There's a brave fellow!
There's a man of pluck!
A man who is not afraid to say his say,
Though a whole town's against him.
Longfellow
A man's love is the measure of his fitness for good or bad
company here or elsewhere. Oliver Wendell Holmes.
The week at Oakdene proved in every way a success; Raeburn liked his
host heartily, and the whole atmosphere of the house was a revelation
to him. The last morning there had been a little clouded for news had
reached them of a terrible colliery accident in the north of England.
The calamity had a special gloom about it for it might very easily have
been prevented, the owners having long known that the mine was unsafe.
“I must say it is a little hard to see how such a horrible sin as
carelessness of the lives of human beings can ever bring about the
greater good which we believe evil to do,” said Erica, as she took her
last walk in the wood with Donovan.
“'Tis hard to see at the time,” he replied. “But I am convinced that it
is so. The sin is never good, never right; but when men will sin, then
the result of the sin, however frightful, brings about more good
that the perseverance in sin with no catastrophe would have done. A
longer-deferred good, of course, than the good which would have resulted
by adhering from the first to the right, and so far inferior.”
“Of course,” said Erica, “I can see that a certain amount of immediate
good may result from this disaster. It will make the owners of other
mines more careful.”
“And what of the hundred unseen workings that will result from it?” said
Donovan, smiling. “In the first shock of horror one can not even glimpse
the larger view, but later on--”
He paused for a minute; they were down in the valley close to the little
church; he opened the gate and led the way to a bench under the great
yew tree. Sitting here, they could see the recumbent white cross with
its ever-fresh crown of white flowers. Erica knew something of the story
it told.
“Shall I tell you what turned me from an anti-theist to an atheist?”
said Donovan. “It was the horror of knowing that a little child's life
had been ruined by carelessness. I had been taught to believe in a
terrific phantom who was severely just; but when it seemed that the one
quality of justice was gone, then I took refuge in the conviction that
there could be no God at all. That WAS a refuge for the time, for it is
better to believe in no God than to believe in an immoral God and it was
long years before a better refuge found me. Yet, looking back now
over these seven-and-twenty years, I see how that one little child's
suffering has influenced countless lives! How it was just the most
beautiful thing that could have happened to her!”
Erica did not speak for a moment, she read half dreamily the words
engraved on the tombstone. Nearly sixteen years since that short,
uneventful life had passed into the unseen, and yet little Dot was at
this moment influencing the world's history.
She was quite cheerful again as they walked home, and, indeed, her
relief about her father's recovery was so great that she could not be
unhappy for long about anything. They found Raeburn on the terrace with
Ralph and Dolly at his heels, and the two-year-old baby, who went by the
name of Pickle, on his shoulder.
“I shall quite miss these bairnies,” he said as Donovan joined them.
“Gee up, horsey! Gee up!” shouted Pickle from his lofty perch.
“And oh, daddy, may we go into Gleyshot wiv you?” said Dolly, coaxingly.
“Elica's father's going to give me a playcat.”
“And me a whip,” interposed Ralph. “We may come with you, father, mayn't
we?”
“Oh! Yes,” said Donovan, smiling; “if Mr. Raeburn doesn't mind a crowded
carriage.”
Erica had gone into the house.
“I don't know how to let you go,” said Gladys, “We have so much enjoyed
having you. I think you had much better stay here will Monday and leave
those two to take care of themselves at Ashborough.”
“Oh, no,” said Erica, smiling, “that would never do! You don't realize
what an event this is to me. It is the first time father has spoken
since his illness. Besides, I have not yet quite learned to think him
well enough to look after himself though, of course, he is getting quite
strong again.”
“Well, since you will go, come and choose a book for your journey,” said
Gladys.
“Oh, I should like that,” said Erica; “a nice homish sort of book,
please, where the people lived in Arcadia and never heard of law
courts!”
Early in the afternoon they drove to Greyshot, stopping first of all at
the toy shop. Raeburn, who was in excellent spirits, fully entered
into the difficulties of Dolly's choice. At length a huge toy cat was
produced.
“Oh, I should like that one!” said Dolly, clapping her hands. “What a
'normous, gleat big cat it is!”
“I shouldn't have known what it was meant for,” said Raeburn,
scrutinizing the rather shapeless furry quadruped. “How is it that you
can't make them more like cats than this?”
“I don't know, sir, how it is,” said the shopwoman; “we get very good
dogs and rabbits, and donkeys, but they don't seem to have attained to
the making of cats.”
This view of the matter so tickled Raeburn that he left Ralph and Dolly
to see the “'normous gleat big cat” wrapped up, and went out of the shop
laughing.
But just outside, a haggard, wild-looking man came up to him and began
to address him in excited tones.
“You are the vile atheist, Luke Raeburn!” he cried, “Oh, I know you well
enough. I tell you, you have lost my son's soul; do you hear, wretched
infidel, you destroyed my son's soul! His guilt is upon you! And I will
have vengeance! Vengeance!”
“My friend,” said Raeburn quietly, “supposing your son had what you call
a soul, do you think that I, a man, should be able to destroy it?”
“You have made him what you are yourself,” cried the man, “an accursed
infidel, an incarnate devil! But I tell you I will have vengeance,
vengeance!”
“Have the goodness not to come so near my daughter,” said Raeburn for
the man was pushing up roughly against Erica, who had just come out of
the shop. The words were spoken in such an authoritative manner that the
man shrunk back awed, and in another minute the children had rejoined
them, and they drove off to the station.
“What was that man saying?” asked Erica.
“Apparently his son has become a secularist, and he means to revenge
himself on me,” said Raeburn. “If it wouldn't have lost me this train,
I would have given him in charge for using threatening language. But no
doubt the poor fellow was half-witted.”
Donovan had walked on to the station and so had missed this incident,
and though for the time it saddened Erica, yet she speedily forgot it in
talking to the children. The arrival at Ashborough, too, was exciting,
and she was so delighted to see her father once more in the enjoyment
of full health and strength that she could not long be disquieted about
anything else. It was a great happiness to her to hear him speak upon
any subject on which they were agreed, and his reception that evening
at the Ashborough Town Hall was certainly a most magnificent one. The
ringing cheers made the tears start to her eyes. The people had been
roused by his late illness and, though many of them disliked his
theological views, they felt that in political matters he was a man whom
they could very ill spare. His speech was a remarkably powerful one, and
calculated to do great good. Erica's spirits rose to their very highest
pitch and, as they went back together to their hotel, she kept both
Raeburn and Donovan in fits of laughter. It was long months since her
father had seen her so brilliant and witty.
“You are 'fey,' little one,” he said. “I prophesy a headache for you
tomorrow.”
And the prophecy came true for Erica awoke the next morning with a sense
of miserable oppression. The day, too, was gray and dreary-looking, it
seemed like a different world altogether. Raeburn was none the worse
for his exertions; he took a quiet day, however, went for a walk with
Donovan in the afternoon, and set off in good time for his evening
lecture. It was Sunday evening, Erica was going to church with Donovan,
and had her walking things on when her father looked into the room to
say goodbye.
“What, going out?” he said. “You don't look fit for it, Eric.”
“Oh!” she said, “it is no use to give way to this sort of headache; it's
only one's wretched nerves.”
“Well, take carte of yourself,” he said, kissing her. “I believe you
are worn out with all these weeks of attendance on a cantankerous old
father.”
She laughed and brightened up, going out with him to the head of the
stairs, and returning to watch him from the window. Just as he left the
door of the hotel, a small child fell face downward on the pavement on
the opposite side of the road and began to cry bitterly. Raeburn crossed
over and picked up the small elf; they could hear him saying: “There,
there, more frightened than hurt, I think,” as he brushed the dust from
the little thing's clothes.
“How exactly like father!” said Erica, smiling; “he never would let us
think ourselves hurt. I believe it is thanks to him that Tom has grown
up such a Stoic, and that I'm not a very lachrymose sort of being.”
A little later they started for church, but toward the end of the Psalms
Donovan felt a touch on his arm. He turned to Erica; she was a white as
death, and with a strange, glassy look in her eyes.
“Come,” she said in a hoarse whisper, “come out with me.”
He thought she felt faint, but she walked steadily down the aisle. When
they were outside she grasped his arm and seemed to make a great effort
to speak naturally.
“Forgive me for disturbing you,” she said, “but I have such a dreadful
feeling that something is going to happen. I feel that I must go to my
father.”
Donovan thought that she was probably laboring under a delusion. He knew
that she was always very anxious about her father and that Ashborough,
owing to various memories, was exactly the place where this anxiety
would be likely to weigh upon her. He thought, too, that Raeburn was
very likely right and that she was rather overdone by the strain of
those long weeks of solitary attendance. But he was much too wise to
attempt to reason away her fears; he knew that nothing but her father's
presence would set her at rest, and they walked as fast as they could to
the Town Hall. He was just turning down a street which led into the High
Street when Erica drew him instead in the direction of a narrow byway.
“Down here,” she said, walking straight on as though she held some
guiding clew in her hand.
He was astonished as she could not possibly have been in this part of
the town before. Moreover, her whole bearing was very strange; she was
still pale and trembling, and her ungloved hands felt as cold as ice
while, although he had given her his arm, he felt all the time that she
was leading him.
At length a sound of many voices was heard in the distance. Donovan felt
a sort of thrill pass through the hand that rested on his arm, and Erica
began to walk more quickly than ever. A minute more, and the little
byway led them out into the market place. It was lighted with the
electric light, and tonight the light was concentrated at one end, the
end at which stood the Town Hall. Instinctively Donovan's eyes were
turned at once toward that brightest point and also toward the sound,
the subdued roar of the multitude which they had heard on their way.
There was another sound, too a man's ringing voice, a stentorian voice
which reached them clearly even at that distance. Raeburn stood alone,
facing an angry, tumultuous throng, with his back to the closed door
of the building and his tawny eyes scanning the mass of hostile faces
below.
“Every Englishman has a right to freedom of speech. You shall not rob me
or any other man of a right. I have fought for this all my life, and I
will fight as long as I've breath.”
“That shall not be long!” shouted another speaker. “Forward, brothers!
Down with the infidel! Vengeance, vengeance.”
The haggard, wild-looking man who had addressed Raeburn the day before
at Greyshot now sprang forward; there was a surging movement in the
crowd like wind in a corn field. Donovan and Erica, hurrying forward,
saw Raeburn surrounded on every side, forced away from the door, and
at length half stunned by a heavy blow from the fanatical leader; then,
taken thus at a disadvantage, he was pushed backward. They saw him fall
heavily down the stone steps.
With a low cry Erica rushed toward him, breaking away from Donovan and
forcing a way through that rough crowd as if by magic. Donovan, though
so much taller and stronger, was longer in reaching the foot of the
steps, and when at length he had pushed his way through the thickest
part of the throng he was hindered for the haggard-looking man who
had been the ringleader in the assault ran into his very arms. He was
evidently struck with horror at the result of his mad enterprise and now
meditated flight. But Donovan stopped him.
“You must come with me, my friend,” he exclaimed, seizing the fanatic by
the collar.
Nor did he pause till he had handed him over to a policeman. Then once
more he forced a passage through the hushed crowd and at last reached
the foot of the steps. He found Erica on the ground with her father's
head raised on her knees. He was perfectly unconscious, but it seemed
as if his spirit and energy had been transmitted to his child. Erica
was giving orders so clearly and authoritatively that Donovan could only
marvel at her strength and composure.
“Stand back!” she was saying as he approached. “How can he come to while
you are shutting out the air? Some one go quickly and fetch a door or a
litter. You go, and you.”
She indicated two or three more respectable-looking men, and they at
once obeyed her. She looked relieved to see Donovan.
“Won't you go inside and speak to the people?” she said. “I have sent
for a doctor. If some one doesn't go soon, they will come out, and then
there might be a riot. Tell them if they have any feeling for my father
to separate quietly. Don't let them all out upon these people; there is
sure to be fighting if they meet.”
Donovan could not bear to leave her in such a position, but just then a
doctor came up, and the police began to drive back the crowd; and since
the people were rather awed by what had happened, they dispersed meekly
enough. Donovan went into the Town Hall then, and gradually learned what
had taken place. It seemed that soon after the beginning of Raeburn's
lecture, a large crowd had gathered outside, headed by a man
named Drosser, a street preacher, well-known in Ashborough and the
neighborhood. This crowd had stormed the doors of the hall and had
created such an uproar that it was impossible to proceed with the
lecture. The doors had been quite unequal to the immense pressure from
without, and Raeburn, foreseeing that they would give way and knowing
that, if the insurgents met his audience, there would be serious risk to
the lives of many, had insisted on trying to dismiss the crowd without,
or, at any rate, to secure some sort of order. Several had offered to go
with him, but he had begged the audience to keep still and had gone out
alone the crowd being so astonished by this unexpected move that they
fell back for a moment before him. Apparently his plan would have
succeeded very well had it not been for Drosser's deliberate assault. He
had gained a hearing from the people and would probably have dispersed
them had he not been borne down by brute force.
It was no easy task to tell the audience what had happened; but Donovan
was popular and greatly respected and, thanks to his tact, their wrath,
though very great, was restrained. In fact, Raeburn was so well known
to disapprove of any sort of violence that Donovan's appeal to them
to preserve order for his sake met with a deep, suppressed murmur of
assent. When all was safe he hurried back to the hotel where they were
glad enough of his services. Raeburn had recovered his senses for a
minute but only to sink almost immediately into another swoon. For many
hours this went on; he would partly revive, even speak a few words,
and then sink back once more. Every time Erica thought it would end
in death, nor could she gather comfort from the looks of either of the
doctors or of Donovan.
“This is not the first time I've been knocked down and trampled on,”
said Raeburn, faintly, in one of his intervals of consciousness, “but it
will be the last time.”
And though the words were spoken with a touch of his native humor
and might have borne more than one interpretation, yet they answered
painfully to the conviction which lay deep in Erica's heart.
“Then let me send a telegram from the 'Ashborough Times' office,” said
Donovan to her in one of the momentary pauses. “I have sent for your
cousin and Mrs. Craigie and for Brian.”
For the first time Erica's outward composure gave way. Her mouth began
to quiver and her eyes to fill.
“Oh! Thank you,” she said; and there was something in her voice that
went to Donovan's heart.