Two or three men on board the Norwegian vessel, who were sitting in a dark group by the fire, began suddenly to sing one of their folk songs. It was a pathetic simple little air, without much variation in the refrain which came again and again. “Forloren, forloren,” it repeated, as if the lover could find no other words for his sadness. Was it an answer to her question? Was it his own heart crying out in the darkness? As they went slowly away, the sound followed them, growing sweeter when the distance softened it, as distance and time soften all sadness.
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!”