For slander lives upon succession, Forever housed, where it once gets possession.Comedy of Errors.
Not out of malice, but mere zeal, Because he was an infidel.
Hudibras "Blessed old London, how delightful it is to come back to it!"exclaimed Erica, as she and Tom drove home from Paddington on the afternoon of her return from Greyshot."Tell the man not to go through the back streets, there's a good boy! Ah, he's doing it of his own accord! Why, the park trees are much browner than the Mountshire ones!""We have been prophesying all manner of evil about your coming back," said Tom looking her over critically from head to foot."Ibelieve mother thought you would never come that the good Christians down at Greyshot having caught you would keep you, and even the chieftain was the least bit in the world uneasy.""Nonsense," said Erica, laughing, "he knows better.""But they did want to keep you?"
"Yes."
"How did you get out of it?"
"Said, 'Much obliged to you, but I'd rather not.' Enacted Mrs.
Micawber, you know, 'I never will, no I never will leave Mr.
Micawber.'"
"Mr.Fane-Smith must have been a brute ever to have proposed such a thing!""Oh, no! Not at all! Within certain limits he is a kind-hearted man, only he is one of those who believe in that hateful saying, 'Men without the knowledge of God are cattle.' And, believing that, would treat atheists as I should be sorry to treat Friskarina.""And what is the world of Greyshot like?""It is very lukewarm about public questions, and very boiling hot about its own private affairs," said Erica."But I have learned now how people in society can go on contentedly living their easy lives in the midst of such ignorance and misery.They never investigate, and when any painful instance is alluded to, they say, "Oh! But it CAN'T be true!' The other day they were speaking of Kingsley's pamphlet, 'Cheap clothes and nasty,' and one lady said that was quite an evil of the past, that the difficulty nowadays was to get things at reasonable prices.When I told her that women only get twopence for doing all the machine work of an ulster, and have to provide their machine, cotton, food, light, and fuel, she exclaimed, 'Oh, that is incredible! It must be exaggerated! Such things couldn't be now!' When Aunt Isabel heard that I had known cases of men being refused admission to a hospital supported by public subscriptions, on the ground of their atheism, she said it was impossible.And as to physical ill treatment, or, in fact, any injustice having ever been shown by Christian to atheist, she would not hear of it.It was always 'My dear, the atmosphere in which you have lived has distorted your vision,' or, 'You have been told, my dear, that these things were so!' To tell her that they were facts which could be verified was not the smallest good, for she wouldn't so much as touch any publication connected with secularism.""None are so blind as those who will not see," said Tom."They will go on in this way till some great national crisis, some crash which they can't ignore, wakes them up from their comfortable state.'It can't be true,' is no doubt a capital narcotic.""Father is at home, I suppose? How do you think he is?""Oh, very well, but fearfully busy.The 'Miracles' trial will probably come on in November."Erica sighed.There was a silence.She looked out rather sadly at the familiar Oxford Street shops.
"You have not come back approving of the Blasphemy Laws, I hope?"said Tom, misinterpreting her sigh.
Her eyes flashed.
"Of course not!" she said, emphatically.
"Mr.Osmond has, as usual, been getting into hot water for speaking a word on the chieftain's behalf.""Did he speak? I am glad of that," said Erica, brightening."Iexpect Mr.Pogson's conduct will stir up a good many liberal Christians into showing their disapproval of bigotry and injustice.
Ah! Here is the dear old square! The statue looks ten degrees moldier than when I left!"In fact everything looked, as Erica expressed it, "moldier!""Persecution Alley," the lodging house, the very chairs and tables seemed to obtrude their shabbiness upon her.Not that she cared in the least; for, however shabby, it was home the home that she had longed for again and again in the luxury and ease of Greyshot.
Raeburn looked up from a huge law book as she opened the door of his study.
"Why, little son Eric!" he exclaimed."You came so quietly that Inever heard you.Glad to have you home again, my child! The room looks as if it needed you, doesn't it?"Erica laughed for the study was indeed in a state of chaos.Books were stacked up on the floor, on the mantel piece, on the chairs, on the very steps of the book ladder.The writing table was a sea of papers, periodicals, proofs, and manuscripts, upon which there floated with much difficulty Raeburn's writing desk and the book he was reading, some slight depression in the surrounding mass of papers showing where his elbows had been.
"About equal to Teufelsdroch's room, isn't it?" he said, smiling.
"Everything united in a common element of dust.' But, really, after the first terrible day of your absence, when I wasted at least an hour in hunting for things which the tidy domestic had carefully hidden, I could stand it no longer, and gave orders that no one was to bring brush or duster or spirit of tidiness within the place.""We really must try to get you a larger room," said Erica, looking round."How little and poky everything looks.""Has Greyshot made you discontented?"
"Only for you," she replied, laughing."I was thinking of Mr.
Fane-Smith's great study; it seems such a pity that five foot three, with few books and nothing to do, should have all that space, and six foot four, with much work and many books, be cramped up in this little room.""What would you say to a move?"
"It will be such an expensive year, and there's that dreadful Mr.
Pogson always in the background."
