第102章 A Friend (6)

"I should have thought," continued Mr.Fane-Smith, "that under such strange circumstances you would have seen how necessary it was to forsake all.Think of St.Matthew, for instance; he rose up at once, forsook all, and followed Him.""Yes," said Erica."And what was the very first thing he was impelled to do by way of 'following?' Why, to make a great feast and have in all his old friends, all the despised publicans.""My dear Erica," said Mr.Fane-Smith, feeling his theological arguments worsted, "we must discuss this matter on practical grounds.In plain words, your father is a very bad man, and you ought to have nothing more to do with him."Erica's lips turned white with anger; but she answered, calmly:

"That is a very great accusation.How do you know it is true?""I know it well enough," said Mr.Fane-Smith."Why, every one in England knows it.""If you accept mere hearsay evidence, you may believe anything of any one.Have you ever read any of my father's books?""No."

"Or heard him lecture?"

"No, indeed; I would not hear him on any account.""Have you ever spoken with any of his intimate friends?""Mr.Raeburn's acquaintances are not likely to mix with any one Ishould know."

"Then," cried Erica, "how can you know anything whatever about him?

And how how DARE you say to me, his child, that he is a wicked man?""It is a matter of common notoriety."

"No," said Erica, "there you are wrong.It is notorious that my father teaches conscientiously teaches much that we regard as error, but people who openly accuse him of evil living find to their cost in the law courts that they have foully libeled him."She flushed even now at the thought of some of the hateful and wicked accusations of the past.Then, after a moment's pause, she continued more warmly:

"It is you people in society who get hold of some misquoted story, some ridiculous libel long ago crushed at the cost of the libeler it is you who do untold mischief! Only last summer I remember seeing in a paper the truest sentence that was ever written of my father, and it was this, 'Probably no one man has ever had to endure such gross personal insults, such widespread hostility, such perpetual calumny.' Why are you to judge him? Even if you had a special call to it, how could you justly judge him when you will not hear him, or know him, or fairly study his writings, or question his friends? How can you know anything whatever about him? Why, if he judged you and your party as you judge him, you would be furious!""My dear, you speak with so much warmth; if you would only discuss things calmly!" said Mr.Fane-Smith."Remember what George Herbert says: 'Calmness is a great advantage.' You bring too much feeling to the discussion.""How can I help feeling when you are slandering my father?"exclaimed Erica."I have tried to be calm, but there are limits to endurance! Would you like Rose to sit silently while my father told her without any ground that you were a wicked man?"When matters were reversed in this crude way, Mr.Fane-Smith winced a little.

"The cases are different," he suggested.

"Do you think atheists don't love their children as much as Christians?" cried Erica, half choked with indignant anger.Avision of the past, of her dead mother, of her father's never-failing tenderness brought a cloud of tears to her eyes.She brushed them away."The cases are different, as you say; but does a man care less for his home, when outside it he is badgered and insulted, or does he care infinitely more? Does a man care less for his child because, to get her food, he has had to go short himself, or does he care more? I think the man who has had to toil with all his might for his family loves it better than the rich man can.You say I speak with too much warmth, too much feeling.My complaint is the other way I can't find words strong enough to give you any idea of what my father has always been to me.To leave him would be to wrong my conscience, and to forsake my duty; and to distrust God.I will NEVER leave him!"With that she got up and left the room, and Mr.Fane-Smith leaned back in his chair with a sigh, his eyes fixed absently upon a portrait of Napoleon above his mantel piece, his mind more completely shaken out of its ordinary grooves than it had been for years.He was a narrow-minded man, but he was honest.He saw that he had judged Raeburn very unfairly.But perhaps what occupied his thoughts the most was the question "Would Rose have been able to say of him all that Erica had said of her father?" He sighed many times, but after awhile slid back into the old habits of thought.

"Erica is a brave, noble, little thing," he said to himself, "but far from orthodox far from orthodox! Socinian tendencies."