The Passion for Life Part 10

"Perfectly sure. I questioned him closely this morning. I so framed my questions that he could have no suspicion--but always with the same result."

"But why should he choose a place like this? Surely, if he is ill, dying, he would never come to a madman's hut, in a place where murder was supposed to be committed."

"I tell you that there is no need for fear; he suspects nothing--he is just what he seems to be."

The voices died away. The man and woman whom I had heard talking, and whom I had dimly seen, descended the hill, and were lost in the darkness. Then it was that, in spite of myself, I became interested in things mundane. Why they should do so I could not imagine, but I felt that they had been talking about me. But why should they? What was the purport of their conversation? How had I become mixed up in the plans of people of whom I knew nothing? I felt myself at the centre of a mystery, and my interest in that mystery caused the greater mystery of Life and Death to lose its hold on me.

I recognized the voice of the man. He had been to see me soon after my arrival; but who was the woman? What interest could my movements have to her? She spoke like one having authority, and it was evident that she feared I should discover something.

I forgot my ailments, forgot the tragedy of my life, in trying to solve this new riddle. I could not help connecting it with the old-fas.h.i.+oned brooch I had picked up in the cave accidentally the day I had come to Cornwall. The activities and interests in this life again became paramount.

"I will get to the bottom of this, anyway," I said to myself as I made my way back to my hut. "It will be better for me, too, than to be forever brooding about myself. And, after all, while I am alive I will live, and I will keep my eyes and ears open until I have discovered what this means."

When I reached my little room again, Simpson awaited me eagerly.

"Please, sir," he said, "I have had visitors."

"More visitors, Simpson?"

"Yes, sir, a gentleman and a lady."

"Do you know who they are?"

"No, sir; they are both complete strangers. They came and asked to see you, and I told them you were not to be seen, sir. They asked a good many questions about you, but I told them nothing."

"And then, Simpson?"

"The gentleman gave me his card, with his compliments, sir."

I took the card and read the address:

MR. JOHN LIDDICOAT, THE HILL TOP, ST. EIA.

"All right, Simpson," I said. "I shan't want you any more to-night."

"Please, sir," said Simpson, "I have some books here which I think might interest you."

"Hang books!" I replied. "I don't feel like reading." Then, feeling ashamed of myself for not appreciating Simpson's kindness, I added, "It's awfully good of you, Simpson, and I might like them after all.

What is it you have got?"

"John Wesley's _Journal_, sir. He came to this part of Cornwall, and I thought you might like to read about it. Not that I should advise you to read to-night, sir, if I might take such a liberty, but perhaps to-morrow. Good-night, sir." And he left me.

I was just on the point of going to bed, when, on opening one of the volumes he had placed on the table, I came upon a pa.s.sage which interested me. I saw that the name of St. Issey was mentioned, and a description given of this very neighborhood. In a few minutes I had become utterly absorbed. Hitherto John Wesley had only been a name to me. I had had no interest either in his life or work. I had looked upon him as somewhat of a fanatic, who had appealed to the fears of a superst.i.tious people, and had founded a sect. Now, however, he revealed himself to me in a new light. This diary was the work of a thoughtful man, and a cultured man, too, who had lived his life to the full, and who faced its issues squarely.

My word, religion had meant something to him! It was not a mere name, a tradition, a set of dogmas, a respectable inst.i.tution. It was something real, vital, pulsating with life. To him the Founder of Christianity was not a mere mystic and social reformer, who lived nineteen hundred years ago on a little strip of land on the Eastern Coast of the Mediterranean, but a Divine Person, Who lived now. This John Wesley, who was an educated man and a thoughtful man, spoke like one who knew, and because of it he had authority and power.

I went on reading page after page, until, looking at my watch, I found it was past midnight.

VI

THE LETHBRIDGE FAMILY

We had adjourned to the smoke-room, and for my own part, I was feeling better than I had felt for some time. Opposite me sat Mr. Lethbridge, while by my side sat young Hugh Lethbridge, who had been to see me the day before. I had eaten a good dinner, and felt inclined to take a bright view of everything. Mr. Lethbridge had played the part of host perfectly, and had done his best to make me feel welcome, not only as a visitor in the neighborhood, but in his house. I had the opportunity, moreover, of making the acquaintance of his wife and daughter.

The former was a well-meaning lady, whose _metier_ was to manage other people's affairs. While we were at dinner she gave her husband a great deal of information as to how he should manage his men, how he should work the mines he owned, and how the vessels he controlled should be utilized. She also informed her son how he should spend his time, what his amus.e.m.e.nts and avocations should be. She greatly amused us all by describing what she would do if she were a girl again. She had opinions about everything in heaven above and on earth beneath. I found that she knew intimately the history of every family in the neighborhood, and she took it upon herself to manage the affairs of those families. She might be rather a tiresome person to live with, but for my own part I found her vastly entertaining.

Young Hugh Lethbridge told her that he intended writing to the Prime Minister, offering her services as general adviser to the Government, while her daughter laughingly remarked that she would wear herself out in attending to the affairs of people who had a distinct preference for attending to their own business. Mrs. Lethbridge took it all in a good humor, however, and seemed to regard it as her chief business to be a universal helper. She even went so far as to instruct me how I might deal with Simpson, and gave me a great deal of valuable advice on housekeeping.

I found that Isabella Lethbridge was entirely different from her mother.

On the whole she puzzled me. That she was intelligent there could be no doubt whatever. In many ways she was attractive, but on the whole I did not like her. For one thing, I thought she showed bad taste in holding up her mother to ridicule, while more than once I thought she revealed an almost sullen disposition. Still, she was interesting. She was more than ordinarily good-looking, and at times became quite animated.

The family, as a whole, did not strike me as ideal. They seemed to be at cross-purposes with each other. I could see that Mr. Lethbridge did not at all understand his son, and resented any difference of opinion which might exist between them. He apparently regarded Hugh as a boy who should unquestioningly obey his father's behests without regard to his own feelings and opinions; and yet he seemed to be angry with him for not being something in the world which would give him a position among his fellow-men.

And yet I am sure Mr. Lethbridge meant well. He was, as I have before suggested, a strong, capable man, and fully bore out what I had heard concerning him. He could never have been a nonent.i.ty, wherever he was placed, and whatever he took in hand he would do with such conscientiousness and thoroughness as to make it succeed. Consequently, it was no wonder that he had risen from a poor lad to be a man of wealth and of eminence in the county. That he was exceedingly ambitious there could be no doubt, and I judged that he was a little bit sore that all his ambitions had not been realized. He seemed composed of contradictory elements. On one hand, he seemed a man of the Napoleonic order, who would make everything and every person yield to his desires. On the other, I judged him to be a man who wanted to be strictly honest and conscientious, a man who would not give up one iota of his convictions, even if by so doing he could gain the things he desired.

Although no plain statement was made at the dinner-table to that effect, I gathered that he had suffered socially because of his adherence to what he termed his Nonconformist principles, and that he would have taken his position among the county families had he not remained true to the Chapel he had attended as a boy. On the other hand, however, that same Chapel, as it seemed to me, was a fetish rather than something which vitally affected his life.

I am spending some time in recording my impressions about this family, because I was brought into close contact with it in later days, and also because the various members of it affected me considerably.

"Yes," said Mr. Lethbridge, as we sat in the smoke-room, "I am an old-fas.h.i.+oned man, Mr. Erskine. I do not believe in giving up my early convictions simply because they are not popular."

"What are your early convictions?" asked Hugh.

"I mean my Nonconformist principles. See what Methodism has done for Cornwall, see what it has done for the whole country for that matter."

"Yes, what has it done?" asked Hugh.

"It has changed Cornwall from being drunken and G.o.dless into the most sober and G.o.d-fearing part of the country."

"Admitted," replied the son. "But who cares anything about Methodism now?"

"I am surprised and ashamed of you, Hugh, talking like that," said the father. "What is your opinion about it, Mr. Erskine?"

"My opinion about what?" I asked.

"Don't you think a man should stand by his principles?"

"His principles, certainly," was my reply, "especially if, after having tested them, they proved to be vital; but I am rather interested in what your son says. I have been reading John Wesley's _Journal_, and I cannot help realizing the tremendous influence he wielded over a hundred years ago in this very county; but what troubles me is that it seems to mean comparatively little now."

"I don't understand you," he said, rather brusquely.

"What I want to know," I said, "is this. Does Methodism, or for that matter, does religion of any sort, vitally affect the lives and outlook of people now? If it does, why is it that its hold seems to be weakening day by day? I am told that your Chapel used to be crowded, and that while the people were ignorant, Methodism vitally influenced their lives; but now it seems a kind of corpse. It has a name to live, but is dead. This afternoon, Simpson, my man, brought me a book which belonged to his father. That book describes what the people used to do for their faith. Even the women worked to bring stones to build the chapels, while the men toiled hours after their ordinary work was over, as a labor of love, in order to erect the buildings which their children and their children's children neglect and often despise. Everything seems stereotyped. Most of the people seem to care little or nothing about what their forbears would die for, and those that do care seem to regard it in a half-hearted way, and talk about it as something that has been rather than something that is."

"Yes," said Mr. Lethbridge, with a sigh, "I am afraid you are right. The old fire has gone, faith has largely died out, real earnestness seems a thing of the past; and yet what can one do?"