The old man raised his eyes and stared. "You ungrateful, unregenerate youth," he said. "How dare you speak in such a way, and at my table?"
"But, grandfather," said the boy, with astonishment in his eyes, "why am I ungrateful because I ask questions?"
"Why? Because your questions savour of an unregenerate and unbelieving heart; because they make light of the Word of truth; because the Spirit of G.o.d is not in you."
"But how can I help that, grandfather? Do you think it is that I am not called?"
"I fear you are not," he said, with a groan. "I fear you are not."
"But you are not sure, grandfather?"
"No, I am not sure; but there is no evidence of saving grace in you."
"But if I am elected I shall be all right in the end, sha"n"t I?"
"Yes, yes; the gracious Spirit always finds those who have the mark of the seal."
"Then, I don"t think I shall go to chapel to-night."
"Not go to chapel!" and the old man"s eyes flashed fire. "Not go to chapel? Did my ears deceive me? Is it for this I have cared for you since the death of your mother? Boy, boy, be careful how you disobey me!"
"But, but----"
"Not another word," the old man said, raising his right hand in a threatening att.i.tude. "Not another word, or I will punish you as you were never punished before. How dare you blaspheme, and at my very board?"
That was the beginning of open strife and rebellion. The boy went to chapel that night, and for many years after, but never in the same spirit again. Scarcely a Sunday pa.s.sed that both his heart and intellect did not revolt against his grandfather"s teachings, and there was no one to show him the other side of the shield. Had some whisper come to him in those days that truth was many-sided, that the Kingdom of G.o.d was broader than Church or Creed, and that the heart of the Eternal was not to be measured by an ecclesiastical tape-line, he might have been saved many long years of darkness and doubt. But in the village of Tregannon, teachers and seers were few, and books that would have helped him were out of his reach.
So he grew first into the belief that he belonged to the non-elect, and later into the belief that the whole fabric of the Christian religion was a delusion and a snare.
Yet no cloud of unbelief dimmed for a moment the purity of his soul. He loved goodness none the less because he hated human creeds. Right was right, whatever preachers preached or failed to preach; and wrong was wrong though stamped with the Church"s approval.
It was a great grief to the Rev. Reuben and to his wife when Rufus demonstrated by open and unabashed revolt that he belonged to the non-elect. They had suspected it early in his career; they had prepared themselves for the blow when it should fall. The tender-hearted little grandmother had hoped and prayed till the last, and even continued to pray when she believed that praying was vain and feared that it might be an offence to the Lord.
The Rev. Reuben was made of sterner stuff. "Ephraim," he said, "is joined to his idols, let him alone."
So the quiet, uneventful years pa.s.sed away, and the boy grew into a man.
A man of fine presence, of considerable intellectual attainments--for Reuben Sterne gave the lad the best education he could afford--and of unblemished character.
Rufus wanted to be an engineer, but that was beyond his grandfather"s means. His grandmother wanted to apprentice him to a draper, but the boy protested so vehemently that that laudable desire was never carried out.
In the end, he found his way into a Redbourne Bank, where he became acquainted with Felix Muller, who was a solicitor"s clerk in the town, and who later on succeeded to his master"s business. From Redbourne, Rufus removed to St. Gaved as Secretary to the Wheal Gregory Tin Mining Company, Limited, and it was while there that he conceived a scheme for the bettering of his own fortunes and those of the county as a whole.
Rufus could not help recalling the past as he stretched his legs before the fire and listened in dreamy fashion to the talk of the old people.
All the years that had fled and gone seemed to live again. All the people that he knew in his boyhood"s days gathered round him once more.
Voices long since hushed in the great silence spoke to him as they used to do; and eyes that long since had fallen into dust smiled with all their old sweetness.
He always felt a boy again when he came home to Tregannon. The old people were unchanged. They did not look a day older than ten years previously. The house and its ways had been stereotyped for a generation. The same coa.r.s.e rug was before the fire, on which he had sprawled as a lad. The same kettle sang on the hob, the same poker and tongs shone in the firelight.
The old people still talked on, recalling the events of other years, the one supplying what the other had forgotten. Rufus interposed a monosyllable now and then, but his thoughts in the main were far away from theirs. Suddenly his interest was aroused by an allusion his grandfather made to some wasteful and abortive lawsuit that followed his father"s death.
"The ways of the law may be crooked in this country," he said, with energy; "and English lawyers may be blood-suckers in the main, but in America things are fifty times worse."
"Why do you think that?" he questioned, raising his eyes with interest.
"Why, because I"ve proved it. Your father"s t.i.tle was clear enough, there"s no doubt about that. He made his money honestly too. If he"d lived a month or two longer he"d have returned home a rich man."
"Well?"
"Well, just because some swindler disputed his right, and a blackmailer presented a bogus account, and somebody else claimed on the estate, on the ground of a letter which was clearly a forgery, the lawyers went to work with glee, and the State judge or attorney, or whoever he may be, aided and abetted the plunder. A grosser piece of corruption there never was in this world."
"And they ate it all up between them?"
"Every dollar. At least, I presume so. It was postponed--I mean the settlement--and postponed month after month, and year after year; and taken to this court and that, the lawyers licking their lips all the time--What cared they for the widow and the fatherless? And when there was nothing left of the estate, why the litigation ceased."
"That"s usually the case, isn"t it?"
"But in our English courts there is a chance of an honest man coming by his rights."
"Not much if he should happen to be a poor man."
"Then you believe we are as bad as the Americans?"
"Every whit. Lawyers and law courts, all the world over mean the same thing."
"But isn"t one of your best friends a lawyer?"
"You refer to Felix Muller? Well, yes. Muller has been a very good friend to me. But when it comes to business, like the rest of them, he will have his pound of flesh."
"Ah, well!" the old man answered, with a sigh. "It"s a sad world. Though many may be called, few are chosen, and Satan must work his will till the appointed time."
"He seems to have had a pretty long innings," Rufus said, with a laugh.
"And yet, beyond his chain he cannot go," the old man answered. And then supper was brought on to the table.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE OLD AND THE NEW
Rufus awoke next morning to the sound of Christmas bells ringing wildly down the valley and out across the hills. It was a pleasant sound, and awoke many tender memories in his heart. Instinctively his thoughts turned back to the Gospel story, and to the Christ who had changed the history of the world. Whatever might be said of the doctrines and dogmas that his grandfather had preached for fifty years with so much vehemence and energy, there could be no doubt as to the ethical value of Christ"s life and sayings.
He had not looked into the New Testament for a good many years now, but it suddenly occurred to him that it was scarcely fair to hold Christ responsible for all the foolish things done and taught in His name. He recalled without effort whole paragraphs of the Sermon on the Mount, for he had been compelled, as a boy, to get off whole chapters both of the Old and New Testament by heart, and he felt that nothing n.o.bler had been taught in all the history of the world. Besides all that, there was something infinitely beautiful and touching in the tragedy of Christ"s life and death. He was a martyr for scorned ideals. He gave up his life rather than compromise with evil, or be a party to the hypocrisies of His time. He was, undoubtedly, the friend of the poor, and outcast, and oppressed, and was the only religious man of His time who had the courage to speak a kind word to publicans and harlots.
Rufus began to have an uncomfortable feeling that he had scarcely treated this sacred figure with ordinary chivalry or fair play. The very ideals he stood for and advocated were among those the Man of Nazareth lived for and died for. From what, then, had he revolted? Against what had he protested?
He closed his eyes while the bells rang on, and tried to think. He could recall no word of Christ to which he could take exception, no single act that was not in itself a message of goodwill to men. Here was a life absolutely unselfish, and sacrificed in the pursuit of the n.o.blest ideal. Here was teaching that struck at the greed and hypocrisy and l.u.s.t of a corrupt age. Here was an influence, if taken by itself, which must always be for the common good.