Alick was glad there were so many round the grave, for he felt that the presence of strangers would exercise a beneficial influence on his brother, who had been in such grief all the way down—in such sore distress for the loss of the little one he should never in this world see again.
Returning on such an errand to the old place—which he had left with high hopes of success, with almost the certainty, as he thought, of conquering fortune—would have been inexpressibly bitter to Arthur, even without the reflection that his child had died far from him—farther away than though oceans and continents, mountains and rivers, had divided them; and it needed all his strength to carry him through the ordeal bravely, and with good courage.
Mr. Croft was present; but from him, Alick Dudley kept aloof. Even amongst the moss-grown headstones in Fifield graveyard, he could not forget what he had seen amidst the tombs at North Kemms.
He would not break faith with Bessie; but he could not be cordial to the man, although he had been kind to Heather and fond of Lally.
Alick was able, perhaps, now to guess the reason of his fancy for the child; but that did not soften him much towards the offender.
Rather the reverse, possibly; young people are, like most women, apt to be a trifle intolerant. They are very ignorant, and they are very virtuous; their standard of right is happily high, their idea of sin is, fortunately, that it is black as night. There are two colours only for them in this world; of the delicate shades of grey into which, as the years go by, every human feeling seems ultimately to resolve itself, they have no understanding. It is entire innocence, or entire vice—it is either devil or angel. What is the good of a man being a man, if he cannot resist temptation? where is the boasted purity of a woman, if she have ever even looked on sin?
Very nice sentiments, doubtless, and appropriate to the season and state of life in which they are generally expressed and believed. Too much toleration in the young would prove as dangerous as too many open windows in the spring; to the fleshly mansions, doubtful winds of doctrine would thus be permitted ingress. It is better for young people to continue, as their charming fashion is, delightfully bigoted, than to learn charity from practical knowledge of those temptations which make older persons question whether it be not possible for virtue to drag her spotless robes through the mire, and for vice to go through such an explanatory purification as might almost make a blackamoor clean.
And it was perfectly natural, considering his age, his character, his education, and the circumstances of the case so far as he knew them, that Alick Dudley should take the worst view possible of Mr. Croft’s conduct.
Had he not deliberately, and of malice aforethought, come like a wolf in the night, and stolen Bessie away—he with a wife living, too?
Well might Bessie not write to Heather (Alick was not aware that Bessie had returned to the one friend, of whose love and faithfulness she felt confident); well might the guilty creature hold herself aloof from all communication with relative or acquaintance. That Bessie had been deceived, Alick never imagined; that Mr. Croft had not jumped into sin at a single leap, was an idea he would have scouted. How easy, how gradual, how pleasant are the slopes leading down into the valley where Vice holds her court, this young Joshua had no conception. He thought that every offender, every one who went so far wrong as he felt confident Mr. Croft had strayed, ought to be stoned like Achan, so that he might trouble the peace of Israel no more.