If Christians would teach Infidels to be just to
Christianity, they should themselves be just to infidelity.
John Stuart Mill
The green room was one of those rooms which show to most advantage on a winter evening; attractive and comfortable at all times, it nevertheless reached its highest degree of comfort when the dusky green curtains were drawn, when the old wainscoted walls were lighted up by the red glow from the fire, and the well-worn books on the shelves were mellowed by the soft light into a uniform and respectable brown. One November evening, when without was the thickest of London fogs, Erica was sitting at her writing table with Friskarina on her lap, and Tottie curled up at her feet, preparing for one of her science classes, when she was interrupted by the sound of a cab drawing up, speedily followed by a loud ring at the bell.
“Surely Monsieur Noirol can't have come already!” she said to herself, looking at her watch. It was just six o'clock, a whole hour before dinner time. Steps were approaching the door, however, and she was just inhospitably wishing her guest elsewhere, when to her intense amazement the servant announced “Miss Fane-Smith.”
She started forward with an exclamation of incredulity for it seemed absurd to think of Rose actually coming to see her in her father's house. But incredulity was no longer possible when Rose herself entered, in ulster and traveling hat, with her saucy laughing face, and her invariable content with herself and the world in general.
“Why, Erica!” she cried, kissing her on both cheeks, “I don't believe you're half properly glad to see me! Did you think it was my wraith? I assure you it's my own self in the flesh, and very cold flesh, too. What a delightful room! I'd no idea atheists' homes were so much like other people's. You cold-hearted little cousin, why don't you welcome me?”
“I am very glad to see you,” said Erica, kissing her again. “But, Rose, what did bring you here?”
“A fusty old cab, a four-wheeler, a growler, don't you call them? But, if you knew why I have come to you in this unexpected way, you would treat me like the heroine I am, and not stand there like an incarnation of prudent hesitation. I've bee treated like the man in the parable, I've fallen among thieves, and am left with my raiment, certainly, but not a farthing besides in the world. And now, of course, you'll enact the good Samaritan..”
“Come and get warm,” said Erica, drawing a chair toward the fire, but still feeling uncomfortable at the idea of Mr. Fane-Smith's horror and dismay could he have seen his daughter's situation.
“How do you come to be in town, Rose, and where were you robbed?”
“Why, I was going to stay with the Alburys at Sandgale, and left home about three, but at Paddington, when I went to get my ticket, lo and behold my purse had disappeared, and I was left lamenting, like Lord Ullin in the song.”
“Have you any idea who took it?”
“Yes, I rather think it must have been a man on the Paddington platform who walked with a limp. I remember his pushing up against me very roughly, and I suppose that was when he took it. The porters were all horrid about it, though, I could get no one to help me, and I hadn't even the money to get my ticket. At last an old lady, who had heard of my penniless condition, advised me to go to any friends I might happen to have in London, and I bethought me of my cousin Erica. You will befriend me, won't you? For it is impossible to get to Sandgale tonight; there is no other train stopping there.”
“I wish I knew what was right,” said Erica, looking much perplexed. “You see, Rose, I'm afraid Mr. Fane-Smith would not like you to come here.”
“Oh, nonsense,” said Rose, laughing. “He couldn't mind in such a case as this. Why, I can't stay in the street all night. Besides, he doesn't know anything about your home, how should he?”
This was true enough, but still Erica hesitated.
“Who was that white-haired patriarchal-looking man whom I met in the hall?” asked Rose. “A sort of devotional quaker-kind of man.”
Erica laughed aloud at this description.
“That's my father!” she said; and, before she had quite recovered her gravity, Raeburn came into the room with some papers which he wanted copied.
“Father,” said Erica, “this is Rose, and she has come to ask our help because her purse has been stolen at Paddington, and she is stranded in London with no money.”
“It sounds dreadfully like begging,” said Rose, looking up into the brown eyes which seemed half kindly, half critical.
They smiled at this, and became at once only kind and hospitable.
“Not in the least,” he said; “I am very glad you came to us.”
And then he began to ask her many practical questions about her adventure, ending by promising to put the matter at once into the hands of the police. They were just discussing the impossibility of getting to Sandgale that evening when Tom came into the room.
“Where is mother?” he asked. “She has kept her cab at the door at least ten minutes; I had to give the fellow an extra sixpence.”
“That wasn't auntie's cab,” said Erica, “she came home half an hour ago; it was Rose's cab. I hope you didn't send away her boxes?”
“I beg your pardon,” said Tom, looking much surprised and a little amused. “The boxes are safe in the hall, but I'm afraid the cab is gone beyond recall.”
“You see it is evidently meant that I should quarter myself upon you!” said Rose, laughing.
Upon which Raeburn, with a grave and slightly repressive courtesy, said they should be very happy if she would stay with them.
“That will make my adventure perfect!” said Rose, her eyes dancing.
At which Raeburn smiled again, amused to think of the uneventful life in which such a trifling incident could seem an “adventure.”
“It seems very inhospitable,” said Erica, “but don't you think, Rose, you had better go back to Greyshot?”
“No, you tiresome piece of prudence, I don't,” said Rose perversely. “And what's more, I won't, as Uncle Luke has asked me to stay.”
Erica felt very uncomfortable; she could have spoken decidedly had she been alone with any of the three, but she could not, before them all, say: “Mr. Fane-Smith thinks father an incarnation of wickedness and would be horrified if he knew that you were here.”
Tom had in the meantime walked to the window and drawn aside the curtain.
“The weather means to settle the question for you,” he said. “You really can't go off in such a fog as this; it would take you hours to get to Paddington, if you ever did get there, which is doubtful.”
They looked out and saw that he had not exaggerated matters; the fog had grown much worse since Rose's arrival, and it had been bad enough then to make traveling by no means safe. Erica saw that there was no help for it. Mr. Fane-Smith's anger must be incurred, and Rose must stay with them. She went away to see that her room was prepared, and coming back a little later found that in that brief time Rose had managed to enthrall poor Tom who, not being used to the genus, was very easily caught, his philosophy being by no means proof against a fair-haired, bright-looking girl who in a very few moments made him feel that she thought most highly of him and cared as no one had ever cared before for his opinion. She had not the smallest intention of doing harm, but admiration was what she lived for, and to flirt with every man she met had become almost as natural and necessary to her as to breathe.
Erica, out of loyalty to Mr. Fane-Smith and regard for Tom's future happiness, felt bound to be hard-hearted and to separate them at dinner. Tom used to sit at the bottom of the table as Raeburn did not care for the trouble of carving; Erica was at the head with her father in his usual place at her right hand. She put Rose in between him and the professor who generally dined with them on Saturday; upon the opposite side were Aunt Jean and M. Noirol. Now Rose, who had been quite in her element as long as she had been talking with Tom in the green room, felt decidedly out of her element when she was safely ensconced between her white-haired uncle and the shaggy-looking professor. If Erica had felt bewildered when first introduced to the gossip and small “society” talk of Greyshot, Rose felt doubly bewildered when for the first time in her life she came into a thoroughly scientific atmosphere. She realized that there were a few things which she had yet to learn. She was not fond of learning so the discovery was the reverse of pleasant; she felt ignorant and humbled, liking to be AU FAIT at everything and to know things and do things just a little better than other people. Having none of the humility of a true learner, she only felt annoyed at her own ignorance, not raised and bettered and stimulated by a glimpse of the infinite greatness of science.
Raeburn, seeing that she was not in the least interested in the discussion of the future of electricity, left the professor to continue it with Tom, and began to talk to her about the loss of her purse, and to tell her of various losses which he had had. But Rose had the mortifying consciousness that all the time he talked he was listening to the conversation between Erica and M. Noirol. As far as Rose could make out it was on French politics; but they spoke so fast that her indifferent school French was of very little service to her. By and by Raeburn was drawn into the discussion and Rose was left to amuse herself as well as she could by listening to a rapid flow of unintelligible French on one side, and to equally unintelligible scientific talk on the other. By and by this was merged into a discussion some recent book. They seemed to get deeply interested in a dispute as to whether Spinoza was or was not at any time in his life a Cartesian.
Rose really listened to this for want of something better to do, and Raeburn, thinking that he had been neglecting her, and much relieved at the thought that he had at length found some point of mutual interest, asked her whether she had read the book in question.
“Oh, I have no time for reading,” said Rose.
He looked a little amused at this statement. Rose continued:
“Who was Spinoza? I never heard any of his music.”
“He was a philosopher, not a composer,” said Raeburn, keeping his countenance with difficulty.
“What dreadfully learned people you are!” said Rose with one of her arch smiles. “But do tell me, how can a man be a Cartesian? I've heard of Cartesian wells, but never—”
She broke off for this was quite too much for Raeburn's gravity; he laughed, but so pleasantly that she laughed too.
“You are thinking of artesian wells, I fancy,” he said in his kindly voice; and he began to give her a brief outline of Descartes' philosophy, which it is to be feared she did not at all appreciate. She was not sorry when Erica appealed to him for some disputed fact, in which they all seemed most extraordinarily interested, for when the discussion had lasted some minutes, Tom went off in the middle of dinner and fetched in two or three bulky books of reference; these were eagerly seized upon, to the entire disregard of the pudding which was allowed to get cold.
Presently the very informal meal was ended by some excellent coffee in the place of the conventional dessert, after which came a hurried dispersion as they were all going to some political meeting at the East End. Cabs were unattainable and, having secured a couple of link-boys, they set off, apparently in excellent spirits.
“Fancy turning out on such a night as this!” said Rose, putting her arm within Erica's. “I am so glad you are not going for now we can really have a cozy talk. I've ever so much to tell you.”
Erica looked rather wistfully after the torches and the retreating forms as they made their way down the steps; she was much disappointed at being obliged to miss this particular meeting, but luckily Rose was not in the least likely to find this out for she could not imagine for a moment that any one really cared about missing a political meeting, particularly when it would have involved turning out on such a disagreeable night.
Erica had persuaded Rose to telegraph both to her friends at Sandgale and to her mother to tell of her adventure and to say that she would go on to Sandgale on the Monday. For, unfortunately, the next day was Sunday, and Rose looked so aghast at the very idea of traveling then that Erica could say nothing more though she surmised rightly enough that Mr. Fane-Smith would have preferred even Sunday traveling to a Sunday spent in Luke Raeburn's house. There was evidently, however, no help for it. Rose was there, and there she must stay; all that Erica could do was to keep her as much as might be out of Tom's way, and to beg the others not to discuss any subjects bearing on their anti-religious work; and since there was not the smallest temptation to try to make Rose a convert to secularism, they were all quite willing to avoid such topics.
But, in spite of all her care, Erica failed most provokingly that day. To begin with, Rose pleaded a headache and would not go with her to the early service. Erica was disappointed; but when, on coming home, she found Rose in the dining room comfortably chatting over the fire to Tom, who was evidently in the seventh heaven of happiness, she felt as if she could have shaken them both. By and by she tried to give Tom a hint, which he did not take at all kindly.
“Women never like to see another woman admired,” he replied with a sarcastic smile.
“But, Tom,” she pleaded, “her father would be so dreadfully angry if he saw the way you go on with her.”
“Oh, shut up, do, about her father!” said Tom crossly. “You have crammed him down our throats quite enough.”
It was of no use to say more; but she went away feeling sore and ruffled. She was just about to set off with Rose to Charles Osmond's church when the door of the study was hastily opened.
“Have you seen the last 'Longstaff Mercury'?” said Raeburn in the voice which meant that he was worried and much pressed for time.
“It was in here yesterday,” said Erica.
“Then, Tom, you must have moved it,” said Raeburn sharply. “It's a most provoking thing; I specially wanted to quote from it.”
“I've not touched it,” said Tom. “It's those servants; they never can leave the papers alone.”
He was turning over the contents of a paper rack, evidently not in the best of tempers. Rose sprang forward.
“Let me help,” she said with one of her irresistible smiles.
Erica felt more provoked than she would have cared to own. It was very clear that those two would never find anything.
“Look here, Erica,” said Raeburn, “do see if it isn't upstairs. Tom is a terrible hand at finding things.”
So she searched in every nook and cranny of the house and at last found the torn remains of the paper in the house maid's cupboard. The rest of it had been used for lighting a fire.
Raeburn was a good deal annoyed.
“Surely, my dear, such things might be prevented,” he said, not crossly but in the sort of forbearing expostulatory tone which a woman dislikes more than anything, specially if she happens to be a careful housekeeper.
“I told you it was your servants!” said Tom triumphantly.
“They've orders again and again not to touch the newspapers,” said Erica.
“Well, come along Tom,” said Raeburn, taking up his hat. “We are very late.”
They drove off, and Erica and Rose made the best of their way to church, to find the service begun, and seats unattainable. Rose was very good-natured, however, about the standing. She began faintly to perceive that Erica did not lead the easiest of lives; also she saw, with a sort of wonder, what an influence she was in the house and how, notwithstanding their difference in creed, she was always ready to meet the others on every point where it was possible to do so. Rose could not help thinking of a certain friend of hers who, having become a ritualist, never lost an opportunity of emphasizing the difference between her own views and the views of her family; and of Kate Righton at Greyshot who had adopted the most rigid evangelical views, and treated her good old father and mother as “worldly” and “unconverted” people.
In the afternoon Tom had it all his own way. Raeburn was in his study preparing for his evening lecture; Mrs. Craigie had a Bible class at the East End, in which she showed up the difficulties and contradictions of the Old and New Testaments; Erica had a Bible class in Charles Osmond's parish, in which she tried to explain the same difficulties. Rose was therefore alone in the green room and quite ready to attract Tom and keep him spellbound for the afternoon. It is possible, however, that no great harm would have been done if the visit had come to a natural end the following day; Rose would certainly have thought no more of Tom, and Tom might very possibly have come to his senses when she was no longer there to fascinate him. But on the Sunday evening when the toils of the day were over, and they were all enjoying the restful home quiet which did not come very often in their busy lives, Rose's visit was brought to an abrupt close.
Looked at by an impartial spectator, the green room would surely have seemed a model of family peace and even of Sunday restfulness. Rose was sitting at the piano playing Mendelssohn's “Christmas Pieces,” and giving great pleasure to every one for art was in this house somewhat overshadowed by science, and it did not very often happen that they could listen to such playing as Rose's which was for that reason a double pleasure. Tom was sitting near her looking supremely peaceful. On one side of the fireplace Mrs. Craigie and Mrs. MacNaughton were playing their weekly game of chess. On the other side Raeburn had his usual Sunday evening recreation, his microscope. Erica knelt beside him, her auburn head close to his white one as they arranged their specimens or consulted books of reference. The professor, who had looked in on his way home from the lecture to borrow a review, was browsing contentedly among the books on the table with the comfortable sense that he might justifiably read in a desultory holiday fashion.
It was upon this peaceful and almost Sabbatical group that a disturbing element entered in the shape of Mr. Fane-Smith. He stood for an instant at the door, taking in the scene, or rather taking that superficial view which the narrow-minded usually take. He was shocked at the chessmen; shocked at that profane microscope, and those week-day sections of plants; shocked at the music, though he must have heard it played as a voluntary on many church organs, and not only shocked, but furious, at finding his daughter in a very nest of secularists.
Every one seemed a little taken aback when he entered. He took no notice whatever of Raeburn, but went straight up to Rose.
“Go and put on your things at once,” he said; “I have come to take you home.”
“Oh, papa,” began Rose, “how you—”
“Not a word, Rose. Go and dress, and don't keep me waiting.”
Erica, with a vain hope of making Mr. Fane-Smith behave at least civilly, came forward and shook hands with him.
“I don't think you have met my father before,” she said.
Raeburn had come a few steps forward; Mr. Fane-Smith inclined his about a quarter of an inch; Raeburn bowed, then said to Erica:
“Perhaps Mr. Fane-Smith would prefer waiting in my study.”
“Thanks, I will wait where I am,” said Mr. Fane-Smith, pointedly, ignoring the master of the house and addressing Erica. “Thank you,” as she offered him a chair, “I prefer to stand. Have the goodness to see that Rose is quick.”
“Thinks the chair's atheistical!” remarked Tom to himself.
Raeburn, looking a degree more stately than usual, stood on the hearth rug with his back to the fire, not in the least forgiving his enemy, but merely adopting for himself the most dignified role. Mr. Fane-Smith a few paces off with his anger and ill-concealed contempt did not show to advantage. Something in the relative sizes of the two struck the professor as comically like Landseer's “Dignity and Impudence.” He would have smiled at the thought had he not been very angry at the discourteous treatment his friend was receiving. Mrs. MacNaughton sat with her queen in her hand as though meditating her next move, but in reality absorbed in watching the game played by the living chess-men before her. Tom at last broke the uncomfortable silence by asking the professor about some of Erica's specimens, and at length Rose came down, much to every one's relief, followed by Erica, who had been helping her to collect the things.
“Are you ready?” said her father. “Then come at once.”
“Let me at least say goodbye, papa,” said Rose, very angry at being forced to make this undignified and, as she rightly felt, rude exit.
“Come at once,” said Mr. Fane-Smith in an inexorable voice. As he left the room he turned and bowed stiffly.
“Go down and open the door for them, Tom,” said Raeburn, who throughout Mr. Fane-Smith's visit had maintained a stern, stately silence.
Tom, nothing loth, obeyed. Erica was already half way downstairs with the guests, but he caught them up and managed to say goodbye to Rose, even to whisper a hope that they might meet again, to which Rose replied with a charming blush and smile which, Tom flattered himself, meant that she really cared for him. Had Rose gone quietly away the next morning, he would not have been goaded into any such folly. A cab was waiting; but, when Rose was once inside it, her father recovered his power of speech and turned upon Erica as they stood by the front door.
“I should have thought,” he said in an angry voice, “that after our anxiety to persuade you to leave your home, you might have known that I should never allow Rose to enter this hell, to mix with blaspheming atheists, to be contaminated by vile infidels!”
Erica's Highland hospitality and strong family loyalty were so outraged by the words that to keep silent was impossible.
“You forget to whom you are speaking,” she said quickly. “You forget that this is my father's house!”
“I would give a good deal to be able to forget,” said Mr. Fane-Smith. “I have tried to deal kindly with you, tried to take you from this accursed place, and you repay me by tempting Rose to stay with you!”
Erica had recovered herself by this time. Tom, watching her, could not but wonder at her self-restraint. She did not retaliate, did not even attempt to justify her conduct; at such a moment words would have been worse than useless. But Tom, while fully appreciating the common sense of the non-resistance, was greatly astonished. Was this his old playmate who had always had the most deliciously aggravating retort ready? Was this hot-tempered Erica? That Mr. Fane-Smith's words were hurting her very much he could see; he guessed, too, that the consciousness that he, a secularist, was looking on at this unfortunate display of Christian intolerance, added a sting to her grief.
“It is useless to profess Christianity,” stormed Mr. Fane-Smith, “if you openly encourage infidelity by consorting with these blasphemers. You are no Christian! A mere Socinian a Latitudinarian!”
Erica's lips quivered a little at this; but she remembered that Christ had been called harder names still by religious bigots of His day, and she kept silence.
“But understand this,” continued Mr. Fane-Smith, “that I approve less than ever of your intimacy with Rose, and until you come to see your folly in staying here, your worse than folly your deliberate choice of home and refusal to put religious duty first there had better be no more intercourse between us.”
“Can you indeed think that religious duty ever requires a child to break the fifth commandment?” said Erica with no anger but with a certain sadness in her tone. “Can you really think that by leaving my father I should be pleasing a perfectly loving God?”
“You lean entirely on your own judgment!” said Mr. Fane-Smith; “if you were not too proud to be governed by authority, you would see that precedent shows you to be entirely in the wrong. St. John rushed from the building polluted by the heretic Cerinthus, a man who, compared with your father, was almost orthodox!”
Erica smiled faintly.
“If that story is indeed true, I should think he remembered before long a reproof his intolerance brought him once. 'Ye know not what spirit ye are of.” And really, if we are to fall back upon tradition, I may quote the story of Abraham turning the unbeliever out of his tent on a stormy night. 'I have suffered him these hundred years,' was the Lord's reproof, 'though he dishonored Me, and couldst thou not endure him for one night?' I am sorry to distress you, but I must do what I know to be right.
“Don't talk to me of right,” exclaimed Mr. Fane-Smith with a shudder. “You are wilfully putting your blaspheming father before Christ. But I see my words are wasted. Let me pass! The air of this house is intolerable to me!”
He hurried away, his anger flaming up again when Tom followed him, closing the door of the cab with punctilious politeness. Rose was frightened.
“Oh, papa,” she said, trembling, “why are you so angry? You haven't been scolding Erica about it? If there was any fault anywhere, the fault was mine. What did you say to her, papa? What have you been doing?”
Mr. Fane-Smith was in that stage of anger when it is pleasant to repeat all one's hot words to a second audience and, moreover, he wanted to impress Rose with the enormity of her visit. He repeated all that he had said to Erica, interspersed with yet harder words about her perverse self-reliance and disregard for authority.
Rose listened, but at the end she trembled no longer. She had in her a bit of the true Raeburn nature with its love of justice and its readiness to stand up for the oppressed.
“Papa,” she said, all her spoiled-child manners and little affectations giving place to the most perfect earnestness, “papa, you must forgive me for contradicting you, but you are indeed very much mistaken. I may have been silly to go there. Erica did try all she could to persuade me to go back to Greyshot yesterday; but I am glad I stayed even though you are so angry about it. If there is a noble, brave girl on earth, it is Erica! You don't know what she is to them all, and how they all love her. I will tell you what this visit has done for me. It has made me ashamed of myself, and I am going to try to be wiser, and less selfish.”
It was something of an effort to Rose to say this, but she had been very much struck with the sight of Erica's home life, and she wanted to prove to her father how greatly he had misjudged her cousin. Unfortunately, there are some people in this world who, having once got an idea into their heads, will keep it in the teeth of the very clearest evidence to the contrary.
In the meantime, Tom had rejoined Erica in the hall.
“How can such a brute have such a daughter?” he said. “Never mind, Cugina, you were a little brick, and treated him much better than he deserved. If that is a Christian, and this a Latitudinarian and all the other heresies he threw at your head, all I can say is, commend me to your sort, and may I never have the misfortune to encounter another of his!”
Erica did not reply; she felt too sick at heart. She walked slowly upstairs, trying to stifle the weary longing for Brian which, though very often present, became a degree less bearable when her isolated position between two fires, as it were had been specially emphasized.
“That's a nice specimen of Christian charity!” said Aunt Jean as they returned to the green room.
“And he set upon Erica at the door and hurled hard names at her as fast as he could go,” said Tom, proceeding to give a detailed account of Mr. Fane-Smith's parting utterances.
Erica picked up Tottie and held him closely, turning, as all lovers of animals do in times of trouble, to the comforting devotion of those dumb friends who do not season their love with curiosity or unasked advice, or that pity which is less sympathetic than silence, and burdens us with the feeling that our sad “case” will be gossiped over in the same pitying tones at afternoon teas and morning calls. Tottie could not gossip, but he could talk to her with his bright brown eyes, and do something to fill a great blank in her life.
Tom's account of the scene in the hall made every one angry.
“And yet,” said Mrs. MacNaughton, “these Christians, who used to us such language as this, own as their Master one who taught that a mere angry word which wounded a neighbor should receive severe punishment!”
Raeburn said nothing, only watched Erica keenly. She was leaning against the mantel piece, her eyes very sad-looking, and about her face that expression of earnest listening which is characteristic of those who are beginning to learn the true meaning of humility and “righteous judgment.” She had pushed back the thick waves of hair which usually overshadowed her forehead, and looked something between a lion with a tangled mane and a saint with a halo.
“Never mind,” said the professor, cheerfully, “it is to bigotry like this that we shall owe our recovery of Erica. And seriously, what can you think of a religion which can make a man behave like this to one who had never injured him, who, on the contrary, had befriended his child?”
“It is not Christ's religion which teaches him to do it,” said Erica, “it is the perversion of that religion.”
“Then in all conscience the perversion is vastly more powerful and extended than what you deem the reality.”
“Unfortunately yes,” said Erica, sighing. “At present it is.”
“At present!” retorted the professor; “why, you have had more than eighteen hundred years to improve it.”
“You yourself taught me to have patience with the slow processes of nature,” said Erica, smiling a little. “If you allow unthinkable ages for the perfecting of a layer of rocks, do you wonder that in a few hundred years a church is still far from perfect?”
“I expect perfection in no human being,” said the professor, taking up a Bible from the table and turning over the pages with the air of a man who knew its contents well; “when I see Christians in some sort obeying this, I will believe that their system is the true system; but not before.” He guided his finger slowly beneath the following lines: “'Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil-speaking be put away from you, with all malice.' There is the precept, you see, and a very good precept, to be found in the secularist creed as well; but now let us look at the practice. See how we secularists are treated! Why, we live as it were in a foreign land, compelled to keep the law yet denied the protection of the law! 'Outlaws of the constitution, outlaws of the human race,' as Burke was kind enough to call us. No! When I see Christians no longer slandering our leaders, no longer coining hateful lies about us out of their own evil imaginations, when I see equal justice shown to all men of whatever creed, then, the all-conquering love. Christianity has yet to prove itself the religion of love; at present it is the religion of exclusion.”
Mrs. MacNaughton, who was exceedingly fond of Erica, looked sorry for her.
“You see, Erica,” she said, “the professor judges by averages. No one would deny that some of the greatest men in the world have been, and are even in the present day, Christians; they have been brought up in it, and can't free themselves from its trammels. You have a few people like the Osmonds, a few really liberal men; but you have only to see how they are treated by their confreres to realize the illiberality of the religion as a whole.”
“I think with you,” said Erica, “that if the revelation of God's love, and His purpose for all, be only to be learned from the lives of Christians, it is a bad lookout for us. But God HAS given us one perfect revelation of Himself, and the Perfect Son can make us see plainly even when the imperfect sons are holding up to us a distorted likeness of the Father.”
She had spoken quietly, but with the tremulousness of strong feeling, and, moreover, she was so sensitive that the weight of the hostile atmosphere oppressed her, and made speaking a great difficulty. When she had ended, she turned away from the disapproving eyes to the only sympathetic eyes in the room the dog's. They looked up into hers with that wistful endeavor to understand the meaning of something beyond their grasp, which makes the eyes of animals so pathetic.
There was a silence; her use of the adjective “perfect” had been very trying to all her hearers, who strongly disapproved of the whole sentence; but then she was so evidently sincere and so thoroughly lovable that no one liked to give her pain.
Aunt Jean was the only person who thought there was much chance of her ever returning to the ranks of secularism; she was the only one who spoke now.
“Well, well,” she said, pityingly, “you are but young; you will think very differently ten years hence.”
Erica kept back an angry retort with difficulty, and Raeburn, whose keen sense of justice was offended, instantly came forward in her defense, though her words had been like a fresh stab in the old wound.
“That is no argument, Jean,” he said quickly. “It is the very unjust extinguisher which the elders use for the suppression of individuality in the young.”
As he spoke, he readjusted a slide in his microscope, making it plain to all that he intended the subject to be dropped. He had a wonderful way of impressing his individuality on others, and the household settled down once more into the Sabbatical calm which had been broken by a bigoted Sabbatarian.
Nothing more was heard of Rose, nor did Erica have an opportunity of talking over the events of that Sunday with her father for some days for he was exceedingly busy; the long weeks wasted during the summer in the wearisome libel case having left upon his hands vast arrears of provincial work. In some of the large iron foundries you may see hundreds of different machines all kept in action by a forty horse-power engine; and Raeburn was the great motive-power which gave life to all the branches of Raeburnites which now stretched throughout the length and breadth of the land. Without him they would have relapsed, very probably, into that fearfully widespread mass of indifference which is not touched by any form of Christianity or religious revival, but which had responded to the practical, secular teaching of the singularly powerful secularist leader. He had a wonderful gift of stirring up the heretofore indifferent, and making them take a really deep interest in national questions. This was by far the happiest part of his life because it was the healthy part of it. The sameness of his anti-theological work, and the barrenness of mere down-pulling, were distasteful enough to him; he was often heartily sick of it all, and had he not thought it a positive duty to attack what he deemed a very mischievous delusion, he would gladly have handed over this part of his work to some one else, and devoted himself entirely to national work.
He had been away from home for several days, lecturing in the north of England. Erica was not expecting his return till the following day, when one evening a telegram was brought in to her. It was from her father to this effect:
“Expect me home by mail train about two A.M. Place too hot to hold me.”
He had now to a great extent lived down the opposition which had made lecturing in his younger days a matter of no small risk to life and limb; but Erica knew that there were reasons which made the people of Ashborough particularly angry with him just now. Ashborough was one of those strange towns which can never be depended upon. It was renowned for its riots, and was, in fact (to use a slang word) a “rowdy” place. More than once in the old days Raeburn had been roughly handled there, and Erica bore a special grudge to it, for it was the scene of her earliest recollection one of those dark pictures which, having been indelibly traced on the heart of a child, influence the whole character and the future life far more than some people think.
It was perhaps old memory which made her waiting so anxious that evening. Moreover, she had at first no one to talk to, which made it much worse. Aunt Jean had gone to bed with a bad toothache, and must on no account be disturbed; and Tom had suddenly announced his intention that morning of going down to Brighton on his bicycle, and had set off, rather to Erica's dismay, since, in a letter to Charles Osmond, Donovan happened to have mentioned that the Fane-Smiths had taken a house there for six weeks. She hated herself for being suspicious; but Tom had been so unlike himself since Rose's visit, and it was such an unheard-of thing that he should take a day's holiday during her father's absence, that it was scarcely possible to avoid drawing the natural inference. She was very unhappy about him, but did not of course feel justified in saying a word to any one else about the matter. Charles Osmond happened to look in for a few minutes later on, expecting to find Raeburn at home, and then in her relief she did give him an account of the unfortunate Sunday though avoiding all mention of Tom.
“It was just like you to come at the very time I was wanting some one to talk to,” she said, sitting down in her favorite nook on the hearth rug with Friskie on her lap. “Not a word has been said of that miserable Sunday since though I'm afraid a good deal has been thought. After all, you know, there was a ludicrous side to it as well. I shall never forget the look of them all when Rose and I came down again: Mr. Fane-Smith standing there by the table, the very incarnation of contemptuous anger, and father just here, looking like a tired thunder cloud! But, though one laughs at one aspect of it, one could cry one's eyes out over the thing as a whole indeed, just now I find myself agreeing with Mr. Tulliver that it's a 'puzzling world.'”
“The fact is,” said Charles Osmond, “that you consent patiently enough to share God's pain over those who don't believe in Him; but you grumble sorely at finding a lack of charity in the world; yet that pain is God's too.”
“Yes,” sighed Erica; “but somehow from Christians it seems so hard!”
“Quite true, child,” he replied, half absently. “It is hard most hard. But don't let it make you uncharitable, Erica. You are sharing God's pain, but remember it is only His perfect love which makes that pain bearable.”
“I do find it hard to love bigots,” said Erica, sighing. “They! What do they know about the thousand difficulties which have driven people into secularism? If they could but see that they and their narrow theories and their false distortions of Christ's Gospel are the real cause of it all, there would be some hope! But they either can't see it or won't.”
“My dear, we're all a lot of blind puppies together,” said Charles Osmond. “We tumble up against each other just for want of eyes. We shall see when we get to the end of the nine days, you know.”
“You see now,” said Erica; “you never hurt us, and rub us the wrong way.”
“Perhaps not,” he replied, laughing. “But Mr. Roberts and some of my other brethren would tell a different tale. By the bye, would you care to help another befogged mortal who is in the region you are safely out of? The evolution theory is the difficulty, and, if you have time to enter into his trouble, I think you could help him much better than I can. If I could see him, I might tackle him; but I can't do it on paper. You could, I think; and, as the fellow lives at the other side of the world, one can do nothing except by correspondence.”
Erica was delighted to undertake the task, and she was particularly well fitted for it. Perhaps no one is really qualified for the post of a clearer of doubts who has not himself faced and conquered doubts of a similar nature.
So there was a new interest for her on that long, lonely evening, and, as she waited for her father's return, she had time to think out quietly the various points which she would first take up. By and by she slept a little, and then, in the silence of the night, crept down to the lower regions to add something to the tempting little supper which she had ready in the green room. But time crept on, and in the silence she could hear dozens of clocks telling each hour, and the train had been long due, and still her father did not come.
At last she became too anxious to read or think to any purpose; she drew aside the curtain, and, in spite of the cold, curled herself upon the window seat with her face pressed close to the glass. Watching, in a literal sense, was impossible, for there was a dense fog, if possible, worse than the fog of the preceding Saturday, but she had the feeling that to be by the window made her in some unaccountable way nearer to her father, and it certainly had the effect of showing her that there was a very good reason for unpunctuality.
The old square was as quiet as death. Once a policeman raised her hopes for a minute by pacing slowly up the pavement, but he passed on, and all was still once more except that every now and then the furniture in the room creaked, making the eerie stillness all the more noticeable. Erica began to shiver a little, more from apprehension than from cold. She wished the telegram had come from any other town in England, and tried in vain not to conjure up a hundred horrible visions of possible catastrophes. At length she heard steps in the distance, and straining her eyes to penetrate the thick darkness of the murky night, was able to make out just beneath the window a sort of yellow glare. She ran downstairs at full speed to open the door, and there upon the step stood a link-boy, the tawny light from his torch showing up to perfection the magnificent proportions of the man in a shaggy brown Inverness, who stood beside him, and bringing into strong relief the masses of white hair and the rugged Scottish face which, spite of cold and great weariness, bore its usual expression of philosophic calm.
“I thought you were never coming,” said Erica. “Why, you must be half frozen! What a night it is!”
“We've been more than an hour groping our way from the station,” said Raeburn; “and cabs were unattainable.” Then, turning to the link-boy, “Come in, you are as cold and hungry as I am. Have you got something hot, Eric?”
“Soup and coffee,” said Erica. “Which would he like best?”
The boy gave his vote for soup, and, having seen him thoroughly satisfied and well paid, they sent him home, and to his dying day he was proud to tell the story of the foggy night when the people's tribune had given him half of his own supper. The father and daughter were soon comfortably installed beside the green room fire, Raeburn making a hearty meal though it was past three o'clock.
“I never dreamed of finding you up, little son Eric,” he said when the warmth and the food had revived him. “I only telegraphed for fear you should lock up for the night and leave me to shiver unknown on the doorstep.”
“But what happened?” asked Erica. “Why couldn't you lecture?”
“Ashborough had worked itself up into one of its tumults, and the fools of authorities thought it would excite a breach of the peace, which was excited quite as much and probably more by my not lecturing. But I'm not going to be beaten! I shall go down there again in a few weeks.”
“Was there any rioting?”
“Well, there was a roughish mob, who prevented my eating my dinner in peace, and pursued me even into my bedroom; and some of the Ashborough lambs were kind enough to overturn my cab as I was going to the station. But, having escaped with nothing worse than a shaking, I'll forgive them for that. The fact is they had burned me in effigy on the 5th and had so much enjoyed the ceremony that, when the original turned up, they really couldn't be civil to him, it would have been so very tame. I'm told the effigy was such a fearful-looking monster that it frightened the bairnies out of their wits, specially as it was first carried all round the place on a parish coffin!”
“What a hateful plan that effigy-burning is!” said Erica. “Were you not really hurt at all when they upset your cab?”
“Perhaps a little bruised,” said Raeburn, “and somewhat angry with my charitable opponents. I didn't so much mind being overturned, but I hate being balked. They shall have the lecture, however, before long; I'm not going to be beaten. On the whole, they couldn't have chosen a worse night for their little game. I seriously thought we should never grope our way home through that fog. It has quite taken me back to my young days when this sort of thing met one on every hand; and there was no little daughter to cheer me up then, and very often no supper either!”
“That was when you were living in Blank Street?”
“Yes, in a room about the size of a sentry box. It was bearable all except the black beetles! I've never seen such beetles before or since twice the size of the ordinary ones. I couldn't convince the landlady that they even existed; she always maintained that they never rose to the attics; but one night I armed myself with Cruden's Concordance and, thanks to its weight and my good aim, killed six at a time, and produced the corpses as evidence. I shall never forget the good lady's face! 'You see, sir,' she said, 'they never come by day; they 'ates the light because their deeds is evil.'”
“Were the beetles banished after that?” asked Erica, laughing.
“No, they went on to the bitter end,” said Raeburn with one of his bright, humorous looks. “And I believe the landlady put it all down to my atheistical views a just retribution for harboring such a notorious fellow in her house! But there, my child, we mustn't sit up any longer gossiping; run off to bed. I'll see that the lights are all out.”
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg