"Sir," he said, with the ring of real and deep feeling in his voice, "sir, believe me, if I had known what bringing this subpoena meant, I would sooner have lost my situation!"Raeburn's face relaxed; he spoke a few courteous, dignified words, accepting with a sort of unspoken gratitude the man's regret, and in a few moments dismissing him.But even in these few moments the clerk, though by no means an impressionable man, had felt the spell, the strange power of fascination which Raeburn invariably exercised upon those he talked with that inexplicable influence which made cautious, hard-headed mechanics ready to die for him, ready to risk anything in his cause.
The instant the man was gone, Raeburn sat down at Erica's writing table and began to answer his letters.His correspondents got very curt answers that day.Erica could tell by the sound of his pan how sharp were the down strokes, how short the rapidly written sentences.
"Can I help you?" she asked, drawing nearer to him.
He hastily selected two or three letters not bearing on his anti-religious work, gave her directions, then plunged his pen in the ink once more, and went on writing at lightning speed.When at length the most necessary ones were done, he pushed back his chair, and getting up began to pace rapidly to and fro.Presently he paused and leaned against the mantel piece, his face half shaded by his hand.
Erica stole up to him silently.
"Sometimes, Eric," he said abruptly, "I feel the need of the word 'DEVIL!' My vocabulary has nothing strong enough for that man."She was too heartsick to speak; she drew closer to him with a mute caress.
"Eric!" he said, holding her hands between his, and looking down at her with an indescribably eager expression in his eyes, "Eric, surely NOW you see that this persecuting religion, this religion which has been persecuting innumerable people for hundreds of years, is false, worthless, rotten to the core.Child! Child!
Surely you can't believe in a God whose followers try to promote His glory by sheer brutality like this?"It was the first time he had spoken to her on this subject since their interview at Codrington.They had resolved never to touch upon it again; but a sort of consciousness that some good must come to him through this new bitterness, a hope that it must and would reconvince his child, impelled Raeburn to break his resolution.
"I could sooner doubt that you are standing here, father, with your arm round me," said Erica, "than I could doubt the presence of your Father and mine the All-Father.""Even though his followers are such lying scoundrels as that Pogson? What do you make of that? What do you think of that?""I think," she replied quietly, "that my father is too just a man to judge Christianity by the very worst specimen of a Christian to be met with.Any one who does not judge secularism by its very best representatives, dead or living, is unfair and what is unfair in one case is unfair in another.""Well, if I judged it by you, perhaps I might take a different view of it," said Raeburn."But then you had the advantage of some years of secularism.""Not by me!" cried Erica."How can it seem anything but very faulty when you judge it only by faulty people? Why not judge it by the life and character of Christ?"Raeburn turned away with a gesture of impatience.
"A myth! A poetic creation long ago distorted out of its true proportions! There, child, I see we must stop.I only pain you and torture myself by arguing the question.""One more thing," said Erica, "before we go back to the old silence.Father, if you would only write a life of Christ I mean, a really complete life; the one you wrote years ago was scarcely more than a pamphlet."He smiled, knowing that she thought the deep study necessary for such an undertaking would lead to a change in his views.
"My dear," he said, "perhaps I would; but just see how I am overdone.I couldn't write an elaborate thing now.Besides, there is the book on the Pentateuch not half finished though it was promised months ago.Perhaps a year or two hence when Pogson gives me time to draw a long breath, I'll attempt it; but I have an idea that one or other of us will have to be 'kilt intirely' before that happy time arrives.Perhaps we shall mutually do for each other, and reenact the historical song." And, with laughter in his eyes, he repeated:
"There once were two cats of Kilkenny, Each thought there was one cat too many, So they quarreled and spit, and they scratched and they bit, Till, excepting their nails and the tips of their tails, Instead of two cats, there weren't any."Erica smiled faintly, but sighed the next minute.
"Well, there! It's too grave a matter to jest about," said Raeburn."Oh, bairn! If I could but save you from that brute's malice, I should care very little for the rest.""Since you only care about it for my sake, and I only for yours, I think we may as well give up caring at all," said Erica, looking up at him with a brave smile."And, after all, Mr.Cringer, Q.C.
can only keep me in purgatory for a few hours at the outside.
Don't you think, too, that such a cruel thing will damage Mr.
Pogson in the eyes of the jury?"
"Unfortunately, dear, juries are seldom inclined to show any delicate considerateness to an atheist," said Raeburn.
And Erica knew that he spoke truly enough.
No more was said just then.Raeburn began rapidly to run through his remaining correspondence a truly miscellaneous collection.
Legal letters, political letters, business letters requests for his autograph, for his help, for his advice a challenge from a Presbyterian minister in the north of Scotland to meet him in debate; the like from a Unitarian in Norfolk; a coffin and some insulting verses in a match box, and lastly an abrasive letter from a clergyman, holding him responsible for some articles by Mr.
Masterman, which he had nothing whatever to do with, and of which he in fact disapproved.
"What would they think, Eric, if I insisted on holding the Bishop of London responsible for every utterance of every Christian in the diocese?" said Raeburn.
"They would think you were a fool," said Erica, cutting the coffin into little bits as she spoke.
Raeburn smiled and penciled a word or two on the letter the pith of a stinging reply.
