Masterman and Son Part 30

Arthur looked up at that, fixing his eyes on Horner's cheerful face with a long, searching gaze.

Did Horner know the miserable truth about his father? But of course he did. It was being shouted round the world. And this reference to the money being handy on a voyage to England was no doubt the little artist's indirect, and indeed delicate, way of communicating his knowledge.

"O Horner!" he cried. "I am very miserable!" And he bowed his head upon his hands, and wept the first tears he had shed since the blow had fallen on him.

There was a kindly arm round his shoulders in a moment. "Why, look 'ere, what's the matter?" And before he knew it he was telling Horner everything.

"Well," said Horner, when he finished. "I guess things aren't as bad as you think. They never are, you know."

"They couldn't be much worse."

"Oh yes, they could," he went on philosophically. "The jury hasn't convicted yet, and perhaps they won't. But that's neither here nor there. The thing you've got to do is to buck up. And look 'ere, about this cheque--you take it all. I don't want it. I'm in funds. And, besides, there's more to come."

"No, I can't do that."

"Yes, you can, and you will. Call the half of it a loan, if you like, but you've got to take it. You know my motto, 'Englishmen ought to help each other,' and you've just got to let me help you."

Once before in his extremity Horner had saved him from starvation; now he saved him from despair. The little artist was not a person of exacting virtues, he made no pretence to religion, and would have appeared a strange sheep indeed in the folds of the elect; but he possessed a simple faith in kindness not always found among persons of immaculate behaviour, and, what is more, he practised his belief. He filled the studio with the echoes of his cheerful laughter, waited on Arthur with a watchful tenderness that was almost womanly, refused encouragement to grief, and finally insisted on a good dinner at Delmonico's, in the pious hope which is common to all Englishmen that the ugliest troubles of the brain are erased by due attention to the stomach. It was Horner who insisted that this should be no second-cla.s.s voyage on a slow boat; it was he who engaged a berth on a famous liner, drove with Arthur to the dock, and waved a cheerful hand to him as the great s.h.i.+p swung off upon the gray water. When the true apocalyptic books, which record the unknown kindnesses of man, are opened, it is not impossible that the name of this little hare-brained artist may stand higher than the name of kings and conquerors--perhaps also than the names of certain saints, who in their earthly days were less remarkable for warm sympathies than for icy propriety, and a strict attention to the main chance.

And now the voyage was done; the white shaft of the Eddystone lay astern, and the exquisite green bosom of Mount Edgec.u.mbe swelled from the sun-flecked water. The pa.s.sengers streamed down into the tender, and a few minutes later he stood in the long Custom House sheds of Plymouth.

Here at last he got a daily paper, and the first thing that met his eye was a long account of the Masterman trial.

At the same moment a telegraph-boy went shouting through the crowd, "Masterman! Any one of the name of Masterman?"

He took the telegram in silence, conscious of many eyes suddenly turned toward him. It was from Bundy, and read, "Will meet you at Paddington." He was eager to take immediate refuge in the railway carriage. He was conscious that even the telegraph-boy was looking at him curiously. Suddenly he saw moving toward him through the crowd another figure that he thought he recognized--O joy! it was Vickars!

"Vickars!"

"Yes, I learned from Bundy by what boat you'd come. I've a compartment reserved for you. Let us get into it at once."

"O Vickars! that we should meet like this!"

"Come, come, my fellow--no hysterics. You were always brave. Be brave now."

He put his arm through Arthur's, and moved through the crowd with erect head. They were scarcely seated in the carriage when the train began to move.

"And now," said Vickars, "we can talk. In the first place, let me ask you how much do you know of this unhappy business?"

"Nothing but what the papers tell me. I see the trial is to-day."

"This is the third day. By the time we reach London the verdict may be expected."

Arthur turned eagerly, with a flushed face, to the pile of papers he had purchased.

"I wouldn't trouble over those just now, if I were you," said Vickars.

"Suppose you just let me tell you all about it. That is what I came for, you know."

He spoke with such entire calmness that it might have been supposed that what he had to say was of no importance. And this note of calm communicated itself to Arthur, as he meant it should. He knew that the great thing just now was to invigorate the boy's strength, and this must be done by the suppression of active sympathy.

"Very well," said Arthur, "I am ready."

And then Vickars told his story, to the soft thudding accompaniment of the rus.h.i.+ng wheels.

The substance of the story was this. The strong point made by the defence was that Masterman had not been aware of the frauds committed by Scales. There was no doubt whatever that Scales would be convicted; but, since the trial began, a great deal of public sympathy had gone out to Masterman. It was proved that he had been too ill to have any knowledge of what Scales was doing. This might be called criminal negligence; it would depend largely on what view the judge took. It was proved that he had not absconded, as was at first supposed; his flight to Paris was an accident. From the hour of his arrest, those who were most inclined to judge him harshly could not but admit a certain magnanimity in his behaviour. He had sacrificed his entire private fortune to his creditors, and as for the Brick Trust, it was very likely indeed that it would weather the gale. The near close of the war was creating a boom in all business. And then, amid the general joyousness, there was perhaps a tendency to lenient judgment; even jurymen were not wholly insensitive to such a tendency.

"Then you don't think father will be convicted?"

"I don't think so. But of course he will be ruined. You know what I have thought of your father's business methods, and my opinion is unchanged. But I have learned more charitable judgments than I used to have. I see now that men may be criminals without the least suspicion that they are acting criminally. When a man has done wrong for a long course of years, he gets to believe that his wrong is right--the light that is in him becomes darkness. He simply steers his life by an untrue compa.s.s, and no one is more amazed than himself when s.h.i.+pwreck happens. That is your father's case, I honestly believe. He is the victim of the force that he has helped to create."

"But you say he has not been dishonest in this affair?"

"No, not explicitly--perhaps not implicitly. That is something which no one will ever know. The fault lies deeper. It lies in greed. A man wants more than he has a just right to have, is not content with honest returns for honest work, becomes unscrupulous, comes to believe that business is warfare, in which the spoils are for the victor, and by the time he reaches this point his sense of right and wrong is fatally confused. He does not really know what is his and what is another's. And the worst of it is that the world in which he moves is no wiser. He finds himself applauded for acts which in a juster system of society would cover him with shame. Ah, Arthur! 'beware of covetousness'--no deeper word than that was ever uttered."

He spoke with a certain sad quietness, very different from his old clamant vehemence. Arthur could not but notice it, and he found himself looking with a kind of wonder on the face of his friend. The face seemed to have taken on a new aspect. It was paler and thinner, with an increased loftiness of brow; there were new lines round the mouth, deeper shadows underneath the eyes, and the lock of hair that fell across the forehead was almost white; but the most striking thing was that a certain subtle fire that once lit the face had disappeared.

The keen prophetic look was still there, but it was veiled, dulled, no longer edged with expectancy; a prophet's face, but no more the face of a prophet who saw the morning. And in the slow, quiet voice there was an accent of wearied hope, almost of despair.

Vickars caught the look of wonder on Arthur's face, and said, "Ah! I see you are surprised that I should speak so tolerantly. I used to say that I could make the world a paradise if I were sole despot of the world for a single year, didn't I?

"And now?"

"Now I see that I spoke foolishly. The world is not so easily transformed."

"Is it you that are transformed?"

"Yes. I used to hate men for being evil; and the only weapon I had to attack them with was hatred. I have come to see that hatred is the wrong weapon. You must love men, if you are to change them. You must love even the vile, and those most bitterly opposed to you. You cannot even understand them unless you love them. I hated your father once, because I did not understand the kind of temptations he endured. Now I have come to understand these temptations, and I find it in my heart to pity him."

"O Vickars!" cried Arthur. "You are teaching me a hard lesson. I also have hated.... I have never made allowances. I have indulged contempt, I have behaved like the worst kind of prig. But do you know, since this happened ... well, how can I put it? ... I have seen my father in a new light. And now it seems to me a wonderful thing that he is as good as he is."

"Yes, that is precisely true, and not only of your father, but of all men. The truly divine thing about man is that he is always better than you might expect him to be. It is not the depravity of human nature that is its outstanding feature--it is the goodness. And you find the goodness in the very heart of the depravity, like the pearl in the oyster. But I'm preaching--it's an old habit of mine: forgive me."

"It's a sermon I much needed," said Arthur humbly.

"We all need it, and those who think themselves the best need it most."

And then, with a touch of the old whimsical humour, he added, "Whenever you hear a man preaching very earnestly against a vice, you may be sure he has it. I am a case in point."

After that there was little said for a long time. Arthur sat gazing from the window at the flying scroll of country, the dear desirable green land, with its ancient parks, clear shallow streams, trim cottages, level lawns, and wealth of flowers--all so different from that majestic, half-barbaric vastness which he had left. The tears filled his eyes, as they have filled the eyes of many a returning exile. Why did men ever leave it, this land which in every detail was a finished picture, created by the art of centuries? Where else could they expect to find such "haunts of ancient peace," dreamy nooks, gray towers and spires, leisurely, modest happiness, infinite, calm security? And, as he looked, there came to him again the old thought that the only life worth living was one remote from cities. Had his father lived here, earning modest competence, how different the story!

It was the city that had snared him, killed the best in him, infected him with its fierce, unnatural greed. O d.a.m.nable, dreadful London! how many hast thou slain, thou Harlot of the Nations, with thy skirts full of blood! And yet men went on building new and even worse Londons, undeterred by past warnings--New York, with its roaring tides of greed and clang of gold; Chicago, with its naked barbarism, the pure seas evermore polluted, the fair landscapes blackened, the skies stained with pestilence. O! it was horrible! If he could but save his father from this--it might not yet be too late. And there sprang up in his mind that pathetic fallacy, so often a.s.serted by religion, but so seldom true, that all suffering purifies; that from wounded pride and overthrown ambition there must needs come the n.o.bler heart: whereas every one knows that suffering more often has its issue in bitter stoicism, and injured pride clamours for revenge, and there is no more deadly force than defeated ambition, which draws a new strength from rage.

It was a hard problem for a youth of twenty-three to grapple: no wonder that he failed.

But that desirable green land spoke its message all the same. "_Man walketh in a vain show and disquieteth himself in vain_"--so ran the message. Even Vickars had found that message true. He had beaten himself weary against the strong bastions of the world, and in vain.

Had he also learned the difficult lesson that the most one man can do is to live his own life the best way he can, satisfied that nothing really perishes in the vast sum of things, content if he can add his insignificant unit of effort to a growing righteousness? Perhaps he had. Perhaps also that was the only real lesson life had to teach us.

He was aroused from his reverie by the hand of Vickars on his shoulder.

"My dear fellow," he said, "there's something else I have to say to you, something I find it very difficult to say."