'Make pleasure lasting, and perhaps I should agree with you. But how can you do that?'
'You cannot do it, that ever I heard. It is not in the nature of things.'
'Then what is the good of pleasure when it is over, and you have given your life for it?'
'Well, if pleasure won't do, take greatness, then.'
'What sort of greatness?' Pitt asked in the same tone. It was the tone of one who had gone over the ground.
'Any sort will do, I suppose,' said Miss Frere, with half a laugh. 'The thing is, I believe, to be great, no matter how. I never had that ambition myself; but that is the idea, isn't it?'
'What is it worth, supposing it gained?'
'People seem to think it is worth a good deal, by the efforts they make and the things they undergo for it.'
'Yes,' said Pitt thoughtfully; 'they pay a great price, and they have their reward. And, I say, what is it worth?'
'Why, Mr. Dallas,' said the young lady, throwing up her head, 'it is worth a great deal—all it costs. To be noble, to be distinguished, to be great and remembered in the world,—what is a worthy ambition, if that is not?'
'That is the general opinion; but what is itworth, when all is done?Name any great man you think of as specially great'—
'Napoleon Buonaparte,' said the young lady immediately.
'Do not namehim,' said Pitt. 'He wore a brilliant crown, but he got it out of the dirt of low passions and cold-hearted selfishness. His name will be remembered, but as a splendid example of wickedness. Name some other.'
'Name one yourself,' said Betty. 'I have succeeded so ill.'
'Name them all,' said Pitt. 'Take all the conquerors, from Rameses the Great down to our time; take all the statesmen, from Moses and onward. Take Apelles, at the head of a long list of wonderful painters; philosophers, from Socrates to Francis Bacon; discoverers and inventors, from the man who first made musical instruments, in the lifetime of Adam our forefather, to Watt and the steam engine. Take any or all of them;weare very glad they lived and worked,weare the better for remembering them; but I ask you, what are they the better for it?'
This appeal, which was evidently meant in deep earnest, moved the mind of the young lady with so great astonishment that she looked at Pitt as at alusus naturae. But he was quite serious and simply matter of fact in his way of putting things. He looked at her, waiting for an answer, but got none.
'We speak of Alexander, and praise him to the skies, him of Macedon, I mean. What is that, do you think, to Alexander now?'
'If it is nothing to him, then what is the use of being great?' saidMiss Frere in her bewilderment.
'You are coming back to my question.'
There ensued a pause, during which the stitches of embroidery were taken slowly.
'What do you intend to do withyourlife, Mr. Dallas, since pleasure and fame are ruled out?' the young lady asked.
'You see, that decision waits on the previous question,' he answered.
'But it has got to be decided,' said Miss Frere, 'or you will be'—
'Nothing. Yes, I am aware of that.'
There was again a pause.
'Miss Frere,' Pitt then began again, 'did you ever see a person whose happiness rested on a lasting foundation?'
The young lady looked at her companion anew as if he were to her a very odd character.
'What do you mean?' she said.
'I mean, a person who was thoroughly happy, not because of circumstances, but in spite of them?'
'To begin with, I never saw anybody that was "thoroughly happy." I do not believe in the experience.'
'I am obliged to believe in it. I have known a person who seemed to be clean lifted up out of the mud and mire of troublesome circumstances, and to have got up to a region of permanent clear air and sunshine. I have been envying that person ever since.'
'May I ask, was it a man or a woman?'
'Neither; it was a young girl.'
'It is easy to be happy atthatage.'
'Not for her. She had been very unhappy.'
'And got over it?'
'Yes; but not by virtue of her youth or childishness, as you suppose. She was one of those natures that are born with a great capacity for suffering, and she had begun to find it out early; and it was from the depths of unhappiness that she came out into clear and peaceful sunshine; with nothing to help her either in her external surroundings.'
'Couldn't you follow her steps and attain her experience?' asked MissFrere mockingly.
Pitt rose up from the mat where he had been lying, laughed, and shook himself.
'As you will not go to drive,' he said, 'I believe I will go alone.'
But he went on horseback, and rode hard.
As Pitt went off, Mrs. Dallas came on the verandah. 'You would not go to drive?' she said to Betty.
'It is so hot, dear Mrs. Dallas! I had what was much better than a drive—a good long talk.'
'What do you think of my boy?' asked the mother, with an accent of happy confidence in which there was also a vibration of pride.
'He puzzles me. Has he not some peculiar opinions?'
'Have you found that out already?' said Mrs. Dallas, with a change of tone. 'That shows he must like you very much, Betty; my son is not given to letting himself out on those subjects. Even to me he very seldom speaks of them.'
'What subjects do you mean, dear Mrs. Dallas?' inquired the young lady softly.
'I mean,' said Mrs. Dallas uneasily and hesitating, 'some sort of religious questions. I told you he had had to do at one time with dissenting people, and I think their influence has been bad for him. I hoped in England he would forget all that, and become a true Churchman. What did he say?'
'Nothing about the Church, or about religion. I do not believe it would be easy for any one to influence him, Mrs. Dallas.'
'You can do it, Betty, if any one. I am hoping in you.'
The young lady, as I have intimated, was not averse to the task, all the rather that it promised some difficulty. All the rather, too, that she was stimulated by the idea of counter influence. She recalled more than once what Pitt had said of that 'young girl,' and tried to make out what had been in his tone at the time. No passion certainly; he had spoken easily and frankly; too easily to favour the supposition of any very deep feeling; and yet, not without a certain cadence of tenderness, and undoubtedly with the confidence of intimate knowledge. Undoubtedly, also, the influence of that young person, whatever its nature, had not died out. Miss Betty had little question in her own mind that she must have been one of the persons referred to and dreaded by Mrs. Dallas as dissenters; and the young lady determined to do what she could in the case. She had a definite point of resistance now, and felt stronger for the fray.
The fray, however, could not be immediately entered upon. Pitt departed to New York, avowedly to look up the Gainsboroughs. And there, as two years before, he spent unwearied pains in pursuit of his object; also, as then, in vain. He returned after more than a week of absence, a baffled man. His arrival was just in time to allow him to sit down to dinner with the family; so that Betty heard his report.
'Have you found the Gainsboroughs?' his father asked.
'No, sir.'
'Where did you look?'
'Everywhere.'
'What have you done?' his mother asked.
'Everything.'
'I told you, I thought they were gone back to England.'
'If they are, there is no sign of it, and I do not believe it. I have spent hours and hours at the shipping offices, looking over the lists of passengers; and of one thing I am certain, they have not sailed from that port this year.'
'Not under the name by which you know them.'
'And not under any other. Colonel Gainsborough was not a man to hide his head under an alias. But they know nothing of any Colonel Gainsborough at the post office.'
'That is strange.'
'They never had many letters, you know, sir; and the colonel had given up his English paper. I think I know all the people that take the LondonTimesin New York; and he is not one of them.'
'He is gone home,' said Mr. Dallas comfortably.
'I can find that out when I go back to England; and I will.'
Miss Betty said nothing, and asked never a word, but she lost none of all this. Pitt was becoming a problem to her. All this eagerness and painstaking would seem to look towards some very close relations between the young man and these missing people; yet Pitt showed no annoyance nor signs of trouble at missing them. Was it that he did not really care? was it that he had not accepted failure, and did not mean to fail? In either case, he must be a peculiar character, and in either case there was brought to light an uncommon strength of determination. There is hardly anything which women like better in the other sex than force of character. Not because it is a quality in which their own sex is apt to be lacking; on the contrary; but because it gives a woman what she wants in a man—something to lean upon, and somebody to look up to. Miss Betty found herself getting more and more interested in Pitt and in her charge concerning him; how it was to be executed she did not yet see; she must leave that to chance. Nothing could be forced here. Where liking begins to grow, there also begins fear.
She retreated to the verandah after dinner, with her embroidery. By and by Mrs. Dallas came there too. It was a pleasant place in the afternoon, for the sun was on the other side of the house, and the sea breeze swept this way, giving its saltness to the odours of rose and honeysuckle and mignonette. Mrs. Dallas sat down and took her knitting; then, before a word could be exchanged, they were joined by Pitt. That is, he came on the verandah; but for some time there was no talking. The ladies would not begin, and Pitt did not. His attention, wherever it might be, was not given to his companions; he sat thoughtful, and determinately silent. Mrs. Dallas's knitting needles clicked, Miss Betty's embroidering thread went noiselessly in and out. Bees hummed and flitted about the honeysuckle vines; there was a soft, sweet, luxurious atmosphere to the senses and to the mind. This went on for a while.
'Mr. Pitt,' said Miss Betty, 'you are giving me no help at all.'
He brought himself and his attention round to her at once, and asked how he could be of service.
'Your mother,' began Miss Betty, stitching away, 'has given me a commission concerning you. She desires me to see to it thatennuidoes not creep upon you during your vacation in this unexciting place. How do I know but it is creeping upon you already? and you give me no chance to drive it away.'
Pitt laughed a little. 'I was never attacked byennuiin my life,' he said.
'So you do not want my services!'
'Not to fight an enemy that is nowhere in sight. Perhaps he is your enemy, and I might be helpful in another way.'
It occurred to him thathehad been charged to make Miss Frere's sojourn in Seaforth pleasant; and some vague sense of what this mutual charge might mean dawned upon him, with a rising light of amusement.
'I don't know!' said the young lady. 'You did once propose a drive. If you would propose it again, perhaps I would go. We cannot help its being hot?'
So they went for a drive. The roads were capital, the evening was lovely, the horses went well, and the phaeton was comfortable; if that were not enough, it was all. Miss Frere bore it for a while patiently.
'Do you dislike talking?' she asked at length meekly, when a soft bit of road and the slow movement of the horses gave her a good opportunity.
'I? Not at all!' said Pitt, rousing himself as out of a muse.
'Then I wish you would talk. Mrs. Dallas desires that I should entertain you; and how am I to do that unless I know you better?'
'So you think people's characters come out in talking?'
'If not their characters, at least something of what is in their heads—what they know—and don't know; what they can talk about, in short.'
'I do not know anything—to talk about.'
'Oh, fie, Mr. Dallas! you who have been to Oxford and London. Tell me, what is London like? An overgrown New York, I suppose.'
'No, neither. "Overgrown" means grown beyond strength or usefulness.London is large, but not overgrown, in any sense.'
'Well, like New York, only larger?'
'No more than a mushroom is like a great old oak. London is like that; an old oak, gnarled and twisted and weather-worn, with plenty of hale life and young vigour springing out of its rugged old roots.'
'That sounds—poetical.'
'If you mean, not true, you are under a mistake.'
'Then it seems you know London?'
'I suppose I do; better than many of those who live in it. When I am there, Miss Frere, I am with an old uncle, who is an antiquary and an enthusiast on the subject of his native city. From the first it has been his pleasure to go with me all over London, and tell me the secrets of its old streets, and show me what was worth looking at. London was my picture-book, my theatre, where I saw tragedy and comedy together; my museum of antiquities. I never tire of it, and my Uncle Strahan is never tired of showing it to me.'
'Why, what is it to see?' asked Miss Frere, with some real curiosity.
'For one thing, it is an epitome of English history, strikingly illustrated.'
'Oh, you mean Westminster Abbey! Yes, I have heard of that, of course.But I should thinkthatwas not interminable.'
'I do not mean Westminster Abbey.'
'What then, please?'
'I cannot tell you here,' said Pitt smiling, as the horses, having found firm ground, set off again at a gay trot. 'Wait till we get home, and I will show you a map of London.'
The young lady, satisfied with having gained her object, waited very patiently, and told Mrs. Dallas on reaching home that the drive had been delightful.
Next day Pitt was as good as his word. He brought his map of London into the cool matted room where the ladies were sitting, rolled up a table, and spread the map out before Miss Frere. The young lady dropped her embroidery and gave her attention.
'What have you there, Pitt?' his mother inquired.
'London, mamma.'
'London?' Mrs. Dallas drew up her chair too, where she could look on; while Pitt briefly gave an explanation of the map; showed where was the 'City' and where the fashionable quarter.
'I suppose,' said Miss Frere, studying the map, 'the parts of London that delight you are over here?' indicating the West End.
'No,' returned Pitt, 'by no means. The City and the Strand are infinitely more interesting.'
'My dear,' said his mother, 'I do not see how that can be.'
'It is true, though, mother. All this,' drawing his finger round a certain portion of the map, 'is crowded with the witnesses of human life and history; full of remains that tell of the men of the past, and their doings, and their sufferings.'
Miss Frere's fine eyes were lifted to him in inquiry; meeting them, he smiled, and went on.
'I must explain. Where shall I begin? Suppose, for instance, we take our stand here at Whitehall. We are looking at the Banqueting House of the Palace, built by Inigo Jones for James I. The other buildings of the palace, wide and splendid as they were, have mostly perished. This stands yet. I need not tell you the thoughts that come up as we look at it.'
'Charles I was executed there, I know. What else?'
'There is a whole swarm of memories, and a whole crowd of images, belonging to the palace of which this was a part. Before the time you speak of, there was Cardinal Wolsey'—
'Oh, Wolsey! I remember.'
'His outrageous luxury and pomp of living, and his disgrace. Then comes Henry VIII., and Anne Boleyn, and their marriage; Henry's splendours, and his death. All that was here. In those days the buildings of Whitehall were very extensive, and they were further enlarged afterwards. Here Elizabeth held her court, and here she lay in state after death. James I comes next; he built the Banqueting House. And in his son's time, the royal magnificence displayed at Whitehall was incomparable. All the gaieties and splendours and luxury of living that then were possible, were known here. And here was the scaffold where he died. The next figure is Cromwell's.'
'Leave him out!' said Mrs. Dallas, with a sort of groan of impatience.
'What shall I do with the next following, mamma? That is Charles II.'
'He had a right there at least.'
'He abused it.'
'At least he was a king, and a gentleman.'
'If I could show you Whitehall as it was in his day, mother, I think you would not want to look long. But I shall not try. We will go on to Charing Cross. The old palace extended once nearly so far. Here is the place.' He pointed to a certain spot on the map.
'What is there now?' asked Betty.
'Not the old Cross. That is gone; but, of course, I cannot stand there without in thought going back to Edward I. and his queen. In its place is a brazen statue of Charles I. And in fact, when I stand there the winds seem to sweep down upon me from many a mountain peak of history. Edward and his rugged greatness, and Charles and his weak folly; and the Protectorate, and the Restoration. For here, where the statue stands, stood once the gallows where Harrison and his companions were executed, when "the king had his own again." Sometimes I can hardly see the present, when I am there, for looking at the past.'
'You are enthusiastic,' said Miss Frere. 'But I understand it. Yes, that is not like New York; not much!'
'What became of the Cross, Pitt?'
'Pulled down, mother—like everything else in its day.'
'Who pulled it down?'
'The Republicans.'
'The Republicans! Yes, it was like them!' said Mrs. Dallas. 'Rebellion, dissent, and a want of feeling for whatever is noble and refined, all go together. That was the Puritans!'
'Pretty strong!' said Pitt. 'And not quite fair either, is it? How much feeling for what is noble and refined was there in the court of the second Charles?—and how much of either, if you look below the surface, was in the policy or the character of the first Charles?'
'He did not destroy pictures and pull down statues,' said Mrs. Dallas.'He was at least a gentleman. But the Puritans were a low set, always.I cannot forgive them for the work they did in England.'
'You may thank heaven for some of the work they did. But for them, you would not be here to-day in a land of freedom.'
'Too much freedom,' said Mrs. Dallas. 'I believe it is good to have a king over a country.'
'Well, go on from Charing Cross, won't you,' said Miss Frere. 'I am interested. I never studied a map of London before. I am not sure I ever saw one.'
'I do not know which way to go,' said Pitt. 'Every step brings us to new associations; every street opens up a chapter of history. Here is Northumberland House; a grand old building, full of its records. Howards and Percys and Seymours have owned it and built it; and there General Monk planned the bringing back of the Stuarts. Going along the Strand, every step is full of interest. Justhereused to be the palace of Sir Nicholas Baron and his son; then James the First's favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, lived in it; and the beautiful water-gate is yet standing which Inigo Jones built for him. All the Strand was full of palaces which have passed away, leaving behind the names of their owners in the streets which remain or have been built since. Here Sir Walter Raleigh lived;herethe Dudleys had their abode, and Lady Jane Grey was married; here was the house of Lord Burleigh. But let us go on to the church of St. Mary-le-Strand. Here once stood a great Maypole, round which there used to be merry doings. The Puritans took that down too, mother.'
'What for?'
'They held it to be in some sort a relic of heathen manners. Then underCharles II. it was set up again. And here, once, four thousand childrenwere gathered and sang a hymn, on some public occasion of triumph inQueen Anne's reign.'
'It is not there now?'
'Oh, no! It was given to Sir Isaac Newton, and made to subserve the uses of a telescope.'
'How do you know all these things, Mr. Pitt.'
'Every London antiquary knows them, I suppose. And I told you, I have an old uncle who is a great antiquary; London is his particular hobby.'
'He must have had an apt scholar, though.'
'Much liking makes good learning, I suppose,' said the young man. 'A little further on is the church of St. Clement Danes, where Dr. Johnson used to attend divine service. Aboutherestands Temple Bar.'
'Temple Bar!' said Miss Frere. 'I have heard of Temple Bar all my life, and never connected any clear idea with the name. WhatisTemple Bar?'
'It is not very much of a building. It is the barrier which marks the bound of the city of London.'
'Isn't it London on both sides of Temple Bar?'
'London, but not the City. The City proper begins here. On the west of this limit is Westminster.'
'There are ugly associations with Temple Bar, I know,' said Miss Frere.
'There are ugly associations with everything. Down here stood Essex House, where Essex defended himself, and from which he was carried off to the Tower.There, in Lincoln's Inn fields, Thomas Babington and his party died for high treason, and there Russell died. And just up here is Smithfield. It is all over, the record of violence, intolerance, and brutality. It meets you at every turn.'
'It is only what would be in any other place as old as London,' said Mrs. Dallas. 'In old times people were rough, of course, but they were rough everywhere.'
'I was thinking'— said Miss Frere. 'Mr. Dallas gives a somewhat singular justification of his liking for London.'
'Is it?' said Pitt. 'It would be singular if the violence were there now; but to read the record and look on the scene is interesting, and for me fascinating. The record is of other things too. See,—in this place Milton lived and wrote; here Franklin abode; here Charles Lamb; from an inn in this street Bishop Hooper went away to die. And so I might go on and on. At every step there is the memorial of some great man's life, or some noted man's death. And with all that, there are also the most exquisite bits of material antiquity. Old picturesque houses; old crypts of former churches, over which stands now a modern representative of the name; old monuments many; old doorways, and courts, and corners, and gateways. Come over to London, and I will take you down into the crypt of St. Paul's, and show you how history is presented to you there.'
'The crypt?' said Miss Frere, doubting somewhat of this invitation.
'Yes, the old monuments are in the crypt.'
'My dear,' said Mrs. Dallas, 'I do not understand how all these things you have been talking about should have so much charm for you. I should think the newer and handsomer parts of the city, the parks and the gardens, and the fine squares, would be a great deal more agreeable.'
'To live in, mother.'
'And don't you go to the British Museum, and to the Tower, and to HydePark?'
'I have been there hundreds of times.'
'And like these old corners still?'
'I am very fond of the Museum.'
'There is nothing like that is this country,' said Mrs. Dallas, with an accent of satisfaction.
Miss Betty hereupon begged to be told more distinctly what was in the British Museum, that anybody should go there 'hundreds of times.' Pitt presently got warm in his subject, and talked long and well; as many people will do when they are full of their theme, even when they can talk upon nothing else. Pitt was not one of those people; he could talk well upon anything, and now he made himself certainly very entertaining. His mother thought so, who cared nothing for the British Museum except in so far that it was a great institution of an old country, which a young country could not rival. She listened to Pitt. Miss Betty gave him even more profound interest and unflagging attention; whether she too were not studying the speaker full as much as the things spoken, I will not say. They had a very pleasant morning of it; conversation diverging sometimes to Assyria and Egypt, and ancient civilizations and arts, and civilization in general. Mrs. Dallas gradually drew back from mingling in the talk, and watched, well pleased, to see how eager the two other speakers became, and how they were lost in their subject and in each other.
In the afternoon there was another drive, to which Pitt did not need to be stimulated; and all the evening the two young people were busy with something which engaged them both. Mrs. Dallas breathed freer.
'Ithinkhe is smitten,' she said privately to her husband. 'How could he help it? He has seen nobody else to be smitten with.'
But Betty Frere was not sure of any such thing; and the very fact of Pitt's disengagedness made him more ensnaring to her. There was nobody else in the village to divert his attention, and the two young people were thrown very much together. They went driving, they rode, and they talked, continually. The map of London was often out, and Mrs. Dallas saw the two heads bent over it, and interested faces looking into each other; and she thought things were going on very fairly. If only the vacation were not so short! For only a little time more, and Pitt must be back at his chambers in London. The mother sighed to herself. She was paying rather a heavy price to keep her son from Dissenters!
Betty Frere too remembered that the vacation was coming to an end, and drew her breath rather short. She was depending on Pitt too much for her amusement, she told herself, and to be sure there were other young men in the world that could talk; but she felt a sort of disgust at the thought of them all. They were not near so interesting. They all flattered her, and some of them were supposed to be brilliant; but Betty turned from the thought of them to the one whose lips never condescended to say pretty things, nor made any effort to say witty things. They behaved towards her with a sort of obsequious reverence, which was the fashion of that day much more than of this; and Betty liked far better a manner which never made pretence of anything, was thoroughly natural and perfectly well-bred, but which frankly paid more honour to his mother than to herself. She admired Pitt's behaviour to his mother. Even to his mother it had less formality than was the custom of the day; while it gave her every delicate little attention and every possible graceful observance. The young beauty had sense enough to see that this promised more for Pitt's future wife than any amount of civil subserviency to herself. Perhaps there is not a quality which women value more in a man, or miss more sorely, than what we express by the term manliness. And she saw that Pitt, while he was enthusiastic and eager, and what she called fanciful, always was true, honest, and firm in what he thought right. From that no fancy carried him away.
And Miss Betty found the days pass with almost as much charm as fleetness. How fleet they were she did not bear to think. She found herself recognising Pitt's step, distinguishing his voice in the distance, and watching for the one and the other. Why not? He was so pleasant as a companion. But she found herself also starting when he appeared suddenly, thrilled at the unexpected sound of his voice, and conscious of quickened pulses when he came into the room. Betty did not like these signs in herself; at the same time, that which had wrought the spell continued to work, and the spell was not broken. In justice to the young lady, I must say that there was not the slightest outward token of it. Betty was as utterly calm and careless in her manner as Pitt himself; so that even Mrs. Dallas—and a woman in those matters sees far—could not tell whether either or both of the young people had a liking for the other more than the social good-fellowship which was frank and apparent. It might be, and she confessed also to herself that it might not be.
'You must give that fellow time,' said her husband. Which Mrs. Dallas knew, if she had not been so much in a hurry.
'If he met those Gainsboroughs by chance, I would not answer for anything,' she said.
'How should he meet them? They are probably as poor as rats, and have drawn into some corner, out of the way. He will never see them.'
'Pitt is so persistent!' said Mrs. Dallas uneasily.
'He'll be back in England in a few weeks.'
'But when he comes again!'
'He shall not come again. We will go over to see him ourselves next year.'
'That is a very good thought,' said Mrs. Dallas.
And, comforted by this thought and the plans she presently began to weave in with it, she looked now with much more equanimity than Betty herself towards the end of Pitt's visit. Mrs. Dallas, however, was not to get off without another shock to her nerves.
It was early in September, and the weather of that sultry, hot, and moist character which we have learned to look for in connection with the first half of that month. Miss Frere's embroidery went languidly; possibly there might have been more reasons than one for the slow and spiritless movement of her fingers, which was quite contrary to their normal habit. Mrs. Dallas, sitting at a little distance on the verandah, was near enough to hear and observe what went on when Pitt came upon the scene, and far enough to be separated from the conversation unless she chose to mix in it. By and by he came, looking thoughtful, as Betty saw, though she hardly seemed to notice his approach. There was no token in her quiet manner of the quickened pulses of which she was immediately conscious. Something like a tremulous thrill ran through her nerves; it vexed her to be so little mistress of them, yet the pleasure of the thrill at the moment was more than the pain. Pitt threw himself into a chair near her, and for a few moments watched the play of her needle. Betty's eyelashes never stirred. But the silence lasted too long. Nerves would not bear it.
'What can you find to do in this weather, Mr. Pitt?' she asked languidly.
'It is good weather,' he answered absently. 'Do you ever read theBible?'
Miss Betty's fine eyes were lifted now with an expression of some amusement. They were very fine eyes; Mrs. Dallas thought they could not fail of their effect.
'The Bible?' she repeated. 'I read the lessons in the Prayer-book; that is the same.'
'Is it the same? Is the whole Bible contained in the lessons?'
'I don't know, I am sure,' she answered doubtfully. 'I think so. There is a great deal of it.'
'But you read it piecemeal so.'
'You must read it piecemeal any way,' returned the young lady. 'You can read only a little each day; a portion.'
'You could read consecutively, though, or you could choose for yourself.'
'I like to have the choice made for me. It saves time; and then one is sure one has got hold of the right portion, you know. I like the lessons.'
'And then,' remarked Mrs. Dallas, 'you know other people and your friends are reading that same portion at the same time, and the feeling is very sacred and sweet.'
'But if the Bible was intended to be read in such a way, how comes it that we have no instruction to that end?'
'Instruction was given,' said Mrs. Dallas. 'The Church has ordered it.'
'The Church' said Pitt thoughtfully. 'Who is the Church?'
'Why, my dear,' said Mrs. Dallas, 'don't ask such questions. You know as well as I do.'
'As I understand it, mother, what you mean is simply a body ofChristians who lived some time ago.'
'Yes. Well, what then?'
'I do not comprehend how they should know what you and I want to read to-day. I am not talking of Church services. I am talking of private reading.'
'But it is pleasant and convenient,' said Betty.
'May be very inappropriate.'
'Pitt,' said his mother, 'I wish you would not talk so! It is really very wrong. This comes of your way of questioning and reasoning about everything. What we have to do with the Church is toobey.'
'And that is what we have to do with the Bible, isn't it?' he said gravely.
'Undoubtedly.'
'Well, mother, I am not talking to you; I am attacking Miss Frere. I can talk to her on even terms. Miss Frere, I want to know what you understand by obeying, when we are speaking of the demands of the Bible?'
'Obeying? I understand just what I mean by it anywhere.'
'Obeying what?'
'Why, obeying God, of course.'
'Of course! But how do we know what His commands are?'
'By the words—how else?' she asked, looking at him. He was in earnest, for some reason, she saw, and she forbore from the light words with which at another time she would have given a turn to the subject.
'Then you think, distinctly, that we ought to obey the words of theBible?'
'Ye-s,' she said, wondering what was coming.
'Allthe words?'
'Yes, I suppose so. All the words, according to their real meaning.'
'How are we to know what that is?'
'I suppose—the Church tells us.'
'Where?'
'I do not know—in books, I suppose.'
'What books? But we are going a little wild. May I bring you an instance or two? I am talking in earnest, and mean it earnestly.'
'Do you ever do anything in any other way?' asked the young lady, with a charming air of fine raillery and recognition blended. 'Certainly; I am in earnest too.'
Pitt went away and returned with a book in his hand.
'What have you there? the Prayer-book?' his mother asked, with a doubtful expression.
'No, mamma; I like to go to the Fountain-head of authority as well as of learning.'
'The Fountain-head!' exclaimed Mrs. Dallas, in indignant protest; and then she remembered her wisdom, and said no more. It cost her an effort; however, she knew that for her to set up a defence of either Church or Prayer-book just then would not be wise, and that she had better leave the matter in Betty's hands. She looked at Betty anxiously. The young lady's face showed her cool and collected, not likely to be carried away by any stream of enthusiasm or overborne by influence. It was, in fact, more cool than she felt. She liked to get into a good talk with Pitt upon any subject, and so far was content; at the same time she would rather have chosen any other than this, and was a little afraid whereto it might lead. Religion had not been precisely her principal study. True, it had not been his principal study either; but Betty discerned a difference in their modes of approaching it. She attributed that to the Puritan or dissenting influences which had at some time got hold of him. To thwart those would at any rate be a good work, and she prepared herself accordingly.
Pitt opened his book and turned over a few leaves.
'To begin with,' he said, 'you admit that whatever this book commands we are bound to obey?'
'Provided we understand it,' his opponent put in.
'Provided we understand it, of course. A command not understood is hardly a command. Now here is a word which has struck me, and I would like to know how it strikes you.'
He turned to the familiar twenty-fifth of Matthew and read the central portion, the parable of the talents. He read like an interested man, and perhaps it was owing to a slight unconscious intonation here and there that Pitt's two hearers listened as if the words were strangely new to them. They had never heard them sound just so. Yet the reading was not dramatic at all; it was only a perfectly natural and feeling deliverance. But feeling reaches feeling, as we all know. The reading ceased, nobody spoke for several minutes.
'What does it mean?' asked Pitt.
'My dear,' said his mother, 'can there be a question what it means? The words are perfectly simple, it seems to me.'
'Mamma, I am not talking to you. You may sit as judge and arbiter; but it is Miss Frere and I who are disputing. She will have the goodness to answer.'
'I do not know what to answer,' said the young lady. 'Are not the words, as Mrs. Dallas says, perfectly plain?'
'Then surely it cannot be difficult to say what the teaching of them is?'
If it was not difficult, the continued silence of the lady was remarkable. She made no further answer.
'Arethey so plain? I have been puzzling over them. I will divide the question, and perhaps we can get at the conclusion better so. In the first place, who are these "servants" spoken of?'
'Everybody, I suppose. You have the advantage of me, Mr. Dallas; I havenotbeen studying the passage.'
'Yet you admit that we are bound to obey it.'
'Yes,' she said doubtfully. 'Obey what?'
'That is precisely what I want to find out. Now the servants; they cannot mean everybody, for it says, he "calledhis ownservants;" the Greek is "bond-servants."'
'His servants would be His Church then.'
'His own people. "He delivered unto them His goods." What are the goods he delivered to them? Some had more, some had less; all had a share and a charge. What are these goods?'
'I don't know,' said Miss Frere, looking at him.
'What were they to do with these goods?'
'Trade with them, it seems.'
'In Luke the command runs so: "Trade till I come." Trading is a process by which the goods or the money concerned are multiplied. What are the goods given to you and me?—to bring the question down into the practical. It must be something with which we may increase the wealth of Him who has entrusted it to us.'
'Pitt, that is a very strange way of speaking,' said his mother.
'I am talking to Miss Frere, mamma. You have only to hear and judge between us. Miss Frere, the question comes to you.'
'I should say it is not possible to increase "His wealth."'
'That is notmyputting of the case, remember. And also, every enlargement of His dominion in this world, every addition made to the number of His subjects, may be fairly spoken of so. The question stands, What are the goods? That is, if you like to go into it. I am not catechizing you,' said Pitt, half laughing.
'I do not dislike to be catechized,' said Miss Frere slowly.By you, was the mental addition. 'But I never had such a question put to me before, and I am not ready with an answer.'
'I never heard the question discussed either,' said Pitt. 'But I was reading this passage yesterday, and could not help starting it. The "goods" must be, I think, all those gifts or powers by means of which we can work for God, and so work as to enlarge His kingdom. Now, what are they?'
'Of course we can pay money,' said the young lady, looking a good deal mystified. 'We can pay money to support ministers, if that is what you mean.'
'So much is patent enough. Is money the only thing?'
Miss Frere looked bewildered, Mrs. Dallas impatient. She restrained herself, however, and waited. Pitt smiled.
'We pay money to support ministers and teachers. What do the ministers work with? what do theytradewith?'
'The truth, I suppose.'
'And how do they make the truth known? By their lips, and by their lives; the power of the word, with the power of personal influence.'
'Yes,' said Miss Frere; 'of course.'
'Then the goods, or talents, so far as they are commonly possessed, and so far as we have discovered, are three: property, speech, and personal example. But the two last are entrusted to you and me, are they not, as well as the former?'
The girl looked at him now with big eyes, in which no shadow of self-consciousness was any more lurking. Eyes that were bewildered, astonished, inquiring, and also disturbed. 'What do you mean?' she said helplessly.
'It comes to this,' said Pitt. 'If we are ready to obey the Bible, we shall use not only our money, but our tongues and ourselves to do the work which—you know—the Lord left to His disciples to do; make disciples of every creature. It will be our one business.'
'How do you mean, our one business?'
'That to which we make all others subservient.'
'Subservient! Yes,' said Miss Frere. 'Subservient in a way; but that does not mean that we should give up everything else for it.'
Pitt was silent.
'My dear boy,' said his mother anxiously, 'it seems to me you are straining things quite beyond what is intended. We are not all meant to be clergymen, are we?'
'That is not the point, mamma. The point is, what work is given us?'
'That work you speak of is clergymen's work.'
'Mamma, what is the command?'
'But that does not mean everybody.'
'Where is the excepting clause?'
'But, my dear, what would become of Society?'
'We may leave that. We are talking of obeying the Bible. I have given you one instance. Now I will give you another. It is written over here,' and he turned a few leaves,—'it is another word of Christ to those whom He was teaching,—"If any man serve me, let him follow me." Now here is a plain command; but what is it to follow Christ?'
'To imitate him, I suppose,' said Miss Frere, to whom he looked.
'In what?'
The young lady looked at him in silence, and then said, 'Why, we all know what it means when we say that such a person or such a thing is Christlike. Loving, charitable, kind'—
'But tofollowHim,—that is something positive and active. Literal following a person is to go where he has gone, through all the paths and to all the places. In the spiritual following, which is intended here,—what is it? It is to do as He did, is it not? To have His aims and purposes and views in life, and to carry them out logically.'
'What do you mean by "logically"?'
'According to their due and proper sequences.'
'Well, what are you driving at?' asked Miss Frere a little worriedly.
'I will tell you. But I do not mean to driveyou,' he said, again with a little laugh, as of self-recollection. 'Tell me to stop, if you are tired of the subject.'
'I am not in the least tired; how could you think it? It always delights me when people talk logically. I do not very often hear it. But I never heard of logical religion before.'
'True religion must be logical, must it not?'
'I thought religion was rather a matter of feeling.'
'I believe I used to think so.'
'And pray, what is it, then, Pitt?' his mother asked.
'Look here, mamma. "If any man will serve me,let him follow me."'
'Well, what do you understand by that, Pitt? You are going too fast for me. I thought the love of God was the whole of religion.'
'But here is the "following," mamma.'
'What sort of following?'
'That is what I am asking. As it cannot be in bodily, so it must be in mental footsteps.'
'I do not understand you,' said his mother, with an air both vexed and anxious; while Miss Frere had now let her embroidery fall, and was giving her best consideration to the subject and the speaker. She was a little annoyed too, but she was more interested. This was a different sort of conversation from any she had been accustomed to hear, and Pitt was a different sort of speaker. He was not talking to kill time, or to please her; he was—most wonderful and rare!—in earnest; and that not in any matter that involved material interests. She had seen people in earnest before on matters of speculation and philosophy, often on stocks and schemes for making money, in earnest violently on questions of party politics; but in earnest for the truth's sake, never, in all her life. It was a new experience, and Pitt was a novel kind of person; manly, straightforward, honest; quite a person to be admired, to be respected, to be— Where were her thoughts running?
He had sat silent a moment, after his mother's last remark; gravely thinking. Betty brought him back to the point.
'You will tell us what you think "following" means?' she said gently.
'I will tellyou,' he said, smiling. 'I am not supposed to be speaking to mamma. If you will look at the way Christ went, you will see what following Him must be. In the first place, Self was nowhere.'
'Yes,' said Miss Frere.
'Who is ready to follow Him in that?'
'But, my dear boy!' cried Mrs. Dallas. 'We are human creatures; we cannot help thinking of ourselves; we aremeantto think of ourselves. Everybody must think of self; or the world would not hold together.'
'I am speaking to Miss Frere,' he said pleasantly.
'I confess I think so too, Mr. Dallas. Of course, we ought not to beselfish;that means, I suppose, to think of self unduly; but where would the world be, if everybody, as you say, put self nowhere?'
'I will go on to another point. Christ went about doing good. It was the one business of His life. Whenever and wherever He went among men, He went to heal, to help, to teach, or to warn. Even when He was resting among friends in the little household at Bethany, He was teaching, and one of the household at least sat at His feet to listen.'
'Yes, and left her sister to do all the work,' remarked Mrs. Dallas.
'The Lord said she had done right, mamma.'
There ensued a curious silence. The two ladies sat looking at Pitt, each apparently possessed by a kind of troubled dismay; neither ready with an answer. The pause lasted till both of them felt what it implied, and both began to speak at once.
'But, my son'—
'But, Mr. Dallas!'—
'Miss Frere, mamma. Let her speak.' And turning to the young lady with a slight bow, he intimated his willingness to hear her. Miss Frere was nevertheless not very ready.
'Mr. Dallas, do I understand you? Can it be that you mean—I do not know how to put it,—do you mean that you think that everybody, that all of us, and each of us, ought to devote his life to helping and teaching?'
'It can be of no consequence what I think,' he said. 'The question is simply, what is "following Christ"?'
'Being His disciple, I should say.'
'What is that?' he replied quickly. 'I have been studying that very point; and do you know it is said here, and it was said then, "Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple"?'
'But what do you mean, Pitt?' his mother asked in indignant consternation.
'What did the Lord mean, mother?' he returned very gravely.
'Are we all heathen, then?' she went on with heat. 'For I never saw anybody yet in my life that took such a view of religion as you are taking.'
'Do we know exactly Mr. Pitt's view?' here put in the other lady. 'I confess I do not. I wish he would say.'
'I have been studying it,' said Pitt, with an earnest gravity of manner which gave his mother yet more trouble than his words. 'I have gone to the Greek for it; and there the word rendered "forsake" is one that means to "take leave of"—"bid farewell." And if we go to history for the explanation, we do find that that was the attitude of mind which those must needs assume in that day who were disposed to follow Christ. The chances were that they would be called upon to give up all—even life—as the cost of their following. They would begin by a secret taking leave, don't you see?'
'But the times are not such now,' Miss Frere ventured.
Pitt did not answer. He sat looking at the open page of his Bible, evidently at work with the problem suggested there. The two women looked at him; and his mother got rid as unobtrusively as possible of a vexed and hot tear that would come.
'Mr. Dallas,' Miss Frere urged again, 'these are not times of persecution any more. We can be Christians—disciples—and retain all our friends and possessions; can we not?'
'Can we without "taking leave" of them?'
'Certainly. I think so.'
'I do not see it!' he said, after another pause. 'Do you think anybody will be content to put self nowhere, as Christ did, giving up his whole life and strength—and means—to the help and service of his fellow men,unlesshe has come to that mental attitude we were speaking of? No, it seems to me, and the more I think of it the more it seems to me, that to follow Christ means to give up seeking honour or riches or pleasure, except so far as they may be sought and used in His service. I meanforHis service. All I read in the Bible is in harmony with that view.'
'But how comes it then that nobody takes it,' said Miss Frere uneasily.
'I suppose,' said Pitt slowly, 'for the same reason that has kept me for years from accepting it;—because it was so difficult.'
'But religion cannot be a difficult thing, my dear son,' said Mrs.Dallas.
He looked up at her and smiled, an affectionate, very expressive, wistful smile.
'Can it not, mother? What mean Christ's words here,—"Whosoever doth nottake up his crossand follow me, he cannot be my disciple"? The cross meant shame, torture, and death, in those days; and I think in a modified way, it means the same thing now. It means something.'
'But Mr. Pitt, you do not answer my argument,' Miss Frere repeated. 'If this view is correct, how comes it that nobody takes it but you?'
'Your argument is where the dew is after a hot sun,—nowhere. Instead of nobody taking this view, it has been held by hundreds of thousands, who, like the first disciples,haveforsaken all and followed Him. Rather than be false to it they have endured the loss of all things, they have given up father and mother, they have borne torture and faced the lions. In later days, they have been chased and worried from hiding-place to hiding-place, they have been cut down by the sword, buried alive, thrown from the tops of rocks, and burned at the stake. And in peacefuller times they have left their homes and countries and gone to the ends of the earth to tell the gospel. They have done what was given them to do, without regarding the cost of it.'
'Then you think all the people who fill our churches are no Christians!'
'I say nothing about the people who fill our churches.'
Pitt rose here.
'But, Mr. Dallas, how can all the world be so mistaken? Our clergymen, our bishops, do not preach such doctrine as you do, if I understand you.'
'That has been a great puzzle to me,' he said.
'Is it not enough to make you doubt?'
'Can I question the words I have read to you?'
'No, but perhaps your interpretation of them.'
'When you have got down to the simplest possible English, there is no room that I see for interpretation. "Follow me" can mean nothing but "follow me;" and "forsaking all" is not a doubtful expression.'
The discussion would probably have gone on still further, but the elderDallas's step was heard in the house, and Pitt went away with his book.
Mrs. Dallas was very deeply disturbed. She saw in these strange views of Pitt's all sorts of possible dangers to what she had hoped would be his future career in life. Even granting that they were a youthful folly and would pass away, how soon would they pass away? and in the meantime what chances Pitt might lose, what time might be wasted, what fatal damage his prospects might suffer! And Pitt held a thing so fast when he had once taken it up. Almost her only hope lay in Betty's influence.
Betty herself was disturbed, much more than she cared to have known. Ifthisfascination got hold of Pitt, she knew very well he would, for the time at least, be open to no other. Her ordinary power would be gone; he would see in her nothing but a talking machine with whom he could discuss things. It was not speculation merely that busied his thoughts now, she could see; not mere philosophy, or study of human nature; Pitt was carrying all these Bible words in upon himself, comparing them with himself, and working away at the discrepancy. Something that he called conscience was engaged, and restless. Betty saw that there was but one thing left for her to do. Diversion was not possible; she could not hope to turn Pitt aside from his quest after truth; she must seem to take part in it, and so gain her advantage from what threatened to be her discomfiture.
The result of all which was, that after this there came to be a great deal of talk between the two upon Bible subjects, intermingled with not a little reading aloud from the Bible itself. This was at Betty's instance, rather than Pitt's. When she could she got him out for a walk or a drive; in the house (and truly, often out of the house too) she threw herself with great apparent interest into the study of the questions that had been started, along with others collateral, and desired to learn and desired to discuss all that could be known about them. So there were, as I said, continual Bible readings, mingled occasionally with references to some old commentary; and Betty and Pitt sat very near together, looking over the same page; and remained long in talk, looking eagerly into one another's eyes. Mrs. Dallas was not satisfied.
She came upon Betty one day in the verandah, just after Pitt had left her. The young lady was sitting with her hand between the leaves of a Bible, and a disturbed, far-away look in her eyes, which might have been the questioning of a troubled conscience, or—of a very different feeling. She roused up as Mrs. Dallas came to her, and put on a somewhat wan smile.
'Where is Pitt?'
'Going to ride somewhere, I believe.'
'What have you got there? the Bible again? I don't believe in all thisBible reading! Can't you get him off it?'
'It is the only thing to do now.'
'But cannot you get him off it?'
'Not immediately. Mr. Dallas takes a fancy hard.'
'So unlike him!' the mother went on. 'So unlike all he used to be. He always took things "hard," as you say; but then it used to be science and study of history, and collecting of natural curiosities, and drawing. Have you seen any of Pitt's drawings? He has a genius for that. Indeed, I think he has a genius for everything,' Mrs. Dallas said with a sigh; 'and he used to be keen for distinguishing himself, and he did distinguish himself everywhere, always; here at school and at college, and then at Oxford. My dear, he distinguished himself atOxford. He was always a good boy, but not in the least foolish, or superstitious, or the least inclined to be fanatical. And now, as far as I can make out, he is for giving up everything!'
'He does nothing by halves.'
'No; but it is very hard, now when he is just reading law and getting ready to take his place in the world—and he would take no mean place in the world, Betty—it is hard! Why, he talks as if he would throw everything up. I never would have thought it of Pitt, of all people. It is due, I am convinced, to the influence of those dissenting friends of his!'
'Who are they?' Miss Betty asked curiously.
'You have heard the name,' said Mrs. Dallas, lowering her voice, thoughPitt was not within hearing. 'They used to live here. It was a ColonelGainsborough—English, but of a dissenting persuasion. That kind ofthing seems to be infectious.'
'He must have been a remarkable man, if his influence could begin so early and last so long.'
'Well, it was not just that only. There was a daughter'—
'And a love affair?' asked Miss Betty, with a slight laugh which covered a sudden down-sinking of her heart.
'Oh dear no! she was a child; there was no thought of such a thing. But Pitt was fond of her, and used to go roaming about the fields with her after flowers. My son is a botanist; I don't know if you have found it out.'
'And those were the people he went to New York to seek?'
'Yes, and could not find—most happily.'
Miss Betty mused. Certainly Pitt was 'persistent.' And now he had got this religious idea in his head, would there be any managing it, or him? It did not frighten Miss Betty, so far as the religious idea itself was concerned; she reflected sagely that a man might be worse things than philanthropic, or even than pious. She had seen wives made unhappy by neglect, and others made miserable by the dissipated habits or the ungoverned tempers of their husbands; a man need not be unendurable because he was true and thoughtful and conscientious, or even devout. She could bear that, quite easily; the only thing was, that in thoughts which possessed Pitt lately he had passed out of her influence; beyond her reach. All she could do was to follow him into this new and very unwonted sphere, and seem to be as earnest as he was. He met her, he reasoned with her, he read to her, but Betty did not feel sure that she got any nearer to him, nevertheless. She was shrewd enough to divine the reason.
'Mr. Pitt,' she said frankly to him one day, when the talk had been eager in the same line it had taken that first day on the verandah, and both parties had held the same respective positions with regard to each other,—'Mr. Pitt, are you fighting me, or yourself?'
He paused and looked at her, and half laughed.
'You are right,' said he. And then he went off, and for the present that was all Miss Betty gained by her motion.
Nobody saw much of Pitt during the rest of the day. The next morning, after breakfast, he came out to the two ladies where as usual they were sitting at work. It was another September day of sultry heat, yet the verandah was also in the morning a pleasant place, sweet with the honeysuckle fragrance still lingering, and traversed by a faint intermittent breeze. Both ladies raised their heads to look at the young man as he came towards them, and then, struck by something in his face, could not take their eyes away. He came straight to his mother and stood there in front of her, looking down and meeting her look; Miss Frere could not see how, but evidently it troubled Mrs. Dallas.
'What is it now, Pitt?' she asked.
'I have come to tell you, mother. I have come to tell you that I have given up fighting.'
'Fighting!?'
'Yes. The battle is won, and I have lost, and gained. I have given up fighting, mother, and I am Christ's free man.'
'What?' exclaimed Mrs. Dallas bewilderedly.
'It is true, mother. I am Christ's servant. The things are the same. How should I not be the servant, thebond-servant, of Him who has made a free man of me?'
His tone was not excited; it was quiet and sweet; but Mrs. Dallas was excited.
'A free man? My boy, what are you saying? Were you not always free?'
'No, mother. I was in such bonds, that I have been struggling for years to do what was right—what I knew was right—and was unable.'
'To do what was right? My boy, how you talk! Youalwaysdid what was right.'
'I was never Christ's servant, mamma.'
'What delusion is this!' cried Mrs. Dallas. 'My son, what do you mean? You were baptized, you were confirmed, you were everything that you ought to be. You cannot be better than you have always been.'
He smiled, stooped down and kissed her troubled face.
'I was never Christ's servant before,' he repeated. 'But I am His servant now at last, all there is of me. I wanted you to know at once, and Miss Frere, I wanted her to know it. She asked me yesterday whom I was fighting? and I saw directly that I was fighting a won battle; that my reason and conscience were entirely vanquished, and that the only thing that held out was my will. I have given that up, and now I am the Lord's servant.'
'You were His servant before.'
'Never, in any true sense.'
'My dear, what difference?' asked Mrs. Dallas helplessly.
'It was nominal merely.'
'And now?'
'Now it is not nominal; it is real. I have come to know and love my Master. I am His for life and death; and now His commands seem the pleasantest things in the world to me.'
'But you obeyed them always?'
'No, mamma, I did not. I obeyed nothing, in the last resort, but my own supreme will.'
'But, Pitt, you say you have come to know; what time has there been for any such change?'