IV

Across Oliver's young joy fell the shadow of fear. If, as his heart told

him, there was nothing to be afraid of, why were his elders thus

cautious and terrified? He felt himself affected by their alarms all the

more potently because his understanding of them was vague. He groped his

way in fog. How much ought he to be influenced by Mrs. Lannithorne's

passionate protests and his father's stern warnings? He realized all at

once that the admonitory attitude of age to youth is rooted deep in

immortal necessity. Like most lads, he had never thought of it before

save as an unpleasant parental habit. But fear changes the point of

view, and Oliver had begun to be afraid.

Then again, before him loomed the prospect of his interview with Peter

Lannithorne. This was a very concrete unpleasantness. Hang it all! Ruth

was worth any amount of trouble, but still it was a tough thing to have

to go down to the state capital and seek one's future father-in-law in

his present boarding-place! One oughtn't to have to plough through that

particular kind of difficulty on such an errand. Dimly he felt that the

path to the Most Beautiful should be rose-lined and soft to the feet of

the approaching bridegroom. But, apparently, that wasn't the way such

paths were laid out. He resented this bitterly, but he set his jaws and

proceeded to make his arrangements.

It was not difficult to compass the necessary interview. He knew a man

who knew the warden intimately. It was quickly arranged that he was to

see Peter Lannithorne in the prison library, quite by himself.

Oliver dragged himself to that conference by the sheer strength of his

developing will. Every fibre of his being seemed to protest and hold

back. Consequently he was not in the happiest imaginable temper for

important conversation.

The prison library was a long, narrow room, with bookcases to the

ceiling on one side and windows to the ceiling on the other. There were

red geraniums on brackets up the sides of the windows, and a canary's

cage on a hook gave the place a false air of domesticity, contradicted

by the barred sash. Beneath, there was a window-seat, and here Oliver

Pickersgill awaited Lannithorne's coming.

Ollie did not know what he expected the man to be like, but his

irritated nerves were prepared to resent and dislike him, whatever he

might prove. He held himself rigidly as he waited, and he could feel the

muscles of his face setting themselves into hard lines.

When the door opened and some one approached him, he rose stiffly and

held out his hand like an automaton.

'How do you do, Mr. Lannithorne? I am Oliver Pickersgill, and I have

come--I have come--'

His voice trailed off into silence, for he had raised his eyes

perfunctorily to Peter Lannithorne's face, and the things printed there

made him forget himself and the speech he had prepared.

He saw a massive head topping an insignificant figure. A fair man was

Peter Lannithorne, with heavy reddish hair, a bulging forehead, and

deep-set gray eyes with a light behind them. His features were irregular

and unnoticeable, but the sum-total of them gave the impression of

force. It was a strong face, yet you could see that it had once been a

weak one. It was a tremendously human face, a face like a battle-ground,

scarred and seamed and lined with the stress of invisible conflicts.

There was so much of struggle and thought set forth in it that one

involuntarily averted one's gaze. It did not seem decent to inspect so

much of the soul of a man as was shown in Peter Lannithorne's

countenance. Not a triumphant face at all, and yet there was peace in

it. Somehow, the man had achieved something, arrived somewhere, and the

record of the journey was piteous and terrible. Yet it drew the eyes in

awe as much as in wonder, and in pity not at all!

These things were startlingly clear to Oliver. He saw them with a

vividness not to be overestimated. This was a prison. This might be a

convict, but he was a man. He was a man who knew things and would share

his knowledge. His wisdom was as patent as his suffering, and both

stirred young Oliver's heart to its depths. His pride, his irritation,

his rigidity vanished in a flash. His fears were in abeyance. Only his

wonder and his will to learn were left.

Lannithorne did not take the offered hand, yet did not seem to ignore

it. He came forward quietly and sat down on the window-seat, half

turning so that he and Oliver faced each other.

'Oliver Pickersgill?' he said. 'Then you are Oliver Pickersgill's son.'

'Yes, Mr. Lannithorne. My father sent me here--my father, and Mrs.

Lannithorne, and Ruth.'

At his daughter's name a light leaped into Peter Lannithorne's eyes

that made him look even more acutely and painfully alive than before.

'And what have you to do with Ruth, or her mother?' the man asked.

Here it was! The great moment was facing him. Oliver caught his breath,

then went straight to the point.

'I want to marry your daughter, Mr. Lannithorne. We love each other very

much. But--I haven't quite persuaded her, and I haven't persuaded Mrs.

Lannithorne and my father at all. They don't see it. They say

things--all sorts of dreadful things,' said the boy. 'You would think

they had never been young and--cared for anybody. They seem to have

forgotten what it means. They try to make us afraid--just plain afraid.

How am I to suppose that they know best about Ruth and me?'

Lannithorne looked across at the young man long and fixedly. Then a

great kindliness came into his beaten face, and a great comprehension.

Oliver, meeting his eyes, had a sudden sense of shelter, and felt his

haunting fears allayed. It was absurd and incredible, but this man made

him feel comfortable, yes, and eager to talk things over.

'They all said you would know. They sent me to you.'

Peter Lannithorne smiled faintly to himself. He had not left his sense

of humor behind him in the outside world.

'They sent you to me, did they, boy? And what did they tell you to ask

me? They had different motives, I take it.'

'Rather! Ruth said you were the best man she had ever known, and if you

said it was right for her to marry me, she would. Mrs. Lannithorne said

I should ask you if you thought Ruth had a fighting chance for happiness

with me. She doesn't want Ruth to marry anybody, you see. My father--my

father'--Oliver's voice shook with his consciousness of the cruelty of

what was to follow, but he forced himself to steadiness and got the

words out--'said I was to ask you what a man wants in the family of the

woman he marries. He said you knew what was what, and I should ask you

what to do.'

Lannithorne's face was very grave, and his troubled gaze sought the

floor. Oliver, convicted of brutality and conscience-smitten, hurried

on, 'And now that I've seen you, I want to ask you a few things for

myself, Mr. Lannithorne. I--I believe you know.'

The man looked up and held up an arresting hand. 'Let me clear the way

for you a little,' he said. 'It was a hard thing for you to come and

seek me out in this place. I like your coming. Most young men would have

refused, or come in a different spirit. I want you to understand that if

in Ruth's eyes, and my wife's, and your father's, my counsel has value,

it is because they think I see things as they are. And that means, first

of all, that I know myself for a man who committed a crime, and is

paying the penalty. I am satisfied to be paying it. As I see justice, it

is just. So, if I seem to wince at your necessary allusions to it, that

is part of the price. I don't want you to feel that you are blundering

or hurting me more than is necessary. You have got to lay the thing

before me as it is.'

Something in the words, in the dry, patient manner, in the endurance of

the man's face, touched Oliver to the quick and made him feel all manner

of new things: such as a sense of the moral poise of the universe,

acquiescence in its retributions, and a curious pride, akin to Ruth's

own, in a man who could meet him after this fashion, in this place.

'Thank you, Mr. Lannithorne,' he said. 'You see, it's this way, sir.

Mrs. Lannithorne says--

And he went on eagerly to set forth his new problems as they had been

stated to him.

'Well, there you have it,' he concluded at last. 'For myself, the things

they said opened chasms and abysses. Mrs. Lannithorne seemed to think I

would hurt Ruth. My father seemed to think Ruth would hurt me. _Is_

married life something to be afraid of? When I look at Ruth, I am sure

everything is all right. It may be miserable for other people, but how

could it be miserable for Ruth and me?'

Peter Lannithorne looked at the young man long and thoughtfully again

before he answered. Oliver felt himself measured and estimated, but not

found wanting. When the man spoke, it was slowly and with difficulty, as

if the habit of intimate, convincing speech had been so long disused

that the effort was painful. The sentences seemed wrung out of him, one

by one.

'They haven't the point of view,' he said. 'It is life that is the great

adventure. Not love, not marriage, not business. They are just chapters

in the book. The main thing is to take the road fearlessly,--to have

courage to live one's life.'

'Courage?'

Lannithorne nodded.

'That is the great word. Don't you see what ails your father's point of

view, and my wife's? One wants absolute security in one way for Ruth;

the other wants absolute security in another way for you. And

security--why, it's just the one thing a human being can't have, the

thing that's the damnation of him if he gets it! The reason it is so

hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven is that he has that

false sense of security. To demand it just disintegrates a man. I don't

know why. It does.'

Oliver shook his head uncertainly.

'I don't quite follow you, sir. Oughtn't one to try to be safe?'

'One ought to try, yes. That is common prudence. But the point is that,

whatever you do or get, you aren't after all secure. There is no such

condition, and the harder you demand it, the more risk you run. So it is

up to a man to take all reasonable precautions about his money, or his

happiness, or his life, and trust the rest. What every man in the world

is looking for is the sense of having the mastery over life. But I tell

you, boy, there is only one thing that really gives it!'

'And that is--?'

Lannithorne hesitated perceptibly. For the thing he was about to tell

this undisciplined lad was his most precious possession; it was the

piece of wisdom for which he had paid with the years of his life. No man

parts lightly with such knowledge.

'It comes,' he said, with an effort, 'with the knowledge of our power to

endure. That's it. _You are safe only when you can stand everything that

can happen to you._ Then and then only! Endurance is the measure of a

man.'

Oliver's heart swelled within him as he listened, and his face shone,

for these words found his young soul where it lived. The chasms and

abysses in his path suddenly vanished, and the road lay clear again,

winding uphill, winding down, but always lit for Ruth and him by the

light in each other's eyes. For surely neither Ruth nor he could ever

fail in courage!

'Sometimes I think it is harder to endure what we deserve, like me,'

said Lannithorne, 'than what we don't. I was afraid, you see, afraid for

my wife and all of them. Anyhow, take my word for it. Courage is

security. There is no other kind.'

'Then--Ruth and I--'

'Ruth is the core of my heart!' said Lannithorne thickly. 'I would

rather die than have her suffer more than she must. But she must take

her chances like the rest. It is the law of things. If you know yourself

fit for her, and feel reasonably sure you can take care of her, you have

a right to trust the future. Myself, I believe there is Some One to

trust it to. As for the next generation, God and the mothers look after

that! You may tell your father so from me. And you may tell my wife I

think there is the stuff of a man in you. And Ruth--tell Ruth--'

He could not finish. Oliver reached out and found his hand and wrung it

hard.

'I'll tell her, sir, that I feel about her father as she does! And that

he approves of our venture. And I'll tell myself, always, what you've

just told me. Why, it _must_ be true! You needn't be afraid I'll

forget--when the time comes for remembering.'

Finding his way out of the prison yard a few minutes later, Oliver

looked, unseeing, at the high walls that soared against the blue spring

sky. He could not realize them, there was such a sense of light, air,

space, in his spirit.

Apparently, he was just where he had been an hour before, with all his

battles still to fight, but really he knew they were already won, for

his weapon had been forged and put in his hand. He left his boyhood

behind him as he passed that stern threshold, for the last hour had made

a man of him, and a prisoner had given him the master-key that opens

every door.