + +Whether Lancelot or his horse, under these depressing circumstances, +fell asleep; or whether thoughts pertaining to such a life, and its +fitness for a clever and ardent young fellow in the nineteenth +century, became gradually too painful, and had to be peremptorily +shaken off, this deponent sayeth not; but certainly, after five-and- +thirty minutes of idleness and shivering, Lancelot opened his eyes +with a sudden start, and struck spurs into his hunter without due +cause shown; whereat Shiver-the-timbers, who was no Griselda in +temper--(Lancelot had bought him out of the Pytchley for half his +value, as unrideably vicious, when he had killed a groom, and fallen +backwards on a rough-rider, the first season after he came up from +Horncastle)--responded by a furious kick or two, threw his head up, +put his foot into a drain, and sprawled down all but on his nose, +pitching Lancelot unawares shamefully on the pommel of his saddle. +A certain fatality, by the bye, had lately attended all Lancelot's +efforts to shine; he never bought a new coat without tearing it +mysteriously next day, or tried to make a joke without bursting out +coughing in the middle . . . and now the whole field were looking on +at his mishap; between disgust and the start he turned almost sick, +and felt the blood rush into his cheeks and forehead as he heard a +shout of coarse jovial laughter burst out close to him, and the old +master of the hounds, Squire Lavington, roared aloud-- + +'A pretty sportsman you are, Mr. Smith, to fall asleep by the cover- +side and let your horse down--and your pockets, too! What's that +book on the ground? Sapping and studying still? I let nobody come +out with my hounds with their pocket full of learning. Hand it up +here, Tom; we'll see what it is. French, as I am no scholar! +Translate for us, Colonel Bracebridge!' + +And, amid shouts of laughter, the gay Guardsman read out,-- + +'St. Francis de Sales: Introduction to a Devout Life.' + +Poor Lancelot! Wishing himself fathoms under-ground, ashamed of his +book, still more ashamed of himself for his shame, he had to sit +there ten physical seconds, or spiritual years, while the colonel +solemnly returned him the book, complimenting him on the proofs of +its purifying influence which he had given the night before, in +helping to throw the turnpike-gate into the river. + +But 'all things do end,' and so did this; and the silence of the +hounds also; and a faint but knowing whimper drove St. Francis out +of all heads, and Lancelot began to stalk slowly with a dozen +horsemen up the wood-ride, to a fitful accompaniment of wandering +hound-music, where the choristers were as invisible as nightingales +among the thick cover. And hark! just as the book was returned to +his pocket, the sweet hubbub suddenly crashed out into one jubilant +shriek, and then swept away fainter and fainter among the trees. +The walk became a trot--the trot a canter. Then a faint melancholy +shout at a distance, answered by a 'Stole away!' from the fields; a +doleful 'toot!' of the horn; the dull thunder of many horsehoofs +rolling along the farther woodside. Then red coats, flashing like +sparks of fire across the gray gap of mist at the ride's-mouth, then +a whipper-in, bringing up a belated hound, burst into the pathway, +smashing and plunging, with shut eyes, through ash-saplings and +hassock-grass; then a fat farmer, sedulously pounding through the +mud, was overtaken and bespattered in spite of all his struggles;-- +until the line streamed out into the wide rushy pasture, startling +up pewits and curlews, as horsemen poured in from every side, and +cunning old farmers rode off at inexplicable angles to some well- +known haunts of pug: and right ahead, chiming and jangling sweet +madness, the dappled pack glanced and wavered through the veil of +soft grey mist. 'What's the use of this hurry?' growled Lancelot. +'They will all be back again. I never have the luck to see a run.' + +But no; on and on--down the wind and down the vale; and the canter +became a gallop, and the gallop a long straining stride; and a +hundred horsehoofs crackled like flame among the stubbles, and +thundered fetlock-deep along the heavy meadows; and every fence +thinned the cavalcade, till the madness began to stir all bloods, +and with grim earnest silent faces, the initiated few settled +themselves to their work, and with the colonel and Lancelot at their +head, 'took their pleasure sadly, after the manner of their nation,' +as old Froissart has it. + + +'Thorough bush, through brier, +Thorough park, through pale;' + + +till the rolling grass-lands spread out into flat black open +fallows, crossed with grassy baulks, and here and there a long +melancholy line of tall elms, while before them the high chalk +ranges gleamed above the mist like a vast wall of emerald enamelled +with snow, and the winding river glittering at their feet. + +'A polite fox!' observed the colonel. 'He's leading the squire +straight home to Whitford, just in time for dinner.' + +* * * * * + +They were in the last meadow, with the stream before them. A line +of struggling heads in the swollen and milky current showed the +hounds' opinion of Reynard's course. The sportsmen galloped off +towards the nearest bridge. Bracebridge looked back at Lancelot, +who had been keeping by his side in sulky rivalry, following him +successfully through all manner of desperate places, and more and +more angry with himself and the guiltless colonel, because he only +followed, while the colonel's quicker and unembarrassed wit, which +lived wholly in the present moment, saw long before Lancelot, 'how +to cut out his work,' in every field. + +'I shan't go round,' quietly observed the colonel. + +'Do you fancy I shall?' growled Lancelot, who took for granted--poor +thin-skinned soul! that the words were meant as a hit at himself. + +'You're a brace of geese,' politely observed the old squire; 'and +you'll find it out in rheumatic fever. There--"one fool makes +many!" You'll kill Smith before you're done, colonel!' and the old +man wheeled away up the meadow, as Bracebridge shouted after him,-- + +'Oh, he'll make a fine rider--in time!' + +'In time!' Lancelot could have knocked the unsuspecting colonel +down for the word. It just expressed the contrast, which had +fretted him ever since he began to hunt with the Whitford Priors +hounds. The colonel's long practice and consummate skill in all he +took in hand,--his experience of all society, from the prairie +Indian to Crockford's, from the prize-ring to the continental +courts,--his varied and ready store of information and anecdote,-- +the harmony and completeness of the man,--his consistency with his +own small ideal, and his consequent apparent superiority everywhere +and in everything to the huge awkward Titan-cub, who, though +immeasurably beyond Bracebridge in intellect and heart, was still in +a state of convulsive dyspepsia, 'swallowing formulae,' and daily +well-nigh choked; diseased throughout with that morbid self- +consciousness and lust of praise, for which God prepares, with His +elect, a bitter cure. Alas! poor Lancelot! an unlicked bear, 'with +all his sorrows before him!'-- + +'Come along,' quoth Bracebridge, between snatches of a tune, his +coolness maddening Lancelot. 'Old Lavington will find us dry +clothes, a bottle of port, and a brace of charming daughters, at the +Priory. In with you, little Mustang of the prairie! Neck or +nothing!'-- + +And in an instant the small wiry American, and the huge Horncastle- +bred hunter, were wallowing and staggering in the yeasty stream, +till they floated into a deep reach, and swam steadily down to a low +place in the bank. They crossed the stream, passed the Priory +Shrubberies, leapt the gate into the park, and then on and upward, +called by the unseen Ariel's music before them.--Up, into the hills; +past white crumbling chalk-pits, fringed with feathered juniper and +tottering ashes, their floors strewed with knolls of fallen soil and +vegetation, like wooded islets in a sea of milk.--Up, between steep +ridges of tuft crested with black fir-woods and silver beech, and +here and there a huge yew standing out alone, the advanced sentry of +the forest, with its luscious fretwork of green velvet, like a +mountain of Gothic spires and pinnacles, all glittering and steaming +as the sun drank up the dew-drops. The lark sprang upward into +song, and called merrily to the new-opened sunbeams, while the +wreaths and flakes of mist lingered reluctantly about the hollows, +and clung with dewy fingers to every knoll and belt of pine.--Up +into the labyrinthine bosom of the hills,--but who can describe +them? Is not all nature indescribable? every leaf infinite and +transcendental? How much more those mighty downs, with their +enormous sheets of spotless turf, where the dizzy eye loses all +standard of size and distance before the awful simplicity, the +delicate vastness, of those grand curves and swells, soft as the +outlines of a Greek Venus, as if the great goddess-mother Hertha had +laid herself down among the hills to sleep, her Titan limbs wrapt in +a thin veil of silvery green. + +Up, into a vast amphitheatre of sward, whose walls banked out the +narrow sky above. And here, in the focus of the huge ring, an +object appeared which stirred strange melancholy in Lancelot,--a +little chapel, ivy-grown, girded with a few yews, and elders, and +grassy graves. A climbing rose over the porch, and iron railings +round the churchyard, told of human care; and from the graveyard +itself burst up one of those noble springs known as winter-bournes +in the chalk ranges, which, awakened in autumn from the abysses to +which it had shrunk during the summer's drought, was hurrying down +upon its six months' course, a broad sheet of oily silver over a +temporary channel of smooth greensward. + +The hounds had checked in the woods behind; now they poured down the +hillside, so close together 'that you might have covered them with a +sheet,' straight for the little chapel. + +A saddened tone of feeling spread itself through Lancelot's heart. +There were the everlasting hills around, even as they had grown and +grown for countless ages, beneath the still depths of the primeval +chalk ocean, in the milky youth of this great English land. And +here was he, the insect of a day, fox-hunting upon THEM! He felt +ashamed, and more ashamed when the inner voice whispered--'Fox- +hunting is not the shame--thou art the shame. If thou art the +insect of a day, it is thy sin that thou art one.' + +And his sadness, foolish as it may seem, grew as he watched a brown +speck fleet rapidly up the opposite hill, and heard a gay view- +halloo burst from the colonel at his side. The chase lost its charm +for him the moment the game was seen. Then vanished that mysterious +delight of pursuing an invisible object, which gives to hunting and +fishing their unutterable and almost spiritual charm; which made +Shakespeare a nightly poacher; Davy and Chantrey the patriarchs of +fly-fishing; by which the twelve-foot rod is transfigured into an +enchanter's wand, potent over the unseen wonders of the water-world, +to 'call up spirits from the vasty deep,' which will really 'come if +you do call for them'--at least if the conjuration be orthodox--and +they there. That spell was broken by the sight of poor wearied pug, +his once gracefully-floating brush all draggled and drooping, as he +toiled up the sheep-paths towards the open down above. + +But Lancelot's sadness reached its crisis, as he met the hounds just +outside the churchyard. Another moment--they had leaped the rails; +and there they swept round under the gray wall, leaping and yelling, +like Berserk fiends among the frowning tombstones, over the cradles +of the quiet dead. + +Lancelot shuddered--the thing was not wrong--'it was no one's +fault,'--but there was a ghastly discord in it. Peace and strife, +time and eternity--the mad noisy flesh, and the silent immortal +spirit,--the frivolous game of life's outside show, and the terrible +earnest of its inward abysses, jarred together without and within +him. He pulled his horse up violently, and stood as if rooted to +the place, gazing at he knew not what. + +The hounds caught sight of the fox, burst into one frantic shriek of +joy--and then a sudden and ghastly stillness, as, mute and +breathless, they toiled up the hillside, gaining on their victim at +every stride. The patter of the horsehoofs and the rattle of +rolling flints died away above. Lancelot looked up, startled at the +silence; laughed aloud, he knew not why, and sat, regardless of his +pawing and straining horse, still staring at the chapel and the +graves. + +On a sudden the chapel-door opened, and a figure, timidly yet +loftily stepped out without observing him, and suddenly turning +round, met him full, face to face, and stood fixed with surprise as +completely as Lancelot himself. + +That face and figure, and the spirit which spoke through them, +entered his heart at once, never again to leave it. Her features +were aquiline and grand, without a shade of harshness; her eyes +shone out like twain lakes of still azure, beneath a broad marble +cliff of polished forehead; her rich chestnut hair rippled downward +round the towering neck. With her perfect masque and queenly +figure, and earnest, upward gaze, she might have been the very model +from which Raphael conceived his glorious St. Catherine--the ideal +of the highest womanly genius, softened into self-forgetfulness by +girlish devotion. She was simply, almost coarsely dressed; but a +glance told him that she was a lady, by the courtesy of man as well +as by the will of God. + +They gazed one moment more at each other--but what is time to +spirits? With them, as with their Father, 'one day is as a thousand +years.' But that eye-wedlock was cut short the next instant by the +decided interference of the horse, who, thoroughly disgusted at his +master's whole conduct, gave a significant shake of his head, and +shamming frightened (as both women and horses will do when only +cross), commenced a war-dance, which drove Argemone Lavington into +the porch, and gave the bewildered Lancelot an excuse for dashing +madly up the hill after his companions. + +'What a horrible ugly face!' said Argemone to herself, 'but so +clever, and so unhappy!' + +Blest pity! true mother of that graceless scamp, young Love, who is +ashamed of his real pedigree, and swears to this day that he is the +child of Venus!--the coxcomb! + +* * * * * + +[Here, for the sake of the reader, we omit, or rather postpone a +long dissertation on the famous Erototheogonic chorus of +Aristophanes's Birds, with illustrations taken from all earth and +heaven, from the Vedas and Proclus to Jacob Boehmen and Saint +Theresa.] + +'The dichotomy of Lancelot's personality,' as the Germans would call +it, returned as he dashed on. His understanding was trying to ride, +while his spirit was left behind with Argemone. Hence loose reins +and a looser seat. He rolled about like a tipsy man, holding on, in +fact, far more by his spurs than by his knees, to the utter +infuriation of Shiver-the-timbers, who kicked and snorted over the +down like one of Mephistopheles's Demon-steeds. They had mounted +the hill--the deer fled before them in terror--they neared the park +palings. In the road beyond them the hounds were just killing their +fox, struggling and growling in fierce groups for the red gobbets of +fur, a panting, steaming ring of horses round them. Half a dozen +voices hailed him as he came up. + +'Where have you been?' 'He'll tumble off!' 'He's had a fall!' 'No +he hasn't!' ''Ware hounds, man alive!' 'He'll break his neck!' + +'He has broken it, at last!' shouted the colonel, as Shiver-the- +timbers rushed at the high pales, out of breath, and blind with +rage. Lancelot saw and heard nothing till he was awakened from his +dream by the long heave of the huge brute's shoulder, and the +maddening sensation of sweeping through the air over the fence. He +started, checked the curb, the horse threw up his head, fulfilling +his name by driving his knees like a battering-ram against the +pales--the top-bar bent like a withe, flew out into a hundred +splinters, and man and horse rolled over headlong into the hard +flint-road. + +For one long sickening second Lancelot watched the blue sky between +his own knees. Then a crash as if a shell had burst in his face--a +horrible grind--a sheet of flame--and the blackness of night. Did +you ever feel it, reader? + +When he awoke, he found himself lying in bed, with Squire Lavington +sitting by him. There was real sorrow in the old man's face, 'Come +to himself!' and a great joyful oath rolled out. 'The boldest rider +of them all! I wouldn't have lost him for a dozen ready-made spick +and span Colonel Bracebridges!' + +'Quite right, squire!' answered a laughing voice from behind the +curtain. 'Smith has a clear two thousand a year, and I live by my +wits!' + + + +CHAPTER II: SPRING YEARNINGS + + + +I heard a story the other day of our most earnest and genial +humorist, who is just now proving himself also our most earnest and +genial novelist. 'I like your novel exceedingly,' said a lady; 'the +characters are so natural--all but the baronet, and he surely is +overdrawn: it is impossible to find such coarseness in his rank of +life!' + +The artist laughed. 'And that character,' said he, 'is almost the +only exact portrait in the whole book.' + +So it is. People do not see the strange things which pass them +every day. 'The romance of real life' is only one to the romantic +spirit. And then they set up for critics, instead of pupils; as if +the artist's business was not just to see what they cannot see--to +open their eyes to the harmonies and the discords, the miracles and +the absurdities, which seem to them one uniform gray fog of +commonplaces. + +Then let the reader believe, that whatsoever is commonplace in my +story is my own invention. Whatsoever may seem extravagant or +startling is most likely to be historic fact, else I should not have +dared to write it down, finding God's actual dealings here much too +wonderful to dare to invent many fresh ones for myself. + +Lancelot, who had had a severe concussion of the brain and a broken +leg, kept his bed for a few weeks, and his room for a few more. +Colonel Bracebridge installed himself at the Priory, and nursed him +with indefatigable good-humour and few thanks. He brought Lancelot +his breakfast before hunting, described the run to him when he +returned, read him to sleep, told him stories of grizzly bear and +buffalo-hunts, made him laugh in spite of himself at extempore comic +medleys, kept his tables covered with flowers from the conservatory, +warmed his chocolate, and even his bed. Nothing came amiss to him, +and he to nothing. Lancelot longed at first every hour to be rid of +him, and eyed him about the room as a bulldog does the monkey who +rides him. In his dreams he was Sinbad the Sailor, and Bracebridge +the Old Man of the Sea; but he could not hold out against the +colonel's merry bustling kindliness, and the almost womanish +tenderness of his nursing. The ice thawed rapidly; and one evening +it split up altogether, when Bracebridge, who was sitting drawing by +Lancelot's sofa, instead of amusing himself with the ladies below, +suddenly threw his pencil into the fire, and broke out, a propos de +rien-- + +'What a strange pair we are, Smith! I think you just the best +fellow I ever met, and you hate me like poison--you can't deny it.' + +There was something in the colonel's tone so utterly different from +his usual courtly and measured speech, that Lancelot was taken +completely by surprise, and stammered out,-- + +'I--I--I--no--no. I know I am very foolish--ungrateful. But I do +hate you,' he said, with a sudden impulse, 'and I'll tell you why.' + +'Give me your hand,' quoth the colonel: 'I like that. Now we shall +see our way with each other, at least.' + +'Because,' said Lancelot slowly, 'because you are cleverer than I, +readier than I, superior to me in every point.' + +The colonel laughed, not quite merrily. Lancelot went on, holding +down his shaggy brows. + +'I am a brute and an ass!--And yet I do not like to tell you so. +For if I am an ass, what are you?' + +'Heyday!' + +'Look here.--I am wasting my time and brains on ribaldry, but I am +worth nothing better--at least, I think so at times; but you, who +can do anything you put your hand to, what business have you, in the +devil's name, to be throwing yourself away on gimcracks and fox- +hunting foolery? Heavens! If I had your talents, I'd be--I'd make +a name for myself before I died, if I died to make it.' The colonel +griped his hand hard, rose, and looked out of the window for a few +minutes. There was a dead, brooding silence, till he turned to +Lancelot,-- + +'Mr. Smith, I thank you for your honesty, but good advice may come +too late. I am no saint, and God only knows how much less of one I +may become; but mark my words,--if you are ever tempted by passion, +and vanity, and fine ladies, to form liaisons, as the Jezebels call +them, snares, and nets, and labyrinths of blind ditches, to keep you +down through life, stumbling and grovelling, hating yourself and +hating the chain to which you cling--in that hour pray--pray as if +the devil had you by the throat,--to Almighty God, to help you out +of that cursed slough! There is nothing else for it!--pray, I tell +you!' + +There was a terrible earnestness about the guardsman's face which +could not be mistaken. Lancelot looked at him for a moment, and +then dropped his eyes ashamed, as if he had intruded on the +speaker's confidence by witnessing his emotion. + +In a moment the colonel had returned to his smile and his polish. + +'And now, my dear invalid, I must beg your pardon for sermonising. +What do you say to a game of ecarte? We must play for love, or we +shall excite ourselves, and scandalise Mrs. Lavington's piety.' And +the colonel pulled a pack of cards out of his pocket, and seeing +that Lancelot was too thoughtful for play, commenced all manner of +juggler's tricks, and chuckled over them like any schoolboy. + +'Happy man!' thought Lancelot, 'to have the strength of will which +can thrust its thoughts away once and for all.' No, Lancelot! more +happy are they whom God will not allow to thrust their thoughts from +them till the bitter draught has done its work. + +From that day, however, there was a cordial understanding between +the two. They never alluded to the subject; but they had known the +bottom of each other's heart. Lancelot's sick-room was now pleasant +enough, and he drank in daily his new friend's perpetual stream of +anecdote, till March and hunting were past, and April was half over. +The old squire came up after dinner regularly (during March he had +hunted every day, and slept every evening); and the trio chatted +along merrily enough, by the help of whist and backgammon, upon the +surface of this little island of life,--which is, like Sinbad's, +after all only the back of a floating whale, ready to dive at any +moment.--And then?-- + +But what was Argemone doing all this time? Argemone was busy in her +boudoir (too often a true boudoir to her) among books and +statuettes, and dried flowers, fancying herself, and not unfairly, +very intellectual. She had four new manias every year; her last +winter's one had been that bottle-and-squirt mania, miscalled +chemistry; her spring madness was for the Greek drama. She had +devoured Schlegel's lectures, and thought them divine; and now she +was hard at work on Sophocles, with a little help from translations, +and thought she understood him every word. Then she was somewhat +High-Church in her notions, and used to go up every Wednesday and +Friday to the chapel in the hills, where Lancelot had met her, for +an hour's mystic devotion, set off by a little graceful asceticism. +As for Lancelot, she never thought of him but as an empty-headed +fox-hunter who had met with his deserts; and the brilliant accounts +which the all smoothing colonel gave at dinner of Lancelot's +physical well doing and agreeable conversation only made her set him +down the sooner as a twin clever-do-nothing to the despised +Bracebridge, whom she hated for keeping her father in a roar of +laughter. + +But her sister, little Honoria, had all the while been busy messing +and cooking with her own hands for the invalid; and almost fell in +love with the colonel for his watchful kindness. And here a word +about Honoria, to whom Nature, according to her wont with sisters, +had given almost everything which Argemone wanted, and denied almost +everything which Argemone had, except beauty. And even in that, the +many-sided mother had made her a perfect contrast to her sister,-- +tiny and luscious, dark-eyed and dark-haired; as full of wild simple +passion as an Italian, thinking little, except where she felt much-- +which was, indeed, everywhere; for she lived in a perpetual April- +shower of exaggerated sympathy for all suffering, whether in novels +or in life; and daily gave the lie to that shallow old calumny, that +'fictitious sorrows harden the heart to real ones.' + +Argemone was almost angry with her sometimes, when she trotted whole +days about the village from school to sick-room: perhaps conscience +hinted to her that her duty, too, lay rather there than among her +luxurious day-dreams. But, alas! though she would have indignantly +repelled the accusation of selfishness, yet in self and for self +alone she lived; and while she had force of will for any so-called +'self-denial,' and would fast herself cross and stupefied, and quite +enjoy kneeling thinly clad and barefoot on the freezing chapel-floor +on a winter's morning, yet her fastidious delicacy revolted at +sitting, like Honoria, beside the bed of the ploughman's consumptive +daughter, in a reeking, stifling, lean-to garret, in which had slept +the night before, the father, mother, and two grown-up boys, not to +mention a new-married couple, the sick girl, and, alas! her baby. +And of such bedchambers there were too many in Whitford Priors. + +The first evening that Lancelot came downstairs, Honoria clapped her +hands outright for joy as he entered, and ran up and down for ten +minutes, fetching and carrying endless unnecessary cushions and +footstools; while Argemone greeted him with a cold distant bow, and +a fine-lady drawl of carefully commonplace congratulations. Her +heart smote her though, as she saw the wan face and the wild, +melancholy, moonstruck eyes once more glaring through and through +her; she found a comfort in thinking his stare impertinent, drew +herself up, and turned away; once, indeed, she could not help +listening, as Lancelot thanked Mrs. Lavington for all the pious and +edifying books with which the good lady had kept his room rather +than his brain furnished for the last six weeks; he was going to say +more, but he saw the colonel's quaint foxy eye peering at him, +remembered St. Francis de Sales, and held his tongue. + +But, as her destiny was, Argemone found herself, in the course of +the evening, alone with Lancelot, at the open window. It was a +still, hot, heavy night, after long easterly drought; sheet- +lightning glimmered on the far horizon over the dark woodlands; the +coming shower had sent forward as his herald a whispering draught of +fragrant air. + +'What a delicious shiver is creeping over those limes!' said +Lancelot, half to himself. + +The expression struck Argemone: it was the right one, and it seemed +to open vistas of feeling and observation in the speaker which she +had not suspected. There was a rich melancholy in the voice;--she +turned to look at him. + +'Ay,' he went on; 'and the same heat which crisps those thirsty +leaves must breed the thunder-shower which cools them? But so it is +throughout the universe: every yearning proves the existence of an +object meant to satisfy it; the same law creates both the giver and +the receiver, the longing and its home.' + +'If one could but know sometimes what it is for which one is +longing!' said Argemone, without knowing that she was speaking from +her inmost heart: but thus does the soul involuntarily lay bare its +most unspoken depths in the presence of its yet unknown mate, and +then shudders at its own ABANDON as it first tries on the wedding +garment of Paradise. + +Lancelot was not yet past the era at which young geniuses are apt to +'talk book' at little. + +'For what?' he answered, flashing up according to his fashion. 'To +be;--to be great; to have done one mighty work before we die, and +live, unloved or loved, upon the lips of men. For this all long who +are not mere apes and wall-flies.' + +'So longed the founders of Babel,' answered Argemone, carelessly, to +this tirade. She had risen a strange fish, the cunning beauty, and +now she was trying her fancy flies over him one by one. + +'And were they so far wrong?' answered he. 'From the Babel society +sprung our architecture, our astronomy, politics, and colonisation. +No doubt the old Hebrew sheiks thought them impious enough, for +daring to build brick walls instead of keeping to the good old- +fashioned tents, and gathering themselves into a nation instead of +remaining a mere family horde; and gave their own account of the +myth, just as the antediluvian savages gave theirs of that strange +Eden scene, by the common interpretation of which the devil is made +the first inventor of modesty. Men are all conservatives; +everything new is impious, till we get accustomed to it; and if it +fails, the mob piously discover a divine vengeance in the mischance, +from Babel to Catholic Emancipation.' + +Lancelot had stuttered horribly during the latter part of this most +heterodox outburst, for he had begun to think about himself, and try +to say a fine thing, suspecting all the while that it might not be +true. But Argemone did not remark the stammering: the new thoughts +startled and pained her; but there was a daring grace about them. +She tried, as women will, to answer him with arguments, and failed, +as women will fail. She was accustomed to lay down the law a la +Madame de Stael, to savants and non-savants and be heard with +reverence, as a woman should be. But poor truth-seeking Lancelot +did not see what sex had to do with logic; he flew at her as if she +had been a very barrister, and hunted her mercilessly up and down +through all sorts of charming sophisms, as she begged the question, +and shifted her ground, as thoroughly right in her conclusion as she +was wrong in her reasoning, till she grew quite confused and +pettish.--And then Lancelot suddenly shrank into his shell, claws +and all, like an affrighted soldier-crab, hung down his head, and +stammered out some incoherencies,--'N-n-not accustomed to talk to +women--ladies, I mean. F-forgot myself.--Pray forgive me!' And he +looked up, and her eyes, half-amused, met his, and she saw that they +were filled with tears. + +'What have I to forgive?' she said, more gently, wondering on what +sort of strange sportsman she had fallen. 'You treat me like an +equal; you will deign to argue with me. But men in general--oh, +they hide their contempt for us, if not their own ignorance, under +that mask of chivalrous deference!' and then in the nasal fine +ladies' key, which was her shell, as bitter brusquerie was his, she +added, with an Amazon queen's toss of the head,--'You must come and +see us often. We shall suit each other, I see, better than most +whom we see here.' + +A sneer and a blush passed together over Lancelot's ugliness. + +'What, better than the glib Colonel Bracebridge yonder?' + +'Oh, he is witty enough, but he lives on the surface of everything! +He is altogether shallow and blase. His good-nature is the fruit of +want of feeling; between his gracefulness and his sneering +persiflage he is a perfect Mephistopheles-Apollo.' + +What a snare a decently-good nickname is! Out it must come, though +it carry a lie on its back. But the truth was, Argemone thought +herself infinitely superior to the colonel, for which simple reason +she could not in the least understand him. + +[By the bye, how subtly Mr. Tennyson has embodied all this in The +Princess. How he shows us the woman, when she takes her stand on +the false masculine ground of intellect, working out her own moral +punishment, by destroying in herself the tender heart of flesh, +which is either woman's highest blessing or her bitterest curse; how +she loses all feminine sensibility to the under-current of feeling +in us poor world-worn, case-hardened men, and falls from pride to +sternness, from sternness to sheer inhumanity. I should have +honoured myself by pleading guilty to stealing much of Argemone's +character from The Princess, had not the idea been conceived, and +fairly worked out, long before the appearance of that noble poem.] + + +They said no more to each other that evening. Argemone was called +to the piano; and Lancelot took up the Sporting Magazine, and read +himself to sleep till the party separated for the night. + +Argemone went up thoughtfully to her own room. The shower had +fallen, and the moon was shining bright, while every budding leaf +and knot of mould steamed up cool perfume, borrowed from the +treasures of the thundercloud. All around was working the infinite +mystery of birth and growth, of giving and taking, of beauty and +use. All things were harmonious--all things reciprocal without. +Argemone felt herself needless, lonely, and out of tune with herself +and nature. + +She sat in the window, and listlessly read over to herself a +fragment of her own poetry:-- + + +SAPPHO + +She lay among the myrtles on the cliff; +Above her glared the moon; beneath, the sea. +Upon the white horizon Athos' peak +Weltered in burning haze; all airs were dead; +The sicale slept among the tamarisk's hair; +The birds sat dumb and drooping. Far below +The lazy sea-weed glistened in the sun: +The lazy sea-fowl dried their steaming wings; +The lazy swell crept whispering up the ledge, +And sank again. Great Pan was laid to rest; +And mother Earth watched by him as he slept, +And hushed her myriad children for awhile. + +She lay among the myrtles on the cliff; +And sighed for sleep, for sleep that would not hear, +But left her tossing still: for night and day +A mighty hunger yearned within her heart, +Till all her veins ran fever, and her cheek, +Her long thin hands, and ivory-channell'd feet, +Were wasted with the wasting of her soul. +Then peevishly she flung her on her face, +And hid her eyeballs from the blinding glare, +And fingered at the grass, and tried to cool +Her crisp hot lips against the crisp hot sward: +And then she raised her head, and upward cast +Wild looks from homeless eyes, whose liquid light +Gleamed out between deep folds of blue-black hair, +As gleam twin lakes between the purple peaks +Of deep Parnassus, at the mournful moon. +Beside her lay a lyre. She snatched the shell, +And waked wild music from its silver strings; +Then tossed it sadly by,--'Ah, hush!' she cries, +'Dead offspring of the tortoise and the mine! +Why mock my discords with thine harmonies? +'Although a thrice-Olympian lot be thine, +Only to echo back in every tone, +The moods of nobler natures than thine own.' + + +'No!' she said. 'That soft and rounded rhyme suits ill with +Sappho's fitful and wayward agonies. She should burst out at once +into wild passionate life-weariness, and disgust at that universe, +with whose beauty she has filled her eyes in vain, to find it always +a dead picture, unsatisfying, unloving--as I have found it.' + +Sweet self-deceiver! had you no other reason for choosing as your +heroine Sappho, the victim of the idolatry of intellect--trying in +vain to fill her heart with the friendship of her own sex, and then +sinking into mere passion for a handsome boy, and so down into self- +contempt and suicide? + +She was conscious, I do believe, of no other reason than that she +gave; but consciousness is a dim candle--over a deep mine. + +'After all,' she said pettishly, 'people will call it a mere +imitation of Shelley's Alastor. And what harm if it is? Is there +to be no female Alastor? Has not the woman as good a right as the +man to long after ideal beauty--to pine and die if she cannot find +it; and regenerate herself in its light?' + +'Yo-hoo-oo-oo! Youp, youp! Oh-hooo!' arose doleful through the +echoing shrubbery. + +Argemone started and looked out. It was not a banshee, but a +forgotten fox-hound puppy, sitting mournfully on the gravel-walk +beneath, staring at the clear ghastly moon. + +She laughed and blushed--there was a rebuke in it. She turned to go +to rest; and as she knelt and prayed at her velvet faldstool, among +all the nicknacks which now-a-days make a luxury of devotion, was it +strange if, after she had prayed for the fate of nations and +churches, and for those who, as she thought, were fighting at Oxford +the cause of universal truth and reverend antiquity, she remembered +in her petitions the poor godless youth, with his troubled and +troubling eloquence? But it was strange that she blushed when she +mentioned his name--why should she not pray for him as she prayed +for others? + +Perhaps she felt that she did not pray for him as she prayed for +others. + +She left the AEolian harp in the window, as a luxury if she should +wake, and coiled herself up among lace pillows and eider blemos; and +the hound coiled himself up on the gravel-walk, after a solemn +vesper-ceremony of three turns round in his own length, looking +vainly for a 'soft stone.' The finest of us are animals after all, +and live by eating and sleeping: and, taken as animals, not so +badly off either--unless we happen to be Dorsetshire labourers--or +Spitalfields weavers--or colliery children--or marching soldiers-- +or, I am afraid, one half of English souls this day. + +And Argemone dreamed;--that she was a fox, flying for her life +through a churchyard--and Lancelot was a hound, yelling and leaping, +in a red coat and white buckskins, close upon her--and she felt his +hot breath, and saw his white teeth glare. . . . And then her +father was there: and he was an Italian boy, and played the organ-- +and Lancelot was a dancing dog, and stood up and danced to the tune +of 'C'est l'amour, l'amour, l'amour,' pitifully enough, in his red +coat--and she stood up and danced too; but she found her fox-fur +dress insufficient, and begged hard for a paper frill--which was +denied her: whereat she cried bitterly and woke; and saw the Night +peeping in with her bright diamond eyes, and blushed, and hid her +beautiful face in the pillows, and fell asleep again. + +What the little imp, who managed this puppet-show on Argemone's +brain-stage, may have intended to symbolise thereby, and whence he +stole his actors and stage-properties, and whether he got up the +interlude for his own private fun, or for that of a choir of brother +Eulenspiegels, or, finally, for the edification of Argemone as to +her own history, past, present, or future, are questions which we +must leave unanswered, till physicians have become a little more of +metaphysicians, and have given up their present plan of ignoring for +nine hundred and ninety-nine pages that most awful and significant +custom of dreaming, and then in the thousandth page talking the +boldest materialist twaddle about it. + +In the meantime, Lancelot, contrary to the colonel's express +commands, was sitting up to indite the following letter to his +cousin, the Tractarian curate:-- + +'You complain that I waste my time in field-sports: how do you know +that I waste my time? I find within myself certain appetites; and I +suppose that the God whom you say made me, made those appetites as a +part of me. Why are they to be crushed any more than any other part +of me? I am the whole of what I find in myself--am I to pick and +choose myself out of myself? And besides, I feel that the exercise +of freedom, activity, foresight, daring, independent self- +determination, even in a few minutes' burst across country, +strengthens me in mind as well as in body. It might not do so to +you; but you are of a different constitution, and, from all I see, +the power of a man's muscles, the excitability of his nerves, the +shape and balance of his brain, make him what he is. Else what is +the meaning of physiognomy? Every man's destiny, as the Turks say, +stands written on his forehead. One does not need two glances at +your face to know that you would not enjoy fox-hunting, that you +would enjoy book-learning and "refined repose," as they are pleased +to call it. Every man carries his character in his brain. You all +know that, and act upon it when you have to deal with a man for +sixpence; but your religious dogmas, which make out that everyman +comes into the world equally brutish and fiendish, make you afraid +to confess it. I don't quarrel with a "douce" man like you, with a +large organ of veneration, for following your bent. But if I am +fiery, with a huge cerebellum, why am I not to follow mine?--For +that is what you do, after all--what you like best. It is all very +easy for a man to talk of conquering his appetites, when he has none +to conquer. Try and conquer your organ of veneration, or of +benevolence, or of calculation--then I will call you an ascetic. +Why not!--The same Power which made the front of one's head made the +back, I suppose? + +'And, I tell you, hunting does me good. It awakens me out of my +dreary mill-round of metaphysics. It sweeps away that infernal web +of self-consciousness, and absorbs me in outward objects; and my +red-hot Perillus's bull cools in proportion as my horse warms. I +tell you, I never saw a man who could cut out his way across country +who could not cut his way through better things when his turn came. +The cleverest and noblest fellows are sure to be the best riders in +the long run. And as for bad company and "the world," when you take +to going in the first-class carriages for fear of meeting a swearing +sailor in the second-class--when those who have "renounced the +world" give up buying and selling in the funds--when my uncle, the +pious banker, who will only "associate" with the truly religious, +gives up dealing with any scoundrel or heathen who can "do business" +with him--then you may quote pious people's opinions to me. In +God's name, if the Stock Exchange, and railway stagging, and the +advertisements in the Protestant Hue-and-Cry, and the frantic +Mammon-hunting which has been for the last fifty years the peculiar +pursuit of the majority of Quakers, Dissenters, and Religious +Churchmen, are not The World, what is? I don't complain of them, +though; Puritanism has interdicted to them all art, all excitement, +all amusement--except money-making. It is their dernier ressort, +poor souls! + +'But you must explain to us naughty fox-hunters how all this agrees +with the good book. We see plainly enough, in the meantime, how it +agrees with "poor human nature." We see that the "religious world," +like the "great world," and the "sporting world," and the "literary +world," + + +"Compounds for sins she is inclined to, +By damning those she has no mind to;" + + +and that because England is a money-making country, and money-making +is an effeminate pursuit, therefore all sedentary and spoony sins, +like covetousness, slander, bigotry, and self-conceit, are to be +cockered and plastered over, while the more masculine vices, and no- +vices also, are mercilessly hunted down by your cold-blooded, soft- +handed religionists. + +'This is a more quiet letter than usual from me, my dear coz, for +many of your reproofs cut me home: they angered me at the time; but +I deserve them. I am miserable, self-disgusted, self-helpless, +craving for freedom, and yet crying aloud for some one to come and +guide me, and teach me; and WHO IS THERE IN THESE DAYS WHO COULD +TEACH A FAST MAN, EVEN IF HE WOULD TRY? Be sure, that as long as +you and yours make piety a synonym for unmanliness, you will never +convert either me or any other good sportsman. + +'By the bye, my dear fellow, was I asleep or awake when I seemed to +read in the postscript of your last letter, something about "being +driven to Rome after all"? . . . Why thither, of all places in +heaven or earth? You know, I have no party interest in the +question. All creeds are very much alike to me just now. But allow +me to ask, in a spirit of the most tolerant curiosity, what possible +celestial bait, either of the useful or the agreeable kind, can the +present excellent Pope, or his adherents, hold out to you in +compensation for the solid earthly pudding which you would have to +desert? . . . I daresay, though, that I shall not comprehend your +answer when it comes. I am, you know, utterly deficient in that +sixth sense of the angelic or supralunar beautiful, which fills your +soul with ecstasy. You, I know, expect and long to become an angel +after death: I am under the strange hallucination that my body is +part of me, and in spite of old Plotinus, look with horror at a +disembodiment till the giving of that new body, the great perfection +of which, in your eyes, and those of every one else, seems to be, +that it will be less, and not more of a body, than our present one. +. . . Is this hope, to me at once inconceivable and contradictory, +palpable and valuable enough to you to send you to that Italian +Avernus, to get it made a little more certain? If so, I despair of +your making your meaning intelligible to a poor fellow wallowing, +like me, in the Hylic Borboros--or whatever else you may choose to +call the unfortunate fact of being flesh and blood. . . . Still, +write.' + + + +CHAPTER III: NEW ACTORS, AND A NEW STAGE + + + +When Argemone rose in the morning, her first thought was of +Lancelot. His face haunted her. The wild brilliance of his +intellect struggling through foul smoke-clouds, had haunted her +still more. She had heard of his profligacy, his bursts of fierce +Berserk-madness; and yet now these very faults, instead of +repelling, seemed to attract her, and intensify her longing to save +him. She would convert him; purify him; harmonise his discords. +And that very wish gave her a peace she had never felt before. She +had formed her idea; she had now a purpose for which to live, and +she determined to concentrate herself for the work, and longed for +the moment when she should meet Lancelot, and begin--how, she did +not very clearly see. + +It is an old jest--the fair devotee trying to convert the young +rake. Men of the world laugh heartily at it; and so does the devil, +no doubt. If any readers wish to be fellow-jesters with that +personage, they may; but, as sure as old Saxon women-worship remains +for ever a blessed and healing law of life, the devotee may yet +convert the rake--and, perhaps, herself into the bargain. + +Argemone looked almost angrily round at her beloved books and +drawings; for they spoke a message to her which they had never +spoken before, of self-centred ambition. 'Yes,' she said aloud to +herself, 'I have been selfish, utterly! Art, poetry, science--I +believe, after all, that I have only loved them for my own sake, not +for theirs, because they would make me something, feed my conceit of +my own talents. How infinitely more glorious to find my work-field +and my prize, not in dead forms and colours, or ink-and-paper +theories, but in a living, immortal, human spirit! I will study no +more, except the human heart, and only that to purify and ennoble +it.' + +True, Argemone; and yet, like all resolutions, somewhat less than +the truth. That morning, indeed, her purpose was simple as God's +own light. She never dreamed of exciting Lancelot's admiration, +even his friendship for herself. She would have started as from a +snake, from the issue which the reader very clearly foresees, that +Lancelot would fall in love, not with Young Englandism, but with +Argemone Lavington. But yet self is not eradicated even from a +woman's heart in one morning before breakfast. Besides, it is not +'benevolence,' but love--the real Cupid of flesh and blood, who can +first + + +'Touch the chord of self which, trembling, +Passes in music out of sight.' + + +But a time for all things; and it is now time for Argemone to go +down to breakfast, having prepared some dozen imaginary dialogues +between herself and Lancelot, in which, of course, her eloquence +always had the victory. She had yet to learn, that it is better +sometimes not to settle in one's heart what we shall speak, for the +Everlasting Will has good works ready prepared for us to walk in, by +what we call fortunate accident; and it shall be given us in that +day and that hour what we shall speak. + +Lancelot, in the meantime, shrank from meeting Argemone; and was +quite glad of the weakness which kept him upstairs. Whether he was +afraid of her--whether he was ashamed of himself or of his crutches, +I cannot tell, but I daresay, reader, you are getting tired of all +this soul-dissecting. So we will have a bit of action again, for +the sake of variety, if for nothing better. + +Of all the species of lovely scenery which England holds, none, +perhaps, is more exquisite than the banks of the chalk-rivers--the +perfect limpidity of the water, the gay and luxuriant vegetation of +the banks and ditches, the masses of noble wood embosoming the +villages, the unique beauty of the water-meadows, living sheets of +emerald and silver, tinkling and sparkling, cool under the fiercest +sun, brilliant under the blackest clouds.--There, if anywhere, one +would have expected to find Arcadia among fertility, loveliness, +industry, and wealth. But, alas for the sad reality! the cool +breath of those glittering water-meadows too often floats laden with +poisonous miasma. Those picturesque villages are generally the +perennial hotbeds of fever and ague, of squalid penury, sottish +profligacy, dull discontent too stale for words. There is luxury in +the park, wealth in the huge farm-steadings, knowledge in the +parsonage: but the poor? those by whose dull labour all that luxury +and wealth, ay, even that knowledge, is made possible--what are +they? We shall see, please God, ere the story's end. + +But of all this Lancelot as yet thought nothing. He, too, had to be +emancipated, as much as Argemone, from selfish dreams; to learn to +work trustfully in the living Present, not to gloat sentimentally +over the unreturning Past. But his time was not yet come; and +little he thought of all the work which lay ready for him within a +mile of the Priory, as he watched the ladies go out for the +afternoon, and slipped down to the Nun's-pool on his crutches to +smoke and fish, and build castles in the air. + +The Priory, with its rambling courts and gardens, stood on an island +in the river. The upper stream flowed in a straight artificial +channel through the garden, still and broad, towards the Priory +mill; while just above the Priory wall half the river fell over a +high weir, with all its appendages of bucks and hatchways, and eel- +baskets, into the Nun's-pool, and then swept round under the ivied +walls, with their fantastic turrets and gables, and little loopholed +windows, peering out over the stream, as it hurried down over the +shallows to join the race below the mill. A postern door in the +walls opened on an ornamental wooden bridge across the weir-head--a +favourite haunt of all fishers and sketchers who were admitted to +the dragon-guarded Elysium of Whitford Priors. Thither Lancelot +went, congratulating himself, strange to say, in having escaped the +only human being whom he loved on earth. + +He found on the weir-bridge two of the keepers. The younger one, +Tregarva, was a stately, thoughtful-looking Cornishman, some six +feet three in height, with thews and sinews in proportion. He was +sitting on the bridge looking over a basket of eel-lines, and +listening silently to the chat of his companion. + +Old Harry Verney, the other keeper, was a character in his way, and +a very bad character too, though he was a patriarch among all the +gamekeepers of the vale. He was a short, wiry, bandy-legged, +ferret-visaged old man, with grizzled hair, and a wizened face +tanned brown and purple by constant exposure. Between rheumatism +and constant handling the rod and gun, his fingers were crooked like +a hawk's claws. He kept his left eye always shut, apparently to +save trouble in shooting; and squinted, and sniffed, and peered, +with a stooping back and protruded chin, as if he were perpetually +on the watch for fish, flesh, and fowl, vermin and Christian. The +friendship between himself and the Scotch terrier at his heels would +have been easily explained by Lessing, for in the transmigration of +souls the spirit of Harry Verney had evidently once animated a dog +of that breed. He was dressed in a huge thick fustian jacket, +scratched, stained, and patched, with bulging, greasy pockets; a +cast of flies round a battered hat, riddled with shot-holes, a dog- +whistle at his button-hole, and an old gun cut short over his arm, +bespoke his business. + +'I seed that 'ere Crawy against Ashy Down Plantations last night, +I'll be sworn,' said he, in a squeaking, sneaking tone. + +'Well, what harm was the man doing?' + +'Oh, ay, that's the way you young 'uns talk. If he warn't doing +mischief, he'd a been glad to have been doing it, I'll warrant. If +I'd been as young as you, I'd have picked a quarrel with him soon +enough, and found a cause for tackling him. It's worth a brace of +sovereigns with the squire to haul him up. Eh? eh? Ain't old Harry +right now?' + +'Humph!' growled the younger man. + +'There, then, you get me a snare and a hare by to-morrow night,' +went on old Harry, 'and see if I don't nab him. It won't lay long +under the plantation afore he picks it up. You mind to snare me a +hare to-night, now!' + +'I'll do no such thing, nor help to bring fake accusations against +any man!' + +'False accusations!' answered Harry, in his cringing way. 'Look at +that now, for a keeper to say! Why, if he don't happen to have a +snare just there, he has somewhere else, you know. Eh? Ain't old +Harry right now, eh?' + +'Maybe.' + +'There, don't say I don't know nothing then. Eh? What matter who +put the snare down, or the hare in, perwided he takes it up, man? +If 'twas his'n he'd be all the better pleased. The most +notoriousest poacher as walks unhung!' And old Harry lifted up his +crooked hands in pious indignation. + +'I'll have no more gamekeeping, Harry. What with hunting down +Christians as if they were vermin, all night, and being cursed by +the squire all day, I'd sooner be a sheriff's runner, or a negro +slave.' + +'Ay, ay! that's the way the young dogs always bark afore they're +broke in, and gets to like it, as the eels does skinning. Haven't I +bounced pretty near out of my skin many a time afore now, on this +here very bridge, with "Harry, jump in, you stupid hound!" and +"Harry, get out, you one-eyed tailor!" And then, if one of the +gentlemen lost a fish with their clumsiness--Oh, Father! to hear 'em +let out at me and my landing-net, and curse fit to fright the devil! +Dash their sarcy tongues! Eh! Don't old Harry know their ways? +Don't he know 'em, now?' + +'Ay,' said the young man, bitterly. 'We break the dogs, and we load +the guns, and we find the game, and mark the game,--and then they +call themselves sportsmen; we choose the flies, and we bait the +spinning-hooks, and we show them where the fish lie, and then when +they've hooked them, they can't get them out without us and the +spoonnet; and then they go home to the ladies and boast of the lot +of fish they killed--and who thinks of the keeper?' + +'Oh! ah! Then don't say old Harry knows nothing, then. How nicely, +now, you and I might get a living off this 'ere manor, if the +landlords was served like the French ones was. Eh, Paul?' chuckled +old Harry. 'Wouldn't we pay our taxes with pheasants and grayling, +that's all, eh? Ain't old Harry right now, eh?' + +The old fox was fishing for an assent, not for its own sake, for he +was a fierce Tory, and would have stood up to be shot at any day, +not only for his master's sake, but for the sake of a single +pheasant of his master's; but he hated Tregarva for many reasons, +and was daily on the watch to entrap him on some of his peculiar +points, whereof he had, as we shall find, a good many. + +What would have been Tregarva's answer, I cannot tell; but Lancelot, +who had unintentionally overheard the greater part of the +conversation, disliked being any longer a listener, and came close +to them. + +'Here's your gudgeons and minnows, sir, as you bespoke,' quoth +Harry; 'and here's that paternoster as you gave me to rig up. +Beautiful minnows, sir, white as a silver spoon.--They're the ones +now, ain't they, sir, eh?' + +'They'll do!' + +'Well, then, don't say old Harry don't know nothing, that's all, +eh?' and the old fellow toddled off, peering and twisting his head +about like a starling. + +'An odd old fellow that, Tregarva,' said Lancelot. + +'Very, sir, considering who made him,' answered the Cornishman, +touching his hat, and then thrusting his nose deeper than ever into +the eel-basket. + +'Beautiful stream this,' said Lancelot, who had a continual longing- +-right or wrong--to chat with his inferiors; and was proportionately +sulky and reserved to his superiors. + +'Beautiful enough, sir,' said the keeper, with an emphasis on the +first word. + +'Why, has it any other fault?' + +'Not so wholesome as pretty, sir.' + +'What harm does it do?' + +'Fever, and ague, and rheumatism, sir.' + +'Where?' asked Lancelot, a little amused by the man's laconic +answers. + +'Wherever the white fog spreads, sir.' + +'Where's that?' + +'Everywhere, sir.' + +'And when?' + +'Always, sir.' + +Lancelot burst out laughing. The man looked up at him slowly and +seriously. + +'You wouldn't laugh, sir, if you'd seen much of the inside of these +cottages round.' + +'Really,' said Lancelot, 'I was only laughing at our making such +very short work of such a long and serious story. Do you mean that +the unhealthiness of this country is wholly caused by the river?' + +'No, sir. The river-damps are God's sending; and so they are not +too bad to bear. But there's more of man's sending, that is too bad +to bear.' + +'What do you mean?' + +'Are men likely to be healthy when they are worse housed than a +pig?' + +'No.' + +'And worse fed than a hound?' + +'Good heavens! No!' + +'Or packed together to sleep, like pilchards in a barrel?' + +'But, my good fellow, do you mean that the labourers here are in +that state?' + +'It isn't far to walk, sir. Perhaps some day, when the May-fly is +gone off, and the fish won't rise awhile, you could walk down and +see. I beg your pardon, sir, though, for thinking of such a thing. +They are not places fit for gentlemen, that's certain.' There was a +staid irony in his tone, which Lancelot felt. + +'But the clergyman goes?' + +'Yes, sir.' + +'And Miss Honoria goes?' + +'Yes, God Almighty bless her!' + +'And do not they see that all goes right?' + +The giant twisted his huge limbs, as if trying to avoid an answer, +and yet not daring to do so. + +'Do clergymen go about among the poor much, sir, at college, before +they are ordained?' + +Lancelot smiled, and shook his head. + +'I thought so, sir. Our good vicar is like the rest hereabouts. +God knows, he stints neither time nor money--the souls of the poor +are well looked after, and their bodies too--as far as his purse +will go; but that's not far.' + +'Is he ill-off, then?' + +'The living's worth some forty pounds a year. The great tithes, +they say, are worth better than twelve hundred; but Squire Lavington +has them.' + +'Oh, I see!' said Lancelot. + +'I'm glad you do, sir, for I don't,' meekly answered Tregarva. 'But +the vicar, sir, he is a kind man, and a good; but the poor don't +understand him, nor he them. He is too learned, sir, and, saving +your presence, too fond of his prayer-book.' + +'One can't be too fond of a good thing.' + +'Not unless you make an idol of it, sir, and fancy that men's souls +were made for the prayer-book, and not the prayer-book for them.' + +'But cannot he expose and redress these evils, if they exist?' + +Tregarva twisted about again. + +'I do not say that I think it, sir; but this I know, that every poor +man in the vale thinks it--that the parsons are afraid of the +landlords. They must see these things, for they are not blind; and +they try to plaster them up out of their own pockets.' + +'But why, in God's name, don't they strike at the root of the +matter, and go straight to the landlords and tell them the truth?' +asked Lancelot. + +'So people say, sir. I see no reason for it except the one which I +gave you. Besides, sir, you must remember, that a man can't quarrel +with his own kin; and so many of them are their squire's brothers, +or sons, or nephews.' + +'Or good friends with him, at least.' + +'Ay, sir, and, to do them justice, they had need, for the poor's +sake, to keep good friends with the squire. How else are they to +get a farthing for schools, or coal-subscriptions, or lying-in +societies, or lending libraries, or penny clubs? If they spoke +their minds to the great ones, sir, how could they keep the parish +together?' + +'You seem to see both sides of a question, certainly. But what a +miserable state of things, that the labouring man should require all +these societies, and charities, and helps from the rich!--that an +industrious freeman cannot live without alms!' + +'So I have thought this long time,' quietly answered Tregarva. + +'But Miss Honoria,--she is not afraid to tell her father the truth?' + +'Suppose, sir, when Adam and Eve were in the garden, that all the +devils had come up and played their fiends' tricks before them,--do +you think they'd have seen any shame in it?' + +'I really cannot tell,' said Lancelot, smiling. + +'Then I can, sir. They'd have seen no more harm in it than there +was harm already in themselves; and that was none. A man's eyes can +only see what they've learnt to see.' + +Lancelot started: it was a favourite dictum of his in Carlyle's +works. + +'Where did you get that thought, my friend' + +'By seeing, sir.' + +'But what has that to do with Miss Honoria?' + +'She is an angel of holiness herself, sir; and, therefore, she goes +on without blushing or suspecting, where our blood would boil again. +She sees people in want, and thinks it must be so, and pities them +and relieves them. But she don't know want herself; and, therefore, +she don't know that it makes men beasts and devils. She's as pure +as God's light herself; and, therefore, she fancies every one is as +spotless as she is. And there's another mistake in your charitable +great people, sir. When they see poor folk sick or hungry before +their eyes, they pull out their purses fast enough, God bless them; +for they wouldn't like to be so themselves. But the oppression that +goes on all the year round, and the want that goes on all the year +round, and the filth, and the lying, and the swearing, and the +profligacy, that go on all the year round, and the sickening weight +of debt, and the miserable grinding anxiety from rent-day to rent- +day, and Saturday night to Saturday night, that crushes a man's soul +down, and drives every thought out of his head but how he is to fill +his stomach and warm his back, and keep a house over his head, till +he daren't for his life take his thoughts one moment off the meat +that perisheth--oh, sir, they never felt this; and, therefore, they +never dream that there are thousands who pass them in their daily +walks who feel this, and feel nothing else!' + +This outburst was uttered with an earnestness and majesty which +astonished Lancelot. He forgot the subject in the speaker. + +'You are a very extraordinary gamekeeper!' said he. + +'When the Lord shows a man a thing, he can't well help seeing it,' +answered Tregarva, in his usual staid tone. + +There was a pause. The keeper looked at him with a glance, before +which Lancelot's eyes fell. + +'Hell is paved with hearsays, sir, and as all this talk of mine is +hearsay, if you are in earnest, sir, go and see for yourself. I +know you have a kind heart, and they tell me that you are a great +scholar, which would to God I was! so you ought not to condescend to +take my word for anything which you can look into yourself;' with +which sound piece of common-sense Tregarva returned busily to his +eel-lines. + +'Hand me the rod and can, and help me out along the buck-stage,' +said Lancelot; 'I must have some more talk with you, my fine +fellow.' + +'Amen,' answered Tregarva, as he assisted our lame hero along a huge +beam which stretched out into the pool; and having settled him +there, returned mechanically to his work, humming a Wesleyan hymn- +tune. + +Lancelot sat and tried to catch perch, but Tregarva's words haunted +him. He lighted his cigar, and tried to think earnestly over the +matter, but he had got into the wrong place for thinking. All his +thoughts, all his sympathies, were drowned in the rush and whirl of +the water. He forgot everything else in the mere animal enjoyment +of sight and sound. Like many young men at his crisis of life, he +had given himself up to the mere contemplation of Nature till he had +become her slave; and now a luscious scene, a singing bird, were +enough to allure his mind away from the most earnest and awful +thoughts. He tried to think, but the river would not let him. It +thundered and spouted out behind him from the hatches, and leapt +madly past him, and caught his eyes in spite of him, and swept them +away down its dancing waves, and let them go again only to sweep +them down again and again, till his brain felt a delicious dizziness +from the everlasting rush and the everlasting roar. And then below, +how it spread, and writhed, and whirled into transparent fans, +hissing and twining snakes, polished glass-wreaths, huge crystal +bells, which boiled up from the bottom, and dived again beneath long +threads of creamy foam, and swung round posts and roots, and rushed +blackening under dark weed-fringed boughs, and gnawed at the marly +banks, and shook the ever-restless bulrushes, till it was swept away +and down over the white pebbles and olive weeds, in one broad +rippling sheet of molten silver, towards the distant sea. Downwards +it fleeted ever, and bore his thoughts floating on its oily stream; +and the great trout, with their yellow sides and peacock backs, +lounged among the eddies, and the silver grayling dimpled and +wandered upon the shallows, and the may-flies flickered and rustled +round him like water fairies, with their green gauzy wings; the coot +clanked musically among the reeds; the frogs hummed their ceaseless +vesper-monotone; the kingfisher darted from his hole in the bank +like a blue spark of electric light; the swallows' bills snapped as +they twined and hawked above the pool; the swift's wings whirred +like musket-balls, as they rushed screaming past his head; and ever +the river fleeted by, bearing his eyes away down the current, till +its wild eddies began to glow with crimson beneath the setting sun. +The complex harmony of sights and sounds slid softly over his soul, +and he sank away into a still daydream, too passive for imagination, +too deep for meditation, and + + +'Beauty born of murmuring sound, +Did pass into his face.' + + +Blame him not. There are more things in a man's heart than ever get +in through his thoughts. + +On a sudden, a soft voice behind him startled him. + +'Can a poor cockney artist venture himself along this timber without +falling in?' + +Lancelot turned. + +'Come out to me, and if you stumble, the naiads will rise out of +their depths, and "hold up their pearled wrists" to save their +favourite.' + +The artist walked timidly out along the beams, and sat down beside +Lancelot, who shook him warmly by the hand. + +'Welcome, Claude Mellot, and all lovely enthusiasms and symbolisms! +Expound to me, now, the meaning of that water-lily leaf and its +grand simple curve, as it lies sleeping there in the back eddy.' + +'Oh, I am too amused to philosophise. The fair Argemone has just +been treating me to her three hundred and sixty-fifth philippic +against my unoffending beard.' + +'Why, what fault can she find with such a graceful and natural +ornament?' + +'Just this, my dear fellow, that it is natural. As it is, she +considers me only "intelligent-looking." If the beard were away, my +face, she says, would be "so refined!" And, I suppose, if I was +just a little more effeminate and pale, with a nice retreating +under-jaw and a drooping lip, and a meek, peaking simper, like your +starved Romish saints, I should be "so spiritual!" And if, again, +to complete the climax, I did but shave my head like a Chinese, I +should be a model for St. Francis himself!' + +'But really, after all, why make yourself so singular by this said +beard?' + +'I wear it for a testimony and a sign that a man has no right to be +ashamed of the mark of manhood. Oh, that one or two of your +Protestant clergymen, who ought to be perfect ideal men, would have +the courage to get up into the pulpit in a long beard, and testify +that the very essential idea of Protestantism is the dignity and +divinity of man as God made him! Our forefathers were not ashamed +of their beards; but now even the soldier is only allowed to keep +his moustache, while our quill-driving masses shave themselves as +close as they can; and in proportion to a man's piety he wears less +hair, from the young curate who shaves off his whiskers, to the +Popish priest who shaves his crown!' + +'What do you say, then, to cutting off nuns' hair?' + +'I say, that extremes meet, and prudish Manichaeism always ends in +sheer indecency. Those Papists have forgotten what woman was made +for, and therefore, they have forgotten that a woman's hair is her +glory, for it was given to her for a covering: as says your friend, +Paul the Hebrew, who, by the bye, had as fine theories of art as he +had of society, if he had only lived fifteen hundred years later, +and had a chance of working them out.' + +'How remarkably orthodox you are!' said Lancelot, smiling. + +'How do you know that I am not? You never heard me deny the old +creed. But what if an artist ought to be of all creeds at once? My +business is to represent the beautiful, and therefore to accept it +wherever I find it. Yours is to be a philosopher, and find the +true.' + +'But the beautiful must be truly beautiful to be worth anything; and +so you, too, must search for the true.' + +'Yes; truth of form, colour, chiaroscuro. They are worthy to occupy +me a life; for they are eternal--or at least that which they +express: and if I am to get at the symbolised unseen, it must be +through the beauty of the symbolising phenomenon. If I, who live by +art, for art, in art, or you either, who seem as much a born artist +as myself, am to have a religion, it must be a worship of the +fountain of art--of the + + +"Spirit of beauty, who doth consecrate +With his own hues whate'er he shines upon."' + + +'As poor Shelley has it; and much peace of mind it gave him!' +answered Lancelot. 'I have grown sick lately of such dreary tinsel +abstractions. When you look through the glitter of the words, your +"spirit of beauty" simply means certain shapes and colours which +please you in beautiful things and in beautiful people.' + +'Vile nominalist! renegade from the ideal and all its glories!' said +Claude, laughing. + +'I don't care sixpence now for the ideal! I want not beauty, but +some beautiful thing--a woman perhaps,' and he sighed. 'But at +least a person--a living, loving person--all lovely itself, and +giving loveliness to all things! If I must have an ideal, let it +be, for mercy's sake, a realised one.' + +Claude opened his sketch-book. + +'We shall get swamped in these metaphysical oceans, my dear dreamer. +But lo, here come a couple, as near ideals as any in these +degenerate days--the two poles of beauty: the milieu of which would +be Venus with us Pagans, or the Virgin Mary with the Catholics. +Look at them! Honoria the dark--symbolic of passionate depth; +Argemone the fair, type of intellectual light! Oh, that I were a +Zeuxis to unite them instead of having to paint them in two separate +pictures, and split perfection in half, as everything is split in +this piecemeal world!' + +'You will have the honour of a sitting this afternoon, I suppose, +from both beauties?' + +'I hope so, for my own sake. There is no path left to immortality, +or bread either, now for us poor artists but portrait-painting.' + +'I envy you your path, when it leads through such Elysiums,' said +Lancelot. + +'Come here, gentlemen both!' cried Argemone from the bridge. + +'Fairly caught!' grumbled Lancelot. 'You must go, at least; my +lameness will excuse me, I hope.' + +The two ladies were accompanied by Bracebridge, a gazelle which he +had given Argemone, and a certain miserable cur of Honoria's +adopting, who plays an important part in this story, and, therefore, +deserves a little notice. Honoria had rescued him from a watery +death in the village pond, by means of the colonel, who had revenged +himself for a pair of wet feet by utterly corrupting the dog's +morals, and teaching him every week to answer to some fresh +scandalous name. + +But Lancelot was not to escape. Instead of moving on, as he had +hoped, the party stood looking over the bridge, and talking--he took +for granted, poor thin-skinned fellow--of him. And for once his +suspicions were right; for he overheard Argemone say-- + +'I wonder how Mr. Smith can be so rude as to sit there in my +presence over his stupid perch! Smoking those horrid cigars, too! +How selfish those field-sports do make men!' + +'Thank you!' said the colonel, with a low bow. Lancelot rose. + +'If a country girl, now, had spoken in that tone,' said he to +himself, 'it would have been called at least "saucy"--but Mammon's +elect ones may do anything. Well--here I come, limping to my new +tyrant's feet, like Goethe's bear to Lili's.' + +She drew him away, as women only know how, from the rest of the +party, who were chatting and laughing with Claude. She had shown +off her fancied indifference to Lancelot before them, and now began +in a softer voice-- + +'Why will you be so shy and lonely, Mr. Smith?' + +'Because I am not fit for your society.' + +'Who tells you so? Why will you not become so?' + +Lancelot hung down his head. + +'As long as fish and game are your only society, you will become +more and more morne and self-absorbed.' + +'Really fish were the last things of which I was thinking when you +came. My whole heart was filled with the beauty of nature, and +nothing else.' + +There was an opening for one of Argemone's preconcerted orations. + +'Had you no better occupation,' she said gently, 'than nature, the +first day of returning to the open air after so frightful and +dangerous an accident? Were there no thanks due to One above?' + +Lancelot understood her. + +'How do you know that I was not even then showing my thankfulness?' + +'What! with a cigar and a fishing-rod?' + +'Certainly. Why not?' + +Argemone really could not tell at the moment. The answer upset her +scheme entirely. + +'Might not that very admiration of nature have been an act of +worship?' continued our hero. 'How can we better glorify the worker +than by delighting in his work?' + +'Ah!' sighed the lady, 'why trust to these self-willed methods, and +neglect the noble and exquisite forms which the Church has prepared +for us as embodiments for every feeling of our hearts?' + +'EVERY feeling, Miss Lavington?' + +Argemone hesitated. She had made the good old stock assertion, as +in duty bound; but she could not help recollecting that there were +several Popish books of devotion at that moment on her table, which +seemed to her to patch a gap or two in the Prayer-book. + +'My temple as yet,' said Lancelot, 'is only the heaven and the +earth; my church-music I can hear all day long, whenever I have the +sense to be silent, and "hear my mother sing;" my priests and +preachers are every bird and bee, every flower and cloud. Am I not +well enough furnished? Do you want to reduce my circular infinite +chapel to an oblong hundred-foot one? My sphere harmonies to the +Gregorian tones in four parts? My world-wide priesthood, with their +endless variety of costume, to one not over-educated gentleman in a +white sheet? And my dreams of naiads and flower-fairies, and the +blue-bells ringing God's praises, as they do in "The story without +an End," for the gross reality of naughty charity children, with +their pockets full of apples, bawling out Hebrew psalms of which +they neither feel nor understand a word?' + +Argemone tried to look very much shocked at this piece of bombast. +Lancelot evidently meant it as such, but he eyed her all the while +as if there was solemn earnest under the surface. + +'Oh, Mr. Smith!' she said, 'how can you dare talk so of a liturgy +compiled by the wisest and holiest of all countries and ages! You +revile that of whose beauty you are not qualified to judge!' + +'There must be a beauty in it all, or such as you are would not love +it.' + +'Oh,' she said hopefully, 'that you would but try the Church system! +How you would find it harmonise and methodise every day, every +thought for you! But I cannot explain myself. Why not go to our +vicar and open your doubts to him?' + +'Pardon, but you must excuse me.' + +'Why? He is one of the saintliest of men!' + +'To tell the truth, I have been to him already.' + +'You do not mean it! And what did he tell you?' + +'What the rest of the world does--hearsays.' + +'But did you not find him most kind?' + +'I went to him to be comforted and guided. He received me as a +criminal. He told me that my first duty was penitence; that as long +as I lived the life I did, he could not dare to cast his pearls +before swine by answering my doubts; that I was in a state incapable +of appreciating spiritual truths; and, therefore, he had no right to +tell me any.' + +'And what did he tell you?' + +'Several spiritual lies instead, I thought. He told me, hearing me +quote Schiller, to beware of the Germans, for they were all +Pantheists at heart. I asked him whether he included Lange and +Bunsen, and it appeared that he had never read a German book in his +life. He then flew furiously at Mr. Carlyle, and I found that all +he knew of him was from a certain review in the Quarterly. He +called Boehmen a theosophic Atheist. I should have burst out at +that, had I not read the very words in a High Church review the day +before, and hoped that he was not aware of the impudent falsehood +which he was retailing. Whenever I feebly interposed an objection +to anything he said (for, after all, he talked on), he told me to +hear the Catholic Church. I asked him which Catholic Church? He +said the English. I asked him whether it was to be the Church of +the sixth century, or the thirteenth, or the seventeenth or the +eighteenth? He told me the one and eternal Church which belonged as +much to the nineteenth century as to the first. I begged to know +whether, then, I was to hear the Church according to Simeon, or +according to Newman, or according to St. Paul; for they seemed to me +a little at variance? He told me, austerely enough, that the mind +of the Church was embodied in her Liturgy and Articles. To which I +answered, that the mind of the episcopal clergy might, perhaps, be; +but, then, how happened it that they were always quarrelling and +calling hard names about the sense of those very documents? And so +I left him, assuring him that, living in the nineteenth century, I +wanted to hear the Church of the nineteenth century, and no other; +and should be most happy to listen to her, as soon as she had made +up her mind what to say.' + +Argemone was angry and disappointed. She felt she could not cope +with Lancelot's quaint logic, which, however unsound, cut deeper +into questions than she had yet looked for herself. Somehow, too, +she was tongue-tied before him just when she wanted to be most +eloquent in behalf of her principles; and that fretted her still +more. But his manner puzzled her most of all. First he would run +on with his face turned away, as if soliloquising out into the air, +and then suddenly look round at her with most fascinating humility; +and, then, in a moment, a dark shade would pass over his +countenance, and he would look like one possessed, and his lips +wreathe in a sinister artificial smile, and his wild eyes glare +through and through her with such cunning understanding of himself +and her, that, for the first time in her life, she quailed and felt +frightened, as if in the power of a madman. She turned hastily away +to shake off the spell. + +He sprang after her, almost on his knees, and looked up into her +beautiful face with an imploring cry. + +'What, do you, too, throw me off? Will you, too, treat the poor +wild uneducated sportsman as a Pariah and an outcast, because he is +not ashamed to be a man?--because he cannot stuff his soul's hunger +with cut-and-dried hearsays, but dares to think for himself?-- +because he wants to believe things, and dare not be satisfied with +only believing that he ought to believe them?' + +She paused, astonished. + +'Ah, yes,' he went on, 'I hoped too much! What right had I to +expect that you would understand me? What right, still more, to +expect that you would stoop, any more than the rest of the world, to +speak to me, as if I could become anything better than the wild hog +I seem? Oh yes!--the chrysalis has no butterfly in it, of course! +Stamp on the ugly motionless thing! And yet--you look so beautiful +and good!--are all my dreams to perish, about the Alrunen and +prophet-maidens, how they charmed our old fighting, hunting +forefathers into purity and sweet obedience among their Saxon +forests? Has woman forgotten her mission--to look at the heart and +have mercy, while cold man looks at the act and condemns? Do you, +too, like the rest of mankind, think no-belief better than +misbelief; and smile on hypocrisy, lip-assent, practical Atheism, +sooner than on the unpardonable sin of making a mistake? Will you, +like the rest of this wise world, let a man's spirit rot asleep into +the pit, if he will only lie quiet and not disturb your smooth +respectabilities; but if he dares, in waking, to yawn in an +unorthodox manner, knock him on the head at once, and "break the +bruised reed," and "quench the smoking flax"? And yet you +churchgoers have "renounced the world"!' + +'What do you want, in Heaven's name?' asked Argemone, half +terrified. + +'I want YOU to tell me that. Here I am, with youth, health, +strength, money, every blessing of life but one; and I am utterly +miserable. I want some one to tell me what I want.' + +'Is it not that you want--religion?' + +'I see hundreds who have what you call religion, with whom I should +scorn to change my irreligion.' + +'But, Mr. Smith, are you not--are you not wicked?--They tell me so,' +said Argemone, with an effort, 'And is that not the cause of your +disease?' + +Lancelot laughed. + +'No, fairest prophetess, it is the disease itself. "Why am I what I +am, when I know more and more daily what I could be?"--That is the +mystery; and my sins are the fruit, and not the root of it. Who +will explain that?' + +Argemone began,-- + +'The Church--' + +'Oh, Miss Lavington,' cried he, impatiently, 'will you, too, send me +back to that cold abstraction? I came to you, however presumptuous, +for living, human advice to a living, human heart; and will you pass +off on me that Proteus-dream the Church, which in every man's mouth +has a different meaning? In one book, meaning a method of +education, only it has never been carried out; in another, a system +of polity,--only it has never been realised;--now a set of words +written in books, on whose meaning all are divided; now a body of +men who are daily excommunicating each other as heretics and +apostates; now a universal idea; now the narrowest and most +exclusive of all parties. Really, before you ask me to hear the +Church, I have a right to ask you to define what the Church is.' + +'Our Articles define it,' said Argemone drily. + +'The "Visible Church," at least, it defines as "a company of +faithful men, in which," etc. But how does it define the +"Invisible" one? And what does "faithful" mean? What if I thought +Cromwell and Pierre Leroux infinitely more faithful men in their +way, and better members of the "Invisible Church," than the +torturer-pedant Laud, or the facing bothways Protestant-Manichee +Taylor?' + +It was lucky for the life of young Love that the discussion went no +further: Argemone was becoming scandalised beyond all measure. +But, happily, the colonel interposed,-- + +'Look here; tell me if you know for whom this sketch is meant?' + +'Tregarva, the keeper: who can doubt?' answered they both at once. + +'Has not Mellot succeeded perfectly?' + +'Yes,' said Lancelot. 'But what wonder, with such a noble subject! +What a grand benevolence is enthroned on that lofty forehead!' + +'Oh, you would say so, indeed,' interposed Honoria, 'if you knew +him! The stories that I could tell you about him! How he would go +into cottages, read to sick people by the hour, dress the children, +cook the food for them, as tenderly as any woman! I found out, last +winter, if you will believe it, that he lived on bread and water, to +give out of his own wages--which are barely twelve shillings a week- +-five shillings a week for more than two months to a poor labouring +man, to prevent his going to the workhouse, and being parted from +his wife and children.' + +'Noble, indeed!' said Lancelot. 'I do not wonder now at the effect +his conversation just now had on me.' + +'Has he been talking to you?' said Honoria eagerly. 'He seldom +speaks to any one.' + +'He has to me; and so well, that were I sure that the poor were as +ill off as he says, and that I had the power of altering the system +a hair, I could find it in my heart to excuse all political +grievance-mongers, and turn one myself.' + +Claude Mellot clapped his white woman-like hands. + +'Bravo! bravo! O wonderful conversion! Lancelot has at last +discovered that, besides the "glorious Past," there is a Present +worthy of his sublime notice! We may now hope, in time, that he +will discover the existence of a Future!' + +'But, Mr. Mellot,' said Honoria, 'why have you been so unfaithful to +your original? why have you, like all artists, been trying to soften +and refine on your model?' + +'Because, my dear lady, we are bound to see everything in its ideal- +-not as it is, but as it ought to be, and will be, when the vices of +this pitiful civilised world are exploded, and sanitary reform, and +a variety of occupation, and harmonious education, let each man +fulfil in body and soul the ideal which God embodied in him.' + +'Fourierist!' cried Lancelot, laughing. 'But surely you never saw a +face which had lost by wear less of the divine image? How +thoroughly it exemplifies your great law of Protestant art, that +"the Ideal is best manifested in the Peculiar." How classic, how +independent of clime or race, is its bland, majestic self- +possession! how thoroughly Norse its massive squareness!' + +'And yet, as a Cornishman, he should be no Norseman.' + +'I beg your pardon! Like all noble races, the Cornish owe their +nobleness to the impurity of their blood--to its perpetual loans +from foreign veins. See how the serpentine curve of his nose, his +long nostril, and protruding, sharp-cut lips, mark his share of +Phoenician or Jewish blood! how Norse, again, that dome-shaped +forehead! how Celtic those dark curls, that restless gray eye, with +its "swinden blicken," like Von Troneg Hagen's in the Niebelungen +Lied!' + +He turned: Honoria was devouring his words. He saw it, for he was +in love, and young love makes man's senses as keen as woman's. + +'Look! look at him now!' said Claude, in a low voice. 'How he sits, +with his hands on his knees, the enormous size of his limbs quite +concealed by the careless grace, with his Egyptian face, like some +dumb granite Memnon!' + +'Only waiting,' said Lancelot, 'for the day-star to arise on him and +awake him into voice.' + +He looked at Honoria as he spoke. She blushed angrily; and yet a +sort of sympathy arose from that moment between Lancelot and +herself. + +Our hero feared he had gone too far, and tried to turn the subject +off. + +The smooth mill-head was alive with rising trout. + +'What a huge fish leapt then!' said Lancelot carelessly; 'and close +to the bridge, too!' + +Honoria looked round, and uttered a piercing scream. + +'Oh, my dog! my dog! Mops is in the river! That horrid gazelle has +butted him in, and he'll be drowned!' + +Alas! it was too true. There, a yard above the one open hatchway, +through which the whole force of the stream was rushing, was the +unhappy Mops, alias Scratch, alias Dirty Dick, alias Jack Sheppard, +paddling, and sneezing, and winking, his little bald muzzle turned +piteously upward to the sky. + +'He will be drowned!' quoth the colonel. + +There was no doubt of it; and so Mops thought, as, shivering and +whining, he plied every leg, while the glassy current dragged him +back and back, and Honoria sobbed like a child. + +The colonel lay down on the bridge, and caught at him: his arm was +a foot too short. In a moment the huge form of Tregarva plunged +solemnly into the water, with a splash like seven salmon, and Mops +was jerked out over the colonel's head high and dry on to the +bridge. + +'You'll be drowned, at least!' shouted the colonel, with an oath of +Uncle Toby's own. + +Tregarva saw his danger, made one desperate bound upward, and missed +the bridge. The colonel caught at him, tore off a piece of his +collar--the calm, solemn face of the keeper flashed past beneath +him, and disappeared through the roaring gate. + +They rushed to the other side of the bridge--caught one glimpse of a +dark body fleeting and roaring down the foam-way. The colonel leapt +the bridge-rail like a deer, rushed out along the buck-stage, tore +off his coat, and sprung headlong into the boiling pool, 'rejoicing +in his might,' as old Homer would say. + +Lancelot, forgetting his crutches, was dashing after him, when he +felt a soft hand clutching at his arm. + +'Lancelot! Mr. Smith!' cried Argemone. 'You shall not go! You are +too ill--weak--' + +'A fellow-creature's life!' + +'What is his life to yours?' she cried, in a tone of deep passion. +And then, imperiously, 'Stay here, I command you!' + +The magnetic touch of her hand thrilled through his whole frame. +She had called him Lancelot! He shrank down, and stood spell-bound. + +'Good heavens!' she cried; 'look at my sister!' + +Out on the extremity of the buck-stage (how she got there neither +they nor she ever knew) crouched Honoria, her face idiotic with +terror, while she stared with bursting eyes into the foam. A shriek +of disappointment rose from her lips, as in a moment the colonel's +weather-worn head reappeared above, looking for all the world like +an old gray shiny-painted seal. + +'Poof! tally-ho! Poof! poof! Heave me a piece of wood, Lancelot, +my boy!' And he disappeared again. + +They looked round, there was not a loose bit near. Claude ran off +towards the house. Lancelot, desperate, seized the bridge-rail, +tore it off by sheer strength, and hurled it far into the pool. +Argemone saw it, and remembered it, like a true woman. Ay, be as +Manichaean-sentimental as you will, fair ladies, physical prowess, +that Eden-right of manhood, is sure to tell upon your hearts! + +Again the colonel's grizzled head reappeared,--and, oh joy! beneath +it a draggled knot of black curls. In another instant he had hold +of the rail, and quietly floating down to the shallow, dragged the +lifeless giant high and dry on a patch of gravel. + +Honoria never spoke. She rose, walked quietly back along the beam, +passed Argemone and Lancelot without seeing them, and firmly but +hurriedly led the way round the pool-side. + +Before they arrived at the bank, the colonel had carried Tregarva to +it. Lancelot and two or three workmen, whom his cries had +attracted, lifted the body on to the meadow. + +Honoria knelt quietly down on the grass, and watched, silent and +motionless, the dead face, with her wide, awestruck eyes. + +'God bless her for a kind soul!' whispered the wan weather-beaten +field drudges, as they crowded round the body. + +'Get out of the way, my men!' quoth the colonel. 'Too many cooks +spoil the broth.' And he packed off one here and another there for +necessaries, and commenced trying every restorative means with the +ready coolness of a practised surgeon; while Lancelot, whom he +ordered about like a baby, gulped down a great choking lump of envy, +and then tasted the rich delight of forgetting himself in admiring +obedience to a real superior. + +But there Tregarva lay lifeless, with folded hands, and a quiet +satisfied smile, while Honoria watched and watched with parted lips, +unconscious of the presence of every one. + +Five minutes!--ten! + +'Carry him to the house,' said the colonel, in a despairing tone, +after another attempt. + +'He moves!' 'No!' 'He does!' 'He breathes!' 'Look at his +eyelids!' + +Slowly his eyes opened. + +'Where am I? All gone? Sweet dreams--blessed dreams!' + +His eye met Honoria's. One big deep sigh swelled to his lips and +burst. She seemed to recollect herself, rose, passed her arm +through Argemone's, and walked slowly away. + + + +CHAPTER IV: AN 'INGLORIOUS MILTON' + + + +Argemone, sweet prude, thought herself bound to read Honoria a +lecture that night, on her reckless exhibition of feeling; but it +profited little. The most consummate cunning could not have baffled +Argemone's suspicions more completely than her sister's utter +simplicity. She cried just as bitterly about Mops's danger as about +the keeper's, and then laughed heartily at Argemone's solemnity; +till at last, when pushed a little too hard, she broke out into +something very like a passion, and told her sister, bitterly enough, +that 'she was not accustomed to see men drowned every day, and +begged to hear no more about the subject.' Whereat Argemone +prudently held her tongue, knowing that under all Honoria's +tenderness lay a volcano of passionate determination, which was +generally kept down by her affections, but was just as likely to be +maddened by them. And so this conversation only went to increase +the unconscious estrangement between them, though they continued, as +sisters will do, to lavish upon each other the most extravagant +protestations of affection--vowing to live and die only for each +other--and believing honestly, sweet souls, that they felt all they +said; till real imperious Love came in, in one case of the two at +least, shouldering all other affections right and left; and then the +two beauties discovered, as others do, that it is not so possible or +reasonable as they thought for a woman to sacrifice herself and her +lover for the sake of her sister or her friend. Next morning +Lancelot and the colonel started out to Tregarva's cottage, on a +mission of inquiry. They found the giant propped up in bed with +pillows, his magnificent features looking in their paleness more +than ever like a granite Memnon. Before him lay an open Pilgrim's +Progress, and a drawer filled with feathers and furs, which he was +busily manufacturing into trout flies, reading as he worked. The +room was filled with nets, guns, and keepers' tackle, while a well- +filled shelf of books hung by the wall. + +'Excuse my rising, gentlemen,' he said, in his slow, staid voice, +'but I am very weak, in spite of the Lord's goodness to me. You are +very kind to think of coming to my poor cottage,' + +'Well, my man,' said the colonel, 'and how are you after your cold +bath? You are the heaviest fish I ever landed!' + +'Pretty well, thank God, and you, sir. I am in your debt, sir, for +the dear life. How shall I ever repay you?' + +'Repay, my good fellow? You would have done as much for me.' + +'May be; but you did not think of that when you jumped in; and no +more must I in thanking you. God knows how a poor miner's son will +ever reward you; but the mouse repaid the lion, says the story, and, +at all events, I can pray for you. By the bye, gentlemen, I hope +you have brought up some trolling-tackle?' + +'We came up to see you, and not to fish,' said Lancelot, charmed +with the stately courtesy of the man. + +'Many thanks, gentlemen; but old Harry Verney was in here just now, +and had seen a great jack strike, at the tail of the lower reeds. +With this fresh wind he will run till noon; and you are sure of him +with a dace. After that, he will not be up again on the shallows +till sunset. He works the works of darkness, and comes not to the +light, because his deeds are evil.' + +Lancelot laughed. 'He does but follow his kind, poor fellow.' + +'No doubt, sir, no doubt; all the Lord's works are good: but it is +a wonder why He should have made wasps, now, and blights, and +vermin, and jack, and such evil-featured things, that carry spite +and cruelty in their very faces--a great wonder. Do you think, sir, +all those creatures were in the Garden of Eden?' + +'You are getting too deep for me,' said Lancelot. 'But why trouble +your head about fishing?' + +'I beg your pardon for preaching to you, sir. I'm sure I forgot +myself. If you will let me, I'll get up and get you a couple of +bait from the stew. You'll do us keepers a kindness, and prevent +sin, sir, if you'll catch him. The squire will swear sadly--the +Lord forgive him--if he hears of a pike in the trout-runs. I'll get +up, if I may trouble you to go into the next room a minute.' + +'Lie still, for Heaven's sake. Why bother your head about pike +now?' + +'It is my business, sir, and I am paid for it, and I must do it +thoroughly;--and abide in the calling wherein I am called,' he +added, in a sadder tone. + +'You seem to be fond enough of it, and to know enough about it, at +all events,' said the colonel, 'tying flies here on a sick-bed.' + +'As for being fond of it, sir--those creatures of the water teach a +man many lessons; and when I tie flies, I earn books.' + +'How then?' + +'I send my flies all over the country, sir, to Salisbury and +Hungerford, and up to Winchester, even; and the money buys me many a +wise book--all my delight is in reading; perhaps so much the worse +for me.' + +'So much the better, say,' answered Lancelot warmly. 'I'll give you +an order for a couple of pounds' worth of flies at once.' + +'The Lord reward you, sir,' answered the giant. + +'And you shall make me the same quantity,' said the colonel. 'You +can make salmon-flies?' + +'I made a lot by pattern for an Irish gent, sir.' + +'Well, then, we'll send you some Norway patterns, and some golden +pheasant and parrot feathers. We're going to Norway this summer, +you know, Lancelot--' + +Tregarva looked up with a quaint, solemn hesitation. + +'If you please, gentlemen, you'll forgive a man's conscience.' + +'Well?' + +'But I'd not like to be a party to the making of Norway flies.' + +'Here's a Protectionist, with a vengeance!' laughed the colonel. +'Do you want to keep all us fishermen in England? eh? to fee English +keepers? + +'No, sir. There's pretty fishing in Norway, I hear, and poor folk +that want money more than we keepers. God knows we get too much--we +that hang about great houses and serve great folks' pleasure--you +toss the money down our throats, without our deserving it; and we +spend it as we get it--a deal too fast--while hard-working labourers +are starving.' + +'And yet you would keep us in England?' + +'Would God I could!' + +'Why then, my good fellow?' asked Lancelot, who was getting +intensely interested with the calm, self-possessed earnestness of +the man, and longed to draw him out. + +The colonel yawned. + +'Well, I'll go and get myself a couple of bait. Don't you stir, my +good parson-keeper. Down charge, I say! Odd if I don't find a +bait-net, and a rod for myself, under the verandah.' + +'You will, colonel. I remember, now, I set it there last morning; +but the water washed many things out of my brains, and some things +into them--and I forgot it like a goose.' + +'Well, good-bye, and lie still. I know what a drowning is, and more +than one. A day and a night have I been in the deep, like the man +in the good book; and bed is the best of medicine for a ducking;' +and the colonel shook him kindly by the hand and disappeared. + +Lancelot sat down by the keeper's bed. + +'You'll get those fish-hooks into your trousers, sir; and this is a +poor place to sit down in.' + +'I want you to say your say out, friend, fish-hooks or none.' + +The keeper looked warily at the door, and when the colonel had +passed the window, balancing the trolling-rod on his chin, and +whistling merrily, he began,-- + +'"A day and a night have I been in the deep!"--and brought back no +more from it! And yet the Psalms say how they that go down to the +sea in ships see the works of the Lord!--If the Lord has opened +their eyes to see them, that must mean--' + +Lancelot waited. + +'What a gallant gentleman that is, and a valiant man of war, I'll +warrant,--and to have seen all the wonders he has, and yet to be +wasting his span of life like that!' + +Lancelot's heart smote him. + +'One would think, sir,--You'll pardon me for speaking out.' And the +noble face worked, as he murmured to himself, 'When ye are brought +before kings and princes for my name's sake.--I dare not hold my +tongue, sir. I am as one risen from the dead,'--and his face +flashed up into sudden enthusiasm--'and woe to me if I speak not. +Oh, why, why are you gentlemen running off to Norway, and foreign +parts, whither God has not called you! Are there no graves in +Egypt, that you must go out to die in the wilderness!' + +Lancelot, quite unaccustomed to the language of the Dissenting poor, +felt keenly the bad taste of the allusion. + +'What can you mean?' he asked. + +'Pardon me, sir, if I cannot speak plainly; but are there not +temptations enough here in England that you must go to waste all +your gifts, your scholarship, and your rank, far away there out of +the sound of a church-going bell? I don't deny it's a great +temptation. I have read of Norway wonders in a book of one Miss +Martineau, with a strange name.' + +'Feats on the Fiord?' + +'That's it, sir. Her books are grand books to set one a-thinking; +but she don't seem to see the Lord in all things, does she, sir?' + +Lancelot parried the question. + +'You are wandering a little from the point.' + +'So I am, and thank you for the rebuke. There's where I find you +scholars have the advantage of us poor fellows, who pick up +knowledge as we can. Your book-learning makes you stick to the +point so much better. You are taught how to think. After all--God +forgive me if I'm wrong! but I sometimes think that there must be +more good in that human wisdom, and philosophy falsely so called, +than we Wesleyans hold. Oh, sir, what a blessing is a good +education! What you gentlemen might do with it, if you did but see +your own power! Are there no fish in England, sir, to be caught? +precious fish, with immortal souls? And is there not One who has +said, "Come with me, and I will make you fishers of men?"' + +'Would you have us all turn parsons?' + +'Is no one to do God's work except the parson, sir? Oh, the game +that you rich folks have in your hands, if you would but play it! +Such a man as Colonel Bracebridge now, with the tongue of the +serpent, who can charm any living soul he likes to his will, as a +stoat charms a rabbit. Or you, sir, with your tongue:--you have +charmed one precious creature already. I can see it: though +neither of you know it, yet I know it.' + +Lancelot started, and blushed crimson. + +'Oh, that I had your tongue, sir!' And the keeper blushed crimson, +too, and went on hastily,-- + +'But why could you not charm all alike! Do not the poor want you as +well as the rich?' + +'What can I do for the poor, my good fellow? And what do they want? +Have they not houses, work, a church, and schools,--and poor-rates +to fall back on?' + +The keeper smiled sadly. + +'To fall back on, indeed! and down on, too. At all events, you rich +might help to make Christians of them, and men of them. For I'm +beginning to fancy strangely, in spite of all the preachers say, +that, before ever you can make them Christians, you must make them +men and women.' + +'Are they not so already?' + +'Oh, sir, go and see! How can a man be a man in those crowded +styes, sleeping packed together like Irish pigs in a steamer, never +out of the fear of want, never knowing any higher amusement than the +beer-shop? Those old Greeks and Romans, as I read, were more like +men than half our English labourers. Go and see! Ask that sweet +heavenly angel, Miss Honoria,'--and the keeper again blushed,--'And +she, too, will tell you. I think sometimes if she had been born and +bred like her father's tenants' daughters, to sleep where they +sleep, and hear the talk they hear, and see the things they see, +what would she have been now? We mustn't think of it.' And the +keeper turned his head away, and fairly burst into tears. + +Lancelot was moved. + +'Are the poor very immoral, then?' + +'You ask the rector, sir, how many children hereabouts are born +within six months of the wedding-day. None of them marry, sir, till +the devil forces them. There's no sadder sight than a labourer's +wedding now-a-days. You never see the parents come with them. They +just get another couple, that are keeping company, like themselves, +and come sneaking into church, looking all over as if they were +ashamed of it--and well they may be!' + +'Is it possible?' + +'I say, sir, that God makes you gentlemen, gentlemen, that you may +see into these things. You give away your charities kindly enough, +but you don't know the folks you give to. If a few of you would but +be like the blessed Lord, and stoop to go out of the road, just +behind the hedge, for once, among the publicans and harlots! Were +you ever at a country fair, sir? Though I suppose I am rude for +fancying that you could demean yourself to such company.' + +'I should not think it demeaning myself,' said Lancelot, smiling; +'but I never was at one, and I should like for once to see the real +manners of the poor.' + +'I'm no haunter of such places myself, God knows; but--I see you're +in earnest now--will you come with me, sir,--for once? for God's +sake and the poor's sake?' + +'I shall be delighted.' + +'Not after you've been there, I am afraid.' + +'Well, it's a bargain when you are recovered. And, in the meantime, +the squire's orders are, that you lie by for a few days to rest; and +Miss Honoria's, too; and she has sent you down some wine.' + +'She thought of me, did she?' And the still sad face blazed out +radiant with pleasure, and then collapsed as suddenly into deep +melancholy. + +Lancelot saw it, but said nothing; and shaking him heartily by the +hand, had his shake returned by an iron grasp, and slipped silently +out of the cottage. + +The keeper lay still, gazing on vacancy. Once he murmured to +himself,-- + +'Through strange ways--strange ways--and though he let them wander +out of the road in the wilderness;--we know how that goes on--' + +And then he fell into a mixed meditation--perhaps into a prayer. + + + +CHAPTER V: A SHAM IS WORSE THAN NOTHING + + + +At last, after Lancelot had waited long in vain, came his cousin's +answer to the letter which I gave in my second chapter. + +'You are not fair to me, good cousin . . . but I have given up +expecting fairness from Protestants. I do not say that the front +and the back of my head have different makers, any more than that +doves and vipers have . . . and yet I kill the viper when I meet him +. . . and so do you. . . . And yet, are we not taught that our +animal nature is throughout equally viperous? . . . The Catholic +Church, at least, so teaches. . . . She believes in the corruption +of human nature. She believes in the literal meaning of Scripture. +She has no wish to paraphrase away St. Paul's awful words, that "in +his flesh dwelleth no good thing," by the unscientific euphemisms of +"fallen nature" or "corrupt humanity." The boasted discovery of +phrenologists, that thought, feeling, and passion reside in this +material brain and nerves of ours, has ages ago been anticipated by +her simple faith in the letter of Scripture; a faith which puts to +shame the irreverent vagueness and fantastic private interpretations +of those who make an idol of that very letter which they dare not +take literally, because it makes against their self-willed theories. +. . + +'And so you call me douce and meek? . . . You should remember what +I once was, Lancelot . . . I, at least, have not forgotten . . . I +have not forgotten how that very animal nature, on the possession of +which you seem to pride yourself, was in me only the parent of +remorse., . . I know it too well not to hate and fear it. Why do +you reproach me, if I try to abjure it, and cast away the burden +which I am too weak to bear? I am weak--Would you have me say that +I am strong? Would you have me try to be a Prometheus, while I am +longing to be once more an infant on a mother's breast? Let me +alone . . . I am a weary child, who knows nothing, can do nothing, +except lose its way in arguings and reasonings, and "find no end, in +wandering mazes lost." Will you reproach me, because when I see a +soft cradle lying open for me . . . with a Virgin Mother's face +smiling down all woman's love about it . . . I long to crawl into +it, and sleep awhile? I want loving, indulgent sympathy . . . I +want detailed, explicit guidance . . . Have you, then, found so +much of them in our former creed, that you forbid me to go to seek +them elsewhere, in the Church which not only professes them as an +organised system, but practises them . . . as you would find in your +first half-hour's talk with one of Her priests . . . true priests . +. . who know the heart of man, and pity, and console, and bear for +their flock the burdens which they cannot bear themselves? You ask +me who will teach a fast young man? . . . I answer, the Jesuit. Ay, +start and sneer, at that delicate woman-like tenderness, that subtle +instinctive sympathy, which you have never felt . . . which is as +new to me, alas, as it would be to you! For if there be none now-a- +days to teach such as you, who is there who will teach such as me? +Do not fancy that I have not craved and searched for teachers . . . +I went to one party long ago, and they commanded me, as the price of +their sympathy, even of anything but their denunciations, to ignore, +if not to abjure, all the very points on which I came for light--my +love for the Beautiful and the Symbolic--my desire to consecrate and +christianise it--my longing for a human voice to tell me with +authority that I was forgiven--my desire to find some practical and +palpable communion between myself and the saints of old. They told +me to cast away, as an accursed chaos, a thousand years of Christian +history, and believe that the devil had been for ages . . . just the +ages I thought noblest, most faithful, most interpenetrated with the +thought of God . . . triumphant over that church with which He had +promised to be till the end of the world. No . . . by the bye, they +made two exceptions--of their own choosing. One in favour of the +Albigenses . . . who seemed to me, from the original documents, to +have been very profligate Infidels, of whom the world was well rid . +. . and the Piedmontese . . . poor, simple, ill-used folk enough, +but who certainly cannot be said to have exercised much influence on +the destinies of mankind . . . and all the rest was chaos and the +pit. There never had been, never would be, a kingdom of God on +earth, but only a few scattered individuals, each selfishly intent +on the salvation of his own soul--without organisation, without +unity, without common purpose, without even a masonic sign whereby +to know one another when they chanced to meet . . . except +Shibboleths which the hypocrite could ape, and virtues which the +heathen have performed . . . Would YOU have had me accept such a +"Philosophy of History"? + +'And then I went to another school . . . or rather wandered up and +down between those whom I have just described, and those who boast +on their side prescriptive right, and apostolic succession . . . and +I found that their ancient charter went back--just three hundred +years . . . and there derived its transmitted virtue, it seemed to +me, by something very like obtaining goods on false pretences, from +the very church which it now anathematises. Disheartened, but not +hopeless, I asked how it was that the priesthood, whose hands +bestowed the grace of ordination, could not withdraw it . . . +whether, at least, the schismatic did not forfeit it by the very act +of schism . . . and instead of any real answer to that fearful +spiritual dilemma, they set me down to folios of Nag's head +controversies . . . and myths of an independent British Church, now +represented, strangely enough, by those Saxons who, after its wicked +refusal to communicate with them, exterminated it with fire and +sword, and derived its own order from St. Gregory . . . and +decisions of mythical old councils (held by bishops of a different +faith and practice from their own), from which I was to pick the one +point which made for them, and omit the nine which made against +them, while I was to believe, by a stretch of imagination . . . or +common honesty . . ., which I leave you to conceive, that the Church +of Syria in the fourth century was, in doctrine, practice, and +constitution, like that of England in the nineteenth? . . . And +what was I to gain by all this? . . . For the sake of what was I to +strain logic and conscience? To believe myself a member of the same +body with all the Christian nations of the earth?--to be able to +hail the Frenchman, the Italian, the Spaniard, as a brother--to have +hopes even of the German and the Swede . . . if not in this life, +still in the life to come? No . . . to be able still to sit apart +from all Christendom in the exclusive pride of insular Pharisaism; +to claim for the modern littleness of England the infallibility +which I denied to the primaeval mother of Christendom, not to +enlarge my communion to the Catholic, but excommunicate, to all +practical purposes, over and above the Catholics, all other +Protestants except my own sect . . . or rather, in practice, except +my own party in my own sect. . . . And this was believing in one +Catholic and Apostolic church! . . . this was to be my share of the +communion of saints! And these were the theories which were to +satisfy a soul which longed for a kingdom of God on earth, which +felt that unless the highest of His promises are a mythic dream, +there must be some system on the earth commissioned to fulfil those +promises; some authority divinely appointed to regenerate, and rule, +and guide the lives of men, and the destinies of nations; who must +go mad, unless he finds that history is not a dreary aimless +procession of lost spirits descending into the pit, or that the +salvation of millions does not depend on an obscure and controverted +hair's breadth of ecclesiastic law. + +'I have tried them both, Lancelot, and found them wanting; and now +but one road remains. . . . Home, to the fountain-head; to the +mother of all the churches whose fancied cruelty to her children can +no more destroy her motherhood, than their confest rebellion can. . +. . Shall I not hear her voice, when she, and she alone cries to +me, "I have authority and commission from the King of kings to +regenerate the world. History is a chaos, only because mankind has +been ever rebelling against me, its lawful ruler . . . and yet not a +chaos . . . for I still stand, and grow rooted on the rock of ages, +and under my boughs are fowl of every wing. I alone have been and +am consistent, progressive, expansive, welcoming every race, and +intellect and character into its proper place in my great organism . +. . meeting alike the wants of the king and the beggar, the artist +and the devotee . . . there is free room for all within my heaven- +wide bosom. Infallibility is not the exclusive heritage of one +proud and ignorant Island, but of a system which knows no +distinction of language, race, or clime. The communion of saints is +not a bygone tale, for my saints, redeemed from every age and every +nation under heaven, still live, and love, and help and intercede. +The union of heaven and earth is not a barbaric myth; for I have +still my miracles, my Host, my exorcism, my absolution. The present +rule of God is still, as ever, a living reality; for I rule in His +name, and fulfil all His will." + +'How can I turn away from such a voice? What if some of her +doctrines may startle my untutored and ignorant understanding? . . . +If she is the appointed teacher, she will know best what truths to +teach. . . . The disciple is not above his master . . . or wise in +requiring him to demonstrate the abstrusest problems . . . spiritual +problems, too . . . before he allows his right to teach the +elements. Humbly I must enter the temple porch; gradually and +trustfully proceed with my initiation. . . . When that is past, and +not before . . . shall I be a fit judge of the mysteries of the +inner shrine. + +'There . . . I have written a long letter . . . with my own heart's +blood. . . . Think over it well, before you despise it. . . . And +if you can refute it for me, and sweep the whole away like a wild +dream when one awakes, none will be more thankful--paradoxical as it +may seem--than your unhappy Cousin.' + + +And Lancelot did consider that letter, and answered it as follows:-- + + +'It is a relief to me at least, dear Luke, that you are going to +Rome in search of a great idea, and not merely from selfish +superstitious terror (as I should call it) about the "salvation of +your soul." And it is a new and very important thought to me, that +Rome's scheme of this world, rather than of the next, forms her +chief allurement. But as for that flesh and spirit question, or the +apostolic succession one either; all you seem to me, as a looker on, +to have logically proved, is that Protestants, orthodox and +unorthodox, must be a little more scientific and careful in their +use of the terms. But as for adopting your use of them, and the +consequences thereof--you must pardon me, and I suspect, them too. +Not that. Anything but that. Whatever is right, that is wrong. +Better to be inconsistent in truth, than consistent in a mistake. +And your Romish idea of man is a mistake--utterly wrong and absurd-- +except in the one requirement of righteousness and godliness, which +Protestants and heathen philosophers have required and do require +just as much as you. My dear Luke, your ideal men and women won't +do--for they are not men and women at all, but what you call +"saints" . . . Your Calendar, your historic list of the Earth's +worthies, won't do--not they, but others, are the people who have +brought Humanity thus far. I don't deny that there are great souls +among them; Beckets, and Hugh Grostetes, and Elizabeths of Hungary. +But you are the last people to praise them, for you don't understand +them. Thierry honours Thomas a Becket more than all Canonisations +and worshippers do, because he does see where the man's true +greatness lay, and you don't. Why, you may hunt all Surius for such +a biography of a mediaeval worthy as Carlyle has given of your Abbot +Samson. I have read, or tried to read your Surius, and Alban +Butler, and so forth--and they seemed to me bats and asses--One +really pitied the poor saints and martyrs for having such blind +biographers--such dunghill cocks, who overlooked the pearl of real +human love and nobleness in them, in their greediness to snatch up +and parade the rotten chaff of superstition, and self-torture, and +spiritual dyspepsia, which had overlaid it. My dear fellow, that +Calendar ruins your cause--you are "sacres aristocrates"--kings and +queens, bishops and virgins by the hundred at one end; a beggar or +two at the other; and but one real human lay St. Homobonus to fill +up the great gulf between--A pretty list to allure the English +middle classes, or the Lancashire working-men!--Almost as charmingly +suited to England as the present free, industrious, enlightened, and +moral state of that Eternal City, which has been blest with the +visible presence and peculiar rule, temporal as well as spiritual, +too, of your Dalai Lama. His pills do not seem to have had much +practical effect there. . . . My good Luke, till he can show us a +little better specimen of the kingdom of Heaven organised and +realised on earth, in the country which does belong to him, soil and +people, body and soul, we must decline his assistance in realising +that kingdom in countries which don't belong to him. If the state +of Rome don't show his idea of man and society to be a rotten lie, +what proof would you have? . . . perhaps the charming results of a +century of Jesuitocracy, as they were represented on a French stage +in the year 1793? I can't answer his arguments, you see, or yours +either; I am an Englishman, and not a controversialist. The only +answer I give is John Bull's old dumb instinctive "Everlasting No!" +which he will stand by, if need be, with sharp shot and cold steel-- +"Not that; anything but that. No kingdom of Heaven at all for us, +if the kingdom of Heaven is like that. No heroes at all for us, if +their heroism is to consist in their being not-men. Better no +society at all, but only a competitive wild-beast's den, than a sham +society. Better no faith, no hope, no love, no God, than shams +thereof." I take my stand on fact and nature; you may call them +idols and phantoms; I say they need be so no longer to any man, +since Bacon has taught us to discover the Eternal Laws under the +outward phenomena. Here on blank materialism will I stand, and +testify against all Religions and Gods whatsoever, if they must +needs be like that Roman religion, that Roman God. I don't believe +they need--not I. But if they need, they must go. We cannot have a +"Deus quidam deceptor." If there be a God, these trees and stones, +these beasts and birds must be His will, whatever else is not. My +body, and brain, and faculties, and appetites must be His will, +whatever else is not. Whatsoever I can do with them in accordance +with the constitution of them and nature must be His will, whatever +else is not. Those laws of Nature must reveal Him, and be revealed +by Him, whatever else is not. Man's scientific conquest of nature +must be one phase of His Kingdom on Earth, whatever else is not. I +don't deny that there are spiritual laws which man is meant to obey- +-How can I, who feel in my own daily and inexplicable unhappiness +the fruits of having broken them?--But I do say, that those +spiritual laws must be in perfect harmony with every fresh physical +law which we discover: that they cannot be intended to compete +self-destructively with each other; that the spiritual cannot be +intended to be perfected by ignoring or crushing the physical, +unless God is a deceiver, and His universe a self-contradiction. +And by this test alone will I try all theories, and dogmas, and +spiritualities whatsoever--Are they in accordance with the laws of +nature? And therefore when your party compare sneeringly Romish +Sanctity, and English Civilisation, I say, "Take you the Sanctity, +and give me the Civilisation!" The one may be a dream, for it is +unnatural; the other cannot be, for it is natural; and not an evil +in it at which you sneer but is discovered, day by day, to be owing +to some infringement of the laws of nature. When we "draw bills on +nature," as Carlyle says, "she honours them,"--our ships do sail; +our mills do work; our doctors do cure; our soldiers do fight. And +she does not honour yours; for your Jesuits have, by their own +confession, to lie, to swindle, to get even man to accept theirs for +them. So give me the political economist, the sanitary reformer, +the engineer; and take your saints and virgins, relics and miracles. +The spinning-jenny and the railroad, Cunard's liners and the +electric telegraph, are to me, if not to you, signs that we are, on +some points at least, in harmony with the universe; that there is a +mighty spirit working among us, who cannot be your anarchic and +destroying Devil, and therefore may be the Ordering and Creating +God.' + + +Which of them do you think, reader, had most right on his side? + + + +CHAPTER VI: VOGUE LA GALERE + + + +Lancelot was now so far improved in health as to return to his +little cottage ornee. He gave himself up freely to his new passion. +With his comfortable fortune and good connections, the future seemed +bright and possible enough as to circumstances. He knew that +Argemone felt for him; how much it seemed presumptuous even to +speculate, and as yet no golden-visaged meteor had arisen portentous +in his amatory zodiac. No rich man had stepped in to snatch, in +spite of all his own flocks and herds, at the poor man's own ewe- +lamb, and set him barking at all the world, as many a poor lover has +to do in defence of his morsel of enjoyment, now turned into a mere +bone of contention and loadstone for all hungry kites and crows. + +All that had to be done was to render himself worthy of her, and in +doing so, to win her. And now he began to feel more painfully his +ignorance of society, of practical life, and the outward present. +He blamed himself angrily for having, as he now thought, wasted his +time on ancient histories and foreign travels, while he neglected +the living wonderful present, which weltered daily round him, every +face embodying a living soul. For now he began to feel that those +faces did hide living souls; formerly he had half believed--he had +tried, but from laziness, to make himself wholly believe--that they +were all empty masks, phantasies, without interest or significance +for him. But, somehow, in the light of his new love for Argemone, +the whole human race seemed glorified, brought nearer, endeared to +him. So it must be. He had spoken of a law wider than he thought +in his fancy, that the angels might learn love for all by love for +an individual. Do we not all learn love so? Is it not the first +touch of the mother's bosom which awakens in the infant's heart that +spark of affection which is hereafter to spread itself out towards +every human being, and to lose none of its devotion for its first +object, as it expands itself to innumerable new ones? Is it not by +love, too--by looking into loving human eyes, by feeling the care of +loving hands,--that the infant first learns that there exist other +beings beside itself?--that every body which it sees expresses a +heart and will like its own? Be sure of it. Be sure that to have +found the key to one heart is to have found the key to all; that +truly to love is truly to know; and truly to love one, is the first +step towards truly loving all who bear the same flesh and blood with +the beloved. Like children, we must dress up even our unseen future +in stage properties borrowed from the tried and palpable present, +ere we can look at it without horror. We fear and hate the utterly +unknown, and it only. Even pain we hate only when we cannot KNOW +it; when we can only feel it, without explaining it, and making it +harmonise with our notions of our own deserts and destiny. And as +for human beings, there surely it stands true, wherever else it may +not, that all knowledge is love, and all love knowledge; that even +with the meanest, we cannot gain a glimpse into their inward trials +and struggles, without an increase of sympathy and affection. + +Whether he reasoned thus or not, Lancelot found that his new +interest in the working classes was strangely quickened by his +passion. It seemed the shortest and clearest way toward a practical +knowledge of the present. 'Here,' he said to himself, 'in the +investigation of existing relations between poor and rich, I shall +gain more real acquaintance with English society, than by dawdling +centuries in exclusive drawing-rooms.' + +The inquiry had not yet presented itself to him as a duty; perhaps +so much the better, that it might be the more thoroughly a free-will +offering of love. At least it opened a new field of amusement and +knowledge; it promised him new studies of human life; and as he lay +on his sofa and let his thoughts flow, Tregarva's dark revelations +began to mix themselves with dreams about the regeneration of the +Whitford poor, and those again with dreams about the heiress of +Whitford; and many a luscious scene and noble plan rose brightly +detailed in his exuberant imagination. For Lancelot, like all born +artists, could only think in a concrete form. He never worked out a +subject without embodying it in some set oration, dialogue, or +dramatic castle in the air. + +But the more he dreamt, the more he felt that a material beauty of +flesh and blood required a material house, baths, and boudoirs, +conservatories, and carriages; a safe material purse, and fixed +material society; law and order, and the established frame-work of +society, gained an importance in his eyes which they had never had +before. + +'Well,' he said to himself, 'I am turning quite practical and auld- +warld. Those old Greeks were not so far wrong when they said that +what made men citizens, patriots, heroes, was the love of wedded +wife and child.' + +'Wedded wife and child!'--He shrank in from the daring of the +delicious thought, as if he had intruded without invitation into a +hidden sanctuary, and looked round for a book to drive away the +dazzling picture. But even there his thoughts were haunted by +Argemone's face, and + + + 'When his regard +Was raised by intense pensiveness, two eyes, +Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thought, +And seemed, with their serene and azure smiles, +To beckon him.' + + +He took up, with a new interest 'Chartism,' which alone of all Mr. +Carlyle's works he had hitherto disliked, because his own luxurious +day-dreams had always flowed in such sad discord with the terrible +warnings of the modern seer, and his dark vistas of starvation, +crime, neglect, and discontent. + +'Well,' he said to himself, as he closed the book, 'I suppose it is +good for us easy-going ones now and then to face the possibility of +a change. Gold has grown on my back as feathers do on geese, +without my own will or deed; but considering that gold, like +feathers, is equally useful to those who have and those who have +not, why, it is worth while for the goose to remember that he may +possibly one day be plucked. And what remains? "Io," as Medea +says. . . . But Argemone?' . . . And Lancelot felt, for the +moment, as conservative as the tutelary genius of all special +constables. + +As the last thought passed through his brain, Bracebridge's little +mustang slouched past the window, ridden (without a saddle) by a +horseman whom there was no mistaking for no one but the immaculate +colonel, the chevalier sans peur et sans reproche, dared to go about +the country 'such a figure.' A minute afterwards he walked in, in a +student's felt hat, a ragged heather-coloured coatee, and old white +'regulation drills,' shrunk half-way up his legs, a pair of +embroidered Indian mocassins, and an enormous meerschaum at his +button-hole. + +'Where have you been this last week?' + +'Over head and ears in Young England, till I fled to you for a +week's common sense. A glass of cider, for mercy's sake, "to take +the taste of it out of my mouth," as Bill Sykes has it.' + +'Where have you been staying?' + +'With young Lord Vieuxbois, among high art and painted glass, spade +farms, and model smell-traps, rubricalities and sanitary reforms, +and all other inventions, possible and impossible, for "stretching +the old formula to meet the new fact," as your favourite prophet +says.' + +'Till the old formula cracks under the tension.' + +'And cracks its devotees, too, I think. Here comes the cider!' + +'But, my dear fellow, you must not laugh at all this. Young England +or Peelite, this is all right and noble. What a yet unspoken poetry +there is in that very sanitary reform! It is the great fact of the +age. We shall have men arise and write epics on it, when they have +learnt that "to the pure all things are pure," and that science and +usefulness contain a divine element, even in their lowest +appliances.' + +'Write one yourself, and call it the Chadwickiad.' + +'Why not? + + +'Smells and the Man I sing. + + +There's a beginning at once. Why don't YOU rather, with your +practical power, turn sanitary reformer--the only true soldier--and +conquer those real devils and "natural enemies" of Englishmen, +carbonic acid and sulphuretted hydrogen?' + +'Ce n'est pas mon metier, my dear fellow. I am miserably behind the +age. People are getting so cursedly in earnest now-a-days, that I +shall have to bolt to the backwoods to amuse myself in peace; or +else sham dumb as the monkeys do, lest folks should find out that +I'm rational, and set me to work.' + +Lancelot laughed and sighed. + +'But how on earth do you contrive to get on so well with men with +whom you have not an idea in common!' + +'Savoir faire, O infant Hercules! own daddy to savoir vivre. I am a +good listener; and, therefore, the most perfect, because the most +silent, of flatterers. When they talk Puginesquery, I stick my head +on one side attentively, and "think the more," like the lady's +parrot. I have been all the morning looking over a set of drawings +for my lord's new chapel; and every soul in the party fancies me a +great antiquary, just because I have been retailing to B as my own +everything that A told me the moment before.' + +'I envy you your tact, at all events.' + +'Why the deuce should you? You may rise in time to something better +than tact; to what the good book, I suppose, means by "wisdom." +Young geniuses like you, who have been green enough to sell your +souls to "truth," must not meddle with tact, unless you wish to fare +as the donkey did when he tried to play lap-dog.' + +'At all events, I would sooner remain cub till they run me down and +eat me, than give up speaking my mind,' said Lancelot. 'Fool I may +be, but the devil himself shan't make me knave.' + +'Quite proper. On two thousand a year a man can afford to be +honest. Kick out lustily right and left!--After all, the world is +like a spaniel; the more you beat it, the better it likes you--if +you have money. Only don't kick too hard; for, after all, it has a +hundred million pair of shins to your one.' + +'Don't fear that I shall run a-muck against society just now. I am +too thoroughly out of my own good books. I have been for years +laughing at Young England, and yet its little finger is thicker than +my whole body, for it is trying to do something; and I, alas, am +doing utterly nothing. I should be really glad to take a lesson of +these men and their plans for social improvement.' + +'You will have a fine opportunity this evening. Don't you dine at +Minchampstead?' + +'Yes. Do you?' + +'Mr. Jingle dines everywhere, except at home. Will you take me over +in your trap?' + +'Done. But whom shall we meet there?' + +'The Lavingtons, and Vieuxbois, and Vaurien, and a parson or two, I +suppose. But between Saint Venus and Vieuxbois you may soon learn +enough to make you a sadder man, if not a wiser one.' + +'Why not a wiser one? Sadder than now I cannot be; or less wise, +God knows.' + +The colonel looked at Lancelot with one of those kindly thoughtful +smiles, which came over him whenever his better child's heart could +bubble up through the thick crust of worldliness. + +'My young friend, you have been a little too much on the stilts +heretofore. Take care that, now you are off them, you don't lie +down and sleep, instead of walking honestly on your legs. Have +faith in yourself; pick these men's brains, and all men's. You can +do it. Say to yourself boldly, as the false prophet in India said +to the missionary, "I have fire enough in my stomach to burn up" a +dozen stucco and filigree reformers and "assimilate their ashes into +the bargain, like one of Liebig's cabbages."' + +'How can I have faith in myself, when I am playing traitor to myself +every hour in the day? And yet faith in something I must have: in +woman, perhaps.' + +'Never!' said the colonel, energetically. 'In anything but woman? +She must be led, not leader. If you love a woman, make her have +faith in you. If you lean on her, you will ruin yourself, and her +as well.' + +Lancelot shook his head. There was a pause. + +'After all, colonel, I think there must be a meaning in those old +words our mothers used to teach us about "having faith in God."' + +The colonel shrugged his shoulders. + +'Quien sabe? said the Spanish girl, when they asked her who was her +child's father. But here comes my kit on a clod's back, and it is +time to dress for dinner.' + +So to the dinner-party they went. + +Lord Minchampstead was one of the few noblemen Lancelot had ever met +who had aroused in him a thorough feeling of respect. He was always +and in all things a strong man. Naturally keen, ready, business- +like, daring, he had carved out his own way through life, and opened +his oyster--the world, neither with sword nor pen, but with steam +and cotton. His father was Mr. Obadiah Newbroom, of the well-known +manufacturing firm of Newbroom, Stag, and Playforall. A stanch +Dissenter himself, he saw with a slight pang his son Thomas turn +Churchman, as soon as the young man had worked his way up to be the +real head of the firm. But this was the only sorrow which Thomas +Newbroom, now Lord Minchampstead, had ever given his father. 'I +stood behind a loom myself, my boy, when I began life; and you must +do with great means what I did with little ones. I have made a +gentleman of you, you must make a nobleman of yourself.' Those were +almost the last words of the stern, thrifty, old Puritan craftsman, +and his son never forgot them. From a mill-owner he grew to coal- +owner, shipowner, banker, railway director, money-lender to kings +and princes; and last of all, as the summit of his own and his +compeer's ambition, to land-owner. He had half a dozen estates in +as many different counties. He had added house to house, and field +to field; and at last bought Minchampstead Park and ten thousand +acres, for two-thirds its real value, from that enthusiastic +sportsman Lord Peu de Cervelle, whose family had come in with the +Conqueror, and gone out with George IV. So, at least, they always +said; but it was remarkable that their name could never be traced +farther back than the dissolution of the monasteries: and +Calumnious Dryasdusts would sometimes insolently father their title +on James I. and one of his batches of bought peerages. But let the +dead bury their dead. There was now a new lord in Minchampstead; +and every country Caliban was finding, to his disgust, that he had +'got a new master,' and must perforce 'be a new man.' Oh! how the +squires swore and the farmers chuckled, when the 'Parvenu' sold the +Minchampstead hounds, and celebrated his 1st of September by +exterminating every hare and pheasant on the estate! How the +farmers swore and the labourers chuckled when he took all the +cottages into his own hands and rebuilt them, set up a first-rate +industrial school, gave every man a pig and a garden, and broke up +all the commons 'to thin the labour-market.' Oh, how the labourers +swore and the farmers chuckled, when he put up steam-engines on all +his farms, refused to give away a farthing in alms, and enforced the +new Poor-law to the very letter. How the country tradesmen swore, +when he called them 'a pack of dilatory jobbers,' and announced his +intention of employing only London workmen for his improvements. +Oh! how they all swore together (behind his back, of course, for his +dinners were worth eating), and the very ladies said naughty words, +when the stern political economist proclaimed at his own table that +'he had bought Minchampstead for merely commercial purposes, as a +profitable investment of capital, and he would see that, whatever +else it did, it should PAY.' + +But the new lord heard of all the hard words with a quiet self- +possessed smile. He had formed his narrow theory of the universe, +and he was methodically and conscientiously carrying it out. True, +too often, like poor Keats's merchant brothers,-- + + +'Half-ignorant, he turned an easy wheel, +Which set sharp racks at work to pinch and peel.' + + +But of the harm which he did he was unconscious; in the good which +he did he was consistent and indefatigable; infinitely superior, +with all his defects, to the ignorant, extravagant do-nothing Squire +Lavingtons around him. At heart, however, Mammoth-blinded, he was +kindly and upright. A man of a stately presence; a broad, honest +north-country face; a high square forehead, bland and unwrinkled. I +sketch him here once for all, because I have no part for him after +this scene in my corps de ballet. + +Lord Minchampstead had many reasons for patronising Lancelot. In +the first place, he had a true eye for a strong man wherever he met +him; in the next place, Lancelot's uncle the banker, was a stanch +Whig ally of his in the House. 'In the rotten-borough times, Mr. +Smith,' he once said to Lancelot, 'we could have made a senator of +you at once; but, for the sake of finality, we were forced to +relinquish that organ of influence. The Tories had abused it, +really, a little too far; and now we can only make a commissioner of +you--which, after all, is a more useful post, and a more lucrative +one.' But Lancelot had not as yet 'Galliolised,' as the Irish +schoolmaster used to call it, and cared very little to play a +political ninth fiddle. + +The first thing which caught his eyes as he entered the drawing-room +before dinner was Argemone listening in absorbed reverence to her +favourite vicar,--a stern, prim, close-shaven, dyspeptic man, with a +meek, cold smile, which might have become a cruel one. He watched +and watched in vain, hoping to catch her eye; but no--there she +stood, and talked and listened-- + +'Ah,' said Bracebridge, smiling, 'it is in vain, Smith! When did +you know a woman leave the Church for one of us poor laymen?' + +'Good heavens!' said Lancelot, impatiently, 'why will they make such +fools of themselves with clergymen?' + +'They are quite right. They always like the strong men--the +fighters and the workers. In Voltaire's time they all ran after the +philosophers. In the middle ages, books tell us, they worshipped +the knights errant. They are always on the winning side, the +cunning little beauties. In the war-time, when the soldiers had to +play the world's game, the ladies all caught the red-coat fever; +now, in these talking and thinking days (and be hanged to them for +bores), they have the black-coat fever for the same reason. The +parsons are the workers now-a-days--or rather, all the world expects +them to be so. They have the game in their own hands, if they did +but know how to play it.' + +Lancelot stood still, sulking over many thoughts. The colonel +lounged across the room towards Lord Vieuxbois, a quiet, truly high- +bred young man, with a sweet open countenance, and an ample +forehead, whose size would have vouched for great talents, had not +the promise been contradicted by the weakness of the over-delicate +mouth and chin. + +'Who is that with whom you came into the room, Bracebridge?' asked +Lord Vieuxbois. 'I am sure I know his face.' + +'Lancelot Smith, the man who has taken the shooting-box at Lower +Whitford.' + +'Oh, I remember him well enough at Cambridge! He was one of a set +who tried to look like blackguards, and really succeeded tolerably. +They used to eschew gloves, and drink nothing but beer, and smoke +disgusting short pipes; and when we established the Coverley Club in +Trinity, they set up an opposition, and called themselves the +Navvies. And they used to make piratical expeditions down to Lynn +in eight oars, to attack bargemen, and fen girls, and shoot ducks, +and sleep under turf-stacks, and come home when they had drank all +the public-house taps dry. I remember the man perfectly.' + +'Navvy or none,' said the colonel, 'he has just the longest head and +the noblest heart of any man I ever met. If he does not distinguish +himself before he dies, I know nothing of human nature.' + +'Ah yes, I believe he is clever enough!--took a good degree, a +better one than I did--but horribly eclectic; full of mesmerism, and +German metaphysics, and all that sort of thing. I heard of him one +night last spring, on which he had been seen, if you will believe +it, going successively into a Swedenborgian chapel, the Garrick's +Head, and one of Elliotson's magnetic soirees. What can you expect +after that?' + +'A great deal,' said Bracebridge drily. 'With such a head as he +carries on his shoulders the man might be another Mirabeau, if he +held the right cards in the right rubber. And he really ought to +suit you, for he raves about the middle ages, and chivalry, and has +edited a book full of old ballads.' + +'Oh, all the eclectics do that sort of thing; and small thanks to +them. However, I will speak to him after dinner, and see what there +is in him.' + +And Lord Vieuxbois turned away, and, alas for Lancelot! sat next to +Argemone at dinner. Lancelot, who was cross with everybody for what +was nobody's fault, revenged himself all dinner-time by never +speaking a word to his next neighbour, Miss Newbroom, who was +longing with all her heart to talk sentiment to him about the +Exhibition; and when Argemone, in the midst of a brilliant word- +skirmish with Lord Vieuxbois, stole a glance at him, he chose to +fancy that they were both talking of him, and looked more cross than +ever. + +After the ladies retired, Lancelot, in his sulky way, made up his +mind that the conversation was going to be ineffably stupid; and set +to to dream, sip claret, and count the minutes till he found himself +in the drawing-room with Argemone. But he soon discovered, as I +suppose we all have, that 'it never rains but it pours,' and that +one cannot fall in with a new fact or a new acquaintance but next +day twenty fresh things shall spring up as if by magic, throwing +unexpected light on one's new phenomenon. Lancelot's head was full +of the condition-of-the-poor question, and lo! everybody seemed +destined to talk about it. + +'Well, Lord Vieuxbois,' said the host, casually, 'my girls are +raving about your new school. They say it is a perfect antiquarian +gem.' + +'Yes, tolerable, I believe. But Wales has disappointed me a little. +That vile modernist naturalism is creeping back even into our +painted glass. I could have wished that the artist's designs for +the windows had been a little more Catholic.' + +'How then?' asked the host, with a puzzled face. + +'Oh, he means,' said Bracebridge, 'that the figures' wrists and +ankles were not sufficiently dislocated, and the patron saint did +not look quite like a starved rabbit with its neck wrung. Some of +the faces, I am sorry to say, were positively like good-looking men +and women.' + +'Oh, I understand,' said Lord Minchampstead; 'Bracebridge's tongue +is privileged, you know, Lord Vieuxbois, so you must not be angry.' + +'I don't see my way into all this,' said Squire Lavington (which was +very likely to be true, considering that he never looked for his +way). 'I don't see how all these painted windows, and crosses, and +chanting, and the deuce and the Pope only know what else, are to +make boys any better.' + +'We have it on the highest authority,' said Vieuxbois, 'that +pictures and music are the books of the unlearned. I do not think +that we have any right in the nineteenth century to contest an +opinion which the fathers of the Church gave in the fourth.' + +'At all events,' said Lancelot, 'it is by pictures and music, by art +and song, and symbolic representations, that all nations have been +educated in their adolescence! and as the youth of the individual is +exactly analogous to the youth of the collective race, we should +employ the same means of instruction with our children which +succeeded in the early ages with the whole world.' + +Lancelot might as well have held his tongue--nobody understood him +but Vieuxbois, and he had been taught to scent German neology in +everything, as some folks are taught to scent Jesuitry, especially +when it involved an inductive law, and not a mere red-tape +precedent, and, therefore, could not see that Lancelot was arguing +for him. 'All very fine, Smith,' said the squire; 'it's a pity you +won't leave off puzzling your head with books, and stick to fox- +hunting. All you young gentlemen will do is to turn the heads of +the poor with your cursed education.' The national oath followed, +of course. 'Pictures and chanting! Why, when I was a boy, a good +honest labouring man wanted to see nothing better than a halfpenny +ballad, with a wood-cut at the top, and they worked very well then, +and wanted for nothing.' + +'Oh, we shall give them the halfpenny ballads in time!' said +Vieuxbois, smiling. + +'You will do a very good deed, then,' said mine host. 'But I am +sorry to say that, as far as I can find from my agents, when the +upper classes write cheap publications, the lower classes will not +read them.' + +'Too true,' said Vieuxbois. + +'Is not the cause,' asked Lancelot, 'just that the upper classes do +write them?' + +'The writings of working men, certainly,' said Lord Minchampstead, +'have an enormous sale among their own class.' + +'Just because they express the feelings of that class, of which I am +beginning to fear that we know very little. Look again, what a +noble literature of people's songs and hymns Germany has. Some of +Lord Vieuxbois's friends, I know, are busy translating many of +them.' + +'As many of them, that is to say,' said Vieuxbois, 'as are +compatible with a real Church spirit.' + +'Be it so; but who wrote them? Not the German aristocracy for the +people, but the German people for themselves. There is the secret +of their power. Why not educate the people up to such a standard +that they should be able to write their own literature?' + +'What,' said Mr. Chalklands, of Chalklands, who sat opposite, 'would +you have working men turn ballad writers? There would be an end of +work, then, I think.' + +'I have not heard,' said Lancelot, 'that the young women--LADIES, I +ought to say, if the word mean anything--who wrote the "Lowell +Offering," spun less or worse cotton than their neighbours.' + +'On the contrary," said Lord Minchampstead, 'we have the most noble +accounts of heroic industry and self-sacrifice in girls whose +education, to judge by its fruits, might shame that of most English +young ladies.' + +Mr. Chalklands expressed certain confused notions that, in America, +factory girls carried green silk parasols, put the legs of pianos +into trousers, and were too prudish to make a shirt, or to call it a +shirt after it was made, he did not quite remember which. + +'It is a great pity,' said Lord Minchampstead, 'that our factory +girls are not in the same state of civilisation. But it is socially +impossible. America is in an abnormal state. In a young country +the laws of political economy do not make themselves fully felt. +Here, where we have no uncleared world to drain the labour-market, +we may pity and alleviate the condition of the working-classes, but +we can do nothing more. All the modern schemes for the amelioration +which ignore the laws of competition, must end either in +pauperisation'--(with a glance at Lord Vieuxbois),--'or in the +destruction of property.' + +Lancelot said nothing, but thought the more. It did strike him at +the moment that the few might, possibly, be made for the many, and +not the many for the few; and that property was made for man, not +man for property. But he contented himself with asking,-- + +'You think, then, my lord, that in the present state of society, no +dead-lift can be given to the condition--in plain English, the +wages--of working men, without the destruction of property?' + +Lord Minchampstead smiled, and parried the question. + +'There may be other dead-lift ameliorations, my young friend, +besides a dead-lift of wages.' + +So Lancelot thought, also; but Lord Minchampstead would have been a +little startled could he have seen Lancelot's notion of a dead-lift. +Lord Minchampstead was thinking of cheap bread and sugar. Do you +think that I will tell you of what Lancelot was thinking? + +But here Vieuxbois spurred in to break a last lance. He had been +very much disgusted with the turn the conversation was taking, for +he considered nothing more heterodox than the notion that the poor +were to educate themselves. In his scheme, of course the clergy and +the gentry were to educate the poor, who were to take down +thankfully as much as it was thought proper to give them: and all +beyond was 'self-will' and 'private judgment,' the fathers of +Dissent and Chartism, Trades'-union strikes, and French Revolutions, +et si qua alia. + +'And pray, Mr. Smith, may I ask what limit you would put to +education?' + +'The capacities of each man,' said Lancelot. 'If man living in +civilised society has one right which he can demand it is this, that +the State which exists by his labour shall enable him to develop, +or, at least, not hinder his developing, his whole faculties to +their very utmost, however lofty that may be. While a man who might +be an author remains a spade-drudge, or a journeyman while he has +capacities for a master; while any man able to rise in life remains +by social circumstances lower than he is willing to place himself, +that man has a right to complain of the State's injustice and +neglect.' + +'Really, I do not see,' said Vieuxbois, 'why people should wish to +rise in life. They had no such self-willed fancy in the good old +times. The whole notion is a product of these modern days--' + +He would have said more, but he luckily remembered at whose table he +was sitting. + +'I think, honestly,' said Lancelot, whose blood was up, 'that we +gentlemen all run into the same fallacy. We fancy ourselves the +fixed and necessary element in society, to which all others are to +accommodate themselves. "Given the rights of the few rich, to find +the condition of the many poor." It seems to me that other +postulate is quite as fair: "Given the rights of the many poor, to +find the condition of the few rich."' + +Lord Minchampstead laughed. + +'If you hit us so hard, Mr. Smith, I must really denounce you as a +Communist. Lord Vieuxbois, shall we join the ladies?' + +In the drawing-room, poor Lancelot, after rejecting overtures of +fraternity from several young ladies, set himself steadily again +against the wall to sulk and watch Argemone. But this time she +spied in a few minutes his melancholy, moonstruck face, swam up to +him, and said something kind and commonplace. She spoke in the +simplicity of her heart, but he chose to think she was patronising +him--she had not talked commonplaces to the vicar. He tried to say +something smart and cutting,--stuttered, broke down, blushed, and +shrank back again to the wall, fancying that every eye in the room +was on him; and for one moment a flash of sheer hatred to Argemone +swept through him. + +Was Argemone patronising him? Of course she was. True, she was but +three-and-twenty, and he was of the same age; but, spiritually and +socially, the girl develops ten years earlier than the boy. She was +flattered and worshipped by gray-headed men, and in her simplicity +she thought it a noble self-sacrifice to stoop to notice the poor +awkward youth. And yet if he could have seen the pure moonlight of +sisterly pity which filled all her heart as she retreated, with +something of a blush and something of a sigh, and her heart +fluttered and fell, would he have been content? Not he. It was her +love he wanted, and not her pity; it was to conquer her and possess +her, and inform himself with her image, and her with his own; though +as yet he did not know it; though the moment that she turned away he +cursed himself for selfish vanity, and moroseness and conceit. + +'Who am I to demand her all to myself? Her, the glorious, the +saintly, the unfallen! Is not a look, a word, infinitely more than +I deserve? And yet I pretend to admire tales of chivalry! Old +knightly hearts would have fought and wandered for years to earn a +tithe of the favours which have been bestowed on me unasked.'-- + +Peace! poor Lancelot! Thy egg is by no means addle; but the chick +is breaking the shell in somewhat a cross-grained fashion. + + + +CHAPTER VII: THE DRIVE HOME, AND WHAT CAME OF IT + + + +Now it was not extraordinary that Squire Lavington had 'assimilated' +a couple of bottles of Carbonel's best port; for however abstemious +the new lord himself might be, he felt for the habits, and for the +vote of an old-fashioned Whig squire. Nor was it extraordinary that +he fell fast asleep the moment he got into the carriage; nor, again, +that his wife and daughters were not solicitous about waking him; +nor, on the other hand, that the coachman and footman, who were like +all the squire's servants, of the good old sort, honest, faithful, +boozing, extravagant, happy-go-lucky souls, who had 'been about the +place these forty years,' were somewhat owlish and unsteady on the +box. Nor was it extraordinary that there was a heavy storm of +lightning, for that happened three times a-week in the chalk hills +the summer through; nor, again, that under these circumstances the +horses, who were of the squire's own breeding, and never thoroughly +broke (nothing was done thoroughly at Whitford), went rather wildly +home, and that the carriage swung alarmingly down the steep hills, +and the boughs brushed the windows rather too often. But it was +extraordinary that Mrs. Lavington had cast off her usual primness, +and seemed to-night, for the first time in her life, in an exuberant +good humour, which she evinced by snubbing her usual favourite +Honoria, and lavishing caresses on Argemone, whose vagaries she +usually regarded with a sort of puzzled terror, like a hen who has +hatched a duckling. + +'Honoria, take your feet off my dress. Argemone, my child, I hope +you spent a pleasant evening?' + +Argemone answered by some tossy commonplace. + +A pause--and then Mrs. Lavington recommenced,-- + +'How very pleasing that poor young Lord Vieuxbois is, after all!' + +'I thought you disliked him so much.' + +'His opinions, my child; but we must hope for the best. He seems +moral and well inclined, and really desirous of doing good in his +way; and so successful in the House, too, I hear.' + +'To me,' said Argemone, 'he seems to want life, originality, depth, +everything that makes a great man. He knows nothing but what he has +picked up ready-made from books. After all, his opinions are the +one redeeming point in him.' + +'Ah, my dear, when it pleases Heaven to open your eyes, you will see +as I do!' + +Poor Mrs. Lavington! Unconscious spokeswoman for the ninety-nine +hundredths of the human race! What are we all doing from morning to +night, but setting up our own fancies as the measure of all heaven +and earth, and saying, each in his own dialect, Whig, Radical, or +Tory, Papist or Protestant, 'When it pleases Heaven to open your +eyes you will see as I do'? + +'It is a great pity,' went on Mrs. Lavington, meditatively, 'to see +a young man so benighted and thrown away. With his vast fortune, +too--such a means of good! Really we ought to have seen a little +more of him. I think Mr. O'Blareaway's conversation might be a +blessing to him. I think of asking him over to stay a week at +Whitford, to meet that sainted young man.' + +Now Argemone did not think the Reverend Panurgus O'Blareaway, +incumbent of Lower Whitford, at all a sainted young man, but, on the +contrary, a very vulgar, slippery Irishman; and she had, somehow, +tired of her late favourite, Lord Vieuxbois; so she answered tossily +enough,-- + +'Really, mamma, a week of Lord Vieuxbois will be too much. We shall +be bored to death with the Cambridge Camden Society, and ballads for +the people.' + +'I think, my dear,' said Mrs. Lavington (who had, half unconsciously +to herself, more reasons than one for bringing the young lord to +Whitford), 'I think, my dear, that his conversation, with all its +faults, will be a very improving change for your father. I hope +he's asleep.' + +The squire's nose answered for itself. + +'Really, what between Mr. Smith, and Colonel Bracebridge, and their +very ineligible friend, Mr. Mellot, whom I should never have allowed +to enter my house if I had suspected his religious views, the place +has become a hotbed of false doctrine and heresy. I have been quite +frightened when I have heard their conversation at dinner, lest the +footmen should turn infidels!' + +'Perhaps, mamma,' said Honoria, slyly, 'Lord Vieuxbois might convert +them to something quite as bad. How shocking if old Giles, the +butler, should turn Papist!' + +'Honoria, you are very silly. Lord Vieuxbois, at least can be +trusted. He has no liking for low companions. HE is above joking +with grooms, and taking country walks with gamekeepers.' + +It was lucky that it was dark, for Honoria and Argemone both blushed +crimson. + +'Your poor father's mind has been quite unsettled by all their +ribaldry. They have kept him so continually amused, that all my +efforts to bring him to a sense of his awful state have been more +unavailing than ever.' + +Poor Mrs. Lavington! She had married, at eighteen, a man far her +inferior in intellect; and had become--as often happens in such +cases--a prude and a devotee. The squire, who really admired and +respected her, confined his disgust to sly curses at the Methodists +(under which name he used to include every species of religious +earnestness, from Quakerism to that of Mr. Newman). Mrs. Lavington +used at first to dignify these disagreeables by the name of +persecution, and now she was trying to convert the old man by +coldness, severity, and long curtain-lectures, utterly +unintelligible to their victim, because couched in the peculiar +conventional phraseology of a certain school. She forgot, poor +earnest soul, that the same form of religion which had captivated a +disappointed girl of twenty, might not be the most attractive one +for a jovial old man of sixty. + +Argemone, who a fortnight before would have chimed in with all her +mother's lamentations, now felt a little nettled and jealous. She +could not bear to hear Lancelot classed with the colonel. + +'Indeed,' she said, 'if amusement is bad for my father, he is not +likely to get much of it during Lord Vieuxbois's stay. But, of +course, mamma, you will do as you please.' + +'Of course I shall, my dear,' answered the good lady, in a tragedy- +queen tone. 'I shall only take the liberty of adding, that it is +very painful to me to find you adding to the anxiety which your +unfortunate opinions give me, by throwing every possible obstacle in +the way of my plans for your good.' + +Argemone burst into proud tears (she often did so after a +conversation with her mother). 'Plans for my good!'--And an +unworthy suspicion about her mother crossed her mind, and was +peremptorily expelled again. What turn the conversation would have +taken next, I know not, but at that moment Honoria and her mother +uttered a fearful shriek, as their side of the carriage jolted half- +way up the bank, and stuck still in that pleasant position. + +The squire awoke, and the ladies simultaneously clapped their hands +to their ears, knowing what was coming. He thrust his head out of +the window, and discharged a broadside of at least ten pounds' worth +of oaths (Bow Street valuation) at the servants, who were examining +the broken wheel, with a side volley or two at Mrs. Lavington for +being frightened. He often treated her and Honoria to that style of +oratory. At Argemone he had never sworn but once since she left the +nursery, and was so frightened at the consequences, that he took +care never to do it again. + +But there they were fast, with a broken wheel, plunging horses, and +a drunken coachman. Luckily for them, the colonel and Lancelot were +following close behind, and came to their assistance. + +The colonel, as usual, solved the problem. + +'Your dog-cart will carry four, Smith?' + +'It will.' + +'Then let the ladies get in, and Mr. Lavington drive them home.' + +'What?' said the squire, 'with both my hands red-hot with the gout? +You must drive three of us, colonel, and one of us must walk.' + +'I will walk,' said Argemone, in her determined way. + +Mrs. Lavington began something about propriety, but was stopped with +another pound's worth of oaths by the squire, who, however, had +tolerably recovered his good humour, and hurried Mrs. Lavington and +Honoria, laughingly, into the dog-cart, saying-- + +'Argemone's safe enough with Smith; the servants will lead the +horses behind them. It's only three miles home, and I should like +to see any one speak to her twice while Smith's fists are in the +way.' + +Lancelot thought so too. + +'You can trust yourself to me, Miss Lavington?' + +'By all means. I shall enjoy the walk after--:' and she stopped. +In a moment the dog-cart had rattled off, with a parting curse from +the squire to the servants, who were unharnessing the horses. + +Argemone took Lancelot's arm; the soft touch thrilled through and +through him; and Argemone felt, she knew not why, a new sensation +run through her frame. She shuddered--not with pain. + +'You are cold, Miss Lavington?' + +'Oh, not in the least.' Cold! when every vein was boiling so +strangely! A soft luscious melancholy crept over her. She had +always had a terror of darkness; but now she felt quite safe in his +strength. The thought of her own unprotected girlhood drew her +heart closer to him. She remembered with pleasure the stories of +his personal prowess, which had once made her think him coarse and +brutal. For the first time in her life she knew the delight of +dependence--the holy charm of weakness. And as they paced on +silently together, through the black awful night, while the servants +lingered, far out of sight, about the horses, she found out how +utterly she trusted to him. + +'Listen!' she said. A nightingale was close to them, pouring out +his whole soul in song. + +'Is it not very late in the year for a nightingale?' + +'He is waiting for his mate. She is rearing a late brood, I +suppose.' + +'What do you think it is which can stir him up to such an ecstasy of +joy, and transfigure his whole heart into melody?' + +'What but love, the fulness of all joy, the evoker of all song?' + +'All song?--The angels sing in heaven.' + +'So they say: but the angels must love if they sing.' + +'They love God!' + +'And no one else?' + +'Oh yes: but that is universal, spiritual love; not earthly love--a +narrow passion for an individual.' + +'How do we know that they do not learn to love all by first loving +one?' + +'Oh, the angelic life is single!' + +'Who told you so, Miss Lavington?' + +She quoted the stock text, of course:--'"In heaven they neither +marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels."' + +'"As the tree falls, so it lies." And God forbid that those who +have been true lovers on earth should contract new marriages in the +next world. Love is eternal. Death may part lovers, but not love. +And how do we know that these angels, as they call them, if they be +really persons, may not be united in pairs by some marriage bond, +infinitely more perfect than any we can dream of on earth?' + +'That is a very wild view, Mr. Smith, and not sanctioned by the +Church,' said Argemone, severely. (Curious and significant it is, +how severe ladies are apt to be whenever they talk of the Church.) + +'In plain historic fact, the early fathers and the middle-age monks +did not sanction it: and are not they the very last persons to whom +one would go to be taught about marriage? Strange! that people +should take their notions of love from the very men who prided +themselves on being bound, by their own vows, to know nothing about +it!' + +'They were very holy men.' + +'But still men, as I take it. And do you not see that Love is, like +all spiritual things, only to be understood by experience--by +loving?' + +'But is love spiritual?' + +'Pardon me, but what a question for one who believes that "God is +love!"' + +'But the divines tell us that the love of human beings is earthly.' + +'How did they know? They had never tried. Oh, Miss Lavington! +cannot you see that in those barbarous and profligate ages of the +later empire, it was impossible for men to discern the spiritual +beauty of marriage, degraded as it had been by heathen brutality? +Do you not see that there must have been a continual tendency in the +minds of a celibate clergy to look with contempt, almost with spite, +on pleasures which were forbidden to them?' + +Another pause. + +'It must be very delicious,' said Argemone, thoughtfully, 'for any +one who believes it, to think that marriage can last through +eternity. But, then, what becomes of entire love to God? How can +we part our hearts between him and his creatures?' + +'It is a sin, then, to love your sister? or your friend? What a +low, material view of love, to fancy that you can cut it up into so +many pieces, like a cake, and give to one person one tit-bit, and +another to another, as the Popish books would have you believe! +Love is like flame--light as many fresh flames at it as you will, it +grows, instead of diminishing, by the dispersion.' + +'It is a beautiful imagination.' + +'But, oh, how miserable and tantalising a thought, Miss Lavington, +to those who know that a priceless spirit is near them, which might +be one with theirs through all eternity, like twin stars in one +common atmosphere, for ever giving and receiving wisdom and might, +beauty and bliss, and yet are barred from their bliss by some +invisible adamantine wall, against which they must beat themselves +to death, like butterflies against the window-pane, gazing, and +longing, and unable to guess why they are forbidden to enjoy!' + +Why did Argemone withdraw her arm from his? He knew, and he felt +that she was entrusted to him. He turned away from the subject. + +'I wonder whether they are safe home by this time?' + +'I hope my father will not catch cold. How sad, Mr. Smith, that he +will swear so. I do not like to say it; and yet you must have heard +him too often yourself.' + +'It is hardly a sin with him now, I think. He has become so +habituated to it, that he attaches no meaning or notion whatsoever +to his own oaths. I have heard him do it with a smiling face to the +very beggar to whom he was giving half-a-crown. We must not judge a +man of his school by the standard of our own day.' + +'Let us hope so,' said Argemone, sadly. + +There was another pause. At a turn of the hill road the black +masses of beech-wood opened, and showed the Priory lights twinkling +right below. Strange that Argemone felt sorry to find herself so +near home. + +'We shall go to town next week,' said she; "and then--You are going +to Norway this summer, are you not?' + +'No. I have learnt that my duty lies nearer home.' + +'What are you going to do?' + +'I wish this summer, for the first time in my life, to try and do +some good--to examine a little into the real condition of English +working men.' + +'I am afraid, Mr. Smith, that I did not teach you that duty.' + +'Oh, you have taught me priceless things! You have taught me beauty +is the sacrament of heaven, and love its gate; that that which is +the most luscious is also the most pure.' + +'But I never spoke a word to you on such subjects.' + +'There are those, Miss Lavington, to whom a human face can speak +truths too deep for books.' + +Argemone was silent; but she understood him. Why did she not +withdraw her arm a second time? + +In a moment more the colonel hailed them from the dog-cart and +behind him came the britschka with a relay of servants. + +They parted with a long, lingering pressure of the hand, which +haunted her young palm all night in dreams. Argemone got into the +carriage, Lancelot jumped into the dog-cart, took the reins, and +relieved his heart by galloping Sandy up the hill, and frightening +the returning coachman down one bank and his led horses up the +other. + +'Vogue la Galere, Lancelot? I hope you have made good use of your +time?' + +But Lancelot spoke no word all the way home, and wandered till dawn +in the woods around his cottage, kissing the hand which Argemone's +palm had pressed. + + + +CHAPTER VIII: WHITHER? + + + +Some three months slipped away--right dreary months for Lancelot, +for the Lavingtons went to Baden-Baden for the summer. 'The waters +were necessary for their health.' . . . How wonderful it is, by the +bye, that those German Brunnen are never necessary for poor people's +health! . . . and they did not return till the end of August. So +Lancelot buried himself up to the eyes in the Condition-of-the-Poor +question--that is, in blue books, red books, sanitary reports, mine +reports, factory reports; and came to the conclusion, which is now +pretty generally entertained, that something was the matter--but +what, no man knew, or, if they knew, thought proper to declare. +Hopeless and bewildered, he left the books, and wandered day after +day from farm to hamlet, and from field to tramper's tent, in hopes +of finding out the secret for himself. What he saw, of course I +must not say; for if I did the reviewers would declare, as usual, +one and all, that I copied out of the Morning Chronicle; and the +fact that these pages, ninety-nine hundredths of them at least, were +written two years before the Morning Chronicle began its invaluable +investigations, would be contemptuously put aside as at once +impossible and arrogant. I shall therefore only say, that he saw +what every one else has seen, at least heard of, and got tired of +hearing--though alas! they have not got tired of seeing it; and so +proceed with my story, only mentioning therein certain particulars +which folks seem, to me, somewhat strangely, to have generally +overlooked. + +But whatever Lancelot saw, or thought he saw, I cannot say that it +brought him any nearer to a solution of the question; and he at last +ended by a sulky acquiescence in Sam Weller's memorable dictum: +'Who it is I can't say; but all I can say is that SOMEBODY ought to +be wopped for this!' + +But one day, turning over, as hopelessly as he was beginning to turn +over everything else, a new work of Mr. Carlyle's, he fell on some +such words as these:-- + +'The beginning and the end of what is the matter with us in these +days is--that WE HAVE FORGOTTEN GOD.' + +Forgotten God? That was at least a defect of which blue books had +taken no note. And it was one which, on the whole--granting, for +the sake of argument, any real, living, or practical existence to +That Being, might be a radical one--it brought him many hours of +thought, that saying; and when they were over, he rose up and went +to find--Tregarva. + +'Yes, he is the man. He is the only man with whom I have ever met, +of whom I could be sure, that independent of his own interest, +without the allurements of respectability and decency, of habit and +custom, he believes in God. And he too is a poor man; he has known +the struggles, temptations, sorrows of the poor. I will go to him.' + +But as Lancelot rose to find him, there was put into his hand a +letter, which kept him at home a while longer--none other, in fact, +than the long-expected answer from Luke. + + +'WELL, MY DEAR COUSIN--You may possibly have some logical ground +from which to deny Popery, if you deny all other religions with it; +but how those who hold any received form of Christianity whatsoever +can fairly side with you against Rome, I cannot see. I am sure I +have been sent to Rome by them, not drawn thither by Jesuits. Not +merely by their defects and inconsistencies; not merely because they +go on taunting us, and shrieking at us with the cry that we ought to +go to Rome, till we at last, wearied out, take them at their word, +and do at their bidding the thing we used to shrink from with +terror--not this merely but the very doctrines we hold in common +with them, have sent me to Rome. For would these men have known of +them if Rome had not been? The Trinity--the Atonement--the +Inspiration of Scripture.--A future state--that point on which the +present generation, without a smattering of psychological science, +without even the old belief in apparitions, dogmatises so narrowly +and arrogantly--what would they have known of them but for Rome? +And she says there are three realms in the future state . . . +heaven, hell, and purgatory . . . What right have they to throw +away the latter, and arbitrarily retain the two former? I am told +that Scripture gives no warrant for a third state. She says that it +does--that it teaches that implicitly, as it teaches other, the very +highest doctrines; some hold, the Trinity itself. . . . It may be +proved from Scripture; for it may be proved from the love and +justice of God revealed in Scripture. The Protestants divide--in +theory, that is--mankind into two classes, the righteous, who are +destined to infinite bliss; the wicked, who are doomed to infinite +torment; in which latter class, to make their arbitrary division +exhaustive, they put of course nine hundred and ninety-nine out of +the thousand, and doom to everlasting companionship with Borgias and +Cagliostros, the gentle, frivolous girl, or the peevish boy, who +would have shrunk, in life, with horror from the contact. . . . +Well, at least, their hell is hellish enough . . . if it were but +just. . . . But I, Lancelot, I cannot believe it! I will not +believe it! I had a brother once--affectionate, simple, generous, +full of noble aspirations--but without, alas! a thought of God; +yielding in a hundred little points, and some great ones, to the +infernal temptations of a public school. . . . He died at +seventeen. Where is he now? Lancelot! where is he now? Never for +a day has that thought left my mind for years. Not in heaven--for +he has no right there; Protestants would say that as well as I. . . +. Where, then?--Lancelot! not in that other place. I cannot, I will +not believe it. For the sake of God's honour, as well as of my own +sanity, I will not believe it! There must be some third place--some +intermediate chance, some door of hope--some purifying and redeeming +process beyond the grave. . . . Why not a purifying fire? Ages of +that are surely punishment enough--and if there be a fire of hell, +why not a fire of purgatory? . . . After all, the idea of purgatory +as a fire is only an opinion, not a dogma of the Church. . . . But +if the gross flesh which has sinned is to be punished by the matter +which it has abused, why may it not be purified by it?' + +'You may laugh, if you will, at both, and say again, as I have heard +you say ere now, that the popular Christian paradise and hell are +but a Pagan Olympus and Tartarus, as grossly material as Mahomet's, +without the honest thorough-going sexuality, which you thought made +his notion logical and consistent. . . . Well, you may say that, +but Protestants cannot; for their idea of heaven and ours is the +same--with this exception, that theirs will contain but a thin band +of saved ones, while ours will fill and grow to all eternity. . . . +I tell you, Lancelot, it is just the very doctrines for which +England most curses Rome, and this very purgatory at the head of +them, which constitute her strength and her allurement; which appeal +to the reason, the conscience, the heart of men, like me, who have +revolted from the novel superstition which looks pitilessly on at +the fond memories of the brother, the prayers of the orphan, the +doubled desolation of the widow, with its cold terrible assurance, +"There is no hope for thy loved and lost ones--no hope, but hell for +evermore!" + +'I do not expect to convert you. You have your metempsychosis, and +your theories of progressive incarnation, and your monads, and your +spirits of the stars and flowers. I have not forgotten a certain +talk of ours over Falk Von Muller's Recollections of Goethe, and how +you materialists are often the most fantastic of theorists. . . . I +do not expect, I say, to convert you. I only want to show you there +is no use trying to show the self-satisfied Pharisees of the popular +sect--why, in spite of all their curses, men still go back to Rome.' + + +Lancelot read this, and re-read it; and smiled, but sadly--and the +more he read, the stronger its arguments seemed to him, and he +rejoiced thereat. For there is a bad pleasure--happy he who has not +felt it--in a pitiless reductio ad absurdum, which asks tauntingly, +'Why do you not follow out your own conclusions?'--instead of +thanking God that people do not follow them out, and that their +hearts are sounder than their heads. Was it with this feeling that +the fancy took possession of him, to show the letter to Tregarva? I +hope not--perhaps he did not altogether wish to lead him into +temptation, any more than I wish to lead my readers, but only to +make him, just as I wish to make them, face manfully a real awful +question now racking the hearts of hundreds, and see how they will +be able to answer the sophist fiend--for honestly, such he is--when +their time comes, as come it will. At least he wanted to test at +once Tregarva's knowledge and his logic. As for his 'faith,' alas! +he had not so much reverence for it as to care what effect Luke's +arguments might have there. 'The whole man,' quoth Lancelot to +himself, 'is a novel phenomenon; and all phenomena, however +magnificent, are surely fair subjects for experiment. Magendie may +have gone too far, certainly, in dissecting a live dog--but what +harm in my pulling the mane of a dead lion?' + +So he showed the letter to Tregarva as they were fishing together +one day--for Lancelot had been installed duly in the Whitford trout +preserves'--Tregarva read it slowly; asked, shrewdly enough, the +meaning of a word or two as he went on; at last folded it up +deliberately, and returned it to its owner with a deep sigh. +Lancelot said nothing for a few minutes; but the giant seemed so +little inclined to open the conversation, that he was forced at last +to ask him what he thought of it. + +'It isn't a matter for thinking, sir, to my mind--There's a nice +fish on the feed there, just over-right that alder.' + +'Hang the fish! Why not a matter for thinking?' + +'To my mind, sir, a man may think a deal too much about many matters +that come in his way.' + +'What should he do with them, then?' + +'Mind his own business.' + +'Pleasant for those whom they concern!--That's rather a cold-blooded +speech for you, Tregarva!' + +The Cornishman looked up at him earnestly. His eyes were +glittering--was it with tears? + +'Don't fancy I don't feel for the poor young gentleman--God help +him!--I've been through it all--or not through it, that's to say. I +had a brother once, as fine a young fellow as ever handled pick, as +kind-hearted as a woman, and as honest as the sun in Heaven.--But he +would drink, sir;--that one temptation, he never could stand it. +And one day at the shaft's mouth, reaching after the kibble-chain-- +maybe he was in liquor, maybe not--the Lord knows; but--' + +'I didn't know him again, sir, when we picked him up, any more than- +-' and the strong man shuddered from head to foot, and beat +impatiently on the ground with his heavy heel, as if to crush down +the rising horror. + +'Where is he, sir?' + +A long pause. + +'Do you think I didn't ask that, sir, for years and years after, of +God, and my own soul, and heaven and earth, and the things under the +earth, too? For many a night did I go down that mine out of my +turn, and sat for hours in that level, watching and watching, if +perhaps the spirit of him might haunt about, and tell his poor +brother one word of news--one way or the other--anything would have +been a comfort--but the doubt I couldn't bear. And yet at last I +learnt to bear it--and what's more, I learnt not to care for it. +It's a bold word--there's one who knows whether or not it is a true +one.' + +'Good Heavens!--and what then did you say to yourself?' + +'I said this, sir--or rather, one came as I was on my knees, and +said it to me--What's done you can't mend. What's left, you can. +Whatever has happened is God's concern now, and none but His. Do +you see that as far as you can no such thing ever happen again, on +the face of His earth. And from that day, sir, I gave myself up to +that one thing, and will until I die, to save the poor young fellows +like myself, who are left now-a-days to the Devil, body and soul, +just when they are in the prime of their power to work for God.' + +'Ah!' said Lancelot--'if poor Luke's spirit were but as strong as +yours!' + +'I strong?' answered he, with a sad smile; 'and so you think, sir. +But it's written, and it's true--"The heart knoweth its own +bitterness."' + +'Then you absolutely refuse to try to fancy your--his present +state?' + +'Yes, sir, because if I did fancy it, that would be a certain sign I +didn't know it. If we can't conceive what God has prepared for +those that we know loved Him, how much less can we for them of whom +we don't know whether they loved Him or not?' + +'Well,' thought Lancelot to himself, 'I did not do so very wrong in +trusting your intellect to cut through a sophism.' + +'But what do you believe, Tregarva?' + +'I believe this, sir--and your cousin will believe the same, if he +will only give up, as I am sore afraid he will need to some day, +sticking to arguments and doctrines about the Lord, and love and +trust the Lord himself. I believe, sir, that the judge of all the +earth will do right--and what's right can't be wrong, nor cruel +either, else it would not be like Him who loved us to the death, +that's all I know; and that's enough for me. To whom little is +given, of him is little required. He that didn't know his Master's +will, will be beaten with few stripes, and he that did know it, as I +do, will be beaten with many, if he neglects it--and that latter, +not the former, is my concern.' + +'Well,' thought Lancelot to himself, 'this great heart has gone down +to the root of the matter--the right and wrong of it. He, at least, +has not forgotten God. Well, I would give up all the Teleologies +and cosmogonies that I ever dreamt or read, just to believe what he +believes--Heigho and well-a-day!--Paul! hist? I'll swear that was +an otter!' + +'I hope not, sir, I'm sure. I haven't seen the spraint of one here +this two years.' + +'There again--don't you see something move under that marl bank?' + +Tregarva watched a moment, and then ran up to the spot, and throwing +himself on his face on the edge, leant over, grappled something--and +was instantly, to Lancelot's astonishment, grappled in his turn by a +rough, lank, white dog, whose teeth, however, could not get through +the velveteen sleeve. + +'I'll give in, keeper! I'll give in. Doan't ye harm the dog! he's +deaf as a post, you knows.' + +'I won't harm him if you take him off, and come up quietly.' + +This mysterious conversation was carried on with a human head, which +peeped above the water, its arms supporting from beneath the +growling cur--such a visage as only worn-out poachers, or trampling +drovers, or London chiffonniers carry; pear-shaped and retreating to +a narrow peak above, while below, the bleared cheeks, and drooping +lips, and peering purblind eyes, perplexed, hopeless, defiant, and +yet sneaking, bespeak THEIR share in the 'inheritance of the kingdom +of heaven.'--Savages without the resources of a savage--slaves +without the protection of a master--to whom the cart-whip and the +rice-swamp would be a change for the better--for there, at least, is +food and shelter. + +Slowly and distrustfully a dripping scarecrow of rags and bones rose +from his hiding-place in the water, and then stopped suddenly, and +seemed inclined to dash through the river; but Tregarva held him +fast. + +'There's two on ye! That's a shame! I'll surrender to no man but +you, Paul. Hold off, or I'll set the dog on ye!' + +'It's a gentleman fishing. He won't tell--will you, sir?' And he +turned to Lancelot. 'Have pity on the poor creature, sir, for God's +sake--it isn't often he gets it.' + +'I won't tell, my man. I've not seen you doing any harm. Come out +like a man, and let's have a look at you.' + +The creature crawled up the bank, and stood, abject and shivering, +with the dog growling from between his legs. + +'I was only looking for a kingfisher's nest: indeed now, I was, +Paul Tregarva.' + +'Don't lie, you were setting night-lines. I saw a minnow lie on the +bank as I came up. Don't lie; I hate liars.' + +'Well indeed, then--a man must live somehow.' + +'You don't seem to live by this trade, my friend,' quoth Lancelot; +'I cannot say it seems a prosperous business, by the look of your +coat and trousers.' + +'That Tim Goddard stole all my clothes, and no good may they do him; +last time as I went to gaol I gave them him to kep, and he went off +for a navvy meantime; so there I am.' + +'If you will play with the dogs,' quoth Tregarva, 'you know what you +will be bit by. Haven't I warned you? Of course you won't prosper: +as you make your bed, so you must lie in it. The Lord can't be +expected to let those prosper that forget Him. What mercy would it +be to you if He did let you prosper by setting snares all church- +time, as you were last Sunday, instead of going to church?' + +'I say, Paul Tregarva, I've told you my mind about that afore. If I +don't do what I knows to be right and good already, there ain't no +use in me a damning myself all the deeper by going to church to hear +more.' + +'God help you!' quoth poor Paul. + +'Now, I say,' quoth Crawy, with the air of a man who took the whole +thing as a matter of course, no more to be repined at than the rain +and wind--'what be you a going to do with me this time? I do hope +you won't have me up to bench. 'Tain't a month now as I'm out o' +prizzum along o' they fir-toppings, and I should, you see--' with a +look up and down and round at the gay hay-meadows, and the fleet +water, and the soft gleaming clouds, which to Lancelot seemed most +pathetic,--'I should like to ha' a spell o' fresh air, like, afore I +goes in again.' + +Tregarva stood over him and looked down at him, like some huge +stately bloodhound on a trembling mangy cur. 'Good heavens!' +thought Lancelot, as his eye wandered from the sad steadfast dignity +of the one, to the dogged helpless misery of the other--'can those +two be really fellow-citizens? fellow-Christians?--even animals of +the same species? Hard to believe!' + +True, Lancelot; but to quote you against yourself, Bacon, or rather +the instinct which taught Bacon, teaches you to discern the +invisible common law under the deceitful phenomena of sense. + +'I must have those night-lines, Crawy,' quoth Tregarva, at length. + +'Then I must starve. You might ever so well take away the dog. +They're the life of me.' + +'They're the death of you. Why don't you go and work, instead of +idling about, stealing trout?' + +'Be you a laughing at a poor fellow in his trouble? Who'd gie me a +day's work, I'd like to know? It's twenty year too late for that!' + +Lancelot stood listening. Yes, that wretch, too, was a man and a +brother--at least so books used to say. Time was, when he had +looked on a poacher as a Pariah 'hostem humani generis'--and only +deplored that the law forbade him to shoot them down, like cats and +otters; but he had begun to change his mind. + +He had learnt, and learnt rightly, the self-indulgence, the danger, +the cruelty, of indiscriminate alms. It looked well enough in +theory, on paper. 'But--but--but,' thought Lancelot, 'in practice, +one can't help feeling a little of that un-economic feeling called +pity. No doubt the fellow has committed an unpardonable sin in +daring to come into the world when there was no call for him; one +used to think, certainly, that children's opinions were not +consulted on such points before they were born, and that therefore +it might be hard to visit the sins of the fathers on the children, +even though the labour-market were a little overstocked--"mais nous +avons change tout cela," like M. Jourdain's doctors. No doubt, too, +the fellow might have got work if he had chosen--in Kamschatka or +the Cannibal Islands; for the political economists have proved, +beyond a doubt, that there is work somewhere or other for every one +who chooses to work. But as, unfortunately, society has neglected +to inform him of the state of the Cannibal Island labour-market, or +to pay his passage thither when informed thereof, he has had to +choose in the somewhat limited labour-field of the Whitford Priors' +union, whose workhouse is already every winter filled with abler- +bodied men than he, between starvation--and this--. Well, as for +employing him, one would have thought that there was a little work +waiting to be done in those five miles of heather and snipe-bog, +which I used to tramp over last winter--but those, it seems, are +still on the "margin of cultivation," and not a remunerative +investment--that is, to capitalists. I wonder if any one had made +Crawy a present of ten acres of them when he came of age, and +commanded him to till that or be hanged, whether he would not have +found it a profitable investment? But bygones are bygones, and +there he is, and the moors, thanks to the rights of property--in +this case the rights of the dog in the manger--belong to poor old +Lavington--that is, the game and timber on them; and neither Crawy +nor any one else can touch them. What can I do for him? Convert +him? to what? For the next life, even Tregarva's talisman seems to +fail. And for this life--perhaps if he had had a few more practical +proofs of a divine justice and government--that "kingdom of heaven" +of which Luke talks, in the sensible bodily matters which he does +appreciate, he might not be so unwilling to trust to it for the +invisible spiritual matters which he does not appreciate. At all +events, one has but one chance of winning him, and that is, through +those five senses which he has left. What if he does spend the +money in gross animal enjoyment? What will the amount of it be, +compared with the animal enjoyments which my station allows me daily +without reproach! A little more bacon--a little more beer--a little +more tobacco; at all events they will be more important to him than +a pair of new boots or an extra box of cigars to me.'--And Lancelot +put his hand in his pocket, and pulled out a sovereign. No doubt he +was a great goose; but if you can answer his arguments, reader, I +cannot. + +'Look here--what are your night-lines worth?' + +'A matter of seven shilling; ain't they now, Paul Tregarva?' + +'I should suppose they are.' + +'Then do you give me the lines, one and all, and there's a sovereign +for you.--No, I can't trust you with it all at once. I'll give it +to Tregarva, and he shall allow you four shillings a week as long as +it lasts, if you'll promise to keep off Squire Lavington's river.' + +It was pathetic, and yet disgusting, to see the abject joy of the +poor creature. 'Well,' thought Lancelot, 'if he deserves to be +wretched, so do I--why, therefore, if we are one as bad as the +other, should I not make his wretchedness a little less for the time +being?' + +'I waint come a-near the water. You trust me--I minds them as is +kind to me'--and a thought seemed suddenly to lighten up his dull +intelligence. + +'I say, Paul, hark you here. I see that Bantam into D * * * t'other +day.' + +'What! is he down already?' + +'With a dog-cart; he and another of his pals; and I see 'em take out +a silk flue, I did. So, says I, you maunt be trying that ere along +o' the Whitford trout; they kepers is out o' nights so sure as the +moon.' + +'You didn't know that. Lying again!' + +'No, but I sayed it in course. I didn't want they a-robbing here; +so I think they worked mainly up Squire Vaurien's water.' + +'I wish I'd caught them here,' quoth Tregarva, grimly enough; +'though I don't think they came, or I should have seen the track on +the banks.' + +'But he sayed like, as how he should be down here again about +pheasant shooting.' + +'Trust him for it. Let us know, now, if you see him.' + +'And that I will, too. I wouldn't save a feather for that 'ere old +rascal, Harry. If the devil don't have he, I don't see no use in +keeping no devil. But I minds them as has mercy on me, though my +name is Crawy. Ay,' he added, bitterly, ''tain't so many kind turns +as I gets in this life, that I can afford to forget e'er a one.' +And he sneaked off, with the deaf dog at his heels. + +'How did that fellow get his name, Tregarva?' + +'Oh, most of them have nicknames round here. Some of them hardly +know their own real names, sir.' ('A sure sign of low +civilisation,' thought Lancelot.) 'But he got his a foolish way; +and yet it was the ruin of him. When he was a boy of fifteen, he +got miching away in church-time, as boys will, and took off his +clothes to get in somewhere here in this very river, groping in the +banks after craw-fish; and as the devil--for I can think no less-- +would have it, a big one catches hold of him by the fingers with one +claw, and a root with the other, and holds him there till Squire +Lavington comes out to take his walk after church, and there he +caught the boy, and gave him a thrashing there and then, naked as he +stood. And the story got wind, and all the chaps round called him +Crawy ever afterwards, and the poor fellow got quite reckless from +that day, and never looked any one in the face again; and being +ashamed of himself, you see, sir, was never ashamed of anything +else--and there he is. That dog's his only friend, and gets a +livelihood for them both. It's growing old now; and when it dies, +he'll starve.' + +'Well--the world has no right to blame him for not doing his duty, +till it has done its own by him a little better.' + +'But the world will, sir, because it hates its duty, and cries all +day long, like Cain, "Am I my brother's keeper?"' + +'Do you think it knows its duty? I have found it easy enough to see +that something is diseased, Tregarva; but to find the medicine +first, and to administer it afterwards, is a very different matter.' + +'Well--I suppose the world will never be mended till the day of +judgment.' + +'In plain English, not mended till it is destroyed. Hopeful for the +poor world! I should fancy, if I believed that, that the devil in +the old history--which you believe--had had the best of it with a +vengeance, when he brought sin into the world, and ruined it. I +dare not believe that. How dare you, who say that God sent His Son +into the world to defeat the devil?' + +Tregarva was silent a while. + +'Learning and the Gospel together ought to do something, sir, +towards mending it. One would think so. But the prophecies are +against that.' + +'As folks happen to read them just now. A hundred years hence they +may be finding the very opposite meaning in them. Come, Tregarva,-- +Suppose I teach you a little of the learning, and you teach me a +little of the Gospel--do you think we two could mend the world +between us, or even mend Whitford Priors?' + +'God knows, sir,' said Tregarva. + +* * * * * + +'Tregarva,' said Lancelot, as they were landing the next trout, +'where will that Crawy go, when he dies?' + +'God knows, sir,' said Tregarva. + +* * * * * + +Lancelot went thoughtful home, and sat down--not to answer Luke's +letter--for he knew no answer but Tregarva's, and that, alas! he +could not give, for he did not believe it, but only longed to +believe it. So he turned off the subject by a question-- + +'You speak of yourself as being already a member of the Romish +communion. How is this? Have you given up your curacy? Have you +told your father? I fancy that if you had done so I must have heard +of it ere now. I entreat you to tell me the state of the case, for, +heathen as I am, I am still an Englishman; and there are certain old +superstitions still lingering among us--whencesoever we may have got +them first--about truth and common honesty--you understand me.-- + +'Do not be angry. But there is a prejudice against the truthfulness +of Romish priests and Romish converts.--It's no affair of mine. I +see quite enough Protestant rogues and liars, to prevent my having +any pleasure in proving Romanists, or any other persons, rogues and +liars also. But I am--if not fond of you--at least sufficiently +fond to be anxious for your good name. You used to be an open- +hearted fellow enough. Do prove to the world that coelum, non +animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt.' + + + +CHAPTER IX: HARRY VERNEY HEARS HIS LAST SHOT FIRED + + + +The day after the Lavingtons' return, when Lancelot walked up to the +Priory with a fluttering heart to inquire after all parties, and see +one, he found the squire in a great state of excitement. + +A large gang of poachers, who had come down from London by rail, had +been devastating all the covers round, to stock the London markets +by the first of October, and intended, as Tregarva had discovered, +to pay Mr. Lavington's preserves a visit that night. They didn't +care for country justices, not they. Weren't all their fines paid +by highly respectable game-dealers at the West end? They owned +three dog-carts among them; a parcel by railway would bring them +down bail to any amount; they tossed their money away at the public- +houses, like gentlemen; thanks to the Game Laws, their profits ran +high, and when they had swept the country pretty clean of game, why, +they would just finish off the season by a stray highway robbery or +two, and vanish into Babylon and their native night. + +Such was Harry Verney's information as he strutted about the +courtyard waiting for the squire's orders. + +'But they've put their nose into a furze-bush, Muster Smith, they +have. We've got our posse-commontaturs, fourteen men, sir, as'll +play the whole vale to cricket, and whap them; and every one'll +fight, for they're half poachers themselves, you see' (and Harry +winked and chuckled); 'and they can't abide no interlopers to come +down and take the sport out of their mouths.' + +'But are you sure they'll come to-night?' + +'That 'ere Paul says so. Wonder how he found out--some of his +underhand, colloguing, Methodist ways, I'll warrant. I seed him +preaching to that 'ere Crawy, three or four times when he ought to +have hauled him up. He consorts with them poachers, sir, uncommon. +I hope he ben't one himself, that's all.' + +'Nonsense, Harry!' + +'Oh? Eh? Don't say old Harry don't know nothing, that's all. I've +fixed his flint, anyhow.' + +'Ah! Smith!' shouted the squire out of his study window, with a +cheerful and appropriate oath. 'The very man I wanted to see! You +must lead these keepers for me to-night. They always fight better +with a gentleman among them. Breeding tells, you know--breeding +tells.' + +Lancelot felt a strong disgust at the occupation, but he was under +too many obligations to the squire to refuse. + +'Ay, I knew you were game,' said the old man. 'And you'll find it +capital fun. I used to think it so, I know, when I was young. Many +a shindy have I had here in my uncle's time, under the very windows, +before the chase was disparked, when the fellows used to come down +after the deer.' + +Just then Lancelot turned and saw Argemone standing close to him. +He almost sprang towards her--and retreated, for he saw that she had +overheard the conversation between him and her father. + +'What! Mr. Smith!' said she in a tone in which tenderness and +contempt, pity and affected carelessness, were strangely mingled. +'So! you are going to turn gamekeeper to-night?' + +Lancelot was blundering out something, when the squire interposed. + +'Let her alone, Smith. Women will be tender-hearted, you know. +Quite right--but they don't understand these things. They fight +with their tongues, and we with our fists; and then they fancy their +weapons don't hurt--Ha! ha! ha!' + +'Mr. Smith,' said Argemone, in a low, determined voice, 'if you have +promised my father to go on this horrid business--go. But promise +me, too, that you will only look on, or I will never--' + +Argemone had not time to finish her sentence before Lancelot had +promised seven times over, and meant to keep his promise, as we all +do. + +About ten o'clock that evening Lancelot and Tregarva were walking +stealthily up a ride in one of the home-covers, at the head of some +fifteen fine young fellows, keepers, grooms, and not extempore +'watchers,' whom old Harry was marshalling and tutoring, with +exhortations as many and as animated as if their ambition was +'Mourir pour la patrie.' + +'How does this sort of work suit you, Tregarva, for I don't like it +at all! The fighting's all very well, but it's a poor cause.' + +'Oh, sir, I have no mercy on these Londoners. If it was these poor +half-starved labourers, that snare the same hares that have been +eating up their garden-stuff all the week, I can't touch them, sir, +and that's truth; but these ruffians--And yet, sir, wouldn't it be +better for the parsons to preach to them, than for the keepers to +break their heads?' + +'Oh?' said Lancelot, 'the parsons say all to them that they can.' + +Tregarva shook his head. + +'I doubt that, sir. But, no doubt, there's a great change for the +better in the parsons. I remember the time, sir, that there wasn't +an earnest clergyman in the vale; and now every other man you meet +is trying to do his best. But those London parsons, sir, what's the +matter with them? For all their societies and their schools, the +devil seems to keep ahead of them sadly. I doubt they haven't found +the right fly yet for publicans and sinners to rise at.' + +A distant shot in the cover. + +'There they are, sir. I thought that Crawy wouldn't lead me false +when I let him off.' + +'Well, fight away, then, and win. I have promised Miss Lavington +not to lift a hand in the business.' + +'Then you're a lucky man, sir. But the squire's game is his own, +and we must do our duty by our master.' + +There was a rustle in the bushes, and a tramp of feet on the turf. + +'There they are, sir, sure enough. The Lord keep us from murder +this night!' And Tregarva pulled off his neckcloth, and shook his +huge limbs, as if to feel that they were all in their places, in a +way that augured ill for the man who came across him. + +They turned the corner of a ride, and, in an instant, found +themselves face to face with five or six armed men, with blackened +faces, who, without speaking a word, dashed at them, and the fight +began; reinforcements came up on each side, and the engagement +became general. + + +'The forest-laws were sharp and stern, + The forest blood was keen, +They lashed together for life and death + Beneath the hollies green. + +'The metal good and the walnut-wood + Did soon in splinters flee; +They tossed the orts to south and north, + And grappled knee to knee. + +'They wrestled up, they wrestled down, + They wrestled still and sore; +The herbage sweet beneath their feet + Was stamped to mud and gore.' + + +And all the while the broad still moon stared down on them grim and +cold, as if with a saturnine sneer at the whole humbug; and the +silly birds about whom all this butchery went on, slept quietly over +their heads, every one with his head under his wing. Oh! if +pheasants had but understanding, how they would split their sides +with chuckling and crowing at the follies which civilised Christian +men perpetrate for their precious sake! + +Had I the pen of Homer (though they say he never used one), or even +that of the worthy who wasted precious years in writing a Homer +Burlesqued, what heroic exploits might not I immortalise! In every +stupid serf and cunning ruffian there, there was a heart as brave as +Ajax's own; but then they fought with sticks instead of lances, and +hammered away on fustian jackets instead of brazen shields; and, +therefore, poor fellows, they were beneath 'the dignity of poetry,' +whatever that may mean. If one of your squeamish 'dignity-of- +poetry' critics had just had his head among the gun-stocks for five +minutes that night, he would have found it grim tragic earnest +enough; not without a touch of fun though, here and there. + +Lancelot leant against a tree and watched the riot with folded arms, +mindful of his promise to Argemone, and envied Tregarva as he hurled +his assailants right and left with immense strength, and led the van +of battle royally. Little would Argemone have valued the real proof +of love which he was giving her as he looked on sulkily, while his +fingers tingled with longing to be up and doing. Strange--that mere +lust of fighting, common to man and animals, whose traces even the +lamb and the civilised child evince in their mock-fights, the +earliest and most natural form of play. Is it, after all, the one +human propensity which is utterly evil, incapable of being turned to +any righteous use? Gross and animal, no doubt it is, but not the +less really pleasant, as every Irishman and many an Englishman knows +well enough. A curious instance of this, by the bye, occurred in +Paris during the February Revolution. A fat English coachman went +out, from mere curiosity, to see the fighting. As he stood and +watched, a new passion crept over him; he grew madder and madder as +the bullets whistled past him; at last, when men began to drop by +his side, he could stand it no longer, seized a musket, and rushed +in, careless which side he took,-- + + +'To drink delight of battle with his peers.' + + +He was not heard of for a day or two, and then they found him stiff +and cold, lying on his face across a barricade, with a bullet +through his heart. Sedentary persons may call him a sinful fool. +Be it so. Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto. + +Lancelot, I verily believe, would have kept his promise, though he +saw that the keepers gave ground, finding Cockney skill too much for +their clumsy strength; but at last Harry Verney, who had been +fighting as venomously as a wild cat, and had been once before saved +from a broken skull by Tregarva, rolled over at his very feet with a +couple of poachers on him. + +'You won't see an old man murdered, Mr. Smith?' cried he, +imploringly. + +Lancelot tore the ruffians off the old man right and left. One of +them struck him; he returned the blow; and, in an instant, promises +and Argemone, philosophy and anti-game-law prejudices, were swept +out of his head, and 'he went,' as the old romances say, 'hurling +into the midst of the press,' as mere a wild animal for the moment +as angry bull or boar. An instant afterwards, though, he burst out +laughing, in spite of himself, as 'The Battersea Bantam,' who had +been ineffectually dancing round Tregarva like a gamecock spurring +at a bull, turned off with a voice of ineffable disgust,-- + +'That big cove's a yokel; ta'nt creditable to waste science on him. +You're my man, if you please, sir,'--and the little wiry lump of +courage and conceit, rascality and good humour, flew at Lancelot, +who was twice his size, 'with a heroism worthy of a better cause,' +as respectable papers, when they are not too frightened, say of the +French. + +* * * * * + +'Do you want any more?' asked Lancelot. + +'Quite a pleasure, sir, to meet a scientific gen'lman. Beg your +pardon, sir; stay a moment while I wipes my face. Now, sir, time, +if you please.' + +Alas for the little man! in another moment he tumbled over and lay +senseless--Lancelot thought he had killed him. The gang saw their +champion fall, gave ground, and limped off, leaving three of their +party groaning on the ground, beside as many Whitford men. + +As it was in the beginning, so is it to be to the end, my foolish +brothers! From the poacher to the prime minister--wearying +yourselves for very vanity! The soldier is not the only man in +England who is fool enough to be shot at for a shilling a day. + +But while all the rest were busy picking up the wounded men and +securing the prisoners, Harry Verney alone held on, and as the +poachers retreated slowly up the ride, he followed them, peering +into the gloom, as if in hopes of recognising some old enemy. + +'Stand back, Harry Verney; we know you, and we'd be loth to harm an +old man,' cried a voice out of the darkness. + +'Eh? Do you think old Harry'd turn back when he was once on the +track of ye? You soft-fisted, gin-drinking, counter-skipping +Cockney rascals, that fancy you're to carry the county before you, +because you get your fines paid by London-tradesmen! Eh? What do +you take old Harry for?' + +'Go back, you old fool!' and a volley of oaths followed. 'If you +follow us, we'll fire at you, as sure as the moon's in heaven!' + +'Fire away, then! I'll follow you to--!' and the old man paced +stealthily but firmly up to them. + +Tregarva saw his danger and sprang forward, but it was too late. + +'What, you will have it, then?' + +A sharp crack followed,--a bright flash in the darkness--every white +birch-stem and jagged oak-leaf shone out for a moment as bright as +day--and in front of the glare Lancelot saw the old man throw his +arms wildly upward, fall forward, and disappear on the dark ground. + +'You've done it! off with you!' And the rascals rushed off up the +ride. + +In a moment Tregarva was by the old man's side, and lifted him +tenderly up. + +'They've done for me, Paul. Old Harry's got his gruel. He's heard +his last shot fired. I knowed it 'ud come to this, and I said it. +Eh? Didn't I, now, Paul?' And as the old man spoke, the workings +of his lungs pumped great jets of blood out over the still heather- +flowers as they slept in the moonshine, and dabbled them with +smoking gore. + +'Here, men,' shouted the colonel, 'up with him at once, and home! +Here, put a brace of your guns together, muzzle and lock. Help him +to sit on them, Lancelot. There, Harry, put your arms round their +necks. Tregarva, hold him up behind. Now then, men, left legs +foremost--keep step--march!' And they moved off towards the Priory. + +'You seem to know everything, colonel,' said Lancelot. + +The colonel did not answer for a moment. + +'Lancelot, I learnt this dodge from the only friend I ever had in +the world, or ever shall have; and a week after I marched him home +to his deathbed in this very way.' + +'Paul--Paul Tregarva,' whispered old Harry, 'put your head down +here: wipe my mouth, there's a man; it's wet, uncommon wet.' It +was his own life-blood. 'I've been a beast to you, Paul. I've +hated you, and envied you, and tried to ruin you. And now you've +saved my life once this night; and here you be a-nursing of me as my +own son might do, if he was here, poor fellow! I've ruined you, +Paul; the Lord forgive me!' + +'Pray! pray!' said Paul, 'and He will forgive you. He is all mercy. +He pardoned the thief on the cross--' + +'No, Paul, no thief,--not so bad as that, I hope, anyhow; never +touched a feather of the squire's. But you dropped a song, Paul, a +bit of writing.' + +Paul turned pale. + +'And--the Lord forgive me!--I put it in the squire's fly-book.' + +'The Lord forgive you! Amen!' said Paul, solemnly. + +Wearily and slowly they stepped on towards the old man's cottage. A +messenger had gone on before, and in a few minutes the squire, Mrs. +Lavington, and the girls, were round the bed of their old retainer. + +They sent off right and left for the doctor and the vicar; the +squire was in a frenzy of rage and grief. + +'Don't take on, master, don't take on,' said old Harry, as he lay; +while the colonel and Honoria in vain endeavoured to stanch the +wound. 'I knowed it would be so, sooner or later; 'tis all in the +way of business. They haven't carried off a bird, squire, not a +bird; we was too many for 'em--eh, Paul, eh?' + +'Where is that cursed doctor?' said the squire. 'Save him, colonel, +save him; and I'll give you--' + +Alas! the charge of shot at a few feet distance had entered like a +bullet, tearing a great ragged hole.--There was no hope, and the +colonel knew it; but he said nothing. + +'The second keeper,' sighed Argemone, 'who has been killed here! +Oh, Mr. Smith, must this be? Is God's blessing on all this?' + +Lancelot said nothing. The old man lighted up at Argemone's voice. + +'There's the beauty, there's the pride of Whitford. And sweet Miss +Honor, too,--so kind to nurse a poor old man! But she never would +let him teach her to catch perch, would she? She was always too +tender-hearted. Ah, squire, when we're dead and gone,--dead and +gone,--squire, they'll be the pride of Whitford still! And they'll +keep up the old place--won't you, my darlings? And the old name, +too! For, you know, there must always be a Lavington in Whitford +Priors, till the Nun's pool runs up to Ashy Down.' + +'And a curse upon the Lavingtons,' sighed Argemone to herself in an +undertone. + +Lancelot heard what she said. + +The vicar entered, but he was too late. The old man's strength was +failing, and his mind began to wander. + +'Windy,' he murmured to himself, 'windy, dark and windy--birds won't +lie--not old Harry's fault. How black it grows! We must be gone by +nightfall, squire. Where's that young dog gone? Arter the larks, +the brute.' + +Old Squire Lavington sobbed like a child. + +'You will soon be home, my man,' said the vicar. 'Remember that you +have a Saviour in heaven. Cast yourself on His mercy.' + +Harry shook his head. + +'Very good words, very kind,--very heavy gamebag, though. Never get +home, never any more at all. Where's my boy Tom to carry it? Send +for my boy Tom. He was always a good boy till he got along with +them poachers.' + +'Listen,' he said, 'listen! There's bells a-ringing--ringing in my +head. Come you here, Paul Tregarva.' + +He pulled Tregarva's face down to his own, and whispered,-- + +'Them's the bells a-ringing for Miss Honor's wedding.' + +Paul started and drew back. Harry chuckled and grinned for a moment +in his old foxy, peering way, and then wandered off again. + +'What's that thumping and roaring?' Alas! it was the failing +pulsation of his own heart. 'It's the weir, the weir--a-washing me +away--thundering over me.--Squire, I'm drowning,--drowning and +choking! Oh, Lord, how deep! Now it's running quieter--now I can +breathe again--swift and oily--running on, running on, down to the +sea. See how the grayling sparkle! There's a pike! 'Tain't my +fault, squire, so help me--Don't swear, now, squire; old men and +dying maun't swear, squire. How steady the river runs down? Lower +and slower--lower and slower: now it's quite still--still--still--' + +His voice sank away--he was dead! + +No! once more the light flashed up in the socket. He sprang upright +in the bed, and held out his withered paw with a kind of wild +majesty, as he shouted,-- + +'There ain't such a head of hares on any manor in the county. And +them's the last words of Harry Verney!' + +He fell back--shuddered--a rattle in his throat--another--and all +was over. + + + +CHAPTER X: 'MURDER WILL OUT,' AND LOVE TOO + + + +Argemone need never have known of Lancelot's share in the poaching +affray; but he dared not conceal anything from her. And so he +boldly went up the next day to the Priory, not to beg pardon, but to +justify himself, and succeeded. And, before long, he found himself +fairly installed as her pupil, nominally in spiritual matters, but +really in subjects of which she little dreamed. + +Every day he came to read and talk with her, and whatever objections +Mrs. Lavington expressed were silenced by Argemone. She would have +it so, and her mother neither dared nor knew how to control her. +The daughter had utterly out-read and out-thought her less educated +parent, who was clinging in honest bigotry to the old forms, while +Argemone was wandering forth over the chaos of the strange new age,- +-a poor homeless Noah's dove, seeking rest for the sole of her foot +and finding none. And now all motherly influence and sympathy had +vanished, and Mrs. Lavington, in fear and wonder, let her daughter +go her own way. She could not have done better, perhaps; for +Providence had found for Argemone a better guide than her mother +could have done, and her new pupil was rapidly becoming her teacher. +She was matched, for the first time, with a man who was her own +equal in intellect and knowledge; and she felt how real was that +sexual difference which she had been accustomed to consider as an +insolent calumny against woman. Proudly and indignantly she +struggled against the conviction, but in vain. Again and again she +argued with him, and was vanquished,--or, at least, what is far +better, made to see how many different sides there are to every +question. All appeals to authority he answered with a contemptuous +smile. 'The best authorities?' he used to say. 'On what question +do not the best authorities flatly contradict each other? And why? +Because every man believes just what it suits him to believe. Don't +fancy that men reason themselves into convictions; the prejudices +and feelings of their hearts give them some idea or theory, and then +they find facts at their leisure to prove their theory true. Every +man sees facts through narrow spectacles, red, or green, or blue, as +his nation or his temperament colours them: and he is quite right, +only he must allow us the liberty of having our spectacles too. +Authority is only good for proving facts. We must draw our own +conclusions.' And Argemone began to suspect that he was right,--at +least to see that her opinions were mere hearsays, picked up at her +own will and fancy; while his were living, daily-growing ideas. Her +mind was beside his as the vase of cut flowers by the side of the +rugged tree, whose roots are feeding deep in the mother earth. In +him she first learnt how one great truth received into the depths of +the soul germinates there, and bears fruit a thousandfold; +explaining, and connecting, and glorifying innumerable things, +apparently the most unlike and insignificant; and daily she became a +more reverent listener, and gave herself up, half against her will +and conscience, to the guidance of a man whom she knew to be her +inferior in morals and in orthodoxy. She had worshipped intellect, +and now it had become her tyrant; and she was ready to give up every +belief which she once had prized, to flutter like a moth round its +fascinating brilliance. + +Who can blame her, poor girl? For Lancelot's humility was even more +irresistible than his eloquence. He assumed no superiority. He +demanded her assent to truths, not because they were his opinions, +but simply for the truth's sake; and on all points which touched the +heart he looked up to her as infallible and inspired. In questions +of morality, of taste, of feeling, he listened not as a lover to his +mistress, but rather as a baby to its mother; and thus, half +unconsciously to himself, he taught her where her true kingdom lay,- +-that the heart, and not the brain, enshrines the priceless pearl of +womanhood, the oracular jewel, the 'Urim and Thummim,' before which +gross man can only inquire and adore. + +And, in the meantime, a change was passing upon Lancelot. His +morbid vanity--that brawl-begotten child of struggling self-conceit +and self-disgust--was vanishing away; and as Mr. Tennyson says in +one of those priceless idyls of his, before which the shade of +Theocritus must hide his diminished head,-- + + +'He was altered, and began + To move about the house with joy, +And with the certain step of man.' + + +He had, at last, found one person who could appreciate him. And in +deliberate confidence he set to work to conquer her, and make her +his own. It was a traitorous return, but a very natural one. And +she, sweet creature! walked straight into the pleasant snare, +utterly blind, because she fancied that she saw clearly. In the +pride of her mysticism, she had fancied herself above so commonplace +a passion as love. It was a curious feature of lower humanity, +which she might investigate and analyse harmlessly as a cold +scientific spectator; and, in her mingled pride and purity, she used +to indulge Lancelot in metaphysical disquisitions about love and +beauty, like that first one in their walk home from Minchampstead, +from which a less celestially innocent soul would have shrunk. She +thought, forsooth, as the old proverb says, that she could deal in +honey, without putting her hand to her mouth. But Lancelot knew +better, and marked her for his own. And daily his self-confidence +and sense of rightful power developed, and with them, paradoxical as +it may seem, the bitterest self-abasement. The contact of her +stainless innocence, the growing certainty that the destiny of that +innocence was irrevocably bound up with his own, made him shrink +from her whenever he remembered his own guilty career. To remember +that there were passages in it which she must never know--that she +would cast him from her with abhorrence if she once really +understood their vileness? To think that, amid all the closest +bonds of love, there must for ever be an awful, silent gulf in the +past, of which they must never speak!--That she would bring to him +what he could never, never bring to her!--The thought was +unbearable. And as hideous recollections used to rise before him, +devilish caricatures of his former self, mopping and mowing at him +in his dreams, he would start from his lonely bed, and pace the room +for hours, or saddle his horse, and ride all night long aimlessly +through the awful woods, vainly trying to escape himself. How +gladly, at those moments, he would have welcomed centuries of a +material hell, to escape from the more awful spiritual hell within +him,--to buy back that pearl of innocence which he had cast +recklessly to be trampled under the feet of his own swinish +passions! But, no; that which was done could never be undone,-- +never, to all eternity. And more than once, as he wandered +restlessly from one room to another, the barrels of his pistols +seemed to glitter with a cold, devilish smile, and call to him,-- + +'Come to us! and with one touch of your finger, send that bursting +spirit which throbs against your brow to flit forth free, and +nevermore to defile her purity by your presence!' + +But no, again: a voice within seemed to command him to go on, and +claim her, and win her, spite of his own vileness. And in after +years, slowly, and in fear and trembling, he knew it for the voice +of God, who had been leading him to become worthy of her through +that bitter shame of his own unworthiness. + +As One higher than them would have it, she took a fancy to read +Homer in the original, and Lancelot could do no less than offer his +services as translator. She would prepare for him portions of the +Odyssey, and every day that he came up to the Priory he used to +comment on it to her; and so for many a week, in the dark wainscoted +library, and in the clipt yew-alleys of the old gardens, and under +the brown autumn trees, they quarried together in that unexhausted +mine, among the records of the rich Titan-youth of man. And step by +step Lancelot opened to her the everlasting significance of the +poem; the unconscious purity which lingers in it, like the last rays +of the Paradise dawn; its sense of the dignity of man as man; the +religious reverence with which it speaks of all human ties, human +strength and beauty--ay, even of merely animal human appetites, as +God-given and Godlike symbols. She could not but listen and admire, +when he introduced her to the sheer paganism of Schiller's Gods of +Greece; for on this subject he was more eloquent than on any. He +had gradually, in fact, as we have seen, dropped all faith in +anything but Nature; the slightest fact about a bone or a weed was +more important to him than all the books of divinity which Argemone +lent him--to be laid by unread. + +'What DO you believe in?' she asked him one day, sadly. + +'In THIS!' he said, stamping his foot on the ground. 'In the earth +I stand on, and the things I see walking and growing on it. There +may be something beside it--what you call a spiritual world. But if +He who made me intended me to think of spirit first, He would have +let me see it first. But as He has given me material senses, and +put me in a material world, I take it as a fair hint that I am meant +to use those senses first, whatever may come after. I may be +intended to understand the unseen world, but if so, it must be, as I +suspect, by understanding the visible one: and there are enough +wonders there to occupy me for some time to come.' + +'But the Bible?' (Argemone had given up long ago wasting words about +the 'Church.') + +'My only Bible as yet is Bacon. I know that he is right, whoever is +wrong. If that Hebrew Bible is to be believed by me, it must agree +with what I know already from science.' + +What was to be done with so intractable a heretic? Call him an +infidel and a Materialist, of course, and cast him off with horror. +But Argemone was beginning to find out that, when people are really +in earnest, it may be better sometimes to leave God's methods of +educating them alone, instead of calling the poor honest seekers +hard names, which the speakers themselves don't understand. + +But words would fail sometimes, and in default of them Lancelot had +recourse to drawings, and manifested in them a talent for thinking +in visible forms which put the climax to all Argemone's wonder. A +single profile, even a mere mathematical figure, would, in his +hands, become the illustration of a spiritual truth. And, in time, +every fresh lesson on the Odyssey was accompanied by its +illustration,--some bold and simple outline drawing. In Argemone's +eyes, the sketches were immaculate and inspired; for their chief, +almost their only fault, was just those mere anatomical slips which +a woman would hardly perceive, provided the forms were generally +graceful and bold. + +One day his fancy attempted a bolder flight. He brought a large +pen-and-ink drawing, and laying it silently on the table before her, +fixed his eyes intensely on her face. The sketch was labelled, the +'Triumph of Woman.' In the foreground, to the right and left, were +scattered groups of men, in the dresses and insignia of every period +and occupation. The distance showed, in a few bold outlines, a +dreary desert, broken by alpine ridges, and furrowed here and there +by a wandering watercourse. Long shadows pointed to the half-risen +sun, whose disc was climbing above the waste horizon. And in front +of the sun, down the path of the morning beams, came Woman, clothed +only in the armour of her own loveliness. Her bearing was stately, +and yet modest; in her face pensive tenderness seemed wedded with +earnest joy. In her right hand lay a cross, the emblem of self- +sacrifice. Her path across the desert was marked by the flowers +which sprang up beneath her steps; the wild gazelle stept forward +trustingly to lick her hand; a single wandering butterfly fluttered +round her head. As the group, one by one, caught sight of her, a +human tenderness and intelligence seemed to light up every face. +The scholar dropt his book, the miser his gold, the savage his +weapons; even in the visage of the half-slumbering sot some nobler +recollection seemed wistfully to struggle into life. The artist +caught up his pencil, the poet his lyre, with eyes that beamed forth +sudden inspiration. The sage, whose broad brow rose above the group +like some torrent furrowed Alp, scathed with all the temptations and +all the sorrows of his race, watched with a thoughtful smile that +preacher more mighty than himself. A youth, decked out in the most +fantastic fopperies of the middle age, stood with clasped hands and +brimming eyes, as remorse and pleasure struggled in his face; and as +he looked, the fierce sensual features seemed to melt, and his flesh +came again to him like the flesh of a little child. The slave +forgot his fetters; little children clapped their hands; and the +toil-worn, stunted, savage woman sprung forward to kneel at her +feet, and see herself transfigured in that new and divine ideal of +her sex. + +Descriptions of drawings are clumsy things at best; the reader must +fill up the sketch for himself by the eye of faith. + +Entranced in wonder and pleasure, Argemone let her eyes wander over +the drawing. And her feelings for Lancelot amounted almost to +worship, as she apprehended the harmonious unity of the manifold +conception,--the rugged boldness of the groups in front, the soft +grandeur of the figure which was the lodestar of all their emotions- +-the virginal purity of the whole. And when she fancied that she +traced in those bland aquiline lineaments, and in the crisp ringlets +which floated like a cloud down to the knees of the figure, some +traces of her own likeness, a dream of a new destiny flitted before +her,--she blushed to her very neck; and as she bent her face over +the drawing and gazed, her whole soul seemed to rise into her eyes, +and a single tear dropped upon the paper. She laid her hand over +it, and then turned hastily away. + +'You do not like it! I have been too bold,'--said Lancelot, +fearfully. + +'Oh, no! no! It is so beautiful--so full of deep wisdom! But--but- +-You may leave it.' + +Lancelot slipped silently out of the room, he hardly knew why; and +when he was gone, Argemone caught up the drawing, pressed it to her +bosom, covered it with kisses, and hid it, as too precious for any +eyes but her own, in the farthest corner of her secretaire. + +And yet she fancied that she was not in love! + +The vicar saw the growth of this intimacy with a fast-lengthening +face; for it was very evident that Argemone could not serve two +masters so utterly contradictory as himself and Lancelot, and that +either the lover or the father-confessor must speedily resign +office. The vicar had had great disadvantages, by the bye, in +fulfilling the latter function; for his visits at the Priory had +been all but forbidden; and Argemone's 'spiritual state' had been +directed by means of a secret correspondence,--a method which some +clergymen, and some young ladies too, have discovered, in the last +few years, to be quite consistent with moral delicacy and filial +obedience. John Bull, like a stupid fellow as he is, has still his +doubts upon the point; but he should remember that though St. Paul +tells women when they want advice to ask their husbands at home, yet +if the poor woman has no husband, or, as often happens, her +husband's advice is unpleasant, to whom is she to go but to the next +best substitute, her spiritual cicisbeo, or favourite clergyman? In +sad earnest, neither husband nor parent deserves pity in the immense +majority of such cases. Woman will have guidance. It is her +delight and glory to be led; and if her husband or her parents will +not meet the cravings of her intellect, she must go elsewhere to +find a teacher, and run into the wildest extravagances of private +judgment, in the very hope of getting rid of it, just as poor +Argemone had been led to do. + +And, indeed, she had, of late, wandered into very strange paths: +would to God they were as uncommon as strange! Both she and the +vicar had a great wish that she should lead a 'devoted life;' but +then they both disdained to use common means for their object. The +good old English plan of district visiting, by which ladies can have +mercy on the bodies and souls of those below them, without casting +off the holy discipline which a home, even the most ungenial, alone +supplies, savoured too much of mere 'Protestantism.' It might be +God's plan for christianising England just now, but that was no +reason, alas! for its being their plan: they wanted something more +'Catholic,' more in accordance with Church principles (for, indeed, +is it not the business of the Church to correct the errors of +Providence!); and what they sought they found at once in a certain +favourite establishment of the vicar's, a Church-of-England +beguinage, or quasi-Protestant nunnery, which he fostered in a +neighbouring city, and went thither on all high tides to confess the +young ladies, who were in all things nuns, but bound by no vows, +except, of course, such as they might choose to make for themselves +in private. + +Here they laboured among the lowest haunts of misery and sin, +piously and self-denyingly enough, sweet souls! in hope of 'the +peculiar crown,' and a higher place in heaven than the relations +whom they had left behind them 'in the world,' and unshackled by the +interference of parents, and other such merely fleshly +relationships, which, as they cannot have been instituted by God +merely to be trampled under foot on the path to holiness, and cannot +well have instituted themselves (unless, after all, the Materialists +are right, and this world does grind of itself, except when its +Maker happens to interfere once every thousand years), must needs +have been instituted by the devil. And so more than one girl in +that nunnery, and out of it, too, believed in her inmost heart, +though her 'Catholic principles,' by a happy inconsistency, forbade +her to say so. + +In a moment of excitement, fascinated by the romance of the notion, +Argemone had proposed to her mother to allow her to enter this +beguinage, and called in the vicar as advocate; which produced a +correspondence between him and Mrs. Lavington, stormy on her side, +provokingly calm on his: and when the poor lady, tired of raging, +had descended to an affecting appeal to his human sympathies, +entreating him to spare a mother's feelings, he had answered with +the same impassive fanaticism, that 'he was surprised at her putting +a mother's selfish feelings in competition with the sanctity of her +child,' and that 'had his own daughter shown such a desire for a +higher vocation, he should have esteemed it the very highest +honour;' to which Mrs. Lavington answered, naively enough, that 'it +depended very much on what his daughter was like.'--So he was all +but forbidden the house. Nevertheless he contrived, by means of +this same secret correspondence, to keep alive in Argemone's mind +the longing to turn nun, and fancied honestly that he was doing God +service, while he was pampering the poor girl's lust for singularity +and self-glorification. + +But, lately, Argemone's letters had become less frequent and less +confiding; and the vicar, who well knew the reason, had resolved to +bring the matter to a crisis. + +So he wrote earnestly and peremptorily to his pupil, urging her, +with all his subtle and refined eloquence, to make a final appeal to +her mother, and if that failed, to act 'as her conscience should +direct her;' and enclosed an answer from the superior of the +convent, to a letter which Argemone had in a mad moment asked him to +write. The superior's letter spoke of Argemone's joining her as a +settled matter, and of her room as ready for her, while it lauded to +the skies the peaceful activity and usefulness of the establishment. +This letter troubled Argemone exceedingly. She had never before +been compelled to face her own feelings, either about the nunnery or +about Lancelot. She had taken up the fancy of becoming a Sister of +Charity, not as Honoria might have done, from genuine love of the +poor, but from 'a sense of duty.' Almsgiving and visiting the sick +were one of the methods of earning heaven prescribed by her new +creed. She was ashamed of her own laziness by the side of Honoria's +simple benevolence; and, sad though it may be to have to say it, she +longed to outdo her by some signal act of self-sacrifice. She had +looked to this nunnery, too, as an escape, once and for all, from +her own luxury, just as people who have not strength to be temperate +take refuge in teetotalism; and the thought of menial services +towards the poor, however distasteful to her, came in quite prettily +to fill up the little ideal of a life of romantic asceticisms and +mystic contemplation, which gave the true charm in her eyes to her +wild project. But now--just as a field had opened to her cravings +after poetry and art, wider and richer than she had ever imagined-- +just as those simple childlike views of man and nature, which she +had learnt to despise, were assuming an awful holiness in her eyes-- +just as she had found a human soul to whose regeneration she could +devote all her energies,--to be required to give all up, perhaps for +ever (and she felt that if at all, it ought to be for ever);--it was +too much for her little heart to bear; and she cried bitterly; and +tried to pray, and could not; and longed for a strong and tender +bosom on which to lay her head, and pour out all her doubts and +struggles; and there was none. Her mother did not understand-- +hardly loved her. Honoria loved her; but understood her even less +than her mother. Pride--the pride of intellect, the pride of self- +will--had long since sealed her lips to her own family. . . . + +And then, out of the darkness of her heart, Lancelot's image rose +before her stronger than all, tenderer than all; and as she +remembered his magical faculty of anticipating all her thoughts, +embodying for her all her vague surmises, he seemed to beckon her +towards him.--She shuddered and turned away. And now she first +became conscious how he had haunted her thoughts in the last few +months, not as a soul to be saved, but as a living man--his face, +his figure, his voice, his every gesture and expression, rising +clear before her, in spite of herself, by day and night. + +And then she thought of his last drawing, and the looks which had +accompanied it,--unmistakable looks of passionate and adoring love. +There was no denying it--she had always known that he loved her, but +she had never dared to confess it to herself. But now the +earthquake was come, and all the secrets of her heart burst upward +to the light, and she faced the thought in shame and terror. 'How +unjust I have been to him! how cruel! thus to entice him on in +hopeless love!' + +She lifted up her eyes, and saw in the mirror opposite the +reflection of her own exquisite beauty. + +'I could have known what I was doing! I knew all the while! And +yet it is so delicious to feel that any one loves me! Is it +selfishness? It is selfishness, to pamper my vanity on an affection +which I do not, will not return. I will not be thus in debt to him, +even for his love. I do not love him--I do not; and even if I did, +to give myself up to a man of whom I know so little, who is not even +a Christian, much less a Churchman! Ay! and to give up my will to +any man! to become the subject, the slave, of another human being! +I, who have worshipped the belief in woman's independence, the hope +of woman's enfranchisement, who have felt how glorious it is to live +like the angels, single and self-sustained! What if I cut the +Gordian knot, and here make, once for all, a vow of perpetual +celibacy?' + +She flung herself on her knees--she could not collect her thoughts. + +'No,' she said, 'I am not prepared for this. It is too solemn to be +undertaken in this miserable whirlwind of passion. I will fast, and +meditate, and go up formally to the little chapel, and there devote +myself to God; and, in the meantime, to write at once to the +superior of the Beguines; to go to my mother, and tell her once for +all--What? Must I lose him?--must I give him up? Not his love--I +cannot give up that--would that I could! but no! he will love me for +ever. I know it as well as if an angel told me. But to give up +him! Never to see him! never to hear his voice! never to walk with +him among the beech woods any more! Oh, Argemone! Argemone! +miserable girl! and is it come to this?' And she threw herself on +the sofa, and hid her face in her hands. + +Yes, Argemone, it is come to this; and the best thing you can do, is +just what you are doing--to lie there and cry yourself to sleep, +while the angels are laughing kindly (if a solemn public, who +settles everything for them, will permit them to laugh) at the +rickety old windmill of sham-Popery which you have taken for a real +giant. + +At that same day and hour, as it chanced, Lancelot, little dreaming +what the said windmill was grinding for him, was scribbling a hasty +and angry answer to a letter of Luke's, which, perhaps, came that +very morning in order to put him into a proper temper for the +demolishing of windmills. It ran thus,-- + + +'Ay, my good Cousin,--So I expected-- + + +'Suave mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis +E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem . . . + + +Pleasant and easy for you Protestants (for I will call you what you +are, in spite of your own denials, a truly consistent and logical +Protestant--and therefore a Materialist)--easy for you, I say, to +sit on the shore, in cold, cruel self-satisfaction, and tell the +poor wretch buffeting with the waves what he ought to do while he is +choking and drowning. . . . Thank Heaven, the storm has stranded me +upon the everlasting Rock of Peter;--but it has been a sore trouble +to reach it. Protestants, who look at creeds as things to be +changed like coats, whenever they seem not to fit them, little know +what we Catholic-hearted ones suffer. . . . If they did, they would +be more merciful and more chary in the requirements of us, just as +we are in the very throe of a new-born existence. The excellent +man, to whose care I have committed myself, has a wise and a tender +heart . . . he saw no harm in my concealing from my father the +spiritual reason of my giving up my curacy (for I have given it up), +and only giving the outward, but equally true reason, that I found +it on the whole an ineligible and distressing post. . . . I know +you will apply to such an act that disgusting monosyllable of which +Protestants are so fond. He felt with me and for me--for my horror +of giving pain to my father, and for my wearied and excited state of +mind; and strangely enough--to show how differently, according to +the difference of the organs, the same object may appear to two +people--he quoted in my favour that very verse which you wrest +against me. He wished me to show my father that I had only changed +my heaven, and not my character, by becoming an Ultramontane- +Catholic . . . that, as far as his esteem and affection were founded +on anything in me, the ground of it did not vanish with my +conversion. If I had told him at once of my altered opinions, he +would have henceforth viewed every word and action with a perjudiced +eye. . . . Protestants are so bigoted . . . but if, after seeing me +for a month or two the same Luke that he had ever known me, he were +gradually informed that I had all the while held that creed which he +had considered incompatible with such a life as I hope mine would +be--you must see the effect which it ought to have. . . . I don't +doubt that you will complain of all this. . . . All I can say is, +that I cannot sympathise with that superstitious reverence for mere +verbal truth, which is so common among Protestants. . . . It seems +to me they throw away the spirit of truth, in their idolatry of its +letter. For instance,--what is the use of informing a man of a true +fact but to induce a true opinion in him? But if, by clinging to +the exact letter of the fact, you create a false opinion in his +mind, as I should do in my father's case, if by telling him at once +of my change, I gave him an unjust horror of Catholicism,--you do +not tell him the truth. . . . You may speak what is true to you,-- +but it becomes an error when received into his mind. . . . If his +mind is a refracting and polarising medium--if the crystalline lens +of his soul's eye has been changed into tourmaline or Labrador spar- +-the only way to give him a true image of the fact, is to present it +to him already properly altered in form, and adapted to suit the +obliquity of his vision; in order that the very refractive power of +his faculties may, instead of distorting it, correct it, and make it +straight for him; and so a verbal wrong in fact may possess him with +a right opinion. . . . + +'You see the whole question turns on your Protestant deification of +the intellect. . . . If you really believed, as you all say you do, +that the nature of man, and therefore his intellect among the rest, +was utterly corrupt, you would not be so superstitiously careful to +tell the truth . . . as you call it; because you would know that +man's heart, if not his head, would needs turn the truth into a lie +by its own corruption. . . . The proper use of reasoning is to +produce opinion,--and if the subject in which you wish to produce +the opinion is diseased, you must adapt the medicine accordingly.' + + +To all which Lancelot, with several strong curses, scrawled the +following answer:-- + + +'And this is my Cousin Luke!--Well, I shall believe henceforward +that there is, after all, a thousand times greater moral gulf fixed +between Popery and Tractarianism, than between Tractarianism and the +extremest Protestantism. My dear fellow,--I won't bother you, by +cutting up your charming ambiguous middle terms, which make reason +and reasoning identical, or your theory that the office of reasoning +is to induce opinions--(the devil take opinions, right or wrong--I +want facts, faith in real facts!)--or about deifying the intellect-- +as if all sound intellect was not in itself divine light--a +revelation to man of absolute laws independent of him, as the very +heathens hold. But this I will do--thank you most sincerely for the +compliment you pay us Cismontane heretics. We do retain some dim +belief in a God--even I am beginning to believe in believing in Him. +And therefore, as I begin to suppose, it is, that we reverence +facts, as the work of God, His acted words and will, which we dare +not falsify; which we believe will tell their own story better than +we can tell it for them. If our eyes are dimmed, we think it safer +to clear them, which do belong to us, than to bedevil, by the light +of those very ALREADY DIMMED eyes, the objects round, which do not +belong to us. Whether we are consistent or not about the +corruptness of man, we are about the incorruptness of God; and +therefore about that of the facts by which God teaches men: and +believe, and will continue to believe, that the blackest of all +sins, the deepest of all Atheisms, that which, above all things, +proves no faith in God's government of the universe, no sense of His +presence, no understanding of His character, is--a lie. + +'One word more--Unless you tell your father within twenty-four hours +after receiving this letter, I will. And I, being a Protestant (if +cursing Popery means Protestantism), mean what I say.' + + +As Lancelot walked up to the Priory that morning, the Reverend +Panurgus O'Blareaway dashed out of a cottage by the roadside, and +seized him unceremoniously by the shoulders. He was a specimen of +humanity which Lancelot could not help at once liking and despising; +a quaint mixture of conceit and earnestness, uniting the shrewdness +of a stockjobber with the frolic of a schoolboy broke loose. He was +rector of a place in the west of Ireland, containing some ten +Protestants and some thousand Papists. Being, unfortunately for +himself, a red-hot Orangeman, he had thought fit to quarrel with the +priest, in consequence of which he found himself deprived both of +tithes and congregation; and after receiving three or four Rockite +letters, and a charge of slugs through his hat (of which he always +talked as if being shot at was the most pleasant and amusing feature +of Irish life), he repaired to England, and there, after trying to +set up as popular preacher in London, declaiming at Exeter Hall, and +writing for all the third-rate magazines, found himself incumbent of +Lower Whitford. He worked there, as he said himself, 'like a +horse;' spent his mornings in the schools, his afternoons in the +cottages; preached four or five extempore sermons every week to +overflowing congregations; took the lead, by virtue of the 'gift of +the gab,' at all 'religious' meetings for ten miles round; and +really did a great deal of good in his way. He had an unblushing +candour about his own worldly ambition, with a tremendous brogue; +and prided himself on exaggerating deliberately both of these +excellences. + +'The top of the morning to ye, Mr. Smith. Ye haven't such a thing +as a cegar about ye? I've been preaching to school-children till me +throat's as dry as the slave of a lime-burner's coat.' + +'I am very sorry; but, really, I have left my case at home.' + +'Oh! ah! faix and I forgot. Ye mustn't be smokin' the nasty things +going up to the castle. Och, Mr. Smith, but you're the lucky man!' + +'I am much obliged to you for the compliment,' said Lancelot, +gruffly; 'but really I don't see how I deserve it.' + +'Desarve it! Sure luck's all, and that's your luck, and not your +deserts at all. To have the handsomest girl in the county dying for +love of ye'--(Panurgus had a happy knack of blurting out truths-- +when they were pleasant ones). 'And she just the beautifulest +creature that ever spilte shoe-leather, barring Lady Philandria +Mountflunkey, of Castle Mountflunkey, Quane's County, that shall be +nameless.' + +'Upon my word, O'Blareaway, you seem to be better acquainted with my +matters than I am. Don't you think, on the whole, it might be +better to mind your own business?' + +'Me own business! Poker o' Moses! and ain't it me own business? +Haven't ye spilte my tenderest hopes? And good luck to ye in that +same, for ye're as pretty a rider as ever kicked coping-stones out +of a wall; and poor Paddy loves a sportsman by nature. Och! but +ye've got a hand of trumps this time. Didn't I mate the vicar the +other day, and spake my mind to him?' + +'What do you mean?' asked Lancelot, with a strong expletive. + +'Faix, I told him he might as well Faugh a ballagh--make a rid road, +and get out of that, with his bowings and his crossings, and his +Popery made asy for small minds, for there was a gun a-field that +would wipe his eye,--maning yourself, ye Prathestant.' + +'All I can say is, that you had really better mind your own +business, and I'll mind my own.' + +'Och,' said the good-natured Irishman, 'and it's you must mind my +business, and I'll mind yours; and that's all fair and aqual. Ye've +cut me out intirely at the Priory, ye Tory, and so ye're bound to +give me a lift somehow. Couldn't ye look me out a fine fat widow, +with an illigant little fortune? For what's England made for except +to find poor Paddy a wife and money? Ah, ye may laugh, but I'd buy +me a chapel at the West-end: me talents are thrown away here +intirely, wasting me swateness on the desert air, as Tom Moore says' +(Panurgus used to attribute all quotations whatsoever to Irish +geniuses); 'and I flatter meself I'm the boy to shute the Gospel to +the aristocracy.' + +Lancelot burst into a roar of laughter, and escaped over the next +gate: but the Irishman's coarse hints stuck by him as they were +intended to do. 'Dying for the love of me!' He knew it was an +impudent exaggeration, but, somehow, it gave him confidence; 'there +is no smoke,' he thought, 'without fire.' And his heart beat high +with new hopes, for which he laughed at himself all the while. It +was just the cordial which he needed. That conversation determined +the history of his life. + +He met Argemone that morning in the library, as usual; but he soon +found that she was not thinking of Homer. She was moody and +abstracted; and he could not help at last saying,-- + +'I am afraid I and my classics are de trop this morning, Miss +Lavington.' + +'Oh, no, no. Never that.' She turned away her head. He fancied +that it was to hide a tear. + +Suddenly she rose, and turned to him with a clear, calm, gentle +gaze. + +'Listen to me, Mr. Smith. We must part to-day, and for ever. This +intimacy has gone on--too long, I am afraid, for your happiness. +And now, like all pleasant things in this miserable world, it must +cease. I cannot tell you why; but you will trust me. I thank you +for it--I thank God for it. I have learnt things from it which I +shall never forget. I have learnt, at least from it, to esteem and +honour you. You have vast powers. Nothing, nothing, I believe, is +too high for you to attempt and succeed. But we must part; and now, +God be with you. Oh, that you would but believe that these glorious +talents are His loan! That you would but be a true and loyal knight +to him who said--"Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and +ye shall find rest unto your souls!"--Ay,' she went on, more and +more passionately, for she felt that not she, but One mightier than +herself was speaking through her, 'then you might be great indeed. +Then I might watch your name from afar, rising higher and higher +daily in the ranks of God's own heroes. I see it--and you have +taught me to see it--that you are meant for a faith nobler and +deeper than all doctrines and systems can give. You must become the +philosopher, who can discover new truths--the artist who can embody +them in new forms, while poor I--And that is another reason why we +should part.--Hush! hear me out. I must not be a clog, to drag you +down in your course. Take this, and farewell; and remember that you +once had a friend called Argemone.' + +She put into his hands a little Bible. He took it, and laid it down +on the table. + +For a minute he stood silent and rooted to the spot. +Disappointment, shame, rage, hatred, all boiled up madly within him. +The bitterest insults rose to his lips--'Flirt, cold-hearted pedant, +fanatic!' but they sank again unspoken, as he looked into the +celestial azure of those eyes, calm and pure as a soft evening sky. +A mighty struggle between good and evil shook his heart to the +roots; and, for the first time in his life, his soul breathed out +one real prayer, that God would help him now or never to play the +man. And in a moment the darkness passed; a new spirit called out +all the latent strength within him; and gently and proudly he +answered her,-- + +'Yes, I will go. I have had mad dreams, conceited and insolent, and +have met with my deserts. Brute and fool as I am, I have aspired +even to you! And I have gained, in the sunshine of your +condescension, strength and purity.--Is not that enough for me? And +now I will show you that I love you--by obeying you. You tell me to +depart--I go for ever.' + +He turned away. Why did she almost spring after him? + +'Lancelot! one word! Do not misunderstand me, as I know you will. +You will think me so cold, heartless, fickle.--Oh, you do not know-- +you never can know--how much I, too, have felt!' + +He stopped, spell-bound. In an instant his conversation with the +Irishman flashed up before him with new force and meaning. A +thousand petty incidents, which he had driven contemptuously from +his mind, returned as triumphant evidences; and, with an impetuous +determination, he cried out,-- + +'I see--I see it all, Argemone! We love each other! You are mine, +never to be parted!' + +What was her womanhood, that it could stand against the energy of +his manly will! The almost coarse simplicity of his words silenced +her with a delicious violence. She could only bury her face in her +hands and sob out,-- + +'Oh, Lancelot, Lancelot, whither are you forcing me?' + +'I am forcing you no whither. God, the Father of spirits, is +leading you! You, who believe in Him, how dare you fight against +Him?' + +'Lancelot, I cannot--I cannot listen to you--read that!' And she +handed him the vicar's letter. He read it, tossed it on the carpet, +and crushed it with his heel. + +'Wretched pedant! Can your intellect be deluded by such barefaced +sophistries? "God's will," forsooth! And if your mother's +opposition is not a sign that God's will--if it mean anything except +your own will, or that--that man's--is against this mad project, and +not for it, what sign would you have? So "celibacy is the highest +state!" And why? Because "it is the safest and the easiest road to +heaven?" A pretty reason, vicar! I should have thought that that +was a sign of a lower state and not a higher. Noble spirits show +their nobleness by daring the most difficult paths. And even if +marriage was but one weed-field of temptations, as these miserable +pedants say, who have either never tried it, or misused it to their +own shame, it would be a greater deed to conquer its temptations +than to flee from them in cowardly longings after ease and safety!' + +She did not answer him, but kept her face buried in her hands. + +'Again, I say, Argemone, will you fight against Fate--Providence-- +God--call it what you will? Who made us meet at the chapel? Who +made me, by my accident, a guest in your father's house! Who put it +into your heart to care for my poor soul? Who gave us this strange +attraction towards each other, in spite of our unlikeness? +Wonderful that the very chain of circumstances which you seem to +fancy the offspring of chance or the devil, should have first taught +me to believe that there is a God who guides us! Argemone! speak, +tell me, if you will, to go for ever; but tell me first the truth-- +You love me!' + +A strong shudder ran through her frame--the ice of artificial years +cracked, and the clear stream of her woman's nature welled up to the +light, as pure as when she first lay on her mother's bosom: she +lifted up her eyes, and with one long look of passionate tenderness +she faltered out,-- + +'I love you!' + +He did not stir, but watched her with clasped hands, like one who in +dreams finds himself in some fairy palace, and fears that a movement +may break the spell. + +'Now, go,' she said; 'go, and let me collect my thoughts. All this +has been too much for me. Do not look sad--you may come again to- +morrow.' + +She smiled and held out her hand. He caught it, covered it with +kisses, and pressed it to his heart. She half drew it back, +frightened. The sensation was new to her. Again the delicious +feeling of being utterly in his power came over her, and she left +her hand upon his heart, and blushed as she felt its passionate +throbbings. + +He turned to go--not as before. She followed with greedy eyes her +new-found treasure; and as the door closed behind him, she felt as +if Lancelot was the whole world, and there was nothing beside him, +and wondered how a moment had made him all in all to her; and then +she sank upon her knees, and folded her hands upon her bosom, and +her prayers for him were like the prayers of a little child. + + + +CHAPTER XI: THUNDERSTORM THE FIRST + + + +But what had become of the 'bit of writing' which Harry Verney, by +the instigation of his evil genius, had put into the squire's fly- +book? Tregarva had waited in terrible suspense for many weeks, +expecting the explosion which he knew must follow its discovery. He +had confided to Lancelot the contents of the paper, and Lancelot had +tried many stratagems to get possession of it, but all in vain. +Tregarva took this as calmly as he did everything else. Only once, +on the morning of the eclaircissement between Lancelot and Argemone, +he talked to Lancelot of leaving his place, and going out to seek +his fortune; but some spell, which he did not explain, seemed to +chain him to the Priory. Lancelot thought it was the want of money, +and offered to lend him ten pounds whenever he liked; but Tregarva +shook his head. + +'You have treated me, sir, as no one else has done--like a man and a +friend; but I am not going to make a market of your generosity. I +will owe no man anything, save to love one another.' + +'But how do you intend to live?' asked Lancelot, as they stood +together in the cloisters. + +'There's enough of me, sir, to make a good navigator if all trades +fail.' + +'Nonsense! you must not throw yourself away so.' + +'Oh, sir, there's good to be done, believe me, among those poor +fellows. They wander up and down the land like hogs and heathens, +and no one tells them that they have a soul to be saved. Not one +parson in a thousand gives a thought to them. They can manage old +folks and little children, sir, but, somehow, they never can get +hold of the young men--just those who want them most. There's a +talk about ragged schools, now. Why don't they try ragged churches, +sir, and a ragged service?' + +'What do you mean?' + +'Why, sir, the parsons are ready enough to save souls, but it must +be only according to rule and regulation. Before the Gospel can be +preached there must be three thousand pounds got together for a +church, and a thousand for an endowment, not to mention the thousand +pounds that the clergyman's education costs: I don't think of his +own keep, sir; that's little enough, often; and those that work +hardest get least pay, it seems to me. But after all that expense, +when they've built the church, it's the tradesmen, and the gentry, +and the old folk that fill it, and the working men never come near +it from one year's end to another.' + +'What's the cause, do you think?' asked Lancelot, who had himself +remarked the same thing more than once. + +'Half of the reason, sir, I do believe, is that same Prayer-book. +Not that the Prayer-book ain't a fine book enough, and a true one; +but, don't you see, sir, to understand the virtue of it, the poor +fellows ought to be already just what you want to make them.' + +'You mean that they ought to be thorough Christians already, to +appreciate the spirituality of the liturgy.' + +'You've hit it, sir. And see what comes of the present plan; how a +navvy drops into a church by accident, and there he has to sit like +a fish out of water, through that hour's service, staring or +sleeping, before he can hear a word that he understands; and, sir, +when the sermon does come at last, it's not many of them can make +much out of those fine book-words and long sentences. Why don't +they have a short simple service, now and then, that might catch the +ears of the roughs and the blowens, without tiring out the poor +thoughtless creatures' patience, as they do now?' + +'Because,' said Lancelot,--'because--I really don't know why.--But I +think there is a simpler plan than even a ragged service.' + +'What, then, sir?' + +'Field-preaching. If the mountain won't come to Mahomet, let +Mahomet go to the mountain.' + +'Right, sir; right you are. "Go out into the highways and hedges, +and compel them to come in." And why are they to speak to them only +one by one? Why not by the dozen and the hundred? We Wesleyans +know, sir,--for the matter of that, every soldier knows,--what +virtue there is in getting a lot of men together; how good and evil +spread like wildfire through a crowd; and one man, if you can stir +him up, will become leaven to leaven the whole lump. Oh why, sir, +are they so afraid of field-preaching? Was not their Master and +mine the prince of all field-preachers? Think, if the Apostles had +waited to collect subscriptions for a church before they spoke to +the poor heathens, where should we have been now?' + +Lancelot could not but agree. But at that moment a footman came up, +and, with a face half laughing, half terrified, said,-- + +'Tregarva, master wants you in the study. And please, sir, I think +you had better go in too; master knows you're here, and you might +speak a word for good, for he's raging like a mad bull.' + +'I knew it would come at last,' said Tregarva, quietly, as he +followed Lancelot into the house. + +It had come at last. The squire was sitting in his study, purple +with rage, while his daughters were trying vainly to pacify him. +All the men-servants, grooms, and helpers, were drawn up in line +along the wall, and greeted Tregarva, whom they all heartily liked, +with sly and sorrowful looks of warning, + +'Here, you sir; you--, look at this! Is this the way you repay me? +I, who have kept you out of the workhouse, treated you like my own +child? And then to go and write filthy, rascally, Radical ballads +on me and mine! This comes of your Methodism, you canting, sneaking +hypocrite!--you viper--you adder--you snake--you--!' And the +squire, whose vocabulary was not large, at a loss for another +synonym, rounded off his oration by a torrent of oaths; at which +Argemone, taking Honoria's hand, walked proudly out of the room, +with one glance at Lancelot of mingled shame and love. 'This is +your handwriting, you villain! you know it' (and the squire tossed +the fatal paper across the table); 'though I suppose you'll lie +about it. How can you depend on fellows who speak evil of their +betters? But all the servants are ready to swear it's your +handwriting.' + +'Beg your pardon, sir,' interposed the old butler, 'we didn't quite +say that; but we'll all swear it isn't ours.' + +'The paper is mine,' said Tregarva. + +'Confound your coolness! He's no more ashamed of it than--Read it +out, Smith, read it out every word; and let them all hear how this +pauper, this ballad-singing vagabond, whom I have bred up to insult +me, dares to abuse his own master.' + +'I have not abused you, sir,' answered Tregarva. 'I will be heard, +sir!' he went on in a voice which made the old man start from his +seat and clench his fist but he sat down again. 'Not a word in it +is meant for you. You have been a kind and a good master to me. +Ask where you will if I was ever heard to say a word against you. I +would have cut off my right hand sooner than write about you or +yours. But what I had to say about others lies there, and I am not +ashamed of it.' + +'Not against me? Read it out, Smith, and see if every word of it +don't hit at me, and at my daughters, too, by--, worst of all! Read +it out, I say!' + +Lancelot hesitated; but the squire, who was utterly beside himself, +began to swear at him also, as masters of hounds are privileged to +do; and Lancelot, to whom the whole scene was becoming every moment +more and more intensely ludicrous, thought it best to take up the +paper and begin:-- + + +'A ROUGH RHYME ON A ROUGH MATTER. + +'The merry brown hares came leaping + Over the crest of the hill, +Where the clover and corn lay sleeping + Under the moonlight still. + +'Leaping late and early, + Till under their bite and their tread +The swedes, and the wheat, and the barley, + Lay cankered, and trampled, and dead. + +'A poacher's widow sat sighing + On the side of the white chalk bank, +Where under the gloomy fir-woods + One spot in the ley throve rank. + +'She watched a long tuft of clover, + Where rabbit or hare never ran; +For its black sour haulm covered over + The blood of a murdered man. + +'She thought of the dark plantation, + And the hares and her husband's blood, +And the voice of her indignation + Rose up to the throne of God. + +'"I am long past wailing and whining-- + I have wept too much in my life: +I've had twenty years of pining + As an English labourer's wife. + +'"A labourer in Christian England, + Where they cant of a Saviour's name, +And yet waste men's lives like the vermin's + For a few more brace of game. + +'"There's blood on your new foreign shrubs, squire; + There's blood on your pointer's feet; +There's blood on the game you sell, squire, + And there's blood on the game you eat!"' + + +'You villain!' interposed the squire, 'when did I ever sell a head +of game?' + + +'"You have sold the labouring man, squire, + Body and soul to shame, +To pay for your seat in the House, squire, + And to pay for the feed of your game. + +"'You made him a poacher yourself, squire, + When you'd give neither work nor meat; +And your barley-fed hares robbed the garden + At our starving children's feet; + +'"When packed in one reeking chamber, + Man, maid, mother, and little ones lay; +While the rain pattered in on the rotting bride-bed, + And the walls let in the day; + +'"When we lay in the burning fever + On the mud of the cold clay floor, +Till you parted us all for three months, squire, + At the cursed workhouse door. + +"'We quarrelled like brutes, and who wonders? + What self-respect could we keep, +Worse housed than your hacks and your pointers, + Worse fed than your hogs and your sheep?"' + + +'And yet he has the impudence to say he don't mean me!' grumbled the +old man. Tregarva winced a good deal--as if he knew what was coming +next; and then looked up relieved when he found Lancelot had omitted +a stanza--which I shall not omit. + + +'"Our daughters with base-born babies + Have wandered away in their shame; +If your misses had slept, squire, where they did, + Your misses might do the same. + +"'Can your lady patch hearts that are breaking + With handfuls of coals and rice, +Or by dealing out flannel and sheeting + A little below cost price? + +"'You may tire of the gaol and the workhouse, + And take to allotments and schools, +But you've run up a debt that will never + Be repaid us by penny-club rules. + +'"In the season of shame and sadness, + In the dark and dreary day +When scrofula, gout, and madness, + Are eating your race away; + +"'When to kennels and liveried varlets + You have cast your daughters' bread; +And worn out with liquor and harlots, + Your heir at your feet lies dead; + +"'When your youngest, the mealy-mouthed rector, + Lets your soul rot asleep to the grave, +You will find in your God the protector + Of the freeman you fancied your slave." + +'She looked at the tuft of clover, + And wept till her heart grew light; +And at last, when her passion was over, + Went wandering into the night. + +'But the merry brown hares came leaping + Over the uplands still, +Where the clover and corn lay sleeping + On the side of the white chalk hill.' + + +'Surely, sir,' said Lancelot, 'you cannot suppose that this latter +part applies to you. or your family?' + +'If it don't, it applies to half the gentlemen in the vale, and +that's just as bad. What right has the fellow to speak evil of +dignities?' continued he, quoting the only text in the Bible which +he was inclined to make a 'rule absolute.' 'What does such an +insolent dog deserve? What don't he deserve, I say?' + +'I think,' quoth Lancelot, ambiguously, 'that a man who can write +such ballads is not fit to be your gamekeeper, and I think he feels +so himself;' and Lancelot stole an encouraging look at Tregarva. + +'And I say, sir,' the keeper answered, with an effort, 'that I leave +Mr. Lavington's service here on the spot, once and for all.' + +'And that you may do, my fine fellow!' roared the squire. 'Pay the +rascal his wages, steward, and then duck him soundly in the weir- +pool. He had better have stayed there when he fell in last.' + +'So I had, indeed, I think. But I'll take none of your money. The +day Harry Verney was buried I vowed that I'd touch no more of the +wages of blood. I'm going, sir; I never harmed you, or meant a hard +word of all this for you, or dreamt that you or any living soul +would ever see it. But what I've seen myself, in spite of myself, +I've set down here, and am not ashamed of it. And woe,' he went on +with an almost prophetic solemnity in his tone and gesture--'woe to +those who do these things! and woe to those also who, though they +dare not do them themselves, yet excuse and defend them who dare, +just because the world calls them gentlemen, and not tyrants and +oppressors.' + +He turned to go. The squire, bursting with passion, sprang up with +a terrible oath, turned deadly pale, staggered, and dropped +senseless on the floor. + +They all rushed to lift him up. Tregarva was the first to take him +in his arms and place him tenderly in his chair, where he lay back +with glassy eyes, snoring heavily in a fit of apoplexy. + +'Go; for God's sake, go,' whispered Lancelot to the keeper, 'and +wait for me at Lower Whitford. I must see you before you stir.' + +The keeper slipped away sadly. The ladies rushed in--a groom +galloped off for the doctor--met him luckily in the village, and, in +a few minutes, the squire was bled and put to bed, and showed +hopeful signs of returning consciousness. And as Argemone and +Lancelot leant together over his pillow, her hair touched her +lover's, and her fragrant breath was warm upon his cheek; and her +bright eyes met his and drank light from them, like glittering +planets gazing at their sun. + +The obnoxious ballad produced the most opposite effects on Argemone +and on Honoria. Argemone, whose reverence for the formalities and +the respectabilities of society, never very great, had, of late, +utterly vanished before Lancelot's bad counsel, could think of it +only as a work of art, and conceived the most romantic longing to +raise Tregarva into some station where his talents might have free +play. To Honoria, on the other hand, it appeared only as a very +fierce, coarse, and impertinent satire, which had nearly killed her +father. True, there was not a thought in it which had not at some +time or other crossed her own mind; but that made her dislike all +the more to see those thoughts put into plain English. That very +intense tenderness and excitability which made her toil herself +among the poor, and had called out both her admiration of Tregarva +and her extravagant passion at his danger, made her also shrink with +disgust from anything which thrust on her a painful reality, which +she could not remedy. She was a staunch believer, too, in that +peculiar creed which allows every one to feel for the poor, except +themselves, and considers that to plead the cause of working-men is, +in a gentleman, the perfection of virtue, but in a working-man +himself, sheer high treason. And so beside her father's sick-bed +she thought of the keeper only as a scorpion whom she had helped to +warm into life; and sighing assent to her mother, when she said, +'That wretch, and he seemed so pious and so obliging! who would have +dreamt that he was such a horrid Radical?' she let him vanish from +her mind and out of Whitford Priors, little knowing the sore weight +of manly love he bore with him. + +As soon as Lancelot could leave the Priory, he hastened home to find +Tregarva. The keeper had packed up all his small possessions and +brought them down to Lower Whitford, through which the London coach +passed. He was determined to go to London and seek his fortune. He +talked of turning coal-heaver, Methodist preacher, anything that +came to hand, provided that he could but keep independence and a +clear conscience. And all the while the man seemed to be struggling +with some great purpose,--to feel that he had a work to do, though +what it was, and how it was to be done, he did not see. + +'I am a tall man,' he said, 'like Saul the son of Kish; and I am +going forth, like him, sir, to find my father's asses. I doubt I +shan't have to look far for some of them.' + +'And perhaps,' said Lancelot, laughing, 'to find a kingdom.' + +'May be so, sir. I have found one already, by God's grace, and I'm +much mistaken if I don't begin to see my way towards another.' + +'And what is that?' + +'The kingdom of God on earth, sir, as well as in heaven. Come it +must, sir, and come it will some day.' + +Lancelot shook his head. + +Tregarva lifted up his eyes and said,-- + +'Are we not taught to pray for the coming of His kingdom, sir? And +do you fancy that He who gave the lesson would have set all mankind +to pray for what He never meant should come to pass?' + +Lancelot was silent. The words gained a new and blessed meaning in +his eyes. + +'Well,' he said, 'the time, at least, of their fulfilment is far +enough off. Union-workhouses and child-murder don't look much like +it. Talking of that, Tregarva, what is to become of your promise to +take me to a village wake, and show me what the poor are like?' + +'I can keep it this night, sir. There is a revel at Bone-sake, +about five miles up the river. Will you go with a discharged +gamekeeper?' + +'I will go with Paul Tregarva, whom I honour and esteem as one of +God's own noblemen; who has taught me what a man can be, and what I +am not,'--and Lancelot grasped the keeper's hand warmly. Tregarva +brushed his hand across his eyes, and answered,-- + +'"I said in my haste, All men are liars;" and God has just given me +the lie back in my own teeth. Well, sir, we will go to-night. You +are not ashamed of putting on a smock-frock? For if you go as a +gentleman, you will hear no more of them than a hawk does of a covey +of partridges.' + +So the expedition was agreed on, and Lancelot and the keeper parted +until the evening. + +But why had the vicar been rambling on all that morning through +pouring rain, on the top of the London coach? And why was he so +anxious in his inquiries as to the certainty of catching the up- +train? Because he had had considerable experience in that wisdom of +the serpent, whose combination with the innocence of the dove, in +somewhat ultramontane proportions, is recommended by certain late +leaders of his school. He had made up his mind, after his +conversation with the Irishman, that he must either oust Lancelot at +once, or submit to be ousted by him, and he was now on his way to +Lancelot's uncle and trustee, the London banker. + +He knew that the banker had some influence with his nephew, whose +whole property was invested in the bank, and who had besides a deep +respect for the kindly and upright practical mind of the veteran +Mammonite. And the vicar knew, too, that he himself had some +influence with the banker, whose son Luke had been his pupil at +college. And when the young man lay sick of a dangerous illness, +brought on by debauchery, into which weakness rather than vice had +tempted him, the vicar had watched and prayed by his bed, nursed him +as tenderly as a mother, and so won over his better heart that he +became completely reclaimed, and took holy orders with the most +earnest intention to play the man therein, as repentant rakes will +often do, half from a mere revulsion to asceticism, half from real +gratitude for their deliverance. This good deed had placed the +banker in the vicar's debt, and he loved and reverenced him in spite +of his dread of 'Popish novelties.' And now the good priest was +going to open to him just as much of his heart as should seem fit; +and by saying a great deal about Lancelot's evil doings, opinions, +and companions, and nothing at all about the heiress of Whitford, +persuade the banker to use all his influence in drawing Lancelot up +to London, and leaving a clear stage for his plans on Argemone. He +caught the up-train, he arrived safe and sound in town, but what he +did there must be told in another chapter. + + + +CHAPTER XII: THUNDERSTORM THE SECOND + + + +Weary with many thoughts, the vicar came to the door of the bank. +There were several carriages there, and a crowd of people swarming +in and out, like bees round a hive-door, entering with anxious +faces, and returning with cheerful ones, to stop and talk earnestly +in groups round the door. Every moment the mass thickened--there +was a run on the bank. An old friend accosted him on the steps,-- + +'What! have you, too, money here, then?' + +'Neither here nor anywhere else, thank Heaven!' said the vicar. +'But is anything wrong?' + +'Have not you heard? The house has sustained a frightful blow this +week--railway speculations, so they say--and is hardly expected to +survive the day. So we are all getting our money out as fast as +possible.' + +'By way of binding up the bruised reed, eh?' + +'Oh! every man for himself. A man is under no obligation to his +banker, that I know of.' And the good man bustled off with his +pockets full of gold. + +The vicar entered. All was hurry and anxiety. The clerks seemed +trying to brazen out their own terror, and shovelled the rapidly +lessening gold and notes across the counter with an air of indignant +nonchalance. The vicar asked to see the principal. + +'If you want your money, sir--' answered the official, with a +disdainful look. + +'I want no money. I must see Mr. Smith on private business, and +instantly.' + +'He is particularly engaged.' + +'I know it, and, therefore, I must see him. Take in my card, and he +will not refuse me.' A new vista had opened itself before him. + +He was ushered into a private room: and, as he waited for the +banker, he breathed a prayer. For what? That his own will might be +done--a very common style of petition. + +Mr. Smith entered, hurried and troubled. He caught the vicar +eagerly by the hand, as if glad to see a face which did not glare on +him with the cold selfish stamp of 'business,' and then drew back +again, afraid to commit himself by any sign of emotion. + +The vicar had settled his plan of attack, and determined boldly to +show his knowledge of the banker's distress. + +'I am very sorry to trouble you at such an unfortunate moment, sir, +and I will be brief; but, as your nephew's spiritual pastor--' (He +knew the banker was a stout Churchman.) + +'What of my nephew, sir! No fresh misfortunes, I hope?' + +'Not so much misfortune, sir, as misconduct--I might say frailty-- +but frailty which may become ruinous.' + +'How? how? Some mesalliance?' interrupted Mr. Smith, in a peevish, +excited tone. 'I thought there was some heiress on the tapis--at +least, so I heard from my unfortunate son, who has just gone over to +Rome. There's another misfortune.--Nothing but misfortunes; and +your teaching, sir, by the bye, I am afraid, has helped me to that +one.' + +'Gone over to Rome?' asked the vicar, slowly. + +'Yes, sir, gone to Rome--to the pope, sir! to the devil, sir! I +should have thought you likely to know of it before I did!' + +The vicar stared fixedly at him a moment, and burst into honest +tears. The banker was moved. + +''Pon my honour, sir, I beg your pardon. I did not mean to be rude, +but--but--To be plain with a clergyman, sir, so many things coming +together have quite unmanned me. Pooh, pooh,' and he shook himself +as if to throw off a weight; and, with a face once more quiet and +business-like, asked, 'And now, my dear sir, what of my nephew?' + +'As for that young lady, sir, of whom you spoke, I can assure you, +once for all, as her clergyman, and therefore more or less her +confidant, that your nephew has not the slightest chance or hope in +that quarter.' + +'How, sir? You will not throw obstacles in the way?' + +'Heaven, sir, I think, has interposed far more insuperable +obstacles--in the young lady's own heart--than I could ever have +done. Your nephew's character and opinions, I am sorry to say, are +not such as are likely to command the respect and affection of a +pure and pious Churchwoman.' + +'Opinions, sir? What, is he turning Papist, too?' + +'I am afraid, sir, and more than afraid, for he makes no secret of +it himself, that his views tend rather in the opposite direction; to +an infidelity so subversive of the commonest principles of morality, +that I expect, weekly, to hear of some unblushing and disgraceful +outrage against decency, committed by him under its fancied +sanction. And you know, as well as myself, the double danger of +some profligate outbreak, which always attends the miseries of a +disappointed earthly passion.' + +'True, very true. We must get the boy out of the way, sir. I must +have him under my eye.' + +'Exactly so, sir,' said the subtle vicar, who had been driving at +this very point. 'How much better for him to be here, using his +great talents to the advantage of his family in an honourable +profession, than to remain where he is, debauching body and mind by +hopeless dreams, godless studies, and frivolous excesses.' + +'When do you return, sir?' + +'An hour hence, if I can be of service to you.' + +The banker paused a moment. + +'You are a gentleman' (with emphasis on the word), 'and as such I +can trust you.' + +'Say, rather, as a clergyman.' + +'Pardon me, but I have found your cloth give little additional cause +for confidence. I have been as much bitten by clergymen--I have +seen as sharp practice among them, in money matters as well as in +religious squabbles, as I have in any class. Whether it is that +their book education leaves them very often ignorant of the plain +rules of honour which bind men of the world, or whether their zeal +makes them think that the end justifies the means, I cannot tell; +but--' + +'But,' said the vicar, half smiling, half severely, 'you must not +disparage the priesthood before a priest.' + +'I know it, I know it; and I beg your pardon: but if you knew the +cause I have to complain. The slipperiness, sir, of one staggering +parson, has set rolling this very avalanche, which gathers size +every moment, and threatens to overwhelm me now, unless that idle +dog Lancelot will condescend to bestir himself, and help me.' + +The vicar heard, but said nothing. + +'Me, at least, you can trust,' he answered proudly; and honestly, +too--for he was a gentleman by birth and breeding, unselfish and +chivalrous to a fault--and yet, when he heard the banker's words, it +was as if the inner voice had whispered to him, 'Thou art the man!' + +'When do you go down?' again asked Mr. Smith. 'To tell you the +truth, I was writing to Lancelot when you were announced! but the +post will not reach him till to-morrow at noon, and we are all so +busy here, that I have no one whom I can trust to carry down an +express.' + +The vicar saw what was coming. Was it his good angel which prompted +him to interpose? + +'Why not send a parcel by rail?' + +'I can trust the rail as far as D--; but I cannot trust those +coaches. If you could do me so great a kindness--' + +'I will. I can start by the one o'clock train, and by ten o'clock +to-night I shall be in Whitford.' + +'Are you certain?' + +'If God shall please, I am certain.' + +'And you will take charge of a letter? Perhaps, too, you could see +him yourself; and tell him--you see I trust you with everything-- +that my fortune, his own fortune, depends on his being here to- +morrow morning. He must start to-night, sir--to-night, tell him, if +there were twenty Miss Lavingtons in Whitford--or he is a ruined +man!' + +The letter was written, and put into the vicar's hands, with a +hundred entreaties from the terrified banker. A cab was called, and +the clergyman rattled off to the railway terminus. + +'Well,' said he to himself, 'God has indeed blessed my errand; +giving, as always, "exceeding abundantly more than we are able to +ask or think!" For some weeks, at least, this poor lamb is safe +from the destroyer's clutches. I must improve to the utmost those +few precious days in strengthening her in her holy purpose. But, +after all, he will return, daring and cunning as ever; and then will +not the fascination recommence?' + +And, as he mused, a little fiend passed by, and whispered, 'Unless +he comes up to-night, he is a ruined man.' + +It was Friday, and the vicar had thought it a fit preparation for so +important an errand to taste no food that day. Weakness and hunger, +joined to the roar and bustle of London, had made him excited, +nervous, unable to control his thoughts, or fight against a +stupifying headache; and his self-weakened will punished him, by +yielding him up an easy prey to his own fancies. + +'Ay,' he thought, 'if he were ruined, after all, it would be well +for God's cause. The Lavingtons, at least, would find no temptation +in his wealth: and Argemone--she is too proud, too luxurious, to +marry a beggar. She might embrace a holy poverty for the sake of +her own soul; but for the gratification of an earthly passion, +never! Base and carnal delights would never tempt her so far.' + +Alas, poor pedant! Among all that thy books taught thee, they did +not open to thee much of the depths of that human heart which thy +dogmas taught thee to despise as diabolic. + +Again the little fiend whispered,-- + +'Unless he comes up to-night, he is a ruined man.' + +'And what if he is?' thought the vicar. 'Riches are a curse; and +poverty a blessing. Is it not his wealth which is ruining his soul? +Idleness and fulness of bread have made him what he is--a luxurious +and self-willed dreamer, battening on his own fancies. Were it not +rather a boon to him to take from him the root of all evil?' + +Most true, vicar. And yet the devil was at that moment transforming +himself into an angel of light for thee. + +But the vicar was yet honest. If he had thought that by cutting off +his right hand he could have saved Lancelot's soul (by canonical +methods, of course; for who would wish to save souls in any other?), +he would have done it without hesitation. + +Again the little fiend whispered,-- + +'Unless he comes up to-night he is a ruined man.' + +A terrible sensation seized him.--Why should he give the letter to- +night? + +'You promised,' whispered the inner voice. + +'No, I did not promise exactly, in so many words; that is, I only +said I would be at home to-night, if God pleased. And what if God +should not please?--I promised for his good. What if, on second +thoughts, it should be better for him not to keep my promise?' A +moment afterwards, he tossed the temptation from him indignantly: +but back it came. At every gaudy shop, at every smoke-grimed +manufactory, at the face of every anxious victim of Mammon, of every +sturdy, cheerful artisan, the fiend winked and pointed, crying, 'And +what if he be ruined? Look at the thousands who have, and are +miserable--at the millions who have not, and are no sadder than +their own tyrants.' + +Again and again he thrust the thought from him, but more and more +weakly. His whole frame shook; the perspiration stood on his +forehead. As he took his railway ticket, his look was so haggard +and painful that the clerk asked him whether he were ill. The train +was just starting; he threw himself into a carriage--he would have +locked himself in if he could; and felt an inexpressible relief when +he found himself rushing past houses and market-gardens, whirled +onward, whether he would or not, in the right path--homeward. + +But was it the right path? for again the temptation flitted past +him. He threw himself back, and tried to ask counsel of One above; +but there was no answer, nor any that regarded. His heart was +silent, and dark as midnight fog. Why should there have been an +answer? He had not listened to the voice within. Did he wish for a +miracle to show him his duty? + +'Not that I care for detection,' he said to himself. 'What is shame +to me? Is it not a glory to be evil-spoken of in the cause of God? +How can the world appreciate the motives of those who are not of the +world?--the divine wisdom of the serpent--at once the saint's +peculiar weapon, and a part of his peculiar cross, when men call him +a deceiver, because they confound, forsooth, his spiritual subtlety +with their earthly cunning. Have I not been called "liar," +"hypocrite," "Jesuit," often enough already, to harden me towards +bearing that name once again?' + +That led him into sad thoughts of his last few years' career,--of +the friends and pupils whose secession to Rome had been attributed +to his hypocrisy, his 'disguised Romanism;' and then the remembrance +of poor Luke Smith flashed across him for the first time since he +left the bank. + +'I must see him,' he said to himself; 'I must argue with him face to +face. Who knows but that it may be given even to my unworthiness to +snatch him from this accursed slough?' + +And then he remembered that his way home lay through the city in +which the new convert's parish was--that the coach stopped there to +change horses; and again the temptation leapt up again, stronger +than ever, under the garb of an imperative call of duty. + +He made no determination for or against it. He was too weak in body +and mind to resist; and in a half sleep, broken with an aching, +terrified sense of something wanting which he could not find, he was +swept down the line, got on the coach, and mechanically, almost +without knowing it, found himself set down at the city of A--, and +the coach rattling away down the street. + +He sprang from his stupor, and called madly after it--ran a few +steps-- + +'You might as well try to catch the clouds, sir,' said the ostler. +'Gemmen should make up their minds afore they gets down.' + +Alas! so thought the vicar. But it was too late; and, with a heavy +heart, he asked the way to the late curate's house. + +Thither he went. Mr. Luke Smith was just at dinner, but the vicar +was, nevertheless, shown into the bachelor's little dining-room. +But what was his disgust and disappointment at finding his late +pupil tete-a-tete over a comfortable fish-dinner, opposite a burly, +vulgar, cunning-eyed man, with a narrow rim of muslin turned down +over his stiff cravat, of whose profession there could be no doubt. + +'My dearest sir,' said the new convert, springing up with an air of +extreme empressement, 'what an unexpected pleasure! Allow me to +introduce you to my excellent friend, Padre Bugiardo!' + +The padre rose, bowed obsequiously, 'was overwhelmed with delight at +being at last introduced to one of whom he had heard so much,' sat +down again, and poured himself out a bumper of sherry; while the +vicar commenced making the best of a bad matter by joining in the +now necessary business of eating. + +He had not a word to say for himself. Poor Luke was particularly +jovial and flippant, and startlingly unlike his former self. The +padre went on staring out of the window, and talking in a loud +forced tone about the astonishing miracles of the 'Ecstatica' and +'Addolorata;' and the poor vicar, finding the purpose for which he +had sacrificed his own word of honour utterly frustrated by the +priest's presence, sat silent and crestfallen the whole evening. + +The priest had no intention of stirring. The late father-confessor +tried to outstay his new rival, but in vain; the padre deliberately +announced his intention of taking a bed, and the vicar, with a heavy +heart, rose to go to his inn. + +As he went out at the door, he caught an opportunity of saying one +word to the convert. + +'My poor Luke! and are you happy? Tell me honestly, in God's sight +tell me!' + +'Happier than ever I was in my life! No more self-torture, physical +or mental, now. These good priests thoroughly understand poor human +nature, I can assure you.' + +The vicar sighed, for the speech was evidently meant as a gentle +rebuke to himself. But the young man ran on, half laughing,-- + +'You know how you and the rest used to tell us what a sad thing it +was that we were all cursed with consciences,--what a fearful +miserable burden moral responsibility was; but that we must submit +to it as an inevitable evil. Now that burden is gone, thank God. +We of the True Church have some one to keep our consciences for us. +The padre settles all about what is right or wrong, and we slip on +as easily as--' + +'A hog or a butterfly!' said the vicar, bitterly. + +'Exactly,' answered Luke. 'And, on your own showing, are clean +gainers of a happy life here, not to mention heaven hereafter. God +bless you! We shall soon see you one of us.' + +'Never, so help me God!' said the vicar; all the more fiercely +because he was almost at that moment of the young man's opinion. + +The vicar stepped out into the night. The rain, which had given +place during the afternoon to a bright sun and clear chilly evening, +had returned with double fury. The wind was sweeping and howling +down the lonely streets, and lashed the rain into his face, while +gray clouds were rushing past the moon like terrified ghosts across +the awful void of the black heaven. Above him gaunt poplars groaned +and bent, like giants cowering from the wrath of Heaven, yet rooted +by grim necessity to their place of torture. The roar and tumult +without him harmonised strangely with the discord within. He +staggered and strode along the plashy pavement, muttering to himself +at intervals,-- + +'Rest for the soul? peace of mind? I have been promising them all +my life to others--have I found them myself? And here is this poor +boy saying that he has gained them--in the very barbarian +superstition which I have been anathematising to him! What is true, +at this rate? What is false? Is anything right or wrong? except in +as far as men feel it to be right or wrong. Else whence does this +poor fellow's peace come, or the peace of many a convert more? They +have all, one by one, told me the same story. And is not a religion +to be known by its fruits? Are they not right in going where they +can get peace of mind?' + +Certainly, vicar. If peace of mind be the summum bonum, and +religion is merely the science of self-satisfaction, they are right; +and your wisest plan will be to follow them at once, or failing +that, to apply to the next best substitute that can be discovered-- +alcohol and opium. + +As he went on, talking wildly to himself, he passed the Union +Workhouse. Opposite the gate, under the lee of a wall, some twenty +men, women, and children, were huddled together on the bare ground. +They had been refused lodging in the workhouse, and were going to +pass the night in that situation. As he came up to them, coarse +jests, and snatches of low drinking-songs, ghastly as the laughter +of lost spirits in the pit, mingled with the feeble wailings of some +child of shame. The vicar recollected how he had seen the same +sight at the door of Kensington Workhouse, walking home one night in +company with Luke Smith; and how, too, he had commented to him on +that fearful sign of the times, and had somewhat unfairly drawn a +contrast between the niggard cruelty of 'popular Protestantism,' and +the fancied 'liberality of the middle age.' What wonder if his +pupil had taken him at his word? + +Delighted to escape from his own thoughts by anything like action, +he pulled out his purse to give an alms. There was no silver in it, +but only some fifteen or twenty sovereigns, which he that day +received as payment for some bitter reviews in a leading religious +periodical. Everything that night seemed to shame and confound him +more. As he touched the money, there sprang up in his mind in an +instant the thought of the articles which had procured it; by one of +those terrible, searching inspirations, in which the light which +lighteth every man awakes as a lightning-flash of judgment, he saw +them, and his own heart, for one moment, as they were;--their blind +prejudice; their reckless imputations of motives; their wilful +concealment of any palliating clauses; their party nicknames, given +without a shudder at the terrible accusations which they conveyed. +And then the indignation, the shame, the reciprocal bitterness which +those articles would excite, tearing still wider the bleeding wounds +of that Church which they professed to defend! And then, in this +case, too, the thought rushed across him, 'What if I should have +been wrong and my adversary right? What if I have made the heart of +the righteous sad whom God has not made sad? I! to have been +dealing out Heaven's thunders, as if I were infallible! I! who am +certain at this moment of no fact in heaven or earth, except my own +untruth! God! who am I that I should judge another?' And the coins +seemed to him like the price of blood--he fancied that he felt them +red-hot to his hand, and, in his eagerness to get rid of the +accursed thing, he dealt it away fiercely to the astonished group, +amid whining and flattery, wrangling and ribaldry; and then, not +daring to wait and see the use to which his money would be put, +hurried off to the inn, and tried in uneasy slumbers to forget the +time, until the mail passed through at daybreak on its way to +Whitford. + + + +CHAPTER XIII: THE VILLAGE REVEL + + + +At dusk that same evening the two had started for the village fair. +A velveteen shooting-jacket, a pair of corduroy trousers, and a +waistcoat, furnished by Tregarva, covered with flowers of every +imaginable hue, tolerably disguised Lancelot, who was recommended by +his conductor to keep his hands in his pockets as much as possible, +lest their delicacy, which was, as it happened, not very remarkable, +might betray him. As they walked together along the plashy turnpike +road, overtaking, now and then, groups of two or three who were out +on the same errand as themselves, Lancelot could not help remarking +to the keeper how superior was the look of comfort in the boys and +young men, with their ruddy cheeks and smart dresses, to the worn +and haggard appearance of the elder men. + +'Let them alone, poor fellows,' said Tregarva; 'it won't last long. +When they've got two or three children at their heels, they'll look +as thin and shabby as their own fathers.' + +'They must spend a great deal of money on their clothes.' + +'And on their stomachs, too, sir. They never lay by a farthing; and +I don't see how they can, when their club-money's paid, and their +insides are well filled.' + +'Do you mean to say that they actually have not as much to eat after +they marry?' + +'Indeed and I do, sir. They get no more wages afterwards round +here, and have four or five to clothe and feed off the same money +that used to keep one; and that sum won't take long to work out, I +think.' + +'But do they not in some places pay the married men higher wages +than the unmarried?' + +'That's a worse trick still, sir; for it tempts the poor thoughtless +boys to go and marry the first girl they can get hold of; and it +don't want much persuasion to make them do that at any time.' + +'But why don't the clergymen teach them to put into the savings +banks?' + +'One here and there, sir, says what he can, though it's of very +little use. Besides, every one is afraid of savings banks now; not +a year but one reads of some breaking and the lawyers going off with +the earnings of the poor. And if they didn't, youth's a foolish +time at best; and the carnal man will be hankering after amusement, +sir--amusement.' + +'And no wonder,' said Lancelot; 'at all events, I should not think +they got much of it. But it does seem strange that no other +amusement can be found for them than the beer-shop. Can't they +read? Can't they practise light and interesting handicrafts at +home, as the German peasantry do?' + +'Who'll teach 'em, sir? From the plough-tail to the reaping-hook, +and back again, is all they know. Besides, sir, they are not like +us Cornish; they are a stupid pigheaded generation at the best, +these south countrymen. They're grown-up babies who want the parson +and the squire to be leading them, and preaching to them, and +spurring them on, and coaxing them up, every moment. And as for +scholarship, sir, a boy leaves school at nine or ten to follow the +horses; and between that time and his wedding-day he forgets every +word he ever learnt, and becomes, for the most part, as thorough a +heathen savage at heart as those wild Indians in the Brazils used to +be.' + +'And then we call them civilised Englishmen!' said Lancelot. 'We +can see that your Indian is a savage, because he wears skins and +feathers; but your Irish cottar or your English labourer, because he +happens to wear a coat and trousers, is to be considered a civilised +man.' + +'It's the way of the world, sir,' said Tregarva, 'judging carnal +judgment, according to the sight of its own eyes; always looking at +the outsides of things and men, sir, and never much deeper. But as +for reading, sir, it's all very well for me, who have been a keeper +and dawdled about like a gentleman with a gun over my arm; but did +you ever do a good day's farm-work in your life? If you had, man or +boy, you wouldn't have been game for much reading when you got home; +you'd do just what these poor fellows do,--tumble into bed at eight +o'clock, hardly waiting to take your clothes off, knowing that you +must turn up again at five o'clock the next morning to get a +breakfast of bread, and, perhaps, a dab of the squire's dripping, +and then back to work again; and so on, day after day, sir, week +after week, year after year, without a hope or a chance of being +anything but what you are, and only too thankful if you can get work +to break your back, and catch the rheumatism over.' + +'But do you mean to say that their labour is so severe and +incessant?' + +'It's only God's blessing if it is incessant, sir, for if it stops, +they starve, or go to the house to be worse fed than the thieves in +gaol. And as for its being severe, there's many a boy, as their +mothers will tell you, comes home night after night, too tired to +eat their suppers, and tumble, fasting, to bed in the same foul +shirt which they've been working in all the day, never changing +their rag of calico from week's end to week's end, or washing the +skin that's under it once in seven years.' + +'No wonder,' said Lancelot, 'that such a life of drudgery makes them +brutal and reckless.' + +'No wonder, indeed, sir: they've no time to think; they're born to +be machines, and machines they must be; and I think, sir,' he added +bitterly, 'it's God's mercy that they daren't think. It's God's +mercy that they don't feel. Men that write books and talk at +elections call this a free country, and say that the poorest and +meanest has a free opening to rise and become prime minister, if he +can. But you see, sir, the misfortune is, that in practice he +can't; for one who gets into a gentleman's family, or into a little +shop, and so saves a few pounds, fifty know that they've no chance +before them, but day-labourer born, day-labourer live, from hand to +mouth, scraping and pinching to get not meat and beer even, but +bread and potatoes; and then, at the end of it all, for a worthy +reward, half-a-crown a-week of parish pay--or the workhouse. That's +a lively hopeful prospect for a Christian man!' + +'But,' said Lancelot, 'I thought this New Poor-law was to stir them +up to independence?' + +'Oh, sir, the old law has bit too deep: it made them slaves and +beggars at heart. It taught them not to be ashamed of parish pay-- +to demand it as a right.' + +'And so it is their right,' said Lancelot. 'In God's name, if a +country is so ill-constituted that it cannot find its own citizens +in work, it is bound to find them in food.' + +'Maybe, sir, maybe. God knows I don't grudge it them. It's a poor +pittance at best, when they have got it. But don't you see, sir, +how all poor-laws, old or new either, suck the independent spirit +out of a man; how they make the poor wretch reckless; how they tempt +him to spend every extra farthing in amusement?' + +'How then?' + +'Why, he is always tempted to say to himself, "Whatever happens to +me, the parish must keep me. If I am sick it must doctor me; if I +am worn out it must feed me; if I die it must bury me; if I leave my +children paupers the parish must look after them, and they'll be as +well off with the parish as they were with me. Now they've only got +just enough to keep body and soul together, and the parish can't +give them less than that. What's the use of cutting myself off from +sixpenny-worth of pleasure here, and sixpenny-worth there. I'm not +saving money for my children, I'm only saving the farmers' rates." +There it is, sir,' said Tregarva; 'that's the bottom of it, sir,-- +"I'm only saving the farmers' rates. Let us eat and drink, for to- +morrow we die!"' + +'I don't see my way out of it,' said Lancelot. + +'So says everybody, sir. But I should have thought those members of +parliament, and statesmen, and university scholars have been set up +in the high places, out of the wood where we are all struggling and +scrambling, just that they might see their way out of it; and if +they don't, sir, and that soon, as sure as God is in heaven, these +poor fellows will cut their way out of it.' + +'And blindfolded and ignorant as they are,' said Lancelot, 'they +will be certain to cut their way out just in the wrong direction.' + +'I'm not so sure of that, sir,' said Tregarva, lowering his voice. +'What is written'? That there is One who hears the desire of the +poor. "Lord, Thou preparest their hearts and Thine ear hearkeneth +thereto, to help the fatherless and poor unto their right, that the +man of the earth be no more exalted against them."' + +'Why, you are talking like any Chartist, Tregarva!' + +'Am I, sir? I haven't heard much Scripture quoted among them +myself, poor fellows; but to tell you the truth, sir, I don't know +what I am becoming. I'm getting half mad with all I see going on +and not going on; and you will agree, sir, that what's happened this +day can't have done much to cool my temper or brighten my hopes; +though, God's my witness, there's no spite in me for my own sake. +But what makes me maddest of all, sir, is to see that everybody sees +these evils, except just the men who can cure them--the squires and +the clergy.' + +'Why surely, Tregarva, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of +clergymen and landlords working heart and soul at this moment, to +better the condition of the labouring classes!' + +'Ay, sir, they see the evils, and yet they don't see them. They do +not see what is the matter with the poor man; and the proof of it +is, sir, that the poor have no confidence in them. They'll take +their alms, but they'll hardly take their schooling, and their +advice they won't take at all. And why is it, sir? Because the +poor have got in their heads in these days a strange confused fancy, +maybe, but still a deep and a fierce one, that they haven't got what +they call their rights. If you were to raise the wages of every man +in this country from nine to twelve shillings a-week to-morrow, you +wouldn't satisfy them; at least, the only ones whom you would +satisfy would be the mere hogs among them, who, as long as they can +get a full stomach, care for nothing else.' + +'What, in Heaven's name, do they want?' asked Lancelot. + +'They hardly know yet, sir; but they know well what they don't want. +The question with them, sir, believe me, is not so much, How shall +we get better fed and better housed, but whom shall we depend upon +for our food and for our house? Why should we depend on the will +and fancy of any man for our rights? They are asking ugly questions +among themselves, sir, about what those two words, rent and taxes, +mean, and about what that same strange word, freedom, means. Eight +or wrong, they've got the thought into their heads, and it's growing +there, and they will find an answer for it. Depend upon it, sir, I +tell you a truth, and they expect a change. You will hear them talk +of it to-night, sir, if you've luck.' + +'We all expect a change, for that matter,' said Lancelot. 'That +feeling is common to all classes and parties just now.' + +Tregarva took off his hat. + +'"For the word of the Lord hath spoken it." Do you know, sir, I +long at times that I did agree with those Chartists? If I did, I'd +turn lecturer to-morrow. How a man could speak out then! If he saw +any door of hope, any way of salvation for these poor fellows, even +if it was nothing better than salvation by Act of Parliament!' + +'But why don't you trust the truly worthy among the clergy and the +gentry to leaven their own ranks and bring all right in time?' + +'Because, sir, they seem to be going the way only to make things +worse. The people have been so dependent on them heretofore, that +they have become thorough beggars. You can have no knowledge, sir, +of the whining, canting, deceit, and lies which those poor miserable +labourers' wives palm on charitable ladies. If they weren't angels, +some of them, they'd lock up their purses and never give away +another farthing. And, sir, these free-schools, and these penny- +clubs, and clothing clubs, and these heaps of money which are given +away, all make the matter worse and worse. They make the labourer +fancy that he is not to depend upon God and his own right hand, but +on what his wife can worm out of the good nature of the rich. Why, +sir, they growl as insolently now at the parson or the squire's wife +if they don't get as much money as their neighbours, as they used to +at the parish vestrymen under the old law. Look at that Lord +Vieuxbois, sir, as sweet a gentleman as ever God made. It used to +do me good to walk behind him when he came over here shooting, just +to hear the gentle kind-hearted way in which he used to speak to +every old soul he met. He spends his whole life and time about the +poor, I hear. But, sir, as sure as you live he's making his people +slaves and humbugs. He doesn't see, sir, that they want to be +raised bodily out of this miserable hand-to-mouth state, to be +brought nearer up to him, and set on a footing where they can shift +for themselves. Without meaning it, sir, all his boundless +charities are keeping the people down, and telling them they must +stay down, and not help themselves, but wait for what he gives them. +He fats prize-labourers, sir, just as Lord Minchampstead fats prize- +oxen and pigs.' + +Lancelot could not help thinking of that amusingly inconsistent, +however well-meant, scene in Coningsby, in which Mr. Lyle is +represented as trying to restore 'the independent order of +peasantry,' by making them the receivers of public alms at his own +gate, as if they had been middle-age serfs or vagabonds, and not +citizens of modern England. + +'It may suit the Mr. Lyles of this age,' thought Lancelot, 'to make +the people constantly and visibly comprehend that property is their +protector and their friend, but I question whether it will suit the +people themselves, unless they can make property understand that it +owes them something more definite than protection.' + +Saddened by this conversation, which had helped to give another +shake to the easy-going complacency with which Lancelot had been +used to contemplate the world below him, and look on its evils as +necessaries, ancient and fixed as the universe, he entered the +village fair, and was a little disappointed at his first glimpse of +the village-green. Certainly his expectations had not been very +exalted; but there had run through them a hope of something +melodramatic, dreams of May-pole dancing and athletic games, +somewhat of village-belle rivalry, of the Corin and Sylvia school; +or, failing that, a few Touchstones and Audreys, some genial earnest +buffo humour here and there. But there did not seem much likelihood +of it. Two or three apple and gingerbread stalls, from which +draggled children were turning slowly and wistfully away to go home; +a booth full of trumpery fairings, in front of which tawdry girls +were coaxing maudlin youths, with faded southernwood in their +button-holes; another long low booth, from every crevice of which +reeked odours of stale beer and smoke, by courtesy denominated +tobacco, to the treble accompaniment of a jigging fiddle and a +tambourine, and the bass one of grumbled oaths and curses within-- +these were the means of relaxation which the piety, freedom, and +civilisation of fourteen centuries, from Hengist to Queen Victoria, +had devised and made possible for the English peasant! + +'There seems very little here to see,' said Lancelot, half +peevishly. + +'I think, sir,' quoth Tregarva, 'that very thing is what's most +worth seeing.' + +Lancelot could not help, even at the risk of detection, investing +capital enough in sugar-plums and gingerbread, to furnish the +urchins around with the material for a whole carnival of stomach- +aches; and he felt a great inclination to clear the fairing-stall in +a like manner, on behalf of the poor bedizened sickly-looking girls +round, but he was afraid of the jealousy of some beer-bemuddled +swain. The ill-looks of the young girls surprised him much. Here +and there smiled a plump rosy face enough; but the majority seemed +under-sized, under-fed, utterly wanting in grace, vigour, and what +the penny-a-liners call 'rude health.' He remarked it to Tregarva. +The keeper smiled mournfully. + +'You see those little creatures dragging home babies in arms nearly +as big as themselves, sir. That and bad food, want of milk +especially, accounts for their growing up no bigger than they do; +and as for their sad countenances, sir, most of them must carry a +lighter conscience before they carry a brighter face.' + +'What do you mean?' asked Lancelot. + +'The clergyman who enters the weddings and the baptisms knows well +enough what I mean, sir. But we'll go into that booth, if you want +to see the thick of it, sir; that's to say, if you're not ashamed.' + +'I hope we need neither of us do anything to be ashamed of there; +and as for seeing, I begin to agree with you, that what makes the +whole thing most curious is its intense dulness.' + +'What upon earth is that?' + +'I say, look out there!' + +'Well, you look out yourself!' + +This was caused by a violent blow across the shins with a thick +stick, the deed of certain drunken wiseacres who were persisting in +playing in the dark the never very lucrative game of three sticks a +penny, conducted by a couple of gipsies. Poor fellows! there was +one excuse for them. It was the only thing there to play at, except +a set of skittles; and on those they had lost their money every +Saturday night for the last seven years each at his own village +beer-shop. + +So into the booth they turned; and as soon as Lancelot's eyes were +accustomed to the reeking atmosphere, he saw seated at two long +temporary tables of board, fifty or sixty of 'My Brethren,' as +clergymen call them in their sermons, wrangling, stupid, beery, with +sodden eyes and drooping lips--interspersed with more girls and +brazen-faced women, with dirty flowers in their caps, whose whole +business seemed to be to cast jealous looks at each other, and +defend themselves from the coarse overtures of their swains. + +Lancelot had been already perfectly astonished at the foulness of +language which prevailed; and the utter absence of anything like +chivalrous respect, almost of common decency, towards women. But +lo! the language of the elder women was quite as disgusting as that +of the men, if not worse. He whispered a remark on the point to +Tregarva, who shook his head. + +'It's the field-work, sir--the field-work, that does it all. They +get accustomed there from their childhood to hear words whose very +meanings they shouldn't know; and the older teach the younger ones, +and the married ones are worst of all. It wears them out in body, +sir, that field-work, and makes them brutes in soul and in manners.' + +'Why don't they give it up? Why don't the respectable ones set +their faces against it?' + +'They can't afford it, sir. They must go a-field, or go hungered, +most of them. And they get to like the gossip and scandal, and +coarse fun of it, while their children are left at home to play in +the roads, or fall into the fire, as plenty do every year.' + +'Why not at school?' + +'The big ones are kept at home, sir, to play at nursing those little +ones who are too young to go. Oh, sir,' he added, in a tone of deep +feeling, 'it is very little of a father's care, or a mother's love, +that a labourer's child knows in these days!' + +Lancelot looked round the booth with a hopeless feeling. There was +awkward dancing going on at the upper end. He was too much sickened +to go and look at it. He began examining the faces and foreheads of +the company, and was astonished at the first glance by the lofty and +ample development of brain in at least one half. There were +intellects there--or rather capacities of intellect, capable, +surely, of anything, had not the promise of the brow been almost +always belied by the loose and sensual lower features. They were +evidently rather a degraded than an undeveloped race. 'The low +forehead of the Kabyle and Koord,' thought Lancelot, 'is compensated +by the grim sharp lip, and glittering eye, which prove that all the +small capabilities of the man have been called out into clear and +vigorous action: but here the very features themselves, both by +what they have and what they want, testify against that society +which carelessly wastes her most precious wealth, the manhood of her +masses! Tregarva! you have observed a good many things--did you +ever observe whether the men with the large foreheads were better +than the men with the small ones?' + +'Ay, sir, I know what you are driving at. I've heard of that new- +fangled notion of scholars, which, if you'll forgive my plain +speaking, expects man's brains to do the work of God's grace.' + +'But what have you remarked?' + +'All I ever saw was, that the stupid-looking ones were the greatest +blackguards, and the clever-looking ones the greatest rogues.' + +Lancelot was rebuked, but not surprised. He had been for some time +past suspecting, from the bitter experience of his own heart, the +favourite modern theory which revives the Neo-Platonism of +Alexandria, by making intellect synonymous with virtue, and then +jumbling, like poor bewildered Proclus, the 'physical understanding' +of the brain with the pure 'intellect' of the spirit. + +'You'll see something, if you look round, sir, a great deal easier +to explain--and, I should have thought, a great deal easier to cure- +-than want of wits.' + +'And what is that?' + +'How different-looking the young ones are from their fathers, and +still more from their grandfathers! Look at those three or four old +grammers talking together there. For all their being shrunk with +age and weather, you won't see such fine-grown men anywhere else in +this booth.' + +It was too true. Lancelot recollected now having remarked it before +when at church; and having wondered why almost all the youths were +so much smaller, clumsier, lower-brained, and weaker-jawed than +their elders. + +'Why is it, Tregarva?' + +'Worse food, worse lodging, worse nursing--and, I'm sore afraid, +worse blood. There was too much filthiness and drunkenness went on +in the old war-times, not to leave a taint behind it, for many a +generation. The prosperity of fools shall destroy them!' + +'Oh!' thought Lancelot, 'for some young sturdy Lancashire or Lothian +blood, to put new life into the old frozen South Saxon veins! Even +a drop of the warm enthusiastic Celtic would be better than none. +Perhaps this Irish immigration may do some good, after all.' + +Perhaps it may, Lancelot. Let us hope so, since it is pretty nearly +inevitable. + +Sadder and sadder, Lancelot tried to listen to the conversation of +the men round him. To his astonishment he hardly understood a word +of it. It was half articulate, nasal, guttural, made up almost +entirely of vowels, like the speech of savages. He had never before +been struck with the significant contrast between the sharp, +clearly-defined articulation, the vivid and varied tones of the +gentleman, or even of the London street-boy when compared with the +coarse, half-formed growls, as of a company of seals, which he heard +round him. That single fact struck him, perhaps, more deeply than +any; it connected itself with many of his physiological fancies; it +was the parent of many thoughts and plans of his after-life. Here +and there he could distinguish a half sentence. An old shrunken man +opposite him was drawing figures in the spilt beer with his pipe- +stem, and discoursing of the glorious times before the great war, +'when there was more food than there were mouths, and more work than +there were hands.' 'Poor human nature!' thought Lancelot, as he +tried to follow one of those unintelligible discussions about the +relative prices of the loaf and the bushel of flour, which ended, as +usual, in more swearing, and more quarrelling, and more beer to make +it up--'Poor human nature! always looking back, as the German sage +says, to some fancied golden age, never looking forward to the real +one which is coming!' + +'But I say, vather,' drawled out some one, 'they say there's a sight +more money in England now, than there was afore the war-time.' + +'Eees, booy,' said the old man; 'but ITS GOT INTO TOO FEW HANDS.' + +'Well,' thought Lancelot, 'there's a glimpse of practical sense, at +least.' And a pedlar who sat next him, a bold, black-whiskered +bully, from the Potteries, hazarded a joke,-- + +'It's all along of this new sky-and-tough-it farming. They used to +spread the money broadcast, but now they drills it all in one place, +like bone-dust under their fancy plants, and we poor self-sown chaps +gets none.' + +This garland of fancies was received with great applause; whereat +the pedlar, emboldened, proceeded to observe, mysteriously, that +'donkeys took a beating, but horses kicked at it; and that they'd +found out that in Staffordshire long ago. You want a good Chartist +lecturer down here, my covies, to show you donkeys of labouring men +that you have got iron on your heels, if you only know'd how to use +it.' + +'And what's the use of rioting?' asked some one, querulously. + +'Why, if you don't riot, the farmers will starve you.' + +'And if we do, they'd turn sodgers--yeomanry, as they call it, +though there ain't a yeoman among them in these parts; and then they +takes sword and kills us. So, riot or none, they has it all their +own way.' + +Lancelot heard many more scraps of this sort. He was very much +struck with their dread of violence. It did not seem cowardice. It +was not loyalty--the English labourer has fallen below the +capability of so spiritual a feeling; Lancelot had found out that +already. It could not be apathy, for he heard nothing but complaint +upon complaint bandied from mouth to mouth the whole evening. They +seemed rather sunk too low in body and mind,--too stupefied and +spiritless, to follow the example of the manufacturing districts; +above all, they were too ill-informed. It is not mere starvation +which goads the Leicester weaver to madness. It is starvation with +education,--an empty stomach and a cultivated, even though +miscultivated, mind. + +At that instant, a huge hulking farm-boy rolled into the booth, +roaring, dolefully, the end of a song, with a punctuation of his own +invention-- + + +'He'll maak me a lady. Zo . Vine to be zyure. +And, vaithfully; love me. Although; I; be-e; poor-r-r-r.' + + +Lancelot would have laughed heartily at him anywhere else; but the +whole scene was past a jest; and a gleam of pathos and tenderness +seemed to shine even from that doggerel,--a vista, as it were, of +true genial nature, in the far distance. But as he looked round +again, 'What hope,' he thought, 'of its realisation? Arcadian +dreams of pastoral innocence and graceful industry, I suppose, are +to be henceforth monopolised by the stage or the boudoir? Never, so +help me, God!' + +The ursine howls of the new-comer seemed to have awakened the spirit +of music in the party. + +'Coom, Blackburd, gi' us zong, Blackburd, bo'!' cried a dozen voices +to an impish, dark-eyed gipsy boy, of some thirteen years old. + +'Put 'n on taable. Now, then, pipe up!' + +'What will 'ee ha'?' + +'Mary; gi' us Mary.' + +'I shall make a' girls cry,' quoth Blackbird, with a grin. + +'Do'n good, too; they likes it: zing away.' + +And the boy began, in a broad country twang, which could not +overpower the sad melody of the air, or the rich sweetness of his +flute-like voice,-- + + +'Young Mary walked sadly down through the green clover, + And sighed as she looked at the babe at her breast; +"My roses are faded, my false love a rover, + The green graves they call me, 'Come home to your rest.'" + +'Then by rode a soldier in gorgeous arraying, + And "Where is your bride-ring, my fair maid?" he cried; +"I ne'er had a bride-ring, by false man's betraying, + Nor token of love but this babe at my side. + +'"Tho' gold could not buy me, sweet words could deceive me; + So faithful and lonely till death I must roam." +"Oh, Mary, sweet Mary, look up and forgive me, + With wealth and with glory your true love comes home; + +'"So give me my own babe, those soft arms adorning, + I'll wed you and cherish you, never to stray; +For it's many a dark and a wild cloudy morning, + Turns out by the noon-time a sunshiny day."' + + +'A bad moral that, sir,' whispered Tregarva. + +'Better than none,' answered Lancelot. + +'It's well if you are right, sir, for you'll hear no other.' + +The keeper spoke truly; in a dozen different songs, more or less +coarsely, but, in general, with a dash of pathetic sentiment, the +same case of lawless love was embodied. It seemed to be their only +notion of the romantic. Now and then there was a poaching song; +then one of the lowest flash London school--filth and all--was +roared in chorus in presence of the women. + +'I am afraid that you do not thank me for having brought you to any +place so unfit for a gentleman,' said Tregarva, seeing Lancelot's +sad face. + +'Because it is so unfit for a gentleman, therefore I do thank you. +It is right to know what one's own flesh and blood are doing.' + +'Hark to that song, sir! that's an old one. I didn't think they'd +get on to singing that.' + +The Blackbird was again on the table, but seemed this time +disinclined to exhibit. + +'Out wi' un, boy; it wain't burn thy mouth!' + +'I be afeard.' + +'O' who?' + +'Keeper there.' + +He pointed to Tregarva; there was a fierce growl round the room. + +'I am no keeper,' shouted Tregarva, starting up. 'I was turned off +this morning for speaking my mind about the squires, and now I'm one +of you, to live and die.' + +This answer was received with a murmur of applause; and a fellow in +a scarlet merino neckerchief, three waistcoats, and a fancy +shooting-jacket, who had been eyeing Lancelot for some time, sidled +up behind them, and whispered in Tregarva's ear,-- + +'Perhaps you'd like an engagement in our line, young man, and your +friend there, he seems a sporting gent too.--We could show him very +pretty shooting.' + +Tregarva answered by the first and last oath Lancelot ever heard +from him, and turning to him, as the rascal sneaked off,-- + +'That's a poaching crimp from London, sir; tempting these poor boys +to sin, and deceit, and drunkenness, and theft, and the hulks.' + +'I fancy I saw him somewhere the night of our row--you understand?' + +'So do I, sir, but there's no use talking of it.' + +Blackbird was by this time prevailed on to sing, and burst out as +melodious as ever, while all heads were cocked on one side in +delighted attention. + + +'I zeed a vire o' Monday night, + A vire both great and high; +But I wool not tell you where, my boys, + Nor wool not tell you why. +The varmer he comes screeching out, + To zave 'uns new brood mare; +Zays I, "You and your stock may roast, + Vor aught us poor chaps care." + +'Coorus, boys, coorus!' + +And the chorus burst out,-- + +'Then here's a curse on varmers all + As rob and grind the poor; +To re'p the fruit of all their works + In **** for evermoor-r-r-r. + +'A blind owld dame come to the vire, + Zo near as she could get; +Zays, "Here's a luck I warn't asleep + To lose this blessed hett. + +'"They robs us of our turfing rights, + Our bits of chips and sticks, +Till poor folks now can't warm their hands, + Except by varmer's ricks." + 'Then, etc.' + + +And again the boy's delicate voice rung out the ferocious chorus, +with something, Lancelot fancied, of fiendish exultation, and every +worn face lighted up with a coarse laugh, that indicated no malice-- +but also no mercy. + +Lancelot was sickened, and rose to go. + +As he turned, his arm was seized suddenly and firmly. He looked +round, and saw a coarse, handsome, showily-dressed girl, looking +intently into his face. He shook her angrily off. + +'You needn't be so proud, Mr. Smith; I've had my hand on the arm of +as good as you. Ah, you needn't start! I know you--I know you, I +say, well enough. You used to be with him. Where is he?' + +'Whom do you mean?' + +'He!' answered the girl, with a fierce, surprised look, as if there +could be no one else in the world. + +'Colonel Bracebridge,' whispered Tregarva. + +'Ay, he it is! And now walk further off, bloodhound! and let me +speak to Mr. Smith. He is in Norway,' she ran on eagerly. 'When +will he be back? When?' + +'Why do you want to know?' asked Lancelot. + +'When will he be back?'--she kept on fiercely repeating the +question; and then burst out,--'Curse you gentlemen all! Cowards! +you are all in a league against us poor girls! You can hunt alone +when you betray us, and lie fast enough then? But when we come for +justice, you all herd together like a flock of rooks; and turn so +delicate and honourable all of a sudden--to each other! When will +he be back, I say?' + +'In a month,' answered Lancelot, who saw that something really +important lay behind the girl's wildness. + +'Too late!' she cried, wildly, clapping her hands together; 'too +late! Here--tell him you saw me; tell him you saw Mary; tell him +where and in what a pretty place, too, for maid, master, or man! +What are you doing here?' + +'What is that to you, my good girl?' + +'True. Tell him you saw me here; and tell him, when next he hears +of me, it will be in a very different place.' + +She turned and vanished among the crowd. Lancelot almost ran out +into the night,--into a triad of fights, two drunken men, two +jealous wives, and a brute who struck a poor, thin, worn-out woman, +for trying to coax him home. Lancelot rushed up to interfere, but a +man seized his uplifted arm. + +'He'll only beat her all the more when he getteth home.' + +'She has stood that every Saturday night for the last seven years, +to my knowledge,' said Tregarva; 'and worse, too, at times.' + +'Good God! is there no escape for her from her tyrant?' + +'No, sir. It's only you gentlefolks who can afford such luxuries; +your poor man may be tied to a harlot, or your poor woman to a +ruffian, but once done, done for ever.' + +'Well,' thought Lancelot, 'we English have a characteristic way of +proving the holiness of the marriage tie. The angel of Justice and +Pity cannot sever it, only the stronger demon of Money.' + +Their way home lay over Ashy Down, a lofty chalk promontory, round +whose foot the river made a sudden bend. As they paced along over +the dreary hedgeless stubbles, they both started, as a ghostly 'Ha! +ha! ha!' rang through the air over their heads, and was answered by +a like cry, faint and distant, across the wolds. + +'That's those stone-curlews--at least, so I hope,' said Tregarva. +'He'll be round again in a minute.' + +And again, right between them and the clear, cold moon, 'Ha! ha! +ha!' resounded over their heads. They gazed up into the cloudless +star-bespangled sky, but there was no sign of living thing. + +'It's an old sign to me,' quoth Tregarva; 'God grant that I may +remember it in this black day of mine.' + +'How so!' asked Lancelot; 'I should not have fancied you a +superstitious man.' + +'Names go for nothing, sir, and what my forefathers believed in I am +not going to be conceited enough to disbelieve in a hurry. But if +you heard my story you would think I had reason enough to remember +that devil's laugh up there.' + +'Let me hear it then.' + +'Well, sir, it may be a long story to you, but it was a short one to +me, for it was the making of me, out of hand, there and then, +blessed be God! But if you will have it--' + +'And I will have it, friend Tregarva,' quoth Lancelot, lighting his +cigar. + +'I was about sixteen years old, just after I came home from the +Brazils--' + +'What! have you been in the Brazils?' + +'Indeed and I have, sir, for three years; and one thing I learnt +there, at least, that's worth going for.' + +'What's that?' + +'What the Garden of Eden must have been like. But those Brazils, +under God, were the cause of my being here; for my father, who was a +mine-captain, lost all his money there, by no man's fault but his +own, and not his either, the world would say, and when we came back +to Cornwall he could not stand the bal work, nor I neither. Out of +that burning sun, sir, to come home here, and work in the levels, up +to our knees in warm water, with the thermometer at 85 degrees, and +then up a thousand feet of ladder to grass, reeking wet with heat, +and find the easterly sleet driving across those open furze-crofts-- +he couldn't stand it, sir--few stand it long, even of those who stay +in Cornwall. We miners have a short lease of life; consumption and +strains break us down before we're fifty.' + +'But how came you here?' + +'The doctor told my father, and me too, sir, that we must give up +mining, or die of decline: so he came up here, to a sister of his +that was married to the squire's gardener, and here he died; and the +squire, God bless him and forgive him, took a fancy to me, and made +me under-keeper. And I loved the life, for it took me among the +woods and the rivers, where I could think of the Brazils, and fancy +myself back again. But mustn't talk of that--where God wills is all +right. And it is a fine life for reading and thinking, a +gamekeeper's, for it's an idle life at best. Now that's over,' he +added, with a sigh, 'and the Lord has fulfilled His words to me, +that He spoke the first night that ever I heard a stone-plover cry.' + +'What on earth can you mean?' asked Lancelot, deeply interested. + +'Why, sir, it was a wild, whirling gray night, with the air full of +sleet and rain, and my father sent me over to Redruth town to bring +home some trade or other. And as I came back I got blinded with the +sleet, and I lost my way across the moors. You know those Cornish +furze-moors, sir?' + +'No.' + +'Well, then, they are burrowed like a rabbit-warren with old mine- +shafts. You can't go in some places ten yards without finding +great, ghastly black holes, covered in with furze, and weeds, and +bits of rotting timber; and when I was a boy I couldn't keep from +them. Something seemed to draw me to go and peep down, and drop +pebbles in, to hear them rattle against the sides, fathoms below, +till they plumped into the ugly black still water at the bottom. +And I used to be always after them in my dreams, when I was young, +falling down them, down, down, all night long, till I woke +screaming; for I fancied they were hell's mouth, every one of them. +And it stands to reason, sir; we miners hold that the lake of fire +can't be far below. For we find it grow warmer, and warmer, and +warmer, the farther we sink a shaft; and the learned gentlemen have +proved, sir, that it's not the blasting powder, nor the men's +breaths, that heat the mine.' + +Lancelot could but listen. + +'Well, sir, I got into a great furze-croft, full of deads (those are +the earth-heaps they throw out of the shafts), where no man in his +senses dare go forward or back in the dark, for fear of the shafts; +and the wind and the snow were so sharp, they made me quite stupid +and sleepy; and I knew if I stayed there I should be frozen to +death, and if I went on, there were the shafts ready to swallow me +up: and what with fear and the howling and raging of the wind, I +was like a mazed boy, sir. And I knelt down and tried to pray; and +then, in one moment, all the evil things I'd ever done, and the bad +words and thoughts that ever crossed me, rose up together as clear +as one page of a print-book; and I knew that if I died that minute I +should go to hell. And then I saw through the ground all the water +in the shafts glaring like blood, and all the sides of the shafts +fierce red-hot, as if hell was coming up. And I heard the knockers +knocking, or thought I heard them, as plain as I hear that +grasshopper in the hedge now.' + +'What are the knockers?' + +'They are the ghosts, the miners hold, of the old Jews, sir, that +crucified our Lord, and were sent for slaves by the Roman emperors +to work the mines; and we find their old smelting-houses, which we +call Jews' houses, and their blocks of tin, at the bottom of the +great bogs, which we call Jews' tin; and there's a town among us, +too, which we call Market-Jew--but the old name was Marazion; that +means the Bitterness of Zion, they tell me. Isn't it so, sir?' + +'I believe it is,' said Lancelot, utterly puzzled in this new field +of romance. + +'And bitter work it was for them, no doubt, poor souls! We used to +break into the old shafts and adits which they had made, and find +old stags'-horn pickaxes, that crumbled to pieces when we brought +them to grass; and they say, that if a man will listen, sir, of a +still night, about those old shafts, he may hear the ghosts of them +at working, knocking, and picking, as clear as if there was a man at +work in the next level. It may be all an old fancy. I suppose it +is. But I believed it when I was a boy; and it helped the work in +me that night. But I'll go on with my story.' + +'Go on with what you like,' said Lancelot. + +'Well, sir, I was down on my knees among the furze-bushes, and I +tried to pray; but I was too frightened, for I felt the beast I had +been, sir; and I expected the ground to open and let me down every +moment; and then there came by over my head a rushing, and a cry. +"Ha! ha! ha! Paul!" it said; and it seemed as if all the devils and +witches were out on the wind, a-laughing at my misery. "Oh, I'll +mend--I'll repent," I said, "indeed I will:" and again it came +back,--"Ha! ha! ha! Paul!" it said. I knew afterwards that it was +a bird; but the Lord sent it to me for a messenger, no less, that +night. And I shook like a reed in the water; and then, all at once +a thought struck me. "Why should I be a coward? Why should I be +afraid of shafts, or devils, or hell, or anything else? If I am a +miserable sinner, there's One died for me--I owe him love, not fear +at all. I'll not be frightened into doing right--that's a rascally +reason for repentance." And so it was, sir, that I rose up like a +man, and said to the Lord Jesus, right out into the black, dumb +air,--"If you'll be on my side this night, good Lord, that died for +me, I'll be on your side for ever, villain as I am, if I'm worth +making any use of." And there and then, sir, I saw a light come +over the bushes, brighter, and brighter, up to me; and there rose up +a voice within me, and spoke to me, quite soft and sweet,--"Fear +not, Paul, for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles." And +what more happened I can't tell, for when I woke I was safe at home. +My father and his folk had been out with lanterns after me; and +there they found me, sure enough, in a dead faint on the ground. +But this I know, sir, that those words have never left my mind since +for a day together; and I know that they will be fulfilled in me +this tide, or never.' + +Lancelot was silent a few minutes. + +'I suppose, Tregarva, that you would call this your conversion?' + +'I should call it one, sir, because it was one.' + +'Tell me now, honestly, did any real, practical change in your +behaviour take place after that night?' + +'As much, sir, as if you put a soul into a hog, and told him that he +was a gentleman's son; and, if every time he remembered that, he got +spirit enough to conquer his hoggishness, and behave like a man, +till the hoggishness died out of him, and the manliness grew up and +bore fruit in him, more and more each day.' + +Lancelot half understood him, and sighed. + +A long silence followed, as they paced on past lonely farmyards, +from which the rich manure-water was draining across the road in +foul black streams, festering and steaming in the chill night air. +Lancelot sighed as he saw the fruitful materials of food running to +waste, and thought of the 'over-population' cry; and then he looked +across to the miles of brown moorland on the opposite side of the +valley, that lay idle and dreary under the autumn moon, except where +here and there a squatter's cottage and rood of fruitful garden gave +the lie to the laziness and ignorance of man, who pretends that it +is not worth his while to cultivate the soil which God has given +him. 'Good heavens!' he thought, 'had our forefathers had no more +enterprise than modern landlords, where should we all have been at +this moment? Everywhere waste? Waste of manure, waste of land, +waste of muscle, waste of brain, waste of population--and we call +ourselves the workshop of the world!' + +As they passed through the miserable hamlet-street of Ashy, they saw +a light burning in window. At the door below, a haggard woman was +looking anxiously down the village. + +'What's the matter, Mistress Cooper?' asked Tregarva. + +'Here's Mrs. Grane's poor girl lying sick of the fever--the Lord +help her! and the boy died of it last week. We sent for the doctor +this afternoon, and he's busy with a poor soul that's in her +trouble; and now we've sent down to the squire's, and the young +ladies, God bless them! sent answer they'd come themselves +straightway.' + +'No wonder you have typhus here,' said Lancelot, 'with this filthy +open drain running right before the door. Why can't you clean it +out?' + +'Why, what harm does that do?' answered the woman, peevishly. +'Besides, here's my master gets up to his work by five in the +morning, and not back till seven at night, and by then he ain't in +no humour to clean out gutters. And where's the water to come from +to keep a place clean? It costs many a one of us here a shilling a +week the summer through to pay fetching water up the hill. We've +work enough to fill our kettles. The muck must just lie in the +road, smell or none, till the rain carries it away.' + +Lancelot sighed again. + +'It would be a good thing for Ashy, Tregarva, if the weir-pool did, +some fine morning, run up to Ashy Down, as poor Harry Verney said on +his deathbed.' + +'There won't be much of Ashy left by that time, sir, if the +landlords go on pulling down cottages at their present rate; driving +the people into the towns, to herd together there like hogs, and +walk out to their work four or five miles every morning.' + +'Why,' said Lancelot, 'wherever one goes one sees commodious new +cottages springing up.' + +'Wherever you go, sir; but what of wherever you don't go? Along the +roadsides, and round the gentlemen's parks, where the cottages are +in sight, it's all very smart; but just go into the outlying +hamlets--a whited sepulchre, sir, is many a great estate; outwardly +swept and garnished, and inwardly full of all uncleanliness, and +dead men's bones.' + +At this moment two cloaked and veiled figures came up to the door, +followed by a servant. There was no mistaking those delicate +footsteps, and the two young men drew back with fluttering hearts, +and breathed out silent blessings on the ministering angels, as they +entered the crazy and reeking house. + +'I'm thinking, sir,' said Tregarva, as they walked slowly and +reluctantly away, 'that it is hard of the gentlemen to leave all +God's work to the ladies, as nine-tenths of them do.' + +'And I am thinking, Tregarva, that both for ladies and gentlemen, +prevention is better than cure.' + +'There's a great change come over Miss Argemone, sir. She used not +to be so ready to start out at midnight to visit dying folk. A +blessed change!' + +Lancelot thought so too, and he thought that he knew the cause of +it. + +Argemone's appearance, and their late conversation, had started a +new covey of strange fancies. Lancelot followed them over hill and +dale, glad to escape a moment from the mournful lessons of that +evening; but even over them there was a cloud of sadness. Harry +Verney's last words, and Argemone's accidental whisper about 'a +curse upon the Lavingtons,' rose to his mind. He longed to ask +Tregarva, but he was afraid--not of the man, for there was a +delicacy in his truthfulness which encouraged the most utter +confidence; but of the subject itself; but curiosity conquered. + +'What did Old Harry mean about the Nun-pool?' he said at last. +'Every one seemed to understand him.' + +'Ah, sir, he oughtn't to have talked of it! But dying men, at +times, see over the dark water into deep things--deeper than they +think themselves. Perhaps there's one speaks through them. But I +thought every one knew the story.' + +'I do not, at least.' + +'Perhaps it's so much the better, sir.' + +'Why? I must insist on knowing. It is necessary--proper, that is-- +that I should hear everything that concerns--' + +'I understand, sir; so it is; and I'll tell you. The story goes, +that in the old Popish times, when the nuns held Whitford Priors, +the first Mr. Lavington that ever was came from the king with a +warrant to turn them all out, poor souls, and take the lands for his +own. And they say the head lady of them--prioress, or abbess, as +they called her--withstood him, and cursed him, in the name of the +Lord, for a hypocrite who robbed harmless women under the cloak of +punishing them for sins they'd never committed (for they say, sir, +he went up to court, and slandered the nuns there for drunkards and +worse). And she told him, "That the curse of the nuns of Whitford +should be on him and his, till they helped the poor in the spirit of +the nuns of Whitford, and the Nun-pool ran up to Ashy Down.'" + +'That time is not come yet,' said Lancelot. + +'But the worst is to come, sir. For he or his, sir, that night, +said or did something to the lady, that was more than woman's heart +could bear: and the next morning she was found dead and cold, +drowned in that weir-pool. And there the gentleman's eldest son was +drowned, and more than one Lavington beside. Miss Argemone's only +brother, that was the heir, was drowned there too, when he was a +little one.' + +'I never heard that she had a brother.' + +'No, sir, no one talks of it. There are many things happen in the +great house that you must go to the little house to hear of. But +the country-folk believe, sir, that the nun's curse holds true; and +they say, that Whitford folks have been getting poorer and wickeder +ever since that time, and will, till the Nun-pool runs up to Ashy, +and the Lavingtons' name goes out of Whitford Priors.' + +Lancelot said nothing. A presentiment of evil hung over him. He +was utterly down-hearted about Tregarva, about Argemone, about the +poor. The truth was, he could not shake off the impression of the +scene he had left, utterly disappointed and disgusted with the +'revel.' He had expected, as I said before, at least to hear +something of pastoral sentiment, and of genial frolicsome humour; to +see some innocent, simple enjoyment: but instead, what had he seen +but vanity, jealousy, hoggish sensuality, dull vacuity? drudges +struggling for one night to forget their drudgery. And yet withal, +those songs, and the effect which they produced, showed that in +these poor creatures, too, lay the germs of pathos, taste, melody, +soft and noble affections. 'What right have we,' thought he, 'to +hinder their development? Art, poetry, music, science,--ay, even +those athletic and graceful exercises on which we all pride +ourselves, which we consider necessary to soften and refine +ourselves, what God has given us a monopoly of them?--what is good +for the rich man is good for the poor. Over-education? And what of +that? What if the poor be raised above "their station"? What right +have we to keep them down? How long have they been our born thralls +in soul, as well as in body? What right have we to say that they +shall know no higher recreation than the hogs, because, forsooth, if +we raised them, they might refuse to work--FOR US? Are WE to fix +how far their minds may be developed? Has not God fixed it for us, +when He gave them the same passions, talents, tastes, as our own?' + +Tregarva's meditations must have been running in a very different +channel, for he suddenly burst out, after a long silence-- + +'It's a pity these fairs can't be put down. They do a lot of harm; +ruin all the young girls round, the Dissenters' children especially, +for they run utterly wild; their parents have no hold on them at +all.' + +'They tell them that they are children of the devil,' said Lancelot. +'What wonder if the children take them at their word, and act +accordingly?' + +'The parson here, sir, who is a God-fearing man enough, tried hard +to put down this one, but the innkeepers were too strong for him.' + +'To take away their only amusement, in short. He had much better +have set to work to amuse them himself.' + +'His business is to save souls, sir, and not to amuse them. I don't +see, sir, what Christian people want with such vanities.' + +Lancelot did not argue the point, for he knew the prejudices of +Dissenters on the subject; but it did strike him that if Tregarva's +brain had been a little less preponderant, he, too, might have found +the need of some recreation besides books and thought. + +By this time they were at Lancelot's door. He bid the keeper a +hearty good-night, made him promise to see him next day, and went to +bed and slept till nearly noon. + +When he walked into his breakfast-room, he found a note on the table +in his uncle's handwriting. The vicar's servant had left it an hour +before. He opened it listlessly, rang the bell furiously, ordered +out his best horse, and, huddling on his clothes, galloped to the +nearest station, caught the train, and arrived at his uncle's bank-- +it had stopped payment two hours before. + + + +CHAPTER XIV: WHAT'S TO BE DONE? + + + +Yes! the bank had stopped. The ancient firm of Smith, Brown, Jones, +Robinson, and Co., which had been for some years past expanding from +a solid golden organism into a cobweb-tissue and huge balloon of +threadbare paper, had at last worn through and collapsed, dropping +its car and human contents miserably into the Thames mud. Why +detail the pitiable post-mortem examination resulting? Lancelot +sickened over it for many a long day; not, indeed, mourning at his +private losses, but at the thorough hollowness of the system which +it exposed, about which he spoke his mind pretty freely to his +uncle, who bore it good-humouredly enough. Indeed, the discussions +to which it gave rise rather comforted the good man, by turning his +thought from his own losses to general principles. 'I have ruined +you, my poor boy,' he used to say; 'so you may as well take your +money's worth out of me in bullying.' Nothing, indeed, could +surpass his honest and manly sorrow for having been the cause of +Lancelot's beggary; but as for persuading him that his system was +wrong, it was quite impossible. Not that Lancelot was hard upon +him; on the contrary, he assured him, repeatedly, of his conviction, +that the precepts of the Bible had nothing to do with the laws of +commerce; that though the Jews were forbidden to take interest of +Jews, Christians had a perfect right to be as hard as they liked on +'brother' Christians; that there could not be the least harm in +share-jobbing, for though it did, to be sure, add nothing to the +wealth of the community--only conjure money out of your neighbour's +pocket into your own--yet was not that all fair in trade? If a man +did not know the real value of the shares he sold you, you were not +bound to tell him. Again, Lancelot quite agreed with his uncle, +that though covetousness might be idolatry, yet money-making could +not be called covetousness; and that, on the whole, though making +haste to be rich was denounced as a dangerous and ruinous temptation +in St. Paul's times, that was not the slightest reason why it should +be so now. All these concessions were made with a freedom which +caused the good banker to suspect at times that his shrewd nephew +was laughing at him in his sleeve, but he could not but subscribe to +them for the sake of consistency; though as a staunch Protestant, it +puzzled him a little at times to find it necessary to justify +himself by getting his 'infidel' nephew to explain away so much of +the Bible for him. But men are accustomed to do that now-a-days, +and so was he. + +Once only did Lancelot break out with his real sentiments when the +banker was planning how to re-establish his credit; to set to work, +in fact, to blow over again the same bubble which had already burst +under him. + +'If I were a Christian,' said Lancelot, 'like you, I would call this +credit system of yours the devil's selfish counterfeit of God's +order of mutual love and trust; the child of that miserable dream, +which, as Dr. Chalmers well said, expects universal selfishness to +do the work of universal love. Look at your credit system, how--not +in its abuse, but in its very essence--it carries the seeds of self- +destruction. In the first place, a man's credit depends, not upon +his real worth and property, but upon his reputation for property; +daily and hourly he is tempted, he is forced, to puff himself, to +pretend to be richer than he is.' + +The banker sighed and shrugged his shoulders. 'We all do it, my +dear boy.' + +'I know it. You must do it, or be more than human. There is lie +the first, and look at lie the second. This credit system is +founded on the universal faith and honour of men towards men. But +do you think faith and honour can be the children of selfishness? +Men must be chivalrous and disinterested to be honourable. And you +expect them all to join in universal faith--each for his own selfish +interest? You forget that if that is the prime motive, men will be +honourable only as long as it suits that same self-interest.' + +The banker shrugged his shoulders again. + +'Yes, my dear uncle,' said Lancelot, 'you all forget it, though you +suffer for it daily and hourly; though the honourable men among you +complain of the stain which has fallen on the old chivalrous good +faith of English commerce, and say that now, abroad as well as at +home, an Englishman's word is no longer worth other men's bonds. +You see the evil, and you deplore it in disgust. Ask yourself +honestly, how can you battle against it, while you allow in +practice, and in theory too, except in church on Sundays, the very +falsehood from which it all springs?--that a man is bound to get +wealth, not for his country, but for himself; that, in short, not +patriotism, but selfishness, is the bond of all society. +Selfishness can collect, not unite, a herd of cowardly wild cattle, +that they may feed together, breed together, keep off the wolf and +bear together. But when one of your wild cattle falls sick, what +becomes of the corporate feelings of the herd then? For one man of +your class who is nobly helped by his fellows, are not the thousand +left behind to perish? Your Bible talks of society, not as a herd, +but as a living tree, an organic individual body, a holy +brotherhood, and kingdom of God. And here is an idol which you have +set up instead of it!' + +But the banker was deaf to all arguments. No doubt he had plenty, +for he was himself a just and generous--ay, and a God-fearing man in +his way, only he regarded Lancelot's young fancies as too visionary +to deserve an answer; which they most probably are; else, having +been broached as often as they have been, they would surely, ere +now, have provoked the complete refutation which can, no doubt, be +given to them by hundreds of learned votaries of so-called commerce. +And here I beg my readers to recollect that I am in no way +answerable for the speculations, either of Lancelot or any of his +acquaintances; and that these papers have been, from beginning to +end, as in name, so in nature, Yeast--an honest sample of the +questions, which, good or bad, are fermenting in the minds of the +young of this day, and are rapidly leavening the minds of the rising +generation. No doubt they are all as full of fallacies as possible, +but as long as the saying of the German sage stands true, that 'the +destiny of any nation, at any given moment, depends on the opinions +of its young men under five-and-twenty,' so long it must be worth +while for those who wish to preserve the present order of society to +justify its acknowledged evils somewhat, not only to the few young +men who are interested in preserving them, but also to the many who +are not. + +Though, therefore, I am neither Plymouth Brother nor Communist, and +as thoroughly convinced as the newspapers can make me, that to +assert the duties of property is only to plot its destruction, and +that a community of goods must needs imply a community of wives (as +every one knows was the case with the apostolic Christians), I shall +take the liberty of narrating Lancelot's fanatical conduct, without +execratory comment, certain that he will still receive his just +reward of condemnation; and that, if I find facts, a sensible public +will find abhorrence for them. His behaviour was, indeed, most +singular; he absolutely refused a good commercial situation which +his uncle procured him. He did not believe in being 'cured by a +hair of the dog that bit him;' and he refused, also, the really +generous offers of the creditors, to allow him a sufficient +maintenance. + +'No,' he said, 'no more pay without work for me. I will earn my +bread or starve. It seems God's will to teach me what poverty is--I +will see that His intention is not left half fulfilled. I have +sinned, and only in the stern delight of a just penance can I gain +self-respect.' + +'But, my dear madman,' said his uncle, 'you are just the innocent +one among us all. You, at least, were only a sleeping partner.' + +'And therein lies my sin; I took money which I never earned, and +cared as little how it was gained as how I spent it. Henceforth I +shall touch no farthing which is the fruit of a system which I +cannot approve. I accuse no one. Actions may vary in rightfulness, +according to the age and the person. But what may be right for you, +because you think it right, is surely wrong for me because I think +it wrong.' + +So, with grim determination, he sent to the hammer every article he +possessed, till he had literally nothing left but the clothes in +which he stood. 'He could not rest,' he said, 'till he had pulled +out all his borrowed peacock's feathers. When they were gone he +should be able to see, at last, whether he was jackdaw or eagle.' +And wonder not, reader, at this same strength of will. The very +genius, which too often makes its possessor self-indulgent in common +matters, from the intense capability of enjoyment which it brings, +may also, when once his whole being is stirred into motion by some +great object, transform him into a hero. + +And he carried a letter, too, in his bosom, night and day, which +routed all coward fears and sad forebodings as soon as they arose, +and converted the lonely and squalid lodging to which he had +retired, into a fairy palace peopled with bright phantoms of future +bliss. I need not say from whom it came. + +'Beloved!' (it ran) 'Darling! you need not pain yourself to tell me +anything. I know all; and I know, too (do not ask me how), your +noble determination to drink the wholesome cup of poverty to the +very dregs. + +'Oh that I were with you! Oh that I could give you my fortune! but +that is not yet, alas! in my own power. No! rather would I share +that poverty with you, and strengthen you in your purpose. And yet, +I cannot bear the thought of you, lonely--perhaps miserable. But, +courage! though you have lost all, you have found me; and now you +are knitting me to you for ever--justifying my own love to me by +your nobleness; and am I not worth all the world to you? I dare say +this to you; you will not think me conceited. Can we misunderstand +each other's hearts? And all this while you are alone! Oh! I have +mourned for you! Since I heard of your misfortune I have not tasted +pleasure. The light of heaven has been black to me, and I have +lived only upon love. I will not taste comfort while you are +wretched. Would that I could be poor like you! Every night upon +the bare floor I lie down to sleep, and fancy you in your little +chamber, and nestle to you, and cover that dear face with kisses. +Strange! that I should dare to speak thus to you, whom a few months +ago I had never heard of! Wonderful simplicity of love! How all +that is prudish and artificial flees before it! I seem to have +begun a new life. If I could play now, it would be only with little +children. Farewell! be great--a glorious future is before you and +me in you!' + +Lancelot's answer must remain untold; perhaps the veil has been +already too far lifted which hides the sanctuary of such love. But, +alas! to his letter no second had been returned; and he felt--though +he dared not confess it to himself--a gloomy presentiment of evil +flit across him, as he thought of his fallen fortunes, and the +altered light in which his suit would be regarded by Argemone's +parents. Once he blamed himself bitterly for not having gone to Mr. +Lavington the moment he discovered Argemone's affection, and +insuring--as he then might have done--his consent. But again he +felt that no sloth had kept him back, but adoring reverence for his +God-given treasure, and humble astonishment at his own happiness; +and he fled from the thought into renewed examination into the state +of the masses, the effect of which was only to deepen his own +determination to share their lot. + +But at the same time it seemed to him but fair to live, as long as +it would last, on that part of his capital which his creditors would +have given nothing for--namely, his information; and he set to work +to write. But, alas! he had but a 'small literary connection;' and +the entree of the initiated ring is not obtained in a day. . . . +Besides, he would not write trash.--He was in far too grim a humour +for that; and if he wrote on important subjects, able editors always +were in the habit of entrusting them to old contributors,--men, in +short, in whose judgment they had confidence--not to say anything +which would commit the magazine to anything but its own little +party-theory. And behold! poor Lancelot found himself of no party +whatsoever. He was in a minority of one against the whole world, on +all points, right or wrong. He had the unhappiest knack (as all +geniuses have) of seeing connections, humorous or awful, between the +most seemingly antipodal things; of illustrating every subject from +three or four different spheres which it is anathema to mention in +the same page. If he wrote a physical-science article, able editors +asked him what the deuce a scrap of high-churchism did in the middle +of it? If he took the same article to a high-church magazine, the +editor could not commit himself to any theory which made the earth +more than six thousand years old, and was afraid that the public +taste would not approve of the allusions to free-masonry and Soyer's +soup. . . . And worse than that, one and all--Jew, Turk, infidel, +and heretic, as well as the orthodox--joined in pious horror at his +irreverence;--the shocking way he had of jumbling religion and +politics--the human and the divine--the theories of the pulpit with +the facts of the exchange. . . . The very atheists, who laughed at +him for believing in a God, agreed that that, at least, was +inconsistent with the dignity of the God--who did not exist. . . . +It was Syncretism . . . Pantheism. . . . + +'Very well, friends,' quoth Lancelot to himself, in bitter rage, one +day, 'if you choose to be without God in the world, and to honour +Him by denying Him . . . do so! You shall have your way; and go to +the place whither it seems leading you just now, at railroad pace. +But I must live. . . . Well, at least, there is some old college +nonsense of mine, written three years ago, when I believed, like +you, that all heaven and earth was put together out of separate +bits, like a child's puzzle, and that each topic ought to have its +private little pigeon-hole all to itself in a man's brain, like +drugs in a chemist's shop. Perhaps it will suit you, friends; +perhaps it will be system-frozen, and narrow, and dogmatic, and +cowardly, and godless enough for you.' . . . So he went forth with +them to market; and behold! they were bought forthwith. There was +verily a demand for such; . . . and in spite of the ten thousand +ink-fountains which were daily pouring out similar Stygian liquors, +the public thirst remained unslaked. 'Well,' thought Lancelot, 'the +negro race is not the only one which is afflicted with manias for +eating dirt. . . . By the bye, where is poor Luke?' + +Ah! where was poor Luke? Lancelot had received from him one short +and hurried note, blotted with tears, which told how he had informed +his father; and how his father had refused to see him, and had +forbid him the house; and how he had offered him an allowance of +fifty pounds a year (it should have been five hundred, he said, if +he had possessed it), which Luke's director, sensibly enough, had +compelled him to accept. . . . And there the letter ended, +abruptly, leaving the writer evidently in lower depths than he had +either experienced already, or expected at all. + +Lancelot had often pleaded for him with his father; but in vain. +Not that the good man was hard-hearted: he would cry like a child +about it all to Lancelot when they sat together after dinner. But +he was utterly beside himself, what with grief, shame, terror, and +astonishment. On the whole, the sorrow was a real comfort to him: +it gave him something beside his bankruptcy to think of; and, +distracted between the two different griefs, he could brood over +neither. But of the two, certainly his son's conversion was the +worst in his eyes. The bankruptcy was intelligible--measurable; it +was something known and classified--part of the ills which flesh +(or, at least, commercial flesh) is heir to. But going to Rome!-- + +'I can't understand it. I won't believe it. It's so foolish, you +see, Lancelot--so foolish--like an ass that eats thistles! . . . +There must be some reason;--there must be--something we don't know, +sir! Do you think they could have promised to make him a cardinal?' + +Lancelot quite agreed that there were reasons for it, that they--or, +at least, the banker--did not know. . . . + +'Depend upon it, they promised him something--some prince-bishopric, +perhaps. Else why on earth could a man go over! It's out of the +course of nature!' + +Lancelot tried in vain to make him understand that a man might +sacrifice everything to conscience, and actually give up all worldly +weal for what he thought right. The banker turned on him with angry +resignation-- + +'Very well--I suppose he's done right then! I suppose you'll go +next! Take up a false religion, and give up everything for it! +Why, then, he must be honest; and if he's honest, he's in the right; +and I suppose I'd better go too!' + +Lancelot argued: but in vain. The idea of disinterested sacrifice +was so utterly foreign to the good man's own creed and practice, +that he could but see one pair of alternatives. + +'Either he is a good man, or he's a hypocrite. Either he's right, +or he's gone over for some vile selfish end; and what can that be +but money?' + +Lancelot gently hinted that there might be other selfish ends +besides pecuniary ones--saving one's soul, for instance. + +'Why, if he wants to save his soul, he's right. What ought we all +to do, but try to save our souls? I tell you there's some sinister +reason. They've told him that they expect to convert England--I +should like to see them do it!--and that he'll be made a bishop. +Don't argue with me, or you'll drive me mad. I know those Jesuits!' + +And as soon as he began upon the Jesuits, Lancelot prudently held +his tongue. The good man had worked himself up into a perfect +frenzy of terror and suspicion about them. He suspected concealed +Jesuits among his footmen and his housemaids; Jesuits in his +counting-house, Jesuits in his duns. . . . + +'Hang it, sir! how do I know that there ain't a Jesuit listening to +us now behind the curtain?' + +'I'll go and look,' quoth Lancelot, and suited the action to the +word. + +'Well, if there ain't there might be. They're everywhere, I tell +you. That vicar of Whitford was a Jesuit. I was sure of it all +along; but the man seemed so pious; and certainly he did my poor +dear boy a deal of good. But he ruined you, you know. And I'm +convinced--no, don't contradict me; I tell you, I won't stand it-- +I'm convinced that this whole mess of mine is a plot of those +rascals;--I'm as certain of it as if they'd told me!' + +'For what end?' + +'How the deuce can I tell? Am I a Jesuit, to understand their +sneaking, underhand--pah! I'm sick of life! Nothing but rogues +wherever one turns!' + +And then Lancelot used to try to persuade him to take poor Luke back +again. But vague terror had steeled his heart. + +'What! Why, he'd convert us all! He'd convert his sisters! He'd +bring his priests in here, or his nuns disguised as ladies' maids, +and we should all go over, every one of us, like a set of nine- +pins!' + +'You seem to think Protestantism a rather shaky cause, if it is so +easy to be upset.' + +'Sir! Protestantism is the cause of England and Christianity, and +civilisation, and freedom, and common sense, sir! and that's the +very reason why it's so easy to pervert men from it; and the very +reason why it's a lost cause, and popery, and Antichrist, and the +gates of hell are coming in like a flood to prevail against it!' + +'Well,' thought Lancelot, 'that is the very strangest reason for +it's being a lost cause! Perhaps if my poor uncle believed it +really to be the cause of God Himself, he would not be in such +extreme fear for it, or fancy it required such a hotbed and +greenhouse culture. . . . Really, if his sisters were little girls +of ten years old, who looked up to him as an oracle, there would be +some reason in it. . . . But those tall, ball-going, flirting, +self-satisfied cousins of mine--who would have been glad enough, +either of them, two months ago, to snap up me, infidelity, bad +character, and all, as a charming rich young roue--if they have not +learnt enough Protestantism in the last five-and-twenty years to +take care of themselves, Protestantism must have very few +allurements, or else be very badly carried out in practice by those +who talk loudest in favour of it. . . . I heard them praising +O'Blareaway's "ministry," by the bye, the other day. So he is up in +town at last--at the summit of his ambition. Well, he may suit +them. I wonder how many young creatures like Argemone and Luke he +would keep from Popery!' + +But there was no use arguing with a man in such a state of mind; and +gradually Lancelot gave it up, in hopes that time would bring the +good man to his sane wits again, and that a father's feelings would +prove themselves stronger, because more divine, than a so-called +Protestant's fears, though that would have been, in the banker's +eyes, and in the Jesuit's also--so do extremes meet--the very reason +for expecting them to be the weaker; for it is the rule with all +bigots, that the right cause is always a lost cause, and therefore +requires--God's weapons of love, truth, and reason being well known +to be too weak--to be defended, if it is to be saved, with the +devil's weapons of bad logic, spite, and calumny. + +At last, in despair of obtaining tidings of his cousin by any other +method, Lancelot made up his mind to apply to a certain remarkable +man, whose 'conversion' had preceded Luke's about a year, and had, +indeed, mainly caused it. + +He went, . . . and was not disappointed. With the most winning +courtesy and sweetness, his story and his request were patiently +listened to. + +'The outcome of your speech, then, my dear sir, as I apprehend it, +is a request to me to send back the fugitive lamb into the jaws of +the well-meaning, but still lupine wolf?' + +This was spoken with so sweet and arch a smile, that it was +impossible to be angry. + +'On my honour, I have no wish to convert him. All I want is to have +human speech of him--to hear from his own lips that he is content. +Whither should I convert him? Not to my own platform--for I am +nowhere. Not to that which he has left, . . . for if he could have +found standing ground there, he would not have gone elsewhere for +rest.' + +'Therefore they went out from you, because they were not of you,' +said the 'Father,' half aside. + +'Most true, sir. I have felt long that argument was bootless with +those whose root-ideas of Deity, man, earth, and heaven, were as +utterly different from my own, as if we had been created by two +different beings.' + +'Do you include in that catalogue those ideas of truth, love, and +justice, which are Deity itself? Have you no common ground in +them?' + +'You are an elder and a better man than I. . . . It would be +insolent in me to answer that question, except in one way, . . . +and--' + +'In that you cannot answer it. Be it so. . . . You shall see your +cousin. You may make what efforts you will for his re-conversion. +The Catholic Church,' continued he, with one of his arch, deep- +meaning smiles, 'is not, like popular Protestantism, driven into +shrieking terror at the approach of a foe. She has too much faith +in herself, and in Him who gives to her the power of truth, to +expect every gay meadow to allure away her lambs from the fold.' + +'I assure you that your gallant permission is unnecessary. I am +beginning, at least, to believe that there is a Father in Heaven who +educates His children; and I have no wish to interfere with His +methods. Let my cousin go his way . . . he will learn something +which he wanted, I doubt not, on his present path, even as I shall +on mine. "Se tu segui la tua stella" is my motto. . . . Let it be +his too, wherever the star may guide him. If it be a will-o'-the- +wisp, and lead to the morass, he will only learn how to avoid +morasses better for the future.' + +'Ave Maris stella! It is the star of Bethlehem which he follows . . +. the star of Mary, immaculate, all-loving!' . . . And he bowed his +head reverently. 'Would that you, too, would submit yourself to +that guidance! . . . You, too, would seem to want some loving heart +whereon to rest.' . . . + +Lancelot sighed. 'I am not a child, but a man; I want not a mother +to pet, but a man to rule me.' + +Slowly his companion raised his thin hand, and pointed to the +crucifix, which stood at the other end of the apartment. + +'Behold him!' and he bowed his head once more . . . and Lancelot, he +knew not why, did the same . . . and yet in an instant he threw his +head up proudly, and answered with George Fox's old reply to the +Puritans,-- + +'I want a live Christ, not a dead one. . . . That is noble . . . +beautiful . . . it may be true. . . . But it has no message for +me.' + +'He died for you.' + +'I care for the world, and not myself.' + +'He died for the world.' + +'And has deserted it, as folks say now, and become--an absentee, +performing His work by deputies. . . . Do not start; the blasphemy +is not mine, but those who preach it. No wonder that the owners of +the soil think it no shame to desert their estates, when preachers +tell them that He to whom they say, all power is given in heaven and +earth, has deserted His.' + +'What would you have, my dear sir?' asked the father. + +'What the Jews had. A king of my nation, and of the hearts of my +nation, who would teach soldiers, artists, craftsmen, statesmen, +poets, priests, if priests there must be. I want a human lord, who +understands me and the millions round me, pities us, teaches us, +orders our history, civilisation, development for us. I come to +you, full of manhood, and you send me to a woman. I go to the +Protestants, full of desires to right the world--and they begin to +talk of the next life, and give up this as lost!' + +A quiet smile lighted up the thin wan face, full of unfathomable +thoughts; and he replied, again half to himself,-- + +'Am I God, to kill or to make alive, that thou sendest to me to +recover a man of his leprosy? Farewell. You shall see your cousin +here at noon to-morrow. You will not refuse my blessing, or my +prayers, even though they be offered to a mother?' + +'I will refuse nothing in the form of human love.' And the father +blessed him fervently, and he went out. . . . + +'What a man!' said he to himself, 'or rather the wreck of what a +man! Oh, for such a heart, with the thews and sinews of a truly +English brain!' + +Next day he met Luke in that room. Their talk was short and sad. +Luke was on the point of entering an order devoted especially to the +worship of the Blessed Virgin. + +'My father has cast me out . . . I must go to her feet. She will +have mercy, though man has none.' + +'But why enter the order? Why take an irrevocable step?' + +'Because it is irrevocable; because I shall enter an utterly new +life, in which old things shall pass away, and all things become +new, and I shall forget the very names of Parent, Englishman, +Citizen,--the very existence of that strange Babel of man's +building, whose roar and moan oppress me every time I walk the +street. Oh, for solitude, meditation, penance! Oh, to make up by +bitter self-punishment my ingratitude to her who has been leading me +unseen, for years, home to her bosom!--The all-prevailing mother, +daughter of Gabriel, spouse of Deity, flower of the earth, whom I +have so long despised! Oh, to follow the example of the blessed +Mary of Oignies, who every day inflicted on her most holy person +eleven hundred stripes in honour of that all-perfect maiden!' + +'Such an honour, I could have thought, would have pleased better +Kali, the murder-goddess of the Thugs,' thought Lancelot to himself; +but he had not the heart to say it, and he only replied,-- + +'So torture propitiates the Virgin? That explains the strange story +I read lately, of her having appeared in the Cevennes, and informed +the peasantry that she had sent the potato disease on account of +their neglecting her shrines; that unless they repented, she would +next year destroy their cattle; and the third year, themselves.' + +'Why not?' asked poor Luke. + +'Why not, indeed? If God is to be capricious, proud, revengeful, +why not the Son of God? And if the Son of God, why not His mother?' + +'You judge spiritual feelings by the carnal test of the +understanding; your Protestant horror of asceticism lies at the root +of all you say. How can you comprehend the self-satisfaction, the +absolute delight, of self-punishment?' + +'So far from it, I have always had an infinite respect for +asceticism, as a noble and manful thing--the only manful thing to my +eyes left in popery; and fast dying out of that under Jesuit +influence. You recollect the quarrel between the Tablet and the +Jesuits, over Faber's unlucky honesty about St. Rose of Lima? . . . +But, really, as long as you honour asceticism as a means of +appeasing the angry deities, I shall prefer to St. Dominic's cuirass +or St. Hedwiga's chilblains, John Mytton's two hours' crawl on the +ice in his shirt, after a flock of wild ducks. They both endured +like heroes; but the former for a selfish, if not a blasphemous end; +the latter, as a man should, to test and strengthen his own powers +of endurance. . . . There, I will say no more. Go your way, in +God's name. There must be lessons to be learnt in all strong and +self-restraining action. . . . So you will learn something from the +scourge and the hair-shirt. We must all take the bitter medicine of +suffering, I suppose.' + +'And, therefore, I am the wiser, in forcing the draught on myself.' + +'Provided it be the right draught, and do not require another and +still bitterer one to expel the effects of the poison. I have no +faith in people's doctoring themselves, either physically or +spiritually.' + +'I am not my own physician; I follow the rules of an infallible +Church, and the examples of her canonised saints.' + +'Well . . . perhaps they may have known what was best for +themselves. . . . But as for you and me here, in the year 1849. . . +. However, we shall argue on for ever. Forgive me if I have +offended you.' + +'I am not offended. The Catholic Church has always been a +persecuted one.' + +'Then walk with me a little way, and I will persecute you no more.' + +'Where are you going?' + +'To . . . To--' Lancelot had not the heart to say whither. + +'To my father's! Ah! what a son I would have been to him now, in +his extreme need! . . . And he will not let me! Lancelot, is it +impossible to move him? I do not want to go home again . . . to +live there . . . I could not face that, though I longed but this +moment to do it. I cannot face the self-satisfied, pitying looks . +. . the everlasting suspicion that they suspect me to be speaking +untruths, or proselytising in secret. . . . Cruel and unjust!' + +Lancelot thought of a certain letter of Luke's . . . but who was he, +to break the bruised reed? + +'No; I will not see him. Better thus; better vanish, and be known +only according to the spirit by the spirits of saints and +confessors, and their successors upon earth. No! I will die, and +give no sign.' + +'I must see somewhat more of you, indeed.' + +'I will meet you here, then, two hours hence. Near that house--even +along the way which leads to it--I cannot go. It would be too +painful: too painful to think that you were walking towards it,-- +the old house where I was born and bred . . . and I shut out,--even +though it be for the sake of the kingdom of heaven!' + +'Or for the sake of your own share therein, my poor cousin!' thought +Lancelot to himself, 'which is a very different matter.' + +'Whither, after you have been--?' Luke could not get out the word +home. + +'To Claude Mellot's.' + +'I will walk part of the way thither with you. But he is a very bad +companion for you.' + +'I can't help that. I cannot live; and I am going to turn painter. +It is not the road in which to find a fortune; but still, the very +sign-painters live somehow, I suppose. I am going this very +afternoon to Claude Mellot, and enlist. I sold the last of my +treasured MSS. to a fifth-rate magazine this morning, for what it +would fetch. It has been like eating one's own children--but, at +least, they have fed me. So now "to fresh fields and pastures +new."' + + + +CHAPTER XV: DEUS E MACHINA + + + +When Lancelot reached the banker's a letter was put into his hand; +it bore the Whitford postmark, and Mrs. Lavington's handwriting. He +tore it open; it contained a letter from Argemone, which, it is +needless to say, he read before her mother's:-- + +'My beloved! my husband!--Yes--though you may fancy me fickle and +proud--I will call you so to the last; for were I fickle, I could +have saved myself the agony of writing this; and as for pride, oh! +how that darling vice has been crushed out of me! I have rolled at +my mother's feet with bitter tears, and vain entreaties--and been +refused; and yet I have obeyed her after all. We must write to each +other no more. This one last letter must explain the forced silence +which has been driving me mad with fears that you would suspect me. +And now you may call me weak; but it is your love which has made me +strong to do this--which has taught me to see with new intensity my +duty, not only to you, but to every human being--to my parents. By +this self-sacrifice alone can I atone to them for all my past +undutifulness. Let me, then, thus be worthy of you. Hope that by +this submission we may win even her to change. How calmly I write! +but it is only my hand that is calm. As for my heart, read +Tennyson's Fatima, and then know how I feel towards you! Yes, I +love you--madly, the world would say. I seem to understand now how +women have died of love. Ay, that indeed would be blessed; for then +my spirit would seek out yours, and hover over it for ever! +Farewell, beloved! and let me hear of you through your deeds. A +feeling at my heart, which should not be, although it is, a sad one, +tells me that we shall meet soon--soon.' + +Stupefied and sickened, Lancelot turned carelessly to Mrs. +Lavington's cover, whose blameless respectability thus uttered +itself:-- + +'I cannot deceive you or myself by saying I regret that providential +circumstances should have been permitted to break off a connection +which I always felt to be most unsuitable; and I rejoice that the +intercourse my dear child has had with you has not so far undermined +her principles as to prevent her yielding the most filial obedience +to my wishes on the point of her future correspondence with you. +Hoping that all that has occurred will be truly blessed to you, and +lead your thoughts to another world, and to a true concern for the +safety of your immortal soul, + +'I remain, yours truly, + +'C. LAVINGTON.' + +'Another world!' said Lancelot to himself. 'It is most merciful of +you, certainly, my dear madame, to put one in mind of the existence +of another world, while such as you have their own way in this one!' +and thrusting the latter epistle into the fire, he tried to collect +his thoughts. + +What had he lost? The oftener he asked himself, the less he found +to unman him. Argemone's letters were so new a want, that the +craving for them was not yet established. His intense imagination, +resting on the delicious certainty of her faith, seemed ready to +fill the silence with bright hopes and noble purposes. She herself +had said that he would see her soon. But yet--but yet--why did that +allusion to death strike chilly through him? They were but words,-- +a melancholy fancy, such as women love at times to play with. He +would toss it from him. At least here was another reason for +bestirring himself at once to win fame in the noble profession he +had chosen. + +And yet his brain reeled as he went upstairs to his uncle's private +room. + +There, however, he found a person closeted with the banker, whose +remarkable appearance drove everything else out of his mind. He was +a huge, shaggy, toil-worn man, the deep melancholy earnestness of +whose rugged features reminded him almost ludicrously of one of +Land-seer's bloodhounds. But withal there was a tenderness--a +genial, though covert humour playing about his massive features, +which awakened in Lancelot at first sight a fantastic longing to +open his whole heart to him. He was dressed like a foreigner, but +spoke English with perfect fluency. The banker sat listening, quite +crestfallen, beneath his intense and melancholy gaze, in which, +nevertheless, there twinkled some rays of kindly sympathy. + +'It was all those foreign railways,' said Mr. Smith pensively. + +'And it serves you quite right,' answered the stranger. 'Did I not +warn you of the folly and sin of sinking capital in foreign +countries while English land was crying out for tillage, and English +poor for employment?' + +'My dear friend' (in a deprecatory tone), 'it was the best possible +investment I could make.' + +'And pray, who told you that you were sent into the world to make +investments?' + +'But--' + +'But me no buts, or I won't stir a finger towards helping you. What +are you going to do with this money if I procure it for you?' + +'Work till I can pay back that poor fellow's fortune,' said the +banker, earnestly pointing to Lancelot. 'And if I could clear my +conscience of that, I would not care if I starved myself, hardly if +my own children did.' + +'Spoken like a man!' answered the stranger; 'work for that and I'll +help you. Be a new man, once and for all, my friend. Don't even +make this younker your first object. Say to yourself, not "I will +invest this money where it shall pay me most, but I will invest it +where it shall give most employment to English hands, and produce +most manufactures for English bodies." In short, seek first the +kingdom of God and His justice with this money of yours, and see if +all other things, profits and suchlike included, are not added unto +you.' + +'And you are certain you can obtain the money?' + +'My good friend the Begum of the Cannibal Islands has more than she +knows what to do with; and she owes me a good turn, you know.' + +'What are you jesting about now?' + +'Did I never tell you? The new king of the Cannibal Islands, just +like your European ones, ran away, and would neither govern himself +nor let any one else govern; so one morning his ministers, getting +impatient, ate him, and then asked my advice. I recommended them to +put his mother on the throne, who, being old and tough, would run +less danger; and since then everything has gone on smoothly as +anywhere else.' + +'Are you mad?' thought Lancelot to himself, as he stared at the +speaker's matter-of-fact face. + +'No, I am not mad, my young friend,' quoth he, facing right round +upon him, as if he had divined his thoughts. + +'I--I beg your pardon, I did not speak,' stammered Lancelot, abashed +at a pair of eyes which could have looked down the boldest mesmerist +in three seconds. + +'I am perfectly well aware that you did not. I must have some talk +with you: I've heard a good deal about you. You wrote those +articles in the --- Review about George Sand, did you not?' + +'I did.' + +'Well, there was a great deal of noble feeling in them, and a great +deal of abominable nonsense. You seem to be very anxious to reform +society?' + +'I am.' + +'Don't you think you had better begin by reforming yourself?' + +'Really, sir,' answered Lancelot, 'I am too old for that worn-out +quibble. The root of all my sins has been selfishness and sloth. +Am I to cure them by becoming still more selfish and slothful? What +part of myself can I reform except my actions? and the very sin of +my actions has been, as I take it, that I've been doing nothing to +reform others; never fighting against the world, the flesh, and the +devil, as your Prayer-book has it.' + +'MY Prayer-book?' answered the stranger, with a quaint smile. + +'Upon my word, Lancelot,' interposed the banker, with a frightened +look, 'you must not get into an argument: you must be more +respectful: you don't know to whom you are speaking.' + +'And I don't much care,' answered he. 'Life is really too grim +earnest in these days to stand on ceremony. I am sick of blind +leaders of the blind, of respectable preachers to the respectable, +who drawl out second-hand trivialities, which they neither practise +nor wish to see practised. I've had enough all my life of Scribes +and Pharisees in white cravats, laying on man heavy burdens, and +grievous to be borne, and then not touching them themselves with one +of their fingers.' + +'Silence, sir!' roared the banker, while the stranger threw himself +into a chair, and burst into a storm of laughter. + +'Upon my word, friend Mammon, here's another of Hans Andersen's ugly +ducks!' + +'I really do not mean to be rude,' said Lancelot, recollecting +himself, 'but I am nearly desperate. If your heart is in the right +place, you will understand me! if not, the less we talk to each +other the better.' + +'Most true,' answered the stranger; 'and I do understand you; and +if, as I hope, we see more of each other henceforth, we will see if +we cannot solve one or two of these problems between us.' + +At this moment Lancelot was summoned downstairs, and found, to his +great pleasure, Tregarva waiting for him. That worthy personage +bowed to Lancelot reverently and distantly. + +'I am quite ashamed to intrude myself upon you, sir, but I could not +rest without coming to ask whether you have had any news.'--He broke +down at this point in the sentence, but Lancelot understood him. + +'I have no news,' he said. 'But what do you mean by standing off in +that way, as if we were not old and fast friends? Remember, I am as +poor as you are now; you may look me in the face and call me your +equal, if you will, or your inferior; I shall not deny it.' + +'Pardon me, sir,' answered Tregarva; 'but I never felt what a real +substantial thing rank is, as I have since this sad misfortune of +yours.' + +'And I have never till now found out its worthlessness.' + +'You're wrong, sir, you are wrong; look at the difference between +yourself and me. When you've lost all you have, and seven times +more, you're still a gentleman. No man can take that from you. You +may look the proudest duchess in the land in the face, and claim her +as your equal; while I, sir,--I don't mean, though, to talk of +myself--but suppose that you had loved a pious and a beautiful lady, +and among all your worship of her, and your awe of her, had felt +that you were worthy of her, that you could become her comforter, +and her pride, and her joy, if it wasn't for that accursed gulf that +men had put between you, that you were no gentleman; that you didn't +know how to walk, and how to pronounce, and when to speak, and when +to be silent, not even how to handle your own knife and fork without +disgusting her, or how to keep your own body clean and sweet--Ah, +sir, I see it now as I never did before, what a wall all these +little defects build up round a poor man; how he longs and struggles +to show himself as he is at heart, and cannot, till he feels +sometimes as if he was enchanted, pent up, like folks in fairy +tales, in the body of some dumb beast. But, sir,' he went on, with +a concentrated bitterness which Lancelot had never seen in him +before, 'just because this gulf which rank makes is such a deep one, +therefore it looks to me all the more devilish; not that I want to +pull down any man to my level; I despise my own level too much; I +want to rise; I want those like me to rise with me. Let the rich be +as rich as they will.--I, and those like me, covet not money, but +manners. Why should not the workman be a gentleman, and a workman +still? Why are they to be shut out from all that is beautiful, and +delicate, and winning, and stately?' + +'Now perhaps,' said Lancelot, 'you begin to understand what I was +driving at on that night of the revel?' + +'It has come home to me lately, sir, bitterly enough. If you knew +what had gone on in me this last fortnight, you would know that I +had cause to curse the state of things which brings a man up a +savage against his will, and cuts him off, as if he were an ape or a +monster, from those for whom the same Lord died, and on whom the +same Spirit rests. Is that God's will, sir? No, it is the devil's +will. "Those whom God hath joined, let no man put asunder."' + +Lancelot coloured, for he remembered with how much less reason he +had been lately invoking in his own cause those very words. He was +at a loss for an answer; but seeing, to his relief, that Tregarva +had returned to his usual impassive calm, he forced him to sit down, +and began questioning him as to his own prospects and employment. + +About them Tregarva seemed hopeful enough. He had found out a +Wesleyan minister in town who knew him, and had, by his means, after +assisting for a week or two in the London City Mission, got some +similar appointment in a large manufacturing town. Of the state of +things he spoke more sadly than ever. 'The rich cannot guess, sir, +how high ill-feeling is rising in these days. It's not only those +who are outwardly poorest who long for change; the middling people, +sir, the small town shopkeepers especially, are nearly past all +patience. One of the City Mission assured me that he has been +watching them these several years past, and that nothing could beat +their fortitude and industry, and their determination to stand +peaceably by law and order; but yet, this last year or two, things +are growing too bad to bear. Do what they will, they cannot get +their bread; and when a man cannot get that, sir--' + +'But what do you think is the reason of it?' + +'How should I tell, sir? But if I had to say, I should say this-- +just what they say themselves--that there are too many of them. Go +where you will, in town or country, you'll find half-a-dozen shops +struggling for a custom that would only keep up one, and so they're +forced to undersell one another. And when they've got down prices +all they can by fair means, they're forced to get them down lower by +foul--to sand the sugar, and sloe-leave the tea, and put--Satan only +that prompts 'em knows what--into the bread; and then they don't +thrive--they can't thrive; God's curse must be on them. They begin +by trying to oust each other, and eat each other up; and while +they're eating up their neighbours, their neighbours eat up them; +and so they all come to ruin together.' + +'Why, you talk like Mr. Mill himself, Tregarva; you ought to have +been a political economist, and not a City missionary. By the bye, +I don't like that profession for you.' + +'It's the Lord's work, sir. It's the very sending to the Gentiles +that the Lord promised me.' + +'I don't doubt it, Paul; but you are meant for other things, if not +better. There are plenty of smaller men than you to do that work. +Do you think that God would have given you that strength, that +brain, to waste on a work which could be done without them? Those +limbs would certainly be good capital for you, if you turned a live +model at the Academy. Perhaps you'd better be mine; but you can't +even be that if you go to Manchester.' + +The giant looked hopelessly down at his huge limbs. 'Well! God +only knows what use they are of just now. But as for the brains, +sir--in much learning is much sorrow. One had much better work than +read, I find. If I read much more about what men might be, and are +not, and what English soil might be, and is not, I shall go mad. +And that puts me in mind of one thing I came here for, though, like +a poor rude country fellow as I am, I clean forgot it a thinking of- +-Look here, sir; you've given me a sight of books in my time, and +God bless you for it. But now I hear that--that you are determined +to be a poor man like us; and that you shan't be, while Paul +Tregarva has ought of yours. So I've just brought all the books +back, and there they lie in the hall; and may God reward you for the +loan of them to his poor child! And so, sir, farewell;' and he rose +to go. + +'No, Paul; the books and you shall never part.' + +'And I say, sir, the books and you shall never part.' + +'Then we two can never part'--and a sudden impulse flashed over him- +-'and we will not part, Paul! The only man whom I utterly love, and +trust, and respect on the face of God's earth, is you; and I cannot +lose sight of you. If we are to earn our bread, let us earn it +together; if we are to endure poverty, and sorrow, and struggle to +find out the way of bettering these wretched millions round us, let +us learn our lesson together, and help each other to spell it out.' + +'Do you mean what you say?' asked Paul slowly. + +'I do.' + +'Then I say what you say. Where thou goest, I will go; and where +thou lodgest, I will lodge. Come what will, I will be your servant, +for good luck or bad, for ever.' + +'My equal, Paul, not my servant.' + +'I know my place, sir. When I am as learned and as well-bred as +you, I shall not refuse to call myself your equal; and the sooner +that day comes, the better I shall be pleased. Till then I am your +friend and your brother; but I am your scholar too, and I shall not +set up myself against my master.' + +'I have learnt more of you, Paul, than ever you have learnt of me. +But be it as you will; only whatever you may call yourself, we must +eat at the same table, live in the same room, and share alike all +this world's good things--or we shall have no right to share +together this world's bad things. If that is your bargain, there is +my hand on it.' + +'Amen!' quoth Tregarva; and the two young men joined hands in that +sacred bond--now growing rarer and rarer year by year--the utter +friendship of two equal manful hearts. + +'And now, sir, I have promised--and you would have me keep my +promise--to go and work for the City Mission in Manchester--at +least, for the next month, till a young man's place who has just +left, is filled up. Will you let me go for that time? and then, if +you hold your present mind, we will join home and fortunes +thenceforth, and go wherever the Lord shall send us. There's work +enough of His waiting to be done. I don't doubt but if we are +willing and able, He will set us about the thing we're meant for.' + +As Lancelot opened the door for him, he lingered on the steps, and +grasping his hand, said, in a low, earnest voice: 'The Lord be with +you, sir. Be sure that He has mighty things in store for you, or He +would not have brought you so low in the days of your youth.' + +'And so,' as John Bunyan has it, 'he went on his way;' and Lancelot +saw him no more till--but I must not outrun the order of time. + +After all, this visit came to Lancelot timely. It had roused him to +hope, and turned off his feelings from the startling news he had +just heard. He stepped along arm in arm with Luke, cheerful, and +fate-defiant, and as he thought of Tregarva's complaints,-- + +'The beautiful?' he said to himself, 'they shall have it! At least +they shall be awakened to feel their need of it, their right to it. +What a high destiny, to be the artist of the people! to devote one's +powers of painting, not to mimicking obsolete legends, Pagan or +Popish, but to representing to the working men of England the +triumphs of the Past and the yet greater triumphs of the Future!' + +Luke began at once questioning him about his father. + +'And is he contrite and humbled? Does he see that he has sinned?' + +'In what?' + +'It is not for us to judge; but surely it must have been some sin or +other of his which has drawn down such a sore judgment on him.' + +Lancelot smiled; but Luke went on, not perceiving him. + +'Ah! we cannot find out for him. Nor has he, alas! as a Protestant, +much likelihood of finding out for himself. In our holy church he +would have been compelled to discriminate his faults by methodic +self-examination, and lay them one by one before his priest for +advice and pardon, and so start a new and free man once more.' + +'Do you think,' asked Lancelot with a smile, 'that he who will not +confess his faults either to God or to himself, would confess them +to man? And would his priest honestly tell him what he really wants +to know? which sin of his has called down this so-called judgment? +It would be imputed, I suppose, to some vague generality, to +inattention to religious duties, to idolatry of the world, and so +forth. But a Romish priest would be the last person, I should +think, who could tell him fairly, in the present case, the cause of +his affliction; and I question whether he would give a patient +hearing to any one who told it him.' + +'How so? Though, indeed, I have remarked that people are perfectly +willing to be told they are miserable sinners, and to confess +themselves such, in a general way; but if the preacher once begins +to specify, to fix on any particular act or habit, he is accused of +personality or uncharitableness; his hearers are ready to confess +guilty to any sin but the very one with which he charges them. But, +surely, this is just what I am urging against you Protestants--just +what the Catholic use of confession obviates.' + +'Attempts to do so, you mean!' answered Lancelot. 'But what if your +religion preaches formally that which only remains in our religion +as a fast-dying superstition?--That those judgments of God, as you +call them, are not judgments at all in any fair use of the word, but +capricious acts of punishment on the part of Heaven, which have no +more reference to the fault which provokes them, than if you cut off +a man's finger because he made a bad use of his tongue. That is +part, but only a part, of what I meant just now, by saying that +people represent God as capricious, proud, revengeful.' + +'But do not Protestants themselves confess that our sins provoke +God's anger?' + +'Your common creed, when it talks rightly of God as one "who has no +passions," ought to make you speak more reverently of the +possibility of any act of ours disturbing the everlasting equanimity +of the absolute Love. Why will men so often impute to God the +miseries which they bring upon themselves?' + +'Because, I suppose, their pride makes them more willing to confess +themselves sinners than fools.' + +'Right, my friend; they will not remember that it is of "their +pleasant vices that God makes whips to scourge them." Oh, I at +least have felt the deep wisdom of that saying of Wilhelm Meister's +harper, that it is + + +"Voices from the depth of NATURE borne +Which woe upon the guilty head proclaim." + + +Of nature--of those eternal laws of hers which we daily break. Yes! +it is not because God's temper changes, but because God's universe +is unchangeable, that such as I, such as your poor father, having +sown the wind, must reap the whirlwind. I have fed my self-esteem +with luxuries and not with virtue, and, losing them, have nothing +left. He has sold himself to a system which is its own punishment. +And yet the last place in which he will look for the cause of his +misery is in that very money-mongering to which he now clings as +frantically as ever. But so it is throughout the world. Only look +down over that bridge-parapet, at that huge black-mouthed sewer, +vomiting its pestilential riches across the mud. There it runs, and +will run, hurrying to the sea vast stores of wealth, elaborated by +Nature's chemistry into the ready materials of food; which proclaim, +too, by their own foul smell, God's will that they should be buried +out of sight in the fruitful all-regenerating grave of earth: there +it runs, turning them all into the seeds of pestilence, filth, and +drunkenness.--And then, when it obeys the laws which we despise, and +the pestilence is come at last, men will pray against it, and +confess it to be "a judgment for their sins;" but if you ask WHAT +sin, people will talk about "les voiles d'airain," as Fourier says, +and tell you that it is presumptuous to pry into God's secret +counsels, unless, perhaps, some fanatic should inform you that the +cholera has been drawn down on the poor by the endowment of Maynooth +by the rich.' + +'It is most fearful, indeed, to think that these diseases should be +confined to the poor--that a man should be exposed to cholera, +typhus, and a host of attendant diseases, simply because he is born +into the world an artisan; while the rich, by the mere fact of +money, are exempt from such curses, except when they come in contact +with those whom they call on Sunday "their brethren," and on week +days the "masses." + +'Thank Heaven that you do see that,--that in a country calling +itself civilised and Christian, pestilence should be the peculiar +heritage of the poor! It is past all comment.' + +'And yet are not these pestilences a judgment, even on them, for +their dirt and profligacy?' + +'And how should they be clean without water? And how can you wonder +if their appetites, sickened with filth and self-disgust, crave +after the gin-shop for temporary strength, and then for temporary +forgetfulness? Every London doctor knows that I speak the truth; +would that every London preacher would tell that truth from his +pulpit!' + +'Then would you too say, that God punishes one class for the sins of +another?' + +'Some would say,' answered Lancelot, half aside, 'that He may be +punishing them for not demanding their RIGHT to live like human +beings, to all those social circumstances which shall not make their +children's life one long disease. But are not these pestilences a +judgment on the rich, too, in the truest sense of the word? Are +they not the broad, unmistakable seal to God's opinion of a state of +society which confesses its economic relations to be so utterly +rotten and confused, that it actually cannot afford to save yearly +millions of pounds' worth of the materials of food, not to mention +thousands of human lives? Is not every man who allows such things +hastening the ruin of the society in which he lives, by helping to +foster the indignation and fury of its victims? Look at that group +of stunted, haggard artisans, who are passing us. What if one day +they should call to account the landlords whose coveteousness and +ignorance make their dwellings hells on earth?' + +By this time they had reached the artist's house. + +Luke refused to enter. . . . 'He had done with this world, and the +painters of this world.' . . . And with a tearful last farewell, +he turned away up the street, leaving Lancelot to gaze at his slow, +painful steps, and abject, earth-fixed mien. + +'Ah!' thought Lancelot, 'here is the end of YOUR anthropology! At +first, your ideal man is an angel. But your angel is merely an +unsexed woman; and so you are forced to go back to the humanity +after all--but to a woman, not a man? And this, in the nineteenth +century, when men are telling us that the poetic and enthusiastic +have become impossible, and that the only possible state of the +world henceforward will be a universal good-humoured hive, of the +Franklin-Benthamite religion . . . a vast prosaic Cockaigne of steam +mills for grinding sausages--for those who can get at them. And all +the while, in spite of all Manchester schools, and high and dry +orthodox schools, here are the strangest phantasms, new and old, +sane and insane, starting up suddenly into live practical power, to +give their prosaic theories the lie--Popish conversions, Mormonisms, +Mesmerisms, Californias, Continental revolutions, Paris days of June +. . . Ye hypocrites! ye can discern the face of the sky, and yet ye +cannot discern the signs of this time!' + +He was ushered upstairs to the door of his studio, at which he +knocked, and was answered by a loud 'Come in.' Lancelot heard a +rustle as he entered, and caught sight of a most charming little +white foot retreating hastily through the folding doors into the +inner room. + +The artist, who was seated at his easel, held up his brush as a +signal of silence, and did not even raise his eyes till he had +finished the touches on which he was engaged. + +'And now--what do I see!--the last man I should have expected! I +thought you were far down in the country. And what brings you to me +with such serious and business-like looks?' + +'I am a penniless youth--' + +'What?' + +'Ruined to my last shilling, and I want to turn artist.' + +'Oh, ye gracious powers! Come to my arms, brother at last with me +in the holy order of those who must work or starve. Long have I +wept in secret over the pernicious fulness of your purse!' + +'Dry your tears, then, now,' said Lancelot, 'for I neither have ten +pounds in the world, nor intend to have till I can earn them.' + +'Artist!' ran on Mellot; 'ah! you shall be an artist, indeed! You +shall stay with me and become the English Michael Angelo; or, if you +are fool enough, go to Rome, and utterly eclipse Overbeck, and throw +Schadow for ever into the shade.' + +'I fine you a supper,' said Lancelot, 'for that execrable attempt at +a pun.' + +'Agreed! Here, Sabina, send to Covent Garden for huge nosegays, and +get out the best bottle of Burgundy. We will pass an evening worthy +of Horace, and with garlands and libations honour the muse of +painting.' + +'Luxurious dog!' said Lancelot, 'with all your cant about poverty.' + +As he spoke, the folding doors opened, and an exquisite little +brunette danced in from the inner room, in which, by the bye, had +been going on all the while a suspicious rustling, as of garments +hastily arranged. She was dressed gracefully in a loose French +morning-gown, down which Lancelot's eye glanced towards the little +foot, which, however, was now hidden in a tiny velvet slipper. The +artist's wife was a real beauty, though without a single perfect +feature, except a most delicious little mouth, a skin like velvet, +and clear brown eyes, from which beamed earnest simplicity and arch +good humour. She darted forward to her husband's friend, while her +rippling brown hair, fantastically arranged, fluttered about her +neck, and seizing Lancelot's hands successively in both of hers, +broke out in an accent prettily tinged with French,-- + +'Charming!--delightful! And so you are really going to turn +painter! And I have longed so to be introduced to you! Claude has +been raving about you these two years; you already seem to me the +oldest friend in the world. You must not go to Rome. We shall keep +you, Mr. Lancelot; positively you must come and live with us--we +shall be the happiest trio in London. I will make you so +comfortable: you must let me cater for you--cook for you.' + +'And be my study sometimes?' said Lancelot, smiling. + +'Ah,' she said, blushing, and shaking her pretty little fist at +Claude, 'that madcap! how he has betrayed me! When he is at his +easel, he is so in the seventh heaven, that he sees nothing, thinks +of nothing, but his own dreams.' + +At this moment a heavy step sounded on the stairs, the door opened, +and there entered, to Lancelot's astonishment, the stranger who had +just puzzled him so much at his uncle's. + +Claude rose reverentially, and came forward, but Sabina was +beforehand with him, and running up to her visitor, kissed his hand +again and again, almost kneeling to him. + +'The dear master!' she cried; 'what a delightful surprise! we have +not seen you this fortnight past, and gave you up for lost.' + +'Where do you come from, my dear master?' asked Claude. + +'From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in +it,' answered he, smiling, and laying his finger on his lips, 'my +dear pupils. And you are both well and happy?' + +'Perfectly, and doubly delighted at your presence to-day, for your +advice will come in a providential moment for my friend here.' + +'Ah!' said the strange man, 'well met once more! So you are going +to turn painter?' + +He bent a severe and searching look on Lancelot. + +'You have a painter's face, young man,' he said; 'go on and prosper. +What branch of art do you intend to study?' + +'The ancient Italian painters, as my first step.' + +'Ancient? it is not four hundred years since Perugino died. But I +should suppose you do not intend to ignore classic art?' + +'You have divined rightly. I wish, in the study of the antique, to +arrive at the primeval laws of unfallen human beauty.' + +'Were Phidias and Praxiteles, then, so primeval? the world had +lasted many a thousand years before their turn came. If you intend +to begin at the beginning, why not go back at once to the garden of +Eden, and there study the true antique?' + +'If there were but any relics of it,' said Lancelot, puzzled, and +laughing. + +'You would find it very near you, young man, if you had but eyes to +see it.' + +Claude Mellot laughed significantly, and Sabina clapped her little +hands. + +'Yet till you take him with you, master, and show it to him, he must +needs be content with the Royal Academy and the Elgin marbles.' + +'But to what branch of painting, pray,' said the master to Lancelot, +'will you apply your knowledge of the antique? Will you, like this +foolish fellow here' (with a kindly glance at Claude), 'fritter +yourself away on Nymphs and Venuses, in which neither he nor any one +else believes?' + +'Historic art, as the highest,' answered Lancelot, 'is my ambition.' + +'It is well to aim at the highest, but only when it is possible for +us. And how can such a school exist in England now? You English +must learn to understand your own history before you paint it. +Rather follow in the steps of your Turners, and Landseers, and +Standfields, and Creswicks, and add your contribution to the present +noble school of naturalist painters. That is the niche in the +temple which God has set you English to fill up just now. These +men's patient, reverent faith in Nature as they see her, their +knowledge that the ideal is neither to be invented nor abstracted, +but found and left where God has put it, and where alone it can be +represented, in actual and individual phenomena;--in these lies an +honest development of the true idea of Protestantism, which is +paving the way to the mesothetic art of the future.' + +'Glorious!' said Sabina: 'not a single word that we poor creatures +can understand!' + +But our hero, who always took a virtuous delight in hearing what he +could not comprehend, went on to question the orator. + +'What, then, is the true idea of Protestantism?' said he. + +'The universal symbolism and dignity of matter, whether in man or +nature.' + +'But the Puritans--?' + +'Were inconsistent with themselves and with Protestantism, and +therefore God would not allow them to proceed. Yet their +repudiation of all art was better than the Judas-kiss which Romanism +bestows on it, in the meagre eclecticism of the ancient religious +schools, and of your modern Overbecks and Pugins. The only really +wholesome designer of great power whom I have seen in Germany is +Kaulbach; and perhaps every one would not agree with my reasons for +admiring him, in this whitewashed age. But you, young sir, were +meant for better things than art. Many young geniuses have an early +hankering, as Goethe had, to turn painters. It seems the shortest +and easiest method of embodying their conceptions in visible form; +but they get wiser afterwards, when they find in themselves thoughts +that cannot be laid upon the canvas. Come with me--I like striking +while the iron is hot; walk with me towards my lodgings, and we will +discuss this weighty matter.' + +And with a gay farewell to the adoring little Sabina, he passed an +iron arm through Lancelot's, and marched him down into the street. + +Lancelot was surprised and almost nettled at the sudden influence +which he found this quaint personage was exerting over him. But he +had, of late, tasted the high delight of feeling himself under the +guidance of a superior mind, and longed to enjoy it once more. +Perhaps they were reminiscences of this kind which stirred in him +the strange fancy of a connection, almost of a likeness, between his +new acquaintance and Argemone. He asked, humbly enough, why Art was +to be a forbidden path to him? + +'Besides you are an Englishman, and a man of uncommon talent, unless +your physiognomy belies you; and one, too, for whom God has strange +things in store, or He would not have so suddenly and strangely +overthrown you.' + +Lancelot started. He remembered that Tregarva had said just the +same thing to him that very morning, and the (to him) strange +coincidence sank deep into his heart. + +'You must be a politician,' the stranger went on. 'You are bound to +it as your birthright. It has been England's privilege hitherto to +solve all political questions as they arise for the rest of the +world; it is her duty now. Here, or nowhere, must the solution be +attempted of those social problems which are convulsing more and +more all Christendom. She cannot afford to waste brains like yours, +while in thousands of reeking alleys, such as that one opposite us, +heathens and savages are demanding the rights of citizenship. +Whether they be right or wrong, is what you, and such as you, have +to find out at this day.' + +Silent and thoughtful, Lancelot walked on by his side. + +'What is become of your friend Tregarva? I met him this morning +after he parted from you, and had some talk with him. I was sorely +minded to enlist him. Perhaps I shall; in the meantime, I shall +busy myself with you.' + +'In what way,' asked Lancelot, 'most strange sir, of whose name, +much less of whose occupation, I can gain no tidings.' + +'My name for the time being is Barnakill. And as for business, as +it is your English fashion to call new things obstinately by old +names, careless whether they apply or not, you may consider me as a +recruiting-sergeant; which trade, indeed, I follow, though I am no +more like the popular red-coated ones than your present "glorious +constitution" is like William the Third's, or Overbeck's high art +like Fra Angelico's. Farewell! When I want you, which will be most +likely when you want me, I shall find you again.' + +The evening was passed, as Claude had promised, in a truly Horatian +manner. Sabina was most piquante, and Claude interspersed his +genial and enthusiastic eloquence with various wise saws of 'the +prophet.' + +'But why on earth,' quoth Lancelot, at last, 'do you call him a +prophet?' + +'Because he is one; it's his business, his calling. He gets his +living thereby, as the showman did by his elephant.' + +'But what does he foretell?' + +'Oh, son of the earth! And you went to Cambridge--are reported to +have gone in for the thing, or phantom, called the tripos, and taken +a first class! . . . Did you ever look out the word "prophetes" in +Liddell and Scott?' + +'Why, what do you know about Liddell and Scott?' + +'Nothing, thank goodness; I never had time to waste over the crooked +letters. But I have heard say that prophetes means, not a +foreteller, but an out-teller--one who declares the will of a deity, +and interprets his oracles. Is it not so?' + +'Undeniably.' + +'And that he became a foreteller among heathens at least--as I +consider, among all peoples whatsoever--because knowing the real +bearing of what had happened, and what was happening, he could +discern the signs of the times, and so had what the world calls a +shrewd guess--what I, like a Pantheist as I am denominated, should +call a divine and inspired foresight--of what was going to happen.' + +'A new notion, and a pleasant one, for it looks something like a +law.' + +'I am no scollard, as they would say in Whitford, you know; but it +has often struck me, that if folks would but believe that the +Apostles talked not such very bad Greek, and had some slight notion +of the received meaning of the words they used, and of the absurdity +of using the same term to express nineteen different things, the New +Testament would be found to be a much simpler and more severely +philosophic book than "Theologians" ("Anthropo-sophists" I call +them) fancy.' + +'Where on earth did you get all this wisdom, or foolishness?' + +'From the prophet, a fortnight ago.' + +'Who is this prophet? I will know.' + +'Then you will know more than I do. Sabina--light my meerschaum, +there's a darling; it will taste the sweeter after your lips.' And +Claude laid his delicate woman-like limbs upon the sofa, and looked +the very picture of luxurious nonchalance. + +'What is he, you pitiless wretch?' + +'Fairest Hebe, fill our Prometheus Vinctus another glass of +Burgundy, and find your guitar, to silence him.' + +'It was the ocean nymphs who came to comfort Prometheus--and +unsandalled, too, if I recollect right,' said Lancelot, smiling at +Sabina. 'Come, now, if he will not tell me, perhaps you will?' + +Sabina only blushed, and laughed mysteriously. + +'You surely are intimate with him, Claude? When and where did you +meet him first?' + +'Seventeen years ago, on the barricades of the three days, in the +charming little pandemonium called Paris, he picked me out of a +gutter, a boy of fifteen, with a musket-ball through my body; mended +me, and sent me to a painter's studio. . . . The next sejour I had +with him began in sight of the Demawend. Sabina, perhaps you might +like to relate to Mr. Smith that interview, and the circumstances +under which you made your first sketch of that magnificent and +little-known volcano?' + +Sabina blushed again--this time scarlet; and, to Lancelot's +astonishment, pulled off her slipper, and brandishing it daintily, +uttered some unintelligible threat, in an Oriental language, at the +laughing Claude. + +'Why, you must have been in the East?' + +'Why not! Do you think that figure and that walk were picked up in +stay-ridden, toe-pinching England? . . . Ay, in the East; and why +not elsewhere? Do you think I got my knowledge of the human figure +from the live-model in the Royal Academy?' + +'I certainly have always had my doubts of it. You are the only man +I know who can paint muscle in motion.' + +'Because I am almost the only man in England who has ever seen it. +Artists should go to the Cannibal Islands for that. . . . J'ai fait +le grand tour. I should not wonder if the prophet made you take +it.' + +'That would be very much as I chose.' + +'Or otherwise.' + +'What do you mean?' + +'That if he wills you to go, I defy you to stay. Eh, Sabina!' + +'Well, you are a very mysterious pair,--and a very charming one.' + +'So we think ourselves--as to the charmingness. . . . and as for the +mystery . . . "Omnia exeunt in mysterium," says somebody, somewhere- +-or if he don't, ought to, seeing that it is so. You will be a +mystery some day, and a myth, and a thousand years hence pious old +ladies will be pulling caps as to whether you were a saint or a +devil, and whether you did really work miracles or not, as +corroborations of your ex-supra-lunar illumination on social +questions. . . . Yes . . . you will have to submit, and see Bogy, +and enter the Eleusinian mysteries. Eh, Sabina?' + +'My dear Claude, what between the Burgundy and your usual +foolishness, you seem very much inclined to divulge the Eleusinian +mysteries.' + +'I can't well do that, my beauty, seeing that, if you recollect, we +were both turned back at the vestibule, for a pair of naughty +children as we are.' + +'Do be quiet! and let me enjoy, for once, my woman's right to the +last word!' + +And in this hopeful state of mystification, Lancelot went home, and +dreamt of Argemone. + +His uncle would, and, indeed, as it seemed, could, give him very +little information on the question which had so excited his +curiosity. He had met the man in India many years before, had +received there from him most important kindnesses, and considered +him, from experience, of oracular wisdom. He seemed to have an +unlimited command of money, though most frugal in his private +habits; visited England for a short time every few years, and always +under a different appellation; but as for his real name, habitation, +or business, here or at home, the good banker knew nothing, except +that whenever questioned on them, he wandered off into Pantagruelist +jokes, and ended in Cloud-land. So that Lancelot was fain to give +up his questions and content himself with longing for the +reappearance of this inexplicable sage. + + + +CHAPTER XVI: ONCE IN A WAY + + + +A few mornings afterwards, Lancelot, as he glanced his eye over the +columns of The Times, stopped short at the beloved name of Whitford. +To his disgust and disappointment, it only occurred in one of those +miserable cases, now of weekly occurrence, of concealing the birth +of a child. He was turning from it, when he saw Bracebridge's name. +Another look sufficed to show him that he ought to go at once to the +colonel, who had returned the day before from Norway. + +A few minutes brought him to his friend's lodging, but The Times had +arrived there before him. Bracebridge was sitting over his untasted +breakfast, his face buried in his hands. + +'Do not speak to me,' he said, without looking up. 'It was right of +you to come--kind of you; but it is too late.' + +He started, and looked wildly round him, as if listening for some +sound which he expected, and then laid his head down on the table. +Lancelot turned to go. + +'No--do not leave me! Not alone, for God's sake, not alone!' + +Lancelot sat down. There was a fearful alteration in Bracebridge. +His old keen self-confident look had vanished. He was haggard, +life-weary, shame-stricken, almost abject. His limbs looked quite +shrunk and powerless, as he rested his head on the table before him, +and murmured incoherently from time to time,-- + +'My own child! And I never shall have another! No second chance +for those who--Oh Mary! Mary! you might have waited--you might have +trusted me! And why should you?--ay, why, indeed? And such a +pretty baby, too!--just like his father!' + +Lancelot laid his hand kindly on his shoulder. + +'My dearest Bracebridge, the evidence proves that the child was born +dead.' + +'They lie!' he said, fiercely, starting up. 'It cried twice after +it was born!' + +Lancelot stood horror-struck. + +'I heard it last night, and the night before that, and the night +before that again, under my pillow, shrieking--stifling--two little +squeaks, like a caught hare; and I tore the pillows off it--I did; +and once I saw it, and it had beautiful black eyes--just like its +father--just like a little miniature that used to lie on my mother's +table, when I knelt at her knee, before they sent me out "to see +life," and Eton, and the army, and Crockford's, and Newmarket, and +fine gentlemen, and fine ladies, and luxury, and flattery, brought +me to this! Oh, father! father! was that the only way to make a +gentleman of your son?--There it is again! Don't you hear it?-- +under the sofa cushions! Tear them off! Curse you! Save it!' + +And, with a fearful oath, the wretched man sent Lancelot staggering +across the room, and madly tore up the cushions. + +A long postman's knock at the door.--He suddenly rose up quite +collected. + +'The letter! I knew it would come. She need not have written it: +I know what is in it.' + +The servant's step came up the stairs. Poor Bracebridge turned to +Lancelot with something of his own stately determination. + +'I must be alone when I receive this letter. Stay here.' And with +compressed lips and fixed eyes he stalked out at the door, and shut +it. + +Lancelot heard him stop; then the servant's footsteps down the +stairs; then the colonel's treading, slowly and heavily, went step +by step up to the room above. He shut that door too. A dead +silence followed. Lancelot stood in fearful suspense, and held his +breath to listen. Perhaps he had fainted? No, for then he would +have heard a fall. Perhaps he had fallen on the bed? He would go +and see. No, he would wait a little longer. Perhaps he was +praying? He had told Lancelot to pray once--he dared not interrupt +him now. A slight stir--a noise as of an opening box. Thank God, +he was, at least, alive! Nonsense! Why should he not be alive? +What could happen to him? And yet he knew that something was going +to happen. The silence was ominous--unbearable; the air of the room +felt heavy and stifling, as if a thunderstorm were about to burst. +He longed to hear the man raging and stamping. And yet he could not +connect the thought of one so gay and full of gallant life, with the +terrible dread that was creeping over him--with the terrible scene +which he had just witnessed. It must be all a temporary excitement- +-a mistake--a hideous dream, which the next post would sweep away. +He would go and tell him so. No, he could not stir. His limbs +seemed leaden, his feet felt rooted to the ground, as in long +nightmare. And still the intolerable silence brooded overhead. + +What broke it? A dull, stifled report, as of a pistol fired against +the ground; a heavy fall; and again the silence of death. + +He rushed upstairs. A corpse lay on its face upon the floor, and +from among its hair, a crimson thread crept slowly across the +carpet. It was all over. He bent over the head, but one look was +sufficient. He did not try to lift it up. + +On the table lay the fatal letter. Lancelot knew that he had a +right to read it. It was scrawled, mis-spelt--but there were no +tear-blots on the paper:-- + +'Sir--I am in prison--and where are you? Cruel man! Where were you +all those miserable weeks, while I was coming nearer and nearer to +my shame? Murdering dumb beasts in foreign lands. You have +murdered more than them. How I loved you once! How I hate you now! +But I have my revenge. YOUR BABY CRIED TWICE AFTER IT WAS BORN!' + +Lancelot tore the letter into a hundred pieces, and swallowed them, +for every foot in the house was on the stairs. + +So there was terror, and confusion, and running in and out: but +there were no wet eyes there except those of Bracebridge's groom, +who threw himself on the body, and would not stir. And then there +was a coroner's inquest; and it came out in the evidence how 'the +deceased had been for several days very much depressed, and had +talked of voices and apparitions;' whereat the jury--as twelve +honest, good-natured Christians were bound to do--returned a verdict +of temporary insanity; and in a week more the penny-a-liners grew +tired; and the world, too, who never expects anything, not even +French revolutions, grew tired also of repeating,--'Dear me! who +would have expected it?' and having filled up the colonel's place, +swaggered on as usual, arm-in-arm with the flesh and the devil. + +Bracebridge's death had, of course, a great effect on Lancelot's +spirit. Not in the way of warning, though--such events seldom act +in that way, on the highest as well as on the lowest minds. After +all, your 'Rakes' Progresses,' and 'Atheists' Deathbeds,' do no more +good than noble George Cruikshank's 'Bottle' will, because every one +knows that they are the exception, and not the rule; that the +Atheist generally dies with a conscience as comfortably callous as a +rhinocerous-hide; and the rake, when old age stops his power of +sinning, becomes generally rather more respectable than his +neighbours. The New Testament deals very little in appeals ad +terrorem; and it would be well if some, who fancy that they follow +it, would do the same, and by abstaining from making 'hell-fire' the +chief incentive to virtue, cease from tempting many a poor fellow to +enlist on the devil's side the only manly feeling he has left-- +personal courage. + +But yet Lancelot was affected. And when, on the night of the +colonel's funeral, he opened, at hazard, Argemone's Bible, and his +eyes fell on the passage which tells how 'one shall be taken and +another left,' great honest tears of gratitude dropped upon the +page; and he fell on his knees, and in bitter self-reproach thanked +the new found Upper Powers, who, as he began to hope, were leading +him not in vain,--that he had yet a life before him wherein to play +the man. + +And now he felt that the last link was broken between him and all +his late frivolous companions. All had deserted him in his ruin but +this one--and he was silent in the grave. And now, from the world +and all its toys and revelry, he was parted once and for ever; and +he stood alone in the desert, like the last Arab of a plague- +stricken tribe, looking over the wreck of ancient cities, across +barren sands, where far rivers gleamed in the distance, that seemed +to beckon him away into other climes, other hopes, other duties. +Old things had passed away--when would all things become new? + +Not yet, Lancelot. Thou hast still one selfish hope, one dream of +bliss, however impossible, yet still cherished. Thou art a changed +man--but for whose sake? For Argemone's. Is she to be thy god, +then? Art thou to live for her, or for the sake of One greater than +she? All thine idols are broken--swiftly the desert sands are +drifting over them, and covering them in.--All but one--must that, +too, be taken from thee? + +One morning a letter was put into Lancelot's hands, bearing the +Whitford postmark. Tremblingly he tore it open. It contained a few +passionate words from Honoria. Argemone was dying of typhus fever, +and entreating to see him once again; and Honoria had, with some +difficulty, as she hinted, obtained leave from her parents to send +for him. His last bank note carried him down to Whitford; and, calm +and determined, as one who feels that he has nothing more to lose on +earth, and whose torment must henceforth become his element, he +entered the Priory that evening. + +He hardly spoke or looked at a soul; he felt that he was there on an +errand which none understood; that he was moving towards Argemone +through a spiritual world, in which he and she were alone; that, in +his utter poverty and hopelessness, he stood above all the luxury, +even above all the sorrow, around him; that she belonged to him, and +to him alone; and the broken-hearted beggar followed the weeping +Honoria towards his lady's chamber, with the step and bearing of a +lord. He was wrong; there were pride and fierceness enough in his +heart, mingled with that sense of nothingness of rank, money, chance +and change, yea, death itself, of all but Love;--mingled even with +that intense belief that his sorrows were but his just deserts, +which now possessed all his soul. And in after years he knew that +he was wrong; but so he felt at the time; and even then the strength +was not all of earth which bore him manlike through that hour. + +He entered the room; the darkness, the silence, the cool scent of +vinegar, struck a shudder through him. The squire was sitting half +idiotic and helpless, in his arm-chair. His face lighted up as +Lancelot entered, and he tried to hold out his palsied hand. +Lancelot did not see him. Mrs. Lavington moved proudly and primly +back from the bed, with a face that seemed to say through its tears, +'I at least am responsible for nothing that occurs from this +interview.' Lancelot did not see her either: he walked straight up +towards the bed as if he were treading on his own ground. His heart +was between his lips, and yet his whole soul felt as dry and hard as +some burnt-out volcano-crater. + +A faint voice--oh, how faint, how changed!--called him from within +the closed curtains. + +'He is there! I know it is he! Lancelot! my Lancelot!' + +Silently still he drew aside the curtain; the light fell full upon +her face. What a sight! Her beautiful hair cut close, a ghastly +white handkerchief round her head, those bright eyes sunk and +lustreless, those ripe lips baked, and black and drawn; her thin +hand fingering uneasily the coverlid.--It was too much for him. He +shuddered and turned his face away. Quick-sighted that love is, +even to the last! slight as the gesture was, she saw it in an +instant. + +'You are not afraid of infection?' she said, faintly. 'I was not.' + +Lancelot laughed aloud, as men will at strangest moments, sprung +towards her with open arms, and threw himself on his knees beside +the bed. With sudden strength she rose upright, and clasped him in +her arms. + +'Once more!' she sighed, in a whisper to herself, 'Once more on +earth!' And the room, and the spectators, and disease itself faded +from around them like vain dreams, as she nestled closer and closer +to him, and gazed into his eyes, and passed her shrunken hand over +his cheeks, and toyed with his hair, and seemed to drink in magnetic +life from his embrace. + +No one spoke or stirred. They felt that an awful and blessed spirit +overshadowed the lovers, and were hushed, as if in the sanctuary of +God. + +Suddenly again she raised her head from his bosom, and in a tone, in +which her old queenliness mingled strangely with the saddest +tenderness,-- + +'All of you go away now; I must talk to my husband alone.' + +They went, leading out the squire, who cast puzzled glances toward +the pair, and murmured to himself that 'she was sure to get well now +Smith was come: everything went right when he was in the way.' + +So they were left alone. + +'I do not look so very ugly, my darling, do I? Not so very ugly? +though they have cut off all my poor hair, and I told them so often +not! But I kept a lock for you;' and feebly she drew from under the +pillow a long auburn tress, and tried to wreathe it round his neck, +but could not, and sunk back. + +Poor fellow! he could bear no more. He hid his face in his hands, +and burst into a long low weeping. + +'I am very thirsty, darling; reach me--No, I will drink no more, +except from your dear lips.' + +He lifted up his head, and breathed his whole soul upon her lips; +his tears fell on her closed eyelids. + +'Weeping? No.--You must not cry. See how comfortable I am. They +are all so kind--soft bed, cool room, fresh air, sweet drinks, sweet +scents. Oh, so different from THAT room!' + +'What room?--my own!' + +'Listen, and I will tell you. Sit down--put your arm under my head- +-so. When I am on your bosom I feel so strong. God! let me last to +tell him all. It was for that I sent for him.' + +And then, in broken words, she told him how she had gone up to the +fever patient at Ashy, on the fatal night on which Lancelot had last +seen her. Shuddering, she hinted at the horrible filth and misery +she had seen, at the foul scents which had sickened her. A madness +of remorse, she said, had seized her. She had gone, in spite of her +disgust, to several houses which she found open. There were worse +cottages there than even her father's; some tradesmen in a +neighbouring town had been allowed to run up a set of rack rent +hovels.--Another shudder seized her when she spoke of them; and from +that point in her story all was fitful, broken, like the images of a +hideous dream. 'Every instant those foul memories were defiling her +nostrils. A horrible loathing had taken possession of her, +recurring from time to time, till it ended in delirium and fever. A +scent-fiend was haunting her night and day,' she said. 'And now the +curse of the Lavingtons had truly come upon her. To perish by the +people whom they made. Their neglect, cupidity, oppression, are +avenged on me! Why not? Have I not wantoned in down and perfumes, +while they, by whose labour my luxuries were bought, were pining +among scents and sounds,--one day of which would have driven me mad! +And then they wonder why men turn Chartists! There are those +horrible scents again! Save me from them! Lancelot--darling! Take +me to the fresh air! I choke! I am festering away! The Nun-pool! +Take all the water, every drop, and wash Ashy clean again! Make a +great fountain in it--beautiful marble--to bubble and gurgle, and +trickle and foam, for ever and ever, and wash away the sins of the +Lavingtons, that the little rosy children may play round it, and the +poor toil-bent woman may wash--and wash--and drink--Water! water! I +am dying of thirst!' + +He gave her water, and then she lay back and babbled about the Nun- +pool sweeping 'all the houses of Ashy into one beautiful palace, +among great flower-gardens, where the school children will sit and +sing such merry hymns, and never struggle with great pails of water +up the hill of Ashy any more.' + +'You will do it! darling! Strong, wise, noble-hearted that you are! +Why do you look at me? You will be rich some day. You will own +land, for you are worthy to own it. Oh that I could give you +Whitford! No! It was mine too long--therefore I die! because I-- +Lord Jesus! have I not repented of my sin?' + +Then she grew calm once more. A soft smile crept over her face, as +it grew sharper and paler every moment. Faintly she sank back on +the pillows, and faintly whispered to him to kneel and pray. He +obeyed her mechanically. . . . 'No--not for me, for them--for them, +and for yourself--that you may save them whom I never dreamt that I +was bound to save!' + +And he knelt and prayed . . . what, he alone and those who heard his +prayer, can tell. . . . + +* * * * * + +When he lifted up his head at last, he saw that Argemone lay +motionless. For a moment he thought she was dead, and frantically +sprang to the bell. The family rushed in with the physician. She +gave some faint token of life, but none of consciousness. The +doctor sighed, and said that her end was near. Lancelot had known +that all along. + +'I think, sir, you had better leave the room,' said Mrs. Lavington; +and followed him into the passage. + +What she was about to say remained unspoken; for Lancelot seized her +hand in spite of her, with frantic thanks for having allowed him +this one interview, and entreaties that he might see her again, if +but for one moment. + +Mrs. Lavington, somewhat more softly than usual, said,--'That the +result of this visit had not been such as to make a second +desirable--that she had no wish to disturb her daughter's mind at +such a moment with earthly regrets.' + +'Earthly regrets!' How little she knew what had passed there! But +if she had known, would she have been one whit softened? For, +indeed, Argemone's spirituality was not in her mother's language. +And yet the good woman had prayed, and prayed, and wept bitter +tears, by her daughter's bedside, day after day; but she had never +heard her pronounce the talismanic formula of words, necessary in +her eyes to ensure salvation; and so she was almost without hope for +her. Oh, Bigotry! Devil, who turnest God's love into man's curse! +are not human hearts hard and blind enough of themselves, without +thy cursed help? + +For one moment a storm of unutterable pride and rage convulsed +Lancelot--the next instant love conquered; and the strong proud man +threw himself on his knees at the feet of the woman he despised, and +with wild sobs entreated for one moment more--one only! + +At that instant a shriek from Honoria resounded from the sick +chamber. Lancelot knew what it meant, and sprang up, as men do when +shot through the heart.--In a moment he was himself again. A new +life had begun for him--alone. + +'You will not need to grant my prayer, madam,' he said, calmly: +'Argemone is dead.' + + + +CHAPTER XVII: THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH + + + +Let us pass over the period of dull, stupefied misery that followed, +when Lancelot had returned to his lonely lodging, and the excitement +of his feelings had died away. It is impossible to describe that +which could not be separated into parts, in which there was no +foreground, no distance, but only one dead, black, colourless +present. After a time, however, he began to find that fancies, +almost ridiculously trivial, arrested and absorbed his attention; +even as when our eyes have become accustomed to darkness, every +light-coloured mote shows luminous against the void blackness of +night. So we are tempted to unseemly frivolity in churches, and at +funerals, and all most solemn moments; and so Lancelot found his +imagination fluttering back, half amused, to every smallest +circumstance of the last few weeks, as objects of mere curiosity, +and found with astonishment that they had lost their power of +paining him. Just as victims on the rack have fallen, it is said, +by length of torture, into insensibility, and even calm repose, his +brain had been wrought until all feeling was benumbed. He began to +think what an interesting autobiography his life might make; and the +events of the last few years began to arrange themselves in a most +attractive dramatic form. He began even to work out a scene or two, +and where 'motives' seemed wanting, to invent them here and there. +He sat thus for hours silent over his fire, playing with his old +self, as though it were a thing which did not belong to him--a suit +of clothes which he had put off, and which, + + +'For that it was too rich to hang by the wall, +It must be ripped,' + + +and then pieced and dizened out afresh as a toy. And then again he +started away from his own thoughts, at finding himself on the edge +of that very gulf, which, as Mellot had lately told him, Barnakill +denounced as the true hell of genius, where Art is regarded as an +end and not a means, and objects are interesting, not in as far as +they form our spirits, but in proportion as they can be shaped into +effective parts of some beautiful whole. But whether it was a +temptation or none, the desire recurred to him again and again. He +even attempted to write, but sickened at the sight of the first +words. He turned to his pencil, and tried to represent with it one +scene at least; and with the horrible calmness of some self- +torturing ascetic, he sat down to sketch a drawing of himself and +Argemone on her dying day, with her head upon his bosom for the last +time--and then tossed it angrily into the fire, partly because he +felt just as he had in his attempts to write, that there was +something more in all these events than he could utter by pen or +pencil, than he could even understand; principally because he could +not arrange the attitudes gracefully enough. And now, in front of +the stern realities of sorrow and death, he began to see a meaning +in another mysterious saying of Barnakill's, which Mellot was +continually quoting, that 'Art was never Art till it was more than +Art; that the Finite only existed as a body of the Infinite; and +that the man of genius must first know the Infinite, unless he +wished to become not a poet, but a maker of idols.' Still he felt +in himself a capability, nay, an infinite longing to speak; though +what he should utter, or how--whether as poet, social theorist, +preacher, he could not yet decide. Barnakill had forbidden him +painting, and though he hardly knew why, he dared not disobey him. +But Argemone's dying words lay on him as a divine command to labour. +All his doubts, his social observations, his dreams of the beautiful +and the blissful, his intense perception of social evils, his new- +born hope--faith it could not yet be called--in a ruler and +deliverer of the world, all urged him on to labour: but at what? +He felt as if he were the demon in the legend, condemned to twine +endless ropes of sand. The world, outside which he now stood for +good and evil, seemed to him like some frantic whirling waltz; some +serried struggling crowd, which rushed past him in aimless +confusion, without allowing him time or opening to take his place +among their ranks: and as for wings to rise above, and to look down +upon the uproar, where were they? His melancholy paralysed him more +and more. He was too listless even to cater for his daily bread by +writing his articles for the magazines. Why should he? He had +nothing to say. Why should he pour out words and empty sound, and +add one more futility to the herd of 'prophets that had become wind, +and had no truth in them'? Those who could write without a +conscience, without an object except that of seeing their own fine +words, and filling their own pockets--let them do it: for his part +he would have none of it. But his purse was empty, and so was his +stomach; and as for asking assistance of his uncle, it was returning +like the dog to his vomit. So one day he settled all bills with his +last shilling, tied up his remaining clothes in a bundle, and +stoutly stepped forth into the street to find a job--to hold a +horse, if nothing better offered; when, behold! on the threshold he +met Barnakill himself. + +'Whither away?' said that strange personage. 'I was just going to +call on you.' + +'To earn my bread by the labour of my hands. So our fathers all +began.' + +'And so their sons must all end. Do you want work?' + +'Yes, if you have any.' + +'Follow me, and carry a trunk home from a shop to my lodgings.' + +He strode off, with Lancelot after him; entered a mathematical +instrument maker's shop in the neighbouring street, and pointed out +a heavy corded case to Lancelot, who, with the assistance of the +shopman, got it on his shoulders; and trudging forth through the +streets after his employer, who walked before him silent and +unregarding, felt himself for the first time in his life in the same +situation as nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand of +Adam's descendants, and discovered somewhat to his satisfaction that +when he could once rid his mind of its old superstition that every +one was looking at him, it mattered very little whether the burden +carried were a deal trunk or a Downing Street despatch-box. + +His employer's lodgings were in St. Paul's Churchyard. Lancelot set +the trunk down inside the door. + +'What do you charge?' + +'Sixpence.' + +Barnakill looked him steadily in the face, gave him the sixpence, +went in, and shut the door. + +Lancelot wandered down the street, half amused at the simple test +which had just been applied to him, and yet sickened with +disappointment; for he had cherished a mysterious fancy that with +this strange being all his hopes of future activity were bound up. +Tregarva's month was nearly over, and yet no tidings of him had +come. Mellot had left London on some mysterious errand of the +prophet's, and for the first time in his life he seemed to stand +utterly alone. He was at one pole, and the whole universe at the +other. It was in vain to tell himself that his own act had placed +him there; that he had friends to whom he might appeal. He would +not, he dare not, accept outward help, even outward friendship, +however hearty and sincere, at that crisis of his existence. It +seemed a desecration of its awfulness to find comfort in anything +but the highest and the deepest. And the glimpse of that which he +had attained seemed to have passed away from him again,--seemed to +be something which, as it had arisen with Argemone, was lost with +her also,--one speck of the far blue sky which the rolling clouds +had covered in again. As he passed under the shadow of the huge +soot-blackened cathedral, and looked at its grim spiked railings and +closed doors, it seemed to him a symbol of the spiritual world, +clouded and barred from him. He stopped and looked up, and tried to +think. The rays of the setting sun lighted up in clear radiance the +huge cross on the summit. Was it an omen? Lancelot thought so; but +at that instant he felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked round. +It was that strange man again. + +'So far well,' said he. 'You are making a better day's work than +you fancy, and earning more wages. For instance, here is a packet +for you.' + +Lancelot seized it, trembling, and tore it open. It was directed in +Honoria's handwriting. + +'Whence had you this?' said he. + +'Through Mellot, through whom I can return your answer, if one be +needed.' + +The letter was significant of Honoria's character. It busied itself +entirely about facts, and showed the depth of her sorrow by making +no allusion to it. 'Argemone, as Lancelot was probably aware, had +bequeathed to him the whole of her own fortune at Mrs. Lavington's +death, and had directed that various precious things of hers should +be delivered over to him immediately. Her mother, however, kept her +chamber under lock and key, and refused to allow an article to be +removed from its accustomed place. It was natural in the first +burst of her sorrow, and Lancelot would pardon.' All his drawings +and letters had been, by Argemone's desire, placed with her in her +coffin. Honoria had been only able to obey her in sending a +favourite ring of hers, and with it the last stanzas which she had +composed before her death:-- + + +'Twin stars, aloft in ether clear, + Around each other roll away, +Within one common atmosphere + Of their own mutual light and day. + +'And myriad happy eyes are bent + Upon their changeless love alway; +As, strengthened by their one intent, + They pour the flood of life and day, + +'So we, through this world's waning night, + Shall, hand in hand, pursue our way; +Shed round us order, love, and light, + And shine unto the perfect day.' + + +The precious relic, with all its shattered hopes, came at the right +moment to soften his hard-worn heart. The sight, the touch of it, +shot like an electric spark through the black stifling thunder-cloud +of his soul, and dissolved it in refreshing showers of tears. + +Barnakill led him gently within the area of the railings, where he +might conceal his emotion, and it was but a few seconds before +Lancelot had recovered his self-possession and followed him up the +steps through the wicket door. + +They entered. The afternoon service was proceeding. The organ +droned sadly in its iron cage to a few musical amateurs. Some +nursery maids and foreign sailors stared about within the spiked +felon's dock which shut off the body of the cathedral, and tried in +vain to hear what was going on inside the choir. As a wise author-- +a Protestant, too--has lately said, 'the scanty service rattled in +the vast building, like a dried kernel too small for its shell.' +The place breathed imbecility, and unreality, and sleepy life-in- +death, while the whole nineteenth century went roaring on its way +outside. And as Lancelot thought, though only as a dilettante, of +old St. Paul's, the morning star and focal beacon of England through +centuries and dynasties, from old Augustine and Mellitus, up to +those Paul's Cross sermons whose thunders shook thrones, and to +noble Wren's masterpiece of art, he asked, 'Whither all this? +Coleridge's dictum, that a cathedral is a petrified religion, may be +taken to bear more meanings than one. When will life return to this +cathedral system?' + +'When was it ever a living system?' answered the other. 'When was +it ever anything but a transitionary makeshift since the dissolution +of the monasteries?' + +'Why, then, not away with it at once?' + +'You English have not done with it yet. At all events, it is +keeping your cathedrals rain-proof for you, till you can put them to +some better use than now.' + +'And in the meantime?' + +'In the meantime there is life enough in them; life that will wake +the dead some day. Do you hear what those choristers are chanting +now?' + +'Not I,' said Lancelot; 'nor any one round us, I should think.' + +'That is our own fault, after all; for we were not good churchmen +enough to come in time for vespers.' + +'Are you a churchman then?' + +'Yes, thank God. There may be other churches than those of Europe +or Syria, and right Catholic ones, too. But, shall I tell you what +they are singing? "He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and +hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with +good things, and the rich He hath sent empty away." Is there no +life, think you, in those words, spoken here every afternoon in the +name of God?' + +'By hirelings, who neither care nor understand--' + +'Hush. Be not hasty with imputations of evil, within walls +dedicated to and preserved by the All-good. Even should the +speakers forget the meaning of their own words, to my sense, +perhaps, that may just now leave the words more entirely God's. At +all events, confess that whatever accidental husks may have +clustered round it, here is a germ of Eternal Truth. No, I dare not +despair of you English, as long as I hear your priesthood forced by +Providence, even in spite of themselves, thus to speak God's words +about an age in which the condition of the poor, and the rights and +duties of man, are becoming the rallying-point for all thought and +all organisation.' + +'But does it not make the case more hopeless that such words have +been spoken for centuries, and no man regards them?' + +'You have to blame for that the people, rather than the priest. As +they are, so will he be, in every age and country. He is but the +index which the changes of their spiritual state move up and down +the scale: and as they will become in England in the next half +century, so will he become also.' + +'And can these dry bones live?' asked Lancelot, scornfully. + +'Who are you to ask? What were you three months ago? for I know +well your story. But do you remember what the prophet saw in the +Valley of Vision? How first that those same dry bones shook and +clashed together, as if uneasy because they were disorganised; and +how they then found flesh and stood upright: and yet there was no +life in them, till at last the Spirit came down and entered into +them? Surely there is shaking enough among the bones now! It is +happening to the body of your England as it did to Adam's after he +was made. It lay on earth, the rabbis say, forty days before the +breath of life was put into it, and the devil came and kicked it; +and it sounded hollow, as England is doing now; but that did not +prevent the breath of life coming in good time, nor will it in +England's case.' + +Lancelot looked at him with a puzzled face. + +'You must not speak in such deep parables to so young a learner.' + +'Is my parable so hard, then? Look around you and see what is the +characteristic of your country and of your generation at this +moment. What a yearning, what an expectation, amid infinite +falsehoods and confusions, of some nobler, more chivalrous, more +godlike state! Your very costermonger trolls out his belief that +"there's a good time coming," and the hearts of gamins, as well as +millenarians, answer, "True!" Is not that a clashing among the dry +bones? And as for flesh, what new materials are springing up among +you every month, spiritual and physical, for a state such as "eye +hath not seen nor ear heard?"--railroads, electric telegraphs, +associate-lodging-houses, club-houses, sanitary reforms, +experimental schools, chemical agriculture, a matchless school of +inductive science, an equally matchless school of naturalist +painters,--and all this in the very workshop of the world! Look, +again, at the healthy craving after religious art and ceremonial,-- +the strong desire to preserve that which has stood the test of time; +and on the other hand, at the manful resolution of your middle +classes to stand or fall by the Bible alone,--to admit no +innovations in worship which are empty of instinctive meaning. Look +at the enormous amount of practical benevolence which now struggles +in vain against evil, only because it is as yet private, desultory, +divided. How dare you, young man, despair of your own nation, while +its nobles can produce a Carlisle, an Ellesmere, an Ashley, a Robert +Grosvenor,--while its middle classes can beget a Faraday, a +Stephenson, a Brooke, an Elizabeth Fry? See, I say, what a chaos of +noble materials is here,--all confused, it is true,--polarised, +jarring, and chaotic,--here bigotry, there self-will, superstition, +sheer Atheism often, but only waiting for the one inspiring Spirit +to organise, and unite, and consecrate this chaos into the noblest +polity the world ever saw realised! What a destiny may be that of +your land, if you have but the faith to see your own honour! Were I +not of my own country, I would be an Englishman this day.' + +'And what is your country?' asked Lancelot. 'It should be a noble +one which breeds such men as you.' + +The stranger smiled. + +'Will you go thither with me?' + +'Why not? I long for travel, and truly I am sick of my own country. +When the Spirit of which you speak,' he went on, bitterly, 'shall +descend, I may return; till then England is no place for the +penniless.' + +'How know you that the Spirit is not even now poured out? Must your +English Pharisees and Sadducees, too, have signs and wonders ere +they believe? Will man never know that "the kingdom of God comes +not by observation"? that now, as ever, His promise stands true,-- +"Lo! I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world"? How +many inspired hearts even now may be cherishing in secret the idea +which shall reform the age, and fulfil at once the longings of every +sect and rank?' + +'Name it to me, then!' + +'Who can name it? Who can even see it, but those who are like Him +from whom it comes? Them a long and stern discipline awaits. Would +you be of them, you must, like the Highest who ever trod this earth, +go fasting into the wilderness, and, among the wild beasts, stand +alone face to face with the powers of Nature.' + +'I will go where you shall bid me. I will turn shepherd among the +Scottish mountains--live as an anchorite in the solitudes of +Dartmoor. But to what purpose? I have listened long to Nature's +voice, but even the whispers of a spiritual presence which haunted +my childhood have died away, and I hear nothing in her but the +grinding of the iron wheels of mechanical necessity.' + +'Which is the will of God. Henceforth you shall study, not Nature, +but Him. Yet as for place--I do not like your English primitive +formations, where earth, worn out with struggling, has fallen +wearily asleep. No, you shall rather come to Asia, the oldest and +yet the youngest continent,--to our volcanic mountain ranges, where +her bosom still heaves with the creative energy of youth, around the +primeval cradle of the most ancient race of men. Then, when you +have learnt the wondrous harmony between man and his dwelling-place, +I will lead you to a land where you shall see the highest spiritual +cultivation in triumphant contact with the fiercest energies of +matter; where men have learnt to tame and use alike the volcano and +the human heart, where the body and the spirit, the beautiful and +the useful, the human and the divine, are no longer separate, and +men have embodied to themselves on earth an image of the "city not +made with hands, eternal in the heavens."' + +'Where is this land?' said Lancelot eagerly. + +'Poor human nature must have its name for everything. You have +heard of the country of Prester John, that mysterious Christian +empire, rarely visited by European eye?' + +'There are legends of two such,' said Lancelot, 'an Ethiopian and an +Asiatic one; and the Ethiopian, if we are to believe Colonel +Harris's Journey to Shoa, is a sufficiently miserable failure.' + +'True; the day of the Chamitic race is past; you will not say the +same of our Caucasian empire. To our race the present belongs,--to +England, France, Germany, America,--to us. Will you see what we +have done, and, perhaps, bring home, after long wanderings, a +message for your country which may help to unravel the tangled web +of this strange time?' + +'I will,' said Lancelot, 'now, this moment. And yet, no. There is +one with whom I have promised to share all future weal and woe. +Without him I can take no step.' + +'Tregarva?' + +'Yes--he. What made you guess that I spoke of him?' + +'Mellot told me of him, and of you, too, six weeks ago. He is now +gone to fetch him from Manchester. I cannot trust him here in +England yet. The country made him sad; London has made him mad; +Manchester may make him bad. It is too fearful a trial even for his +faith. I must take him with us.' + +'What interest in him--not to say what authority over him--have +you?' + +'The same which I have over you. You will come with me; so will he. +It is my business, as my name signifies, to save the children alive +whom European society leaves carelessly and ignorantly to die. And +as for my power, I come,' said he, with a smile, 'from a country +which sends no one on its errands without first thoroughly +satisfying itself as to his power of fulfilling them.' + +'If he goes, I go with you.' + +'And he will go. And yet, think what you do. It is a fearful +journey. They who travel it, even as they came naked out of their +mother's womb--even as they return thither, and carry nothing with +them of all which they have gotten in this life, so must those who +travel to my land.' + +'What? Tregarva? Is he, too, to give up all? I had thought that I +saw in him a precious possession, one for which I would barter all +my scholarship, my talents,--ay--my life itself.' + +'A possession worth your life? What then?' + +'Faith in an unseen God.' + +'Ask him whether he would call that a possession--his own in any +sense?' + +'He would call it a revelation to him.' + +'That is, a taking of the veil from something which was behind the +veil already.' + +'Yes.' + +'And which may therefore just as really be behind the veil in other +cases without its presence being suspected.' + +'Certainly.' + +'In what sense, now, is that a possession? Do you possess the sun +because you see it? Did Herschel create Uranus by discovering it; +or even increase, by an atom, its attraction on one particle of his +own body?" + +'Whither is all this tending?' + +'Hither. Tregarva does not possess his Father and his Lord; he is +possessed by them.' + +'But he would say--and I should believe him--that he has seen and +known them, not with his bodily eyes, but with his soul, heart, +imagination--call it what you will. All I know is, that between him +and me there is a great gulf fixed.' + +'What! seen and known them utterly? comprehended them? Are they not +infinite, incomprehensible? Can the less comprehend the greater?' + +'He knows, at least, enough of them to make him what I am not.' + +'That is, he knows something of them. And may not you know +something of them also?--enough to make you what he is not?' + +Lancelot shook his head in silence. + +'Suppose that you had met and spoken with your father, and loved him +when you saw him, and yet were not aware of the relation in which +you stood to him, still you would know him?' + +'Not the most important thing of all--that he was my father.' + +'Is that the most important thing? Is it not more important that he +should know that you were his son? That he should support, guide, +educate you, even though unseen? Do you not know that some one has +been doing that?' + +'That I have been supported, guided, educated, I know full well; but +by whom I know not. And I know, too, that I have been punished. +And therefore--therefore I cannot free the thought of a Him--of a +Person--only of a Destiny, of Laws and Powers, which have no faces +wherewith to frown awful wrath upon me! If it be a Person who has +been leading me, I must go mad, or know that He has forgiven!' + +'I conceive that it is He, and not punishment which you fear?' + +Lancelot was silent a moment. . . . 'Yes. He, and not hell at all, +is what I fear. He can inflict no punishment on me worse than the +inner hell which I have felt already, many and many a time.' + +'Bona verba! That is an awful thing to say: but better this +extreme than the other. . . . And you would--what?' + +'Be pardoned.' + +'If He loves you, He has pardoned you already.' + +'How do I know that He loves me?' + +'How does Tregarva?' + +'He is a righteous man, and I--' + +'Am a sinner. He would, and rightly, call himself the same.' + +'But he knows that God loves him--that he is God's child.' + +'So, then, God did not love him till he caused God to love him, by +knowing that He loved him? He was not God's child till he made +himself one, by believing that he was one when as yet he was not? I +appeal to common sense and logic . . . It was revealed to Tregarva +that God had been loving him while he was yet a bad man. If He +loved him, in spite of his sin, why should He not have loved you?' + +'If He had loved me, would He have left me in ignorance of Himself? +For if He be, to know Him is the highest good.' + +'Had he left Tregarva in ignorance of Himself?' + +'No. . . . Certainly, Tregarva spoke of his conversion as of a +turning to one of whom he had known all along, and disregarded.' + +'Then do you turn like him, to Him whom you have known all along, +and disregarded.' + +'I?' + +'Yes--you! If half I have heard and seen of you be true, He has +been telling you more, and not less, of Himself than He does to most +men. You, for aught I know, may know more of Him than Tregarva +does. The gulf between you and him is this: he has obeyed what he +knew--and you have not.' . . . + +Lancelot paused a moment, then-- + +'No!--do not cheat me! You said once that you were a churchman.' + +'So I am. A Catholic of the Catholics. What then?' + +'Who is He to whom you ask me to turn? You talk to me of Him as my +Father; but you talk of Him to men of your own creed as The Father. +You have mysterious dogmas of a Three in One. I know them . . . I +have admired them. In all their forms--in the Vedas, in the Neo- +Platonists, in Jacob Boehmen, in your Catholic creeds, in Coleridge, +and the Germans from whom he borrowed, I have looked at them, and +found in them beautiful phantasms of philosophy, . . . all but +scientific necessities; . . . but--' + +'But what?' + +'I do not want cold abstract necessities of logic: I want living +practical facts. If those mysterious dogmas speak of real and +necessary properties of His being, they must be necessarily +interwoven in practice with His revelation of Himself?' + +'Most true. But how would you have Him unveil Himself?' + +'By unveiling Himself.' + +'What? To your simple intuition? That was Semele's ambition. . . . +You recollect the end of that myth. You recollect, too, as you have +read the Neo-Platonists, the result of their similar attempt.' + +'Idolatry and magic.' + +'True; and yet, such is the ambition of man, you who were just now +envying Tregarva, are already longing to climb even higher than +Saint Theresa.' + +'I do not often indulge in such an ambition. But I have read in +your Schoolmen tales of a Beatific Vision; how that the highest good +for man was to see God.' + +'And did you believe that?' + +'One cannot believe the impossible--only regret its impossibility.' + +'Impossibility? You can only see the Uncreate in the Create--the +Infinite in the Finite--the absolute good in that which is like the +good. Does Tregarva pretend to more? He sees God in His own +thoughts and consciousnesses, and in the events of the world around +him, imaged in the mirror of his own mind. Is your mirror, then, so +much narrower than his?' + +'I have none. I see but myself, and the world, and far above them, +a dim awful Unity, which is but a notion.' + +'Fool!--and slow of heart to believe! Where else would you see Him +but in yourself and in the world? They are all things cognisable to +you. Where else, but everywhere, would you see Him whom no man hath +seen, or can see?' + +'When He shows Himself to me in them, then I may see Him. But now-- +' + +'You have seen Him; and because you do not know the name of what you +see--or rather will not acknowledge it--you fancy that it is not +there.' + +'How in His name? What have I seen?' + +'Ask yourself. Have you not seen, in your fancy, at least, an ideal +of man, for which you spurned (for Mellot has told me all) the +merely negative angelic--the merely receptive and indulgent +feminine-ideals of humanity, and longed to be a man, like that ideal +and perfect man?' + +'I have.' + +'And what was your misery all along? Was it not that you felt you +ought to be a person with a one inner unity, a one practical will, +purpose, and business given to you--not invented by yourself--in the +great order and harmony of the universe,--and that you were not +one?--That your self-willed fancies, and self-pleasing passions, had +torn you in pieces, and left you inconsistent, dismembered, +helpless, purposeless? That, in short, you were below your ideal, +just in proportion as you were not a person?' + +'God knows you speak truth!' + +'Then must not that ideal of humanity be a person himself?--Else how +can he be the ideal man? Where is your logic? An impersonal ideal +of a personal species! . . . And what is the most special +peculiarity of man? Is it not that he alone of creation is a son, +with a Father to love and to obey? Then must not the ideal man be a +son also? And last, but not least, is it not the very property of +man that he is a spirit invested with flesh and blood? Then must +not the ideal man have, once at least, taken on himself flesh and +blood also? Else, how could he fulfil his own idea?' + +'Yes . . . Yes . . . That thought, too, has glanced through my +mind at moments, like a lightning-flash; till I have envied the old +Greeks their faith in a human Zeus, son of Kronos--a human Phoibos, +son of Zeus. But I could not rest in them. They are noble. But +are they--are any--perfect ideals? The one thing I did, and do, and +will believe, is the one which they do not fulfil--that man is meant +to be the conqueror of the earth, matter, nature, decay, death +itself, and to conquer them, as Bacon says, by obeying them.' + +'Hold it fast;--but follow it out, and say boldly, the ideal of +humanity must be one who has conquered nature--one who rules the +universe--one who has vanquished death itself; and conquered them, +as Bacon says, not by violating, but by submitting to them. Have +you never heard of one who is said to have done this? How do you +know that in this ideal which you have seen, you have not seen the +Son--the perfect Man, who died and rose again, and sits for ever +Healer, and Lord, and Ruler of the universe? . . . Stay--do not +answer me. Have you not, besides, had dreams of an all-Father--from +whom, in some mysterious way, all things and beings must derive +their source, and that Son--if my theory be true--among the rest, +and above all the rest?' + +'Who has not? But what more dim or distant--more drearily, +hopelessly notional, than that thought?' + +'Only the thought that there is none. But the dreariness was only +in your own inconsistency. If He be the Father of all, He must be +the Father of persons--He Himself therefore a Person. He must be +the Father of all in whom dwell personal qualities, power, wisdom, +creative energy, love, justice, pity. Can He be their Father, +unless all these very qualities are infinitely His? Does He now +look so terrible to you?' + +'I have had this dream, too; but I turned away from it in dread.' + +'Doubtless you did. Some day you will know why. Does that former +dream of a human Son relieve this dream of none of its awfulness? +May not the type be beloved for the sake of its Antitype, even if +the very name of All-Father is no guarantee for His paternal pity! . +. . But you have had this dream. How know you, that in it you were +not allowed a glimpse, however dim and distant, of Him whom the +Catholics call the Father?' + +'It may be; but--' + +'Stay again. Had you never the sense of a Spirit in you--a will, an +energy, an inspiration, deeper than the region of consciousness and +reflection, which, like the wind, blew where it listed, and you +heard the sound of it ringing through your whole consciousness, and +yet knew not whence it came, or whither it went, or why it drove you +on to dare and suffer, to love and hate; to be a fighter, a +sportsman, an artist--' + +'And a drunkard!' added Lancelot, sadly. + +'And a drunkard. But did it never seem to you that this strange +wayward spirit, if anything, was the very root and core of your own +personality? And had you never a craving for the help of some +higher, mightier spirit, to guide and strengthen yours; to regulate +and civilise its savage and spasmodic self-will; to teach you your +rightful place in the great order of the universe around; to fill +you with a continuous purpose and with a continuous will to do it? +Have you never had a dream of an Inspirer?--a spirit of all +spirits?' + +Lancelot turned away with a shudder. + +'Talk of anything but that! Little you know--and yet you seem to +know everything--the agony of craving with which I have longed for +guidance; the rage and disgust which possessed me when I tried one +pretended teacher after another, and found in myself depths which +their spirits could not, or rather would not, touch. I have been +irreverent to the false, from very longing to worship the true; I +have been a rebel to sham leaders, for very desire to be loyal to a +real one; I have envied my poor cousin his Jesuits; I have envied my +own pointers their slavery to my whip and whistle; I have fled, as a +last resource, to brandy and opium, for the inspiration which +neither man nor demon would bestow. . . . Then I found . . . you +know my story. . . . And when I looked to her to guide and inspire +me, behold! I found myself, by the very laws of humanity, compelled +to guide and inspire her;--blind, to lead the blind!--Thank God, for +her sake, that she was taken from me!' + +'Did you ever mistake these substitutes, even the noblest of them, +for the reality? Did not your very dissatisfaction with them show +you that the true inspirer ought to be, if he were to satisfy your +cravings, a person, truly--else how could he inspire and teach you, +a person yourself!--but an utterly infinite, omniscient, eternal +person? How know you that in that dream He was not unveiling +Himself to you--He, The Spirit, who is the Lord and Giver of Life; +The Spirit, who teaches men their duty and relation to those above, +around, beneath them; the Spirit of order, obedience, loyalty, +brotherhood, mercy, condescension?' + +'But I never could distinguish these dreams from each other; the +moment that I essayed to separate them, I seemed to break up the +thought of an absolute one ground of all things, without which the +universe would have seemed a piecemeal chaos; and they receded to +infinite distance, and became transparent, barren, notional shadows +of my own brain, even as your words are now.' + +'How know you that you were meant to distinguish them? How know you +that that very impossibility was not the testimony of fact and +experience to that old Catholic dogma, for the sake of which you +just now shrank from my teaching? I say that this is so. How do +you know that it is not?' + +'But how do I know that it is? I want proof.' + +'And you are the man who was, five minutes ago, crying out for +practical facts, and disdaining cold abstract necessities of logic! +Can you prove that your body exists?' + +'No.' + +'Can you prove that your spirit exists?' + +'No.' + +'And yet know that they both exist. And how?' + +'Solvitur ambulando.' + +'Exactly. When you try to prove either of them without the other, +you fail. You arrive, if at anything, at some barren polar notion. +By action alone you prove the mesothetic fact which underlies and +unites them.' + +'Quorsum haec?' + +'Hither. I am not going to demonstrate the indemonstrable--to give +you intellectual notions which, after all, will be but reflexes of +my own peculiar brain, and so add the green of my spectacles to the +orange of yours, and make night hideous by fresh monsters. I may +help you to think yourself into a theoretical Tritheism, or a +theoretical Sabellianism; I cannot make you think yourself into +practical and living Catholicism. As you of anthropology, so I say +of theology,--Solvitur ambulando. Don't believe Catholic doctrine +unless you like; faith is free. But see if you can reclaim either +society or yourself without it; see if He will let you reclaim them. +Take Catholic doctrine for granted; act on it; and see if you will +not reclaim them!' + +'Take for granted? Am I to come, after all, to implicit faith?' + +'Implicit fiddlesticks! Did you ever read the Novum Organum? +Mellot told me that you were a geologist.' + +'Well?' + +'You took for granted what you read in geological books, and went to +the mine and the quarry afterwards, to verify it in practice; and +according as you found fact correspond to theory, you retained or +rejected. Was that implicit faith, or common sense, common +humility, and sound induction?' + +'Sound induction, at least.' + +'Then go now, and do likewise. Believe that the learned, wise, and +good, for 1800 years, may possibly have found out somewhat, or have +been taught somewhat, on this matter, and test their theory by +practice. If a theory on such a point is worth anything at all, it +is omnipotent and all-explaining. If it will not work, of course +there is no use keeping it a moment. Perhaps it will work. I say +it will.' + +'But I shall not work it; I still dread my own spectacles. I dare +not trust myself alone to verify a theory of Murchison's or Lyell's. +How dare I trust myself in this?' + +'Then do not trust yourself alone: come and see what others are +doing. Come, and become a member of a body which is verifying, by +united action, those universal and eternal truths, which are too +great for the grasp of any one time-ridden individual. Not that we +claim the gift of infallibility, any more than I do that of perfect +utterance of the little which we do know.' + +'Then what do you promise me in asking me to go with you?' + +'Practical proof that these my words are true,--practical proof that +they can make a nation all that England might be and is not,--the +sight of what a people might become who, knowing thus far, do what +they know. We believe no more than you, but we believe it. Come +and see!--and yet you will not see; facts, and the reasons of them, +will be as impalpable to you there as here, unless you can again +obey your Novum Organum.' + +'How then?' + +'By renouncing all your idols--the idols of the race and of the +market, of the study and of the theatre. Every national prejudice, +every vulgar superstition, every remnant of pedantic system, every +sentimental like or dislike, must be left behind you, for the +induction of the world problem. You must empty yourself before God +will fill you.' + +'Of what can I strip myself more? I know nothing; I can do nothing; +I hope nothing; I fear nothing; I am nothing.' + +'And you would gain something. But for what purpose?--for on that +depends your whole success. To be famous, great, glorious, +powerful, beneficent?' + +'As I live, the height of my ambition, small though it be, is only +to find my place, though it were but as a sweeper of chimneys. If I +dare wish--if I dare choose, it would be only this--to regenerate +one little parish in the whole world . . . To do that, and die, for +aught I care, without ever being recognised as the author of my own +deeds . . . to hear them, if need be, imputed to another, and myself +accursed as a fool, if I can but atone for the sins of . . . + +He paused; but his teacher understood him. + +'It is enough,' he said. 'Come with me; Tregarva waits for us near. +Again I warn you; you will hear nothing new; you shall only see what +you, and all around you, have known and not done, known and done. +We have no peculiar doctrines or systems; the old creeds are enough +for us. But we have obeyed the teaching which we received in each +and every age, and allowed ourselves to be built up, generation by +generation--as the rest of Christendom might have done--into a +living temple, on the foundation which is laid already, and other +than which no man can lay.' + +'And what is that?' + +'Jesus Christ--THE MAN.' + +He took Lancelot by the hand. A peaceful warmth diffused itself +over his limbs; the droning of the organ sounded fainter and more +faint; the marble monuments grew dim and distant; and, half +unconsciously, he followed like a child through the cathedral door. + + + +EPILOGUE + + + +I can foresee many criticisms, and those not unreasonable ones, on +this little book--let it be some excuse at least for me, that I have +foreseen them. Readers will complain, I doubt not, of the very +mythical and mysterious denouement of a story which began by things +so gross and palpable as field-sports and pauperism. But is it not +true that, sooner or later, 'omnia exeunt in mysterium'? Out of +mystery we all came at our birth, fox-hunters and paupers, sages and +saints; into mystery we shall all return . . . at all events, when +we die; probably, as it seems to me, some of us will return thither +before we die. For if the signs of the times mean anything, they +portend, I humbly submit, a somewhat mysterious and mythical +denouement to this very age, and to those struggles of it which I +have herein attempted, clumsily enough, to sketch. We are entering +fast, I both hope and fear, into the region of prodigy, true and +false; and our great-grandchildren will look back on the latter half +of this century, and ask, if it were possible that such things could +happen in an organised planet? The Benthamites will receive this +announcement, if it ever meets their eyes, with shouts of laughter. +Be it so . . . nous verrons . . . In the year 1847, if they will +recollect, they were congratulating themselves on the nations having +grown too wise to go to war any more . . . and in 1848? So it has +been from the beginning. What did philosophers expect in 1792? +What did they see in 1793? Popery was to be eternal: but the +Reformation came nevertheless. Rome was to be eternal: but Alaric +came. Jerusalem was to be eternal: but Titus came. Gomorrha was +to be eternal, I doubt not; but the fire-floods came. . . . 'As it +was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the Son of +Man. They were eating, drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage; +and the flood came and swept them all away.' Of course they did not +expect it. They went on saying, 'Where is the promise of his +coming? For all things continue as they were from the beginning.' +Most true; but what if they were from the beginning--over a +volcano's mouth? What if the method whereon things have proceeded +since the creation were, as geology as well as history proclaims, a +cataclysmic method? What then? Why should not this age, as all +others like it have done, end in a cataclysm, and a prodigy, and a +mystery? And why should not my little book do likewise? + +Again--Readers will probably complain of the fragmentary and +unconnected form of the book. Let them first be sure that that is +not an integral feature of the subject itself, and therefore the +very form the book should take. Do not young men think, speak, act, +just now, in this very incoherent, fragmentary way; without methodic +education or habits of thought; with the various stereotyped systems +which they have received by tradition, breaking up under them like +ice in a thaw; with a thousand facts and notions, which they know +not how to classify, pouring in on them like a flood?--a very Yeasty +state of mind altogether, like a mountain burn in a spring rain, +carrying down with it stones, sticks, peat-water, addle grouse-eggs +and drowned kingfishers, fertilising salts and vegetable poisons-- +not, alas! without a large crust, here and there, of sheer froth. +Yet no heterogeneous confused flood-deposit, no fertile meadows +below. And no high water, no fishing. It is in the long black +droughts, when the water is foul from lowness, and not from height, +that Hydras and Desmidiae, and Rotifers, and all uncouth pseud- +organisms, bred of putridity, begin to multiply, and the fish are +sick for want of a fresh, and the cunningest artificial fly is of no +avail, and the shrewdest angler will do nothing--except with a gross +fleshly gilt-tailed worm, or the cannibal bait of roe, whereby +parent fishes, like competitive barbarisms, devour each other's +flesh and blood--perhaps their own. It is when the stream is +clearing after a flood, that the fish will rise. . . . When will +the flood clear, and the fish come on the feed again? + +Next; I shall be blamed for having left untold the fate of those +characters who have acted throughout as Lancelot's satellites. But +indeed their only purpose consisted in their influence on his +development, and that of Tregarva; I do not see that we have any +need to follow them farther. The reader can surely conjecture their +history for himself. . . . He may be pretty certain that they have +gone the way of the world . . . abierunt ad plures . . . for this +life or for the next. They have done--very much what he or I might +have done in their place--nothing. Nature brings very few of her +children to perfection, in these days or any other. . . . And for +Grace, which does bring its children to perfection, the quantity and +quality of the perfection must depend on the quantity and quality of +the grace, and that again, to an awful extent--The Giver only knows +to how great an extent--on the will of the recipients, and therefore +in exact proportion to their lowness in the human scale, on the +circumstances which environ them. So my characters are now--very +much what the reader might expect them to be. I confess them to be +unsatisfactory; so are most things: but how can I solve problems +which fact has not yet solved for me? How am I to extricate my +antitypal characters, when their living types have not yet +extricated themselves? When the age moves on, my story shall move +on with it. Let it be enough, that my puppets have retreated in +good order, and that I am willing to give to those readers who have +conceived something of human interest for them, the latest accounts +of their doings. + +With the exception, that is, of Mellot and Sabina. Them I confess +to be an utterly mysterious, fragmentary little couple. Why not? +Do you not meet with twenty such in the course of your life?-- +Charming people, who for aught you know may be opera folk from +Paris, or emissaries from the Czar, or disguised Jesuits, or +disguised Angels . . . who evidently 'have a history,' and a strange +one, which you never expect or attempt to fathom; who interest you +intensely for a while, and then are whirled away again in the great +world-waltz, and lost in the crowd for ever? Why should you wish my +story to be more complete than theirs is, or less romantic than +theirs may be? There are more things in London, as well as in +heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in our philosophy. If you but +knew the secret history of that dull gentleman opposite whom you sat +at dinner yesterday!--the real thoughts of that chattering girl whom +you took down!--'Omnia exeunt in mysterium,' I say again. Every +human being is a romance, a miracle to himself now; and will appear +as one to all the world in That Day. + +But now for the rest; and Squire Lavington first. He is a very fair +sample of the fate of the British public; for he is dead and buried: +and readers would not have me extricate him out of that situation. +If you ask news of the reason and manner of his end, I can only +answer, that like many others, he went out--as candles do. I +believe he expressed general repentance for all his sins--all, at +least, of which he was aware. To confess and repent of the state of +the Whitford Priors estate, and of the poor thereon, was of course +more than any minister, of any denomination whatsoever, could be +required to demand of him; seeing that would have involved a +recognition of those duties of property, of which the good old +gentleman was to the last a staunch denier; and which are as yet +seldom supposed to be included in any Christian creed, Catholic or +other. Two sermons were preached in Whitford on the day of his +funeral; one by Mr. O'Blareaway, on the text from Job, provided for +such occasions; 'When the ear heard him, then it blessed him,' etc. +etc.: the other by the Baptist preacher, on two verses of the +forty-ninth Psalm-- + +'They fancy that their houses shall endure for ever, and call the +lands after their own names. + +'Yet man being in honour hath no understanding, but is compared to +the beasts that perish.' + +Waiving the good taste, which was probably on a par in both cases, +the reader is left to decide which of the two texts was most +applicable. + +Mrs. Lavington is Mrs. Lavington no longer. She has married, to the +astonishment of the world in general, that 'excellent man,' Mr. +O'Blareaway, who has been discovered not to be quite as young as he +appeared, his graces being principally owing to a Brutus wig, which +he has now wisely discarded. Mrs. Lavington now sits in state under +her husband's ministry, as the leader of the religious world in the +fashionable watering-place of Steamingbath, and derives her notions +of the past, present, and future state of the universe principally +from those two meek and unbiased periodicals, the Protestant Hue- +and-Cry and the Christian Satirist, to both of which O'Blareaway is +a constant contributor. She has taken such an aversion to Whitford +since Argemone's death, that she has ceased to have any connection +with that unhealthy locality, beyond the popular and easy one of +rent-receiving. O'Blareaway has never entered the parish to his +knowledge since Mr. Lavington's funeral; and was much pleased, the +last time I rode with him, at my informing him that a certain +picturesque moorland which he had been greatly admiring, was his own +possession. . . . After all, he is 'an excellent man;' and when I +met a large party at his house the other day, and beheld dory and +surmullet, champagne and lachryma Christi, amid all the glory of the +Whitford plate . . . (some of it said to have belonged to the altar +of the Priory Church four hundred years ago), I was deeply moved by +the impressive tone in which, at the end of a long grace, he prayed +'that the daily bread of our less favoured brethren might be +mercifully vouchsafed to them.' . . . My dear readers, would you +have me, even if I could, extricate him from such an Elysium by any +denouement whatsoever? + +Poor dear Luke, again, is said to be painting lean frescoes for the +Something-or-other-Kirche at Munich; and the vicar, under the name +of Father Stylites, of the order of St. Philumena, is preaching +impassioned sermons to crowded congregations at St. George's, +Bedlam. How can I extricate them from that? No one has come forth +of it yet, to my knowledge, except by paths whereof I shall use +Lessing's saying, 'I may have my whole hand full of truth, and yet +find good to open only my little finger.' But who cares for their +coming out? They are but two more added to the five hundred, at +whose moral suicide, and dive into the Roman Avernus, a quasi- +Protestant public looks on with a sort of savage satisfaction, +crying only, 'Didn't we tell you so?'--and more than half hopes that +they will not come back again, lest they should be discovered to +have learnt anything while they were there. What are two among that +five hundred? much more among the five thousand who seem destined +shortly to follow them? + +The banker, thanks to Barnakill's assistance, is rapidly getting +rich again--who would wish to stop him? However, he is wiser, on +some points at least, than he was of yore. He has taken up the flax +movement violently of late--perhaps owing to some hint of +Barnakill's--talks of nothing but Chevalier Claussen and Mr. +Donellan, and is very anxious to advance capital to any landlord who +will grow flax on Mr. Warnes's method, either in England or Ireland. +. . . John Bull, however, has not yet awakened sufficiently to +listen to his overtures, but sits up in bed, dolefully rubbing his +eyes, and bemoaning the evanishment of his protectionist dream-- +altogether realising tolerably, he and his land, Dr. Watts' well- +known moral song concerning the sluggard and his garden. + +Lord Minchampstead again prospers. Either the nuns of Minchampstead +have left no Nemesis behind them, like those of Whitford, or a +certain wisdom and righteousness of his, however dim and imperfect, +averts it for a time. So, as I said, he prospers, and is hated; +especially by his farmers, to whom he has just offered long leases, +and a sliding corn-rent. They would have hated him just the same if +he had kept them at rack-rents; and he has not forgotten that; but +they have. They looked shy at the leases, because they bind them to +farm high, which they do not know how to do; and at the corn-rent, +because they think that he expects wheat to rise again--which, being +a sensible man, he very probably does. But for my story--I +certainly do not see how to extricate him or any one else from +farmers' stupidity, greed, and ill-will. . . . That question must +have seven years' more free-trade to settle it, before I can say +anything thereon. Still less can I foreshadow the fate of his +eldest son, who has just been rusticated from Christ Church for +riding one of Simmon's hacks through a china-shop window; especially +as the youth is reported to be given to piquette and strong liquors, +and, like many noblemen's eldest sons, is considered 'not to have +the talent of his father.' As for the old lord himself, I have no +wish to change or develop him in any way--except to cut slips off +him, as you do off a willow, and plant two or three in every county +in England. Let him alone to work out his own plot . . . we have +not seen the end of it yet; but whatever it will be, England has +need of him as a transition-stage between feudalism and * * * * ; +for many a day to come. If he be not the ideal landlord, he is +nearer it than any we are like yet to see. . . . + +Except one; and that, after all, is Lord Vieuxbois. Let him go on, +like a gallant gentleman as he is, and prosper. And he will +prosper, for he fears God, and God is with him. He has much to +learn; and a little to unlearn. He has to learn that God is a +living God now, as well as in the middle ages; to learn to trust not +in antique precedents, but in eternal laws: to learn that his +tenants, just because they are children of God, are not to be kept +children, but developed and educated into sons; to learn that God's +grace, like His love, is free, and that His spirit bloweth where it +listeth, and vindicates its own free-will against our narrow +systems, by revealing, at times, even to nominal Heretics and +Infidels, truths which the Catholic Church must humbly receive, as +the message of Him who is wider, deeper, more tolerant, than even +she can be. . . And he is in the way to learn all this. Let him go +on. At what conclusions he will attain, he knows not, nor do I. +But this I know, that he is on the path to great and true +conclusions. . . . And he is just about to be married, too. That +surely should teach him something. The papers inform me that his +bride elect is Lord Minchampstead's youngest daughter. That should +be a noble mixture; there should be stalwart offspring, spiritual as +well as physical, born of that intermarriage of the old and the new. +We will hope it: perhaps some of my readers, who enter into my +inner meaning, may also pray for it. + +Whom have I to account for besides? Crawy--though some of my +readers may consider the mention of him superfluous. But to those +who do not, I may impart the news, that last month, in the union +workhouse--he died; and may, for aught we know, have ere this met +Squire Lavington . . . He is supposed, or at least said, to have had +a soul to be saved . . . as I think, a body to be saved also. But +what is one more among so many? And in an over-peopled country like +this, too. . . . One must learn to look at things--and paupers--in +the mass. + +The poor of Whitford also? My dear readers, I trust you will not +ask me just now to draw the horoscope of the Whitford poor, or of +any others. Really that depends principally on yourselves. . . . +But for the present, the poor of Whitford, owing, as it seems to +them and me, to quite other causes than an 'overstocked labour- +market,' or too rapid 'multiplication of their species,' are growing +more profligate, reckless, pauperised, year by year. O'Blareaway +complained sadly to me the other day that the poor-rates were +becoming 'heavier and heavier'--had nearly reached, indeed, what +they were under the old law. . . . + +But there is one who does not complain, but gives and gives, and +stints herself to give, and weeps in silence and unseen over the +evils which she has yearly less and less power to stem. + +For in a darkened chamber of the fine house at Steamingbath, lies on +a sofa Honoria Lavington--beautiful no more; the victim of some +mysterious and agonising disease, about which the physicians agree +on one point only--that it is hopeless. The 'curse of the +Lavingtons' is on her; and she bears it. There she lies, and prays, +and reads, and arranges her charities, and writes little books for +children, full of the Beloved Name which is for ever on her lips. +She suffers--none but herself knows how much, or how strangely--yet +she is never heard to sigh. She weeps in secret--she has long +ceased to plead--for others, not for herself; and prays for them +too--perhaps some day her prayers will yet he answered. But she +greets all visitors with a smile fresh from heaven; and all who +enter that room leave it saddened, and yet happy, like those who +have lingered a moment at the gates of paradise, and seen angels +ascending and descending upon earth. There she lies--who could wish +her otherwise? Even Doctor Autotheus Maresnest, the celebrated +mesmeriser, who, though he laughs at the Resurrection of the Lord, +is confidently reported to have raised more than one corpse to life +himself, was heard to say, after having attended her professionally, +that her waking bliss and peace, although unfortunately +unattributable even to autocatalepsy, much less to somnambulist +exaltation, was on the whole, however unscientific, almost as +enviable. + +There she lies--and will lie till she dies--the type of thousands +more, 'the martyrs by the pang without the palm,' who find no mates +in this life . . . and yet may find them in the life to come., . . +Poor Paul Tregarva! Little he fancies how her days run by! . . . + +At least, there has been no news since that last scene in St. Paul's +Cathedral, either of him or Lancelot. How their strange teacher has +fulfilled his promise of guiding their education; whether they have +yet reached the country of Prester John; whether, indeed, that +Caucasian Utopia has a local and bodily existence, or was only used +by Barnakill to shadow out that Ideal which is, as he said of the +Garden of Eden, always near us, underlying the Actual, as the spirit +does its body, exhibiting itself step by step through all the +falsehoods and confusions of history and society, giving life to all +in it which is not falsehood and decay; on all these questions I can +give my readers no sort of answer; perhaps I may as yet have no +answer to give; perhaps I may be afraid of giving one; perhaps the +times themselves are giving, at once cheerfully and sadly, in +strange destructions and strange births, a better answer than I can +give. I have set forth, as far as in me lay, the data of my +problem: and surely, if the premises be given, wise men will not +have to look far for the conclusion. In homely English I have given +my readers Yeast; if they be what I take them for, they will be able +to bake with it themselves. + +And yet I have brought Lancelot, at least--perhaps Tregarva too--to +a conclusion, and an all-important one, which whoso reads may find +fairly printed in these pages. Henceforth his life must begin anew. +Were I to carry on the thread of his story continuously he would +still seem to have overleaped as vast a gulf as if I had re- +introduced him as a gray-haired man. Strange! that the death of one +of the lovers should seem no complete termination to their history, +when their marriage would have been accepted by all as the +legitimate denouement, beyond which no information was to be +expected. As if the history of love always ended at the altar! +Oftener it only begins there; and all before it is but a mere +longing to love. Why should readers complain of being refused the +future history of one life, when they are in most novels cut short +by the marriage finale from the biography of two? + +But if, over and above this, any reader should be wroth at my having +left Lancelot's history unfinished on questions in his opinion more +important than that of love, let me entreat him to set manfully +about finishing his own history--a far more important one to him +than Lancelot's. If he shall complain that doubts are raised for +which no solution is given, that my hero is brought into +contradictory beliefs without present means of bringing them to +accord, into passive acquiescence in vast truths without seeing any +possibility of practically applying them--let him consider well +whether such be not his own case; let him, if he be as most are, +thank God when he finds out that such is his case, when he knows at +last that those are most blind who say they see, when he becomes at +last conscious how little he believes, how little he acts up to that +small belief. Let him try to right somewhat of the doubt, +confusion, custom-worship, inconsistency, idolatry, within him--some +of the greed, bigotry, recklessness, respectably superstitious +atheism around him; and perhaps before his new task is finished, +Lancelot and Tregarva may have returned with a message, if not for +him--for that depends upon him having ears to hear it--yet possibly +for strong Lord Minchampstead, probably for good Lord Vieuxbois, and +surely for the sinners and the slaves of Whitford Priors. What it +will be, I know not altogether; but this I know, that if my heroes +go on as they have set forth, looking with single mind for some one +ground of human light and love, some everlasting rock whereon to +build, utterly careless what the building may be, howsoever contrary +to precedent and prejudice, and the idols of the day, provided God, +and nature, and the accumulated lessons of all the ages, help them +in its construction--then they will find in time the thing they +seek, and see how the will of God may at last be done on earth, even +as it is done in heaven. But, alas! between them and it are waste +raging waters, foul mud banks, thick with dragons and sirens; and +many a bitter day and blinding night, in cold and hunger, spiritual +and perhaps physical, await them. For it was a true vision which +John Bunyan saw, and one which, as the visions of wise men are wont +to do, meant far more than the seer fancied, when he beheld in his +dream that there was indeed a land of Beulah, and Arcadian Shepherd +Paradise, on whose mountain tops the everlasting sunshine lay; but +that the way to it, as these last three years are preaching to us, +went past the mouth of Hell, and through the valley of the Shadow of +Death. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YEAST: A PROBLEM*** + + +******* This file should be named 10364.txt or 10364.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/3/6/10364 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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