"From that representation, what description would you give of him now? What is that SUCH? What sort of person, supposing the story true, would you take this Jesus, from that story, to have been?"
Wingfold thought for a while.
"I am a worse humbug than I fancied," he said. "I cannot tell what he was. My thoughts of him are so vague and indistinct that it would take me a long time to render myself able to answer your question."
"Perhaps longer still than you think, sir. It took me a very long time.—"
CHAPTER XVIII.
JOSEPH POLWARTH.
"Shall I tell you," the gate-keeper went on, "something of my life, in return of the confidence you have honoured me with?"
"Nothing could be more to my mind," answered Wingfold. "And I trust," he added, "it is no unworthy curiosity that makes me anxious to understand how you have come to know so much."
"Indeed it is not that I know much," said the little man. "On the contrary I am the most ignorant person of my acquaintance. You would be astonished to discover what I don't know. But the thing is that I know what is worth knowing. Yet I get not a crumb more than my daily bread by it—I mean the bread by which the inner man lives. The man who gives himself to making money, will seldom fail of becoming a rich man; and it would be hard if a man who gave himself to find wherewithal to still the deepest cravings of his best self, should not be able to find that bread of life. I tried to make a little money by book-selling once: I failed—not to pay my debts, but to make the money; I could not go into it heartily, or give it thought enough, so it was all right I should not succeed; but what I did and do make my object, does not disappoint me.
"My ancestors, as my name indicates, were of and in Cornwall, where they held large property. Forgive the seeming boast—it is but fact, and can reflect little enough on one like me. Scorn and pain mingled with mighty hope is a grand prescription for weaning the heart from the judgments and aspirations of this world. Later ancestors were, not many generations ago, the proprietors of this very property of Osterfield, which the uncle of the present Lord de Barre bought, and to which I, their descendant, am gate-keeper. What with gambling, drinking, and worse, they deserved to lose it. The results of their lawlessness are ours: we are what and where you see us. With the inherited poison, the Father gave the antidote. Rachel, my child, am I not right when I say that you thank God with me for having THUS visited the iniquities of the fathers upon the children?"