Chapter Thirty.
“Then every evil word I had spoken once,
And every evil thought I had thought of old,
And every evil deed I ever did.
Awoke and cried, ‘This Quest is not for thee.’
And lifting up mine eyes, I found myself
Alone, and in a land of sand and thorns,
And I was thirsty even unto death.”
The Holy Grail.
The depression of spirit which fell upon David Stephens after leaving Faith was deepened by a number of other circumstances, which seemed to choose the saddest moment of his life to cast their separate troubles at him. When he reached home it was to learn that one of the most influential members of his body, in whose hands a sum of money had been gradually accumulated by means of the most painful labour and self-denial, had gone off to a Mormon settlement, carrying the money with him. And on the following day, David, hastening back at dinner-time to the prodigal whom he was sheltering and yearning over, found the little room empty, and the boy gone. The landlady, who had been in a heat of lofty indignation since Nat Wills was first brought to her house, would give no information; and David, tired and sick at heart, sat down on his bed, forcing his mind, by the strongest coercion he could bring to bear, to travel wearily along the probable roads by which the lad was setting forth again upon his downward journey, that so he might go after him and bring him back,—no matter what it cost him.
But although his resolution was no less supported by an iron determination than it had been a few days ago on almost the same errand, the spring which had then made it comparatively easy had lost its power. His face was haggard and worn as if with a long illness. His hands moved restlessly from one thing to another. He turned with loathing from the food on the table, which, frugal as it was, was more than he would have ordered if he had not provided for the guest who had left him. Never in his life had such an unconquerable gloom seized him as that which held him now in an ever-tightening grasp.
It appeared to him and he believed that he was looking dispassionately at what he judged, that all his attempts had resulted in failure. He had prepared himself for it in some sort, but not as it had met him, lull of crushing pain, a pain which had grown into his eyes, never to leave them again, and perhaps gave them some of the strange power which people noticed when he spoke. His aim had been the highest. Blame him as you will, his faults had been the falling short of that aim, his manner of striving towards it, his wilfulness in its pursuit, not the forgetting of it, or turning aside to something lower. He had yearned for the poor souls about him, the force of his love-making every shortcoming towards them horrible in his sight, so that out of his very pitiful compassion there grew actual injustice. Then he had seemed to gain many, his burning words having in them a compelling force which frightened and attracted the souls they touched. Against pride in this success, against the pride of which some who were jealous of his eloquence accused him, he had prayed intensely and passionately. He had not sought worldly advancement, riches, or fame, the only use of these things in his sight being as means by which he might have scope for the work, the desire of which possessed his soul. Men who have such longings are apt to believe that the very purity and nobility of their aims must needs put what they want within their reach, not perceiving that it is the very height at which they grasp which causes what they call failure. For, evermore, as we toil and climb we learn our littleness, and something of the glory of that which lies beyond; until with the struggle there comes the knowledge that here is not the end, nor the crown, nor the fulfilment.
But to David at this moment the end seemed to have been within his reach and to have been missed. The power which he believed himself to have attained over some of the minds, or rather the affections of those with whom he had been brought in contact, directly it was touched by the test of self-interest, even in its basest form, failed. He told himself bitterly that if a passing emotion led them to ask how they might flee from the wrath to come, with something of the spirit which urged the Ephesians to burn their books, the Florentines to cast aside their vanities at the bidding of Savonarola,—when the emotion passed, the older selfishness reasserted its sway. As for himself, what was he to them? A humpbacked preacher, to whom novelty would attract them, but for whom not one would turn out of his way to send after him so much as a kindly word. The sense of desolation which surged up in his heart as he thought this was so terrible that great drops stood on his forehead and his limbs trembled. In spite of himself, he had never lost the hope that Faith might have faced his lot, and clung to him: but Faith had given him up; the boy for whom he had been pinching himself had run away; the man whom he called friend had crushed his last hopes of gaining what he believed absolutely necessary to the success of his work. Everything was against him. Men clung to the wreck from which he would have dragged them, hurt him with hard words, turned their faces from him; and standing there, solitary, in a room heavy with the remembrance of the boy who had shared and left it, David cried out in the anguish of his heart as though some one had smitten him a deadly blow. Yet with it all there was no faltering of his resolution, no holding back of his hand. He would go out again that evening, walk all the night if it were necessary, once more to bring back the last lost. As he passed along the street to the office, the boys jeered at him. “Thyur’s another pracher for the Mormuns!”
“Wann be’m going, Jim?”
“Doan’t ’ee know? Whay, wann thyur’s a lot more money scraped up for to build a chapel.” Although David walked along without paying any apparent regard, each word fell like a lash on his sore heart, on which the burden of the other man’s deeds seemed to be heaped.
He went through his work dully and mechanically, but without failing in any point of its routine. He was, however, detained at the office until a later hour than usual, owing to a delay on the line, and he made up his mind, in the intervals during which he allowed his mind to dwell on the subject, to search for Nat Wills in Underham itself before going farther; thinking it not unlikely, from some words the boy had let drop, that he would find a hiding-place there.
When he left the office it was quite dark, and long ago the glory of the setting sun had faded out of the heavens. For an hour or two he went, as he had determined, from house to house in the black courts where vice and misery huddle together, nearer us oftener than we think in our contentedness. And even here he was scourged by the other man’s sin. Women taunted him with it, every taunt carrying a fresh sting. Some of them in moments of emotion had given him their pence for the object he had at heart, and cast this in his teeth again, or reproached him with mute white faces which were more intolerable. No one could tell what it cost him to feel that the work he had believed to be in progress lay all unravelled and useless in his hand, the stone which infinite labour had pushed upwards had dropped back an inert mass. The solitude, too, of a sectarian creed was upon him. He felt alone among these people. When he came out at last into a wider street, the light from a lamp hard by falling on his face showed it intensified with a look of such pain as a man cannot endure long and live.
The purpose in his heart was, however, as strong as ever, and he moved slowly along the street towards another quarter in which it was possible that Nat might have found refuge. Just as he reached a corner Anthony Miles came round it on his way from the Bennetts’. It was not a happy time for him to meet David, after the talk of the night before, and when the evening had been such as we know. He stopped abruptly, and David stopped also.
“That’s you, Stephens, is it not?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mr Bennett has been telling me of the rascally manner in which that man Higgins has made off. I should think that ought to show you the set of fellows you’re getting mixed up with. But if you will run your head against a wall there’s another thing I’ve got to say. I understand you are still trying for a bit of land in Thorpe, and you may as well know that I’ve not changed my mind, and that I shall fight you through thick and thin before you get it.”
“I know that, sir,” said David, with a concentrated forlornness in his voice of which Anthony was immediately aware. “You’ve done it with all your might up to now, but you won’t need to trouble yourself much longer.”
“Have you changed your opinions, then?” said Anthony, softened by the thought of concession.
“Have I given up my faith, do you mean?” Stephens said bitterly. “Can I put my religion on and off as easy as you your glove? No, Mr Miles, if there’s no more left to me, there’s that, at any rate. What I mean to say is that since the money has gone there’s a further hindrance put in the way of the gospel, and that if there’s any who can triumph over the working of another man’s sin, they may do it now.”
In spite of his irritation at the man’s meaning, Anthony could not repress some sort of pity for the deep dejection with which he spoke. It was impossible to doubt his earnestness, although he had no sympathy for his efforts.
“There are different ways of preaching the gospel, Stephens,” he said more kindly, “without taking other men’s duties upon ourselves. Well, good-night to you. I wished to give you that warning. If I were you I should shake myself clear of the Higgins lot.”
Each figure went its separate way in the darkness, little thinking how soon they were to meet again. For the first time for some weeks a fresh alarm awoke in Davids conscience, perhaps caused by the touch of change in Mr Miles’s manner, perhaps by the end of those hopes which had influenced his conduct towards him. He had succeeded in persuading himself that Anthony had been a persecutor of religion, and that his own silence had been caused by no mere personal grudge; now, wounded by the scorn and disappointment of the last two days, he began to realise what he had permitted to fall on the other man. What if he, more than Anthony, had been the persecutor? What if here were a sin which he had nursed until God would have patience no longer, and had smitten him and his labour to the earth?
He groaned aloud, and stretched out his hands towards heaven and the stars which were shining softly. A woman who passed noticed a dart figure leaning against a house, and fled in terror. David never saw her. The anguish which he had carried with him all the day reached its crisis, and almost overwhelmed him. His soul, struck with a sense of its own weakness, swallowed up by a terrified horror, was crying out for help, for teaching, in a new-found passion of humility. He sank down on his knees in the road, and, taught by the spiritual experience of his life to crave for and to obey sudden impulses, had almost resolved to follow Anthony at once, and to tell him all he knew. The recollection of Nat Wills withheld him; and as if he would lose no more time in finding him, and thus becoming free to follow his design, he staggered to his feet, and hurried along towards the water.