Page:Walpole - Fortitude.djvu/339

 Peter faced the contrast. Here this middle-aged man with his two girls—and here too he, Peter, with his agonising, flaming trial—to slip, so soon, into dull commonplace?

“But didn't you—if you can look so far—didn't you, when the first child came, funk it? Your responsibility I mean. All the things one's—one's ancestors—it's frightening enough for oneself but to hand it on—”

“It's nothing to do with oneself—one's used, that's all. The child will be on its own legs, thrusting you away before you know where you are. It will want to claim its responsibilities—ancestors and all—”

Peter said nothing—Maradick went on:

“You know we were talking one night and were interrupted—you're in danger of letting the things you imagine beat the things you know. Stick to the thing you can grasp, touch—I know the dangers of the others—I told you that once in Cornwall, I—the most unlikely person in the world—was caught up by it. I've never laughed at morbidity, or nerves, or insanity since. There's such a jolly thin wall between the sanest, most level-headed beef-eating Squire in the country and the maddest poet in Bedlam. I know—I've been both in the same day. It's better to be both, I believe, if you can keep one under the other, but you must keep it under—”

Maradick talked on. He saw that the boy's nerves were jumping, that he was holding himself in with the greatest difficulty.

Peter said: “You don't know, Maradick. I've had to fight all my life—my father, grandfather, all of them have given in at last—and now this child perhaps I shall see it growing, see him gradually learning to hate me, see myself hating him  at last, my God, see him go under—drink, deviltry—I've fought it—I'm always fighting it—but to-night—”

“Good heavens, man—you're not going to tell me that your father, your grandfather—the rest of them—are stronger than you. What about your soul, your own blessed soul that can't be touched by any living thing or dead thing either if you stick to it? Why, every man's got power enough in himself to ride heaven and earth and all eternity if he only believed he'd got it! Ride your scruples, man