"And Tallowax is prepared to run amuck against those who come to fetch him. He swears that no one shall lead him up to the college."
"And you?" Then there was a pause, and Crasweller sat silent with his face buried in his hands. He was, at any rate, in a far better condition of mind for persuasion than that in which I had last found him. He had given up the fictitious year, and had acknowledged that he had assented to the doctrine with which he was now asked to comply. But it was a hard task that of having to press him under such circumstances. I thought of Eva and her despair, and of himself with all that natural desire for life eager at his heart. I looked round and saw the beauty of the scenery, and thought how much worse to such a man would be the melancholy shades of the college than even departure itself. And I am not by nature hard-hearted. I have none of that steel and fibre which will enable a really strong man to stand firm by convictions even when opposed by his affections. To have liberated Crasweller at this moment, I would have walked off myself, oh, so willingly, to the college! I was tearing my own heart to pieces;—but I remembered Columbus and Galileo. Neither of them was surely ever tried as I was at this moment. But it had to be done, or I must yield, and for ever. If I could not be strong to prevail with my own friend and fellow-labourer,—with Crasweller, who was the first to come, and who should have entered the college with an heroic grandeur,—how could I even desire any other to immure himself? how persuade such men as Barnes, or Tallowax, or that pettifogger Exors, to be led quietly up through the streets of the city? "And you?" I asked again.
"It is for you to decide."
The agony of that moment! But I think that I did right. Though my very heart was bleeding, I know that I did right. "For the sake of the benefits which are to accrue to unknown thousands of your fellow-creatures, it is your duty to obey the law." This I said in a low voice, still holding him by the hand. I felt at the moment a great love for him,—and in a certain sense admiration, because he had so far conquered his fear of an unknown future as to promise to do this thing simply because he had said that he would do it. There was no high feeling as to future generations of his fellow-creatures, no grand idea that he was about to perform a great duty for the benefit of mankind in general, but simply the notion that as he had always advocated my theory as my friend, he would not now depart from it, let the cost to himself be what it might. He answered me only by drawing away his hand. But I felt that in his heart he accused me of cruelty, and of mad adherence to a theory. "Should it not be so, Crasweller?"
"As you please, President."
"But should it not be so?" Then, at great length, I went over once again all my favourite arguments, and endeavoured with the whole strength of my eloquence to reach his mind. But I knew, as I was doing so, that that was all in vain. I had succeeded,—or perhaps Eva had done so,—in inducing him to repudiate the falsehood by which he had endeavoured to escape. But I had not in the least succeeded in making him see the good which would come from his deposition. He was ready to become a martyr, because in years back he had said that he would do so. He had now left it for me to decide whether he should be called upon to perform his promise; and I, with an unfeeling pertinacity, had given the case against him. That was the light in which Mr Crasweller looked at it. "You do not think that I am cruel?" I asked.
"I do," said Crasweller. "You ask the question, and I answer you. I do think that you are cruel. It concerns life and death,—that is a matter of course,—and it is the life and death of your most intimate friend, of Eva's father, of him who years since came hither with you from another country, and has lived with you through all the struggles and all the successes of a long career. But you have my word, and I will not depart from it, even to save my life. In a moment of weakness I was tempted to a weak lie. I will not lie. I will not demean myself to claim a poor year of life by such means, though I do not lack evidence to support the statement. I am ready to go with you;" and he rose up from his seat as though intending to walk away and be deposited at once.
"Not now, Crasweller."
"I shall be ready when you may come for me. I shall not again leave my home till I have to leave it for the last time. Days and weeks mean nothing with me now. The bitterness of death has fallen upon me."
"Crasweller, I will come and live with you, and be a brother to you, during the entire twelve months."