The Galaxy, April, 1877 Part 2

He told her the story of his grievance; it may be that he even told her some parts of it more than once. It was a strange sensation to her, as she walked on the soft green turf, in the silver gray atmosphere, to hear this young man, who seemed to have lived so bold and strange a life, appealing to her for an opinion as to the course he ought to pursue to have his cause set right. The St. Xavier's Settlements do not geographically count for much, and politically they count for still less. But when Mr. Heron told of his having been administrator and commandant there; of his having made treaties with neighboring kings (she knew they were only black kings); of his having tried to put down slavery, and to maintain what he persisted in believing to be the true honor of England; of war made on him, and war made by him in return--while she listened to all this, it is no wonder if our romantic girl from Duke's Keeton sometimes thought she was conversing with one of the heroes and master-spirits of the time. He made the whole story very clear to her, and she thoroughly understood it, although her imagination and her senses were sometimes disturbed by the tropic glare which seemed to come over the places and events he described. At last they actually came to be standing on the ca.n.a.l bridge, and neither looked at the view they had come to see.

"Now what do you advise?" Heron said, after having several times impressed some particular point on her. "I attach great importance to a woman's advice. You have instincts, and all that, which we haven't; at least so everybody says. Would you let this thing drop altogether, and try some other career, or would you fight it out?"

"I would fight it out," Minola said, looking up to him with sparkling eyes, "and I would never let it drop. I would make them do me justice."

"Just what I think; just what I came to England resolved to do. I hate the idea of giving in; but people here discourage me. Money discourages me. He says the Government will never do anything unless I make myself troublesome."

"Well, then, why not make yourself troublesome?"

"I have made myself troublesome in one sense," he said, with a vexed kind of laugh, "by haunting ante-chambers, and trying to force people to see me who don't want to see me. But I can't do any more of that kind of work; I am sick of it. I am ashamed of having tried it at all."

"Yes, I couldn't do that," Minola said gravely.

"Then," Heron said, with a little embarra.s.sment, "a man--a very kind and well-meaning fellow, an old friend of my father's--offered to introduce me to Lady Chertsey--a very clever woman, a queen of society, I am told, who gets all the world (of politics, I mean) into her drawing-room, and delights in being a sort of power, and all that. She could push a fellow, they say, wonderfully if she took any interest in him. But I couldn't do that, you know."

"No? Why not?"

"Well, I shouldn't care to be introduced to a lady's drawing-room with the secret purpose of trying to get her to do me a service. There seems something mean in that. Besides, I have a cause (at least, I think I have) which is too good to be served in that kind of way. If I can't get a hearing and justice from the Government of England and the people of England for the sake of right and for the claims I have, I will never try to get it through. Oh, well, perhaps, I ought not to say what I was going to say."

"Why not?" Minola asked again.

"I mean, perhaps I ought not to say it to you."

"I don't know really. Tell me what it is, and then I'll tell you whether you ought to say it."

He laughed. "Well, I was only going to say that I don't care to have my cause served by petticoat influence."

"I think you are quite right. If I were a man, I should think petticoat influence in such a matter contemptible. But why should you not like to say so?"

"Only because I was afraid you might think I meant to speak contemptuously of the influence and the advice of women. I don't mean anything of the kind. I have the highest opinion of the advice of women and their influence, as I have told you already; but I couldn't endure the idea of having a lady, who doesn't know or care anything about me and my claims, asked by somebody to say a word to some great man or some great man's wife, in order that I might get a hearing. I am sure you understand what I mean, Miss Grey."

"Oh, yes, I never should have misunderstood it; and I know that you are quite right. It would be a downright degradation."

"So I felt. Anyhow, I could not do it. Then there remains the making myself troublesome, as Money advises----"

"Yes, what is that?"

"Getting my case brought on again and again in the House of Commons, and having debates about it, and making the whole thing public, and so forcing the Government either to do me justice or to satisfy the country that justice has already been done," he said bitterly.

"That would seem to me a right thing to do," Miss Grey said; "but I know so little that I ought not to offer a word of advice."

"Oh, yes, I should trust to your feelings and instincts in such a case.

Well, I don't like, somehow, being in the hands of politicians and party men, who might use me and my cause only as a means of annoying the Government--not really from any sense of right and justice. I don't know if I make myself quite understood; it is hard to expect a lady, especially a young lady, to understand these things."

"I think I can quite understand all that. We are not so stupid as you seem to suppose, Mr. Heron."

"Stupid? Didn't I tell you of my G.o.ddess theory?"

"Some of the G.o.ddesses were very stupid I always think. Venus was stupid."

"Well, well; anyhow you are not Venus."

"No, indeed."

"In that sense I mean. Then I do succeed in making myself understood?"

"Oh, yes!" She could see that he was looking disappointed at her interruption and her seeming levity, which was indeed only the result of a momentary impulse to keep up to herself her character as a scorner of men. "I think I understand quite clearly that you fear to be made the mere instrument of politicians; and I think you are quite right. I did not think of that at first, but, now that you explain it, I am sure that you are right."

He nodded approvingly. "Then comes the question," he said, "what is to be done?"

Leaning against the bridge, he thrust his hands into his pockets, and stood looking into her face, as if he were really waiting for her to solve the problem for him.

"That is entirely beyond me," she said. "I know nothing; I could not even guess at what ought to be done."

"No? Now here is my idea. Why not plead my cause myself?"

"Plead your cause yourself? Can that be done?"

"Yes; myself--in Parliament."

Minola's mind at once formed and framed a picture of a stately a.s.sembly, like a Roman Senate, or like the group of King Agrippa, Festus, Bernice, and the rest, and Mr. Heron pleading his cause like Cicero or Paul. The thing seemed hardly congruous. It did not seem to her to fall in with modern conditions at all. Her face became blank; she did not well know what to answer.

"Are people allowed to do such things now, in England?" she asked--"to plead causes before Parliament?"

An odd idea came up in her mind, that perhaps by the time this strange performance came to be enacted, Mr. Augustus Sheppard might be in Parliament, and Mr. Heron's enthusiastic eloquence would have to be addressed to him. She did not like the idea.

"You don't understand," Heron said. "You really don't this time. What I mean is to get into Parliament--be elected for some place, and then stand up and make my own fight for myself."

She kindled at the idea.

"Oh, yes, of course! How stupid I am not to see at once! That is a splendid idea; the very thing I should like to do if I were a man and in your place."

"You really think so?"

"Indeed I do. But then----" And she hesitated, for she feared that she had been only encouraging him to a wild dream. "Does it not cost a great deal of money to get into Parliament?"

"No; I think not; not always at least. I should look out for an opportunity. I have money enough--for me. I'm not a rich man, Miss Grey, but my father left me well enough off, as far as that goes; and you know that in a place like St. Xavier's one couldn't spend any money. There was no way of getting rid of it. No, my troubles are none of them money troubles. I only want to vindicate my past career, and so to have a career for the future. I ought to be doing something. I feel in an unhealthy state of mind while all this is pressing on me. You understand?"

"I can understand it," Miss Grey said, turning to leave the bridge, and bestowing one glance at the yellow, slow-moving water, and the reeds and the bushes, of which she and her companion had not spoken a word.

"It is not good to have to think of oneself. But you are bound to vindicate yourself; that I am sure is your duty. Then you can think of other things--of the public and the country."

"He is rich," she thought, "and he is clever and earnest, in spite of his egotism. Of course he will have a career, and be successful. I thought that he was poor and broken down, and that I was doing him a kindness by showing sympathy with him."

They went away together, and Heron, delighted with her encouragement and her intelligence, unfolded splendid plans of what he was to do. But Minola somehow entered less cordially into them than she had done before, and Mr. Heron at last became ashamed of talking so much about himself.

"I hope we shall meet again," he said as she stopped significantly at one of the gates leading out of the park, to intimate that now their roads were separating. "I wish you would allow me to call and see you.

I do hope you won't think me odd, or that I am presuming on your kindness. I am a semi-barbarian, you know--have been so long out of civilization--and I haven't any idea of the ways of the polite world."