“‘What’s a dook?’ says I.
“‘A dook?’ says he. ‘Why, he’s a dook, you know; a sort o’ markis—somewheres between a lord an’ a king. I don’t know zackly where, an hang me if I care; but they’re a bad lot are some o’ them dooks—rich as Pharaoh, king o’ J’rus’lem, an’ hard as nails—though I’m bound for to say they ain’t all alike. Some on ’em’s no better nor costermongers, others are men; men what keeps in mind that the same God made us all an’ will call us all to the same account, an’ that the same kind o’ worms ’ll finish us all off at last. But this dook as took pity on me was a true blue. He wasn’t one o’ the hard sort as didn’t care a rush for us so long as his own stummick was full. Neether was he one o’ the butter-mouths as dursen’t say boo to a goose. He spoke out to me like a man, an’ he knew well enough that I’d bin born in the London slums, an’ that my daddy had bin born there before me, an that my mother had caught her death o’ cold through havin’ to pawn her only pair o’ boots to pay my school fees an’ then walk barefutt to the court in a winter day to answer for not sendin’ her boy to the board school—her send me to school!—she might as well have tried to send daddy himself; an’ him out o’ work, too, an’ all on us starvin’. My dook, when he hear about it a’most bust wi’ passion. I hear ’im arterwards talkin’ to a overseer, or somebody, “confound it,” says he—no, not quite that, for my dook he never swore, only he said somethin’ pretty stiff—“these people are starvin’,” says he, “an’ pawnin’ their things for food to keep ’em alive, an’ they can’t git work nohow,” says he, “an’ yet you worry them out o’ body an’ soul for school fees!” I didn’t hear no more, for the overseer smoothed ’im down somehows. But that dook—that good man, Hunky Ben, paid my passage to Ameriky, an’ sent me off wi’ his blessin’ an’ a Bible. Unfortnitly I took a bottle wi’ me, an when I got to the other side I got hold of another bottle, an’ another—an’ there stands the last of ’em.’
“An’ wi’ that, Mr Brooke, he fetched the bottle in front of him such a crack wi’ his fist as sent it all to smash against the opposite wall.
“‘Well done, Screw!’ cried the boy at the bar, laughin’; ‘have another bottle?’
“Poor Screw smiled in a sheepish way, for the rile was out of him by that time, an’, says he, ‘Well, I don’t mind if I do. A shot like that deserves another!’
“Ah me!” continued the scout, “it do take the manhood out of a fellow, that drink. Even when his indignation’s roused and he tries to shake it off, he can’t do it.”
“Well do I know that, Ben. It is only God who can help a man in such a case.”
The scout gravely shook his head. “Seems to me, Mr Brooke, that there’s a screw loose some wheres in our theology, for I’ve heard parsons as well as you say that—as if the Almighty condescended to help us only when we’re in bad straits. Now, though I’m but a scout and pretend to no book larnin’, it comes in strong upon me that if God made us an’ measures our movements, an’ gives us every beat o’ the pulse, an’ counts the very hairs of our heads, we stand in need of His help in every case and at all times; that we can’t save ourselves from mischief under any circumstances, great or small, without Him.”
“I have thought of that too, sometimes,” said Charlie, sitting down on the rock beside his companion, and looking at him in some perplexity, “but does not the view you take savour somewhat of fatalism, and seek to free us from responsibility in regard to what we do?”
“It don’t seem so to me,” replied the scout, “I’m not speakin’, you see, so much of doin’ as of escapin’. No doubt we are perfectly free to will, but it don’t follow that we are free to act. I’m quite free to will to cut my leg off or to let it stay on; an’ if I carry out my will an’ do it, why, I’m quite free there too—an’ also responsible. But I ain’t free to sew it on again however much I may will to do so—leastwise if I do it won’t stick. The consekinces o’ my deed I must bear, but who will deny that the Almighty could grow on another leg if He chose? Why, some creeters He does allow to get rid of a limb or two, an’ grow new ones! So, you see, I’m responsible for my deeds, but, at the same time, I must look to God for escape from the consekinces, if He sees fit to let me escape. A man, bein’ free, may drink himself into a drunkard, but he’s not free to cure himself. He can’t do it. The demon Crave has got him by the throat, forces him to open his mouth, and pours the fiery poison down. The thing that he is free to do is to will. He may, if he chooses, call upon God the Saviour to help him; an’ my own belief is that no man ever made such a call in vain.”