The Case of Richard Meynell | Page 5

he had taken from the hall-table on coming in. But he pursued the subject no further.
The young man fidgeted a moment.
"All one can say is"--he broke out at last--"that if it had not been my father, it would have been some one else--the Archdeacon probably. The fight was bound to come."
"Of course it was!" The Rector sprang to his feet, and, with his hands under his coat-tails and his back to the fire, faced his visitor. "That's what we're all driving at. Don't be miserable about it, dear fellow. I bear your father no grudge whatever. He is under orders, as I am. The parleying time is done. It has lasted two generations. And now comes war--honourable, necessary war!"
The speaker threw back his head with emphasis, even with passion. But almost immediately the smile, which was the only positive beauty of the face, obliterated the passion.
"And don't look so tragic over it! If your father wins--and as the law stands he can scarcely fail to win--I shall be driven out of Upcote. But there will always be a corner somewhere for me and my books, and a pulpit of some sort to prate from."
"Yes, but what about _us?_" said the newcomer, slowly.
"Ah!" The Rector's voice took a dry intonation. "Yes--well!-you Liberals will have to take your part, and fire your shot some day, of course--fathers or no fathers."
"I didn't mean that. I shall fire my shot, of course. But aren't you exposing yourself prematurely--unnecessarily?" said the young man, with vivacity. "It is not a general's part to do that."
"You're wrong, Stephen. When my father was going out to the campaign in which he was killed, my mother said to him, as though she were half asking a question, half pleading--I can hear her now, poor darling!--'John, it's right for a general to keep out of danger?' and he smiled and said, 'Yes, when it isn't right for him to go into it, head over ears.' However, that's nonsense. It doesn't apply to me. I'm no general. And I'm not going to be killed!"
Young Barron was silent, while the Rector prepared a pipe, and began upon it; but his face showed his dissatisfaction.
"I've not said much to father yet about my own position," he resumed; "but, of course, he guesses. It will be a blow to him," he added, reluctantly.
The Rector nodded, but without showing any particular concern, though his eyes rested kindly on his companion.
"We have come to the fighting," he repeated, "and fighting means blows. Moreover, the fight is beginning to be equal. Twenty years ago--in Elsmere's time--a man who held his views or mine could only go. Voysey, of course, had to go; Jowett, I am inclined to think, ought to have gone. But the distribution of the forces, the lie of the field, is now altogether changed. I am not going till I am turned out; and there will be others with me. The world wants a heresy trial, and it is going to get one this time."
A laugh--a laugh of excitement and discomfort--escaped the younger man.
"You talk as though the prospect was a pleasant one!"
"No--but it is inevitable."
"It will be a hateful business," Baron went on, impetuously. "My father has a horribly strong will. And he will think every means legitimate."
"I know. In the Roman Church, what the Curia could not do by argument they have done again and again--well, no use to inquire how! One must be prepared. All I can say is, I know of no skeletons in the cupboard at present. Anybody may have my keys!"
He laughed as he spoke, spreading his hands to the blaze, and looking round at his companion. Barron's face in response was a face of hero-worship, undisguised. Here plainly were leader and disciple; pioneering will and docile faith. But it might have been observed that Meynell did nothing to emphasize the personal relation; that, on the contrary, he shrank from it, and often tried to put it aside.
After a few more words, indeed, he resolutely closed the personal discussion. They fell into talk about certain recent developments of philosophy in England and France--talk which showed them as familiar comrades in the intellectual field, in spite of their difference of age. Barron, a Fellow of King's, had but lately left Cambridge for a small College living. Meynell--an old Balliol scholar--bore the marks of Jowett and Caird still deep upon him, except, perhaps, for a certain deliberate throwing over, here and there, of the typical Oxford tradition--its measure and reticence, its scholarly balancing of this against that. A tone as of one driven to extremities--a deep yet never personal exasperation--the poised quiet of a man turning to look a hostile host in the face--again and again these made themselves felt through his chat about new influences in the world of