XXII
Thenext morning, when John Smith called as usual at Hart’s Ghyll with his bunch of flowers, he was allowed once more to see his friend. The stricken man received him in the library with the most affectionate intimacy.
“My dear, dear fellow,” he said, “how good it is to see you. You bring the light of the sun to this room whenever you enter it.”
The visitor took Brandon’s hand with the caressing touch of a woman. “Dear friend,” he said, “I always pray that the light may accompany me wherever I go.”
The simplicity of the man, which it would have been easy to misread, had now, as always, a strange effect upon Brandon. And yet he was heart-sore and miserable. The weight of sorrow now upon him seemed to transcend all his other sufferings. A cruel sense of the futility of his terrible sacrifice had overtaken him. What proof was there that it had not been in vain? After all, what hope could there be for the future of men; what was there to expect from a purblind,material world? He was now in the throes of a cruel reaction. Somehow his talk with the vicar had struck at his faith in his own kind.
He took no comfort from the thought that Mr. Perry-Hennington was a profoundly stupid man. Turning his mind back, he saw the parson of Penfold as the spiritual guide of the race of average men, of a race which allowed itself to be governed by the daily newspaper, which in one feverish hour threw away the liberties it had cost its father hundreds of years to win. Prussia was being met with Prussia, Baal with the image of Baal.
Throughout a wakeful night, that had been the thought in Brandon’s heart. Behind all the swelling heroics and the turgid phrases of organized opinion, was this Frankenstein monster. The world was moving in a vicious circle. The public press had somehow managed to recreate what it had set out to destroy. The question for Brandon now was, had he been the victim of a chimera? In the course of a long night of bitterness, the thought had taken root in him that all the blood and tears humanity was shedding would merely fix the shackles more cruelly on generations yet unborn.
This morning Brandon saw no hope for the ill-starred race of men. Hour by hour his fever-tingedthoughts had flown to one for whom he had conceived an emotion of the highest and purest friendship, to one whom his fellows were seeking a means to destroy.
“I have been wondering,” said Brandon, “whether you will consent to have your poem published? I know you are shy of print, but this is a rare jewel, the heritage of the whole world.”
“Don’t let us talk of it just now.” There was a shadow upon the eloquent face. “I have need of guidance. My poem, such as it is, is but one aspect of a great matter. I pray that I may find a more universal one.”
Brandon dissembled his surprise, but he could not bridle his curiosity. “Your poemisa great matter,” he said. “To me it is wonderful. You call it ‘The Door.’ Why not let all the world pass through?”
“Such is my task, but I do not know that it can be fulfilled by the printed word. There may be a surer way. The question I have to ask myself is, can I do the Father’s will more worthily? By prayer and fasting perhaps I may.”
“But the thing is so perfect. Why gild the lily?”
“It is only one of many keys, dear friend. It is not the Door itself. It is no more than a stage in along, long pilgrimage; no more than a means to the mighty end that has been laid upon me.”
Brandon, however, had set his heart upon the poem’s publication. To him it was a perfect thing. Moreover, he saw in it a vindication of its author, a noble answer to those who were conspiring to destroy him.
Strangely, however, John was not to be moved from his resolve. And more strangely still, as it seemed to Brandon, intimations had come to him already of the terrible fate that was about to overtake him. “It has been communicated to me that I am about to be called to a great trial,” were the words he used.
Brandon, sick at heart, had hardly the courage to seek an explanation. “You—you have been told that?” He scanned anxiously the face of the man at his side.
“Yes,” was the answer. “The inner voice spoke to me last evening. I don’t know when the blow will fall, or what fate awaits me, but a sword hangs by a single hair above my head.”
“And—and you are not afraid?” To Brandon this calmness was almost superhuman.
“I am not afraid. The souls of the just are in the hands of God. And I ask you, my dear friend, to share my faith. You are one of two witnesses towhom I have been allowed to reveal myself. The other is an old woman who can no longer work with her hands. You have long given her a roof for her head, and I have kept a loaf in her cupboard and found her fire in the winter. But there is only the poorhouse for her when I am taken, and I think she fears it.”
“Whatever happens, that shall not be her fate.”
“I will not thank so good a man. But it is your due that you should know this.”
“It is my great privilege. Is there any other way in which I may hope to be of use?”
“At the moment, none.” John Smith laid his hand on the arm of the stricken man with a gesture of mingled pity and solicitude. “But a time is surely coming when a heavy tax will be laid upon your friendship.”
“I cannot tell you how I shall welcome it.” As Brandon spoke he gazed upward to the eyes of the man who bent over him. As he met those large-pupiled orbs, a curious thrill passed through his frame. In the sudden sweep of his emotion was an odd sense of awe.
“I foresee, dear friend, that you are about to be called to a hero’s task.” The soft, low voice seemed to strike through Brandon as he lay.
“Whatever it may be, I accept it joyfully. In the meantime I can only pray that I may stand worthy in the day of trial.”
“Of that there can be no doubt—if you will always remember that one unconverted believer may save the whole world.”
For many days to come these cryptic words were to puzzle Brandon, and to linger in his ears. But in the moment of their utterance he could seek no elucidation. His whole soul was melted by a sense of awe. It was as if a new, unknown power was beginning to enfold him.
John Smith kissed Brandon gravely on the forehead and then went away. The stricken man was left in a state of bewildered perplexity. And a heavier load of misery was now upon him than any he had known. A rare, exquisite thing had been revealed to him in a miraculous way. It was about to suffer a cruel fate, and he had not the power to save it.