The Way of All Flesh (2024)

PREFACE

Samuel Butler began to write “The Way of All Flesh”about the year 1872, and was engaged upon it intermittently until 1884.It is therefore, to a great extent, contemporaneous with “Lifeand Habit,” and may be taken as a practical illustration of thetheory of heredity embodied in that book. He did not work at itafter 1884, but for various reasons he postponed its publication.He was occupied in other ways, and he professed himself dissatisfiedwith it as a whole, and always intended to rewrite or at any rate torevise it. His death in 1902 prevented him from doing this, andon his death-bed he gave me clearly to understand that he wished itto be published in its present form. I found that the MS. of thefourth and fifth chapters had disappeared, but by consulting and comparingvarious notes and sketches, which remained among his papers, I havebeen able to supply the missing chapters in a form which I believe doesnot differ materially from that which he finally adopted. Withregard to the chronology of the events recorded, the reader will dowell to bear in mind that the main body of the novel is supposed tohave been written in the year 1867, and the last chapter added as apostscript in 1882.

R. A. STREATFEILD.

CHAPTER I

When I was a small boy at the beginning of the century I rememberan old man who wore knee-breeches and worsted stockings, and who usedto hobble about the street of our village with the help of a stick.He must have been getting on for eighty in the year 1807, earlier thanwhich date I suppose I can hardly remember him, for I was born in 1802.A few white locks hung about his ears, his shoulders were bent and hisknees feeble, but he was still hale, and was much respected in our littleworld of Paleham. His name was Pontifex.

His wife was said to be his master; I have been told she broughthim a little money, but it cannot have been much. She was a tall,square-shouldered person (I have heard my father call her a Gothic woman)who had insisted on being married to Mr Pontifex when he was young andtoo good-natured to say nay to any woman who wooed him. The pairhad lived not unhappily together, for Mr Pontifex’s temper waseasy and he soon learned to bow before his wife’s more stormymoods.

Mr Pontifex was a carpenter by trade; he was also at one time parishclerk; when I remember him, however, he had so far risen in life asto be no longer compelled to work with his own hands. In his earlierdays he had taught himself to draw. I do not say he drew well,but it was surprising he should draw as well as he did. My father,who took the living of Paleham about the year 1797, became possessedof a good many of old Mr Pontifex’s drawings, which were alwaysof local subjects, and so unaffectedly painstaking that they might havepassed for the work of some good early master. I remember themas hanging up framed and glazed in the study at the Rectory, and tinted,as all else in the room was tinted, with the green reflected from thefringe of ivy leaves that grew around the windows. I wonder howthey will actually cease and come to an end as drawings, and into whatnew phases of being they will then enter.

Not content with being an artist, Mr Pontifex must needs also bea musician. He built the organ in the church with his own hands,and made a smaller one which he kept in his own house. He couldplay as much as he could draw, not very well according to professionalstandards, but much better than could have been expected. I myselfshowed a taste for music at an early age, and old Mr Pontifex on findingit out, as he soon did, became partial to me in consequence.

It may be thought that with so many irons in the fire he could hardlybe a very thriving man, but this was not the case. His fatherhad been a day labourer, and he had himself begun life with no othercapital than his good sense and good constitution; now, however, therewas a goodly show of timber about his yard, and a look of solid comfortover his whole establishment. Towards the close of the eighteenthcentury and not long before my father came to Paleham, he had takena farm of about ninety acres, thus making a considerable rise in life.Along with the farm there went an old-fashioned but comfortable housewith a charming garden and an orchard. The carpenter’s businesswas now carried on in one of the outhouses that had once been part ofsome conventual buildings, the remains of which could be seen in whatwas called the Abbey Close. The house itself, embosomed in honeysucklesand creeping roses, was an ornament to the whole village, nor were itsinternal arrangements less exemplary than its outside was ornamental.Report said that Mrs Pontifex starched the sheets for her best bed,and I can well believe it.

How well do I remember her parlour half filled with the organ whichher husband had built, and scented with a withered apple or two fromthe pyrus japonica that grew outside the house; the picture ofthe prize ox over the chimney-piece, which Mr Pontifex himself had painted;the transparency of the man coming to show light to a coach upon a snowynight, also by Mr Pontifex; the little old man and little old womanwho told the weather; the china shepherd and shepherdess; the jars offeathery flowering grasses with a peaco*ck’s feather or two amongthem to set them off, and the china bowls full of dead rose leaves driedwith bay salt. All has long since vanished and become a memory,faded but still fragrant to myself.

Nay, but her kitchen—and the glimpses into a cavernous cellarbeyond it, wherefrom came gleams from the pale surfaces of milk cans,or it may be of the arms and face of a milkmaid skimming the cream;or again her storeroom, where among other treasures she kept the famouslipsalve which was one of her especial glories, and of which she wouldpresent a shape yearly to those whom she delighted to honour.She wrote out the recipe for this and gave it to my mother a year ortwo before she died, but we could never make it as she did. Whenwe were children she used sometimes to send her respects to my mother,and ask leave for us to come and take tea with her. Right wellshe used to ply us. As for her temper, we never met such a delightfulold lady in our lives; whatever Mr Pontifex may have had to put up with,we had no cause for complaint, and then Mr Pontifex would play to usupon the organ, and we would stand round him open-mouthed and thinkhim the most wonderfully clever man that ever was born, except of courseour papa.

Mrs Pontifex had no sense of humour, at least I can call to mindno signs of this, but her husband had plenty of fun in him, though fewwould have guessed it from his appearance. I remember my fatheronce sent me down to his workship to get some glue, and I happened tocome when old Pontifex was in the act of scolding his boy. Hehad got the lad—a pudding-headed fellow—by the ear and wassaying, “What? Lost again—smothered o’ wit.”(I believe it was the boy who was himself supposed to be a wanderingsoul, and who was thus addressed as lost.) “Now, look here,my lad,” he continued, “some boys are born stupid, and thouart one of them; some achieve stupidity—that’s thee again,Jim—thou wast both born stupid and hast greatly increased thybirthright—and some” (and here came a climax during whichthe boy’s head and ear were swayed from side to side) “havestupidity thrust upon them, which, if it please the Lord, shall notbe thy case, my lad, for I will thrust stupidity from thee, though Ihave to box thine ears in doing so,” but I did not see that theold man really did box Jim’s ears, or do more than pretend tofrighten him, for the two understood one another perfectly well.Another time I remember hearing him call the village rat-catcher bysaying, “Come hither, thou three-days-and-three-nights, thou,”alluding, as I afterwards learned, to the rat-catcher’s periodsof intoxication; but I will tell no more of such trifles. My father’sface would always brighten when old Pontifex’s name was mentioned.“I tell you, Edward,” he would say to me, “old Pontifexwas not only an able man, but he was one of the very ablest men thatever I knew.”

This was more than I as a young man was prepared to stand.“My dear father,” I answered, “what did he do?He could draw a little, but could he to save his life have got a pictureinto the Royal Academy exhibition? He built two organs and couldplay the Minuet in Samson on one and the March in Scipioon the other; he was a good carpenter and a bit of a wag; he was a goodold fellow enough, but why make him out so much abler than he was?”

“My boy,” returned my father, “you must not judgeby the work, but by the work in connection with the surroundings.Could Giotto or Filippo Lippi, think you, have got a picture into theExhibition? Would a single one of those frescoes we went to seewhen we were at Padua have the remotest chance of being hung, if itwere sent in for exhibition now? Why, the Academy people wouldbe so outraged that they would not even write to poor Giotto to tellhim to come and take his fresco away. Phew!” continued he,waxing warm, “if old Pontifex had had Cromwell’s chanceshe would have done all that Cromwell did, and have done it better; ifhe had had Giotto’s chances he would have done all that Giottodid, and done it no worse; as it was, he was a village carpenter, andI will undertake to say he never scamped a job in the whole course ofhis life.”

“But,” said I, “we cannot judge people with somany ‘ifs.’ If old Pontifex had lived in Giotto’stime he might have been another Giotto, but he did not live in Giotto’stime.”

“I tell you, Edward,” said my father with some severity,“we must judge men not so much by what they do, as by what theymake us feel that they have it in them to do. If a man has doneenough either in painting, music or the affairs of life, to make mefeel that I might trust him in an emergency he has done enough.It is not by what a man has actually put upon his canvas, nor yet bythe acts which he has set down, so to speak, upon the canvas of hislife that I will judge him, but by what he makes me feel that he feltand aimed at. If he has made me feel that he felt those thingsto be loveable which I hold loveable myself I ask no more; his grammarmay have been imperfect, but still I have understood him; he and I areen rapport; and I say again, Edward, that old Pontifex was notonly an able man, but one of the very ablest men I ever knew.”

Against this there was no more to be said, and my sisters eyed meto silence. Somehow or other my sisters always did eye me to silencewhen I differed from my father.

“Talk of his successful son,” snorted my father, whomI had fairly roused. “He is not fit to black his father’sboots. He has his thousands of pounds a year, while his fatherhad perhaps three thousand shillings a year towards the end of his life.He is a successful man; but his father, hobbling about PalehamStreet in his grey worsted stockings, broad brimmed hat and brown swallow-tailedcoat was worth a hundred of George Pontifexes, for all his carriagesand horses and the airs he gives himself.”

“But yet,” he added, “George Pontifex is no fooleither.” And this brings us to the second generation ofthe Pontifex family with whom we need concern ourselves.

CHAPTER II

Old Mr Pontifex had married in the year 1750, but for fifteen yearshis wife bore no children. At the end of that time Mrs Pontifexastonished the whole village by showing unmistakable signs of a dispositionto present her husband with an heir or heiress. Hers had longago been considered a hopeless case, and when on consulting the doctorconcerning the meaning of certain symptoms she was informed of theirsignificance, she became very angry and abused the doctor roundly fortalking nonsense. She refused to put so much as a piece of threadinto a needle in anticipation of her confinement and would have beenabsolutely unprepared, if her neighbours had not been better judgesof her condition than she was, and got things ready without tellingher anything about it. Perhaps she feared Nemesis, though assuredlyshe knew not who or what Nemesis was; perhaps she feared the doctorhad made a mistake and she should be laughed at; from whatever cause,however, her refusal to recognise the obvious arose, she certainly refusedto recognise it, until one snowy night in January the doctor was sentfor with all urgent speed across the rough country roads. Whenhe arrived he found two patients, not one, in need of his assistance,for a boy had been born who was in due time christened George, in honourof his then reigning majesty.

To the best of my belief George Pontifex got the greater part ofhis nature from this obstinate old lady, his mother—a mother whothough she loved no one else in the world except her husband (and himonly after a fashion) was most tenderly attached to the unexpected childof her old age; nevertheless she showed it little.

The boy grew up into a sturdy bright-eyed little fellow, with plentyof intelligence, and perhaps a trifle too great readiness at book learning.Being kindly treated at home, he was as fond of his father and motheras it was in his nature to be of anyone, but he was fond of no one else.He had a good healthy sense of meum, and as little of tuumas he could help. Brought up much in the open air in one of thebest situated and healthiest villages in England, his little limbs hadfair play, and in those days children’s brains were not overtaskedas they now are; perhaps it was for this very reason that the boy showedan avidity to learn. At seven or eight years old he could read,write and sum better than any other boy of his age in the village.My father was not yet rector of Paleham, and did not remember GeorgePontifex’s childhood, but I have heard neighbours tell him thatthe boy was looked upon as unusually quick and forward. His fatherand mother were naturally proud of their offspring, and his mother wasdetermined that he should one day become one of the kings and councillorsof the earth.

It is one thing however to resolve that one’s son shall winsome of life’s larger prizes, and another to square matters withfortune in this respect. George Pontifex might have been broughtup as a carpenter and succeeded in no other way than as succeeding hisfather as one of the minor magnates of Paleham, and yet have been amore truly successful man than he actually was—for I take it thereis not much more solid success in this world than what fell to the lotof old Mr and Mrs Pontifex; it happened, however, that about the year1780, when George was a boy of fifteen, a sister of Mrs Pontifex’s,who had married a Mr Fairlie, came to pay a few days’ visit atPaleham. Mr Fairlie was a publisher, chiefly of religious works,and had an establishment in Paternoster Row; he had risen in life, andhis wife had risen with him. No very close relations had beenmaintained between the sisters for some years, and I forget exactlyhow it came about that Mr and Mrs Fairlie were guests in the quiet butexceedingly comfortable house of their sister and brother-in-law; butfor some reason or other the visit was paid, and little George soonsucceeded in making his way into his uncle and aunt’s good graces.A quick, intelligent boy with a good address, a sound constitution,and coming of respectable parents, has a potential value which a practisedbusiness man who has need of many subordinates is little likely to overlook.Before his visit was over Mr Fairlie proposed to the lad’s fatherand mother that he should put him into his own business, at the sametime promising that if the boy did well he should not want some oneto bring him forward. Mrs Pontifex had her son’s interesttoo much at heart to refuse such an offer, so the matter was soon arranged,and about a fortnight after the Fairlies had left, George was sent upby coach to London, where he was met by his uncle and aunt, with whomit was arranged that he should live.

This was George’s great start in life. He now wore morefashionable clothes than he had yet been accustomed to, and any littlerusticity of gait or pronunciation which he had brought from Paleham,was so quickly and completely lost that it was ere long impossible todetect that he had not been born and bred among people of what is commonlycalled education. The boy paid great attention to his work, andmore than justified the favourable opinion which Mr Fairlie had formedconcerning him. Sometimes Mr Fairlie would send him down to Palehamfor a few days’ holiday, and ere long his parents perceived thathe had acquired an air and manner of talking different from any thathe had taken with him from Paleham. They were proud of him, andsoon fell into their proper places, resigning all appearance of a parentalcontrol, for which indeed there was no kind of necessity. In return,George was always kindly to them, and to the end of his life retaineda more affectionate feeling towards his father and mother than I imaginehim ever to have felt again for man, woman, or child.

George’s visits to Paleham were never long, for the distancefrom London was under fifty miles and there was a direct coach, so thatthe journey was easy; there was not time, therefore, for the noveltyto wear off either on the part of the young man or of his parents.George liked the fresh country air and green fields after the darknessto which he had been so long accustomed in Paternoster Row, which then,as now, was a narrow gloomy lane rather than a street. Independentlyof the pleasure of seeing the familiar faces of the farmers and villagers,he liked also being seen and being congratulated on growing up sucha fine-looking and fortunate young fellow, for he was not the youthto hide his light under a bushel. His uncle had had him taughtLatin and Greek of an evening; he had taken kindly to these languagesand had rapidly and easily mastered what many boys take years in acquiring.I suppose his knowledge gave him a self-confidence which made itselffelt whether he intended it or not; at any rate, he soon began to poseas a judge of literature, and from this to being a judge of art, architecture,music and everything else, the path was easy. Like his father,he knew the value of money, but he was at once more ostentatious andless liberal than his father; while yet a boy he was a thorough littleman of the world, and did well rather upon principles which he had testedby personal experiment, and recognised as principles, than from thoseprofounder convictions which in his father were so instinctive thathe could give no account concerning them.

His father, as I have said, wondered at him and let him alone.His son had fairly distanced him, and in an inarticulate way the fatherknew it perfectly well. After a few years he took to wearing hisbest clothes whenever his son came to stay with him, nor would he discardthem for his ordinary ones till the young man had returned to London.I believe old Mr Pontifex, along with his pride and affection, feltalso a certain fear of his son, as though of something which he couldnot thoroughly understand, and whose ways, notwithstanding outward agreement,were nevertheless not as his ways. Mrs Pontifex felt nothing ofthis; to her George was pure and absolute perfection, and she saw, orthought she saw, with pleasure, that he resembled her and her familyin feature as well as in disposition rather than her husband and his.

When George was about twenty-five years old his uncle took him intopartnership on very liberal terms. He had little cause to regretthis step. The young man infused fresh vigour into a concern thatwas already vigorous, and by the time he was thirty found himself inthe receipt of not less than £1500 a year as his share of theprofits. Two years later he married a lady about seven years youngerthan himself, who brought him a handsome dowry. She died in 1805,when her youngest child Alethea was born, and her husband did not marryagain.

CHAPTER III

In the early years of the century five little children and a coupleof nurses began to make periodical visits to Paleham. It is needlessto say they were a rising generation of Pontifexes, towards whom theold couple, their grandparents, were as tenderly deferential as theywould have been to the children of the Lord Lieutenant of the County.Their names were Eliza, Maria, John, Theobald (who like myself was bornin 1802), and Alethea. Mr Pontifex always put the prefix “master”or “miss” before the names of his grandchildren, exceptin the case of Alethea, who was his favourite. To have resistedhis grandchildren would have been as impossible for him as to have resistedhis wife; even old Mrs Pontifex yielded before her son’s children,and gave them all manner of licence which she would never have allowedeven to my sisters and myself, who stood next in her regard. Tworegulations only they must attend to; they must wipe their shoes wellon coming into the house, and they must not overfeed Mr Pontifex’sorgan with wind, nor take the pipes out.

By us at the Rectory there was no time so much looked forward toas the annual visit of the little Pontifexes to Paleham. We camein for some of the prevailing licence; we went to tea with Mrs Pontifexto meet her grandchildren, and then our young friends were asked tothe Rectory to have tea with us, and we had what we considered greattimes. I fell desperately in love with Alethea, indeed we allfell in love with each other, plurality and exchange whether of wivesor husbands being openly and unblushingly advocated in the very presenceof our nurses. We were very merry, but it is so long ago thatI have forgotten nearly everything save that we were very merry.Almost the only thing that remains with me as a permanent impressionwas the fact that Theobald one day beat his nurse and teased her, andwhen she said she should go away cried out, “You shan’tgo away—I’ll keep you on purpose to torment you.”

One winter’s morning, however, in the year 1811, we heard thechurch bell tolling while we were dressing in the back nursery and weretold it was for old Mrs Pontifex. Our man-servant John told usand added with grim levity that they were ringing the bell to come andtake her away. She had had a fit of paralysis which had carriedher off quite suddenly. It was very shocking, the more so becauseour nurse assured us that if God chose we might all have fits of paralysisourselves that very day and be taken straight off to the Day of Judgement.The Day of Judgement indeed, according to the opinion of those who weremost likely to know, would not under any circ*mstances be delayed morethan a few years longer, and then the whole world would be burned, andwe ourselves be consigned to an eternity of torture, unless we mendedour ways more than we at present seemed at all likely to do. Allthis was so alarming that we fell to screaming and made such a hullabaloothat the nurse was obliged for her own peace to reassure us. Thenwe wept, but more composedly, as we remembered that there would be nomore tea and cakes for us now at old Mrs Pontifex’s.

On the day of the funeral, however, we had a great excitement; oldMr Pontifex sent round a penny loaf to every inhabitant of the villageaccording to a custom still not uncommon at the beginning of the century;the loaf was called a dole. We had never heard of this custombefore, besides, though we had often heard of penny loaves, we had neverbefore seen one; moreover, they were presents to us as inhabitants ofthe village, and we were treated as grown up people, for our fatherand mother and the servants had each one loaf sent them, but only one.We had never yet suspected that we were inhabitants at all; finally,the little loaves were new, and we were passionately fond of new bread,which we were seldom or never allowed to have, as it was supposed notto be good for us. Our affection, therefore, for our old friendhad to stand against the combined attacks of archæological interest,the rights of citizenship and property, the pleasantness to the eyeand goodness for food of the little loaves themselves, and the senseof importance which was given us by our having been intimate with someonewho had actually died. It seemed upon further inquiry that therewas little reason to anticipate an early death for anyone of ourselves,and this being so, we rather liked the idea of someone else’sbeing put away into the churchyard; we passed, therefore, in a shorttime from extreme depression to a no less extreme exultation; a newheaven and a new earth had been revealed to us in our perception ofthe possibility of benefiting by the death of our friends, and I fearthat for some time we took an interest in the health of everyone inthe village whose position rendered a repetition of the dole in theleast likely.

Those were the days in which all great things seemed far off, andwe were astonished to find that Napoleon Buonaparte was an actuallyliving person. We had thought such a great man could only havelived a very long time ago, and here he was after all almost as it wereat our own doors. This lent colour to the view that the Day ofJudgement might indeed be nearer than we had thought, but nurse saidthat was all right now, and she knew. In those days the snow laylonger and drifted deeper in the lanes than it does now, and the milkwas sometimes brought in frozen in winter, and we were taken down intothe back kitchen to see it. I suppose there are rectories up anddown the country now where the milk comes in frozen sometimes in winter,and the children go down to wonder at it, but I never see any frozenmilk in London, so I suppose the winters are warmer than they used tobe.

About one year after his wife’s death Mr Pontifex also wasgathered to his fathers. My father saw him the day before he died.The old man had a theory about sunsets, and had had two steps builtup against a wall in the kitchen garden on which he used to stand andwatch the sun go down whenever it was clear. My father came onhim in the afternoon, just as the sun was setting, and saw him withhis arms resting on the top of the wall looking towards the sun overa field through which there was a path on which my father was.My father heard him say “Good-bye, sun; good-bye, sun,”as the sun sank, and saw by his tone and manner that he was feelingvery feeble. Before the next sunset he was gone.

There was no dole. Some of his grandchildren were brought tothe funeral and we remonstrated with them, but did not take much bydoing so. John Pontifex, who was a year older than I was, sneeredat penny loaves, and intimated that if I wanted one it must be becausemy papa and mamma could not afford to buy me one, whereon I believewe did something like fighting, and I rather think John Pontifex gotthe worst of it, but it may have been the other way. I remembermy sister’s nurse, for I was just outgrowing nurses myself, reportedthe matter to higher quarters, and we were all of us put to some ignominy,but we had been thoroughly awakened from our dream, and it was longenough before we could hear the words “penny loaf” mentionedwithout our ears tingling with shame. If there had been a dozendoles afterwards we should not have deigned to touch one of them.

George Pontifex put up a monument to his parents, a plain slab inPaleham church, inscribed with the following epitaph:—

SACRED TO THE MEMORY
OF
JOHN PONTIFEX
WHO WAS BORN AUGUST 16TH,
1727, AND DIED FEBRUARY 8, 1812,
IN HIS 85TH YEAR,
AND OF
RUTH PONTIFEX, HIS WIFE,
WHO WAS BORN OCTOBER 13, 1727, AND DIED JANUARY 10, 1811,
IN HER 84TH YEAR.
THEY WERE UNOSTENTATIOUS BUT EXEMPLARY
IN THE DISCHARGE OF THEIR
RELIGIOUS, MORAL, AND SOCIAL DUTIES.
THIS MONUMENT WAS PLACED
BY THEIR ONLY SON.

CHAPTER IV

In a year or two more came Waterloo and the European peace.Then Mr George Pontifex went abroad more than once. I rememberseeing at Battersby in after years the diary which he kept on the firstof these occasions. It is a characteristic document. I feltas I read it that the author before starting had made up his mind toadmire only what he thought it would be creditable in him to admire,to look at nature and art only through the spectacles that had beenhanded down to him by generation after generation of prigs and impostors.The first glimpse of Mont Blanc threw Mr Pontifex into a conventionalecstasy. “My feelings I cannot express. I gasped,yet hardly dared to breathe, as I viewed for the first time the monarchof the mountains. I seemed to fancy the genius seated on his stupendousthrone far above his aspiring brethren and in his solitary might defyingthe universe. I was so overcome by my feelings that I was almostbereft of my faculties, and would not for worlds have spoken after myfirst exclamation till I found some relief in a gush of tears.With pain I tore myself from contemplating for the first time ‘atdistance dimly seen’ (though I felt as if I had sent my soul andeyes after it), this sublime spectacle.” After a nearerview of the Alps from above Geneva he walked nine out of the twelvemiles of the descent: “My mind and heart were too full to sitstill, and I found some relief by exhausting my feelings through exercise.”In the course of time he reached Chamonix and went on a Sunday to theMontanvert to see the Mer de Glace. There he wrote the followingverses for the visitors’ book, which he considered, so he says,“suitable to the day and scene”:—

Lord, while these wonders of thy hand I see,
My soul in holy reverence bends to thee.
These awful solitudes, this dread repose,
Yon pyramid sublime of spotless snows,
These spiry pinnacles, those smiling plains,
This sea where one eternal winter reigns,
These are thy works, and while on them I gaze
I hear a silent tongue that speaks thy praise.

Some poets always begin to get groggy about the knees after runningfor seven or eight lines. Mr Pontifex’s last couplet gavehim a lot of trouble, and nearly every word has been erased and rewrittenonce at least. In the visitors’ book at the Montanvert,however, he must have been obliged to commit himself definitely to onereading or another. Taking the verses all round, I should saythat Mr Pontifex was right in considering them suitable to the day;I don’t like being too hard even on the Mer de Glace, so willgive no opinion as to whether they are suitable to the scene also.

Mr Pontifex went on to the Great St Bernard and there he wrote somemore verses, this time I am afraid in Latin. He also took goodcare to be properly impressed by the Hospice and its situation.“The whole of this most extraordinary journey seemed like a dream,its conclusion especially, in gentlemanly society, with every comfortand accommodation amidst the rudest rocks and in the region of perpetualsnow. The thought that I was sleeping in a convent and occupiedthe bed of no less a person than Napoleon, that I was in the highestinhabited spot in the old world and in a place celebrated in every partof it, kept me awake some time.” As a contrast to this,I may quote here an extract from a letter written to me last year byhis grandson Ernest, of whom the reader will hear more presently.The passage runs: “I went up to the Great St Bernard and saw thedogs.” In due course Mr Pontifex found his way into Italy,where the pictures and other works of art—those, at least, whichwere fashionable at that time—threw him into genteel paroxysmsof admiration. Of the Uffizi Gallery at Florence he writes: “Ihave spent three hours this morning in the gallery and I have made upmy mind that if of all the treasures I have seen in Italy I were tochoose one room it would be the Tribune of this gallery. It containsthe Venus de’ Medici, the Explorator, the Pancratist, the DancingFaun and a fine Apollo. These more than outweigh the Laocoon andthe Belvedere Apollo at Rome. It contains, besides, the St Johnof Raphael and many other chefs-d’œuvre of the greatestmasters in the world.” It is interesting to compare Mr Pontifex’seffusions with the rhapsodies of critics in our own times. Notlong ago a much esteemed writer informed the world that he felt “disposedto cry out with delight” before a figure by Michael Angelo.I wonder whether he would feel disposed to cry out before a real MichaelAngelo, if the critics had decided that it was not genuine, or beforea reputed Michael Angelo which was really by someone else. ButI suppose that a prig with more money than brains was much the samesixty or seventy years ago as he is now.

Look at Mendelssohn again about this same Tribune on which Mr Pontifexfelt so safe in staking his reputation as a man of taste and culture.He feels no less safe and writes, “I then went to the Tribune.This room is so delightfully small you can traverse it in fifteen paces,yet it contains a world of art. I again sought out my favouritearm chair which stands under the statue of the ‘Slave whettinghis knife’ (L’Arrotino), and taking possession of it I enjoyedmyself for a couple of hours; for here at one glance I had the ‘Madonnadel Cardellino,’ Pope Julius II., a female portrait by Raphael,and above it a lovely Holy Family by Perugino; and so close to me thatI could have touched it with my hand the Venus de’ Medici; beyond,that of Titian . . . The space between is occupied by other picturesof Raphael’s, a portrait by Titian, a Domenichino, etc., etc.,all these within the circumference of a small semi-circle no largerthan one of your own rooms. This is a spot where a man feels hisown insignificance and may well learn to be humble.” TheTribune is a slippery place for people like Mendelssohn to study humilityin. They generally take two steps away from it for one they taketowards it. I wonder how many chalks Mendelssohn gave himselffor having sat two hours on that chair. I wonder how often helooked at his watch to see if his two hours were up. I wonderhow often he told himself that he was quite as big a gun, if the truthwere known, as any of the men whose works he saw before him, how oftenhe wondered whether any of the visitors were recognizing him and admiringhim for sitting such a long time in the same chair, and how often hewas vexed at seeing them pass him by and take no notice of him.But perhaps if the truth were known his two hours was not quite twohours.

Returning to Mr Pontifex, whether he liked what he believed to bethe masterpieces of Greek and Italian art or no he brought back somecopies by Italian artists, which I have no doubt he satisfied himselfwould bear the strictest examination with the originals. Two ofthese copies fell to Theobald’s share on the division of his father’sfurniture, and I have often seen them at Battersby on my visits to Theobaldand his wife. The one was a Madonna by Sassoferrato with a bluehood over her head which threw it half into shadow. The otherwas a Magdalen by Carlo Dolci with a very fine head of hair and a marblevase in her hands. When I was a young man I used to think thesepictures were beautiful, but with each successive visit to BattersbyI got to dislike them more and more and to see “George Pontifex”written all over both of them. In the end I ventured after a tentativefashion to blow on them a little, but Theobald and his wife were upin arms at once. They did not like their father and father-in-law,but there could be no question about his power and general ability,nor about his having been a man of consummate taste both in literatureand art—indeed the diary he kept during his foreign tour was enoughto prove this. With one more short extract I will leave this diaryand proceed with my story. During his stay in Florence Mr Pontifexwrote: “I have just seen the Grand Duke and his family pass byin two carriages and six, but little more notice is taken of them thanif I, who am utterly unknown here, were to pass by.” I don’tthink that he half believed in his being utterly unknown in Florenceor anywhere else!

CHAPTER V

Fortune, we are told, is a blind and fickle foster-mother, who showersher gifts at random upon her nurslings. But we do her a graveinjustice if we believe such an accusation. Trace a man’scareer from his cradle to his grave and mark how Fortune has treatedhim. You will find that when he is once dead she can for the mostpart be vindicated from the charge of any but very superficial fickleness.Her blindness is the merest fable; she can espy her favourites longbefore they are born. We are as days and have had our parentsfor our yesterdays, but through all the fair weather of a clear parentalsky the eye of Fortune can discern the coming storm, and she laughsas she places her favourites it may be in a London alley or those whomshe is resolved to ruin in kings’ palaces. Seldom does sherelent towards those whom she has suckled unkindly and seldom does shecompletely fail a favoured nursling.

Was George Pontifex one of Fortune’s favoured nurslings ornot? On the whole I should say that he was not, for he did notconsider himself so; he was too religious to consider Fortune a deityat all; he took whatever she gave and never thanked her, being firmlyconvinced that whatever he got to his own advantage was of his own getting.And so it was, after Fortune had made him able to get it.

“Nos te, nos facimus, Fortuna, deam,” exclaimed the poet.“It is we who make thee, Fortune, a goddess”; and so itis, after Fortune has made us able to make her. The poet saysnothing as to the making of the “nos.” Perhaps somemen are independent of antecedents and surroundings and have an initialforce within themselves which is in no way due to causation; but thisis supposed to be a difficult question and it may be as well to avoidit. Let it suffice that George Pontifex did not consider himselffortunate, and he who does not consider himself fortunate is unfortunate.

True, he was rich, universally respected and of an excellent naturalconstitution. If he had eaten and drunk less he would never haveknown a day’s indisposition. Perhaps his main strength layin the fact that though his capacity was a little above the average,it was not too much so. It is on this rock that so many cleverpeople split. The successful man will see just so much more thanhis neighbours as they will be able to see too when it is shown them,but not enough to puzzle them. It is far safer to know too littlethan too much. People will condemn the one, though they will resentbeing called upon to exert themselves to follow the other.

The best example of Mr Pontifex’s good sense in matters connectedwith his business which I can think of at this moment is the revolutionwhich he effected in the style of advertising works published by thefirm. When he first became a partner one of the firm’s advertisem*ntsran thus:—

“Books proper to be given away at this Season.—

“The Pious Country Parishioner, being directions how a Christianmay manage every day in the course of his whole life with safety andsuccess; how to spend the Sabbath Day; what books of the Holy Scriptureought to be read first; the whole method of education; collects forthe most important virtues that adorn the soul; a discourse on the Lord’sSupper; rules to set the soul right in sickness; so that in this treatiseare contained all the rules requisite for salvation. The 8th editionwith additions. Price 10d.

*** An allowance will be made to those who give them away.”

Before he had been many years a partner the advertisem*nt stood asfollows:—

“The Pious Country Parishioner. A completemanual of Christian Devotion. Price 10d.

A reduction will be made to purchasers for gratuitous distribution.”

What a stride is made in the foregoing towards the modern standard,and what intelligence is involved in the perception of the unseemlinessof the old style, when others did not perceive it!

Where then was the weak place in George Pontifex’s armour?I suppose in the fact that he had risen too rapidly. It wouldalmost seem as if a transmitted education of some generations is necessaryfor the due enjoyment of great wealth. Adversity, if a man isset down to it by degrees, is more supportable with equanimity by mostpeople than any great prosperity arrived at in a single lifetime.Nevertheless a certain kind of good fortune generally attends self-mademen to the last. It is their children of the first, or first andsecond, generation who are in greater danger, for the race can no morerepeat its most successful performances suddenly and without its ebbingsand flowings of success than the individual can do so, and the morebrilliant the success in any one generation, the greater as a generalrule the subsequent exhaustion until time has been allowed for recovery.Hence it oftens happens that the grandson of a successful man will bemore successful than the son—the spirit that actuated the grandfatherhaving lain fallow in the son and being refreshed by repose so as tobe ready for fresh exertion in the grandson. A very successfulman, moreover, has something of the hybrid in him; he is a new animal,arising from the coming together of many unfamiliar elements and itis well known that the reproduction of abnormal growths, whether animalor vegetable, is irregular and not to be depended upon, even when theyare not absolutely sterile.

And certainly Mr Pontifex’s success was exceedingly rapid.Only a few years after he had become a partner his uncle and aunt bothdied within a few months of one another. It was then found thatthey had made him their heir. He was thus not only sole partnerin the business but found himself with a fortune of some £30,000into the bargain, and this was a large sum in those days. Moneycame pouring in upon him, and the faster it came the fonder he becameof it, though, as he frequently said, he valued it not for its own sake,but only as a means of providing for his dear children.

Yet when a man is very fond of his money it is not easy for him atall times to be very fond of his children also. The two are likeGod and Mammon. Lord Macaulay has a passage in which he contraststhe pleasures which a man may derive from books with the inconveniencesto which he may be put by his acquaintances. “Plato,”he says, “is never sullen. Cervantes is never petulant.Demosthenes never comes unseasonably. Dante never stays too long.No difference of political opinion can alienate Cicero. No heresycan excite the horror of Bossuet.” I dare say I might differfrom Lord Macaulay in my estimate of some of the writers he has named,but there can be no disputing his main proposition, namely, that weneed have no more trouble from any of them than we have a mind to, whereasour friends are not always so easily disposed of. George Pontifexfelt this as regards his children and his money. His money wasnever naughty; his money never made noise or litter, and did not spillthings on the tablecloth at meal times, or leave the door open whenit went out. His dividends did not quarrel among themselves, norwas he under any uneasiness lest his mortgages should become extravaganton reaching manhood and run him up debts which sooner or later he shouldhave to pay. There were tendencies in John which made him veryuneasy, and Theobald, his second son, was idle and at times far fromtruthful. His children might, perhaps, have answered, had theyknown what was in their father’s mind, that he did not knock hismoney about as he not infrequently knocked his children. He neverdealt hastily or pettishly with his money, and that was perhaps whyhe and it got on so well together.

It must be remembered that at the beginning of the nineteenth centurythe relations between parents and children were still far from satisfactory.The violent type of father, as described by Fielding, Richardson, Smollettand Sheridan, is now hardly more likely to find a place in literaturethan the original advertisem*nt of Messrs. Fairlie & Pontifex’s“Pious Country Parishioner,” but the type was much too persistentnot to have been drawn from nature closely. The parents in MissAusten’s novels are less like savage wild beasts than those ofher predecessors, but she evidently looks upon them with suspicion,and an uneasy feeling that le père de famille est capablede tout makes itself sufficiently apparent throughout the greaterpart of her writings. In the Elizabethan time the relations betweenparents and children seem on the whole to have been more kindly.The fathers and the sons are for the most part friends in Shakespeare,nor does the evil appear to have reached its full abomination till along course of Puritanism had familiarised men’s minds with Jewishideals as those which we should endeavour to reproduce in our everydaylife. What precedents did not Abraham, Jephthah and Jonadab theson of Rechab offer? How easy was it to quote and follow themin an age when few reasonable men or women doubted that every syllableof the Old Testament was taken down verbatim from the mouth ofGod. Moreover, Puritanism restricted natural pleasures; it substitutedthe Jeremiad for the Pæan, and it forgot that the poor abusesof all times want countenance.

Mr Pontifex may have been a little sterner with his children thansome of his neighbours, but not much. He thrashed his boys twoor three times a week and some weeks a good deal oftener, but in thosedays fathers were always thrashing their boys. It is easy to havejuster views when everyone else has them, but fortunately or unfortunatelyresults have nothing whatever to do with the moral guilt or blamelessnessof him who brings them about; they depend solely upon the thing done,whatever it may happen to be. The moral guilt or blamelessnessin like manner has nothing to do with the result; it turns upon thequestion whether a sufficient number of reasonable people placed asthe actor was placed would have done as the actor has done. Atthat time it was universally admitted that to spare the rod was to spoilthe child, and St Paul had placed disobedience to parents in very uglycompany. If his children did anything which Mr Pontifex dislikedthey were clearly disobedient to their father. In this case therewas obviously only one course for a sensible man to take. It consistedin checking the first signs of self-will while his children were tooyoung to offer serious resistance. If their wills were “wellbroken” in childhood, to use an expression then much in vogue,they would acquire habits of obedience which they would not ventureto break through till they were over twenty-one years old. Thenthey might please themselves; he should know how to protect himself;till then he and his money were more at their mercy than he liked.

How little do we know our thoughts—our reflex actions indeed,yes; but our reflex reflections! Man, forsooth, prides himselfon his consciousness! We boast that we differ from the winds andwaves and falling stones and plants, which grow they know not why, andfrom the wandering creatures which go up and down after their prey,as we are pleased to say without the help of reason. We know sowell what we are doing ourselves and why we do it, do we not?I fancy that there is some truth in the view which is being put forwardnowadays, that it is our less conscious thoughts and our less consciousactions which mainly mould our lives and the lives of those who springfrom us.

CHAPTER VI

Mr Pontifex was not the man to trouble himself much about his motives.People were not so introspective then as we are now; they lived moreaccording to a rule of thumb. Dr Arnold had not yet sown thatcrop of earnest thinkers which we are now harvesting, and men did notsee why they should not have their own way if no evil consequences tothemselves seemed likely to follow upon their doing so. Then asnow, however, they sometimes let themselves in for more evil consequencesthan they had bargained for.

Like other rich men at the beginning of this century he ate and dranka good deal more than was enough to keep him in health. Even hisexcellent constitution was not proof against a prolonged course of overfeedingand what we should now consider overdrinking. His liver wouldnot unfrequently get out of order, and he would come down to breakfastlooking yellow about the eyes. Then the young people knew thatthey had better look out. It is not as a general rule the eatingof sour grapes that causes the children’s teeth to be set on edge.Well-to-do parents seldom eat many sour grapes; the danger to the childrenlies in the parents eating too many sweet ones.

I grant that at first sight it seems very unjust, that the parentsshould have the fun and the children be punished for it, but young peopleshould remember that for many years they were part and parcel of theirparents and therefore had a good deal of the fun in the person of theirparents. If they have forgotten the fun now, that is no more thanpeople do who have a headache after having been tipsy overnight.The man with a headache does not pretend to be a different person fromthe man who got drunk, and claim that it is his self of the precedingnight and not his self of this morning who should be punished; no moreshould offspring complain of the headache which it has earned when inthe person of its parents, for the continuation of identity, thoughnot so immediately apparent, is just as real in one case as in the other.What is really hard is when the parents have the fun after the childrenhave been born, and the children are punished for this.

On these, his black days, he would take very gloomy views of thingsand say to himself that in spite of all his goodness to them his childrendid not love him. But who can love any man whose liver is outof order? How base, he would exclaim to himself, was such ingratitude!How especially hard upon himself, who had been such a model son, andalways honoured and obeyed his parents though they had not spent onehundredth part of the money upon him which he had lavished upon hisown children. “It is always the same story,” he wouldsay to himself, “the more young people have the more they want,and the less thanks one gets; I have made a great mistake; I have beenfar too lenient with my children; never mind, I have done my duty bythem, and more; if they fail in theirs to me it is a matter betweenGod and them. I, at any rate, am guiltless. Why, I mighthave married again and become the father of a second and perhaps moreaffectionate family, etc., etc.” He pitied himself for theexpensive education which he was giving his children; he did not seethat the education cost the children far more than it cost him, inasmuchas it cost them the power of earning their living easily rather thanhelped them towards it, and ensured their being at the mercy of theirfather for years after they had come to an age when they should be independent.A public school education cuts off a boy’s retreat; he can nolonger become a labourer or a mechanic, and these are the only peoplewhose tenure of independence is not precarious—with the exceptionof course of those who are born inheritors of money or who are placedyoung in some safe and deep groove. Mr Pontifex saw nothing ofthis; all he saw was that he was spending much more money upon his childrenthan the law would have compelled him to do, and what more could youhave? Might he not have apprenticed both his sons to greengrocers?Might he not even yet do so to-morrow morning if he were so minded?The possibility of this course being adopted was a favourite topic withhim when he was out of temper; true, he never did apprentice eitherof his sons to greengrocers, but his boys comparing notes together hadsometimes come to the conclusion that they wished he would.

At other times when not quite well he would have them in for thefun of shaking his will at them. He would in his imagination cutthem all out one after another and leave his money to found almshouses,till at last he was obliged to put them back, so that he might havethe pleasure of cutting them out again the next time he was in a passion.

Of course if young people allow their conduct to be in any way influencedby regard to the wills of living persons they are doing very wrong andmust expect to be sufferers in the end, nevertheless the powers of will-danglingand will-shaking are so liable to abuse and are continually made sogreat an engine of torture that I would pass a law, if I could, to incapacitateany man from making a will for three months from the date of each offencein either of the above respects and let the bench of magistrates orjudge, before whom he has been convicted, dispose of his property asthey shall think right and reasonable if he dies during the time thathis will-making power is suspended.

Mr Pontifex would have the boys into the dining-room. “Mydear John, my dear Theobald,” he would say, “look at me.I began life with nothing but the clothes with which my father and mothersent me up to London. My father gave me ten shillings and my motherfive for pocket money and I thought them munificent. I never askedmy father for a shilling in the whole course of my life, nor took aughtfrom him beyond the small sum he used to allow me monthly till I wasin receipt of a salary. I made my own way and I shall expect mysons to do the same. Pray don’t take it into your headsthat I am going to wear my life out making money that my sons may spendit for me. If you want money you must make it for yourselves asI did, for I give you my word I will not leave a penny to either ofyou unless you show that you deserve it. Young people seem nowadaysto expect all kinds of luxuries and indulgences which were never heardof when I was a boy. Why, my father was a common carpenter, andhere you are both of you at public schools, costing me ever so manyhundreds a year, while I at your age was plodding away behind a deskin my Uncle Fairlie’s counting house. What should I nothave done if I had had one half of your advantages? You shouldbecome dukes or found new empires in undiscovered countries, and eventhen I doubt whether you would have done proportionately so much asI have done. No, no, I shall see you through school and collegeand then, if you please, you will make your own way in the world.”

In this manner he would work himself up into such a state of virtuousindignation that he would sometimes thrash the boys then and there uponsome pretext invented at the moment.

And yet, as children went, the young Pontifexes were fortunate; therewould be ten families of young people worse off for one better; theyate and drank good wholesome food, slept in comfortable beds, had thebest doctors to attend them when they were ill and the best educationthat could be had for money. The want of fresh air does not seemmuch to affect the happiness of children in a London alley: the greaterpart of them sing and play as though they were on a moor in Scotland.So the absence of a genial mental atmosphere is not commonly recognisedby children who have never known it. Young people have a marvellousfaculty of either dying or adapting themselves to circ*mstances.Even if they are unhappy—very unhappy—it is astonishinghow easily they can be prevented from finding it out, or at any ratefrom attributing it to any other cause than their own sinfulness.

To parents who wish to lead a quiet life I would say: Tell your childrenthat they are very naughty—much naughtier than most children.Point to the young people of some acquaintances as models of perfectionand impress your own children with a deep sense of their own inferiority.You carry so many more guns than they do that they cannot fight you.This is called moral influence, and it will enable you to bounce themas much as you please. They think you know and they will not haveyet caught you lying often enough to suspect that you are not the unworldlyand scrupulously truthful person which you represent yourself to be;nor yet will they know how great a coward you are, nor how soon youwill run away, if they fight you with persistency and judgement.You keep the dice and throw them both for your children and yourself.Load them then, for you can easily manage to stop your children fromexamining them. Tell them how singularly indulgent you are; insiston the incalculable benefit you conferred upon them, firstly in bringingthem into the world at all, but more particularly in bringing them intoit as your own children rather than anyone else’s. Say thatyou have their highest interests at stake whenever you are out of temperand wish to make yourself unpleasant by way of balm to your soul.Harp much upon these highest interests. Feed them spirituallyupon such brimstone and treacle as the late Bishop of Winchester’sSunday stories. You hold all the trump cards, or if you do notyou can filch them; if you play them with anything like judgement youwill find yourselves heads of happy, united, God-fearing families, evenas did my old friend Mr Pontifex. True, your children will probablyfind out all about it some day, but not until too late to be of muchservice to them or inconvenience to yourself.

Some satirists have complained of life inasmuch as all the pleasuresbelong to the fore part of it and we must see them dwindle till we areleft, it may be, with the miseries of a decrepit old age.

To me it seems that youth is like spring, an overpraised season—delightfulif it happen to be a favoured one, but in practice very rarely favouredand more remarkable, as a general rule, for biting east winds than genialbreezes. Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowerswe more than gain in fruits. Fontenelle at the age of ninety,being asked what was the happiest time of his life, said he did notknow that he had ever been much happier than he then was, but that perhapshis best years had been those when he was between fifty-five and seventy-five,and Dr Johnson placed the pleasures of old age far higher than thoseof youth. True, in old age we live under the shadow of Death,which, like a sword of Damocles, may descend at any moment, but we haveso long found life to be an affair of being rather frightened than hurtthat we have become like the people who live under Vesuvius, and chanceit without much misgiving.

CHAPTER VII

A few words may suffice for the greater number of the young peopleto whom I have been alluding in the foregoing chapter. Eliza andMaria, the two elder girls, were neither exactly pretty nor exactlyplain, and were in all respects model young ladies, but Alethea wasexceedingly pretty and of a lively, affectionate disposition, whichwas in sharp contrast with those of her brothers and sisters.There was a trace of her grandfather, not only in her face, but in herlove of fun, of which her father had none, though not without a certainboisterous and rather coarse quasi-humour which passed for wit withmany.

John grew up to be a good-looking, gentlemanly fellow, with featuresa trifle too regular and finely chiselled. He dressed himselfso nicely, had such good address, and stuck so steadily to his booksthat he became a favourite with his masters; he had, however, an instinctfor diplomacy, and was less popular with the boys. His father,in spite of the lectures he would at times read him, was in a way proudof him as he grew older; he saw in him, moreover, one who would probablydevelop into a good man of business, and in whose hands the prospectsof his house would not be likely to decline. John knew how tohumour his father, and was at a comparatively early age admitted toas much of his confidence as it was in his nature to bestow on anyone.

His brother Theobald was no match for him, knew it, and acceptedhis fate. He was not so good-looking as his brother, nor was hisaddress so good; as a child he had been violently passionate; now, however,he was reserved and shy, and, I should say, indolent in mind and body.He was less tidy than John, less well able to assert himself, and lessskilful in humouring the caprices of his father. I do not thinkhe could have loved anyone heartily, but there was no one in his familycircle who did not repress, rather than invite his affection, with theexception of his sister Alethea, and she was too quick and lively forhis somewhat morose temper. He was always the scapegoat, and Ihave sometimes thought he had two fathers to contend against—hisfather and his brother John; a third and fourth also might almost beadded in his sisters Eliza and Maria. Perhaps if he had felt hisbondage very acutely he would not have put up with it, but he was constitutionallytimid, and the strong hand of his father knitted him into the closestoutward harmony with his brother and sisters.

The boys were of use to their father in one respect. I meanthat he played them off against each other. He kept them but poorlysupplied with pocket money, and to Theobald would urge that the claimsof his elder brother were naturally paramount, while he insisted toJohn upon the fact that he had a numerous family, and would affirm solemnlythat his expenses were so heavy that at his death there would be verylittle to divide. He did not care whether they compared notesor no, provided they did not do so in his presence. Theobald didnot complain even behind his father’s back. I knew him asintimately as anyone was likely to know him as a child, at school, andagain at Cambridge, but he very rarely mentioned his father’sname even while his father was alive, and never once in my hearing afterwards.At school he was not actively disliked as his brother was, but he wastoo dull and deficient in animal spirits to be popular.

Before he was well out of his frocks it was settled that he was tobe a clergyman. It was seemly that Mr Pontifex, the well-knownpublisher of religious books, should devote at least one of his sonsto the Church; this might tend to bring business, or at any rate tokeep it in the firm; besides, Mr Pontifex had more or less interestwith bishops and Church dignitaries and might hope that some prefermentwould be offered to his son through his influence. The boy’sfuture destiny was kept well before his eyes from his earliest childhoodand was treated as a matter which he had already virtually settled byhis acquiescence. Nevertheless a certain show of freedom was allowedhim. Mr Pontifex would say it was only right to give a boy hisoption, and was much too equitable to grudge his son whatever benefithe could derive from this. He had the greatest horror, he wouldexclaim, of driving any young man into a profession which he did notlike. Far be it from him to put pressure upon a son of his asregards any profession and much less when so sacred a calling as theministry was concerned. He would talk in this way when there werevisitors in the house and when his son was in the room. He spokeso wisely and so well that his listening guests considered him a paragonof right-mindedness. He spoke, too, with such emphasis and hisrosy gills and bald head looked so benevolent that it was difficultnot to be carried away by his discourse. I believe two or threeheads of families in the neighbourhood gave their sons absolute libertyof choice in the matter of their professions—and am not sure thatthey had not afterwards considerable cause to regret having done so.The visitors, seeing Theobald look shy and wholly unmoved by the exhibitionof so much consideration for his wishes, would remark to themselvesthat the boy seemed hardly likely to be equal to his father and wouldset him down as an unenthusiastic youth, who ought to have more lifein him and be more sensible of his advantages than he appeared to be.

No one believed in the righteousness of the whole transaction morefirmly than the boy himself; a sense of being ill at ease kept him silent,but it was too profound and too much without break for him to becomefully alive to it, and come to an understanding with himself.He feared the dark scowl which would come over his father’s faceupon the slightest opposition. His father’s violent threats,or coarse sneers, would not have been taken au sérieuxby a stronger boy, but Theobald was not a strong boy, and rightly orwrongly, gave his father credit for being quite ready to carry his threatsinto execution. Opposition had never got him anything he wantedyet, nor indeed had yielding, for the matter of that, unless he happenedto want exactly what his father wanted for him. If he had everentertained thoughts of resistance, he had none now, and the power tooppose was so completely lost for want of exercise that hardly did thewish remain; there was nothing left save dull acquiescence as of anass crouched between two burdens. He may have had an ill-definedsense of ideals that were not his actuals; he might occasionally dreamof himself as a soldier or a sailor far away in foreign lands, or evenas a farmer’s boy upon the wolds, but there was not enough inhim for there to be any chance of his turning his dreams into realities,and he drifted on with his stream, which was a slow, and, I am afraid,a muddy one.

I think the Church Catechism has a good deal to do with the unhappyrelations which commonly even now exist between parents and children.That work was written too exclusively from the parental point of view;the person who composed it did not get a few children to come in andhelp him; he was clearly not young himself, nor should I say it wasthe work of one who liked children—in spite of the words “mygood child” which, if I remember rightly, are once put into themouth of the catechist and, after all, carry a harsh sound with them.The general impression it leaves upon the mind of the young is thattheir wickedness at birth was but very imperfectly wiped out at baptism,and that the mere fact of being young at all has something with it thatsavours more or less distinctly of the nature of sin.

If a new edition of the work is ever required I should like to introducea few words insisting on the duty of seeking all reasonable pleasureand avoiding all pain that can be honourably avoided. I shouldlike to see children taught that they should not say they like thingswhich they do not like, merely because certain other people say theylike them, and how foolish it is to say they believe this or that whenthey understand nothing about it. If it be urged that these additionswould make the Catechism too long I would curtail the remarks upon ourduty towards our neighbour and upon the sacraments. In the placeof the paragraph beginning “I desire my Lord God our HeavenlyFather” I would—but perhaps I had better return to Theobald,and leave the recasting of the Catechism to abler hands.

CHAPTER VIII

Mr Pontifex had set his heart on his son’s becoming a fellowof a college before he became a clergyman. This would providefor him at once and would ensure his getting a living if none of hisfather’s ecclesiastical friends gave him one. The boy haddone just well enough at school to render this possible, so he was sentto one of the smaller colleges at Cambridge and was at once set to readwith the best private tutors that could be found. A system ofexamination had been adopted a year or so before Theobald took his degreewhich had improved his chances of a fellowship, for whatever abilityhe had was classical rather than mathematical, and this system gavemore encouragement to classical studies than had been given hitherto.

Theobald had the sense to see that he had a chance of independenceif he worked hard, and he liked the notion of becoming a fellow.He therefore applied himself, and in the end took a degree which madehis getting a fellowship in all probability a mere question of time.For a while Mr Pontifex senior was really pleased, and told his sonhe would present him with the works of any standard writer whom he mightselect. The young man chose the works of Bacon, and Bacon accordinglymade his appearance in ten nicely bound volumes. A little inspection,however, showed that the copy was a second hand one.

Now that he had taken his degree the next thing to look forward towas ordination—about which Theobald had thought little hithertobeyond acquiescing in it as something that would come as a matter ofcourse some day. Now, however, it had actually come and was assertingitself as a thing which should be only a few months off, and this ratherfrightened him inasmuch as there would be no way out of it when he wasonce in it. He did not like the near view of ordination as wellas the distant one, and even made some feeble efforts to escape, asmay be perceived by the following correspondence which his son Ernestfound among his father’s papers written on gilt-edged paper, infaded ink and tied neatly round with a piece of tape, but without anynote or comment. I have altered nothing. The letters areas follows:—

“My dear Father,—I do not like opening upa question which has been considered settled, but as the time approachesI begin to be very doubtful how far I am fitted to be a clergyman.Not, I am thankful to say, that I have the faintest doubts about theChurch of England, and I could subscribe cordially to every one of thethirty-nine articles which do indeed appear to me to be the ne plusultra of human wisdom, and Paley, too, leaves no loop-hole for anopponent; but I am sure I should be running counter to your wishes ifI were to conceal from you that I do not feel the inward call to bea minister of the gospel that I shall have to say I have felt when theBishop ordains me. I try to get this feeling, I pray for it earnestly,and sometimes half think that I have got it, but in a little time itwears off, and though I have no absolute repugnance to being a clergymanand trust that if I am one I shall endeavour to live to the Glory ofGod and to advance His interests upon earth, yet I feel that somethingmore than this is wanted before I am fully justified in going into theChurch. I am aware that I have been a great expense to you inspite of my scholarships, but you have ever taught me that I shouldobey my conscience, and my conscience tells me I should do wrong ifI became a clergyman. God may yet give me the spirit for whichI assure you I have been and am continually praying, but He may not,and in that case would it not be better for me to try and look out forsomething else? I know that neither you nor John wish me to gointo your business, nor do I understand anything about money matters,but is there nothing else that I can do? I do not like to askyou to maintain me while I go in for medicine or the bar; but when Iget my fellowship, which should not be long first, I will endeavourto cost you nothing further, and I might make a little money by writingor taking pupils. I trust you will not think this letter improper;nothing is further from my wish than to cause you any uneasiness.I hope you will make allowance for my present feelings which, indeed,spring from nothing but from that respect for my conscience which noone has so often instilled into me as yourself. Pray let me havea few lines shortly. I hope your cold is better. With loveto Eliza and Maria, I am, your affectionate son,

“THEOBALD PONTIFEX.”

“Dear Theobald,—I can enter into your feelings and haveno wish to quarrel with your expression of them. It is quite rightand natural that you should feel as you do except as regards one passage,the impropriety of which you will yourself doubtless feel upon reflection,and to which I will not further allude than to say that it has woundedme. You should not have said ‘in spite of my scholarships.’It was only proper that if you could do anything to assist me in bearingthe heavy burden of your education, the money should be, as it was,made over to myself. Every line in your letter convinces me thatyou are under the influence of a morbid sensitiveness which is one ofthe devil’s favourite devices for luring people to their destruction.I have, as you say, been at great expense with your education.Nothing has been spared by me to give you the advantages, which, asan English gentleman, I was anxious to afford my son, but I am not preparedto see that expense thrown away and to have to begin again from thebeginning, merely because you have taken some foolish scruples intoyour head, which you should resist as no less unjust to yourself thanto me.

“Don’t give way to that restless desire for change whichis the bane of so many persons of both sexes at the present day.

“Of course you needn’t be ordained: nobody will compelyou; you are perfectly free; you are twenty-three years of age, andshould know your own mind; but why not have known it sooner, insteadof never so much as breathing a hint of opposition until I have hadall the expense of sending you to the University, which I should neverhave done unless I had believed you to have made up your mind abouttaking orders? I have letters from you in which you express themost perfect willingness to be ordained, and your brother and sisterswill bear me out in saying that no pressure of any sort has been putupon you. You mistake your own mind, and are suffering from anervous timidity which may be very natural but may not the less be pregnantwith serious consequences to yourself. I am not at all well, andthe anxiety occasioned by your letter is naturally preying upon me.May God guide you to a better judgement.—Your affectionate father,

G. PONTIFEX.”

On the receipt of this letter Theobald plucked up his spirits.“My father,” he said to himself, “tells me I neednot be ordained if I do not like. I do not like, and thereforeI will not be ordained. But what was the meaning of the words‘pregnant with serious consequences to yourself’?Did there lurk a threat under these words—though it was impossibleto lay hold of it or of them? Were they not intended to produceall the effect of a threat without being actually threatening?”

Theobald knew his father well enough to be little likely to misapprehendhis meaning, but having ventured so far on the path of opposition, andbeing really anxious to get out of being ordained if he could, he determinedto venture farther. He accordingly wrote the following:

“My dear father,—You tell me—and Iheartily thank you—that no one will compel me to be ordained.I knew you would not press ordination upon me if my conscience was seriouslyopposed to it; I have therefore resolved on giving up the idea, andbelieve that if you will continue to allow me what you do at present,until I get my fellowship, which should not be long, I will then ceaseputting you to further expense. I will make up my mind as soonas possible what profession I will adopt, and will let you know at once.—Youraffectionate son,

THEOBALD PONTIFEX.”

The remaining letter, written by return of post, must now be given.It has the merit of brevity.

“Dear Theobald,—I have received yours.I am at a loss to conceive its motive, but am very clear as to its effect.You shall not receive a single sixpence from me till you come to yoursenses. Should you persist in your folly and wickedness, I amhappy to remember that I have yet other children whose conduct I candepend upon to be a source of credit and happiness to me.—Youraffectionate but troubled father,

G. PONTIFEX.”

I do not know the immediate sequel to the foregoing correspondence,but it all came perfectly right in the end. Either Theobald’sheart failed him, or he interpreted the outward shove which his fathergave him, as the inward call for which I have no doubt he prayed withgreat earnestness—for he was a firm believer in the efficacy ofprayer. And so am I under certain circ*mstances. Tennysonhas said that more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreamsof, but he has wisely refrained from saying whether they are good thingsor bad things. It might perhaps be as well if the world were todream of, or even become wide awake to, some of the things that arebeing wrought by prayer. But the question is avowedly difficult.In the end Theobald got his fellowship by a stroke of luck very soonafter taking his degree, and was ordained in the autumn of the sameyear, 1825.

CHAPTER IX

Mr Allaby was rector of Crampsford, a village a few miles from Cambridge.He, too, had taken a good degree, had got a fellowship, and in the courseof time had accepted a college living of about £400 a year anda house. His private income did not exceed £200 a year.On resigning his fellowship he married a woman a good deal younger thanhimself who bore him eleven children, nine of whom—two sons andseven daughters—were living. The two eldest daughters hadmarried fairly well, but at the time of which I am now writing therewere still five unmarried, of ages varying between thirty and twenty-two—andthe sons were neither of them yet off their father’s hands.It was plain that if anything were to happen to Mr Allaby the familywould be left poorly off, and this made both Mr and Mrs Allaby as unhappyas it ought to have made them.

Reader, did you ever have an income at best none too large, whichdied with you all except £200 a year? Did you ever at thesame time have two sons who must be started in life somehow, and fivedaughters still unmarried for whom you would only be too thankful tofind husbands—if you knew how to find them? If moralityis that which, on the whole, brings a man peace in his declining years—if,that is to say, it is not an utter swindle, can you under these circ*mstancesflatter yourself that you have led a moral life?

And this, even though your wife has been so good a woman that youhave not grown tired of her, and has not fallen into such ill-healthas lowers your own health in sympathy; and though your family has grownup vigorous, amiable, and blessed with common sense. I know manyold men and women who are reputed moral, but who are living with partnerswhom they have long ceased to love, or who have ugly disagreeable maidendaughters for whom they have never been able to find husbands—daughterswhom they loathe and by whom they are loathed in secret, or sons whosefolly or extravagance is a perpetual wear and worry to them. Isit moral for a man to have brought such things upon himself? Someoneshould do for morals what that old Pecksniff Bacon has obtained thecredit of having done for science.

But to return to Mr and Mrs Allaby. Mrs Allaby talked abouthaving married two of her daughters as though it had been the easiestthing in the world. She talked in this way because she heard othermothers do so, but in her heart of hearts she did not know how she haddone it, nor indeed, if it had been her doing at all. First therehad been a young man in connection with whom she had tried to practisecertain manoeuvres which she had rehearsed in imagination over and overagain, but which she found impossible to apply in practice. Thenthere had been weeks of a wurra wurra of hopes and fears andlittle stratagems which as often as not proved injudicious, and thensomehow or other in the end, there lay the young man bound and withan arrow through his heart at her daughter’s feet. It seemedto her to be all a fluke which she could have little or no hope of repeating.She had indeed repeated it once, and might perhaps with good luck repeatit yet once again—but five times over! It was awful: whyshe would rather have three confinements than go through the wear andtear of marrying a single daughter.

Nevertheless it had got to be done, and poor Mrs Allaby never lookedat a young man without an eye to his being a future son-in-law.Papas and mammas sometimes ask young men whether their intentions arehonourable towards their daughters. I think young men might occasionallyask papas and mammas whether their intentions are honourable beforethey accept invitations to houses where there are still unmarried daughters.

“I can’t afford a curate, my dear,” said Mr Allabyto his wife when the pair were discussing what was next to be done.“It will be better to get some young man to come and help me fora time upon a Sunday. A guinea a Sunday will do this, and we canchop and change till we get someone who suits.” So it wassettled that Mr Allaby’s health was not so strong as it had been,and that he stood in need of help in the performance of his Sunday duty.

Mrs Allaby had a great friend—a certain Mrs Cowey, wife ofthe celebrated Professor Cowey. She was what was called a trulyspiritually minded woman, a trifle portly, with an incipient beard,and an extensive connection among undergraduates, more especially amongthose who were inclined to take part in the great evangelical movementwhich was then at its height. She gave evening parties once afortnight at which prayer was part of the entertainment. She wasnot only spiritually minded, but, as enthusiastic Mrs Allaby used toexclaim, she was a thorough woman of the world at the same time andhad such a fund of strong masculine good sense. She too had daughters,but, as she used to say to Mrs Allaby, she had been less fortunate thanMrs Allaby herself, for one by one they had married and left her sothat her old age would have been desolate indeed if her Professor hadnot been spared to her.

Mrs Cowey, of course, knew the run of all the bachelor clergy inthe University, and was the very person to assist Mrs Allaby in findingan eligible assistant for her husband, so this last named lady droveover one morning in the November of 1825, by arrangement, to take anearly dinner with Mrs Cowey and spend the afternoon. After dinnerthe two ladies retired together, and the business of the day began.How they fenced, how they saw through one another, with what loyaltythey pretended not to see through one another, with what gentle dalliancethey prolonged the conversation discussing the spiritual fitness ofthis or that deacon, and the other pros and cons connected with himafter his spiritual fitness had been disposed of, all this must be leftto the imagination of the reader. Mrs Cowey had been so accustomedto scheming on her own account that she would scheme for anyone ratherthan not scheme at all. Many mothers turned to her in their hourof need and, provided they were spiritually minded, Mrs Cowey neverfailed to do her best for them; if the marriage of a young Bachelorof Arts was not made in Heaven, it was probably made, or at any rateattempted, in Mrs Cowey’s drawing-room. On the present occasionall the deacons of the University in whom there lurked any spark ofpromise were exhaustively discussed, and the upshot was that our friendTheobald was declared by Mrs Cowey to be about the best thing she coulddo that afternoon.

“I don’t know that he’s a particularly fascinatingyoung man, my dear,” said Mrs Cowey, “and he’s onlya second son, but then he’s got his fellowship, and even the secondson of such a man as Mr Pontifex the publisher should have somethingvery comfortable.”

“Why yes, my dear,” rejoined Mrs Allaby complacently,“that’s what one rather feels.”

CHAPTER X

The interview, like all other good things had to come to an end;the days were short, and Mrs Allaby had a six miles’ drive toCrampsford. When she was muffled up and had taken her seat, MrAllaby’s factotum, James, could perceive no change in herappearance, and little knew what a series of delightful visions he wasdriving home along with his mistress.

Professor Cowey had published works through Theobald’s father,and Theobald had on this account been taken in tow by Mrs Cowey fromthe beginning of his University career. She had had her eye uponhim for some time past, and almost as much felt it her duty to get himoff her list of young men for whom wives had to be provided, as poorMrs Allaby did to try and get a husband for one of her daughters.She now wrote and asked him to come and see her, in terms that awakenedhis curiosity. When he came she broached the subject of Mr Allaby’sfailing health, and after the smoothing away of such difficulties aswere only Mrs Cowey’s due, considering the interest she had taken,it was allowed to come to pass that Theobald should go to Crampsfordfor six successive Sundays and take the half of Mr Allaby’s dutyat half a guinea a Sunday, for Mrs Cowey cut down the usual stipendmercilessly, and Theobald was not strong enough to resist.

Ignorant of the plots which were being prepared for his peace ofmind and with no idea beyond that of earning his three guineas, andperhaps of astonishing the inhabitants of Crampsford by his academiclearning, Theobald walked over to the Rectory one Sunday morning earlyin December—a few weeks only after he had been ordained.He had taken a great deal of pains with his sermon, which was on thesubject of geology—then coming to the fore as a theological bugbear.He showed that so far as geology was worth anything at all—andhe was too liberal entirely to pooh-pooh it—it confirmed the absolutelyhistorical character of the Mosaic account of the Creation as givenin Genesis. Any phenomena which at first sight appeared to makeagainst this view were only partial phenomena and broke down upon investigation.Nothing could be in more excellent taste, and when Theobald adjournedto the rectory, where he was to dine between the services, Mr Allabycomplimented him warmly upon his début, while the ladies of thefamily could hardly find words with which to express their admiration.

Theobald knew nothing about women. The only women he had beenthrown in contact with were his sisters, two of whom were always correctinghim, and a few school friends whom these had got their father to askto Elmhurst. These young ladies had either been so shy that theyand Theobald had never amalgamated, or they had been supposed to beclever and had said smart things to him. He did not say smartthings himself and did not want other people to say them. Besides,they talked about music—and he hated music—or pictures—andhe hated pictures—or books—and except the classics he hatedbooks. And then sometimes he was wanted to dance with them, andhe did not know how to dance, and did not want to know.

At Mrs Cowey’s parties again he had seen some young ladiesand had been introduced to them. He had tried to make himselfa*greeable, but was always left with the impression that he had not beensuccessful. The young ladies of Mrs Cowey’s set were byno means the most attractive that might have been found in the University,and Theobald may be excused for not losing his heart to the greaternumber of them, while if for a minute or two he was thrown in with oneof the prettier and more agreeable girls he was almost immediately cutout by someone less bashful than himself, and sneaked off, feeling asfar as the fair sex was concerned, like the impotent man at the poolof Bethesda.

What a really nice girl might have done with him I cannot tell, butfate had thrown none such in his way except his youngest sister Alethea,whom he might perhaps have liked if she had not been his sister.The result of his experience was that women had never done him any goodand he was not accustomed to associate them with any pleasure; if therewas a part of Hamlet in connection with them it had been so completelycut out in the edition of the play in which he was required to act thathe had come to disbelieve in its existence. As for kissing, hehad never kissed a woman in his life except his sister—and myown sisters when we were all small children together. Over andabove these kisses, he had until quite lately been required to imprinta solemn flabby kiss night and morning upon his father’s cheek,and this, to the best of my belief, was the extent of Theobald’sknowledge in the matter of kissing, at the time of which I am now writing.The result of the foregoing was that he had come to dislike women, asmysterious beings whose ways were not as his ways, nor their thoughtsas his thoughts.

With these antecedents Theobald naturally felt rather bashful onfinding himself the admired of five strange young ladies. I rememberwhen I was a boy myself I was once asked to take tea at a girls’school where one of my sisters was boarding. I was then abouttwelve years old. Everything went off well during tea-time, forthe Lady Principal of the establishment was present. But therecame a time when she went away and I was left alone with the girls.The moment the mistress’s back was turned the head girl, who wasabout my own age, came up, pointed her finger at me, made a face andsaid solemnly, “A na-a-sty bo-o-y!” All the girlsfollowed her in rotation making the same gesture and the same reproachupon my being a boy. It gave me a great scare. I believeI cried, and I know it was a long time before I could again face a girlwithout a strong desire to run away.

Theobald felt at first much as I had myself done at the girls’school, but the Miss Allabys did not tell him he was a nasty bo-o-oy.Their papa and mamma were so cordial and they themselves lifted himso deftly over conversational stiles that before dinner was over Theobaldthought the family to be a really very charming one, and felt as thoughhe were being appreciated in a way to which he had not hitherto beenaccustomed.

With dinner his shyness wore off. He was by no means plain,his academic prestige was very fair. There was nothing about himto lay hold of as unconventional or ridiculous; the impression he createdupon the young ladies was quite as favourable as that which they hadcreated upon himself; for they knew not much more about men than heabout women.

As soon as he was gone, the harmony of the establishment was brokenby a storm which arose upon the question which of them it should bewho should become Mrs Pontifex. “My dears,” said theirfather, when he saw that they did not seem likely to settle the matteramong themselves, “Wait till to-morrow, and then play at cardsfor him.” Having said which he retired to his study, wherehe took a nightly glass of whisky and a pipe of tobacco.

CHAPTER XI

The next morning saw Theobald in his rooms coaching a pupil, andthe Miss Allabys in the eldest Miss Allaby’s bedroom playing atcards with Theobald for the stakes.

The winner was Christina, the second unmarried daughter, then justtwenty-seven years old and therefore four years older than Theobald.The younger sisters complained that it was throwing a husband away tolet Christina try and catch him, for she was so much older that shehad no chance; but Christina showed fight in a way not usual with her,for she was by nature yielding and good tempered. Her mother thoughtit better to back her up, so the two dangerous ones were packed offthen and there on visits to friends some way off, and those alone allowedto remain at home whose loyalty could be depended upon. The brothersdid not even suspect what was going on and believed their father’sgetting assistance was because he really wanted it.

The sisters who remained at home kept their words and gave Christinaall the help they could, for over and above their sense of fair playthey reflected that the sooner Theobald was landed, the sooner anotherdeacon might be sent for who might be won by themselves. So quicklywas all managed that the two unreliable sisters were actually out ofthe house before Theobald’s next visit—which was on theSunday following his first.

This time Theobald felt quite at home in the house of his new friends—forso Mrs Allaby insisted that he should call them. She took, shesaid, such a motherly interest in young men, especially in clergymen.Theobald believed every word she said, as he had believed his fatherand all his elders from his youth up. Christina sat next him atdinner and played her cards no less judiciously than she had playedthem in her sister’s bedroom. She smiled (and her smilewas one of her strong points) whenever he spoke to her; she went throughall her little artlessnesses and set forth all her little wares in whatshe believed to be their most taking aspect. Who can blame her?Theobald was not the ideal she had dreamed of when reading Byron upstairswith her sisters, but he was an actual within the bounds of possibility,and after all not a bad actual as actuals went. What else couldshe do? Run away? She dared not. Marry beneath herand be considered a disgrace to her family? She dared not.Remain at home and become an old maid and be laughed at? Not ifshe could help it. She did the only thing that could reasonablybe expected. She was drowning; Theobald might be only a straw,but she could catch at him and catch at him she accordingly did.

If the course of true love never runs smooth, the course of truematch-making sometimes does so. The only ground for complaintin the present case was that it was rather slow. Theobald fellinto the part assigned to him more easily than Mrs Cowey and Mrs Allabyhad dared to hope. He was softened by Christina’s winningmanners: he admired the high moral tone of everything she said; hersweetness towards her sisters and her father and mother, her readinessto undertake any small burden which no one else seemed willing to undertake,her sprightly manners, all were fascinating to one who, though unusedto woman’s society, was still a human being. He was flatteredby her unobtrusive but obviously sincere admiration for himself; sheseemed to see him in a more favourable light, and to understand himbetter than anyone outside of this charming family had ever done.Instead of snubbing him as his father, brother and sisters did, shedrew him out, listened attentively to all he chose to say, and evidentlywanted him to say still more. He told a college friend that heknew he was in love now; he really was, for he liked Miss Allaby’ssociety much better than that of his sisters.

Over and above the recommendations already enumerated, she had anotherin the possession of what was supposed to be a very beautiful contraltovoice. Her voice was certainly contralto, for she could not reachhigher than D in the treble; its only defect was that it did not gocorrespondingly low in the bass: in those days, however, a contraltovoice was understood to include even a soprano if the soprano couldnot reach soprano notes, and it was not necessary that it should havethe quality which we now assign to contralto. What her voice wantedin range and power was made up in the feeling with which she sang.She had transposed “Angels ever bright and fair” into alower key, so as to make it suit her voice, thus proving, as her mammasaid, that she had a thorough knowledge of the laws of harmony; notonly did she do this, but at every pause added an embellishment of arpeggiosfrom one end to the other of the keyboard, on a principle which hergoverness had taught her; she thus added life and interest to an airwhich everyone—so she said—must feel to be rather heavyin the form in which Handel left it. As for her governess, sheindeed had been a rarely accomplished musician: she was a pupil of thefamous Dr Clarke of Cambridge, and used to play the overture to Atalanta,arranged by Mazzinghi. Nevertheless, it was some time before Theobaldcould bring his courage to the sticking point of actually proposing.He made it quite clear that he believed himself to be much smitten,but month after month went by, during which there was still so muchhope in Theobald that Mr Allaby dared not discover that he was ableto do his duty for himself, and was getting impatient at the numberof half-guineas he was disbursing—and yet there was no proposal.Christina’s mother assured him that she was the best daughterin the whole world, and would be a priceless treasure to the man whomarried her. Theobald echoed Mrs Allaby’s sentiments withwarmth, but still, though he visited the Rectory two or three timesa week, besides coming over on Sundays—he did not propose.“She is heart-whole yet, dear Mr Pontifex,” said Mrs Allaby,one day, “at least I believe she is. It is not for wantof admirers—oh! no—she has had her full share of these,but she is too, too difficult to please. I think, however, shewould fall before a great and good man.” And shelooked hard at Theobald, who blushed; but the days went by and stillhe did not propose.

Another time Theobald actually took Mrs Cowey into his confidence,and the reader may guess what account of Christina he got from her.Mrs Cowey tried the jealousy manoeuvre and hinted at a possible rival.Theobald was, or pretended to be, very much alarmed; a little rudimentarypang of jealousy shot across his bosom and he began to believe withpride that he was not only in love, but desperately in love or he wouldnever feel so jealous. Nevertheless, day after day still wentby and he did not propose.

The Allabys behaved with great judgement. They humoured himtill his retreat was practically cut off, though he still flatteredhimself that it was open. One day about six months after Theobaldhad become an almost daily visitor at the Rectory the conversation happenedto turn upon long engagements. “I don’t like longengagements, Mr Allaby, do you?” said Theobald imprudently.“No,” said Mr Allaby in a pointed tone, “nor longcourtships,” and he gave Theobald a look which he could not pretendto misunderstand. He went back to Cambridge as fast as he couldgo, and in dread of the conversation with Mr Allaby which he felt tobe impending, composed the following letter which he despatched thatsame afternoon by a private messenger to Crampsford. The letterwas as follows:—

“Dearest Miss Christina,—I do not know whetheryou have guessed the feelings that I have long entertained for you—feelingswhich I have concealed as much as I could through fear of drawing youinto an engagement which, if you enter into it, must be prolonged fora considerable time, but, however this may be, it is out of my powerto conceal them longer; I love you, ardently, devotedly, and send thesefew lines asking you to be my wife, because I dare not trust my tongueto give adequate expression to the magnitude of my affection for you.

“I cannot pretend to offer you a heart which has never knowneither love or disappointment. I have loved already, and my heartwas years in recovering from the grief I felt at seeing her become another’s.That, however, is over, and having seen yourself I rejoice over a disappointmentwhich I thought at one time would have been fatal to me. It hasleft me a less ardent lover than I should perhaps otherwise have been,but it has increased tenfold my power of appreciating your many charmsand my desire that you should become my wife. Please let me havea few lines of answer by the bearer to let me know whether or not mysuit is accepted. If you accept me I will at once come and talkthe matter over with Mr and Mrs Allaby, whom I shall hope one day tobe allowed to call father and mother.

“I ought to warn you that in the event of your consenting tobe my wife it may be years before our union can be consummated, forI cannot marry till a college living is offered me. If, therefore,you see fit to reject me, I shall be grieved rather than surprised.—Evermost devotedly yours,

“THEOBALD PONTIFEX.”

And this was all that his public school and University educationhad been able to do for Theobald! Nevertheless for his own parthe thought his letter rather a good one, and congratulated himself inparticular upon his cleverness in inventing the story of a previousattachment, behind which he intended to shelter himself if Christinashould complain of any lack of fervour in his behaviour to her.

I need not give Christina’s answer, which of course was toaccept. Much as Theobald feared old Mr Allaby I do not think hewould have wrought up his courage to the point of actually proposingbut for the fact of the engagement being necessarily a long one, duringwhich a dozen things might turn up to break it off. However muchhe may have disapproved of long engagements for other people, I doubtwhether he had any particular objection to them in his own case.A pair of lovers are like sunset and sunrise: there are such thingsevery day but we very seldom see them. Theobald posed as the mostardent lover imaginable, but, to use the vulgarism for the moment infashion, it was all “side.” Christina was in love,as indeed she had been twenty times already. But then Christinawas impressionable and could not even hear the name “Missolonghi”mentioned without bursting into tears. When Theobald accidentallyleft his sermon case behind him one Sunday, she slept with it in herbosom and was forlorn when she had as it were to disgorge it on thefollowing Sunday; but I do not think Theobald ever took so much as anold toothbrush of Christina’s to bed with him. Why, I knewa young man once who got hold of his mistress’s skates and sleptwith them for a fortnight and cried when he had to give them up.

CHAPTER XII

Theobald’s engagement was all very well as far as it went,but there was an old gentleman with a bald head and rosy cheeks in acounting-house in Paternoster Row who must sooner or later be told ofwhat his son had in view, and Theobald’s heart fluttered whenhe asked himself what view this old gentleman was likely to take ofthe situation. The murder, however, had to come out, and Theobaldand his intended, perhaps imprudently, resolved on making a clean breastof it at once. He wrote what he and Christina, who helped himto draft the letter, thought to be everything that was filial, and expressedhimself as anxious to be married with the least possible delay.He could not help saying this, as Christina was at his shoulder, andhe knew it was safe, for his father might be trusted not to help him.He wound up by asking his father to use any influence that might beat his command to help him to get a living, inasmuch as it might beyears before a college living fell vacant, and he saw no other chanceof being able to marry, for neither he nor his intended had any moneyexcept Theobald’s fellowship, which would, of course, lapse onhis taking a wife.

Any step of Theobald’s was sure to be objectionable in hisfather’s eyes, but that at three-and-twenty he should want tomarry a penniless girl who was four years older than himself, affordeda golden opportunity which the old gentleman—for so I may nowcall him, as he was at least sixty—embraced with characteristiceagerness.

“The ineffable folly,” he wrote, on receivinghis son’s letter, “of your fancied passion for Miss Allabyfills me with the gravest apprehensions. Making every allowancefor a lover’s blindness, I still have no doubt that the lady herselfis a well-conducted and amiable young person, who would not disgraceour family, but were she ten times more desirable as a daughter-in-lawthan I can allow myself to hope, your joint poverty is an insuperableobjection to your marriage. I have four other children besidesyourself, and my expenses do not permit me to save money. Thisyear they have been especially heavy, indeed I have had to purchasetwo not inconsiderable pieces of land which happened to come into themarket and were necessary to complete a property which I have long wantedto round off in this way. I gave you an education regardless ofexpense, which has put you in possession of a comfortable income, atan age when many young men are dependent. I have thus startedyou fairly in life, and may claim that you should cease to be a dragupon me further. Long engagements are proverbially unsatisfactory,and in the present case the prospect seems interminable. Whatinterest, pray, do you suppose I have that I could get a living foryou? Can I go up and down the country begging people to providefor my son because he has taken it into his head to want to get marriedwithout sufficient means?

“I do not wish to write unkindly, nothing can be farther frommy real feelings towards you, but there is often more kindness in plainspeaking than in any amount of soft words which can end in no substantialperformance. Of course, I bear in mind that you are of age, andcan therefore please yourself, but if you choose to claim the strictletter of the law, and act without consideration for your father’sfeelings, you must not be surprised if you one day find that I haveclaimed a like liberty for myself.—Believe me, your affectionatefather,

G. PONTIFEX.”

I found this letter along with those already given and a few morewhich I need not give, but throughout which the same tone prevails,and in all of which there is the more or less obvious shake of the willnear the end of the letter. Remembering Theobald’s generaldumbness concerning his father for the many years I knew him after hisfather’s death, there was an eloquence in the preservation ofthe letters and in their endorsem*nt “Letters from my father,”which seemed to have with it some faint odour of health and nature.

Theobald did not show his father’s letter to Christina, nor,indeed, I believe to anyone. He was by nature secretive, and hadbeen repressed too much and too early to be capable of railing or blowingoff steam where his father was concerned. His sense of wrong wasstill inarticulate, felt as a dull dead weight ever present day by day,and if he woke at night-time still continually present, but he hardlyknew what it was. I was about the closest friend he had, and Isaw but little of him, for I could not get on with him for long together.He said I had no reverence; whereas I thought that I had plenty of reverencefor what deserved to be revered, but that the gods which he deemed goldenwere in reality made of baser metal. He never, as I have said,complained of his father to me, and his only other friends were, likehimself, staid and prim, of evangelical tendencies, and deeply imbuedwith a sense of the sinfulness of any act of insubordination to parents—goodyoung men, in fact—and one cannot blow off steam to a good youngman.

When Christina was informed by her lover of his father’s opposition,and of the time which must probably elapse before they could be married,she offered—with how much sincerity I know not—to set himfree from his engagement; but Theobald declined to be released—“notat least,” as he said, “at present.” Christinaand Mrs Allaby knew they could manage him, and on this not very satisfactoryfooting the engagement was continued.

His engagement and his refusal to be released at once raised Theobaldin his own good opinion. Dull as he was, he had no small shareof quiet self-approbation. He admired himself for his Universitydistinction, for the purity of his life (I said of him once that ifhe had only a better temper he would be as innocent as a new-laid egg)and for his unimpeachable integrity in money matters. He did notdespair of advancement in the Church when he had once got a living,and of course it was within the bounds of possibility that he mightone day become a Bishop, and Christina said she felt convinced thatthis would ultimately be the case.

As was natural for the daughter and intended wife of a clergyman,Christina’s thoughts ran much upon religion, and she was resolvedthat even though an exalted position in this world were denied to herand Theobald, their virtues should be fully appreciated in the next.Her religious opinions coincided absolutely with Theobald’s own,and many a conversation did she have with him about the glory of God,and the completeness with which they would devote themselves to it,as soon as Theobald had got his living and they were married.So certain was she of the great results which would then ensue thatshe wondered at times at the blindness shown by Providence towards itsown truest interests in not killing off the rectors who stood betweenTheobald and his living a little faster.

In those days people believed with a simple downrightness which Ido not observe among educated men and women now. It had neverso much as crossed Theobald’s mind to doubt the literal accuracyof any syllable in the Bible. He had never seen any book in whichthis was disputed, nor met with anyone who doubted it. True, therewas just a little scare about geology, but there was nothing in it.If it was said that God made the world in six days, why He did makeit in six days, neither in more nor less; if it was said that He putAdam to sleep, took out one of his ribs and made a woman of it, whyit was so as a matter of course. He, Adam, went to sleep as itmight be himself, Theobald Pontifex, in a garden, as it might be thegarden at Crampsford Rectory during the summer months when it was sopretty, only that it was larger, and had some tame wild animals in it.Then God came up to him, as it might be Mr Allaby or his father, dexterouslytook out one of his ribs without waking him, and miraculously healedthe wound so that no trace of the operation remained. Finally,God had taken the rib perhaps into the greenhouse, and had turned itinto just such another young woman as Christina. That was howit was done; there was neither difficulty nor shadow of difficulty aboutthe matter. Could not God do anything He liked, and had He notin His own inspired Book told us that He had done this?

This was the average attitude of fairly educated young men and womentowards the Mosaic cosmogony fifty, forty, or even twenty years ago.The combating of infidelity, therefore, offered little scope for enterprisingyoung clergymen, nor had the Church awakened to the activity which shehas since displayed among the poor in our large towns. These werethen left almost without an effort at resistance or co-operation tothe labours of those who had succeeded Wesley. Missionary workindeed in heathen countries was being carried on with some energy, butTheobald did not feel any call to be a missionary. Christina suggestedthis to him more than once, and assured him of the unspeakable happinessit would be to her to be the wife of a missionary, and to share hisdangers; she and Theobald might even be martyred; of course they wouldbe martyred simultaneously, and martyrdom many years hence as regardedfrom the arbour in the Rectory garden was not painful, it would ensurethem a glorious future in the next world, and at any rate posthumousrenown in this—even if they were not miraculously restored tolife again—and such things had happened ere now in the case ofmartyrs. Theobald, however, had not been kindled by Christina’senthusiasm, so she fell back upon the Church of Rome—an enemymore dangerous, if possible, than paganism itself. A combat withRomanism might even yet win for her and Theobald the crown of martyrdom.True, the Church of Rome was tolerably quiet just then, but it was thecalm before the storm, of this she was assured, with a conviction deeperthan she could have attained by any argument founded upon mere reason.

“We, dearest Theobald,” she exclaimed, “will beever faithful. We will stand firm and support one another evenin the hour of death itself. God in his mercy may spare us frombeing burnt alive. He may or may not do so. Oh Lord”(and she turned her eyes prayerfully to Heaven), “spare my Theobald,or grant that he may be beheaded.”

“My dearest,” said Theobald gravely, “do not letus agitate ourselves unduly. If the hour of trial comes we shallbe best prepared to meet it by having led a quiet unobtrusive life ofself-denial and devotion to God’s glory. Such a life letus pray God that it may please Him to enable us to pray that we maylead.”

“Dearest Theobald,” exclaimed Christina, drying the tearsthat had gathered in her eyes, “you are always, always right.Let us be self-denying, pure, upright, truthful in word and deed.”She clasped her hands and looked up to Heaven as she spoke.

“Dearest,” rejoined her lover, “we have ever hithertoendeavoured to be all of these things; we have not been worldly people;let us watch and pray that we may so continue to the end.”

The moon had risen and the arbour was getting damp, so they adjournedfurther aspirations for a more convenient season. At other timesChristina pictured herself and Theobald as braving the scorn of almostevery human being in the achievement of some mighty task which shouldredound to the honour of her Redeemer. She could face anythingfor this. But always towards the end of her vision there camea little coronation scene high up in the golden regions of the Heavens,and a diadem was set upon her head by the Son of Man Himself, amid ahost of angels and archangels who looked on with envy and admiration—andhere even Theobald himself was out of it. If there could be sucha thing as the Mammon of Righteousness Christina would have assuredlymade friends with it. Her papa and mamma were very estimable peopleand would in the course of time receive Heavenly Mansions in which theywould be exceedingly comfortable; so doubtless would her sisters; soperhaps, even might her brothers; but for herself she felt that a higherdestiny was preparing, which it was her duty never to lose sight of.The first step towards it would be her marriage with Theobald.In spite, however, of these flights of religious romanticism, Christinawas a good-tempered kindly-natured girl enough, who, if she had marrieda sensible layman—we will say a hotel-keeper—would havedeveloped into a good landlady and been deservedly popular with herguests.

Such was Theobald’s engaged life. Many a little presentpassed between the pair, and many a small surprise did they preparepleasantly for one another. They never quarrelled, and neitherof them ever flirted with anyone else. Mrs Allaby and his futuresisters-in-law idolised Theobald in spite of its being impossible toget another deacon to come and be played for as long as Theobald wasable to help Mr Allaby, which now of course he did free gratis and fornothing; two of the sisters, however, did manage to find husbands beforeChristina was actually married, and on each occasion Theobald playedthe part of decoy elephant. In the end only two out of the sevendaughters remained single.

After three or four years, old Mr Pontifex became accustomed to hisson’s engagement and looked upon it as among the things whichhad now a prescriptive right to toleration. In the spring of 1831,more than five years after Theobald had first walked over to Crampsford,one of the best livings in the gift of the College unexpectedly fellvacant, and was for various reasons declined by the two fellows seniorto Theobald, who might each have been expected to take it. Theliving was then offered to and of course accepted by Theobald, beingin value not less than £500 a year with a suitable house and garden.Old Mr Pontifex then came down more handsomely than was expected andsettled £10,000 on his son and daughter-in-law for life with remainderto such of their issue as they might appoint. In the month ofJuly, 1831 Theobald and Christina became man and wife.

CHAPTER XIII

A due number of old shoes had been thrown at the carriage in whichthe happy pair departed from the Rectory, and it had turned the cornerat the bottom of the village. It could then be seen for two orthree hundred yards creeping past a fir coppice, and after this waslost to view.

“John,” said Mr Allaby to his man-servant, “shutthe gate;” and he went indoors with a sigh of relief which seemedto say: “I have done it, and I am alive.” This wasthe reaction after a burst of enthusiastic merriment during which theold gentleman had run twenty yards after the carriage to fling a slipperat it—which he had duly flung.

But what were the feelings of Theobald and Christina when the villagewas passed and they were rolling quietly by the fir plantation?It is at this point that even the stoutest heart must fail, unless itbeat in the breast of one who is over head and ears in love. Ifa young man is in a small boat on a choppy sea, along with his affiancedbride and both are sea-sick, and if the sick swain can forget his ownanguish in the happiness of holding the fair one’s head when sheis at her worst—then he is in love, and his heart will be in nodanger of failing him as he passes his fir plantation. Other people,and unfortunately by far the greater number of those who get marriedmust be classed among the “other people,” will inevitablygo through a quarter or half an hour of greater or less badness as thecase may be. Taking numbers into account, I should think moremental suffering had been undergone in the streets leading from St George’s,Hanover Square, than in the condemned cells of Newgate. Thereis no time at which what the Italians call la figlia della Mortelays her cold hand upon a man more awfully than during the first halfhour that he is alone with a woman whom he has married but never genuinelyloved.

Death’s daughter did not spare Theobald. He had behavedvery well hitherto. When Christina had offered to let him go,he had stuck to his post with a magnanimity on which he had plumed himselfever since. From that time forward he had said to himself: “I,at any rate, am the very soul of honour; I am not,” etc., etc.True, at the moment of magnanimity the actual cash payment, so to speak,was still distant; when his father gave formal consent to his marriagethings began to look more serious; when the college living had fallenvacant and been accepted they looked more serious still; but when Christinaactually named the day, then Theobald’s heart fainted within him.

The engagement had gone on so long that he had got into a groove,and the prospect of change was disconcerting. Christina and hehad got on, he thought to himself, very nicely for a great number ofyears; why—why—why should they not continue to go on asthey were doing now for the rest of their lives? But there wasno more chance of escape for him than for the sheep which is being drivento the butcher’s back premises, and like the sheep he felt thatthere was nothing to be gained by resistance, so he made none.He behaved, in fact, with decency, and was declared on all hands tobe one of the happiest men imaginable.

Now, however, to change the metaphor, the drop had actually fallen,and the poor wretch was hanging in mid air along with the creature ofhis affections. This creature was now thirty-three years old,and looked it: she had been weeping, and her eyes and nose were reddish;if “I have done it and I am alive,” was written on Mr Allaby’sface after he had thrown the shoe, “I have done it, and I do notsee how I can possibly live much longer” was upon the face ofTheobald as he was being driven along by the fir Plantation. This,however, was not apparent at the Rectory. All that could be seenthere was the bobbing up and down of the postilion’s head, whichjust over-topped the hedge by the roadside as he rose in his stirrups,and the black and yellow body of the carriage.

For some time the pair said nothing: what they must have felt duringtheir first half hour, the reader must guess, for it is beyond my powerto tell him; at the end of that time, however, Theobald had rummagedup a conclusion from some odd corner of his soul to the effect thatnow he and Christina were married the sooner they fell into their futuremutual relations the better. If people who are in a difficultywill only do the first little reasonable thing which they can clearlyrecognise as reasonable, they will always find the next step more easyboth to see and take. What, then, thought Theobald, was here atthis moment the first and most obvious matter to be considered, andwhat would be an equitable view of his and Christina’s relativepositions in respect to it? Clearly their first dinner was theirfirst joint entry into the duties and pleasures of married life.No less clearly it was Christina’s duty to order it, and his ownto eat it and pay for it.

The arguments leading to this conclusion, and the conclusion itself,flashed upon Theobald about three and a half miles after he had leftCrampsford on the road to Newmarket. He had breakfasted early,but his usual appetite had failed him. They had left the vicarageat noon without staying for the wedding breakfast. Theobald likedan early dinner; it dawned upon him that he was beginning to be hungry;from this to the conclusion stated in the preceding paragraph the stepshad been easy. After a few minutes’ further reflection hebroached the matter to his bride, and thus the ice was broken.

Mrs Theobald was not prepared for so sudden an assumption of importance.Her nerves, never of the strongest, had been strung to their highesttension by the event of the morning. She wanted to escape observation;she was conscious of looking a little older than she quite liked tolook as a bride who had been married that morning; she feared the landlady,the chamber-maid, the waiter—everybody and everything; her heartbeat so fast that she could hardly speak, much less go through the ordealof ordering dinner in a strange hotel with a strange landlady.She begged and prayed to be let off. If Theobald would only orderdinner this once, she would order it any day and every day in future.

But the inexorable Theobald was not to be put off with such absurdexcuses. He was master now. Had not Christina less thantwo hours ago promised solemnly to honour and obey him, and was sheturning restive over such a trifle as this? The loving smile departedfrom his face, and was succeeded by a scowl which that old Turk, hisfather, might have envied. “Stuff and nonsense, my dearestChristina,” he exclaimed mildly, and stamped his foot upon thefloor of the carriage. “It is a wife’s duty to orderher husband’s dinner; you are my wife, and I shall expect youto order mine.” For Theobald was nothing if he was not logical.

The bride began to cry, and said he was unkind; whereon he said nothing,but revolved unutterable things in his heart. Was this, then,the end of his six years of unflagging devotion? Was it for thisthat when Christina had offered to let him off, he had stuck to hisengagement? Was this the outcome of her talks about duty and spiritualmindedness—that now upon the very day of her marriage she shouldfail to see that the first step in obedience to God lay in obedienceto himself? He would drive back to Crampsford; he would complainto Mr and Mrs Allaby; he didn’t mean to have married Christina;he hadn’t married her; it was all a hideous dream; he would—Buta voice kept ringing in his ears which said: “YOU CAN’T,CAN’T, CAN’T.”

“CAN’T I?” screamed the unhappy creature to himself.

“No,” said the remorseless voice, “YOU CAN’T.YOU ARE A MARRIED MAN.”

He rolled back in his corner of the carriage and for the first timefelt how iniquitous were the marriage laws of England. But hewould buy Milton’s prose works and read his pamphlet on divorce.He might perhaps be able to get them at Newmarket.

So the bride sat crying in one corner of the carriage; and the bridegroomsulked in the other, and he feared her as only a bridegroom can fear.

Presently, however, a feeble voice was heard from the bride’scorner saying:

“Dearest Theobald—dearest Theobald, forgive me; I havebeen very, very wrong. Please do not be angry with me. Iwill order the—the—” but the word “dinner”was checked by rising sobs.

When Theobald heard these words a load began to be lifted from hisheart, but he only looked towards her, and that not too pleasantly.

“Please tell me,” continued the voice, “what youthink you would like, and I will tell the landlady when we get to Newmar—”but another burst of sobs checked the completion of the word.

The load on Theobald’s heart grew lighter and lighter.Was it possible that she might not be going to henpeck him after all?Besides, had she not diverted his attention from herself to his approachingdinner?

He swallowed down more of his apprehensions and said, but still gloomily,“I think we might have a roast fowl with bread sauce, new potatoesand green peas, and then we will see if they could let us have a cherrytart and some cream.”

After a few minutes more he drew her towards him, kissed away hertears, and assured her that he knew she would be a good wife to him.

“Dearest Theobald,” she exclaimed in answer, “youare an angel.”

Theobald believed her, and in ten minutes more the happy couple alightedat the inn at Newmarket.

Bravely did Christina go through her arduous task. Eagerlydid she beseech the landlady, in secret, not to keep her Theobald waitinglonger than was absolutely necessary.

“If you have any soup ready, you know, Mrs Barber, it mightsave ten minutes, for we might have it while the fowl was browning.”

See how necessity had nerved her! But in truth she had a splittingheadache, and would have given anything to have been alone.

The dinner was a success. A pint of sherry had warmed Theobald’sheart, and he began to hope that, after all, matters might still gowell with him. He had conquered in the first battle, and thisgives great prestige. How easy it had been too! Why hadhe never treated his sisters in this way? He would do so nexttime he saw them; he might in time be able to stand up to his brotherJohn, or even his father. Thus do we build castles in air whenflushed with wine and conquest.

The end of the honeymoon saw Mrs Theobald the most devotedly obsequiouswife in all England. According to the old saying, Theobald hadkilled the cat at the beginning. It had been a very little cat,a mere kitten in fact, or he might have been afraid to face it, butsuch as it had been he had challenged it to mortal combat, and had heldup its dripping head defiantly before his wife’s face. Therest had been easy.

Strange that one whom I have described hitherto as so timid and easilyput upon should prove such a Tartar all of a sudden on the day of hismarriage. Perhaps I have passed over his years of courtship toorapidly. During these he had become a tutor of his college, andhad at last been Junior Dean. I never yet knew a man whose senseof his own importance did not become adequately developed after he hadheld a resident fellowship for five or six years. True—immediatelyon arriving within a ten mile radius of his father’s house, anenchantment fell upon him, so that his knees waxed weak, his greatnessdeparted, and he again felt himself like an overgrown baby under a perpetualcloud; but then he was not often at Elmhurst, and as soon as he leftit the spell was taken off again; once more he became the fellow andtutor of his college, the Junior Dean, the betrothed of Christina, theidol of the Allaby womankind. From all which it may be gatheredthat if Christina had been a Barbary hen, and had ruffled her feathersin any show of resistance Theobald would not have ventured to swaggerwith her, but she was not a Barbary hen, she was only a common hen,and that too with rather a smaller share of personal bravery than hensgenerally have.

CHAPTER XIV

Battersby-On-The-Hill was the name of the village of which Theobaldwas now Rector. It contained 400 or 500 inhabitants, scatteredover a rather large area, and consisting entirely of farmers and agriculturallabourers. The Rectory was commodious, and placed on the browof a hill which gave it a delightful prospect. There was a fairsprinkling of neighbours within visiting range, but with one or twoexceptions they were the clergymen and clergymen’s families ofthe surrounding villages.

By these the Pontifexes were welcomed as great acquisitions to theneighbourhood. Mr Pontifex, they said was so clever; he had beensenior classic and senior wrangler; a perfect genius in fact, and yetwith so much sound practical common sense as well. As son of sucha distinguished man as the great Mr Pontifex the publisher he wouldcome into a large property by-and-by. Was there not an elder brother?Yes, but there would be so much that Theobald would probably get somethingvery considerable. Of course they would give dinner parties.And Mrs Pontifex, what a charming woman she was; she was certainly notexactly pretty perhaps, but then she had such a sweet smile and hermanner was so bright and winning. She was so devoted too to herhusband and her husband to her; they really did come up to one’sideas of what lovers used to be in days of old; it was rare to meetwith such a pair in these degenerate times; it was quite beautiful,etc., etc. Such were the comments of the neighbours on the newarrivals.

As for Theobald’s own parishioners, the farmers were civiland the labourers and their wives obsequious. There was a littledissent, the legacy of a careless predecessor, but as Mrs Theobald saidproudly, “I think Theobald may be trusted to deal with that.”The church was then an interesting specimen of late Norman, with someearly English additions. It was what in these days would be calledin a very bad state of repair, but forty or fifty years ago few churcheswere in good repair. If there is one feature more characteristicof the present generation than another it is that it has been a greatrestorer of churches.

Horace preached church restoration in his ode:—

Delicta majorum immeritus lues,
Romane, donec templa refeceris
Aedesque labentes deorum et
Foeda nigro simulacra fumo.

Nothing went right with Rome for long together after the Augustanage, but whether it was because she did restore the temples or becauseshe did not restore them I know not. They certainly went all wrongafter Constantine’s time and yet Rome is still a city of someimportance.

I may say here that before Theobald had been many years at Battersbyhe found scope for useful work in the rebuilding of Battersby church,which he carried out at considerable cost, towards which he subscribedliberally himself. He was his own architect, and this saved expense;but architecture was not very well understood about the year 1834, whenTheobald commenced operations, and the result is not as satisfactoryas it would have been if he had waited a few years longer.

Every man’s work, whether it be literature or music or picturesor architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself, andthe more he tries to conceal himself the more clearly will his characterappear in spite of him. I may very likely be condemning myself,all the time that I am writing this book, for I know that whether Ilike it or no I am portraying myself more surely than I am portrayingany of the characters whom I set before the reader. I am sorrythat it is so, but I cannot help it—after which sop to NemesisI will say that Battersby church in its amended form has always struckme as a better portrait of Theobald than any sculptor or painter shortof a great master would be able to produce.

I remember staying with Theobald some six or seven months after hewas married, and while the old church was still standing. I wentto church, and felt as Naaman must have felt on certain occasions whenhe had to accompany his master on his return after having been curedof his leprosy. I have carried away a more vivid recollectionof this and of the people, than of Theobald’s sermon. Evennow I can see the men in blue smock frocks reaching to their heels,and more than one old woman in a scarlet cloak; the row of stolid, dull,vacant plough-boys, ungainly in build, uncomely in face, lifeless, apathetic,a race a good deal more like the pre-revolution French peasant as describedby Carlyle than is pleasant to reflect upon—a race now supplantedby a smarter, comelier and more hopeful generation, which has discoveredthat it too has a right to as much happiness as it can get, and withclearer ideas about the best means of getting it.

They shamble in one after another, with steaming breath, for it iswinter, and loud clattering of hob-nailed boots; they beat the snowfrom off them as they enter, and through the opened door I catch a momentaryglimpse of a dreary leaden sky and snow-clad tombstones. Somehowor other I find the strain which Handel has wedded to the words “Therethe ploughman near at hand,” has got into my head and there isno getting it out again. How marvellously old Handel understoodthese people!

They bob to Theobald as they passed the reading desk (“Thepeople hereabouts are truly respectful,” whispered Christina tome, “they know their betters.”), and take their seats ina long row against the wall. The choir clamber up into the gallerywith their instruments—a violoncello, a clarinet and a trombone.I see them and soon I hear them, for there is a hymn before the service,a wild strain, a remnant, if I mistake not, of some pre-Reformationlitany. I have heard what I believe was its remote musical progenitorin the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo at Venice not five years since;and again I have heard it far away in mid-Atlantic upon a grey sea-Sabbathin June, when neither winds nor waves are stirring, so that the emigrantsgather on deck, and their plaintive psalm goes forth upon the silverhaze of the sky, and on the wilderness of a sea that has sighed tillit can sigh no longer. Or it may be heard at some Methodist CampMeeting upon a Welsh hillside, but in the churches it is gone for ever.If I were a musician I would take it as the subject for the adagioin a Wesleyan symphony.

Gone now are the clarinet, the violoncello and the trombone, wildminstrelsy as of the doleful creatures in Ezekiel, discordant, but infinitelypathetic. Gone is that scarebabe stentor, that bellowing bullof Bashan the village blacksmith, gone is the melodious carpenter, gonethe brawny shepherd with the red hair, who roared more lustily thanall, until they came to the words, “Shepherds with your flocksabiding,” when modesty covered him with confusion, and compelledhim to be silent, as though his own health were being drunk. Theywere doomed and had a presentiment of evil, even when first I saw them,but they had still a little lease of choir life remaining, and theyroared out

but no description can give a proper idea of the effect. WhenI was last in Battersby church there was a harmonium played by a sweet-lookinggirl with a choir of school children around her, and they chanted thecanticles to the most correct of chants, and they sang Hymns Ancientand Modern; the high pews were gone, nay, the very gallery in whichthe old choir had sung was removed as an accursed thing which mightremind the people of the high places, and Theobald was old, and Christinawas lying under the yew trees in the churchyard.

But in the evening later on I saw three very old men come chucklingout of a dissenting chapel, and surely enough they were my old friendsthe blacksmith, the carpenter and the shepherd. There was a lookof content upon their faces which made me feel certain they had beensinging; not doubtless with the old glory of the violoncello, the clarinetand the trombone, but still songs of Sion and no new fangled papistry.

CHAPTER XV

The hymn had engaged my attention; when it was over I had time totake stock of the congregation. They were chiefly farmers—fat,very well-to-do folk, who had come some of them with their wives andchildren from outlying farms two and three miles away; haters of poperyand of anything which any one might choose to say was popish; good,sensible fellows who detested theory of any kind, whose ideal was themaintenance of the status quo with perhaps a loving reminiscenceof old war times, and a sense of wrong that the weather was not morecompletely under their control, who desired higher prices and cheaperwages, but otherwise were most contented when things were changing least;tolerators, if not lovers, of all that was familiar, haters of all thatwas unfamiliar; they would have been equally horrified at hearing theChristian religion doubted, and at seeing it practised.

“What can there be in common between Theobald and his parishioners?”said Christina to me, in the course of the evening, when her husbandwas for a few moments absent. “Of course one must not complain,but I assure you it grieves me to see a man of Theobald’s abilitythrown away upon such a place as this. If we had only been atGaysbury, where there are the A’s, the B’s, the C’s,and Lord D’s place, as you know, quite close, I should not thenhave felt that we were living in such a desert; but I suppose it isfor the best,” she added more cheerfully; “and then of coursethe Bishop will come to us whenever he is in the neighbourhood, andif we were at Gaysbury he might have gone to Lord D’s.”

Perhaps I have now said enough to indicate the kind of place in whichTheobald’s lines were cast, and the sort of woman he had married.As for his own habits, I see him trudging through muddy lanes and overlong sweeps of plover-haunted pastures to visit a dying cottager’swife. He takes her meat and wine from his own table, and thatnot a little only but liberally. According to his lights also,he administers what he is pleased to call spiritual consolation.

“I am afraid I’m going to Hell, Sir,” says thesick woman with a whine. “Oh, Sir, save me, save me, don’tlet me go there. I couldn’t stand it, Sir, I should diewith fear, the very thought of it drives me into a cold sweat all over.”

“Mrs Thompson,” says Theobald gravely, “you musthave faith in the precious blood of your Redeemer; it is He alone whocan save you.”

“But are you sure, Sir,” says she, looking wistfullyat him, “that He will forgive me—for I’ve not beena very good woman, indeed I haven’t—and if God would onlysay ‘Yes’ outright with His mouth when I ask whether mysins are forgiven me—”

“But they are forgiven you, Mrs Thompson,” saysTheobald with some sternness, for the same ground has been gone overa good many times already, and he has borne the unhappy woman’smisgivings now for a full quarter of an hour. Then he puts a stopto the conversation by repeating prayers taken from the “Visitationof the Sick,” and overawes the poor wretch from expressing furtheranxiety as to her condition.

“Can’t you tell me, Sir,” she exclaims piteously,as she sees that he is preparing to go away, “can’t youtell me that there is no Day of Judgement, and that there is no suchplace as Hell? I can do without the Heaven, Sir, but I cannotdo with the Hell.” Theobald is much shocked.

“Mrs Thompson,” he rejoins impressively, “let meimplore you to suffer no doubt concerning these two cornerstones ofour religion to cross your mind at a moment like the present.If there is one thing more certain than another it is that we shallall appear before the Judgement Seat of Christ, and that the wickedwill be consumed in a lake of everlasting fire. Doubt this, MrsThompson, and you are lost.”

The poor woman buries her fevered head in the coverlet in a paroxysmof fear which at last finds relief in tears.

“Mrs Thompson,” says Theobald, with his hand on the door,“compose yourself, be calm; you must please to take my word forit that at the Day of Judgement your sins will be all washed white inthe blood of the Lamb, Mrs Thompson. Yea,” he exclaims frantically,“though they be as scarlet, yet shall they be as white as wool,”and he makes off as fast as he can from the fetid atmosphere of thecottage to the pure air outside. Oh, how thankful he is when theinterview is over!

He returns home, conscious that he has done his duty, and administeredthe comforts of religion to a dying sinner. His admiring wifeawaits him at the Rectory, and assures him that never yet was clergymanso devoted to the welfare of his flock. He believes her; he hasa natural tendency to believe everything that is told him, and who shouldknow the facts of the case better than his wife? Poor fellow!He has done his best, but what does a fish’s best come to whenthe fish is out of water? He has left meat and wine—thathe can do; he will call again and will leave more meat and wine; dayafter day he trudges over the same plover-haunted fields, and listensat the end of his walk to the same agony of forebodings, which day afterday he silences, but does not remove, till at last a merciful weaknessrenders the sufferer careless of her future, and Theobald is satisfiedthat her mind is now peacefully at rest in Jesus.

CHAPTER XVI

He does not like this branch of his profession—indeed he hatesit—but will not admit it to himself. The habit of not admittingthings to himself has become a confirmed one with him. Neverthelessthere haunts him an ill defined sense that life would be pleasanterif there were no sick sinners, or if they would at any rate face aneternity of torture with more indifference. He does not feel thathe is in his element. The farmers look as if they were in theirelement. They are full-bodied, healthy and contented; but betweenhim and them there is a great gulf fixed. A hard and drawn lookbegins to settle about the corners of his mouth, so that even if hewere not in a black coat and white tie a child might know him for aparson.

He knows that he is doing his duty. Every day convinces himof this more firmly; but then there is not much duty for him to do.He is sadly in want of occupation. He has no taste for any ofthose field sports which were not considered unbecoming for a clergymanforty years ago. He does not ride, nor shoot, nor fish, nor course,nor play cricket. Study, to do him justice, he had never reallyliked, and what inducement was there for him to study at Battersby?He reads neither old books nor new ones. He does not interesthimself in art or science or politics, but he sets his back up withsome promptness if any of them show any development unfamiliar to himself.True, he writes his own sermons, but even his wife considers that hisforte lies rather in the example of his life (which is one longact of self-devotion) than in his utterances from the pulpit.After breakfast he retires to his study; he cuts little bits out ofthe Bible and gums them with exquisite neatness by the side of otherlittle bits; this he calls making a Harmony of the Old and New Testaments.Alongside the extracts he copies in the very perfection of hand-writingextracts from Mede (the only man, according to Theobald, who reallyunderstood the Book of Revelation), Patrick, and other old divines.He works steadily at this for half an hour every morning during manyyears, and the result is doubtless valuable. After some yearshave gone by he hears his children their lessons, and the daily oft-repeatedscreams that issue from the study during the lesson hours tell theirown horrible story over the house. He has also taken to collectinga hortus siccus, and through the interest of his father was oncementioned in the Saturday Magazine as having been the first to finda plant, whose name I have forgotten, in the neighbourhood of Battersby.This number of the Saturday Magazine has been bound in red morocco,and is kept upon the drawing-room table. He potters about hisgarden; if he hears a hen cackling he runs and tells Christina, andstraightway goes hunting for the egg.

When the two Miss Allabys came, as they sometimes did, to stay withChristina, they said the life led by their sister and brother-in-lawwas an idyll. Happy indeed was Christina in her choice, for thatshe had had a choice was a fiction which soon took root among them—andhappy Theobald in his Christina. Somehow or other Christina wasalways a little shy of cards when her sisters were staying with her,though at other times she enjoyed a game of cribbage or a rubber ofwhist heartily enough, but her sisters knew they would never be askedto Battersby again if they were to refer to that little matter, andon the whole it was worth their while to be asked to Battersby.If Theobald’s temper was rather irritable he did not vent it uponthem.

By nature reserved, if he could have found someone to cook his dinnerfor him, he would rather have lived in a desert island than not.In his heart of hearts he held with Pope that “the greatest nuisanceto mankind is man” or words to that effect—only that women,with the exception perhaps of Christina, were worse. Yet for allthis when visitors called he put a better face on it than anyone whowas behind the scenes would have expected.

He was quick too at introducing the names of any literary celebritieswhom he had met at his father’s house, and soon established anall-round reputation which satisfied even Christina herself.

Who so integer vitæ scelerisque purus, it was asked,as Mr Pontifex of Battersby? Who so fit to be consulted if anydifficulty about parish management should arise? Who such a happymixture of the sincere uninquiring Christian and of the man of the world?For so people actually called him. They said he was such an admirableman of business. Certainly if he had said he would pay a sum ofmoney at a certain time, the money would be forthcoming on the appointedday, and this is saying a good deal for any man. His constitutionaltimidity rendered him incapable of an attempt to overreach when therewas the remotest chance of opposition or publicity, and his correctbearing and somewhat stern expression were a great protection to himagainst being overreached. He never talked of money, and invariablychanged the subject whenever money was introduced. His expressionof unutterable horror at all kinds of meanness was a sufficient guaranteethat he was not mean himself. Besides he had no business transactionssave of the most ordinary butcher’s book and baker’s bookdescription. His tastes—if he had any—were, as wehave seen, simple; he had £900 a year and a house; the neighbourhoodwas cheap, and for some time he had no children to be a drag upon him.Who was not to be envied, and if envied why then respected, if Theobaldwas not enviable?

Yet I imagine that Christina was on the whole happier than her husband.She had not to go and visit sick parishioners, and the management ofher house and the keeping of her accounts afforded as much occupationas she desired. Her principal duty was, as she well said, to herhusband—to love him, honour him, and keep him in a good temper.To do her justice she fulfilled this duty to the uttermost of her power.It would have been better perhaps if she had not so frequently assuredher husband that he was the best and wisest of mankind, for no one inhis little world ever dreamed of telling him anything else, and it wasnot long before he ceased to have any doubt upon the matter. Asfor his temper, which had become very violent at times, she took careto humour it on the slightest sign of an approaching outbreak.She had early found that this was much the easiest plan. The thunderwas seldom for herself. Long before her marriage even she hadstudied his little ways, and knew how to add fuel to the fire as longas the fire seemed to want it, and then to damp it judiciously down,making as little smoke as possible.

In money matters she was scrupulousness itself. Theobald madeher a quarterly allowance for her dress, pocket money and little charitiesand presents. In these last items she was liberal in proportionto her income; indeed she dressed with great economy and gave away whateverwas over in presents or charity. Oh, what a comfort it was toTheobald to reflect that he had a wife on whom he could rely never tocost him a sixpence of unauthorised expenditure! Letting aloneher absolute submission, the perfect coincidence of her opinion withhis own upon every subject and her constant assurances to him that hewas right in everything which he took it into his head to say or do,what a tower of strength to him was her exactness in money matters!As years went by he became as fond of his wife as it was in his natureto be of any living thing, and applauded himself for having stuck tohis engagement—a piece of virtue of which he was now reaping thereward. Even when Christina did outrun her quarterly stipend bysome thirty shillings or a couple of pounds, it was always made perfectlyclear to Theobald how the deficiency had arisen—there had beenan unusually costly evening dress bought which was to last a long time,or somebody’s unexpected wedding had necessitated a more handsomepresent than the quarter’s balance would quite allow: the excessof expenditure was always repaid in the following quarter or quarterseven though it were only ten shillings at a time.

I believe, however, that after they had been married some twentyyears, Christina had somewhat fallen from her original perfection asregards money. She had got gradually in arrear during many successivequarters, till she had contracted a chronic loan a sort of domesticnational debt, amounting to between seven and eight pounds. Theobaldat length felt that a remonstrance had become imperative, and took advantageof his silver wedding day to inform Christina that her indebtednesswas cancelled, and at the same time to beg that she would endeavourhenceforth to equalise her expenditure and her income. She burstinto tears of love and gratitude, assured him that he was the best andmost generous of men, and never during the remainder of her marriedlife was she a single shilling behind hand.

Christina hated change of all sorts no less cordially than her husband.She and Theobald had nearly everything in this world that they couldwish for; why, then, should people desire to introduce all sorts ofchanges of which no one could foresee the end? Religion, she wasdeeply convinced, had long since attained its final development, norcould it enter into the heart of reasonable man to conceive any faithmore perfect than was inculcated by the Church of England. Shecould imagine no position more honourable than that of a clergyman’swife unless indeed it were a bishop’s. Considering his father’sinfluence it was not at all impossible that Theobald might be a bishopsome day—and then—then would occur to her that one littleflaw in the practice of the Church of England—a flaw not indeedin its doctrine, but in its policy, which she believed on the wholeto be a mistaken one in this respect. I mean the fact that a bishop’swife does not take the rank of her husband.

This had been the doing of Elizabeth, who had been a bad woman, ofexceeding doubtful moral character, and at heart a Papist to the last.Perhaps people ought to have been above mere considerations of worldlydignity, but the world was as it was, and such things carried weightwith them, whether they ought to do so or no. Her influence asplain Mrs Pontifex, wife, we will say, of the Bishop of Winchester,would no doubt be considerable. Such a character as hers couldnot fail to carry weight if she were ever in a sufficiently conspicuoussphere for its influence to be widely felt; but as Lady Winchester—orthe Bishopess—which would sound quite nicely—who could doubtthat her power for good would be enhanced? And it would be allthe nicer because if she had a daughter the daughter would not be aBishopess unless indeed she were to marry a Bishop too, which wouldnot be likely.

These were her thoughts upon her good days; at other times she would,to do her justice, have doubts whether she was in all respects as spirituallyminded as she ought to be. She must press on, press on, till everyenemy to her salvation was surmounted and Satan himself lay bruisedunder her feet. It occurred to her on one of these occasions thatshe might steal a march over some of her contemporaries if she wereto leave off eating black puddings, of which whenever they had killeda pig she had hitherto partaken freely; and if she were also carefulthat no fowls were served at her table which had had their necks wrung,but only such as had had their throats cut and been allowed to bleed.St Paul and the Church of Jerusalem had insisted upon it as necessarythat even Gentile converts should abstain from things strangled andfrom blood, and they had joined this prohibition with that of a viceabout the abominable nature of which there could be no question; itwould be well therefore to abstain in future and see whether any noteworthyspiritual result ensued. She did abstain, and was certain thatfrom the day of her resolve she had felt stronger, purer in heart, andin all respects more spiritually minded than she had ever felt hitherto.Theobald did not lay so much stress on this as she did, but as she settledwhat he should have at dinner she could take care that he got no strangledfowls; as for black puddings, happily, he had seen them made when hewas a boy, and had never got over his aversion for them. She wishedthe matter were one of more general observance than it was; this wasjust a case in which as Lady Winchester she might have been able todo what as plain Mrs Pontifex it was hopeless even to attempt.

And thus this worthy couple jogged on from month to month and fromyear to year. The reader, if he has passed middle life and hasa clerical connection, will probably remember scores and scores of rectorsand rectors’ wives who differed in no material respect from Theobaldand Christina. Speaking from a recollection and experience extendingover nearly eighty years from the time when I was myself a child inthe nursery of a vicarage, I should say I had drawn the better ratherthan the worse side of the life of an English country parson of somefifty years ago. I admit, however, that there are no such peopleto be found nowadays. A more united or, on the whole, happier,couple could not have been found in England. One grief only overshadowedthe early years of their married life: I mean the fact that no livingchildren were born to them.

CHAPTER XVII

In the course of time this sorrow was removed. At the beginningof the fifth year of her married life Christina was safely deliveredof a boy. This was on the sixth of September 1835.

Word was immediately sent to old Mr Pontifex, who received the newswith real pleasure. His son John’s wife had borne daughtersonly, and he was seriously uneasy lest there should be a failure inthe male line of his descendants. The good news, therefore, wasdoubly welcome, and caused as much delight at Elmhurst as dismay inWoburn Square, where the John Pontifexes were then living.

Here, indeed, this freak of fortune was felt to be all the more cruelon account of the impossibility of resenting it openly; but the delightedgrandfather cared nothing for what the John Pontifexes might feel ornot feel; he had wanted a grandson and he had got a grandson, and thisshould be enough for everybody; and, now that Mrs Theobald had takento good ways, she might bring him more grandsons, which would be desirable,for he should not feel safe with fewer than three.

He rang the bell for the butler.

“Gelstrap,” he said solemnly, “I want to go downinto the cellar.”

Then Gelstrap preceded him with a candle, and he went into the innervault where he kept his choicest wines.

He passed many bins: there was 1803 Port, 1792 Imperial Tokay, 1800Claret, 1812 Sherry, these and many others were passed, but it was notfor them that the head of the Pontifex family had gone down into hisinner cellar. A bin, which had appeared empty until the full lightof the candle had been brought to bear upon it, was now found to containa single pint bottle. This was the object of Mr Pontifex’ssearch.

Gelstrap had often pondered over this bottle. It had been placedthere by Mr Pontifex himself about a dozen years previously, on hisreturn from a visit to his friend the celebrated traveller Dr Jones—butthere was no tablet above the bin which might give a clue to the natureof its contents. On more than one occasion when his master hadgone out and left his keys accidentally behind him, as he sometimesdid, Gelstrap had submitted the bottle to all the tests he could ventureupon, but it was so carefully sealed that wisdom remained quite shutout from that entrance at which he would have welcomed her most gladly—andindeed from all other entrances, for he could make out nothing at all.

And now the mystery was to be solved. But alas! it seemed asthough the last chance of securing even a sip of the contents was tobe removed for ever, for Mr Pontifex took the bottle into his own handsand held it up to the light after carefully examining the seal.He smiled and left the bin with the bottle in his hands.

Then came a catastrophe. He stumbled over an empty hamper;there was the sound of a fall—a smash of broken glass, and inan instant the cellar floor was covered with the liquid that had beenpreserved so carefully for so many years.

With his usual presence of mind Mr Pontifex gasped out a month’swarning to Gelstrap. Then he got up, and stamped as Theobald haddone when Christina had wanted not to order his dinner.

“It’s water from the Jordan,” he exclaimed furiously,“which I have been saving for the baptism of my eldest grandson.Damn you, Gelstrap, how dare you be so infernally careless as to leavethat hamper littering about the cellar?”

I wonder the water of the sacred stream did not stand upright asan heap upon the cellar floor and rebuke him. Gelstrap told theother servants afterwards that his master’s language had madehis backbone curdle.

The moment, however, that he heard the word “water,”he saw his way again, and flew to the pantry. Before his masterhad well noted his absence he returned with a little sponge and a basin,and had begun sopping up the waters of the Jordan as though they hadbeen a common slop.

“I’ll filter it, Sir,” said Gelstrap meekly.“It’ll come quite clean.”

Mr Pontifex saw hope in this suggestion, which was shortly carriedout by the help of a piece of blotting paper and a funnel, under hisown eyes. Eventually it was found that half a pint was saved,and this was held to be sufficient.

Then he made preparations for a visit to Battersby. He orderedgoodly hampers of the choicest eatables, he selected a goodly hamperof choice drinkables. I say choice and not choicest, for althoughin his first exaltation he had selected some of his very best wine,yet on reflection he had felt that there was moderation in all things,and as he was parting with his best water from the Jordan, he wouldonly send some of his second best wine.

Before he went to Battersby he stayed a day or two in London, whichhe now seldom did, being over seventy years old, and having practicallyretired from business. The John Pontifexes, who kept a sharp eyeon him, discovered to their dismay that he had had an interview withhis solicitors.

CHAPTER XVIII

For the first time in his life Theobald felt that he had done somethingright, and could look forward to meeting his father without alarm.The old gentleman, indeed, had written him a most cordial letter, announcinghis intention of standing godfather to the boy—nay, I may as wellgive it in full, as it shows the writer at his best. It runs:

“Dear Theobald,—Your letter gave me verysincere pleasure, the more so because I had made up my mind for theworst; pray accept my most hearty congratulations for my daughter-in-lawand for yourself.

“I have long preserved a phial of water from the Jordan forthe christening of my first grandson, should it please God to grantme one. It was given me by my old friend Dr Jones. You willagree with me that though the efficacy of the sacrament does not dependupon the source of the baptismal waters, yet, ceteris paribus,there is a sentiment attaching to the waters of the Jordan which shouldnot be despised. Small matters like this sometimes influence achild’s whole future career.

“I shall bring my own cook, and have told him to get everythingready for the christening dinner. Ask as many of your best neighboursas your table will hold. By the way, I have told Lesueur notto get a lobster—you had better drive over yourself and getone from Saltness (for Battersby was only fourteen or fifteen milesfrom the sea coast); they are better there, at least I think so, thananywhere else in England.

“I have put your boy down for something in the event of hisattaining the age of twenty-one years. If your brother John continuesto have nothing but girls I may do more later on, but I have many claimsupon me, and am not as well off as you may imagine.—Your affectionatefather,

“G. PONTIFEX.”

A few days afterwards the writer of the above letter made his appearancein a fly which had brought him from Gildenham to Battersby, a distanceof fourteen miles. There was Lesueur, the cook, on the box withthe driver, and as many hampers as the fly could carry were disposedupon the roof and elsewhere. Next day the John Pontifexes hadto come, and Eliza and Maria, as well as Alethea, who, by her own specialrequest, was godmother to the boy, for Mr Pontifex had decided thatthey were to form a happy family party; so come they all must, and behappy they all must, or it would be the worse for them. Next daythe author of all this hubbub was actually christened. Theobaldhad proposed to call him George after old Mr Pontifex, but strange tosay, Mr Pontifex over-ruled him in favour of the name Ernest.The word “earnest” was just beginning to come into fashion,and he thought the possession of such a name might, like his havingbeen baptised in water from the Jordan, have a permanent effect uponthe boy’s character, and influence him for good during the morecritical periods of his life.

I was asked to be his second godfather, and was rejoiced to havean opportunity of meeting Alethea, whom I had not seen for some fewyears, but with whom I had been in constant correspondence. Sheand I had always been friends from the time we had played together aschildren onwards. When the death of her grandfather and grandmothersevered her connection with Paleham my intimacy with the Pontifexeswas kept up by my having been at school and college with Theobald, andeach time I saw her I admired her more and more as the best, kindest,wittiest, most lovable, and, to my mind, handsomest woman whom I hadever seen. None of the Pontifexes were deficient in good looks;they were a well-grown shapely family enough, but Alethea was the flowerof the flock even as regards good looks, while in respect of all otherqualities that make a woman lovable, it seemed as though the stock thathad been intended for the three daughters, and would have been aboutsufficient for them, had all been allotted to herself, her sisters gettingnone, and she all.

It is impossible for me to explain how it was that she and I nevermarried. We two knew exceedingly well, and that must suffice forthe reader. There was the most perfect sympathy and understandingbetween us; we knew that neither of us would marry anyone else.I had asked her to marry me a dozen times over; having said this muchI will say no more upon a point which is in no way necessary for thedevelopment of my story. For the last few years there had beendifficulties in the way of our meeting, and I had not seen her, though,as I have said, keeping up a close correspondence with her. NaturallyI was overjoyed to meet her again; she was now just thirty years old,but I thought she looked handsomer than ever.

Her father, of course, was the lion of the party, but seeing thatwe were all meek and quite willing to be eaten, he roared to us ratherthan at us. It was a fine sight to see him tucking his napkinunder his rosy old gills, and letting it fall over his capacious waistcoatwhile the high light from the chandelier danced about the bump of benevolenceon his bald old head like a star of Bethlehem.

The soup was real turtle; the old gentleman was evidently well pleasedand he was beginning to come out. Gelstrap stood behind his master’schair. I sat next Mrs Theobald on her left hand, and was thusjust opposite her father-in-law, whom I had every opportunity of observing.

During the first ten minutes or so, which were taken up with thesoup and the bringing in of the fish, I should probably have thought,if I had not long since made up my mind about him, what a fine old manhe was and how proud his children should be of him; but suddenly ashe was helping himself to lobster sauce, he flushed crimson, a lookof extreme vexation suffused his face, and he darted two furtive butfiery glances to the two ends of the table, one for Theobald and onefor Christina. They, poor simple souls, of course saw that somethingwas exceedingly wrong, and so did I, but I couldn’t guess whatit was till I heard the old man hiss in Christina’s ear: “Itwas not made with a hen lobster. What’s the use,”he continued, “of my calling the boy Ernest, and getting him christenedin water from the Jordan, if his own father does not know a co*ck froma hen lobster?”

This cut me too, for I felt that till that moment I had not so muchas known that there were co*cks and hens among lobsters, but had vaguelythought that in the matter of matrimony they were even as the angelsin heaven, and grew up almost spontaneously from rocks and sea-weed.

Before the next course was over Mr Pontifex had recovered his temper,and from that time to the end of the evening he was at his best.He told us all about the water from the Jordan; how it had been broughtby Dr Jones along with some stone jars of water from the Rhine, theRhone, the Elbe and the Danube, and what trouble he had had with themat the Custom Houses, and how the intention had been to make punch withwaters from all the greatest rivers in Europe; and how he, Mr Pontifex,had saved the Jordan water from going into the bowl, etc., etc.“No, no, no,” he continued, “it wouldn’t havedone at all, you know; very profane idea; so we each took a pint bottleof it home with us, and the punch was much better without it.I had a narrow escape with mine, though, the other day; I fell overa hamper in the cellar, when I was getting it up to bring to Battersby,and if I had not taken the greatest care the bottle would certainlyhave been broken, but I saved it.” And Gelstrap was standingbehind his chair all the time!

Nothing more happened to ruffle Mr Pontifex, so we had a delightfulevening, which has often recurred to me while watching the after careerof my godson.

I called a day or two afterwards and found Mr Pontifex still at Battersby,laid up with one of those attacks of liver and depression to which hewas becoming more and more subject. I stayed to luncheon.The old gentleman was cross and very difficult; he could eat nothing—hadno appetite at all. Christina tried to coax him with a littlebit of the fleshy part of a mutton chop. “How in the nameof reason can I be asked to eat a mutton chop?” he exclaimed angrily;“you forget, my dear Christina, that you have to deal with a stomachthat is totally disorganised,” and he pushed the plate from him,pouting and frowning like a naughty old child. Writing as I doby the light of a later knowledge, I suppose I should have seen nothingin this but the world’s growing pains, the disturbance inseparablefrom transition in human things. I suppose in reality not a leafgoes yellow in autumn without ceasing to care about its sap and makingthe parent tree very uncomfortable by long growling and grumbling—butsurely nature might find some less irritating way of carrying on businessif she would give her mind to it. Why should the generations overlapone another at all? Why cannot we be buried as eggs in neat littlecells with ten or twenty thousand pounds each wrapped round us in Bankof England notes, and wake up, as the sphex wasp does, to find thatit* papa and mamma have not only left ample provision at its elbow,but have been eaten by sparrows some weeks before it began to live consciouslyon its own account?

About a year and a half afterwards the tables were turned on Battersby—forMrs John Pontifex was safely delivered of a boy. A year or solater still, George Pontifex was himself struck down suddenly by a fitof paralysis, much as his mother had been, but he did not see the yearsof his mother. When his will was opened, it was found that anoriginal bequest of £20,000 to Theobald himself (over and abovethe sum that had been settled upon him and Christina at the time ofhis marriage) had been cut down to £17,500 when Mr Pontifex left“something” to Ernest. The “something”proved to be £2500, which was to accumulate in the hands of trustees.The rest of the property went to John Pontifex, except that each ofthe daughters was left with about £15,000 over and above £5000a piece which they inherited from their mother.

Theobald’s father then had told him the truth but not the wholetruth. Nevertheless, what right had Theobald to complain?Certainly it was rather hard to make him think that he and his wereto be gainers, and get the honour and glory of the bequest, when allthe time the money was virtually being taken out of Theobald’sown pocket. On the other hand the father doubtless argued thathe had never told Theobald he was to have anything at all; he had afull right to do what he liked with his own money; if Theobald choseto indulge in unwarrantable expectations that was no affair of his;as it was he was providing for him liberally; and if he did take £2500of Theobald’s share he was still leaving it to Theobald’sson, which, of course, was much the same thing in the end.

No one can deny that the testator had strict right upon his side;nevertheless the reader will agree with me that Theobald and Christinamight not have considered the christening dinner so great a successif all the facts had been before them. Mr Pontifex had duringhis own lifetime set up a monument in Elmhurst Church to the memoryof his wife (a slab with urns and cherubs like illegitimate childrenof King George the Fourth, and all the rest of it), and had left spacefor his own epitaph underneath that of his wife. I do not knowwhether it was written by one of his children, or whether they got somefriend to write it for them. I do not believe that any satirewas intended. I believe that it was the intention to convey thatnothing short of the Day of Judgement could give anyone an idea howgood a man Mr Pontifex had been, but at first I found it hard to thinkthat it was free from guile.

The epitaph begins by giving dates of birth and death; then setsout that the deceased was for many years head of the firm of Fairlieand Pontifex, and also resident in the parish of Elmhurst. Thereis not a syllable of either praise or dispraise. The last linesrun as follows:—

HE NOW LIES AWAITING A JOYFUL RESURRECTION
AT THE LAST DAY.
WHAT MANNER OF MAN HE WAS
THAT DAY WILL DISCOVER.

CHAPTER XIX

This much, however, we may say in the meantime, that having livedto be nearly seventy-three years old and died rich he must have beenin very fair harmony with his surroundings. I have heard it saidsometimes that such and such a person’s life was a lie: but noman’s life can be a very bad lie; as long as it continues at allit is at worst nine-tenths of it true.

Mr Pontifex’s life not only continued a long time, but wasprosperous right up to the end. Is not this enough? Beingin this world is it not our most obvious business to make the most ofit—to observe what things do bona fide tend to long lifeand comfort, and to act accordingly? All animals, except man,know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it—and theydo enjoy it as much as man and other circ*mstances will allow.He has spent his life best who has enjoyed it most; God will take carethat we do not enjoy it any more than is good for us. If Mr Pontifexis to be blamed it is for not having eaten and drunk less and thus sufferedless from his liver, and lived perhaps a year or two longer.

Goodness is naught unless it tends towards old age and sufficiencyof means. I speak broadly and exceptis excipiendis.So the psalmist says, “The righteous shall not lack anything thatis good.” Either this is mere poetical license, or it followsthat he who lacks anything that is good is not righteous; there is apresumption also that he who has passed a long life without lackinganything that is good has himself also been good enough for practicalpurposes.

Mr Pontifex never lacked anything he much cared about. True,he might have been happier than he was if he had cared about thingswhich he did not care for, but the gist of this lies in the “ifhe had cared.” We have all sinned and come short of theglory of making ourselves as comfortable as we easily might have done,but in this particular case Mr Pontifex did not care, and would nothave gained much by getting what he did not want.

There is no casting of swine’s meat before men worse than thatwhich would flatter virtue as though her true origin were not good enoughfor her, but she must have a lineage, deduced as it were by spiritualheralds, from some stock with which she has nothing to do. Virtue’strue lineage is older and more respectable than any that can be inventedfor her. She springs from man’s experience concerning hisown well-being—and this, though not infallible, is still the leastfallible thing we have. A system which cannot stand without abetter foundation than this must have something so unstable within itselfthat it will topple over on whatever pedestal we place it.

The world has long ago settled that morality and virtue are whatbring men peace at the last. “Be virtuous,” says thecopy-book, “and you will be happy.” Surely if a reputedvirtue fails often in this respect it is only an insidious form of vice,and if a reputed vice brings no very serious mischief on a man’slater years it is not so bad a vice as it is said to be. Unfortunatelythough we are all of a mind about the main opinion that virtue is whattends to happiness, and vice what ends in sorrow, we are not so unanimousabout details—that is to say as to whether any given course, such,we will say, as smoking, has a tendency to happiness or the reverse.

I submit it as the result of my own poor observation, that a gooddeal of unkindness and selfishness on the part of parents towards childrenis not generally followed by ill consequences to the parents themselves.They may cast a gloom over their children’s lives for many yearswithout having to suffer anything that will hurt them. I shouldsay, then, that it shows no great moral obliquity on the part of parentsif within certain limits they make their children’s lives a burdento them.

Granted that Mr Pontifex’s was not a very exalted character,ordinary men are not required to have very exalted characters.It is enough if we are of the same moral and mental stature as the “main”or “mean” part of men—that is to say as the average.

It is involved in the very essence of things that rich men who dieold shall have been mean. The greatest and wisest of mankind willbe almost always found to be the meanest—the ones who have keptthe “mean” best between excess either of virtue or vice.They hardly ever have been prosperous if they have not done this, and,considering how many miscarry altogether, it is no small feather ina man’s cap if he has been no worse than his neighbours.Homer tells us about some one who made it his business αιεναριστευεινκαι υπειροχονεμμεναι αλλων—alwaysto excel and to stand higher than other people. What an uncompanionabledisagreeable person he must have been! Homer’s heroes generallycame to a bad end, and I doubt not that this gentleman, whoever he was,did so sooner or later.

A very high standard, again, involves the possession of rare virtues,and rare virtues are like rare plants or animals, things that have notbeen able to hold their own in the world. A virtue to be serviceablemust, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner but more durable metal.

People divide off vice and virtue as though they were two things,neither of which had with it anything of the other. This is notso. There is no useful virtue which has not some alloy of vice,and hardly any vice, if any, which carries not with it a little dashof virtue; virtue and vice are like life and death, or mind and matter—thingswhich cannot exist without being qualified by their opposite.The most absolute life contains death, and the corpse is still in manyrespects living; so also it has been said, “If thou, Lord, wiltbe extreme to mark what is done amiss,” which shows that eventhe highest ideal we can conceive will yet admit so much compromisewith vice as shall countenance the poor abuses of the time, if theyare not too outrageous. That vice pays homage to virtue is notorious;we call this hypocrisy; there should be a word found for the homagewhich virtue not unfrequently pays, or at any rate would be wise inpaying, to vice.

I grant that some men will find happiness in having what we all feelto be a higher moral standard than others. If they go in for this,however, they must be content with virtue as her own reward, and notgrumble if they find lofty Quixotism an expensive luxury, whose rewardsbelong to a kingdom that is not of this world. They must not wonderif they cut a poor figure in trying to make the most of both worlds.Disbelieve as we may the details of the accounts which record the growthof the Christian religion, yet a great part of Christian teaching willremain as true as though we accepted the details. We cannot serveGod and Mammon; strait is the way and narrow is the gate which leadsto what those who live by faith hold to be best worth having, and thereis no way of saying this better than the Bible has done. It iswell there should be some who think thus, as it is well there shouldbe speculators in commerce, who will often burn their fingers—butit is not well that the majority should leave the “mean”and beaten path.

For most men, and most circ*mstances, pleasure—tangible materialprosperity in this world—is the safest test of virtue. Progresshas ever been through the pleasures rather than through the extremesharp virtues, and the most virtuous have leaned to excess rather thanto asceticism. To use a commercial metaphor, competition is sokeen, and the margin of profits has been cut down so closely that virtuecannot afford to throw any bona fide chance away, and must baseher action rather on the actual moneying out of conduct than on a flatteringprospectus. She will not therefore neglect—as some do whoare prudent and economical enough in other matters—the importantfactor of our chance of escaping detection, or at any rate of our dyingfirst. A reasonable virtue will give this chance its due value,neither more nor less.

Pleasure, after all, is a safer guide than either right or duty.For hard as it is to know what gives us pleasure, right and duty areoften still harder to distinguish and, if we go wrong with them, willlead us into just as sorry a plight as a mistaken opinion concerningpleasure. When men burn their fingers through following afterpleasure they find out their mistake and get to see where they havegone wrong more easily than when they have burnt them through followingafter a fancied duty, or a fancied idea concerning right virtue.The devil, in fact, when he dresses himself in angel’s clothes,can only be detected by experts of exceptional skill, and so often doeshe adopt this disguise that it is hardly safe to be seen talking toan angel at all, and prudent people will follow after pleasure as amore homely but more respectable and on the whole much more trustworthyguide.

Returning to Mr Pontifex, over and above his having lived long andprosperously, he left numerous offspring, to all of whom he communicatednot only his physical and mental characteristics, with no more thanthe usual amount of modification, but also no small share of characteristicswhich are less easily transmitted—I mean his pecuniary characteristics.It may be said that he acquired these by sitting still and letting moneyrun, as it were, right up against him, but against how many does notmoney run who do not take it when it does, or who, even if they holdit for a little while, cannot so incorporate it with themselves thatit shall descend through them to their offspring? Mr Pontifexdid this. He kept what he may be said to have made, and moneyis like a reputation for ability—more easily made than kept.

Take him, then, for all in all, I am not inclined to be so severeupon him as my father was. Judge him according to any very loftystandard, and he is nowhere. Judge him according to a fair averagestandard, and there is not much fault to be found with him. Ihave said what I have said in the foregoing chapter once for all, andshall not break my thread to repeat it. It should go without sayingin modification of the verdict which the reader may be inclined to passtoo hastily, not only upon Mr George Pontifex, but also upon Theobaldand Christina. And now I will continue my story.

CHAPTER XX

The birth of his son opened Theobald’s eyes to a good dealwhich he had but faintly realised hitherto. He had had no ideahow great a nuisance a baby was. Babies come into the world sosuddenly at the end, and upset everything so terribly when they do come:why cannot they steal in upon us with less of a shock to the domesticsystem? His wife, too, did not recover rapidly from her confinement;she remained an invalid for months; here was another nuisance and anexpensive one, which interfered with the amount which Theobald likedto put by out of his income against, as he said, a rainy day, or tomake provision for his family if he should have one. Now he wasgetting a family, so that it became all the more necessary to put moneyby, and here was the baby hindering him. Theorists may say whatthey like about a man’s children being a continuation of his ownidentity, but it will generally be found that those who talk in thisway have no children of their own. Practical family men know better.

About twelve months after the birth of Ernest there came a second,also a boy, who was christened Joseph, and in less than twelve monthsafterwards, a girl, to whom was given the name of Charlotte. Afew months before this girl was born Christina paid a visit to the JohnPontifexes in London, and, knowing her condition, passed a good dealof time at the Royal Academy exhibition looking at the types of femalebeauty portrayed by the Academicians, for she had made up her mind thatthe child this time was to be a girl. Alethea warned her not todo this, but she persisted, and certainly the child turned out plain,but whether the pictures caused this or no I cannot say.

Theobald had never liked children. He had always got away fromthem as soon as he could, and so had they from him; oh, why, he wasinclined to ask himself, could not children be born into the world grownup? If Christina could have given birth to a few full-grown clergymenin priest’s orders—of moderate views, but inclining ratherto Evangelicalism, with comfortable livings and in all respects facsimilesof Theobald himself—why, there might have been more sense in it;or if people could buy ready-made children at a shop of whatever ageand sex they liked, instead of always having to make them at home andto begin at the beginning with them—that might do better, butas it was he did not like it. He felt as he had felt when he hadbeen required to come and be married to Christina—that he hadbeen going on for a long time quite nicely, and would much rather continuethings on their present footing. In the matter of getting marriedhe had been obliged to pretend he liked it; but times were changed,and if he did not like a thing now, he could find a hundred unexceptionableways of making his dislike apparent.

It might have been better if Theobald in his younger days had kickedmore against his father: the fact that he had not done so encouragedhim to expect the most implicit obedience from his own children.He could trust himself, he said (and so did Christina), to be more lenientthan perhaps his father had been to himself; his danger, he said (andso again did Christina), would be rather in the direction of being tooindulgent; he must be on his guard against this, for no duty could bemore important than that of teaching a child to obey its parents inall things.

He had read not long since of an Eastern traveller, who, while exploringsomewhere in the more remote parts of Arabia and Asia Minor, had comeupon a remarkably hardy, sober, industrious little Christian community—allof them in the best of health—who had turned out to be the actualliving descendants of Jonadab, the son of Rechab; and two men in Europeancostume, indeed, but speaking English with a broken accent, and by theircolour evidently Oriental, had come begging to Battersby soon afterwards,and represented themselves as belonging to this people; they had saidthey were collecting funds to promote the conversion of their fellowtribesmen to the English branch of the Christian religion. True,they turned out to be impostors, for when he gave them a pound and Christinafive shillings from her private purse, they went and got drunk withit in the next village but one to Battersby; still, this did not invalidatethe story of the Eastern traveller. Then there were the Romans—whosegreatness was probably due to the wholesome authority exercised by thehead of a family over all its members. Some Romans had even killedtheir children; this was going too far, but then the Romans were notChristians, and knew no better.

The practical outcome of the foregoing was a conviction in Theobald’smind, and if in his, then in Christina’s, that it was their dutyto begin training up their children in the way they should go, evenfrom their earliest infancy. The first signs of self-will mustbe carefully looked for, and plucked up by the roots at once beforethey had time to grow. Theobald picked up this numb serpent ofa metaphor and cherished it in his bosom.

Before Ernest could well crawl he was taught to kneel; before hecould well speak he was taught to lisp the Lord’s prayer, andthe general confession. How was it possible that these thingscould be taught too early? If his attention flagged or his memoryfailed him, here was an ill weed which would grow apace, unless it wereplucked out immediately, and the only way to pluck it out was to whiphim, or shut him up in a cupboard, or dock him of some of the smallpleasures of childhood. Before he was three years old he couldread and, after a fashion, write. Before he was four he was learningLatin, and could do rule of three sums.

As for the child himself, he was naturally of an even temper, hedoted upon his nurse, on kittens and puppies, and on all things thatwould do him the kindness of allowing him to be fond of them.He was fond of his mother, too, but as regards his father, he has toldme in later life he could remember no feeling but fear and shrinking.Christina did not remonstrate with Theobald concerning the severityof the tasks imposed upon their boy, nor yet as to the continual whippingsthat were found necessary at lesson times. Indeed, when duringany absence of Theobald’s the lessons were entrusted to her, shefound to her sorrow that it was the only thing to do, and she did itno less effectually than Theobald himself, nevertheless she was fondof her boy, which Theobald never was, and it was long before she coulddestroy all affection for herself in the mind of her first-born.But she persevered.

CHAPTER XXI

Strange! for she believed she doted upon him, and certainly she lovedhim better than either of her other children. Her version of thematter was that there had never yet been two parents so self-denyingand devoted to the highest welfare of their children as Theobald andherself. For Ernest, a very great future—she was certainof it—was in store. This made severity all the more necessary,so that from the first he might have been kept pure from every taintof evil. She could not allow herself the scope for castle buildingwhich, we read, was indulged in by every Jewish matron before the appearanceof the Messiah, for the Messiah had now come, but there was to be amillennium shortly, certainly not later than 1866, when Ernest wouldbe just about the right age for it, and a modern Elias would be wantedto herald its approach. Heaven would bear her witness that shehad never shrunk from the idea of martyrdom for herself and Theobald,nor would she avoid it for her boy, if his life was required of herin her Redeemer’s service. Oh, no! If God told herto offer up her first-born, as He had told Abraham, she would take himup to Pigbury Beacon and plunge the—no, that she could not do,but it would be unnecessary—some one else might do that.It was not for nothing that Ernest had been baptised in water from theJordan. It had not been her doing, nor yet Theobald’s.They had not sought it. When water from the sacred stream waswanted for a sacred infant, the channel had been found through whichit was to flow from far Palestine over land and sea to the door of thehouse where the child was lying. Why, it was a miracle!It was! It was! She saw it all now. The Jordan hadleft its bed and flowed into her own house. It was idle to saythat this was not a miracle. No miracle was effected without meansof some kind; the difference between the faithful and the unbelieverconsisted in the very fact that the former could see a miracle wherethe latter could not. The Jews could see no miracle even in theraising of Lazarus and the feeding of the five thousand. The JohnPontifexes would see no miracle in this matter of the water from theJordan. The essence of a miracle lay not in the fact that meanshad been dispensed with, but in the adoption of means to a great endthat had not been available without interference; and no one would supposethat Dr Jones would have brought the water unless he had been directed.She would tell this to Theobald, and get him to see it in the . . .and yet perhaps it would be better not. The insight of women uponmatters of this sort was deeper and more unerring than that of men.It was a woman and not a man who had been filled most completely withthe whole fulness of the Deity. But why had they not treasuredup the water after it was used? It ought never, never to havebeen thrown away, but it had been. Perhaps, however, this wasfor the best too—they might have been tempted to set too muchstore by it, and it might have become a source of spiritual danger tothem—perhaps even of spiritual pride, the very sin of all otherswhich she most abhorred. As for the channel through which theJordan had flowed to Battersby, that mattered not more than the earththrough which the river ran in Palestine itself. Dr Jones wascertainly worldly—very worldly; so, she regretted to feel, hadbeen her father-in-law, though in a less degree; spiritual, at heart,doubtless, and becoming more and more spiritual continually as he grewolder, still he was tainted with the world, till a very few hours, probably,before his death, whereas she and Theobald had given up all for Christ’ssake. They were not worldly. At least Theobald wasnot. She had been, but she was sure she had grown in grace sinceshe had left off eating things strangled and blood—this was asthe washing in Jordan as against Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus.Her boy should never touch a strangled fowl nor a black pudding—that,at any rate, she could see to. He should have a coral from theneighbourhood of Joppa—there were coral insects on those coasts,so that the thing could easily be done with a little energy; she wouldwrite to Dr Jones about it, etc. And so on for hours togetherday after day for years. Truly, Mrs Theobald loved her child accordingto her lights with an exceeding great fondness, but the dreams she haddreamed in sleep were sober realities in comparison with those she indulgedin while awake.

When Ernest was in his second year, Theobald, as I have already said,began to teach him to read. He began to whip him two days afterhe had begun to teach him.

“It was painful,” as he said to Christina, but it wasthe only thing to do and it was done. The child was puny, whiteand sickly, so they sent continually for the doctor who dosed him withcalomel and James’s powder. All was done in love, anxiety,timidity, stupidity, and impatience. They were stupid in littlethings; and he that is stupid in little will be stupid also in much.

Presently old Mr Pontifex died, and then came the revelation of thelittle alteration he had made in his will simultaneously with his bequestto Ernest. It was rather hard to bear, especially as there wasno way of conveying a bit of their minds to the testator now that hecould no longer hurt them. As regards the boy himself anyone mustsee that the bequest would be an unmitigated misfortune to him.To leave him a small independence was perhaps the greatest injury whichone could inflict upon a young man. It would cripple his energies,and deaden his desire for active employment. Many a youth wasled into evil courses by the knowledge that on arriving at majorityhe would come into a few thousands. They might surely have beentrusted to have their boy’s interests at heart, and must be betterjudges of those interests than he, at twenty-one, could be expectedto be: besides if Jonadab, the son of Rechab’s father—orperhaps it might be simpler under the circ*mstances to say Rechab atonce—if Rechab, then, had left handsome legacies to his grandchildren—whyJonadab might not have found those children so easy to deal with, etc.“My dear,” said Theobald, after having discussed the matterwith Christina for the twentieth time, “my dear, the only thingto guide and console us under misfortunes of this kind is to take refugein practical work. I will go and pay a visit to Mrs Thompson.”

On those days Mrs Thompson would be told that her sins were all washedwhite, etc., a little sooner and a little more peremptorily than onothers.

CHAPTER XXII

I used to stay at Battersby for a day or two sometimes, while mygodson and his brother and sister were children. I hardly knowwhy I went, for Theobald and I grew more and more apart, but one getsinto grooves sometimes, and the supposed friendship between myself andthe Pontifexes continued to exist, though it was now little more thanrudimentary. My godson pleased me more than either of the otherchildren, but he had not much of the buoyancy of childhood, and wasmore like a puny, sallow little old man than I liked. The youngpeople, however, were very ready to be friendly.

I remember Ernest and his brother hovered round me on the first dayof one of these visits with their hands full of fading flowers, whichthey at length proffered me. On this I did what I suppose wasexpected: I inquired if there was a shop near where they could buy sweeties.They said there was, so I felt in my pockets, but only succeeded infinding two pence halfpenny in small money. This I gave them,and the youngsters, aged four and three, toddled off alone. Erelong they returned, and Ernest said, “We can’t get sweetiesfor all this money” (I felt rebuked, but no rebuke was intended);“we can get sweeties for this” (showing a penny), “andfor this” (showing another penny), “but we cannot get themfor all this,” and he added the halfpenny to the two pence.I suppose they had wanted a twopenny cake, or something like that.I was amused, and left them to solve the difficulty their own way, beinganxious to see what they would do.

Presently Ernest said, “May we give you back this” (showingthe halfpenny) “and not give you back this and this?” (showingthe pence). I assented, and they gave a sigh of relief and wenton their way rejoicing. A few more presents of pence and smalltoys completed the conquest, and they began to take me into their confidence.

They told me a good deal which I am afraid I ought not to have listenedto. They said that if grandpapa had lived longer he would mostlikely have been made a Lord, and that then papa would have been theHonourable and Reverend, but that grandpapa was now in heaven singingbeautiful hymns with grandmamma Allaby to Jesus Christ, who was veryfond of them; and that when Ernest was ill, his mamma had told him heneed not be afraid of dying for he would go straight to heaven, if hewould only be sorry for having done his lessons so badly and vexed hisdear papa, and if he would promise never, never to vex him any more;and that when he got to heaven grandpapa and grandmamma Allaby wouldmeet him, and he would be always with them, and they would be very goodto him and teach him to sing ever such beautiful hymns, more beautifulby far than those which he was now so fond of, etc., etc.; but he didnot wish to die, and was glad when he got better, for there were nokittens in heaven, and he did not think there were cowslips to makecowslip tea with.

Their mother was plainly disappointed in them. “My childrenare none of them geniuses, Mr Overton,” she said to me at breakfastone morning. “They have fair abilities, and, thanks to Theobald’stuition, they are forward for their years, but they have nothing likegenius: genius is a thing apart from this, is it not?”

Of course I said it was “a thing quite apart from this,”but if my thoughts had been laid bare, they would have appeared as “Giveme my coffee immediately, ma’am, and don’t talk nonsense.”I have no idea what genius is, but so far as I can form any conceptionabout it, I should say it was a stupid word which cannot be too soonabandoned to scientific and literary claqueurs.

I do not know exactly what Christina expected, but I should imagineit was something like this: “My children ought to be all geniuses,because they are mine and Theobald’s, and it is naughty of themnot to be; but, of course, they cannot be so good and clever as Theobaldand I were, and if they show signs of being so it will be naughty ofthem. Happily, however, they are not this, and yet it is verydreadful that they are not. As for genius—hoity-toity, indeed—why,a genius should turn intellectual summersaults as soon as it is born,and none of my children have yet been able to get into the newspapers.I will not have children of mine give themselves airs—it is enoughfor them that Theobald and I should do so.”

She did not know, poor woman, that the true greatness wears an invisiblecloak, under cover of which it goes in and out among men without beingsuspected; if its cloak does not conceal it from itself always, andfrom all others for many years, its greatness will ere long shrink tovery ordinary dimensions. What, then, it may be asked, is thegood of being great? The answer is that you may understand greatnessbetter in others, whether alive or dead, and choose better company fromthese and enjoy and understand that company better when you have chosenit—also that you may be able to give pleasure to the best peopleand live in the lives of those who are yet unborn. This, one wouldthink, was substantial gain enough for greatness without its wantingto ride rough-shod over us, even when disguised as humility.

I was there on a Sunday, and observed the rigour with which the youngpeople were taught to observe the Sabbath; they might not cut out things,nor use their paintbox on a Sunday, and this they thought rather hard,because their cousins the John Pontifexes might do these things.Their cousins might play with their toy train on Sunday, but thoughthey had promised that they would run none but Sunday trains, all traffichad been prohibited. One treat only was allowed them—onSunday evenings they might choose their own hymns.

In the course of the evening they came into the drawing-room, and,as an especial treat, were to sing some of their hymns to me, insteadof saying them, so that I might hear how nicely they sang. Ernestwas to choose the first hymn, and he chose one about some people whowere to come to the sunset tree. I am no botanist, and do notknow what kind of tree a sunset tree is, but the words began, “Come,come, come; come to the sunset tree for the day is past and gone.”The tune was rather pretty and had taken Ernest’s fancy, for hewas unusually fond of music and had a sweet little child’s voicewhich he liked using.

He was, however, very late in being able to sound a hard it “c”or “k,” and, instead of saying “Come,” he said“Tum tum, tum.”

“Ernest,” said Theobald, from the arm-chair in frontof the fire, where he was sitting with his hands folded before him,“don’t you think it would be very nice if you were to say‘come’ like other people, instead of ‘tum’?”

“I do say tum,” replied Ernest, meaning that he had said“come.”

Theobald was always in a bad temper on Sunday evening. Whetherit is that they are as much bored with the day as their neighbours,or whether they are tired, or whatever the cause may be, clergymen areseldom at their best on Sunday evening; I had already seen signs thatevening that my host was cross, and was a little nervous at hearingErnest say so promptly “I do say tum,” when his papa hadsaid he did not say it as he should.

Theobald noticed the fact that he was being contradicted in a moment.He got up from his arm-chair and went to the piano.

“No, Ernest, you don’t,” he said, “you saynothing of the kind, you say ‘tum,’ not ‘come.’Now say ‘come’ after me, as I do.”

“Tum,” said Ernest, at once; “is that better?”I have no doubt he thought it was, but it was not.

“Now, Ernest, you are not taking pains: you are not tryingas you ought to do. It is high time you learned to say ‘come,’why, Joey can say ‘come,’ can’t you, Joey?”

“Yeth, I can,” replied Joey, and he said something whichwas not far off “come.”

“There, Ernest, do you hear that? There’s no difficultyabout it, nor shadow of difficulty. Now, take your own time, thinkabout it, and say ‘come’ after me.”

The boy remained silent a few seconds and then said “tum”again.

I laughed, but Theobald turned to me impatiently and said, “Pleasedo not laugh, Overton; it will make the boy think it does not matter,and it matters a great deal;” then turning to Ernest he said,“Now, Ernest, I will give you one more chance, and if you don’tsay ‘come,’ I shall know that you are self-willed and naughty.”

He looked very angry, and a shade came over Ernest’s face,like that which comes upon the face of a puppy when it is being scoldedwithout understanding why. The child saw well what was comingnow, was frightened, and, of course, said “tum” once more.

“Very well, Ernest,” said his father, catching him angrilyby the shoulder. “I have done my best to save you, but ifyou will have it so, you will,” and he lugged the little wretch,crying by anticipation, out of the room. A few minutes more andwe could hear screams coming from the dining-room, across the hall whichseparated the drawing-room from the dining-room, and knew that poorErnest was being beaten.

“I have sent him up to bed,” said Theobald, as he returnedto the drawing-room, “and now, Christina, I think we will havethe servants in to prayers,” and he rang the bell for them, red-handedas he was.

CHAPTER XXIII

The man-servant William came and set the chairs for the maids, andpresently they filed in. First Christina’s maid, then thecook, then the housemaid, then William, and then the coachman.I sat opposite them, and watched their faces as Theobald read a chapterfrom the Bible. They were nice people, but more absolute vacancyI never saw upon the countenances of human beings.

Theobald began by reading a few verses from the Old Testament, accordingto some system of his own. On this occasion the passage came fromthe fifteenth chapter of Numbers: it had no particular bearing thatI could see upon anything which was going on just then, but the spiritwhich breathed throughout the whole seemed to me to be so like thatof Theobald himself, that I could understand better after hearing it,how he came to think as he thought, and act as he acted.

The verses are as follows—

“But the soul that doeth aught presumptuously,whether he be born in the land or a stranger, the same reproacheth theLord; and that soul shall be cut off from among his people.

“Because he hath despised the word of the Lord, and hath brokenHis commandments, that soul shall be utterly cut off; his iniquity shallbe upon him.

“And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness theyfound a man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath day.

“And they that found him gathering sticks brought him untoMoses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation.

“And they put him in ward because it was not declared whatshould be done to him.

“And the Lord said unto Moses, the man shall be surely putto death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones without thecamp.

“And all the congregation brought him without the camp, andstoned him with stones, and he died; as the Lord commanded Moses.

“And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

“Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that theymake them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout theirgenerations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribbandof blue.

“And it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may look uponit and remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them, and thatye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes.

“That ye may remember and do all my commandments and be holyunto your God.

“I am the Lord your God which brought you out of the land ofEgypt, to be your God: I am the Lord your God.”

My thoughts wandered while Theobald was reading the above, and revertedto a little matter which I had observed in the course of the afternoon.

It happened that some years previously, a swarm of bees had takenup their abode in the roof of the house under the slates, and had multipliedso that the drawing-room was a good deal frequented by these bees duringthe summer, when the windows were open. The drawing-room paperwas of a pattern which consisted of bunches of red and white roses,and I saw several bees at different times fly up to these bunches andtry them, under the impression that they were real flowers; having triedone bunch, they tried the next, and the next, and the next, till theyreached the one that was nearest the ceiling, then they went down bunchby bunch as they had ascended, till they were stopped by the back ofthe sofa; on this they ascended bunch by bunch to the ceiling again;and so on, and so on till I was tired of watching them. As I thoughtof the family prayers being repeated night and morning, week by week,month by month, and year by year, I could nor help thinking how likeit was to the way in which the bees went up the wall and down the wall,bunch by bunch, without ever suspecting that so many of the associatedideas could be present, and yet the main idea be wanting hopelessly,and for ever.

When Theobald had finished reading we all knelt down and the CarloDolci and the Sassoferrato looked down upon a sea of upturned backs,as we buried our faces in our chairs. I noted that Theobald prayedthat we might be made “truly honest and conscientious” inall our dealings, and smiled at the introduction of the “truly.”Then my thoughts ran back to the bees and I reflected that after allit was perhaps as well at any rate for Theobald that our prayers wereseldom marked by any very encouraging degree of response, for if I hadthought there was the slightest chance of my being heard I should haveprayed that some one might ere long treat him as he had treated Ernest.

Then my thoughts wandered on to those calculations which people makeabout waste of time and how much one can get done if one gives ten minutesa day to it, and I was thinking what improper suggestion I could makein connection with this and the time spent on family prayers which shouldat the same time be just tolerable, when I heard Theobald beginning“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ” and in a few secondsthe ceremony was over, and the servants filed out again as they hadfiled in.

As soon as they had left the drawing-room, Christina, who was a littleashamed of the transaction to which I had been a witness, imprudentlyreturned to it, and began to justify it, saying that it cut her to theheart, and that it cut Theobald to the heart and a good deal more, butthat “it was the only thing to be done.”

I received this as coldly as I decently could, and by my silenceduring the rest of the evening showed that I disapproved of what I hadseen.

Next day I was to go back to London, but before I went I said I shouldlike to take some new-laid eggs back with me, so Theobald took me tothe house of a labourer in the village who lived a stone’s throwfrom the Rectory as being likely to supply me with them. Ernest,for some reason or other, was allowed to come too. I think thehens had begun to sit, but at any rate eggs were scarce, and the cottager’swife could not find me more than seven or eight, which we proceededto wrap up in separate pieces of paper so that I might take them totown safely.

This operation was carried on upon the ground in front of the cottagedoor, and while we were in the midst of it the cottager’s littleboy, a lad much about Ernest’s age, trod upon one of the eggsthat was wrapped up in paper and broke it.

“There now, Jack,” said his mother, “see what you’vedone, you’ve broken a nice egg and cost me a penny—Here,Emma,” she added, calling her daughter, “take the childaway, there’s a dear.”

Emma came at once, and walked off with the youngster, taking himout of harm’s way.

“Papa,” said Ernest, after we had left the house, “Whydidn’t Mrs Heaton whip Jack when he trod on the egg?”

I was spiteful enough to give Theobald a grim smile which said asplainly as words could have done that I thought Ernest had hit him ratherhard.

Theobald coloured and looked angry. “I dare say,”he said quickly, “that his mother will whip him now that we aregone.”

I was not going to have this and said I did not believe it, and sothe matter dropped, but Theobald did not forget it and my visits toBattersby were henceforth less frequent.

On our return to the house we found the postman had arrived and hadbrought a letter appointing Theobald to a rural deanery which had latelyfallen vacant by the death of one of the neighbouring clergy who hadheld the office for many years. The bishop wrote to Theobald mostwarmly, and assured him that he valued him as among the most hard-workingand devoted of his parochial clergy. Christina of course was delighted,and gave me to understand that it was only an instalment of the muchhigher dignities which were in store for Theobald when his merits weremore widely known.

I did not then foresee how closely my godson’s life and minewere in after years to be bound up together; if I had, I should doubtlesshave looked upon him with different eyes and noted much to which I paidno attention at the time. As it was, I was glad to get away fromhim, for I could do nothing for him, or chose to say that I could not,and the sight of so much suffering was painful to me. A man shouldnot only have his own way as far as possible, but he should only consortwith things that are getting their own way so far that they are at anyrate comfortable. Unless for short times under exceptional circ*mstances,he should not even see things that have been stunted or starved, muchless should he eat meat that has been vexed by having been over-drivenor underfed, or afflicted with any disease; nor should he touch vegetablesthat have not been well grown. For all these things cross a man;whatever a man comes in contact with in any way forms a cross with himwhich will leave him better or worse, and the better things he is crossedwith the more likely he is to live long and happily. All thingsmust be crossed a little or they would cease to live—but holythings, such for example as Giovanni Bellini’s saints, have beencrossed with nothing but what is good of its kind,

CHAPTER XXIV

The storm which I have described in the previous chapter was a sampleof those that occurred daily for many years. No matter how clearthe sky, it was always liable to cloud over now in one quarter now inanother, and the thunder and lightning were upon the young people beforethey knew where they were.

“And then, you know,” said Ernest to me, when I askedhim not long since to give me more of his childish reminiscences forthe benefit of my story, “we used to learn Mrs Barbauld’shymns; they were in prose, and there was one about the lion which began,‘Come, and I will show you what is strong. The lion is strong;when he raiseth himself from his lair, when he shaketh his mane, whenthe voice of his roaring is heard the cattle of the field fly, and thebeasts of the desert hide themselves, for he is very terrible.’I used to say this to Joey and Charlotte about my father himself whenI got a little older, but they were always didactic, and said it wasnaughty of me.

“One great reason why clergymen’s households are generallyunhappy is because the clergyman is so much at home or close about thehouse. The doctor is out visiting patients half his time: thelawyer and the merchant have offices away from home, but the clergymanhas no official place of business which shall ensure his being awayfrom home for many hours together at stated times. Our great dayswere when my father went for a day’s shopping to Gildenham.We were some miles from this place, and commissions used to accumulateon my father’s list till he would make a day of it and go anddo the lot. As soon as his back was turned the air felt lighter;as soon as the hall door opened to let him in again, the law with itsall-reaching ‘touch not, taste not, handle not’ was uponus again. The worst of it was that I could never trust Joey andCharlotte; they would go a good way with me and then turn back, or eventhe whole way and then their consciences would compel them to tell papaand mamma. They liked running with the hare up to a certain point,but their instinct was towards the hounds.

“It seems to me,” he continued, “that the familyis a survival of the principle which is more logically embodied in thecompound animal—and the compound animal is a form of life whichhas been found incompatible with high development. I would dowith the family among mankind what nature has done with the compoundanimal, and confine it to the lower and less progressive races.Certainly there is no inherent love for the family system on the partof nature herself. Poll the forms of life and you will find itin a ridiculously small minority. The fishes know it not, andthey get along quite nicely. The ants and the bees, who far outnumberman, sting their fathers to death as a matter of course, and are givento the atrocious mutilation of nine-tenths of the offspring committedto their charge, yet where shall we find communities more universallyrespected? Take the cuckoo again—is there any bird whichwe like better?”

I saw he was running off from his own reminiscences and tried tobring him back to them, but it was no use.

“What a fool,” he said, “a man is to remember anythingthat happened more than a week ago unless it was pleasant, or unlesshe wants to make some use of it.

“Sensible people get the greater part of their own dying doneduring their own lifetime. A man at five and thirty should nomore regret not having had a happier childhood than he should regretnot having been born a prince of the blood. He might be happierif he had been more fortunate in childhood, but, for aught he knows,if he had, something else might have happened which might have killedhim long ago. If I had to be born again I would be born at Battersbyof the same father and mother as before, and I would not alter anythingthat has ever happened to me.”

The most amusing incident that I can remember about his childhoodwas that when he was about seven years old he told me he was going tohave a natural child. I asked him his reasons for thinking this,and he explained that papa and mamma had always told him that nobodyhad children till they were married, and as long as he had believedthis of course he had had no idea of having a child, till he was grownup; but not long since he had been reading Mrs Markham’s historyof England and had come upon the words “John of Gaunt had severalnatural children” he had therefore asked his governess what anatural child was—were not all children natural?

“Oh, my dear,” said she, “a natural child is achild a person has before he is married.” On this it seemedto follow logically that if John of Gaunt had had children before hewas married, he, Ernest Pontifex, might have them also, and he wouldbe obliged to me if I would tell him what he had better do under thecirc*mstances.

I enquired how long ago he had made this discovery. He saidabout a fortnight, and he did not know where to look for the child,for it might come at any moment. “You know,” he said,“babies come so suddenly; one goes to bed one night and next morningthere is a baby. Why, it might die of cold if we are not on thelook-out for it. I hope it will be a boy.”

“And you have told your governess about this?”

“Yes, but she puts me off and does not help me: she says itwill not come for many years, and she hopes not then.”

“Are you quite sure that you have not made any mistake in allthis?”

“Oh, no; because Mrs Burne, you know, called here a few daysago, and I was sent for to be looked at. And mamma held me outat arm’s length and said, ‘Is he Mr Pontifex’s child,Mrs Burne, or is he mine?’ Of course, she couldn’thave said this if papa had not had some of the children himself.I did think the gentleman had all the boys and the lady all the girls;but it can’t be like this, or else mamma would not have askedMrs Burne to guess; but then Mrs Burne said, ‘Oh, he’s MrPontifex’s child of course,’ and I didn’t quiteknow what she meant by saying ‘of course’: it seemed asthough I was right in thinking that the husband has all the boys andthe wife all the girls; I wish you would explain to me all about it.”

This I could hardly do, so I changed the conversation, after reassuringhim as best I could.

CHAPTER XXV

Three or four years after the birth of her daughter, Christina hadhad one more child. She had never been strong since she married,and had a presentiment that she should not survive this last confinement.She accordingly wrote the following letter, which was to be given, asshe endorsed upon it, to her sons when Ernest was sixteen years old.It reached him on his mother’s death many years later, for itwas the baby who died now, and not Christina. It was found amongpapers which she had repeatedly and carefully arranged, with the sealalready broken. This, I am afraid, shows that Christina had readit and thought it too creditable to be destroyed when the occasion thathad called it forth had gone by. It is as follows—

“BATTERSBY, March 15th, 1841.

“My Two Dear Boys,—When this is put into your hands willyou try to bring to mind the mother whom you lost in your childhood,and whom, I fear, you will almost have forgotten? You, Ernest,will remember her best, for you are past five years old, and the many,many times that she has taught you your prayers and hymns and sums andtold you stories, and our happy Sunday evenings will not quite havepassed from your mind, and you, Joey, though only four, will perhapsrecollect some of these things. My dear, dear boys, for the sakeof that mother who loved you very dearly—and for the sake of yourown happiness for ever and ever—attend to and try to remember,and from time to time read over again the last words she can ever speakto you. When I think about leaving you all, two things press heavilyupon me: one, your father’s sorrow (for you, my darlings, aftermissing me a little while, will soon forget your loss), the other, theeverlasting welfare of my children. I know how long and deep theformer will be, and I know that he will look to his children to be almosthis only earthly comfort. You know (for I am certain that it willhave been so), how he has devoted his life to you and taught you andlaboured to lead you to all that is right and good. Oh, then,be sure that you are his comforts. Let him find you obedient,affectionate and attentive to his wishes, upright, self-denying anddiligent; let him never blush for or grieve over the sins and folliesof those who owe him such a debt of gratitude, and whose first dutyit is to study his happiness. You have both of you a name whichmust not be disgraced, a father and a grandfather of whom to show yourselvesworthy; your respectability and well-doing in life rest mainly withyourselves, but far, far beyond earthly respectability and well-doing,and compared with which they are as nothing, your eternal happinessrests with yourselves. You know your duty, but snares and temptationsfrom without beset you, and the nearer you approach to manhood the morestrongly will you feel this. With God’s help, with God’sword, and with humble hearts you will stand in spite of everything,but should you leave off seeking in earnest for the first, and applyingto the second, should you learn to trust in yourselves, or to the adviceand example of too many around you, you will, you must fall. Oh,‘let God be true and every man a liar.’ He says youcannot serve Him and Mammon. He says that strait is the gate thatleads to eternal life. Many there are who seek to widen it; theywill tell you that such and such self-indulgences are but venial offences—thatthis and that worldly compliance is excusable and even necessary.The thing cannot be; for in a hundred and a hundred places Hetells you so—look to your Bibles and seek there whether such counselis true—and if not, oh, ‘halt not between two opinions,’if God is the Lord follow Him; only be strong and of a good courage,and He will never leave you nor forsake you. Remember, there isnot in the Bible one law for the rich, and one for the poor—onefor the educated and one for the ignorant. To all thereis but one thing needful. All are to be living to God andtheir fellow-creatures, and not to themselves. All mustseek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness—must denythemselves, be pure and chaste and charitable in the fullest andwidest sense—all, ‘forgetting those things that are behind,’must ‘press forward towards the mark, for the prize of the highcalling of God.’

“And now I will add but two things more. Be true throughlife to each other, love as only brothers should do, strengthen, warn,encourage one another, and let who will be against you, let each feelthat in his brother he has a firm and faithful friend who will be soto the end; and, oh! be kind and watchful over your dear sister; withoutmother or sisters she will doubly need her brothers’ love andtenderness and confidence. I am certain she will seek them, andwill love you and try to make you happy; be sure then that you do notfail her, and remember, that were she to lose her father and remainunmarried, she would doubly need protectors. To you, then, I especiallycommend her. Oh! my three darling children, be true to each other,your Father, and your God. May He guide and bless you, and grantthat in a better and happier world I and mine may meet again.—Yourmost affectionate mother,

CHRISTINA PONTIFEX.”

From enquiries I have made, I have satisfied myself that most motherswrite letters like this shortly before their confinements, and thatfifty per cent. keep them afterwards, as Christina did.

CHAPTER XXVI

The foregoing letter shows how much greater was Christina’sanxiety for the eternal than for the temporal welfare of her sons.One would have thought she had sowed enough of such religious wild oatsby this time, but she had plenty still to sow. To me it seemsthat those who are happy in this world are better and more lovable peoplethan those who are not, and that thus in the event of a Resurrectionand Day of Judgement, they will be the most likely to be deemed worthyof a heavenly mansion. Perhaps a dim unconscious perception ofthis was the reason why Christina was so anxious for Theobald’searthly happiness, or was it merely due to a conviction that his eternalwelfare was so much a matter of course, that it only remained to securehis earthly happiness? He was to “find his sons obedient,affectionate, attentive to his wishes, self-denying and diligent,”a goodly string forsooth of all the virtues most convenient to parents;he was never to have to blush for the follies of those “who owedhim such a debt of gratitude,” and “whose first duty itwas to study his happiness.” How like maternal solicitudeis this! Solicitude for the most part lest the offspring shouldcome to have wishes and feelings of its own, which may occasion manydifficulties, fancied or real. It is this that is at the bottomof the whole mischief; but whether this last proposition is grantedor no, at any rate we observe that Christina had a sufficiently keenappreciation of the duties of children towards their parents, and feltthe task of fulfilling them adequately to be so difficult that she wasvery doubtful how far Ernest and Joey would succeed in mastering it.It is plain in fact that her supposed parting glance upon them was oneof suspicion. But there was no suspicion of Theobald; that heshould have devoted his life to his children—why this was sucha mere platitude, as almost to go without saying.

How, let me ask, was it possible that a child only a little pastfive years old, trained in such an atmosphere of prayers and hymns andsums and happy Sunday evenings—to say nothing of daily repeatedbeatings over the said prayers and hymns, etc., about which our authoressis silent—how was it possible that a lad so trained should growup in any healthy or vigorous development, even though in her own wayhis mother was undoubtedly very fond of him, and sometimes told himstories? Can the eye of any reader fail to detect the coming wrathof God as about to descend upon the head of him who should be nurturedunder the shadow of such a letter as the foregoing?

I have often thought that the Church of Rome does wisely in not allowingher priests to marry. Certainly it is a matter of common observationin England that the sons of clergymen are frequently unsatisfactory.The explanation is very simple, but is so often lost sight of that Imay perhaps be pardoned for giving it here.

The clergyman is expected to be a kind of human Sunday. Thingsmust not be done in him which are venial in the week-day classes.He is paid for this business of leading a stricter life than other people.It is his raison d’être. If his parishionersfeel that he does this, they approve of him, for they look upon himas their own contribution towards what they deem a holy life.This is why the clergyman is so often called a vicar—he beingthe person whose vicarious goodness is to stand for that of those entrustedto his charge. But his home is his castle as much as that of anyother Englishman, and with him, as with others, unnatural tension inpublic is followed by exhaustion when tension is no longer necessary.His children are the most defenceless things he can reach, and it ison them in nine cases out of ten that he will relieve his mind.

A clergyman, again, can hardly ever allow himself to look facts fairlyin the face. It is his profession to support one side; it is impossible,therefore, for him to make an unbiassed examination of the other.

We forget that every clergyman with a living or curacy, is as mucha paid advocate as the barrister who is trying to persuade a jury toacquit a prisoner. We should listen to him with the same suspenseof judgment, the same full consideration of the arguments of the opposingcounsel, as a judge does when he is trying a case. Unless we knowthese, and can state them in a way that our opponents would admit tobe a fair representation of their views, we have no right to claim thatwe have formed an opinion at all. The misfortune is that by thelaw of the land one side only can be heard.

Theobald and Christina were no exceptions to the general rule.When they came to Battersby they had every desire to fulfil the dutiesof their position, and to devote themselves to the honour and gloryof God. But it was Theobald’s duty to see the honour andglory of God through the eyes of a Church which had lived three hundredyears without finding reason to change a single one of its opinions.

I should doubt whether he ever got as far as doubting the wisdomof his Church upon any single matter. His scent for possible mischiefwas tolerably keen; so was Christina’s, and it is likely thatif either of them detected in him or herself the first faint symptomsof a want of faith they were nipped no less peremptorily in the bud,than signs of self-will in Ernest were—and I should imagine moresuccessfully. Yet Theobald considered himself, and was generallyconsidered to be, and indeed perhaps was, an exceptionally truthfulperson; indeed he was generally looked upon as an embodiment of allthose virtues which make the poor respectable and the rich respected.In the course of time he and his wife became persuaded even to unconsciousness,that no one could even dwell under their roof without deep cause forthankfulness. Their children, their servants, their parishionersmust be fortunate ipso facto that they were theirs. Therewas no road to happiness here or hereafter, but the road that they hadthemselves travelled, no good people who did not think as they did uponevery subject, and no reasonable person who had wants the gratificationof which would be inconvenient to them—Theobald and Christina.

This was how it came to pass that their children were white and puny;they were suffering from home-sickness. They were starving,through being over-crammed with the wrong things. Nature camedown upon them, but she did not come down on Theobald and Christina.Why should she? They were not leading a starved existence.There are two classes of people in this world, those who sin, and thosewho are sinned against; if a man must belong to either, he had betterbelong to the first than to the second.

CHAPTER XXVII

I will give no more of the details of my hero’s earlier years.Enough that he struggled through them, and at twelve years old knewevery page of his Latin and Greek Grammars by heart. He had readthe greater part of Virgil, Horace and Livy, and I do not know how manyGreek plays: he was proficient in arithmetic, knew the first four booksof Euclid thoroughly, and had a fair knowledge of French. It wasnow time he went to school, and to school he was accordingly to go,under the famous Dr Skinner of Roughborough.

Theobald had known Dr Skinner slightly at Cambridge. He hadbeen a burning and a shining light in every position he had filled fromhis boyhood upwards. He was a very great genius. Everyoneknew this; they said, indeed, that he was one of the few people to whomthe word genius could be applied without exaggeration. Had henot taken I don’t know how many University Scholarships in hisfreshman’s year? Had he not been afterwards Senior Wrangler,First Chancellor’s Medallist and I do not know how many more thingsbesides? And then, he was such a wonderful speaker; at the UnionDebating Club he had been without a rival, and had, of course, beenpresident; his moral character,—a point on which so many geniuseswere weak—was absolutely irreproachable; foremost of all, however,among his many great qualities, and perhaps more remarkable even thanhis genius was what biographers have called “the simple-mindedand child-like earnestness of his character,” an earnestness whichmight be perceived by the solemnity with which he spoke even about trifles.It is hardly necessary to say he was on the Liberal side in politics.

His personal appearance was not particularly prepossessing.He was about the middle height, portly, and had a couple of fierce greyeyes, that flashed fire from beneath a pair of great bushy beetlingeyebrows and overawed all who came near him. It was in respectof his personal appearance, however, that, if he was vulnerable at all,his weak place was to be found. His hair when he was a young manwas red, but after he had taken his degree he had a brain fever whichcaused him to have his head shaved; when he reappeared, he did so wearinga wig, and one which was a good deal further off red than his own hairhad been. He not only had never discarded his wig, but year byyear it had edged itself a little more and a little more off red, tillby the time he was forty, there was not a trace of red remaining, andhis wig was brown.

When Dr Skinner was a very young man, hardly more than five-and-twenty,the head-mastership of Roughborough Grammar School had fallen vacant,and he had been unhesitatingly appointed. The result justifiedthe selection. Dr Skinner’s pupils distinguished themselvesat whichever University they went to. He moulded their minds afterthe model of his own, and stamped an impression upon them which wasindelible in after-life; whatever else a Roughborough man might be,he was sure to make everyone feel that he was a God-fearing earnestChristian and a Liberal, if not a Radical, in politics. Some boys,of course, were incapable of appreciating the beauty and loftiness ofDr Skinner’s nature. Some such boys, alas! there will bein every school; upon them Dr Skinner’s hand was very properlya heavy one. His hand was against them, and theirs against himduring the whole time of the connection between them. They notonly disliked him, but they hated all that he more especially embodied,and throughout their lives disliked all that reminded them of him.Such boys, however, were in a minority, the spirit of the place beingdecidedly Skinnerian.

I once had the honour of playing a game of chess with this greatman. It was during the Christmas holidays, and I had come downto Roughborough for a few days to see Alethea Pontifex (who was thenliving there) on business. It was very gracious of him to takenotice of me, for if I was a light of literature at all it was of thevery lightest kind.

It is true that in the intervals of business I had written a gooddeal, but my works had been almost exclusively for the stage, and forthose theatres that devoted themselves to extravaganza and burlesque.I had written many pieces of this description, full of puns and comicsongs, and they had had a fair success, but my best piece had been atreatment of English history during the Reformation period, in the courseof which I had introduced Cranmer, Sir Thomas More, Henry the Eighth,Catherine of Arragon, and Thomas Cromwell (in his youth better knownas the Malleus Monachorum), and had made them dance a break-down.I had also dramatised “The Pilgrim’s Progress” fora Christmas Pantomime, and made an important scene of Vanity Fair, withMr Greatheart, Apollyon, Christiana, Mercy, and Hopeful as the principalcharacters. The orchestra played music taken from Handel’sbest known works, but the time was a good deal altered, and altogetherthe tunes were not exactly as Handel left them. Mr Greatheartwas very stout and he had a red nose; he wore a capacious waistcoat,and a shirt with a huge frill down the middle of the front. Hopefulwas up to as much mischief as I could give him; he wore the costumeof a young swell of the period, and had a cigar in his mouth which wascontinually going out.

Christiana did not wear much of anything: indeed it was said thatthe dress which the Stage Manager had originally proposed for her hadbeen considered inadequate even by the Lord Chamberlain, but this isnot the case. With all these delinquencies upon my mind it wasnatural that I should feel convinced of sin while playing chess (whichI hate) with the great Dr Skinner of Roughborough—the historianof Athens and editor of Demosthenes. Dr Skinner, moreover, wasone of those who pride themselves on being able to set people at theirease at once, and I had been sitting on the edge of my chair all theevening. But I have always been very easily overawed by a schoolmaster.

The game had been a long one, and at half-past nine, when suppercame in, we had each of us a few pieces remaining. “Whatwill you take for supper, Dr Skinner?” said Mrs Skinner in a silveryvoice.

He made no answer for some time, but at last in a tone of almostsuperhuman solemnity, he said, first, “Nothing,” and then“Nothing whatever.”

By and by, however, I had a sense come over me as though I were nearerthe consummation of all things than I had ever yet been. The roomseemed to grow dark, as an expression came over Dr Skinner’s face,which showed that he was about to speak. The expression gatheredforce, the room grew darker and darker. “Stay,” heat length added, and I felt that here at any rate was an end to a suspensewhich was rapidly becoming unbearable. “Stay—I maypresently take a glass of cold water—and a small piece of breadand butter.”

As he said the word “butter” his voice sank to a hardlyaudible whisper; then there was a sigh as though of relief when thesentence was concluded, and the universe this time was safe.

Another ten minutes of solemn silence finished the game. TheDoctor rose briskly from his seat and placed himself at the supper table.“Mrs Skinner,” he exclaimed jauntily, “what are thosemysterious-looking objects surrounded by potatoes?”

“Those are oysters, Dr Skinner.”

“Give me some, and give Overton some.”

And so on till he had eaten a good plate of oysters, a scallop shellof minced veal nicely browned, some apple tart, and a hunk of breadand cheese. This was the small piece of bread and butter.

The cloth was now removed and tumblers with teaspoons in them, alemon or two and a jug of boiling water were placed upon the table.Then the great man unbent. His face beamed.

“And what shall it be to drink?” he exclaimed persuasively.“Shall it be brandy and water? No. It shall be ginand water. Gin is the more wholesome liquor.”

So gin it was, hot and stiff too.

Who can wonder at him or do anything but pity him? Was he nothead-master of Roughborough School? To whom had he owed moneyat any time? Whose ox had he taken, whose ass had he taken, orwhom had he defrauded? What whisper had ever been breathed againsthis moral character? If he had become rich it was by the mosthonourable of all means—his literary attainments; over and abovehis great works of scholarship, his “Meditations upon the Epistleand Character of St Jude” had placed him among the most popularof English theologians; it was so exhaustive that no one who boughtit need ever meditate upon the subject again—indeed it exhaustedall who had anything to do with it. He had made £5000 bythis work alone, and would very likely make another £5000 beforehe died. A man who had done all this and wanted a piece of breadand butter had a right to announce the fact with some pomp and circ*mstance.Nor should his words be taken without searching for what he used tocall a “deeper and more hidden meaning.” Those whosearched for this even in his lightest utterances would not be withouttheir reward. They would find that “bread and butter”was Skinnerese for oyster-patties and apple tart, and “gin hot”the true translation of water.

But independently of their money value, his works had made him alasting name in literature. So probably Gallio was under the impressionthat his fame would rest upon the treatises on natural history whichwe gather from Seneca that he compiled, and which for aught we knowmay have contained a complete theory of evolution; but the treatisesare all gone and Gallio has become immortal for the very last reasonin the world that he expected, and for the very last reason that wouldhave flattered his vanity. He has become immortal because he carednothing about the most important movement with which he was ever broughtinto connection (I wish people who are in search of immortality wouldlay the lesson to heart and not make so much noise about important movements),and so, if Dr Skinner becomes immortal, it will probably be for somereason very different from the one which he so fondly imagined.

Could it be expected to enter into the head of such a man as thisthat in reality he was making his money by corrupting youth; that itwas his paid profession to make the worse appear the better reason inthe eyes of those who were too young and inexperienced to be able tofind him out; that he kept out of the sight of those whom he professedto teach material points of the argument, for the production of whichthey had a right to rely upon the honour of anyone who made professionsof sincerity; that he was a passionate half-turkey-co*ck half-ganderof a man whose sallow, bilious face and hobble-gobble voice could scarethe timid, but who would take to his heels readily enough if he weremet firmly; that his “Meditations on St Jude,” such as theywere, were cribbed without acknowledgment, and would have been beneathcontempt if so many people did not believe them to have been writtenhonestly? Mrs Skinner might have perhaps kept him a little morein his proper place if she had thought it worth while to try, but shehad enough to attend to in looking after her household and seeing thatthe boys were well fed and, if they were ill, properly looked after—whichshe took good care they were.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Ernest had heard awful accounts of Dr Skinner’s temper, andof the bullying which the younger boys at Roughborough had to put upwith at the hands of the bigger ones. He had now got about asmuch as he could stand, and felt as though it must go hard with himif his burdens of whatever kind were to be increased. He did notcry on leaving home, but I am afraid he did on being told that he wasgetting near Roughborough. His father and mother were with him,having posted from home in their own carriage; Roughborough had as yetno railway, and as it was only some forty miles from Battersby, thiswas the easiest way of getting there.

On seeing him cry, his mother felt flattered and caressed him.She said she knew he must feel very sad at leaving such a happy home,and going among people who, though they would be very good to him, couldnever, never be as good as his dear papa and she had been; still, shewas herself, if he only knew it, much more deserving of pity than hewas, for the parting was more painful to her than it could possiblybe to him, etc., and Ernest, on being told that his tears were for griefat leaving home, took it all on trust, and did not trouble to investigatethe real cause of his tears. As they approached Roughborough hepulled himself together, and was fairly calm by the time he reachedDr Skinner’s.

On their arrival they had luncheon with the Doctor and his wife,and then Mrs Skinner took Christina over the bedrooms, and showed herwhere her dear little boy was to sleep.

Whatever men may think about the study of man, women do really believethe noblest study for womankind to be woman, and Christina was too muchengrossed with Mrs Skinner to pay much attention to anything else; Idaresay Mrs Skinner, too, was taking pretty accurate stock of Christina.Christina was charmed, as indeed she generally was with any new acquaintance,for she found in them (and so must we all) something of the nature ofa cross; as for Mrs Skinner, I imagine she had seen too many Christinasto find much regeneration in the sample now before her; I believe herprivate opinion echoed the dictum of a well-known head-master who declaredthat all parents were fools, but more especially mothers; she was, however,all smiles and sweetness, and Christina devoured these graciously astributes paid more particularly to herself, and such as no other motherwould have been at all likely to have won.

In the meantime Theobald and Ernest were with Dr Skinner in his library—theroom where new boys were examined and old ones had up for rebuke orchastisem*nt. If the walls of that room could speak, what an amountof blundering and capricious cruelty would they not bear witness to!

Like all houses, Dr Skinner’s had its peculiar smell.In this case the prevailing odour was one of Russia leather, but alongwith it there was a subordinate savour as of a chemist’s shop.This came from a small laboratory in one corner of the room—thepossession of which, together with the free chattery and smattery useof such words as “carbonate,” “hyposulphite,”“phosphate,” and “affinity,” were enough toconvince even the most sceptical that Dr Skinner had a profound knowledgeof chemistry.

I may say in passing that Dr Skinner had dabbled in a great manyother things as well as chemistry. He was a man of many smallknowledges, and each of them dangerous. I remember Alethea Pontifexonce said in her wicked way to me, that Dr Skinner put her in mind ofthe Bourbon princes on their return from exile after the battle of Waterloo,only that he was their exact converse; for whereas they had learnednothing and forgotten nothing, Dr Skinner had learned everything andforgotten everything. And this puts me in mind of another of herwicked sayings about Dr Skinner. She told me one day that he hadthe harmlessness of the serpent and the wisdom of the dove.

But to return to Dr Skinner’s library; over the chimney-piecethere was a Bishop’s half length portrait of Dr Skinner himself,painted by the elder Pickersgill, whose merit Dr Skinner had been amongthe first to discern and foster. There were no other picturesin the library, but in the dining-room there was a fine collection,which the doctor had got together with his usual consummate taste.He added to it largely in later life, and when it came to the hammerat Christie’s, as it did not long since, it was found to comprisemany of the latest and most matured works of Solomon Hart, O’Neil,Charles Landseer, and more of our recent Academicians than I can atthe moment remember. There were thus brought together and exhibitedat one view many works which had attracted attention at the AcademyExhibitions, and as to whose ultimate destiny there had been some curiosity.The prices realised were disappointing to the executors, but, then,these things are so much a matter of chance. An unscrupulous writerin a well-known weekly paper had written the collection down.Moreover there had been one or two large sales a short time before DrSkinner’s, so that at this last there was rather a panic, anda reaction against the high prices that had ruled lately.

The table of the library was loaded with books many deep; MSS. ofall kinds were confusedly mixed up with them,—boys’ exercises,probably, and examination papers—but all littering untidily about.The room in fact was as depressing from its slatternliness as from itsatmosphere of erudition. Theobald and Ernest as they entered it,stumbled over a large hole in the Turkey carpet, and the dust that roseshowed how long it was since it had been taken up and beaten.This, I should say, was no fault of Mrs Skinner’s but was dueto the Doctor himself, who declared that if his papers were once disturbedit would be the death of him. Near the window was a green cagecontaining a pair of turtle doves, whose plaintive cooing added to themelancholy of the place. The walls were covered with book shelvesfrom floor to ceiling, and on every shelf the books stood in doublerows. It was horrible. Prominent among the most prominentupon the most prominent shelf were a series of splendidly bound volumesentitled “Skinner’s Works.”

Boys are sadly apt to rush to conclusions, and Ernest believed thatDr Skinner knew all the books in this terrible library, and that he,if he were to be any good, should have to learn them too. Hisheart fainted within him.

He was told to sit on a chair against the wall and did so, whileDr Skinner talked to Theobald upon the topics of the day. He talkedabout the Hampden Controversy then raging, and discoursed learnedlyabout “Praemunire”; then he talked about the revolutionwhich had just broken out in Sicily, and rejoiced that the Pope hadrefused to allow foreign troops to pass through his dominions in orderto crush it. Dr Skinner and the other masters took in the Timesamong them, and Dr Skinner echoed the Times’ leaders.In those days there were no penny papers and Theobald only took in theSpectator—for he was at that time on the Whig side in politics;besides this he used to receive the Ecclesiastical Gazette oncea month, but he saw no other papers, and was amazed at the ease andfluency with which Dr Skinner ran from subject to subject.

The Pope’s action in the matter of the Sicilian revolutionnaturally led the Doctor to the reforms which his Holiness had introducedinto his dominions, and he laughed consumedly over the joke which hadnot long since appeared in Punch, to the effect that Pio “No,No,” should rather have been named Pio “Yes, Yes,”because, as the doctor explained, he granted everything his subjectsasked for. Anything like a pun went straight to Dr Skinner’sheart.

Then he went on to the matter of these reforms themselves.They opened up a new era in the history of Christendom, and would havesuch momentous and far-reaching consequences, that they might even leadto a reconciliation between the Churches of England and Rome.Dr Skinner had lately published a pamphlet upon this subject, whichhad shown great learning, and had attacked the Church of Rome in a waywhich did not promise much hope of reconciliation. He had groundedhis attack upon the letters A.M.D.G., which he had seen outside a RomanCatholic chapel, and which of course stood for Ad Mariam Dei Genetricem.Could anything be more idolatrous?

I am told, by the way, that I must have let my memory play me oneof the tricks it often does play me, when I said the Doctor proposedAd Mariam Dei Genetricem as the full harmonies, so to speak,which should be constructed upon the bass A.M.D.G., for that this isbad Latin, and that the doctor really harmonised the letters thus: AveMaria Dei Genetrix. No doubt the doctor did what was rightin the matter of Latinity—I have forgotten the little Latin Iever knew, and am not going to look the matter up, but I believe thedoctor said Ad Mariam Dei Genetricem, and if so we may be surethat Ad Mariam Dei Genetricem, is good enough Latin at any ratefor ecclesiastical purposes.

The reply of the local priest had not yet appeared, and Dr Skinnerwas jubilant, but when the answer appeared, and it was solemnly declaredthat A.M.D.G. stood for nothing more dangerous than Ad Majorem DeiGloriam, it was felt that though this subterfuge would not succeedwith any intelligent Englishman, still it was a pity Dr Skinner hadselected this particular point for his attack, for he had to leave hisenemy in possession of the field. When people are left in possessionof the field, spectators have an awkward habit of thinking that theiradversary does not dare to come to the scratch.

Dr Skinner was telling Theobald all about his pamphlet, and I doubtwhether this gentleman was much more comfortable than Ernest himself.He was bored, for in his heart he hated Liberalism, though he was ashamedto say so, and, as I have said, professed to be on the Whig side.He did not want to be reconciled to the Church of Rome; he wanted tomake all Roman Catholics turn Protestants, and could never understandwhy they would not do so; but the Doctor talked in such a truly liberalspirit, and shut him up so sharply when he tried to edge in a word ortwo, that he had to let him have it all his own way, and this was notwhat he was accustomed to. He was wondering how he could bringit to an end, when a diversion was created by the discovery that Ernesthad begun to cry—doubtless through an intense but inarticulatesense of a boredom greater than he could bear. He was evidentlyin a highly nervous state, and a good deal upset by the excitement ofthe morning, Mrs Skinner therefore, who came in with Christina at thisjuncture, proposed that he should spend the afternoon with Mrs Jay,the matron, and not be introduced to his young companions until thefollowing morning. His father and mother now bade him an affectionatefarewell, and the lad was handed over to Mrs Jay.

O schoolmasters—if any of you read this book—bear inmind when any particularly timid drivelling urchin is brought by hispapa into your study, and you treat him with the contempt which he deserves,and afterwards make his life a burden to him for years—bear inmind that it is exactly in the disguise of such a boy as this that yourfuture chronicler will appear. Never see a wretched little heavy-eyedmite sitting on the edge of a chair against your study wall withoutsaying to yourselves, “perhaps this boy is he who, if I am notcareful, will one day tell the world what manner of man I was.”If even two or three schoolmasters learn this lesson and remember it,the preceding chapters will not have been written in vain.

CHAPTER XXIX

Soon after his father and mother had left him Ernest dropped asleepover a book which Mrs Jay had given him, and he did not awake till dusk.Then he sat down on a stool in front of the fire, which showed pleasantlyin the late January twilight, and began to muse. He felt weak,feeble, ill at ease and unable to see his way out of the innumerabletroubles that were before him. Perhaps, he said to himself, hemight even die, but this, far from being an end of his troubles, wouldprove the beginning of new ones; for at the best he would only go toGrandpapa Pontifex and Grandmamma Allaby, and though they would perhapsbe more easy to get on with than Papa and Mamma, yet they were undoubtedlynot so really good, and were more worldly; moreover they were grown-uppeople—especially Grandpapa Pontifex, who so far as he could understandhad been very much grown-up, and he did not know why, but there wasalways something that kept him from loving any grown-up people verymuch—except one or two of the servants, who had indeed been asnice as anything that he could imagine. Besides even if he wereto die and go to Heaven he supposed he should have to complete his educationsomewhere.

In the meantime his father and mother were rolling along the muddyroads, each in his or her own corner of the carriage, and each revolvingmany things which were and were not to come to pass. Times havechanged since I last showed them to the reader as sitting together silentlyin a carriage, but except as regards their mutual relations, they havealtered singularly little. When I was younger I used to thinkthe Prayer Book was wrong in requiring us to say the General Confessiontwice a week from childhood to old age, without making provision forour not being quite such great sinners at seventy as we had been atseven; granted that we should go to the wash like table-cloths at leastonce a week, still I used to think a day ought to come when we shouldwant rather less rubbing and scrubbing at. Now that I have grownolder myself I have seen that the Church has estimated probabilitiesbetter than I had done.

The pair said not a word to one another, but watched the fading lightand naked trees, the brown fields with here and there a melancholy cottageby the road side, and the rain that fell fast upon the carriage windows.It was a kind of afternoon on which nice people for the most part liketo be snug at home, and Theobald was a little snappish at reflectinghow many miles he had to post before he could be at his own firesideagain. However there was nothing for it, so the pair sat quietlyand watched the roadside objects flit by them, and get greyer and grimmeras the light faded.

Though they spoke not to one another, there was one nearer to eachof them with whom they could converse freely. “I hope,”said Theobald to himself, “I hope he’ll work—or elsethat Skinner will make him. I don’t like Skinner, I neverdid like him, but he is unquestionably a man of genius, and no one turnsout so many pupils who succeed at Oxford and Cambridge, and that isthe best test. I have done my share towards starting him well.Skinner said he had been well grounded and was very forward. Isuppose he will presume upon it now and do nothing, for his nature isan idle one. He is not fond of me, I’m sure he is not.He ought to be after all the trouble I have taken with him, but he isungrateful and selfish. It is an unnatural thing for a boy notto be fond of his own father. If he was fond of me I should befond of him, but I cannot like a son who, I am sure, dislikes me.He shrinks out of my way whenever he sees me coming near him.He will not stay five minutes in the same room with me if he can helpit. He is deceitful. He would not want to hide himself awayso much if he were not deceitful. That is a bad sign and one whichmakes me fear he will grow up extravagant. I am sure he will growup extravagant. I should have given him more pocket-money if Ihad not known this—but what is the good of giving him pocket-money?It is all gone directly. If he doesn’t buy something withit he gives it away to the first little boy or girl he sees who takeshis fancy. He forgets that it’s my money he is giving away.I give him money that he may have money and learn to know its uses,not that he may go and squander it immediately. I wish he wasnot so fond of music, it will interfere with his Latin and Greek.I will stop it as much as I can. Why, when he was translatingLivy the other day he slipped out Handel’s name in mistake forHannibal’s, and his mother tells me he knows half the tunes inthe ‘Messiah’ by heart. What should a boy of his ageknow about the ‘Messiah’? If I had shown half as manydangerous tendencies when I was a boy, my father would have apprenticedme to a greengrocer, of that I’m very sure,” etc., etc.

Then his thoughts turned to Egypt and the tenth plague. Itseemed to him that if the little Egyptians had been anything like Ernest,the plague must have been something very like a blessing in disguise.If the Israelites were to come to England now he should be greatly temptednot to let them go.

Mrs Theobald’s thoughts ran in a different current. “LordLonsford’s grandson—it’s a pity his name is Figgins;however, blood is blood as much through the female line as the male,indeed, perhaps even more so if the truth were known. I wonderwho Mr Figgins was. I think Mrs Skinner said he was dead, however,I must find out all about him. It would be delightful if youngFiggins were to ask Ernest home for the holidays. Who knows buthe might meet Lord Lonsford himself, or at any rate some of Lord Lonsford’sother descendants?”

Meanwhile the boy himself was still sitting moodily before the firein Mrs Jay’s room. “Papa and Mamma,” he wassaying to himself, “are much better and cleverer than anyone else,but, I, alas! shall never be either good or clever.”

Mrs Pontifex continued—

“Perhaps it would be best to get young Figgins on a visit toourselves first. That would be charming. Theobald wouldnot like it, for he does not like children; I must see how I can manageit, for it would be so nice to have young Figgins—or stay!Ernest shall go and stay with Figgins and meet the future Lord Lonsford,who I should think must be about Ernest’s age, and then if heand Ernest were to become friends Ernest might ask him to Battersby,and he might fall in love with Charlotte. I think we have donemost wisely in sending Ernest to Dr Skinner’s. DrSkinner’s piety is no less remarkable than his genius. Onecan tell these things at a glance, and he must have felt it about meno less strongly than I about him. I think he seemed much struckwith Theobald and myself—indeed, Theobald’s intellectualpower must impress any one, and I was showing, I do believe, to my bestadvantage. When I smiled at him and said I left my boy in hishands with the most entire confidence that he would be as well caredfor as if he were at my own house, I am sure he was greatly pleased.I should not think many of the mothers who bring him boys can impresshim so favourably, or say such nice things to him as I did. Mysmile is sweet when I desire to make it so. I never was perhapsexactly pretty, but I was always admitted to be fascinating. DrSkinner is a very handsome man—too good on the whole I shouldsay for Mrs Skinner. Theobald says he is not handsome, but menare no judges, and he has such a pleasant bright face. I thinkmy bonnet became me. As soon as I get home I will tell Chambersto trim my blue and yellow merino with—” etc., etc.

All this time the letter which has been given above was lying inChristina’s private little Japanese cabinet, read and re-readand approved of many times over, not to say, if the truth were known,rewritten more than once, though dated as in the first instance—andthis, too, though Christina was fond enough of a joke in a small way.

Ernest, still in Mrs Jay’s room mused onward. “Grown-uppeople,” he said to himself, “when they were ladies andgentlemen, never did naughty things, but he was always doing them.He had heard that some grown-up people were worldly, which of coursewas wrong, still this was quite distinct from being naughty, and didnot get them punished or scolded. His own Papa and Mamma werenot even worldly; they had often explained to him that they were exceptionallyunworldly; he well knew that they had never done anything naughty sincethey had been children, and that even as children they had been nearlyfaultless. Oh! how different from himself! When should helearn to love his Papa and Mamma as they had loved theirs? Howcould he hope ever to grow up to be as good and wise as they, or eventolerably good and wise? Alas! never. It could not be.He did not love his Papa and Mamma, in spite of all their goodness bothin themselves and to him. He hated Papa, and did not like Mamma,and this was what none but a bad and ungrateful boy would do after allthat had been done for him. Besides he did not like Sunday; hedid not like anything that was really good; his tastes were low andsuch as he was ashamed of. He liked people best if they sometimesswore a little, so long as it was not at him. As for his Catechismand Bible readings he had no heart in them. He had never attendedto a sermon in his life. Even when he had been taken to hear MrVaughan at Brighton, who, as everyone knew, preached such beautifulsermons for children, he had been very glad when it was all over, nordid he believe he could get through church at all if it was not forthe voluntary upon the organ and the hymns and chanting. The Catechismwas awful. He had never been able to understand what it was thathe desired of his Lord God and Heavenly Father, nor had he yet got holdof a single idea in connection with the word Sacrament. His dutytowards his neighbour was another bugbear. It seemed to him thathe had duties towards everybody, lying in wait for him upon every side,but that nobody had any duties towards him. Then there was thatawful and mysterious word ‘business.’ What did itall mean? What was ‘business’? His Papa wasa wonderfully good man of business, his Mamma had often told him so—buthe should never be one. It was hopeless, and very awful, for peoplewere continually telling him that he would have to earn his own living.No doubt, but how—considering how stupid, idle, ignorant, self-indulgent,and physically puny he was? All grown-up people were clever, exceptservants—and even these were cleverer than ever he should be.Oh, why, why, why, could not people be born into the world as grown-uppersons? Then he thought of Casabianca. He had been examinedin that poem by his father not long before. ‘When only wouldhe leave his position? To whom did he call? Did he get ananswer? Why? How many times did he call upon his father?What happened to him? What was the noblest life that perishedthere? Do you think so? Why do you think so?’And all the rest of it. Of course he thought Casabianca’swas the noblest life that perished there; there could be no two opinionsabout that; it never occurred to him that the moral of the poem wasthat young people cannot begin too soon to exercise discretion in theobedience they pay to their Papa and Mamma. Oh, no! the only thoughtin his mind was that he should never, never have been like Casabianca,and that Casabianca would have despised him so much, if he could haveknown him, that he would not have condescended to speak to him.There was nobody else in the ship worth reckoning at all: it did notmatter how much they were blown up. Mrs Hemans knew them all andthey were a very indifferent lot. Besides Casabianca was so good-lookingand came of such a good family.”

And thus his small mind kept wandering on till he could follow itno longer, and again went off into a doze.

CHAPTER XXX

Next morning Theobald and Christina arose feeling a little tiredfrom their journey, but happy in that best of all happiness, the approbationof their consciences. It would be their boy’s fault henceforthif he were not good, and as prosperous as it was at all desirable thathe should be. What more could parents do than they had done?The answer “Nothing” will rise as readily to the lips ofthe reader as to those of Theobald and Christina themselves.

A few days later the parents were gratified at receiving the followingletter from their son—

“My Dear Mamma,—I am very well. DrSkinner made me do about the horse free and exulting roaming in thewide fields in Latin verse, but as I had done it with Papa I knew howto do it, and it was nearly all right, and he put me in the fourth formunder Mr Templer, and I have to begin a new Latin grammar not like theold, but much harder. I know you wish me to work, and I will tryvery hard. With best love to Joey and Charlotte, and to Papa,I remain, your affectionate son,

ERNEST.”

Nothing could be nicer or more proper. It really did seem asthough he were inclined to turn over a new leaf. The boys hadall come back, the examinations were over, and the routine of the halfyear began; Ernest found that his fears about being kicked about andbullied were exaggerated. Nobody did anything very dreadful tohim. He had to run errands between certain hours for the elderboys, and to take his turn at greasing the footballs, and so forth,but there was an excellent spirit in the school as regards bullying.

Nevertheless, he was far from happy. Dr Skinner was much toolike his father. True, Ernest was not thrown in with him muchyet, but he was always there; there was no knowing at what moment hemight not put in an appearance, and whenever he did show, it was tostorm about something. He was like the lion in the Bishop of Oxford’sSunday story—always liable to rush out from behind some bush anddevour some one when he was least expected. He called Ernest “anaudacious reptile” and said he wondered the earth did not openand swallow him up because he pronounced Thalia with a short i.“And this to me,” he thundered, “who never made afalse quantity in my life.” Surely he would have been amuch nicer person if he had made false quantities in his youth likeother people. Ernest could not imagine how the boys in Dr Skinner’sform continued to live; but yet they did, and even throve, and, strangeas it may seem, idolised him, or professed to do so in after life.To Ernest it seemed like living on the crater of Vesuvius.

He was himself, as has been said, in Mr Templer’s form, whowas snappish, but not downright wicked, and was very easy to crib under.Ernest used to wonder how Mr Templer could be so blind, for he supposedMr Templer must have cribbed when he was at school, and would ask himselfwhether he should forget his youth when he got old, as Mr Templer hadforgotten his. He used to think he never could possibly forgetany part of it.

Then there was Mrs Jay, who was sometimes very alarming. Afew days after the half year had commenced, there being some littleextra noise in the hall, she rushed in with her spectacles on her foreheadand her cap strings flying, and called the boy whom Ernest had selectedas his hero the “rampingest-scampingest-rackety-tackety-tow-row-roaringestboy in the whole school.” But she used to say things thatErnest liked. If the Doctor went out to dinner, and there wereno prayers, she would come in and say, “Young gentlemen, prayersare excused this evening”; and, take her for all in all, she wasa kindly old soul enough.

Most boys soon discover the difference between noise and actual danger,but to others it is so unnatural to menace, unless they mean mischief,that they are long before they leave off taking turkey-co*cks and gandersau sérieux. Ernest was one of the latter sort, andfound the atmosphere of Roughborough so gusty that he was glad to shrinkout of sight and out of mind whenever he could. He disliked thegames worse even than the squalls of the class-room and hall, for hewas still feeble, not filling out and attaining his full strength tilla much later age than most boys. This was perhaps due to the closenesswith which his father had kept him to his books in childhood, but Ithink in part also to a tendency towards lateness in attaining maturity,hereditary in the Pontifex family, which was one also of unusual longevity.At thirteen or fourteen he was a mere bag of bones, with upper armsabout as thick as the wrists of other boys of his age; his little chestwas pigeon-breasted; he appeared to have no strength or stamina whatever,and finding he always went to the wall in physical encounters, whetherundertaken in jest or earnest, even with boys shorter than himself,the timidity natural to childhood increased upon him to an extent thatI am afraid amounted to cowardice. This rendered him even lesscapable than he might otherwise have been, for as confidence increasespower, so want of confidence increases impotence. After he hadhad the breath knocked out of him and been well shinned half a dozentimes in scrimmages at football—scrimmages in which he had becomeinvolved sorely against his will—he ceased to see any furtherfun in football, and shirked that noble game in a way that got him intotrouble with the elder boys, who would stand no shirking on the partof the younger ones.

He was as useless and ill at ease with cricket as with football,nor in spite of all his efforts could he ever throw a ball or a stone.It soon became plain, therefore, to everyone that Pontifex was a youngmuff, a mollycoddle, not to be tortured, but still not to be rated highly.He was not however, actively unpopular, for it was seen that he wasquite square inter pares, not at all vindictive, easily pleased,perfectly free with whatever little money he had, no greater lover ofhis school work than of the games, and generally more inclinable tomoderate vice than to immoderate virtue.

These qualities will prevent any boy from sinking very low in theopinion of his schoolfellows; but Ernest thought he had fallen lowerthan he probably had, and hated and despised himself for what he, asmuch as anyone else, believed to be his cowardice. He did notlike the boys whom he thought like himself. His heroes were strongand vigorous, and the less they inclined towards him the more he worshippedthem. All this made him very unhappy, for it never occurred tohim that the instinct which made him keep out of games for which hewas ill adapted, was more reasonable than the reason which would havedriven him into them. Nevertheless he followed his instinct forthe most part, rather than his reason. Sapiens suam si sapientiamnôrit.

CHAPTER XXXI

With the masters Ernest was ere long in absolute disgrace.He had more liberty now than he had known heretofore. The heavyhand and watchful eye of Theobald were no longer about his path andabout his bed and spying out all his ways; and punishment by way ofcopying out lines of Virgil was a very different thing from the savagebeatings of his father. The copying out in fact was often lesstrouble than the lesson. Latin and Greek had nothing in them whichcommended them to his instinct as likely to bring him peace even atthe last; still less did they hold out any hope of doing so within somemore reasonable time. The deadness inherent in these defunct languagesthemselves had never been artificially counteracted by a system of bonafide rewards for application. There had been any amount ofpunishments for want of application, but no good comfortable bribeshad baited the hook which was to allure him to his good.

Indeed, the more pleasant side of learning to do this or that hadalways been treated as something with which Ernest had no concern.We had no business with pleasant things at all, at any rate very littlebusiness, at any rate not he, Ernest. We were put into this worldnot for pleasure but duty, and pleasure had in it something more orless sinful in its very essence. If we were doing anything weliked, we, or at any rate he, Ernest, should apologise and think hewas being very mercifully dealt with, if not at once told to go anddo something else. With what he did not like, however, it wasdifferent; the more he disliked a thing the greater the presumptionthat it was right. It never occurred to him that the presumptionwas in favour of the rightness of what was most pleasant, and that theonus of proving that it was not right lay with those who disputed itsbeing so. I have said more than once that he believed in his owndepravity; never was there a little mortal more ready to accept withoutcavil whatever he was told by those who were in authority over him:he thought, at least, that he believed it, for as yet he knew nothingof that other Ernest that dwelt within him, and was so much strongerand more real than the Ernest of which he was conscious. The dumbErnest persuaded with inarticulate feelings too swift and sure to betranslated into such debateable things as words, but practically insistedas follows—

“Growing is not the easy plain sailing businessthat it is commonly supposed to be: it is hard work—harder thanany but a growing boy can understand; it requires attention, and youare not strong enough to attend to your bodily growth, and to your lessonstoo. Besides, Latin and Greek are great humbug; the more peopleknow of them the more odious they generally are; the nice people whomyou delight in either never knew any at all or forgot what they hadlearned as soon as they could; they never turned to the classics afterthey were no longer forced to read them; therefore they are nonsense,all very well in their own time and country, but out of place here.Never learn anything until you find you have been made uncomfortablefor a good long while by not knowing it; when you find that you haveoccasion for this or that knowledge, or foresee that you will have occasionfor it shortly, the sooner you learn it the better, but till then spendyour time in growing bone and muscle; these will be much more usefulto you than Latin and Greek, nor will you ever be able to make themif you do not do so now, whereas Latin and Greek can be acquired atany time by those who want them.

“You are surrounded on every side by lies which would deceiveeven the elect, if the elect were not generally so uncommonly wide awake;the self of which you are conscious, your reasoning and reflecting self,will believe these lies and bid you act in accordance with them.This conscious self of yours, Ernest, is a prig begotten of prigs andtrained in priggishness; I will not allow it to shape your actions,though it will doubtless shape your words for many a year to come.Your papa is not here to beat you now; this is a change in the conditionsof your existence, and should be followed by changed actions.Obey me, your true self, and things will go tolerably well with you,but only listen to that outward and visible old husk of yours whichis called your father, and I will rend you in pieces even unto the thirdand fourth generation as one who has hated God; for I, Ernest, am theGod who made you.”

How shocked Ernest would have been if he could have heard the advicehe was receiving; what consternation too there would have been at Battersby;but the matter did not end here, for this same wicked inner self gavehim bad advice about his pocket money, the choice of his companionsand on the whole Ernest was attentive and obedient to its behests, moreso than Theobald had been. The consequence was that he learnedlittle, his mind growing more slowly and his body rather faster thanheretofore: and when by and by his inner self urged him in directionswhere he met obstacles beyond his strength to combat, he took—thoughwith passionate compunctions of conscience—the nearest courseto the one from which he was debarred which circ*mstances would allow.

It may be guessed that Ernest was not the chosen friend of the moresedate and well-conducted youths then studying at Roughborough.Some of the less desirable boys used to go to public-houses and drinkmore beer than was good for them; Ernest’s inner self can hardlyhave told him to ally himself to these young gentlemen, but he did soat an early age, and was sometimes made pitiably sick by an amount ofbeer which would have produced no effect upon a stronger boy.Ernest’s inner self must have interposed at this point and toldhim that there was not much fun in this, for he dropped the habit ereit had taken firm hold of him, and never resumed it; but he contractedanother at the disgracefully early age of between thirteen and fourteenwhich he did not relinquish, though to the present day his consciousself keeps dinging it into him that the less he smokes the better.

And so matters went on till my hero was nearly fourteen years old.If by that time he was not actually a young blackguard, he belongedto a debateable class between the sub-reputable and the upper disreputable,with perhaps rather more leaning to the latter except so far as vicesof meanness were concerned, from which he was fairly free. I gatherthis partly from what Ernest has told me, and partly from his schoolbills which I remember Theobald showed me with much complaining.There was an institution at Roughborough called the monthly merit money;the maximum sum which a boy of Ernest’s age could get was fourshillings and sixpence; several boys got four shillings and few lessthan sixpence, but Ernest never got more than half-a-crown and seldommore than eighteen pence; his average would, I should think, be aboutone and nine pence, which was just too much for him to rank among thedownright bad boys, but too little to put him among the good ones.

CHAPTER XXXII

I must now return to Miss Alethea Pontifex, of whom I have said perhapstoo little hitherto, considering how great her influence upon my hero’sdestiny proved to be.

On the death of her father, which happened when she was about thirty-twoyears old, she parted company with her sisters, between whom and herselfthere had been little sympathy, and came up to London. She wasdetermined, so she said, to make the rest of her life as happy as shecould, and she had clearer ideas about the best way of setting to workto do this than women, or indeed men, generally have.

Her fortune consisted, as I have said, of £5000, which hadcome to her by her mother’s marriage settlements, and £15,000left her by her father, over both which sums she had now absolute control.These brought her in about £900 a year, and the money being investedin none but the soundest securities, she had no anxiety about her income.She meant to be rich, so she formed a scheme of expenditure which involvedan annual outlay of about £500, and determined to put the restby. “If I do this,” she said laughingly, “Ishall probably just succeed in living comfortably within my income.”In accordance with this scheme she took unfurnished apartments in ahouse in Gower Street, of which the lower floors were let out as offices.John Pontifex tried to get her to take a house to herself, but Aletheatold him to mind his own business so plainly that he had to beat a retreat.She had never liked him, and from that time dropped him almost entirely.

Without going much into society she yet became acquainted with mostof the men and women who had attained a position in the literary, artisticand scientific worlds, and it was singular how highly her opinion wasvalued in spite of her never having attempted in any way to distinguishherself. She could have written if she had chosen, but she enjoyedseeing others write and encouraging them better than taking a more activepart herself. Perhaps literary people liked her all the betterbecause she did not write.

I, as she very well knew, had always been devoted to her, and shemight have had a score of other admirers if she had liked, but she haddiscouraged them all, and railed at matrimony as women seldom do unlessthey have a comfortable income of their own. She by no means,however, railed at man as she railed at matrimony, and though livingafter a fashion in which even the most censorious could find nothingto complain of, as far as she properly could she defended those of herown sex whom the world condemned most severely.

In religion she was, I should think, as nearly a freethinker as anyonecould be whose mind seldom turned upon the subject. She went tochurch, but disliked equally those who aired either religion or irreligion.I remember once hearing her press a late well-known philosopher to writea novel instead of pursuing his attacks upon religion. The philosopherdid not much like this, and dilated upon the importance of showing peoplethe folly of much that they pretended to believe. She smiled andsaid demurely, “Have they not Moses and the prophets? Letthem hear them.” But she would say a wicked thing quietlyon her own account sometimes, and called my attention once to a notein her prayer-book which gave account of the walk to Emmaus with thetwo disciples, and how Christ had said to them “O fools and slowof heart to believe ALL that the prophets have spoken”—the“all” being printed in small capitals.

Though scarcely on terms with her brother John, she had kept up closerrelations with Theobald and his family, and had paid a few days’visit to Battersby once in every two years or so. Alethea hadalways tried to like Theobald and join forces with him as much as shecould (for they two were the hares of the family, the rest being allhounds), but it was no use. I believe her chief reason for maintainingrelations with her brother was that she might keep an eye on his childrenand give them a lift if they proved nice.

When Miss Pontifex had come down to Battersby in old times the childrenhad not been beaten, and their lessons had been made lighter.She easily saw that they were overworked and unhappy, but she couldhardly guess how all-reaching was the régime under which theylived. She knew she could not interfere effectually then, andwisely forbore to make too many enquiries. Her time, if ever itwas to come, would be when the children were no longer living underthe same roof as their parents. It ended in her making up hermind to have nothing to do with either Joey or Charlotte, but to seeso much of Ernest as should enable her to form an opinion about hisdisposition and abilities.

He had now been a year and a half at Roughborough and was nearlyfourteen years old, so that his character had begun to shape.His aunt had not seen him for some little time and, thinking that ifshe was to exploit him she could do so now perhaps better than at anyother time, she resolved to go down to Roughborough on some pretextwhich should be good enough for Theobald, and to take stock of her nephewunder circ*mstances in which she could get him for some few hours toherself. Accordingly in August 1849, when Ernest was just enteringon his fourth half year a cab drove up to Dr Skinner’s door withMiss Pontifex, who asked and obtained leave for Ernest to come and dinewith her at the Swan Hotel. She had written to Ernest to say shewas coming and he was of course on the look-out for her. He hadnot seen her for so long that he was rather shy at first, but her goodnature soon set him at his ease. She was so strongly biassed infavour of anything young that her heart warmed towards him at once,though his appearance was less prepossessing than she had hoped.She took him to a cake shop and gave him whatever he liked as soon asshe had got him off the school premises; and Ernest felt at once thatshe contrasted favourably even with his aunts the Misses Allaby, whowere so very sweet and good. The Misses Allaby were very poor;sixpence was to them what five shillings was to Alethea. Whatchance had they against one who, if she had a mind, could put by outof her income twice as much as they, poor women, could spend?

The boy had plenty of prattle in him when he was not snubbed, andAlethea encouraged him to chatter about whatever came uppermost.He was always ready to trust anyone who was kind to him; it took manyyears to make him reasonably wary in this respect—if indeed, asI sometimes doubt, he ever will be as wary as he ought to be—andin a short time he had quite dissociated his aunt from his papa andmamma and the rest, with whom his instinct told him he should be onhis guard. Little did he know how great, as far as he was concerned,were the issues that depended upon his behaviour. If he had known,he would perhaps have played his part less successfully.

His aunt drew from him more details of his home and school life thanhis papa and mamma would have approved of, but he had no idea that hewas being pumped. She got out of him all about the happy Sundayevenings, and how he and Joey and Charlotte quarrelled sometimes, butshe took no side and treated everything as though it were a matter ofcourse. Like all the boys, he could mimic Dr Skinner, and whenwarmed with dinner, and two glasses of sherry which made him nearlytipsy, he favoured his aunt with samples of the Doctor’s mannerand spoke of him familiarly as “Sam.”

“Sam,” he said, “is an awful old humbug.”It was the sherry that brought out this piece of swagger, for whateverelse he was Dr Skinner was a reality to Master Ernest, before which,indeed, he sank into his boots in no time. Alethea smiled andsaid, “I must not say anything to that, must I?” Ernestsaid, “I suppose not,” and was checked. By-and-byhe vented a number of small second-hand priggishnesses which he hadcaught up believing them to be the correct thing, and made it plainthat even at that early age Ernest believed in Ernest with a beliefwhich was amusing from its absurdity. His aunt judged him charitablyas she was sure to do; she knew very well where the priggishness camefrom, and seeing that the string of his tongue had been loosened sufficientlygave him no more sherry.

It was after dinner, however, that he completed the conquest of hisaunt. She then discovered that, like herself, he was passionatelyfond of music, and that, too, of the highest class. He knew, andhummed or whistled to her all sorts of pieces out of the works of thegreat masters, which a boy of his age could hardly be expected to know,and it was evident that this was purely instinctive, inasmuch as musicreceived no kind of encouragement at Roughborough. There was noboy in the school as fond of music as he was. He picked up hisknowledge, he said, from the organist of St Michael’s Church whoused to practise sometimes on a week-day afternoon. Ernest hadheard the organ booming away as he was passing outside the church andhad sneaked inside and up into the organ loft. In the course oftime the organist became accustomed to him as a familiar visitant, andthe pair became friends.

It was this which decided Alethea that the boy was worth taking painswith. “He likes the best music,” she thought, “andhe hates Dr Skinner. This is a very fair beginning.”When she sent him away at night with a sovereign in his pocket (andhe had only hoped to get five shillings) she felt as though she hadhad a good deal more than her money’s worth for her money.

CHAPTER XXXIII

Next day Miss Pontifex returned to town, with her thoughts full ofher nephew and how she could best be of use to him.

It appeared to her that to do him any real service she must devoteherself almost entirely to him; she must in fact give up living in London,at any rate for a long time, and live at Roughborough where she couldsee him continually. This was a serious undertaking; she had livedin London for the last twelve years, and naturally disliked the prospectof a small country town such as Roughborough. Was it a prudentthing to attempt so much? Must not people take their chances inthis world? Can anyone do much for anyone else unless by makinga will in his favour and dying then and there? Should not eachlook after his own happiness, and will not the world be best carriedon if everyone minds his own business and leaves other people to mindtheirs? Life is not a donkey race in which everyone is to ridehis neighbour’s donkey and the last is to win, and the psalmistlong since formulated a common experience when he declared that no manmay deliver his brother nor make agreement unto God for him, for itcost more to redeem their souls, so that he must let that alone forever.

All these excellent reasons for letting her nephew alone occurredto her, and many more, but against them there pleaded a woman’slove for children, and her desire to find someone among the youngerbranches of her own family to whom she could become warmly attached,and whom she could attach warmly to herself.

Over and above this she wanted someone to leave her money to; shewas not going to leave it to people about whom she knew very little,merely because they happened to be sons and daughters of brothers andsisters whom she had never liked. She knew the power and valueof money exceedingly well, and how many lovable people suffer and dieyearly for the want of it; she was little likely to leave it withoutbeing satisfied that her legatees were square, lovable, and more orless hard up. She wanted those to have it who would be most likelyto use it genially and sensibly, and whom it would thus be likely tomake most happy; if she could find one such among her nephews and nieces,so much the better; it was worth taking a great deal of pains to seewhether she could or could not; but if she failed, she must find anheir who was not related to her by blood.

“Of course,” she had said to me, more than once, “Ishall make a mess of it. I shall choose some nice-looking, well-dressedscrew, with gentlemanly manners which will take me in, and he will goand paint Academy pictures, or write for the Times, or do somethingjust as horrid the moment the breath is out of my body.”

As yet, however, she had made no will at all, and this was one ofthe few things that troubled her. I believe she would have leftmost of her money to me if I had not stopped her. My father leftme abundantly well off, and my mode of life has been always simple,so that I have never known uneasiness about money; moreover I was especiallyanxious that there should be no occasion given for ill-natured talk;she knew well, therefore, that her leaving her money to me would beof all things the most likely to weaken the ties that existed betweenus, provided that I was aware of it, but I did not mind her talkingabout whom she should make her heir, so long as it was well understoodthat I was not to be the person.

Ernest had satisfied her as having enough in him to tempt her stronglyto take him up, but it was not till after many days’ reflectionthat she gravitated towards actually doing so, with all the break inher daily ways that this would entail. At least, she said it tookher some days, and certainly it appeared to do so, but from the momentshe had begun to broach the subject, I had guessed how things were goingto end.

It was now arranged she should take a house at Roughborough, andgo and live there for a couple of years. As a compromise, however,to meet some of my objections, it was also arranged that she shouldkeep her rooms in Gower Street, and come to town for a week once ineach month; of course, also, she would leave Roughborough for the greaterpart of the holidays. After two years, the thing was to come toan end, unless it proved a great success. She should by that time,at any rate, have made up her mind what the boy’s character was,and would then act as circ*mstances might determine.

The pretext she put forward ostensibly was that her doctor said sheought to be a year or two in the country after so many years of Londonlife, and had recommended Roughborough on account of the purity of itsair, and its easy access to and from London—for by this time therailway had reached it. She was anxious not to give her brotherand sister any right to complain, if on seeing more of her nephew shefound she could not get on with him, and she was also anxious not toraise false hopes of any kind in the boy’s own mind.

Having settled how everything was to be, she wrote to Theobald andsaid she meant to take a house in Roughborough from the Michaelmas thenapproaching, and mentioned, as though casually, that one of the attractionsof the place would be that her nephew was at school there and she shouldhope to see more of him than she had done hitherto.

Theobald and Christina knew how dearly Alethea loved London, andthought it very odd that she should want to go and live at Roughborough,but they did not suspect that she was going there solely on her nephew’saccount, much less that she had thought of making Ernest her heir.If they had guessed this, they would have been so jealous that I halfbelieve they would have asked her to go and live somewhere else.Alethea however, was two or three years younger than Theobald; she wasstill some years short of fifty, and might very well live to eighty-fiveor ninety; her money, therefore, was not worth taking much trouble about,and her brother and sister-in-law had dismissed it, so to speak, fromtheir minds with costs, assuming, however, that if anything did happento her while they were still alive, the money would, as a matter ofcourse, come to them.

The prospect of Alethea seeing much of Ernest was a serious matter.Christina smelt mischief from afar, as indeed she often did. Aletheawas worldly—as worldly, that is to say, as a sister of Theobald’scould be. In her letter to Theobald she had said she knew howmuch of his and Christina’s thoughts were taken up with anxietyfor the boy’s welfare. Alethea had thought this handsomeenough, but Christina had wanted something better and stronger.“How can she know how much we think of our darling?” shehad exclaimed, when Theobald showed her his sister’s letter.“I think, my dear, Alethea would understand these things betterif she had children of her own.” The least that would havesatisfied Christina was to have been told that there never yet had beenany parents comparable to Theobald and herself. She did not feeleasy that an alliance of some kind would not grow up between aunt andnephew, and neither she nor Theobald wanted Ernest to have any allies.Joey and Charlotte were quite as many allies as were good for him.After all, however, if Alethea chose to go and live at Roughborough,they could not well stop her, and must make the best of it.

In a few weeks’ time Alethea did choose to go and live at Roughborough.A house was found with a field and a nice little garden which suitedher very well. “At any rate,” she said to herself,“I will have fresh eggs and flowers.” She even consideredthe question of keeping a cow, but in the end decided not to do so.She furnished her house throughout anew, taking nothing whatever fromher establishment in Gower Street, and by Michaelmas—for the housewas empty when she took it—she was settled comfortably, and hadbegun to make herself at home.

One of Miss Pontifex’s first moves was to ask a dozen of thesmartest and most gentlemanly boys to breakfast with her. Fromher seat in church she could see the faces of the upper-form boys, andsoon made up her mind which of them it would be best to cultivate.Miss Pontifex, sitting opposite the boys in church, and reckoning themup with her keen eyes from under her veil by all a woman’s criteria,came to a truer conclusion about the greater number of those she scrutinizedthan even Dr Skinner had done. She fell in love with one boy fromseeing him put on his gloves.

Miss Pontifex, as I have said, got hold of some of these youngstersthrough Ernest, and fed them well. No boy can resist being fedwell by a good-natured and still handsome woman. Boys are verylike nice dogs in this respect—give them a bone and they willlike you at once. Alethea employed every other little artificewhich she thought likely to win their allegiance to herself, and throughthis their countenance for her nephew. She found the footballclub in a slight money difficulty and at once gave half a sovereigntowards its removal. The boys had no chance against her, she shotthem down one after another as easily as though they had been roostingpheasants. Nor did she escape scathless herself, for, as she wroteto me, she quite lost her heart to half a dozen of them. “Howmuch nicer they are,” she said, “and how much more theyknow than those who profess to teach them!”

I believe it has been lately maintained that it is the young andfair who are the truly old and truly experienced, inasmuch as it isthey who alone have a living memory to guide them; “the wholecharm,” it has been said, “of youth lies in its advantageover age in respect of experience, and when this has for some reasonfailed or been misapplied, the charm is broken. When we say thatwe are getting old, we should say rather that we are getting new oryoung, and are suffering from inexperience; trying to do things whichwe have never done before, and failing worse and worse, till in theend we are landed in the utter impotence of death.”

Miss Pontifex died many a long year before the above passage waswritten, but she had arrived independently at much the same conclusion.

She first, therefore, squared the boys. Dr Skinner was evenmore easily dealt with. He and Mrs Skinner called, as a matterof course, as soon as Miss Pontifex was settled. She fooled himto the top of his bent, and obtained the promise of a MS. copy of oneof his minor poems (for Dr Skinner had the reputation of being quiteone of our most facile and elegant minor poets) on the occasion of hisfirst visit. The other masters and masters’ wives were notforgotten. Alethea laid herself out to please, as indeed she didwherever she went, and if any woman lays herself out to do this, shegenerally succeeds.

CHAPTER XXXIV

Miss Pontifex soon found out that Ernest did not like games, butshe saw also that he could hardly be expected to like them. Hewas perfectly well shaped but unusually devoid of physical strength.He got a fair share of this in after life, but it came much later withhim than with other boys, and at the time of which I am writing he wasa mere little skeleton. He wanted something to develop his armsand chest without knocking him about as much as the school games did.To supply this want by some means which should add also to his pleasurewas Alethea’s first anxiety. Rowing would have answeredevery purpose, but unfortunately there was no river at Roughborough.

Whatever it was to be, it must be something which he should likeas much as other boys liked cricket or football, and he must think thewish for it to have come originally from himself; it was not very easyto find anything that would do, but ere long it occurred to her thatshe might enlist his love of music on her side, and asked him one daywhen he was spending a half-holiday at her house whether he would likeher to buy an organ for him to play on. Of course, the boy saidyes; then she told him about her grandfather and the organs he had built.It had never entered into his head that he could make one, but whenhe gathered from what his aunt had said that this was not out of thequestion, he rose as eagerly to the bait as she could have desired,and wanted to begin learning to saw and plane so that he might makethe wooden pipes at once.

Miss Pontifex did not see how she could have hit upon anything moresuitable, and she liked the idea that he would incidentally get a knowledgeof carpentering, for she was impressed, perhaps foolishly, with thewisdom of the German custom which gives every boy a handicraft of somesort.

Writing to me on this matter, she said “Professions are allvery well for those who have connection and interest as well as capital,but otherwise they are white elephants. How many men do not youand I know who have talent, assiduity, excellent good sense, straightforwardness,every quality in fact which should command success, and who yet go onfrom year to year waiting and hoping against hope for the work whichnever comes? How, indeed, is it likely to come unless to thosewho either are born with interest, or who marry in order to get it?Ernest’s father and mother have no interest, and if they had theywould not use it. I suppose they will make him a clergyman, ortry to do so—perhaps it is the best thing to do with him, forhe could buy a living with the money his grandfather left him, but thereis no knowing what the boy will think of it when the time comes, andfor aught we know he may insist on going to the backwoods of America,as so many other young men are doing now.” . . . But, anyway,he would like making an organ, and this could do him no harm, so thesooner he began the better.

Alethea thought it would save trouble in the end if she told herbrother and sister-in-law of this scheme. “I do not suppose,”she wrote, “that Dr Skinner will approve very cordially of myattempt to introduce organ-building into the curriculum of Roughborough,but I will see what I can do with him, for I have set my heart on owningan organ built by Ernest’s own hands, which he may play on asmuch as he likes while it remains in my house and which I will lendhim permanently as soon as he gets one of his own, but which is to bemy property for the present, inasmuch as I mean to pay for it.”This was put in to make it plain to Theobald and Christina that theyshould not be out of pocket in the matter.

If Alethea had been as poor as the Misses Allaby, the reader mayguess what Ernest’s papa and mamma would have said to this proposal;but then, if she had been as poor as they, she would never have madeit. They did not like Ernest’s getting more and more intohis aunt’s good books, still it was perhaps better that he shoulddo so than that she should be driven back upon the John Pontifexes.The only thing, said Theobald, which made him hesitate, was that theboy might be thrown with low associates later on if he were to be encouragedin his taste for music—a taste which Theobald had always disliked.He had observed with regret that Ernest had ere now shown rather a hankeringafter low company, and he might make acquaintance with those who wouldcorrupt his innocence. Christina shuddered at this, but when theyhad aired their scruples sufficiently they felt (and when people beginto “feel,” they are invariably going to take what they believeto be the more worldly course) that to oppose Alethea’s proposalwould be injuring their son’s prospects more than was right, sothey consented, but not too graciously.

After a time, however, Christina got used to the idea, and then considerationsoccurred to her which made her throw herself into it with characteristicardour. If Miss Pontifex had been a railway stock she might havebeen said to have been buoyant in the Battersby market for some fewdays; buoyant for long together she could never be, still for a timethere really was an upward movement. Christina’s mind wanderedto the organ itself; she seemed to have made it with her own hands;there would be no other in England to compare with it for combined sweetnessand power. She already heard the famous Dr Walmisley of Cambridgemistaking it for a Father Smith. It would come, no doubt, in realityto Battersby Church, which wanted an organ, for it must be all nonsenseabout Alethea’s wishing to keep it, and Ernest would not havea house of his own for ever so many years, and they could never haveit at the Rectory. Oh, no! Battersby Church was the onlyproper place for it.

Of course, they would have a grand opening, and the Bishop wouldcome down, and perhaps young Figgins might be on a visit to them—shemust ask Ernest if young Figgins had yet left Roughborough—hemight even persuade his grandfather Lord Lonsford to be present.Lord Lonsford and the Bishop and everyone else would then complimenther, and Dr Wesley or Dr Walmisley, who should preside (it did not muchmatter which), would say to her, “My dear Mrs Pontifex, I neveryet played upon so remarkable an instrument.” Then she wouldgive him one of her very sweetest smiles and say she feared he was flatteringher, on which he would rejoin with some pleasant little trifle aboutremarkable men (the remarkable man being for the moment Ernest) havinginvariably had remarkable women for their mothers—and so on andso on. The advantage of doing one’s praising for oneselfis that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places.

Theobald wrote Ernest a short and surly letter à proposof his aunt’s intentions in this matter.

“I will not commit myself,” he said, “to an opinionwhether anything will come of it; this will depend entirely upon yourown exertions; you have had singular advantages hitherto, and your kindaunt is showing every desire to befriend you, but you must give greaterproof of stability and steadiness of character than you have given yetif this organ matter is not to prove in the end to be only one disappointmentthe more.

“I must insist on two things: firstly that this new iron inthe fire does not distract your attention from your Latin and Greek”—(“Theyaren’t mine,” thought Ernest, “and never have been”)—“andsecondly, that you bring no smell of glue or shavings into the househere, if you make any part of the organ during your holidays.”

Ernest was still too young to know how unpleasant a letter he wasreceiving. He believed the innuendoes contained in it to be perfectlyjust. He knew he was sadly deficient in perseverance. Heliked some things for a little while, and then found he did not likethem any more—and this was as bad as anything well could be.His father’s letter gave him one of his many fits of melancholyover his own worthlessness, but the thought of the organ consoled him,and he felt sure that here at any rate was something to which he couldapply himself steadily without growing tired of it.

It was settled that the organ was not to be begun before the Christmasholidays were over, and that till then Ernest should do a little plaincarpentering, so as to get to know how to use his tools. MissPontifex had a carpenter’s bench set up in an outhouse upon herown premises, and made terms with the most respectable carpenter inRoughborough, by which one of his men was to come for a couple of hourstwice a week and set Ernest on the right way; then she discovered shewanted this or that simple piece of work done, and gave the boy a commissionto do it, paying him handsomely as well as finding him in tools andmaterials. She never gave him a syllable of good advice, or talkedto him about everything’s depending upon his own exertions, butshe kissed him often, and would come into the workshop and act the partof one who took an interest in what was being done so cleverly as erelong to become really interested.

What boy would not take kindly to almost anything with such assistance?All boys like making things; the exercise of sawing, planing and hammering,proved exactly what his aunt had wanted to find—something thatshould exercise, but not too much, and at the same time amuse him; whenErnest’s sallow face was flushed with his work, and his eyes weresparkling with pleasure, he looked quite a different boy from the onehis aunt had taken in hand only a few months earlier. His innerself never told him that this was humbug, as it did about Latin andGreek. Making stools and drawers was worth living for, and afterChristmas there loomed the organ, which was scarcely ever absent fromhis mind.

His aunt let him invite his friends, encouraging him to bring thosewhom her quick sense told her were the most desirable. She smartenedhim up also in his personal appearance, always without preaching tohim. Indeed she worked wonders during the short time that wasallowed her, and if her life had been spared I cannot think that myhero would have come under the shadow of that cloud which cast so heavya gloom over his younger manhood; but unfortunately for him his gleamof sunshine was too hot and too brilliant to last, and he had many astorm yet to weather, before he became fairly happy. For the present,however, he was supremely so, and his aunt was happy and grateful forhis happiness, the improvement she saw in him, and his unrepressed affectionfor herself. She became fonder of him from day to day in spiteof his many faults and almost incredible foolishnesses. It wasperhaps on account of these very things that she saw how much he hadneed of her; but at any rate, from whatever cause, she became strengthenedin her determination to be to him in the place of parents, and to findin him a son rather than a nephew. But still she made no will.

CHAPTER XXXV

All went well for the first part of the following half year.Miss Pontifex spent the greater part of her holidays in London, andI also saw her at Roughborough, where I spent a few days, staying atthe “Swan.” I heard all about my godson in whom, however,I took less interest than I said I did. I took more interest inthe stage at that time than in anything else, and as for Ernest, I foundhim a nuisance for engrossing so much of his aunt’s attention,and taking her so much from London. The organ was begun, and madefair progress during the first two months of the half year. Ernestwas happier than he had ever been before, and was struggling upwards.The best boys took more notice of him for his aunt’s sake, andhe consorted less with those who led him into mischief.

But much as Miss Pontifex had done, she could not all at once undothe effect of such surroundings as the boy had had at Battersby.Much as he feared and disliked his father (though he still knew nothow much this was), he had caught much from him; if Theobald had beenkinder Ernest would have modelled himself upon him entirely, and erelong would probably have become as thorough a little prig as could haveeasily been found.

Fortunately his temper had come to him from his mother, who, whennot frightened, and when there was nothing on the horizon which mightcross the slightest whim of her husband, was an amiable, good-naturedwoman. If it was not such an awful thing to say of anyone, I shouldsay that she meant well.

Ernest had also inherited his mother’s love of building castlesin the air, and—so I suppose it must be called—her vanity.He was very fond of showing off, and, provided he could attract attention,cared little from whom it came, nor what it was for. He caughtup, parrot-like, whatever jargon he heard from his elders, which hethought was the correct thing, and aired it in season and out of season,as though it were his own.

Miss Pontifex was old enough and wise enough to know that this isthe way in which even the greatest men as a general rule begin to develop,and was more pleased with his receptiveness and reproductiveness thanalarmed at the things he caught and reproduced.

She saw that he was much attached to herself, and trusted to thisrather than to anything else. She saw also that his conceit wasnot very profound, and that his fits of self-abasem*nt were as extremeas his exaltation had been. His impulsiveness and sanguine trustfulnessin anyone who smiled pleasantly at him, or indeed was not absolutelyunkind to him, made her more anxious about him than any other pointin his character; she saw clearly that he would have to find himselfrudely undeceived many a time and oft, before he would learn to distinguishfriend from foe within reasonable time. It was her perceptionof this which led her to take the action which she was so soon calledupon to take.

Her health was for the most part excellent, and she had never hada serious illness in her life. One morning, however, soon afterEaster 1850, she awoke feeling seriously unwell. For some littletime there had been a talk of fever in the neighbourhood, but in thosedays the precautions that ought to be taken against the spread of infectionwere not so well understood as now, and nobody did anything. Ina day or two it became plain that Miss Pontifex had got an attack oftyphoid fever and was dangerously ill. On this she sent off amessenger to town, and desired him not to return without her lawyerand myself.

We arrived on the afternoon of the day on which we had been summoned,and found her still free from delirium: indeed, the cheery way in whichshe received us made it difficult to think she could be in danger.She at once explained her wishes, which had reference, as I expected,to her nephew, and repeated the substance of what I have already referredto as her main source of uneasiness concerning him. Then she beggedme by our long and close intimacy, by the suddenness of the danger thathad fallen on her and her powerlessness to avert it, to undertake whatshe said she well knew, if she died, would be an unpleasant and invidioustrust.

She wanted to leave the bulk of her money ostensibly to me, but inreality to her nephew, so that I should hold it in trust for him tillhe was twenty-eight years old, but neither he nor anyone else, excepther lawyer and myself, was to know anything about it. She wouldleave £5000 in other legacies, and £15,000 to Ernest—whichby the time he was twenty-eight would have accumulated to, say, £30,000.“Sell out the debentures,” she said, “where the moneynow is—and put it into Midland Ordinary.”

“Let him make his mistakes,” she said, “upon themoney his grandfather left him. I am no prophet, but even I cansee that it will take that boy many years to see things as his neighbourssee them. He will get no help from his father and mother, whowould never forgive him for his good luck if I left him the money outright;I daresay I am wrong, but I think he will have to lose the greater partor all of what he has, before he will know how to keep what he willget from me.”

Supposing he went bankrupt before he was twenty-eight years old,the money was to be mine absolutely, but she could trust me, she said,to hand it over to Ernest in due time.

“If,” she continued, “I am mistaken, the worstthat can happen is that he will come into a larger sum at twenty-eightinstead of a smaller sum at, say, twenty-three, for I would never trusthim with it earlier, and—if he knows nothing about it he willnot be unhappy for the want of it.”

She begged me to take £2000 in return for the trouble I shouldhave in taking charge of the boy’s estate, and as a sign of thetestatrix’s hope that I would now and again look after him whilehe was still young. The remaining £3000 I was to pay inlegacies and annuities to friends and servants.

In vain both her lawyer and myself remonstrated with her on the unusualand hazardous nature of this arrangement. We told her that sensiblepeople will not take a more sanguine view concerning human nature thanthe Courts of Chancery do. We said, in fact, everything that anyoneelse would say. She admitted everything, but urged that her timewas short, that nothing would induce her to leave her money to her nephewin the usual way. “It is an unusually foolish will,”she said, “but he is an unusually foolish boy;” and shesmiled quite merrily at her little sally. Like all the rest ofher family, she was very stubborn when her mind was made up. Sothe thing was done as she wished it.

No provision was made for either my death or Ernest’s—MissPontifex had settled it that we were neither of us going to die, andwas too ill to go into details; she was so anxious, moreover, to signher will while still able to do so that we had practically no alternativebut to do as she told us. If she recovered we could see thingsput on a more satisfactory footing, and further discussion would evidentlyimpair her chances of recovery; it seemed then only too likely thatit was a case of this will or no will at all.

When the will was signed I wrote a letter in duplicate, saying thatI held all Miss Pontifex had left me in trust for Ernest except as regards£5000, but that he was not to come into the bequest, and was toknow nothing whatever about it directly or indirectly, till he was twenty-eightyears old, and if he was bankrupt before he came into it the money wasto be mine absolutely. At the foot of each letter Miss Pontifexwrote, “The above was my understanding when I made my will,”and then signed her name. The solicitor and his clerk witnessed;I kept one copy myself and handed the other to Miss Pontifex’ssolicitor.

When all this had been done she became more easy in her mind.She talked principally about her nephew. “Don’t scoldhim,” she said, “if he is volatile, and continually takesthings up only to throw them down again. How can he find out hisstrength or weakness otherwise? A man’s profession,”she said, and here she gave one of her wicked little laughs, “isnot like his wife, which he must take once for all, for better for worse,without proof beforehand. Let him go here and there, and learnhis truest liking by finding out what, after all, he catches himselfturning to most habitually—then let him stick to this; but I daresayErnest will be forty or five and forty before he settles down.Then all his previous infidelities will work together to him for goodif he is the boy I hope he is.

“Above all,” she continued, “do not let him workup to his full strength, except once or twice in his lifetime; nothingis well done nor worth doing unless, take it all round, it has comepretty easily. Theobald and Christina would give him a pinch ofsalt and tell him to put it on the tails of the seven deadly virtues;”—hereshe laughed again in her old manner at once so mocking and so sweet—“Ithink if he likes pancakes he had perhaps better eat them on ShroveTuesday, but this is enough.” These were the last coherentwords she spoke. From that time she grew continually worse, andwas never free from delirium till her death—which took place lessthan a fortnight afterwards, to the inexpressible grief of those whoknew and loved her.

CHAPTER XXXVI

Letters had been written to Miss Pontifex’s brothers and sisters,and one and all came post-haste to Roughborough. Before they arrivedthe poor lady was already delirious, and for the sake of her own peaceat the last I am half glad she never recovered consciousness.

I had known these people all their lives, as none can know each otherbut those who have played together as children; I knew how they hadall of them—perhaps Theobald least, but all of them more or less—madeher life a burden to her until the death of her father had made herher own mistress, and I was displeased at their coming one after theother to Roughborough, and inquiring whether their sister had recoveredconsciousness sufficiently to be able to see them. It was knownthat she had sent for me on being taken ill, and that I remained atRoughborough, and I own I was angered by the mingled air of suspicion,defiance and inquisitiveness, with which they regarded me. Theywould all, except Theobald, I believe have cut me downright if theyhad not believed me to know something they wanted to know themselves,and might have some chance of learning from me—for it was plainI had been in some way concerned with the making of their sister’swill. None of them suspected what the ostensible nature of thiswould be, but I think they feared Miss Pontifex was about to leave moneyfor public uses. John said to me in his blandest manner that hefancied he remembered to have heard his sister say that she thoughtof leaving money to found a college for the relief of dramatic authorsin distress; to this I made no rejoinder, and I have no doubt his suspicionswere deepened.

When the end came, I got Miss Pontifex’s solicitor to writeand tell her brothers and sisters how she had left her money: they werenot unnaturally furious, and went each to his or her separate home withoutattending the funeral, and without paying any attention to myself.This was perhaps the kindest thing they could have done by me, for theirbehaviour made me so angry that I became almost reconciled to Alethea’swill out of pleasure at the anger it had aroused. But for thisI should have felt the will keenly, as having been placed by it in theposition which of all others I had been most anxious to avoid, and ashaving saddled me with a very heavy responsibility. Still it wasimpossible for me to escape, and I could only let things take theircourse.

Miss Pontifex had expressed a wish to be buried at Paleham; in thecourse of the next few days I therefore took the body thither.I had not been to Paleham since the death of my father some six yearsearlier. I had often wished to go there, but had shrunk from doingso though my sister had been two or three times. I could not bearto see the house which had been my home for so many years of my lifein the hands of strangers; to ring ceremoniously at a bell which I hadnever yet pulled except as a boy in jest; to feel that I had nothingto do with a garden in which I had in childhood gathered so many a nosegay,and which had seemed my own for many years after I had reached man’sestate; to see the rooms bereft of every familiar feature, and madeso unfamiliar in spite of their familiarity. Had there been anysufficient reason, I should have taken these things as a matter of course,and should no doubt have found them much worse in anticipation thanin reality, but as there had been no special reason why I should goto Paleham I had hitherto avoided doing so. Now, however, my goingwas a necessity, and I confess I never felt more subdued than I didon arriving there with the dead playmate of my childhood.

I found the village more changed than I had expected. The railwayhad come there, and a brand new yellow brick station was on the siteof old Mr and Mrs Pontifex’s cottage. Nothing but the carpenter’sshop was now standing. I saw many faces I knew, but even in sixyears they seemed to have grown wonderfully older. Some of thevery old were dead, and the old were getting very old in their stead.I felt like the changeling in the fairy story who came back after aseven years’ sleep. Everyone seemed glad to see me, thoughI had never given them particular cause to be so, and everyone who rememberedold Mr and Mrs Pontifex spoke warmly of them and were pleased at theirgranddaughter’s wishing to be laid near them. Entering thechurchyard and standing in the twilight of a gusty cloudy evening onthe spot close beside old Mrs Pontifex’s grave which I had chosenfor Alethea’s, I thought of the many times that she, who wouldlie there henceforth, and I, who must surely lie one day in some suchanother place though when and where I knew not, had romped over thisvery spot as childish lovers together. Next morning I followedher to the grave, and in due course set up a plain upright slab to hermemory as like as might be to those over the graves of her grandmotherand grandfather. I gave the dates and places of her birth anddeath, but added nothing except that this stone was set up by one whohad known and loved her. Knowing how fond she had been of musicI had been half inclined at one time to inscribe a few bars of music,if I could find any which seemed suitable to her character, but I knewhow much she would have disliked anything singular in connection withher tombstone and did not do it.

Before, however, I had come to this conclusion, I had thought thatErnest might be able to help me to the right thing, and had writtento him upon the subject. The following is the answer I received—

“Dear Godpapa,—I send you the best bit Ican think of; it is the subject of the last of Handel’s six grandfugues and goes thus:—

It would do better for a man, especially for an old man who was verysorry for things, than for a woman, but I cannot think of anything better;if you do not like it for Aunt Alethea I shall keep it for myself.—Youraffectionate Godson,

ERNEST PONTIFEX.”

Was this the little lad who could get sweeties for two-pence butnot for two-pence-halfpenny? Dear, dear me, I thought to myself,how these babes and sucklings do give us the go-by surely. Choosinghis own epitaph at fifteen as for a man who “had been very sorryfor things,” and such a strain as that—why it might havedone for Leonardo da Vinci himself. Then I set the boy down asa conceited young jackanapes, which no doubt he was,—but so area great many other young people of Ernest’s age.

CHAPTER XXXVII

If Theobald and Christina had not been too well pleased when MissPontifex first took Ernest in hand, they were still less so when theconnection between the two was interrupted so prematurely. Theysaid they had made sure from what their sister had said that she wasgoing to make Ernest her heir. I do not think she had given themso much as a hint to this effect. Theobald indeed gave Ernestto understand that she had done so in a letter which will be given shortly,but if Theobald wanted to make himself disagreeable, a trifle lightas air would forthwith assume in his imagination whatever form was mostconvenient to him. I do not think they had even made up theirminds what Alethea was to do with her money before they knew of herbeing at the point of death, and as I have said already, if they hadthought it likely that Ernest would be made heir over their own headswithout their having at any rate a life interest in the bequest, theywould have soon thrown obstacles in the way of further intimacy betweenaunt and nephew.

This, however, did not bar their right to feeling aggrieved now thatneither they nor Ernest had taken anything at all, and they could professdisappointment on their boy’s behalf which they would have beentoo proud to admit upon their own. In fact, it was only amiableof them to be disappointed under these circ*mstances.

Christina said that the will was simply fraudulent, and was convincedthat it could be upset if she and Theobald went the right way to work.Theobald, she said, should go before the Lord Chancellor, not in fullcourt but in chambers, where he could explain the whole matter; or,perhaps it would be even better if she were to go herself—andI dare not trust myself to describe the reverie to which this last ideagave rise. I believe in the end Theobald died, and the Lord Chancellor(who had become a widower a few weeks earlier) made her an offer, which,however, she firmly but not ungratefully declined; she should ever,she said, continue to think of him as a friend—at this point thecook came in, saying the butcher had called, and what would she pleaseto order.

I think Theobald must have had an idea that there was something behindthe bequest to me, but he said nothing about it to Christina.He was angry and felt wronged, because he could not get at Alethea togive her a piece of his mind any more than he had been able to get athis father. “It is so mean of people,” he exclaimedto himself, “to inflict an injury of this sort, and then shirkfacing those whom they have injured; let us hope that, at any rate,they and I may meet in Heaven.” But of this he was doubtful,for when people had done so great a wrong as this, it was hardly tobe supposed that they would go to Heaven at all—and as for hismeeting them in another place, the idea never so much as entered hismind.

One so angry and, of late, so little used to contradiction mightbe trusted, however, to avenge himself upon someone, and Theobald hadlong since developed the organ, by means of which he might vent spleenwith least risk and greatest satisfaction to himself. This organ,it may be guessed, was nothing else than Ernest; to Ernest thereforehe proceeded to unburden himself, not personally, but by letter.

“You ought to know,” he wrote, “that your AuntAlethea had given your mother and me to understand that it was her wishto make you her heir—in the event, of course, of your conductingyourself in such a manner as to give her confidence in you; as a matterof fact, however, she has left you nothing, and the whole of her propertyhas gone to your godfather, Mr Overton. Your mother and I arewilling to hope that if she had lived longer you would yet have succeededin winning her good opinion, but it is too late to think of this now.

“The carpentering and organ-building must at once be discontinued.I never believed in the project, and have seen no reason to alter myoriginal opinion. I am not sorry for your own sake, that it isto be at an end, nor, I am sure, will you regret it yourself in afteryears.

“A few words more as regards your own prospects. Youhave, as I believe you know, a small inheritance, which is yours legallyunder your grandfather’s will. This bequest was made inadvertently,and, I believe, entirely through a misunderstanding on the lawyer’spart. The bequest was probably intended not to take effect tillafter the death of your mother and myself; nevertheless, as the willis actually worded, it will now be at your command if you live to betwenty-one years old. From this, however, large deductions mustbe made. There will be legacy duty, and I do not know whetherI am not entitled to deduct the expenses of your education and maintenancefrom birth to your coming of age; I shall not in all likelihood insiston this right to the full, if you conduct yourself properly, but a considerablesum should certainly be deducted, there will therefore remain very little—say£1000 or £2000 at the outside, as what will be actuallyyours—but the strictest account shall be rendered you in due time.

“This, let me warn you most seriously, is all that you mustexpect from me (even Ernest saw that it was not from Theobald at all)at any rate till after my death, which for aught any of us know maybe yet many years distant. It is not a large sum, but it is sufficientif supplemented by steadiness and earnestness of purpose. Yourmother and I gave you the name Ernest, hoping that it would remind youcontinually of—” but I really cannot copy more of this effusion.It was all the same old will-shaking game and came practically to this,that Ernest was no good, and that if he went on as he was going on now,he would probably have to go about the streets begging without any shoesor stockings soon after he had left school, or at any rate, college;and that he, Theobald, and Christina were almost too good for this worldaltogether.

After he had written this Theobald felt quite good-natured, and sentto the Mrs Thompson of the moment even more soup and wine than her usualnot illiberal allowance.

Ernest was deeply, passionately upset by his father’s letter;to think that even his dear aunt, the one person of his relations whomhe really loved, should have turned against him and thought badly ofhim after all. This was the unkindest cut of all. In thehurry of her illness Miss Pontifex, while thinking only of his welfare,had omitted to make such small present mention of him as would havemade his father’s innuendoes stingless; and her illness beinginfectious, she had not seen him after its nature was known. Imyself did not know of Theobald’s letter, nor think enough aboutmy godson to guess what might easily be his state. It was nottill many years afterwards that I found Theobald’s letter in thepocket of an old portfolio which Ernest had used at school, and in whichother old letters and school documents were collected which I have usedin this book. He had forgotten that he had it, but told me whenhe saw it that he remembered it as the first thing that made him beginto rise against his father in a rebellion which he recognised as righteous,though he dared not openly avow it. Not the least serious thingwas that it would, he feared, be his duty to give up the legacy hisgrandfather had left him; for if it was his only through a mistake,how could he keep it?

During the rest of the half year Ernest was listless and unhappy.He was very fond of some of his schoolfellows, but afraid of those whomhe believed to be better than himself, and prone to idealise everyoneinto being his superior except those who were obviously a good dealbeneath him. He held himself much too cheap, and because he waswithout that physical strength and vigour which he so much coveted,and also because he knew he shirked his lessons, he believed that hewas without anything which could deserve the name of a good quality;he was naturally bad, and one of those for whom there was no place forrepentance, though he sought it even with tears. So he shrankout of sight of those whom in his boyish way he idolised, never fora moment suspecting that he might have capacities to the full as highas theirs though of a different kind, and fell in more with those whowere reputed of the baser sort, with whom he could at any rate be uponequal terms. Before the end of the half year he had dropped fromthe estate to which he had been raised during his aunt’s stayat Roughborough, and his old dejection, varied, however, with burstsof conceit rivalling those of his mother, resumed its sway over him.“Pontifex,” said Dr Skinner, who had fallen upon him inhall one day like a moral landslip, before he had time to escape, “doyou never laugh? Do you always look so preternaturally grave?”The doctor had not meant to be unkind, but the boy turned crimson, andescaped.

There was one place only where he was happy, and that was in theold church of St Michael, when his friend the organist was practising.About this time cheap editions of the great oratorios began to appear,and Ernest got them all as soon as they were published; he would sometimessell a school-book to a second-hand dealer, and buy a number or twoof the “Messiah,” or the “Creation,” or “Elijah,”with the proceeds. This was simply cheating his papa and mamma,but Ernest was falling low again—or thought he was—and hewanted the music much, and the Sallust, or whatever it was, little.Sometimes the organist would go home, leaving his keys with Ernest,so that he could play by himself and lock up the organ and the churchin time to get back for calling over. At other times, while hisfriend was playing, he would wander round the church, looking at themonuments and the old stained glass windows, enchanted as regards bothears and eyes, at once. Once the old rector got hold of him ashe was watching a new window being put in, which the rector had boughtin Germany—the work, it was supposed, of Albert Dürer.He questioned Ernest, and finding that he was fond of music, he saidin his old trembling voice (for he was over eighty), “Then youshould have known Dr Burney who wrote the history of music. Iknew him exceedingly well when I was a young man.” Thatmade Ernest’s heart beat, for he knew that Dr Burney, when a boyat school at Chester, used to break bounds that he might watch Handelsmoking his pipe in the Exchange coffee house—and now he was inthe presence of one who, if he had not seen Handel himself, had at leastseen those who had seen him.

These were oases in his desert, but, as a general rule, the boy lookedthin and pale, and as though he had a secret which depressed him, whichno doubt he had, but for which I cannot blame him. He rose, inspite of himself, higher in the school, but fell ever into deeper anddeeper disgrace with the masters, and did not gain in the opinion ofthose boys about whom he was persuaded that they could assuredly neverknow what it was to have a secret weighing upon their minds. Thiswas what Ernest felt so keenly; he did not much care about the boyswho liked him, and idolised some who kept him as far as possible ata distance, but this is pretty much the case with all boys everywhere.

At last things reached a crisis, below which they could not verywell go, for at the end of the half year but one after his aunt’sdeath, Ernest brought back a document in his portmanteau, which Theobaldstigmatised as “infamous and outrageous.” I need hardlysay I am alluding to his school bill.

This document was always a source of anxiety to Ernest, for it wasgone into with scrupulous care, and he was a good deal cross-examinedabout it. He would sometimes “write in” for articlesnecessary for his education, such as a portfolio, or a dictionary, andsell the same, as I have explained, in order to eke out his pocket money,probably to buy either music or tobacco. These frauds were sometimes,as Ernest thought, in imminent danger of being discovered, and it wasa load off his breast when the cross-examination was safely over.This time Theobald had made a great fuss about the extras, but had grudginglypassed them; it was another matter, however, with the character andthe moral statistics, with which the bill concluded.

The page on which these details were to be found was as follows:

REPORT OF THE CONDUCT AND PROGRESS OF ERNEST PONTIFEX.
UPPER FIFTH FORM, HALF YEAR ENDING MIDSUMMER 1851

Classics—Idle, listless and unimproving.
Mathematics " " "
Divinity " " "
Conduct in house.—Orderly.
General Conduct—Not satisfactory, on account of his great unpunctualityand inattention to duties.
Monthly merit money 1s. 6d. 6d. 0d. 6d. Total 2s. 6d.
Number of merit marks 2 0 1 1 0 Total 4
Number of penal marks 26 20 25 30 25 Total 126
Number of extra penals 9 6 10 12 11 Total 48
I recommend that his pocket money be made to depend upon his merit money.

S. SKINNER, Head-master.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Ernest was thus in disgrace from the beginning of the holidays, butan incident soon occurred which led him into delinquencies comparedwith which all his previous sins were venial.

Among the servants at the Rectory was a remarkably pretty girl namedEllen. She came from Devonshire, and was the daughter of a fishermanwho had been drowned when she was a child. Her mother set up asmall shop in the village where her husband had lived, and just managedto make a living. Ellen remained with her till she was fourteen,when she first went out to service. Four years later, when shewas about eighteen, but so well grown that she might have passed fortwenty, she had been strongly recommended to Christina, who was thenin want of a housemaid, and had now been at Battersby about twelve months.

As I have said the girl was remarkably pretty; she looked the perfectionof health and good temper, indeed there was a serene expression uponher face which captivated almost all who saw her; she looked as if mattershad always gone well with her and were always going to do so, and asif no conceivable combination of circ*mstances could put her for longtogether out of temper either with herself or with anyone else.Her complexion was clear, but high; her eyes were grey and beautifullyshaped; her lips were full and restful, with something of an EgyptianSphinx-like character about them. When I learned that she camefrom Devonshire I fancied I saw a strain of far away Egyptian bloodin her, for I had heard, though I know not what foundation there wasfor the story, that the Egyptians made settlements on the coast of Devonshireand Cornwall long before the Romans conquered Britain. Her hairwas a rich brown, and her figure—of about the middle height—perfect,but erring if at all on the side of robustness. Altogether shewas one of those girls about whom one is inclined to wonder how theycan remain unmarried a week or a day longer.

Her face (as indeed faces generally are, though I grant they liesometimes) was a fair index to her disposition. She was good natureitself, and everyone in the house, not excluding I believe even Theobaldhimself after a fashion, was fond of her. As for Christina shetook the very warmest interest in her, and used to have her into thedining-room twice a week, and prepare her for confirmation (for by someaccident she had never been confirmed) by explaining to her the geographyof Palestine and the routes taken by St Paul on his various journeysin Asia Minor.

When Bishop Treadwell did actually come down to Battersby and holda confirmation there (Christina had her wish, he slept at Battersby,and she had a grand dinner party for him, and called him “My lord”several times), he was so much struck with her pretty face and modestdemeanour when he laid his hands upon her that he asked Christina abouther. When she replied that Ellen was one of her own servants,the bishop seemed, so she thought or chose to think, quite pleased thatso pretty a girl should have found so exceptionally good a situation.

Ernest used to get up early during the holidays so that he mightplay the piano before breakfast without disturbing his papa and mamma—orrather, perhaps, without being disturbed by them. Ellen wouldgenerally be there sweeping the drawing-room floor and dusting whilehe was playing, and the boy, who was ready to make friends with mostpeople, soon became very fond of her. He was not as a generalrule sensitive to the charms of the fair sex, indeed he had hardly beenthrown in with any women except his Aunts Allaby, and his Aunt Alethea,his mother, his sister Charlotte and Mrs Jay; sometimes also he hadhad to take off his hat to the Miss Skinners, and had felt as if heshould sink into the earth on doing so, but his shyness had worn offwith Ellen, and the pair had become fast friends.

Perhaps it was well that Ernest was not at home for very long together,but as yet his affection though hearty was quite Platonic. Hewas not only innocent, but deplorably—I might even say guiltily—innocent.His preference was based upon the fact that Ellen never scolded him,but was always smiling and good tempered; besides she used to like tohear him play, and this gave him additional zest in playing. Themorning access to the piano was indeed the one distinct advantage whichthe holidays had in Ernest’s eyes, for at school he could notget at a piano except quasi-surreptitiously at the shop of Mr Pearsall,the music-seller.

On returning this midsummer he was shocked to find his favouritelooking pale and ill. All her good spirits had left her, the roseshad fled from her cheek, and she seemed on the point of going into adecline. She said she was unhappy about her mother, whose healthwas failing, and was afraid she was herself not long for this world.Christina, of course, noticed the change. “I have oftenremarked,” she said, “that those very fresh-coloured, healthy-lookinggirls are the first to break up. I have given her calomel andJames’s powders repeatedly, and though she does not like it, Ithink I must show her to Dr Martin when he next comes here.”

“Very well, my dear,” said Theobald, and so next timeDr Martin came Ellen was sent for. Dr Martin soon discovered whatwould probably have been apparent to Christina herself if she had beenable to conceive of such an ailment in connection with a servant wholived under the same roof as Theobald and herself—the purity ofwhose married life should have preserved all unmarried people who camenear them from any taint of mischief.

When it was discovered that in three or four months more Ellen wouldbecome a mother, Christina’s natural good nature would have promptedher to deal as leniently with the case as she could, if she had notbeen panic-stricken lest any mercy on her and Theobald’s partshould be construed into toleration, however partial, of so great asin; hereon she dashed off into the conviction that the only thing todo was to pay Ellen her wages, and pack her off on the instant bag andbaggage out of the house which purity had more especially and particularlysingled out for its abiding city. When she thought of the fearfulcontamination which Ellen’s continued presence even for a weekwould occasion, she could not hesitate.

Then came the question—horrid thought!—as to who wasthe partner of Ellen’s guilt? Was it, could it be, her ownson, her darling Ernest? Ernest was getting a big boy now.She could excuse any young woman for taking a fancy to him; as for himself,why she was sure he was behind no young man of his age in appreciationof the charms of a nice-looking young woman. So long as he wasinnocent she did not mind this, but oh, if he were guilty!

She could not bear to think of it, and yet it would be mere cowardicenot to look such a matter in the face—her hope was in the Lord,and she was ready to bear cheerfully and make the best of any sufferingHe might think fit to lay upon her. That the baby must be eithera boy or girl—this much, at any rate, was clear. No lessclear was it that the child, if a boy, would resemble Theobald, andif a girl, herself. Resemblance, whether of body or mind, generallyleaped over a generation. The guilt of the parents must not beshared by the innocent offspring of shame—oh! no—and sucha child as this would be . . . She was off in one of her reveries atonce.

The child was in the act of being consecrated Archbishop of Canterburywhen Theobald came in from a visit in the parish, and was told of theshocking discovery.

Christina said nothing about Ernest, and I believe was more thanhalf angry when the blame was laid upon other shoulders. She waseasily consoled, however, and fell back on the double reflection, firstly,that her son was pure, and secondly, that she was quite sure he wouldnot have been so had it not been for his religious convictions whichhad held him back—as, of course, it was only to be expected theywould.

Theobald agreed that no time must be lost in paying Ellen her wagesand packing her off. So this was done, and less than two hoursafter Dr Martin had entered the house Ellen was sitting beside Johnthe coachman, with her face muffled up so that it could not be seen,weeping bitterly as she was being driven to the station.

CHAPTER XXXIX

Ernest had been out all the morning, but came in to the yard of theRectory from the spinney behind the house just as Ellen’s thingswere being put into the carriage. He thought it was Ellen whomhe then saw get into the carriage, but as her face had been hidden byher handkerchief he had not been able to see plainly who it was, anddismissed the idea as improbable.

He went to the back-kitchen window, at which the cook was standingpeeling the potatoes for dinner, and found her crying bitterly.Ernest was much distressed, for he liked the cook, and, of course, wantedto know what all the matter was, who it was that had just gone off inthe pony carriage, and why? The cook told him it was Ellen, butsaid that no earthly power should make it cross her lips why it wasshe was going away; when, however, Ernest took her au pied de lalettre and asked no further questions, she told him all about itafter extorting the most solemn promises of secrecy.

It took Ernest some minutes to arrive at the facts of the case, butwhen he understood them he leaned against the pump, which stood nearthe back-kitchen window, and mingled his tears with the cook’s.

Then his blood began to boil within him. He did not see thatafter all his father and mother could have done much otherwise thanthey actually did. They might perhaps have been less precipitate,and tried to keep the matter a little more quiet, but this would nothave been easy, nor would it have mended things very materially.The bitter fact remains that if a girl does certain things she mustdo them at her peril, no matter how young and pretty she is nor to whattemptation she has succumbed. This is the way of the world, andas yet there has been no help found for it.

Ernest could only see what he gathered from the cook, namely, thathis favourite, Ellen, was being turned adrift with a matter of threepounds in her pocket, to go she knew not where, and to do she knew notwhat, and that she had said she should hang or drown herself, whichthe boy implicitly believed she would.

With greater promptitude than he had shown yet, he reckoned up hismoney and found he had two shillings and threepence at his command;there was his knife which might sell for a shilling, and there was thesilver watch his Aunt Alethea had given him shortly before she died.The carriage had been gone now a full quarter of an hour, and it musthave got some distance ahead, but he would do his best to catch it up,and there were short cuts which would perhaps give him a chance.He was off at once, and from the top of the hill just past the Rectorypaddock he could see the carriage, looking very small, on a bit of roadwhich showed perhaps a mile and a half in front of him.

One of the most popular amusem*nts at Roughborough was an institutioncalled “the hounds”—more commonly known elsewhereas “hare and hounds,” but in this case the hare was a coupleof boys who were called foxes, and boys are so particular about correctnessof nomenclature where their sports are concerned that I dare not saythey played “hare and hounds”; these were “the hounds,”and that was all. Ernest’s want of muscular strength didnot tell against him here; there was no jostling up against boys who,though neither older nor taller than he, were yet more robustly built;if it came to mere endurance he was as good as any one else, so whenhis carpentering was stopped he had naturally taken to “the hounds”as his favourite amusem*nt. His lungs thus exercised had becomedeveloped, and as a run of six or seven miles across country was notmore than he was used to, he did not despair by the help of the shortcuts of overtaking the carriage, or at the worst of catching Ellen atthe station before the train left. So he ran and ran and ran tillhis first wind was gone and his second came, and he could breathe moreeasily. Never with “the hounds” had he run so fastand with so few breaks as now, but with all his efforts and the helpof the short cuts he did not catch up the carriage, and would probablynot have done so had not John happened to turn his head and seen himrunning and making signs for the carriage to stop a quarter of a mileoff. He was now about five miles from home, and was nearly doneup.

He was crimson with his exertion; covered with dust, and with histrousers and coat sleeves a trifle short for him he cut a poor figureenough as he thrust on Ellen his watch, his knife, and the little moneyhe had. The one thing he implored of her was not to do those dreadfulthings which she threatened—for his sake if for no other reason.

Ellen at first would not hear of taking anything from him, but thecoachman, who was from the north country, sided with Ernest. “Takeit, my lass,” he said kindly, “take what thou canst getwhiles thou canst get it; as for Master Ernest here—he has runwell after thee; therefore let him give thee what he is minded.”

Ellen did what she was told, and the two parted with many tears,the girl’s last words being that she should never forget him,and that they should meet again hereafter, she was sure they should,and then she would repay him.

Then Ernest got into a field by the roadside, flung himself on thegrass, and waited under the shadow of a hedge till the carriage shouldpass on its return from the station and pick him up, for he was deadbeat. Thoughts which had already occurred to him with some forcenow came more strongly before him, and he saw that he had got himselfinto one mess—or rather into half-a-dozen messes—the more.

In the first place he should be late for dinner, and this was oneof the offences on which Theobald had no mercy. Also he shouldhave to say where he had been, and there was a danger of being foundout if he did not speak the truth. Not only this, but sooner orlater it must come out that he was no longer possessed of the beautifulwatch which his dear aunt had given him—and what, pray, had hedone with it, or how had he lost it? The reader will know verywell what he ought to have done. He should have gone straighthome, and if questioned should have said, “I have been runningafter the carriage to catch our housemaid Ellen, whom I am very fondof; I have given her my watch, my knife and all my pocket money, sothat I have now no pocket money at all and shall probably ask you forsome more sooner than I otherwise might have done, and you will alsohave to buy me a new watch and a knife.” But then fancythe consternation which such an announcement would have occasioned!Fancy the scowl and flashing eyes of the infuriated Theobald!“You unprincipled young scoundrel,” he would exclaim, “doyou mean to vilify your own parents by implying that they have dealtharshly by one whose profligacy has disgraced their house?”

Or he might take it with one of those sallies of sarcastic calm,of which he believed himself to be a master.

“Very well, Ernest, very well: I shall say nothing; you canplease yourself; you are not yet twenty-one, but pray act as if youwere your own master; your poor aunt doubtless gave you the watch thatyou might fling it away upon the first improper character you came across;I think I can now understand, however, why she did not leave you hermoney; and, after all, your godfather may just as well have it as thekind of people on whom you would lavish it if it were yours.”

Then his mother would burst into tears and implore him to repentand seek the things belonging to his peace while there was yet time,by falling on his knees to Theobald and assuring him of his unfailinglove for him as the kindest and tenderest father in the universe.Ernest could do all this just as well as they could, and now, as helay on the grass, speeches, some one or other of which was as certainto come as the sun to set, kept running in his head till they confutedthe idea of telling the truth by reducing it to an absurdity.Truth might be heroic, but it was not within the range of practicaldomestic politics.

Having settled then that he was to tell a lie, what lie should hetell? Should he say he had been robbed? He had enough imaginationto know that he had not enough imagination to carry him out here.Young as he was, his instinct told him that the best liar is he whomakes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way—who husbandsit too carefully to waste it where it can be dispensed with. Thesimplest course would be to say that he had lost the watch, and waslate for dinner because he had been looking for it. He had beenout for a long walk—he chose the line across the fields that hehad actually taken—and the weather being very hot, he had takenoff his coat and waistcoat; in carrying them over his arm his watch,his money, and his knife had dropped out of them. He had got nearlyhome when he found out his loss, and had run back as fast as he could,looking along the line he had followed, till at last he had given itup; seeing the carriage coming back from the station, he had let itpick him up and bring him home.

This covered everything, the running and all; for his face stillshowed that he must have been running hard; the only question was whetherhe had been seen about the Rectory by any but the servants for a coupleof hours or so before Ellen had gone, and this he was happy to believewas not the case; for he had been out except during his few minutes’interview with the cook. His father had been out in the parish;his mother had certainly not come across him, and his brother and sisterhad also been out with the governess. He knew he could dependupon the cook and the other servants—the coachman would see tothis; on the whole, therefore, both he and the coachman thought thestory as proposed by Ernest would about meet the requirements of thecase.

CHAPTER XL

When Ernest got home and sneaked in through the back door, he heardhis father’s voice in its angriest tones, inquiring whether MasterErnest had already returned. He felt as Jack must have felt inthe story of Jack and the Bean Stalk, when from the oven in which hewas hidden he heard the ogre ask his wife what young children she hadgot for his supper. With much courage, and, as the event proved,with not less courage than discretion, he took the bull by the horns,and announced himself at once as having just come in after having metwith a terrible misfortune. Little by little he told his story,and though Theobald stormed somewhat at his “incredible follyand carelessness,” he got off better than he expected. Theobaldand Christina had indeed at first been inclined to connect his absencefrom dinner with Ellen’s dismissal, but on finding it clear, asTheobald said—everything was always clear with Theobald—thatErnest had not been in the house all the morning, and could thereforehave known nothing of what had happened, he was acquitted on this accountfor once in a way, without a stain upon his character. PerhapsTheobald was in a good temper; he may have seen from the paper thatmorning that his stocks had been rising; it may have been this or twentyother things, but whatever it was, he did not scold so much as Ernesthad expected, and, seeing the boy look exhausted and believing him tobe much grieved at the loss of his watch, Theobald actually prescribeda glass of wine after his dinner, which, strange to say, did not chokehim, but made him see things more cheerfully than was usual with him.

That night when he said his prayers, he inserted a few paragraphsto the effect that he might not be discovered, and that things mightgo well with Ellen, but he was anxious and ill at ease. His guiltyconscience pointed out to him a score of weak places in his story, throughany one of which detection might even yet easily enter. Next dayand for many days afterwards he fled when no man was pursuing, and trembledeach time he heard his father’s voice calling for him. Hehad already so many causes of anxiety that he could stand little more,and in spite of all his endeavours to look cheerful, even his mothercould see that something was preying upon his mind. Then the ideareturned to her that, after all, her son might not be innocent in theEllen matter—and this was so interesting that she felt bound toget as near the truth as she could.

“Come here, my poor, pale-faced, heavy-eyed boy,” shesaid to him one day in her kindest manner; “come and sit downby me, and we will have a little quiet confidential talk together, willwe not?”

The boy went mechanically to the sofa. Whenever his motherwanted what she called a confidential talk with him she always selectedthe sofa as the most suitable ground on which to open her campaign.All mothers do this; the sofa is to them what the dining-room is tofathers. In the present case the sofa was particularly well adaptedfor a strategic purpose, being an old-fashioned one with a high back,mattress, bolsters and cushions. Once safely penned into one ofits deep corners, it was like a dentist’s chair, not too easyto get out of again. Here she could get at him better to pullhim about, if this should seem desirable, or if she thought fit to cryshe could bury her head in the sofa cushion and abandon herself to anagony of grief which seldom failed of its effect. None of herfavourite manoeuvres were so easily adopted in her usual seat, the arm-chairon the right hand side of the fireplace, and so well did her son knowfrom his mother’s tone that this was going to be a sofa conversationthat he took his place like a lamb as soon as she began to speak andbefore she could reach the sofa herself.

“My dearest boy,” began his mother, taking hold of hishand and placing it within her own, “promise me never to be afraideither of your dear papa or of me; promise me this, my dear, as youlove me, promise it to me,” and she kissed him again and againand stroked his hair. But with her other hand she still kept holdof his; she had got him and she meant to keep him.

The lad hung down his head and promised. What else could hedo?

“You know there is no one, dear, dear Ernest, who loves youso much as your papa and I do; no one who watches so carefully overyour interests or who is so anxious to enter into all your little joysand troubles as we are; but my dearest boy, it grieves me to think sometimesthat you have not that perfect love for and confidence in us which youought to have. You know, my darling, that it would be as muchour pleasure as our duty to watch over the development of your moraland spiritual nature, but alas! you will not let us see your moral andspiritual nature. At times we are almost inclined to doubt whetheryou have a moral and spiritual nature at all. Of your inner life,my dear, we know nothing beyond such scraps as we can glean in spiteof you, from little things which escape you almost before you know thatyou have said them.”

The boy winced at this. It made him feel hot and uncomfortableall over. He knew well how careful he ought to be, and yet, dowhat he could, from time to time his forgetfulness of the part betrayedhim into unreserve. His mother saw that he winced, and enjoyedthe scratch she had given him. Had she felt less confident ofvictory she had better have foregone the pleasure of touching as itwere the eyes at the end of the snail’s horns in order to enjoyseeing the snail draw them in again—but she knew that when shehad got him well down into the sofa, and held his hand, she had theenemy almost absolutely at her mercy, and could do pretty much whatshe liked.

“Papa does not feel,” she continued, “that youlove him with that fulness and unreserve which would prompt you to haveno concealment from him, and to tell him everything freely and fearlesslyas your most loving earthly friend next only to your Heavenly Father.Perfect love, as we know, casteth out fear: your father loves you perfectly,my darling, but he does not feel as though you loved him perfectly inreturn. If you fear him it is because you do not love him as hedeserves, and I know it sometimes cuts him to the very heart to thinkthat he has earned from you a deeper and more willing sympathy thanyou display towards him. Oh, Ernest, Ernest, do not grieve onewho is so good and noble-hearted by conduct which I can call by no othername than ingratitude.”

Ernest could never stand being spoken to in this way by his mother:for he still believed that she loved him, and that he was fond of herand had a friend in her—up to a certain point. But his motherwas beginning to come to the end of her tether; she had played the domesticconfidence trick upon him times without number already. Over andover again had she wheedled from him all she wanted to know, and afterwardsgot him into the most horrible scrape by telling the whole to Theobald.Ernest had remonstrated more than once upon these occasions, and hadpointed out to his mother how disastrous to him his confidences hadbeen, but Christina had always joined issue with him and showed himin the clearest possible manner that in each case she had been right,and that he could not reasonably complain. Generally it was herconscience that forbade her to be silent, and against this there wasno appeal, for we are all bound to follow the dictates of our conscience.Ernest used to have to recite a hymn about conscience. It wasto the effect that if you did not pay attention to its voice it wouldsoon leave off speaking. “My mamma’s conscience hasnot left off speaking,” said Ernest to one of his chums at Roughborough;“it’s always jabbering.”

When a boy has once spoken so disrespectfully as this about his mother’sconscience it is practically all over between him and her. Ernestthrough sheer force of habit, of the sofa, and of the return of theassociated ideas, was still so moved by the siren’s voice as toyearn to sail towards her, and fling himself into her arms, but it wouldnot do; there were other associated ideas that returned also, and themangled bones of too many murdered confessions were lying whiteninground the skirts of his mother’s dress, to allow him by any possibilityto trust her further. So he hung his head and looked sheepish,but kept his own counsel.

“I see, my dearest,” continued his mother, “eitherthat I am mistaken, and that there is nothing on your mind, or thatyou will not unburden yourself to me: but oh, Ernest, tell me at leastthis much; is there nothing that you repent of, nothing which makesyou unhappy in connection with that miserable girl Ellen?”

Ernest’s heart failed him. “I am a dead boy now,”he said to himself. He had not the faintest conception what hismother was driving at, and thought she suspected about the watch; buthe held his ground.

I do not believe he was much more of a coward than his neighbours,only he did not know that all sensible people are cowards when theyare off their beat, or when they think they are going to be roughlyhandled. I believe, that if the truth were known, it would befound that even the valiant St Michael himself tried hard to shirk hisfamous combat with the dragon; he pretended not to see all sorts ofmisconduct on the dragon’s part; shut his eyes to the eating upof I do not know how many hundreds of men, women and children whom hehad promised to protect; allowed himself to be publicly insulted a dozentimes over without resenting it; and in the end when even an angel couldstand it no longer he shilly-shallied and temporised an unconscionabletime before he would fix the day and hour for the encounter. Asfor the actual combat it was much such another wurra-wurra asMrs Allaby had had with the young man who had in the end married hereldest daughter, till after a time behold, there was the dragon lyingdead, while he was himself alive and not very seriously hurt after all.

“I do not know what you mean, mamma,” exclaimed Ernestanxiously and more or less hurriedly. His mother construed hismanner into indignation at being suspected, and being rather frightenedherself she turned tail and scuttled off as fast as her tongue couldcarry her.

“Oh!” she said, “I see by your tone that you areinnocent! Oh! oh! how I thank my heavenly Father for this; mayHe for His dear Son’s sake keep you always pure. Your father,my dear”—(here she spoke hurriedly but gave him a searchinglook) “was as pure as a spotless angel when he came to me.Like him, always be self-denying, truly truthful both in word and deed,never forgetful whose son and grandson you are, nor of the name we gaveyou, of the sacred stream in whose waters your sins were washed outof you through the blood and blessing of Christ,” etc.

But Ernest cut this—I will not say short—but a greatdeal shorter than it would have been if Christina had had her say out,by extricating himself from his mamma’s embrace and showing aclean pair of heels. As he got near the purlieus of the kitchen(where he was more at ease) he heard his father calling for his mother,and again his guilty conscience rose against him. “He hasfound all out now,” it cried, “and he is going to tell mamma—thistime I am done for.” But there was nothing in it; his fatheronly wanted the key of the cellaret. Then Ernest slunk off intoa coppice or spinney behind the Rectory paddock, and consoled himselfwith a pipe of tobacco. Here in the wood with the summer sun streamingthrough the trees and a book and his pipe the boy forgot his cares andhad an interval of that rest without which I verily believe his lifewould have been insupportable.

Of course, Ernest was made to look for his lost property, and a rewardwas offered for it, but it seemed he had wandered a good deal off thepath, thinking to find a lark’s nest, more than once, and lookingfor a watch and purse on Battersby piewipes was very like looking fora needle in a bundle of hay: besides it might have been found and takenby some tramp, or by a magpie of which there were many in the neighbourhood,so that after a week or ten days the search was discontinued, and theunpleasant fact had to be faced that Ernest must have another watch,another knife, and a small sum of pocket money.

It was only right, however, that Ernest should pay half the costof the watch; this should be made easy for him, for it should be deductedfrom his pocket money in half-yearly instalments extending over two,or even it might be three years. In Ernest’s own interests,then, as well as those of his father and mother, it would be well thatthe watch should cost as little as possible, so it was resolved to buya second-hand one. Nothing was to be said to Ernest, but it wasto be bought, and laid upon his plate as a surprise just before theholidays were over. Theobald would have to go to the county townin a few days, and could then find some second-hand watch which wouldanswer sufficiently well. In the course of time, therefore, Theobaldwent, furnished with a long list of household commissions, among whichwas the purchase of a watch for Ernest.

Those, as I have said, were always happy times, when Theobald wasaway for a whole day certain; the boy was beginning to feel easy inhis mind as though God had heard his prayers, and he was not going tobe found out. Altogether the day had proved an unusually tranquilone, but, alas! it was not to close as it had begun; the fickle atmospherein which he lived was never more likely to breed a storm than aftersuch an interval of brilliant calm, and when Theobald returned Ernesthad only to look in his face to see that a hurricane was approaching.

Christina saw that something had gone very wrong, and was quite frightenedlest Theobald should have heard of some serious money loss; he did not,however, at once unbosom himself, but rang the bell and said to theservant, “Tell Master Ernest I wish to speak to him in the dining-room.”

CHAPTER XLI

Long before Ernest reached the dining-room his ill-divining soulhad told him that his sin had found him out. What head of a familyever sends for any of its members into the dining-room if his intentionsare honourable?

When he reached it he found it empty—his father having beencalled away for a few minutes unexpectedly upon some parish business—andhe was left in the same kind of suspense as people are in after theyhave been ushered into their dentist’s ante-room.

Of all the rooms in the house he hated the dining-room worst.It was here that he had had to do his Latin and Greek lessons with hisfather. It had a smell of some particular kind of polish or varnishwhich was used in polishing the furniture, and neither I nor Ernestcan even now come within range of the smell of this kind of varnishwithout our hearts failing us.

Over the chimney-piece there was a veritable old master, one of thefew original pictures which Mr George Pontifex had brought from Italy.It was supposed to be a Salvator Rosa, and had been bought as a greatbargain. The subject was Elijah or Elisha (whichever it was) beingfed by the ravens in the desert. There were the ravens in theupper right-hand corner with bread and meat in their beaks and claws,and there was the prophet in question in the lower left-hand cornerlooking longingly up towards them. When Ernest was a very smallboy it had been a constant matter of regret to him that the food whichthe ravens carried never actually reached the prophet; he did not understandthe limitation of the painter’s art, and wanted the meat and theprophet to be brought into direct contact. One day, with the helpof some steps which had been left in the room, he had clambered up tothe picture and with a piece of bread and butter traced a greasy lineright across it from the ravens to Elisha’s mouth, after whichhe had felt more comfortable.

Ernest’s mind was drifting back to this youthful escapade whenhe heard his father’s hand on the door, and in another secondTheobald entered.

“Oh, Ernest,” said he, in an off-hand, rather cheerymanner, “there’s a little matter which I should like youto explain to me, as I have no doubt you very easily can.”Thump, thump, thump, went Ernest’s heart against his ribs; buthis father’s manner was so much nicer than usual that he beganto think it might be after all only another false alarm.

“It had occurred to your mother and myself that we should liketo set you up with a watch again before you went back to school”(“Oh, that’s all,” said Ernest to himself quite relieved),“and I have been to-day to look out for a second-hand one whichshould answer every purpose so long as you’re at school.”

Theobald spoke as if watches had half-a-dozen purposes besides time-keeping,but he could hardly open his mouth without using one or other of histags, and “answering every purpose” was one of them.

Ernest was breaking out into the usual expressions of gratitude,when Theobald continued, “You are interrupting me,” andErnest’s heart thumped again.

“You are interrupting me, Ernest. I have not yet done.”Ernest was instantly dumb.

“I passed several shops with second-hand watches for sale,but I saw none of a description and price which pleased me, till atlast I was shown one which had, so the shopman said, been left withhim recently for sale, and which I at once recognised as the one whichhad been given you by your Aunt Alethea. Even if I had failedto recognise it, as perhaps I might have done, I should have identifiedit directly it reached my hands, inasmuch as it had ‘E. P., apresent from A. P.’ engraved upon the inside. I need sayno more to show that this was the very watch which you told your motherand me that you had dropped out of your pocket.”

Up to this time Theobald’s manner had been studiously calm,and his words had been uttered slowly, but here he suddenly quickenedand flung off the mask as he added the words, “or some such co*ckand bull story, which your mother and I were too truthful to disbelieve.You can guess what must be our feelings now.”

Ernest felt that this last home-thrust was just. In his lessanxious moments he had thought his papa and mamma “green”for the readiness with which they believed him, but he could not denythat their credulity was a proof of their habitual truthfulness of mind.In common justice he must own that it was very dreadful for two suchtruthful people to have a son as untruthful as he knew himself to be.

“Believing that a son of your mother and myself would be incapableof falsehood I at once assumed that some tramp had picked the watchup and was now trying to dispose of it.”

This to the best of my belief was not accurate. Theobald’sfirst assumption had been that it was Ernest who was trying to sellthe watch, and it was an inspiration of the moment to say that his magnanimousmind had at once conceived the idea of a tramp.

“You may imagine how shocked I was when I discovered that thewatch had been brought for sale by that miserable woman Ellen”—hereErnest’s heart hardened a little, and he felt as near an approachto an instinct to turn as one so defenceless could be expected to feel;his father quickly perceived this and continued, “who was turnedout of this house in circ*mstances which I will not pollute your earsby more particularly describing.

“I put aside the horrid conviction which was beginning to dawnupon me, and assumed that in the interval between her dismissal andher leaving this house, she had added theft to her other sin, and havingfound your watch in your bedroom had purloined it. It even occurredto me that you might have missed your watch after the woman was gone,and, suspecting who had taken it, had run after the carriage in orderto recover it; but when I told the shopman of my suspicions he assuredme that the person who left it with him had declared most solemnly thatit had been given her by her master’s son, whose property it was,and who had a perfect right to dispose of it.

“He told me further that, thinking the circ*mstances in whichthe watch was offered for sale somewhat suspicious, he had insistedupon the woman’s telling him the whole story of how she came byit, before he would consent to buy it of her.

“He said that at first—as women of that stamp invariablydo—she tried prevarication, but on being threatened that she shouldat once be given into custody if she did not tell the whole truth, shedescribed the way in which you had run after the carriage, till as shesaid you were black in the face, and insisted on giving her all yourpocket money, your knife and your watch. She added that my coachmanJohn—whom I shall instantly discharge—was witness to thewhole transaction. Now, Ernest, be pleased to tell me whetherthis appalling story is true or false?”

It never occurred to Ernest to ask his father why he did not hita man his own size, or to stop him midway in the story with a remonstranceagainst being kicked when he was down. The boy was too much shockedand shaken to be inventive; he could only drift and stammer out thatthe tale was true.

“So I feared,” said Theobald, “and now, Ernest,be good enough to ring the bell.”

When the bell had been answered, Theobald desired that John shouldbe sent for, and when John came Theobald calculated the wages due tohim and desired him at once to leave the house.

John’s manner was quiet and respectful. He took his dismissalas a matter of course, for Theobald had hinted enough to make him understandwhy he was being discharged, but when he saw Ernest sitting pale andawe-struck on the edge of his chair against the dining-room wall, asudden thought seemed to strike him, and turning to Theobald he saidin a broad northern accent which I will not attempt to reproduce:

“Look here, master, I can guess what all this is about—nowbefore I goes I want to have a word with you.”

“Ernest,” said Theobald, “leave the room.”

“No, Master Ernest, you shan’t,” said John, plantinghimself against the door. “Now, master,” he continued,“you may do as you please about me. I’ve been a goodservant to you, and I don’t mean to say as you’ve been abad master to me, but I do say that if you bear hardly on Master Ernesthere I have those in the village as ’ll hear on’t and letme know; and if I do hear on’t I’ll come back and breakevery bone in your skin, so there!”

John’s breath came and went quickly, as though he would havebeen well enough pleased to begin the bone-breaking business at once.Theobald turned of an ashen colour—not, as he explained afterwards,at the idle threats of a detected and angry ruffian, but at such atrociousinsolence from one of his own servants.

“I shall leave Master Ernest, John,” he rejoined proudly,“to the reproaches of his own conscience.” (“ThankGod and thank John,” thought Ernest.) “As for yourself,I admit that you have been an excellent servant until this unfortunatebusiness came on, and I shall have much pleasure in giving you a characterif you want one. Have you anything more to say?”

“No more nor what I have said,” said John sullenly, “butwhat I’ve said I means and I’ll stick to—characteror no character.”

“Oh, you need not be afraid about your character, John,”said Theobald kindly, “and as it is getting late, there can beno occasion for you to leave the house before to-morrow morning.”

To this there was no reply from John, who retired, packed up histhings, and left the house at once.

When Christina heard what had happened she said she could condoneall except that Theobald should have been subjected to such insolencefrom one of his own servants through the misconduct of his son.Theobald was the bravest man in the whole world, and could easily havecollared the wretch and turned him out of the room, but how far moredignified, how far nobler had been his reply! How it would tellin a novel or upon the stage, for though the stage as a whole was immoral,yet there were doubtless some plays which were improving spectacles.She could fancy the whole house hushed with excitement at hearing John’smenace, and hardly breathing by reason of their interest and expectationof the coming answer. Then the actor—probably the greatand good Mr Macready—would say, “I shall leave Master Ernest,John, to the reproaches of his own conscience.” Oh, it wassublime! What a roar of applause must follow! Then she shouldenter herself, and fling her arms about her husband’s neck, andcall him her lion-hearted husband. When the curtain dropped, itwould be buzzed about the house that the scene just witnessed had beendrawn from real life, and had actually occurred in the household ofthe Rev. Theobald Pontifex, who had married a Miss Allaby, etc., etc.

As regards Ernest the suspicions which had already crossed her mindwere deepened, but she thought it better to leave the matter where itwas. At present she was in a very strong position. Ernest’sofficial purity was firmly established, but at the same time he hadshown himself so susceptible that she was able to fuse two contradictoryimpressions concerning him into a single idea, and consider him as akind of Joseph and Don Juan in one. This was what she had wantedall along, but her vanity being gratified by the possession of sucha son, there was an end of it; the son himself was naught.

No doubt if John had not interfered, Ernest would have had to expiatehis offence with ache, penury and imprisonment. As it was theboy was “to consider himself” as undergoing these punishments,and as suffering pangs of unavailing remorse inflicted on him by hisconscience into the bargain; but beyond the fact that Theobald kepthim more closely to his holiday task, and the continued coldness ofhis parents, no ostensible punishment was meted out to him. Ernest,however, tells me that he looks back upon this as the time when he beganto know that he had a cordial and active dislike for both his parents,which I suppose means that he was now beginning to be aware that hewas reaching man’s estate.

CHAPTER XLII

About a week before he went back to school his father again sentfor him into the dining-room, and told him that he should restore himhis watch, but that he should deduct the sum he had paid for it—forhe had thought it better to pay a few shillings rather than disputethe ownership of the watch, seeing that Ernest had undoubtedly givenit to Ellen—from his pocket money, in payments which should extendover two half years. He would therefore have to go back to Roughboroughthis half year with only five shillings’ pocket money. Ifhe wanted more he must earn more merit money.

Ernest was not so careful about money as a pattern boy should be.He did not say to himself, “Now I have got a sovereign which mustlast me fifteen weeks, therefore I may spend exactly one shilling andfourpence in each week”—and spend exactly one and fourpencein each week accordingly. He ran through his money at about thesame rate as other boys did, being pretty well cleaned out a few daysafter he had got back to school. When he had no more money, hegot a little into debt, and when as far in debt as he could see hisway to repaying, he went without luxuries. Immediately he gotany money he would pay his debts; if there was any over he would spendit; if there was not—and there seldom was—he would beginto go on tick again.

His finance was always based upon the supposition that he shouldgo back to school with £1 in his pocket—of which he owedsay a matter of fifteen shillings. There would be five shillingsfor sundry school subscriptions—but when these were paid the weeklyallowance of sixpence given to each boy in hall, his merit money (whichthis half he was resolved should come to a good sum) and renewed credit,would carry him through the half.

The sudden failure of 15/- was disastrous to my hero’s schemeof finance. His face betrayed his emotions so clearly that Theobaldsaid he was determined “to learn the truth at once, and thistime without days and days of falsehood” before he reachedit. The melancholy fact was not long in coming out, namely, thatthe wretched Ernest added debt to the vices of idleness, falsehood andpossibly—for it was not impossible—immorality.

How had he come to get into debt? Did the other boys do so?Ernest reluctantly admitted that they did.

With what shops did they get into debt?

This was asking too much, Ernest said he didn’t know!

“Oh, Ernest, Ernest,” exclaimed his mother, who was inthe room, “do not so soon a second time presume upon the forbearanceof the tenderest-hearted father in the world. Give time for onestab to heal before you wound him with another.”

This was all very fine, but what was Ernest to do? How couldhe get the school shop-keepers into trouble by owning that they letsome of the boys go on tick with them? There was Mrs Cross, agood old soul, who used to sell hot rolls and butter for breakfast,or eggs and toast, or it might be the quarter of a fowl with bread sauceand mashed potatoes for which she would charge 6d. If she madea farthing out of the sixpence it was as much as she did. Whenthe boys would come trooping into her shop after “the hounds”how often had not Ernest heard her say to her servant girls, “Nowthen, you wanches, git some cheers.” All the boys were fondof her, and was he, Ernest, to tell tales about her? It was horrible.

“Now look here, Ernest,” said his father with his blackestscowl, “I am going to put a stop to this nonsense once for all.Either take me fully into your confidence, as a son should take a father,and trust me to deal with this matter as a clergyman and a man of theworld—or understand distinctly that I shall take the whole storyto Dr Skinner, who, I imagine, will take much sterner measures thanI should.”

“Oh, Ernest, Ernest,” sobbed Christina, “be wisein time, and trust those who have already shown you that they know buttoo well how to be forbearing.”

No genuine hero of romance should have hesitated for a moment.Nothing should have cajoled or frightened him into telling tales outof school. Ernest thought of his ideal boys: they, he well knew,would have let their tongues be cut out of them before information couldhave been wrung from any word of theirs. But Ernest was not anideal boy, and he was not strong enough for his surroundings; I doubthow far any boy could withstand the moral pressure which was broughtto bear upon him; at any rate he could not do so, and after a littlemore writhing he yielded himself a passive prey to the enemy.He consoled himself with the reflection that his papa had not playedthe confidence trick on him quite as often as his mamma had, and thatprobably it was better he should tell his father, than that his fathershould insist on Dr Skinner’s making an inquiry. His papa’sconscience “jabbered” a good deal, but not as much as hismamma’s. The little fool forgot that he had not given hisfather as many chances of betraying him as he had given to Christina.

Then it all came out. He owed this at Mrs Cross’s, andthis to Mrs Jones, and this at the “Swan and Bottle” publichouse, to say nothing of another shilling or sixpence or two in otherquarters. Nevertheless, Theobald and Christina were not satiated,but rather the more they discovered the greater grew their appetitefor discovery; it was their obvious duty to find out everything, forthough they might rescue their own darling from this hotbed of iniquitywithout getting to know more than they knew at present, were there notother papas and mammas with darlings whom also they were bound to rescueif it were yet possible? What boys, then, owed money to theseharpies as well as Ernest?

Here, again, there was a feeble show of resistance, but the thumbscrewswere instantly applied, and Ernest, demoralised as he already was, recantedand submitted himself to the powers that were. He told only alittle less than he knew or thought he knew. He was examined,re-examined, cross-examined, sent to the retirement of his own bedroomand cross-examined again; the smoking in Mrs Jones’ kitchen allcame out; which boys smoked and which did not; which boys owed moneyand, roughly, how much and where; which boys swore and used bad language.Theobald was resolved that this time Ernest should, as he called it,take him into his confidence without reserve, so the school list whichwent with Dr Skinner’s half-yearly bills was brought out, andthe most secret character of each boy was gone through seriatimby Mr and Mrs Pontifex, so far as it was in Ernest’s power togive information concerning it, and yet Theobald had on the precedingSunday preached a less feeble sermon than he commonly preached, uponthe horrors of the Inquisition. No matter how awful was the depravityrevealed to them, the pair never flinched, but probed and probed, tillthey were on the point of reaching subjects more delicate than theyhad yet touched upon. Here Ernest’s unconscious self tookthe matter up and made a resistance to which his conscious self wasunequal, by tumbling him off his chair in a fit of fainting.

Dr Martin was sent for and pronounced the boy to be seriously unwell;at the same time he prescribed absolute rest and absence from nervousexcitement. So the anxious parents were unwillingly compelledto be content with what they had got already—being frightenedinto leading him a quiet life for the short remainder of the holidays.They were not idle, but Satan can find as much mischief for busy handsas for idle ones, so he sent a little job in the direction of Battersbywhich Theobald and Christina undertook immediately. It would bea pity, they reasoned, that Ernest should leave Roughborough, now thathe had been there three years; it would be difficult to find anotherschool for him, and to explain why he had left Roughborough. Besides,Dr Skinner and Theobald were supposed to be old friends, and it wouldbe unpleasant to offend him; these were all valid reasons for not removingthe boy. The proper thing to do, then, would be to warn Dr Skinnerconfidentially of the state of his school, and to furnish him with aschool list annotated with the remarks extracted from Ernest, whichshould be appended to the name of each boy.

Theobald was the perfection of neatness; while his son was ill upstairs,he copied out the school list so that he could throw his comments intoa tabular form, which assumed the following shape—only that ofcourse I have changed the names. One cross in each square wasto indicate occasional offence; two stood for frequent, and three forhabitual delinquency.

 Smoking Drinking beer Swearing Notes at the “Swan and Obscene and Bottle.” Language.Smith O O XX Will smoke next halfBrown XXX O XJones X XX XXXRobinson XX XX X

And thus through the whole school.

Of course, in justice to Ernest, Dr Skinner would be bound over tosecrecy before a word was said to him, but, Ernest being thus protected,he could not be furnished with the facts too completely.

CHAPTER XLIII

So important did Theobald consider this matter that he made a specialjourney to Roughborough before the half year began. It was a reliefto have him out of the house, but though his destination was not mentioned,Ernest guessed where he had gone.

To this day he considers his conduct at this crisis to have beenone of the most serious laches of his life—one which he can neverthink of without shame and indignation. He says he ought to haverun away from home. But what good could he have done if he had?He would have been caught, brought back and examined two days laterinstead of two days earlier. A boy of barely sixteen cannot standagainst the moral pressure of a father and mother who have always oppressedhim any more than he can cope physically with a powerful full-grownman. True, he may allow himself to be killed rather than yield,but this is being so morbidly heroic as to come close round again tocowardice; for it is little else than suicide, which is universallycondemned as cowardly.

On the re-assembling of the school it became apparent that somethinghad gone wrong. Dr Skinner called the boys together, and withmuch pomp excommunicated Mrs Cross and Mrs Jones, by declaring theirshops to be out of bounds. The street in which the “Swanand Bottle” stood was also forbidden. The vices of drinkingand smoking, therefore, were clearly aimed at, and before prayers DrSkinner spoke a few impressive words about the abominable sin of usingbad language. Ernest’s feelings can be imagined.

Next day at the hour when the daily punishments were read out, thoughthere had not yet been time for him to have offended, Ernest Pontifexwas declared to have incurred every punishment which the school providedfor evil-doers. He was placed on the idle list for the whole halfyear, and on perpetual detentions; his bounds were curtailed; he wasto attend junior callings-over; in fact he was so hemmed in with punishmentsupon every side that it was hardly possible for him to go outside theschool gates. This unparalleled list of punishments inflictedon the first day of the half year, and intended to last till the ensuingChristmas holidays, was not connected with any specified offence.It required no great penetration therefore, on the part of the boysto connect Ernest with the putting Mrs Cross’s and Mrs Jones’sshops out of bounds.

Great indeed was the indignation about Mrs Cross who, it was known,remembered Dr Skinner himself as a small boy only just got into jackets,and had doubtless let him have many a sausage and mashed potatoes upondeferred payment. The head boys assembled in conclave to considerwhat steps should be taken, but hardly had they done so before Ernestknocked timidly at the head-room door and took the bull by the hornsby explaining the facts as far as he could bring himself to do so.He made a clean breast of everything except about the school list andthe remarks he had made about each boy’s character. Thisinfamy was more than he could own to, and he kept his counsel concerningit. Fortunately he was safe in doing so, for Dr Skinner, pedantand more than pedant though he was, had still just sense enough to turnon Theobald in the matter of the school list. Whether he resentedbeing told that he did not know the characters of his own boys, or whetherhe dreaded a scandal about the school I know not, but when Theobaldhad handed him the list, over which he had expended so much pains, DrSkinner had cut him uncommonly short, and had then and there, with moresuavity than was usual with him, committed it to the flames before Theobald’sown eyes.

Ernest got off with the head boys easier than he expected.It was admitted that the offence, heinous though it was, had been committedunder extenuating circ*mstances; the frankness with which the culprithad confessed all, his evidently unfeigned remorse, and the fury withwhich Dr Skinner was pursuing him tended to bring about a reaction inhis favour, as though he had been more sinned against than sinning.

As the half year wore on his spirits gradually revived, and whenattacked by one of his fits of self-abasem*nt he was in some degreeconsoled by having found out that even his father and mother, whom hehad supposed so immaculate, were no better than they should be.About the fifth of November it was a school custom to meet on a certaincommon not far from Roughborough and burn somebody in effigy, this beingthe compromise arrived at in the matter of fireworks and Guy Fawkesfestivities. This year it was decided that Pontifex’s governorshould be the victim, and Ernest though a good deal exercised in mindas to what he ought to do, in the end saw no sufficient reason for holdingaloof from proceedings which, as he justly remarked, could not do hisfather any harm.

It so happened that the bishop had held a confirmation at the schoolon the fifth of November. Dr Skinner had not quite liked the selectionof this day, but the bishop was pressed by many engagements, and hadbeen compelled to make the arrangement as it then stood. Ernestwas among those who had to be confirmed, and was deeply impressed withthe solemn importance of the ceremony. When he felt the huge oldbishop drawing down upon him as he knelt in chapel he could hardly breathe,and when the apparition paused before him and laid its hands upon hishead he was frightened almost out of his wits. He felt that hehad arrived at one of the great turning points of his life, and thatthe Ernest of the future could resemble only very faintly the Ernestof the past.

This happened at about noon, but by the one o’clock dinner-hourthe effect of the confirmation had worn off, and he saw no reason whyhe should forego his annual amusem*nt with the bonfire; so he went withthe others and was very valiant till the image was actually producedand was about to be burnt; then he felt a little frightened. Itwas a poor thing enough, made of paper, calico and straw, but they hadchristened it The Rev. Theobald Pontifex, and he had a revulsion offeeling as he saw it being carried towards the bonfire. Stillhe held his ground, and in a few minutes when all was over felt nonethe worse for having assisted at a ceremony which, after all, was promptedby a boyish love of mischief rather than by rancour.

I should say that Ernest had written to his father, and told himof the unprecedented way in which he was being treated; he even venturedto suggest that Theobald should interfere for his protection and remindedhim how the story had been got out of him, but Theobald had had enoughof Dr Skinner for the present; the burning of the school list had beena rebuff which did not encourage him to meddle a second time in theinternal economics of Roughborough. He therefore replied thathe must either remove Ernest from Roughborough altogether, which wouldfor many reasons be undesirable, or trust to the discretion of the headmaster as regards the treatment he might think best for any of his pupils.Ernest said no more; he still felt that it was so discreditable to himto have allowed any confession to be wrung from him, that he could notpress the promised amnesty for himself.

It was during the “Mother Cross row,” as it was longstyled among the boys, that a remarkable phenomenon was witnessed atRoughborough. I mean that of the head boys under certain conditionsdoing errands for their juniors. The head boys had no bounds andcould go to Mrs Cross’s whenever they liked; they actually, therefore,made themselves go-betweens, and would get anything from either MrsCross’s or Mrs Jones’s for any boy, no matter how low inthe school, between the hours of a quarter to nine and nine in the morning,and a quarter to six and six in the afternoon. By degrees, however,the boys grew bolder, and the shops, though not openly declared in boundsagain, were tacitly allowed to be so.

CHAPTER XLIV

I may spare the reader more details about my hero’s schooldays. He rose, always in spite of himself, into the Doctor’sform, and for the last two years or so of his time was among the præpostors,though he never rose into the upper half of them. He did little,and I think the Doctor rather gave him up as a boy whom he had betterleave to himself, for he rarely made him construe, and he used to sendin his exercises or not, pretty much as he liked. His tacit, unconsciousobstinacy had in time effected more even than a few bold sallies inthe first instance would have done. To the end of his career hisposition inter pares was what it had been at the beginning, namely,among the upper part of the less reputable class—whether of seniorsor juniors—rather than among the lower part of the more respectable.

Only once in the whole course of his school life did he get praisefrom Dr Skinner for any exercise, and this he has treasured as the bestexample of guarded approval which he has ever seen. He had hadto write a copy of Alcaics on “The dogs of the monks of St Bernard,”and when the exercise was returned to him he found the Doctor had writtenon it: “In this copy of Alcaics—which is still excessivelybad—I fancy that I can discern some faint symptoms of improvement.”Ernest says that if the exercise was any better than usual it must havebeen by a fluke, for he is sure that he always liked dogs, especiallySt Bernard dogs, far too much to take any pleasure in writing Alcaicsabout them.

“As I look back upon it,” he said to me but the otherday, with a hearty laugh, “I respect myself more for having neveronce got the best mark for an exercise than I should do if I had gotit every time it could be got. I am glad nothing could make medo Latin and Greek verses; I am glad Skinner could never get any moralinfluence over me; I am glad I was idle at school, and I am glad myfather overtasked me as a boy—otherwise, likely enough I shouldhave acquiesced in the swindle, and might have written as good a copyof Alcaics about the dogs of the monks of St Bernard as my neighbours,and yet I don’t know, for I remember there was another boy, whosent in a Latin copy of some sort, but for his own pleasure he wrotethe following—

The dogs of the monks of St Bernard go
To pick little children out of the snow,
And around their necks is the cordial gin
Tied with a little bit of bob-bin.

I should like to have written that, and I did try, but I couldn’t.I didn’t quite like the last line, and tried to mend it, but Icouldn’t.”

I fancied I could see traces of bitterness against the instructorsof his youth in Ernest’s manner, and said something to this effect.

“Oh, no,” he replied, still laughing, “no morethan St Anthony felt towards the devils who had tempted him, when hemet some of them casually a hundred or a couple of hundred years afterwards.Of course he knew they were devils, but that was all right enough; theremust be devils. St Anthony probably liked these devils betterthan most others, and for old acquaintance sake showed them as muchindulgence as was compatible with decorum.

“Besides, you know,” he added, “St Anthony temptedthe devils quite as much as they tempted him; for his peculiar sanctitywas a greater temptation to tempt him than they could stand. Strictlyspeaking, it was the devils who were the more to be pitied, for theywere led up by St Anthony to be tempted and fell, whereas St Anthonydid not fall. I believe I was a disagreeable and unintelligibleboy, and if ever I meet Skinner there is no one whom I would shake handswith, or do a good turn to more readily.”

At home things went on rather better; the Ellen and Mother Crossrows sank slowly down upon the horizon, and even at home he had quietertimes now that he had become a præpostor. Nevertheless thewatchful eye and protecting hand were still ever over him to guard hiscomings in and his goings out, and to spy out all his ways. Isit wonderful that the boy, though always trying to keep up appearancesas though he were cheerful and contented—and at times actuallybeing so—wore often an anxious, jaded look when he thought nonewere looking, which told of an almost incessant conflict within?

Doubtless Theobald saw these looks and knew how to interpret them,but it was his profession to know how to shut his eyes to things thatwere inconvenient—no clergyman could keep his benefice for a monthif he could not do this; besides he had allowed himself for so manyyears to say things he ought not to have said, and not to say the thingshe ought to have said, that he was little likely to see anything thathe thought it more convenient not to see unless he was made to do so.

It was not much that was wanted. To make no mysteries whereNature has made none, to bring his conscience under something like reasonablecontrol, to give Ernest his head a little more, to ask fewer questions,and to give him pocket money with a desire that it should be spent uponmenus plaisirs . . .

“Call that not much indeed,” laughed Ernest, as I readhim what I have just written. “Why it is the whole dutyof a father, but it is the mystery-making which is the worst evil.If people would dare to speak to one another unreservedly, there wouldbe a good deal less sorrow in the world a hundred years hence.”

To return, however, to Roughborough. On the day of his leaving,when he was sent for into the library to be shaken hands with, he wassurprised to feel that, though assuredly glad to leave, he did not doso with any especial grudge against the Doctor rankling in his breast.He had come to the end of it all, and was still alive, nor, take itall round, more seriously amiss than other people. Dr Skinnerreceived him graciously, and was even frolicsome after his own heavyfashion. Young people are almost always placable, and Ernest feltas he went away that another such interview would not only have wipedoff all old scores, but have brought him round into the ranks of theDoctor’s admirers and supporters—among whom it is only fairto say that the greater number of the more promising boys were found.

Just before saying good-bye the Doctor actually took down a volumefrom those shelves which had seemed so awful six years previously, andgave it to him after having written his name in it, and the words φιλιαςκαι ευνοιαςχαριν, which I believe means “with all kindwishes from the donor.” The book was one written in Latinby a German—Schömann: “De comitiis Atheniensibus”—notexactly light and cheerful reading, but Ernest felt it was high timehe got to understand the Athenian constitution and manner of voting;he had got them up a great many times already, but had forgotten themas fast as he had learned them; now, however, that the Doctor had givenhim this book, he would master the subject once for all. How strangeit was! He wanted to remember these things very badly; he knewhe did, but he could never retain them; in spite of himself they nosooner fell upon his mind than they fell off it again, he had such adreadful memory; whereas, if anyone played him a piece of music andtold him where it came from, he never forgot that, though he made noeffort to retain it, and was not even conscious of trying to rememberit at all. His mind must be badly formed and he was no good.

Having still a short time to spare, he got the keys of St Michael’schurch and went to have a farewell practice upon the organ, which hecould now play fairly well. He walked up and down the aisle fora while in a meditative mood, and then, settling down to the organ,played “They loathed to drink of the river” about six timesover, after which he felt more composed and happier; then, tearing himselfaway from the instrument he loved so well, he hurried to the station.

As the train drew out he looked down from a high embankment on tothe little house his aunt had taken, and where it might be said shehad died through her desire to do him a kindness. There were thetwo well-known bow windows, out of which he had often stepped to runacross the lawn into the workshop. He reproached himself withthe little gratitude he had shown towards this kind lady—the onlyone of his relations whom he had ever felt as though he could have takeninto his confidence. Dearly as he loved her memory, he was gladshe had not known the scrapes he had got into since she died; perhapsshe might not have forgiven them—and how awful that would havebeen! But then, if she had lived, perhaps many of his ills wouldhave been spared him. As he mused thus he grew sad again.Where, where, he asked himself, was it all to end? Was it to bealways sin, shame and sorrow in the future, as it had been in the past,and the ever-watchful eye and protecting hand of his father laying burdenson him greater than he could bear—or was he, too, some day oranother to come to feel that he was fairly well and happy?

There was a gray mist across the sun, so that the eye could bearits light, and Ernest, while musing as above, was looking right intothe middle of the sun himself, as into the face of one whom he knewand was fond of. At first his face was grave, but kindly, as ofa tired man who feels that a long task is over; but in a few secondsthe more humorous side of his misfortunes presented itself to him, andhe smiled half reproachfully, half merrily, as thinking how little allthat had happened to him really mattered, and how small were his hardshipsas compared with those of most people. Still looking into theeye of the sun and smiling dreamily, he thought how he had helped toburn his father in effigy, and his look grew merrier, till at last hebroke out into a laugh. Exactly at this moment the light veilof cloud parted from the sun, and he was brought to terra firmaby the breaking forth of the sunshine. On this he became awarethat he was being watched attentively by a fellow-traveller oppositeto him, an elderly gentleman with a large head and iron-grey hair.

“My young friend,” said he, good-naturedly, “youreally must not carry on conversations with people in the sun, whileyou are in a public railway carriage.”

The old gentleman said not another word, but unfolded his Timesand began to read it. As for Ernest, he blushed crimson.The pair did not speak during the rest of the time they were in thecarriage, but they eyed each other from time to time, so that the faceof each was impressed on the recollection of the other.

CHAPTER XLV

Some people say that their school days were the happiest of theirlives. They may be right, but I always look with suspicion uponthose whom I hear saying this. It is hard enough to know whetherone is happy or unhappy now, and still harder to compare the relativehappiness or unhappiness of different times of one’s life; theutmost that can be said is that we are fairly happy so long as we arenot distinctly aware of being miserable. As I was talking withErnest one day not so long since about this, he said he was so happynow that he was sure he had never been happier, and did not wish tobe so, but that Cambridge was the first place where he had ever beenconsciously and continuously happy.

How can any boy fail to feel an ecstasy of pleasure on first findinghimself in rooms which he knows for the next few years are to be hiscastle? Here he will not be compelled to turn out of the mostcomfortable place as soon as he has ensconced himself in it becausepapa or mamma happens to come into the room, and he should give it upto them. The most cosy chair here is for himself, there is noone even to share the room with him, or to interfere with his doingas he likes in it—smoking included. Why, if such a roomlooked out both back and front on to a blank dead wall it would stillbe a paradise, how much more then when the view is of some quiet grassycourt or cloister or garden, as from the windows of the greater numberof rooms at Oxford and Cambridge.

Theobald, as an old fellow and tutor of Emmanuel—at which collegehe had entered Ernest—was able to obtain from the present tutora certain preference in the choice of rooms; Ernest’s, therefore,were very pleasant ones, looking out upon the grassy court that is boundedby the Fellows’ gardens.

Theobald accompanied him to Cambridge, and was at his best whiledoing so. He liked the jaunt, and even he was not without a certainfeeling of pride in having a full-blown son at the University.Some of the reflected rays of this splendour were allowed to fall uponErnest himself. Theobald said he was “willing to hope”—thiswas one of his tags—that his son would turn over a new leaf nowthat he had left school, and for his own part he was “only tooready”—this was another tag—to let bygones be bygones.

Ernest, not yet having his name on the books, was able to dine withhis father at the Fellows’ table of one of the other collegeson the invitation of an old friend of Theobald’s; he there madeacquaintance with sundry of the good things of this life, the very namesof which were new to him, and felt as he ate them that he was now indeedreceiving a liberal education. When at length the time came forhim to go to Emmanuel, where he was to sleep in his new rooms, his fathercame with him to the gates and saw him safe into college; a few minutesmore and he found himself alone in a room for which he had a latch-key.

From this time he dated many days which, if not quite unclouded,were upon the whole very happy ones. I need not however describethem, as the life of a quiet steady-going undergraduate has been toldin a score of novels better than I can tell it. Some of Ernest’sschoolfellows came up to Cambridge at the same time as himself, andwith these he continued on friendly terms during the whole of his collegecareer. Other schoolfellows were only a year or two his seniors;these called on him, and he thus made a sufficiently favourable entréeinto college life. A straightforwardness of character that wasstamped upon his face, a love of humour, and a temper which was moreeasily appeased than ruffled made up for some awkwardness and want ofsavoir faire. He soon became a not unpopular member ofthe best set of his year, and though neither capable of becoming, noraspiring to become, a leader, was admitted by the leaders as among theirnearer hangers-on.

Of ambition he had at that time not one particle; greatness, or indeedsuperiority of any kind, seemed so far off and incomprehensible to himthat the idea of connecting it with himself never crossed his mind.If he could escape the notice of all those with whom he did not feelhimself en rapport, he conceived that he had triumphed sufficiently.He did not care about taking a good degree, except that it must be goodenough to keep his father and mother quiet. He did not dream ofbeing able to get a fellowship; if he had, he would have tried hardto do so, for he became so fond of Cambridge that he could not bearthe thought of having to leave it; the briefness indeed of the seasonduring which his present happiness was to last was almost the only thingthat now seriously troubled him.

Having less to attend to in the matter of growing, and having gothis head more free, he took to reading fairly well—not becausehe liked it, but because he was told he ought to do so, and his naturalinstinct, like that of all very young men who are good for anything,was to do as those in authority told him. The intention at Battersbywas (for Dr Skinner had said that Ernest could never get a fellowship)that he should take a sufficiently good degree to be able to get a tutorshipor mastership in some school preparatory to taking orders. Whenhe was twenty-one years old his money was to come into his own hands,and the best thing he could do with it would be to buy the next presentationto a living, the rector of which was now old, and live on his mastershipor tutorship till the living fell in. He could buy a very goodliving for the sum which his grandfather’s legacy now amountedto, for Theobald had never had any serious intention of making deductionsfor his son’s maintenance and education, and the money had accumulatedtill it was now about five thousand pounds; he had only talked aboutmaking deductions in order to stimulate the boy to exertion as far aspossible, by making him think that this was his only chance of escapingstarvation—or perhaps from pure love of teasing.

When Ernest had a living of £600 or £700 a year witha house, and not too many parishioners—why, he might add to hisincome by taking pupils, or even keeping a school, and then, say atthirty, he might marry. It was not easy for Theobald to hit onany much more sensible plan. He could not get Ernest into business,for he had no business connections—besides he did not know whatbusiness meant; he had no interest, again, at the Bar; medicine wasa profession which subjected its students to ordeals and temptationswhich these fond parents shrank from on behalf of their boy; he wouldbe thrown among companions and familiarised with details which mightsully him, and though he might stand, it was “only too possible”that he would fall. Besides, ordination was the road which Theobaldknew and understood, and indeed the only road about which he knew anythingat all, so not unnaturally it was the one he chose for Ernest.

The foregoing had been instilled into my hero from earliest boyhood,much as it had been instilled into Theobald himself, and with the sameresult—the conviction, namely, that he was certainly to be a clergyman,but that it was a long way off yet, and he supposed it was all right.As for the duty of reading hard, and taking as good a degree as he could,this was plain enough, so he set himself to work, as I have said, steadily,and to the surprise of everyone as well as himself got a college scholarship,of no great value, but still a scholarship, in his freshman’sterm. It is hardly necessary to say that Theobald stuck to thewhole of this money, believing the pocket-money he allowed Ernest tobe sufficient for him, and knowing how dangerous it was for young mento have money at command. I do not suppose it even occurred tohim to try and remember what he had felt when his father took a likecourse in regard to himself.

Ernest’s position in this respect was much what it had beenat school except that things were on a larger scale. His tutor’sand cook’s bills were paid for him; his father sent him his wine;over and above this he had £50 a year with which to keep himselfin clothes and all other expenses; this was about the usual thing atEmmanuel in Ernest’s day, though many had much less than this.Ernest did as he had done at school—he spent what he could, soonafter he received his money; he then incurred a few modest liabilities,and then lived penuriously till next term, when he would immediatelypay his debts, and start new ones to much the same extent as those whichhe had just got rid of. When he came into his £5000 andbecame independent of his father, £15 or £20 served to coverthe whole of his unauthorised expenditure.

He joined the boat club, and was constant in his attendance at theboats. He still smoked, but never took more wine or beer thanwas good for him, except perhaps on the occasion of a boating supper,but even then he found the consequences unpleasant, and soon learnedhow to keep within safe limits. He attended chapel as often ashe was compelled to do so; he communicated two or three times a year,because his tutor told him he ought to; in fact he set himself to livesoberly and cleanly, as I imagine all his instincts prompted him todo, and when he fell—as who that is born of woman can help sometimesdoing?—it was not till after a sharp tussle with a temptationthat was more than his flesh and blood could stand; then he was verypenitent and would go a fairly long while without sinning again; andthis was how it had always been with him since he had arrived at yearsof indiscretion.

Even to the end of his career at Cambridge he was not aware thathe had it in him to do anything, but others had begun to see that hewas not wanting in ability and sometimes told him so. He did notbelieve it; indeed he knew very well that if they thought him cleverthey were being taken in, but it pleased him to have been able to takethem in, and he tried to do so still further; he was therefore a gooddeal on the look-out for cants that he could catch and apply in season,and might have done himself some mischief thus if he had not been readyto throw over any cant as soon as he had come across another more nearlyto his fancy; his friends used to say that when he rose he flew likea snipe, darting several times in various directions before he settleddown to a steady straight flight, but when he had once got into thishe would keep to it.

CHAPTER XLVI

When he was in his third year a magazine was founded at Cambridge,the contributions to which were exclusively by undergraduates.Ernest sent in an essay upon the Greek Drama, which he has declinedto let me reproduce here without his being allowed to re-edit it.I have therefore been unable to give it in its original form, but whenpruned of its redundancies (and this is all that has been done to it)it runs as follows—

“I shall not attempt within the limits at my disposalto make a résumé of the rise and progress of theGreek drama, but will confine myself to considering whether the reputationenjoyed by the three chief Greek tragedians, Æschylus, Sophoclesand Euripides, is one that will be permanent, or whether they will oneday be held to have been overrated.

“Why, I ask myself, do I see much that I can easily admirein Homer, Thucydides, Herodotus, Demosthenes, Aristophanes, Theocritus,parts of Lucretius, Horace’s satires and epistles, to say nothingof other ancient writers, and yet find myself at once repelled by eventhose works of Æschylus, Sophocles and Euripides which are mostgenerally admired.

“With the first-named writers I am in the hands of men whofeel, if not as I do, still as I can understand their feeling, and asI am interested to see that they should have felt; with the second Ihave so little sympathy that I cannot understand how anyone can everhave taken any interest in them whatever. Their highest flightsto me are dull, pompous and artificial productions, which, if they wereto appear now for the first time, would, I should think, either falldead or be severely handled by the critics. I wish to know whetherit is I who am in fault in this matter, or whether part of the blamemay not rest with the tragedians themselves.

“How far I wonder did the Athenians genuinely like these poets,and how far was the applause which was lavished upon them due to fashionor affectation? How far, in fact, did admiration for the orthodoxtragedians take that place among the Athenians which going to churchdoes among ourselves?

“This is a venturesome question considering the verdict nowgenerally given for over two thousand years, nor should I have permittedmyself to ask it if it had not been suggested to me by one whose reputationstands as high, and has been sanctioned for as long time as those ofthe tragedians themselves, I mean by Aristophanes.

“Numbers, weight of authority, and time, have conspired toplace Aristophanes on as high a literary pinnacle as any ancient writer,with the exception perhaps of Homer, but he makes no secret of heartilyhating Euripides and Sophocles, and I strongly suspect only praisesÆschylus that he may run down the other two with greater impunity.For after all there is no such difference between Æschylus andhis successors as will render the former very good and the latter verybad; and the thrusts at Æschylus which Aristophanes puts intothe mouth of Euripides go home too well to have been written by an admirer.

“It may be observed that while Euripides accuses Æschylusof being ‘pomp-bundle-worded,’ which I suppose means bombasticand given to rodomontade, Æschylus retorts on Euripides that heis a ‘gossip gleaner, a describer of beggars, and a rag-stitcher,’from which it may be inferred that he was truer to the life of his owntimes than Æschylus was. It happens, however, that a faithfulrendering of contemporary life is the very quality which gives its mostpermanent interest to any work of fiction, whether in literature orpainting, and it is a not unnatural consequence that while only sevenplays by Æschylus, and the same number by Sophocles, have comedown to us, we have no fewer than nineteen by Euripides.

“This, however, is a digression; the question before us iswhether Aristophanes really liked Æschylus or only pretended todo so. It must be remembered that the claims of Æschylus,Sophocles and Euripides, to the foremost place amongst tragedians wereheld to be as incontrovertible as those of Dante, Petrarch, Tasso andAriosto to be the greatest of Italian poets, are held among the Italiansof to-day. If we can fancy some witty, genial writer, we willsay in Florence, finding himself bored by all the poets I have named,we can yet believe he would be unwilling to admit that he disliked themwithout exception. He would prefer to think he could see somethingat any rate in Dante, whom he could idealise more easily, inasmuch ashe was more remote; in order to carry his countrymen the farther withhim, he would endeavour to meet them more than was consistent with hisown instincts. Without some such palliation as admiration forone, at any rate, of the tragedians, it would be almost as dangerousfor Aristophanes to attack them as it would be for an Englishman nowto say that he did not think very much of the Elizabethan dramatists.Yet which of us in his heart likes any of the Elizabethan dramatistsexcept Shakespeare? Are they in reality anything else than literaryStruldbrugs?

“I conclude upon the whole that Aristophanes did not like anyof the tragedians; yet no one will deny that this keen, witty, outspokenwriter was as good a judge of literary value, and as able to see anybeauties that the tragic dramas contained as nine-tenths, at any rate,of ourselves. He had, moreover, the advantage of thoroughly understandingthe standpoint from which the tragedians expected their work to be judged,and what was his conclusion? Briefly it was little else than this,that they were a fraud or something very like it. For my own partI cordially agree with him. I am free to confess that with theexception perhaps of some of the Psalms of David I know no writingswhich seem so little to deserve their reputation. I do not knowthat I should particularly mind my sisters reading them, but I willtake good care never to read them myself.”

This last bit about the Psalms was awful, and there was a great fightwith the editor as to whether or no it should be allowed to stand.Ernest himself was frightened at it, but he had once heard someone saythat the Psalms were many of them very poor, and on looking at themmore closely, after he had been told this, he found that there couldhardly be two opinions on the subject. So he caught up the remarkand reproduced it as his own, concluding that these psalms had probablynever been written by David at all, but had got in among the othersby mistake.

The essay, perhaps on account of the passage about the Psalms, createdquite a sensation, and on the whole was well received. Ernest’sfriends praised it more highly than it deserved, and he was himselfvery proud of it, but he dared not show it at Battersby. He knewalso that he was now at the end of his tether; this was his one idea(I feel sure he had caught more than half of it from other people),and now he had not another thing left to write about. He foundhimself cursed with a small reputation which seemed to him much biggerthan it was, and a consciousness that he could never keep it up.Before many days were over he felt his unfortunate essay to be a whiteelephant to him, which he must feed by hurrying into all sorts of franticattempts to cap his triumph, and, as may be imagined, these attemptswere failures.

He did not understand that if he waited and listened and observed,another idea of some kind would probably occur to him some day, andthat the development of this would in its turn suggest still furtherones. He did not yet know that the very worst way of getting holdof ideas is to go hunting expressly after them. The way to getthem is to study something of which one is fond, and to note down whatevercrosses one’s mind in reference to it, either during study orrelaxation, in a little note-book kept always in the waistcoat pocket.Ernest has come to know all about this now, but it took him a long timeto find it out, for this is not the kind of thing that is taught atschools and universities.

Nor yet did he know that ideas, no less than the living beings inwhose minds they arise, must be begotten by parents not very unlikethemselves, the most original still differing but slightly from theparents that have given rise to them. Life is like a fugue, everythingmust grow out of the subject and there must be nothing new. Nor,again, did he see how hard it is to say where one idea ends and anotherbegins, nor yet how closely this is paralleled in the difficulty ofsaying where a life begins or ends, or an action or indeed anything,there being an unity in spite of infinite multitude, and an infinitemultitude in spite of unity. He thought that ideas came into cleverpeople’s heads by a kind of spontaneous germination, without parentagein the thoughts of others or the course of observation; for as yet hebelieved in genius, of which he well knew that he had none, if it wasthe fine frenzied thing he thought it was.

Not very long before this he had come of age, and Theobald had handedhim over his money, which amounted now to £5000; it was investedto bring in 5 per cent and gave him therefore an income of £250a year. He did not, however, realise the fact (he could realisenothing so foreign to his experience) that he was independent of hisfather till a long time afterwards; nor did Theobald make any differencein his manner towards him. So strong was the hold which habitand association held over both father and son, that the one consideredhe had as good a right as ever to dictate, and the other that he hadas little right as ever to gainsay.

During his last year at Cambridge he overworked himself through thisvery blind deference to his father’s wishes, for there was noreason why he should take more than a poll degree except that his fatherlaid such stress upon his taking honours. He became so ill, indeed,that it was doubtful how far he would be able to go in for his degreeat all; but he managed to do so, and when the list came out was foundto be placed higher than either he or anyone else expected, being amongthe first three or four senior optimes, and a few weeks later, in thelower half of the second class of the Classical Tripos. Ill ashe was when he got home, Theobald made him go over all the examinationpapers with him, and in fact reproduce as nearly as possible the repliesthat he had sent in. So little kick had he in him, and so deepwas the groove into which he had got, that while at home he spent severalhours a day in continuing his classical and mathematical studies asthough he had not yet taken his degree.

CHAPTER XLVII

Ernest returned to Cambridge for the May term of 1858, on the pleaof reading for ordination, with which he was now face to face, and muchnearer than he liked. Up to this time, though not religiouslyinclined, he had never doubted the truth of anything that had been toldhim about Christianity. He had never seen anyone who doubted,nor read anything that raised a suspicion in his mind as to the historicalcharacter of the miracles recorded in the Old and New Testaments.

It must be remembered that the year 1858 was the last of a term duringwhich the peace of the Church of England was singularly unbroken.Between 1844, when “Vestiges of Creation” appeared, and1859, when “Essays and Reviews” marked the commencementof that storm which raged until many years afterwards, there was nota single book published in England that caused serious commotion withinthe bosom of the Church. Perhaps Buckle’s “Historyof Civilisation” and Mill’s “Liberty” were themost alarming, but they neither of them reached the substratum of thereading public, and Ernest and his friends were ignorant of their veryexistence. The Evangelical movement, with the exception to whichI shall revert presently, had become almost a matter of ancient history.Tractarianism had subsided into a tenth day’s wonder; it was atwork, but it was not noisy. The “Vestiges” were forgottenbefore Ernest went up to Cambridge; the Catholic aggression scare hadlost its terrors; Ritualism was still unknown by the general provincialpublic, and the Gorham and Hampden controversies were defunct some yearssince; Dissent was not spreading; the Crimean war was the one engrossingsubject, to be followed by the Indian Mutiny and the Franco-Austrianwar. These great events turned men’s minds from speculativesubjects, and there was no enemy to the faith which could arouse evena languid interest. At no time probably since the beginning ofthe century could an ordinary observer have detected less sign of comingdisturbance than at that of which I am writing.

I need hardly say that the calm was only on the surface. Oldermen, who knew more than undergraduates were likely to do, must haveseen that the wave of scepticism which had already broken over Germanywas setting towards our own shores, nor was it long, indeed, beforeit reached them. Ernest had hardly been ordained before threeworks in quick succession arrested the attention even of those who paidleast heed to theological controversy. I mean “Essays andReviews,” Charles Darwin’s “Origin of Species,”and Bishop Colenso’s “Criticisms on the Pentateuch.”

This, however, is a digression; I must revert to the one phase ofspiritual activity which had any life in it during the time Ernest wasat Cambridge, that is to say, to the remains of the Evangelical awakeningof more than a generation earlier, which was connected with the nameof Simeon.

There were still a good many Simeonites, or as they were more brieflycalled “Sims,” in Ernest’s time. Every collegecontained some of them, but their headquarters were at Caius, whitherthey were attracted by Mr Clayton who was at that time senior tutor,and among the sizars of St John’s.

Behind the then chapel of this last-named college, there was a “labyrinth”(this was the name it bore) of dingy, tumble-down rooms, tenanted exclusivelyby the poorest undergraduates, who were dependent upon sizarships andscholarships for the means of taking their degrees. To many, evenat St John’s, the existence and whereabouts of the labyrinth inwhich the sizars chiefly lived was unknown; some men in Ernest’stime, who had rooms in the first court, had never found their way throughthe sinuous passage which led to it.

In the labyrinth there dwelt men of all ages, from mere lads to grey-hairedold men who had entered late in life. They were rarely seen exceptin hall or chapel or at lecture, where their manners of feeding, prayingand studying, were considered alike objectionable; no one knew whencethey came, whither they went, nor what they did, for they never showedat cricket or the boats; they were a gloomy, seedy-looking conférie,who had as little to glory in in clothes and manners as in the flesh*tself.

Ernest and his friends used to consider themselves marvels of economyfor getting on with so little money, but the greater number of dwellersin the labyrinth would have considered one-half of their expenditureto be an exceeding measure of affluence, and so doubtless any domestictyranny which had been experienced by Ernest was a small thing to whatthe average Johnian sizar had had to put up with.

A few would at once emerge on its being found after their first examinationthat they were likely to be ornaments to the college; these would winvaluable scholarships that enabled them to live in some degree of comfort,and would amalgamate with the more studious of those who were in a bettersocial position, but even these, with few exceptions, were long in shakingoff the uncouthness they brought with them to the University, nor wouldtheir origin cease to be easily recognisable till they had become donsand tutors. I have seen some of these men attain high positionin the world of politics or science, and yet still retain a look oflabyrinth and Johnian sizarship.

Unprepossessing then, in feature, gait and manners, unkempt and ill-dressedbeyond what can be easily described, these poor fellows formed a classapart, whose thoughts and ways were not as the thoughts and ways ofErnest and his friends, and it was among them that Simeonism chieflyflourished.

Destined most of them for the Church (for in those days “holyorders” were seldom heard of), the Simeonites held themselvesto have received a very loud call to the ministry, and were ready topinch themselves for years so as to prepare for it by the necessarytheological courses. To most of them the fact of becoming clergymenwould be the entrée into a social position from whichthey were at present kept out by barriers they well knew to be impassable;ordination, therefore, opened fields for ambition which made it thecentral point in their thoughts, rather than as with Ernest, somethingwhich he supposed would have to be done some day, but about which, asabout dying, he hoped there was no need to trouble himself as yet.

By way of preparing themselves more completely they would have meetingsin one another’s rooms for tea and prayer and other spiritualexercises. Placing themselves under the guidance of a few well-knowntutors they would teach in Sunday Schools, and be instant, in seasonand out of season, in imparting spiritual instruction to all whom theycould persuade to listen to them.

But the soil of the more prosperous undergraduates was not suitablefor the seed they tried to sow. The small pieties with which theylarded their discourse, if chance threw them into the company of onewhom they considered worldly, caused nothing but aversion in the mindsof those for whom they were intended. When they distributed tracts,dropping them by night into good men’s letter boxes while theywere asleep, their tracts got burnt, or met with even worse contumely;they were themselves also treated with the ridicule which they reflectedproudly had been the lot of true followers of Christ in all ages.Often at their prayer meetings was the passage of St Paul referred toin which he bids his Corinthian converts note concerning themselvesthat they were for the most part neither well-bred nor intellectualpeople. They reflected with pride that they too had nothing tobe proud of in these respects, and like St Paul, gloried in the factthat in the flesh they had not much to glory.

Ernest had several Johnian friends, and came thus to hear about theSimeonites and to see some of them, who were pointed out to him as theypassed through the courts. They had a repellent attraction forhim; he disliked them, but he could not bring himself to leave themalone. On one occasion he had gone so far as to parody one ofthe tracts they had sent round in the night, and to get a copy droppedinto each of the leading Simeonites’ boxes. The subjecthe had taken was “Personal Cleanliness.” Cleanliness,he said, was next to godliness; he wished to know on which side it wasto stand, and concluded by exhorting Simeonites to a freer use of thetub. I cannot commend my hero’s humour in this matter; histract was not brilliant, but I mention the fact as showing that at thistime he was something of a Saul and took pleasure in persecuting theelect, not, as I have said, that he had any hankering after scepticism,but because, like the farmers in his father’s village, thoughhe would not stand seeing the Christian religion made light of, he wasnot going to see it taken seriously. Ernest’s friends thoughthis dislike for Simeonites was due to his being the son of a clergymanwho, it was known, bullied him; it is more likely, however, that itrose from an unconscious sympathy with them, which, as in St Paul’scase, in the end drew him into the ranks of those whom he had most despisedand hated.

CHAPTER XLVIII

Once, recently, when he was down at home after taking his degree,his mother had had a short conversation with him about his becominga clergyman, set on thereto by Theobald, who shrank from the subjecthimself. This time it was during a turn taken in the garden, andnot on the sofa—which was reserved for supreme occasions.

“You know, my dearest boy,” she said to him, “thatpapa” (she always called Theobald “papa” when talkingto Ernest) “is so anxious you should not go into the Church blindly,and without fully realising the difficulties of a clergyman’sposition. He has considered all of them himself, and has beenshown how small they are, when they are faced boldly, but he wishesyou, too, to feel them as strongly and completely as possible beforecommitting yourself to irrevocable vows, so that you may never, neverhave to regret the step you will have taken.”

This was the first time Ernest had heard that there were any difficulties,and he not unnaturally enquired in a vague way after their nature.

“That, my dear boy,” rejoined Christina, “is aquestion which I am not fitted to enter upon either by nature or education.I might easily unsettle your mind without being able to settle it again.Oh, no! Such questions are far better avoided by women, and, Ishould have thought, by men, but papa wished me to speak to you uponthe subject, so that there might be no mistake hereafter, and I havedone so. Now, therefore, you know all.”

The conversation ended here, so far as this subject was concerned,and Ernest thought he did know all. His mother would not havetold him he knew all—not about a matter of that sort—unlesshe actually did know it; well, it did not come to very much; he supposedthere were some difficulties, but his father, who at any rate was anexcellent scholar and a learned man, was probably quite right here,and he need not trouble himself more about them. So little impressiondid the conversation make on him, that it was not till long afterwardsthat, happening to remember it, he saw what a piece of sleight of handhad been practised upon him. Theobald and Christina, however,were satisfied that they had done their duty by opening their son’seyes to the difficulties of assenting to all a clergyman must assentto. This was enough; it was a matter for rejoicing that, thoughthey had been put so fully and candidly before him, he did not findthem serious. It was not in vain that they had prayed for so manyyears to be made “truly honest and conscientious.”

“And now, my dear,” resumed Christina, after having disposedof all the difficulties that might stand in the way of Ernest’sbecoming a clergyman, “there is another matter on which I shouldlike to have a talk with you. It is about your sister Charlotte.You know how clever she is, and what a dear, kind sister she has beenand always will be to yourself and Joey. I wish, my dearest Ernest,that I saw more chance of her finding a suitable husband than I do atBattersby, and I sometimes think you might do more than you do to helpher.”

Ernest began to chafe at this, for he had heard it so often, buthe said nothing.

“You know, my dear, a brother can do so much for his sisterif he lays himself out to do it. A mother can do very little—indeed,it is hardly a mother’s place to seek out young men; it is a brother’splace to find a suitable partner for his sister; all that I can do isto try to make Battersby as attractive as possible to any of your friendswhom you may invite. And in that,” she added, with a littletoss of her head, “I do not think I have been deficient hitherto.”

Ernest said he had already at different times asked several of hisfriends.

“Yes, my dear, but you must admit that they were none of themexactly the kind of young man whom Charlotte could be expected to takea fancy to. Indeed, I must own to having been a little disappointedthat you should have yourself chosen any of these as your intimate friends.”

Ernest winced again.

“You never brought down Figgins when you were at Roughborough;now I should have thought Figgins would have been just the kind of boywhom you might have asked to come and see us.”

Figgins had been gone through times out of number already.Ernest had hardly known him, and Figgins, being nearly three years olderthan Ernest, had left long before he did. Besides he had not beena nice boy, and had made himself unpleasant to Ernest in many ways.

“Now,” continued his mother, “there’s Towneley.I have heard you speak of Towneley as having rowed with you in a boatat Cambridge. I wish, my dear, you would cultivate your acquaintancewith Towneley, and ask him to pay us a visit. The name has anaristocratic sound, and I think I have heard you say he is an eldestson.”

Ernest flushed at the sound of Towneley’s name.

What had really happened in respect of Ernest’s friends wasbriefly this. His mother liked to get hold of the names of theboys and especially of any who were at all intimate with her son; themore she heard, the more she wanted to know; there was no gorging herto satiety; she was like a ravenous young cuckoo being fed upon a grassplot by a water wag-tail, she would swallow all that Ernest could bringher, and yet be as hungry as before. And she always went to Ernestfor her meals rather than to Joey, for Joey was either more stupid ormore impenetrable—at any rate she could pump Ernest much the betterof the two.

From time to time an actual live boy had been thrown to her, eitherby being caught and brought to Battersby, or by being asked to meether if at any time she came to Roughborough. She had generallymade herself agreeable, or fairly agreeable, as long as the boy waspresent, but as soon as she got Ernest to herself again she changedher note. Into whatever form she might throw her criticisms itcame always in the end to this, that his friend was no good, that Ernestwas not much better, and that he should have brought her someone else,for this one would not do at all.

The more intimate the boy had been or was supposed to be with Ernestthe more he was declared to be naught, till in the end he had hit uponthe plan of saying, concerning any boy whom he particularly liked, thathe was not one of his especial chums, and that indeed he hardly knewwhy he had asked him; but he found he only fell on Scylla in tryingto avoid Charybdis, for though the boy was declared to be more successfulit was Ernest who was naught for not thinking more highly of him.

When she had once got hold of a name she never forgot it. “Andhow is So-and-so?” she would exclaim, mentioning some former friendof Ernest’s with whom he had either now quarrelled, or who hadlong since proved to be a mere comet and no fixed star at all.How Ernest wished he had never mentioned So-and-so’s name, andvowed to himself that he would never talk about his friends in future,but in a few hours he would forget and would prattle away as imprudentlyas ever; then his mother would pounce noiselessly on his remarks asa barn-owl pounces upon a mouse, and would bring them up in a pelletsix months afterwards when they were no longer in harmony with theirsurroundings.

Then there was Theobald. If a boy or college friend had beeninvited to Battersby, Theobald would lay himself out at first to beagreeable. He could do this well enough when he liked, and asregards the outside world he generally did like. His clericalneighbours, and indeed all his neighbours, respected him yearly moreand more, and would have given Ernest sufficient cause to regret hisimprudence if he had dared to hint that he had anything, however little,to complain of. Theobald’s mind worked in this way: “Now,I know Ernest has told this boy what a disagreeable person I am, andI will just show him that I am not disagreeable at all, but a good oldfellow, a jolly old boy, in fact a regular old brick, and that it isErnest who is in fault all through.”

So he would behave very nicely to the boy at first, and the boy wouldbe delighted with him, and side with him against Ernest. Of courseif Ernest had got the boy to come to Battersby he wanted him to enjoyhis visit, and was therefore pleased that Theobald should behave sowell, but at the same time he stood so much in need of moral supportthat it was painful to him to see one of his own familiar friends goover to the enemy’s camp. For no matter how well we mayknow a thing—how clearly we may see a certain patch of colour,for example, as red, it shakes us and knocks us about to find anothersee it, or be more than half inclined to see it, as green.

Theobald had generally begun to get a little impatient before theend of the visit, but the impression formed during the earlier partwas the one which the visitor had carried away with him. Theobaldnever discussed any of the boys with Ernest. It was Christinawho did this. Theobald let them come, because Christina in a quiet,persistent way insisted on it; when they did come he behaved, as I havesaid, civilly, but he did not like it, whereas Christina did like itvery much; she would have had half Roughborough and half Cambridge tocome and stay at Battersby if she could have managed it, and if it wouldnot have cost so much money: she liked their coming, so that she mightmake a new acquaintance, and she liked tearing them to pieces and flingingthe bits over Ernest as soon as she had had enough of them.

The worst of it was that she had so often proved to be right.Boys and young men are violent in their affections, but they are seldomvery constant; it is not till they get older that they really know thekind of friend they want; in their earlier essays young men are simplylearning to judge character. Ernest had been no exception to thegeneral rule. His swans had one after the other proved to be moreor less geese even in his own estimation, and he was beginning almostto think that his mother was a better judge of character than he was;but I think it may be assumed with some certainty that if Ernest hadbrought her a real young swan she would have declared it to be the ugliestand worst goose of all that she had yet seen.

At first he had not suspected that his friends were wanted with aview to Charlotte; it was understood that Charlotte and they might perhapstake a fancy for one another; and that would be so very nice, wouldit not? But he did not see that there was any deliberate malicein the arrangement. Now, however, that he had awoke to what itall meant, he was less inclined to bring any friend of his to Battersby.It seemed to his silly young mind almost dishonest to ask your friendto come and see you when all you really meant was “Please, marrymy sister.” It was like trying to obtain money under falsepretences. If he had been fond of Charlotte it might have beenanother matter, but he thought her one of the most disagreeable youngwomen in the whole circle of his acquaintance.

She was supposed to be very clever. All young ladies are eithervery pretty or very clever or very sweet; they may take their choiceas to which category they will go in for, but go in for one of the threethey must. It was hopeless to try and pass Charlotte off as eitherpretty or sweet. So she became clever as the only remaining alternative.Ernest never knew what particular branch of study it was in which sheshowed her talent, for she could neither play nor sing nor draw, butso astute are women that his mother and Charlotte really did persuadehim into thinking that she, Charlotte, had something more akin to truegenius than any other member of the family. Not one, however,of all the friends whom Ernest had been inveigled into trying to inveiglehad shown the least sign of being so far struck with Charlotte’scommanding powers, as to wish to make them his own, and this may havehad something to do with the rapidity and completeness with which Christinahad dismissed them one after another and had wanted a new one.

And now she wanted Towneley. Ernest had seen this coming andhad tried to avoid it, for he knew how impossible it was for him toask Towneley, even if he had wished to do so.

Towneley belonged to one of the most exclusive sets in Cambridge,and was perhaps the most popular man among the whole number of undergraduates.He was big and very handsome—as it seemed to Ernest the handsomestman whom he ever had seen or ever could see, for it was impossible toimagine a more lively and agreeable countenance. He was good atcricket and boating, very good-natured, singularly free from conceit,not clever but very sensible, and, lastly, his father and mother hadbeen drowned by the overturning of a boat when he was only two yearsold and had left him as their only child and heir to one of the finestestates in the South of England. Fortune every now and then doesthings handsomely by a man all round; Towneley was one of those to whomshe had taken a fancy, and the universal verdict in this case was thatshe had chosen wisely.

Ernest had seen Towneley as every one else in the University (except,of course, dons) had seen him, for he was a man of mark, and being verysusceptible he had liked Towneley even more than most people did, butat the same time it never so much as entered his head that he shouldcome to know him. He liked looking at him if he got a chance,and was very much ashamed of himself for doing so, but there the matterended.

By a strange accident, however, during Ernest’s last year,when the names of the crews for the scratch fours were drawn he hadfound himself coxswain of a crew, among whom was none other than hisespecial hero Towneley; the three others were ordinary mortals, butthey could row fairly well, and the crew on the whole was rather a goodone.

Ernest was frightened out of his wits. When, however, the twomet, he found Towneley no less remarkable for his entire want of anythinglike “side,” and for his power of setting those whom hecame across at their ease, than he was for outward accomplishments;the only difference he found between Towneley and other people was thathe was so very much easier to get on with. Of course Ernest worshippedhim more and more.

The scratch fours being ended the connection between the two cameto an end, but Towneley never passed Ernest thenceforward without anod and a few good-natured words. In an evil moment he had mentionedTowneley’s name at Battersby, and now what was the result?Here was his mother plaguing him to ask Towneley to come down to Battersbyand marry Charlotte. Why, if he had thought there was the remotestchance of Towneley’s marrying Charlotte he would have gone downon his knees to him and told him what an odious young woman she was,and implored him to save himself while there was yet time.

But Ernest had not prayed to be made “truly honest and conscientious”for as many years as Christina had. He tried to conceal what hefelt and thought as well as he could, and led the conversation backto the difficulties which a clergyman might feel to stand in the wayof his being ordained—not because he had any misgivings, but asa diversion. His mother, however, thought she had settled allthat, and he got no more out of her. Soon afterwards he foundthe means of escaping, and was not slow to avail himself of them.

CHAPTER XLIX

On his return to Cambridge in the May term of 1858, Ernest and afew other friends who were also intended for orders came to the conclusionthat they must now take a more serious view of their position.They therefore attended chapel more regularly than hitherto, and heldevening meetings of a somewhat furtive character, at which they wouldstudy the New Testament. They even began to commit the Epistlesof St Paul to memory in the original Greek. They got up Beveridgeon the Thirty-nine Articles, and Pearson on the Creed; in their hoursof recreation they read More’s “Mystery of Godliness,”which Ernest thought was charming, and Taylor’s “Holy Livingand Dying,” which also impressed him deeply, through what he thoughtwas the splendour of its language. They handed themselves overto the guidance of Dean Alford’s notes on the Greek Testament,which made Ernest better understand what was meant by “difficulties,”but also made him feel how shallow and impotent were the conclusionsarrived at by German neologians, with whose works, being innocent ofGerman, he was not otherwise acquainted. Some of the friends whojoined him in these pursuits were Johnians, and the meetings were oftenheld within the walls of St John’s.

I do not know how tidings of these furtive gatherings had reachedthe Simeonites, but they must have come round to them in some way, forthey had not been continued many weeks before a circular was sent toeach of the young men who attended them, informing them that the Rev.Gideon Hawke, a well-known London Evangelical preacher, whose sermonswere then much talked of, was about to visit his young friend Badco*ckof St John’s, and would be glad to say a few words to any whomight wish to hear them, in Badco*ck’s rooms on a certain eveningin May.

Badco*ck was one of the most notorious of all the Simeonites.Not only was he ugly, dirty, ill-dressed, bumptious, and in every wayobjectionable, but he was deformed and waddled when he walked so thathe had won a nick-name which I can only reproduce by calling it “Here’smy back, and there’s my back,” because the lower parts ofhis back emphasised themselves demonstratively as though about to flyoff in different directions like the two extreme notes in the chordof the augmented sixth, with every step he took. It may be guessed,therefore, that the receipt of the circular had for a moment an almostparalysing effect on those to whom it was addressed, owing to the astonishmentwhich it occasioned them. It certainly was a daring surprise,but like so many deformed people, Badco*ck was forward and hard to check;he was a pushing fellow to whom the present was just the opportunityhe wanted for carrying war into the enemy’s quarters.

Ernest and his friends consulted. Moved by the feeling thatas they were now preparing to be clergymen they ought not to stand sostiffly on social dignity as heretofore, and also perhaps by the desireto have a good private view of a preacher who was then much upon thelips of men, they decided to accept the invitation. When the appointedtime came they went with some confusion and self-abasem*nt to the roomsof this man, on whom they had looked down hitherto as from an immeasurableheight, and with whom nothing would have made them believe a few weeksearlier that they could ever come to be on speaking terms.

Mr Hawke was a very different-looking person from Badco*ck.He was remarkably handsome, or rather would have been but for the thinnessof his lips, and a look of too great firmness and inflexibility.His features were a good deal like those of Leonardo da Vinci; moreoverhe was kempt, looked in vigorous health, and was of a ruddy countenance.He was extremely courteous in his manner, and paid a good deal of attentionto Badco*ck, of whom he seemed to think highly. Altogether ouryoung friends were taken aback, and inclined to think smaller beer ofthemselves and larger of Badco*ck than was agreeable to the old Adamwho was still alive within them. A few well-known “Sims”from St John’s and other colleges were present, but not enoughto swamp the Ernest set, as for the sake of brevity, I will call them.

After a preliminary conversation in which there was nothing to offend,the business of the evening began by Mr Hawke’s standing up atone end of the table, and saying “Let us pray.” TheErnest set did not like this, but they could not help themselves, sothey knelt down and repeated the Lord’s Prayer and a few othersafter Mr Hawke, who delivered them remarkably well. Then, whenall had sat down, Mr Hawke addressed them, speaking without notes andtaking for his text the words, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thoume?” Whether owing to Mr Hawke’s manner, which wasimpressive, or to his well-known reputation for ability, or whetherfrom the fact that each one of the Ernest set knew that he had beenmore or less a persecutor of the “Sims” and yet felt instinctivelythat the “Sims” were after all much more like the earlyChristians than he was himself—at any rate the text, familiarthough it was, went home to the consciences of Ernest and his friendsas it had never yet done. If Mr Hawke had stopped here he wouldhave almost said enough; as he scanned the faces turned towards him,and saw the impression he had made, he was perhaps minded to bring hissermon to an end before beginning it, but if so, he reconsidered himselfand proceeded as follows. I give the sermon in full, for it isa typical one, and will explain a state of mind which in another generationor two will seem to stand sadly in need of explanation.

“My young friends,” said Mr Hawke, “I am persuadedthere is not one of you here who doubts the existence of a PersonalGod. If there were, it is to him assuredly that I should firstaddress myself. Should I be mistaken in my belief that all hereassembled accept the existence of a God who is present amongst us thoughwe see him not, and whose eye is upon our most secret thoughts, letme implore the doubter to confer with me in private before we part;I will then put before him considerations through which God has beenmercifully pleased to reveal himself to me, so far as man can understandhim, and which I have found bring peace to the minds of others who havedoubted.

“I assume also that there is none who doubts but that thisGod, after whose likeness we have been made, did in the course of timehave pity upon man’s blindness, and assume our nature, takingflesh and coming down and dwelling among us as a man indistinguishablephysically from ourselves. He who made the sun, moon and stars,the world and all that therein is, came down from Heaven in the personof his Son, with the express purpose of leading a scorned life, anddying the most cruel, shameful death which fiendish ingenuity has invented.

“While on earth he worked many miracles. He gave sightto the blind, raised the dead to life, fed thousands with a few loavesand fishes, and was seen to walk upon the waves, but at the end of hisappointed time he died, as was foredetermined, upon the cross, and wasburied by a few faithful friends. Those, however, who had puthim to death set a jealous watch over his tomb.

“There is no one, I feel sure, in this room who doubts anypart of the foregoing, but if there is, let me again pray him to conferwith me in private, and I doubt not that by the blessing of God hisdoubts will cease.

“The next day but one after our Lord was buried, the tomb beingstill jealously guarded by enemies, an angel was seen descending fromHeaven with glittering raiment and a countenance that shone like fire.This glorious being rolled away the stone from the grave, and our Lordhimself came forth, risen from the dead.

“My young friends, this is no fanciful story like those ofthe ancient deities, but a matter of plain history as certain as thatyou and I are now here together. If there is one fact better vouchedfor than another in the whole range of certainties it is the Resurrectionof Jesus Christ; nor is it less well assured that a few weeks afterhe had risen from the dead, our Lord was seen by many hundreds of menand women to rise amid a host of angels into the air upon a heavenwardjourney till the clouds covered him and concealed him from the sightof men.

“It may be said that the truth of these statements has beendenied, but what, let me ask you, has become of the questioners?Where are they now? Do we see them or hear of them? Havethey been able to hold what little ground they made during the supinenessof the last century? Is there one of your fathers or mothers orfriends who does not see through them? Is there a single teacheror preacher in this great University who has not examined what thesem*n had to say, and found it naught? Did you ever meet one ofthem, or do you find any of their books securing the respectful attentionof those competent to judge concerning them? I think not; andI think also you know as well as I do why it is that they have sunkback into the abyss from which they for a time emerged: it is becauseafter the most careful and patient examination by the ablest and mostjudicial minds of many countries, their arguments were found so untenablethat they themselves renounced them. They fled from the fieldrouted, dismayed, and suing for peace; nor have they again come to thefront in any civilised country.

“You know these things. Why, then, do I insist upon them?My dear young friends, your own consciousness will have made the answerto each one of you already; it is because, though you know so well thatthese things did verily and indeed happen, you know also that you havenot realised them to yourselves as it was your duty to do, nor heededtheir momentous, awful import.

“And now let me go further. You all know that you willone day come to die, or if not to die—for there are not wantingsigns which make me hope that the Lord may come again, while some ofus now present are alive—yet to be changed; for the trumpet shallsound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, for this corruptionmust put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality, and thesaying shall be brought to pass that is written, ‘Death is swallowedup in victory.’

“Do you, or do you not believe that you will one day standbefore the Judgement Seat of Christ? Do you, or do you not believethat you will have to give an account for every idle word that you haveever spoken? Do you, or do you not believe that you are calledto live, not according to the will of man, but according to the willof that Christ who came down from Heaven out of love for you, who sufferedand died for you, who calls you to him, and yearns towards you thatyou may take heed even in this your day—but who, if you heed not,will also one day judge you, and with whom there is no variablenessnor shadow of turning?

“My dear young friends, strait is the gate, and narrow is theway which leadeth to Eternal Life, and few there be that find it.Few, few, few, for he who will not give up ALL for Christ’s sake,has given up nothing.

“If you would live in the friendship of this world, if indeedyou are not prepared to give up everything you most fondly cherish,should the Lord require it of you, then, I say, put the idea of Christdeliberately on one side at once. Spit upon him, buffet him, crucifyhim anew, do anything you like so long as you secure the friendshipof this world while it is still in your power to do so; the pleasuresof this brief life may not be worth paying for by the torments of eternity,but they are something while they last. If, on the other hand,you would live in the friendship of God, and be among the number ofthose for whom Christ has not died in vain; if, in a word, you valueyour eternal welfare, then give up the friendship of this world; ofa surety you must make your choice between God and Mammon, for you cannotserve both.

“I put these considerations before you, if so homely a termmay be pardoned, as a plain matter of business. There is nothinglow or unworthy in this, as some lately have pretended, for all natureshows us that there is nothing more acceptable to God than an enlightenedview of our own self-interest; never let anyone delude you here; itis a simple question of fact; did certain things happen or did theynot? If they did happen, is it reasonable to suppose that youwill make yourselves and others more happy by one course of conductor by another?

“And now let me ask you what answer you have made to this questionhitherto? Whose friendship have you chosen? If, knowingwhat you know, you have not yet begun to act according to the immensityof the knowledge that is in you, then he who builds his house and laysup his treasure on the edge of a crater of molten lava is a sane, sensibleperson in comparison with yourselves. I say this as no figureof speech or bugbear with which to frighten you, but as an unvarnishedunexaggerated statement which will be no more disputed by yourselvesthan by me.”

And now Mr Hawke, who up to this time had spoken with singular quietness,changed his manner to one of greater warmth and continued—

“Oh! my young friends turn, turn, turn, now while it is calledto-day—now from this hour, from this instant; stay not even togird up your loins; look not behind you for a second, but fly into thebosom of that Christ who is to be found of all who seek him, and fromthat fearful wrath of God which lieth in wait for those who know notthe things belonging to their peace. For the Son of Man comethas a thief in the night, and there is not one of us can tell but whatthis day his soul may be required of him. If there is even onehere who has heeded me,”—and he let his eye fall for aninstant upon almost all his hearers, but especially on the Ernest set—“Ishall know that it was not for nothing that I felt the call of the Lord,and heard as I thought a voice by night that bade me come hither quickly,for there was a chosen vessel who had need of me.”

Here Mr Hawke ended rather abruptly; his earnest manner, strikingcountenance and excellent delivery had produced an effect greater thanthe actual words I have given can convey to the reader; the virtue layin the man more than in what he said; as for the last few mysteriouswords about his having heard a voice by night, their effect was magical;there was not one who did not look down to the ground, nor who in hisheart did not half believe that he was the chosen vessel on whose especialbehalf God had sent Mr Hawke to Cambridge. Even if this were notso, each one of them felt that he was now for the first time in theactual presence of one who had had a direct communication from the Almighty,and they were thus suddenly brought a hundredfold nearer to the NewTestament miracles. They were amazed, not to say scared, and asthough by tacit consent they gathered together, thanked Mr Hawke forhis sermon, said good-night in a humble deferential manner to Badco*ckand the other Simeonites, and left the room together. They hadheard nothing but what they had been hearing all their lives; how wasit, then, that they were so dumbfoundered by it? I suppose partlybecause they had lately begun to think more seriously, and were in afit state to be impressed, partly from the greater directness with whicheach felt himself addressed, through the sermon being delivered in aroom, and partly to the logical consistency, freedom from exaggeration,and profound air of conviction with which Mr Hawke had spoken.His simplicity and obvious earnestness had impressed them even beforehe had alluded to his special mission, but this clenched everything,and the words “Lord, is it I?” were upon the hearts of eachas they walked pensively home through moonlit courts and cloisters.

I do not know what passed among the Simeonites after the Ernest sethad left them, but they would have been more than mortal if they hadnot been a good deal elated with the results of the evening. Why,one of Ernest’s friends was in the University eleven, and he hadactually been in Badco*ck’s rooms and had slunk off on saying good-nightas meekly as any of them. It was no small thing to have scoreda success like this.

CHAPTER L

Ernest felt now that the turning point of his life had come.He would give up all for Christ—even his tobacco.

So he gathered together his pipes and pouches, and locked them upin his portmanteau under his bed where they should be out of sight,and as much out of mind as possible. He did not burn them, becausesomeone might come in who wanted to smoke, and though he might abridgehis own liberty, yet, as smoking was not a sin, there was no reasonwhy he should be hard on other people.

After breakfast he left his rooms to call on a man named Dawson,who had been one of Mr Hawke’s hearers on the preceding evening,and who was reading for ordination at the forthcoming Ember Weeks, nowonly four months distant. This man had been always of a ratherserious turn of mind—a little too much so for Ernest’s taste;but times had changed, and Dawson’s undoubted sincerity seemedto render him a fitting counsellor for Ernest at the present time.As he was going through the first court of John’s on his way toDawson’s rooms, he met Badco*ck, and greeted him with some deference.His advance was received with one of those ecstatic gleams which shoneoccasionally upon the face of Badco*ck, and which, if Ernest had knownmore, would have reminded him of Robespierre. As it was, he sawit and unconsciously recognised the unrest and self-seekingness of theman, but could not yet formulate them; he disliked Badco*ck more thanever, but as he was going to profit by the spiritual benefits whichhe had put in his way, he was bound to be civil to him, and civil hetherefore was.

Badco*ck told him that Mr Hawke had returned to town immediately hisdiscourse was over, but that before doing so he had enquired particularlywho Ernest and two or three others were. I believe each one ofErnest’s friends was given to understand that he had been moreor less particularly enquired after. Ernest’s vanity—forhe was his mother’s son—was tickled at this; the idea againpresented itself to him that he might be the one for whose benefit MrHawke had been sent. There was something, too, in Badco*ck’smanner which conveyed the idea that he could say more if he chose, buthad been enjoined to silence.

On reaching Dawson’s rooms, he found his friend in rapturesover the discourse of the preceding evening. Hardly less delightedwas he with the effect it had produced on Ernest. He had alwaysknown, he said, that Ernest would come round; he had been sure of it,but he had hardly expected the conversion to be so sudden. Ernestsaid no more had he, but now that he saw his duty so clearly he wouldget ordained as soon as possible, and take a curacy, even though thedoing so would make him have to go down from Cambridge earlier, whichwould be a great grief to him. Dawson applauded this determination,and it was arranged that as Ernest was still more or less of a weakbrother, Dawson should take him, so to speak, in spiritual tow for awhile, and strengthen and confirm his faith.

An offensive and defensive alliance therefore was struck up betweenthis pair (who were in reality singularly ill assorted), and Ernestset to work to master the books on which the Bishop would examine him.Others gradually joined them till they formed a small set or church(for these are the same things), and the effect of Mr Hawke’ssermon instead of wearing off in a few days, as might have been expected,became more and more marked, so much so that it was necessary for Ernest’sfriends to hold him back rather than urge him on, for he seemed likelyto develop—as indeed he did for a time—into a religiousenthusiast.

In one matter only, did he openly backslide. He had, as I saidabove, locked up his pipes and tobacco, so that he might not be temptedto use them. All day long on the day after Mr Hawke’s sermonhe let them lie in his portmanteau bravely; but this was not very difficult,as he had for some time given up smoking till after hall. Afterhall this day he did not smoke till chapel time, and then went to chapelin self-defence. When he returned he determined to look at thematter from a common sense point of view. On this he saw that,provided tobacco did not injure his health—and he really couldnot see that it did—it stood much on the same footing as tea orcoffee.

Tobacco had nowhere been forbidden in the Bible, but then it hadnot yet been discovered, and had probably only escaped proscriptionfor this reason. We can conceive of St Paul or even our Lord Himselfas drinking a cup of tea, but we cannot imagine either of them as smokinga cigarette or a churchwarden. Ernest could not deny this, andadmitted that Paul would almost certainly have condemned tobacco ingood round terms if he had known of its existence. Was it notthen taking rather a mean advantage of the Apostle to stand on his nothaving actually forbidden it? On the other hand, it was possiblethat God knew Paul would have forbidden smoking, and had purposely arrangedthe discovery of tobacco for a period at which Paul should be no longerliving. This might seem rather hard on Paul, considering all hehad done for Christianity, but it would be made up to him in other ways.

These reflections satisfied Ernest that on the whole he had bettersmoke, so he sneaked to his portmanteau and brought out his pipes andtobacco again. There should be moderation he felt in all things,even in virtue; so for that night he smoked immoderately. It wasa pity, however, that he had bragged to Dawson about giving up smoking.The pipes had better be kept in a cupboard for a week or two, till inother and easier respects Ernest should have proved his steadfastness.Then they might steal out again little by little—and so they did.

Ernest now wrote home a letter couched in a vein different from hisordinary ones. His letters were usually all common form and padding,for as I have already explained, if he wrote about anything that reallyinterested him, his mother always wanted to know more and more aboutit—every fresh answer being as the lopping off of a hydra’shead and giving birth to half a dozen or more new questions—butin the end it came invariably to the same result, namely, that he oughtto have done something else, or ought not to go on doing as he proposed.Now, however, there was a new departure, and for the thousandth timehe concluded that he was about to take a course of which his fatherand mother would approve, and in which they would be interested, sothat at last he and they might get on more sympathetically than heretofore.He therefore wrote a gushing impulsive letter, which afforded much amusem*ntto myself as I read it, but which is too long for reproduction.One passage ran: “I am now going towards Christ; the greater numberof my college friends are, I fear, going away from Him; we must prayfor them that they may find the peace that is in Christ even as I havemyself found it.” Ernest covered his face with his handsfor shame as he read this extract from the bundle of letters he hadput into my hands—they had been returned to him by his fatheron his mother’s death, his mother having carefully preserved them.

“Shall I cut it out?” said I, “I will if you like.”

“Certainly not,” he answered, “and if good-naturedfriends have kept more records of my follies, pick out any plums thatmay amuse the reader, and let him have his laugh over them.”But fancy what effect a letter like this—so unled up to—musthave produced at Battersby! Even Christina refrained from ecstasyover her son’s having discovered the power of Christ’s word,while Theobald was frightened out of his wits. It was well hisson was not going to have any doubts or difficulties, and that he wouldbe ordained without making a fuss over it, but he smelt mischief inthis sudden conversion of one who had never yet shown any inclinationtowards religion. He hated people who did not know where to stop.Ernest was always so outré and strange; there was neverany knowing what he would do next, except that it would be somethingunusual and silly. If he was to get the bit between his teethafter he had got ordained and bought his living, he would play morepranks than ever he, Theobald, had done. The fact, doubtless,of his being ordained and having bought a living would go a long wayto steady him, and if he married, his wife must see to the rest; thiswas his only chance and, to do justice to his sagacity, Theobald inhis heart did not think very highly of it.

When Ernest came down to Battersby in June, he imprudently triedto open up a more unreserved communication with his father than washis wont. The first of Ernest’s snipe-like flights on beingflushed by Mr Hawke’s sermon was in the direction of ultra-evangelicalism.Theobald himself had been much more Low than High Church. Thiswas the normal development of the country clergyman during the firstyears of his clerical life, between, we will say, the years 1825 to1850; but he was not prepared for the almost contempt with which Ernestnow regarded the doctrines of baptismal regeneration and priestly absolution(Hoity toity, indeed, what business had he with such questions?), norfor his desire to find some means of reconciling Methodism and the Church.Theobald hated the Church of Rome, but he hated dissenters too, forhe found them as a general rule troublesome people to deal with; healways found people who did not agree with him troublesome to deal with:besides, they set up for knowing as much as he did; nevertheless ifhe had been let alone he would have leaned towards them rather thantowards the High Church party. The neighbouring clergy, however,would not let him alone. One by one they had come under the influence,directly or indirectly, of the Oxford movement which had begun twentyyears earlier. It was surprising how many practices he now toleratedwhich in his youth he would have considered Popish; he knew very welltherefore which way things were going in Church matters, and saw thatas usual Ernest was setting himself the other way. The opportunityfor telling his son that he was a fool was too favourable not to beembraced, and Theobald was not slow to embrace it. Ernest wasannoyed and surprised, for had not his father and mother been wantinghim to be more religious all his life? Now that he had becomeso they were still not satisfied. He said to himself that a prophetwas not without honour save in his own country, but he had been lately—orrather until lately—getting into an odious habit of turning proverbsupside down, and it occurred to him that a country is sometimes notwithout honour save for its own prophet. Then he laughed, andfor the rest of the day felt more as he used to feel before he had heardMr Hawke’s sermon.

He returned to Cambridge for the Long Vacation of 1858—nonetoo soon, for he had to go in for the Voluntary Theological Examination,which bishops were now beginning to insist upon. He imagined allthe time he was reading that he was storing himself with the knowledgethat would best fit him for the work he had taken in hand. Intruth, he was cramming for a pass. In due time he did pass—creditably,and was ordained Deacon with half-a-dozen others of his friends in theautumn of 1858. He was then just twenty-three years old.

CHAPTER LI

Ernest had been ordained to a curacy in one of the central partsof London. He hardly knew anything of London yet, but his instinctsdrew him thither. The day after he was ordained he entered uponhis duties—feeling much as his father had done when he found himselfboxed up in the carriage with Christina on the morning of his marriage.Before the first three days were over, he became aware that the lightof the happiness which he had known during his four years at Cambridgehad been extinguished, and he was appalled by the irrevocable natureof the step which he now felt that he had taken much too hurriedly.

The most charitable excuse that I can make for the vagaries whichit will now be my duty to chronicle is that the shock of change consequentupon his becoming suddenly religious, being ordained and leaving Cambridge,had been too much for my hero, and had for the time thrown him off anequilibrium which was yet little supported by experience, and thereforeas a matter of course unstable.

Everyone has a mass of bad work in him which he will have to workoff and get rid of before he can do better—and indeed, the morelasting a man’s ultimate good work is, the more sure he is topass through a time, and perhaps a very long one, in which there seemsvery little hope for him at all. We must all sow our spiritualwild oats. The fault I feel personally disposed to find with mygodson is not that he had wild oats to sow, but that they were suchan exceedingly tame and uninteresting crop. The sense of humourand tendency to think for himself, of which till a few months previouslyhe had been showing fair promise, were nipped as though by a late frost,while his earlier habit of taking on trust everything that was toldhim by those in authority, and following everything out to the bitterend, no matter how preposterous, returned with redoubled strength.I suppose this was what might have been expected from anyone placedas Ernest now was, especially when his antecedents are remembered, butit surprised and disappointed some of his cooler-headed Cambridge friendswho had begun to think well of his ability. To himself it seemedthat religion was incompatible with half measures, or even with compromise.Circ*mstances had led to his being ordained; for the moment he was sorrythey had, but he had done it and must go through with it. He thereforeset himself to find out what was expected of him, and to act accordingly.

His rector was a moderate High Churchman of no very pronounced views—anelderly man who had had too many curates not to have long since foundout that the connection between rector and curate, like that betweenemployer and employed in every other walk of life, was a mere matterof business. He had now two curates, of whom Ernest was the junior;the senior curate was named Pryer, and when this gentleman made advances,as he presently did, Ernest in his forlorn state was delighted to meetthem.

Pryer was about twenty-eight years old. He had been at Etonand at Oxford. He was tall, and passed generally for good-looking;I only saw him once for about five minutes, and then thought him odiousboth in manners and appearance. Perhaps it was because he caughtme up in a way I did not like. I had quoted Shakespeare for lackof something better to fill up a sentence—and had said that onetouch of nature made the whole world kin. “Ah,” saidPryer, in a bold, brazen way which displeased me, “but one touchof the unnatural makes it more kindred still,” and he gave mea look as though he thought me an old bore and did not care two strawswhether I was shocked or not. Naturally enough, after this I didnot like him.

This, however, is anticipating, for it was not till Ernest had beenthree or four months in London that I happened to meet his fellow-curate,and I must deal here rather with the effect he produced upon my godsonthan upon myself. Besides being what was generally consideredgood-looking, he was faultless in his get-up, and altogether the kindof man whom Ernest was sure to be afraid of and yet be taken in by.The style of his dress was very High Church, and his acquaintances wereexclusively of the extreme High Church party, but he kept his viewsa good deal in the background in his rector’s presence, and thatgentleman, though he looked askance on some of Pryer’s friends,had no such ground of complaint against him as to make him sever theconnection. Pryer, too, was popular in the pulpit, and, take himall round, it was probable that many worse curates would be found forone better. When Pryer called on my hero, as soon as the two werealone together, he eyed him all over with a quick penetrating glanceand seemed not dissatisfied with the result—for I must say herethat Ernest had improved in personal appearance under the more genialtreatment he had received at Cambridge. Pryer, in fact, approvedof him sufficiently to treat him civilly, and Ernest was immediatelywon by anyone who did this. It was not long before he discoveredthat the High Church party, and even Rome itself, had more to say forthemselves than he had thought. This was his first snipe-likechange of flight.

Pryer introduced him to several of his friends. They were allof them young clergymen, belonging as I have said to the highest ofthe High Church school, but Ernest was surprised to find how much theyresembled other people when among themselves. This was a shockto him; it was ere long a still greater one to find that certain thoughtswhich he had warred against as fatal to his soul, and which he had imaginedhe should lose once for all on ordination, were still as troublesometo him as they had been; he also saw plainly enough that the young gentlemenwho formed the circle of Pryer’s friends were in much the sameunhappy predicament as himself.

This was deplorable. The only way out of it that Ernest couldsee was that he should get married at once. But then he did notknow any one whom he wanted to marry. He did not know any woman,in fact, whom he would not rather die than marry. It had beenone of Theobald’s and Christina’s main objects to keep himout of the way of women, and they had so far succeeded that women hadbecome to him mysterious, inscrutable objects to be tolerated when itwas impossible to avoid them, but never to be sought out or encouraged.As for any man loving, or even being at all fond of any woman, he supposedit was so, but he believed the greater number of those who professedsuch sentiments were liars. Now, however, it was clear that hehad hoped against hope too long, and that the only thing to do was togo and ask the first woman who would listen to him to come and be marriedto him as soon as possible.

He broached this to Pryer, and was surprised to find that this gentleman,though attentive to such members of his flock as were young and good-looking,was strongly in favour of the celibacy of the clergy, as indeed werethe other demure young clerics to whom Pryer had introduced Ernest.

CHAPTER LII

“You know, my dear Pontifex,” said Pryer to him, somefew weeks after Ernest had become acquainted with him, when the twowere taking a constitutional one day in Kensington Gardens, “Youknow, my dear Pontifex, it is all very well to quarrel with Rome, butRome has reduced the treatment of the human soul to a science, whileour own Church, though so much purer in many respects, has no organisedsystem either of diagnosis or pathology—I mean, of course, spiritualdiagnosis and spiritual pathology. Our Church does not prescriberemedies upon any settled system, and, what is still worse, even whenher physicians have according to their lights ascertained the diseaseand pointed out the remedy, she has no discipline which will ensureits being actually applied. If our patients do not choose to doas we tell them, we cannot make them. Perhaps really under allthe circ*mstances this is as well, for we are spiritually mere horsedoctors as compared with the Roman priesthood, nor can we hope to makemuch headway against the sin and misery that surround us, till we returnin some respects to the practice of our forefathers and of the greaterpart of Christendom.”

Ernest asked in what respects it was that his friend desired a returnto the practice of our forefathers.

“Why, my dear fellow, can you really be ignorant? Itis just this, either the priest is indeed a spiritual guide, as beingable to show people how they ought to live better than they can findout for themselves, or he is nothing at all—he has no raisond’être. If the priest is not as much a healerand director of men’s souls as a physician is of their bodies,what is he? The history of all ages has shown—and surelyyou must know this as well as I do—that as men cannot cure thebodies of their patients if they have not been properly trained in hospitalsunder skilled teachers, so neither can souls be cured of their morehidden ailments without the help of men who are skilled in soul-craft—orin other words, of priests. What do one half of our formulariesand rubrics mean if not this? How in the name of all that is reasonablecan we find out the exact nature of a spiritual malady, unless we havehad experience of other similar cases? How can we get this withoutexpress training? At present we have to begin all experimentsfor ourselves, without profiting by the organised experience of ourpredecessors, inasmuch as that experience is never organised and co-ordinatedat all. At the outset, therefore, each one of us must ruin manysouls which could be saved by knowledge of a few elementary principles.”

Ernest was very much impressed.

“As for men curing themselves,” continued Pryer, “theycan no more cure their own souls than they can cure their own bodies,or manage their own law affairs. In these two last cases theysee the folly of meddling with their own cases clearly enough, and goto a professional adviser as a matter of course; surely a man’ssoul is at once a more difficult and intricate matter to treat, andat the same time it is more important to him that it should be treatedrightly than that either his body or his money should be so. Whatare we to think of the practice of a Church which encourages peopleto rely on unprofessional advice in matters affecting their eternalwelfare, when they would not think of jeopardising their worldly affairsby such insane conduct?”

Ernest could see no weak place in this. These ideas had crossedhis own mind vaguely before now, but he had never laid hold of themor set them in an orderly manner before himself. Nor was he quickat detecting false analogies and the misuse of metaphors; in fact hewas a mere child in the hands of his fellow curate.

“And what,” resumed Pryer, “does all this pointto? Firstly, to the duty of confession—the outcry againstwhich is absurd as an outcry would be against dissection as part ofthe training of medical students. Granted these young men mustsee and do a great deal we do not ourselves like even to think of, butthey should adopt some other profession unless they are prepared forthis; they may even get inoculated with poison from a dead body andlose their lives, but they must stand their chance. So if we aspireto be priests in deed as well as name, we must familiarise ourselveswith the minutest and most repulsive details of all kinds of sin, sothat we may recognise it in all its stages. Some of us must doubtlesslyperish spiritually in such investigations. We cannot help it;all science must have its martyrs, and none of these will deserve betterof humanity than those who have fallen in the pursuit of spiritual pathology.”

Ernest grew more and more interested, but in the meekness of hissoul said nothing.

“I do not desire this martyrdom for myself,” continuedthe other, “on the contrary I will avoid it to the very utmostof my power, but if it be God’s will that I should fall whilestudying what I believe most calculated to advance his glory—then,I say, not my will, oh Lord, but thine be done.”

This was too much even for Ernest. “I heard of an Irish-womanonce,” he said, with a smile, “who said she was a martyrto the drink.”

“And so she was,” rejoined Pryer with warmth; and hewent on to show that this good woman was an experimentalist whose experiment,though disastrous in its effects upon herself, was pregnant with instructionto other people. She was thus a true martyr or witness to thefrightful consequences of intemperance, to the saving, doubtless, ofmany who but for her martyrdom would have taken to drinking. Shewas one of a forlorn hope whose failure to take a certain position wentto the proving it to be impregnable and therefore to the abandonmentof all attempt to take it. This was almost as great a gain tomankind as the actual taking of the position would have been.

“Besides,” he added more hurriedly, “the limitsof vice and virtue are wretchedly ill-defined. Half the viceswhich the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them andrequire moderate use rather than total abstinence.”

Ernest asked timidly for an instance.

“No, no,” said Pryer, “I will give you no instance,but I will give you a formula that shall embrace all instances.It is this, that no practice is entirely vicious which has not beenextinguished among the comeliest, most vigorous, and most cultivatedraces of mankind in spite of centuries of endeavour to extirpate it.If a vice in spite of such efforts can still hold its own among themost polished nations, it must be founded on some immutable truth orfact in human nature, and must have some compensatory advantage whichwe cannot afford altogether to dispense with.”

“But,” said Ernest timidly, “is not this virtuallydoing away with all distinction between right and wrong, and leavingpeople without any moral guide whatever?”

“Not the people,” was the answer: “it must be ourcare to be guides to these, for they are and always will be incapableof guiding themselves sufficiently. We should tell them what theymust do, and in an ideal state of things should be able to enforce theirdoing it: perhaps when we are better instructed the ideal state maycome about; nothing will so advance it as greater knowledge of spiritualpathology on our own part. For this, three things are necessary;firstly, absolute freedom in experiment for us the clergy; secondly,absolute knowledge of what the laity think and do, and of what thoughtsand actions result in what spiritual conditions; and thirdly, a compacterorganisation among ourselves.

“If we are to do any good we must be a closely united body,and must be sharply divided from the laity. Also we must be freefrom those ties which a wife and children involve. I can hardlyexpress the horror with which I am filled by seeing English priestsliving in what I can only designate as ‘open matrimony.’It is deplorable. The priest must be absolutely sexless—ifnot in practice, yet at any rate in theory, absolutely—and thattoo, by a theory so universally accepted that none shall venture todispute it.”

“But,” said Ernest, “has not the Bible alreadytold people what they ought and ought not to do, and is it not enoughfor us to insist on what can be found here, and let the rest alone?”

“If you begin with the Bible,” was the rejoinder, “youare three parts gone on the road to infidelity, and will go the otherpart before you know where you are. The Bible is not without itsvalue to us the clergy, but for the laity it is a stumbling-block whichcannot be taken out of their way too soon or too completely. Ofcourse, I mean on the supposition that they read it, which, happily,they seldom do. If people read the Bible as the ordinary Britishchurchman or churchwoman reads it, it is harmless enough; but if theyread it with any care—which we should assume they will if we giveit them at all—it is fatal to them.”

“What do you mean?” said Ernest, more and more astonished,but more and more feeling that he was at least in the hands of a manwho had definite ideas.

“Your question shows me that you have never read your Bible.A more unreliable book was never put upon paper. Take my adviceand don’t read it, not till you are a few years older, and maydo so safely.”

“But surely you believe the Bible when it tells you of suchthings as that Christ died and rose from the dead? Surely youbelieve this?” said Ernest, quite prepared to be told that Pryerbelieved nothing of the kind.

“I do not believe it, I know it.”

“But how—if the testimony of the Bible fails?”

“On that of the living voice of the Church, which I know tobe infallible and to be informed of Christ himself.”

CHAPTER LIII

The foregoing conversation and others like it made a deep impressionupon my hero. If next day he had taken a walk with Mr Hawke, andheard what he had to say on the other side, he would have been justas much struck, and as ready to fling off what Pryer had told him, ashe now was to throw aside all he had ever heard from anyone except Pryer;but there was no Mr Hawke at hand, so Pryer had everything his own way.

Embryo minds, like embryo bodies, pass through a number of strangemetamorphoses before they adopt their final shape. It is no moreto be wondered at that one who is going to turn out a Roman Catholic,should have passed through the stages of being first a Methodist, andthen a free thinker, than that a man should at some former time havebeen a mere cell, and later on an invertebrate animal. Ernest,however, could not be expected to know this; embryos never do.Embryos think with each stage of their development that they have nowreached the only condition which really suits them. This, theysay, must certainly be their last, inasmuch as its close will be sogreat a shock that nothing can survive it. Every change is a shock;every shock is a pro tanto death. What we call death isonly a shock great enough to destroy our power to recognise a past anda present as resembling one another. It is the making us considerthe points of difference between our present and our past greater thanthe points of resemblance, so that we can no longer call the formerof these two in any proper sense a continuation of the second, but findit less trouble to think of it as something that we choose to call new.

But, to let this pass, it was clear that spiritual pathology (I confessthat I do not know myself what spiritual pathology means—but Pryerand Ernest doubtless did) was the great desideratum of the age.It seemed to Ernest that he had made this discovery himself and beenfamiliar with it all his life, that he had never known, in fact, ofanything else. He wrote long letters to his college friends expoundinghis views as though he had been one of the Apostolic fathers.As for the Old Testament writers, he had no patience with them.“Do oblige me,” I find him writing to one friend, “byreading the prophet Zechariah, and giving me your candid opinion uponhim. He is poor stuff, full of Yankee bounce; it is sickeningto live in an age when such balderdash can be gravely admired whetheras poetry or prophecy.” This was because Pryer had set himagainst Zechariah. I do not know what Zechariah had done; I shouldthink myself that Zechariah was a very good prophet; perhaps it wasbecause he was a Bible writer, and not a very prominent one, that Pryerselected him as one through whom to disparage the Bible in comparisonwith the Church.

To his friend Dawson I find him saying a little later on: “Pryerand I continue our walks, working out each other’s thoughts.At first he used to do all the thinking, but I think I am pretty wellabreast of him now, and rather chuckle at seeing that he is alreadybeginning to modify some of the views he held most strongly when I firstknew him.

“Then I think he was on the high road to Rome; now, however,he seems to be a good deal struck with a suggestion of mine in whichyou, too, perhaps may be interested. You see we must infuse newlife into the Church somehow; we are not holding our own against eitherRome or infidelity.” (I may say in passing that I do notbelieve Ernest had as yet ever seen an infidel—not to speak to.)“I proposed, therefore, a few days back to Pryer—and hefell in eagerly with the proposal as soon as he saw that I had the meansof carrying it out—that we should set on foot a spiritual movementsomewhat analogous to the Young England movement of twenty years ago,the aim of which shall be at once to outbid Rome on the one hand, andscepticism on the other. For this purpose I see nothing betterthan the foundation of an institution or college for placing the natureand treatment of sin on a more scientific basis than it rests at present.We want—to borrow a useful term of Pryer’s—a Collegeof Spiritual Pathology where young men” (I suppose Ernest thoughthe was no longer young by this time) “may study the nature andtreatment of the sins of the soul as medical students study those ofthe bodies of their patients. Such a college, as you will probablyadmit, will approach both Rome on the one hand, and science on the other—Rome,as giving the priesthood more skill, and therefore as paving the wayfor their obtaining greater power, and science, by recognising thateven free thought has a certain kind of value in spiritual enquiries.To this purpose Pryer and I have resolved to devote ourselves henceforthheart and soul.

“Of course, my ideas are still unshaped, and all will dependupon the men by whom the college is first worked. I am not yeta priest, but Pryer is, and if I were to start the College, Pryer mighttake charge of it for a time and I work under him nominally as his subordinate.Pryer himself suggested this. Is it not generous of him?

“The worst of it is that we have not enough money; I have,it is true, £5000, but we want at least £10,000, so Pryersays, before we can start; when we are fairly under weigh I might liveat the college and draw a salary from the foundation, so that it isall one, or nearly so, whether I invest my money in this way or in buyinga living; besides I want very little; it is certain that I shall nevermarry; no clergyman should think of this, and an unmarried man can liveon next to nothing. Still I do not see my way to as much moneyas I want, and Pryer suggests that as we can hardly earn more now wemust get it by a judicious series of investments. Pryer knowsseveral people who make quite a handsome income out of very little or,indeed, I may say, nothing at all, by buying things at a place theycall the Stock Exchange; I don’t know much about it yet, but Pryersays I should soon learn; he thinks, indeed, that I have shown rathera talent in this direction, and under proper auspices should make avery good man of business. Others, of course, and not I, mustdecide this; but a man can do anything if he gives his mind to it, andthough I should not care about having more money for my own sake, Icare about it very much when I think of the good I could do with itby saving souls from such horrible torture hereafter. Why, ifthe thing succeeds, and I really cannot see what is to hinder it, itis hardly possible to exaggerate its importance, nor the proportionswhich it may ultimately assume,” etc., etc.

Again I asked Ernest whether he minded my printing this. Hewinced, but said “No, not if it helps you to tell your story:but don’t you think it is too long?”

I said it would let the reader see for himself how things were goingin half the time that it would take me to explain them to him.

“Very well then, keep it by all means.”

I continue turning over my file of Ernest’s letters and findas follows—

“Thanks for your last, in answer to which I sendyou a rough copy of a letter I sent to the Times a day or twoback. They did not insert it, but it embodies pretty fully myideas on the parochial visitation question, and Pryer fully approvesof the letter. Think it carefully over and send it back to mewhen read, for it is so exactly my present creed that I cannot affordto lose it.

“I should very much like to have a viva voce discussionon these matters: I can only see for certain that we have suffered adreadful loss in being no longer able to excommunicate. We shouldexcommunicate rich and poor alike, and pretty freely too. If thispower were restored to us we could, I think, soon put a stop to by farthe greater part of the sin and misery with which we are surrounded.”

These letters were written only a few weeks after Ernest had beenordained, but they are nothing to others that he wrote a little lateron.

In his eagerness to regenerate the Church of England (and throughthis the universe) by the means which Pryer had suggested to him, itoccurred to him to try to familiarise himself with the habits and thoughtsof the poor by going and living among them. I think he got thisnotion from Kingsley’s “Alton Locke,” which, HighChurchman though he for the nonce was, he had devoured as he had devouredStanley’s Life of Arnold, Dickens’s novels, and whateverother literary garbage of the day was most likely to do him harm; atany rate he actually put his scheme into practice, and took lodgingsin Ashpit Place, a small street in the neighbourhood of Drury Lane Theatre,in a house of which the landlady was the widow of a cabman.

This lady occupied the whole ground floor. In the front kitchenthere was a tinker. The back kitchen was let to a bellows-mender.On the first floor came Ernest, with his two rooms which he furnishedcomfortably, for one must draw the line somewhere. The two upperfloors were parcelled out among four different sets of lodgers: therewas a tailor named Holt, a drunken fellow who used to beat his wifeat night till her screams woke the house; above him there was anothertailor with a wife but no children; these people were Wesleyans, givento drink but not noisy. The two back rooms were held by singleladies, who it seemed to Ernest must be respectably connected, for well-dressedgentlemanly-looking young men used to go up and down stairs past Ernest’srooms to call at any rate on Miss Snow—Ernest had heard her doorslam after they had passed. He thought, too, that some of themwent up to Miss Maitland’s. Mrs Jupp, the landlady, toldErnest that these were brothers and cousins of Miss Snow’s, andthat she was herself looking out for a situation as a governess, butat present had an engagement as an actress at the Drury Lane Theatre.Ernest asked whether Miss Maitland in the top back was also lookingout for a situation, and was told she was wanting an engagement as amilliner. He believed whatever Mrs Jupp told him.

CHAPTER LIV

This move on Ernest’s part was variously commented upon byhis friends, the general opinion being that it was just like Pontifex,who was sure to do something unusual wherever he went, but that on thewhole the idea was commendable. Christina could not restrain herselfwhen on sounding her clerical neighbours she found them inclined toapplaud her son for conduct which they idealised into something muchmore self-denying than it really was. She did not quite like hisliving in such an unaristocratic neighbourhood; but what he was doingwould probably get into the newspapers, and then great people wouldtake notice of him. Besides, it would be very cheap; down amongthese poor people he could live for next to nothing, and might put bya great deal of his income. As for temptations, there could befew or none in such a place as that. This argument about cheapnesswas the one with which she most successfully met Theobald, who grumbledmore suo that he had no sympathy with his son’s extravaganceand conceit. When Christina pointed out to him that it would becheap he replied that there was something in that.

On Ernest himself the effect was to confirm the good opinion of himselfwhich had been growing upon him ever since he had begun to read fororders, and to make him flatter himself that he was among the few whowere ready to give up all for Christ. Ere long he beganto conceive of himself as a man with a mission and a great future.His lightest and most hastily formed opinions began to be of momentousimportance to him, and he inflicted them, as I have already shown, onhis old friends, week by week becoming more and more entêtéwith himself and his own crotchets. I should like well enoughto draw a veil over this part of my hero’s career, but cannotdo so without marring my story.

In the spring of 1859 I find him writing—

“I cannot call the visible Church Christian tillits fruits are Christian, that is until the fruits of the members ofthe Church of England are in conformity, or something like conformity,with her teaching. I cordially agree with the teaching of theChurch of England in most respects, but she says one thing and doesanother, and until excommunication—yes, and wholesale excommunication—beresorted to, I cannot call her a Christian institution. I shouldbegin with our Rector, and if I found it necessary to follow him upby excommunicating the Bishop, I should not flinch even from this.

“The present London Rectors are hopeless people to deal with.My own is one of the best of them, but the moment Pryer and I show signsof wanting to attack an evil in a way not recognised by routine, orof remedying anything about which no outcry has been made, we are metwith, ‘I cannot think what you mean by all this disturbance; nobodyelse among the clergy sees these things, and I have no wish to be thefirst to begin turning everything topsy-turvy.’ And thenpeople call him a sensible man. I have no patience with them.However, we know what we want, and, as I wrote to Dawson the other day,have a scheme on foot which will, I think, fairly meet the requirementsof the case. But we want more money, and my first move towardsgetting this has not turned out quite so satisfactorily as Pryer andI had hoped; we shall, however, I doubt not, retrieve it shortly.”

When Ernest came to London he intended doing a good deal of house-to-housevisiting, but Pryer had talked him out of this even before he settleddown in his new and strangely-chosen apartments. The line he nowtook was that if people wanted Christ, they must prove their want bytaking some little trouble, and the trouble required of them was thatthey should come and seek him, Ernest, out; there he was in the midstof them ready to teach; if people did not choose to come to him it wasno fault of his.

“My great business here,” he writes again to Dawson,“is to observe. I am not doing much in parish work beyondmy share of the daily services. I have a man’s Bible Class,and a boy’s Bible Class, and a good many young men and boys towhom I give instruction one way or another; then there are the SundaySchool children, with whom I fill my room on a Sunday evening as fullas it will hold, and let them sing hymns and chants. They likethis. I do a great deal of reading—chiefly of books whichPryer and I think most likely to help; we find nothing comparable tothe Jesuits. Pryer is a thorough gentleman, and an admirable manof business—no less observant of the things of this world, infact, than of the things above; by a brilliant coup he has retrieved,or nearly so, a rather serious loss which threatened to delay indefinitelythe execution of our great scheme. He and I daily gather freshprinciples. I believe great things are before me, and am strongin the hope of being able by and by to effect much.

“As for you I bid you God speed. Be bold but logical,speculative but cautious, daringly courageous, but properly circ*mspectwithal,” etc., etc.

I think this may do for the present.

CHAPTER LV

I had called on Ernest as a matter of course when he first came toLondon, but had not seen him. I had been out when he returnedmy call, so that he had been in town for some weeks before I actuallysaw him, which I did not very long after he had taken possession ofhis new rooms. I liked his face, but except for the common bondof music, in respect of which our tastes were singularly alike, I shouldhardly have known how to get on with him. To do him justice hedid not air any of his schemes to me until I had drawn him out concerningthem. I, to borrow the words of Ernest’s landlady, Mrs Jupp,“am not a very regular church-goer”—I discovered uponcross-examination that Mrs Jupp had been to church once when she waschurched for her son Tom some five and twenty years since, but nevereither before or afterwards; not even, I fear, to be married, for thoughshe called herself “Mrs” she wore no wedding ring, and spokeof the person who should have been Mr Jupp as “my poor dear boy’sfather,” not as “my husband.” But to return.I was vexed at Ernest’s having been ordained. I was notordained myself and I did not like my friends to be ordained, nor didI like having to be on my best behaviour and to look as if butter wouldnot melt in my mouth, and all for a boy whom I remembered when he knewyesterday and to-morrow and Tuesday, but not a day of the week more—noteven Sunday itself—and when he said he did not like the kittenbecause it had pins in its toes.

I looked at him and thought of his aunt Alethea, and how fast themoney she had left him was accumulating; and it was all to go to thisyoung man, who would use it probably in the very last ways with whichMiss Pontifex would have sympathised. I was annoyed. “Shealways said,” I thought to myself, “that she should makea mess of it, but I did not think she would have made as great a messof it as this.” Then I thought that perhaps if his aunthad lived he would not have been like this.

Ernest behaved quite nicely to me and I own that the fault was mineif the conversation drew towards dangerous subjects. I was theaggressor, presuming I suppose upon my age and long acquaintance withhim, as giving me a right to make myself unpleasant in a quiet way.

Then he came out, and the exasperating part of it was that up toa certain point he was so very right. Grant him his premises andhis conclusions were sound enough, nor could I, seeing that he was alreadyordained, join issue with him about his premises as I should certainlyhave done if I had had a chance of doing so before he had taken orders.The result was that I had to beat a retreat and went away not in thebest of humours. I believe the truth was that I liked Ernest,and was vexed at his being a clergyman, and at a clergyman having somuch money coming to him.

I talked a little with Mrs Jupp on my way out. She and I hadreckoned one another up at first sight as being neither of us “veryregular church-goers,” and the strings of her tongue had beenloosened. She said Ernest would die. He was much too goodfor the world and he looked so sad “just like young Watkins ofthe ‘Crown’ over the way who died a month ago, and his poordear skin was white as alablaster; least-ways they say he shot hisself.They took him from the Mortimer, I met them just as I was going withmy Rose to get a pint o’ four ale, and she had her arm in splints.She told her sister she wanted to go to Perry’s to get some wool,instead o’ which it was only a stall to get me a pint o’ale, bless her heart; there’s nobody else would do that much forpoor old Jupp, and it’s a horrid lie to say she is gay; not butwhat I like a gay woman, I do: I’d rather give a gay woman half-a-crownthan stand a modest woman a pot o’ beer, but I don’t wantto go associating with bad girls for all that. So they took himfrom the Mortimer; they wouldn’t let him go home no more; andhe done it that artful you know. His wife was in the country livingwith her mother, and she always spoke respectful o’ my Rose.Poor dear, I hope his soul is in Heaven. Well Sir, would you believeit, there’s that in Mr Pontifex’s face which is just likeyoung Watkins; he looks that worrited and scrunched up at times, butit’s never for the same reason, for he don’t know nothingat all, no more than a unborn babe, no he don’t; why there’snot a monkey going about London with an Italian organ grinder but knowsmore than Mr Pontifex do. He don’t know—well I suppose—”

Here a child came in on an errand from some neighbour and interruptedher, or I can form no idea where or when she would have ended her discourse.I seized the opportunity to run away, but not before I had given herfive shillings and made her write down my address, for I was a littlefrightened by what she said. I told her if she thought her lodgergrew worse, she was to come and let me know.

Weeks went by and I did not see her again. Having done as muchas I had, I felt absolved from doing more, and let Ernest alone as thinkingthat he and I should only bore one another.

He had now been ordained a little over four months, but these monthshad not brought happiness or satisfaction with them. He had livedin a clergyman’s house all his life, and might have been expectedperhaps to have known pretty much what being a clergyman was like, andso he did—a country clergyman; he had formed an ideal, however,as regards what a town clergyman could do, and was trying in a feebletentative way to realise it, but somehow or other it always managedto escape him.

He lived among the poor, but he did not find that he got to knowthem. The idea that they would come to him proved to be a mistakenone. He did indeed visit a few tame pets whom his rector desiredhim to look after. There was an old man and his wife who livednext door but one to Ernest himself; then there was a plumber of thename of Chesterfield; an aged lady of the name of Gover, blind and bed-ridden,who munched and munched her feeble old toothless jaws as Ernest spokeor read to her, but who could do little more; a Mr Brookes, a rag andbottle merchant in Birdsey’s Rents in the last stage of dropsy,and perhaps half a dozen or so others. What did it all come to,when he did go to see them? The plumber wanted to be flattered,and liked fooling a gentleman into wasting his time by scratching hisears for him. Mrs Gover, poor old woman, wanted money; she wasvery good and meek, and when Ernest got her a shilling from Lady AnneJones’s bequest, she said it was “small but seasonable,”and munched and munched in gratitude. Ernest sometimes gave hera little money himself, but not, as he says now, half what he oughtto have given.

What could he do else that would have been of the smallest use toher? Nothing indeed; but giving occasional half-crowns to MrsGover was not regenerating the universe, and Ernest wanted nothing shortof this. The world was all out of joint, and instead of feelingit to be a cursed spite that he was born to set it right, he thoughthe was just the kind of person that was wanted for the job, and waseager to set to work, only he did not exactly know how to begin, forthe beginning he had made with Mr Chesterfield and Mrs Gover did notpromise great developments.

Then poor Mr Brookes—he suffered very much, terribly indeed;he was not in want of money; he wanted to die and couldn’t, justas we sometimes want to go to sleep and cannot. He had been aserious-minded man, and death frightened him as it must frighten anyonewho believes that all his most secret thoughts will be shortly exposedin public. When I read Ernest the description of how his fatherused to visit Mrs Thompson at Battersby, he coloured and said—“that’sjust what I used to say to Mr Brookes.” Ernest felt thathis visits, so far from comforting Mr Brookes, made him fear death moreand more, but how could he help it?

Even Pryer, who had been curate a couple of years, did not know personallymore than a couple of hundred people in the parish at the outside, andit was only at the houses of very few of these that he ever visited,but then Pryer had such a strong objection on principle to house visitations.What a drop in the sea were those with whom he and Pryer were broughtinto direct communication in comparison with those whom he must reachand move if he were to produce much effect of any kind, one way or theother. Why there were between fifteen and twenty thousand poorin the parish, of whom but the merest fraction ever attended a placeof worship. Some few went to dissenting chapels, a few were RomanCatholics; by far the greater number, however, were practically infidels,if not actively hostile, at any rate indifferent to religion, whilemany were avowed Atheists—admirers of Tom Paine, of whom he nowheard for the first time; but he never met and conversed with any ofthese.

Was he really doing everything that could be expected of him?It was all very well to say that he was doing as much as other youngclergymen did; that was not the kind of answer which Jesus Christ waslikely to accept; why, the Pharisees themselves in all probability didas much as the other Pharisees did. What he should do was to gointo the highways and byways, and compel people to come in. Washe doing this? Or were not they rather compelling him tokeep out—outside their doors at any rate? He began to havean uneasy feeling as though ere long, unless he kept a sharp look out,he should drift into being a sham.

True, all would be changed as soon as he could endow the Collegefor Spiritual Pathology; matters, however, had not gone too well with“the things that people bought in the place that was called theStock Exchange.” In order to get on faster, it had beenarranged that Ernest should buy more of these things than he could payfor, with the idea that in a few weeks, or even days, they would bemuch higher in value, and he could sell them at a tremendous profit;but, unfortunately, instead of getting higher, they had fallen immediatelyafter Ernest had bought, and obstinately refused to get up again; so,after a few settlements, he had got frightened, for he read an articlein some newspaper, which said they would go ever so much lower, and,contrary to Pryer’s advice, he insisted on selling—at aloss of something like £500. He had hardly sold when upwent the shares again, and he saw how foolish he had been, and how wisePryer was, for if Pryer’s advice had been followed, he would havemade £500, instead of losing it. However, he told himselfhe must live and learn.

Then Pryer made a mistake. They had bought some shares, andthe shares went up delightfully for about a fortnight. This wasa happy time indeed, for by the end of a fortnight, the lost £500had been recovered, and three or four hundred pounds had been clearedinto the bargain. All the feverish anxiety of that miserable sixweeks, when the £500 was being lost, was now being repaid withinterest. Ernest wanted to sell and make sure of the profit, butPryer would not hear of it; they would go ever so much higher yet, andhe showed Ernest an article in some newspaper which proved that whathe said was reasonable, and they did go up a little—but only avery little, for then they went down, down, and Ernest saw first hisclear profit of three or four hundred pounds go, and then the £500loss, which he thought he had recovered, slipped away by falls of ahalf and one at a time, and then he lost £200 more. Thena newspaper said that these shares were the greatest rubbish that hadever been imposed upon the English public, and Ernest could stand itno longer, so he sold out, again this time against Pryer’s advice,so that when they went up, as they shortly did, Pryer scored off Ernesta second time.

Ernest was not used to vicissitudes of this kind, and they made himso anxious that his health was affected. It was arranged thereforethat he had better know nothing of what was being done. Pryerwas a much better man of business than he was, and would see to it all.This relieved Ernest of a good deal of trouble, and was better afterall for the investments themselves; for, as Pryer justly said, a manmust not have a faint heart if he hopes to succeed in buying and sellingupon the Stock Exchange, and seeing Ernest nervous made Pryer nervoustoo—at least, he said it did. So the money drifted moreand more into Pryer’s hands. As for Pryer himself, he hadnothing but his curacy and a small allowance from his father.

Some of Ernest’s old friends got an inkling from his lettersof what he was doing, and did their utmost to dissuade him, but he wasas infatuated as a young lover of two and twenty. Finding thatthese friends disapproved, he dropped away from them, and they, beingbored with his egotism and high-flown ideas, were not sorry to let himdo so. Of course, he said nothing about his speculations—indeed,he hardly knew that anything done in so good a cause could be calledspeculation. At Battersby, when his father urged him to look outfor a next presentation, and even brought one or two promising onesunder his notice, he made objections and excuses, though always promisingto do as his father desired very shortly.

CHAPTER LVI

By and by a subtle, indefinable malaise began to take possessionof him. I once saw a very young foal trying to eat some most objectionablerefuse, and unable to make up its mind whether it was good or no.Clearly it wanted to be told. If its mother had seen what it wasdoing she would have set it right in a moment, and as soon as ever ithad been told that what it was eating was filth, the foal would haverecognised it and never have wanted to be told again; but the foal couldnot settle the matter for itself, or make up its mind whether it likedwhat it was trying to eat or no, without assistance from without.I suppose it would have come to do so by and by, but it was wastingtime and trouble, which a single look from its mother would have saved,just as wort will in time ferment of itself, but will ferment much morequickly if a little yeast be added to it. In the matter of knowingwhat gives us pleasure we are all like wort, and if unaided from withoutcan only ferment slowly and toilsomely.

My unhappy hero about this time was very much like the foal, or ratherhe felt much what the foal would have felt if its mother and all theother grown-up horses in the field had vowed that what it was eatingwas the most excellent and nutritious food to be found anywhere.He was so anxious to do what was right, and so ready to believe thatevery one knew better than himself, that he never ventured to admitto himself that he might be all the while on a hopelessly wrong tack.It did not occur to him that there might be a blunder anywhere, muchless did it occur to him to try and find out where the blunder was.Nevertheless he became daily more full of malaise, and daily,only he knew it not, more ripe for an explosion should a spark fallupon him.

One thing, however, did begin to loom out of the general vagueness,and to this he instinctively turned as trying to seize it—I mean,the fact that he was saving very few souls, whereas there were thousandsand thousands being lost hourly all around him which a little energysuch as Mr Hawke’s might save. Day after day went by, andwhat was he doing? Standing on professional etiquette,and praying that his shares might go up and down as he wanted them,so that they might give him money enough to enable him to regeneratethe universe. But in the meantime the people were dying.How many souls would not be doomed to endless ages of the most frightfultorments that the mind could think of, before he could bring his spiritualpathology engine to bear upon them? Why might he not stand andpreach as he saw the Dissenters doing sometimes in Lincoln’s InnFields and other thoroughfares? He could say all that Mr Hawkehad said. Mr Hawke was a very poor creature in Ernest’seyes now, for he was a Low Churchman, but we should not be above learningfrom any one, and surely he could affect his hearers as powerfully asMr Hawke had affected him if he only had the courage to set to work.The people whom he saw preaching in the squares sometimes drew largeaudiences. He could at any rate preach better than they.

Ernest broached this to Pryer, who treated it as something too outrageousto be even thought of. Nothing, he said, could more tend to lowerthe dignity of the clergy and bring the Church into contempt.His manner was brusque, and even rude.

Ernest ventured a little mild dissent; he admitted it was not usual,but something at any rate must be done, and that quickly. Thiswas how Wesley and Whitfield had begun that great movement which hadkindled religious life in the minds of hundreds of thousands.This was no time to be standing on dignity. It was just becauseWesley and Whitfield had done what the Church would not that they hadwon men to follow them whom the Church had now lost.

Pryer eyed Ernest searchingly, and after a pause said, “I don’tknow what to make of you, Pontifex; you are at once so very right andso very wrong. I agree with you heartily that something shouldbe done, but it must not be done in a way which experience has shownleads to nothing but fanaticism and dissent. Do you approve ofthese Wesleyans? Do you hold your ordination vows so cheaply asto think that it does not matter whether the services of the Churchare performed in her churches and with all due ceremony or not?If you do—then, frankly, you had no business to be ordained; ifyou do not, then remember that one of the first duties of a young deaconis obedience to authority. Neither the Catholic Church, nor yetthe Church of England allows her clergy to preach in the streets ofcities where there is no lack of churches.”

Ernest felt the force of this, and Pryer saw that he wavered.

“We are living,” he continued more genially, “inan age of transition, and in a country which, though it has gained muchby the Reformation, does not perceive how much it has also lost.You cannot and must not hawk Christ about in the streets as though youwere in a heathen country whose inhabitants had never heard of him.The people here in London have had ample warning. Every churchthey pass is a protest to them against their lives, and a call to themto repent. Every church-bell they hear is a witness against them,everyone of those whom they meet on Sundays going to or coming fromchurch is a warning voice from God. If these countless influencesproduce no effect upon them, neither will the few transient words whichthey would hear from you. You are like Dives, and think that ifone rose from the dead they would hear him. Perhaps they might;but then you cannot pretend that you have risen from the dead.”

Though the last few words were spoken laughingly, there was a sub-sneerabout them which made Ernest wince; but he was quite subdued, and sothe conversation ended. It left Ernest, however, not for the firsttime, consciously dissatisfied with Pryer, and inclined to set his friend’sopinion on one side—not openly, but quietly, and without tellingPryer anything about it.

CHAPTER LVII

He had hardly parted from Pryer before there occurred another incidentwhich strengthened his discontent. He had fallen, as I have shown,among a gang of spiritual thieves or coiners, who passed the basestmetal upon him without his finding it out, so childish and inexperiencedwas he in the ways of anything but those back eddies of the world, schoolsand universities. Among the bad threepenny pieces which had beenpassed off upon him, and which he kept for small hourly disbursem*nt,was a remark that poor people were much nicer than the richer and bettereducated. Ernest now said that he always travelled third classnot because it was cheaper, but because the people whom he met in thirdclass carriages were so much pleasanter and better behaved. Asfor the young men who attended Ernest’s evening classes, theywere pronounced to be more intelligent and better ordered generallythan the average run of Oxford and Cambridge men. Our foolishyoung friend having heard Pryer talk to this effect, caught up all hesaid and reproduced it more suo.

One evening, however, about this time, whom should he see comingalong a small street not far from his own but, of all persons in theworld, Towneley, looking as full of life and good spirits as ever, andif possible even handsomer than he had been at Cambridge. Muchas Ernest liked him he found himself shrinking from speaking to him,and was endeavouring to pass him without doing so when Towneley sawhim and stopped him at once, being pleased to see an old Cambridge face.He seemed for the moment a little confused at being seen in such a neighbourhood,but recovered himself so soon that Ernest hardly noticed it, and thenplunged into a few kindly remarks about old times. Ernest feltthat he quailed as he saw Towneley’s eye wander to his white necktieand saw that he was being reckoned up, and rather disapprovingly reckonedup, as a parson. It was the merest passing shade upon Towneley’sface, but Ernest had felt it.

Towneley said a few words of common form to Ernest about his professionas being what he thought would be most likely to interest him, and Ernest,still confused and shy, gave him for lack of something better to sayhis little threepenny-bit about poor people being so very nice.Towneley took this for what it was worth and nodded assent, whereonErnest imprudently went further and said “Don’t you likepoor people very much yourself?”

Towneley gave his face a comical but good-natured screw, and saidquietly, but slowly and decidedly, “No, no, no,” and escaped.

It was all over with Ernest from that moment. As usual he didnot know it, but he had entered none the less upon another reaction.Towneley had just taken Ernest’s threepenny-bit into his hands,looked at it and returned it to him as a bad one. Why did he seein a moment that it was a bad one now, though he had been unable tosee it when he had taken it from Pryer? Of course some poor peoplewere very nice, and always would be so, but as though scales had fallensuddenly from his eyes he saw that no one was nicer for being poor,and that between the upper and lower classes there was a gulf whichamounted practically to an impassable barrier.

That evening he reflected a good deal. If Towneley was right,and Ernest felt that the “No” had applied not to the remarkabout poor people only, but to the whole scheme and scope of his ownrecently adopted ideas, he and Pryer must surely be on a wrong track.Towneley had not argued with him; he had said one word only, and thatone of the shortest in the language, but Ernest was in a fit state forinoculation, and the minute particle of virus set about working immediately.

Which did he now think was most likely to have taken the juster viewof life and things, and whom would it be best to imitate, Towneley orPryer? His heart returned answer to itself without a moment’shesitation. The faces of men like Towneley were open and kindly;they looked as if at ease themselves, and as though they would set allwho had to do with them at ease as far as might be. The facesof Pryer and his friends were not like this. Why had he felt tacitlyrebuked as soon as he had met Towneley? Was he not a Christian?Certainly; he believed in the Church of England as a matter of course.Then how could he be himself wrong in trying to act up to the faiththat he and Towneley held in common? He was trying to lead a quiet,unobtrusive life of self-devotion, whereas Towneley was not, so faras he could see, trying to do anything of the kind; he was only tryingto get on comfortably in the world, and to look and be as nice as possible.And he was nice, and Ernest knew that such men as himself and Pryerwere not nice, and his old dejection came over him.

Then came an even worse reflection; how if he had fallen among materialthieves as well as spiritual ones? He knew very little of howhis money was going on; he had put it all now into Pryer’s hands,and though Pryer gave him cash to spend whenever he wanted it, he seemedimpatient of being questioned as to what was being done with the principal.It was part of the understanding, he said, that that was to be leftto him, and Ernest had better stick to this, or he, Pryer, would throwup the College of Spiritual Pathology altogether; and so Ernest wascowed into acquiescence, or cajoled, according to the humour in whichPryer saw him to be. Ernest thought that further questions wouldlook as if he doubted Pryer’s word, and also that he had gonetoo far to be able to recede in decency or honour. This, however,he felt was riding out to meet trouble unnecessarily. Pryer hadbeen a little impatient, but he was a gentleman and an admirable manof business, so his money would doubtless come back to him all rightsome day.

Ernest comforted himself as regards this last source of anxiety,but as regards the other, he began to feel as though, if he was to besaved, a good Samaritan must hurry up from somewhere—he knew notwhence.

CHAPTER LVIII

Next day he felt stronger again. He had been listening to thevoice of the evil one on the night before, and would parley no morewith such thoughts. He had chosen his profession, and his dutywas to persevere with it. If he was unhappy it was probably becausehe was not giving up all for Christ. Let him see whether he couldnot do more than he was doing now, and then perhaps a light would beshed upon his path.

It was all very well to have made the discovery that he didn’tvery much like poor people, but he had got to put up with them, forit was among them that his work must lie. Such men as Towneleywere very kind and considerate, but he knew well enough it was onlyon condition that he did not preach to them. He could manage thepoor better, and, let Pryer sneer as he liked, he was resolved to gomore among them, and try the effect of bringing Christ to them if theywould not come and seek Christ of themselves. He would begin withhis own house.

Who then should he take first? Surely he could not do betterthan begin with the tailor who lived immediately over his head.This would be desirable, not only because he was the one who seemedto stand most in need of conversion, but also because, if he were onceconverted, he would no longer beat his wife at two o’clock inthe morning, and the house would be much pleasanter in consequence.He would therefore go upstairs at once, and have a quiet talk with thisman.

Before doing so, he thought it would be well if he were to draw upsomething like a plan of a campaign; he therefore reflected over somepretty conversations which would do very nicely if Mr Holt would bekind enough to make the answers proposed for him in their proper places.But the man was a great hulking fellow, of a savage temper, and Ernestwas forced to admit that unforeseen developments might arise to disconcerthim. They say it takes nine tailors to make a man, but Ernestfelt that it would take at least nine Ernests to make a Mr Holt.How if, as soon as Ernest came in, the tailor were to become violentand abusive? What could he do? Mr Holt was in his own lodgings,and had a right to be undisturbed. A legal right, yes, but hadhe a moral right? Ernest thought not, considering his mode oflife. But put this on one side; if the man were to be violent,what should he do? Paul had fought with wild beasts at Ephesus—thatmust indeed have been awful—but perhaps they were not very wildwild beasts; a rabbit and a canary are wild beasts; but, formidableor not as wild beasts go, they would, nevertheless stand no chance againstSt Paul, for he was inspired; the miracle would have been if the wildbeasts escaped, not that St Paul should have done so; but, however allthis might be, Ernest felt that he dared not begin to convert Mr Holtby fighting him. Why, when he had heard Mrs Holt screaming “murder,”he had cowered under the bed clothes and waited, expecting to hear theblood dripping through the ceiling on to his own floor. His imaginationtranslated every sound into a pat, pat, pat, and once or twice he thoughthe had felt it dropping on to his counterpane, but he had never goneupstairs to try and rescue poor Mrs Holt. Happily it had provednext morning that Mrs Holt was in her usual health.

Ernest was in despair about hitting on any good way of opening upspiritual communication with his neighbour, when it occurred to himthat he had better perhaps begin by going upstairs, and knocking verygently at Mr Holt’s door. He would then resign himself tothe guidance of the Holy Spirit, and act as the occasion, which, I suppose,was another name for the Holy Spirit, suggested. Triply armedwith this reflection, he mounted the stairs quite jauntily, and wasabout to knock when he heard Holt’s voice inside swearing savagelyat his wife. This made him pause to think whether after all themoment was an auspicious one, and while he was thus pausing, Mr Holt,who had heard that someone was on the stairs, opened the door and puthis head out. When he saw Ernest, he made an unpleasant, not tosay offensive movement, which might or might not have been directedat Ernest and looked altogether so ugly that my hero had an instantaneousand unequivocal revelation from the Holy Spirit to the effect that heshould continue his journey upstairs at once, as though he had neverintended arresting it at Mr Holt’s room, and begin by convertingMr and Mrs Baxter, the Methodists in the top floor front. So thiswas what he did.

These good people received him with open arms, and were quite readyto talk. He was beginning to convert them from Methodism to theChurch of England, when all at once he found himself embarrassed bydiscovering that he did not know what he was to convert them from.He knew the Church of England, or thought he did, but he knew nothingof Methodism beyond its name. When he found that, according toMr Baxter, the Wesleyans had a vigorous system of Church discipline(which worked admirably in practice) it appeared to him that John Wesleyhad anticipated the spiritual engine which he and Pryer were preparing,and when he left the room he was aware that he had caught more of aspiritual Tartar than he had expected. But he must certainly explainto Pryer that the Wesleyans had a system of Church discipline.This was very important.

Mr Baxter advised Ernest on no account to meddle with Mr Holt, andErnest was much relieved at the advice. If an opportunity aroseof touching the man’s heart, he would take it; he would pat thechildren on the head when he saw them on the stairs, and ingratiatehimself with them as far as he dared; they were sturdy youngsters, andErnest was afraid even of them, for they were ready with their tongues,and knew much for their ages. Ernest felt that it would indeedbe almost better for him that a millstone should be hanged about hisneck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of thelittle Holts. However, he would try not to offend them; perhapsan occasional penny or two might square them. This was as muchas he could do, for he saw that the attempt to be instant out of season,as well as in season, would, St Paul’s injunction notwithstanding,end in failure.

Mrs Baxter gave a very bad account of Miss Emily Snow, who lodgedin the second floor back next to Mr Holt. Her story was quitedifferent from that of Mrs Jupp the landlady. She would doubtlessbe only too glad to receive Ernest’s ministrations or those ofany other gentleman, but she was no governess, she was in the balletat Drury Lane, and besides this, she was a very bad young woman, andif Mrs Baxter was landlady would not be allowed to stay in the housea single hour, not she indeed.

Miss Maitland in the next room to Mrs Baxter’s own was a quietand respectable young woman to all appearance; Mrs Baxter had neverknown of any goings on in that quarter, but, bless you, still watersrun deep, and these girls were all alike, one as bad as the other.She was out at all kinds of hours, and when you knew that you knew all.

Ernest did not pay much heed to these aspersions of Mrs Baxter’s.Mrs Jupp had got round the greater number of his many blind sides, andhad warned him not to believe Mrs Baxter, whose lip she said was somethingawful.

Ernest had heard that women were always jealous of one another, andcertainly these young women were more attractive than Mrs Baxter was,so jealousy was probably at the bottom of it. If they were malignedthere could be no objection to his making their acquaintance; if notmaligned they had all the more need of his ministrations. He wouldreclaim them at once.

He told Mrs Jupp of his intention. Mrs Jupp at first triedto dissuade him, but seeing him resolute, suggested that she shouldherself see Miss Snow first, so as to prepare her and prevent her frombeing alarmed by his visit. She was not at home now, but in thecourse of the next day, it should be arranged. In the meantimehe had better try Mr Shaw, the tinker, in the front kitchen. MrsBaxter had told Ernest that Mr Shaw was from the North Country, andan avowed freethinker; he would probably, she said, rather like a visit,but she did not think Ernest would stand much chance of making a convertof him.

CHAPTER LIX

Before going down into the kitchen to convert the tinker Ernest ranhurriedly over his analysis of Paley’s evidences, and put intohis pocket a copy of Archbishop Whateley’s “Historic Doubts.”Then he descended the dark rotten old stairs and knocked at the tinker’sdoor. Mr Shaw was very civil; he said he was rather throng justnow, but if Ernest did not mind the sound of hammering he should bevery glad of a talk with him. Our hero, assenting to this, erelong led the conversation to Whateley’s “Historic Doubts”—awork which, as the reader may know, pretends to show that there neverwas any such person as Napoleon Buonaparte, and thus satirises the argumentsof those who have attacked the Christian miracles.

Mr Shaw said he knew “Historic Doubts” very well.

“And what you think of it?” said Ernest, who regardedthe pamphlet as a masterpiece of wit and cogency.

“If you really want to know,” said Mr Shaw, with a slytwinkle, “I think that he who was so willing and able to provethat what was was not, would be equally able and willing to make a casefor thinking that what was not was, if it suited his purpose.”Ernest was very much taken aback. How was it that all the cleverpeople of Cambridge had never put him up to this simple rejoinder?The answer is easy: they did not develop it for the same reason thata hen had never developed webbed feet—that is to say, becausethey did not want to do so; but this was before the days of Evolution,and Ernest could not as yet know anything of the great principle thatunderlies it.

“You see,” continued Mr Shaw, “these writers allget their living by writing in a certain way, and the more they writein that way, the more they are likely to get on. You should notcall them dishonest for this any more than a judge should call a barristerdishonest for earning his living by defending one in whose innocencehe does not seriously believe; but you should hear the barrister onthe other side before you decide upon the case.”

This was another facer. Ernest could only stammer that he hadendeavoured to examine these questions as carefully as he could.

“You think you have,” said Mr Shaw; “you Oxfordand Cambridge gentlemen think you have examined everything. Ihave examined very little myself except the bottoms of old kettles andsaucepans, but if you will answer me a few questions, I will tell youwhether or no you have examined much more than I have.”

Ernest expressed his readiness to be questioned.

“Then,” said the tinker, “give me the story ofthe Resurrection of Jesus Christ as told in St John’s gospel.”

I am sorry to say that Ernest mixed up the four accounts in a deplorablemanner; he even made the angel come down and roll away the stone andsit upon it. He was covered with confusion when the tinker firsttold him without the book of some of his many inaccuracies, and thenverified his criticisms by referring to the New Testament itself.

“Now,” said Mr Shaw good naturedly, “I am an oldman and you are a young one, so perhaps you’ll not mind my givingyou a piece of advice. I like you, for I believe you mean well,but you’ve been real bad brought up, and I don’t think youhave ever had so much as a chance yet. You know nothing of ourside of the question, and I have just shown you that you do not knowmuch more of your own, but I think you will make a kind of Carlyle sortof a man some day. Now go upstairs and read the accounts of theResurrection correctly without mixing them up, and have a clear ideaof what it is that each writer tells us, then if you feel inclined topay me another visit I shall be glad to see you, for I shall know youhave made a good beginning and mean business. Till then, Sir,I must wish you a very good morning.”

Ernest retreated abashed. An hour sufficed him to perform thetask enjoined upon him by Mr Shaw; and at the end of that hour the “No,no, no,” which still sounded in his ears as he heard it from Towneley,came ringing up more loudly still from the very pages of the Bible itself,and in respect of the most important of all the events which are recordedin it. Surely Ernest’s first day’s attempt at morepromiscuous visiting, and at carrying out his principles more thoroughly,had not been unfruitful. But he must go and have a talk with Pryer.He therefore got his lunch and went to Pryer’s lodgings.Pryer not being at home, he lounged to the British Museum Reading Room,then recently opened, sent for the “Vestiges of Creation,”which he had never yet seen, and spent the rest of the afternoon inreading it.

Ernest did not see Pryer on the day of his conversation with Mr Shaw,but he did so next morning and found him in a good temper, which oflate he had rarely been. Sometimes, indeed, he had behaved toErnest in a way which did not bode well for the harmony with which theCollege of Spiritual Pathology would work when it had once been founded.It almost seemed as though he were trying to get a complete moral ascendencyover him, so as to make him a creature of his own.

He did not think it possible that he could go too far, and indeed,when I reflect upon my hero’s folly and inexperience, there ismuch to be said in excuse for the conclusion which Pryer came to.

As a matter of fact, however, it was not so. Ernest’sfaith in Pryer had been too great to be shaken down all in a moment,but it had been weakened lately more than once. Ernest had foughthard against allowing himself to see this, nevertheless any third personwho knew the pair would have been able to see that the connection betweenthe two might end at any moment, for when the time for one of Ernest’ssnipe-like changes of flight came, he was quick in making it; the time,however, was not yet come, and the intimacy between the two was apparentlyall that it had ever been. It was only that horrid money business(so said Ernest to himself) that caused any unpleasantness between them,and no doubt Pryer was right, and he, Ernest, much too nervous.However, that might stand over for the present.

In like manner, though he had received a shock by reason of his conversationwith Mr Shaw, and by looking at the “Vestiges,” he was asyet too much stunned to realise the change which was coming over him.In each case the momentum of old habits carried him forward in the olddirection. He therefore called on Pryer, and spent an hour andmore with him.

He did not say that he had been visiting among his neighbours; thisto Pryer would have been like a red rag to a bull. He only talkedin much his usual vein about the proposed College, the lamentable wantof interest in spiritual things which was characteristic of modern society,and other kindred matters; he concluded by saying that for the presenthe feared Pryer was indeed right, and that nothing could be done.

“As regards the laity,” said Pryer, “nothing; notuntil we have a discipline which we can enforce with pains and penalties.How can a sheep dog work a flock of sheep unless he can bite occasionallyas well as bark? But as regards ourselves we can do much.”

Pryer’s manner was strange throughout the conversation, asthough he were thinking all the time of something else. His eyeswandered curiously over Ernest, as Ernest had often noticed them wanderbefore: the words were about Church discipline, but somehow or otherthe discipline part of the story had a knack of dropping out after havingbeen again and again emphatically declared to apply to the laity andnot to the clergy: once indeed Pryer had pettishly exclaimed: “Oh,bother the College of Spiritual Pathology.” As regards theclergy, glimpses of a pretty large cloven hoof kept peeping out fromunder the saintly robe of Pryer’s conversation, to the effect,that so long as they were theoretically perfect, practical peccadilloes—oreven peccadaccios, if there is such a word, were of less importance.He was restless, as though wanting to approach a subject which he didnot quite venture to touch upon, and kept harping (he did this aboutevery third day) on the wretched lack of definition concerning the limitsof vice and virtue, and the way in which half the vices wanted regulatingrather than prohibiting. He dwelt also on the advantages of completeunreserve, and hinted that there were mysteries into which Ernest hadnot yet been initiated, but which would enlighten him when he got toknow them, as he would be allowed to do when his friends saw that hewas strong enough.

Pryer had often been like this before, but never so nearly, as itseemed to Ernest, coming to a point—though what the point washe could not fully understand. His inquietude was communicatingitself to Ernest, who would probably ere long have come to know as muchas Pryer could tell him, but the conversation was abruptly interruptedby the appearance of a visitor. We shall never know how it wouldhave ended, for this was the very last time that Ernest ever saw Pryer.Perhaps Pryer was going to break to him some bad news about his speculations.

CHAPTER LX

Ernest now went home and occupied himself till luncheon with studyingDean Alford’s notes upon the various Evangelistic records of theResurrection, doing as Mr Shaw had told him, and trying to find outnot that they were all accurate, but whether they were all accurateor no. He did not care which result he should arrive at, but hewas resolved that he would reach one or the other. When he hadfinished Dean Alford’s notes he found them come to this, namely,that no one yet had succeeded in bringing the four accounts into tolerableharmony with each other, and that the Dean, seeing no chance of succeedingbetter than his predecessors had done, recommended that the whole storyshould be taken on trust—and this Ernest was not prepared to do.

He got his luncheon, went out for a long walk, and returned to dinnerat half past six. While Mrs Jupp was getting him his dinner—asteak and a pint of stout—she told him that Miss Snow would bevery happy to see him in about an hour’s time. This disconcertedhim, for his mind was too unsettled for him to wish to convert anyonejust then. He reflected a little, and found that, in spite ofthe sudden shock to his opinions, he was being irresistibly drawn topay the visit as though nothing had happened. It would not lookwell for him not to go, for he was known to be in the house. Heought not to be in too great a hurry to change his opinions on sucha matter as the evidence for Christ’s Resurrection all of a sudden—besideshe need not talk to Miss Snow about this subject to-day—therewere other things he might talk about. What other things?Ernest felt his heart beat fast and fiercely, and an inward monitorwarned him that he was thinking of anything rather than of Miss Snow’ssoul.

What should he do? Fly, fly, fly—it was the only safety.But would Christ have fled? Even though Christ had not died andrisen from the dead there could be no question that He was the modelwhose example we were bound to follow. Christ would not have fledfrom Miss Snow; he was sure of that, for He went about more especiallywith prostitutes and disreputable people. Now, as then, it wasthe business of the true Christian to call not the righteous but sinnersto repentance. It would be inconvenient to him to change his lodgings,and he could not ask Mrs Jupp to turn Miss Snow and Miss Maitland outof the house. Where was he to draw the line? Who would bejust good enough to live in the same house with him, and who just notgood enough?

Besides, where were these poor girls to go? Was he to drivethem from house to house till they had no place to lie in? Itwas absurd; his duty was clear: he would go and see Miss Snow at once,and try if he could not induce her to change her present mode of life;if he found temptation becoming too strong for him he would fly then—sohe went upstairs with his Bible under his arm, and a consuming firein his heart.

He found Miss Snow looking very pretty in a neatly, not to say demurely,furnished room. I think she had bought an illuminated text ortwo, and pinned it up over her fireplace that morning. Ernestwas very much pleased with her, and mechanically placed his Bible uponthe table. He had just opened a timid conversation and was deepin blushes, when a hurried step came bounding up the stairs as thoughof one over whom the force of gravity had little power, and a man burstinto the room saying, “I’m come before my time.”It was Towneley.

His face dropped as he caught sight of Ernest. “What,you here, Pontifex! Well, upon my word!”

I cannot describe the hurried explanations that passed quickly betweenthe three—enough that in less than a minute Ernest, blushing morescarlet than ever, slunk off, Bible and all, deeply humiliated as hecontrasted himself and Towneley. Before he had reached the bottomof the staircase leading to his own room he heard Towneley’s heartylaugh through Miss Snow’s door, and cursed the hour that he wasborn.

Then it flashed upon him that if he could not see Miss Snow he couldat any rate see Miss Maitland. He knew well enough what he wantednow, and as for the Bible, he pushed it from him to the other end ofhis table. It fell over on to the floor, and he kicked it intoa corner. It was the Bible given him at his christening by hisaffectionate aunt, Elizabeth Allaby. True, he knew very littleof Miss Maitland, but ignorant young fools in Ernest’s state donot reflect or reason closely. Mrs Baxter had said that Miss Maitlandand Miss Snow were birds of a feather, and Mrs Baxter probably knewbetter than that old liar, Mrs Jupp. Shakespeare says:

O Opportunity, thy guilt is great
’Tis thou that execut’st the traitor’s treason:
Thou set’st the wolf where he the lamb may get;
Whoever plots the sin, thou ’point’st the season;
’Tis thou that spurn’st at right, at law, at reason;
And in thy shady cell, where none may spy him,
Sits Sin, to seize the souls that wander by him.

If the guilt of opportunity is great, how much greater is the guiltof that which is believed to be opportunity, but in reality is no opportunityat all. If the better part of valour is discretion, how much moreis not discretion the better part of vice

About ten minutes after we last saw Ernest, a scared, insulted girl,flushed and trembling, was seen hurrying from Mrs Jupp’s houseas fast as her agitated state would let her, and in another ten minutestwo policemen were seen also coming out of Mrs Jupp’s, betweenwhom there shambled rather than walked our unhappy friend Ernest, withstaring eyes, ghastly pale, and with despair branded upon every lineof his face.

CHAPTER LXI

Pryer had done well to warn Ernest against promiscuous house to housevisitation. He had not gone outside Mrs Jupp’s street door,and yet what had been the result?

Mr Holt had put him in bodily fear; Mr and Mrs Baxter had nearlymade a Methodist of him; Mr Shaw had undermined his faith in the Resurrection;Miss Snow’s charms had ruined—or would have done so butfor an accident—his moral character. As for Miss Maitland,he had done his best to ruin hers, and had damaged himself gravely andirretrievably in consequence. The only lodger who had done himno harm was the bellows’ mender, whom he had not visited.

Other young clergymen, much greater fools in many respects than he,would not have got into these scrapes. He seemed to have developedan aptitude for mischief almost from the day of his having been ordained.He could hardly preach without making some horrid faux pas.He preached one Sunday morning when the Bishop was at his Rector’schurch, and made his sermon turn upon the question what kind of littlecake it was that the widow of Zarephath had intended making when Elijahfound her gathering a few sticks. He demonstrated that it wasa seed cake. The sermon was really very amusing, and more thanonce he saw a smile pass over the sea of faces underneath him.The Bishop was very angry, and gave my hero a severe reprimand in thevestry after service was over; the only excuse he could make was thathe was preaching ex tempore, had not thought of this particularpoint till he was actually in the pulpit, and had then been carriedaway by it.

Another time he preached upon the barren fig-tree, and describedthe hopes of the owner as he watched the delicate blossom unfold, andgive promise of such beautiful fruit in autumn. Next day he receiveda letter from a botanical member of his congregation who explained tohim that this could hardly have been, inasmuch as the fig produces itsfruit first and blossoms inside the fruit, or so nearly so that no floweris perceptible to an ordinary observer. This last, however, wasan accident which might have happened to any one but a scientist oran inspired writer.

The only excuse I can make for him is that he was very young—notyet four and twenty—and that in mind as in body, like most ofthose who in the end come to think for themselves, he was a slow grower.By far the greater part, moreover, of his education had been an attempt,not so much to keep him in blinkers as to gouge his eyes out altogether.

But to return to my story. It transpired afterwards that MissMaitland had had no intention of giving Ernest in charge when she ranout of Mrs Jupp’s house. She was running away because shewas frightened, but almost the first person whom she ran against hadhappened to be a policeman of a serious turn of mind, who wished togain a reputation for activity. He stopped her, questioned her,frightened her still more, and it was he rather than Miss Maitland,who insisted on giving my hero in charge to himself and another constable.

Towneley was still in Mrs Jupp’s house when the policeman came.He had heard a disturbance, and going down to Ernest’s room whileMiss Maitland was out of doors, had found him lying, as it were, stunnedat the foot of the moral precipice over which he had that moment fallen.He saw the whole thing at a glance, but before he could take action,the policemen came in and action became impossible.

He asked Ernest who were his friends in London. Ernest at firstwanted not to say, but Towneley soon gave him to understand that hemust do as he was bid, and selected myself from the few whom he hadnamed. “Writes for the stage, does he?” said Towneley.“Does he write comedy?” Ernest thought Towneley meantthat I ought to write tragedy, and said he was afraid I wrote burlesque.“Oh, come, come,” said Towneley, “that will do famously.I will go and see him at once.” But on second thoughts hedetermined to stay with Ernest and go with him to the police court.So he sent Mrs Jupp for me. Mrs Jupp hurried so fast to fetchme, that in spite of the weather’s being still cold she was “givingout,” as she expressed it, in streams. The poor old wretchwould have taken a cab, but she had no money and did not like to askTowneley to give her some. I saw that something very serious hadhappened, but was not prepared for anything so deplorable as what MrsJupp actually told me. As for Mrs Jupp, she said her heart hadbeen jumping out of its socket and back again ever since.

I got her into a cab with me, and we went off to the police station.She talked without ceasing.

“And if the neighbours do say cruel things about me, I’msure it ain’t no thanks to him if they’re true.Mr Pontifex never took a bit o’ notice of me no more than if Ihad been his sister. Oh, it’s enough to make anyone’sback bone curdle. Then I thought perhaps my Rose might get onbetter with him, so I set her to dust him and clean him as though Iwere busy, and gave her such a beautiful clean new pinny, but he nevertook no notice of her no more than he did of me, and she didn’twant no compliment neither, she wouldn’t have taken not a shillingfrom him, though he had offered it, but he didn’t seem to knowanything at all. I can’t make out what the young men area-coming to; I wish the horn may blow for me and the worms take me thisvery night, if it’s not enough to make a woman stand before Godand strike the one half on ’em silly to see the way they goeson, and many an honest girl has to go home night after night withoutso much as a fourpenny bit and paying three and sixpence a week rent,and not a shelf nor cupboard in the place and a dead wall in front ofthe window.

“It’s not Mr Pontifex,” she continued, “that’sso bad, he’s good at heart. He never says nothing unkind.And then there’s his dear eyes—but when I speak about thatto my Rose she calls me an old fool and says I ought to be poleaxed.It’s that Pryer as I can’t abide. Oh he! Helikes to wound a woman’s feelings he do, and to chuck anythingin her face, he do—he likes to wind a woman up and to wound herdown.” (Mrs Jupp pronounced “wound” as thoughit rhymed to “sound.”) “It’s a gentleman’splace to soothe a woman, but he, he’d like to tear her hair outby handfuls. Why, he told me to my face that I was a-getting old;old indeed! there’s not a woman in London knows my age exceptMrs Davis down in the Old Kent Road, and beyond a haricot vein in oneof my legs I’m as young as ever I was. Old indeed!There’s many a good tune played on an old fiddle. I hatehis nasty insinuendos.”

Even if I had wanted to stop her, I could not have done so.She said a great deal more than I have given above. I have leftout much because I could not remember it, but still more because itwas really impossible for me to print it.

When we got to the police station I found Towneley and Ernest alreadythere. The charge was one of assault, but not aggravated by seriousviolence. Even so, however, it was lamentable enough, and we bothsaw that our young friend would have to pay dearly for his inexperience.We tried to bail him out for the night, but the Inspector would notaccept bail, so we were forced to leave him.

Towneley then went back to Mrs Jupp’s to see if he could findMiss Maitland and arrange matters with her. She was not there,but he traced her to the house of her father, who lived at Camberwell.The father was furious and would not hear of any intercession on Towneley’spart. He was a Dissenter, and glad to make the most of any scandalagainst a clergyman; Towneley, therefore, was obliged to return unsuccessful.

Next morning, Towneley—who regarded Ernest as a drowning man,who must be picked out of the water somehow or other if possible, irrespectiveof the way in which he got into it—called on me, and we put thematter into the hands of one of the best known attorneys of the day.I was greatly pleased with Towneley, and thought it due to him to tellhim what I had told no one else. I mean that Ernest would comeinto his aunt’s money in a few years’ time, and would thereforethen be rich.

Towneley was doing all he could before this, but I knew that theknowledge I had imparted to him would make him feel as though Ernestwas more one of his own class, and had therefore a greater claim uponhis good offices. As for Ernest himself, his gratitude was greaterthan could be expressed in words. I have heard him say that hecan call to mind many moments, each one of which might well pass forthe happiest of his life, but that this night stands clearly out asthe most painful that he ever passed, yet so kind and considerate wasTowneley that it was quite bearable.

But with all the best wishes in the world neither Towneley nor Icould do much to help beyond giving our moral support. Our attorneytold us that the magistrate before whom Ernest would appear was verysevere on cases of this description, and that the fact of his beinga clergyman would tell against him. “Ask for no remand,”he said, “and make no defence. We will call Mr Pontifex’srector and you two gentlemen as witnesses for previous good character.These will be enough. Let us then make a profound apology andbeg the magistrate to deal with the case summarily instead of sendingit for trial. If you can get this, believe me, your young friendwill be better out of it than he has any right to expect.”

CHAPTER LXII

This advice, besides being obviously sensible, would end in savingErnest both time and suspense of mind, so we had no hesitation in adoptingit. The case was called on about eleven o’clock, but wegot it adjourned till three, so as to give time for Ernest to set hisaffairs as straight as he could, and to execute a power of attorneyenabling me to act for him as I should think fit while he was in prison.

Then all came out about Pryer and the College of Spiritual Pathology.Ernest had even greater difficulty in making a clean breast of thisthan he had had in telling us about Miss Maitland, but he told us all,and the upshot was that he had actually handed over to Pryer every halfpennythat he then possessed with no other security than Pryer’s I.O.U.’sfor the amount. Ernest, though still declining to believe thatPryer could be guilty of dishonourable conduct, was becoming alive tothe folly of what he had been doing; he still made sure, however, ofrecovering, at any rate, the greater part of his property as soon asPryer should have had time to sell. Towneley and I were of a differentopinion, but we did not say what we thought.

It was dreary work waiting all the morning amid such unfamiliar anddepressing surroundings. I thought how the Psalmist had exclaimedwith quiet irony, “One day in thy courts is better than a thousand,”and I thought that I could utter a very similar sentiment in respectof the Courts in which Towneley and I were compelled to loiter.At last, about three o’clock the case was called on, and we wentround to the part of the court which is reserved for the general public,while Ernest was taken into the prisoner’s dock. As soonas he had collected himself sufficiently he recognised the magistrateas the old gentleman who had spoken to him in the train on the day hewas leaving school, and saw, or thought he saw, to his great grief,that he too was recognised.

Mr Ottery, for this was our attorney’s name, took the linehe had proposed. He called no other witnesses than the rector,Towneley and myself, and threw himself on the mercy of the magistrate.When he had concluded, the magistrate spoke as follows: “ErnestPontifex, yours is one of the most painful cases that I have ever hadto deal with. You have been singularly favoured in your parentageand education. You have had before you the example of blamelessparents, who doubtless instilled into you from childhood the enormityof the offence which by your own confession you have committed.You were sent to one of the best public schools in England. Itis not likely that in the healthy atmosphere of such a school as Roughboroughyou can have come across contaminating influences; you were probably,I may say certainly, impressed at school with the heinousness of anyattempt to depart from the strictest chastity until such time as youhad entered into a state of matrimony. At Cambridge you were shieldedfrom impurity by every obstacle which virtuous and vigilant authoritiescould devise, and even had the obstacles been fewer, your parents probablytook care that your means should not admit of your throwing money awayupon abandoned characters. At night proctors patrolled the streetand dogged your steps if you tried to go into any haunt where the presenceof vice was suspected. By day the females who were admitted withinthe college walls were selected mainly on the score of age and ugliness.It is hard to see what more can be done for any young man than this.For the last four or five months you have been a clergyman, and if asingle impure thought had still remained within your mind, ordinationshould have removed it: nevertheless, not only does it appear that yourmind is as impure as though none of the influences to which I have referredhad been brought to bear upon it, but it seems as though their onlyresult had been this—that you have not even the common sense tobe able to distinguish between a respectable girl and a prostitute.

“If I were to take a strict view of my duty I should commityou for trial, but in consideration of this being your first offence,I shall deal leniently with you and sentence you to imprisonment withhard labour for six calendar months.”

Towneley and I both thought there was a touch of irony in the magistrate’sspeech, and that he could have given a lighter sentence if he would,but that was neither here nor there. We obtained leave to seeErnest for a few minutes before he was removed to Coldbath Fields, wherehe was to serve his term, and found him so thankful to have been summarilydealt with that he hardly seemed to care about the miserable plightin which he was to pass the next six months. When he came out,he said, he would take what remained of his money, go off to Americaor Australia and never be heard of more.

We left him full of this resolve, I, to write to Theobald, and alsoto instruct my solicitor to get Ernest’s money out of Pryer’shands, and Towneley to see the reporters and keep the case out of thenewspapers. He was successful as regards all the higher-classpapers. There was only one journal, and that of the lowest class,which was incorruptible.

CHAPTER LXIII

I saw my solicitor at once, but when I tried to write to Theobald,I found it better to say I would run down and see him. I thereforeproposed this, asking him to meet me at the station, and hinting thatI must bring bad news about his son. I knew he would not get myletter more than a couple of hours before I should see him, and thoughtthe short interval of suspense might break the shock of what I had tosay.

Never do I remember to have halted more between two opinions thanon my journey to Battersby upon this unhappy errand. When I thoughtof the little sallow-faced lad whom I had remembered years before, ofthe long and savage cruelty with which he had been treated in childhood—crueltynone the less real for having been due to ignorance and stupidity ratherthan to deliberate malice; of the atmosphere of lying and self-laudatoryhallucination in which he had been brought up; of the readiness theboy had shown to love anything that would be good enough to let him,and of how affection for his parents, unless I am much mistaken, hadonly died in him because it had been killed anew, again and again andagain, each time that it had tried to spring. When I thought ofall this I felt as though, if the matter had rested with me, I wouldhave sentenced Theobald and Christina to mental suffering even moresevere than that which was about to fall upon them. But on theother hand, when I thought of Theobald’s own childhood, of thatdreadful old George Pontifex his father, of John and Mrs John, and ofhis two sisters, when again I thought of Christina’s long yearsof hope deferred that maketh the heart sick, before she was married,of the life she must have led at Crampsford, and of the surroundingsin the midst of which she and her husband both lived at Battersby, Ifelt as though the wonder was that misfortunes so persistent had notbeen followed by even graver retribution.

Poor people! They had tried to keep their ignorance of theworld from themselves by calling it the pursuit of heavenly things,and then shutting their eyes to anything that might give them trouble.A son having been born to them they had shut his eyes also as far aswas practicable. Who could blame them? They had chapterand verse for everything they had either done or left undone; thereis no better thumbed precedent than that for being a clergyman and aclergyman’s wife. In what respect had they differed fromtheir neighbours? How did their household differ from that ofany other clergyman of the better sort from one end of England to theother? Why then should it have been upon them, of all people inthe world, that this tower of Siloam had fallen?

Surely it was the tower of Siloam that was naught rather than thosewho stood under it; it was the system rather than the people that wasat fault. If Theobald and his wife had but known more of the worldand of the things that are therein, they would have done little harmto anyone. Selfish they would have always been, but not more sothan may very well be pardoned, and not more than other people wouldbe. As it was, the case was hopeless; it would be no use theireven entering into their mothers’ wombs and being born again.They must not only be born again but they must be born again each oneof them of a new father and of a new mother and of a different lineof ancestry for many generations before their minds could become suppleenough to learn anew. The only thing to do with them was to humourthem and make the best of them till they died—and be thankfulwhen they did so.

Theobald got my letter as I had expected, and met me at the stationnearest to Battersby. As I walked back with him towards his ownhouse I broke the news to him as gently as I could. I pretendedthat the whole thing was in great measure a mistake, and that thoughErnest no doubt had had intentions which he ought to have resisted,he had not meant going anything like the length which Miss Maitlandsupposed. I said we had felt how much appearances were againsthim, and had not dared to set up this defence before the magistrate,though we had no doubt about its being the true one.

Theobald acted with a readier and acuter moral sense than I had givenhim credit for.

“I will have nothing more to do with him,” he exclaimedpromptly, “I will never see his face again; do not let him writeeither to me or to his mother; we know of no such person. Tellhim you have seen me, and that from this day forward I shall put himout of my mind as though he had never been born. I have been agood father to him, and his mother idolised him; selfishness and ingratitudehave been the only return we have ever had from him; my hope henceforthmust be in my remaining children.”

I told him how Ernest’s fellow curate had got hold of his money,and hinted that he might very likely be penniless, or nearly so, onleaving prison. Theobald did not seem displeased at this, butadded soon afterwards: “If this proves to be the case, tell himfrom me that I will give him a hundred pounds if he will tell me throughyou when he will have it paid, but tell him not to write and thank me,and say that if he attempts to open up direct communication either withhis mother or myself, he shall not have a penny of the money.”

Knowing what I knew, and having determined on violating Miss Pontifex’sinstructions should the occasion arise, I did not think Ernest wouldbe any the worse for a complete estrangement from his family, so I acquiescedmore readily in what Theobald had proposed than that gentleman may haveexpected.

Thinking it better that I should not see Christina, I left Theobaldnear Battersby and walked back to the station. On my way I waspleased to reflect that Ernest’s father was less of a fool thanI had taken him to be, and had the greater hopes, therefore, that hisson’s blunders might be due to postnatal, rather than congenitalmisfortunes. Accidents which happen to a man before he is born,in the persons of his ancestors, will, if he remembers them at all,leave an indelible impression on him; they will have moulded his characterso that, do what he will, it is hardly possible for him to escape theirconsequences. If a man is to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven,he must do so, not only as a little child, but as a little embryo, orrather as a little zoosperm—and not only this, but as one thathas come of zoosperms which have entered into the Kingdom of Heavenbefore him for many generations. Accidents which occur for thefirst time, and belong to the period since a man’s last birth,are not, as a general rule, so permanent in their effects, though ofcourse they may sometimes be so. At any rate, I was not displeasedat the view which Ernest’s father took of the situation.

CHAPTER LXIV

After Ernest had been sentenced, he was taken back to the cells towait for the van which should take him to Coldbath Fields, where hewas to serve his term.

He was still too stunned and dazed by the suddenness with which eventshad happened during the last twenty-four hours to be able to realisehis position. A great chasm had opened between his past and future;nevertheless he breathed, his pulse beat, he could think and speak.It seemed to him that he ought to be prostrated by the blow that hadfallen on him, but he was not prostrated; he had suffered from manysmaller laches far more acutely. It was not until he thought ofthe pain his disgrace would inflict on his father and mother that hefelt how readily he would have given up all he had, rather than havefallen into his present plight. It would break his mother’sheart. It must, he knew it would—and it was he who had donethis.

He had had a headache coming on all the forenoon, but as he thoughtof his father and mother, his pulse quickened, and the pain in his headsuddenly became intense. He could hardly walk to the van, andhe found its motion insupportable. On reaching the prison he wastoo ill to walk without assistance across the hall to the corridor orgallery where prisoners are marshalled on their arrival. The prisonwarder, seeing at once that he was a clergyman, did not suppose he wasshamming, as he might have done in the case of an old gaol-bird; hetherefore sent for the doctor. When this gentleman arrived, Ernestwas declared to be suffering from an incipient attack of brain fever,and was taken away to the infirmary. Here he hovered for the nexttwo months between life and death, never in full possession of his reasonand often delirious, but at last, contrary to the expectation of bothdoctor and nurse, he began slowly to recover.

It is said that those who have been nearly drowned, find the returnto consciousness much more painful than the loss of it had been, andso it was with my hero. As he lay helpless and feeble, it seemedto him a refinement of cruelty that he had not died once for all duringhis delirium. He thought he should still most likely recover onlyto sink a little later on from shame and sorrow; nevertheless from dayto day he mended, though so slowly that he could hardly realise it tohimself. One afternoon, however, about three weeks after he hadregained consciousness, the nurse who tended him, and who had been verykind to him, made some little rallying sally which amused him; he laughed,and as he did so, she clapped her hands and told him he would be a managain. The spark of hope was kindled, and again he wished to live.Almost from that moment his thoughts began to turn less to the horrorsof the past, and more to the best way of meeting the future.

His worst pain was on behalf of his father and mother, and how heshould again face them. It still seemed to him that the best thingboth for him and them would be that he should sever himself from themcompletely, take whatever money he could recover from Pryer, and goto some place in the uttermost parts of the earth, where he should nevermeet anyone who had known him at school or college, and start afresh.Or perhaps he might go to the gold fields in California or Australia,of which such wonderful accounts were then heard; there he might evenmake his fortune, and return as an old man many years hence, unknownto everyone, and if so, he would live at Cambridge. As he builtthese castles in the air, the spark of life became a flame, and he longedfor health, and for the freedom which, now that so much of his sentencehad expired, was not after all very far distant.

Then things began to shape themselves more definitely. Whateverhappened he would be a clergyman no longer. It would have beenpractically impossible for him to have found another curacy, even ifhe had been so minded, but he was not so minded. He hated thelife he had been leading ever since he had begun to read for orders;he could not argue about it, but simply he loathed it and would haveno more of it. As he dwelt on the prospect of becoming a laymanagain, however disgraced, he rejoiced at what had befallen him, andfound a blessing in this very imprisonment which had at first seemedsuch an unspeakable misfortune.

Perhaps the shock of so great a change in his surroundings had acceleratedchanges in his opinions, just as the cocoons of silkworms, when sentin baskets by rail, hatch before their time through the novelty of heatand jolting. But however this may be, his belief in the storiesconcerning the Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ, andhence his faith in all the other Christian miracles, had dropped offhim once and for ever. The investigation he had made in consequenceof Mr Shaw’s rebuke, hurried though it was, had left a deep impressionupon him, and now he was well enough to read he made the New Testamenthis chief study, going through it in the spirit which Mr Shaw had desiredof him, that is to say as one who wished neither to believe nor disbelieve,but cared only about finding out whether he ought to believe or no.The more he read in this spirit the more the balance seemed to lie infavour of unbelief, till, in the end, all further doubt became impossible,and he saw plainly enough that, whatever else might be true, the storythat Christ had died, come to life again, and been carried from earththrough clouds into the heavens could not now be accepted by unbiassedpeople. It was well he had found it out so soon. In oneway or another it was sure to meet him sooner or later. He wouldprobably have seen it years ago if he had not been hoodwinked by peoplewho were paid for hoodwinking him. What should he have done, heasked himself, if he had not made his present discovery till years laterwhen he was more deeply committed to the life of a clergyman?Should he have had the courage to face it, or would he not more probablyhave evolved some excellent reason for continuing to think as he hadthought hitherto? Should he have had the courage to break awayeven from his present curacy?

He thought not, and knew not whether to be more thankful for havingbeen shown his error or for having been caught up and twisted roundso that he could hardly err farther, almost at the very moment of hishaving discovered it. The price he had had to pay for this boonwas light as compared with the boon itself. What is too heavya price to pay for having duty made at once clear and easy of fulfilmentinstead of very difficult? He was sorry for his father and mother,and he was sorry for Miss Maitland, but he was no longer sorry for himself.

It puzzled him, however, that he should not have known how much hehad hated being a clergyman till now. He knew that he did notparticularly like it, but if anyone had asked him whether he actuallyhated it, he would have answered no. I suppose people almost alwayswant something external to themselves, to reveal to them their own likesand dislikes. Our most assured likings have for the most partbeen arrived at neither by introspection nor by any process of consciousreasoning, but by the bounding forth of the heart to welcome the gospelproclaimed to it by another. We hear some say that such and sucha thing is thus or thus, and in a moment the train that has been laidwithin us, but whose presence we knew not, flashes into consciousnessand perception.

Only a year ago he had bounded forth to welcome Mr Hawke’ssermon; since then he had bounded after a College of Spiritual Pathology;now he was in full cry after rationalism pure and simple; how couldhe be sure that his present state of mind would be more lasting thanhis previous ones? He could not be certain, but he felt as thoughhe were now on firmer ground than he had ever been before, and no matterhow fleeting his present opinions might prove to be, he could not butact according to them till he saw reason to change them. How impossible,he reflected, it would have been for him to do this, if he had remainedsurrounded by people like his father and mother, or Pryer and Pryer’sfriends, and his rector. He had been observing, reflecting, andassimilating all these months with no more consciousness of mental growththan a school-boy has of growth of body, but should he have been ableto admit his growth to himself, and to act up to his increased strengthif he had remained in constant close connection with people who assuredhim solemnly that he was under a hallucination? The combinationagainst him was greater than his unaided strength could have brokenthrough, and he felt doubtful how far any shock less severe than theone from which he was suffering would have sufficed to free him.

CHAPTER LXV

As he lay on his bed day after day slowly recovering he woke up tothe fact which most men arrive at sooner or later, I mean that veryfew care two straws about truth, or have any confidence that it is righterand better to believe what is true than what is untrue, even thoughbelief in the untruth may seem at first sight most expedient.Yet it is only these few who can be said to believe anything at all;the rest are simply unbelievers in disguise. Perhaps, after all,these last are right. They have numbers and prosperity on theirside. They have all which the rationalist appeals to as his testsof right and wrong. Right, according to him, is what seems rightto the majority of sensible, well-to-do people; we know of no safercriterion than this, but what does the decision thus arrived at involve?Simply this, that a conspiracy of silence about things whose truth wouldbe immediately apparent to disinterested enquirers is not only tolerablebut righteous on the part of those who profess to be and take moneyfor being par excellence guardians and teachers of truth.

Ernest saw no logical escape from this conclusion. He saw thatbelief on the part of the early Christians in the miraculous natureof Christ’s Resurrection was explicable, without any suppositionof miracle. The explanation lay under the eyes of anyone who choseto take a moderate degree of trouble; it had been put before the worldagain and again, and there had been no serious attempt to refute it.How was it that Dean Alford for example who had made the New Testamenthis speciality, could not or would not see what was so obvious to Ernesthimself? Could it be for any other reason than that he did notwant to see it, and if so was he not a traitor to the cause of truth?Yes, but was he not also a respectable and successful man, and werenot the vast majority of respectable and successful men, such for example,as all the bishops and archbishops, doing exactly as Dean Alford did,and did not this make their action right, no matter though it had beencannibalism or infanticide, or even habitual untruthfulness of mind?

Monstrous, odious falsehood! Ernest’s feeble pulse quickenedand his pale face flushed as this hateful view of life presented itselfto him in all its logical consistency. It was not the fact ofmost men being liars that shocked him—that was all right enough;but even the momentary doubt whether the few who were not liars oughtnot to become liars too. There was no hope left if this were so;if this were so, let him die, the sooner the better. “Lord,”he exclaimed inwardly, “I don’t believe one word of it.Strengthen Thou and confirm my disbelief.” It seemed tohim that he could never henceforth see a bishop going to consecrationwithout saying to himself: “There, but for the grace of God, wentErnest Pontifex.” It was no doing of his. He couldnot boast; if he had lived in the time of Christ he might himself havebeen an early Christian, or even an Apostle for aught he knew.On the whole he felt that he had much to be thankful for.

The conclusion, then, that it might be better to believe error thantruth should be ordered out of court at once, no matter by how cleara logic it had been arrived at; but what was the alternative?It was this, that our criterion of truth—i.e. that truth is whatcommends itself to the great majority of sensible and successful people—isnot infallible. The rule is sound, and covers by far the greaternumber of cases, but it has its exceptions.

He asked himself, what were they? Ah! that was a difficultmatter; there were so many, and the rules which governed them were sometimesso subtle, that mistakes always had and always would be made; it wasjust this that made it impossible to reduce life to an exact science.There was a rough and ready rule-of-thumb test of truth, and a numberof rules as regards exceptions which could be mastered without muchtrouble, yet there was a residue of cases in which decision was difficult—sodifficult that a man had better follow his instinct than attempt todecide them by any process of reasoning.

Instinct then is the ultimate court of appeal. And what isinstinct? It is a mode of faith in the evidence of things notactually seen. And so my hero returned almost to the point fromwhich he had started originally, namely that the just shall live byfaith.

And this is what the just—that is to say reasonable people—doas regards those daily affairs of life which most concern them.They settle smaller matters by the exercise of their own deliberation.More important ones, such as the cure of their own bodies and the bodiesof those whom they love, the investment of their money, the extricationof their affairs from any serious mess—these things they generallyentrust to others of whose capacity they know little save from generalreport; they act therefore on the strength of faith, not of knowledge.So the English nation entrusts the welfare of its fleet and naval defencesto a First Lord of the Admiralty, who, not being a sailor can know nothingabout these matters except by acts of faith. There can be no doubtabout faith and not reason being the ultima ratio.

Even Euclid, who has laid himself as little open to the charge ofcredulity as any writer who ever lived, cannot get beyond this.He has no demonstrable first premise. He requires postulates andaxioms which transcend demonstration, and without which he can do nothing.His superstructure indeed is demonstration, but his ground is faith.Nor again can he get further than telling a man he is a fool if he persistsin differing from him. He says “which is absurd,”and declines to discuss the matter further. Faith and authority,therefore, prove to be as necessary for him as for anyone else.“By faith in what, then,” asked Ernest of himself, “shalla just man endeavour to live at this present time?” He answeredto himself, “At any rate not by faith in the supernatural elementof the Christian religion.”

And how should he best persuade his fellow-countrymen to leave offbelieving in this supernatural element? Looking at the matterfrom a practical point of view he thought the Archbishop of Canterburyafforded the most promising key to the situation. It lay betweenhim and the Pope. The Pope was perhaps best in theory, but inpractice the Archbishop of Canterbury would do sufficiently well.If he could only manage to sprinkle a pinch of salt, as it were, onthe Archbishop’s tail, he might convert the whole Church of Englandto free thought by a coup de main. There must be an amountof cogency which even an Archbishop—an Archbishop whose perceptionshad never been quickened by imprisonment for assault—would notbe able to withstand. When brought face to face with the facts,as he, Ernest, could arrange them; his Grace would have no resourcebut to admit them; being an honourable man he would at once resign hisArchbishopric, and Christianity would become extinct in England withina few months’ time. This, at any rate, was how things oughtto be. But all the time Ernest had no confidence in the Archbishop’snot hopping off just as the pinch was about to fall on him, and thisseemed so unfair that his blood boiled at the thought of it. Ifthis was to be so, he must try if he could not fix him by the judicioususe of bird-lime or a snare, or throw the salt on his tail from an ambuscade.

To do him justice it was not himself that he greatly cared about.He knew he had been humbugged, and he knew also that the greater partof the ills which had afflicted him were due, indirectly, in chief measureto the influence of Christian teaching; still, if the mischief had endedwith himself, he should have thought little about it, but there washis sister, and his brother Joey, and the hundreds and thousands ofyoung people throughout England whose lives were being blighted throughthe lies told them by people whose business it was to know better, butwho scamped their work and shirked difficulties instead of facing them.It was this which made him think it worth while to be angry, and toconsider whether he could not at least do something towards saving othersfrom such years of waste and misery as he had had to pass himself.If there was no truth in the miraculous accounts of Christ’s Deathand Resurrection, the whole of the religion founded upon the historictruth of those events tumbled to the ground. “My,”he exclaimed, with all the arrogance of youth, “they put a gipsyor fortune-teller into prison for getting money out of silly peoplewho think they have supernatural power; why should they not put a clergymanin prison for pretending that he can absolve sins, or turn bread andwine into the flesh and blood of One who died two thousand years ago?What,” he asked himself, “could be more pure ‘hanky-panky’than that a bishop should lay his hands upon a young man and pretendto convey to him the spiritual power to work this miracle? Itwas all very well to talk about toleration; toleration, like everythingelse, had its limits; besides, if it was to include the bishop let itinclude the fortune-teller too.” He would explain all thisto the Archbishop of Canterbury by and by, but as he could not get holdof him just now, it occurred to him that he might experimentalise advantageouslyupon the viler soul of the prison chaplain. It was only thosewho took the first and most obvious step in their power who ever didgreat things in the end, so one day, when Mr Hughes—for this wasthe chaplain’s name—was talking with him, Ernest introducedthe question of Christian evidences, and tried to raise a discussionupon them. Mr Hughes had been very kind to him, but he was morethan twice my hero’s age, and had long taken the measure of suchobjections as Ernest tried to put before him. I do not supposehe believed in the actual objective truth of the stories about Christ’sResurrection and Ascension any more than Ernest did, but he knew thatthis was a small matter, and that the real issue lay much deeper thanthis.

Mr Hughes was a man who had been in authority for many years, andhe brushed Ernest on one side as if he had been a fly. He didit so well that my hero never ventured to tackle him again, and confinedhis conversation with him for the future to such matters as what hehad better do when he got out of prison; and here Mr Hughes was everready to listen to him with sympathy and kindness.

CHAPTER LXVI

Ernest was now so far convalescent as to be able to sit up for thegreater part of the day. He had been three months in prison, and,though not strong enough to leave the infirmary, was beyond all fearof a relapse. He was talking one day with Mr Hughes about hisfuture, and again expressed his intention of emigrating to Australiaor New Zealand with the money he should recover from Pryer. Wheneverhe spoke of this he noticed that Mr Hughes looked grave and was silent:he had thought that perhaps the chaplain wanted him to return to hisprofession, and disapproved of his evident anxiety to turn to somethingelse; now, however, he asked Mr Hughes point blank why it was that hedisapproved of his idea of emigrating.

Mr Hughes endeavoured to evade him, but Ernest was not to be putoff. There was something in the chaplain’s manner whichsuggested that he knew more than Ernest did, but did not like to sayit. This alarmed him so much that he begged him not to keep himin suspense; after a little hesitation Mr Hughes, thinking him now strongenough to stand it, broke the news as gently as he could that the wholeof Ernest’s money had disappeared.

The day after my return from Battersby I called on my solicitor,and was told that he had written to Pryer, requiring him to refund themonies for which he had given his I.O.U.’s. Pryer repliedthat he had given orders to his broker to close his operations, whichunfortunately had resulted so far in heavy loss, and that the balanceshould be paid to my solicitor on the following settling day, then abouta week distant. When the time came, we heard nothing from Pryer,and going to his lodgings found that he had left with his few effectson the very day after he had heard from us, and had not been seen since.

I had heard from Ernest the name of the broker who had been employed,and went at once to see him. He told me Pryer had closed all hisaccounts for cash on the day that Ernest had been sentenced, and hadreceived £2315, which was all that remained of Ernest’soriginal £5000. With this he had decamped, nor had we enoughclue as to his whereabouts to be able to take any steps to recover themoney. There was in fact nothing to be done but to consider thewhole as lost. I may say here that neither I nor Ernest ever heardof Pryer again, nor have any idea what became of him.

This placed me in a difficult position. I knew, of course,that in a few years Ernest would have many times over as much moneyas he had lost, but I knew also that he did not know this, and fearedthat the supposed loss of all he had in the world might be more thanhe could stand when coupled with his other misfortunes.

The prison authorities had found Theobald’s address from aletter in Ernest’s pocket, and had communicated with him morethan once concerning his son’s illness, but Theobald had not writtento me, and I supposed my godson to be in good health. He wouldbe just twenty-four years old when he left prison, and if I followedout his aunt’s instructions, would have to battle with fortunefor another four years as well as he could. The question beforeme was whether it was right to let him run so much risk, or whetherI should not to some extent transgress my instructions—which therewas nothing to prevent my doing if I thought Miss Pontifex would havewished it—and let him have the same sum that he would have recoveredfrom Pryer.

If my godson had been an older man, and more fixed in any definitegroove, this is what I should have done, but he was still very young,and more than commonly unformed for his age. If, again, I hadknown of his illness I should not have dared to lay any heavier burdenon his back than he had to bear already; but not being uneasy abouthis health, I thought a few years of roughing it and of experience concerningthe importance of not playing tricks with money would do him no harm.So I decided to keep a sharp eye upon him as soon as he came out ofprison, and to let him splash about in deep water as best he could tillI saw whether he was able to swim, or was about to sink. In thefirst case I would let him go on swimming till he was nearly eight-and-twenty,when I would prepare him gradually for the good fortune that awaitedhim; in the second I would hurry up to the rescue. So I wroteto say that Pryer had absconded, and that he could have £100 fromhis father when he came out of prison. I then waited to see whateffect these tidings would have, not expecting to receive an answerfor three months, for I had been told on enquiry that no letter couldbe received by a prisoner till after he had been three months in gaol.I also wrote to Theobald and told him of Pryer’s disappearance.

As a matter of fact, when my letter arrived the governor of the gaolread it, and in a case of such importance would have relaxed the rulesif Ernest’s state had allowed it; his illness prevented this,and the governor left it to the chaplain and the doctor to break thenews to him when they thought him strong enough to bear it, which wasnow the case. In the meantime I received a formal official documentsaying that my letter had been received and would be communicated tothe prisoner in due course; I believe it was simply through a mistakeon the part of a clerk that I was not informed of Ernest’s illness,but I heard nothing of it till I saw him by his own desire a few daysafter the chaplin had broken to him the substance of what I had written.

Ernest was terribly shocked when he heard of the loss of his money,but his ignorance of the world prevented him from seeing the full extentof the mischief. He had never been in serious want of money yet,and did not know what it meant. In reality, money losses are thehardest to bear of any by those who are old enough to comprehend them.

A man can stand being told that he must submit to a severe surgicaloperation, or that he has some disease which will shortly kill him,or that he will be a cripple or blind for the rest of his life; dreadfulas such tidings must be, we do not find that they unnerve the greaternumber of mankind; most men, indeed, go coolly enough even to be hanged,but the strongest quail before financial ruin, and the better men theyare, the more complete, as a general rule, is their prostration.Suicide is a common consequence of money losses; it is rarely soughtas a means of escape from bodily suffering. If we feel that wehave a competence at our backs, so that we can die warm and quietlyin our beds, with no need to worry about expense, we live our livesout to the dregs, no matter how excruciating our torments. Jobprobably felt the loss of his flocks and herds more than that of hiswife and family, for he could enjoy his flocks and herds without hisfamily, but not his family—not for long—if he had lost allhis money. Loss of money indeed is not only the worst pain initself, but it is the parent of all others. Let a man have beenbrought up to a moderate competence, and have no specially; then lethis money be suddenly taken from him, and how long is his health likelyto survive the change in all his little ways which loss of money willentail? How long again is the esteem and sympathy of friends likelyto survive ruin? People may be very sorry for us, but their attitudetowards us hitherto has been based upon the supposition that we weresituated thus or thus in money matters; when this breaks down theremust be a restatement of the social problem so far as we are concerned;we have been obtaining esteem under false pretences. Granted,then, that the three most serious losses which a man can suffer arethose affecting money, health and reputation. Loss of money isfar the worst, then comes ill-health, and then loss of reputation; lossof reputation is a bad third, for, if a man keeps health and money unimpaired,it will be generally found that his loss of reputation is due to breachesof parvenu conventions only, and not to violations of those older, betterestablished canons whose authority is unquestionable. In thiscase a man may grow a new reputation as easily as a lobster grows anew claw, or, if he have health and money, may thrive in great peaceof mind without any reputation at all. The only chance for a manwho has lost his money is that he shall still be young enough to standuprooting and transplanting without more than temporary derangement,and this I believed my godson still to be.

By the prison rules he might receive and send a letter after he hadbeen in gaol three months, and might also receive one visit from a friend.When he received my letter, he at once asked me to come and see him,which of course I did. I found him very much changed, and stillso feeble, that the exertion of coming from the infirmary to the cellin which I was allowed to see him, and the agitation of seeing me weretoo much for him. At first he quite broke down, and I was so painedat the state in which I found him, that I was on the point of breakingmy instructions then and there. I contented myself, however, forthe time, with assuring him that I would help him as soon as he cameout of prison, and that, when he had made up his mind what he woulddo, he was to come to me for what money might be necessary, if he couldnot get it from his father. To make it easier for him I told himthat his aunt, on her death-bed, had desired me to do something of thissort should an emergency arise, so that he would only be taking whathis aunt had left him.

“Then,” said he, “I will not take the £100from my father, and I will never see him or my mother again.”

I said: “Take the £100, Ernest, and as much more as youcan get, and then do not see them again if you do not like.”

This Ernest would not do. If he took money from them, he couldnot cut them, and he wanted to cut them. I thought my godson wouldget on a great deal better if he would only have the firmness to doas he proposed, as regards breaking completely with his father and mother,and said so. “Then don’t you like them?” saidhe, with a look of surprise.

“Like them!” said I, “I think they’re horrid.”

“Oh, that’s the kindest thing of all you have done forme,” he exclaimed, “I thought all—all middle-agedpeople liked my father and mother.”

He had been about to call me old, but I was only fifty-seven, andwas not going to have this, so I made a face when I saw him hesitating,which drove him into “middle-aged.”

“If you like it,” said I, “I will say all yourfamily are horrid except yourself and your aunt Alethea. The greaterpart of every family is always odious; if there are one or two goodones in a very large family, it is as much as can be expected.”

“Thank you,” he replied, gratefully, “I think Ican now stand almost anything. I will come and see you as soonas I come out of gaol. Good-bye.” For the warder hadtold us that the time allowed for our interview was at an end.

CHAPTER LXVII

As soon as Ernest found that he had no money to look to upon leavingprison he saw that his dreams about emigrating and farming must cometo an end, for he knew that he was incapable of working at the ploughor with the axe for long together himself. And now it seemed heshould have no money to pay any one else for doing so. It wasthis that resolved him to part once and for all with his parents.If he had been going abroad he could have kept up relations with them,for they would have been too far off to interfere with him.

He knew his father and mother would object to being cut; they wouldwish to appear kind and forgiving; they would also dislike having nofurther power to plague him; but he knew also very well that so longas he and they ran in harness together they would be always pullingone way and he another. He wanted to drop the gentleman and godown into the ranks, beginning on the lowest rung of the ladder, whereno one would know of his disgrace or mind it if he did know; his fatherand mother on the other hand would wish him to clutch on to the fa*g-endof gentility at a starvation salary and with no prospect of advancement.Ernest had seen enough in Ashpit Place to know that a tailor, if hedid not drink and attended to his business, could earn more money thana clerk or a curate, while much less expense by way of show was requiredof him. The tailor also had more liberty, and a better chanceof rising. Ernest resolved at once, as he had fallen so far, tofall still lower—promptly, gracefully and with the idea of risingagain, rather than cling to the skirts of a respectability which wouldpermit him to exist on sufferance only, and make him pay an utterlyextortionate price for an article which he could do better without.

He arrived at this result more quickly than he might otherwise havedone through remembering something he had once heard his aunt say about“kissing the soil.” This had impressed him and stuckby him perhaps by reason of its brevity; when later on he came to knowthe story of Hercules and Antæus, he found it one of the veryfew ancient fables which had a hold over him—his chiefest debtto classical literature. His aunt had wanted him to learn carpentering,as a means of kissing the soil should his Hercules ever throw him.It was too late for this now—or he thought it was—but themode of carrying out his aunt’s idea was a detail; there werea hundred ways of kissing the soil besides becoming a carpenter.

He had told me this during our interview, and I had encouraged himto the utmost of my power. He showed so much more good sense thanI had given him credit for that I became comparatively easy about him,and determined to let him play his own game, being always, however,ready to hand in case things went too far wrong. It was not simplybecause he disliked his father and mother that he wanted to have nomore to do with them; if it had been only this he would have put upwith them; but a warning voice within told him distinctly enough thatif he was clean cut away from them he might still have a chance of success,whereas if they had anything whatever to do with him, or even knew wherehe was, they would hamper him and in the end ruin him. Absoluteindependence he believed to be his only chance of very life itself.

Over and above this—if this were not enough—Ernest hada faith in his own destiny such as most young men, I suppose, feel,but the grounds of which were not apparent to any one but himself.Rightly or wrongly, in a quiet way he believed he possessed a strengthwhich, if he were only free to use it in his own way, might do greatthings some day. He did not know when, nor where, nor how hisopportunity was to come, but he never doubted that it would come inspite of all that had happened, and above all else he cherished thehope that he might know how to seize it if it came, for whatever itwas it would be something that no one else could do so well as he could.People said there were no dragons and giants for adventurous men tofight with nowadays; it was beginning to dawn upon him that there werejust as many now as at any past time.

Monstrous as such a faith may seem in one who was qualifying himselffor a high mission by a term of imprisonment, he could no more helpit than he could help breathing; it was innate in him, and it was evenmore with a view to this than for other reasons that he wished to severthe connection between himself and his parents; for he knew that ifever the day came in which it should appear that before him too therewas a race set in which it might be an honour to have run among theforemost, his father and mother would be the first to let him and hinderhim in running it. They had been the first to say that he oughtto run such a race; they would also be the first to trip him up if hetook them at their word, and then afterwards upbraid him for not havingwon. Achievement of any kind would be impossible for him unlesshe was free from those who would be for ever dragging him back intothe conventional. The conventional had been tried already andhad been found wanting.

He had an opportunity now, if he chose to take it, of escaping oncefor all from those who at once tormented him and would hold him earthwardshould a chance of soaring open before him. He should never havehad it but for his imprisonment; but for this the force of habit androutine would have been too strong for him; he should hardly have hadit if he had not lost all his money; the gap would not have been sowide but that he might have been inclined to throw a plank across it.He rejoiced now, therefore, over his loss of money as well as over hisimprisonment, which had made it more easy for him to follow his truestand most lasting interests.

At times he wavered, when he thought of how his mother, who in herway, as he thought, had loved him, would weep and think sadly over him,or how perhaps she might even fall ill and die, and how the blame wouldrest with him. At these times his resolution was near breaking,but when he found I applauded his design, the voice within, which badehim see his father’s and mother’s faces no more, grew louderand more persistent. If he could not cut himself adrift from thosewho he knew would hamper him, when so small an effort was wanted, hisdream of a destiny was idle; what was the prospect of a hundred poundsfrom his father in comparison with jeopardy to this? He stillfelt deeply the pain his disgrace had inflicted upon his father andmother, but he was getting stronger, and reflected that as he had runhis chance with them for parents, so they must run theirs with him fora son.

He had nearly settled down to this conclusion when he received aletter from his father which made his decision final. If the prisonrules had been interpreted strictly, he would not have been allowedto have this letter for another three months, as he had already heardfrom me, but the governor took a lenient view, and considered the letterfrom me to be a business communication hardly coming under the categoryof a letter from friends. Theobald’s letter therefore wasgiven to his son. It ran as follows:—

“My dear Ernest, My object in writing is not toupbraid you with the disgrace and shame you have inflicted upon yourmother and myself, to say nothing of your brother Joey, and your sister.Suffer of course we must, but we know to whom to look in our affliction,and are filled with anxiety rather on your behalf than our own.Your mother is wonderful. She is pretty well in health, and desiresme to send you her love.

“Have you considered your prospects on leaving prison?I understand from Mr Overton that you have lost the legacy which yourgrandfather left you, together with all the interest that accrued duringyour minority, in the course of speculation upon the Stock Exchange!If you have indeed been guilty of such appalling folly it is difficultto see what you can turn your hand to, and I suppose you will try tofind a clerkship in an office. Your salary will doubtless be lowat first, but you have made your bed and must not complain if you haveto lie upon it. If you take pains to please your employers theywill not be backward in promoting you.

“When I first heard from Mr Overton of the unspeakable calamitywhich had befallen your mother and myself, I had resolved not to seeyou again. I am unwilling, however, to have recourse to a measurewhich would deprive you of your last connecting link with respectablepeople. Your mother and I will see you as soon as you come outof prison; not at Battersby—we do not wish you to come down hereat present—but somewhere else, probably in London. You neednot shrink from seeing us; we shall not reproach you. We willthen decide about your future.

“At present our impression is that you will find a fairer startprobably in Australia or New Zealand than here, and I am prepared tofind you £75 or even if necessary so far as £100 to payyour passage money. Once in the colony you must be dependent uponyour own exertions.

“May Heaven prosper them and you, and restore you to us yearshence a respected member of society.—Your affectionate father,

T. PONTIFEX.”

Then there was a postscript in Christina’s writing.

“My darling, darling boy, pray with me daily andhourly that we may yet again become a happy, united, God-fearing familyas we were before this horrible pain fell upon us.—Your sorrowingbut ever loving mother,

C. P.”

This letter did not produce the effect on Ernest that it would havedone before his imprisonment began. His father and mother thoughtthey could take him up as they had left him off. They forgot therapidity with which development follows misfortune, if the suffereris young and of a sound temperament. Ernest made no reply to hisfather’s letter, but his desire for a total break developed intosomething like a passion. “There are orphanages,”he exclaimed to himself, “for children who have lost their parents—oh!why, why, why, are there no harbours of refuge for grown men who havenot yet lost them?” And he brooded over the bliss of Melchisedekwho had been born an orphan, without father, without mother, and withoutdescent.

CHAPTER LXVIII

When I think over all that Ernest told me about his prison meditations,and the conclusions he was drawn to, it occurs to me that in realityhe was wanting to do the very last thing which it would have enteredinto his head to think of wanting. I mean that he was trying togive up father and mother for Christ’s sake. He would havesaid he was giving them up because he thought they hindered him in thepursuit of his truest and most lasting happiness. Granted, butwhat is this if it is not Christ? What is Christ if He is notthis? He who takes the highest and most self-respecting view ofhis own welfare which it is in his power to conceive, and adheres toit in spite of conventionality, is a Christian whether he knows it andcalls himself one, or whether he does not. A rose is not the lessa rose because it does not know its own name.

What if circ*mstances had made his duty more easy for him than itwould be to most men? That was his luck, as much as it is otherpeople’s luck to have other duties made easy for them by accidentof birth. Surely if people are born rich or handsome they havea right to their good fortune. Some I know, will say that oneman has no right to be born with a better constitution than another;others again will say that luck is the only righteous object of humanveneration. Both, I daresay, can make out a very good case, butwhichever may be right surely Ernest had as much right to the good luckof finding a duty made easier as he had had to the bad fortune of fallinginto the scrape which had got him into prison. A man is not tobe sneered at for having a trump card in his hand; he is only to besneered at if he plays his trump card badly.

Indeed, I question whether it is ever much harder for anyone to giveup father and mother for Christ’s sake than it was for Ernest.The relations between the parties will have almost always been severelystrained before it comes to this. I doubt whether anyone was everyet required to give up those to whom he was tenderly attached for amere matter of conscience: he will have ceased to be tenderly attachedto them long before he is called upon to break with them; for differencesof opinion concerning any matter of vital importance spring from differencesof constitution, and these will already have led to so much other disagreementthat the “giving up” when it comes, is like giving up anaching but very loose and hollow tooth. It is the loss of thosewhom we are not required to give up for Christ’s sake which isreally painful to us. Then there is a wrench in earnest.Happily, no matter how light the task that is demanded from us, it isenough if we do it; we reap our reward, much as though it were a Herculeanlabour.

But to return, the conclusion Ernest came to was that he would bea tailor. He talked the matter over with the chaplain, who toldhim there was no reason why he should not be able to earn his six orseven shillings a day by the time he came out of prison, if he choseto learn the trade during the remainder of his term—not quitethree months; the doctor said he was strong enough for this, and thatit was about the only thing he was as yet fit for; so he left the infirmarysooner than he would otherwise have done and entered the tailor’sshop, overjoyed at the thoughts of seeing his way again, and confidentof rising some day if he could only get a firm foothold to start from.

Everyone whom he had to do with saw that he did not belong to whatare called the criminal classes, and finding him eager to learn andto save trouble always treated him kindly and almost respectfully.He did not find the work irksome: it was far more pleasant than makingLatin and Greek verses at Roughborough; he felt that he would ratherbe here in prison than at Roughborough again—yes, or even at Cambridgeitself. The only trouble he was ever in danger of getting intowas through exchanging words or looks with the more decent-looking ofhis fellow-prisoners. This was forbidden, but he never misseda chance of breaking the rules in this respect.

Any man of his ability who was at the same time anxious to learnwould of course make rapid progress, and before he left prison the wardersaid he was as good a tailor with his three months’ apprenticeshipas many a man was with twelve. Ernest had never before been somuch praised by any of his teachers. Each day as he grew strongerin health and more accustomed to his surroundings he saw some freshadvantage in his position, an advantage which he had not aimed at, butwhich had come almost in spite of himself, and he marvelled at his owngood fortune, which had ordered things so greatly better for him thanhe could have ordered them for himself.

His having lived six months in Ashpit Place was a case in point.Things were possible to him which to others like him would be impossible.If such a man as Towneley were told he must live henceforth in a houselike those in Ashpit Place it would be more than he could stand.Ernest could not have stood it himself if he had gone to live thereof compulsion through want of money. It was only because he hadfelt himself able to run away at any minute that he had not wanted todo so; now, however, that he had become familiar with life in AshpitPlace he no longer minded it, and could live gladly in lower parts ofLondon than that so long as he could pay his way. It was fromno prudence or forethought that he had served this apprenticeship tolife among the poor. He had been trying in a feeble way to bethorough in his work: he had not been thorough, the whole thing hadbeen a fiasco; but he had made a little puny effort in the directionof being genuine, and behold, in his hour of need it had been returnedto him with a reward far richer than he had deserved. He couldnot have faced becoming one of the very poor unless he had had sucha bridge to conduct him over to them as he had found unwittingly inAshpit Place. True, there had been drawbacks in the particularhouse he had chosen, but he need not live in a house where there wasa Mr Holt and he should no longer be tied to the profession which heso much hated; if there were neither screams nor scripture readingshe could be happy in a garret at three shillings a week, such as MissMaitland lived in.

As he thought further he remembered that all things work togetherfor good to them that love God; was it possible, he asked himself, thathe too, however imperfectly, had been trying to love him? He darednot answer Yes, but he would try hard that it should be so. Thenthere came into his mind that noble air of Handel’s: “GreatGod, who yet but darkly known,” and he felt it as he had neverfelt it before. He had lost his faith in Christianity, but hisfaith in something—he knew not what, but that there was a somethingas yet but darkly known which made right right and wrong wrong—hisfaith in this grew stronger and stronger daily.

Again there crossed his mind thoughts of the power which he feltto be in him, and of how and where it was to find its vent. Thesame instinct which had led him to live among the poor because it wasthe nearest thing to him which he could lay hold of with any clearnesscame to his assistance here too. He thought of the Australiangold and how those who lived among it had never seen it though it aboundedall around them: “There is gold everywhere,” he exclaimedinwardly, “to those who look for it.” Might not hisopportunity be close upon him if he looked carefully enough at his immediatesurroundings? What was his position? He had lost all.Could he not turn his having lost all into an opportunity? Mighthe not, if he too sought the strength of the Lord, find, like St Paul,that it was perfected in weakness?

He had nothing more to lose; money, friends, character, all weregone for a very long time if not for ever; but there was something elsealso that had taken its flight along with these. I mean the fearof that which man could do unto him. Cantabil vacuus.Who could hurt him more than he had been hurt already? Let himbut be able to earn his bread, and he knew of nothing which he darednot venture if it would make the world a happier place for those whowere young and loveable. Herein he found so much comfort thathe almost wished he had lost his reputation even more completely—forhe saw that it was like a man’s life which may be found of themthat lose it and lost of them that would find it. He should nothave had the courage to give up all for Christ’s sake, but nowChrist had mercifully taken all, and lo! it seemed as though all werefound.

As the days went slowly by he came to see that Christianity and thedenial of Christianity after all met as much as any other extremes do;it was a fight about names—not about things; practically the Churchof Rome, the Church of England, and the freethinker have the same idealstandard and meet in the gentleman; for he is the most perfect saintwho is the most perfect gentleman. Then he saw also that it matterslittle what profession, whether of religion or irreligion, a man maymake, provided only he follows it out with charitable inconsistency,and without insisting on it to the bitter end. It is in the uncompromisingnesswith which dogma is held and not in the dogma or want of dogma thatthe danger lies. This was the crowning point of the edifice; whenhe had got here he no longer wished to molest even the Pope. TheArchbishop of Canterbury might have hopped about all round him and evenpicked crumbs out of his hand without running risk of getting a slysprinkle of salt. That wary prelate himself might perhaps havebeen of a different opinion, but the robins and thrushes that hop aboutour lawns are not more needlessly distrustful of the hand that throwsthem out crumbs of bread in winter, than the Archbishop would have beenof my hero.

Perhaps he was helped to arrive at the foregoing conclusion by anevent which almost thrust inconsistency upon him. A few days afterhe had left the infirmary the chaplain came to his cell and told himthat the prisoner who played the organ in chapel had just finished hissentence and was leaving the prison; he therefore offered the post toErnest, who he already knew played the organ. Ernest was at firstin doubt whether it would be right for him to assist at religious servicesmore than he was actually compelled to do, but the pleasure of playingthe organ, and the privileges which the post involved, made him seeexcellent reasons for not riding consistency to death. Having,then, once introduced an element of inconsistency into his system, hewas far too consistent not to be inconsistent consistently, and he lapsedere long into an amiable indifferentism which to outward appearancediffered but little from the indifferentism from which Mr Hawke hadaroused him.

By becoming organist he was saved from the treadmill, for which thedoctor had said he was unfit as yet, but which he would probably havebeen put to in due course as soon as he was stronger. He mighthave escaped the tailor’s shop altogether and done only the comparativelylight work of attending to the chaplain’s rooms if he had liked,but he wanted to learn as much tailoring as he could, and did not thereforetake advantage of this offer; he was allowed, however, two hours a dayin the afternoon for practice. From that moment his prison lifeceased to be monotonous, and the remaining two months of his sentenceslipped by almost as rapidly as they would have done if he had beenfree. What with music, books, learning his trade, and conversationwith the chaplain, who was just the kindly, sensible person that Ernestwanted in order to steady him a little, the days went by so pleasantlythat when the time came for him to leave prison, he did so, or thoughthe did so, not without regret.

CHAPTER LXIX

In coming to the conclusion that he would sever the connection betweenhimself and his family once for all Ernest had reckoned without hisfamily. Theobald wanted to be rid of his son, it is true, in sofar as he wished him to be no nearer at any rate than the Antipodes;but he had no idea of entirely breaking with him. He knew hisson well enough to have a pretty shrewd idea that this was what Ernestwould wish himself, and perhaps as much for this reason as for any otherhe was determined to keep up the connection, provided it did not involveErnest’s coming to Battersby nor any recurring outlay.

When the time approached for him to leave prison, his father andmother consulted as to what course they should adopt.

“We must never leave him to himself,” said Theobald impressively;“we can neither of us wish that.”

“Oh, no! no! dearest Theobald,” exclaimed Christina.“Whoever else deserts him, and however distant he may be fromus, he must still feel that he has parents whose hearts beat with affectionfor him no matter how cruelly he has pained them.”

“He has been his own worst enemy,” said Theobald.“He has never loved us as we deserved, and now he will be withheldby false shame from wishing to see us. He will avoid us if hecan.”

“Then we must go to him ourselves,” said Christina, “whetherhe likes it or not we must be at his side to support him as he entersagain upon the world.”

“If we do not want him to give us the slip we must catch himas he leaves prison.”

“We will, we will; our faces shall be the first to gladdenhis eyes as he comes out, and our voices the first to exhort him toreturn to the paths of virtue.”

“I think,” said Theobald, “if he sees us in thestreet he will turn round and run away from us. He is intenselyselfish.”

“Then we must get leave to go inside the prison, and see himbefore he gets outside.”

After a good deal of discussion this was the plan they decided onadopting, and having so decided, Theobald wrote to the governor of thegaol asking whether he could be admitted inside the gaol to receiveErnest when his sentence had expired. He received answer in theaffirmative, and the pair left Battersby the day before Ernest was tocome out of prison.

Ernest had not reckoned on this, and was rather surprised on beingtold a few minutes before nine that he was to go into the receivingroom before he left the prison as there were visitors waiting to seehim. His heart fell, for he guessed who they were, but he screwedup his courage and hastened to the receiving room. There, sureenough, standing at the end of the table nearest the door were the twopeople whom he regarded as the most dangerous enemies he had in allthe world—his father and mother.

He could not fly, but he knew that if he wavered he was lost.

His mother was crying, but she sprang forward to meet him and claspedhim in her arms. “Oh, my boy, my boy,” she sobbed,and she could say no more.

Ernest was as white as a sheet. His heart beat so that he couldhardly breathe. He let his mother embrace him, and then withdrawinghimself stood silently before her with the tears falling from his eyes.

At first he could not speak. For a minute or so the silenceon all sides was complete. Then, gathering strength, he said ina low voice:

“Mother,” (it was the first time he had called her anythingbut “mamma”?) “we must part.” On this,turning to the warder, he said: “I believe I am free to leavethe prison if I wish to do so. You cannot compel me to remainhere longer. Please take me to the gates.”

Theobald stepped forward. “Ernest, you must not, shallnot, leave us in this way.”

“Do not speak to me,” said Ernest, his eyes flashingwith a fire that was unwonted in them. Another warder then cameup and took Theobald aside, while the first conducted Ernest to thegates.

“Tell them,” said Ernest, “from me that they mustthink of me as one dead, for I am dead to them. Say that my greatestpain is the thought of the disgrace I have inflicted upon them, andthat above all things else I will study to avoid paining them hereafter;but say also that if they write to me I will return their letters unopened,and that if they come and see me I will protect myself in whatever wayI can.”

By this time he was at the prison gate, and in another moment wasat liberty. After he had got a few steps out he turned his faceto the prison wall, leant against it for support, and wept as thoughhis heart would break.

Giving up father and mother for Christ’s sake was not suchan easy matter after all. If a man has been possessed by devilsfor long enough they will rend him as they leave him, however imperativelythey may have been cast out. Ernest did not stay long where hewas, for he feared each moment that his father and mother would comeout. He pulled himself together and turned into the labyrinthof small streets which opened out in front of him.

He had crossed his Rubicon—not perhaps very heroically or dramatically,but then it is only in dramas that people act dramatically. Atany rate, by hook or by crook, he had scrambled over, and was out uponthe other side. Already he thought of much which he would gladlyhave said, and blamed his want of presence of mind; but, after all,it mattered very little. Inclined though he was to make very greatallowances for his father and mother, he was indignant at their havingthrust themselves upon him without warning at a moment when the excitementof leaving prison was already as much as he was fit for. It wasa mean advantage to have taken over him, but he was glad they had takenit, for it made him realise more fully than ever that his one chancelay in separating himself completely from them.

The morning was grey, and the first signs of winter fog were beginningto show themselves, for it was now the 30th of September. Ernestwore the clothes in which he had entered prison, and was therefore dressedas a clergyman. No one who looked at him would have seen any differencebetween his present appearance and his appearance six months previously;indeed, as he walked slowly through the dingy crowded lane called EyreStreet Hill (which he well knew, for he had clerical friends in thatneighbourhood), the months he had passed in prison seemed to drop outof his life, and so powerfully did association carry him away that,finding himself in his old dress and in his old surroundings, he feltdragged back into his old self—as though his six months of prisonlife had been a dream from which he was now waking to take things upas he had left them. This was the effect of unchanged surroundingsupon the unchanged part of him. But there was a changed part,and the effect of unchanged surroundings upon this was to make everythingseem almost as strange as though he had never had any life but his prisonone, and was now born into a new world.

All our lives long, every day and every hour, we are engaged in theprocess of accommodating our changed and unchanged selves to changedand unchanged surroundings; living, in fact, in nothing else than thisprocess of accommodation; when we fail in it a little we are stupid,when we fail flagrantly we are mad, when we suspend it temporarily wesleep, when we give up the attempt altogether we die. In quiet,uneventful lives the changes internal and external are so small thatthere is little or no strain in the process of fusion and accommodation;in other lives there is great strain, but there is also great fusingand accommodating power; in others great strain with little accommodatingpower. A life will be successful or not according as the powerof accommodation is equal to or unequal to the strain of fusing andadjusting internal and external changes.

The trouble is that in the end we shall be driven to admit the unityof the universe so completely as to be compelled to deny that thereis either an external or an internal, but must see everything both asexternal and internal at one and the same time, subject and object—externaland internal—being unified as much as everything else. Thiswill knock our whole system over, but then every system has got to beknocked over by something.

Much the best way out of this difficulty is to go in for separationbetween internal and external—subject and object—when wefind this convenient, and unity between the same when we find unityconvenient. This is illogical, but extremes are alone logical,and they are always absurd, the mean is alone practicable and it isalways illogical. It is faith and not logic which is the supremearbiter. They say all roads lead to Rome, and all philosophiesthat I have ever seen lead ultimately either to some gross absurdity,or else to the conclusion already more than once insisted on in thesepages, that the just shall live by faith, that is to say that sensiblepeople will get through life by rule of thumb as they may interpretit most conveniently without asking too many questions for consciencesake. Take any fact, and reason upon it to the bitter end, andit will ere long lead to this as the only refuge from some palpablefolly.

But to return to my story. When Ernest got to the top of thestreet and looked back, he saw the grimy, sullen walls of his prisonfilling up the end of it. He paused for a minute or two.“There,” he said to himself, “I was hemmed in by boltswhich I could see and touch; here I am barred by others which are nonethe less real—poverty and ignorance of the world. It wasno part of my business to try to break the material bolts of iron andescape from prison, but now that I am free I must surely seek to breakthese others.”

He had read somewhere of a prisoner who had made his escape by cuttingup his bedstead with an iron spoon. He admired and marvelled atthe man’s mind, but could not even try to imitate him; in thepresence of immaterial barriers, however, he was not so easily daunted,and felt as though, even if the bed were iron and the spoon a woodenone, he could find some means of making the wood cut the iron sooneror later.

He turned his back upon Eyre Street Hill and walked down LeatherLane into Holborn. Each step he took, each face or object thathe knew, helped at once to link him on to the life he had led beforehis imprisonment, and at the same time to make him feel how completelythat imprisonment had cut his life into two parts, the one of whichcould bear no resemblance to the other.

He passed down Fetter Lane into Fleet Street and so to the Temple,to which I had just returned from my summer holiday. It was abouthalf past nine, and I was having my breakfast, when I heard a timidknock at the door and opened it to find Ernest.

CHAPTER LXX

I had begun to like him on the night Towneley had sent for me, andon the following day I thought he had shaped well. I had likedhim also during our interview in prison, and wanted to see more of him,so that I might make up my mind about him. I had lived long enoughto know that some men who do great things in the end are not very wisewhen they are young; knowing that he would leave prison on the 30th,I had expected him, and, as I had a spare bedroom, pressed him to staywith me, till he could make up his mind what he would do.

Being so much older than he was, I anticipated no trouble in gettingmy own way, but he would not hear of it. The utmost he would assentto was that he should be my guest till he could find a room for himself,which he would set about doing at once.

He was still much agitated, but grew better as he ate a breakfast,not of prison fare and in a comfortable room. It pleased me tosee the delight he took in all about him; the fireplace with a firein it; the easy chairs, the Times, my cat, the red geraniumsin the window, to say nothing of coffee, bread and butter, sausages,marmalade, etc. Everything was pregnant with the most exquisitepleasure to him. The plane trees were full of leaf still; he keptrising from the breakfast table to admire them; never till now, he said,had he known what the enjoyment of these things really was. Heate, looked, laughed and cried by turns, with an emotion which I canneither forget nor describe.

He told me how his father and mother had lain in wait for him, ashe was about to leave prison. I was furious, and applauded himheartily for what he had done. He was very grateful to me forthis. Other people, he said, would tell him he ought to thinkof his father and mother rather than of himself, and it was such a comfortto find someone who saw things as he saw them himself. Even ifI had differed from him I should not have said so, but I was of hisopinion, and was almost as much obliged to him for seeing things asI saw them, as he to me for doing the same kind office by himself.Cordially as I disliked Theobald and Christina, I was in such a hopelessminority in the opinion I had formed concerning them that it was pleasantto find someone who agreed with me.

Then there came an awful moment for both of us.

A knock, as of a visitor and not a postman, was heard at my door.

“Goodness gracious,” I exclaimed, “why didn’twe sport the oak? Perhaps it is your father. But surelyhe would hardly come at this time of day! Go at once into my bedroom.”

I went to the door, and, sure enough, there were both Theobald andChristina. I could not refuse to let them in and was obliged tolisten to their version of the story, which agreed substantially withErnest’s. Christina cried bitterly—Theobald stormed.After about ten minutes, during which I assured them that I had notthe faintest conception where their son was, I dismissed them both.I saw they looked suspiciously upon the manifest signs that someonewas breakfasting with me, and parted from me more or less defiantly,but I got rid of them, and poor Ernest came out again, looking white,frightened and upset. He had heard voices, but no more, and didnot feel sure that the enemy might not be gaining over me. Wesported the oak now, and before long he began to recover.

After breakfast, we discussed the situation. I had taken awayhis wardrobe and books from Mrs Jupp’s, but had left his furniture,pictures and piano, giving Mrs Jupp the use of these, so that she mightlet her room furnished, in lieu of charge for taking care of the furniture.As soon as Ernest heard that his wardrobe was at hand, he got out asuit of clothes he had had before he had been ordained, and put it onat once, much, as I thought, to the improvement of his personal appearance.

Then we went into the subject of his finances. He had had tenpounds from Pryer only a day or two before he was apprehended, of whichbetween seven and eight were in his purse when he entered the prison.This money was restored to him on leaving. He had always paidcash for whatever he bought, so that there was nothing to be deductedfor debts. Besides this, he had his clothes, books and furniture.He could, as I have said, have had £100 from his father if hehad chosen to emigrate, but this both Ernest and I (for he brought meround to his opinion) agreed it would be better to decline. Thiswas all he knew of as belonging to him.

He said he proposed at once taking an unfurnished top back atticin as quiet a house as he could find, say at three or four shillingsa week, and looking out for work as a tailor. I did not thinkit much mattered what he began with, for I felt pretty sure he wouldere long find his way to something that suited him, if he could geta start with anything at all. The difficulty was how to get himstarted. It was not enough that he should be able to cut out andmake clothes—that he should have the organs, so to speak, of atailor; he must be put into a tailor’s shop and guided for a littlewhile by someone who knew how and where to help him.

The rest of the day he spent in looking for a room, which he soonfound, and in familiarising himself with liberty. In the eveningI took him to the Olympic, where Robson was then acting in a burlesqueon Macbeth, Mrs Keeley, if I remember rightly, taking the part of LadyMacbeth. In the scene before the murder, Macbeth had said he couldnot kill Duncan when he saw his boots upon the landing. Lady Macbethput a stop to her husband’s hesitation by whipping him up underher arm, and carrying him off the stage, kicking and screaming.Ernest laughed till he cried. “What rot Shakespeare is afterthis,” he exclaimed, involuntarily. I remembered his essayon the Greek tragedians, and was more I épris with himthan ever.

Next day he set about looking for employment, and I did not see himtill about five o’clock, when he came and said that he had hadno success. The same thing happened the next day and the day afterthat. Wherever he went he was invariably refused and often orderedpoint blank out of the shop; I could see by the expression of his face,though he said nothing, that he was getting frightened, and began tothink I should have to come to the rescue. He said he had madea great many enquiries and had always been told the same story.He found that it was easy to keep on in an old line, but very hard tostrike out into a new one.

He talked to the fishmonger in Leather Lane, where he went to buya bloater for his tea, casually as though from curiosity and withoutany interested motive. “Sell,” said the master ofthe shop, “Why nobody wouldn’t believe what can be soldby penn’orths and twopenn’orths if you go the right wayto work. Look at whelks, for instance. Last Saturday nightme and my little Emma here, we sold £7 worth of whelks betweeneight and half past eleven o’clock—and almost all in penn’orthsand twopenn’orths—a few, hap’orths, but not many.It was the steam that did it. We kept a-boiling of ’em hotand hot, and whenever the steam came strong up from the cellar on tothe pavement, the people bought, but whenever the steam went down theyleft off buying; so we boiled them over and over again till they wasall sold. That’s just where it is; if you know your businessyou can sell, if you don’t you’ll soon make a mess of it.Why, but for the steam, I should not have sold 10s. worth of whelksall the night through.”

This, and many another yarn of kindred substance which he heard fromother people determined Ernest more than ever to stake on tailoringas the one trade about which he knew anything at all, nevertheless,here were three or four days gone by and employment seemed as far offas ever.

I now did what I ought to have done before, that is to say, I calledon my own tailor whom I had dealt with for over a quarter of a centuryand asked his advice. He declared Ernest’s plan to be hopeless.“If,” said Mr Larkins, for this was my tailor’s name,“he had begun at fourteen, it might have done, but no man of twenty-fourcould stand being turned to work into a workshop full of tailors; hewould not get on with the men, nor the men with him; you could not expecthim to be ‘hail fellow, well met’ with them, and you couldnot expect his fellow-workmen to like him if he was not. A manmust have sunk low through drink or natural taste for low company, beforehe could get on with those who have had such a different training fromhis own.”

Mr Larkins said a great deal more and wound up by taking me to seethe place where his own men worked. “This is a paradise,”he said, “compared to most workshops. What gentleman couldstand this air, think you, for a fortnight?”

I was glad enough to get out of the hot, fetid atmosphere in fiveminutes, and saw that there was no brick of Ernest’s prison tobe loosened by going and working among tailors in a workshop.

Mr Larkins wound up by saying that even if my protégéwere a much better workman than he probably was, no master would givehim employment, for fear of creating a bother among the men.

I left, feeling that I ought to have thought of all this myself,and was more than ever perplexed as to whether I had not better letmy young friend have a few thousand pounds and send him out to the colonies,when, on my return home at about five o’clock, I found him waitingfor me, radiant, and declaring that he had found all he wanted.

CHAPTER LXXI

It seems he had been patrolling the streets for the last three orfour nights—I suppose in search of something to do—at anyrate knowing better what he wanted to get than how to get it.Nevertheless, what he wanted was in reality so easily to be found thatit took a highly educated scholar like himself to be unable to findit. But, however this may be, he had been scared, and now sawlions where there were none, and was shocked and frightened, and nightafter night his courage had failed him and he had returned to his lodgingsin Laystall Street without accomplishing his errand. He had nottaken me into his confidence upon this matter, and I had not enquiredwhat he did with himself in the evenings. At last he had concludedthat, however painful it might be to him, he would call on Mrs Jupp,who he thought would be able to help him if anyone could. He hadbeen walking moodily from seven till about nine, and now resolved togo straight to Ashpit Place and make a mother confessor of Mrs Juppwithout more delay.

Of all tasks that could be performed by mortal woman there was nonewhich Mrs Jupp would have liked better than the one Ernest was thinkingof imposing upon her; nor do I know that in his scared and broken-downstate he could have done much better than he now proposed. MissJupp would have made it very easy for him to open his grief to her;indeed, she would have coaxed it all out of him before he knew wherehe was; but the fates were against Mrs Jupp, and the meeting betweenmy hero and his former landlady was postponed sine die, for hisdetermination had hardly been formed and he had not gone more than ahundred yards in the direction of Mrs Jupp’s house, when a womanaccosted him.

He was turning from her, as he had turned from so many others, whenshe started back with a movement that aroused his curiosity. Hehad hardly seen her face, but being determined to catch sight of it,followed her as she hurried away, and passed her; then turning roundhe saw that she was none other than Ellen, the housemaid who had beendismissed by his mother eight years previously.

He ought to have assigned Ellen’s unwillingness to see himto its true cause, but a guilty conscience made him think she had heardof his disgrace and was turning away from him in contempt. Braveas had been his resolutions about facing the world, this was more thanhe was prepared for; “What! you too shun me, Ellen?” heexclaimed.

The girl was crying bitterly and did not understand him. “Oh,Master Ernest,” she sobbed, “let me go; you are too goodfor the likes of me to speak to now.”

“Why, Ellen,” said he, “what nonsense you talk;you haven’t been in prison, have you?”

“Oh, no, no, no, not so bad as that,” she exclaimed passionately.

“Well, I have,” said Ernest, with a forced laugh, “Icame out three or four days ago after six months with hard labour.”

Ellen did not believe him, but she looked at him with a “Lor’!Master Ernest,” and dried her eyes at once. The ice wasbroken between them, for as a matter of fact Ellen had been in prisonseveral times, and though she did not believe Ernest, his merely sayinghe had been in prison made her feel more at ease with him. Forher there were two classes of people, those who had been in prison andthose who had not. The first she looked upon as fellow-creaturesand more or less Christians, the second, with few exceptions, she regardedwith suspicion, not wholly unmingled with contempt.

Then Ernest told her what had happened to him during the last sixmonths, and by-and-by she believed him.

“Master Ernest,” said she, after they had talked fora quarter of an hour or so, “There’s a place over the waywhere they sell tripe and onions. I know you was always very fondof tripe and onions, let’s go over and have some, and we can talkbetter there.”

So the pair crossed the street and entered the tripe shop; Ernestordered supper.

“And how is your pore dear mamma, and your dear papa, MasterErnest,” said Ellen, who had now recovered herself and was quiteat home with my hero. “Oh, dear, dear me,” she said,“I did love your pa; he was a good gentleman, he was, and yourma too; it would do anyone good to live with her, I’m sure.”

Ernest was surprised and hardly knew what to say. He had expectedto find Ellen indignant at the way she had been treated, and inclinedto lay the blame of her having fallen to her present state at his father’sand mother’s door. It was not so. Her only recollectionof Battersby was as of a place where she had had plenty to eat and drink,not too much hard work, and where she had not been scolded. Whenshe heard that Ernest had quarrelled with his father and mother sheassumed as a matter of course that the fault must lie entirely withErnest.

“Oh, your pore, pore ma!” said Ellen. “Shewas always so very fond of you, Master Ernest: you was always her favourite;I can’t abear to think of anything between you and her.To think now of the way she used to have me into the dining-room andteach me my catechism, that she did! Oh, Master Ernest, you reallymust go and make it all up with her; indeed you must.”

Ernest felt rueful, but he had resisted so valiantly already thatthe devil might have saved himself the trouble of trying to get at himthrough Ellen in the matter of his father and mother. He changedthe subject, and the pair warmed to one another as they had their tripeand pots of beer. Of all people in the world Ellen was perhapsthe one to whom Ernest could have spoken most freely at this juncture.He told her what he thought he could have told to no one else.

“You know, Ellen,” he concluded, “I had learntas a boy things that I ought not to have learnt, and had never had achance of that which would have set me straight.”

“Gentlefolks is always like that,” said Ellen musingly.

“I believe you are right, but I am no longer a gentleman, Ellen,and I don’t see why I should be ‘like that’ any longer,my dear. I want you to help me to be like something else as soonas possible.”

“Lor’! Master Ernest, whatever can you be meaning?”

The pair soon afterwards left the eating-house and walked up FetterLane together.

Ellen had had hard times since she had left Battersby, but they hadleft little trace upon her.

Ernest saw only the fresh-looking smiling face, the dimpled cheek,the clear blue eyes and lovely sphinx-like lips which he had rememberedas a boy. At nineteen she had looked older than she was, now shelooked much younger; indeed she looked hardly older than when Ernesthad last seen her, and it would have taken a man of much greater experiencethan he possessed to suspect how completely she had fallen from herfirst estate. It never occurred to him that the poor conditionof her wardrobe was due to her passion for ardent spirits, and thatfirst and last she had served five or six times as much time in gaolas he had. He ascribed the poverty of her attire to the attemptsto keep herself respectable, which Ellen during supper had more thanonce alluded to. He had been charmed with the way in which shehad declared that a pint of beer would make her tipsy, and had onlyallowed herself to be forced into drinking the whole after a good dealof remonstrance. To him she appeared a very angel dropped fromthe sky, and all the more easy to get on with for being a fallen one.

As he walked up Fetter Lane with her towards Laystall Street, hethought of the wonderful goodness of God towards him in throwing inhis way the very person of all others whom he was most glad to see,and whom, of all others, in spite of her living so near him, he mighthave never fallen in with but for a happy accident.

When people get it into their heads that they are being speciallyfavoured by the Almighty, they had better as a general rule mind theirp’s and q’s, and when they think they see the devil’sdrift with more special clearness, let them remember that he has hadmuch more experience than they have, and is probably meditating mischief.

Already during supper the thought that in Ellen at last he had founda woman whom he could love well enough to wish to live with and marryhad flitted across his mind, and the more they had chatted the morereasons kept suggesting themselves for thinking that what might be follyin ordinary cases would not be folly in his.

He must marry someone; that was already settled. He could notmarry a lady; that was absurd. He must marry a poor woman.Yes, but a fallen one? Was he not fallen himself? Ellenwould fall no more. He had only to look at her to be sure of this.He could not live with her in sin, not for more than the shortest timethat could elapse before their marriage; he no longer believed in thesupernatural element of Christianity, but the Christian morality atany rate was indisputable. Besides, they might have children,and a stigma would rest upon them. Whom had he to consult buthimself now? His father and mother never need know, and even ifthey did, they should be thankful to see him married to any woman whowould make him happy as Ellen would. As for not being able toafford marriage, how did poor people do? Did not a good wife ratherhelp matters than not? Where one could live two could do so, andif Ellen was three or four years older than he was—well, whatwas that?

Have you, gentle reader, ever loved at first sight? When youfell in love at first sight, how long, let me ask, did it take you tobecome ready to fling every other consideration to the winds exceptthat of obtaining possession of the loved one? Or rather, howlong would it have taken you if you had had no father or mother, nothingto lose in the way of money, position, friends, professional advancement,or what not, and if the object of your affections was as free from allthese impedimenta as you were yourself?

If you were a young John Stuart Mill, perhaps it would have takenyou some time, but suppose your nature was Quixotic, impulsive, altruistic,guileless; suppose you were a hungry man starving for something to loveand lean upon, for one whose burdens you might bear, and who might helpyou to bear yours. Suppose you were down on your luck, still stunnedby a horrible shock, and this bright vista of a happy future floatedsuddenly before you, how long under these circ*mstances do you thinkyou would reflect before you would decide on embracing what chance hadthrown in your way?

It did not take my hero long, for before he got past the ham andbeef shop near the top of Fetter Lane, he had told Ellen that she mustcome home with him and live with him till they could get married, whichthey would do upon the first day that the law allowed.

I think the devil must have chuckled and made tolerably sure of hisgame this time.

CHAPTER LXXII

Ernest told Ellen of his difficulty about finding employment.

“But what do you think of going into a shop for, my dear,”said Ellen. “Why not take a little shop yourself?”

Ernest asked how much this would cost. Ellen told him thathe might take a house in some small street, say near the “Elephantand Castle,” for 17s. or 18s. a week, and let off the two topfloors for 10s., keeping the back parlour and shop for themselves.If he could raise five or six pounds to buy some second-hand clothesto stock the shop with, they could mend them and clean them, and shecould look after the women’s clothes while he did the men’s.Then he could mend and make, if he could get the orders.

They could soon make a business of £2 a week in this way; shehad a friend who began like that and had now moved to a better shop,where she made £5 or £6 a week at least—and she, Ellen,had done the greater part of the buying and selling herself.

Here was a new light indeed. It was as though he had got his£5000 back again all of a sudden, and perhaps ever so much morelater on into the bargain. Ellen seemed more than ever to be hisgood genius.

She went out and got a few rashers of bacon for his and her breakfast.She cooked them much more nicely than he had been able to do, and laidbreakfast for him and made coffee, and some nice brown toast.Ernest had been his own cook and housemaid for the last few days andhad not given himself satisfaction. Here he suddenly found himselfwith someone to wait on him again. Not only had Ellen pointedout to him how he could earn a living when no one except himself hadknown how to advise him, but here she was so pretty and smiling, lookingafter even his comforts, and restoring him practically in all respectsthat he much cared about to the position which he had lost—orrather putting him in one that he already liked much better. Nowonder he was radiant when he came to explain his plans to me.

He had some difficulty in telling all that had happened. Hehesitated, blushed, hummed and hawed. Misgivings began to crosshis mind when he found himself obliged to tell his story to someoneelse. He felt inclined to slur things over, but I wanted to getat the facts, so I helped him over the bad places, and questioned himtill I had got out pretty nearly the whole story as I have given itabove.

I hope I did not show it, but I was very angry. I had begunto like Ernest. I don’t know why, but I never have heardthat any young man to whom I had become attached was going to get marriedwithout hating his intended instinctively, though I had never seen her;I have observed that most bachelors feel the same thing, though we aregenerally at some pains to hide the fact. Perhaps it is becausewe know we ought to have got married ourselves. Ordinarily wesay we are delighted—in the present case I did not feel obligedto do this, though I made an effort to conceal my vexation. Thata young man of much promise who was heir also to what was now a handsomefortune, should fling himself away upon such a person as Ellen was quitetoo provoking, and the more so because of the unexpectedness of thewhole affair.

I begged him not to marry Ellen yet—not at least until he hadknown her for a longer time. He would not hear of it; he had givenhis word, and if he had not given it he should go and give it at once.I had hitherto found him upon most matters singularly docile and easyto manage, but on this point I could do nothing with him. Hisrecent victory over his father and mother had increased his strength,and I was nowhere. I would have told him of his true position,but I knew very well that this would only make him more bent on havinghis own way—for with so much money why should he not please himself?I said nothing, therefore, on this head, and yet all that I could urgewent for very little with one who believed himself to be an artisanor nothing.

Really from his own standpoint there was nothing very outrageousin what he was doing. He had known and been very fond of Ellenyears before. He knew her to come of respectable people, and tohave borne a good character, and to have been universally liked at Battersby.She was then a quick, smart, hard-working girl—and a very prettyone. When at last they met again she was on her best behaviour,in fact, she was modesty and demureness itself. What wonder, then,that his imagination should fail to realise the changes that eight yearsmust have worked? He knew too much against himself, and was toobankrupt in love to be squeamish; if Ellen had been only what he thoughther, and if his prospects had been in reality no better than he believedthey were, I do not know that there is anything much more imprudentin what Ernest proposed than there is in half the marriages that takeplace every day.

There was nothing for it, however, but to make the best of the inevitable,so I wished my young friend good fortune, and told him he could havewhatever money he wanted to start his shop with, if what he had in handwas not sufficient. He thanked me, asked me to be kind enoughto let him do all my mending and repairing, and to get him any otherlike orders that I could, and left me to my own reflections.

I was even more angry when he was gone than I had been while he waswith me. His frank, boyish face had beamed with a happiness thathad rarely visited it. Except at Cambridge he had hardly knownwhat happiness meant, and even there his life had been clouded as ofa man for whom wisdom at the greatest of its entrances was quite shutout. I had seen enough of the world and of him to have observedthis, but it was impossible, or I thought it had been impossible, forme to have helped him.

Whether I ought to have tried to help him or not I do not know, butI am sure that the young of all animals often do want help upon mattersabout which anyone would say a priori that there should be nodifficulty. One would think that a young seal would want no teachinghow to swim, nor yet a bird to fly, but in practice a young seal drownsif put out of its depth before its parents have taught it to swim; andso again, even the young hawk must be taught to fly before it can doso.

I grant that the tendency of the times is to exaggerate the goodwhich teaching can do, but in trying to teach too much, in most matters,we have neglected others in respect of which a little sensible teachingwould do no harm.

I know it is the fashion to say that young people must find out thingsfor themselves, and so they probably would if they had fair play tothe extent of not having obstacles put in their way. But theyseldom have fair play; as a general rule they meet with foul play, andfoul play from those who live by selling them stones made into a greatvariety of shapes and sizes so as to form a tolerable imitation of bread.

Some are lucky enough to meet with few obstacles, some are pluckyenough to over-ride them, but in the greater number of cases, if peopleare saved at all they are saved so as by fire.

While Ernest was with me Ellen was looking out for a shop on thesouth side of the Thames near the “Elephant and Castle,”which was then almost a new and a very rising neighbourhood. Byone o’clock she had found several from which a selection was tobe made, and before night the pair had made their choice.

Ernest brought Ellen to me. I did not want to see her, butcould not well refuse. He had laid out a few of his shillingsupon her wardrobe, so that she was neatly dressed, and, indeed, shelooked very pretty and so good that I could hardly be surprised at Ernest’sinfatuation when the other circ*mstances of the case were taken intoconsideration. Of course we hated one another instinctively fromthe first moment we set eyes on one another, but we each told Ernestthat we had been most favourably impressed.

Then I was taken to see the shop. An empty house is like astray dog or a body from which life has departed. Decay sets inat once in every part of it, and what mould and wind and weather wouldspare, street boys commonly destroy. Ernest’s shop in itsuntenanted state was a dirty unsavoury place enough. The housewas not old, but it had been run up by a jerry-builder and its constitutionhad no stamina whatever. It was only by being kept warm and quietthat it would remain in health for many months together. Now ithad been empty for some weeks and the cats had got in by night, whilethe boys had broken the windows by day. The parlour floor wascovered with stones and dirt, and in the area was a dead dog which hadbeen killed in the street and been thrown down into the first unprotectedplace that could be found. There was a strong smell throughoutthe house, but whether it was bugs, or rats, or cats, or drains, ora compound of all four, I could not determine. The sashes didnot fit, the flimsy doors hung badly; the skirting was gone in severalplaces, and there were not a few holes in the floor; the locks wereloose, and paper was torn and dirty; the stairs were weak and one feltthe treads give as one went up them.

Over and above these drawbacks the house had an ill name, by reasonof the fact that the wife of the last occupant had hanged herself init not very many weeks previously. She had set down a bloaterbefore the fire for her husband’s tea, and had made him a roundof toast. She then left the room as though about to return toit shortly, but instead of doing so she went into the back kitchen andhanged herself without a word. It was this which had kept thehouse empty so long in spite of its excellent position as a corner shop.The last tenant had left immediately after the inquest, and if the ownerhad had it done up then people would have got over the tragedy thathad been enacted in it, but the combination of bad condition and badfame had hindered many from taking it, who like Ellen, could see thatit had great business capabilities. Almost anything would havesold there, but it happened also that there was no second-hand clothesshop in close proximity so that everything combined in its favour, exceptit* filthy state and its reputation.

When I saw it, I thought I would rather die than live in such anawful place—but then I had been living in the Temple for the lastfive and twenty years. Ernest was lodging in Laystall Street andhad just come out of prison; before this he had lived in Ashpit Placeso that this house had no terrors for him provided he could get it doneup. The difficulty was that the landlord was hard to move in thisrespect. It ended in my finding the money to do everything thatwas wanted, and taking a lease of the house for five years at the samerental as that paid by the last occupant. I then sublet it toErnest, of course taking care that it was put more efficiently intorepair than his landlord was at all likely to have put it.

A week later I called and found everything so completely transformedthat I should hardly have recognised the house. All the ceilingshad been whitewashed, all the rooms papered, the broken glass hackedout and reinstated, the defective wood-work renewed, all the sashes,cupboards and doors had been painted. The drains had been thoroughlyoverhauled, everything in fact, that could be done had been done, andthe rooms now looked as cheerful as they had been forbidding when Ihad last seen them. The people who had done the repairs were supposedto have cleaned the house down before leaving, but Ellen had given itanother scrub from top to bottom herself after they were gone, and itwas as clean as a new pin. I almost felt as though I could havelived in it myself, and as for Ernest, he was in the seventh heaven.He said it was all my doing and Ellen’s.

There was already a counter in the shop and a few fittings, so thatnothing now remained but to get some stock and set them out for sale.Ernest said he could not begin better than by selling his clerical wardrobeand his books, for though the shop was intended especially for the saleof second-hand clothes, yet Ellen said there was no reason why theyshould not sell a few books too; so a beginning was to be made by sellingthe books he had had at school and college at about one shilling a volume,taking them all round, and I have heard him say that he learned morethat proved of practical use to him through stocking his books on abench in front of his shop and selling them, than he had done from allthe years of study which he had bestowed upon their contents.

For the enquiries that were made of him whether he had such and sucha book taught him what he could sell and what he could not; how muchhe could get for this, and how much for that. Having made eversuch a little beginning with books, he took to attending book salesas well as clothes sales, and ere long this branch of his business becameno less important than the tailoring, and would, I have no doubt, havebeen the one which he would have settled down to exclusively, if hehad been called upon to remain a tradesman; but this is anticipating.

I made a contribution and a stipulation. Ernest wanted to sinkthe gentleman completely, until such time as he could work his way upagain. If he had been left to himself he would have lived withEllen in the shop back parlour and kitchen, and have let out both theupper floors according to his original programme. I did not wanthim, however, to cut himself adrift from music, letters and polite life,and feared that unless he had some kind of den into which he could retirehe would ere long become the tradesman and nothing else. I thereforeinsisted on taking the first floor front and back myself, and furnishingthem with the things which had been left at Mrs Jupp’s.I bought these things of him for a small sum and had them moved intohis present abode.

I went to Mrs Jupp’s to arrange all this, as Ernest did notlike going to Ashpit Place. I had half expected to find the furnituresold and Mrs Jupp gone, but it was not so; with all her faults the poorold woman was perfectly honest.

I told her that Pryer had taken all Ernest’s money and runaway with it. She hated Pryer. “I never knew anyone,”she exclaimed, “as white-livered in the face as that Pryer; hehasn’t got an upright vein in his whole body. Why, all thattime when he used to come breakfasting with Mr Pontifex morning aftermorning, it took me to a perfect shadow the way he carried on.There was no doing anything to please him right. First I usedto get them eggs and bacon, and he didn’t like that; and thenI got him a bit of fish, and he didn’t like that, or else it wastoo dear, and you know fish is dearer than ever; and then I got hima bit of German, and he said it rose on him; then I tried sausages,and he said they hit him in the eye worse even than German; oh! howI used to wander my room and fret about it inwardly and cry for hours,and all about them paltry breakfasts—and it wasn’t Mr Pontifex;he’d like anything that anyone chose to give him.

“And so the piano’s to go,” she continued.“What beautiful tunes Mr Pontifex did play upon it, to be sure;and there was one I liked better than any I ever heard. I wasin the room when he played it once and when I said, ‘Oh, Mr Pontifex,that’s the kind of woman I am,’ he said, ‘No, MrsJupp, it isn’t, for this tune is old, but no one can say you areold.’ But, bless you, he meant nothing by it, it was onlyhis mucky flattery.”

Like myself, she was vexed at his getting married. She didn’tlike his being married, and she didn’t like his not being married—but,anyhow, it was Ellen’s fault, not his, and she hoped he wouldbe happy. “But after all,” she concluded, “itain’t you and it ain’t me, and it ain’t him and itain’t her. It’s what you must call the fortunes ofmatterimony, for there ain’t no other word for it.”

In the course of the afternoon the furniture arrived at Ernest’snew abode. In the first floor we placed the piano, table, pictures,bookshelves, a couple of arm-chairs, and all the little household godswhich he had brought from Cambridge. The back room was furnishedexactly as his bedroom at Ashpit Place had been—new things beinggot for the bridal apartment downstairs. These two first-floorrooms I insisted on retaining as my own, but Ernest was to use themwhenever he pleased; he was never to sublet even the bedroom, but wasto keep it for himself in case his wife should be ill at any time, orin case he might be ill himself.

In less than a fortnight from the time of his leaving prison allthese arrangements had been completed, and Ernest felt that he had againlinked himself on to the life which he had led before his imprisonment—witha few important differences, however, which were greatly to his advantage.He was no longer a clergyman; he was about to marry a woman to whomhe was much attached, and he had parted company for ever with his fatherand mother.

True, he had lost all his money, his reputation, and his positionas a gentleman; he had, in fact, had to burn his house down in orderto get his roast sucking pig; but if asked whether he would rather beas he was now or as he was on the day before his arrest, he would nothave had a moment’s hesitation in preferring his present to hispast. If his present could only have been purchased at the expenseof all that he had gone through, it was still worth purchasing at theprice, and he would go through it all again if necessary. Theloss of the money was the worst, but Ellen said she was sure they wouldget on, and she knew all about it. As for the loss of reputation—consideringthat he had Ellen and me left, it did not come to much.

I saw the house on the afternoon of the day on which all was finished,and there remained nothing but to buy some stock and begin selling.When I was gone, after he had had his tea, he stole up to his castle—thefirst floor front. He lit his pipe and sat down to the piano.He played Handel for an hour or so, and then set himself to the tableto read and write. He took all his sermons and all the theologicalworks he had begun to compose during the time he had been a clergymanand put them in the fire; as he saw them consume he felt as though hehad got rid of another incubus. Then he took up some of the littlepieces he had begun to write during the latter part of his undergraduatelife at Cambridge, and began to cut them about and re-write them.As he worked quietly at these till he heard the clock strike ten andit was time to go to bed, he felt that he was now not only happy butsupremely happy.

Next day Ellen took him to Debenham’s auction rooms, and theysurveyed the lots of clothes which were hung up all round the auctionroom to be viewed. Ellen had had sufficient experience to knowabout how much each lot ought to fetch; she overhauled lot after lot,and valued it; in a very short time Ernest himself began to have a prettyfair idea what each lot should go for, and before the morning was overvalued a dozen lots running at prices about which Ellen said he wouldnot hurt if he could get them for that.

So far from disliking this work or finding it tedious, he liked itvery much, indeed he would have liked anything which did not overtaxhis physical strength, and which held out a prospect of bringing himin money. Ellen would not let him buy anything on the occasionof this sale; she said he had better see one sale first and watch howprices actually went. So at twelve o’clock when the salebegan, he saw the lots sold which he and Ellen had marked, and by thetime the sale was over he knew enough to be able to bid with safetywhenever he should actually want to buy. Knowledge of this sortis very easily acquired by anyone who is in bona fide want ofit.

But Ellen did not want him to buy at auctions—not much at leastat present. Private dealing, she said, was best. If I, forexample, had any cast-off clothes, he was to buy them from my laundress,and get a connection with other laundresses, to whom he might give atrifle more than they got at present for whatever clothes their mastersmight give them, and yet make a good profit. If gentlemen soldtheir things, he was to try and get them to sell to him. He flinchedat nothing; perhaps he would have flinched if he had had any idea howoutré his proceedings were, but the very ignorance ofthe world which had ruined him up till now, by a happy irony began towork its own cure. If some malignant fairy had meant to cursehim in this respect, she had overdone her malice. He did not knowhe was doing anything strange. He only knew that he had no money,and must provide for himself, a wife, and a possible family. Morethan this, he wanted to have some leisure in an evening, so that hemight read and write and keep up his music. If anyone would showhim how he could do better than he was doing, he should be much obligedto them, but to himself it seemed that he was doing sufficiently well;for at the end of the first week the pair found they had made a clearprofit of £3. In a few weeks this had increased to £4,and by the New Year they had made a profit of £5 in one week.

Ernest had by this time been married some two months, for he hadstuck to his original plan of marrying Ellen on the first day he couldlegally do so. This date was a little delayed by the change ofabode from Laystall Street to Blackfriars, but on the first day thatit could be done it was done. He had never had more than £250a year, even in the times of his affluence, so that a profit of £5a week, if it could be maintained steadily, would place him where hehad been as far as income went, and, though he should have to feed twomouths instead of one, yet his expenses in other ways were so much curtailedby his changed social position, that, take it all round, his incomewas practically what it had been a twelvemonth before. The nextthing to do was to increase it, and put by money.

Prosperity depends, as we all know, in great measure upon energyand good sense, but it also depends not a little upon pure luck—thatis to say, upon connections which are in such a tangle that it is moreeasy to say that they do not exist, than to try to trace them.A neighbourhood may have an excellent reputation as being likely tobe a rising one, and yet may become suddenly eclipsed by another, whichno one would have thought so promising. A fever hospital may divertthe stream of business, or a new station attract it; so little, indeed,can be certainly known, that it is better not to try to know more thanis in everybody’s mouth, and to leave the rest to chance.

Luck, which certainly had not been too kind to my hero hitherto,now seemed to have taken him under her protection. The neighbourhoodprospered, and he with it. It seemed as though he no sooner boughta thing and put it into his shop, than it sold with a profit of fromthirty to fifty per cent. He learned book-keeping, and watchedhis accounts carefully, following up any success immediately; he beganto buy other things besides clothes—such as books, music, oddsand ends of furniture, etc. Whether it was luck or business aptitude,or energy, or the politeness with which he treated all his customers,I cannot say—but to the surprise of no one more than himself,he went ahead faster than he had anticipated, even in his wildest dreams,and by Easter was established in a strong position as the owner of abusiness which was bringing him in between four and five hundred a year,and which he understood how to extend.

CHAPTER LXXIII

Ellen and he got on capitally, all the better, perhaps, because thedisparity between them was so great, that neither did Ellen want tobe elevated, nor did Ernest want to elevate her. He was very fondof her, and very kind to her; they had interests which they could servein common; they had antecedents with a good part of which each was familiar;they had each of them excellent tempers, and this was enough.Ellen did not seem jealous at Ernest’s preferring to sit the greaterpart of his time after the day’s work was done in the first floorfront where I occasionally visited him. She might have come andsat with him if she had liked, but, somehow or other, she generallyfound enough to occupy her down below. She had the tact also toencourage him to go out of an evening whenever he had a mind, withoutin the least caring that he should take her too—and this suitedErnest very well. He was, I should say, much happier in his marriedlife than people generally are.

At first it had been very painful to him to meet any of his old friends,as he sometimes accidentally did, but this soon passed; either theycut him, or he cut them; it was not nice being cut for the first timeor two, but after that, it became rather pleasant than not, and whenhe began to see that he was going ahead, he cared very little what peoplemight say about his antecedents. The ordeal is a painful one,but if a man’s moral and intellectual constitution are naturallysound, there is nothing which will give him so much strength of characteras having been well cut.

It was easy for him to keep his expenditure down, for his tasteswere not luxurious. He liked theatres, outings into the countryon a Sunday, and tobacco, but he did not care for much else, exceptwriting and music. As for the usual run of concerts, he hatedthem. He worshipped Handel; he liked Offenbach, and the airs thatwent about the streets, but he cared for nothing between these two extremes.Music, therefore, cost him little. As for theatres, I got himand Ellen as many orders as they liked, so these cost them nothing.The Sunday outings were a small item; for a shilling or two he couldget a return ticket to some place far enough out of town to give hima good walk and a thorough change for the day. Ellen went withhim the first few times, but she said she found it too much for her,there were a few of her old friends whom she should sometimes like tosee, and they and he, she said, would not hit it off perhaps too well,so it would be better for him to go alone. This seemed so sensible,and suited Ernest so exactly that he readily fell into it, nor did hesuspect dangers which were apparent enough to me when I heard how shehad treated the matter. I kept silence, however, and for a timeall continued to go well. As I have said, one of his chief pleasureswas in writing. If a man carries with him a little sketch bookand is continually jotting down sketches, he has the artistic instinct;a hundred things may hinder his due development, but the instinct isthere. The literary instinct may be known by a man’s keepinga small note-book in his waistcoat pocket, into which he jots down anythingthat strikes him, or any good thing that he hears said, or a referenceto any passage which he thinks will come in useful to him. Ernesthad such a note-book always with him. Even when he was at Cambridgehe had begun the practice without anyone’s having suggested itto him. These notes he copied out from time to time into a book,which as they accumulated, he was driven into indexing approximately,as he went along. When I found out this, I knew that he had theliterary instinct, and when I saw his notes I began to hope great thingsof him.

For a long time I was disappointed. He was kept back by thenature of the subjects he chose—which were generally metaphysical.In vain I tried to get him away from these to matters which had a greaterinterest for the general public. When I begged him to try hishand at some pretty, graceful, little story which should be full ofwhatever people knew and liked best, he would immediately set to workupon a treatise to show the grounds on which all belief rested.

“You are stirring mud,” said I, “or poking at asleeping dog. You are trying to make people resume consciousnessabout things, which, with sensible men, have already passed into theunconscious stage. The men whom you would disturb are in frontof you, and not, as you fancy, behind you; it is you who are the lagger,not they.”

He could not see it. He said he was engaged on an essay uponthe famous quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus of St Vincentde Lerins. This was the more provoking because he showed himselfable to do better things if he had liked.

I was then at work upon my burlesque “The Impatient Griselda,”and was sometimes at my wits’ end for a piece of business or asituation; he gave me many suggestions, all of which were marked byexcellent good sense. Nevertheless I could not prevail with himto put philosophy on one side, and was obliged to leave him to himself.

For a long time, as I have said, his choice of subjects continuedto be such as I could not approve. He was continually studyingscientific and metaphysical writers, in the hope of either finding ormaking for himself a philosopher’s stone in the shape of a systemwhich should go on all fours under all circ*mstances, instead of beingliable to be upset at every touch and turn, as every system yet promulgatedhas turned out to be.

He kept to the pursuit of this will-o’-the-wisp so long thatI gave up hope, and set him down as another fly that had been caught,as it were, by a piece of paper daubed over with some sticky stuff thathad not even the merit of being sweet, but to my surprise he at lastdeclared that he was satisfied, and had found what he wanted.

I supposed that he had only hit upon some new “Lo, here!”when to my relief, he told me that he had concluded that no system whichshould go perfectly upon all fours was possible, inasmuch as no onecould get behind Bishop Berkeley, and therefore no absolutely incontrovertiblefirst premise could ever be laid. Having found this he was justas well pleased as if he had found the most perfect system imaginable.All he wanted he said, was to know which way it was to be—thatis to say whether a system was possible or not, and if possible thenwhat the system was to be. Having found out that no system basedon absolute certainty was possible he was contented.

I had only a very vague idea who Bishop Berkeley was, but was thankfulto him for having defended us from an incontrovertible first premise.I am afraid I said a few words implying that after a great deal of troublehe had arrived at the conclusion which sensible people reach withoutbothering their brains so much.

He said: “Yes, but I was not born sensible. A child ofordinary powers learns to walk at a year or two old without knowingmuch about it; failing ordinary powers he had better learn laboriouslythan never learn at all. I am sorry I was not stronger, but todo as I did was my only chance.”

He looked so meek that I was vexed with myself for having said whatI had, more especially when I remembered his bringing-up, which haddoubtless done much to impair his power of taking a common-sense viewof things. He continued—

“I see it all now. The people like Towneley are the onlyones who know anything that is worth knowing, and like that of courseI can never be. But to make Towneleys possible there must be hewersof wood and drawers of water—men in fact through whom consciousknowledge must pass before it can reach those who can apply it gracefullyand instinctively as the Towneleys can. I am a hewer of wood,but if I accept the position frankly and do not set up to be a Towneley,it does not matter.”

He still, therefore, stuck to science instead of turning to literatureproper as I hoped he would have done, but he confined himself henceforthto enquiries on specific subjects concerning which an increase of ourknowledge—as he said—was possible. Having in fact,after infinite vexation of spirit, arrived at a conclusion which cutat the roots of all knowledge, he settled contentedly down to the pursuitof knowledge, and has pursued it ever since in spite of occasional excursionsinto the regions of literature proper.

But this is anticipating, and may perhaps also convey a wrong impression,for from the outset he did occasionally turn his attention to work whichmust be more properly called literary than either scientific or metaphysical.

CHAPTER LXXIV

About six months after he had set up his shop his prosperity hadreached its climax. It seemed even then as though he were likelyto go ahead no less fast than heretofore, and I doubt not that he wouldhave done so, if success or non-success had depended upon himself alone.Unfortunately he was not the only person to be reckoned with.

One morning he had gone out to attend some sales, leaving his wifeperfectly well, as usual in good spirits, and looking very pretty.When he came back he found her sitting on a chair in the back parlour,with her hair over her face, sobbing and crying as though her heartwould break. She said she had been frightened in the morning bya man who had pretended to be a customer, and had threatened her unlessshe gave him some things, and she had had to give them to him in orderto save herself from violence; she had been in hysterics ever sincethe man had gone. This was her story, but her speech was so incoherentthat it was not easy to make out what she said. Ernest knew shewas with child, and thinking this might have something to do with thematter, would have sent for a doctor if Ellen had not begged him notto do so.

Anyone who had had experience of drunken people would have seen ata glance what the matter was, but my hero knew nothing about them—nothing,that is to say, about the drunkenness of the habitual drunkard, whichshows itself very differently from that of one who gets drunk only oncein a way. The idea that his wife could drink had never even crossedhis mind, indeed she always made a fuss about taking more than a verylittle beer, and never touched spirits. He did not know much moreabout hysterics than he did about drunkenness, but he had always heardthat women who were about to become mothers were liable to be easilyupset and were often rather flighty, so he was not greatly surprised,and thought he had settled the matter by registering the discovery thatbeing about to become a father has its troublesome as well as its pleasantside.

The great change in Ellen’s life consequent upon her meetingErnest and getting married had for a time actually sobered her by shakingher out of her old ways. Drunkenness is so much a matter of habit,and habit so much a matter of surroundings, that if you completely changethe surroundings you will sometimes get rid of the drunkenness altogether.Ellen had intended remaining always sober henceforward, and never havinghad so long a steady fit before, believed she was now cured. Soshe perhaps would have been if she had seen none of her old acquaintances.When, however, her new life was beginning to lose its newness, and whenher old acquaintances came to see her, her present surroundings becamemore like her past, and on this she herself began to get like her pasttoo. At first she only got a little tipsy and struggled againsta relapse; but it was no use, she soon lost the heart to fight, andnow her object was not to try and keep sober, but to get gin withouther husband’s finding it out.

So the hysterics continued, and she managed to make her husband stillthink that they were due to her being about to become a mother.The worse her attacks were, the more devoted he became in his attentionto her. At last he insisted that a doctor should see her.The doctor of course took in the situation at a glance, but said nothingto Ernest except in such a guarded way that he did not understand thehints that were thrown out to him. He was much too downright andmatter of fact to be quick at taking hints of this sort. He hopedthat as soon as his wife’s confinement was over she would regainher health and had no thought save how to spare her as far as possibletill that happy time should come.

In the mornings she was generally better, as long that is to sayas Ernest remained at home; but he had to go out buying, and on hisreturn would generally find that she had had another attack as soonas he had left the house. At times she would laugh and cry forhalf an hour together, at others she would lie in a semi-comatose stateupon the bed, and when he came back he would find that the shop hadbeen neglected and all the work of the household left undone.Still he took it for granted that this was all part of the usual coursewhen women were going to become mothers, and when Ellen’s shareof the work settled down more and more upon his own shoulders he didit all and drudged away without a murmur. Nevertheless, he beganto feel in a vague way more as he had felt in Ashpit Place, at Roughborough,or at Battersby, and to lose the buoyancy of spirits which had madeanother man of him during the first six months of his married life.

It was not only that he had to do so much household work, for eventhe cooking, cleaning up slops, bed-making and fire-lighting ere longdevolved upon him, but his business no longer prospered. He couldbuy as hitherto, but Ellen seemed unable to sell as she had sold atfirst. The fact was that she sold as well as ever, but kept backpart of the proceeds in order to buy gin, and she did this more andmore till even the unsuspecting Ernest ought to have seen that she wasnot telling the truth. When she sold better—that is to saywhen she did not think it safe to keep back more than a certain amount,she got money out of him on the plea that she had a longing for thisor that, and that it would perhaps irreparably damage the baby if herlonging was denied her. All seemed right, reasonable, and unavoidable,nevertheless Ernest saw that until the confinement was over he was likelyto have a hard time of it. All however would then come right again.

CHAPTER LXXV

In the month of September 1860 a girl was born, and Ernest was proudand happy. The birth of the child, and a rather alarming talkwhich the doctor had given to Ellen sobered her for a few weeks, andit really seemed as though his hopes were about to be fulfilled.The expenses of his wife’s confinement were heavy, and he wasobliged to trench upon his savings, but he had no doubt about soon recoupingthis now that Ellen was herself again; for a time indeed his businessdid revive a little, nevertheless it seemed as though the interruptionto his prosperity had in some way broken the spell of good luck whichhad attended him in the outset; he was still sanguine, however, andworked night and day with a will, but there was no more music, or reading,or writing now. His Sunday outings were put a stop to, and butfor the first floor being let to myself, he would have lost his citadelthere too, but he seldom used it, for Ellen had to wait more and moreupon the baby, and, as a consequence, Ernest had to wait more and moreupon Ellen.

One afternoon, about a couple of months after the baby had been born,and just as my unhappy hero was beginning to feel more hopeful and thereforebetter able to bear his burdens, he returned from a sale, and foundEllen in the same hysterical condition that he had found her in in thespring. She said she was again with child, and Ernest still believedher.

All the troubles of the preceding six months began again then andthere, and grew worse and worse continually. Money did not comein quickly, for Ellen cheated him by keeping it back, and dealing improperlywith the goods he bought. When it did come in she got it out ofhim as before on pretexts which it seemed inhuman to inquire into.It was always the same story. By and by a new feature began toshow itself. Ernest had inherited his father’s punctualityand exactness as regards money; he liked to know the worst of what hehad to pay at once; he hated having expenses sprung upon him which ifnot foreseen might and ought to have been so, but now bills began tobe brought to him for things ordered by Ellen without his knowledge,or for which he had already given her the money. This was awful,and even Ernest turned. When he remonstrated with her—notfor having bought the things, but for having said nothing to him aboutthe moneys being owing—Ellen met him with hysteria and there wasa scene. She had now pretty well forgotten the hard times shehad known when she had been on her own resources and reproached himdownright with having married her—on that moment the scales fellfrom Ernest’s eyes as they had fallen when Towneley had said,“No, no, no.” He said nothing, but he woke up oncefor all to the fact that he had made a mistake in marrying. Atouch had again come which had revealed him to himself.

He went upstairs to the disused citadel, flung himself into the arm-chair,and covered his face with his hands.

He still did not know that his wife drank, but he could no longertrust her, and his dream of happiness was over. He had been savedfrom the Church—so as by fire, but still saved—but whatcould now save him from his marriage? He had made the same mistakethat he had made in wedding himself to the Church, but with a hundredtimes worse results. He had learnt nothing by experience: he wasan Esau—one of those wretches whose hearts the Lord had hardened,who, having ears, heard not, having eyes saw not, and who should findno place for repentance though they sought it even with tears.

Yet had he not on the whole tried to find out what the ways of Godwere, and to follow them in singleness of heart? To a certainextent, yes; but he had not been thorough; he had not given up all forGod. He knew that very well he had done little as compared withwhat he might and ought to have done, but still if he was being punishedfor this, God was a hard taskmaster, and one, too, who was continuallypouncing out upon his unhappy creatures from ambuscades. In marryingEllen he had meant to avoid a life of sin, and to take the course hebelieved to be moral and right. With his antecedents and surroundingsit was the most natural thing in the world for him to have done, yetin what a frightful position had not his morality landed him.Could any amount of immorality have placed him in a much worse one?What was morality worth if it was not that which on the whole broughta man peace at the last, and could anyone have reasonable certaintythat marriage would do this? It seemed to him that in his attemptto be moral he had been following a devil which had disguised itselfas an angel of light. But if so, what ground was there on whicha man might rest the sole of his foot and tread in reasonable safety?

He was still too young to reach the answer, “On common sense”—ananswer which he would have felt to be unworthy of anyone who had anideal standard.

However this might be, it was plain that he had now done for himself.It had been thus with him all his life. If there had come at anytime a gleam of sunshine and hope, it was to be obscured immediately—why,prison was happier than this! There, at any rate, he had had nomoney anxieties, and these were beginning to weigh upon him now withall their horrors. He was happier even now than he had been atBattersby or at Roughborough, and he would not now go back, even ifhe could, to his Cambridge life, but for all that the outlook was sogloomy, in fact so hopeless, that he felt as if he could have only toogladly gone to sleep and died in his arm-chair once for all.

As he was musing thus and looking upon the wreck of his hopes—forhe saw well enough that as long as he was linked to Ellen he shouldnever rise as he had dreamed of doing—he heard a noise below,and presently a neighbour ran upstairs and entered his room hurriedly—

“Good gracious, Mr Pontifex,” she exclaimed, “forgoodness’ sake come down quickly and help. O Mrs Pontifexis took with the horrors—and she’s orkard.”

The unhappy man came down as he was bid and found his wife mad withdelirium tremens.

He knew all now. The neighbours thought he must have knownthat his wife drank all along, but Ellen had been so artful, and heso simple, that, as I have said, he had had no suspicion. “Why,”said the woman who had summoned him, “she’ll drink anythingshe can stand up and pay her money for.” Ernest could hardlybelieve his ears, but when the doctor had seen his wife and she hadbecome more quiet, he went over to the public house hard by and madeenquiries, the result of which rendered further doubt impossible.The publican took the opportunity to present my hero with a bill ofseveral pounds for bottles of spirits supplied to his wife, and whatwith his wife’s confinement and the way business had fallen off,he had not the money to pay with, for the sum exceeded the remnant ofhis savings.

He came to me—not for money, but to tell me his miserable story.I had seen for some time that there was something wrong, and had suspectedpretty shrewdly what the matter was, but of course I said nothing.Ernest and I had been growing apart for some time. I was vexedat his having married, and he knew I was vexed, though I did my bestto hide it.

A man’s friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage—butthey are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends.The rift in friendship which invariably makes its appearance on themarriage of either of the parties to it was fast widening, as it noless invariably does, into the great gulf which is fixed between themarried and the unmarried, and I was beginning to leave my protégéto a fate with which I had neither right nor power to meddle.In fact I had begun to feel him rather a burden; I did not so much mindthis when I could be of use, but I grudged it when I could be of none.He had made his bed and he must lie upon it. Ernest had felt allthis and had seldom come near me till now, one evening late in 1860,he called on me, and with a very woebegone face told me his troubles.

As soon as I found that he no longer liked his wife I forgave himat once, and was as much interested in him as ever. There is nothingan old bachelor likes better than to find a young married man who wisheshe had not got married—especially when the case is such an extremeone that he need not pretend to hope that matters will come all rightagain, or encourage his young friend to make the best of it.

I was myself in favour of a separation, and said I would make Ellenan allowance myself—of course intending that it should come outof Ernest’s money; but he would not hear of this. He hadmarried Ellen, he said, and he must try to reform her. He hatedit, but he must try; and finding him as usual very obstinate I was obligedto acquiesce, though with little confidence as to the result.I was vexed at seeing him waste himself upon such a barren task, andagain began to feel him burdensome. I am afraid I showed this,for he again avoided me for some time, and, indeed, for many monthsI hardly saw him at all.

Ellen remained very ill for some days, and then gradually recovered.Ernest hardly left her till she was out of danger. When she hadrecovered he got the doctor to tell her that if she had such anotherattack she would certainly die; this so frightened her that she tookthe pledge.

Then he became more hopeful again. When she was sober she wasjust what she was during the first days of her married life, and soquick was he to forget pain, that after a few days he was as fond ofher as ever. But Ellen could not forgive him for knowing whathe did. She knew that he was on the watch to shield her from temptation,and though he did his best to make her think that he had no furtheruneasiness about her, she found the burden of her union with respectabilitygrow more and more heavy upon her, and looked back more and more longinglyupon the lawless freedom of the life she had led before she met herhusband.

I will dwell no longer on this part of my story. During thespring months of 1861 she kept straight—she had had her flingof dissipation, and this, together with the impression made upon herby her having taken the pledge, tamed her for a while. The shopwent fairly well, and enabled Ernest to make the two ends meet.In the spring and summer of 1861 he even put by a little money again.In the autumn his wife was confined of a boy—a very fine one,so everyone said. She soon recovered, and Ernest was beginningto breathe freely and be almost sanguine when, without a word of warning,the storm broke again. He returned one afternoon about two yearsafter his marriage, and found his wife lying upon the floor insensible.

From this time he became hopeless, and began to go visibly down hill.He had been knocked about too much, and the luck had gone too long againsthim. The wear and tear of the last three years had told on him,and though not actually ill he was overworked, below par, and unfitfor any further burden.

He struggled for a while to prevent himself from finding this out,but facts were too strong for him. Again he called on me and toldme what had happened. I was glad the crisis had come; I was sorryfor Ellen, but a complete separation from her was the only chance forher husband. Even after this last outbreak he was unwilling toconsent to this, and talked nonsense about dying at his post, till Igot tired of him. Each time I saw him the old gloom had settledmore and more deeply upon his face, and I had about made up my mindto put an end to the situation by a coup de main, such as bribingEllen to run away with somebody else, or something of that kind, whenmatters settled themselves as usual in a way which I had not anticipated.

CHAPTER LXXVI

The winter had been a trying one. Ernest had only paid hisway by selling his piano. With this he seemed to cut away thelast link that connected him with his earlier life, and to sink oncefor all into the small shop-keeper. It seemed to him that howeverlow he might sink his pain could not last much longer, for he shouldsimply die if it did.

He hated Ellen now, and the pair lived in open want of harmony witheach other. If it had not been for his children, he would haveleft her and gone to America, but he could not leave the children withEllen, and as for taking them with him he did not know how to do it,nor what to do with them when he had got them to America. If hehad not lost energy he would probably in the end have taken the childrenand gone off, but his nerve was shaken, so day after day went by andnothing was done.

He had only got a few shillings in the world now, except the valueof his stock, which was very little; he could get perhaps £3 or£4 by selling his music and what few pictures and pieces of furniturestill belonged to him. He thought of trying to live by his pen,but his writing had dropped off long ago; he no longer had an idea inhis head. Look which way he would he saw no hope; the end, ifit had not actually come, was within easy distance and he was almostface to face with actual want. When he saw people going aboutpoorly clad, or even without shoes and stockings, he wondered whetherwithin a few months’ time he too should not have to go about inthis way. The remorseless, resistless hand of fate had caughthim in its grip and was dragging him down, down, down. Still hestaggered on, going his daily rounds, buying second-hand clothes, andspending his evenings in cleaning and mending them.

One morning, as he was returning from a house at the West End wherehe had bought some clothes from one of the servants, he was struck bya small crowd which had gathered round a space that had been railedoff on the grass near one of the paths in the Green Park.

It was a lovely soft spring morning at the end of March, and unusuallybalmy for the time of year; even Ernest’s melancholy was relievedfor a while by the look of spring that pervaded earth and sky; but itsoon returned, and smiling sadly he said to himself: “It may bringhope to others, but for me there can be no hope henceforth.”

As these words were in his mind he joined the small crowd who weregathered round the railings, and saw that they were looking at threesheep with very small lambs only a day or two old, which had been pennedoff for shelter and protection from the others that ranged the park.

They were very pretty, and Londoners so seldom get a chance of seeinglambs that it was no wonder every one stopped to look at them.Ernest observed that no one seemed fonder of them than a great lubberlybutcher boy, who leaned up against the railings with a tray of meatupon his shoulder. He was looking at this boy and smiling at thegrotesqueness of his admiration, when he became aware that he was beingwatched intently by a man in coachman’s livery, who had also stoppedto admire the lambs, and was leaning against the opposite side of theenclosure. Ernest knew him in a moment as John, his father’sold coachman at Battersby, and went up to him at once.

“Why, Master Ernest,” said he, with his strong northernaccent, “I was thinking of you only this very morning,”and the pair shook hands heartily. John was in an excellent placeat the West End. He had done very well, he said, ever since hehad left Battersby, except for the first year or two, and that, he said,with a screw of the face, had well nigh broke him.

Ernest asked how this was.

“Why, you see,” said John, “I was always main fondof that lass Ellen, whom you remember running after, Master Ernest,and giving your watch to. I expect you haven’t forgottenthat day, have you?” And here he laughed. “Idon’t know as I be the father of the child she carried away withher from Battersby, but I very easily may have been. Anyhow, afterI had left your papa’s place a few days I wrote to Ellen to anaddress we had agreed upon, and told her I would do what I ought todo, and so I did, for I married her within a month afterwards.Why, Lord love the man, whatever is the matter with him?”—foras he had spoken the last few words of his story Ernest had turned whiteas a sheet, and was leaning against the railings.

“John,” said my hero, gasping for breath, “areyou sure of what you say—are you quite sure you really marriedher?”

“Of course I am,” said John, “I married her beforethe registrar at Letchbury on the 15th of August 1851.

“Give me your arm,” said Ernest, “and take me intoPiccadilly, and put me into a cab, and come with me at once, if youcan spare time, to Mr Overton’s at the Temple.”

CHAPTER LXXVII

I do not think Ernest himself was much more pleased at finding thathe had never been married than I was. To him, however, the shockof pleasure was positively numbing in its intensity. As he felthis burden removed, he reeled for the unaccustomed lightness of hismovements; his position was so shattered that his identity seemed tohave been shattered also; he was as one waking up from a horrible nightmareto find himself safe and sound in bed, but who can hardly even yet believethat the room is not full of armed men who are about to spring uponhim.

“And it is I,” he said, “who not an hour ago complainedthat I was without hope. It is I, who for weeks have been railingat fortune, and saying that though she smiled on others she never smiledat me. Why, never was anyone half so fortunate as I am.”

“Yes,” said I, “you have been inoculated for marriage,and have recovered.”

“And yet,” he said, “I was very fond of her tillshe took to drinking.”

“Perhaps; but is it not Tennyson who has said: ‘’Tisbetter to have loved and lost, than never to have lost at all’?”

“You are an inveterate bachelor,” was the rejoinder.

Then we had a long talk with John, to whom I gave a £5 noteupon the spot. He said, “Ellen had used to drink at Battersby;the cook had taught her; he had known it, but was so fond of her, thathe had chanced it and married her to save her from the streets and inthe hope of being able to keep her straight. She had done withhim just as she had done with Ernest—made him an excellent wifeas long as she kept sober, but a very bad one afterwards.”

“There isn’t,” said John, “a sweeter-tempered,handier, prettier girl than she was in all England, nor one as knowsbetter what a man likes, and how to make him happy, if you can keepher from drink; but you can’t keep her; she’s that artfulshe’ll get it under your very eyes, without you knowing it.If she can’t get any more of your things to pawn or sell, she’llsteal her neighbours’. That’s how she got into troublefirst when I was with her. During the six months she was in prisonI should have felt happy if I had not known she would come out again.And then she did come out, and before she had been free a fortnight,she began shop-lifting and going on the loose again—and all toget money to drink with. So seeing I could do nothing with herand that she was just a-killing of me, I left her, and came up to London,and went into service again, and I did not know what had become of hertill you and Mr Ernest here told me. I hope you’ll neitherof you say you’ve seen me.”

We assured him we would keep his counsel, and then he left us, withmany protestations of affection towards Ernest, to whom he had beenalways much attached.

We talked the situation over, and decided first to get the childrenaway, and then to come to terms with Ellen concerning their future custody;as for herself, I proposed that we should make her an allowance of,say, a pound a week to be paid so long as she gave no trouble.Ernest did not see where the pound a week was to come from, so I easedhis mind by saying I would pay it myself. Before the day was twohours older we had got the children, about whom Ellen had always appearedto be indifferent, and had confided them to the care of my laundress,a good motherly sort of woman, who took to them and to whom they tookat once.

Then came the odious task of getting rid of their unhappy mother.Ernest’s heart smote him at the notion of the shock the break-upwould be to her. He was always thinking that people had a claimupon him for some inestimable service they had rendered him, or forsome irreparable mischief done to them by himself; the case howeverwas so clear, that Ernest’s scruples did not offer serious resistance.

I did not see why he should have the pain of another interview withhis wife, so I got Mr Ottery to manage the whole business. Itturned out that we need not have harrowed ourselves so much about theagony of mind which Ellen would suffer on becoming an outcast again.Ernest saw Mrs Richards, the neighbour who had called him down on thenight when he had first discovered his wife’s drunkenness, andgot from her some details of Ellen’s opinions upon the matter.She did not seem in the least conscience-stricken; she said: “Thankgoodness, at last!” And although aware that her marriagewas not a valid one, evidently regarded this as a mere detail whichit would not be worth anybody’s while to go into more particularly.As regards his breaking with her, she said it was a good job both forhim and for her.

“This life,” she continued, “don’t suit me.Ernest is too good for me; he wants a woman as shall be a bit betterthan me, and I want a man that shall be a bit worse than him.We should have got on all very well if we had not lived together asmarried folks, but I’ve been used to have a little place of myown, however small, for a many years, and I don’t want Ernest,or any other man, always hanging about it. Besides he is too steady:his being in prison hasn’t done him a bit of good—he’sjust as grave as those as have never been in prison at all, and he neverswears nor curses, come what may; it makes me afeared of him, and thereforeI drink the worse. What us poor girls wants is not to be jumpedup all of a sudden and made honest women of; this is too much for usand throws us off our perch; what we wants is a regular friend or two,who’ll just keep us from starving, and force us to be good fora bit together now and again. That’s about as much as wecan stand. He may have the children; he can do better for themthan I can; and as for his money, he may give it or keep it as he likes,he’s never done me any harm, and I shall let him alone; but ifhe means me to have it, I suppose I’d better have it.”—Andhave it she did.

“And I,” thought Ernest to himself again when the arrangementwas concluded, “am the man who thought himself unlucky!”

I may as well say here all that need be said further about Ellen.For the next three years she used to call regularly at Mr Ottery’severy Monday morning for her pound. She was always neatly dressed,and looked so quiet and pretty that no one would have suspected herantecedents. At first she wanted sometimes to anticipate, butafter three or four ineffectual attempts—on each of which occasionsshe told a most pitiful story—she gave it up and took her moneyregularly without a word. Once she came with a bad black eye,“which a boy had throwed a stone and hit her by mistake”;but on the whole she looked pretty much the same at the end of the threeyears as she had done at the beginning. Then she explained thatshe was going to be married again. Mr Ottery saw her on this,and pointed out to her that she would very likely be again committingbigamy by doing so. “You may call it what you like,”she replied, “but I am going off to America with Bill the butcher’sman, and we hope Mr Pontifex won’t be too hard on us and stopthe allowance.” Ernest was little likely to do this, sothe pair went in peace. I believe it was Bill who had blackedher eye, and she liked him all the better for it.

From one or two little things I have been able to gather that thecouple got on very well together, and that in Bill she has found a partnerbetter suited to her than either John or Ernest. On his birthdayErnest generally receives an envelope with an American post-mark containinga book-marker with a flaunting text upon it, or a moral kettle-holder,or some other similar small token of recognition, but no letter.Of the children she has taken no notice.

CHAPTER LXXVIII

Ernest was now well turned twenty-six years old, and in little morethan another year and a half would come into possession of his money.I saw no reason for letting him have it earlier than the date fixedby Miss Pontifex herself; at the same time I did not like his continuingthe shop at Blackfriars after the present crisis. It was not tillnow that I fully understood how much he had suffered, nor how nearlyhis supposed wife’s habits had brought him to actual want.

I had indeed noted the old wan worn look settling upon his face,but was either too indolent or too hopeless of being able to sustaina protracted and successful warfare with Ellen to extend the sympathyand make the inquiries which I suppose I ought to have made. Andyet I hardly know what I could have done, for nothing short of his findingout what he had found out would have detached him from his wife, andnothing could do him much good as long as he continued to live withher.

After all I suppose I was right; I suppose things did turn out allthe better in the end for having been left to settle themselves—atany rate whether they did or did not, the whole thing was in too greata muddle for me to venture to tackle it so long as Ellen was upon thescene; now, however, that she was removed, all my interest in my godsonrevived, and I turned over many times in my mind, what I had betterdo with him.

It was now three and a half years since he had come up to Londonand begun to live, so to speak, upon his own account. Of theseyears, six months had been spent as a clergyman, six months in gaol,and for two and a half years he had been acquiring twofold experiencein the ways of business and of marriage. He had failed, I maysay, in everything that he had undertaken, even as a prisoner; yet hisdefeats had been always, as it seemed to me, something so like victories,that I was satisfied of his being worth all the pains I could bestowupon him; my only fear was lest I should meddle with him when it mightbe better for him to be let alone. On the whole I concluded thata three and a half years’ apprenticeship to a rough life was enough;the shop had done much for him; it had kept him going after a fashion,when he was in great need; it had thrown him upon his own resources,and taught him to see profitable openings all around him, where a fewmonths before he would have seen nothing but insuperable difficulties;it had enlarged his sympathies by making him understand the lower classes,and not confining his view of life to that taken by gentlemen only.When he went about the streets and saw the books outside the second-handbook-stalls, the bric-a-brac in the curiosity shops, and the infinitecommercial activity which is omnipresent around us, he understood itand sympathised with it as he could never have done if he had not kepta shop himself.

He has often told me that when he used to travel on a railway thatoverlooked populous suburbs, and looked down upon street after streetof dingy houses, he used to wonder what kind of people lived in them,what they did and felt, and how far it was like what he did and felthimself. Now, he said he knew all about it. I am not veryfamiliar with the writer of the Odyssey (who, by the way, I suspectstrongly of having been a clergyman), but he assuredly hit the rightnail on the head when he epitomised his typical wise man as knowing“the ways and farings of many men.” What culture iscomparable to this? What a lie, what a sickly debilitating debauchdid not Ernest’s school and university career now seem to him,in comparison with his life in prison and as a tailor in Blackfriars.I have heard him say he would have gone through all he had sufferedif it were only for the deeper insight it gave him into the spirit ofthe Grecian and the Surrey pantomimes. What confidence again inhis own power to swim if thrown into deep waters had not he won throughhis experiences during the last three years!

But, as I have said, I thought my godson had now seen as much ofthe under currents of life as was likely to be of use to him, and thatit was time he began to live in a style more suitable to his prospects.His aunt had wished him to kiss the soil, and he had kissed it witha vengeance; but I did not like the notion of his coming suddenly fromthe position of a small shop-keeper to that of a man with an incomeof between three and four thousand a year. Too sudden a jump frombad fortune to good is just as dangerous as one from good to bad; besides,poverty is very wearing; it is a quasi-embryonic condition, throughwhich a man had better pass if he is to hold his later developmentssecurely, but like measles or scarlet fever he had better have it mildlyand get it over early.

No man is safe from losing every penny he has in the world, unlesshe has had his facer. How often do I not hear middle-aged womenand quiet family men say that they have no speculative tendency; theynever had touched, and never would touch, any but the very soundest,best reputed investments, and as for unlimited liability, oh dear! dear!and they throw up their hands and eyes.

Whenever a person is heard to talk thus he may be recognised as theeasy prey of the first adventurer who comes across him; he will commonly,indeed, wind up his discourse by saying that in spite of all his naturalcaution, and his well knowing how foolish speculation is, yet thereare some investments which are called speculative but in reality arenot so, and he will pull out of his pocket the prospectus of a Cornishgold mine. It is only on having actually lost money that one realiseswhat an awful thing the loss of it is, and finds out how easily it islost by those who venture out of the middle of the most beaten path.Ernest had had his facer, as he had had his attack of poverty, young,and sufficiently badly for a sensible man to be little likely to forgetit. I can fancy few pieces of good fortune greater than this ashappening to any man, provided, of course, that he is not damaged irretrievably.

So strongly do I feel on this subject that if I had my way I wouldhave a speculation master attached to every school. The boys wouldbe encouraged to read the Money Market Review, the RailwayNews, and all the best financial papers, and should establish astock exchange amongst themselves in which pence should stand as pounds.Then let them see how this making haste to get rich moneys out in actualpractice. There might be a prize awarded by the head-master tothe most prudent dealer, and the boys who lost their money time aftertime should be dismissed. Of course if any boy proved to havea genius for speculation and made money—well and good, let himspeculate by all means.

If Universities were not the worst teachers in the world I shouldlike to see professorships of speculation established at Oxford andCambridge. When I reflect, however, that the only things worthdoing which Oxford and Cambridge can do well are cooking, cricket, rowingand games, of which there is no professorship, I fear that the establishmentof a professorial chair would end in teaching young men neither howto speculate, nor how not to speculate, but would simply turn them outas bad speculators.

I heard of one case in which a father actually carried my idea intopractice. He wanted his son to learn how little confidence wasto be placed in glowing prospectuses and flaming articles, and foundhim five hundred pounds which he was to invest according to his lights.The father expected he would lose the money; but it did not turn outso in practice, for the boy took so much pains and played so cautiouslythat the money kept growing and growing till the father took it awayagain, increment and all—as he was pleased to say, in self defence.

I had made my own mistakes with money about the year 1846, when everyoneelse was making them. For a few years I had been so scared andhad suffered so severely, that when (owing to the good advice of thebroker who had advised my father and grandfather before me) I came outin the end a winner and not a loser, I played no more pranks, but kepthenceforward as nearly in the middle of the middle rut as I could.I tried in fact to keep my money rather than to make more of it.I had done with Ernest’s money as with my own—that is tosay I had let it alone after investing it in Midland ordinary stockaccording to Miss Pontifex’s instructions. No amount oftrouble would have been likely to have increased my godson’s estateone half so much as it had increased without my taking any trouble atall.

Midland stock at the end of August 1850, when I sold out Miss Pontifex’sdebentures, stood at £32 per £100. I invested thewhole of Ernest’s £15,000 at this price, and did not changethe investment till a few months before the time of which I have beenwriting lately—that is to say until September 1861. I thensold at £129 per share and invested in London and North-Westernordinary stock, which I was advised was more likely to rise than Midlandsnow were. I bought the London and North-Western stock at £93per £100, and my godson now in 1882 still holds it.

The original £15,000 had increased in eleven years to over£60,000; the accumulated interest, which, of course, I had re-invested,had come to about £10,000 more, so that Ernest was then worthover £70,000. At present he is worth nearly double thatsum, and all as the result of leaving well alone.

Large as his property now was, it ought to be increased still furtherduring the year and a half that remained of his minority, so that oncoming of age he ought to have an income of at least £3500 a year.

I wished him to understand book-keeping by double entry. Ihad myself as a young man been compelled to master this not very difficultart; having acquired it, I have become enamoured of it, and considerit the most necessary branch of any young man’s education afterreading and writing. I was determined, therefore, that Ernestshould master it, and proposed that he should become my steward, book-keeper,and the manager of my hoardings, for so I called the sum which my ledgershowed to have accumulated from £15,000 to £70,000.I told him I was going to begin to spend the income as soon as it hadamounted up to £80,000.

A few days after Ernest’s discovery that he was still a bachelor,while he was still at the very beginning of the honeymoon, as it were,of his renewed unmarried life, I broached my scheme, desired him togive up his shop, and offered him £300 a year for managing (sofar indeed as it required any managing) his own property. This£300 a year, I need hardly say, I made him charge to the estate.

If anything had been wanting to complete his happiness it was this.Here, within three or four days he found himself freed from one of themost hideous, hopeless liaisons imaginable, and at the same timeraised from a life of almost squalor to the enjoyment of what wouldto him be a handsome income.

“A pound a week,” he thought, “for Ellen, and therest for myself.”

“No,” said I, “we will charge Ellen’s pounda week to the estate also. You must have a clear £300 foryourself.”

I fixed upon this sum, because it was the one which Mr Disraeli gaveConingsby when Coningsby was at the lowest ebb of his fortunes.Mr Disraeli evidently thought £300 a year the smallest sum onwhich Coningsby could be expected to live, and make the two ends meet;with this, however, he thought his hero could manage to get along fora year or two. In 1862, of which I am now writing, prices hadrisen, though not so much as they have since done; on the other handErnest had had less expensive antecedents than Coningsby, so on thewhole I thought £300 a year would be about the right thing forhim.

CHAPTER LXXIX

The question now arose what was to be done with the children.I explained to Ernest that their expenses must be charged to the estate,and showed him how small a hole all the various items I proposed tocharge would make in the income at my disposal. He was beginningto make difficulties, when I quieted him by pointing out that the moneyhad all come to me from his aunt, over his own head, and reminded himthere had been an understanding between her and me that I should domuch as I was doing, if occasion should arise.

He wanted his children to be brought up in the fresh pure air, andamong other children who were happy and contented; but being still ignorantof the fortune that awaited him, he insisted that they should pass theirearlier years among the poor rather than the rich. I remonstrated,but he was very decided about it; and when I reflected that they wereillegitimate, I was not sure but that what Ernest proposed might beas well for everyone in the end. They were still so young thatit did not much matter where they were, so long as they were with kindlydecent people, and in a healthy neighbourhood.

“I shall be just as unkind to my children,” he said,“as my grandfather was to my father, or my father to me.If they did not succeed in making their children love them, neithershall I. I say to myself that I should like to do so, but so didthey. I can make sure that they shall not know how much they wouldhave hated me if they had had much to do with me, but this is all Ican do. If I must ruin their prospects, let me do so at a reasonabletime before they are old enough to feel it.”

He mused a little and added with a laugh:—

“A man first quarrels with his father about three-quartersof a year before he is born. It is then he insists on settingup a separate establishment; when this has been once agreed to, themore complete the separation for ever after the better for both.”Then he said more seriously: “I want to put the children wherethey will be well and happy, and where they will not be betrayed intothe misery of false expectations.”

In the end he remembered that on his Sunday walks he had more thanonce seen a couple who lived on the waterside a few miles below Gravesend,just where the sea was beginning, and who he thought would do.They had a family of their own fast coming on and the children seemedto thrive; both father and mother indeed were comfortable well grownfolks, in whose hands young people would be likely to have as fair achance of coming to a good development as in those of any whom he knew.

We went down to see this couple, and as I thought no less well ofthem than Ernest did, we offered them a pound a week to take the childrenand bring them up as though they were their own. They jumped atthe offer, and in another day or two we brought the children down andleft them, feeling that we had done as well as we could by them, atany rate for the present. Then Ernest sent his small stock ofgoods to Debenham’s, gave up the house he had taken two and ahalf years previously, and returned to civilisation.

I had expected that he would now rapidly recover, and was disappointedto see him get as I thought decidedly worse. Indeed, before longI thought him looking so ill that I insisted on his going with me toconsult one of the most eminent doctors in London. This gentlemansaid there was no acute disease but that my young friend was sufferingfrom nervous prostration, the result of long and severe mental suffering,from which there was no remedy except time, prosperity and rest.

He said that Ernest must have broken down later on, but that he mighthave gone on for some months yet. It was the suddenness of therelief from tension which had knocked him over now.

“Cross him,” said the doctor, “at once. Crossingis the great medical discovery of the age. Shake him out of himselfby shaking something else into him.”

I had not told him that money was no object to us and I think hehad reckoned me up as not over rich. He continued:—

“Seeing is a mode of touching, touching is a mode of feeding,feeding is a mode of assimilation, assimilation is a mode of recreationand reproduction, and this is crossing—shaking yourself into somethingelse and something else into you.”

He spoke laughingly, but it was plain he was serious. He continued:—

“People are always coming to me who want crossing, or change,if you prefer it, and who I know have not money enough to let them getaway from London. This has set me thinking how I can best crossthem even if they cannot leave home, and I have made a list of cheapLondon amusem*nts which I recommend to my patients; none of them costmore than a few shillings or take more than half a day or a day.”

I explained that there was no occasion to consider money in thiscase.

“I am glad of it,” he said, still laughing. “Thehom*oeopathists use aurum as a medicine, but they do not giveit in large doses enough; if you can dose your young friend with thispretty freely you will soon bring him round. However, Mr Pontifexis not well enough to stand so great a change as going abroad yet; fromwhat you tell me I should think he had had as much change lately asis good for him. If he were to go abroad now he would probablybe taken seriously ill within a week. We must wait till he hasrecovered tone a little more. I will begin by ringing my Londonchanges on him.”

He thought a little and then said:—

“I have found the Zoological Gardens of service to many ofmy patients. I should prescribe for Mr Pontifex a course of thelarger mammals. Don’t let him think he is taking them medicinally,but let him go to their house twice a week for a fortnight, and staywith the hippopotamus, the rhinoceros, and the elephants, till theybegin to bore him. I find these beasts do my patients more goodthan any others. The monkeys are not a wide enough cross; theydo not stimulate sufficiently. The larger carnivora are unsympathetic.The reptiles are worse than useless, and the marsupials are not muchbetter. Birds again, except parrots, are not very beneficial;he may look at them now and again, but with the elephants and the pigtribe generally he should mix just now as freely as possible.

“Then, you know, to prevent monotony I should send him, say,to morning service at the Abbey before he goes. He need not staylonger than the Te Deum. I don’t know why, but Jubilatesare seldom satisfactory. Just let him look in at the Abbey, andsit quietly in Poets’ Corner till the main part of the music isover. Let him do this two or three times, not more, before hegoes to the Zoo.

“Then next day send him down to Gravesend by boat. Byall means let him go to the theatres in the evenings—and thenlet him come to me again in a fortnight.”

Had the doctor been less eminent in his profession I should havedoubted whether he was in earnest, but I knew him to be a man of businesswho would neither waste his own time nor that of his patients.As soon as we were out of the house we took a cab to Regent’sPark, and spent a couple of hours in sauntering round the differenthouses. Perhaps it was on account of what the doctor had toldme, but I certainly became aware of a feeling I had never experiencedbefore. I mean that I was receiving an influx of new life, orderiving new ways of looking at life—which is the same thing—bythe process. I found the doctor quite right in his estimate ofthe larger mammals as the ones which on the whole were most beneficial,and observed that Ernest, who had heard nothing of what the doctor hadsaid to me, lingered instinctively in front of them. As for theelephants, especially the baby elephant, he seemed to be drinking inlarge draughts of their lives to the re-creation and regeneration ofhis own.

We dined in the gardens, and I noticed with pleasure that Ernest’sappetite was already improved. Since this time, whenever I havebeen a little out of sorts myself I have at once gone up to Regent’sPark, and have invariably been benefited. I mention this herein the hope that some one or other of my readers may find the hint auseful one.

At the end of his fortnight my hero was much better, more so eventhan our friend the doctor had expected. “Now,” hesaid, “Mr Pontifex may go abroad, and the sooner the better.Let him stay a couple of months.”

This was the first Ernest had heard about his going abroad, and hetalked about my not being able to spare him for so long. I soonmade this all right.

“It is now the beginning of April,” said I, “godown to Marseilles at once, and take steamer to Nice. Then saunterdown the Riviera to Genoa—from Genoa go to Florence, Rome andNaples, and come home by way of Venice and the Italian lakes.”

“And won’t you come too?” said he, eagerly.

I said I did not mind if I did, so we began to make our arrangementsnext morning, and completed them within a very few days.

CHAPTER LXXX

We left by the night mail, crossing from Dover. The night wassoft, and there was a bright moon upon the sea. “Don’tyou love the smell of grease about the engine of a Channel steamer?Isn’t there a lot of hope in it?” said Ernest to me, forhe had been to Normandy one summer as a boy with his father and mother,and the smell carried him back to days before those in which he hadbegun to bruise himself against the great outside world. “Ialways think one of the best parts of going abroad is the first thudof the piston, and the first gurgling of the water when the paddle beginsto strike it.”

It was very dreamy getting out at Calais, and trudging about withluggage in a foreign town at an hour when we were generally both ofus in bed and fast asleep, but we settled down to sleep as soon as wegot into the railway carriage, and dozed till we had passed Amiens.Then waking when the first signs of morning crispness were beginningto show themselves, I saw that Ernest was already devouring every objectwe passed with quick sympathetic curiousness. There was not apeasant in a blouse driving his cart betimes along the road to market,not a signalman’s wife in her husband’s hat and coat wavinga green flag, not a shepherd taking out his sheep to the dewy pastures,not a bank of opening cowslips as we passed through the railway cuttings,but he was drinking it all in with an enjoyment too deep for words.The name of the engine that drew us was Mozart, and Ernest liked thistoo.

We reached Paris by six, and had just time to get across the townand take a morning express train to Marseilles, but before noon my youngfriend was tired out and had resigned himself to a series of sleepswhich were seldom intermitted for more than an hour or so together.He fought against this for a time, but in the end consoled himself bysaying it was so nice to have so much pleasure that he could affordto throw a lot of it away. Having found a theory on which to justifyhimself, he slept in peace.

At Marseilles we rested, and there the excitement of the change proved,as I had half feared it would, too much for my godson’s stillenfeebled state. For a few days he was really ill, but after thishe righted. For my own part I reckon being ill as one of the greatpleasures of life, provided one is not too ill and is not obliged towork till one is better. I remember being ill once in a foreignhotel myself and how much I enjoyed it. To lie there carelessof everything, quiet and warm, and with no weight upon the mind, tohear the clinking of the plates in the far-off kitchen as the scullionrinsed them and put them by; to watch the soft shadows come and go uponthe ceiling as the sun came out or went behind a cloud; to listen tothe pleasant murmuring of the fountain in the court below, and the shakingof the bells on the horses’ collars and the clink of their hoofsupon the ground as the flies plagued them; not only to be a lotus-eaterbut to know that it was one’s duty to be a lotus-eater.“Oh,” I thought to myself, “if I could only now, havingso forgotten care, drop off to sleep for ever, would not this be a betterpiece of fortune than any I can ever hope for?”

Of course it would, but we would not take it though it were offeredus. No matter what evil may befall us, we will mostly abide byit and see it out.

I could see that Ernest felt much as I had felt myself. Hesaid little, but noted everything. Once only did he frighten me.He called me to his bedside just as it was getting dusk and said ina grave, quiet manner that he should like to speak to me.

“I have been thinking,” he said, “that I may perhapsnever recover from this illness, and in case I do not I should likeyou to know that there is only one thing which weighs upon me.I refer,” he continued after a slight pause, “to my conducttowards my father and mother. I have been much too good to them.I treated them much too considerately,” on which he broke intoa smile which assured me that there was nothing seriously amiss withhim.

On the walls of his bedroom were a series of French Revolution printsrepresenting events in the life of Lycurgus. There was “Grandeurd’àme de Lycurgue,” and “Lycurgue consulte l’oracle,”and then there was “Calciope à la Cour.” Underthis was written in French and Spanish: “Modèle de gràceet de beauté, la jeune Calciope non moins sage que belle avaitmérité l’estime et l’attachement du vertueuxLycurgue. Vivement épris de tant de charmes, l’illustrephilosophe la conduisait dans le temple de Junon, où ils s’unirentpar un serment sacré. Après cette auguste cérémonie,Lycurgue s’empressa de conduire sa jeune épouse au palaisde son frère Polydecte, Roi de Lacédémon.Seigneur, lui dit-il, la vertueuse Calciope vient de recevoir mes voeuxaux pieds des autels, j’ose vous prier d’approuver cetteunion. Le Roi témoigna d’abord quelque surprise,mais l’estime qu’il avait pour son frère lui inspiraune réponse pleine de beinveillance. Il s’approchaaussitôt de Calciope qu’il embrassa tendrement, combla ensuiteLycurgue de prévenances et parut très satisfait.”

He called my attention to this and then said somewhat timidly thathe would rather have married Ellen than Calciope. I saw he washardening and made no hesitation about proposing that in another dayor two we should proceed upon our journey.

I will not weary the reader by taking him with us over beaten ground.We stopped at Siena, Cortona, Orvieto, Perugia and many other cities,and then after a fortnight passed between Rome and Naples went to theVenetian provinces and visited all those wondrous towns that lie betweenthe southern slopes of the Alps and the northern ones of the Apennines,coming back at last by the S. Gothard. I doubt whether he hadenjoyed the trip more than I did myself, but it was not till we wereon the point of returning that Ernest had recovered strength enoughto be called fairly well, and it was not for many months that he socompletely lost all sense of the wounds which the last four years hadinflicted on him as to feel as though there were a scar and a scar onlyremaining.

They say that when people have lost an arm or a foot they feel painsin it now and again for a long while after they have lost it.One pain which he had almost forgotten came upon him on his return toEngland, I mean the sting of his having been imprisoned. As longas he was only a small shop-keeper his imprisonment mattered nothing;nobody knew of it, and if they had known they would not have cared;now, however, though he was returning to his old position he was returningto it disgraced, and the pain from which he had been saved in the firstinstance by surroundings so new that he had hardly recognised his ownidentity in the middle of them, came on him as from a wound inflictedyesterday.

He thought of the high resolves which he had made in prison aboutusing his disgrace as a vantage ground of strength rather than tryingto make people forget it. “That was all very well then,”he thought to himself, “when the grapes were beyond my reach,but now it is different.” Besides, who but a prig wouldset himself high aims, or make high resolves at all?

Some of his old friends, on learning that he had got rid of his supposedwife and was now comfortably off again, wanted to renew their acquaintance;he was grateful to them and sometimes tried to meet their advances halfway, but it did not do, and ere long he shrank back into himself, pretendingnot to know them. An infernal demon of honesty haunted him whichmade him say to himself: “These men know a great deal, but donot know all—if they did they would cut me—and thereforeI have no right to their acquaintance.”

He thought that everyone except himself was sans peur et sansreproche. Of course they must be, for if they had not been,would they not have been bound to warn all who had anything to do withthem of their deficiencies? Well, he could not do this, and hewould not have people’s acquaintance under false pretences, sohe gave up even hankering after rehabilitation and fell back upon hisold tastes for music and literature.

Of course he has long since found out how silly all this was, howsilly I mean in theory, for in practice it worked better than it oughtto have done, by keeping him free from liaisons which would havetied his tongue and made him see success elsewhere than where he camein time to see it. He did what he did instinctively and for noother reason than because it was most natural to him. So far ashe thought at all, he thought wrong, but what he did was right.I said something of this kind to him once not so very long ago, andtold him he had always aimed high. “I never aimed at all,”he replied a little indignantly, “and you may be sure I shouldhave aimed low enough if I had thought I had got the chance.”

I suppose after all that no one whose mind was not, to put it mildly,abnormal, ever yet aimed very high out of pure malice aforethought.I once saw a fly alight on a cup of hot coffee on which the milk hadformed a thin skin; he perceived his extreme danger, and I noted withwhat ample strides and almost supermuscan effort he struck across thetreacherous surface and made for the edge of the cup—for the groundwas not solid enough to let him raise himself from it by his wings.As I watched him I fancied that so supreme a moment of difficulty anddanger might leave him with an increase of moral and physical powerwhich might even descend in some measure to his offspring. Butsurely he would not have got the increased moral power if he could havehelped it, and he will not knowingly alight upon another cup of hotcoffee. The more I see the more sure I am that it does not matterwhy people do the right thing so long only as they do it, nor why theymay have done the wrong if they have done it. The result dependsupon the thing done and the motive goes for nothing. I have readsomewhere, but cannot remember where, that in some country districtthere was once a great scarcity of food, during which the poor sufferedacutely; many indeed actually died of starvation, and all were hardput to it. In one village, however, there was a poor widow witha family of young children, who, though she had small visible meansof subsistence, still looked well-fed and comfortable, as also did allher little ones. “How,” everyone asked, “didthey manage to live?” It was plain they had a secret, andit was equally plain that it could be no good one; for there came ahurried, hunted look over the poor woman’s face if anyone alludedto the way in which she and hers throve when others starved; the family,moreover, were sometimes seen out at unusual hours of the night, andevidently brought things home, which could hardly have been honestlycome by. They knew they were under suspicion, and, being hithertoof excellent name, it made them very unhappy, for it must be confessedthat they believed what they did to be uncanny if not absolutely wicked;nevertheless, in spite of this they throve, and kept their strengthwhen all their neighbours were pinched.

At length matters came to a head and the clergyman of the parishcross-questioned the poor woman so closely that with many tears anda bitter sense of degradation she confessed the truth; she and her childrenwent into the hedges and gathered snails, which they made into brothand ate—could she ever be forgiven? Was there any hope ofsalvation for her either in this world or the next after such unnaturalconduct?

So again I have heard of an old dowager countess whose money wasall in Consols; she had had many sons, and in her anxiety to give theyounger ones a good start, wanted a larger income than Consols wouldgive her. She consulted her solicitor and was advised to sellher Consols and invest in the London and North-Western Railway, thenat about 85. This was to her what eating snails was to the poorwidow whose story I have told above. With shame and grief, asof one doing an unclean thing—but her boys must have their start—shedid as she was advised. Then for a long while she could not sleepat night and was haunted by a presage of disaster. Yet what happened?She started her boys, and in a few years found her capital doubled intothe bargain, on which she sold out and went back again to Consols anddied in the full blessedness of fund-holding.

She thought, indeed, that she was doing a wrong and dangerous thing,but this had absolutely nothing to do with it. Suppose she hadinvested in the full confidence of a recommendation by some eminentLondon banker whose advice was bad, and so had lost all her money, andsuppose she had done this with a light heart and with no convictionof sin—would her innocence of evil purpose and the excellenceof her motive have stood her in any stead? Not they.

But to return to my story. Towneley gave my hero most trouble.Towneley, as I have said, knew that Ernest would have money soon, butErnest did not of course know that he knew it. Towneley was richhimself, and was married now; Ernest would be rich soon, had bonafide intended to be married already, and would doubtless marry alawful wife later on. Such a man was worth taking pains with,and when Towneley one day met Ernest in the street, and Ernest triedto avoid him, Towneley would not have it, but with his usual quick goodnature read his thoughts, caught him, morally speaking, by the scruffof his neck, and turned him laughingly inside out, telling him he wouldhave no such nonsense.

Towneley was just as much Ernest’s idol now as he had everbeen, and Ernest, who was very easily touched, felt more gratefullyand warmly than ever towards him, but there was an unconscious somethingwhich was stronger than Towneley, and made my hero determine to breakwith him more determinedly perhaps than with any other living person;he thanked him in a low hurried voice and pressed his hand, while tearscame into his eyes in spite of all his efforts to repress them.“If we meet again,” he said, “do not look at me, butif hereafter you hear of me writing things you do not like, think ofme as charitably as you can,” and so they parted.

“Towneley is a good fellow,” said I, gravely, “andyou should not have cut him.”

“Towneley,” he answered, “is not only a good fellow,but he is without exception the very best man I ever saw in my life—except,”he paid me the compliment of saying, “yourself; Towneley is mynotion of everything which I should most like to be—but thereis no real solidarity between us. I should be in perpetual fearof losing his good opinion if I said things he did not like, and I meanto say a great many things,” he continued more merrily, “whichTowneley will not like.”

A man, as I have said already, can give up father and mother forChrist’s sake tolerably easily for the most part, but it is notso easy to give up people like Towneley.

CHAPTER LXXXI

So he fell away from all old friends except myself and three or fourold intimates of my own, who were as sure to take to him as he to them,and who like myself enjoyed getting hold of a young fresh mind.Ernest attended to the keeping of my account books whenever there wasanything which could possibly be attended to, which there seldom was,and spent the greater part of the rest of his time in adding to themany notes and tentative essays which had already accumulated in hisportfolios. Anyone who was used to writing could see at a glancethat literature was his natural development, and I was pleased at seeinghim settle down to it so spontaneously. I was less pleased, however,to observe that he would still occupy himself with none but the mostserious, I had almost said solemn, subjects, just as he never caredabout any but the most serious kind of music.

I said to him one day that the very slender reward which God hadattached to the pursuit of serious inquiry was a sufficient proof thatHe disapproved of it, or at any rate that He did not set much storeby it nor wish to encourage it.

He said: “Oh, don’t talk about rewards. Look atMilton, who only got £5 for ‘Paradise Lost.’”

“And a great deal too much,” I rejoined promptly.“I would have given him twice as much myself not to have writtenit at all.”

Ernest was a little shocked. “At any rate,” hesaid laughingly, “I don’t write poetry.”

This was a cut at me, for my burlesques were, of course, writtenin rhyme. So I dropped the matter.

After a time he took it into his head to reopen the question of hisgetting £300 a year for doing, as he said, absolutely nothing,and said he would try to find some employment which should bring himin enough to live upon.

I laughed at this but let him alone. He tried and tried veryhard for a long while, but I need hardly say was unsuccessful.The older I grow, the more convinced I become of the folly and credulityof the public; but at the same time the harder do I see it is to imposeoneself upon that folly and credulity.

He tried editor after editor with article after article. Sometimesan editor listened to him and told him to leave his articles; he almostinvariably, however, had them returned to him in the end with a politenote saying that they were not suited for the particular paper to whichhe had sent them. And yet many of these very articles appearedin his later works, and no one complained of them, not at least on thescore of bad literary workmanship. “I see,” he saidto me one day, “that demand is very imperious, and supply mustbe very suppliant.”

Once, indeed, the editor of an important monthly magazine acceptedan article from him, and he thought he had now got a footing in theliterary world. The article was to appear in the next issue butone, and he was to receive proof from the printers in about ten daysor a fortnight; but week after week passed and there was no proof; monthafter month went by and there was still no room for Ernest’s article;at length after about six months the editor one morning told him thathe had filled every number of his review for the next ten months, butthat his article should definitely appear. On this he insistedon having his MS. returned to him.

Sometimes his articles were actually published, and he found theeditor had edited them according to his own fancy, putting in jokeswhich he thought were funny, or cutting out the very passage which Ernesthad considered the point of the whole thing, and then, though the articlesappeared, when it came to paying for them it was another matter, andhe never saw his money. “Editors,” he said to me oneday about this time, “are like the people who bought and soldin the book of Revelation; there is not one but has the mark of thebeast upon him.”

At last after months of disappointment and many a tedious hour wastedin dingy anterooms (and of all anterooms those of editors appear tome to be the dreariest), he got a bona fide offer of employmentfrom one of the first class weekly papers through an introduction Iwas able to get for him from one who had powerful influence with thepaper in question. The editor sent him a dozen long books uponvaried and difficult subjects, and told him to review them in a singlearticle within a week. In one book there was an editorial noteto the effect that the writer was to be condemned. Ernest particularlyadmired the book he was desired to condemn, and feeling how hopelessit was for him to do anything like justice to the books submitted tohim, returned them to the editor.

At last one paper did actually take a dozen or so of articles fromhim, and gave him cash down a couple of guineas apiece for them, buthaving done this it expired within a fortnight after the last of Ernest’sarticles had appeared. It certainly looked very much as if theother editors knew their business in declining to have anything to dowith my unlucky godson.

I was not sorry that he failed with periodical literature, for writingfor reviews or newspapers is bad training for one who may aspire towrite works of more permanent interest. A young writer shouldhave more time for reflection than he can get as a contributor to thedaily or even weekly press. Ernest himself, however, was chagrinedat finding how unmarketable he was. “Why,” he saidto me, “If I was a well-bred horse, or sheep, or a pure-bred pigeonor lop-eared rabbit I should be more saleable. If I was even acathedral in a colonial town people would give me something, but asit is they do not want me”; and now that he was well and restedhe wanted to set up a shop again, but this, of course, I would not hearof.

“What care I,” said he to me one day, “about beingwhat they call a gentleman?” And his manner was almost fierce.

“What has being a gentleman ever done for me except make meless able to prey and more easy to be preyed upon? It has changedthe manner of my being swindled, that is all. But for your kindnessto me I should be penniless. Thank heaven I have placed my childrenwhere I have.”

I begged him to keep quiet a little longer and not talk about takinga shop.

“Will being a gentleman,” he said, “bring me moneyat the last, and will anything bring me as much peace at the last asmoney will? They say that those who have riches enter hardly intothe kingdom of Heaven. By Jove, they do; they are like Struldbrugs;they live and live and live and are happy for many a long year afterthey would have entered into the kingdom of Heaven if they had beenpoor. I want to live long and to raise my children, if I see theywould be happier for the raising; that is what I want, and it is notwhat I am doing now that will help me. Being a gentleman is aluxury which I cannot afford, therefore I do not want it. Letme go back to my shop again, and do things for people which they wantdone and will pay me for doing for them. They know what they wantand what is good for them better than I can tell them.”

It was hard to deny the soundness of this, and if he had been dependentonly on the £300 a year which he was getting from me I shouldhave advised him to open his shop again next morning. As it was,I temporised and raised obstacles, and quieted him from time to timeas best I could.

Of course he read Mr Darwin’s books as fast as they came outand adopted evolution as an article of faith. “It seemsto me,” he said once, “that I am like one of those caterpillarswhich, if they have been interrupted in making their hammock, must beginagain from the beginning. So long as I went back a long way downin the social scale I got on all right, and should have made money butfor Ellen; when I try to take up the work at a higher stage I fail completely.”I do not know whether the analogy holds good or not, but I am sure Ernest’sinstinct was right in telling him that after a heavy fall he had betterbegin life again at a very low stage, and as I have just said, I wouldhave let him go back to his shop if I had not known what I did.

As the time fixed upon by his aunt drew nearer I prepared him moreand more for what was coming, and at last, on his twenty-eighth birthday,I was able to tell him all and to show him the letter signed by hisaunt upon her death-bed to the effect that I was to hold the money intrust for him. His birthday happened that year (1863) to be ona Sunday, but on the following day I transferred his shares into hisown name, and presented him with the account books which he had beenkeeping for the last year and a half.

In spite of all that I had done to prepare him, it was a long whilebefore I could get him actually to believe that the money was his own.He did not say much—no more did I, for I am not sure that I didnot feel as much moved at having brought my long trusteeship to a satisfactoryconclusion as Ernest did at finding himself owner of more than £70,000.When he did speak it was to jerk out a sentence or two of reflectionat a time. “If I were rendering this moment in music,”he said, “I should allow myself free use of the augmented sixth.”A little later I remember his saying with a laugh that had somethingof a family likeness to his aunt’s: “It is not the pleasureit causes me which I enjoy so, it is the pain it will cause to all myfriends except yourself and Towneley.”

I said: “You cannot tell your father and mother—it woulddrive them mad.”

“No, no, no,” said he, “it would be too cruel;it would be like Isaac offering up Abraham and no thicket with a ramin it near at hand. Besides why should I? We have cut eachother these four years.”

CHAPTER LXXXII

It almost seemed as though our casual mention of Theobald and Christinahad in some way excited them from a dormant to an active state.During the years that had elapsed since they last appeared upon thescene they had remained at Battersby, and had concentrated their affectionupon their other children.

It had been a bitter pill to Theobald to lose his power of plaguinghis first-born; if the truth were known I believe he had felt this moreacutely than any disgrace which might have been shed upon him by Ernest’simprisonment. He had made one or two attempts to reopen negotiationsthrough me, but I never said anything about them to Ernest, for I knewit would upset him. I wrote, however, to Theobald that I had foundhis son inexorable, and recommended him for the present, at any rate,to desist from returning to the subject. This I thought wouldbe at once what Ernest would like best and Theobald least.

A few days, however, after Ernest had come into his property, I receiveda letter from Theobald enclosing one for Ernest which I could not withhold.

The letter ran thus:—

“To my son Ernest,—Although you have morethan once rejected my overtures I appeal yet again to your better nature.Your mother, who has long been ailing, is, I believe, near her end;she is unable to keep anything on her stomach, and Dr Martin holds outbut little hopes of her recovery. She has expressed a wish tosee you, and says she knows you will not refuse to come to her, which,considering her condition, I am unwilling to suppose you will.

“I remit you a Post Office order for your fare, and will payyour return journey.

“If you want clothes to come in, order what you consider suitable,and desire that the bill be sent to me; I will pay it immediately, toan amount not exceeding eight or nine pounds, and if you will let meknow what train you will come by, I will send the carriage to meet you.Believe me, Your affectionate father,

T. PONTIFEX.”

Of course there could be no hesitation on Ernest’s part.He could afford to smile now at his father’s offering to pay forhis clothes, and his sending him a Post Office order for the exact priceof a second-class ticket, and he was of course shocked at learning thestate his mother was said to be in, and touched at her desire to seehim. He telegraphed that he would come down at once. I sawhim a little before he started, and was pleased to see how well histailor had done by him. Towneley himself could not have been appointedmore becomingly. His portmanteau, his railway wrapper, everythinghe had about him, was in keeping. I thought he had grown muchbetter-looking than he had been at two or three and twenty. Hisyear and a half of peace had effaced all the ill effects of his previoussuffering, and now that he had become actually rich there was an airof insouciance and good humour upon his face, as of a man withwhom everything was going perfectly right, which would have made a muchplainer man good-looking. I was proud of him and delighted withhim. “I am sure,” I said to myself, “that whateverelse he may do, he will never marry again.”

The journey was a painful one. As he drew near to the stationand caught sight of each familiar feature, so strong was the force ofassociation that he felt as though his coming into his aunt’smoney had been a dream, and he were again returning to his father’shouse as he had returned to it from Cambridge for the vacations.Do what he would, the old dull weight of home-sickness beganto oppress him, his heart beat fast as he thought of his approachingmeeting with his father and mother, “and I shall have,”he said to himself, “to kiss Charlotte.”

Would his father meet him at the station? Would he greet himas though nothing had happened, or would he be cold and distant?How, again, would he take the news of his son’s good fortune?As the train drew up to the platform, Ernest’s eye ran hurriedlyover the few people who were in the station. His father’swell-known form was not among them, but on the other side of the palingswhich divided the station yard from the platform, he saw the pony carriage,looking, as he thought, rather shabby, and recognised his father’scoachman. In a few minutes more he was in the carriage drivingtowards Battersby. He could not help smiling as he saw the coachmangive a look of surprise at finding him so much changed in personal appearance.The coachman was the more surprised because when Ernest had last beenat home he had been dressed as a clergyman, and now he was not onlya layman, but a layman who was got up regardless of expense. Thechange was so great that it was not till Ernest actually spoke to himthat the coachman knew him.

“How are my father and mother?” he asked hurriedly, ashe got into the carriage. “The Master’s well, sir,”was the answer, “but the Missis is very sadly.” Thehorse knew that he was going home and pulled hard at the reins.The weather was cold and raw—the very ideal of a November day;in one part of the road the floods were out, and near here they hadto pass through a number of horsem*n and dogs, for the hounds had metthat morning at a place near Battersby. Ernest saw several peoplewhom he knew, but they either, as is most likely, did not recognisehim, or did not know of his good luck. When Battersby church towerdrew near, and he saw the Rectory on the top of the hill, its chimneysjust showing above the leafless trees with which it was surrounded,he threw himself back in the carriage and covered his face with hishands.

It came to an end, as even the worst quarters of an hour do, andin a few minutes more he was on the steps in front of his father’shouse. His father, hearing the carriage arrive, came a littleway down the steps to meet him. Like the coachman he saw at aglance that Ernest was appointed as though money were abundant withhim, and that he was looking robust and full of health and vigour.

This was not what he had bargained for. He wanted Ernest toreturn, but he was to return as any respectable, well-regulated prodigalought to return—abject, broken-hearted, asking forgiveness fromthe tenderest and most long-suffering father in the whole world.If he should have shoes and stockings and whole clothes at all, it shouldbe only because absolute rags and tatters had been graciously dispensedwith, whereas here he was swaggering in a grey ulster and a blue andwhite necktie, and looking better than Theobald had ever seen him inhis life. It was unprincipled. Was it for this that he hadbeen generous enough to offer to provide Ernest with decent clothesin which to come and visit his mother’s death-bed? Couldany advantage be meaner than the one which Ernest had taken? Well,he would not go a penny beyond the eight or nine pounds which he hadpromised. It was fortunate he had given a limit. Why he,Theobald, had never been able to afford such a portmanteau in his life.He was still using an old one which his father had turned over to himwhen he went up to Cambridge. Besides, he had said clothes, nota portmanteau.

Ernest saw what was passing through his father’s mind, andfelt that he ought to have prepared him in some way for what he nowsaw; but he had sent his telegram so immediately on receiving his father’sletter, and had followed it so promptly that it would not have beeneasy to do so even if he had thought of it. He put out his handand said laughingly, “Oh, it’s all paid for—I am afraidyou do not know that Mr Overton has handed over to me Aunt Alethea’smoney.”

Theobald flushed scarlet. “But why,” he said, andthese were the first words that actually crossed his lips—“ifthe money was not his to keep, did he not hand it over to my brotherJohn and me?” He stammered a good deal and looked sheepish,but he got the words out.

“Because, my dear father,” said Ernest still laughing,“my aunt left it to him in trust for me, not in trust either foryou or for my Uncle John—and it has accumulated till it is nowover £70,000. But tell me how is my mother?”

“No, Ernest,” said Theobald excitedly, “the mattercannot rest here, I must know that this is all open and above board.”

This had the true Theobald ring and instantly brought the whole trainof ideas which in Ernest’s mind were connected with his father.The surroundings were the old familiar ones, but the surrounded werechanged almost beyond power of recognition. He turned sharplyon Theobald in a moment. I will not repeat the words he used,for they came out before he had time to consider them, and they mightstrike some of my readers as disrespectful; there were not many of them,but they were effectual. Theobald said nothing, but turned almostof an ashen colour; he never again spoke to his son in such a way asto make it necessary for him to repeat what he had said on this occasion.Ernest quickly recovered his temper and again asked after his mother.Theobald was glad enough to take this opening now, and replied at oncein the tone he would have assumed towards one he most particularly desiredto conciliate, that she was getting rapidly worse in spite of all hehad been able to do for her, and concluded by saying she had been thecomfort and mainstay of his life for more than thirty years, but thathe could not wish it prolonged.

The pair then went upstairs to Christina’s room, the one inwhich Ernest had been born. His father went before him and preparedher for her son’s approach. The poor woman raised herselfin bed as he came towards her, and weeping as she flung her arms aroundhim, cried: “Oh, I knew he would come, I knew, I knew he couldcome.”

Ernest broke down and wept as he had not done for years.

“Oh, my boy, my boy,” she said as soon as she could recoverher voice. “Have you never really been near us for all theseyears? Ah, you do not know how we have loved you and mourned overyou, papa just as much as I have. You know he shows his feelingsless, but I can never tell you how very, very deeply he has felt foryou. Sometimes at night I have thought I have heard footstepsin the garden, and have got quietly out of bed lest I should wake him,and gone to the window to look out, but there has been only dark orthe greyness of the morning, and I have gone crying back to bed again.Still I think you have been near us though you were too proud to letus know—and now at last I have you in my arms once more, my dearest,dearest boy.”

How cruel, how infamously unfeeling Ernest thought he had been.

“Mother,” he said, “forgive me—the faultwas mine, I ought not to have been so hard; I was wrong, very wrong”;the poor blubbering fellow meant what he said, and his heart yearnedto his mother as he had never thought that it could yearn again.“But have you never,” she continued, “come althoughit was in the dark and we did not know it—oh, let me think thatyou have not been so cruel as we have thought you. Tell me thatyou came if only to comfort me and make me happier.”

Ernest was ready. “I had no money to come with, mother,till just lately.”

This was an excuse Christina could understand and make allowancefor; “Oh, then you would have come, and I will take the will forthe deed—and now that I have you safe again, say that you willnever, never leave me—not till—not till—oh, my boy,have they told you I am dying?” She wept bitterly, and buriedher head in her pillow.

CHAPTER LXXXIII

Joey and Charlotte were in the room. Joey was now ordained,and was curate to Theobald. He and Ernest had never been sympathetic,and Ernest saw at a glance that there was no chance of a rapprochementbetween them. He was a little startled at seeing Joey dressedas a clergyman, and looking so like what he had looked himself a fewyears earlier, for there was a good deal of family likeness betweenthe pair; but Joey’s face was cold and was illumined with no sparkof Bohemianism; he was a clergyman and was going to do as other clergymendid, neither better nor worse. He greeted Ernest rather dehaut en bas, that is to say he began by trying to do so, but theaffair tailed off unsatisfactorily.

His sister presented her cheek to him to be kissed. How hehated it; he had been dreading it for the last three hours. She,too, was distant and reproachful in her manner, as such a superior personwas sure to be. She had a grievance against him inasmuch as shewas still unmarried. She laid the blame of this at Ernest’sdoor; it was his misconduct she maintained in secret, which had preventedyoung men from making offers to her, and she ran him up a heavy billfor consequential damages. She and Joey had from the first developedan instinct for hunting with the hounds, and now these two had fairlyidentified themselves with the older generation—that is to sayas against Ernest. On this head there was an offensive and defensivealliance between them, but between themselves there was subdued butinternecine warfare.

This at least was what Ernest gathered, partly from his recollectionsof the parties concerned, and partly from his observation of their littleways during the first half-hour after his arrival, while they were alltogether in his mother’s bedroom—for as yet of course theydid not know that he had money. He could see that they eyed himfrom time to time with a surprise not unmixed with indignation, andknew very well what they were thinking.

Christina saw the change which had come over him—how much firmerand more vigorous both in mind and body he seemed than when she hadlast seen him. She saw too how well he was dressed, and, likethe others, in spite of the return of all her affection for her first-born,was a little alarmed about Theobald’s pocket, which she supposedwould have to be mulcted for all this magnificence. Perceivingthis, Ernest relieved her mind and told her all about his aunt’sbequest, and how I had husbanded it, in the presence of his brotherand sister—who, however, pretended not to notice, or at any rateto notice as a matter in which they could hardly be expected to takean interest.

His mother kicked a little at first against the money’s havinggone to him as she said “over his papa’s head.”“Why, my dear,” she said in a deprecating tone, “thisis more than ever your papa has had”; but Ernest calmed her bysuggesting that if Miss Pontifex had known how large the sum would becomeshe would have left the greater part of it to Theobald. This compromisewas accepted by Christina who forthwith, ill as she was, entered withardour into the new position, and taking it as a fresh point of departure,began spending Ernest’s money for him.

I may say in passing that Christina was right in saying that Theobaldhad never had so much money as his son was now possessed of. Inthe first place he had not had a fourteen years’ minority withno outgoings to prevent the accumulation of the money, and in the secondhe, like myself and almost everyone else, had suffered somewhat in the1846 times—not enough to cripple him or even seriously to hurthim, but enough to give him a scare and make him stick to debenturesfor the rest of his life. It was the fact of his son’s beingthe richer man of the two, and of his being rich so young, which rankledwith Theobald even more than the fact of his having money at all.If he had had to wait till he was sixty or sixty-five, and become brokendown from long failure in the meantime, why then perhaps he might havebeen allowed to have whatever sum should suffice to keep him out ofthe workhouse and pay his death-bed expenses; but that he should comein to £70,000 at eight and twenty, and have no wife and only twochildren—it was intolerable. Christina was too ill and intoo great a hurry to spend the money to care much about such detailsas the foregoing, and she was naturally much more good-natured thanTheobald.

“This piece of good fortune”—she saw it at a glance—“quitewiped out the disgrace of his having been imprisoned. There shouldbe no more nonsense about that. The whole thing was a mistake,an unfortunate mistake, true, but the less said about it now the better.Of course Ernest would come back and live at Battersby until he wasmarried, and he would pay his father handsomely for board and lodging.In fact it would be only right that Theobald should make a profit, norwould Ernest himself wish it to be other than a handsome one; this wasfar the best and simplest arrangement; and he could take his sisterout more than Theobald or Joey cared to do, and would also doubtlessentertain very handsomely at Battersby.

“Of course he would buy Joey a living, and make large presentsyearly to his sister—was there anything else? Oh! yes—hewould become a county magnate now; a man with nearly £4000 a yearshould certainly become a county magnate. He might even go intoParliament. He had very fair abilities, nothing indeed approachingsuch genius as Dr Skinner’s, nor even as Theobald’s, stillhe was not deficient and if he got into Parliament—so young too—therewas nothing to hinder his being Prime Minister before he died, and ifso, of course, he would become a peer. Oh! why did he not setabout it all at once, so that she might live to hear people call herson ‘my lord’—Lord Battersby she thought would dovery nicely, and if she was well enough to sit he must certainly haveher portrait painted at full length for one end of his large dining-hall.It should be exhibited at the Royal Academy: ‘Portrait of LordBattersby’s mother,’ she said to herself, and her heartfluttered with all its wonted vivacity. If she could not sit,happily, she had been photographed not so very long ago, and the portraithad been as successful as any photograph could be of a face which dependedso entirely upon its expression as her own. Perhaps the paintercould take the portrait sufficiently from this. It was betterafter all that Ernest had given up the Church—how far more wiselyGod arranges matters for us than ever we can do for ourselves!She saw it all now—it was Joey who would become Archbishop ofCanterbury and Ernest would remain a layman and become Prime Minister”. . . and so on till her daughter told her it was time to take her medicine.

I suppose this reverie, which is a mere fragment of what actuallyran through Christina’s brain, occupied about a minute and a half,but it, or the presence of her son, seemed to revive her spirits wonderfully.Ill, dying indeed, and suffering as she was, she brightened up so asto laugh once or twice quite merrily during the course of the afternoon.Next day Dr Martin said she was so much better that he almost beganto have hopes of her recovery again. Theobald, whenever this wastouched upon as possible, would shake his head and say: “We can’twish it prolonged,” and then Charlotte caught Ernest unawaresand said: “You know, dear Ernest, that these ups and downs oftalk are terribly agitating to papa; he could stand whatever comes,but it is quite too wearing to him to think half-a-dozen different thingsbackwards and forwards, up and down in the same twenty-four hours, andit would be kinder of you not to do it—I mean not to say anythingto him even though Dr Martin does hold out hopes.”

Charlotte had meant to imply that it was Ernest who was at the bottomof all the inconvenience felt by Theobald, herself, Joey and everyoneelse, and she had actually got words out which should convey this; true,she had not dared to stick to them and had turned them off, but shehad made them hers at any rate for one brief moment, and this was betterthan nothing. Ernest noticed throughout his mother’s illness,that Charlotte found immediate occasion to make herself disagreeableto him whenever either doctor or nurse pronounced her mother to be alittle better. When she wrote to Crampsford to desire the prayersof the congregation (she was sure her mother would wish it, and thatthe Crampsford people would be pleased at her remembrance of them),she was sending another letter on some quite different subject at thesame time, and put the two letters into the wrong envelopes. Ernestwas asked to take these letters to the village post-office, and imprudentlydid so; when the error came to be discovered Christina happened to haverallied a little. Charlotte flew at Ernest immediately, and laidall the blame of the blunder upon his shoulders.

Except that Joey and Charlotte were more fully developed, the houseand its inmates, organic and inorganic, were little changed since Ernesthad last seen them. The furniture and the ornaments on the chimney-piecewere just as they had been ever since he could remember anything atall. In the drawing-room, on either side of the fireplace therehung the Carlo Dolci and the Sassoferrato as in old times; there wasthe water colour of a scene on the Lago Maggiore, copied by Charlottefrom an original lent her by her drawing master, and finished underhis direction. This was the picture of which one of the servantshad said that it must be good, for Mr Pontifex had given ten shillingsfor the frame. The paper on the walls was unchanged; the roseswere still waiting for the bees; and the whole family still prayed nightand morning to be made “truly honest and conscientious.”

One picture only was removed—a photograph of himself whichhad hung under one of his father and between those of his brother andsister. Ernest noticed this at prayer time, while his father wasreading about Noah’s ark and how they daubed it with slime, which,as it happened, had been Ernest’s favourite text when he was aboy. Next morning, however, the photograph had found its way backagain, a little dusty and with a bit of the gilding chipped off fromone corner of the frame, but there sure enough it was. I supposethey put it back when they found how rich he had become.

In the dining-room the ravens were still trying to feed Elijah overthe fireplace; what a crowd of reminiscences did not this picture bringback! Looking out of the window, there were the flower beds inthe front garden exactly as they had been, and Ernest found himselflooking hard against the blue door at the bottom of the garden to seeif there was rain falling, as he had been used to look when he was achild doing lessons with his father.

After their early dinner, when Joey and Ernest and their father wereleft alone, Theobald rose and stood in the middle of the hearthrug underthe Elijah picture, and began to whistle in his old absent way.He had two tunes only, one was “In my Cottage near a Wood,”and the other was the Easter Hymn; he had been trying to whistle themall his life, but had never succeeded; he whistled them as a cleverbullfinch might whistle them—he had got them, but he had not gotthem right; he would be a semitone out in every third note as thoughreverting to some remote musical progenitor, who had known none butthe Lydian or the Phrygian mode, or whatever would enable him to gomost wrong while still keeping the tune near enough to be recognised.Theobald stood before the middle of the fire and whistled his two tunessoftly in his own old way till Ernest left the room; the unchangednessof the external and changedness of the internal he felt were likelyto throw him completely off his balance.

He strolled out of doors into the sodden spinney behind the house,and solaced himself with a pipe. Ere long he found himself atthe door of the cottage of his father’s coachman, who had marriedan old lady’s maid of his mother’s, to whom Ernest had beenalways much attached as she also to him, for she had known him eversince he had been five or six years old. Her name was Susan.He sat down in the rocking-chair before her fire, and Susan went onironing at the table in front of the window, and a smell of hot flannelpervaded the kitchen.

Susan had been retained too securely by Christina to be likely toside with Ernest all in a moment. He knew this very well, anddid not call on her for the sake of support, moral or otherwise.He had called because he liked her, and also because he knew that heshould gather much in a chat with her that he should not be able toarrive at in any other way.

“Oh, Master Ernest,” said Susan, “why did you notcome back when your poor papa and mamma wanted you? I’msure your ma has said to me a hundred times over if she has said itonce that all should be exactly as it had been before.”

Ernest smiled to himself. It was no use explaining to Susanwhy he smiled, so he said nothing.

“For the first day or two I thought she never would get overit; she said it was a judgement upon her, and went on about things asshe had said and done many years ago, before your pa knew her, and Idon’t know what she didn’t say or wouldn’t have saidonly I stopped her; she seemed out of her mind like, and said that noneof the neighbours would ever speak to her again, but the next day MrsBushby (her that was Miss Cowey, you know) called, and your ma alwayswas so fond of her, and it seemed to do her a power o’ good, forthe next day she went through all her dresses, and we settled how sheshould have them altered; and then all the neighbours called for milesand miles round, and your ma came in here, and said she had been goingthrough the waters of misery, and the Lord had turned them to a well.

“‘Oh yes, Susan,’ said she, ‘be sure it isso. Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, Susan,’ and hereshe began to cry again. ‘As for him,’ she went on,‘he has made his bed, and he must lie on it; when he comes outof prison his pa will know what is best to be done, and Master Ernestmay be thankful that he has a pa so good and so long-suffering.’

“Then when you would not see them, that was a cruel blow toyour ma. Your pa did not say anything; you know your pa neverdoes say very much unless he’s downright waxy for the time; butyour ma took on dreadful for a few days, and I never saw the masterlook so black; but, bless you, it all went off in a few days, and Idon’t know that there’s been much difference in either ofthem since then, not till your ma was took ill.”

On the night of his arrival he had behaved well at family prayers,as also on the following morning; his father read about David’sdying injunctions to Solomon in the matter of Shimei, but he did notmind it. In the course of the day, however, his corns had beentrodden on so many times that he was in a misbehaving humour, on thisthe second night after his arrival. He knelt next Charlotte andsaid the responses perfunctorily, not so perfunctorily that she shouldknow for certain that he was doing it maliciously, but so perfunctorilyas to make her uncertain whether he might be malicious or not, and whenhe had to pray to be made truly honest and conscientious he emphasisedthe “truly.” I do not know whether Charlotte noticedanything, but she knelt at some distance from him during the rest ofhis stay. He assures me that this was the only spiteful thinghe did during the whole time he was at Battersby.

When he went up to his bedroom, in which, to do them justice, theyhad given him a fire, he noticed what indeed he had noticed as soonas he was shown into it on his arrival, that there was an illuminatedcard framed and glazed over his bed with the words, “Be the dayweary or be the day long, at last it ringeth to evensong.”He wondered to himself how such people could leave such a card in aroom in which their visitors would have to spend the last hours of theirevening, but he let it alone. “There’s not enoughdifference between ‘weary’ and ‘long’ to warrantan ‘or,’” he said, “but I suppose it is allright.” I believe Christina had bought the card at a bazaarin aid of the restoration of a neighbouring church, and having beenbought it had got to be used—besides, the sentiment was so touchingand the illumination was really lovely. Anyhow, no irony couldbe more complete than leaving it in my hero’s bedroom, thoughassuredly no irony had been intended.

On the third day after Ernest’s arrival Christina relapsedagain. For the last two days she had been in no pain and had slepta good deal; her son’s presence still seemed to cheer her, andshe often said how thankful she was to be surrounded on her death-bedby a family so happy, so God-fearing, so united, but now she began towander, and, being more sensible of the approach of death, seemed alsomore alarmed at the thoughts of the Day of Judgment.

She ventured more than once or twice to return to the subject ofher sins, and implored Theobald to make quite sure that they were forgivenher. She hinted that she considered his professional reputationwas at stake; it would never do for his own wife to fail in securingat any rate a pass. This was touching Theobald on a tender spot;he winced and rejoined with an impatient toss of the head, “But,Christina, they are forgiven you”; and then he entrenchedhimself in a firm but dignified manner behind the Lord’s prayer.When he rose he left the room, but called Ernest out to say that hecould not wish it prolonged.

Joey was no more use in quieting his mother’s anxiety thanTheobald had been—indeed he was only Theobald and water; at lastErnest, who had not liked interfering, took the matter in hand, and,sitting beside her, let her pour out her grief to him without let orhindrance.

She said she knew she had not given up all for Christ’s sake;it was this that weighed upon her. She had given up much, andhad always tried to give up more year by year, still she knew very wellthat she had not been so spiritually minded as she ought to have been.If she had, she should probably have been favoured with some directvision or communication; whereas, though God had vouchsafed such directand visible angelic visits to one of her dear children, yet she hadhad none such herself—nor even had Theobald.

She was talking rather to herself than to Ernest as she said thesewords, but they made him open his ears. He wanted to know whetherthe angel had appeared to Joey or to Charlotte. He asked his mother,but she seemed surprised, as though she expected him to know all aboutit, then, as if she remembered, she checked herself and said, “Ah!yes—you know nothing of all this, and perhaps it is as well.”Ernest could not of course press the subject, so he never found outwhich of his near relations it was who had had direct communicationwith an immortal. The others never said anything to him aboutit, though whether this was because they were ashamed, or because theyfeared he would not believe the story and thus increase his own damnation,he could not determine.

Ernest has often thought about this since. He tried to getthe facts out of Susan, who he was sure would know, but Charlotte hadbeen beforehand with him. “No, Master Ernest,” saidSusan, when he began to question her, “your ma has sent a messageto me by Miss Charlotte as I am not to say nothing at all about it,and I never will.” Of course no further questioning waspossible. It had more than once occurred to Ernest that Charlottedid not in reality believe more than he did himself, and this incidentwent far to strengthen his surmises, but he wavered when he rememberedhow she had misdirected the letter asking for the prayers of the congregation.“I suppose,” he said to himself gloomily, “she doesbelieve in it after all.”

Then Christina returned to the subject of her own want of spiritual-mindedness,she even harped upon the old grievance of her having eaten black puddings—true,she had given them up years ago, but for how many years had she notpersevered in eating them after she had had misgivings about their havingbeen forbidden! Then there was something that weighed on her mindthat had taken place before her marriage, and she should like—

Ernest interrupted: “My dear mother,” he said, “youare ill and your mind is unstrung; others can now judge better aboutyou than you can; I assure you that to me you seem to have been themost devotedly unselfish wife and mother that ever lived. Evenif you have not literally given up all for Christ’s sake, youhave done so practically as far as it was in your power, and more thanthis is not required of anyone. I believe you will not only bea saint, but a very distinguished one.”

At these words Christina brightened. “You give me hope,you give me hope,” she cried, and dried her eyes. She madehim assure her over and over again that this was his solemn conviction;she did not care about being a distinguished saint now; she would bequite content to be among the meanest who actually got into heaven,provided she could make sure of escaping that awful Hell. Thefear of this evidently was omnipresent with her, and in spite of allErnest could say he did not quite dispel it. She was rather ungrateful,I must confess, for after more than an hour’s consolation fromErnest she prayed for him that he might have every blessing in thisworld, inasmuch as she always feared that he was the only one of herchildren whom she should never meet in heaven; but she was then wandering,and was hardly aware of his presence; her mind in fact was revertingto states in which it had been before her illness.

On Sunday Ernest went to church as a matter of course, and notedthat the ever receding tide of Evangelicalism had ebbed many a stagelower, even during the few years of his absence. His father usedto walk to the church through the Rectory garden, and across a smallintervening field. He had been used to walk in a tall hat, hisMaster’s gown, and wearing a pair of Geneva bands. Ernestnoticed that the bands were worn no longer, and lo! greater marvel still,Theobald did not preach in his Master’s gown, but in a surplice.The whole character of the service was changed; you could not say itwas high even now, for high-church Theobald could never under any circ*mstancesbecome, but the old easy-going slovenliness, if I may say so, was gonefor ever. The orchestral accompaniments to the hymns had disappearedwhile my hero was yet a boy, but there had been no chanting for someyears after the harmonium had been introduced. While Ernest wasat Cambridge, Charlotte and Christina had prevailed on Theobald to allowthe canticles to be sung; and sung they were to old-fashioned doublechants by Lord Mornington and Dr Dupuis and others. Theobald didnot like it, but he did it, or allowed it to be done.

Then Christina said: “My dear, do you know, I really think”(Christina always “really” thought) “that the peoplelike the chanting very much, and that it will be a means of bringingmany to church who have stayed away hitherto. I was talking aboutit to Mrs Goodhew and to old Miss Wright only yesterday, and they quiteagreed with me, but they all said that we ought to chant the ‘Glorybe to the Father’ at the end of each of the psalms instead ofsaying it.”

Theobald looked black—he felt the waters of chanting risinghigher and higher upon him inch by inch; but he felt also, he knew notwhy, that he had better yield than fight. So he ordered the “Glorybe to the Father” to be chanted in future, but he did not likeit.

“Really, mamma dear,” said Charlotte, when the battlewas won, “you should not call it the ‘Glory be to the Father’you should say ‘Gloria.’”

“Of course, my dear,” said Christina, and she said “Gloria”for ever after. Then she thought what a wonderfully clever girlCharlotte was, and how she ought to marry no one lower than a bishop.By-and-by when Theobald went away for an unusually long holiday onesummer, he could find no one but a rather high-church clergyman to takehis duty. This gentleman was a man of weight in the neighbourhood,having considerable private means, but without preferment. Inthe summer he would often help his brother clergymen, and it was throughhis being willing to take the duty at Battersby for a few Sundays thatTheobald had been able to get away for so long. On his return,however, he found that the whole psalms were being chanted as well asthe Glorias. The influential clergyman, Christina, and Charlottetook the bull by the horns as soon as Theobald returned, and laughedit all off; and the clergyman laughed and bounced, and Christina laughedand coaxed, and Charlotte uttered unexceptionable sentiments, and thething was done now, and could not be undone, and it was no use grievingover spilt milk; so henceforth the psalms were to be chanted, but Theobaldgrisled over it in his heart, and he did not like it.

During this same absence what had Mrs Goodhew and old Miss Wrighttaken to doing but turning towards the east while repeating the Belief?Theobald disliked this even worse than chanting. When he saidsomething about it in a timid way at dinner after service, Charlottesaid, “Really, papa dear, you must take to calling it the‘Creed’ and not the ‘Belief’”; and Theobaldwinced impatiently and snorted meek defiance, but the spirit of heraunts Jane and Eliza was strong in Charlotte, and the thing was toosmall to fight about, and he turned it off with a laugh. “Asfor Charlotte,” thought Christina, “I believe she knowseverything.” So Mrs Goodhew and old Miss Wright continuedto turn to the east during the time the Creed was said, and by-and-byothers followed their example, and ere long the few who had stood outyielded and turned eastward too; and then Theobald made as though hehad thought it all very right and proper from the first, but like ithe did not. By-and-by Charlotte tried to make him say “Alleluia”instead of “Hallelujah,” but this was going too far, andTheobald turned, and she got frightened and ran away.

And they changed the double chants for single ones, and altered thempsalm by psalm, and in the middle of psalms, just where a cursory readerwould see no reason why they should do so, they changed from major tominor and from minor back to major; and then they got “Hymns Ancientand Modern,” and, as I have said, they robbed him of his belovedbands, and they made him preach in a surplice, and he must have celebrationof the Holy Communion once a month instead of only five times in theyear as heretofore, and he struggled in vain against the unseen influencewhich he felt to be working in season and out of season against allthat he had been accustomed to consider most distinctive of his party.Where it was, or what it was, he knew not, nor exactly what it woulddo next, but he knew exceedingly well that go where he would it wasundermining him; that it was too persistent for him; that Christinaand Charlotte liked it a great deal better than he did, and that itcould end in nothing but Rome. Easter decorations indeed!Christmas decorations—in reason—were proper enough, butEaster decorations! well, it might last his time.

This was the course things had taken in the Church of England duringthe last forty years. The set has been steadily in one direction.A few men who knew what they wanted made cats’ paws of the Christmasand the Charlottes, and the Christmas and the Charlottes made cats’paws of the Mrs Goodhews and the old Miss Wrights, and Mrs Goodhewsand old Miss Wrights told the Mr Goodhews and young Miss Wrights whatthey should do, and when the Mr Goodhews and the young Miss Wrightsdid it the little Goodhews and the rest of the spiritual flock did asthey did, and the Theobalds went for nothing; step by step, day by day,year by year, parish by parish, diocese by diocese this was how it wasdone. And yet the Church of England looks with no friendly eyesupon the theory of Evolution or Descent with Modification.

My hero thought over these things, and remembered many a ruseon the part of Christina and Charlotte, and many a detail of the strugglewhich I cannot further interrupt my story to refer to, and he rememberedhis father’s favourite retort that it could only end in Rome.When he was a boy he had firmly believed this, but he smiled now ashe thought of another alternative clear enough to himself, but so horriblethat it had not even occurred to Theobald—I mean the topplingover of the whole system. At that time he welcomed the hope thatthe absurdities and unrealities of the Church would end in her downfall.Since then he has come to think very differently, not as believing inthe cow jumping over the moon more than he used to, or more, probably,than nine-tenths of the clergy themselves—who know as well ashe does that their outward and visible symbols are out of date—butbecause he knows the baffling complexity of the problem when it comesto deciding what is actually to be done. Also, now that he hasseen them more closely, he knows better the nature of those wolves insheep’s clothing, who are thirsting for the blood of their victim,and exulting so clamorously over its anticipated early fall into theirclutches. The spirit behind the Church is true, though her letter—trueonce—is now true no longer. The spirit behind the High Priestsof Science is as lying as its letter. The Theobalds, who do whatthey do because it seems to be the correct thing, but who in their heartsneither like it nor believe in it, are in reality the least dangerousof all classes to the peace and liberties of mankind. The manto fear is he who goes at things with the co*cksureness of pushing vulgarityand self-conceit. These are not vices which can be justly laidto the charge of the English clergy.

Many of the farmers came up to Ernest when service was over, andshook hands with him. He found every one knew of his having comeinto a fortune. The fact was that Theobald had immediately toldtwo or three of the greatest gossips in the village, and the story wasnot long in spreading. “It simplified matters,” hehad said to himself, “a good deal.” Ernest was civilto Mrs Goodhew for her husband’s sake, but he gave Miss Wrightthe cut direct, for he knew that she was only Charlotte in disguise.

A week passed slowly away. Two or three times the family tookthe sacrament together round Christina’s death-bed. Theobald’simpatience became more and more transparent daily, but fortunately Christina(who even if she had been well would have been ready to shut her eyesto it) became weaker and less coherent in mind also, so that she hardly,if at all, perceived it. After Ernest had been in the house abouta week his mother fell into a comatose state which lasted a couple ofdays, and in the end went away so peacefully that it was like the blendingof sea and sky in mid-ocean upon a soft hazy day when none can say wherethe earth ends and the heavens begin. Indeed she died to the realitiesof life with less pain than she had waked from many of its illusions.

“She has been the comfort and mainstay of my life for morethan thirty years,” said Theobald as soon as all was over, “butone could not wish it prolonged,” and he buried his face in hishandkerchief to conceal his want of emotion.

Ernest came back to town the day after his mother’s death,and returned to the funeral accompanied by myself. He wanted meto see his father in order to prevent any possible misapprehension aboutMiss Pontifex’s intentions, and I was such an old friend of thefamily that my presence at Christina’s funeral would surpriseno one. With all her faults I had always rather liked Christina.She would have chopped Ernest or any one else into little pieces ofmincemeat to gratify the slightest wish of her husband, but she wouldnot have chopped him up for any one else, and so long as he did notcross her she was very fond of him. By nature she was of an eventemper, more willing to be pleased than ruffled, very ready to do agood-natured action, provided it did not cost her much exertion, norinvolve expense to Theobald. Her own little purse did not matter;any one might have as much of that as he or she could get after shehad reserved what was absolutely necessary for her dress. I couldnot hear of her end as Ernest described it to me without feeling verycompassionate towards her, indeed her own son could hardly have feltmore so; I at once, therefore, consented to go down to the funeral;perhaps I was also influenced by a desire to see Charlotte and Joey,in whom I felt interested on hearing what my godson had told me.

I found Theobald looking remarkably well. Every one said hewas bearing it so beautifully. He did indeed once or twice shakehis head and say that his wife had been the comfort and mainstay ofhis life for over thirty years, but there the matter ended. Istayed over the next day which was Sunday, and took my departure onthe following morning after having told Theobald all that his son wishedme to tell him. Theobald asked me to help him with Christina’sepitaph.

“I would say,” said he, “as little as possible;eulogies of the departed are in most cases both unnecessary and untrue.Christina’s epitaph shall contain nothing which shall be eitherthe one or the other. I should give her name, the dates of herbirth and death, and of course say she was my wife, and then I thinkI should wind up with a simple text—her favourite one for example,none indeed could be more appropriate, ‘Blessed are the pure inheart for they shall see God.’”

I said I thought this would be very nice, and it was settled.So Ernest was sent to give the order to Mr Prosser, the stonemason inthe nearest town, who said it came from “the Beetitudes.”

CHAPTER LXXXIV

On our way to town Ernest broached his plans for spending the nextyear or two. I wanted him to try and get more into society again,but he brushed this aside at once as the very last thing he had a fancyfor. For society indeed of all sorts, except of course that ofa few intimate friends, he had an unconquerable aversion. “Ialways did hate those people,” he said, “and they alwayshave hated and always will hate me. I am an Ishmael by instinctas much as by accident of circ*mstances, but if I keep out of societyI shall be less vulnerable than Ishmaels generally are. The momenta man goes into society, he becomes vulnerable all round.”

I was very sorry to hear him talk in this way; for whatever strengtha man may have he should surely be able to make more of it if he actin concert than alone. I said this.

“I don’t care,” he answered, “whether I makethe most of my strength or not; I don’t know whether I have anystrength, but if I have I dare say it will find some way of exertingitself. I will live as I like living, not as other people wouldlike me to live; thanks to my aunt and you I can afford the luxury ofa quiet unobtrusive life of self-indulgence,” said he laughing,“and I mean to have it. You know I like writing,”he added after a pause of some minutes, “I have been a scribblerfor years. If I am to come to the fore at all it must be by writing.”

I had already long since come to that conclusion myself.

“Well,” he continued, “there are a lot of thingsthat want saying which no one dares to say, a lot of shams which wantattacking, and yet no one attacks them. It seems to me that Ican say things which not another man in England except myself will ventureto say, and yet which are crying to be said.”

I said: “But who will listen? If you say things whichnobody else would dare to say is not this much the same as saying whateveryone except yourself knows to be better left unsaid just now?”

“Perhaps,” said he, “but I don’t know it;I am bursting with these things, and it is my fate to say them.”

I knew there would be no stopping him, so I gave in and asked whatquestion he felt a special desire to burn his fingers with in the firstinstance.

“Marriage,” he rejoined promptly, “and the powerof disposing of his property after a man is dead. The questionof Christianity is virtually settled, or if not settled there is nolack of those engaged in settling it. The question of the daynow is marriage and the family system.”

“That,” said I drily, “is a hornet’s nestindeed.”

“Yes,” said he no less drily, “but hornet’snests are exactly what I happen to like. Before, however, I beginto stir up this particular one I propose to travel for a few years,with the especial object of finding out what nations now existing arethe best, comeliest and most lovable, and also what nations have beenso in times past. I want to find out how these people live, andhave lived, and what their customs are.

“I have very vague notions upon the subject as yet, but thegeneral impression I have formed is that, putting ourselves on one side,the most vigorous and amiable of known nations are the modern Italians,the old Greeks and Romans, and the South Sea Islanders. I believethat these nice peoples have not as a general rule been purists, butI want to see those of them who can yet be seen; they are the practicalauthorities on the question—What is best for man? and I shouldlike to see them and find out what they do. Let us settle thefact first and fight about the moral tendencies afterwards.”

“In fact,” said I laughingly, “you mean to havehigh old times.”

“Neither higher nor lower,” was the answer, “thanthose people whom I can find to have been the best in all ages.But let us change the subject.” He put his hand into hispocket and brought out a letter. “My father,” he said,“gave me this letter this morning with the seal already broken.”He passed it over to me, and I found it to be the one which Christinahad written before the birth of her last child, and which I have givenin an earlier chapter.

“And you do not find this letter,” said I, “affectthe conclusion which you have just told me you have come to concerningyour present plans?”

He smiled, and answered: “No. But if you do what youhave sometimes talked about and turn the adventures of my unworthy selfinto a novel, mind you print this letter.”

“Why so?” said I, feeling as though such a letter asthis should have been held sacred from the public gaze.

“Because my mother would have wished it published; if she hadknown you were writing about me and had this letter in your possession,she would above all things have desired that you should publish it.Therefore publish it if you write at all.”

This is why I have done so.

Within a month Ernest carried his intention into effect, and havingmade all the arrangements necessary for his children’s welfareleft England before Christmas.

I heard from him now and again and learnt that he was visiting almostall parts of the world, but only staying in those places where he foundthe inhabitants unusually good-looking and agreeable. He saidhe had filled an immense quantity of note-books, and I have no doubthe had. At last in the spring of 1867 he returned, his luggagestained with the variation of each hotel advertisem*nt ’twixthere and Japan. He looked very brown and strong, and so well favouredthat it almost seemed as if he must have caught some good looks fromthe people among whom he had been living. He came back to hisold rooms in the Temple, and settled down as easily as if he had neverbeen away a day.

One of the first things we did was to go and see the children; wetook the train to Gravesend, and walked thence for a few miles alongthe riverside till we came to the solitary house where the good peoplelived with whom Ernest had placed them. It was a lovely Aprilmorning, but with a fresh air blowing from off the sea; the tide washigh, and the river was alive with shipping coming up with wind andtide. Sea-gulls wheeled around us overhead, sea-weed clung everywhereto the banks which the advancing tide had not yet covered, everythingwas of the sea sea-ey, and the fine bracing air which blew over thewater made me feel more hungry than I had done for many a day; I didnot see how children could live in a better physical atmosphere thanthis, and applauded the selection which Ernest had made on behalf ofhis youngsters.

While we were still a quarter of a mile off we heard shouts and children’slaughter, and could see a lot of boys and girls romping together andrunning after one another. We could not distinguish our own two,but when we got near they were soon made out, for the other childrenwere blue-eyed, flaxen-pated little folks, whereas ours were dark andstraight-haired.

We had written to say that we were coming, but had desired that nothingshould be said to the children, so these paid no more attention to usthan they would have done to any other stranger, who happened to visita spot so unfrequented except by sea-faring folk, which we plainly werenot. The interest, however, in us was much quickened when it wasdiscovered that we had got our pockets full of oranges and sweeties,to an extent greater than it had entered into their small imaginationsto conceive as possible. At first we had great difficulty in makingthem come near us. They were like a lot of wild young colts, veryinquisitive, but very coy and not to be cajoled easily. The childrenwere nine in all—five boys and two girls belonging to Mr and MrsRollings, and two to Ernest. I never saw a finer lot of childrenthan the young Rollings, the boys were hardy, robust, fearless littlefellows with eyes as clear as hawks; the elder girl was exquisitelypretty, but the younger one was a mere baby. I felt as I lookedat them, that if I had had children of my own I could have wished nobetter home for them, nor better companions.

Georgie and Alice, Ernest’s two children, were evidently quiteas one family with the others, and called Mr and Mrs Rollings uncleand aunt. They had been so young when they were first broughtto the house that they had been looked upon in the light of new babieswho had been born into the family. They knew nothing about Mrand Mrs Rollings being paid so much a week to look after them.Ernest asked them all what they wanted to be. They had only oneidea; one and all, Georgie among the rest, wanted to be bargemen.Young ducks could hardly have a more evident hankering after the water.

“And what do you want, Alice?” said Ernest.

“Oh,” she said, “I’m going to marry Jackhere, and be a bargeman’s wife.”

Jack was the eldest boy, now nearly twelve, a sturdy little fellow,the image of what Mr Rollings must have been at his age. As welooked at him, so straight and well grown and well done all round, Icould see it was in Ernest’s mind as much as in mine that shecould hardly do much better.

“Come here, Jack, my boy,” said Ernest, “here’sa shilling for you.” The boy blushed and could hardly begot to come in spite of our previous blandishments; he had had penniesgiven him before, but shillings never. His father caught him good-naturedlyby the ear and lugged him to us.

“He’s a good boy, Jack is,” said Ernest to Mr Rollings,“I’m sure of that.”

“Yes,” said Mr Rollings, “he’s a werry goodboy, only that I can’t get him to learn his reading and writing.He don’t like going to school, that’s the only complaintI have against him. I don’t know what’s the matterwith all my children, and yours, Mr Pontifex, is just as bad, but theynone of ’em likes book learning, though they learn anything elsefast enough. Why, as for Jack here, he’s almost as gooda bargeman as I am.” And he looked fondly and patronisinglytowards his offspring.

“I think,” said Ernest to Mr Rollings, “if he wantsto marry Alice when he gets older he had better do so, and he shallhave as many barges as he likes. In the meantime, Mr Rollings,say in what way money can be of use to you, and whatever you can makeuseful is at your disposal.”

I need hardly say that Ernest made matters easy for this good couple;one stipulation, however, he insisted on, namely, there was to be nomore smuggling, and that the young people were to be kept out of this;for a little bird had told Ernest that smuggling in a quiet way wasone of the resources of the Rollings family. Mr Rollings was notsorry to assent to this, and I believe it is now many years since thecoastguard people have suspected any of the Rollings family as offendersagainst the revenue law.

“Why should I take them from where they are,” said Ernestto me in the train as we went home, “to send them to schools wherethey will not be one half so happy, and where their illegitimacy willvery likely be a worry to them? Georgie wants to be a bargeman,let him begin as one, the sooner the better; he may as well begin withthis as with anything else; then if he shows developments I can be onthe look-out to encourage them and make things easy for him; while ifhe shows no desire to go ahead, what on earth is the good of tryingto shove him forward?”

Ernest, I believe, went on with a homily upon education generally,and upon the way in which young people should go through the embryonicstages with their money as much as with their limbs, beginning lifein a much lower social position than that in which their parents were,and a lot more, which he has since published; but I was getting on inyears, and the walk and the bracing air had made me sleepy, so ere wehad got past Greenhithe Station on our return journey I had sunk intoa refreshing sleep.

CHAPTER LXXXV

Ernest being about two and thirty years old and having had his flingfor the last three or four years, now settled down in London, and beganto write steadily. Up to this time he had given abundant promise,but had produced nothing, nor indeed did he come before the public foranother three or four years yet.

He lived as I have said very quietly, seeing hardly anyone but myself,and the three or four old friends with whom I had been intimate foryears. Ernest and we formed our little set, and outside of thismy godson was hardly known at all.

His main expense was travelling, which he indulged in at frequentintervals, but for short times only. Do what he would he couldnot get through more than about fifteen hundred a year; the rest ofhis income he gave away if he happened to find a case where he thoughtmoney would be well bestowed, or put by until some opportunity aroseof getting rid of it with advantage.

I knew he was writing, but we had had so many little differencesof opinion upon this head that by a tacit understanding the subjectwas seldom referred to between us, and I did not know that he was actuallypublishing till one day he brought me a book and told me flat it washis own. I opened it and found it to be a series of semi-theological,semi-social essays, purporting to have been written by six or sevendifferent people, and viewing the same class of subjects from differentstandpoints.

People had not yet forgotten the famous “Essays and Reviews,”and Ernest had wickedly given a few touches to at least two of the essayswhich suggested vaguely that they had been written by a bishop.The essays were all of them in support of the Church of England, andappeared both by internal suggestion, and their prima facie purportto be the work of some half-dozen men of experience and high positionwho had determined to face the difficult questions of the day no lessboldly from within the bosom of the Church than the Church’s enemieshad faced them from without her pale.

There was an essay on the external evidences of the Resurrection;another on the marriage laws of the most eminent nations of the worldin times past and present; another was devoted to a consideration ofthe many questions which must be reopened and reconsidered on theirmerits if the teaching of the Church of England were to cease to carrymoral authority with it; another dealt with the more purely social subjectof middle class destitution; another with the authenticity or ratherthe unauthenticity of the fourth gospel—another was headed “IrrationalRationalism,” and there were two or three more.

They were all written vigorously and fearlessly as though by peopleused to authority; all granted that the Church professed to enjoin beliefin much which no one could accept who had been accustomed to weigh evidence;but it was contended that so much valuable truth had got so closelymixed up with these mistakes, that the mistakes had better not be meddledwith. To lay great stress on these was like cavilling at the Queen’sright to reign, on the ground that William the Conqueror was illegitimate.

One article maintained that though it would be inconvenient to changethe words of our prayer book and articles, it would not be inconvenientto change in a quiet way the meanings which we put upon those words.This, it was argued, was what was actually done in the case of law;this had been the law’s mode of growth and adaptation, and hadin all ages been found a righteous and convenient method of effectingchange. It was suggested that the Church should adopt it.

In another essay it was boldly denied that the Church rested uponreason. It was proved incontestably that its ultimate foundationwas and ought to be faith, there being indeed no other ultimate foundationthan this for any of man’s beliefs. If so, the writer claimedthat the Church could not be upset by reason. It was founded,like everything else, on initial assumptions, that is to say on faith,and if it was to be upset it was to be upset by faith, by the faithof those who in their lives appeared more graceful, more lovable, betterbred, in fact, and better able to overcome difficulties. Any sectwhich showed its superiority in these respects might carry all beforeit, but none other would make much headway for long together.Christianity was true in so far as it had fostered beauty, and it hadfostered much beauty. It was false in so far as it fostered ugliness,and it had fostered much ugliness. It was therefore not a littletrue and not a little false; on the whole one might go farther and fareworse; the wisest course would be to live with it, and make the bestand not the worst of it. The writer urged that we become persecutorsas a matter of course as soon as we begin to feel very strongly uponany subject; we ought not therefore to do this; we ought not to feelvery strongly—even upon that institution which was dearer to thewriter than any other—the Church of England. We should bechurchmen, but somewhat lukewarm churchmen, inasmuch as those who carevery much about either religion or irreligion are seldom observed tobe very well bred or agreeable people. The Church herself shouldapproach as nearly to that of Laodicea as was compatible with her continuingto be a Church at all, and each individual member should only be hotin striving to be as lukewarm as possible.

The book rang with the courage alike of conviction and of an entireabsence of conviction; it appeared to be the work of men who had a rule-of-thumbway of steering between iconoclasm on the one hand and credulity onthe other; who cut Gordian knots as a matter of course when it suitedtheir convenience; who shrank from no conclusion in theory, nor fromany want of logic in practice so long as they were illogical of maliceprepense, and for what they held to be sufficient reason. Theconclusions were conservative, quietistic, comforting. The argumentsby which they were reached were taken from the most advanced writersof the day. All that these people contended for was granted them,but the fruits of victory were for the most part handed over to thosealready in possession.

Perhaps the passage which attracted most attention in the book wasone from the essay on the various marriage systems of the world.It ran:—

“If people require us to construct,” exclaimed the writer,“we set good breeding as the corner-stone of our edifice.We would have it ever present consciously or unconsciously in the mindsof all as the central faith in which they should live and move and havetheir being, as the touchstone of all things whereby they may be knownas good or evil according as they make for good breeding or againstit.”

“That a man should have been bred well and breed others well;that his figure, head, hands, feet, voice, manner and clothes shouldcarry conviction upon this point, so that no one can look at him withoutseeing that he has come of good stock and is likely to throw good stockhimself, this is the desiderandum. And the same with awoman. The greatest number of these well-bred men and women, andthe greatest happiness of these well-bred men and women, this is thehighest good; towards this all government, all social conventions, allart, literature and science should directly or indirectly tend.Holy men and holy women are those who keep this unconsciously in viewat all times whether of work or pastime.”

If Ernest had published this work in his own name I should thinkit would have fallen stillborn from the press, but the form he had chosenwas calculated at that time to arouse curiosity, and as I have saidhe had wickedly dropped a few hints which the reviewers did not thinkanyone would have been impudent enough to do if he were not a bishop,or at any rate some one in authority. A well-known judge was spokenof as being another of the writers, and the idea spread ere long thatsix or seven of the leading bishops and judges had laid their headstogether to produce a volume, which should at once outbid “Essaysand Reviews” and counteract the influence of that then still famouswork.

Reviewers are men of like passions with ourselves, and with themas with everyone else omne ignotum pro magnifico. The bookwas really an able one and abounded with humour, just satire, and goodsense. It struck a new note and the speculation which for sometime was rife concerning its authorship made many turn to it who wouldnever have looked at it otherwise. One of the most gushing weeklieshad a fit over it, and declared it to be the finest thing that had beendone since the “Provincial Letters” of Pascal. Oncea month or so that weekly always found some picture which was the finestthat had been done since the old masters, or some satire that was thefinest that had appeared since Swift or some something which was incomparablythe finest that had appeared since something else. If Ernest hadput his name to the book, and the writer had known that it was by anobody, he would doubtless have written in a very different strain.Reviewers like to think that for aught they know they are patting aDuke or even a Prince of the blood upon the back, and lay it on thicktill they find they have been only praising Brown, Jones or Robinson.Then they are disappointed, and as a general rule will pay Brown, Jonesor Robinson out.

Ernest was not so much up to the ropes of the literary world as Iwas, and I am afraid his head was a little turned when he woke up onemorning to find himself famous. He was Christina’s son,and perhaps would not have been able to do what he had done if he wasnot capable of occasional undue elation. Ere long, however, hefound out all about it, and settled quietly down to write a series ofbooks, in which he insisted on saying things which no one else wouldsay even if they could, or could even if they would.

He has got himself a bad literary character. I said to himlaughingly one day that he was like the man in the last century of whomit was said that nothing but such a character could keep down such parts.

He laughed and said he would rather be like that than like a modernwriter or two whom he could name, whose parts were so poor that theycould be kept up by nothing but by such a character.

I remember soon after one of these books was published I happenedto meet Mrs Jupp to whom, by the way, Ernest made a small weekly allowance.It was at Ernest’s chambers, and for some reason we were leftalone for a few minutes. I said to her: “Mr Pontifex haswritten another book, Mrs Jupp.”

“Lor’ now,” said she, “has he really?Dear gentleman! Is it about love?” And the old sinnerthrew up a wicked sheep’s eye glance at me from under her agedeyelids. I forget what there was in my reply which provoked it—probablynothing—but she went rattling on at full speed to the effect thatBell had given her a ticket for the opera, “So, of course,”she said, “I went. I didn’t understand one word ofit, for it was all French, but I saw their legs. Oh dear, oh dear!I’m afraid I shan’t be here much longer, and when dear MrPontifex sees me in my coffin he’ll say, ‘Poor old Jupp,she’ll never talk broad any more’; but bless you I’mnot so old as all that, and I’m taking lessons in dancing.”

At this moment Ernest came in and the conversation was changed.Mrs Jupp asked if he was still going on writing more books now thatthis one was done. “Of course I am,” he answered,“I’m always writing books; here is the manuscript of mynext;” and he showed her a heap of paper.

“Well now,” she exclaimed, “dear, dear me, andis that manuscript? I’ve often heard talk about manuscripts,but I never thought I should live to see some myself. Well! well!So that is really manuscript?”

There were a few geraniums in the window and they did not look well.Ernest asked Mrs Jupp if she understood flowers. “I understandthe language of flowers,” she said, with one of her most bewitchingleers, and on this we sent her off till she should choose to honourus with another visit, which she knows she is privileged from time totime to do, for Ernest likes her.

CHAPTER LXXXVI

And now I must bring my story to a close.

The preceding chapter was written soon after the events it records—thatis to say in the spring of 1867. By that time my story had beenwritten up to this point; but it has been altered here and there fromtime to time occasionally. It is now the autumn of 1882, and ifI am to say more I should do so quickly, for I am eighty years old andthough well in health cannot conceal from myself that I am no longeryoung. Ernest himself is forty-seven, though he hardly looks it.

He is richer than ever, for he has never married and his London andNorth-Western shares have nearly doubled themselves. Through sheerinability to spend his income he has been obliged to hoard in self-defence.He still lives in the Temple in the same rooms I took for him when hegave up his shop, for no one has been able to induce him to take a house.His house, he says, is wherever there is a good hotel. When heis in town he likes to work and to be quiet. When out of townhe feels that he has left little behind him that can go wrong, and hewould not like to be tied to a single locality. “I knowno exception,” he says, “to the rule that it is cheaperto buy milk than to keep a cow.”

As I have mentioned Mrs Jupp, I may as well say here the little thatremains to be said about her. She is a very old woman now, butno one now living, as she says triumphantly, can say how old, for thewoman in the Old Kent Road is dead, and presumably has carried her secretto the grave. Old, however, though she is, she lives in the samehouse, and finds it hard work to make the two ends meet, but I do notknow that she minds this very much, and it has prevented her from gettingmore to drink than would be good for her. It is no use tryingto do anything for her beyond paying her allowance weekly, and absolutelyrefusing to let her anticipate it. She pawns her flat iron everySaturday for 4d., and takes it out every Monday morning for 4.5d. whenshe gets her allowance, and has done this for the last ten years asregularly as the week comes round. As long as she does not letthe flat iron actually go we know that she can still worry out her financialproblems in her own hugger-mugger way and had better be left to do so.If the flat iron were to go beyond redemption, we should know that itwas time to interfere. I do not know why, but there is somethingabout her which always reminds me of a woman who was as unlike her asone person can be to another—I mean Ernest’s mother.

The last time I had a long gossip with her was about two years agowhen she came to me instead of to Ernest. She said she had seena cab drive up just as she was going to enter the staircase, and hadseen Mr Pontifex’s pa put his Beelzebub old head out of the window,so she had come on to me, for she hadn’t greased her sides forno curtsey, not for the likes of him. She professed to be verymuch down on her luck. Her lodgers did use her so dreadful, goingaway without paying and leaving not so much as a stick behind, but to-dayshe was as pleased as a penny carrot. She had had such a lovelydinner—a cushion of ham and green peas. She had had a goodcry over it, but then she was so silly, she was.

“And there’s that Bell,” she continued, thoughI could not detect any appearance of connection, “it’s enoughto give anyone the hump to see him now that he’s taken to chapel-going,and his mother’s prepared to meet Jesus and all that to me, andnow she ain’t a-going to die, and drinks half a bottle of champagnea day, and then Grigg, him as preaches, you know, asked Bell if I reallywas too gay, not but what when I was young I’d snap my fingersat any ‘fly by night’ in Holborn, and if I was togged outand had my teeth I’d do it now. I lost my poor dear Watkins,but of course that couldn’t be helped, and then I lost my dearRose. Silly fa*ggot to go and ride on a cart and catch the bronchitics.I never thought when I kissed my dear Rose in Pullen’s Passageand she gave me the chop, that I should never see her again, and hergentleman friend was fond of her too, though he was a married man.I daresay she’s gone to bits by now. If she could rise andsee me with my bad finger, she would cry, and I should say, ‘Nevermind, ducky, I’m all right.’ Oh! dear, it’scoming on to rain. I do hate a wet Saturday night—poor womenwith their nice white stockings and their living to get,” etc.,etc.

And yet age does not wither this godless old sinner, as people wouldsay it ought to do. Whatever life she has led, it has agreed withher very sufficiently. At times she gives us to understand thatshe is still much solicited; at others she takes quite a different tone.She has not allowed even Joe King so much as to put his lips to hersthis ten years. She would rather have a mutton chop any day.“But ah! you should have seen me when I was sweet seventeen.I was the very moral of my poor dear mother, and she was a pretty woman,though I say it that shouldn’t. She had such a splendidmouth of teeth. It was a sin to bury her in her teeth.”

I only knew of one thing at which she professes to be shocked.It is that her son Tom and his wife Topsy are teaching the baby to swear.“Oh! it’s too dreadful awful,” she exclaimed, “Idon’t know the meaning of the words, but I tell him he’sa drunken sot.” I believe the old woman in reality ratherlikes it.

“But surely, Mrs Jupp,” said I, “Tom’s wifeused not to be Topsy. You used to speak of her as Pheeb.”

“Ah! yes,” she answered, “but Pheeb behaved bad,and it’s Topsy now.”

Ernest’s daughter Alice married the boy who had been her playmatemore than a year ago. Ernest gave them all they said they wantedand a good deal more. They have already presented him with a grandson,and I doubt not, will do so with many more. Georgie though onlytwenty-one is owner of a fine steamer which his father has bought forhim. He began when about thirteen going with old Rollings andJack in the barge from Rochester to the upper Thames with bricks; thenhis father bought him and Jack barges of their own, and then he boughtthem both ships, and then steamers. I do not exactly know howpeople make money by having a steamer, but he does whatever is usual,and from all I can gather makes it pay extremely well. He is agood deal like his father in the face, but without a spark—sofar as I have been able to observe—any literary ability; he hasa fair sense of humour and abundance of common sense, but his instinctis clearly a practical one. I am not sure that he does not putme in mind almost more of what Theobald would have been if he had beena sailor, than of Ernest. Ernest used to go down to Battersbyand stay with his father for a few days twice a year until Theobald’sdeath, and the pair continued on excellent terms, in spite of what theneighbouring clergy call “the atrocious books which Mr ErnestPontifex” has written. Perhaps the harmony, or rather absenceof discord which subsisted between the pair was due to the fact thatTheobald had never looked into the inside of one of his son’sworks, and Ernest, of course, never alluded to them in his father’spresence. The pair, as I have said, got on excellently, but itwas doubtless as well that Ernest’s visits were short and nottoo frequent. Once Theobald wanted Ernest to bring his children,but Ernest knew they would not like it, so this was not done.

Sometimes Theobald came up to town on small business matters andpaid a visit to Ernest’s chambers; he generally brought with hima couple of lettuces, or a cabbage, or half-a-dozen turnips done upin a piece of brown paper, and told Ernest that he knew fresh vegetableswere rather hard to get in London, and he had brought him some.Ernest had often explained to him that the vegetables were of no useto him, and that he had rather he would not bring them; but Theobaldpersisted, I believe through sheer love of doing something which hisson did not like, but which was too small to take notice of.

He lived until about twelve months ago, when he was found dead inhis bed on the morning after having written the following letter tohis son:—

“Dear Ernest,—I’ve nothing particularto write about, but your letter has been lying for some days in thelimbo of unanswered letters, to wit my pocket, and it’s time itwas answered.

“I keep wonderfully well and am able to walk my five or sixmiles with comfort, but at my age there’s no knowing how longit will last, and time flies quickly. I have been busy pottingplants all the morning, but this afternoon is wet.

“What is this horrid Government going to do with Ireland?I don’t exactly wish they’d blow up Mr Gladstone, but ifa mad bull would chivy him there, and he would never come back any more,I should not be sorry. Lord Hartington is not exactly the manI should like to set in his place, but he would be immeasurably betterthan Gladstone.

“I miss your sister Charlotte more than I can express.She kept my household accounts, and I could pour out to her all littleworries, and now that Joey is married too, I don’t know what Ishould do if one or other of them did not come sometimes and take careof me. My only comfort is that Charlotte will make her husbandhappy, and that he is as nearly worthy of her as a husband can wellbe.—Believe me, Your affectionate father,

“THEOBALD PONTIFEX.”

I may say in passing that though Theobald speaks of Charlotte’smarriage as though it were recent, it had really taken place some sixyears previously, she being then about thirty-eight years old, and herhusband about seven years younger.

There was no doubt that Theobald passed peacefully away during hissleep. Can a man who died thus be said to have died at all?He has presented the phenomena of death to other people, but in respectof himself he has not only not died, but has not even thought that hewas going to die. This is not more than half dying, but then neitherwas his life more than half living. He presented so many of thephenomena of living that I suppose on the whole it would be less troubleto think of him as having been alive than as never having been bornat all, but this is only possible because association does not stickto the strict letter of its bond.

This, however, was not the general verdict concerning him, and thegeneral verdict is often the truest.

Ernest was overwhelmed with expressions of condolence and respectfor his father’s memory. “He never,” said DrMartin, the old doctor who brought Ernest into the world, “spokean ill word against anyone. He was not only liked, he was belovedby all who had anything to do with him.”

“A more perfectly just and righteously dealing man,”said the family solicitor, “I have never had anything to do with—norone more punctual in the discharge of every business obligation.”

“We shall miss him sadly,” the bishop wrote to Joey inthe very warmest terms. The poor were in consternation.“The well’s never missed,” said one old woman, “tillit’s dry,” and she only said what everyone else felt.Ernest knew that the general regret was unaffected as for a loss whichcould not be easily repaired. He felt that there were only threepeople in the world who joined insincerely in the tribute of applause,and these were the very three who could least show their want of sympathy.I mean Joey, Charlotte, and himself. He felt bitter against himselffor being of a mind with either Joey or Charlotte upon any subject,and thankful that he must conceal his being so as far as possible, notbecause of anything his father had done to him—these grievanceswere too old to be remembered now—but because he would never allowhim to feel towards him as he was always trying to feel. As longas communication was confined to the merest commonplace all went well,but if these were departed from ever such a little he invariably feltthat his father’s instincts showed themselves in immediate oppositionto his own. When he was attacked his father laid whatever stresswas possible on everything which his opponents said. If he metwith any check his father was clearly pleased. What the old doctorhad said about Theobald’s speaking ill of no man was perfectlytrue as regards others than himself, but he knew very well that no onehad injured his reputation in a quiet way, so far as he dared to do,more than his own father. This is a very common case and a verynatural one. It often happens that if the son is right, the fatheris wrong, and the father is not going to have this if he can help it.

It was very hard, however, to say what was the true root of the mischiefin the present case. It was not Ernest’s having been imprisoned.Theobald forgot all about that much sooner than nine fathers out often would have done. Partly, no doubt, it was due to incompatibilityof temperament, but I believe the main ground of complaint lay in thefact that he had been so independent and so rich while still very young,and that thus the old gentleman had been robbed of his power to teaseand scratch in the way which he felt he was entitled to do. Thelove of teasing in a small way when he felt safe in doing so had remainedpart of his nature from the days when he told his nurse that he wouldkeep her on purpose to torment her. I suppose it is so with allof us. At any rate I am sure that most fathers, especially ifthey are clergymen, are like Theobald.

He did not in reality, I am convinced, like Joey or Charlotte onewhit better than he liked Ernest. He did not like anyone or anything,or if he liked anyone at all it was his butler, who looked after himwhen he was not well, and took great care of him and believed him tobe the best and ablest man in the whole world. Whether this faithfuland attached servant continued to think this after Theobald’swill was opened and it was found what kind of legacy had been left himI know not. Of his children, the baby who had died at a day oldwas the only one whom he held to have treated him quite filially.As for Christina he hardly ever pretended to miss her and never mentionedher name; but this was taken as a proof that he felt her loss too keenlyto be able ever to speak of her. It may have been so, but I donot think it.

Theobald’s effects were sold by auction, and among them theHarmony of the Old and New Testaments which he had compiled during manyyears with such exquisite neatness and a huge collection of MS. sermons—beingall in fact that he had ever written. These and the Harmony fetchedninepence a barrow load. I was surprised to hear that Joey hadnot given the three or four shillings which would have bought the wholelot, but Ernest tells me that Joey was far fiercer in his dislike ofhis father than ever he had been himself, and wished to get rid of everythingthat reminded him of him.

It has already appeared that both Joey and Charlotte are married.Joey has a family, but he and Ernest very rarely have any intercourse.Of course, Ernest took nothing under his father’s will; this hadlong been understood, so that the other two are both well provided for.

Charlotte is as clever as ever, and sometimes asks Ernest to comeand stay with her and her husband near Dover, I suppose because sheknows that the invitation will not be agreeable to him. Thereis a de haut en bas tone in all her letters; it is rather hardto lay one’s finger upon it but Ernest never gets a letter fromher without feeling that he is being written to by one who has had directcommunication with an angel. “What an awful creature,”he once said to me, “that angel must have been if it had anythingto do with making Charlotte what she is.”

“Could you like,” she wrote to him not long ago, “thethoughts of a little sea change here? The top of the cliffs willsoon be bright with heather: the gorse must be out already, and theheather I should think begun, to judge by the state of the hill at Ewell,and heather or no heather—the cliffs are always beautiful, andif you come your room shall be cosy so that you may have a resting cornerto yourself. Nineteen and sixpence is the price of a return-ticketwhich covers a month. Would you decide just as you would yourselflike, only if you come we would hope to try and make it bright for you;but you must not feel it a burden on your mind if you feel disinclinedto come in this direction.”

“When I have a bad nightmare,” said Ernest to me, laughingas he showed me this letter, “I dream that I have got to staywith Charlotte.”

Her letters are supposed to be unusually well written, and I believeit is said among the family that Charlotte has far more real literarypower than Ernest has. Sometimes we think that she is writingat him as much as to say, “There now—don’t you thinkyou are the only one of us who can write; read this! And if youwant a telling bit of descriptive writing for your next book, you canmake what use of it you like.” I daresay she writes verywell, but she has fallen under the dominion of the words “hope,”“think,” “feel,” “try,” “bright,”and “little,” and can hardly write a page without introducingall these words and some of them more than once. All this hasthe effect of making her style monotonous.

Ernest is as fond of music as ever, perhaps more so, and of lateyears has added musical composition to the other irons in his fire.He finds it still a little difficult, and is in constant trouble throughgetting into the key of C sharp after beginning in the key of C andbeing unable to get back again.

“Getting into the key of C sharp,” he said, “islike an unprotected female travelling on the Metropolitan Railway, andfinding herself at Shepherd’s Bush, without quite knowing whereshe wants to go to. How is she ever to get safe back to ClaphamJunction? And Clapham Junction won’t quite do either, forClapham Junction is like the diminished seventh—susceptible ofsuch enharmonic change, that you can resolve it into all the possibletermini of music.”

Talking of music reminds me of a little passage that took place betweenErnest and Miss Skinner, Dr Skinner’s eldest daughter, not sovery long ago. Dr Skinner had long left Roughborough, and hadbecome Dean of a Cathedral in one of our Midland counties—a positionwhich exactly suited him. Finding himself once in the neighbourhoodErnest called, for old acquaintance sake, and was hospitably entertainedat lunch.

Thirty years had whitened the Doctor’s bushy eyebrows—hishair they could not whiten. I believe that but for that wig hewould have been made a bishop.

His voice and manner were unchanged, and when Ernest remarking upona plan of Rome which hung in the hall, spoke inadvertently of the Quirinal,he replied with all his wonted pomp: “Yes, the QuirInal—oras I myself prefer to call it, the QuirInal.” After thistriumph he inhaled a long breath through the corners of his mouth, andflung it back again into the face of Heaven, as in his finest form duringhis head-mastership. At lunch he did indeed once say, “nextto impossible to think of anything else,” but he immediately correctedhimself and substituted the words, “next to impossible to entertainirrelevant ideas,” after which he seemed to feel a good deal morecomfortable. Ernest saw the familiar volumes of Dr Skinner’sworks upon the bookshelves in the Deanery dining-room, but he saw nocopy of “Rome or the Bible—Which?”

“And are you still as fond of music as ever, Mr Pontifex?”said Miss Skinner to Ernest during the course of lunch.

“Of some kinds of music, yes, Miss Skinner, but you know Inever did like modern music.”

“Isn’t that rather dreadful?—Don’t you thinkyou rather”—she was going to have added, “ought to?”but she left it unsaid, feeling doubtless that she had sufficientlyconveyed her meaning.

“I would like modern music, if I could; I have been tryingall my life to like it, but I succeed less and less the older I grow.”

“And pray, where do you consider modern music to begin?”

“With Sebastian Bach.”

“And don’t you like Beethoven?”

“No, I used to think I did, when I was younger, but I knownow that I never really liked him.”

“Ah! how can you say so? You cannot understand him, younever could say this if you understood him. For me a simple chordof Beethoven is enough. This is happiness.”

Ernest was amused at her strong family likeness to her father—alikeness which had grown upon her as she had become older, and whichextended even to voice and manner of speaking. He remembered howhe had heard me describe the game of chess I had played with the doctorin days gone by, and with his mind’s ear seemed to hear Miss Skinnersaying, as though it were an epitaph:—

“Stay:
I may presently take
A simple chord of Beethoven,
Or a small semiquaver
From one of Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words.”

After luncheon when Ernest was left alone for half an hour or sowith the Dean he plied him so well with compliments that the old gentlemanwas pleased and flattered beyond his wont. He rose and bowed.“These expressions,” he said, voce suâ, “arevery valuable to me.” “They are but a small part,Sir,” rejoined Ernest, “of what anyone of your old pupilsmust feel towards you,” and the pair danced as it were a minuetat the end of the dining-room table in front of the old bay window thatlooked upon the smooth shaven lawn. On this Ernest departed; buta few days afterwards, the Doctor wrote him a letter and told him thathis critics were a σκληροὶ καὶἀντίτυποι, and at thesame time ἀνέκπληκτοι.Ernest remembered σκληροὶ, andknew that the other words were something of like nature, so it was allright. A month or two afterwards, Dr Skinner was gathered to hisfathers.

“He was an old fool, Ernest,” said I, “and youshould not relent towards him.”

“I could not help it,” he replied, “he was so oldthat it was almost like playing with a child.”

Sometimes, like all whose minds are active, Ernest overworks himself,and then occasionally he has fierce and reproachful encounters withDr Skinner or Theobald in his sleep—but beyond this neither ofthese two worthies can now molest him further.

To myself he has been a son and more than a son; at times I am halfafraid—as for example when I talk to him about his books—thatI may have been to him more like a father than I ought; if I have, Itrust he has forgiven me. His books are the only bone of contentionbetween us. I want him to write like other people, and not tooffend so many of his readers; he says he can no more change his mannerof writing than the colour of his hair, and that he must write as hedoes or not at all.

With the public generally he is not a favourite. He is admittedto have talent, but it is considered generally to be of a queer unpracticalkind, and no matter how serious he is, he is always accused of beingin jest. His first book was a success for reasons which I havealready explained, but none of his others have been more than creditablefailures. He is one of those unfortunate men, each one of whosebooks is sneered at by literary critics as soon as it comes out, butbecomes “excellent reading” as soon as it has been followedby a later work which may in its turn be condemned.

He never asked a reviewer to dinner in his life. I have toldhim over and over again that this is madness, and find that this isthe only thing I can say to him which makes him angry with me.

“What can it matter to me,” he says, “whether peopleread my books or not? It may matter to them—but I have toomuch money to want more, and if the books have any stuff in them itwill work by-and-by. I do not know nor greatly care whether theyare good or not. What opinion can any sane man form about hisown work? Some people must write stupid books just as there mustbe junior ops and third class poll men. Why should I complainof being among the mediocrities? If a man is not absolutely belowmediocrity let him be thankful—besides, the books will have tostand by themselves some day, so the sooner they begin the better.”

I spoke to his publisher about him not long since. “MrPontifex,” he said, “is a hom*o unius libri, but itdoesn’t do to tell him so.”

I could see the publisher, who ought to know, had lost all faithin Ernest’s literary position, and looked upon him as a man whosefailure was all the more hopeless for the fact of his having once madea coup. “He is in a very solitary position, Mr Overton,”continued the publisher. “He has formed no alliances, andhas made enemies not only of the religious world but of the literaryand scientific brotherhood as well. This will not do nowadays.If a man wishes to get on he must belong to a set, and Mr Pontifex belongsto no set—not even to a club.”

I replied, “Mr Pontifex is the exact likeness of Othello, butwith a difference—he hates not wisely but too well. He woulddislike the literary and scientific swells if he were to come to knowthem and they him; there is no natural solidarity between him and them,and if he were brought into contact with them his last state would beworse than his first. His instinct tells him this, so he keepsclear of them, and attacks them whenever he thinks they deserve it—inthe hope, perhaps, that a younger generation will listen to him morewillingly than the present.”

“Can anything,”’ said the publisher, “beconceived more impracticable and imprudent?”

To all this Ernest replies with one word only—“Wait.”

Such is my friend’s latest development. He would not,it is true, run much chance at present of trying to found a Collegeof Spiritual Pathology, but I must leave the reader to determine whetherthere is not a strong family likeness between the Ernest of the Collegeof Spiritual Pathology and the Ernest who will insist on addressingthe next generation rather than his own. He says he trusts thatthere is not, and takes the sacrament duly once a year as a sop to Nemesislest he should again feel strongly upon any subject. It ratherfatigues him, but “no man’s opinions,” he sometimessays, “can be worth holding unless he knows how to deny them easilyand gracefully upon occasion in the cause of charity.” Inpolitics he is a Conservative so far as his vote and interest are concerned.In all other respects he is an advanced Radical. His father andgrandfather could probably no more understand his state of mind thanthey could understand Chinese, but those who know him intimately donot know that they wish him greatly different from what he actuallyis.