He that will not when he may; vol. I

by Mrs. Oliphant

“And what then do you call his highest work?” Sir William asked carelessly. Paul, astonished, but willing to believe that his father had taken an interest in Spears and that all was about to go as he wished, fell into the trap, as any other unsuspicious nature would have done.

“His carvings are wonderful,” he said, with all the fervour of enthusiasm. “When he has a congenial subject he is equal to Gibbons or any one. He ought to have been a great sculptor. If you saw some of the things he has done you would see what bitter satire it is that he should live by those wretched little picture-frames.”

“Is it so, indeed?” said Sir William. “Then it is the higher branch of wood-carving and not picture-frames that you are learning, I suppose? Do you mean then to carry high art, Paul, into the bush?”

“I cannot see what this has to do with the bush, sir,” said Paul, impatiently. “One must live there by one’s hands, and to know how to use them in any special way cannot be a disadvantage in any other way. That is Spears’s view of the subject, and mine too.”

“I doubt if wood-carving will help you much in felling trees or making them into huts,” said Sir William, with a great air of candour. “What do you suppose the advantage is likely to be of changing from a state of society where everything that is beautiful has its value, to one where you will live by your hands, as you say, and where the highest skill will only not do you any harm? I should like to know the reasoning by which you have arrived at your present convictions—the ideas expressed in the letter I got last night.”

“You have received my letter then?” Paul said, with dignity. “You know what my settled determination is. I hope you do not mean, and that my mother does not mean, to attempt to turn me from a plan which I have not decided on without great thought.”

“I don’t know what your mother may mean to do, my boy,” said Sir William, quietly. “She will act according to her own standards of duty, not mine; but I know what I intend myself, and the first thing is to understand your reasons for the extraordinary step you propose. You, the heir of a fine property——” Sir William made a stumble before the word heir, which, notwithstanding that Paul was about to abjure everything, led him to make a rapid calculation of his father’s power in this matter. The Markham property was not all entailed. Did the father mean to disinherit his lawful successor? Paul felt a flush of indignation go over him, though he was about to declare his intention of giving up all.

“The heir of a fine property,” said Sir William, “and an influential position. At this moment, young as you are, you might make a start in public life, and have a hand in the government of your country, which is as high an ambition as a man can entertain. How have you managed to persuade yourself that to go out into a half savage country and encounter the first difficulties of savage life is better or more honourable than this? To live by your hands instead of your head,” he continued, growing warm, “to surround yourself with beggarly elements of living instead of the highest developments of civilisation—to make yourself of no more account than any ploughboy——”

Here Paul felt himself touch the ground. There had stolen over him a chill of alarm as to how he was to answer such a question, but this last clause brought him back to the superficial polemics with which he was familiar enough. “Why should I be of more account than any ploughboy?” he said; “that is the whole question. Why is there this immense gulf between the ploughboy and me? Is he less a man than I am? Are not my advantages a shame to me in the face of manhood? What right have I to humiliate him for my advancement?”

“What right have you to be a fool?” said Sir William, bitterly. “I don’t know: your mother is not a fool, though she is not clever. If your ploughboy had been educated as you have been, your argument might have had some show of reason. Do you mean to tell me that education is nothing—that a lad from the fields ought to be of as much use in the world as you are? This is to despise not only rank, which I know is your favourite type of injustice, but breeding, culture, everything you have acquired by your work. How do you justify yourself in throwing away that? There is no question of humiliating the ploughboy; the ploughboy will be of ten times as much use as you are in the bush.”