_GOOD RESOLUTIONS._
But no one, boy or man, could have gone through the experiences of
that day without their having left some mark behind. It is
impossible for a man to pass through the valley of the shadow of
death yet meet no evil, and be directly afterwards altogether the
same light-hearted, thoughtless being which he had been before. Man
cannot go so near to God as they had gone without some of the
glory--that glory which illumined the countenance of Moses--being
left behind. It was impossible to prevent the scene itself from
lingering in one's mind's eye. The falling snow, the darkening
night, the happy company of travellers, the thoughts of the coming
Christmas-tide which filled their hearts, the charms of home, the joy
of once more seeing faces which they loved--who does not know how
one's heart is full of such-like thoughts at Christmas-time? And
then the sudden crash, the sudden passage into eternity, the sudden
shifting of the characters--the same snow falling on how different a
company--the same night shrouding how different a scene! The sight
itself, the mere tangible, and actual, and visible surroundings, it
was impossible to have forgotten; impossible to prevent haunting
one's imagination, as do the ghosts of fiction or of history. But
the thoughts inspired by those surroundings were far more powerful
occupants of one's fevered brain. At least such was the case with
Marmaduke Tregowan. True, he was predisposed to yield to their
influence; he was already in that state of mind in which such
thoughts take deepest root and retain their hold the longest.
The after adventures of the evening, the arrival at the hotel, the
search for food, and the proceedings in the pantry, had for a time
forced into the background his graver mood. But now, when they at
last retired to rest, and were in their own bed-chamber, and the hour
had come to woo nature's great restorer, sleep, such thoughts came
back again, and he would not have dismissed them if he could. They
were strange to him; thought of any kind was strange to him. He
rattled on through life without ever pausing to consider what would
be the result of any given act or any given line of action. It had
never entered his philosophy to suppose that it was better, or wiser,
or necessary in any sort of way; he had done a thing because he did
it, or because he chose to do it, but he had never once reflected
what would be the result of doing it, and what would be the
consequences to him of its being done. One such reflection had
already forced itself to-day upon his attention; he had been
compelled to see too late the result of the line of conduct he had
pursued these many days; he had not seen its coming--he was only
conscious of its neighbourhood when it had come.
They three were in the room which they jointly had to occupy.
Penharden without delay stripped off his things and tumbled into bed;
he was too sore, too fatigued, too much out of temper to think of
rendering thanks unto that Lord who within these last few hours had
saved him from a hideous death. It never occurred to him--such was
his weariness--that it was in any way advisable, or necessary, or the
sort of thing he ought to do. Without a word to any one he put
himself between the sheets, and almost as soon as he was between the
sheets was fast asleep; and so, like a dumb animal, committed himself
into the hands of God to bring him safely through another night,
without thinking it necessary to recognise in any way the presence of
that God, taking it for granted that He would watch over him if he
asked Him to or not.
Duke and Lionel were not so hasty in their movements. Lionel threw
himself into a chair beside the blazing fire, and Duke, leaning his
elbow on the mantel-shelf, looked down upon the flaming coals. It
was a pleasant room, and the light of the candles on the
dressing-table was in harmony with the cheering fire. The wind still
howled without, and it was not an uncomfortable thought to think what
a contrast was afforded by the state of things outside to that which
reigned within. It was very quiet save for the howling of the gale;
Noel's measured breathing was distinctly audible in the silent room;
neither Pollyon nor Duke seemed to be as yet in any mood for
conversation.
The flames lit up Tregowan's face; it was strangely pale; the look
which had been on it when he first had fully realised the extent of
the catastrophe and the fate from which he had been saved possessed
it now--the look of passionate intensity, of utter disregard of the
presence of the world. Pollyon's handsome features were differently
disposed; his was a face in which a certain quizzical humour was
always to be found. It was not odd that his fellows found it
difficult to understand him; they never could be certain whether or
not he was in earnest, what would be the next thing he would say or
do; they always stood, despite themselves, in a certain awe of him.
He had not the best of tempers, and when out of temper had a tongue
which, thick-skinned though boys in general are, cut them like a
lash. He was undeniably clever, was singularly audacious, no
respecter of persons, and seemed to take a pleasure in lowering the
dignity of anybody who might be suspected of being in possession of
such a quality. In his way an omnivorous devourer of books, he
aspired to nothing so much as a perfect knowledge of the world, and
to be above the passions which held sway in it; altogether somewhat
out of the common reach of boys, and yet not so much out of it as to
lay himself open to the charge of eccentricity.
As they were, then, Duke and Lionel, drinking in, as it might be, the
warm comfort of the fire, the most casual observer could not have
failed to have been struck by the fact how different were the types
of human nature they presented. Duke was of a former age, of the
days when pride of birth held sway, when pride of family was allowed
by universal consent to place a man emphatically and distinctly above
his fellows, when the claims of long descent were all in all in the
eyes of man--of the days which shall never come again. Marmaduke
Tregowan, boy though he was, was, in the older sense, to the backbone
aristocratic; while Pollyon, with him it was all the other way. He
was the product of these modern times; taken generally--that is to
say, when his temper was unruffled--the incarnation of shrewdness and
keen practical common-sense. Duke was but saved from the charge of
priggishness by his thorough fondness for boyish sports and pastimes,
by his true and honourable nature, by his instinctive creed--_sans
peur et sans reproche_. Lionel, truth to tell, but escaped the
charge of habitual impudence by the very skin of his teeth, and was
only too apt upon occasion to mistake vulgarity for humour. But now,
he as well as Duke was in his graver mood; and between those two, so
utterly unlike in character, had grown up the nearest approach to
friendship which either of them had ever known. Perpetually at
loggerheads, perpetually at different points of the compass in
matters of opinion, yet, as though by instinct, each saw what in the
other's character was good, each leaned, paradoxical though it might
seem, to what in the other he professed to scorn; each perceived,
though dimly perhaps, the characteristics which the other had and he
himself had not, and was conscious that those were characteristics
not altogether to be despised.
Lionel spoke first, with the quizzical look about his mouth and in
his eyes which he never wholly lost.
"What a delightful day it's been!" he said. "Delightful! the sort of
day one would like every first day of the holidays to be, beginning
so agreeably and winding up so pleasantly!"
Duke was silent; he only looked into the fire with that strange
passion in his eyes, and held his peace, so Lionel for a time was
silent too. But soon he spoke again.
"Looks promising for a merry Christmas. Lucky these aren't the days
of omens, or it would be a long pile against a farthing that holidays
which have begun so well would go on getting better to the end; and
yet the eloquent Penharden don't seem to be affected much." And he
glanced round at Noel sleeping soundly.
"There was a fellow in my carriage," said Duke, changing the subject
suddenly, "who was going home; he'd been away from them five years;
he said his people would be looking at the clock to see how far he
was from home."
"Well," interrogated Lionel, for Duke had stopped, "did they go on
looking?"
"He wanted to be friendly, and I shut him up. He was merry as a
grig. When the smash came he was thrown into my arms; he lay there
until we were taken out; I could move neither myself nor him. I
asked him how he did. He was dead. I suppose he had gone home."
There was a ring of passion in the speaker's voice very pitiful to
hear, as though the tension of his heart approached almost to
breaking, and no relief could anywhere be found--as though the
well-springs of happiness were dried, and he was acquainted only with
the waters of bitterness--as though all the world were dark, and he
had lost all hope in it. Its tone struck Pollyon's ear more even
than his words. With a quick movement, he looked no longer at the
flames, but looked at Duke instead; it was curious to observe the
expression of his countenance as he saw what was in Tregowan's.
"Well, he is dead. I guess they've given up looking at the clock by
now, and found out all about it. It's well, upon the whole, that
we're not lying there beside him. Was he a decent sort of fellow?"
"Yes, very--very decent. I shut him up because I should have shut up
any one."
"Ah! so I should say from what I saw of you," remarked Pollyon drily:
"you were in a shutting-up mood just then; you sometimes are. It
looks uncommonly as though on this occasion you had managed to shut
the fellow up for ever; he won't be chummily inclined again."
"He will not, and I feel as though I had had a hand in killing him,
as though I had sent him to his death." Duke never altered his
position, but spoke in the same clear ringing tones which marked his
passion, while they at the same time evidenced its strength.
"Pooh! stuff and nonsense! all my eye and Ikey Moses! You're not
such an idiot as that. You'd as much to do with it as I had, and
I'll let you know how much that was when you care to make inquiries."
"Pollyon," said Duke suddenly, turning all the passion of his gaze
upon the other, "do you believe in God?"
The question was such a sudden one, that Lionel, not easily found
wanting, was at a loss; for some moments he never flinched before
Tregowan's glance, but met him eye to eye. Duke waited his reply,
which was not quick in coming. Pollyon twisted himself round upon
his chair, tilted it back, thrust his legs well out in front of him,
his hands into his trouser pockets, and looked steadily into the
fire; then he said, speaking in his own peculiarly deliberate
fashion--
"Tregowan, I don't think that the question's exactly fair. I don't
know that--I don't know that you've any right to inquire into the
state of my belief; it may be just to gratify a whim--whims being in
your line; or to pump me, which you'd find it hard to do; or just to
mention it around that you'd inquired."
"I ask it for no such reason; I ask it because I want to know." And
Duke still kept his eyes upon Pollyon's face.
"Oh, you ask it because you want to know. That's very kind of you;
this is a new and flattering development of interest in my affairs."
As he said this, Lionel turned his head again and attentively scanned
Tregowan's countenance; then, returning to gaze upon the fire, "Yes,
I do believe there is a God. I do more than that--I know there is a
God just as certainly as God knows me." Turning once again to Duke,
he asked, with unusual gravity, "Tregowan, you don't mean to say that
you have ever had any doubt upon the matter?"
"No," said Duke, with the same passion in his speech, "I don't know
that I have ever doubted it. I supposed there was; I never thought
of it at all. I have always been taught there was. The mother has
talked to me of God; I've listened to what the Doctor's had to say.
But what of that? That is nothing. I have never understood what was
meant by God before."
"Duke, I ain't cut out to be a preacher; it isn't in my line, you
know. The dad, he's a parson, and I'm not, and I'm not going to be;
but I'm a queer stick, as all you fellows know, and I'm real sorry to
hear you say you have no knowledge of God. It's no question of
preacher. Preacher! it's just a question of two and two make four,
and that's the fact of it. Suppose you'd gone under with those other
fellows in that train; you'd have been in Queer Street then, old man."
"I know it; I'm in Queer Street now. I'm in that state of mind that
I almost wish I had gone under. I almost wish that I were dead. Do
you know that they've expelled me?"
"Expelled you? they? who? The Doctor? You don't mean to say that
he's expelled you?" And this time Lionel bestirred himself so much
as to get up from his seat and stand by Marmaduke.
"I do! I do! He told me so this morning. I'm never to return to
Dorrincourt. He has packed me off, he has given me up as a
hopelessly bad case; and as I am going home with such a tale to tell,
this comes to me, and the man I have wantonly insulted falls into my
arms."
"And meets God face to face. Perhaps it was the best of goings home
to him. I made a joke of it just now, but I never thought it was a
joke; it's a way I have, which goes no farther than my tongue. But,
Duke, old man, joke or no joke, it might be the best thing that ever
happened to you in all your days."
"What do you mean?" asked Marmaduke.
"Exactly what I say, and nothing else. I don't know that
Shakespeare's in your line, but when he wrote that 'there is a tide
in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to
fortune,' I've heard my father say that no one ever wrote a truer
word; and just as much--it's the dad who's speaking; don't suppose
it's me--there is a tide in the life of every one, which, taken at
the flood, leads on to good or evil, a sort of half-way house in the
life of every one to which all paths converge. There's one of
Penharden's words for you, my boy--but from which only two lead out
again, and they the paths of good and evil. Now it's just upon the
cards that that's the very house to which you've come, the very place
in which God has appointed to meet you face to face, and in which you
shall choose whether your road shall be for good or if for evil."
This was a new phase of Pollyon's character, and one which Tregowan,
despite the highly wrought state of excitement in which his nerves
were in, recognised was new. It had never occurred to him for an
instant--it had perhaps never occurred to any other of his
school-intimates--that Lionel was religiously inclined. It would
have astonished his friends at Dorrincourt considerably had they
heard the speech he had this instant made. It was probably only the
state of semi-frenzy which Marmaduke was in, coupled with his own
adventures of the evening, which caused him to lay bare his breast to
his friend. There is nothing so infectious as confidences; once
begin to confide in another, and ere long that other will confide in
you.
But the truth is--and you may look as black as you like at what you
may call preaching--but what is the use of our trying to get on
together if we are not to know all that is in each other's hearts?
Half confidence is no confidence at all. The truth is, the sense of
shame which prevents any one, boy, man, woman, or any one, from
speaking of the most important subject which can be spoken of, is the
most shameful shame it is possible to feel. What is God, that you
should be ashamed of Him? or the knowledge of the Lord, that you
should put it behind your backs? Coward! It is a word which cuts
you like a knife, a name which who would care to own? Yet what word
or set of words could possibly express the deeper depth of cowardly
degradation to which he must have sunk who is ashamed of God, the
Maker and Preserver of us all?
The two lads stood face to face, Duke wondering at the new light
which was in Pollyon's countenance, this new revelation of his
comrade's character. Lionel, seemingly so seldom earnest, was as
seldom heated. Now his excitement mastered him. He stood with his
right hand extended in front of him, and the index-finger of his left
hand pointing to Tregowan's face. His excitement fanned the other's
higher.
"Suppose it is," said Marmaduke, "how am I to know it, and what am I
to do?"
"What are you to do? Never mind about your knowing it. It isn't to
be supposed that God will write it down in black and white that the
time has come for you to turn to Him. You turn, and then the time
has come. Duke, you're not a mule. Don't you listen to the twaddle
which some fellows talk to you. I wish you could hear the dad; he
puts it plain enough. But don't you believe that to live for God
means to live for misery, or that to live for Him means that you must
be a snob, or a sneak, or a cad, or a prig--that's just what it
doesn't mean. I ain't a book, and I can't reel it off as though I
were; but I know well enough that if you want to have any sort of
comfort here or anywhere, it's God you'll have to live for; and if
you want to be the thoroughgoing sort of brick which every decent
fellow wants to be, you'll have to lead the life which God would have
you lead. Look at the dad! There's a man for you! He don't know
it, but it's a fact that I do believe that he's the very best brick
that ever was. And why? Because he's always living for the Lord!
Don't you bother about knowing it; it's what you've got to do that
ought to trouble you."
"It is what troubles me," said Duke; and leaving his place beside the
mantel-shelf, he began pacing up and down. Either the noise he made
in walking or the sound of their voices roused Penharden in the bed.
He became restless all at once, opened his eyes by degrees, and
finally sat up and looked about him.
"What are you fellows doing there?" he asked, in sleepy tones.
"We're talking," replied Pollyon shortly. Apparently satisfied, Noel
dropped back again, and fell into that most blissful of states which
is neither sleeping nor waking.
Lionel watched Tregowan as restlessly he passed from side to side.
There was an odd look upon his face. The excitement, which was with
him so great a novelty, faded gradually, and the old, queer,
quizzical, half-earnest, half-humorous look came back instead.
"Old man," he said, "there's one thing you can do, and nothing better
could be done, and that is--try a prayer. That young beggar there,"
pointing to Penharden, "he tumbled into bed, and never thought to
pray. That's not the sort of thing for you. His time will come when
he will long with all his might to speak with God, and will find
that, from want of use, his power of speech has gone."
He stopped. Duke still continued his feverish pacing. Lionel
watched him in silence for a time, and then said, as if casually,
"Well, I guess I'm going to bed." Duke still said nothing, and
without paying any attention to his silence, Pollyon turned himself
about and proceeded to undress. The proceeding was by no means a
lengthy one. In two or three minutes at the most he had very closely
approached a state of nature. All the time neither of them spoke a
word. Lionel was whistling a tune very gently beneath his breath,
while Duke still paced up and down. Probably there were in their
minds thoughts which were of such a kind that neither at that moment
could resolve them into speech. At last Lionel was in his shirt.
For a few moments he warmed himself before the fire, and then, still
without a word, turned, and going to the bed, dropped down beside it
on his knees. Marmaduke never seemed to heed him, but none the less
his steps were less vociferous, and there was silence while Pollyon
prayed.
Having risen from his knees, Lionel proceeded to survey the bed.
With peculiar generosity, Penharden had so placed himself that not
only did he occupy the middle of the bed, but a good portion of one
side as well.
"Thank you, thank you, my dear!" observed Pollyon, as he perceived
the state of things. "This is unusually kind of you. If this were
not a remarkable occasion, I should have uncommon pleasure in
teaching you that there is such a thing as dividing a bed into equal
portions, and for that purpose should pitch you head-foremost to the
floor; but under the circumstances I don't mind letting you enjoy
yourself for once." So saying he scrambled in beside his sleepy
friend. "Good-night, Tregowan," he exclaimed, as he settled his head
upon the pillow. So Duke was left to enjoy in solitude his own
reflections.
Still for some minutes he continued moving up and down, with that
"death-or-glory" look, as the boys were wont to call it, in his eyes,
and on his brow, and everywhere. Many a troubled thought was passing
through his mind, many an embittering reflection. How the past rose
up before him! How the ghosts of memory came sweeping on him with a
strength it was vain to strive to stem, filling his soul with
bitterness! What had he not left undone which he should do? what had
he done which were not better left undone? And the answer was not of
a sort to comfort him.
Poor Duke! It was his evil hour then, and it was well for him that
he had found a counsellor, however crude a one; well for him that he
was in a mood to listen to his counsels. Not long had Pollyon lain
down when the desire within his breast to bring the matter to the
Lord grew more than he could bear, and beside the bed, on the very
spot where Lionel had knelt, he fell into an agony of prayer. An
agony of prayer! Well might it be said of him that he wrestled with
the Lord--it was his Peniel! How long he stayed upon his knees he
never knew, nor the words he used could he at any time recall to
mind. He was not certain even if he used any words at all, or
whether the prayer was not an inarticulate throwing of himself upon
the mercy of the Lord.
But when he rose at last, he rose up comforted, strong and easier in
mind; and although the night was already far advanced, and the day
was comparatively close at hand, he sat himself down beside the fire,
and resolved within himself that the future should be unlike the
past, and that this crisis in his life should be to him indeed the
tide of which Pollyon spoke, which, taken at the flood, led unto God;
the half-way house, in leaving which he would depart for ever from
the path of evil, and cleave unto the path of good!
But alas! for good resolutions! Alas! for the road of which they
form the pavement! Marmaduke Tregowan had more than one battle yet
to win before he arrived at a perfect knowledge of the love and
loveliness of God. Yet what of that? The more battles that you win
the greater conqueror you are. To resolve for good is at least so
much gained. Good resolutions at least can do no harm, even should
we be so unfortunate as to lack the necessary strength to act up to
our resolves.