"Ah!" The Rector's voice took a dry intonation. "Yes—well!-you Liberals will have to take your part, and fire your shot some day, of course—fathers or no fathers."
"I didn't mean that. I shall fire my shot, of course. But aren't you exposing yourself prematurely—unnecessarily?" said the young man, with vivacity. "It is not a general's part to do that."
"You're wrong, Stephen. When my father was going out to the campaign in which he was killed, my mother said to him, as though she were half asking a question, half pleading—I can hear her now, poor darling!—'John, it's right for a general to keep out of danger?' and he smiled and said, 'Yes, when it isn't right for him to go into it, head over ears.' However, that's nonsense. It doesn't apply to me. I'm no general. And I'm not going to be killed!"
Young Barron was silent, while the Rector prepared a pipe, and began upon it; but his face showed his dissatisfaction.
"I've not said much to father yet about my own position," he resumed; "but, of course, he guesses. It will be a blow to him," he added, reluctantly.
The Rector nodded, but without showing any particular concern, though his eyes rested kindly on his companion.
"We have come to the fighting," he repeated, "and fighting means blows. Moreover, the fight is beginning to be equal. Twenty years ago—in Elsmere's time—a man who held his views or mine could only go. Voysey, of course, had to go; Jowett, I am inclined to think, ought to have gone. But the distribution of the forces, the lie of the field, is now altogether changed. I am not going till I am turned out; and there will be others with me. The world wants a heresy trial, and it is going to get one this time."
A laugh—a laugh of excitement and discomfort—escaped the younger man.
"You talk as though the prospect was a pleasant one!"
"No—but it is inevitable."