Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers Part 14

"Why, Robert; going to Plymouth."

Michael did not answer, but hurried to his stable where his little pony was kept, and put him in the light cart. He told his wife that he had some business in Plymouth with Robert, packed up a few things, took some money, and in a few minutes was on the Truro road. At Truro he found the mail, and within twelve hours he was at Plymouth. Dismounting, he asked eagerly if they had a young man at the inn who had come from Cornwall the day before.

"What, one as is waiting for the packet?"

"Yes," said Michael at a venture.

"Yes, he's here, but he isn't in just now. Gone out for a walk."

The one point in Plymouth to which everybody naturally turns is the Hoe, and thither Michael went. It was morning in early autumn or late summer, and the whole Sound lay spread out under the sun in perfect peace. The woods of Mount Edgec.u.mbe were almost black in the intense light, and far away in the distance, for the air was clear, a sharp eye might just discern the Eddystone, the merest speck, rising above the water. It was a wonderful scene, but Michael saw nothing of it. When he came out of the street which leads up from the town to the Hoe, he looked round as a man might look for escape if a devouring fire were behind him, and he saw his son a hundred yards in front of him gazing over the sea. With a cry of thanks to his G.o.d Michael rushed forward, and just as Robert turned round caught him in his arms, but could not speak.

At last he found a few words.

"It is all a mistake, Robert--it is all wrong. Susan is yours--she is mine. Come back with me."

Robert, as much moved as his father, fell on his neck as if he had been a woman, and then led him gently down the slope, away from curious persons who had watched this remarkable greeting, and took Michael to be some strange person who had accidentally met his child or a relative after long separation.

"Foreigners, most likely; that's their way. It looks odd to English people," remarked a lady to her daughter. It did look odd, and would have looked odd to most of us--to us who belong to a generation which sees in the relations.h.i.+p between father and son nothing more than in that between the most casual acquaintances with the disadvantage of inequality of age, a generation to whom the father is--often excusably--a person to be touched twice a day with the tips of the fingers, a postponement of a full share in the business, a person to be treated with--respect? Good gracious! If it were not bad form, it would be a joke worth playing to slip the chair away from the old man as he is going to sit down, and see him sprawl on the floor. Why, in the name of heaven, does he come up to the City every day? He ought to retire, and leave that expensive place at Clapham, and take a cottage in some cheap part, somewhere in Cambridges.h.i.+re or Ess.e.x.

"Robert," said Michael, "I have sinned, although it was for the Lord's sake, and He has rebuked me. I thought to take upon myself His direction of His affairs; but He is wiser than I. I believed I was sure of His will, but I was mistaken. He knows that what I did, I did for love of your soul, my child; but I was grievously wrong."

The father humbled himself before the son, but in his humiliation became majestic, and in after years, when he was dead and gone, there was no scene in the long intercourse with him which lived with a brighter and fairer light in the son's memory.

"You know nothing then against Susan?"

"Nothing!"

"I found a bit of a letter on your desk from Cadman. I could not help reading it. Had that anything to do with her?"

"Nothing!"

"Father, you seem faint and you tremble; hadn't you better go in doors and take something, and lie down? We cannot get home till to-morrow."

The father went to the inn with difficulty; he had tasted no food for many hours, and had not slept for some time, but he could neither eat nor sleep. Hitherto G.o.d's will had appeared to him ascertainable with comparative ease, and he had been as certain of the Divine direction as if he had seen a finger-post or heard the word in his ear. But now he was dazed and, in doubt. He was convinced that his rescue by Susan was an interposition of Providence, and if so, then all his former conclusions were wrong. What was he to do? How was he henceforth to know the mind of his Master? Oh, how he wished he had lived in the days when the oracle was not darkened--in the days of Moses, when G.o.d spake from the Mount, when there was the continual burnt-offering at the door of the tabernacle, "where I will meet you, to speak there unto thee."

G.o.d really did intend that Robert should marry Susan! "If righteousness and judgment," he cried, inverting the Psalm, "are the habitation of His throne, clouds and darkness are round about Him." But he submitted.

"Thou art wiser than I," he prayed. It was mere presumption then to have risked the loss of his soul in the blind belief that it was for G.o.d's cause. The sin had been committed, the lie had been uttered; would G.o.d pardon him? and it was mercifully whispered to him that he was forgiven for His sake. So was he saved from uttermost despair.

In the evening he said he would go out and breathe a little fresh air before bedtime. It was a perfectly unsullied night, with no moon, but with brilliant stars. Father and son sat upon a bench facing the sea, and the lighthouse from the rock sent its bright beam across the water.

There is consolation and hope in those vivid rays. They speak of something superior to the darkness or storm--something which has been raised by human intelligence and human effort.

Robert turned round to his father.

"Look at the light, father, fourteen miles away."

But his father did not see any light, or, if he did, it was not the Eddystone light--he was dead!

Robert never revealed his father's secret to a soul--not even to Susan.

n.o.body but Robert ever knew the reason for the journey to Plymouth. His interpretation of G.o.d's designs turned out to be nearer the truth than that of his father; for Susan, the worldling, as Michael thought her to be, became a devoted wife, and made Robert a happy husband to the end of his days.