Part 14 (1/2)
”Not my own? bought and paid for!” thought Brixton, recalling the scene in which words of somewhat similar import had been addressed to him.
”Bought and paid for--twice bought! Body and soul!” Then, aloud, ”And what are you going to do now, Fred?”
”Going to discuss the situation with you.”
”And after you have discussed it, and acted according to our united wisdom, you will say that you have been guided.”
”Just so! That is exactly what I will say and believe, for `He is faithful who has promised.'”
”And if you make mistakes and go wrong, you will still hold, I suppose, that you have been guided?”
”Undoubtedly I will--not guided, indeed, into the mistakes, but guided to what will be best in the long-run, in spite of them.”
”But Fred, how can you call guidance in the wrong direction _right_ guidance?”
”Why, Tom, can you not conceive of a man being guided wrongly as regards some particular end he has in view, and yet that same guidance being right, because leading him to something far better which, perhaps, he has _not_ in view?”
”So that” said Tom, with a sceptical laugh, ”whether you go right or go wrong, you are sure to come right in the end!”
”Just so! `_All_ things work together for good to them that love G.o.d.'”
”Does not that savour of Jesuitism, Fred, which teaches the detestable doctrine that you may do evil if good is to come of it?”
”Not so, Tom; because I did not understand you to use the word _wrong_ in the sense of _sinful_, but in the sense of erroneous--mistaken. If I go in a wrong road, knowing it to be wrong, I sin; but if I go in a wrong road mistakenly, I still count on guidance, though not perhaps to the particular end at which I aimed--nevertheless, guidance to a _good_ end. Surely you will admit that no man is perfect?”
”Admitted.”
”Well, then, imperfection implies mistaken views and ill-directed action, more or less, in every one, so that if we cannot claim to be guided by G.o.d except when free from error in thought and act, then there is no such thing as Divine guidance at all. Surely you don't hold that!”
”Some have held it.”
”Yes; `the fool hath said in his heart, There is no G.o.d,'--some have even gone the length of letting it out of the heart and past the lips.
With such we cannot argue; their case admits only of pity and prayer.”
”I agree with you there, Fred; but if your views are not Jesuitical, they seem to me to be strongly fatalistic. Commit one's way to G.o.d, you say; then, shut one's eyes, drive ahead anyhow, and--the end will be sure to be all right!”
”No, I did not say that. With the exception of the first sentence, Tom, that is your way of stating the case, not G.o.d's way. If you ask in any given difficulty, `What shall I do?' His word replies, `Commit thy way unto the Lord. Trust also in Him, and He will bring it to pa.s.s.' If you ask, `How am I to know what is best?' the Word again replies, `hear, ye deaf; look, ye blind, that you may see.' Surely that is the reverse of shutting the eyes, isn't it? If you say, `how shall I act?' the Word answers, `A good man will guide his affairs with discretion.' That's not driving ahead anyhow, is it?”
”You may be right,” returned Tom, ”I hope you are. But, come, what does your wisdom suggest in the present difficulty?”
”The first thing that occurs to me,” replied the other, ”is what Flinders said, just before we were ordered off by the robbers. `Keep round by Bevan's Gully,' he said, in the midst of his serio-comic leave-taking; and again he said, `Bevan's Gully--sharp!' Of course Paddy, with his jokes and stammering, has been acting a part all through this business, and I am convinced that he has heard something about Bevan's Gully; perhaps an attack on Bevan himself, which made him wish to tell us to go there.”
”Of course; how stupid of me not to see that before! Let's go at once!”
cried Tom, starting up in excitement. ”Undoubtedly he meant that. He must have overheard the villains talk of going there, and we may not be in time to aid them unless we push on.”
”But in what direction does the gully lie?” asked Fred, with a puzzled look.
Tom returned the look with one of perplexity, for they were now a considerable distance both from Bevan's Gully and Pine Tree Diggings, in the midst of an almost unknown wilderness. From the latter place either of the friends could have travelled to the former almost blindfold; but, having by that time lost their exact bearings, they could only guess at the direction.
”I think,” said Fred, after looking round and up at the sky for some time, ”considering the time we have been travelling, and the position of the sun, that the gully lies over yonder. Indeed, I feel almost sure it does.”
He pointed, as he spoke, towards a ridge of rocky ground that cut across the western sky and hid much of the more distant landscape in that direction.