If I have not, so far, touched upon Tommy's religious life it is chiefly
for the reason that, to me, at this time, it was practically as a sealed
book.
Nor had I ever talked with him on these matters. And this for two
reasons--one of them being, no doubt, the natural hesitation of the
average Englishman to lay his hands upon the veil of his neighbour's
sanctuary, and one, a dawning doubt in my mind as to the capacity of my
own creed to meet the requirements of Tommy's nature. For, to me, at
this time, the idea of God was of One in some distant Olympus watching
His long-formulated laws work out their appointed end--a Being
infinitely beneficent, and revealed in all nature and beauty, but,
spiritually, entirely remote.
And my religion had been that of a reverent habit and a peaceable
moderation, and to live contented with my fellows.
But here was a boy put into my hands, with a future to be brought about,
and already at the outset I had seen a glimpse of the dangers besetting
his path, and the glimpse had, as I have already confessed, frightened
me not a little. Nor had my musings so far comforted me, but rather
shown me the lamentable weakness of my position. True, I could lay down
rules, and advise and warn, but the whole of Tommy's every word and
action showed me the powerlessness of such procedure.
And I dared not let things drift. The matter I felt sure should be
approached on religious grounds, and it was this conviction that
revealed to me my absolute impotence.
So far as I remembered, no great temptations had assailed me, no violent
passions had held me in thrall.
My life had been a smooth one, and of moral struggle and defeat I seemed
to know nothing. But that such would be Tommy's lot I felt doubtful, and
the doubt (it was almost a certainty) filled me with many
apprehensions.
So full was I of my musings that I had not noticed how in my walk I had
reached the doctor's garden.
The click of a cricket bat struck into my thoughts and brought me into
the warm afternoon again, with all its sweetness of scent and sound.
I could hear Tommy laughing, and as I drew back the bushes, I caught a
glimpse of the doctor coaching him in the right manipulation of the bat.
"I say, I never knew you played cricket, you know," said Tommy. "I
thought you were an awful ass at games, and all that sort of thing."
The doctor laughed.
"I'm jolly rusty at 'em, anyway," he said. "But I used to play a bit in
the old days."
Tommy continued to bat, and I lounged, unnoticed, upon the rails,
watching the practice.
Presently the doctor took a turn, and I, too, was surprised at his
evident mastery of the art, for I had long since disregarded him as a
sportsman.
Tommy's lobs were easy enough, and once the doctor drove a hot return
straight at his legs.
Tommy jumped out of the way, but the doctor called to him sharply:
"Field up," he said, and Tommy coloured.
Another return came straight and hard, but Tommy stooped and held it,
and the doctor dropped his bat.
"Good," I heard him say. "Stand up to 'em like a man--hurts a bit at the
time--but it saves heaps of trouble in the end, and--and the other
fellow doesn't score."
They were looking straight into each other's eyes, as man to man, and
after a pause the doctor spoke again, in a low voice. I could not hear
what he said, but Tommy's face was grave as he listened.
I sauntered on down the lane, and a few minutes later felt a hand on my
arm.
"Well, and what did you think of it?"
"Of what?"
"The boy's batting. I saw you watching."
"I am not an expert, but he'll do, won't he?"
"Yes--he'll do."
"I didn't know that you had kept up your cricket."
"I haven't. But I mean to revive it if I can. We--we must beat Borcombe
next time, you know."
We walked on in silence for a little, then.
"Tommy's main desire appears to be a cricketer just now," observed the
doctor.
"As it was to be a poacher, yesterday."
"Or a steam-roller driver, in the years gone by."
"And what, I wonder, to-morrow?"
The doctor was looking thoughtfully over the wide fields, red with
sunset.
"To-morrow? Ah, who knows?" He pointed to a pile of cumulus clouds,
marching magnificently in the southern sky, bright as Heaven, and
changeable as circumstance.
"A boy's dreams," he said. "A little while here and a little while
there, always changing but always tinged with a certain fleeting
magnificence."
"And never realised?"
"Oh, I don't know. I don't know. We most of us march and march to our
cloud mountain-tops, and, maybe, some of us at the day's end find a
little low-browed hill somewhere where our everlasting Alps had seemed
to stand."
"Surely you are a pessimist."
"Not at all. If we had not marched for the clouds, maybe we should never
have achieved the little hill."
"You would have Tommy march, then, for the clouds?"
The doctor laughed.
"He is an average boy. He will do that anyway. But I would have the true
light on the clouds, to which he lifts his eyes."
"Ah--if his face were set upon them now," I said half to myself.
On the road to the downs was a small figure.
"See," said my companion, "He is on the upland road. Let us take it as
an omen."
And we turned homeward.
Late into the night we talked, and I unfolded my fears for Tommy with a
fulness that was foreign to me.
And our talk drifted, as such conversation will, into many and intimate
matters, such as men rarely discuss between each other.
And in the end, as I rose to depart, the doctor held my hand.
"See, old friend," he said, "we are nearer to-night than ever for all
our seeming fundamental differences, and you will not mind what I have
to say.
"To you the idea of God is so great, so infinitely high, that the notion
of personal friendship with such an One would seem to be an almost
criminal impertinence, and the idea of His interference in our trivial
hum-drum lives a gross profanity.
"To me, a plain man, and not greatly read, this personal God, this
Friend Christ, is more than all else has to offer me.
"It is life's motive, and weapon, and solace, and joy. It is its light
and colour and its very _raison d'etre_. And I believe that for the
great majority of men this idea of the Divine, and this only, is
powerful enough to assure them real victory and moral strength.
"I grant you all the beauty, and majesty, and truth, of your ideal, but
I would no more dare to lay it before an average healthy, passionate man
alone than I would to send an army into battle--with a position to
take--unarmed and leaderless."
The doctor paused. Then:
"Forgive me," he said, "I don't often talk like this, but, believe me,
it is the knowledge of his God, as a strong, sympathetic, personal
friend, that Tommy needs--that most of us need--to ensure life's truest
success."
We shook hands again and parted.
"I am glad you have spoken," said I, "and thank you for your words."
* * * * *
"A tramp--merely a tramp," said the stranger, puffing contentedly at his
pipe, on the winding road that led over the dim downs.
Tommy looked at him doubtfully.
He was very tall and broad, and clean, and his Norfolk suit was well
made and of stout tweed.
"You don't look much like one," he said.
The stranger laughed.
"For the matter of that no more do you," he observed.
"I'm not one," said Tommy.
The stranger smoked in silence for a little, and Tommy sat down beside
him on the grass.
"I'm not one," he repeated.
"Shakespeare says we are all players in a great drama, of which the
world is the stage, you know. I don't quite know if that's altogether
true, but I'm pretty sure that we're all of us tramps, going it with
more or less zest, it is true, and in different costumes--but tramps at
the last, every one of us."
Tommy looked at him with puzzled eyes.
"What a rum way of talking you have--something like the poet, only
different somehow."
"The poet?"
"Down there at Camslove."
"Ah, I remember. I read some of his things; pretty little rhymes, too,
if I remember rightly."
"They're jolly good," said Tommy, warmly.
"A friend of yours, eh?"
Tommy nodded.
"He wrote one just here, where we're sitting."
"Did he, by Jove--which was it?"
Tommy pondered.
"I forget most of it, but it was jolly good. He told it me one day on
the downs, just as we met a shepherd singing, and it was about life and
enterprise, and all that sort of thing, and love on the upland road
and--and God beyond the crest."
"Sounds good, and partly true."
"How do you mean; why isn't it altogether true?"
The stranger smoked a minute or two in silence, then:
"Where is the crest?" he asked.
Tommy pointed up into the twilight.
"It's a long way to the crest," he said.
"Ah--and the fellows who never get there?"
"I don't understand."
"If God be only beyond the crest, how shall they fare?"
Tommy was silent, looking away down the dusky valley.
He saw a light or two glimmering among the trees.
"It's time I went back," he muttered, but sat where he was.
"You see what I mean?" continued the stranger. "There is only one crest
worth striving for, and that is always beyond our reach, and God is
beyond it and above it, all right. But there's many a poor fellow who
would have his back to it now if he were not sure that God was also on
the upland road, among the tramps."
Tommy was silent, plucking uncomfortably at the grass.
"You haven't thought much about these things?"
"No."
"Ah, but you must, though. You see, until a fellow knows the road he is
on, he cannot achieve, nor even begin to surmount."
"How did you know the road you're on, then?"
"I had a friend."
"And he knew?"
"Yes, been over it all before, knew every turn, and all the steep
places. He has come with me. He is with me now."
Tommy peered up the darkening road.
"I can't see him," he said.
"Ah, but you will. I'm sure you will."
"What is his name?"
The stranger rose to his feet, and held out his hand.
"Christ," he said, as Tommy looked into his eyes. Then,
"Good-bye, old chap--meet again somewhere, perhaps--and, I say, about
the road, shall it be the upland road for both of us?"
Tommy was silent, then, as they shook hands.
"Yes," he said.
* * * * *
"Hullo, Tommy," said I, on my return that night, from the doctor's
study, "Enjoyed the evening?"
"Had some awful good practice with the doctor's bat."
"We saw you on the downs afterwards."
Tommy looked at me, with bright eyes, as if about to tell me something,
but he changed his mind.
"Yes," he said, "I met a stranger there."