Part 30 (1/2)

'No,' he said, 'no more pay without work for me. I will earn my bread or starve. It seems G.o.d's will to teach me what poverty is--I will see that His intention is not left half fulfilled. I have sinned, and only in the stern delight of a just penance can I gain self-respect.'

'But, my dear madman,' said his uncle, 'you are just the innocent one among us all. You, at least, were only a sleeping partner.'

'And therein lies my sin; I took money which I never earned, and cared as little how it was gained as how I spent it. Henceforth I shall touch no farthing which is the fruit of a system which I cannot approve. I accuse no one. Actions may vary in rightfulness, according to the age and the person. But what may be right for you, because you think it right, is surely wrong for me because I think it wrong.'

So, with grim determination, he sent to the hammer every article he possessed, till he had literally nothing left but the clothes in which he stood. 'He could not rest,' he said, 'till he had pulled out all his borrowed peac.o.c.k's feathers. When they were gone he should be able to see, at last, whether he was jackdaw or eagle.'

And wonder not, reader, at this same strength of will. The very genius, which too often makes its possessor self-indulgent in common matters, from the intense capability of enjoyment which it brings, may also, when once his whole being is stirred into motion by some great object, transform him into a hero.

And he carried a letter, too, in his bosom, night and day, which routed all coward fears and sad forebodings as soon as they arose, and converted the lonely and squalid lodging to which he had retired, into a fairy palace peopled with bright phantoms of future bliss. I need not say from whom it came.

'Beloved!' (it ran) 'Darling! you need not pain yourself to tell me anything. I know all; and I know, too (do not ask me how), your n.o.ble determination to drink the wholesome cup of poverty to the very dregs.

'Oh that I were with you! Oh that I could give you my fortune! but that is not yet, alas! in my own power. No! rather would I share that poverty with you, and strengthen you in your purpose. And yet, I cannot bear the thought of you, lonely--perhaps miserable. But, courage! though you have lost all, you have found me; and now you are knitting me to you for ever--justifying my own love to me by your n.o.bleness; and am I not worth all the world to you? I dare say this to you; you will not think me conceited. Can we misunderstand each other's hearts? And all this while you are alone! Oh! I have mourned for you! Since I heard of your misfortune I have not tasted pleasure. The light of heaven has been black to me, and I have lived only upon love. I will not taste comfort while you are wretched. Would that I could be poor like you! Every night upon the bare floor I lie down to sleep, and fancy you in your little chamber, and nestle to you, and cover that dear face with kisses.

Strange! that I should dare to speak thus to you, whom a few months ago I had never heard of! Wonderful simplicity of love! How all that is prudish and artificial flees before it! I seem to have begun a new life. If I could play now, it would be only with little children. Farewell! be great--a glorious future is before you and me in you!'

Lancelot's answer must remain untold; perhaps the veil has been already too far lifted which hides the sanctuary of such love. But, alas! to his letter no second had been returned; and he felt--though he dared not confess it to himself--a gloomy presentiment of evil flit across him, as he thought of his fallen fortunes, and the altered light in which his suit would be regarded by Argemone's parents. Once he blamed himself bitterly for not having gone to Mr.

Lavington the moment he discovered Argemone's affection, and insuring--as he then might have done--his consent. But again he felt that no sloth had kept him back, but adoring reverence for his G.o.d-given treasure, and humble astonishment at his own happiness; and he fled from the thought into renewed examination into the state of the ma.s.ses, the effect of which was only to deepen his own determination to share their lot.

But at the same time it seemed to him but fair to live, as long as it would last, on that part of his capital which his creditors would have given nothing for--namely, his information; and he set to work to write. But, alas! he had but a 'small literary connection;' and the entree of the initiated ring is not obtained in a day. . . .

Besides, he would not write trash.--He was in far too grim a humour for that; and if he wrote on important subjects, able editors always were in the habit of entrusting them to old contributors,--men, in short, in whose judgment they had confidence--not to say anything which would commit the magazine to anything but its own little party-theory. And behold! poor Lancelot found himself of no party whatsoever. He was in a minority of one against the whole world, on all points, right or wrong. He had the unhappiest knack (as all geniuses have) of seeing connections, humorous or awful, between the most seemingly antipodal things; of ill.u.s.trating every subject from three or four different spheres which it is anathema to mention in the same page. If he wrote a physical-science article, able editors asked him what the deuce a sc.r.a.p of high-churchism did in the middle of it? If he took the same article to a high-church magazine, the editor could not commit himself to any theory which made the earth more than six thousand years old, and was afraid that the public taste would not approve of the allusions to free-masonry and Soyer's soup. . . . And worse than that, one and all--Jew, Turk, infidel, and heretic, as well as the orthodox--joined in pious horror at his irreverence;--the shocking way he had of jumbling religion and politics--the human and the divine--the theories of the pulpit with the facts of the exchange. . . . The very atheists, who laughed at him for believing in a G.o.d, agreed that that, at least, was inconsistent with the dignity of the G.o.d--who did not exist. . . .

It was Syncretism . . . Pantheism. . . .

'Very well, friends,' quoth Lancelot to himself, in bitter rage, one day, 'if you choose to be without G.o.d in the world, and to honour Him by denying Him . . . do so! You shall have your way; and go to the place whither it seems leading you just now, at railroad pace.

But I must live. . . . Well, at least, there is some old college nonsense of mine, written three years ago, when I believed, like you, that all heaven and earth was put together out of separate bits, like a child's puzzle, and that each topic ought to have its private little pigeon-hole all to itself in a man's brain, like drugs in a chemist's shop. Perhaps it will suit you, friends; perhaps it will be system-frozen, and narrow, and dogmatic, and cowardly, and G.o.dless enough for you.' . . . So he went forth with them to market; and behold! they were bought forthwith. There was verily a demand for such; . . . and in spite of the ten thousand ink-fountains which were daily pouring out similar Stygian liquors, the public thirst remained unslaked. 'Well,' thought Lancelot, 'the negro race is not the only one which is afflicted with manias for eating dirt. . . . By the bye, where is poor Luke?'

Ah! where was poor Luke? Lancelot had received from him one short and hurried note, blotted with tears, which told how he had informed his father; and how his father had refused to see him, and had forbid him the house; and how he had offered him an allowance of fifty pounds a year (it should have been five hundred, he said, if he had possessed it), which Luke's director, sensibly enough, had compelled him to accept. . . . And there the letter ended, abruptly, leaving the writer evidently in lower depths than he had either experienced already, or expected at all.

Lancelot had often pleaded for him with his father; but in vain.

Not that the good man was hard-hearted: he would cry like a child about it all to Lancelot when they sat together after dinner. But he was utterly beside himself, what with grief, shame, terror, and astonishment. On the whole, the sorrow was a real comfort to him: it gave him something beside his bankruptcy to think of; and, distracted between the two different griefs, he could brood over neither. But of the two, certainly his son's conversion was the worst in his eyes. The bankruptcy was intelligible--measurable; it was something known and cla.s.sified--part of the ills which flesh (or, at least, commercial flesh) is heir to. But going to Rome!--

'I can't understand it. I won't believe it. It's so foolish, you see, Lancelot--so foolish--like an a.s.s that eats thistles! . . .

There must be some reason;--there must be--something we don't know, sir! Do you think they could have promised to make him a cardinal?'

Lancelot quite agreed that there were reasons for it, that they--or, at least, the banker--did not know. . . .

'Depend upon it, they promised him something--some prince-bishopric, perhaps. Else why on earth could a man go over! It's out of the course of nature!'

Lancelot tried in vain to make him understand that a man might sacrifice everything to conscience, and actually give up all worldly weal for what he thought right. The banker turned on him with angry resignation--

'Very well--I suppose he's done right then! I suppose you'll go next! Take up a false religion, and give up everything for it!

Why, then, he must be honest; and if he's honest, he's in the right; and I suppose I'd better go too!'

Lancelot argued: but in vain. The idea of disinterested sacrifice was so utterly foreign to the good man's own creed and practice, that he could but see one pair of alternatives.

'Either he is a good man, or he's a hypocrite. Either he's right, or he's gone over for some vile selfish end; and what can that be but money?'

Lancelot gently hinted that there might be other selfish ends besides pecuniary ones--saving one's soul, for instance.