Father Stafford

by Anthony Hope

It is very possible the disciples were right, in a way; but still the Founder's scheme now and then caught a great prize that the disciples would have lost through their overgreat meddling. The Founder would have repudiated the idea of differences in value between souls. But men sometimes act on ideas they repudiate, and with very good results.

Whatever the merits or demerits of the Retreat might be, it was just the place Stafford wanted. He shrank, almost with loathing, from the thought of exposing himself to well meant ministrations from men who were his inferiors: the theory of the equalizing effect of the sacred office, which appears to be held in great tranquillity by many who see the absurdity of parallel ideas applied in other spheres, was one of the fictions that proved entirely powerless over his mind at this juncture. He did not say to himself that fools were fools and blind men blind, whatever their office, degree, or profession, but he was driven to the Retreat by a thought that a brutal speaker might have rendered for him in those words without essential misrepresentation. Above all, he wanted quiet—time to understand the new forces and to estimate the good or evil of the new ideas.

Arriving there late in the evening of the same day on which he left Millstead, for the Retreat was situated on the borders of Exmoor and the journey from Paddington was long and slow, he was received by the Superintendent with the grave welcome and studious absence of questioning that was the rule of the house. The Superintendent was an elderly man, inclining to stoutness and of unyielding placidity. It was suspected that the Founder had taken pains to choose a man who would observe his injunction of not meddling with thorny questions the more strictly from his own inability to understand them.

"We are very empty just now," he said, with a sigh. Poor man! perhaps it was dull. "Only two, besides yourself."

"The fewer the better," said Stafford, with a smile, half in earnest, half humoring the genius of the place.

The Superintendent looked as if he might have said something on the other side but refrained, and, without more ado, made Stafford at home in the bare little room that was to serve him for sleeping and living. Stafford was full of weariness, and sank down on the bed with a sense of momentary respite. He would not begin to think till to-morrow.

Here we must leave him to wage his uncertain battle. When the visible and the invisible meet in the shock of strife about the soul of a man, who may describe the changes and chances of the fight? In the peace of his chosen solitude would he re-conquer the vision that the clouds had hidden from him? Or would the allurements of his earthly love be less strong because its dazzling incitements were no longer actually before his eyes? He had refused all aid and all alliance. He had chosen to try the issue alone and unbefriended. Was he strong enough?—strong enough to think on his love, and yet not to bow to it?—strong enough to picture to himself all its charms, only to refuse to gather them? Should he not have seized every aid that counsel and authority could offer him? Would he not find too late that his true strategy had been to fly, and not to challenge, the encounter? He had fancied he could be himself the impartial judge in his own cause, however vast the bribe that lay ready to his hand. The issue of his sojourn alone could tell whether he had misjudged his strength.

While Stafford mused and strove the world moved on, and with it that small fraction of it whose movements most nearly bore on the fortunes of the recluse.

The party at Millstead Manor was finally broken up by the departure of the Territons and of Morewood about a week after Stafford left. The cricket-match came off with great éclat; in spite of a steady thirteen from the Rector, who spent two hours in "compiling" it—to use the technical term—and of several catches missed by Sir Roderick, who was tried in vain in all positions in the field, the Manor team won by five wickets, and Bob Territon felt that his summer had been well spent. Ayre lingered on with Eugene, shooting the coverts till mid September, when the latter abruptly and perhaps rudely announced that he could not stand it any longer, and straightway took himself off to the Continent, sending a line to Stafford to apprise him of the fact, and another to Kate, to say he would have no address for the next month.

For a moment Sir Roderick was at a loss. He was tired of shooting; he hated yachting; the ordinary country-house visit was nothing but shooting in the daytime and unmitigated boredom in the evening. Really he didn't know what to do with himself. This alarming state of mind might have issued in some incongruous activity of a useful sort, had not he been rescued from it by the sudden discovery that he had a mission. This revelation dawned upon him in consequence of a note he received from Lord Rickmansworth. It appeared that that nobleman had very soon got tired of his moor, had resigned it into the eager hands of Bob Territon, and was now at Baden-Baden. This was certainly odd, and the writer evidently knew it would appear so; he therefore appended an explanation which was entirely satisfactory to Sir Roderick, but which is, happily, irrelevant to the purposes of this story. What is more to the purpose, it further appeared that Mrs. Welman, Kate Bernard's aunt, had discarded Buxton in favor of the same resort, and that Mr. Haddington, M. P., had also "proceeded" thither.