He put down his head again. The wind was getting up; it took some buffeting.
He began to reason now that he should have argued with Japhra when Japhra laid down the law of self-discipline and moral conduct.
"You can't make one rule to cover everything!" he said aloud, driving along against the wind. "A man must do something with his life!" he cried.
He suddenly realised that he was dallying; he suddenly knew that he was weakening. He was persuading himself that the hour of the fight would fall when he questioned Aunt Maggie; he suddenly realised that the battle was already begun.
II
The knowledge brought him to a dead halt. His thoughts had fallen in train with his steps: he had the feeling that he was being beaten while he walked—only could be master of himself while he stood still and centred all his faculties on defeating the impulses that goaded him as they had goaded him earlier in the day. As the sufferer on a sick-bed tosses wearily through the sleepless night and comes from weariness to savage groans and curses that rest is not to be found nor a cool position discovered, so he lashed in spirit to find a stable thought that would support him amid the tumult that possessed him. He strove to image Aunt Maggie with gentle eyes; he could command no more than a glimpse before she was presented to him again as not understanding—not understanding!—unkind, unkind! He directed his mind at Japhra and strove to see how small a thing, how childish, how petty was his trouble; in a moment, "Preposterous! preposterous!" shouted the tumult. "A small thing to others? Easy for them to think that. Let them apply it to their own concerns! How can they judge what is your affair alone? If you are struck, can they feel your pain? If you are starving, can they measure your hunger?" And again, with greater cunning: "Why, what a damnable philosophy is this that calls upon a man to suffer any rebuke, and smile and submit, and declare it is a small thing, unworthy of notice, and cover himself with sophistries as that life is too big, the sea too deep, the hills too high, for such an affair to cause affront! What, is that a man's part, do you think? A man's part—or a coward's?"
"Not the right way to put it!" Percival struggled. "A false way to look at it!"
And his adversary, with deeper cunning yet: "Is it fight you would, as Japhra bade you? You did not explain all the circumstances to him. A man must do something with his life—he admitted that. Is it fight you would? Why, fight then! Choose your own life. Make your own life. For that a man should fight! Get into the world and prove yourself a man! You are no better than a baby here—worse than a baby; you're a lout. What sort of a lout will you be in another year or so? What will they think of you then? Ah, go on; make this precious ring-business of your life. Rebuke yourself—your natural desires, your rightful ambitions; win your fight as Japhra bade you win it, and then when all laugh at you or ignore you for a contemptible lout—then tell them, tell all the village what a rare prize you have really won—tell it to Rollo, tell it to Dora!"
The poor boy cried aloud: "Oh, these infernal thoughts! These infernal thoughts! If only I could get them out of my head—think of something else!" He was going mad over it, he told himself. His head ached—ached. It would all come right—there was no cause for all this worrying. He had often thought about it before—never till now, till to-day, this wild, maddening, throbbing fury of trouble. What was it? What was it that caused these feelings and all this pain—why, why was he so taxed and tormented? If only he could get it out of his mind, could think of something else till he got home! There would be the jolly, jolly little supper with Aunt Maggie awaiting him; after it they would talk quietly, happily together, and he would tell her how he really must be doing something, and she would understand and everything would be put right. If only he could get it out of his mind—if he went back now as he was, why, he was not in a fit state of mind to go near her—and why? why? why this sudden difference, this sudden, maddening, throbbing state that goaded and tortured like a wild live thing within his brain? why?
III