I could not help smiling. This rustic clergyman, fetched out of some outlying district to this doubtful duty, lecturing me and others! It was, of course, in his duty, and he meant well; but I think it was rather free and easy to a mere stranger.
"I am quite capable of taking care of myself, Mr. Lewis," I said. "I have my own reasons for associating with that gentleman. What if I succeeded in influencing him in changing his life and heart; does that at all enter into your philosophy?"
"Oh, well and good," he said, smiling. "God forbid I should interfere. But we must judge these things by the ordinary rule of the world. Have you any reason to lead you to hope?"
"Yes," I said.
"Well, then, you ought to go and look after him now; for I was passing from the news-room just now, and saw him playing frantically. Come with me, and I will show him to you."
"I never go into that place," I said, coldly, and meaning a rebuke.
"Into the news-room?" he said. "Why not? Ah, you haven't patience to wait for the papers. It's a very good school for patience."
"As you ask me the reason, I do not wish to be indebted to men who fatten on human misery. I make no merit of it, but I think it better not."
"This sounds strange," he said. "Let me ask, do you know the Bishop of Gravesend? He goes there every day. Do you know the good Lord Calborough, who takes the chair at his meetings? I have seen him looking over shoulders at the roulette. Ah, I see you distrust yourself. Well, there is no disgrace in flying from the danger."
I have always resented this sort of superior knowledge of you which some clergymen affect, much as a doctor says, "Ah, I know—feel a pain here—exactly—a sense of fluttering after meals—exactly so." This rather nettled me. I had heard, too, he was rather sarcastic, and was said to know the world. Then he didn't know me. Afraid to trust myself! I might have been afraid to trust him, but not myself.
He went away. I was hardly inclined to accept what he said about the Bishop of Gravesend or the apostolic Lord Calborough. Still he spoke with authority and with an air of circumstance. What was that pattering on the glass overhead? Rain, rain coming down in pailfuls. There is a general sauve qui peut from the gardens. They come rushing up the steps, eager, laughing, chattering like monkeys—creatures which, in other respects, some of the men resemble. All, of course, ascend and go pouring into the cave. The bountiful rain, here, is unconsciously one of the faithful friends and servants of the administration. They should put him in their gew-gaw livery—green, gold, and scarlet—in which they dress up their disguised "bullies," who prowl about the room, ready to rush up on the slightest signal of a disturbance. I am almost alone on the terrace—a place of which I am getting tired. "Afraid to trust myself." I can't put that self-sufficient clergyman's speech out of my head. Thus it is with some natures: when they leap to a conclusion, it is always sure to be the meanest one that can present itself.
After all, I have made no vow, and am bound by no promise; nor do I, more than the Bishop of Gravesend or my Lord Calborough, think it any harm to go through, those rooms, or even to linger there for some good object, provided your behaviour is not to be construed into an endorsement or approbation of the proceedings. I am no casuist, and there is a good broad band of common sense, I flatter myself, running through my composition. I would not be tied down, as a weaker mind, by an abstract adherence to the mere letter of a resolution; I would look entirely to the spirit; and therefore, to assert this principle, I rise from my solitude on the terrace and walk into the cave. I wish to find Grainger.
Now ready,
THE COMPLETE SET
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