The Long Vacation Part 23

"Are not they Miss Mohun's ideal still?"

"Oh yes, infinitely developed, and so they are my cousin Florence's--Lady Florence Devereux; but the young ones think them behind the times. I remember when every girl believed her children the prettiest and cleverest in nature, showed off her Sunday-school as her pride and treasure, and composed small pink books about them, where the catastrophe was either being killed by accident, or going to live in the clergyman's nursery. Now, those that teach do so simply as a duty and not a romance."

"And the difficulty is to find those who will teach," said Geraldine.

"One thing is, that the children really require better teaching."

"That is quite true. My girls show me their preparation work, and I see much that I should not have thought of teaching the Beechcroft children.

But all the excitement of the matter has gone off."

"I know. The Vale Leston girls do it as their needful work, not with their hearts and enthusiasm. I expect an enthusiasm cannot be expected to last above a generation and perhaps a half."

"Very likely. A more indifferent thing; you will laugh, but my enthusiasm was for chivalry, Christian chivalry, half symbolic. History was delightful to me for the search for true knights. I had lists of them, drawings if possible, but I never could indoctrinate anybody with my affection. Either history is only a lesson, or they know a great deal too much, and will prove to you that the Cid was a ruffian, and the Black Prince not much better."

"And are you allowed the 'Idylls of the King'?"

"Under protest, now that the Mouse-trap has adopted Browning for weekly reading and discussion. Tennyson is almost put on the same shelf with Scott, whom I love better than ever. Is it progress?"

"Well, I suppose it is, in a way."

"But is it the right way?"

"That's what I want to see."

"Now listen. When our young men, my brothers--especially my very dear brother Claude and his contemporaries, Rotherwood is the only one left--were at Oxford, they got raised into a higher atmosphere, and came home with beautiful plans and hopes for the Church, and drew us up with them; but now the University seems just an ordeal for faith to go through."

"I should think there was less of outward temptation, but more of subtle trial. And then the whole system has altered since the times you are speaking of, when the old rules prevailed, and the great giants of Church renewal were there!" said Geraldine.

"You belong to the generation whom they trained, and who are now pa.s.sing away. My father was one who grew up then."

"We live on their spirit still."

"I hope so. I never knew much about Cambridge till Clement went there, but it had the same influence on him. Indeed, all our home had that one thought ever since I can remember. Clement and Lance grew up in it."

"But you will forgive me. These younger men either go very, very much further than we older ones dreamt of, or they have flaws in their faith, and sometimes--which is the strangest difficulty--the vehement observance and ritual with flaws beneath in their faith perhaps, or their loyalty--Socialist fancies."

"There is impatience," said Geraldine. "The Church progress has not conquered all the guilt and misery in the world."

"Who said it would?"

"None of us; but these younger ones fancy it is the Church's fault, instead of that of her members' failures, and so they try to walk in the light of the sparks that they have kindled."

"Altruism as they call it--love of the neighbour without love of G.o.d."

"It may lead that way."

"Does it?"

"Perhaps we are the impatient ones now," said Geraldine, "in disliking the young ones' experiments, and wanting to bind them to our own views."

"Then you look on with toleration but with distrust."

"Distrust of myself as well as of the young ones, and trying not to forget that 'one good custom may corrupt the world,' so it may be as well that the pendulum should swing."

"The pendulum, but not its axis--faith!"

"No; and of my boy's mainspring of faith I _do_ feel sure, and of his real upright steadiness."

Lady Merrifield asked no more, but could wait.

But is not each generation a terra incognita to the last? A question which those feel most decidedly who stand on the border-land of both, with love and sympathy divided between the old and the new, clinging to the one, and fearing to alienate the other.

CHAPTER XIV. -- b.u.t.tERFLY'S NECTAR

If you heed my warning It will save you much.--A. A. PROCTOR.

Clement Underwood was so much better as to be arrived at taking solitary rides and walks, these suiting him better than having companions, as he liked to go his own pace, and preferred silence. His sister had become much engrossed with her painting, and saw likewise that in this matter of exercise it was better to let him go his own way, and he declared that this time of thought and reading was an immense help to him, restoring that balance of life which he seemed to himself to have lost in the whirl of duties at St. Matthew's after Felix's death.

The sh.o.r.e, with the fresh, monotonous plash of the waves, when the tide served, was his favourite resort. He could stand still and look out over the expanse of ripples, or wander on, as he pleased, watching the sea-gulls float along--

"As though life's only call and care Were graceful motion."

There had been a somewhat noisy luncheon, for Edward Harewood, a mids.h.i.+pman in the Channel Fleet, which was hovering in the offing, had come over on a day's leave with Horner, a messmate whose parents lived in the town. He was a big lad, a year older than Gerald, and as soon as a little awe of Uncle Clement and Aunt Cherry had worn off, he showed himself of the original Harewood type, directing himself chiefly to what he meant to be teasing Gerald about Vale Leston and Penbeacon.

"All the grouse there were on the bit of moor are snapped up."

"Very likely," said Gerald coolly.

"Those precious surveyors and engineers that Walsh brings down can give an account of them! As soon as you come of age, you'll have to double your staff of keepers, I can tell you."

"Guardians of ferae naturae," said Gerald.

"I thought your father did all that was required in that line," said Clement.

"Not since duffers and land-lubbers have been marauding over Penbeacon--aye, and elsewhere. What would you say to an engineer poaching away one of the august house of Vanderkist?"

"The awful cad! I'd soon show him what I thought of his cheek," cried Adrian, with a flourish of his knife.

"Ha, ha! I bet that he will be shooting over Ironbeam Park long before you are of age."

"I shall shoot him, then," cried Adrian.