The Essential Julian Hawthorne Collection. Julian Hawthorne
Читать онлайн книгу.
the young man's eyes, the old gentleman was ever and anon conscious of a disposition to recoil and shudder, and, at the same time, felt impelled, by what resembled a magnetic attraction, to gaze the harder. Did the very fact that some universal human characteristic was omitted from this person's nature endow him with an exceptional and peculiar power? There was an uncertainty, in talking and associating with him, as to what he would do or say; an ignorance of what might be his principles and points of view; an impossibility of supposing him governed by common laws. Such, at least, was the professor's fancy concerning him.
But again, turning his eyes to his pipe, or out of the window, was it not fancy altogether? Beyond that he was unusually tall and broad across the shoulders, and of a very intelligent cast of features, what was there or was there not in this young man different from any other? He had the muffled irregular voice, and alert yet unimpressible manner, peculiar to deafness. But was there any thing more? The professor took another look at him. He was reading, and certainly there were no signs of any thing strange in his appearance, more than that, at such a time, he should be reading at all. It was when speaking of his father that the uncanny expression had been especially noticeable. "Suppose," said Professor Valeyon to himself, "we try him on another subject."
"You've been educated at home, I understand," began he, from beneath his heavy eyebrows.
"Oh, yes!" replied Bressant, shutting his book on his knee, and returning the professor's look with one of exceeding keenness and comprehensiveness. "Educated to develop faculties of body and mind, not according to the ordinary school and college system." He drew himself up, with an air of such marvelous intellectual and physical efficiency, that it seemed to the professor as if each one of his five senses might equal the whole capacity of a common man. And then it occurred to him that he remembered, many years ago, having heard some one mention a theory of education which aimed rather to give the man power in whatever direction he chose to exercise it, than to store his mind with greater or less quantities of particular forms of knowledge. The only faculty to be left uncultivated, according to this theory, was that of human love--this being considered destructive, or, at least, greatly prejudicial, to progress and efficiency in any other direction. The professor could not at the moment recall who it was had evolved this scheme, but it became involuntarily connected in his mind with Bressant's peculiarities.
"According to the letter I received to-day, you come here to be trained to the ministry," resumed he. "Has all your previous education had this in view?"
"The education would have been the same, understand, whatever the end was to be," explained the young man, with a shrewd smile in his sharp eyes. "I am as well prepared to study theology as if I had been aiming at it all my life; but I might take up engineering or medicine as well as that. About a year ago, I decided to become a minister."
"And what led you to do that?" demanded the old gentleman, with rather a stern frown. He did not like the idea of approaching religion in other than a reverent and self-searching attitude.
"My father first suggested it," replied Bressant, on whom the frown produced no sort of impression. "At the time, it surprised me, especially from him. Afterward, I concluded I could not do better. No one has such a chance to move the world as a minister. I thought of Christ, and Paul, and Luther, and many before and since. They were all ministers, and who had greater power? I felt I had the ability, and I decided that it was as a minister I could best use it."
"But what are you going to use it for?" questioned the professor, settling his spectacles on his nose, and leaning across the table in his earnestness.
"The men I have mentioned used theirs to invent, or confirm, or overthrow, religious sects, and perhaps they couldn't have done better in their age. Their names are as well known now as ever, and that's the best test. But I hope I may discover a better method. I shall have the advantage of their experience and mistakes. Perhaps I shall develop and carry out to its conclusion the dogma of Christianity. That would be well as a beginning."
"Very well, that's certain!" assented the professor, dryly. "It's all I shall be able to give you any assistance in, too, so we needn't discuss what the next step will be. By-the-way, did you ever hear of doing any thing for the glory of God, and for the love of your fellow-men?"
"Oh, yes! they're pass-words of the profession, and have their use," returned Bressant, with another of his keen smiles. "If you want to climb above the world, the rounds in your ladder must be made of common woods that everybody knows the names of. The Bible is full of such, and some of them are works of genius in themselves. After all, it is the people who must immortalize us, and we must feed them with what they are in the habit of eating."
"What induced you to come here, sir?" asked the professor, abruptly.
"I never should have come of myself," answered the young man, with entire frankness. "I never heard your name mentioned until less than a year ago. It was the first time my father was expecting to die. He told me you were a wise man, and learned besides; he had known you when you were young; you would have some interest in teaching me; he would feel more at ease to die, if he knew you were directing me. I thought it over, as I said, and decided to come. Understand, I knew of no one except you, and I didn't want to go to a theological school."
"Humph!" grunted the professor, who was by no means well satisfied with the prospect, yet had reasons of his own for taking up the matter if possible. He smoked for a while longer, and Bressant resumed his book.
"By-the-way, about this _incognito_ of yours," said the former at length, laying aside his pipe, and taking off his straw hat: he had forgotten to remove it on entering, and it had been oppressing him with a sense of vague inconvenience ever since. "What is the meaning of it? Do you mean to keep it strict? Is the idea you own?"
"Oh, no! I heard nothing of it till after my father was dead. It was Mrs. Vanderplanck--she who wrote you the letter--who first spoke to me of it, and said he had desired it. I don't know what the necessity of it is, but it must be kept a strict secret. Should any one besides you know who I am, I stand in danger of losing my fortune."
"Ah, ha! lose your fortune!" exclaimed the professor, frowning so portentously as to unseat his spectacles. "How does that happen, sir?"
Bressant looked considerably amused at the old gentleman's evident emotion; the more as he saw no occasion for it. "I never had the curiosity to ask how," said he, pulling at his beard. "I shall run no risks with my fortune. I'm satisfied to know there might be danger; there's no difficulty in keeping silence about a name."
Professor Valeyon rose from his chair and walked to the window. A mighty host of gray clouds, piled thickly one upon another, and torn and tunneled by feverish wind-gusts, were hastening swiftly and silently across the sky from the west. Beyond, where they were thickest and angriest, a yellowish, lurid tint was reflected against them. The valley darkened like a frowning face, and the summits of the western hills were blotted out of sight. A lightning-flash shivered brightly through the air, and then came the first growling, leaping, accumulating peal of thunder. A sudden, rustling breath swept through the garden, and, following it, in big, quick drops, and soon in an unintermittent myriad-footed tramp, the rustling, perpendicular down-pelting of the rain.
In less than a minute, a gray, wet veil had been drawn across the farther side of the valley, hiding it from the professor's sight. Even the outer limits of the garden grew indistinct. The leaves of the trees bobbed ceaselessly up and down, and glistened and dripped; the shrubs and flowers seemed to lift themselves higher from the earth, and stretch out their green fingers to the plenteous shower. The tinkle of the fountain was quite obliterated, and the ordinarily smooth surface of the basin sprang upward in thousands of tiny pyramids, as if madly welcoming the impact of the rain-drops. Small cataracts tore in desperate haste down the slope of the garden-paths, laying bare in their pigmy fury the lower strata of rough gravel and pebbles. Upon the roof of the balcony was maintained an evenly sonorous monotone of drubbing, as if innumerable fairy carpenters were nailing on the shingles. The invalid water-spout had a hard time of it; it was racked, shaken, and bullied, and continually choked itself with the volubility of its fluent utterances, which were