The Passion for Life Part 19

"How? What do you mean?"

"Oh, at bottom a dissenter is never really an Englishman. Did you see that speech he made some little time ago up at Polzeath? He was crying down the Army and saying that our nation was being bled to death to keep up a useless inst.i.tution. That is what I cannot stand."

They went on talking in this way for a considerable time until I began to get rather bored. It seemed to me that they discussed the Church and Dissent as two rival inst.i.tutions. They regarded the Church as something which should be supported because it was a State affair. As for anything deeper, it did not appear in their conversation. Churchgoing was regarded as something that ought to be a national inst.i.tution, and as such should be kept up. A few months before I dare say I might have taken an academic interest in the conversation, but as I reflected upon Dr. Rhomboid's verdict upon me it all seemed paltry and foolish. Church and Chapel, as inst.i.tutions, did not matter a straw to me.

"What does Almighty G.o.d, if there is an Almighty G.o.d, Who made all the worlds, care whether a man goes to Church or to Chapel?"

I remember propounding this question quite suddenly, and it seemed to take them aback.

"You are a Churchman, aren't you?" asked Mr. Robartes eagerly.

"I suppose so, if I am anything," I laughed. "I was confirmed while I was at Winchester, but for the life of me I can't see that it matters whether a man goes to Church or to Chapel."

"But surely you have no sympathy with these dissenters?"

"I hardly know," was my reply. "I have been to the Methodist Chapel down here two or three times. I went out of curiosity. You see, my lease of life is very short, and I was wondering whether any of them could tell me what lies beyond the grave."

I saw Mr. Trelaske look on the floor as I spoke. He evidently remembered our conversation.

"It seems to me that we have to leave such things as that," said the Squire. "The Bible and the Church teach us that there is a life beyond the grave, and we had better let it stand at that. As for the Church, it makes a man a good neighbor, a good citizen, and a good Englishman.

Besides, the Church doesn't cramp a man. He can be a good sportsman, enjoy a gla.s.s of wine, play a game of cards, and still be a good Churchman. That is why I am glad the Methodists are still losing ground.

Of course they must."

There was nothing harsh in the way he said this. He seemed to regard dissenters as a cla.s.s apart--a people with a kink in their brains, who out of pure stubbornness adopted a form of religion which somehow made them outsiders. I dare say, if I had gone deeper into the matter, I should have found something which had not appeared in their conversation, but such was the impression I received.

"By the way," said Mr. Trelaske presently, "this is bad news about Serbia, isn't it?"

"Yes, very bad," replied the Squire. "I should not be surprised if it doesn't lead to complications. These Serbs are barely civilized."

I did not understand what he meant, for I had not taken sufficient interest in what was going on to open a newspaper for several days, and I said so.

"I tell you," said Squire Treherne, "it is a serious matter. Last Sunday some Serbians murdered the Crown Prince of Austria, and I am afraid it will raise a rumpus. You see, Serbia is backed up by Russia, and if Austria threatens to take reprisals there may be a row."

I did not follow with very much interest what they were saying about the trouble in the Balkan States. What did interest me, however, was the tremendous difference between their att.i.tude to war and that which Mr.

Lethbridge took. To them the defense of their country was a sacred thing--indeed, almost a religion. I found that Mr. Trelaske had two sons, both of whom were in the Army, and that young Prideaux was a captain in the Territorials. They a.s.sumed, as a matter of course, that no man could keep out of the Army in time of national danger. It was not something to argue about; it was something settled as a fixed principle in their lives. No one seemed to believe, however, that trouble between Serbia and Austria could affect England. All of them appeared to think with Lord Salisbury, that we must retain our att.i.tude of "Splendid Isolation," whatever might take place. Perhaps I ought to except young Prideaux, who, having no fixed beliefs, seemed to have doubts about the matter.

"I wish these blessed Radicals were not in power," he reflected, between puffs of his cigar.

"For that matter, all of us do," said Squire Treherne, in response. "But still, there it is. They have got the upper hand of us now, and it seems as if they are going to keep it."

"What I can't stand about the Radicals," said Mr. Robartes, "is that they aren't gentlemen."

"Oh, I don't know about that," said Prideaux. "There's Grey, for instance, he's a gentleman, and a sportsman too."

"Yes, but he is different from the rest. I wonder how he stays with that lot! I expect if we were dragged into this trouble the present Government would adopt a peace-at-any-price att.i.tude. The great majority of Radicals are dissenters, and nearly all dissenters seem to be fed with anti-war ideas. You remember what took place at the time of the Boer War?"

"I am not sure they weren't right about that," remarked the Vicar; "I don't mean about the war itself, but about giving self-government to South Africa. The Boers have settled down remarkably well."

"Nonsense, Parson," said Squire Treherne. "It was pure madness.

Supposing war were to break out, we should have a revolution in South Africa before we could say 'Jack Robinson.' These Boers ought to have been kept under our thumb. Do you know, I had an awful row with Lethbridge about that."

"How are the Lethbridges regarded in the neighborhood?" I asked, for I was anxious to avoid anything like a political discussion.

"Regarded in the neighborhood?" replied Squire Treherne. "Oh, we have to tolerate them, you know. Lethbridge is a man of great influence, and, of course, he's very rich. That is where he has the pull. He is the largest employer of labor in this district, and as a consequence people look up to him."

"I don't mean that so much," I said. "How is the family regarded socially?"

The Squire did not reply, but the Vicar was very p.r.o.nounced.

"Oh, socially," he said, "they scarcely exist. You see, Lethbridge, in spite of his money, is a parvenu and rank outsider. It is true that his wife comes of a decent family, but a few years ago he was a poor lad in this district, and people can't forget it. Besides, the fellow is such an aggressive Radical. He is constantly treading on the corns of people who would otherwise be civil to him."

"What about his children?" I said. "I happen to have met them both, and they strike me as being well educated and presentable."

"Yes, his children are not so bad, and but for their father would doubtless be well received. At least, Hugh would. He is quite a nice boy. As for the girl, I don't know anything about her."

"The girl is handicapped by her father," said young Prideaux. "In spite of everything, she is placed in a curious position."

"How is that?"

"They occupy a kind of half-way position. On the one hand, they do not a.s.sociate with the people to whom Lethbridge belonged twenty years ago, and, on the other, they are not quite our sort. Still, I believe the people would have forgiven them, in spite of the father, if the girl hadn't been such a heartless flirt."

"A flirt?" I repeated.

"Yes. She's a dashed fine-looking girl, you know. Clever, too; and when she likes can be quite fascinating; but, like the rest of her cla.s.s, she can't play the game."

"No?" I said, thinking of what her brother had told me.

"No, there was young Tom Tredinnick; fine fellow Tom is, too. He fell head over heels in love with her, and every one thought they were going to make a match of it, but she treated Tom shamefully. There was Nick Blatchford, too; she treated him just as badly. She led him to the point of an avowal, and then chucked him."

"That cla.s.s of people have no sense of honor," said the Vicar. "Of course, we can't get away from them down here. Methodism of one sort or another is the established religion of the county, and they are nearly all Radicals. In fact, they are anti-everything. Anti-smoking, anti-drinking, anti-sporting, anti-vaccination, and all the rest of it."

"I wonder," I said musingly.

As I went home I tried to gather up the impressions the company had made upon me, and I reflected that the atmosphere of the Vicar's house was utterly different from that of Mr. Lethbridge's. In a way, both were entirely new to me. I was a town-bred boy, and knew practically nothing of country life, and as a consequence was utterly unacquainted with the thoughts and feelings of those who lived far away from London.

I had not time, however, to follow my reflections to their natural issue, for no sooner had the carriage, which I had hired for the evening, dropped me at the footpath at the end of the little copse than my thoughts were turned into an entirely different channel. I was perhaps a hundred yards from my little dwelling-place, when suddenly some one crept out of the undergrowth and stood before me.

For the time of the year the night was dark. It was now midsummer, but a change had come over the weather, and dark clouds hung in the sky.

Still, there was enough light for me to discern the figure of a man, who stood directly in my pathway.

"Be you the straanger?" he said.

"What do you mean?" I asked; "and who are you?"

"Be you the straanger wot d'live in Father Abram's 'ut?" The man's voice was thick, and his enunciation anything but clear.

"That seems remarkably like my own business," I replied.

"Be you the straanger wot d'live in Father Abram's 'ut?" He repeated the words almost feverishly, and his voice trembled.