There's a man of pluck!
A man who is not afraid to say his say, Though a whole town's against him.
Longfellow A man's love is the measure of his fitness for good or bad company here or elsewhere.Oliver Wendell Holmes.
The week at Oakdene proved in every way a success; Raeburn liked his host heartily, and the whole atmosphere of the house was a revelation to him.The last morning there had been a little clouded for news had reached them of a terrible colliery accident in the north of England.The calamity had a special gloom about it for it might very easily have been prevented, the owners having long known that the mine was unsafe.
"I must say it is a little hard to see how such a horrible sin as carelessness of the lives of human beings can ever bring about the greater good which we believe evil to do," said Erica, as she took her last walk in the wood with Donovan.
"'Tis hard to see at the time," he replied."But I am convinced that it is so.The sin is never good, never right; but when men will sin, then the result of the sin, however frightful, brings about more good that the perseverance in sin with no catastrophe would have done.A longer-deferred good, of course, than the good which would have resulted by adhering from the first to the right, and so far inferior.""Of course," said Erica, "I can see that a certain amount of immediate good may result from this disaster.It will make the owners of other mines more careful.""And what of the hundred unseen workings that will result from it?"said Donovan, smiling."In the first shock of horror one can not even glimpse the larger view, but later on--"He paused for a minute; they were down in the valley close to the little church; he opened the gate and led the way to a bench under the great yew tree.Sitting here, they could see the recumbent white cross with its ever-fresh crown of white flowers.Erica knew something of the story it told.
"Shall I tell you what turned me from an anti-theist to an atheist?" said Donovan."It was the horror of knowing that a little child's life had been ruined by carelessness.I had been taught to believe in a terrific phantom who was severely just; but when it seemed that the one quality of justice was gone, then Itook refuge in the conviction that there could be no God at all.
That WAS a refuge for the time, for it is better to believe in no God than to believe in an immoral God and it was long years before a better refuge found me.Yet, looking back now over these seven-and-twenty years, I see how that one little child's suffering has influenced countless lives! How it was just the most beautiful thing that could have happened to her!"Erica did not speak for a moment, she read half dreamily the words engraved on the tombstone.Nearly sixteen years since that short, uneventful life had passed into the unseen, and yet little Dot was at this moment influencing the world's history.
She was quite cheerful again as they walked home, and, indeed, her relief about her father's recovery was so great that she could not be unhappy for long about anything.They found Raeburn on the terrace with Ralph and Dolly at his heels, and the two-year-old baby, who went by the name of Pickle, on his shoulder.
"I shall quite miss these bairnies," he said as Donovan joined them.""Gee up, horsey! Gee up!" shouted Pickle from his lofty perch.
"And oh, daddy, may we go into Gleyshot wiv you?" said Dolly, coaxingly."Elica's father's going to give me a playcat.""And me a whip," interposed Ralph."We may come with you, father, mayn't we?""Oh! Yes," said Donovan, smiling; "if Mr.Raeburn doesn't mind a crowded carriage."Erica had gone into the house.
"I don't know how to let you go," said Gladys, "We have so much enjoyed having you.I think you had much better stay here will Monday and leave those two to take care of themselves at Ashborough.""Oh, no," said Erica, smiling, "that would never do! You don't realize what an event this is to me.It is the first time father has spoken since his illness.Besides, I have not yet quite learned to think him well enough to look after himself though, of course, he is getting quite strong again.""Well, since you will go, come and choose a book for your journey,"said Gladys.
"Oh, I should like that," said Erica; "a nice homish sort of book, please, where the people lived in Arcadia and never heard of law courts!"Early in the afternoon they drove to Greyshot, stopping first of all at the toy shop.Raeburn, who was in excellent spirits, fully entered into the difficulties of Dolly's choice.At length a huge toy cat was produced.
"Oh, I should like that one!" said Dolly, clapping her hands.
"What a 'normous, gleat big cat it is!"
"I shouldn't have known what it was meant for," said Raeburn, scrutinizing the rather shapeless furry quadruped."How is it that you can't make them more like cats than this?""I don't know, sir, how it is," said the shopwoman; "we get very good dogs and rabbits, and donkeys, but they don't seem to have attained to the making of cats."This view of the matter so tickled Raeburn that he left Ralph and Dolly to see the "'normous gleat big cat" wrapped up, and went out of the shop laughing.
But just outside, a haggard, wild-looking man came up to him and began to address him in excited tones.
