"Well, no. He had had whooping-cough, and got through it easily. It was the scarlet fever that carried him off. Poor little chap, he was gone in no time." "And so, within a year, and after you had spent the greater part of your money, your farm hung upon two lives," Ralph said bitterly. "But, humanly speaking, they were good lives. Not lives that would be exposed to much risk. Lawyer Doubleday told me that he intended to bring up his boy to the same profession, and Parson Seccombe told me he had dedicated Julian to the Church in his infancy. What better lives, humanly speaking, could you get? Neither parsons nor lawyers run any risks to speak of." "Yes; that's true enough. The system being what it is, you did the best you could, no doubt." "Nobody could foresee," David said sadly, "that Doubleday's boy would go and get drowned. I nearly fainted when I heard the news." "And now you say that young Seccombe has got shot out in Egypt." "I don't know as to his being shot; but Tom Dyer, who was here this morning, said that he had just seen the parson, who was in great trouble, news having reached him last evening that Julian was wounded." "Then if the parson's in great trouble, the chances are he's badly wounded." "I don't know. I thought of walking across to St. Goram directly, and seeing the parson for myself; but I'm almost afraid to do so, lest the worst should be true." "We shall have to face it, whatever it is," Ralph said doggedly. "But think of what it would mean to us if the parson's son should die! Poor mother is that troubled that she has not been able to eat a mouthful of breakfast!" "She seems scarcely able to talk about it," Ralph said, glancing at the door through which his mother and Ruth had disappeared. "She's a little bit disposed to look on the dark side of things generally," David said slowly. "For myself, I keep hoping for the best. It doesn't seem possible that God can strip us of everything at a blow." "It doesn't seem to me as though God had any hand in the business," Ralph answered doggedly. "Hush, Ralph, my boy! The issues of life and death are in His hands." "And you believe also that He is the author of the leasehold system that obtains in this country?" "I did not say that, Ralph; but He permits it." "Just as He permits lying and theft, and murder and war, and all the other evil things there are in the world. But that is nothing to the point. You can't make me believe that the Almighty ever meant a few people to parcel out the world among themselves, and cheat all the rest out of their rights." "The world is what it is, my boy, and neither you nor I can alter it." "And you think it is our duty to submit quietly and uncomplainingly to whatever wrong or injustice is heaped upon us?" "We must submit to the law, my boy, however hardly it presses upon us." "But we ought to try, all the same, to get bad laws mended."