A Gamble with Life Part 28

"You told me once that you had staked your all on the success of this enterprise."

"That is true."

"And if you fail, you will lose everything?"

"Everything!"

"You mean, of course, your time and your money, and your labour!"

"Yes, I mean that," he said, smiling wistfully.

"Oh, well! that is not everything, after all," she answered, brightly.

"You are young enough to begin again. And, after all, what we call failures may be stepping-stones to success, and you will win in the end, I know you will. G.o.d will not let you fail."

"I wish I believed in G.o.d as you do," he said, with downcast eyes.

"So long as G.o.d believes in you it won't matter so much," she answered, cheerfully. "But I must be going back now. You are going further, I presume?"

"I am going to spend Christmas with my grandfather, at Tregannon."

"Is that far?"

"About six or seven miles."

"And are you going to walk all the distance?"

"I expect so, unless someone overtakes me who can give me a lift by the way."

"I hope you will have a very happy Christmas."

"Thank you. Let me wish the same wish for you."

"We shall be gay at any rate," she said, with a little sigh. "The Captain returns this evening."

"Ah! then you are sure to be happy. Good-bye!"

He took her outstretched hand and held it for a long moment, looking earnestly the while into her sweet, fearless eyes. Then without another word he picked up his bag and hurried away.

CHAPTER XVII

RETROSPECTIVE

Rufus tramped the seven long miles to Tregannon like one in a dream. Up hill and down dale he swung his way, heedless of the milestones and untroubled by distance. The short winter's day faded into darkness before he had covered half the journey. A little later the moon sailed slowly up in the eastern sky and flung weird shadows across the road, but he paid no heed. Through sleepy villages and hamlets he tramped, by lonely cottages and splashing water-wheels, but his thoughts were back in the quiet lane outside St. Gaved, and the warm hand of Madeline Grover still trembled in his.

He had tried to forget her, tried to keep out of her way; but what was the use? She had come into his life for good or ill, and she had come to stay. Until he ceased to draw breath she would dominate his heart, and it was only waste of strength and energy to fight against his fate.

He hardly knew whether he was sorry or glad. If he had to leave the world, loving her would make it all the harder, he knew. If his enterprise succeeded and his life stretched out to its natural span, the burden of an unrequited love would always press heavy upon him. And yet to love at all was worth living for. The thrill of her touch, the glance of her sweet, honest eyes, made heaven for the moment. Let the future go. Sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof. Twelve months hence he might be sleeping in the dust, and she might be the wife of Gervase Tregony. It was foolish, therefore, to antic.i.p.ate the future. To-day alone was his, and he would make the most of it, and let his heart go out in free, unfettered affection, giving all and asking for nothing in return. It was in the inspiration and exaltation of this feeling that he swung along the quiet country lanes. No one could hinder him from loving, and love was its own reward. The joy was not so much in receiving as in giving. When love became selfish it ceased to be love.

Madeline might never be his in the conventional sense. She might never know how much she had been to him, might never guess how much he loved her. That might not be all loss; it might, indeed, be gain. He felt already that he was a better man for this great pa.s.sion that had come into his life--less selfish, less self-centred, less bitter and infinitely more pitiful.

He found his grandfather, Rev. Reuben Sterne, still active and alert, in spite of the eighty-four winters that had pa.s.sed over his head. He was no less sure of his election now than he was sixty years ago, when he was first called to the ministry, and he was as anxious to remain a little longer on the earth as he was in the flowery days of his youth.

He extended to his grandson a grave and unemotional welcome, and then led the way into the little sitting-room, where his wife sat deep in an easy chair, a little, shrunken thing, who looked as if all the sap had dried out of her veins. Her welcome, however, was much warmer than her husband's, and the tears came into her faded eyes when he bent down to kiss her.

While supper was being got ready Rufus stretched himself in an easy chair before the fire and listened while the old people talked.

"Ah me, Rufus," Mrs. Sterne said, in her thin, quavering voice. "It is just sixteen years ago yesterday since news came that your father was dead. How time flies, to be sure, and your poor mother survived the shock just six months and a day."

Rufus had heard the story recalled nearly every Christmas Eve since.

Whoever might forget, the little grandmother remembered, Joshua Sterne--Rufus's father--was her firstborn and only child, and the wound caused by his death never seemed to heal.

Rufus listened with no poignant sense of grief. His father had crossed the Atlantic to seek his fortune when he, Rufus, was little more than out-of-arms, and he had never returned. Rufus fancied that he remembered him. But he was never quite sure. The recollection--if such it was--was so vague and indistinct that it seemed little more than the shadow of a dream.

He remembered well enough the day when the news came of his father's death. Remembered the grief and anguish of his mother, which, boy-like, he did his best to soothe, but which he could not understand.

Six months later the broken-hearted mother slipped unexpectedly away into the land of shadows, and Rufus, bewildered and rebellious, was taken away from the silent house to live with his grandparents. That seemed like the beginning of all his griefs. He had often wondered since what his life would have been like if his mother had lived. How he would have rejoiced to toil for her and fight her battles. But it was not to be. In the cold and gloomy shadow of his grandfather's home it seemed to him that the better side of his nature had never a chance of developing.

The sunshine was absent. The real joy of existence was unknown.

Reuben Sterne was a disciplinarian of the severest type. A minister of the Gospel who had no real Gospel to preach. A theologian who had no true vision of G.o.d. A man severe and stern by nature, and made doubly so by an austere and loveless creed. "G.o.d was a jealous G.o.d." That lay at the foundation of all his beliefs and coloured all his actions. The burden of the Divine decrees lay heavy upon his heart in the brightest days, and touched every song to sadness. Of his own election he did not doubt. Of his call to preach to the elect he was equally sure. But his only son, Joshua, the child of many prayers, gave no evidence of saving grace, and died uncalled to the favours of the heavenly fold, while his grandson, Rufus, appeared, even from boyhood, to be as pagan as his name. This was a great grief to the old man, though he would not have made any sign of it for the world. It was his place to bow, not only in submission, but in thankfulness to the heavenly will. To kiss the hand that smote, and adore the unrelenting power that consigned to eternal burning those who were dear to him as his own life.

At bottom his heart was better than his creed, but he was afraid of showing tenderness or affection lest he should be running counter to the Divine Will, or giving encouragement to the enemies of the cross to blaspheme.

Twice every Sunday Rufus was led to the Baptist chapel to hear his grandfather preach, and early indicated the fate to which he was predestined by falling asleep under the old man's most terrible sermons.

Among the memories that stood out most clearly in his brain was that of his grandfather in the pulpit. A tall, straight man, with clean-shaved, severe face, and eyes that never smiled. He always wore a frock-coat, tightly b.u.t.toned, a tall, stiff collar, and a large white bow, the ends of which touched the lapels of his coat. His grey hair was brushed smoothly from his forehead, his mouth was set in severe lines, his shoulders squared as if for battle. And indeed, every sermon was a battle. He was appointed of G.o.d to fight "spiritual wickedness in high places." He asked no quarter and gave none. His voice rang with the thunders of the law. Sinai was nearer to his heart than Calvary.

Rufus gave evidence of intellectual revolt before he had reached his teens.

"What is the use of preaching, grandfather?" he asked the old man, one Sunday morning, over the dinner table.

"The use of preaching?" the Rev. Reuben questioned, aghast at the audacity of the young speaker; while Mrs. Sterne laid down her knife and fork, and stared.

"Well, suppose you didn't preach, what would happen?" the boy went on, unconscious of the storm he was raising.

"Happen? Happen? Be silent, boy; you know not of what you are speaking."

"But if you didn't preach, would the elect be lost?" the boy persisted.

"Of course not. How could they be lost? 'Whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate.'"

"And will you save any of those who are not elected by preaching to them?" the boy went on.

"It is not in man's power to save at all," the old man said, severely.

"Salvation belongeth unto the Lord."

"Well, then, I don't see a bit of use in preaching or in going to chapel."