"And you?"
"Anything else, if she will allow me. She would wish to convert me.
I am not at all anxious to convert her, really believing that she is very well as she is."
"Yes," said Hampstead; "that is the worst of what we are apt to call advanced opinions. With all my self-a.s.surance I never dare to tamper with the religious opinions of those who are younger or weaker than myself. I feel that they at any rate are safe if they are in earnest.
No one, I think, has ever been put in danger by believing Christ to be a G.o.d."
"They none of them know what they believe," said Roden; "nor do you or I. Men talk of belief as though it were a settled thing. It is so but with few; and that only with those who lack imagination. What sort of a time did you have down at Castle Hautboy?"
"Oh,--I don"t know,--pretty well. Everybody was very kind, and my sister likes it. The scenery is lovely. You can look up a long reach of Ulleswater from the Castle terrace, and there is Helvellyn in the distance. The house was full of people,--who despised me more than I did them."
"Which is saying a great deal, perhaps."
"There were some uncommon apes. One young lady, not very young, asked me what I meant to do with all the land in the world when I took it away from everybody. I told her that when it was all divided equally there would be a nice little estate even for all the daughters, and that in such circ.u.mstances all the sons would certainly get married.
She acknowledged that such a result would be excellent, but she did not believe in it. A world in which the men should want to marry was beyond her comprehension. I went out hunting one day."
"The hunting I should suppose was not very good."
"But for one drawback it would have been very good indeed."
"The mountains, I should have thought, would be one drawback, and the lakes another."
"Not at all. I liked the mountains because of their echoes, and the lakes did not come in our way."
"Where was the fault?"
"There came a man."
"Whom you disliked?"
"Who was a bore."
"Could you not shut him up?"
"No; nor shake him off. I did at last do that, but it was by turning round and riding backwards when we were coming home. I had just invited him to ride on while I stood still,--but he wouldn"t."
"Did it come to that?"
"Quite to that. I actually turned tail and ran away from him;--not as we ordinarily do in society when we sneak off under some pretence, leaving the pretender to think that he has made himself very pleasant; but with a full declaration of my opinion and intention."
"Who was he?"
That was the question. Hampstead had come there on purpose to say who the man was,--and to talk about the man with great freedom. And he was determined to do so. But he preferred not to begin that which he intended to be a severe accusation against his friend till they were walking together, and he did not wish to leave the house without saying a word further about Marion Fay. It was his intention to dine all alone at Hendon Hall. How much nicer it would be if he could dine in Paradise Row with Marion Fay! He knew it was Mrs. Roden"s custom to dine early, after church, on Sundays, so that the two maidens who made up her establishment might go out,--either to church or to their lovers, or perhaps to both, as might best suit them. He had dined there once or twice already, eating the humble, but social, leg of mutton of Holloway, in preference to the varied, but solitary, banquet of Hendon. He was of opinion that really intimate acquaintance demanded the practice of social feeling. To know a man very well, and never to sit at table with him, was, according to his views of life, altogether unsatisfactory. Though the leg of mutton might be cold, and have no other accompaniment but the common ill-boiled potato, yet it would be better than any banquet prepared simply for the purpose of eating. He was gregarious, and now felt a longing, of which he was almost ashamed, to be admitted to the same pastures with Marion Fay. There was not, however, the slightest reason for supposing that Marion Fay would dine at No. 11, even were he asked to do so himself. Nothing, in fact, could be less probable, as Marion Fay never deserted her father. Nor did he like to give any hint to his friend that he was desirous of further immediate intimacy with Marion. There would be an absurdity in doing so which he did not dare to perpetrate. Only if he could have pa.s.sed the morning in Paradise Row, and then have walked home with Roden in the dark evening, he could, he thought, have said what he had to say very conveniently.
But it was impossible. He sat silent for some minute or two after Roden had asked the name of the bore of the hunting field, and then answered him by proposing that they should start together on their walk towards Hendon. "I am all ready; but you must tell me the name of this dreadful man."
"As soon as we have started I will. I have come here on purpose to tell you."
"To tell me the name of the man you ran away from in c.u.mberland?"
"Exactly that;--come along." And so they started, more than an hour before the time at which Marion Fay would return from church. "The man who annoyed me so out hunting was an intimate friend of yours."
"I have not an intimate friend in the world except yourself."
"Not Marion Fay?"
"I meant among men. I do not suppose that Marion Fay was out hunting in c.u.mberland."
"I should not have ran away from her, I think, if she had. It was Mr.
Crocker, of the General Post Office."
"Crocker in c.u.mberland?"
"Certainly he was in c.u.mberland,--unless some one personated him.
I met him dining at Castle Hautboy, when he was kind enough to make himself known to me, and again out hunting,--when he did more than make himself known to me."
"I am surprised."
"Is he not away on leave?"
"Oh, yes;--he is away on leave. I do not doubt that it was he."
"Why should he not be in c.u.mberland,--when, as it happens, his father is land-steward or something of that sort to my uncle Persiflage?"
"Because I did not know that he had any connection with c.u.mberland.
Why not c.u.mberland, or Westmoreland, or Northumberland, you may say?
Why not?--or Yorkshire, or Lincolnshire, or Norfolk? I certainly did not suppose that a Post Office clerk out on his holidays would be found hunting in any county."
"You have never heard of his flea-bitten horse?"
"Not a word. I didn"t know that he had ever sat upon a horse. And now will you let me know why you have called him my friend?"
"Is he not so?"
"By no means."
"Does he not sit at the same desk with you?"
"Certainly he does."
"I think I should be friends with a man if I sat at the same desk with him."
"With Crocker even?" asked Roden.
"Well; he might be an exception."
"But if an exception to you, why not also an exception to me? As it happens, Crocker has made himself disagreeable to me. Instead of being my friend, he is,--I will not say my enemy, because I should be making too much of him; but nearer to being so than any one I know. Now, what is the meaning of all this? Why did he trouble you especially down in c.u.mberland? Why do you call him my friend? And why do you wish to speak to me about him?"