William Jordan, Junior

by J. C. Snaith

To the surprise of the triumphant Mr. Dodson, this description of the further miracle that had been wrought in his favour brought no kind of relief to the unhappy William Jordan.

“T-there is still my shame,” he muttered.

“You just put that out of your mind, my son,” said the philosopher. “Throw the money down a drain, and pretend, like Octavius, that the whole thing never occurred. Of course, if Octavius or any other of the ultra-pious sect were to overhear me, they would swear I was as guilty as you are. And so I am; I expect I am far the worse of the two. Because I don’t call you guilty. You are odd, weak, you have a tile or two loose, but I could never look on a chap like you as having deliberate guile. And I mean to stand by you, although I don’t know why I should. I have nothing to gain; in fact I have everything to lose by taking up with a chap like you. I don’t recognize J. D., who intends to get on in the world, no matter what it costs him, in my dealings with you. But there they are. As I say, my son, you are against my principles altogether; but the fact remains, Luney, that since I have come to take up with you, I don’t seem, somehow, as though I can let you go.”

“I—I f-foresee the hour when you will have to deny me,” said the young man, in his difficult speech.

“You must get out of this habit of being low-spirited,” said James Dodson, to whom this speech was incoherent. “It might help to give you away. And I can’t impress it upon you too strongly that if Octavius should ever come at the truth—kind-hearted old duffer as he is—he will be only too ready to do what he calls his duty. As for me, I say right here, that whatever you did, Luney, having known you so long, and having come to know you so well, James Dodson could never look upon you as a wrong ’un. I’ll tell you, my son, in what light I have come to regard you, although it has taken me years to come at the truth. You are one of those fine mathematical instruments which can register things that ordinary instruments know nothing about. You are no earthly use for straight-forward, common, practical, two-and-two-makes-four sort of life, but it has begun to dawn on me lately, that you must have a wonderful mind for some things. It is only lately that I have begun to notice it. But now and then you seem to come out with something that is—well, that is downright marvellous for a chap like you. In odd out-of-the-way subjects, that are not a ha’porth of use to anybody, you have a knack of saying things that chaps like John Dobbs and Joe Cox can’t even understand. My own private opinion is that you can’t be such a fool as you seem. I believe, Luney, that you ought to be kept under a glass case in a box lined with felt, because the slightest thing, even a change in the weather, is enough to throw you off your balance.”

Having thus delivered himself, and at an unexampled length, Mr. Dodson left his distracted friend to continue in that phase of remorse whose effect upon him was so dire.

Throughout the long hours of the afternoon the need for immediate action never left his mind. Already he had let the golden moment pass; every hour that followed would increase the likelihood that he would fail to derive the courage for his task. Even his brave, but misguided, friend, whose counsels were so subtle and so specious, had come to seem in his power to put a gloss on the cruellest of temptations, to be neither more nor less than the embodiment of evil.

Worn out in mind and body he went back that evening to the little room. Yet here there was no surcease to be had. Wherever he carried his guilt he could find nought to assuage it. When he turned to the ancient authors their unceasing demand of Action, Action, Action seemed to make his vacillating weakness turn to a gangrene in his flesh. Yet was not this dreadful shibboleth of theirs the rock upon which the frail vessel had been shattered! With the modern authors he fared no better. Their cynicism became a callous mockery that had no power to heal. And when he turned to the Book of the Ages, his mind was coloured by so dark a horror that he failed to decipher a single word inscribed upon its leaves. They were as so many red blurs void of form and meaning.

During the long hours of the night the aged man, his father, sat with the passage before him in which was expressed the deep truth that miracles would continue to happen to those who had the courage to be credulous.

“Tell me, my father,” cried the young man at last in his despair, “what must happen to those who are too frail for action, too craven for belief?”