Erica read steadily on, though every pulse in her beat at double time.It was long before she finished it, for a three-fold chorus was going on in her brain Mr.Pogson's libelous charges; the talk between her father and Hazeldine, which revealed all too plainly the harm already done to the cause of Christianity by this one unscrupulous man; and her own almost despairing cry to the Unseen:
"Oh, Father! How is he ever to learn to know Thee, when such things as these are done in Thy name?"That little sheet of paper had fallen among them like a thunderbolt.
"I have passed over a great deal," Raeburn was saying when Erica looked up once more."But I shall not pass over this! Pogson shall pay dearly for it! Many thanks, Hazeldine, for bringing me word; I shall take steps about it at once."He left the room quickly, and in another minute they heard the street door close behind him.
"That means an action for libel," said Tom, knitting his brows.
"And goodness only knows what fearful work and worry for the chieftain.""But good to the cause in the long run," said Hazeldine."And as for Mr.Raeburn, he only rises the higher the more they try to crush him.He's like the bird that rises out of its own ashes the phenix, don't they call it?"Erica smiled a little at the comparison, but sadly.
"Don't judge Christianity by this one bad specimen," she said, as she shook hands with Hazeldine.
"How do Christians judge us, Miss Erica?" he replied, sternly.
"Then be more just than you think they are as generous as you would have them be.""It's but a working-day world, miss, and I'm but a working-day man.
I can't set up to be generous to them who treat a man as though he was the dirt in the street.And if you will excuse me mentioning it, miss, I could wish that this shameful treatment would show to you what a delusion it is you've taken up of late.""Mr.Pogson can hurt me very much, but not so fatally as that,"said Erica, as much to herself as to Hazeldine.
When he had gone she picked up the measure once more, and turned to Tom.
"Help me just to finish this, Tom," she said."We must try to move in as quickly as may be."Tom silently took the other end of the tape, and they set to work again; but all the enjoyment in the new house seemed quenched and destroyed by that blast of calumny.They knew only too well that this was but the beginning of troubles.
Raeburn, remembering his hasty speech, called Erica into the study the moment he heard her return.He was still very pale, and with a curiously rigid look about his face.
"I was right, you see, in my prophecy of rocks ahead," he exclaimed, throwing down his pen."You have come home to a rough time, Erica, and to an overharassed father.""The more harassed the father, the more reason that he should have a child to help him," said Erica, sitting down on the arm of his chair, and putting back the masses of white hair which hung over his forehead.
"Oh, child!" he said, with a sigh, "if I can but keep a cool head and a broad heart through the years of trouble before us!""Years!" exclaimed Erica, dismayed.
"This affair may drag on almost indefinitely, and a personal strife is apt to be lowering.""Yes," said Erica, musingly, "to be libeled does set one's back up dreadfully, and to be much praised humbles one to the very dust.""What will the Fane-Smiths say to this? Will they believe it of me?""I can't tell," said Erica, hesitatingly.
"'He that's evil deemed is half hanged,'" said Raeburn bitterly.
"Never was there a truer saying than that.""'Blaw the wind ne'er so fast, it will lown at the last'" quoted Erica, smiling."Equally true, PADRE MIO.""Yes, dear," he said quietly, "but not in my life time.You see if I let this pass, the lies will be circulated, and they'll say Ican't contradict them.If I bring an action against the fellow, people will say I do it to flaunt my opinions in the face of the public.As your hero Livingstone once remarked, 'Isn't it interesting to get blamed for everything?' However, we must make the best of it.How about the new house? When can we settle in?
I feel a longing for that study with its twenty-two feet o' length for pacing!""What are your engagements?" she asked, taking up a book from the table."Eleventh, Newcastle; 12th, Nottingham; 13th and 14th, Plymouth.Let me see, that will bring you home on Monday, the 15th, and will leave us three clear days to get things straight;that will do capitally."
"And you'll be sure to see that the books are carefully moved,"said Raeburn."I can't have the markers displaced."Erica laughed.Her father had a habit of putting candle lighters in his books to mark places for references, and the appearance of the book shelves all bristling with them had long been a family joke, more especially as, if a candle lighter happened to be wanted for its proper purpose, there was never one to be found.
"I will pack them myself," she said.
