Wayfaring Men. Lyall Edna

abruptly, for Ralph, with the look of one goaded past bearing, had sprung to his feet.

      “No,” he cried passionately, “at least that word you shall not use: there was never anything fatherly about you. All those other things that you cast in my teeth though you say you won’t mention them—they are true enough, and I have tried to be grateful—I—” he half choked in the desperate struggle between his pride and a certain sense of courtesy which still clung to him—“I will try always to be grateful.” He strode across the room to the window, panting for air. A chuckle escaped Sir Matthew.

      “You were always a good hand at acting,” he remarked, “but I shall be obliged if you will come down from your high horse and remember that I am talking about a business arrangement. Don’t waste my time, but listen to what I have to say to you.”

      Ralph paced back again to the hearthrug and stood there, looking steadily down at his patron. It somehow seemed as if in those few moments he had passed from boyhood altogether, even Sir Matthew noted the change in his look and bearing. “The only thing,” he resumed, “in which I ever saw you really exert yourself was in that play at the end of the season. I quite admit that you learnt the part of Charles Surface at very short notice and that you acted it far better than any amateur I ever had the pain of watching. But to play a part in ‘The School for Scandal’ is one thing, and to be fit to play your part in life is another. You will never, I am convinced, be sharp enough for the Indian Civil Service, I shall not permit you to go in again for it next year. I have already wasted too much upon you and shall not throw good money after bad. That’s always a mistake.”

      Ralph could not calmly stand by and hear his whole future overturned without a word; he broke in eagerly, perhaps rashly. “Yet many have failed the first time and afterwards turned out well,” he pleaded. “The standard of age, too, is likely to be raised they say. I would work my hardest. If you will let me try again——” But once more Sir Matthew gave that expressive downward wave of the hand.

      “No,” he said peremptorily, “You have had your chance and lost it. Still, I am loth to turn my back altogether on an old friend’s son, and for my own satisfaction I offer you one more opportunity. I will make a parson of you. Do you remember that snug little vicarage up in the north of England where last year we went to call on a Mr. Crosbie? Years ago the Mactavishes owned the living; it had been in the family for generations. My father at a time when he was pressed for money sold it to old Crosbie. I have long wished to have the property again, and only to-day Crosbie happened to be in town and I got him to promise me that if I bought the living he would undertake to retire in four years. You had better not tell it in Gath, for of course the promise to retire is a strictly private matter, but for the rest it’s all legal enough. Next month you will be twenty. In four years you could be ordained priest, and I will undertake to see you through your training and to put you into this living. It’s three hundred and a house; you could be happy enough up there, and for your father’s sake I am willing to do as much as that for you.”

      There was something so artificial in those last words that Ralph, whose anger had been rising every moment, now broke forth indignantly.

      “Is it for his sake that you put before me a temptation of this sort? You surely know—you must know—that my father would never have accepted a living obtained in that way. Had you offered it him, and had it been worth ten times the money, he would not have touched it with a pair of tongs. Why, the thing is rank simony!”

      “You receive offers of help in a somewhat curious fashion, young man,” said Sir Matthew with a sneer. “But in spite of that I still think you are very well cut out for a parson. Your dramatic instincts and your good voice would fit you well enough for the Church, and you are already able, I perceive, to preach to your elders and betters.”

      Ralph winced at the sarcasm, but he caught hold of the weak point in his opponent’s argument.

      “No,” he said, emphatically, “I am not fit for the work of a clergyman. The only thing that can fit a man for that is a distinct call from God. You are tempting me to go in for the loaves and fishes, and you dare to say that you do this for my father’s sake—my father, who would have starved first!”

      “Perhaps he would,” said Sir Matthew coldly. “He was, as all his friends knew, an unpractical fool. You needn’t look as if you could kill me. He had excellent abilities but no power of pushing his way, and he left you a beggar in consequence, proving, according to scripture, that as he had neglected to secure future provision for his family he had denied the faith and was worse than an infidel. Now, to return to business; are you going to accept this offer of mine, or do you intend to be a pig-headed idiot, and affect to be calling a mere matter of business simony?”

      Ralph’s eyes lighted up.

      “I mean,” he said quietly, “to be true to my father’s ideals.”

      Sir Matthew broke into a discordant laugh.

      “Did his precious ideals feed you and clothe you and send you to Winchester? Don’t you know by his own confession that he had mismanaged his affairs?”

      “I know,” said Ralph indignantly, “that, whatever his faults, he was at least an honest man.”

      He had meant no insinuation whatever, but the words galled his companion terribly. Sir Matthew rose to his feet in a towering passion.

      “You impertinent, ungrateful fellow, do you dare to insult me in my own house? Go, sir, get out of my sight! I have had enough of you. Let us see now how your ideals will support you! Leave my house and never set foot in it again!”

      Ralph, too angry and sore to realise all that the words meant, turned without a word and left the library.

CHAPTER VI

       Table of Contents

      “The grace of friendship—mind and heart,

      Linked with their fellow heart and mind;

      The gains of science, gifts of art;

      The sense of oneness with our kind;

      The thirst to know and understand—

      A large and liberal discontent:

      These are the goods in life’s rich hand,

      The things that are more excellent.”

      William Watson.

      The moment the door had closed behind the boy Sir Matthew’s anger cooled. For the time it had been genuine, for quite unintentionally Ralph had used words which stung him as no others could have done. There were two things in the world that the company promoter sincerely cared about—successful speculation, and his reputation as a philanthropist. His adoption of Ralph had been almost entirely a speculation, one of the specious bits of kindness which he had intended to redound to his own honour and glory. Having once undertaken the lad’s education he could not for his own credit’s sake turn back, but from the very first he had shrewdly guessed that it would prove a bad investment, and Ralph had been a thorn in his side. To begin with, the boy was in face curiously like his father, and Sir Matthew had some lingering remains of affection for his old friend, even though in his heart he despised him for not being more of a man of the world. He had not lived the life of a company promoter without having grown perfectly callous to the sufferings of his victims, but yet the conscience that was not dead but dormant within him had been faintly stirred at Whinhaven when he realised that the Rector’s ruin had been his work. Partly to salve his conscience, but chiefly because the world would applaud the action, he had adopted Ralph. The boy, however, had not taken kindly to the part assigned him. He never showed off well before visitors, never learnt to pose as a grateful recipient of unmerited kindness. On the contrary, Sir Matthew always had an uncomfortable feeling that Ralph saw through him, and knew him to be a humbug. As a matter of fact, the taunting