第37章

Then at other times I feel I shouldn't like being cooped up in a town after the life I've led.Sometimes, this last month, I've felt I couldn't breathe.It was though, are you, all the chimneys were going to tumble in.When you're out on a field you know where you are, don't you? So I've thought it would be nice to have a little farm somewhere in the South, Devonshire or Glebeshire...And then I'd marry of course, a girl who'd like that kind of life and wouldn't find it dull.There'd be plenty of work--a healthy life for children right away from these towns...That's my sort of idea, father, but of course one doesn't know..."Martin trailed off into inconsequent words.It was as though his father were waiting for him to commit himself and would then suddenly leap upon him with "There! Now, you've betrayed yourself.

I've caught you--" and he had simply nothing to betray, nothing to conceal.

But anything was better than these pauses during which the threats and anticipations piled up and up, making a monstrous figure out of exactly nothing at all.

It was not enough to tell himself that between every father and son there were restraints and hesitations, a division cleft by the remembrance of the time when one had commanded and the other obeyed.

There were other elements here--for one the element of an old affection that had once been at the very root of the boy's soul and was now in the strangest way creeping back to him, as an old familiar, but forgotten form might creep out of the dark and sit at his feet and clasp his knees.

"Well," said John Warlock."That's very pleasant.You must feel very grateful to your aunt Rachel, Martin; she's given you the opportunity of doing what you like with your life.She spoke to me about it before she died.""She spoke to you about it?"

"Yes.She told me that she did it because she wanted to bring you back to me.She knew of my love for you.We often talked of you together.She was a faithful servant of God.She believed that God meant to bring you, through her, back into His arms.""I might not have come," Martin said with a sudden anger that surprised himself."She made no conditions.I might have gone on with my life there abroad.I am free to lead my own life where and how I please.""Quite free." His father answered gently."But she knew that you would come.Of course you are your own master, Martin--""No, but it must be quite clear," Martin cried, the excitement rising in him as he spoke.He leaned forward almost touching his father's chair."I'm not bound to any one by this money.It was awfully jolly of Aunt Rachel.I'll never forget her--but I'm free.Ihaven't got to say that I believe things when I don't, or that Ithink things that she thought just because she did...I don't want to hurt you, father, but you know that it must have seemed to me pretty odd coming back after all these years and finding you, all in the same place, doing the same things, believing in the same things--just like years ago.I've seen the world a bit, I can tell you--Russia, China, Japan, America, North and South, India.You believe as far as you can see.What are you to think when, in every country that you come to, you see people believing in different things? They can't all be right, you know."His father said nothing.

"But each thinks he's right--and each hates the other.Then, when Icame back and saw a fellow like that man Thurston preaching and laying down the law, well, it seemed odd enough that any one could be taken in by it.I hope I don't hurt you, father...only that's what you want, isn't it...to have it out quite plainly?..."His father, still very gently and hesitating as though he found it difficult to catch the words that he wished (his voice had still the remoteness of some one speaking, who was far from them both), said:

"You'll think it odd, Martin, when you know how often I have to preach and speak in public, that I should find it hard to talk--but I never, with any man alone, could find words easily.I know so little.It is God's punishment for some selfish nervousness and shyness in me, that even now when I am an old man I cannot speak as one man to another.There was once, I remember, a young man who had heard me preach and was moved by my words and begged to see me in private.He came one evening; he was tempted to commit a terrible sin.He depended upon me to save him and I could say nothing.Istruggled, I prayed, but it was incredible to me that any man could be tempted to such a thing.I spoke only conventional words that meant nothing.He went away from me, and his lost soul is now upon me and will always be...but, Martin, what I would say beyond everything is--do not let us separate.Be free as you must be free, as you should be free--but stay with me--remain with me.I am an old man; I have longed for you as I think no other father can ever have longed for his son.They tell me that I cannot live many more years.

God chooses His time.Be with me, Martin, for a little while even though I may seem old to you and foolish.Perhaps things will come back to you that you have long forgotten.You were once pledged and it was a vow that is not easily removed--but it is enough for the present if you will be with me a little, give me some of your time--give the old days a chance to come back." He laid his hand upon his son's.

The sudden touch of the dry, hot, trembling skin filled Martin's heart with the strangest confusion of affection, embarrassment and some familiar pathos.In just that way ten years before he had felt his father's hand and had thought: "How old he's getting!...How I shall miss him!...I hope nothing happens to him!" In the very balance of his father's sentences and the deliberate choice of words there had been something old-fashioned and remote from all the life and scramble of Martin's recent years.Now he took his father's hand in his own strong grasp and said gruffly: