He is a man both loving and severe,
A tender heart, a will inflexible. Longfellow
Luke Raeburn had been lecturing in one of the large manufacturing towns. It was the hottest part of a sultry day in June. He was returning home, and sat in a broiling third-class carriage reading a paper. Apparently what he read was the reverse of gratifying for there was a look of annoyance on his usually serene face; he was displeased with the report of his lecture given in the local papers, it was calculated to mislead very greatly.
Other matters, too, were harassing him just then and he was, moreover, paying the penalty of his two years' campaign, in which his almost superhuman exertions and the privations he had voluntarily endured had told severely upon his health. Possessed of a singularly well-regulated mind, and having in an unusual degree the inestimable gift of common sense, he nevertheless often failed to use it in his personal affairs. He had no idea of sparing himself, no idea of husbanding his strength; this was indeed great, but he treated himself as if it were inexhaustible. The months of trouble had turned his hair quite white; he was now a more noticeable-looking man than ever.
Not unfrequently he made friends with the men with whom he traveled; he was always studying life from the workingman's point of view, and there was such a charm in his genial manner and ready sympathy that he invariably succeeded in drawing people out. But on this day he was not in the humor for it; instead, he thought over the abusive article and the mangled report in the “Longstaff Mercury,” and debated within himself whether it were worth an action for libel. His love of fighting said yes, his common sense said no; and in the end common sense won the day, but left him doubly depressed. He moved to the shady side of the carriage and looked out of the window. He was a great lover of Nature, and Nature was looking her loveliest just then. The trees, in all the freshness of early June, lifted their foliage to the bluest of skies, the meadows were golden with buttercups, the cattle grazed peacefully, the hay fields waved unmown in the soft summer air, which, though sparing no breath for the hot and dusty traveler, was yet strong enough to sweep over the tall grasses in long, undulating waves that made them shimmer in the sunlight.
Raeburn's face grew serene once more; he had a very quick perception of the beautiful. Presently he retired again behind a newspaper, this time the “Daily Review,” and again his brow grew stern, for there was bad news from the seat of war; he read the account of a great battle, read the numbers of his slain countrymen, and of those who had fallen on the enemy's side. It was an unrighteous war, and his heart burned within him at the thought of the inhuman havoc thus caused by a false ambition. Again, as if he were fated that day to be confronted with the dark side of life, the papers gave a long account of a discovery made in some charity school, where young children had been hideously ill-treated. Raeburn, who was the most fatherly of men, could hardly restrain the expression of his righteous indignation. All this mismanagement, this reckless waste of life, this shameful cruelty, was going on in what was called “Free England.” And here was he, a middle-aged man, and time was passing on with frightful rapidity, and though he had never lost an opportunity of lifting up his voice against oppression, how little had he actually accomplished!
“So many worlds, so much to do, So little done, such things to be!”
That was the burden of the unuttered cry which filled his whole being. That was the point where his atheism often brought him to a noble despair. But far from prompting him to repeat the maxim “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!” it spurred him rather to a sort of fiery energy, never satisfied with what it had accomplished. Neither the dissatisfaction, however, nor even the despair ever made him feel the need of any power above man. On the contrary, the unaccountable mystery of pain and evil was his strongest argument against the existence of a God. Upon that rock he had foundered as a mere boy, and no argument had ever been able to reconvince him. Impatience of present ill had in this, as in many other cases, proved the bane of his life.
He would write and speak about these cases of injustice, he would hold them up to the obloquy they so richly deserved.
Scathing sentences already took shape in his brain, but deeper investigation would be necessary before he could write anything. In the meantime to cool himself, to bring himself into a judicial frame of mind, he took a Hebrew book from his bag, and spent the rest of the journey in hard study.
Harassed, and tired, and out of spirits as he was, he nevertheless felt a certain pleasurable sensation as he left St. Pancras, driving homeward through the hot crowded streets. Erica would be waiting for him at home, and he had a comparatively leisure afternoon. There was the meeting on the Opium Trade at eight, but he might take her for a turn in one of the parks beforehand. She had always been a companion to him since her very babyhood, but now he was able to enjoy her companionship even more than in the olden times. Her keen intellect, her ready sympathy, her eagerness to learn, made her the perfection of a disciple, while not unnaturally he delighted in tracing the many similarities of character between himself and his child. Then, too, in his hard, argumentative, fighting life it was an unspeakable relief to be able to retire every now and then into a home which no outer storms could shake or disturb. Fond as he was of his sister, Mrs. Craigie, and Tom, they constituted rather the innermost circle of his friends and followers; it was Erica who made the HOME, though the others shared the house. It was to Erica's pure child-like devotion that he invariably turned for comfort.
Dismissing the cab at the corner of Guilford Square, he walked down the dreary little passage, looking up at the window to see if she were watching for him as usual. But today there was no expectant face; he recollected, however, that it was Thursday, always a busy day with them.
He opened the door with his latch key, and went in; still there was no sound in the house; he half paused for an instant, thinking that he should certainly hear her quick footsteps, the opening of a door, some sign of welcome, but all was as silent as death. Half angry with himself for having grown so expectant of that loving watch as to be seriously apprehensive at its absence, he hastily put down his bag and walked into the sitting room, his calm exterior belying a nameless fear at his heart.
What the French call expressively a “serrement de coeur” seized him when he saw that Erica was indeed at home, but that she was lying on the couch. She did not even spring up to greet him.
“Is anything the matter, dear? Are you ill?” he asked, hurriedly crossing the little room.
“Oh, have you not seen Aunt Jean? She was going to meet you at St. Pancras,” said Erica, her heart failing her a little at the prospect of telling her own bad news. But the exceeding anxiety of her father's face helped her to rise to the occasion. She laughed, and the laugh was natural enough to reassure him.
“It is nothing so very dreadful, and all this time you have never even given me a kiss, father.” She drew down the grand-looking white head, and pressed her fair face to his. He sat down beside her.
“Tell me, dear, what is wrong with you?” he repeated.
“Well, I felt rather out of order, and they said I ought to see some one, and it seems that my tiresome spine is getting crooked, and the long and the short of it is that Mr. Doctor Osmond says I shall get quite well again if I'm careful; but” she added, lightly, yet with the gentleness of one who thinks merely of the hearer's point of view “I shall have to be a passive verb for a year, and you will have to be my very strong man Kwasind.'”
“A year?” he exclaimed in dismay.
“Brian half gave me hope that it might not be so long,” said Erica, “if I'm very good and careful, and of course I shall be both. I am only sorry because it will make me very useless. I did hope I should never have been a burden on you again, father.”
“Don't talk of such a thing, my little son Eric,” he said, very tenderly. “Who should take care of you if not your own father? Besides, if you never wrote another line for me, you would help me by just being yourself. A burden!”
“Well, I've made you look as grave as half a dozen lawsuits,” said Erica, pretending to stroke the lines of care from his forehead. “I've had the morning to ruminate over the prospect, and really now that you know, it is not so very dreadful. A year will soon pass.”
“I look to you, Eric,” said her father, “to show the world that we secularists know how to bear pain. You won't waste the year if you can do it.”
Her face lighted up.
“It was like you to think of that!” she said; “that would indeed be worth doing.”
Still, do what she would, Erica could not talk him back to cheerfulness. He was terribly distressed at her news, and more so when he found that she was suffering a good deal. He thought with a pang of the difference of the reality to his expectations. No walk for them in the park that evening, nor probably for many years to come. Yet he was ignorant of these matters, perhaps he exaggerated the danger or the duration; he would go across and see Brian Osmond at once.
Left once more to herself, the color died out of Erica's cheeks; she lay there pale and still, but her face was almost rigid with resoluteness.
“I am not going to give way!” she thought to herself. “I won't shed a single tear. Tears are wasteful luxuries, bad for body and mind. And yet yet oh, it is hard just when I wanted to help father most! Just when I wanted to keep him from being worried. And a whole year! How shall I bear it, when even six hours has seemed half a life time! This is what Thekla would call a cross, but I only call it my horrid, stupid, idiotic old spine. Well, I must try to show them that Luke Raeburn's daughter knows how to bear pain; I must be patient, however much I boil over in private. Yet is it honest, I wonder, to keep a patient outside, while inside you are all one big grumble? Rather Pharisaical outside of the cup and platter; but it is all I shall be able to do, I'm sure. That is where Mr. Osmond's Christianity would come in; I do believe that goes right through his life, privatest thoughts and all. Odd, that a delusion should have such power, and over such a man! There is Sir Michael Cunningham, too, one of the greatest and best men in England, yet a Christian! Great intellects and much study, and still they remain Christians 'tis extraordinary. But a Christian would have the advantage over me in a case like this. First of all, I suppose, they would feel that they could serve their God as well on their backs as upright, while all the help I shall be able to give the cause is dreadfully indirect and problematical. Then certainly they would feel that they might be getting ready for the next world where all wrong is, they believe, to be set right, while I am only terribly hindered in getting ready for this world a whole year without the chance of a lecture. And then they have all kinds of nice theories about pain, discipline, and that sort of thing, which no doubt make it more bearable, while to me it is just the one unmitigated evil. But, oh! They don't know what pain means! For there is no death to them no endless separation. What a delusion it is! They ought to be happy enough. Oh, mother! mother!”
After all, what she really dreaded in her enforced pause was the leisure for thought. She had plunged into work of all kinds, had half killed herself with work, had tried to hold her despair at arms' length. But now there was no help for it. She must rest, and the thoughts must come.
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