Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/344

334[March 6, 1869] amazing how the clouds began to break. Yes, I would do as she said. The end was certain. But there was a reprieve of a week, at the least. Heaven might then send grace, or a remedy. Can those wise men, who are always preaching, or canting, in books, about waiting and putting your trust in something beyond this world, or who tell us that the darkest hour is the one before day—can they be inventing? Surely not. They must have known some instances. Who can tell or guess at the depths of arrogance and self-sufficiency? and the taste for instructing your inferiors may have blinded them to truth itself. However, it is a reprieve. The mere perverse eccentricity of human events may work out a remedy, just as it so often works out a disease. We hear of people struggling with adversity which is checking them at every turn. Why are there none whom prosperity treats in the same way? Simply because Satan is abroad, walking the earth, and delights in that game. . .. How strange are these theories of mine—with a certain acuteness; but all that is gone now. What a wreck and waste of abilities! I may say that now, speaking of myself as of another, and as any one turning over these pages in a century hence may remark. It will have all ended somehow long before that. . .. Those were good charming girls, but they are part of the luxuries of life. I suppose that one—Constance—has gone home to say she persuaded me—a pardonable and girlish vanity for which I do not blame her. It was I who, in reality, suggested the train of thought. She did not know what I was thinking of and dreading—that lonely journey home, the deadly imprisonment in the railway carriage. It was a welcome deliverance, that resource. . .. Two o'clock.—I feel so much more tranquil now. So much rest—a sort of unnatural calmness, and the waves seem to have gone down about me. A little exertion and force of will has done this. It is surprising how much that is under control, even under the most desperate circumstances. I could tell some of these despairing gamesters, who think they are utterly wretched—that nothing is left for them—that Fate is capricious; that, when they have left fifty miles of country between them and this place, the thing will assume quite another aspect, the loss will dwindle down into a misfortune that may, by some agency, unknown but still possible, be repaired. If people could only be brought to look at things rationally, calmly, as I do now, how the flame colour would fade out, how the angles and rough edges would be smoothed away! Yes, I feel quite tranquil now, prepared for the worst; but still, not without hope. Here do I now repeat Dora's little prayer, which comes appropriately for one starting on a journey like me:

"Lord! Thou who dost guide the ship over the waters, and dost bring safe to its journey's end the fiery train, look down on me in this distant land. Save me from harm of soul or body; give me back health and strength, that I may serve Thee more faithfully, and be able to bring others dependent on me to serve Thee also, and add to Thy glories! Amen."

Six o'clock.—When I said that prayer first, I little thought—no matter now. Everything is packed. Let me go! Heaven forgive those who sent me here to reap this crop of wretchedness! What have I done to deserve this? . . .. There is the cab. . .. I met them at the station, and fortunately escaped falling in with Grainger; of course it will be said that I feared him. That would be a falsehood that I would cram down the throat of any man who said it. The false world has but one way of reading everything. If you are delicate and considerate, you are afraid. I wished to have peace, to get away in quiet, I did on my soul, even though there might be demons dressed up in the livery of guards and porters. The two girls and their father were there. He had his hand out, as it were patronising a school boy who had behaved well.

"Well done," he said, "I admire you for this. My Constance is never to be resisted when she has set her mind on a thing."

The world again—it assumes everything to be its work. Something happens after something that it did. Ergo, it was the cause.

"We have a nice carriage," he went on, "and we shall so enjoy ourselves. I declare I am quite in spirits again. Even now I am sure you think it a trifle—what's a hundred or two to happiness—to English home and beauty—you'll work it off in a few months. Strong hands, sir, and strong hearts do everything."

Work it off in a few months! That was his friendly scheme. Had all his generosity melted away into that—not that I cared—or that I would not have taken up his money,