‘I strong?’ answered he, with a sad smile; ‘and so you think, sir. But it’s written, and it’s true—“The heart knoweth its own bitterness.”’
‘Then you absolutely refuse to try to fancy your—his present state?’
‘Yes, sir, because if I did fancy it, that would be a certain sign I didn’t know it. If we can’t conceive what God has prepared for those that we know loved Him, how much less can we for them of whom we don’t know whether they loved Him or not?’
‘Well,’ thought Lancelot to himself, ‘I did not do so very wrong in trusting your intellect to cut through a sophism.’
‘But what do you believe, Tregarva?’
‘I believe this, sir—and your cousin will believe the same, if he will only give up, as I am sore afraid he will need to some day, sticking to arguments and doctrines about the Lord, and love and trust the Lord himself. I believe, sir, that the judge of all the earth will do right—and what’s right can’t be wrong, nor cruel either, else it would not be like Him who loved us to the death, that’s all I know; and that’s enough for me. To whom little is given, of him is little required. He that didn’t know his Master’s will, will be beaten with few stripes, and he that did know it, as I do, will be beaten with many, if he neglects it—and that latter, not the former, is my concern.’
‘Well,’ thought Lancelot to himself, ‘this great heart has gone down to the root of the matter—the right and wrong of it. He, at least, has not forgotten God. Well, I would give up all the Teleologies and cosmogonies that I ever dreamt or read, just to believe what he believes—Heigho and well-a-day!—Paul! hist? I’ll swear that was an otter!’
‘I hope not, sir, I’m sure. I haven’t seen the spraint of one here this two years.’
‘There again—don’t you see something move under that marl bank?’
Tregarva watched a moment, and then ran up to the spot, and throwing himself on his face on the edge, leant over, grappled something—and was instantly, to Lancelot’s astonishment, grappled in his turn by a rough, lank, white dog, whose teeth, however, could not get through the velveteen sleeve.