"Oh, I know, I know," said Mr. Davenport, helplessly, looking far off into the beautiful valley, with its hazy atmosphere and its rich fields of grain. "I've thought about it a thousand times, and a thousand times it has baffled me. I'm not judging, now, for you, Mr. Bradley, not in the least. I feel myself too thoroughly caught in the meshes of our social fabric to presume to unravel it for other people. But--but in _my_ position--for myself--it seems a monstrously wrong thing for me to count out this money and pay it over for John, just as if he were a horse. It makes me feel sick--as I fancy a criminal must feel after his first crime." Mr. Bradley laughed.
"You don't look it, Davenport! Criminal! Ha, ha, ha, ha! that's rich!"
Griffith moved uneasily and did not join the laugh which still convulsed his neighbor.
"For _me_ it is wrong--distinctly, absolutely wrong. It is a terrible thing for me to say--and still do it--I, a preacher of God! For you, I cannot judge. 'Judge not, that ye be not judged,' is what I always think in this matter. But for me, for _me_ it is not right--and yet what can I do?"
Mr. Bradley laughed again, partly in amusement and partly in derision, at what he looked upon as the preacher's unworldly view, and what he spoke of with vexation to others as "Davenport's damned foolishness," which had, of late, grown to be a matter of real unrest to the neighborhood, in which it was felt that the influence of such opinions could not fail to be dangerous to social order and stability. It was as if you or I were to spring the question of free land or free money in a convention of landlords and bankers. Or, if you please, like the arguments for anarchy or no government addressed to the "Fourth ward," or the members of Congress. It was, in short, subversive of the established order of things, and neither you, nor I, nor they, accept quite gracefully such propositions, if in their application to ourselves, they would be a sore and bitter loss--if it would render less secure and lofty our seat on the social or political throne. We revolt and we blame the disturber of the old established order of things--the order, which having been good enough for our fathers is surely good enough for you and for me. In short, was not the way in religion and in social order of our fathers far the better way? Is not the better way always that of the man who owns and rides in the carriage? If you will ask him--or if you are he--you will learn or see that there is not the least doubt of the fact. If you should happen to ask the man who walks, you may hear another story--if the man who walks happens to be a philosopher; but as all pedestrians are not philosophers and since acquiescence is an easy price to pay for peace, it may happen that the man in the carriage will be corroborated by the wayfarer whom his wheels have run down.