Part 33 (1/2)

Lancelot coloured, for he remembered with how much less reason he had been lately invoking in his own cause those very words. He was at a loss for an answer; but seeing, to his relief, that Tregarva had returned to his usual impa.s.sive calm, he forced him to sit down, and began questioning him as to his own prospects and employment.

About them Tregarva seemed hopeful enough. He had found out a Wesleyan minister in town who knew him, and had, by his means, after a.s.sisting for a week or two in the London City Mission, got some similar appointment in a large manufacturing town. Of the state of things he spoke more sadly than ever. 'The rich cannot guess, sir, how high ill-feeling is rising in these days. It's not only those who are outwardly poorest who long for change; the middling people, sir, the small town shopkeepers especially, are nearly past all patience. One of the City Mission a.s.sured me that he has been watching them these several years past, and that nothing could beat their fort.i.tude and industry, and their determination to stand peaceably by law and order; but yet, this last year or two, things are growing too bad to bear. Do what they will, they cannot get their bread; and when a man cannot get that, sir--'

'But what do you think is the reason of it?'

'How should I tell, sir? But if I had to say, I should say this-- just what they say themselves--that there are too many of them. Go where you will, in town or country, you'll find half-a-dozen shops struggling for a custom that would only keep up one, and so they're forced to undersell one another. And when they've got down prices all they can by fair means, they're forced to get them down lower by foul--to sand the sugar, and sloe-leave the tea, and put--Satan only that prompts 'em knows what--into the bread; and then they don't thrive--they can't thrive; G.o.d's curse must be on them. They begin by trying to oust each other, and eat each other up; and while they're eating up their neighbours, their neighbours eat up them; and so they all come to ruin together.'

'Why, you talk like Mr. Mill himself, Tregarva; you ought to have been a political economist, and not a City missionary. By the bye, I don't like that profession for you.'

'It's the Lord's work, sir. It's the very sending to the Gentiles that the Lord promised me.'

'I don't doubt it, Paul; but you are meant for other things, if not better. There are plenty of smaller men than you to do that work.

Do you think that G.o.d would have given you that strength, that brain, to waste on a work which could be done without them? Those limbs would certainly be good capital for you, if you turned a live model at the Academy. Perhaps you'd better be mine; but you can't even be that if you go to Manchester.'

The giant looked hopelessly down at his huge limbs. 'Well! G.o.d only knows what use they are of just now. But as for the brains, sir--in much learning is much sorrow. One had much better work than read, I find. If I read much more about what men might be, and are not, and what English soil might be, and is not, I shall go mad.

And that puts me in mind of one thing I came here for, though, like a poor rude country fellow as I am, I clean forgot it a thinking of- -Look here, sir; you've given me a sight of books in my time, and G.o.d bless you for it. But now I hear that--that you are determined to be a poor man like us; and that you shan't be, while Paul Tregarva has ought of yours. So I've just brought all the books back, and there they lie in the hall; and may G.o.d reward you for the loan of them to his poor child! And so, sir, farewell;' and he rose to go.

'No, Paul; the books and you shall never part.'

'And I say, sir, the books and you shall never part.'

'Then we two can never part'--and a sudden impulse flashed over him- -'and we will not part, Paul! The only man whom I utterly love, and trust, and respect on the face of G.o.d's earth, is you; and I cannot lose sight of you. If we are to earn our bread, let us earn it together; if we are to endure poverty, and sorrow, and struggle to find out the way of bettering these wretched millions round us, let us learn our lesson together, and help each other to spell it out.'

'Do you mean what you say?' asked Paul slowly.

'I do.'

'Then I say what you say. Where thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Come what will, I will be your servant, for good luck or bad, for ever.'

'My equal, Paul, not my servant.'

'I know my place, sir. When I am as learned and as well-bred as you, I shall not refuse to call myself your equal; and the sooner that day comes, the better I shall be pleased. Till then I am your friend and your brother; but I am your scholar too, and I shall not set up myself against my master.'

'I have learnt more of you, Paul, than ever you have learnt of me.

But be it as you will; only whatever you may call yourself, we must eat at the same table, live in the same room, and share alike all this world's good things--or we shall have no right to share together this world's bad things. If that is your bargain, there is my hand on it.'

'Amen!' quoth Tregarva; and the two young men joined hands in that sacred bond--now growing rarer and rarer year by year--the utter friends.h.i.+p of two equal manful hearts.

'And now, sir, I have promised--and you would have me keep my promise--to go and work for the City Mission in Manchester--at least, for the next month, till a young man's place who has just left, is filled up. Will you let me go for that time? and then, if you hold your present mind, we will join home and fortunes thenceforth, and go wherever the Lord shall send us. There's work enough of His waiting to be done. I don't doubt but if we are willing and able, He will set us about the thing we're meant for.'

As Lancelot opened the door for him, he lingered on the steps, and grasping his hand, said, in a low, earnest voice: 'The Lord be with you, sir. Be sure that He has mighty things in store for you, or He would not have brought you so low in the days of your youth.'

'And so,' as John Bunyan has it, 'he went on his way;' and Lancelot saw him no more till--but I must not outrun the order of time.

After all, this visit came to Lancelot timely. It had roused him to hope, and turned off his feelings from the startling news he had just heard. He stepped along arm in arm with Luke, cheerful, and fate-defiant, and as he thought of Tregarva's complaints,--

'The beautiful?' he said to himself, 'they shall have it! At least they shall be awakened to feel their need of it, their right to it.

What a high destiny, to be the artist of the people! to devote one's powers of painting, not to mimicking obsolete legends, Pagan or Popish, but to representing to the working men of England the triumphs of the Past and the yet greater triumphs of the Future!'