I DON’T approve of it,” said the Duke, bringing his hand down upon the table with an emphasis that made all the glasses on it ring. “You may talk as you will, Eustace; you may mix argument with sophistry as much as you like, but you’ll never make black white by all the rhetoric of the world. I don’t like it. I don’t like the whole movement, and I don’t believe that good will ever come of it; but leaving alone that point, on which we shall never agree, I hold that your methods are vile and hateful. You are setting class against class; you are rousing ill-will and stirring up hatred and enmity; you are teaching men to be discontented with their position in life——”
“Yes, sir, I know I am, because they ought to be discontented with degradation, ignorance, and hopeless misery. There is no reason why it should continue and increase as it does. We want them to be disgusted and discontented with it. Would there ever have been any civilisation and culture in the world had men always been contented to remain exactly in the position in which they were born?”
“Don’t talk your stump-orator nonsense to me,” said the old Duke sternly. “Confusion of terms does all very well to blind and deceive an ignorant mob; but keep it for them, and don’t try to advance your flimsy arguments by using it to men who can think and reason. The gradual growth of science and art and learning—the building on and on from an original foundation as the mental horizon extends—is generically different from the aimless discontent and selfish desire to rob and plunder, which is the outcome of the vaunted discontent you wish to inspire in the breasts of the people; and you know it as well as I do. You may keep that sort of talk for those who cannot see through it, and answer the fool according to his folly. But when you have men to deal with, and not ignorant children, you must think of sounder arguments if you desire to be listened to patiently.”
Eustace flushed rather hotly at the taunt, which was hardly deserved in his case, although he was aware that his cause—like too many others—was promoted by means of arguments which could be torn to shreds by any shrewd thinker. But for all that, he had a profound belief in the gospel of discontent as the most powerful factor in the world’s history, and he used it with a genuine belief in it, not with the desire to promote confusion in the minds of his hearers. But he did not reply to his kinsman’s sharp retort, and after a brief pause the Duke recommenced his former diatribe.
“I have been patient with you, Eustace. I recognise fully your position here, and that you have a certain latitude with regard to the people which would be accorded to no one else; but——”
“Indeed, uncle, I hope you do not think I have presumed upon that,” cried Eustace, with almost boyish eagerness, and a sidelong look at Bride, who was leaning back in her chair, a silent but watchful spectator of the little drama, and a keenly interested listener to the frequent arguments and dialogues which passed after dinner between her father and her cousin. It had become a regular custom with them to discuss the questions of the day during the hour they passed at the exit of the servants and the advent of dessert. Neither of them were drinkers of wine, but both were accomplished talkers; and Bride, though seldom speaking, had come to take a keen interest in these discussions, which were adding to her store of facts, and admitting her to regions of debate which had hitherto been sealed to her. She was not ignorant of the events passing in the world. She had read the newspapers to her mother too regularly for that; but naturally she had not seen those organs of the press which advocated the new and more liberal ideas coming then into vogue; and many of her cousin’s harrowing pictures of the fearful miseries of certain classes of the community haunted her with terrible persistency, and awakened within her an impotent longing to be able to do something to rescue them from such degradation and misery.
Her father, too, listened to Eustace with a moderation and patience which surprised her not a little, since up till the present time the very name of Radical filled him with disgust, and provoked him to an outbreak of scornful anger. If Eustace did not openly proclaim himself one of this party, he was advocating every principle of reform with all the ardour of one; and yet, until the present moment, the Duke had heard him expound his views, and had answered his arguments with considerable patience, and often with a certain amount of sympathy. To-day, however, the atmosphere was more stormy. Something had occurred to raise the displeasure of the old man, and soon it became apparent what the grievance was.
“I do not accuse you of presuming upon that,” he said, still speaking sternly—“not intentionally, at any rate; but you do wrong in being led blindfold by your youthful and headstrong passions, and by teaching others to follow in your wake, without your substratum of sense and moderation. That young Tresithny has been openly teaching the people in St. Erme’s and St. Bride’s to set law and order at defiance, and if necessary to avenge their so-called ‘wrongs’ at the sword’s point. He is collecting a regular following in the place, and there will be mischief here before long if things go on at this rate. On inquiry I found, of course, that he has been seen frequently in conversation with you, Eustace. Of course the inference is plain. You are teaching him your views, and trying to make a demagogue and stump-orator of him, with apparently only too much success. And he is just the type of man to be most dangerous if he is once aroused, as you may find to your cost one of these days, Eustace.”
“Most dangerous—or most useful—which is it?” questioned Eustace thoughtfully; yet, remembering some of the words and looks that had escaped Saul during their conversations, he could hardly have answered that question himself.
“From whom have you heard this?” he asked. Eustace had himself been absent from the castle for a few days, spending his time in the neighbourhood, but not returning to his kinsman’s house to sleep. He had returned this day only, to find the Duke’s mood somewhat changed, and he began now to suspect the cause of this.
“Mr. Tremodart is my informant,” answered the Duke briefly. “He will give you any information on the subject that you desire. I shall say no more. The subject is very distasteful and painful to me. I am well aware that I am growing old, and that the world is changing around me. I know perfectly that no power of mine will suffice to stem the current, and I shall therefore refrain from futile efforts. But none the less does it pain me that one bearing my name, and coming after me when I am gone, should be one of the foremost to stir up strife and set class against class, as you are doing, Eustace. And let me add just one more word of warning. It is an easy thing to set a stone rolling down a hill-side; but no man can foresee where it will stop when once in motion, and no human power can stop it when once the impetus is upon it. It will go hurtling down, carrying death and destruction with it; and those who have set it in motion can simply stand helplessly by, looking with dismay at the ruin they have provoked. Beware how you set in motion the forces of anarchy, Eustace, for Heaven alone knows what the end will be when that is done!” and the old man rose from his seat and walked from the room with a quiet and sorrowful dignity of aspect which struck and touched both his hearers. It was so unusual for him to break through the trifling ceremonial rules of life, that the very fact of his leaving the table before his daughter had risen showed that he must be greatly disturbed in mind. Bride looked after him with wistful eyes, and then suddenly turned upon Eustace with an imploring air, which was harder still to resist.
“You will not go on grieving him, Eustace!” she pleaded; “you will give it up?”
“Give what up, Bride?” he asked quietly.
“The actions which grieve him, which stir up strife in our peaceful community, which rouse hatred and foment discontent. Ah! Eustace, if you would only give yourself to a nobler task, how much you might do for the cause of right!—whilst now you are, in the hope of doing good, fomenting the worst passions of the human heart, and leading men to break not only the laws of man, but those of God.”
Perhaps never before had Eustace been so strongly tempted as at that moment to abandon the cause to which he was pledged. Through all the weeks he had spent beneath the roof of Castle Penarvon, he had been conscious of two strong influences working upon him—one the desire to enkindle in the minds of the ignorant rustics the spark of discontent and revolt against needless wrongs, which should result in reformed legislation, and the raising of the whole country; the other, the keen desire to win for his wife the beautiful and unapproachable girl he called cousin, and who every day exercised over him a stronger and stronger power. With him it had been a case of love almost at first sight. Eustace was one of those men who are always striving to attain and obtain the best and highest good which the world has to offer, not as a matter of preference only, but as a matter of principle. Hitherto he had never seen a woman who stirred his heart, for he had never seen one who in any way corresponded to the lofty ideals of womanhood which he had kept pure within him from boyhood. His whole mind and soul had been given to study, to learning, and to the attainment of those objects upon which, as his mind matured, his whole being became set. Woman as an individual had neither part nor lot in his life until he met his cousin Bride, and knew before he had been many days at Penarvon that in her he had found his ideal. That she was a mystic, that she held extraordinary and altogether impracticable views of life, and lived in a world of her own which could never be his, he was perfectly aware; but then he was also aware that the ideal woman of his dreams must likewise live a life apart, wrapped in her own pure imaginings and Divine ideals, until the power of love should awake within her another and a deeper life, and bring her to a knowledge of joys hitherto unknown. A sceptic himself, he was in nowise daunted to find that the woman of his choice was as devout, and almost as full of mystic fervour, as a mediæval nun. Somehow it all pieced in with his preconceived ideas of perfect womanhood, and he said within himself that this single-minded devotion and power to lead the higher life, when directed into other channels by the kindling touch of a great love, was exactly the force and power most needed for the work which must be that of his own life and of hers who became bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.
The cause was first with him, the woman second, when Bride was not present; but when confronted by her soft deep eyes, when beneath the spell of her thrilling voice and the magnetic attraction which, with absolute unconsciousness, she exercised upon him, he was often conscious that the cause was relegated to the second place, and that the desire to win this woman for his wife took the foremost position there. It was so just at this moment. The words spoken by the Duke had struck somewhat coldly upon him. They were the echo of a thought which sometimes obtruded itself unsuggested when he was in conversation with those very men of whom he hoped most in the forwarding of the cause—the thought that after all he and such as he were playing with edged tools, and were rather in the position of boys experimenting with explosives of unknown force. They might safely reckon that what they desired might be accomplished by their means, but were they equally certain that, whereas they only meant to break down and overthrow certain obstructions which were standing in the way of progress and a better order, the forces they had set in motion might not sweep over all appointed bounds and land them in a state of confusion and anarchy they never contemplated for a moment at the outset? This was, he knew, the cry of all supporters of the old order, the time-honoured cry against any sort of progress or reform. But might there not be perhaps some sound substratum of truth at the bottom?—and were he and his comrades wise to listen always with a smile of pity, and even of contempt, when that plea was brought forward?
Just for a moment, under Bride’s pleading glances, under the impression produced by the Duke’s warning, Eustace was tempted to fling to the winds everything save his overmastering desire to call Bride his own, to win her love even at the sacrifice of his own career; but before the burning thoughts had been translated into words or had passed his lips, other and cooler considerations pushed themselves to the front, and he checked himself before attempting a reply. After that his words were chosen with care, and fell quietly and resolutely from his lips.
“I would do much, very much, for you and for your father, Bride; but I cannot, even for you, be untrue to myself, and to the cause of suffering humanity. The woes of our brethren are crying aloud for redress. Christianity and humanity are alike disgraced by the scenes which are daily enacted in this Christian land. Believe me, Bride, you and I are nearer in heart than you are able yet to see. You have lived your life in this peaceful spot, and know little or nothing of the fearful abuses which stalk rampant through the land. Did you know what I know, had you seen what I have seen, you would know that I am embarked upon a righteous cause, and that the power you call God—which is in very truth the spirit of justice, mercy, and true and lasting peace—is with us. I do not deny that, in stirring up men’s hearts, even in a righteous cause, evil and selfish passions are too often inevitably stirred also. Human nature finds it all but impossible to hate the abuse without hating those who in their eyes at least are the living embodiment of that abuse. We have a twofold mission to execute—to rouse in men a hatred of evil and oppression, whilst at the same time striving to inculcate patience towards those who appear to them to be the incarnation of that evil. The one task is of course easier at the outset than the other; but we do not despair of accomplishing both. No reformation of abuses was ever yet made without the stirring up of evil passions—without many and great dangers and mistakes; yet the world has been better, and purer, and wiser for these same reforms, and so it will be again. Ah! Bride, my beautiful cousin, we want noble-hearted women to aid us in the task. If we men can rouse the slumbering to claim the rights of humanity for themselves, you women can pour oil on troubled waters, and instil gentle and tender feelings into rude hearts that we find it hard to subdue. If you would walk hand in hand with me in this thing, Bride, how much might not be accomplished for Penarvon and those poor benighted people in whom your own interest is so keen! Bride, will you not let it be so? Will you not help me? Will you not help a cause which is pledged to raise the people of this land from misery and degradation, and teach them that even for them there is a higher and a better life, if they will but strive and attain to it?”
The girl’s eyes were fixed upon his face in one of her inscrutable gazes, in which she seemed to be looking him through and through, and reading his very soul, whilst hers was to him as a sealed book.
“Ah! Eustace,” she said very softly, “would that you were striving to teach to them the true meaning of the higher life. Then, indeed, would I most gladly, most willingly, follow where you lead; but, alas, alas! I fear me it is not so. Oh, my cousin, can you truly tell me that you yourself are striving after the higher life—the highest life—the life of the Kingdom—so that you can teach it to another?”
He did not answer—for, indeed, he did not fully understand her; he only knew that in speaking of the higher life he and she meant something altogether different, although he still trusted that the difference was but superficial, and that deeper down lay an accord which would some day become patent to both. Meantime, with her eyes upon him, he knew not what to say; and Bride, with a look of sorrow and gentle compassion that went to his heart, rose and glided away, leaving him alone in the great dining-hall, with the flicker of many wax candles mingling with the fading light of the March evening.
It was half-past six, and the light without, although fast dying, was not yet gone. Eustace felt it impossible after what had passed to join either the Duke in his study or Bride in the drawing-room; and taking his hat and putting on a thin overcoat, he sallied out from the castle, and after descending the road by the wide zigzag drive, he paused a moment at the lodge gate, and then turned off in the direction of the parsonage, where Mr. Tremodart lived alone in the solitude of childless widowhood.
Eustace had been to that house before. He knew its disorderly and comfortless aspect, the long low rooms littered about with pipes and books and papers, fishing-tackle and riding-whips. He knew well the aspect of the tall gaunt parson, seated at some table with a pipe between his lips, and his long fingers busy over the manufacture of artificial flies. For Mr. Tremodart was a mighty fisherman, and there was excellent trout-fishing in the many streams that watered the plains above, and pike-fishing in the land-locked lakes high up in the moors. The season dear to the heart of anglers was coming on apace, and Eustace found the master of the ramshackle abode deep in the mysteries of his craft.
Eustace had not pulled the cracked and broken bell. He knew that the deaf old crone who lived at the parsonage, and did as much or as little of the needful work there as her goodwill or rheumatism permitted, deeply resented a needless journey to the door, which always stood wide open from morning to night, save in the very bitterest weather. He walked straight in, and after glancing in at one or two open doors, was at length guided by a small stream of light beneath the one farthest down the passage, to that place where the parson was found at work. Mr. Tremodart had long since ceased to have a regular room in which either to sit or to eat. He would use one of the many apartments upon the ground-floor of his rambling parsonage for both purposes, until it grew too terribly dirty and untidy to be borne, and then he would move into another, gradually making the whole round. At the end of some three or four months he would turn in a couple of stout young women, with pails and brooms and dusters, and have the whole house swept and garnished, whilst he spent the day on the moors with rod and gun; and then the rotatory fashion of living would begin over again, the old woman confining her labours to her kitchen, preparing the needful meals in such fashion as she chose, and making her master’s bed and setting his sleeping chamber to rights in the morning. Mr. Tremodart appeared quite content with his ménage as it existed; and if he were satisfied, there was no need for any one to waste pity on him.
He welcomed Eustace with a smile, his plain broad face lighting up genially, in a fashion that redeemed it from ugliness, despite the blunt features and tanned skin. He did not rise, or even hold out his hand, having both well occupied in some delicate operation of tying; but he indicated with a nod a chair for his guest, and asked if he would smoke.
Eustace had acquired in Germany a habit which was still in his own country designated as “filthy” by a large section of the upper classes; and though he never smoked at the castle, was not averse to indulging himself in the recesses of the parsonage. He took a pipe from his pocket and filled it leisurely, coming out at last with the matter next his heart.
“What is this I hear about young Tresithny? He seems to have been setting the place by the ears in my absence.”
The parson gave him one keen quick glance out of his deep-set eyes, and remarked in the soft drawling tone that had a strong touch of the prevailing vernacular about it—
“I think yu should know more about it than I du, sir. I take it he is your disciple. It is yu who are going about teaching our country-folk that they are being ground down and oppressed, is it not? Well, may be it will please yu tu know that young Tresithny is following in your steps and making all St. Bride writhe under a sense of a deep and terrible oppression she never found out for herself before.”
Eustace flushed very slightly. He was keen to note a touch of irony when directed against the cause he had at heart. He looked to meet it in many quarters, but he had hardly expected to find it here, nor was he absolutely certain of the drift of Mr. Tremodart’s remark.
“What has he been doing?” he asked briefly.
“Why, I think yu would call it turning stump-orator,” was the reply, as Mr. Tremodart bent over his work again. “He hasn’t any time by the week to help enlighten the ignorance of his fellow-men, but he was good enough to invite them to a preaching or a speaking on the shore on Sunday morning in church hours, so we had an empty church save for the Duke and Lady Bride, and some of the castle servants.” The parson raised his head and gently scratched his nose with his forefinger as he concluded reflectively, “If yu come tu think of it, ’tis a curious thing how much more attractive it is to mankind to know how they may rob their neighbours than how they may save their souls.”
Eustace could not for the life of him refrain from the retort which sprang to his lips—
“And you hold that they do learn that important lesson by coming to the weekly service at St. Bride’s church?”
Mr. Tremodart continued gently to rub his nose with his forefinger. His rugged face expressed no annoyance, rather some compunction and humility, and yet he answered with the quiet composure which in most cases appeared natural to him.
“I know what yu are thinking, young man. I can tell yu that without either feeling or meaning offence. Yu are thinking that my poor discourses in yon pulpit are but sorry food for the souls of men—and I am with yu there. Yu are thinking that if I shut up the church on a Sunday from time to time on some paltry excuse, I cannot greatly value its services for the poor. Yu could say some very harsh things of me, and I in shame and sorrow would be forced to say ‘Amen’ to them. I am a sorry minister, and I know it; but for all that, I would have yu distinguish between the unworthy servant and the Master he serves. My incapacity, idleness, and mistakes must not be set down to Him. A most unworthy and disobedient servant may yet serve in some sort the best of masters.”
“Forgive me,” said Eustace frankly; “I should not have spoken as I did; although I confess I was thinking of the service suspended on account of the sitting hen.”
“Yes, I made an error there,” answered Mr. Tremodart, pushing his hands through his hair; “but she was the best hen in my yard. I had set my heart on having a brood of her chickens to bring up, and she was so wild and shy that I feared we’d never find her, and that the foxes would get at the eggs of the chicks before ever we could make sure of them. I had a bad cold too, and was in bed when the old sexton came hurrying in to tell me of the find. I knew once we rudely and hastily disturbed her she would never sit again, and I had no other broody hen to take her place; so I just said we’d have no service that day, thinking David would go and say it was my cold that kept me to home. But instead, he told the story of the hen, and shamed me before my flock. And yet I cannot complain—it was my own sinfulness. But mark my word, my young friend: however sinful the minister may be, the church is the house of God, and a blessing rests on those who come thither to worship Him, talk as you hot-headed young reformers may of your newer and more rational religions which are to take the place of that ordained by God.”
With Mr. St. Aubyn Eustace would have argued, but this man had not the learning to enable him to support his beliefs, and Eustace declined controversy by saying, with a smile—
“I am, at least, quite ready to admit that if we have souls in your sense of the word, they may easily be saved through regular attendance at St. Bride’s or any other church.”
The Cornishman threw back his head with a gesture that was at once emphatic and picturesque.
“Young man, do not mock,” he said in his deep-toned, resonant voice. “The soul of man is a mystery which your philosophy will never fathom; and mark me again—when I speak of saving souls and attendance at church in one breath, I mean something far different than what yu imply in your light phrase. What I should say is this—let the preacher be never so ignorant and unworthy, in our churches we have forms of prayer which embrace the whole circle of Christian doctrine. On our knees we confess our sins to God; on our knees we hold up before Him the one Atonement of the Cross as our only hope of salvation, and pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit to rule and direct our hearts. We read the word of God in our midst. We offer psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs. And I say again that Christ has taught us that penitent confession, coupled with faith in Him, is sufficient for salvation—that every erring sinner coming to Him is never cast out, and that He has given His Spirit to be our guide and comforter through life. Wherefore I say and maintain that all those who truly follow the services offered in our churches week by week may find in them salvation, whether he who offers them be as weak and unworthy as the man before you now.”
Eustace rose and held out his hand.
“Believe me, sir, I had no such stricture in my mind when I spoke. I respect solid conviction and true faith wherever I meet it, even when I hold that the faith is misplaced, and that the day is coming when a sounder and truer form of worship will be seen in this earth. At least we are in accord in wishing the best for the people we both love; only at present we disagree as to what is the best. In days to come I trust and believe that we shall be in accord even here. Meantime I will see this hot-headed young Tresithny, and warn him not to hold his addresses at times when men should be in church. The young and ardent have more zeal than discretion, but if I can help it you shall not be annoyed again.”
“Nay, I am not annoyed,” said the parson, with a broad smile; “his Grace was more annoyed than I. But yu will have a tougher job in holding back yon mettlesome lad, I take it, than in starting him off along the road. But there is good in the Tresithnys, though there is a tough grain in them which makes it no light task to try and carve them into shape. Must yu go? Then fare yu well, and give you a good issue to your mission.”
Eustace strode away, and without any pause set off in the direction of Farmer Teazel’s farm in the next parish. He walked rapidly, as a man does when burning words are welling up in his heart, and he seeks to prepare himself for an interview in which strong arguments may be needed. But when he returned along the same road, it was with slower step and bent head. He had found his disciple, and had spoken long and earnestly with him, but had come away with the conviction that he had spoken in vain. He had kindled a spark in Saul’s passionate heart which had lighted a long-smouldering flame. Now this had burst into active conflagration, and what the result would be no man could yet say. At present a violent class hatred was raging within him, and he was bent upon setting class against class in the spirit of the true demagogue. The wiser and more moderate teachings of Eustace fell upon deaf ears. The young man began to see that Saul was growing far less keenly interested in the wrongs of his fellow-men, which it was right and needful to alleviate and remove, than in the opportunity afforded by a general movement after reform for a rising against the privileged classes, for whom he had long cherished an undying hatred. The very intelligence and quickness of the young man made him the more dangerous. He could turn upon Eustace with some argument of his own, used perhaps for another purpose, and by no means intended to be universally applied, and deduce from it conclusions only too mercilessly logical, tending to the subversion of the empire and the awakening of a spirit of lawless violence, which of all things Eustace desired to prevent. He had hoped, when first he took to giving instruction and counsel to so apt and attentive a pupil, that he should retain over Saul the influence he gained in the first place; and even now he recognised that the young man was deeply attached to him, and believed that so long as his eye was upon him he would keep within bounds. But the limits of Eustace’s visit to Penarvon were drawing near, and he did not think, in face of what was occurring, that the Duke would press him to remain. He would leave, and then what would happen to that wild spirit? Already the farmer had threatened him with dismissal if he persisted in his obstinate courses, and tried to instil and introduce lawless opinions amongst his servants. Saul had not been daunted by that threat. It appeared that already he had made friends amongst kindred spirits in the town, and would find support and employment there if he chose to break away from his old associates.
Eustace walked back to the castle in a state of mind that was by no means happy or satisfied. He had made a great step in Penarvon since his arrival; but was it altogether such a step as was wise or right?