diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:39:47 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:39:47 -0700 |
| commit | 88e38c133cab26da98cfed5eb47fe206a81a1db0 (patch) | |
| tree | 5ff25c29746002a73d2a101a697332f075b3aaa5 | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 12387-0.txt | 16658 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/12387-8.txt | 17076 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/12387-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 368177 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/12387.txt | 17076 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/12387.zip | bin | 0 -> 368156 bytes |
8 files changed, 50826 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/12387-0.txt b/12387-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..82821b9 --- /dev/null +++ b/12387-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,16658 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12387 *** + +[Illustration: PAUL FABER.] + + + + +PAUL FABER, SURGEON + +BY GEORGE MACDONALD + + + + +1900 + + + + +CONTENTS. + +CHAP. + + I. THE LANE + II. THE MINISTER'S DOOR + III. THE MANOR HOUSE + IV. THE RECTORY + V. THE ROAD TO OWLKIRK + VI. THE COTTAGE + VII. THE PULPIT + VIII. THE MANOR HOUSE DINING-ROOM + IX. THE RECTORY DRAWING-ROOM + X. MR. DRAKE'S ARBOR + XI. THE CHAMBER AT THE COTTAGE + XII. THE MINISTER'S GARDEN + XIII. THE HEATH AT NESTLEY + XIV. THE GARDEN AT OWLKIRK + XV. THE PARLOR AT OWLKIRK + XVI. THE BUTCHER'S SHOP + XVII. THE PARLOR AGAIN + XVIII. THE PARK AT NESTLEY + XIX. THE RECTORY + XX. AT THE PIANO + XXI. THE PASTOR'S STUDY + XXII. TWO MINDS + XXIII. THE MINISTER'S BEDROOM + XXIV. JULIET'S CHAMBER + XXV. OSTERFIELD PARK + XXVI. THE SURGERY DOOR + XXVII. THE GROANS OF THE INARTICULATE + XXVIII. COW-LANE CHAPEL + XXIX. THE DOCTOR'S HOUSE + XXX. THE PONY-CARRIAGE + XXXI. A CONSCIENCE + XXXII. THE OLD HOUSE AT GLASTON + XXXIII. PAUL FABER'S DRESSING-ROOM + XXXIV. THE BOTTOMLESS POOL + XXXV. A HEART + XXXVI. TWO MORE MINDS + XXXVII. THE DOCTOR'S STUDY +XXXVIII. THE MIND OF JULIET + XXXIX. ANOTHER MIND + XL. A DESOLATION + XLI. THE OLD GARDEN + XLII. THE POTTERY + XLIII. THE GATE-LODGE + XLIV. THE CORNER OF THE BUTCHER'S SHOP + XLV. HERE AND THERE + XLVI. THE MINISTER'S STUDY + XLVII. THE BLOWING OF THE WIND + XLVIII. THE BORDER-LAND + XLIX. EMPTY HOUSES + L. FALLOW FIELDS + LI. THE NEW OLD HOUSE + LII. THE LEVEL OF THE LYTHE + LIII. MY LADY'S CHAMBER + LIV. NOWHERE AND EVERYWHERE + + + + +TO + +W.C.T. + +TUUM EST. + + Clear-windowed temple of the God of grace, + From the loud wind to me a hiding-place! + Thee gird broad lands with genial motions rife, + But in thee dwells, high-throned, the Life of life + Thy test no stagnant moat half-filled with mud, + But living waters witnessing in flood! + Thy priestess, beauty-clad, and gospel-shod, + A fellow laborer in the earth with God! + Good will art thou, and goodness all thy arts-- + Doves to their windows, and to thee fly hearts! + Take of the corn in thy dear shelter grown, + Which else the storm had all too rudely blown; + When to a higher temple thou shalt mount, + Thy earthly gifts in heavenly friends shall count; + Let these first-fruits enter thy lofty door, + And golden lie upon thy golden floor. + +G.M.D. + +PORTO FINO, _December_, 1878. + + + + +PAUL FABER. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE LANE. + + +The rector sat on the box of his carriage, driving his horses toward his +church, the grand old abbey-church of Glaston. His wife was inside, and +an old woman--he had stopped on the road to take her up--sat with her +basket on the foot-board behind. His coachman sat beside him; he never +took the reins when his master was there. Mr. Bevis drove like a +gentleman, in an easy, informal, yet thoroughly business-like way. His +horses were black--large, well-bred, and well-fed, but neither young nor +showy, and the harness was just the least bit shabby. Indeed, the entire +turnout, including his own hat and the coachman's, offered the beholder +that aspect of indifference to show, which, by the suggestion of a +nodding acquaintance with poverty, gave it the right clerical air of +being not of this world. Mrs. Bevis had her basket on the seat before +her, containing, beneath an upper stratum of flowers, some of the first +rhubarb of the season and a pound or two of fresh butter for a poor +relation in the town. + +The rector was a man about sixty, with keen gray eyes, a good-humored +mouth, a nose whose enlargement had not of late gone in the direction of +its original design, and a face more than inclining to the rubicund, +suggestive of good living as well as open air. Altogether he had the +look of a man who knew what he was about, and was on tolerable terms +with himself, and on still better with his neighbor. The heart under his +ribs was larger even than indicated by the benevolence of his +countenance and the humor hovering over his mouth. Upon the countenance +of his wife rested a placidity sinking almost into fatuity. Its features +were rather indications than completions, but there was a consciousness +of comfort about the mouth, and the eyes were alive. + +They were passing at a good speed through a varying country--now a +thicket of hazel, now great patches of furze upon open common, and anon +well-kept farm-hedges, and clumps of pine, the remnants of ancient +forest, when, halfway through a lane so narrow that the rector felt +every yard toward the other end a gain, his horses started, threw up +their heads, and looked for a moment wild as youth. Just in front of +them, in the air, over a high hedge, scarce touching the topmost twigs +with his hoofs, appeared a great red horse. Down he came into the road, +bringing with him a rather tall, certainly handsome, and even at first +sight, attractive rider. A dark brown mustache upon a somewhat smooth +sunburned face, and a stern settling of the strong yet delicately +finished features gave him a military look; but the sparkle of his blue +eyes contradicted his otherwise cold expression. He drew up close to the +hedge to make room for the carriage, but as he neared him Mr. Bevis +slackened his speed, and during the following talk they were moving +gently along with just room for the rider to keep clear of the off fore +wheel. + +"Heigh, Faber," said the clergyman, "you'll break your neck some day! +You should think of your patients, man. That wasn't a jump for any man +in his senses to take." + +"It is but fair to give my patients a chance now and then," returned the +surgeon, who never met the rector but there was a merry passage between +them. + +"Upon my word," said Mr. Bevis, "when you came over the hedge there, I +took you for Death in the Revelations, that had tired out his own and +changed horses with t'other one." + +As he spoke, he glanced back with a queer look, for he found himself +guilty of a little irreverence, and his conscience sat behind him in the +person of his wife. But that conscience was a very easy one, being +almost as incapable of seeing a joke as of refusing a request. + +"--How many have you bagged this week?" concluded the rector. + +"I haven't counted up yet," answered the surgeon. "--_You_'ve got one +behind, I see," he added, signing with his whip over his shoulder. + +"Poor old thing!" said the rector, as if excusing himself, "she's got a +heavy basket, and we all need a lift sometimes--eh, doctor?--into the +world and out again, at all events." + +There was more of the reflective in this utterance than the parson was +in the habit of displaying; but he liked the doctor, and, although as +well as every one else he knew him to be no friend to the church, or to +Christianity, or even to religious belief of any sort, his liking, +coupled with a vague sense of duty, had urged him to this most +unassuming attempt to cast the friendly arm of faith around the +unbeliever. + +"I plead guilty to the former," answered Faber, "but somehow I have +never practiced the euthanasia. The instincts of my profession, I +suppose are against it. Besides, that ought to be your business." + +"Not altogether," said the rector, with a kindly look from his box, +which, however, only fell on the top of the doctor's hat. + +Faber seemed to feel the influence of it notwithstanding, for he +returned, + +"If all clergymen were as liberal as you, Mr. Bevis, there would be more +danger of some of us giving in." + +The word _liberal_ seemed to rouse the rector to the fact that his +coachman sat on the box, yet another conscience, beside him. _Sub divo_ +one must not be _too_ liberal. There was a freedom that came out better +over a bottle of wine than over the backs of horses. With a word he +quickened the pace of his cleric steeds, and the doctor was dropped +parallel with the carriage window. There, catching sight of Mrs. Bevis, +of whose possible presence he had not thought once, he paid his +compliments, and made his apologies, then trotted his gaunt Ruber again +beside the wheel, and resumed talk, but not the same talk, with the +rector. For a few minutes it turned upon the state of this and that +ailing parishioner; for, while the rector left all the duties of public +service to his curate, he ministered to the ailing and poor upon and +immediately around his own little property, which was in that corner of +his parish furthest from the town; but ere long, as all talk was sure to +do between the parson and any body who owned but a donkey, it veered +round in a certain direction. + +"You don't seem to feed that horse of yours upon beans, Faber," he said. + +"I don't seem, I grant," returned the doctor; "but you should see him +feed! He eats enough for two, but he _can't_ make fat: all goes to +muscle and pluck." + +"Well, I must allow the less fat he has to carry the better, if you're +in the way of heaving him over such hedges on to the hard road. In my +best days I should never have faced a jump like that in cold blood," +said the rector. + +"I've got no little belongings of wife or child to make a prudent man of +me, you see," returned the surgeon. "At worst it's but a knock on the +head and a longish snooze." + +The rector fancied he felt his wife's shudder shake the carriage, but +the sensation was of his own producing. The careless defiant words +wrought in him an unaccountable kind of terror: it seemed almost as if +they had rushed of themselves from his own lips. + +"Take care, my dear sir," he said solemnly. "There may be something to +believe, though you don't believe it." + +"I must take the chance," replied Faber. "I will do my best to make +calamity of long life, by keeping the rheumatic and epileptic and +phthisical alive, while I know how. Where nothing _can_ be known, I +prefer not to intrude." + +A pause followed. At length said the rector, + +"You are so good a fellow, Faber, I wish you were better. When will you +come and dine with me?" + +"Soon, I hope," answered the surgeon, "but I am too busy at present. For +all her sweet ways and looks, the spring is not friendly to man, and my +work is to wage war with nature." + +A second pause followed. The rector would gladly have said something, +but nothing would come. + +"By the by," he said at length, "I thought I saw you pass the gate--let +me see--on Monday: why did you not look in?" + +"I hadn't a moment's time. I was sent for to a patient in the village." + +"Yes, I know; I heard of that. I wish you would give me your impression +of the lady. She is a stranger here.--John, that gate is swinging across +the road. Get down and shut it.--Who and what is she?" + +"That I should be glad to learn from you. All I know is that she is a +lady. There can not be two opinions as to that." + +"They tell me she is a beauty," said the parson. + +The doctor nodded his head emphatically. + +"Haven't you seen her?" he said. + +"Scarcely--only her back. She walks well. Do you know nothing about her? +Who has she with her?" + +"Nobody." + +"Then Mrs. Bevis shall call upon her." + +"I think at present she had better not. Mrs. Puckridge is a good old +soul, and pays her every attention." + +"What is the matter with her? Nothing infectious?" + +"Oh, no! She has caught a chill. I was afraid of pneumonia yesterday." + +"Then she is better?" + +"I confess I am a little anxious about her. But I ought not to be +dawdling like this, with half my patients to see. I must bid you good +morning.--Good morning, Mrs. Bevis." + +As he spoke, Faber drew rein, and let the carriage pass; then turned his +horse's head to the other side of the way, scrambled up the steep bank +to the field above, and galloped toward Glaston, whose great church rose +high in sight. Over hedge and ditch he rode straight for its tower. + +"The young fool!" said the rector, looking after him admiringly, and +pulling up his horses that he might more conveniently see him ride. + +"Jolly old fellow!" said the surgeon at his second jump. "I wonder how +much he believes now of all the rot! Enough to humbug himself with--not +a hair more. He has no passion for humbugging other people. There's that +curate of his now believes every thing, and would humbug the whole world +if he could! How any man can come to fool himself so thoroughly as that +man does, is a mystery to me!--I wonder what the rector's driving into +Glaston for on a Saturday." + +Paul Faber was a man who had espoused the cause of science with all the +energy of a suppressed poetic nature. He had such a horror of all kinds +of intellectual deception or mistake, that he would rather run the risk +of rejecting any number of truths than of accepting one error. In this +spirit he had concluded that, as no immediate communication had ever +reached his eye, or ear, or hand from any creator of men, he had no +ground for believing in the existence of such a creator; while a +thousand unfitnesses evident in the world, rendered the existence of one +perfectly wise and good and powerful, absolutely impossible. If one said +to him that he believed thousands of things he had never himself known, +he answered he did so upon testimony. If one rejoined that here too we +have testimony, he replied it was not credible testimony, but founded on +such experiences as he was justified in considering imaginary, seeing +they were like none he had ever had himself. When he was asked whether, +while he yet believed there was such a being as his mother told him of, +he had ever set himself to act upon that belief, he asserted himself +fortunate in the omission of what might have riveted on him the fetters +of a degrading faith. For years he had turned his face toward all +speculation favoring the non-existence of a creating Will, his back +toward all tending to show that such a one might be. Argument on the +latter side he set down as born of prejudice, and appealing to weakness; +on the other, as springing from courage, and appealing to honesty. He +had never put it to himself which would be the worse deception--to +believe there was a God when there was none; or to believe there was no +God when there was one. + +He had, however, a large share of the lower but equally indispensable +half of religion--that, namely, which has respect to one's fellows. Not +a man in Glaston was readier, by day or by night, to run to the help of +another, and that not merely in his professional capacity, but as a +neighbor, whatever the sort of help was needed. + +Thomas Wingfold, the curate, had a great respect for him. Having himself +passed through many phases of serious, and therefore painful doubt, he +was not as much shocked by the surgeon's unbelief as some whose real +faith was even less than Faber's; but he seldom laid himself out to +answer his objections. He sought rather, but as yet apparently in vain, +to cause the roots of those very objections to strike into, and thus +disclose to the man himself, the deeper strata of his being. This might +indeed at first only render him the more earnest in his denials, but at +length it would probably rouse in him that spiritual nature to which +alone such questions really belong, and which alone is capable of coping +with them. The first notable result, however, of the surgeon's +intercourse with the curate was, that, whereas he had till then kept his +opinions to himself in the presence of those who did not sympathize with +them, he now uttered his disbelief with such plainness as I have shown +him using toward the rector. This did not come of aggravated antagonism, +but of admiration of the curate's openness in the presentment of truths +which must be unacceptable to the majority of his congregation. + +There had arisen therefore betwixt the doctor and the curate a certain +sort of intimacy, which had at length come to the rector's ears. He had, +no doubt, before this heard many complaints against the latter, but he +had laughed them aside. No theologian himself, he had found the +questions hitherto raised in respect of Wingfold's teaching, altogether +beyond the pale of his interest. He could not comprehend why people +should not content themselves with being good Christians, minding their +own affairs, going to church, and so feeling safe for the next world. +What did opinion matter as long as they were good Christians? He did not +exactly know what he believed himself, but he hoped he was none the less +of a Christian for that! Was it not enough to hold fast whatever lay in +the apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian creed, without splitting +metaphysical hairs with your neighbor? But was it decent that his curate +should be hand and glove with one who denied the existence of God? He +did not for a moment doubt the faith of Wingfold; but a man must have +some respect for appearances: appearances were facts as well as +realities were facts. An honest man must not keep company with a thief, +if he would escape the judgment of being of thievish kind. Something +must be done; probably something said would be enough, and the rector +was now on his way to say it. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE MINISTER'S DOOR. + + +Every body knew Mr. Faber, whether he rode Ruber or Niger--Rubber and +Nigger, his groom called them--and many were the greetings that met him +as he passed along Pine Street, for, despite the brand of his atheism, +he was popular. The few ladies out shopping bowed graciously, for both +his manners and person were pleasing, and his professional attentions +were unexceptionable. When he dropped into a quick walk, to let Ruber +cool a little ere he reached his stall, he was several times accosted +and detained. The last who addressed him was Mr. Drew, the principal +draper of the town. He had been standing for some time in his shop-door, +but as Faber was about to turn the corner, he stepped out on the +pavement, and the doctor checked his horse in the gutter. + +"I wish you would look in upon Mr. Drake, sir," he said. "I am quite +uneasy about him. Indeed I am sure he must be in a bad way, though he +won't allow it. He's not an easy man to do any thing for, but just you +let me know what _can_ be done for him--and we'll contrive. A _nod_, you +know, doctor, etc." + +"I don't well see how I can," returned Faber. "To call now without being +sent for, when I never called before!--No, Mr. Drew, I don't think I +could." + +It was a lovely spring noon. The rain that had fallen heavily during the +night lay in flashing pools that filled the street with suns. Here and +there were little gardens before the houses, and the bushes in them were +hung with bright drops, so bright that the rain seemed to have fallen +from the sun himself, not from the clouds. + +"Why, goodness gracious!" cried the draper, "here's your excuse come +direct!" + +Under the very nose of the doctor's great horse stood a little +woman-child, staring straight up at the huge red head above her. Now +Ruber was not quite gentle, and it was with some dismay that his master, +although the animal showed no offense at the glowering little thing, +pulled him back a step or two with the curb, the thought darting through +him how easily with one pash of his mighty hoof the horse could +annihilate a mirrored universe. + +"Where from?" he asked, by what he would himself have called a +half-conscious cerebration. + +"From somewhere they say you don't believe in, doctor," answered the +draper. "It's little Amanda, the minister's own darling--Naughty little +dear!" he continued, his round good-humored face wrinkled all over with +smiles, as he caught up the truant, "what ever do you mean by splashing +through every gutter between home and here, making a little drab of +yourself? Why your frock is as wet as a dish-clout!--_and_ your shoes! +My gracious!" + +The little one answered only by patting his cheeks, which in shape much +resembled her own, with her little fat puds, as if she had been beating +a drum, while Faber looked down amused and interested. + +"Here, doctor!" the draper went on, "you take the little mischief on the +saddle before you, and carry her home: that will be your excuse." + +As he spoke he held up the child to him. Faber took her, and sitting as +far back in the saddle as he could, set her upon the pommel. She +screwed up her eyes, and grinned with delight, spreading her mouth wide, +and showing an incredible number of daintiest little teeth. When Ruber +began to move she shrieked in her ecstasy. + +Holding his horse to a walk, the doctor crossed the main street and went +down a side one toward the river, whence again he entered a narrow lane. +There with the handle of his whip he managed to ring the door-bell of a +little old-fashioned house which rose immediately from the lane without +even a footpath between. The door was opened by a lady-like young +woman, with smooth soft brown hair, a white forehead, and serious, +rather troubled eyes. + +"Aunty! aunty!" cried the child, "Ducky 'iding!" + +Miss Drake looked a little surprised. The doctor lifted his hat. She +gravely returned his greeting and stretched up her arms to take the +child. But she drew back, nestling against Faber. + +"Amanda! come, dear," said Miss Drake. "How kind of Dr. Faber to bring +you home! I'm afraid you've been a naughty child again--running out into +the street." + +"Such a g'eat 'ide!" cried Amanda, heedless of reproof. "A yeal +'ossy--big! big!" + +She spread her arms wide, in indication of the vastness of the upbearing +body whereon she sat. But still she leaned back against the doctor, and +he awaited the result in amused silence. Again her aunt raised her hands +to take her. + +"Mo' 'yide!" cried the child, looking up backward, to find Faber's eyes. + +But her aunt caught her by the feet, and amid struggling and laughter +drew her down, and held her in her arms. + +"I hope your father is pretty well, Miss Drake," said the doctor, +wasting no time in needless explanation. + +"Ducky," said the girl, setting down the child, "go and tell grandpapa +how kind Dr. Faber has been to you. Tell him he is at the door." Then +turning to Faber, "I am sorry to say he does not seem at all well," she +answered him. "He has had a good deal of annoyance lately, and at his +age that sort of thing tells." + +As she spoke she looked up at the doctor, full in his face, but with a +curious quaver in her eyes. Nor was it any wonder she should look at him +strangely, for she felt toward him very strangely: to her he was as it +were the apostle of a kakangel, the prophet of a doctrine that was +evil, yet perhaps was a truth. Terrible doubts had for some time been +assailing her--doubts which she could in part trace to him, and as he +sat there on Ruber, he looked like a beautiful evil angel, who _knew_ +there was no God--an evil angel whom the curate, by his bold speech, had +raised, and could not banish. + +The surgeon had scarcely begun a reply, when the old minister made his +appearance. He was a tall, well-built man, with strong features, rather +handsome than otherwise; but his hat hung on his occiput, gave his head +a look of weakness and oddity that by nature did not belong to it, while +baggy, ill-made clothes and big shoes manifested a reaction from the +over-trimness of earlier years. He greeted the doctor with a severe +smile. + +"I am much obliged to you, Mr. Faber," he said, "for bringing me home my +little runaway. Where did you find her?" + +"Under my horse's head, like the temple between the paws of the Sphinx," +answered Faber, speaking a parable without knowing it. + +"She is a fearless little damsel," said the minister, in a husky voice +that had once rung clear as a bell over crowded congregations--"too +fearless at times. But the very ignorance of danger seems the panoply of +childhood. And indeed who knows in the midst of what evils we all walk +that never touch us!" + +"A Solon of platitudes!" said the doctor to himself. + +"She has been in the river once, and almost twice," Mr. Drake went on. +"--I shall have to tie you with a string, pussie! Come away from the +horse. What if he should take to stroking you? I am afraid you would +find his hands both hard and heavy." + +"How do you stand this trying spring weather, Mr. Drake? I don't hear +the best accounts of you," said the surgeon, drawing Ruber a pace back +from the door. + +"I am as well as at my age I can perhaps expect to be," answered the +minister. "I am getting old--and--and--we all have our troubles, and, I +trust, our God also, to set them right for us," he added, with a +suggesting look in the face of the doctor. + +"By Jove!" said Faber to himself, "the spring weather has roused the +worshiping instinct! The clergy are awake to-day! I had better look out, +or it will soon be too hot for me." + +"I can't look you in the face, doctor," resumed the old man after a +pause, "and believe what people say of you. It can't be that you don't +even believe there _is_ a God?" + +Faber would rather have said nothing; but his integrity he must keep +fast hold of, or perish in his own esteem. + +"If there be one," he replied, "I only state a fact when I say He has +never given me ground sufficient to think so. You say yourselves He has +favorites to whom He reveals Himself: I am not one of them, and must +therefore of necessity be an unbeliever." + +"But think, Mr. Faber--if there should be a God, what an insult it is to +deny Him existence." + +"I can't see it," returned the surgeon, suppressing a laugh. "If there +be such a one, would He not have me speak the truth? Anyhow, what great +matter can it be to Him that one should say he has never seen Him, and +can't therefore believe He is to be seen? A god should be above that +sort of pride." + +The minister was too much shocked to find any answer beyond a sad +reproving shake of the head. But he felt almost as if the hearing of +such irreverence without withering retort, made him a party to the sin +against the Holy Ghost. Was he not now conferring with one of the +generals of the army of Antichrist? Ought he not to turn his back upon +him, and walk into the house? But a surge of concern for the frank young +fellow who sat so strong and alive upon the great horse, broke over his +heart, and he looked up at him pitifully. + +Faber mistook the cause and object of his evident emotion. + +"Come now, Mr. Drake, be frank with me," he said. "You are out of +health; let me know what is the matter. Though I'm not religious, I'm +not a humbug, and only speak the truth when I say I should be glad to +serve you. A man must be neighborly, or what is there left of him? Even +you will allow that our duty to our neighbor is half the law, and there +is some help in medicine, though I confess it is no science yet, and we +are but dabblers." + +"But," said Mr. Drake, "I don't choose to accept the help of one who +looks upon all who think with me as a set of humbugs, and regards those +who deny every thing as the only honest men." + +"By Jove! sir, I take you for an honest man, or I should never trouble +my head about you. What I say of such as you is, that, having inherited +a lot of humbug, you don't know it for such, and do the best you can +with it." + +"If such is your opinion of me--and I have no right to complain of it in +my own person--I should just like to ask you one question about +another," said Mr. Drake: "Do you in your heart believe that Jesus +Christ was an impostor?" + +"I believe, if the story about him be true, that he was a well-meaning +man, enormously self-deceived." + +"Your judgment seems to me enormously illogical. That any ordinarily +good man should so deceive himself, appears to my mind altogether +impossible and incredible." + +"Ah! but he was an extraordinarily good man." + +"Therefore the more likely to think too much of himself?" + +"Why not? I see the same thing in his followers all about me." + +"Doubtless the servant shall be as his master," said the minister, and +closed his mouth, resolved to speak no more. But his conscience woke, +and goaded him with the truth that had come from the mouth of its +enemy--the reproach his disciples brought upon their master, for, in the +judgment of the world, the master is as his disciples. + +"You Christians," the doctor went on, "seem to me to make yourselves, +most unnecessarily, the slaves of a fancied ideal. I have no such ideal +to contemplate; yet I am not aware that you do better by each other than +I am ready to do for any man. I can't pretend to love every body, but I +do my best for those I can help. Mr. Drake, I would gladly serve you." + +The old man said nothing. His mood was stormy. Would he accept life +itself from the hand of him who denied his Master?--seek to the powers +of darkness for cure?--kneel to Antichrist for favor, as if he and not +Jesus were lord of life and death? Would _he_ pray a man to whom the +Bible was no better than a book of ballads, to come betwixt him and the +evils of growing age and disappointment, to lighten for him the +grasshopper, and stay the mourners as they went about his streets! He +had half turned, and was on the point of walking silent into the house, +when he bethought himself of the impression it would make on the +unbeliever, if he were thus to meet the offer of his kindness. Half +turned, he stood hesitating. + +"I have a passion for therapeutics," persisted the doctor; "and if I +can do any thing to ease the yoke upon the shoulders of my fellows--" + +Mr. Drake did not hear the end of the sentence: he heard instead, +somewhere in his soul, a voice saying, "My yoke is easy, and my burden +is light." He _could_ not let Faber help him. + +"Doctor, you have the great gift of a kind heart," he began, still half +turned from him. + +"My heart is like other people's," interrupted Faber. "If a man wants +help, and I've got it, what more natural than that we should come +together?" + +There was in the doctor an opposition to every thing that had if it were +but the odor of religion about it, which might well have suggested doubt +of his own doubt, and weakness buttressing itself with assertion But the +case was not so. What untruth there was in him was of another and more +subtle kind. Neither must it be supposed that he was a propagandist, a +proselytizer. Say nothing, and the doctor said nothing. Fire but a +saloon pistol, however, and off went a great gun in answer--with no +bravado, for the doctor was a gentleman. + +"Mr. Faber," said the minister, now turning toward him, and looking him +full in the face, "if you had a friend whom you loved with all your +heart, would you be under obligation to a man who counted your +friendship a folly?" + +"The cases are not parallel. Say the man merely did not believe your +friend was alive, and there could be no insult to either." + +"If the denial of his being in life, opened the door to the greatest +wrongs that could be done him--and if that denial seemed to me to have +its source in some element of moral antagonism to him--_could_ I +accept--I put it to yourself, Mr. Faber--_could_ I accept assistance +from that man? Do not take it ill. You prize honesty; so do I: ten times +rather would I cease to live than accept life at the hand of an enemy to +my Lord and Master." + +"I am very sorry, Mr. Drake," said the doctor; "but from your point of +view I suppose you are right. Good morning." + +He turned Ruber from the minister's door, went off quickly, and entered +his own stable-yard just as the rector's carriage appeared at the +further end of the street. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE MANOR HOUSE. + + +Mr. Bevis drove up to the inn, threw the reins to his coachman, got +down, and helped his wife out of the carriage. Then they parted, she to +take her gift of flowers and butter to her poor relation, he to call +upon Mrs. Ramshorn. + +That lady, being, as every body knew, the widow of a dean, considered +herself the chief ecclesiastical authority in Glaston. Her acknowledged +friends would, if pressed, have found themselves compelled to admit that +her theology was both scanty and confused, that her influence was not of +the most elevating nature, and that those who doubted her personal piety +might have something to say in excuse of their uncharitableness; but she +spoke in the might of the matrimonial nimbus around her head, and her +claims were undisputed in Glaston. There was a propriety, springing from +quite another source, however, in the rector's turning his footsteps +first toward the Manor House, where she resided. For his curate, whom +his business in Glaston that Saturday concerned, had, some nine or ten +months before, married Mrs. Ramshorn's niece, Helen Lingard by name, who +for many years had lived with her aunt, adding, if not to the comforts +of the housekeeping, for Mrs. Ramshorn was plentifully enough provided +for the remnant of her abode in this world, yet considerably to the +style of her menage. Therefore, when all of a sudden, as it seemed, the +girl calmly insisted on marrying the curate, a man obnoxious to every +fiber of her aunt's ecclesiastical nature, and transferring to him, with +a most unrighteous scorn of marriage-settlements, the entire property +inherited from her father and brother, the disappointment of Mrs. +Ramshorn in her niece was equaled only by her disgust at the object of +her choice. + +With a firm, dignified step, as if he measured the distance, the rector +paced the pavement between the inn and the Manor House. He knew of no +cause for the veiling of an eyelash before human being. It was true he +had closed his eyes to certain faults in the man of good estate and old +name who had done him the honor of requesting the hand of his one +child, and, leaving her to judge for herself, had not given her the +knowledge which might have led her to another conclusion; it had +satisfied him that the man's wild oats were sown: after the crop he made +no inquiry. It was also true that he had not mentioned a certain vice in +the last horse he sold; but then he hoped the severe measures taken had +cured him. He was aware that at times he took a few glasses of port more +than he would have judged it proper to carry to the pulpit or the +communion table, for those he counted the presence of his Maker; but +there was a time for every thing. He was conscious to himself, I repeat, +of nothing to cause him shame, and in the tramp of his boots there was +certainly no self-abasement. It was true he performed next to none of +the duties of the rectorship--but then neither did he turn any of its +income to his own uses; part he paid his curate, and the rest he laid +out on the church, which might easily have consumed six times the amount +in desirable, if not absolutely needful repairs. What further question +could be made of the matter? the church had her work done, and one of +her most precious buildings preserved from ruin to the bargain. How +indignant he would have been at the suggestion that he was after all +only an idolater, worshiping what he called _The Church_, instead of the +Lord Christ, the heart-inhabiting, world-ruling king of heaven! But he +was a very good sort of idolater, and some of the Christian graces had +filtered through the roofs of the temple upon him--eminently those of +hospitality and general humanity--even uprightness so far as his light +extended; so that he did less to obstruct the religion he thought he +furthered, than some men who preach it as on the house-tops. + +It was from policy, not from confidence in Mrs. Ramshorn, that he went +to her first. He liked his curate, and every one knew she hated him. If, +of any thing he did, two interpretations were possible--one good, and +one bad, there was no room for a doubt as to which she would adopt and +publish. Not even to herself, however, did she allow that one chief +cause of her hatred was, that, having all her life been used to a pair +of horses, she had now to put up with only a brougham. + +To the brass knocker on her door, the rector applied himself, and sent a +confident announcement of his presence through the house. Almost +instantly the long-faced butler, half undertaker, half parish-clerk, +opened the door; and seeing the rector, drew it wide to the wall, +inviting him to step into the library, as he had no doubt Mrs. Ramshorn +would be at home to _him_. Nor was it long ere she appeared, in rather +youthful morning dress, and gave him a hearty welcome; after which, by +no very wide spirals of descent, the talk swooped presently upon the +curate. + +"The fact is," at length said the memorial shadow of the dean deceased, +"Mr. Wingfold is not a gentleman. It grieves me to say so of the husband +of my niece, who has been to me as my own child, but the truth must be +spoken. It may be difficult to keep such men out of holy orders, but if +ever the benefices of the church come to be freely bestowed upon them, +that moment the death-bell of religion is rung in England. My late +husband said so. While such men keep to barns and conventicles we can +despise them, but when they creep into the fold, then there is just +cause for alarm. The longer I live, the better I see my poor husband was +right." + +"I should scarcely have thought such a man as you describe could have +captivated Helen," said the rector with a smile. + +"Depend upon it she perceives her mistake well enough by this time," +returned Mrs. Ramshorn. "A lady born and bred _must_ make the discovery +before a week is over. But poor Helen always was headstrong! And in this +out-of-the-world place she saw so little of gentlemen!" + +The rector could not help thinking birth and breeding must go for little +indeed, if nothing less than marriage could reveal to a lady that a man +was not a gentleman. + +"Nobody knows," continued Mrs. Ramshorn, "who or what his father--not to +say his grandfather, was! But would you believe it! when I asked her +_who_ the man was, having a right to information concerning the person +she was about to connect with the family, she told me she had never +thought of inquiring. I pressed it upon her as a duty she owed to +society; she told me she was content with the man himself, and was not +going to ask him about his family. She would wait till they were +married! Actually, on my word as a lady, she said so, Mr. Bevis! What +could I do? She was of age, and independent fortune. And as to +gratitude, I know the ways of the world too well to look for that." + +"We old ones"--Mrs. Ramshorn bridled a little: she was only +fifty-seven!--"have had our turn, and theirs is come," said the rector +rather inconsequently. + +"And a pretty mess they are like to make of it!--what with infidelity +and blasphemy--I must say it--blasphemy!--Really you must do something, +Mr. Bevis. Things have arrived at such a pass that, I give you my word, +reflections not a few are made upon the rector for committing his flock +to the care of such a wolf--a fox _I_ call him." + +"To-morrow I shall hear him preach," said the parson. + +"Then I sincerely trust no one will give him warning of your intention: +he is so clever, he would throw dust in any body's eyes." + +The rector laughed. He had no overweening estimate of his own abilities, +but he did pride himself a little on his common sense. + +"But," the lady went on, "in a place like this, where every body talks, +I fear the chance is small against his hearing of your arrival. Anyhow I +would not have you trust to one sermon. He will say just the opposite +the next. He contradicts himself incredibly. Even in the same sermon I +have heard him say things diametrically opposite." + +"He can not have gone so far as to advocate the real presence: a rumor +of that has reached me," said the rector. + +"There it is!" cried Mrs. Ramshorn. "If you had asked me, I should have +said he insisted the holy eucharist meant neither more nor less than any +other meal to which some said a grace. The man has not an atom of +consistency in his nature. He will say and unsay as fast as one sentence +can follow the other, and if you tax him with it, he will support both +sides: at least, that is my experience with him. I speak as I find him." + +"What then would you have me do?" said the rector. "The straightforward +way would doubtless be to go to him." + +"You would, I fear, gain nothing by that. He is so specious! The only +safe way is to dismiss him without giving a reason. Otherwise, he will +certainly prove you in the wrong. Don't take my word. Get the opinion of +your church-wardens. Every body knows he has made an atheist of poor +Faber. It is sadder than I have words to say. He _was_ such a +gentlemanly fellow!" + +The rector took his departure, and made a series of calls upon those he +judged the most influential of the congregation. He did not think to ask +for what they were influential, or why he should go to them rather than +the people of the alms-house. What he heard embarrassed him not a +little. His friends spoke highly of Wingfold, his enemies otherwise: the +character of his friends his judge did not attempt to weigh with that of +his enemies, neither did he attempt to discover why these were his +enemies and those his friends. No more did he make the observation, +that, while his enemies differed in the things they said against him, +his friends agreed in those they said for him; the fact being, that +those who did as he roused their conscience to see they ought, more or +less understood the man and his aims; while those who would not submit +to the authority he brought to bear upon them, and yet tried to measure +and explain him after the standards of their own being and endeavors, +failed ludicrously. The church-wardens told him that, ever since he +came, the curate had done nothing but set the congregation by the ears; +and that he could not fail to receive as a weighty charge. But they told +him also that some of the principal dissenters declared him to be a +fountain of life in the place--and that seemed to him to involve the +worst accusation of all. For, without going so far as to hold, or even +say without meaning it, that dissenters ought to be burned, Mr. Bevis +regarded it as one of the first of merits, that a man should be a _good +churchman_. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE RECTORY. + + +The curate had been in the study all the morning. Three times had his +wife softly turned the handle of his door, but finding it locked, had +re-turned the handle yet more softly, and departed noiselessly. Next +time she knocked--and he came to her pale-eyed, but his face almost +luminous, and a smile hovering about his lips: she knew then that either +a battle had been fought amongst the hills, and he had won, or a +thought-storm had been raging, through which at length had descended the +meek-eyed Peace. She looked in his face for a moment with silent +reverence, then offered her lips, took him by the hand, and, without a +word, led him down the stair to their mid-day meal. When that was over, +she made him lie down, and taking a novel, read him asleep. She woke him +to an early tea--not, however, after it, to return to his study: in the +drawing-room, beside his wife, he always got the germ of his +discourse--his germon, he called it--ready for its growth in the pulpit. +Now he lay on the couch, now rose and stood, now walked about the room, +now threw himself again on the couch; while, all the time his wife +played softly on her piano, extemporizing and interweaving, with an +invention, taste, and expression, of which before her marriage she had +been quite incapable. + +The text in his mind was, "_Ye can not serve God and Mammon_." But not +once did he speak to his wife about it. He did not even tell her what +his text was. Long ago he had given her to understand that he could not +part with her as one of his congregation--could not therefore take her +into his sermon before he met her in her hearing phase in church, with +the rows of pews and faces betwixt him and her, making her once more one +of his flock, the same into whose heart he had so often agonized to pour +the words of rousing, of strength, of consolation. + +On the Saturday, except his wife saw good reason, she would let no one +trouble him, and almost the sole reason she counted good was trouble: if +a person was troubled, then he might trouble. His friends knew this, and +seldom came near him on a Saturday. But that evening, Mr. Drew, the +draper, who, although a dissenter, was one of the curate's warmest +friends, called late, when, he thought in his way of looking at sermons, +that for the morrow must be now finished, and laid aside like a parcel +for delivery the next morning. Helen went to him. He told her the rector +was in the town, had called upon not a few of his parishioners, and +doubtless was going to church in the morning. + +"Thank you, Mr. Drew. I perfectly understand your kindness," said Mrs. +Wingfold, "but I shall not tell my husband to-night." + +"Excuse the liberty, ma'am, but--but--do you think it well for a wife to +hide things from her husband?" + +Helen laughed merrily. + +"Assuredly not, as a rule," she replied. "But suppose I knew he would be +vexed with me if I told him some particular thing? Suppose I know now +that, when I do tell him on Monday, he will say to me, 'Thank you, wife. +I am glad you kept that from me till I had done my work,'--what then?" + +"All right _then_," answered the draper. + +You see, Mr. Drew, we think married people should be so sure of each +other that each should not only be content, but should prefer not to +know what the other thinks it better not to tell. If my husband +overheard any one calling me names, I don't think he would tell me. He +knows, as well as I do, that I am not yet good enough to behave better +to any one for knowing she hates and reviles me. It would be but to +propagate the evil, and for my part too, I would rather not be told." + +"I quite understand you, ma'am," answered the draper. + +"I know you do," returned Helen, with emphasis. + +Mr. Drew blushed to the top of his white forehead, while the lower part +of his face, which in its forms was insignificant, blossomed into a +smile as radiant as that of an infant. He knew Mrs. Wingfold was aware +of the fact, known only to two or three beside in the town, that the +lady, who for the last few months had been lodging in his house, was his +own wife, who had forsaken him twenty years before. The man who during +that time had passed for her husband, had been otherwise dishonest as +well, and had fled the country; she and her daughter, brought to +absolute want, were received into his house by her forsaken husband; +there they occupied the same chamber, the mother ordered every thing, +and the daughter did not know that she paid for nothing. If the ways of +transgressors are hard, those of a righteous man are not always easy. +When Mr. Drew would now and then stop suddenly in the street, take off +his hat and wipe his forehead, little people thought the round smiling +face had such a secret behind it. Had they surmised a skeleton in his +house, they would as little have suspected it masked in the handsome, +well-dressed woman of little over forty, who, with her pretty daughter +so tossy and airy, occupied his first floor, and was supposed to pay him +handsomely for it. + +The curate slept soundly, and woke in the morning eager to utter what he +had. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE ROAD TO OWLKIRK. + + +Paul Faber fared otherwise. Hardly was he in bed before he was called +out of it again. A messenger had come from Mrs. Puckridge to say that +Miss Meredith was worse, and if the doctor did not start at once, she +would be dead before he reached Owlkirk. He sent orders to his groom to +saddle Niger and bring him round instantly, and hurried on his clothes, +vexed that he had taken Ruber both in the morning and afternoon, and +could not have him now. But Niger was a good horse also: if he was but +two-thirds of Ruber's size, he was but one-third of his age, and saw +better at night. On the other hand he was less easily seen, but the +midnight there was so still and deserted, that that was of small +consequence. In a few minutes they were out together in a lane as dark +as pitch, compelled now to keep to the roads, for there was not light +enough to see the pocket-compass by which the surgeon sometimes steered +across country. + +Could we learn what waking-dreams haunted the boyhood of a man, we +should have a rare help toward understanding the character he has +developed. Those of the young Faber were, almost exclusively, of playing +the prince of help and deliverance among women and men. Like most boys +that dream, he dreamed himself rich and powerful, but the wealth and +power were for the good of his fellow-creatures. If it must be confessed +that he lingered most over the thanks and admiration he set to haunt his +dream-steps, and hover about his dream-person, it must be remembered +that he was the only real person in the dreams, and that he regarded +lovingly the mere shadows of his fellow-men. His dreams were not of +strength and destruction, but of influence and life. Even his revenges +never-reached further than the making of his enemies ashamed. + +It was the spirit of help, then, that had urged him into the profession +he followed. He had found much dirt about the door of it, and had not +been able to cross the threshold without some cleaving to his garments. +He is a high-souled youth indeed, in whom the low regards and corrupt +knowledge of his superiors will fail utterly of degrading influence; he +must be one stronger than Faber who can listen to scoffing materialism +from the lips of authority and experience, and not come to look upon +humanity and life with a less reverent regard. What man can learn to +look upon the dying as so much matter about to be rekneaded and +remodeled into a fresh mass of feverous joys, futile aspirations, and +stinging chagrins, without a self-contempt from which there is no +shelter but the poor hope that we may be a little better than we appear +to ourselves. But Faber escaped the worst. He did not learn to look on +humanity without respect, or to meet the stare of appealing eyes from +man or animal, without genuine response--without sympathy. He never +joined in any jest over suffering, not to say betted on the chance of +the man who lay panting under the terrors of an impending operation. Can +one be capable of such things, and not have sunk deep indeed in the +putrid pit of decomposing humanity? It is true that before he began to +practice, Faber had come to regard man as a body and not an embodiment, +the highest in him as dependent on his physical organization--as indeed +but the aroma, as it were, of its blossom the brain, therefore subject +to _all_ the vicissitudes of the human plant from which it rises; but he +had been touched to issues too fine to be absolutely interpenetrated and +inslaved by the reaction of accepted theories. His poetic nature, like +the indwelling fire of the world, was ever ready to play havoc with +induration and constriction, and the same moment when degrading +influences ceased to operate, the delicacy of his feeling began to +revive. Even at its lowest, this delicacy preserved him from much into +which vulgar natures plunge; it kept alive the memory of a lovely +mother; and fed the flame of that wondering, worshiping reverence for +women which is the saviour of men until the Truth Himself saves both. A +few years of worthy labor in his profession had done much to develop +him, and his character for uprightness, benevolence, and skill, with the +people of Glaston and its neighborhood, where he had been ministering +only about a year, was already of the highest. Even now, when, in a +fever of honesty, he declared there _could_ be no God in such an +ill-ordered world, so full was his heart of the human half of religion, +that he could not stand by the bedside of dying man or woman, without +lamenting that there was no consolation--that stern truth would allow +him to cast no feeblest glamour of hope upon the departing shadow. His +was a nobler nature than theirs who, believing no more than he, are +satisfied with the assurance that at the heart of the evils of the world +lie laws unchangeable. + +The main weak point in him was, that, while he was indeed +tender-hearted, and did no kindnesses to be seen of men, he did them to +be seen of himself: he saw him who did them all the time. The boy was in +the man; doing his deeds he sought, not the approbation merely, but the +admiration of his own consciousness. I am afraid to say this was +_wrong_, but it was poor and childish, crippled his walk, and obstructed +his higher development. He liked to _know_ himself a benefactor. Such a +man may well be of noble nature, but he is a mere dabbler in nobility. +Faber delighted in the thought that, having repudiated all motives of +personal interest involved in religious belief, all that regard for the +future, with its rewards and punishments, which, in his ignorance, +genuine or willful, of essential Christianity, he took for its main +potence, he ministered to his neighbor, doing to him as he would have +him do to himself, hopeless of any divine recognition, of any betterness +beyond the grave, in a fashion at least as noble as that of the most +devoted of Christians. It did not occur to him to ask if he loved him as +well--if his care about him was equal to his satisfaction in himself. +Neither did he reflect that the devotion he admired in himself had been +brought to the birth in him through others, in whom it was first +generated by a fast belief in an unselfish, loving, self-devoting God. +Had he inquired he might have discovered that this belief had carried +some men immeasurably further in the help of their fellows, than he had +yet gone. Indeed he might, I think, have found instances of men of faith +spending their lives for their fellows, whose defective theology or +diseased humility would not allow them to hope their own salvation. +Inquiry might have given him ground for fearing that with the love of +the _imagined_ God, the love of the indubitable man would decay and +vanish. But such as Faber was, he was both loved and honored by all whom +he had ever attended; and, with his fine tastes, his genial nature, his +quiet conscience, his good health, his enjoyment of life, his knowledge +and love of his profession, his activity, his tender heart--especially +to women and children, his keen intellect, and his devising though not +embodying imagination, if any man could get on without a God, Faber was +that man. He was now trying it, and as yet the trial had cost him no +effort: he seemed to himself to be doing very well indeed. And why +should he not do as well as the thousands, who counting themselves +religious people, get through the business of the hour, the day, the +week, the year, without one reference in any thing they do or abstain +from doing, to the will of God, or the words of Christ? If he was more +helpful to his fellows than they, he fared better; for actions in +themselves good, however imperfect the motives that give rise to them, +react blissfully upon character and nature. It is better to be an +atheist who does the will of God, than a so-called Christian who does +not. The atheist will not be dismissed because he said _Lord, Lord,_ and +did not obey. The thing that God loves is the only lovely thing, and he +who does it, does well, and is upon the way to discover that he does it +very badly. When he comes to do it as the will of the perfect Good, then +is he on the road to do it perfectly--that is, from love of its own +inherent self-constituted goodness, born in the heart of the Perfect. +The doing of things from duty is but a stage on the road to the kingdom +of truth and love. Not the less must the stage be journeyed; every path +diverging from it is "the flowery way that leads to the broad gate and +the great fire." + +It was with more than his usual zeal of helpfulness that Faber was now +riding toward Owlkirk, to revisit his new patient. Could he have +mistaken the symptoms of her attack? + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE COTTAGE. + + +Mrs. Puckridge was anxiously awaiting the doctor's arrival. She stood by +the bedside of her lodger, miserable in her ignorance and consequent +helplessness. The lady tossed and moaned, but for very pain could +neither toss nor moan much, and breathed--panted, rather--very quick. +Her color was white more than pale, and now and then she shivered from +head to foot, but her eyes burned. Mrs. Puckridge kept bringing her hot +flannels, and stood talking between the changes. + +"I wish the doctor would come!--Them doctors!--I hope to goodness Dr. +Faber wasn't out when the boy got to Glaston. Every body in this mortal +universe always is out when he's wanted: that's _my_ experience. You +ain't so old as me, miss. And Dr. Faber, you see, miss, he be such a +favorite as _have_ to go out to his dinner not unfrequent. They may have +to send miles to fetch him." + +She talked in the vain hope of distracting the poor lady's attention +from her suffering. + +It was a little up stairs cottage-room, the corners betwixt the ceiling +and the walls cut off by the slope of the roof. So dark was the night, +that, when Mrs. Puckridge carried the candle out of the room, the +unshaded dormer window did not show itself even by a bluish glimmer. But +light and dark were alike to her who lay in the little tent-bed, in the +midst of whose white curtains, white coverlid, and white pillows, her +large eyes, black as human eyes could ever be, were like wells of +darkness throwing out flashes of strange light. Her hair too was dark, +brown-black, of great plenty, and so fine that it seemed to go off in a +mist on the whiteness. It had been her custom to throw it over the back +of her bed, but in this old-fashioned one that was impossible, and it +lay, in loveliest confusion, scattered here and there over pillow and +coverlid, as if the wind had been tossing it all a long night at his +will. Some of it had strayed more than half way to the foot of the bed. +Her face, distorted almost though it was with distress, showed yet a +regularity of feature rarely to be seen in combination with such evident +power of expression. Suffering had not yet flattened the delicate +roundness of her cheek, or sharpened the angles of her chin. In her +whiteness, and her constrained, pang-thwarted motions from side to side, +she looked like a form of marble in the agonies of coming to life at the +prayer of some Pygmalion. In throwing out her arms, she had flung back +the bedclothes, and her daintily embroidered night-gown revealed a +rather large, grand throat, of the same rare whiteness. Her hands were +perfect--every finger and every nail-- + + Those fine[1] nimble brethren small, + Armed with pearl-shell helmets all. + +[Footnote 1: _Joshua Sylvester._ I suspect the word ought to be _five_, +not _fine_, as my copy (1613) has it.] + +When Mrs. Puckridge came into the room, she always set her candle on +the sill of the storm-window: it was there, happily, when the doctor +drew near the village, and it guided him to the cottage-gate. He +fastened Niger to the gate, crossed the little garden, gently lifted the +door-latch, and ascended the stair. He found the door of the chamber +open, signed to Mrs. Puckridge to be still, softly approached the bed, +and stood gazing in silence on the sufferer, who lay at the moment +apparently unconscious. But suddenly, as if she had become aware of a +presence, she flashed wide her great eyes, and the pitiful entreaty that +came into them when she saw him, went straight to his heart. Faber felt +more for the sufferings of some of the lower animals than for certain of +his patients; but children and women he would serve like a slave. The +dumb appeal of her eyes almost unmanned him. + +"I am sorry to see you so ill," he said, as he took her wrist. "You are +in pain: where?" + +Her other hand moved toward her side in reply. Every thing indicated +pleurisy--such that there was no longer room for gentle measures. She +must be relieved at once: he must open a vein. In the changed practice +of later days, it had seldom fallen to the lot of Faber to perform the +very simple operation of venesection, but that had little to do with the +trembling of the hands which annoyed him with himself, when he proceeded +to undo a sleeve of his patient's nightdress. Finding no button, he took +a pair of scissors from his pocket, cut ruthlessly through linen and +lace, and rolled back the sleeve. It disclosed an arm the sight of which +would have made a sculptor rejoice as over some marbles of old Greece. I +can not describe it, and if I could, for very love and reverence I would +rather let it alone. Faber felt his heart rise in his throat at the +necessity of breaking that exquisite surface with even such an +insignificant breach and blemish as the shining steel betwixt his +forefinger and thumb must occasion. But a slight tremble of the hand he +held acknowledged the intruding sharpness, and then the red parabola +rose from the golden bowl. He stroked the lovely arm to help its flow, +and soon the girl once more opened her eyes and looked at him. Already +her breathing was easier. But presently her eyes began to glaze with +approaching faintness, and he put his thumb on the wound. She smiled and +closed them. He bound up her arm, laid it gently by her side, gave her +something to drink, and sat down. He sat until he saw her sunk in a +quiet, gentle sleep: ease had dethroned pain, and order had begun to +dawn out of threatened chaos. + +"Thank God!" he said, involuntarily, and stood up: what all that meant, +God only knows. + +After various directions to Mrs. Puckridge, to which she seemed to +attend, but which, being as simple as necessary, I fear she forgot the +moment they were uttered, the doctor mounted, and rode away. The +darkness was gone, for the moon was rising, but when the road compelled +him to face her, she blinded him nearly as much. Slowly she rose through +a sky freckled with wavelets of cloud, and as she crept up amongst them +she brought them all out, in bluish, pearly, and opaline gray. Then, +suddenly almost, as it seemed, she left them, and walked up aloft, +drawing a thin veil around her as she ascended. All was so soft, so +sleepy, so vague, it seemed to Paul as he rode slowly along, himself +almost asleep, as if the Night had lost the blood he had caused to flow, +and the sweet exhaustion that followed had from the lady's brain +wandered out over Nature herself, as she sank, a lovelier Katadyomene, +into the hushed sea of pain-won repose. + +Was he in love with her? I do not know. I could tell, if I knew what +being in love is. I think no two loves were ever the same since the +creation of the world. I know that something had passed from her eyes to +his--but what? He may have been in love with her already; but ere long +my reader may be more sure than I that he was not. The Maker of men +alone understands His awful mystery between the man and the woman. But +without it, frightful indeed as are some of its results, assuredly the +world He has made would burst its binding rings and fly asunder in +shards, leaving His spirit nothing to enter, no time to work His lovely +will. + +It must be to any man a terrible thing to find himself in wild pain, +with no God of whom to entreat that his soul may not faint within him; +but to a man who can think as well as feel, it were a more terrible +thing still, to find himself afloat on the tide of a lovely passion, +with no God to whom to cry, accountable to Himself for that which He has +made. Will any man who has ever cast more than a glance into the +mysteries of his being, dare think himself sufficient to the ruling of +his nature? And if he rule it not, what shall he be but the sport of the +demons that will ride its tempests, that will rouse and torment its +ocean? What help then is there? What high-hearted man would consent to +be possessed and sweetly ruled by the loveliest of angels? Truly it were +but a daintier madness. Come thou, holy Love, father of my spirit, +nearer to the unknown deeper me than my consciousness is to its known +self, possess me utterly, for thou art more me than I am myself. Rule +thou. Then first I rule. Shadow me from the too radiant splendors of thy +own creative thought. Folded in thy calm, I shall love, and not die. And +ye, women, be the daughters of Him from whose heart came your mothers; +be the saviours of men, and neither their torment nor their prey! + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE PULPIT. + + +Before morning it rained hard again; but it cleared at sunrise, and the +first day of the week found the world new-washed. Glaston slept longer +than usual, however, for all the shine, and in the mounting sun looked +dead and deserted. There were no gay shop-windows to reflect his beams, +or fill them with rainbow colors. There were no carriages or carts, and +only, for a few moments, one rider. That was Paul Faber again, on Ruber +now, aglow in the morning. There were no children playing yet about the +streets or lanes; but the cries of some came at intervals from unseen +chambers, as the Sunday soap stung their eyes, or the Sunday comb tore +their matted locks. + +As Faber rode out of his stable-yard, Wingfold took his hat from its +peg, to walk through his churchyard. He lived almost in the churchyard, +for, happily, since his marriage the rectory had lost its tenants, and +Mr. Bevis had allowed him to occupy it, in lieu of part of his salary. +It was not yet church-time by hours, but he had a custom of going every +Sunday morning, in the fine weather, quite early, to sit for an hour or +two alone in the pulpit, amidst the absolute solitude and silence of the +great church. It was a door, he said, through which a man who could not +go to Horeb, might enter and find the power that dwells on mountain-tops +and in desert places. + +He went slowly through the churchyard, breathing deep breaths of the +delicious spring-morning air. Rain-drops were sparkling all over the +grassy graves, and in the hollows of the stones they had gathered in +pools. The eyes of the death-heads were full of water, as if weeping at +the defeat of their master. Every now and then a soft little wind awoke, +like a throb of the spirit of life, and shook together the scattered +drops upon the trees, and then down came diamond showers on the grass +and daisies of the mounds, and fed the green moss in the letters of the +epitaphs. Over all the sun was shining, as if everywhere and forever +spring was the order of things. And is it not so? Is not the idea of the +creation an eternal spring ever trembling on the verge of summer? It +seemed so to the curate, who was not given to sad, still less to +sentimental moralizing over the graves. From such moods his heart +recoiled. To him they were weak and mawkish, and in him they would have +been treacherous. No grave was to him the place where a friend was +lying; it was but a cenotaph--the place where the Lord had lain. + +"Let those possessed with demons haunt the tombs," he said, as he sat +down in the pulpit; "for me, I will turn my back upon them with the +risen Christ. Yes, friend, I hear you! I know what you say! You have +more affection than I? you can not forsake the last resting-place of the +beloved? Well, you may have more feeling than I; there is no gauge by +which I can tell, and if there were, it would be useless: we are as God +made us.--No, I will not say that: I will say rather, I am as God is +making me, and I shall one day be as He has made me. Meantime I know +that He will have me love my enemy tenfold more than now I love my +friend. Thou believest that the malefactor--ah, there was faith now! Of +two men dying together in agony and shame, the one beseeches of the +other the grace of a king! Thou believest, I say--at least thou +professest to believe that the malefactor was that very day with Jesus +in Paradise, and yet thou broodest over thy friend's grave, gathering +thy thoughts about the pitiful garment he left behind him, and letting +himself drift away into the unknown, forsaken of all but thy vaguest, +most shapeless thinkings! Tell me not thou fearest to enter there whence +has issued no revealing. It is God who gives thee thy mirror of +imagination, and if thou keep it clean, it will give thee back no shadow +but of the truth. Never a cry of love went forth from human heart but +it found some heavenly chord to fold it in. Be sure thy friend inhabits +a day not out of harmony with this morning of earthly spring, with this +sunlight, those rain-drops, that sweet wind that flows so softly over +his grave." + +It was the first sprouting of a _germon_. He covered it up and left it: +he had something else to talk to his people about this morning. + +While he sat thus in the pulpit, his wife was praying for him ere she +rose. She had not learned to love him in the vestibule of society, that +court of the Gentiles, but in the chamber of torture and the clouded +adytum of her own spiritual temple. For there a dark vapor had hid the +deity enthroned, until the words of His servant melted the gloom. Then +she saw that what she had taken for her own innermost chamber of awful +void, was the dwelling-place of the most high, most lovely, only One, +and through its windows she beheld a cosmos dawning out of chaos. +Therefore the wife walked beside the husband in the strength of a common +faith in absolute Good; and not seldom did the fire which the torch of +his prophecy had kindled upon her altar, kindle again that torch, when +some bitter wind of evil words, or mephitis of human perversity, or +thunder-rain of foiled charity, had extinguished it. She loved every +hair upon his head, but loved his well-being infinitely more than his +mortal life. A wrinkle on his forehead would cause her a pang, yet would +she a thousand times rather have seen him dead than known him guilty of +one of many things done openly by not a few of his profession. + +And now, as one sometimes wonders what he shall dream to-night, she sat +wondering what new thing, or what old thing fresher and more alive than +the new, would this day flow from his heart into hers. The following is +the substance of what, a few hours after, she did hear from him. His +rector, sitting between Mrs. Bevis and Mrs. Ramshorn, heard it also. The +radiance of truth shone from Wingfold's face as he spoke, and those of +the congregation who turned away from his words were those whose lives +ran counter to the spirit of them. Whatever he uttered grew out of a +whole world of thought, but it grew before them--that is, he always +thought afresh in the presence of the people, and spoke extempore. + +"'_Ye can not serve God and mammon_.' + +"Who said this? The Lord by whose name ye are called, in whose name +this house was built, and who will at last judge every one of us. And +yet how many of you are, and have been for years, trying your very +hardest to do the thing your Master tells you is impossible! Thou man! +Thou woman! I appeal to thine own conscience whether thou art not +striving to serve God and mammon. + +"But stay! am I right?--It can not be. For surely if a man strove hard +to serve God and mammon, he would presently discover the thing was +impossible. It is not easy to serve God, and it is easy to serve mammon; +if one strove to serve God, the hard thing, along with serving mammon, +the easy thing, the incompatibility of the two endeavors must appear. +The fact is there is no strife in you. With ease you serve mammon every +day and hour of your lives, and for God, you do not even ask yourselves +the question whether you are serving Him or no. Yet some of you are at +this very moment indignant that I call you servers of mammon. Those of +you who know that God knows you are His servants, know also that I do +not mean you; therefore, those who are indignant at being called the +servants of mammon, are so because they are indeed such. As I say these +words I do not lift my eyes, not that I am afraid to look you in the +face, as uttering an offensive thing, but that I would have your own +souls your accusers. + +"Let us consider for a moment the God you do not serve, and then for a +moment the mammon you do serve. The God you do not serve is the Father +of Lights, the Source of love, the Maker of man and woman, the Head of +the great family, the Father of fatherhood and motherhood; the +Life-giver who would die to preserve His children, but would rather slay +them than they should live the servants of evil; the God who can neither +think nor do nor endure any thing mean or unfair; the God of poetry and +music and every marvel; the God of the mountain tops, and the rivers +that run from the snows of death, to make the earth joyous with life; +the God of the valley and the wheat-field, the God who has set love +betwixt youth and maiden; the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, +the perfect; the God whom Christ knew, with whom Christ was satisfied, +of whom He declared that to know Him was eternal life. The mammon you do +serve is not a mere negation, but a positive Death. His temple is a +darkness, a black hollow, ever hungry, in the heart of man, who tumbles +into it every thing that should make life noble and lovely. To all who +serve him he makes it seem that his alone is the reasonable service. +His wages are death, but he calls them life, and they believe him. I +will tell you some of the marks of his service--a few of the badges of +his household--for he has no visible temple; no man bends the knee to +him; it is only his soul, his manhood, that the worshiper casts in the +dust before him. If a man talks of the main chance, meaning thereby that +of making money, or of number one, meaning thereby self, except indeed +he honestly jest, he is a servant of mammon. If, when thou makest a +bargain, thou thinkest _only_ of thyself and thy gain, though art a +servant of mammon. The eager looks of those that would get money, the +troubled looks of those who have lost it, worst of all the gloating +looks of them that have it, these are sure signs of the service of +mammon. If in the church thou sayest to the rich man, 'Sit here in a +good place,' and to the poor man, 'Stand there,' thou art a +mammon-server. If thou favorest the company of those whom men call +well-to-do, when they are only well-to-eat, well-to-drink, or +well-to-show, and declinest that of the simple and the meek, then in thy +deepest consciousness know that thou servest mammon, not God. If thy +hope of well-being in time to come, rests upon thy houses, or lands, or +business, or money in store, and not upon the living God, be thou +friendly and kind with the overflowings of thy possessions, or a churl +whom no man loves, thou art equally a server of mammon. If the loss of +thy goods would take from thee the joy of thy life; if it would tear thy +heart that the men thou hadst feasted should hold forth to thee the two +fingers instead of the whole hand; nay, if thy thought of to-morrow +makes thee quail before the duty of to-day, if thou broodest over the +evil that is not come, and turnest from the God who is with thee in the +life of the hour, thou servest mammon; he holds thee in his chain; thou +art his ape, whom he leads about the world for the mockery of his +fellow-devils. If with thy word, yea, even with thy judgment, thou +confessest that God is the only good, yet livest as if He had sent thee +into the world to make thyself rich before thou die; if it will add one +feeblest pang to the pains of thy death, to think that thou must leave +thy fair house, thy ancestral trees, thy horses, thy shop, thy books, +behind thee, then art thou a servant of mammon, and far truer to thy +master than he will prove to thee. Ah, slave! the moment the breath is +out of the body, lo, he has already deserted thee! and of all in which +thou didst rejoice, all that gave thee such power over thy fellows, +there is not left so much as a spike of thistle-down for the wind to +waft from thy sight. For all thou hast had, there is nothing to show. +Where is the friendship in which thou mightst have invested thy money, +in place of burying it in the maw of mammon? Troops of the dead might +now be coming to greet thee with love and service, hadst thou made thee +friends with thy money; but, alas! to thee it was not money, but mammon, +for thou didst love it--not for the righteousness and salvation thou by +its means mightst work in the earth, but for the honor it brought thee +among men, for the pleasures and immunities it purchased. Some of you +are saying in your hearts, 'Preach to thyself, and practice thine own +preaching;'--and you say well. And so I mean to do, lest having preached +to others I should be myself a cast-away--drowned with some of you in +the same pond of filth. God has put money in my power through the gift +of one whom you know. I shall endeavor to be a faithful steward of that +which God through her has committed to me in trust. Hear me, friends--to +none of you am I the less a friend that I tell you truths you would hide +from your own souls: money is not mammon; it is God's invention; it is +good and the gift of God. But for money and the need of it, there would +not be half the friendship in the world. It is powerful for good when +divinely used. Give it plenty of air, and it is sweet as the hawthorn; +shut it up, and it cankers and breeds worms. Like all the best gifts of +God, like the air and the water, it must have motion and change and +shakings asunder; like the earth itself, like the heart and mind of man, +it must be broken and turned, not heaped together and neglected. It is +an angel of mercy, whose wings are full of balm and dews and +refreshings; but when you lay hold of him, pluck his pinions, pen him in +a yard, and fall down and worship him--then, with the blessed vengeance +of his master, he deals plague and confusion and terror, to stay the +idolatry. If I misuse or waste or hoard the divine thing, I pray my +Master to see to it--my God to punish me. Any fire rather than be given +over to the mean idol! And now I will make an offer to my townsfolk in +the face of this congregation--that, whoever will, at the end of three +years, bring me his books, to him also will I lay open mine, that he +will see how I have sought to make friends of the mammon of +unrighteousness. Of the mammon-server I expect to be judged according +to the light that is in him, and that light I know to be darkness. + +"Friend, be not a slave. Be wary. Look not on the gold when it is yellow +in thy purse. Hoard not. In God's name, spend--spend on. Take heed how +thou spendest, but take heed that thou spend. Be thou as the sun in +heaven; let thy gold be thy rays, thy angels of love and life and +deliverance. Be thou a candle of the Lord to spread His light through +the world. If hitherto, in any fashion of faithlessness, thou hast +radiated darkness into the universe, humble thyself, and arise and +shine. + +"But if thou art poor, then look not on thy purse when it is empty. He +who desires more than God wills him to have, is also a servant of +mammon, for he trusts in what God has made, and not in God Himself. He +who laments what God has taken from him, he is a servant of mammon. He +who for care can not pray, is a servant of mammon. There are men in this +town who love and trust their horses more than the God that made them +and their horses too. None the less confidently will they give judgment +on the doctrine of God. But the opinion of no man who does not render +back his soul to the living God and live in Him, is, in religion, worth +the splinter of a straw. Friends, cast your idol into the furnace; melt +your mammon down, coin him up, make God's money of him, and send him +coursing. Make of him cups to carry the gift of God, the water of life, +through the world--in lovely justice to the oppressed, in healthful +labor to them whom no man hath hired, in rest to the weary who have +borne the burden and heat of the day, in joy to the heavy-hearted, in +laughter to the dull-spirited. Let them all be glad with reason, and +merry without revel. Ah! what gifts in music, in drama, in the tale, in +the picture, in the spectacle, in books and models, in flowers and +friendly feasting, what true gifts might not the mammon of +unrighteousness, changed back into the money of God, give to men and +women, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh! How would you not spend +your money for the Lord, if He needed it at your hand! He does need it; +for he that spends it upon the least of his fellows, spends it upon his +Lord. To hold fast upon God with one hand, and open wide the other to +your neighbor--that is religion; that is the law and the prophets, and +the true way to all better things that are yet to come.--Lord, defend us +from Mammon. Hold Thy temple against his foul invasion. Purify our +money with Thy air, and Thy sun, that it may be our slave, and Thou our +Master. Amen." + +The moment his sermon was ended, the curate always set himself to forget +it. This for three reasons: first, he was so dissatisfied with it, that +to think of it was painful--and the more, that many things he might have +said, and many better ways of saying what he had said, would constantly +present themselves. Second, it was useless to brood over what could not +be bettered; and, third, it was hurtful, inasmuch as it prevented the +growth of new, hopeful, invigorating thought, and took from his +strength, and the quality of his following endeavor. A man's labors must +pass like the sunrises and sunsets of the world. The next thing, not the +last, must be his care. When he reached home, he would therefore use +means to this end of diversion, and not unfrequently would write verses. +Here are those he wrote that afternoon. + + LET YOUR LIGHT SO SHINE. + + Sometimes, O Lord, thou lightest in my head + A lamp that well might Pharos all the lands; + Anon the light will neither burn nor spread + Shrouded in danger gray the beacon stands. + + A Pharos? Oh, dull brain! Oh, poor quenched lamp, + Under a bushel, with an earthy smell! + Moldering it lies, in rust and eating damp, + While the slow oil keeps oozing from its cell! + + For me it were enough to be a flower + Knowing its root in thee was somewhere hid-- + To blossom at the far appointed hour, + And fold in sleep when thou, my Nature, bid. + + But hear my brethren crying in the dark! + Light up my lamp that it may shine abroad. + Fain would I cry--See, brothers! sisters, mark! + This is the shining of light's father, God. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE MANOR HOUSE DINING-ROOM. + + +The rector never took his eyes off the preacher, but the preacher never +saw him. The reason was that he dared not let his eyes wander in the +direction of Mrs. Ramshorn; he was not yet so near perfection but that +the sight of her supercilious, unbelieving face, was a reviving cordial +to the old Adam, whom he was so anxious to poison with love and prayer. +Church over, the rector walked in silence, between the two ladies, to +the Manor House. He courted no greetings from the sheep of his neglected +flock as he went, and returned those offered with a constrained +solemnity. The moment they stood in the hall together, and before the +servant who had opened the door to them had quite disappeared, Mrs. +Ramshorn, to the indignant consternation of Mrs. Bevis, who was utterly +forgotten by both in the colloquy that ensued, turned sharp on the +rector, and said, + +"There! what do you say to your curate now?" + +"He _is_ enough to set the whole parish by the ears," he answered. + +"I told you so, Mr. Bevis!" + +"Only it does not follow that therefore he is in the wrong. Our Lord +Himself came not to send peace on earth but a sword." + +"Irreverence ill becomes a beneficed clergyman, Mr. Bevis," said Mrs. +Ramshorn--who very consistently regarded any practical reference to our +Lord as irrelevant, thence naturally as irreverent. + +"And, by Jove!" added the rector, heedless of her remark, and tumbling +back into an old college-habit, "I fear he is in the right; and if he +is, it will go hard with you and me at the last day, Mrs. Ramshorn." + +"Do you mean to say you are going to let that man turn every thing +topsy-turvy, and the congregation out of the church, John Bevis?" + +"I never saw such a congregation in it before, Mrs. Ramshorn." + +"It's little better than a low-bred conventicle now, and what it will +come to, if things go on like this, God knows." + +"That ought to be a comfort," said the rector. "But I hardly know yet +where I am. The fellow has knocked the wind out of me with his +personalities, and I haven't got my breath yet. Have you a bottle of +sherry open?" + +Mrs. Ramshorn led the way to the dining-room, where the early Sunday +dinner was already laid, and the decanters stood on the sideboard. The +rector poured himself out a large glass of sherry, and drank it off in +three mouthfuls. + +"Such buffoonery! such coarseness! such vulgarity! such indelicacy!" +cried Mrs. Ramshorn, while the parson was still occupied with the +sherry. "Not content with talking about himself in the pulpit, he must +even talk about his wife! What's he or his wife in the house of God? +When his gown is on, a clergyman is neither Mr. This nor Mr. That any +longer, but a priest of the Church of England, as by law established. My +poor Helen! She has thrown herself away upon a charlatan! And what will +become of her money in the hands of a man with such leveling notions, I +dread to think." + +"He said something about buying friends with it," said the rector. + +"Bribery and corruption must come natural to a fellow who could preach a +sermon like that after marrying money!" + +"Why, my good madam, would you have a man turn his back on a girl +because she has a purse in her pocket?" + +"But to pretend to despise it! And then, worst of all! I don't know +whether the indelicacy or the profanity was the greater!--when I think +of it now, I can scarcely believe I really heard it!--to offer to show +his books to every inquisitive fool itching to know _my_ niece's +fortune! Well, she shan't see a penny of mine--that I'm determined on." + +"You need not be uneasy about the books, Mrs. Ramshorn. You remember the +condition annexed?" + +"Stuff and hypocrisy! He's played his game well! But time will show." + +Mr. Bevis checked his answer. He was beginning to get disgusted with the +old cat, as he called her to himself. + +He too had made a good speculation in the hymeneo-money-market, +otherwise he could hardly have afforded to give up the exercise of his +profession. Mrs. Bevis had brought him the nice little property at +Owlkirk, where, if he worshiped mammon--and after his curate's sermon he +was not at all sure he did not--he worshiped him in a very moderate and +gentlemanly fashion. Every body liked the rector, and two or three +loved him a little. If it would be a stretch of the truth to call a man +a Christian who never yet in his life had consciously done a thing +because it was commanded by Christ, he was not therefore a godless man; +while, through the age-long process of spiritual infiltration, he had +received and retained much that was Christian. + +The ladies went to take off their bonnets, and their departure was a +relief to the rector. He helped himself to another glass of sherry, and +seated himself in the great easy chair formerly approved of the dean, +long promoted. But what are easy chairs to uneasy men? Dinner, however, +was at hand, and that would make a diversion in favor of less +disquieting thought. + +Mrs. Ramshorn, also, was uncomfortable--too much so to be relieved by +taking off her bonnet. She felt, with no little soreness, that the +rector was not with her in her depreciation of Wingfold. She did her +best to play the hostess, but the rector, while enjoying his dinner +despite discomfort in the inward parts, was in a mood of silence +altogether new both to himself and his companions. Mrs. Bevis, however, +talked away in a soft, continuous murmur. She was a good-natured, gentle +soul, without whose sort the world would be harder for many. She did not +contribute much to its positive enjoyment, but for my part, I can not +help being grateful even to a cat that will condescend to purr to me. +But she had not much mollifying influence on her hostess, who snarled, +and judged, and condemned, nor seemed to enjoy her dinner the less. When +it was over, the ladies went to the drawing-room; and the rector, +finding his company unpleasant, drank but a week-day's allowance of +wine, and went to have a look at his horses. + +They neighed a welcome the moment his boot struck the stones of the +yard, for they loved their master with all the love their strong, timid, +patient hearts were as yet capable of. Satisfied that they were +comfortable, for he found them busy with a large feed of oats and chaff +and Indian corn, he threw his arm over the back of his favorite, and +stood, leaning against her for minutes, half dreaming, half thinking. As +long as they were busy, their munching and grinding soothed him--held +him at least in quiescent mood; the moment it ceased, he seemed to +himself to wake up out of a dream. In that dream, however, he had been +more awake than any hour for long years, and had heard and seen many +things. He patted his mare lovingly, then, with a faint sense of +rebuked injustice, went into the horse's stall, and patted and stroked +him as he had never done before. + +He went into the inn, and asked for a cup of tea. He would have had a +sleep on Mrs. Pinks's sofa, as was his custom in his study--little +study, alas, went on there!--but he had a call to make, and must rouse +himself, and that was partly why he had sought the inn. For Mrs. +Ramshorn's household was so well ordered that nothing was to be had out +of the usual routine. It was like an American country inn, where, if you +arrive after supper, you will most likely have to starve till next +morning. Her servants, in fact, were her masters, and she dared not go +into her own kitchen for a jug of hot water. Possibly it was her +dethronement in her own house that made her, with a futile clutching +after lost respect, so anxious to rule in the abbey church. As it was, +although John Bevis and she had known each other long, and in some poor +sense intimately, he would never in her house have dared ask for a cup +of tea except it were on the table. But here was the ease of his inn, +where the landlady herself was proud to get him what he wanted. She made +the tea from her own caddy; and when he had drunk three cups of it, +washed his red face, and re-tied his white neck-cloth, he set out to +make his call. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE RECTORY DRAWING-ROOM. + + +The call was upon his curate. It was years since he had entered the +rectory. The people who last occupied it, he had scarcely known, and +even during its preparation for Wingfold he had not gone near the place. +Yet of that house had been his dream as he stood in his mare's stall, +and it was with a strange feeling he now approached it. Friends +generally took the pleasanter way to the garden door, opening on the +churchyard, but Mr. Bevis went round by the lane to the more public +entrance. + +All his years with his first wife had been spent in that house. She was +delicate when he married her, and soon grew sickly and suffering. One +after another her children died as babies. At last came one who lived, +and then the mother began to die. She was one of those lowly women who +apply the severity born of their creed to themselves, and spend only the +love born of the indwelling Spirit upon their neighbors. She was rather +melancholy, but hoped as much as she could, and when she could not hope +did not stand still, but walked on in the dark. I think when the sun +rises upon them, some people will be astonished to find how far they +have got in the dark. + +Her husband, without verifying for himself one of the things it was his +business to teach others, was yet held in some sort of communion with +sacred things by his love for his suffering wife, and his admiration of +her goodness and gentleness. He had looked up to her, though several +years younger than himself, with something of the same reverence with +which he had regarded his mother, a women with an element of greatness +in her. It was not possible he should ever have adopted her views, or in +any active manner allied himself with the school whose doctrines she +accepted as the logical embodiment of the gospel, but there was in him +all the time a vague something that was not far from the kingdom of +heaven. Some of his wife's friends looked upon him as a wolf in the +sheepfold; he was no wolf, he was only a hireling. Any neighborhood +might have been the better for having such a man as he for the parson of +the parish--only, for one commissioned to be in the world as he was in +the world!--why he knew more about the will of God as to a horse's legs, +than as to the heart of a man. As he drew near the house, the older and +tenderer time came to meet him, and the spirit of his suffering, +ministering wife seemed to overshadow him. Two tears grew half-way into +his eyes:--they were a little bloodshot, but kind, true eyes. He was not +sorry he had married again, for he and his wife were at peace with each +other, but he had found that the same part of his mind would not serve +to think of the two: they belonged to different zones of his unexplored +world. For one thing, his present wife looked up to him with perfect +admiration, and he, knowing his own poverty, rather looked down upon her +in consequence, though in a loving, gentle, and gentlemanlike way. + +He was shown into the same room, looking out on the churchyard, where in +the first months of his married life, he sat and heard his wife sing her +few songs, accompanying them on the little piano he had saved hard to +buy for her, until she made him love them. It had lasted only through +those few months; after her first baby died, she rarely sang. But all +the colors and forms of the room were different, and that made it easier +to check the lump rising in his throat. It was the faith of his curate +that had thus set his wife before him, although the two would hardly +have agreed in any confession narrower than the Apostles' creed. + +When Wingfold entered the room, the rector rose, went halfway to meet +him, and shook hands with him heartily. They seated themselves, and a +short silence followed. But the rector knew it was his part to speak. + +"I was in church this morning," he said, with a half-humorous glance +right into the clear gray eyes of his curate. + +"So my wife tells me," returned Wingfold with a smile. + +"You didn't know it then?" rejoined the rector, with now an almost +quizzical glance, in which hovered a little doubt. "I thought you were +preaching at me all the time." + +"God forbid!" said the curate; "I was not aware of your presence. I did +not even know you were in the town yesterday." + +"You must have had some one in your mind's eye. No man could speak as +you did this morning, who addressed mere abstract humanity." + +"I will not say that individuals did not come up before me; how can a +man help it where he knows every body in his congregation more or less? +But I give you my word, sir, I never thought of you." + +"Then you might have done so with the greatest propriety," returned the +rector. "My conscience sided with you all the time. You found me out. +I've got a bit of the muscle they call a heart left in me yet, though it +_has_ got rather leathery.--But what do they mean when they say you are +setting the parish by the ears?" + +"I don't know, sir. I have heard of no quarreling. I have made some +enemies, but they are not very dangerous, and I hope not very bitter +ones; and I have made many more friends, I am sure." + +"What they tell me is, that your congregation is divided--that they take +sides for and against you, which is a most undesirable thing, surely!" + +"It is indeed; and yet it may be a thing that, for a time, can not be +helped. Was there ever a man with the cure of souls, concerning whom +there has not been more or less of such division? But, if you will have +patience with me, sir, I am bold to say, believing in the force and +final victory of the truth, there will be more unity by and by." + +"I don't doubt it. But come now!--you are a thoroughly good +fellow--that, a blind horse could see in the dimmits--and I'm +accountable for the parish--couldn't you draw it a little milder, you +know? couldn't you make it just a little less peculiar--only the way of +putting it, I mean--so that it should look a little more like what they +have been used to? I'm only suggesting the thing, you know--dictating +nothing, on my soul, Mr. Wingfold. I am sure that, whatever you do, you +will act according to your own conscience, otherwise I should not +venture to say a word, lest I should lead you wrong." + +"If you will allow me," said the curate, "I will tell you my whole +story; and then if you should wish it, I will resign my curacy, without +saying a word more than that my rector thinks it better. Neither in +private shall I make a single remark in a different spirit." + +"Let me hear," said the rector. + +"Then if you will please take this chair, that I may know that I am not +wearying you bodily at least." + +The rector did as he was requested, laid his head back, crossed his +legs, and folded his hands over his worn waist-coat: he was not one of +the neat order of parsons; he had a not unwholesome disregard of his +outermost man, and did not know when he was shabby. Without an atom of +pomposity or air rectorial, he settled himself to listen. + +Condensing as much as he could, Wingfold told him how through great +doubt, and dismal trouble of mind, he had come to hope in God, and to +see that there was no choice for a man but to give himself, heart, and +soul, and body, to the love, and will, and care of the Being who had +made him. He could no longer, he said, regard his profession as any +thing less than a call to use every means and energy at his command for +the rousing of men and women from that spiritual sleep and moral +carelessness in which he had himself been so lately sunk. + +"I don't want to give up my curacy," he concluded. "Still less do I want +to leave Glaston, for there are here some whom I teach and some who +teach me. In all that has given ground for complaint, I have seemed to +myself to be but following the dictates of common sense; if you think me +wrong, I have no justification to offer. We both love God,----" + +"How do you know that?" interrupted the rector. "I wish you could make +me sure of that." + +"I do, I know I do," said the curate earnestly. "I can say no more." + +"My dear fellow, I haven't the merest shadow of a doubt of it," returned +the rector, smiling. "What I wished was, that you could make me sure _I_ +do." + +"Pardon me, my dear sir, but, judging from sore experience, if I could I +would rather make you doubt it; the doubt, even if an utter mistake, +would in the end be so much more profitable than any present +conviction." + +"You have your wish, then, Wingfold: I doubt it very much," replied the +rector. "I must go home and think about it all. You shall hear from me +in a day or two." + +As he spoke Mr. Bevis rose, and stood for a moment like a man greatly +urged to stretch his arms and legs. An air of uneasiness pervaded his +whole appearance. + +"Will you not stop and take tea with us?" said the curate. "My wife will +be disappointed if you do not. You have been good to her for twenty +years, she says." + +"She makes an old man of me," returned the rector musingly. "I remember +her such a tiny thing in a white frock and curls. Tell her what we have +been talking about, and beg her to excuse me. I _must_ go home." + +He took his hat from the table, shook hands with Wingfold, and walked +back to the inn. There he found his horses bedded, and the hostler away. +His coachman was gone too, nobody knew whither. + +To sleep at the inn would have given pointed offense, but he would +rather have done so than go back to the Manor House to hear his curate +abused. With the help of the barmaid, he put the horses to the carriage +himself, and to the astonishment of Mrs. Ramshorn and his wife, drew up +at the door of the Manor House. + +Expostulation on the part of the former was vain. The latter made none: +it was much the same to Mrs. Bevis where she was, so long as she was +with her husband. Indeed few things were more pleasant to her than +sitting in the carriage alone, contemplating the back of Mr. Bevis on +the box, and the motion of his elbows as he drove. Mrs. Ramshorn +received their adieux very stiffly, and never after mentioned the rector +without adding the epithet, "poor man!" + +Mrs. Bevis enjoyed the drive; Mr. Bevis did not. The doubt was growing +stronger and stronger all the way, that he had not behaved like a +gentleman in his relation to the head of the church. He had naturally, +as I have already shown, a fine, honorable, boyish if not childlike +nature; and the eyes of his mind were not so dim with good living as one +might have feared from the look of those in his head: in the glass of +loyalty he now saw himself a defaulter; in the scales of honor he +weighed and found himself wanting. Of true discipleship was not now the +question: he had not behaved like an honorable gentleman to Jesus +Christ. It was only in a spasm of terror St. Peter had denied him: John +Bevis had for nigh forty years been taking his pay, and for the last +thirty at least had done nothing in return. Either Jesus Christ did not +care, and then what was the church?--what the whole system of things +called Christianity?--or he did care, and what then was John Bevis in +the eyes of his Master? When they reached home, he went neither to the +stable nor the study, but, without even lighting a cigar, walked out on +the neighboring heath, where he found the universe rather gray about +him. When he returned he tried to behave as usual, but his wife saw that +he scarcely ate at supper, and left half of his brandy and water. She +set it down to the annoyance the curate had caused him, and wisely +forbore troubling him with questions. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +MR. DRAKE'S ARBOR. + + +While the curate was preaching that same Sunday morning, in the cool +cavernous church, with its great lights overhead, Walter Drake--the old +minister, he was now called by his disloyal congregation--sat in a +little arbor looking out on the river that flowed through the town to +the sea. Green grass went down from where he sat to the very water's +brink. It was a spot the old man loved, for there his best thoughts came +to him. There was in him a good deal of the stuff of which poets are +made, and since trouble overtook him, the river had more and more +gathered to itself the aspect of that in the Pilgrim's Progress; and +often, as he sat thus almost on its edge, he fancied himself waiting +the welcome summoms to go home. It was a tidal river, with many changes. +Now it flowed with a full, calm current, conquering the tide, like life +sweeping death with it down into the bosom of the eternal. Now it seemed +to stand still, as if aghast at the inroad of the awful thing; and then +the minister would bethink himself that it was the tide of the eternal +rising in the narrow earthly channel: men, he said to himself, called it +_death_, because they did not know what it was, or the loveliness of its +quickening energy. It fails on their sense by the might of its grand +excess, and they call it by the name of its opposite. A weary and rather +disappointed pilgrim, he thus comforted himself as he sat. + +There a great salmon rose and fell, gleaming like a bolt of silver in +the sun! There a little waterbeetle scurried along after some invisible +prey. The blue smoke of his pipe melted in the Sabbath air. The softened +sounds of a singing congregation came across gardens and hedges to his +ear. They sang with more energy than grace, and, not for the first time, +he felt they did. Were they indeed singing to the Lord, he asked +himself, or only to the idol Custom? A silence came: the young man in +the pulpit was giving out his text, and the faces that had turned +themselves up to Walter Drake as flowers to the sun, were now all +turning to the face of him they had chosen in his stead, "to minister to +them in holy things." He took his pipe from his mouth, and sat +motionless, with his eyes fixed on the ground. + +But why was he not at chapel himself? Could it be that he yielded to +temptation, actually preferring his clay pipe and the long glide of the +river, to the worship, and the hymns and the sermon? Had there not been +a time when he judged that man careless of the truth who did not go to +the chapel, and that man little better who went to the church? Yet there +he sat on a Sunday morning, the church on one side of him and the chapel +on the other, smoking his pipe! His daughter was at the chapel; she had +taken Ducky with her; the dog lay in the porch waiting for them; the cat +thought too much of herself to make friends with her master; he had +forgotten his New Testament on the study table; and now he had let his +pipe out. + +He was not well, it is true, but he was well enough to have gone. Was he +too proud to be taught where he had been a teacher? or was it that the +youth in his place taught there doctrines which neither they nor their +fathers had known? It could not surely be from resentment that they had +super-annuated him in the prime of his old age, with a pared third of +his late salary, which nothing but honesty in respect to the small +moneys he owed could have prevented him from refusing! + +In truth it was impossible the old minister should have any great esteem +for the flashy youth, proud of his small Latin and less Greek, a mere +unit of the hundreds whom the devil of ambition drives to preaching; one +who, whether the doctrines he taught were in the New Testament or not, +certainly never found them there, being but the merest disciple of a +disciple of a disciple, and fervid in words of which he perceived scarce +a glimmer of the divine purport. At the same time, he might have seen +points of resemblance between his own early history and that of the +callow chirper of divinity now holding forth from his pulpit, which +might have tended to mollify his judgment with sympathy. + +His people had behaved ill to him, and he could not say he was free from +resentment or pride, but he did make for them what excuse lay in the +fact that the congregation had been dwindling ever since the curate at +the abbey-church began to speak in such a strange outspoken fashion. +There now was a right sort of man! he said to himself. No attempted +oratory with him! no prepared surprises! no playhouse tricks! no studied +graces in wafture of hands and upheaved eyes! And yet at moments when he +became possessed with his object rather than subject, every inch of him +seemed alive. He was odd--very odd; perhaps he was crazy--but at least +he was honest. He had heard him himself, and judged him well worth +helping to what was better, for, alas! notwithstanding the vigor of his +preaching, he did not appear to have himself discovered as yet the +treasure hid in the field. He was, nevertheless, incomparably the +superior of the young man whom, expecting him to _draw_, the deacons of +his church, with the members behind them, had substituted for himself, +who had for more than fifteen years ministered to them the bread of +life. + +Bread!--Yes, I think it might honestly be called bread that Walter Drake +had ministered. It had not been free from chalk or potatoes: bits of +shell and peel might have been found in it, with an occasional bit of +dirt, and a hair or two; yes, even a little alum, and that is _bad_, +because it tends to destroy, not satisfy the hunger. There was sawdust +in it, and parchment-dust, and lumber-dust; it was ill salted, badly +baked, sad; sometimes it was blue-moldy, and sometimes even maggoty; but +the mass of it was honest flour, and those who did not recoil from the +look of it, or recognize the presence of the variety of foreign matter, +could live upon it, in a sense, up to a certain pitch of life. But a +great deal of it was not of his baking at all--he had been merely the +distributor--crumbling down other bakers' loaves and making them up +again in his own shapes. In his declining years, however, he had been +really beginning to learn the business. Only, in his congregation were +many who not merely preferred bad bread of certain kinds, but were +incapable of digesting any of high quality. + +He would have gone to chapel that morning had the young man been such as +he could respect. Neither his doctrine, nor the behavior of the church +to himself, would have kept him away. Had he followed his inclination he +would have gone to the church, only that would have looked spiteful. His +late congregation would easily excuse his non-attendance with them; they +would even pitifully explain to each other why he could not appear just +yet; but to go to church would be in their eyes unpardonable--a +declaration of a war of revenge. + +There was, however, a reason besides, why Mr. Drake could not go to +church that morning, and if not a more serious, it was a much more +painful one. Some short time before he had any ground to suspect that +his congregation was faltering in its loyalty to him, his daughter had +discovered that the chapel butcher, when he sent a piece of meat, +invariably charged for a few ounces beyond the weight delivered. Now Mr. +Drake was a man of such honesty that all kinds of cheating, down to the +most respectable, were abominable to him; that the man was a professor +of religion made his conduct unpardonable in his eyes, and that he was +one of his own congregation rendered it insupportable. Having taken +pains to satisfy himself of the fact, he declined to deal with him any +further, and did not spare to tell him why. The man was far too +dishonest to profit by the rebuke save in circumspection and cunning, +was revengeful in proportion to the justice of the accusation, and of +course brought his influence, which was not small, to bear upon the +votes of the church-members in respect of the pastorate. + +Had there been another butcher in connection with the chapel, Mr. Drake +would have turned to him, but as there was not, and they could not go +without meat, he had to betake himself to the principal butcher in the +place, who was a member of the Church of England. Soon after his +troubles commenced, and before many weeks were over he saw plainly +enough that he must either resign altogether, and go out into the great +world of dissent in search of some pastorless flock that might vote him +their crook, to be guided by him whither they wanted to go, and whither +most of them believed they knew the way as well as he, or accept the +pittance offered him. This would be to retire from the forefront of the +battle, and take an undistinguished place in the crowd of mere +camp-followers; but, for the sake of honesty, as I have already +explained, and with the hope that it might be only for a brief season, +he had chosen the latter half of the alternative. And truly it was a +great relief not to have to grind out of his poor, weary, groaning mill +the two inevitable weekly sermons--labor sufficient to darken the face +of nature to the conscientious man. For his people thought themselves +intellectual, and certainly were critical. Mere edification in holiness +was not enough for them. A large infusion of some polemic element was +necessary to make the meat savory and such as their souls loved. Their +ambition was not to grow in grace, but in social influence and +regard--to glorify their dissent, not the communion of saints. Upon the +chief corner-stone they would build their stubble of paltry religionism; +they would set up their ragged tent in the midst of the eternal temple, +careless how it blocked up window and stair. + +Now last week Mr. Drake had requested his new butcher to send his +bill--with some little anxiety, because of the sudden limitation of his +income; but when he saw it he was filled with horror. Amounting only to +a very few pounds, causes had come together to make it a large one in +comparison with the figures he was accustomed to see. Always feeding +some of his flock, he had at this time two sickly, nursing mothers who +drew their mortal life from his kitchen; and, besides, the doctor had, +some time ago, ordered a larger amount of animal food for the little +Amanda. In fine, the sum at the bottom of that long slip of paper, with +the wood-cut of a prize ox at the top of it, small as he would have +thought it at one period of his history, was greater than he could +imagine how to pay; and if he went to church, it would be to feel the +eye of the butcher and not that of the curate upon him all the time. It +was a dismay, a horror to him to have an account rendered which he could +not settle, and especially from his new butcher, after he had so +severely rebuked the old one. Where was the mighty difference in honesty +between himself and the offender? the one claimed for meat he had not +sold, the other ordered that for which he could not pay! Would not Mr. +Jones imagine he had left his fellow-butcher and come to him because he +had run up a large bill for which he was unable to write a check? This +was that over which the spirit of the man now brooded by far the most +painfully; this it was that made him leave his New Testament in the +study, let his pipe out, and look almost lovingly upon the fast-flowing +river, because it was a symbol of death. + +He had chosen preaching as a profession, just as so many take +orders--with this difference from a large proportion of such, that he +had striven powerfully to convince himself that he trusted in the merits +of the Redeemer. Had he not in this met with tolerable success, he would +not have yielded to the wish of his friends and left his father's shop +in his native country-town for a dissenting college in the neighborhood +of London. There he worked well, and became a good scholar, learning to +read in the true sense of the word, that is, to try the spirits as he +read. His character, so called, was sound, and his conscience, if not +sensitive, was firm and regnant. But he was injured both spiritually and +morally by some of the instructions there given. For one of the objects +held up as duties before him, was to become capable of rendering himself +_acceptable_ to a congregation. + +Most of the students were but too ready to regard, or at least to treat +this object as the first and foremost of duties. The master-duty of +devotion to Christ, and obedience to every word that proceeded out of +His mouth, was very much treated as a thing understood, requiring little +enforcement; while, the main thing demanded of them being sermons in +some sense their own--honey culled at least by their own bees, and not +bought in jars, much was said about the plan and composition of sermons, +about style and elocution, and action--all plainly and confessedly, with +a view to pulpit-_success_--the lowest of all low successes, and the +most worldly. + +These instructions Walter Drake accepted as the wisdom of the holy +serpent--devoted large attention to composition, labored to form his +style on the _best models_, and before beginning to write a sermon, +always heated the furnace of production with fuel from some exciting or +suggestive author: it would be more correct to say, fed the mill of +composition from some such source; one consequence of all which was, +that when at last, after many years, he did begin to develop some +individuality, he could not, and never did shake himself free of those +weary models; his thoughts, appearing in clothes which were not made for +them, wore always a certain stiffness and unreality which did not by +nature belong to them, blunting the impressions which his earnestness +and sincerity did notwithstanding make. + +Determined to _succeed_, he cultivated eloquence also--what he supposed +eloquence, that is, being, of course, merely elocution, to attain the +right gestures belonging to which he looked far more frequently into his +landlady's mirror, than for his spiritual action into the law of +liberty. He had his reward in the success he sought. But I must make +haste, for the story of worldly success is always a mean tale. In a few +years, and for not a few after, he was a popular preacher in one of the +suburbs of London--a good deal sought after, and greatly lauded. He +lived in comfort, indulged indeed in some amount of show; married a +widow with a large life-annuity, which between them they spent entirely, +and that not altogether in making friends with everlasting habitations; +in a word, gazed out on the social landscape far oftener than lifted his +eyes to the hills. + +After some ten or twelve years, a change began. They had three children; +the two boys, healthy and beautiful, took scarlatina and died; the poor, +sickly girl wailed on. His wife, who had always been more devoted to her +children than her husband, pined, and died also. Her money went, if not +with her, yet away from him. His spirits began to fail him, and his +small, puny, peaking daughter did not comfort him much. He was capable +of true, but not yet of pure love; at present his love was capricious. +Little Dora--a small Dorothy indeed in his estimation--had always been a +better child than either of her brothers, but he loved them the more +that others admired them, and her the less that others pitied her: he +did try to love her, for there was a large element of justice in his +nature. This, but for his being so much occupied with _making himself +acceptable_ to his congregation, would have given him a leadership in +the rising rebellion against a theology which crushed the hearts of men +by attributing injustice to their God. As it was, he lay at anchor, and +let the tide rush past him. + +Further change followed--gradual, but rapid. His congregation began to +discover that he was not the man he had been. They complained of lack of +variety in his preaching; said he took it too easy; did not study his +sermons sufficiently; often spoke extempore, which was a poor compliment +to _them_; did not visit with impartiality, and indeed had all along +favored the carriage people. There was a party in the church which had +not been cordial to him from the first; partly from his fault, partly +from theirs, he had always made them feel they were of the lower grade; +and from an increase of shops in the neighborhood, this party was now +gathering head. Their leaders went so far at length as to hint at a +necessity for explanation in regard to the accounts of certain charities +administered by the pastor. In these, unhappily, _lacunae_ were patent. +In his troubles the pastor had grown careless. But it was altogether to +his own loss, for not merely had the money been spent with a rigidity of +uprightness, such as few indeed of his accusers exercised in their +business affairs, but he had in his disbursements exceeded the +contribution committed to his charge. Confident, however, in his +position, and much occupied with other thoughts, he had taken no care to +set down the particulars of his expenditure, and his enemies did not +fail to hint a connection between this fact and the loss of his wife's +annuity. Worst of all, doubts of his orthodoxy began to be expressed by +the more ignorant, and harbored without examination by the less +ignorant. + +All at once he became aware of the general disloyalty of his flock, and +immediately resigned. Scarcely had he done so when he was invited to +Glaston, and received with open arms. There he would heal his wounds, +and spend the rest of his days in peace. "He caught a slip or two" in +descending, but soon began to find the valley of humiliation that +wholesome place which all true pilgrims have ever declared it. +Comparative retirement, some sense of lost labor, some suspicion of the +worth of the ends for which he had spent his strength, a waking desire +after the God in whom he had vaguely believed all the time he was +letting the dust of paltry accident inflame his eyes, blistering and +deadening his touch with the efflorescent crusts and agaric tumors upon +the dry bones of theology, gilding the vane of his chapel instead of +cleansing its porch and its floor--these all favored the birth in his +mind of the question, whether he had ever entered in at the straight +gate himself, or had not merely been standing by its side calling to +others to enter in. Was it even as well as this with him? Had he not +been more intent on gathering a wretched flock within the rough, +wool-stealing, wind-sifting, beggarly hurdles of his church, than on +housing true men and women safe in the fold of the true Shepherd? +Feeding troughs for the sheep there might be many in the fields, and +they might or might not be presided over by servants of the true +Shepherd, but the fold they were not! He grew humble before the Master, +and the Master began to lord it lovingly over him. He sought His +presence, and found Him; began to think less of books and rabbis, yea +even, for the time, of Paul and Apollos and Cephas, and to pore and +ponder over the living tale of the New Covenant; began to feel that the +Lord meant what He said, and that His apostles also meant what He said; +forgot Calvin a good deal, outgrew the influences of Jonathan Edwards, +and began to understand Jesus Christ. + +Few sights can be lovelier than that of a man who, having rushed up the +staircase of fame in his youth--what matter whether the fame of a paltry +world, or a paltry sect of that world!--comes slowly, gently, graciously +down in his old age, content to lose that which he never had, and +careful only to be honest at last. It had not been so with Walter Drake. +He had to come down first to begin to get the good of it, but once down, +it was not long ere he began to go up a very different stair indeed. A +change took place in him which turned all aims, all efforts, all +victories of the world, into the merest, most poverty-stricken trifling. +He had been a tarrer and smearer, a marker and shearer of sheep, rather +than a pastor; but now he recognized the rod and leaned on the staff of +the true Shepherd Who feeds both shepherds and sheep. Hearty were the +thanks he offered that he had been staid in his worse than foolish +career. + +Since then, he had got into a hollow in the valley, and at this moment, +as he sat in his summer-house, was looking from a verge abrupt into what +seemed a bottomless gulf of humiliation. For his handsome London house, +he had little better than a cottage, in which his study was not a +quarter of the size of the one he had left; he had sold two-thirds of +his books; for three men and four women servants, he had but one old +woman and his own daughter to do the work of the house; for all +quadrupedal menie, he had but a nondescript canine and a contemptuous +feline foundling; from a devoted congregation of comparatively educated +people, he had sunk to one in which there was not a person of higher +standing than a tradesman, and that congregation had now rejected him as +not up to their mark, turning him off to do his best with fifty pounds a +year. He had himself heard the cheating butcher remark in the open +street that it was quite enough, and more than ever his Master had. But +all these things were as nothing in his eyes beside his inability to pay +Mr. Jones's bill. He had outgrown his former self, but this kind of +misery it would be but deeper degradation to outgrow. All before this +had been but humiliation; this was shame. Now first he knew what poverty +was! Had God forgotten him? That could not be! that which could forget +could not be God. Did he not care then that such things should befall +his creatures? Were they but trifles in his eyes? He ceased thinking, +gave way to the feeling that God dealt hardly with him, and sat stupidly +indulging a sense of grievance--with self-pity, than which there is +scarce one more childish or enfeebling in the whole circle of the +emotions. Was this what God had brought him nearer to Himself for? was +this the end of a ministry in which he had, in some measure at least, +denied himself and served God and his fellow? He could bear any thing +but shame! That too could he have borne had he not been a teacher of +religion--one whose failure must brand him a hypocrite. How mean it +would sound--what a reproach to _the cause_, that the congregational +minister had run up a bill with a church-butcher which he was unable to +pay! It was the shame--the shame he could not bear! Ought he to have +been subjected to it? + +A humbler and better mood slowly dawned with unconscious change, and he +began to ponder with himself wherein he had been misusing the money +given him: either he had been misusing it, or God had not given him +enough, seeing it would not reach the end of his needs; but he could +think only of the poor he had fed, and the child he had adopted, and +surely God would overlook those points of extravagance. Still, if he had +not the means, he had not the right to do such things. It might not in +itself be wrong, but in respect of him it was as dishonest as if he had +spent the money on himself--not to mention that it was a thwarting of +the counsel of God, who, if He had meant them to be so aided, would have +sent him the money to spend upon them honestly. His one excuse was that +he could not have foreseen how soon his income was going to shrink to a +third. In future he would withhold his hand. But surely he might keep +the child? Nay, having once taken her in charge, he must keep the child. +It was a comfort, there could be no doubt about that. God had money +enough, and certainly He would enable him to do that! Only, why then did +He bring him to such poverty? + +So round in his mill he went, round and round again, and back to the old +evil mood. Either there was no God, or he was a hard-used man, whom his +Master did not mind bringing to shame before his enemies! He could not +tell which would triumph the more--the church-butcher over dissent, or +the chapel-butcher over the church-butcher, and the pastor who had +rebuked him for dishonesty! His very soul was disquieted within him. He +rose at last with a tear trickling down his cheek, and walked to and fro +in his garden. + +Things went on nevertheless as if all was right with the world. The +Lythe flowed to the sea, and the silver-mailed salmon leaped into the +more limpid air. The sun shone gracious over all his kingdom, and his +little praisers were loud in every bush. The primroses, earth-born suns, +were shining about in every border. The sound of the great organ came +from the grand old church, and the sound of many voices from the humble +chapel. Only, where was the heart of it all? + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +THE CHAMBER AT THE COTTAGE. + + +Meanwhile Faber was making a round, with the village of Owlkirk for the +end of it. Ere he was half-way thither, his groom was tearing after him +upon Niger, with a message from Mrs. Puckridge, which, however, did not +overtake him. He opened the cottage-door, and walked up stairs, +expecting to find his patient weak, but in the fairest of ways to +recover speedily. What was his horror to see her landlady weeping and +wringing her hands over the bed, and find the lady lying motionless, +with bloodless lips and distended nostrils--to all appearance dead! +Pillows, sheets, blankets, looked one mass of red. The bandage had +shifted while she slept, and all night her blood had softly flowed. Hers +was one of those peculiar organizations in which, from some cause but +dimly conjectured as yet, the blood once set flowing will flow on to +death, and even the tiniest wound is hard to stanch. Was the lovely +creature gone? In her wrists could discern no pulse. He folded back the +bed-clothes, and laid his ear to her heart. His whole soul listened. +Yes; there was certainly the faintest flutter. He watched a moment: yes; +he could see just the faintest tremor of the diaphragm. + +"Run," he cried, "--for God's sake run and bring me a jug of hot water, +and two or three basins. There is just a chance yet! If you make haste, +we may save her. Bring me a syringe. If you haven't one, run from house +to house till you get one. Her life depends on it." By this time he was +shouting after the hurrying landlady. + +In a minute or two she returned. + +"Have you got the syringe?" he cried, the moment he heard her step. + +To his great relief she had. He told her to wash it out thoroughly with +the hot water, unscrew the top, and take out the piston. While giving +his directions, he unbound the arm, enlarged the wound in the vein +longitudinally, and re-bound the arm tight below the elbow, then quickly +opened a vein of his own, and held the syringe to catch the spout that +followed. When it was full, he replaced the piston, telling Mrs. +Puckridge to put her thumb on his wound, turned the point of the syringe +up and drove a little out to get rid of the air, then, with the help of +a probe, inserted the nozzle into the wound, and gently forced in the +blood. That done, he placed his own thumbs on the two wounds, and made +the woman wash out the syringe in clean hot water. Then he filled it as +before, and again forced its contents into the lady's arm. This process +he went through repeatedly. Then, listening, he found her heart beating +quite perceptibly, though irregularly. Her breath was faintly coming and +going. Several times more he repeated the strange dose, then ceased, and +was occupied in binding up her arm, when she gave a great shuddering +sigh. By the time he had finished, the pulse was perceptible at her +wrist. Last of all he bound up his own wound, from which had escaped a +good deal beyond what he had used. While thus occupied, he turned sick, +and lay down on the floor. Presently, however, he grew able to crawl +from the room, and got into the garden at the back of the house, where +he walked softly to the little rude arbor at the end of it, and sat down +as if in a dream. But in the dream his soul felt wondrously awake. He +had been tasting death from the same cup with the beautiful woman who +lay there, coming alive with his life. A terrible weight was heaved from +his bosom. If she had died, he would have felt, all his life long, that +he had sent one of the loveliest of Nature's living dreams back to the +darkness and the worm, long years before her time, and with the foam of +the cup of life yet on her lips. Then a horror seized him at the +presumptuousness of the liberty he had taken. What if the beautiful +creature would rather have died than have the blood of a man, one she +neither loved nor knew, in her veins, and coursing through her very +heart! She must never know it. + +"I am very grateful," he said to himself; then smiled and wondered to +whom he was grateful. + +"How the old stamps and colors come out in the brain when one least +expects it!" he said. "What I meant was, _How glad I am!_" + +Honest as he was, he did not feel called upon to examine whether _glad_ +was really the word to represent the feeling which the thought of what +he had escaped, and of the creature he had saved from death, had sent up +into his consciousness. Glad he was indeed! but was there not mingled +with his gladness a touch of something else, very slight, yet potent +enough to make him mean _grateful_ when the word broke from him? and if +there was such a something, where did it come from? Perhaps if he had +caught and held the feeling, and submitted it to such a searching +scrutiny as he was capable of giving it, he might have doubted whether +any mother-instilled superstition ever struck root so deep as the depth +from which that seemed at least to come. I merely suggest it. The +feeling was a faint and poor one, and I do not care to reason from it. I +would not willingly waste upon small arguments, when I see more and more +clearly that our paltriest faults and dishonesties need one and the same +enormous cure. + +But indeed never had Faber less time to examine himself than now, had +he been so inclined. With that big wound in it, he would as soon have +left a shell in the lady's chamber with the fuse lighted, as her arm to +itself. He did not leave the village all day. He went to see another +patient in it, and one on its outskirts, but he had his dinner at the +little inn where he put up Ruber, and all night long he sat by the +bedside of his patient. There the lovely white face, blind like a statue +that never had eyes, and the perfect arm, which now and then, with a +restless, uneasy, feeble toss, she would fling over the counterpane, the +arm he had to watch as the very gate of death, grew into his heart. He +dreaded the moment when she would open her eyes, and his might no longer +wander at will over her countenance. Again and again in the night he put +a hand under her head, and held a cooling draught to her lips; but not +even when she drank did her eyes open: like a child too weak to trust +itself, therefore free of all anxiety and fear, she took whatever came, +questioning nothing. He sat at the foot of the bed, where, with the +slightest movement, he could, through the opening of the curtains, see +her perfectly. + +By some change of position, he had unknowingly drawn one of them back a +little from between her and him, as he sat thinking about her. The +candle shone full upon his face, but the other curtain was between the +candle and his patient. Suddenly she opened her eyes. + +A dream had been with her, and she did not yet know that it was gone. +She could hardly be said to _know_ any thing. Fever from loss of blood; +uneasiness, perhaps, from the presence in her system of elements +elsewhere fashioned and strangely foreign to its economy; the remnants +of sleep and of the dream; the bewilderment of sudden awaking--all had +combined to paralyze her judgment, and give her imagination full career. +When she opened her eyes, she saw a beautiful face, and nothing else, +and it seemed to her itself the source of the light by which she saw it. +Her dream had been one of great trouble; and when she beheld the shining +countenance, she thought it was the face of the Saviour: he was looking +down upon her heart, which he held in his hand, and reading all that was +written there. The tears rushed to her eyes, and the next moment Faber +saw two fountains of light and weeping in the face which had been but as +of loveliest marble. The curtain fell between them, and the lady thought +the vision had vanished. The doctor came softly through the dusk to her +bedside. He felt her pulse, looked to the bandage on her arm, gave her +something to drink, and left the room. Presently Mrs. Puckridge brought +her some beef tea. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE MINISTER'S GARDEN. + + +Up and down the garden paced the pastor, stung by the gadflies of debt. +If he were in London he could sell his watch and seals; he had a ring +somewhere, too--an antique, worth what now seemed a good deal; but his +wife had given him both. Besides, it would cost so much to go to London, +and he had no money. Mr. Drew, doubtless, would lend him what he wanted, +but he could not bring himself to ask him. If he parted with them in +Glaston, they would be put in the watchmaker's window, and that would be +a scandal--with the Baptists making head in the very next street! For, +notwithstanding the heartless way in which the Congregationalists had +treated him, theirs was the cause of scriptural Christianity, and it +made him shudder to think of bringing the smallest discredit upon the +denomination. The church-butcher was indeed a worse terror to him than +Apollyon had been to Christian, for it seemed to his faithlessness that +not even the weapon of All-prayer was equal to his discomfiture; nothing +could render him harmless but the payment of his bill. He began to look +back with something like horror upon the sermons he had preached on +honesty; for how would his inability to pay his debts appear in the eyes +of those who had heard them? Oh! why had he not paid for every thing as +they had it? Then when the time came that he could not pay, they would +only have had to go without, whereas now, there was the bill louring at +the back of the want! + +When Miss Drake returned from the chapel, she found her father leaning +on the sun-dial, where she had left him. To all appearance he had not +moved. He knew her step but did not stir. + +"Father!" she said. + +"It is a hard thing, my child," he responded, still without moving, +"when the valley of Humiliation comes next the river Death, and no land +of Beulah between! I had my good things in my youth, and now I have my +evil things." + +She laid her hand on his shoulder lovingly, tenderly, worshipfully, but +did not speak. + +"As you see me now, my Dorothy, my God's-gift, you would hardly believe +your father was once a young and popular preacher, ha, ha! Fool that I +was! I thought they prized my preaching, and loved me for what I taught +them. I thought I was somebody! With shame I confess it! Who were they, +or what was their judgment, to fool me in my own concerning myself! +Their praise was indeed a fit rock for me to build my shame upon." + +"But, father dear, what is even a sin when it is repented of?" + +"A shame forever, my child. Our Lord did not cast out even an apostle +for his conceit and self-sufficiency, but he let him fall." + +"He has not let you fall, father?" said Dorothy, with tearful eyes. + +"He is bringing my gray hairs with sorrow and shame to the grave, my +child." + +"Why, father!" cried the girl, shocked, as she well might be, at his +words, "what have I done to make you say that?" + +"Done, my darling! _you_ done? You have done nothing but righteousness +ever since you could do any thing! You have been like a mother to your +old father. It is that bill! that horrid butcher's bill!" + +Dorothy burst out laughing through her dismay, and wept and laughed +together for more than a minute ere she could recover herself. + +"Father! you dear father! you're too good to live! Why, there are forks +and spoons enough in the house to pay that paltry bill!--not to mention +the cream-jug which is, and the teapot which we thought was silver, +because Lady Sykes gave it us. Why didn't you tell me what was troubling +you, father dear?" + +"I can't bear--I never _could_ bear to owe money. I asked the man for +his bill some time ago. I could have paid it then, though it wouldn't +have left me a pound. The moment I looked at it, I felt as if the Lord +had forsaken me. It is easy for you to bear; you are not the one +accountable. I am. And if the pawnbroker or the silver-smith does stand +between me and absolute dishonesty, yet to find myself in such a +miserable condition, with next to nothing between us and the workhouse, +may well make me doubt whether I have been a true servant of the Lord, +for surely such shall never be ashamed! During these last days the enemy +has even dared to tempt me with the question, whether after all, these +unbelievers may not be right, and the God that ruleth in the earth a +mere projection of what the conscience and heart bribe the imagination +to construct for them!" + +"I wouldn't think that before I was driven to it, father," said Dorothy, +scarcely knowing what she said, for his doubt shot a poisoned arrow of +despair into the very heart of her heart. + +He, never doubting the security of his child's faith, had no slightest +suspicion into what a sore spot his words had carried torture. He did +not know that the genius of doubt--shall I call him angel or demon?--had +knocked at her door, had called through her window; that words dropped +by Faber, indicating that science was against all idea of a God, and the +confidence of their tone, had conjured up in her bosom hollow fears, +faint dismays, and stinging questions. Ready to trust, and incapable of +arrogance, it was hard for her to imagine how a man like Mr. Faber, +upright and kind and self-denying, could say such things if he did not +_know_ them true. The very word _science_ appeared to carry an awful +authority. She did not understand that it was only because science had +never come closer to Him than the mere sight of the fringe of the +outermost folds of the tabernacle of His presence, that her worshipers +dared assert there was no God. She did not perceive that nothing ever +science could find, could possibly be the God of men; that science is +only the human reflex of truth, and that truth itself can not be +measured by what of it is reflected from the mirror of the +understanding. She did not see that no incapacity of science to find +God, even touched the matter of honest men's belief that He made His +dwelling with the humble and contrite. Nothing she had learned from her +father either provided her with reply, or gave hope of finding argument +of discomfiture; nothing of all that went on at chapel or church seemed +to have any thing to do with the questions that presented themselves. + +Such a rough shaking of so-called faith, has been of endless service to +many, chiefly by exposing the insecurity of all foundations of belief, +save that which is discovered in digging with the spade of obedience. +Well indeed is it for all honest souls to be thus shaken, who have been +building upon doctrines concerning Christ, upon faith, upon experiences, +upon any thing but Christ Himself, as revealed by Himself and His spirit +to all who obey Him, and so revealing the Father--a doctrine just as +foolish as the rest to men like Faber, but the power of God and the +wisdom of God to such who know themselves lifted out of darkness and an +ever-present sense of something wrong--if it be only into twilight and +hope. + +Dorothy was a gift of God, and the trouble that gnawed at her heart she +would not let out to gnaw at her father's. + +"There's Ducky come to call us to dinner," she said, and rising, went to +meet her. + +"Dinner!" groaned Mr. Drake, and would have remained where he was. But +for Dorothy's sake he rose and followed her, feeling almost like a +repentant thief who had stolen the meal. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +THE HEATH AT NESTLEY. + + +On the Monday morning, Mr. Bevis's groom came to the rectory with a note +for the curate, begging him and Mrs. Wingfold to dine at Nestley the +same day if possible. + +"I know," the rector wrote, "Monday is, or ought to be, an idle day with +you, and I write instead of my wife, because I want to see you on +business. I would have come to you, had I not had reasons for wishing to +see you here rather than at Glaston. The earlier you can come and the +longer you can stay the better, but you shall go as soon after an early +dinner as you please. You are a bee and I am a drone. God bless you. + +JOHN BEVIS." + +The curate took the note to his wife. Things were at once arranged, an +answer of ready obedience committed to the groom, and Helen's +pony-carriage ordered out. + +The curate called every thing Helen's. He had a great contempt for the +spirit of men who marry rich wives and then lord it over their money, as +if they had done a fine thing in getting hold of it, and the wife had +been but keeping it from its rightful owner. They do not know what a +confession their whole bearing is, that, but for their wives' money, +they would be but the merest, poorest nobodies. So small are they that +even that suffices to make them feel big! But Helen did not like it, +especially when he would ask her if he might have this or that, or do so +and so. Any common man who heard him would have thought him afraid of +his wife; but a large-hearted woman would at once have understood, as +did Helen, that it all came of his fine sense of truth, and reality, and +obligation. Still Helen would have had him forget all such matters in +connection with her. They were one beyond obligation. She had given him +herself, and what were bank-notes after that? But he thought of her +always as an angel who had taken him in, to comfort, and bless, and +cherish him with love, that he might the better do the work of his God +and hers; therefore his obligation to her was his glory. + +"Your ponies go splendidly to-day, Helen," he said, as admiringly he +watched how her hands on the reins seemed to mold their movements. + +They were the tiniest, daintiest things, of the smallest ever seen in +harness, but with all the ways of big horses, therefore amusing in their +very grace. They were the delight of the children of Glaston and the +villages round. + +"Why _will_ you call them _my_ ponies, Thomas?" returned his wife, just +sufficiently vexed to find it easy to pretend to be cross. "I don't see +what good I have got by marrying you, if every thing is to be mine all +the same!" + +"Don't be unreasonable, my Helen!" said the curate, looking into the +lovely eyes whose colors seemed a little blown about in their rings. +"Don't you see it is my way of feeling to myself how much, and with what +a halo about them, they are mine? If I had bought them with my own +money, I should hardly care for them. Thank God, they are _not_ mine +that way, or in any way like that way. _You_ are mine, my life, and they +are yours--mine therefore because they are about you like your clothes +or your watch. They are mine as your handkerchief and your gloves are +mine--through worshiping love. Listen to reason. If a thing is yours it +is ten times more mine than if I had bought it, for, just because it is +yours, I am able to possess it as the meek, and not the land-owners, +inherit the earth. It makes _having_ such a deep and high--indeed a +perfect thing! I take pleasure without an atom of shame in every rich +thing you have brought me. Do you think, if you died, and I carried your +watch, I should ever cease to feel the watch was yours? Just so they are +your ponies; and if you don't like me to say so, you can contradict me +every time, you know, all the same." + +"I know people will think I am like the lady we heard of the other day, +who told her husband the sideboard was hers, not his. Thomas, I _hate_ +to look like the rich one, when all that makes life worth living for, or +fit to be lived, was and is given me by you." + +"No, no, no, my darling! don't say that; you terrify me. I was but the +postman that brought you the good news." + +"Well! and what else with me and the ponies and the money and all that? +Did I make the ponies? Or did I even earn the money that bought them? It +is only the money my father and brother have done with. Don't make me +look as if I did not behave like a lady to my own husband, Thomas." + +"Well, my beautiful, I'll make up for all my wrongs by ordering you +about as if I were the Marquis of Saluzzo, and you the patient Grisel." + +"I wish you would. You don't order me about half enough." + +"I'll try to do better. You shall see." + +Nestley was a lovely place, and the house was old enough to be quite +respectable--one of those houses with a history and a growth, which are +getting rarer every day as the ugly temples of mammon usurp their +places. It was dusky, cool, and somber--a little shabby, indeed, which +fell in harmoniously with its peculiar charm, and indeed added to it. A +lawn, not immaculate of the sweet fault of daisies, sank slowly to a +babbling little tributary of the Lythe, and beyond were fern-covered +slopes, and heather, and furze, and pine-woods. The rector was a +sensible Englishman, who objected to have things done after the taste of +his gardener instead of his own. He loved grass like a village poet, and +would have no flower-beds cut in his lawn. Neither would he have any +flowers planted in the summer to be taken up again before the winter. He +would have no cockney gardening about his place, he said. Perhaps that +was partly why he never employed any but his old cottagers about the +grounds; and the result was that for half the show he had twice the +loveliness. His ambition was to have every possible English garden +flower. + +As soon as his visitors arrived, he and his curate went away together, +and Mrs. Wingfold was shown into the drawing-room, where was Mrs. Bevis +with her knitting. A greater contrast than that of the two ladies then +seated together in the long, low, dusky room, it were not easy to +imagine. I am greatly puzzled to think what conscious good in life Mrs. +Bevis enjoyed--just as I am puzzled to understand the eagerness with +which horses, not hungry, and evidently in full enjoyment of the sun and +air and easy exercise, will yet hurry to their stable the moment their +heads are turned in the direction of them. Is it that they have no hope +in the unknown, and then alone, in all the vicissitudes of their day, +know their destination? Would but some good kind widow, of the same type +with Mrs. Bevis, without children, tell me wherefore she is unwilling to +die! She has no special friend to whom she unbosoms herself--indeed, so +far as any one knows, she has never had any thing of which to unbosom +herself. She has no pet--dog or cat or monkey or macaw, and has never +been seen to hug a child. She never reads poetry--I doubt if she knows +more than the first line of _How doth_. She reads neither novels nor +history, and looks at the newspaper as if the type were fly-spots. Yet +there she sits smiling! Why! oh! why? Probably she does not know. Never +did question, not to say doubt, cause those soft, square-ended fingers +to move one atom less measuredly in the construction of Mrs. Bevis's +muffetee, the sole knittable thing her nature seemed capable of. Never +was sock seen on her needles; the turning of the heel was too much for +her. That she had her virtues, however, was plain from the fact that her +servants staid with her years and years; and I can, beside, from +observation set down a few of them. She never asked her husband what he +would have for dinner. When he was ready to go out with her, she was +always ready too. She never gave one true reason, and kept back a +truer--possibly there was not room for two thoughts at once in her +brain. She never screwed down a dependent; never kept small tradespeople +waiting for their money; never refused a reasonable request. In fact, +she was a stuffed bag of virtues; the bag was of no great size, but +neither were the virtues insignificant. There are dozens of sorts of +people I should feel a far stronger objection to living with; but what +puzzles me is how she contrives to live with herself, never questioning +the comfort of the arrangement, or desiring that it should one day come +to an end. Surely she must be deep, and know some secret! + +For the other lady, Helen Lingard that was, she had since her marriage +altered considerably in the right direction. She used to be a little +dry, a little stiff, and a little stately. To the last I should be far +from objecting, were it not that her stateliness was of the mechanical +sort, belonging to the spine, and not to a soul uplift. Now it had left +her spine and settled in a soul that scorned the low and loved the +lowly. Her step was lighter, her voice more flexible, her laugh much +merrier and more frequent, for now her heart was gay. Her husband +praised God when he heard her laugh; the laugh suggested the praise, for +itself rang like praises. She would pull up her ponies in the middle of +the street, and at word or sign, the carriage would be full of children. +Whoever could might scramble in till it was full. At the least rudeness, +the offender would be ordered to the pavement, and would always obey, +generally weeping. She would drive two or three times up and down the +street with her load, then turn it out, and take another, and another, +until as many as she judged fit had had a taste of the pleasure. This +she had learned from seeing a costermonger fill his cart with children, +and push behind, while the donkey in front pulled them along the street, +to the praise and glory of God. + +She was overbearing in one thing, and that was submission. Once, when I +was in her husband's study, she made a remark on something he had said +or written, I forget what, for which her conscience of love immediately +smote her. She threw herself on the floor, crept under the writing table +at which he sat, and clasped his knees. + +"I beg your pardon, husband," she said sorrowfully. + +"Helen," he cried, laughing rather oddly, "you will make a consummate +idiot of me before you have done." + +"Forgive me," she pleaded. + +"I can't forgive you. How can I forgive where there is positively +nothing to be forgiven?" + +"I don't care what you say; I know better; you _must_ forgive me." + +"Nonsense!" + +"Forgive me." + +"Do get up. Don't be silly." + +"Forgive me. I will lie here till you do." + +"But your remark was perfectly true." + +"It makes no difference. I ought not to have said it like that. Forgive +me, or I will cry." + +I will tell no more of it. Perhaps it is silly of me to tell any, but it +moved me strangely. + +I have said enough to show there was a contrast between the two ladies. +As to what passed in the way of talk, that, from pure incapacity, I dare +not attempt to report. I did hear them talk once, and they laughed too, +but not one salient point could I lay hold of by which afterward to +recall their conversation. Do I dislike Mrs. Bevis? Not in the smallest +degree. I could read a book I loved in her presence. That would be +impossible to me in the presence of Mrs. Ramshorn. + +Mrs. Wingfold had developed a great faculty for liking people. It was +quite a fresh shoot of her nature, for she had before been rather of a +repellent disposition. I wish there were more, and amongst them some of +the best of people, similarly changed. Surely the latter would soon be, +if once they had a glimpse of how much the coming of the kingdom is +retarded by defect of courtesy. The people I mean are slow to _like_, +and until they come to _like_, they _seem_ to dislike. I have known such +whose manner was fit to imply entire disapprobation of the very +existence of those upon whom they looked for the first time. They might +then have been saying to themselves, "_I_ would never have created such +people!" Had I not known them, I could not have imagined them lovers of +God or man, though they were of both. True courtesy, that is, courtesy +born of a true heart, is a most lovely, and absolutely indispensable +grace--one that nobody but a Christian can thoroughly develop. God grant +us a "coming-on disposition," as Shakespeare calls it. Who shall tell +whose angel stands nearer to the face of the Father? Should my brother +stand lower in the social scale than I, shall I not be the more tender, +and respectful, and self-refusing toward him, that God has placed him +there who may all the time be greater than I? A year before, Helen could +hardly endure doughy Mrs. Bevis, but now she had found something to like +in her, and there was confidence and faith between them. So there they +sat, the elder lady meandering on, and Helen, who had taken care to +bring some work with her, every now and then casting a bright glance in +her face, or saying two or three words with a smile, or asking some +simple question. Mrs. Bevis talked chiefly of the supposed affairs and +undoubted illness of Miss Meredith, concerning both of which rather +strange reports had reached her. + +Meantime the gentlemen were walking through the park in earnest +conversation. They crossed the little brook and climbed to the heath on +the other side. There the rector stood, and turning to his companion, +said: + +"It's rather late in the day for a fellow to wake up, ain't it, +Wingfold? You see I was brought up to hate fanaticism, and that may have +blinded me to something you have seen and got a hold of. I wish I could +just see what it is, but I never was much of a theologian. Indeed I +suspect I am rather stupid in some things. But I would fain try to look +my duty in the face. It's not for me to start up and teach the people, +because I ought to have been doing it all this time: I've got nothing to +teach them. God only knows whether I haven't been breaking every one of +the commandments I used to read to them every Sunday." + +"But God does know, sir," said the curate, with even more than his usual +respect in his tone, "and that is well, for otherwise we might go on +breaking them forever." + +The rector gave him a sudden look, full in the face, but said nothing, +seemed to fall a thinking, and for some time was silent. + +"There's one thing clear," he resumed: "I've been taking pay, and doing +no work. I used to think I was at least doing no harm--that I was merely +using one of the privileges of my position: I not only paid a curate, +but all the repair the church ever got was from me. Now, however, for +the first time, I reflect that the money was not given me for that. +Doubtless it has been all the better for my congregation, but that is +only an instance of the good God brings out of evil, and the evil is +mine still. Then, again, there's all this property my wife brought me: +what have I done with that? The kingdom of heaven has not come a +hair's-breadth nearer for my being a parson of the Church of England; +neither are the people of England a shade the better that I am one of +her land-owners. It is surely time I did something, Wingfold, my boy!" + +"I think it is, sir," answered the curate. + +"Then, in God's name, what am I to do?" returned the rector, almost +testily. + +"Nobody can answer that question but yourself, sir," replied Wingfold. + +"It's no use my trying to preach. I could not write a sermon if I took a +month to it. If it were a paper on the management of a stable, now, I +think I could write that--respectably. I know what I am about there. I +could even write one on some of the diseases of horses and bullocks--but +that's not what the church pays me for. There's one thing though--it +comes over me strong that I should like to read prayers in the old place +again. I want to pray, and I don't know how; and it seems as if I could +shove in some of my own if I had them going through my head once again. +I tell you what: we won't make any fuss about it--what's in a name?--but +from this day you shall be incumbent, and I will be curate. You shall +preach--or what you please, and I shall read the prayers or not, just as +you please. Try what you can make of me, Wingfold. Don't ask me to do +what I can't, but help me to do what I can. Look here--here's what I've +been thinking--it came to me last night as I was walking about here +after coming from Glaston:--here, in this corner of the parish, we are a +long way from church. In the village there, there is no place of worship +except a little Methodist one. There isn't one of their--local +preachers, I believe they call them--that don't preach a deal better +than I could if I tried ever so much. It's vulgar enough sometimes, they +tell me, but then they preach, and mean it. Now I might mean it, but I +shouldn't preach;--for what is it to people at work all the week to have +a man read a sermon to them? You might as well drive a nail by pushing +it in with the palm of your hand. Those men use the hammer. Ill-bred, +conceited fellows, some of them, I happen to know, but they know their +business. Now why shouldn't I build a little place here on my own +ground, and get the bishop to consecrate it? I would read prayers for +you in the abbey church in the morning, and then you would not be too +tired to come and preach here in the evening. I would read the prayers +here too, if you liked." + +"I think your scheme delightful," answered the curate, after a moment's +pause. "I would only venture to suggest one improvement--that you should +not have your chapel consecrated. You will find it ever so much more +useful. It will then be dedicated to the God of the whole earth, instead +of the God of the Church of England." + +"Why! ain't they the same?" cried the rector, half aghast, as he stopped +and faced round on the curate. + +"Yes," answered Wingfold; "and all will be well when the Church of +England really recognizes the fact. Meantime its idea of God is such as +will not at all fit the God of the whole earth. And that is why she is +in bondage. Except she burst the bonds of her own selfishness, she will +burst her heart and go to pieces, as her enemies would have her. Every +piece will be alive, though, I trust, more or less." + +"I don't understand you," said the rector. "What has all that to do with +the consecration of my chapel?" + +"If you don't consecrate it," answered Wingfold, "it will remain a +portion of the universe, a thoroughfare for all divine influences, open +as the heavens to every wind that blows. Consecration--" + +Here the curate checked himself. He was going to say--"is another word +for congestion,"--but he bethought himself what a wicked thing it would +be, for the satisfaction of speaking his mind, to disturb that of his +rector, brooding over a good work. + +"But," he concluded therefore, "there will be time enough to think about +that. The scheme is a delightful one. Apart from it, however, +altogether--if you would but read prayers in your own church, it would +wonderfully strengthen my hands. Only I am afraid I should shock you +sometimes." + +"I will take my chance of that. If you do, I will tell you of it. And if +I do what you don't like, you must tell me of it. I trust neither of us +will find the other incapable of understanding his neighbor's position." + +They walked to the spot which the rector had already in his mind as the +most suitable for the projected chapel. It was a bit of gently rising +ground, near one of the gates, whence they could see the whole of the +little village of Owlkirk. One of the nearest cottages was that of Mrs. +Puckridge. They saw the doctor ride in at the other end of the street, +stop there, fasten his horse to the paling, and go in. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +THE GARDEN AT OWLKIRK. + + +No sooner had Faber left the cottage that same morning, than the foolish +Mrs. Puckridge proceeded to pour out to the patient, still agitated both +with her dream and her waking vision, all the terrible danger she had +been in, and the marvelous way in which the doctor had brought her back +from the threshold of death. Every drop of the little blood in her body +seemed to rush to her face, then back to her heart, leaving behind it a +look of terror. She covered her face with the sheet, and lay so long +without moving that her nurse was alarmed. When she drew the sheet back, +she found her in a faint, and it was with great difficulty she brought +her out of it. But not one word could she get from her. She did not seem +even to hear what she said. Presently she grew restless, and soon her +flushed cheek and bright eye indicated an increase of fever. When Faber +saw her, he was much disappointed, perceived at once that something had +excited her, and strongly suspected that, for all her promises, Mrs. +Puckridge had betrayed the means by which he recovered her. + +He said to himself that he had had no choice, but then neither had the +lady, and the thing might be hateful to her. She might be in love, and +then how she must abominate the business, and detest him! It was +horrible to think of her knowing it. But for knowing it, she would never +be a whit the worse, for he never had a day's illness in his life and +knew of no taint in his family. + +When she saw him approach her bedside, a look reminding him of the +ripple of a sudden cold gust passing with the shadow of a cloud over +still water swept across her face. She closed her eyes, and turned a +little from him. What color she had, came and went painfully. Cursing in +his heart the faithlessness of Mrs. Puckridge, he assumed his coldest, +hardest professional manner, felt her pulse with the gentlest, yet most +peremptory inquiry, gave her attendant some authoritative directions, +and left her, saying he would call again in the afternoon. + +During seven days he visited her twice a day. He had good cause to be +anxious, and her recovery was very slow. Once and again appeared +threatenings of the primary complaint, while from the tardiness with +which her veins refilled, he feared for her lungs. During all these +visits, hardly a word beyond the most necessary passed between them. +After that time they were reduced to one a day. Ever as the lady grew +stronger, she seemed to become colder, and her manner grew more distant. +After a fortnight, he again reduced them to one in two days--very +unwillingly, for by that time she had come to occupy nearly as much of +his thoughts as all the rest of his patients together. She made him feel +that his visits were less than welcome to her, except for the help they +brought her, allowed him no insight into her character and ways of +thinking, behaved to him indeed with such restraint, that he could +recall no expression of her face the memory of which drew him to dwell +upon it; yet her face and form possessed him with their mere perfection. +He had to set himself sometimes to get rid of what seemed all but her +very presence, for it threatened to unfit him for the right discharge of +his duties. He was haunted with the form to which he had given a renewal +of life, as a murderer is haunted with the form of the man he has +killed. In those marvelous intervals betwixt sleep and waking, when the +soul is like a _camera obscura_, into which throng shapes unbidden, hers +had displaced all others, and came constantly--now flashing with +feverous radiance, now pale and bloodless as death itself. But ever and +always her countenance wore a look of aversion. She seemed in these +visions, to regard him as a vile necromancer, who first cast her into +the sepulcher, and then brought her back by some hellish art. She had +fascinated him. But he would not allow that he was in love with her. A +man may be fascinated and hate. A man is not necessarily in love with +the woman whose form haunts him. So said Faber to himself; and I can not +yet tell whether he was in love with her or not. I do not know where the +individuality of love commences--when love begins to be love. He must +have been a good way toward that point, however, to have thus betaken +himself to denial. He was the more interested to prove himself free, +that he feared, almost believed, there was a lover concerned, and that +was the reason she hated him so severely for what he had done. + +He had long come to the conclusion that circumstances had straitened +themselves around her. Experience had given him a keen eye, and he had +noted several things about her dress. For one thing, while he had +observed that her under-clothing was peculiarly dainty, he had once or +twice caught a glimpse of such an incongruity as he was compelled to set +down to poverty. Besides, what reason in which poverty bore no part, +could a lady have for being alone in a poor country lodging, without +even a maid? Indeed, might it not be the consciousness of the +peculiarity of her position, and no dislike to him, that made her treat +him with such impenetrable politeness? Might she not well dread being +misunderstood! + +She would be wanting to pay him for his attendance--and what was he to +do? He must let her pay something, or she would consider herself still +more grievously wronged by him, but how was he to take the money from +her hand? It was very hard that ephemeral creatures of the earth, born +but to die, to gleam out upon the black curtain and vanish again, might +not, for the brief time the poor yet glorious bubble swelled and +throbbed, offer and accept from each other even a few sunbeams in which +to dance! Would not the inevitable rain beat them down at night, and +"mass them into the common clay"? How then could they hurt each +other--why should they fear it--when they were all wandering home to the +black, obliterative bosom of their grandmother Night? He well knew a +certain reply to such reflection, but so he talked with himself. + +He would take his leave as if she were a duchess. But he would not until +she made him feel another visit would be an intrusion. + +One day Mrs. Puckridge met him at the door, looking mysterious. She +pointed with her thumb over her shoulder to indicate that the lady was +in the garden, but at the same time nudged him with her elbow, confident +that the impartment she had to make would justify the liberty, and led +the way into the little parlor. + +"Please, sir, and tell me," she said, turning and closing the door, +"what I be to do. She says she's got no money to pay neither me nor the +doctor, so she give me this, and wants me to sell it. I daren't show it! +They'd say I stole it! She declares that if I mention to a living soul +where I got it, she'll never speak to me again. In course she didn't +mean you, sir, seein' as doctors an' clergymen ain't nobody--leastways +nobody to speak on--and I'm sure I beg your pardon, sir, but my meanin' +is as they ain't them as ain't to be told things. I declare I'm most +terrified to set eyes on the thing!" + +She handed the doctor a little morocco case. He opened it, and saw a +ring, which was plainly of value. It was old-fashioned--a round mass of +small diamonds with a good-sized central one. + +"You are quite right," he said. "The ring is far too valuable for you to +dispose of. Bring it to my house at four o'clock, and I will get rid of +it for you." + +Mrs. Puckridge was greatly relieved, and ended the interview by leading +the way to the back-door. When she opened it, he saw his patient sitting +in the little arbor. She rose, and came to meet him. + +"You see I am quite well now," she said, holding out her hand. + +Her tone was guarded, but surely the ice was melting a little! Was she +taking courage at the near approach of her deliverance? + +She stooped to pick a double daisy from the border. Prompt as he +generally was, he could say nothing: he knew what was coming next. She +spoke while still she stooped. + +"When you come again," she said, "will you kindly let me know how much I +am in your debt?" + +As she ended she rose and stood before him, but she looked no higher +than his shirt-studs. She was ashamed to speak of her indebtedness as an +amount that could be reckoned. The whiteness of her cheek grew warm, +which was all her complexion ever revealed of a blush. It showed plainer +in the deepened darkness of her eyes, and the tremulous increase of +light in them. + +"I will," he replied, without the smallest response of confusion, for he +had recovered himself. "You will be careful!" he added. "Indeed you +must, or you will never be strong." + +She answered only with a little sigh, as if weakness was such a +weariness! and looked away across the garden-hedge out into the +infinite--into more of it at least I think, than Faber recognized. + +"And of all things," he went on, "wear shoes--every time you have to +step off a carpet--not mere foot-gloves like those." + +"Is this a healthy place, Doctor Faber?" she asked, looking haughtier, +he thought, but plainly with a little trouble in her eyes. + +"Decidedly," he answered. "And when you are able to walk on the heath +you will find the air invigorating. Only please mind what I say about +your shoes.--May I ask if you intend remaining here any time?" + +"I have already remained so much longer than I intended, that I am +afraid to say. My plans are now uncertain." + +"Excuse me--I know I presume--but in our profession we must venture a +little now and then--could you not have some friend with you until you +are perfectly strong again? After what you have come through, it may be +years before you are quite what you were. I don't want to frighten +you--only to make you careful." + +"There is no one," she answered in a low voice, which trembled a little. + +"No one--?" repeated Faber, as if waiting for the end of the sentence. +But his heart gave a great bound. + +"No one to come to me. I am alone in the world. My mother died when I +was a child and my father two years ago. He was an officer. I was his +only child, and used to go about with him. I have no friends." + +Her voice faltered more and more. When it ceased she seemed choking a +cry. + +"Since then," she resumed, "I have been a governess. My last situation +was in Yorkshire, in a cold part of the county, and my health began to +fail me. I heard that Glaston was a warm place, and one where I should +be likely to get employment. But I was taken ill on my way there, and +forced to stop. A lady in the train told me this was such a sweet, quiet +little place, and so when we got to the station I came on here." + +Again Faber could not speak. The thought of a lady like her traveling +about alone looking for work was frightful! "And they talk of a God in +the world!" he said to himself--and felt as if he never could forgive +Him. + +"I have papers to show," she added quietly, as if bethinking herself +that he might be taking her for an impostor. + +All the time she had never looked him in the face. She had fixed her +gaze on the far horizon, but a smile, half pitiful, half proud, +flickered about the wonderful curves of her upper lip. + +"I am glad you have told me," he said. "I may be of service to you, if +you will permit me. I know a great many families about here." + +"Oh, thank you!" she cried, and with an expression of dawning hope, +which made her seem more beautiful than ever, she raised her eyes and +looked him full in the face: it was the first time he had seen her eyes +lighted up, except with fever. Then she turned from him, and, apparently +lost in relief, walked toward the arbor a few steps distant. He followed +her, a little behind, for the path was narrow, his eyes fixed on her +exquisite cheek. It was but a moment, yet the very silence seemed to +become conscious. All at once she grew paler, shuddered, put her hand to +her head, and entering the arbor, sat down. Faber was alarmed. Her hand +was quite cold. She would have drawn it away, but he insisted on feeling +her pulse. + +"You must come in at once," he said. + +She rose, visibly trembling. He supported her into the house, made her +lie down, got a hot bottle for her feet, and covered her with shawls and +blankets. + +"You are quite unfit for any exertion yet," he said, and seated himself +near her. "You must consent to be an invalid for a while. Do not be +anxious. There is no fear of your finding what you want by the time you +are able for it. I pledge myself. Keep your mind perfectly easy." + +She answered him with a look that dazzled him. Her very eyelids seemed +radiant with thankfulness. The beauty that had fixed his regard was now +but a mask through which her soul was breaking, assimilating it. His +eyes sank before the look, and he felt himself catching his breath like +a drowning man. When he raised them again he saw tears streaming down +her face. He rose, and saying he would call again in the evening, left +the room. + +During the rest of his round he did not find it easy to give due +attention to his other cases. His custom was to brood upon them as he +rode; but now that look and the tears that followed seemed to bewilder +him, taking from him all command of his thought. + +Ere long the shadow that ever haunts the steps of the angel, Love, the +shadow whose name is Beneficence, began to reassume its earlier tyranny. +Oh, the bliss of knowing one's self the source of well-being, the stay +and protector, the comfort and life, to such a woman! of wrapping her +round in days of peace, instead of anxiety and pain and labor! But ever +the thought of her looking up to him as the source of her freedom, was +present through it all. What a glory to be the object of such looks as +he had never in his dearest dreams imagined! It made his head swim, even +in the very moment while his great Ruber, astonished at what his master +required of him that day, rose to some high thorny hedge, or stiff rail. +He was perfectly honest; the consequence he sought was only in his own +eyes--and in hers; there was nothing of vulgar patronage in the feeling; +not an atom of low purpose for self in it. The whole mental condition +was nothing worse than the blossom of the dream of his childhood--the +dream of being _the_ benefactor of his race, of being loved and +worshiped for his kindness. But the poison of the dream had grown more +active in its blossom. Since then the credit of goodness with himself +had gathered sway over his spirit; and stoical pride in goodness is a +far worse and lower thing than delight in the thanks of our fellows. He +was a mere slave to his own ideal, and that ideal was not brother to the +angel that beholds the face of the Father. Now he had taken a backward +step in time, but a forward step in his real history, for again another +than himself had a part in his dream. It would be long yet, however, ere +he learned so to love goodness as to forget its beauty. To him who _is_ +good, goodness has ceased to be either object or abstraction; it is _in_ +him--a thirst to give; a solemn, quiet passion to bless; a delight in +beholding well-being. Ah, how we dream and prate of love, until the holy +fire of the true divine love, the love that God kindles in a man toward +his fellows, burns the shadow of it out! + +In the afternoon Mrs. Puckridge appeared with the ring. He took it, told +her to wait, and went out. In a few minutes he returned, and, to the +woman's astonishment, gave her fifty pounds in notes. He did not tell +her he had been to nobody but his own banker. The ring he laid carefully +aside, with no definite resolve concerning it, but the great hope of +somehow managing that it should return to her one day. The thought shot +across his heaven--what a lovely wedding present it would make! and the +meteor drew a long train of shining fancies after it. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +THE PARLOR AT OWLKIRK. + + +When he called, as he had said, in the evening, she looked much better, +and there was even a touch of playfulness in her manner. He could not +but hope some crisis had been passed. The money she had received for the +ring had probably something to do with it. Perhaps she had not known how +valuable the ring was. Thereupon in his conscientiousness he began to +doubt whether he had given her its worth. In reality he had exceeded it +by a few pounds, as he discovered upon inquiry afterward in London. +Anyhow it did not much matter, he said to himself: he was sure to find +some way of restoring it to her. + +Suddenly she looked up, and said hurriedly: + +"I can never repay you, Dr. Faber. No one can do the impossible." + +"You can repay me," returned Faber. + +"How?" she said, looking startled. + +"By never again thinking of obligation to me." + +"You must not ask that of me," she rejoined. "It would not be right." + +The tinge of a rose not absolutely white floated over her face and +forehead as she spoke. + +"Then I shall be content," he replied, "if you will say nothing about it +until you are well settled. After that I promise to send you a bill as +long as a snipe's." + +She smiled, looked up brightly, and said, + +"You promise?" + +"I do." + +"If you don't keep your promise, I shall have to take severe measures. +Don't fancy me without money. I _could_ pay you now--at least I think +so." + +It was a great good sign of her that she could talk about money plainly +as she did. It wants a thoroughbred soul to talk _just_ right about +money. Most people treat money like a bosom-sin: they follow it +earnestly, but do not talk about it at all in society. + +"I only pay six shillings a week for my lodgings!" she added, with a +merry laugh. + +What had become of her constraint and stateliness? Courtesy itself +seemed gone, and simple trust in its place! Was she years younger than +he had thought her? She was hemming something, which demanded her eyes, +but every now and then she cast up a glance, and they were black suns +unclouding over a white sea. Every look made a vintage in the doctor's +heart. There _could_ be no man in the case! Only again, would fifty +pounds, with the loss of a family ring, serve to account for such a +change? Might she not have heard from somebody since he saw her +yesterday? In her presence he dared not follow the thought. + +Some books were lying on the table which could not well be Mrs. +Puckridge's. He took up one: it was _In Memoriam_. + +"Do you like Tennyson?" she asked. + +"That is a hard question to answer straight off," he replied.--He had +once liked Tennyson, else he would not have answered so.--"Had you asked +me if I liked _In Memoriam_" he went on, "I could more easily have +answered you." + +"Then, don't you like _In Memoriam_?" + +"No; it is weak and exaggerated." + +"Ah! you don't understand it. I didn't until after my father died. Then +I began to know what it meant, and now think it the most beautiful poem +I ever read." + +"You are fond of poetry, then?" + +"I don't read much; but I think there is more in some poetry than in all +the prose in the world." + +"That is a good deal to say." + +"A good deal too much, when I think that I haven't read, I suppose, +twenty books in my life--that is, books worth calling books: I don't +mean novels and things of that kind. Yet I can not believe twenty years +of good reading would make me change my mind about _In Memoriam_.--You +don't like poetry?" + +"I can't say I do--much. I like Pope and Crabbe--and--let me see--well, +I used to like Thomson. I like the men that give you things just as they +are. I do not like the poets that mix themselves up with what they see, +and then rave about Nature. I confess myself a lover of the truth beyond +all things." + +"But are you sure," she returned, looking him gently but straight in +the eyes, "that, in your anxiety not to make more of things than they +are, you do not make less of them than they are?" + +"There is no fear of that," returned Faber sadly, with an unconscious +shake of the head. "So long as there is youth and imagination on that +side to paint them,--" + +"Excuse me: are you not begging the question? Do they paint, or do they +see what they say? Some profess to believe that the child sees more +truly than the grown man--that the latter is the one who paints,--paints +out, that is, with a coarse brush." + +"You mean Wordsworth." + +"Not him only." + +"True; no end of poets besides. They all say it now-a-days." + +"But surely, Mr. Faber, if there be a God,--" + +"Ah!" interrupted the doctor, "there, _you_ beg the question. Suppose +there should be no God, what then?" + +"Then, I grant you, there could be no poetry. Somebody says poetry is +the speech of hope; and certainly if there were no God, there could be +no hope." + +Faber was struck with what she said, not from any feeling that there was +truth in it, but from its indication of a not illogical mind. He was on +the point of replying that certain kinds of poetry, and _In Memoriam_ in +particular, seemed to him more like the speech of a despair that had not +the courage to confess itself and die; but he saw she had not a +suspicion he spoke as he did for any thing but argument, and feared to +fray his bird by scattering his crumbs too roughly. He honestly believed +deliverance from the superstition into which he granted a fine nature +was readier to fall than a common one, the greatest gift one human being +could offer to another; but at the same time he could not bear to think +of her recoil from such utterance of his unfaith as he had now almost +got into the habit of making. He bethought himself, too, that he had +already misrepresented himself, in giving her the impression that he was +incapable of enjoying poetry of the more imaginative sort. He had indeed +in his youth been passionately fond of such verse. Then came a time in +which he turned from it with a sick dismay. Feelings and memories of +agony, which a word, a line, would rouse in him afresh, had brought him +to avoid it with an aversion seemingly deep-rooted as an instinct, and +mounting even to loathing; and when at length he cast from him the +semi-beliefs of his education, he persuaded himself that he disliked it +for its falsehood. He read his philosophy by the troubled light of wrong +and suffering, and that is not the light of the morning, but of a +burning house. Of all poems, naturally enough, he then disliked _In +Memoriam_ the most; and now it made him almost angry that Juliet +Meredith should like so much what he so much disliked. Not that he would +have a lady indifferent to poetry. That would argue a lack of poetry in +herself, and such a lady would be like a scentless rose. You could not +expect, who indeed could wish a lady to be scientific in her ways of +regarding things? Was she not the live concentration, the perfect +outcome, of the vast poetic show of Nature? In shape, in motion of body +and brain, in tone and look, in color and hair, in faithfulness to old +dolls and carelessness of hearts, was she not the sublimation, the +essence of sunsets, and fading roses, and butterflies, and snows, and +running waters, and changing clouds, and cold, shadowy moonlight? He +argued thus more now in sorrow than in anger; for what was the woman but +a bubble on the sand of the infinite soulless sea--a bubble of a hundred +lovely hues, that must shine because it could not help it, and for the +same reason break? She was not to blame. Let her shine and glow, and +sparkle, and vanish. For him, he cared for nothing but science--nothing +that did not promise one day to yield up its kernel to the seeker. To +him science stood for truth, and for truth in the inward parts stood +obedience to the laws of Nature. If he was one of a poor race, he would +rise above his fellows by being good to them in their misery; while for +himself he would confess to no misery. Let the laws of Nature +work--eyeless and heartless as the whirlwind; he would live his life, be +himself, be Nature, and depart without a murmur. No scratch on the face +of time, insignificant even as the pressure of a fern-leaf upon coal, +should tell that he had ever thought his fate hard. He would do his +endeavor and die and return to nothing--not then more dumb of complaint +than now. Such had been for years his stern philosophy, and why should +it now trouble him that a woman thought differently? Did the sound of +faith from such lips, the look of hope in such eyes, stir any thing out +of sight in his heart? Was it for a moment as if the corner of a veil +were lifted, the lower edge of a mist, and he saw something fair beyond? +Came there a little glow and flutter out of the old time? "All forget," +he said to himself. "I too have forgotten. Why should not Nature forget? +Why should I be fooled any more? Is it not enough?" + +Yet as he sat gazing, in the broad light of day, through the cottage +window, across whose panes waved the little red bells of the common +fuchsia, something that had nothing to do with science and yet _was_, +seemed to linger and hover over the little garden--something from the +very depths of loveliest folly. Was it the refrain of an old song? or +the smell of withered rose leaves? or was there indeed a kind of light +such as never was on sea or shore? + +Whatever it was, it was out of the midst of it the voice of the lady +seemed to come--a clear musical voice in common speech, but now veiled +and trembling, as if it brooded hearkening over the words it uttered: + + "I wrong the grave with fears untrue: + Shall love be blamed for want of faith? + There must be wisdom with great Death: + The dead shall look me through and through. + + "Be near us when we climb or fall: + Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours + With larger other eyes than ours, + To make allowance for us all." + +She ceased, and the silence was like that which follows sweet music. + +"Ah! you think of your father!" he hazarded, and hoped indeed it was her +father of whom she was thinking. + +She made no answer. He turned toward her in anxiety. She was struggling +with emotion. The next instant the tears gushed into her eyes, while a +smile seemed to struggle from her lips, and spread a little way over her +face. It was inexpressibly touching. + +"He was my friend," she said. "I shall never have such love again." + +"All is not lost when much is lost," said the doctor, with sad comfort. +"There are spring days in winter." + +"And _you_ don't like poetry!" she said, a sweet playful scorn shining +through her tears. + +"I spoke but a sober truth," he returned; "--so sober that it seems but +the sadder for its truth. The struggle of life is to make the best of +things that might be worse." + +She looked at him pitifully. For a moment her lips parted, then a +strange look as of sudden bodily pain crossed her face, her lips closed, +and her mouth looked as if it were locked. She shut the book which lay +upon her knee, and resumed her needlework. A shadow settled upon her +face. + +"What a pity such a woman should be wasted in believing lies!" thought +the doctor. "How much better it would be if she would look things in the +face, and resolve to live as she can, doing her best and enduring her +worst, and waiting for the end! And yet, seeing color is not the thing +itself, and only in the brain whose eye looks upon it, why should I +think it better? why should she not shine in the color of her fancy? why +should she grow gray because the color is only in herself? We are but +bubbles flying from the round of Nature's mill-wheel. Our joys and +griefs are the colors that play upon the bubbles. Their throbs and +ripples and changes are our music and poetry, and their bursting is our +endless repose. Let us waver and float and shine in the sun; let us bear +pitifully and be kind; for the night cometh, and there an end." + +But in the sad silence, he and the lady were perhaps drifting further +and further apart! + +"I did not mean," he said, plunging into what came first, "that I could +not enjoy verse of the kind you prefer--as verse. I took the matter by +the more serious handle, because, evidently, you accepted the tone and +the scope of it. I have a weakness for honesty." + +"There is something not right about you, though, Mr. Faber--if I could +find it out," said Miss Meredith. "You can not mean you enjoy any thing +you do not believe in?" + +"Surely there are many things one can enjoy without believing in them?" + +"On the contrary, it seems to me that enjoying a thing is only another +word for believing in it. If I thought the sweetest air on the violin +had no truth in it, I could not listen to it a moment longer." + +"Of course the air has all the truth it pretends to--the truth, that is, +of the relations of sounds and of intervals--also, of course, the truth +of its relation as a whole to that creative something in the human mind +which gave birth to it." + +"That is not all it pretends. It pretends that the something it gives +birth to in the human mind is also a true thing." + +"Is there not then another way also, in which the violin may be said to +be true? Its tone throughout is of suffering: does it not mourn that +neither what gives rise to it, nor what it gives rise to, is any thing +but a lovely vapor--the phantom of an existence not to be lived, only to +be dreamed? Does it not mourn that a man, though necessarily in harmony +with the laws under which he lives, yet can not be sufficiently +conscious of that harmony to keep him from straining after his dream?" + +"Ah!" said Miss Meredith, "then there is strife in the kingdom, and it +can not stand!" + +"There is strife in the kingdom, and it can not stand," said the doctor, +with mingled assent and assertion. "Hence it is forever falling." + +"But it is forever renewed," she objected. + +"With what renewal?" rejoined Faber. "What return is there from the jaws +of death? The individual is gone. A new consciousness is not a renewal +of consciousness." + +She looked at him keenly. + +"It is hard, is it not?" she said. + +"I will not deny that in certain moods it looks so," he answered. + +She did not perceive his drift, and was feeling after it. + +"Surely," she said, "the thing that ought to be, is the thing that must +be." + +"How can we tell that?" he returned. "What do we see like it in nature? +Whatever lives and thrives--animal or vegetable--or human--it is all +one--every thing that lives and thrives, is forever living and thriving +on the loss, the defeat, the death of another. There is no unity save +absolutely by means of destruction. Destruction is indeed the very +center and framework of the sole existing unity. I will not, therefore, +as some do, call Nature cruel: what right have I to complain? Nature can +not help it. She is no more to blame for bringing me forth, than I am to +blame for being brought forth. Ought is merely the reflex of like. We +call ourselves the highest in Nature--and probably we are, being the +apparent result of the whole--whence, naturally, having risen, we seek +to rise, we feel after something we fancy higher. For as to the system +in which we live, we are so ignorant that we can but blunderingly feel +our way in it; and if we knew all its laws, we could neither order nor +control, save by a poor subservience. We are the slaves of our +circumstance, therefore betake ourselves to dreams of what _ought to +be_." + +Miss Meredith was silent for a time. + +"I can not see how to answer you," she said at length. "But you do not +disturb my hope of seeing my father again. We have a sure word of +prophecy." + +Faber suppressed the smile of courteous contempt that was ready to break +forth, and she went on: + +"It would ill become me to doubt to-day, as you will grant when I tell +you a wonderful fact. This morning I had not money enough to buy myself +the pair of strong shoes you told me I must wear. I had nothing left but +a few trinkets of my mother's--one of them a ring I thought worth about +ten pounds. I gave it to my landlady to sell for me, hoping she would +get five for it. She brought me fifty, and I am rich!" + +Her last words trembled with triumph. He had himself been building her +up in her foolish faith! But he took consolation in thinking how easily +with a word he could any moment destroy that buttress of her phantom +house. It was he, the unbeliever, and no God in or out of her Bible, +that had helped her! It did not occur to him that she might after all +see in him only a reed blown of a divine wind. + +"I am glad to hear of your good fortune," he answered. "I can not say I +see how it bears on the argument. You had in your possession more than +you knew." + +"Does the length of its roots alter the kind of the plant?" she asked. +"Do we not know in all nature and history that God likes to see things +grow? That must be the best way. It may be the only right way. If that +ring was given to my mother against the time when the last child of her +race should find herself otherwise helpless, would the fact that the +provision was made so early turn the result into a mere chance meeting +of necessity and subsidy? Am I bound to call every good thing I receive +a chance, except an angel come down visibly out of the blue sky and give +it to me? That would be to believe in a God who could not work His will +by His own laws. Here I am, free and hopeful--all I needed. Every thing +was dark and troubled yesterday; the sun is up to-day." + +"There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood leads +on to fortune," said the doctor. + +"I begin to fear you mean what you say, Mr. Faber. I hoped it was only +for argument's sake," returned Miss Meredith. + +She did not raise her eyes from her work this time. Faber saw that she +was distressed if not hurt, and that her soul had closed its lips to +him. He sprang to his feet, and stood bending before her. + +"Miss Meredith," he said, "forgive me. I have offended you." + +"You have not offended me," she said quietly. + +"Hurt you then, which is worse." + +"How should I have got through," she said, as if to herself, and dropped +her hands with her work on her knees, "if I had not believed there was +One caring for me all the time, even when I was most alone!" + +"Do you never lose that faith?" asked the doctor. + +"Yes; many and many a time. But it always comes back." + +"Comes and goes with your health." + +"No--is strongest sometimes when I am furthest from well." + +"When you are most feverish," said the doctor. "What a fool I am to go +on contradicting her!" he added to himself. + +"I think I know you better than you imagine, Mr. Faber," said Miss +Meredith, after just a moment's pause. "You are one of those men who +like to represent themselves worse than they are. I at least am bound to +think better of you than you would have me. One who lives as you do for +other people, can not be so far from the truth as your words." + +Faber honestly repudiated the praise, for he felt it more than he +deserved. He did try to do well by his neighbor, but was aware of no +such devotion as it implied. Of late he had found his work bore him not +a little--especially when riding away from Owlkirk. The praise, +notwithstanding, sounded sweet from her lips, was sweeter still from her +eyes, and from the warmer white of her cheek, which had begun to resume +its soft roundness. + +"Ah!" thought the doctor, as he rode slowly home, "were it not for +sickness, age, and death, this world of ours would be no bad place to +live in. Surely mine is the most needful and the noblest of +callings!--to fight for youth, and health, and love; against age, and +sickness, and decay! to fight death to the last, even knowing he must +have the best of it in the end! to set law against law, and do what +poor thing may be done to reconcile the inexorable with the desirable! +Who knows--if law be blind, and I am a man that can see--for at the +last, and only at the last do eyes come in the head of Nature--who knows +but I may find out amongst the blind laws to which I am the eyes, that +blind law which lies nearest the root of life!--Ah, what a dreamer I +should have been, had I lived in the time when great dreams were +possible! Beyond a doubt I should have sat brooding over the elixir of +life, cooking and mixing, heating and cooling, watching for the flash in +the goblet. We know so much now, that the range of hope is sadly +limited! A thousand dark ways of what seemed blissful possibility are +now closed to us, because there the light now shines, and shows naught +but despair. Yet why should the thing be absurd? Can any one tell _why_ +this organism we call man should not go on working forever? Why should +it not, since its law is change and renewal, go on changing and renewing +forever? Why should it get tired? Why should its law work more feeble, +its relations hold less firmly, after a hundred years, than after ten? +Why should it grow and grow, then sink and sink? No one knows a reason. +Then why should it be absurd to seek what shall encounter the unknown +cause, and encountering reveal it? Might science be brought to the pitch +that such a woman should live to all the ages, how many common lives +might not well be spared to such an end! How many noble ones would not +willingly cease for such a consummation--dying that life should be lord, +and death no longer king!" + +Plainly Faber's materialism sprang from no defect in the region of the +imagination; but I find myself unable to determine how much honesty, and +how much pride and the desire to be satisfied with himself, had +relatively to do with it. I would not be understood to imply that he had +an unusual amount of pride; and I am sure he was less easily satisfied +with himself than most are. Most people will make excuses for themselves +which they would neither make nor accept for their neighbor; their own +failures and follies trouble them little: Faber was of another sort. As +ready as any other man to discover what could be said on his side, he +was not so ready to adopt it. He required a good deal of himself. But +then he unconsciously compared himself with his acquaintances, and made +what he knew of them the gauge, if not the measure, of what he required +of himself. + +It were unintelligible how a man should prefer being the slave of blind +helpless Law to being the child of living Wisdom, should believe in the +absolute Nothing rather than in the perfect Will, were it not that he +does not, can not see the Wisdom or the Will, except he draw nigh +thereto. + +I shall be answered: + +"We do not prefer. We mourn the change which yet we can not resist. We +would gladly have the God of our former faith, were it possible any +longer to believe in Him." + +I answer again: + +"Are you sure of what you say? Do you in reality mourn over your lost +faith? For my part, I would rather disbelieve with you, than have what +you have lost. For I would rather have no God than the God whom you +suppose me to believe in, and whom therefore I take to be the God in +whom you imagine you believed in the days of your ignorance. That those +were days of ignorance, I do not doubt; but are these the days of your +knowledge? The time will come when you will see deeper into your own +hearts than now, and will be humbled, like not a few other men, by what +you behold." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +THE BUTCHER'S SHOP. + + +About four years previous to the time of which I am now writing, and +while yet Mr. Drake was in high repute among the people of Cowlane +chapel, he went to London to visit an old friend, a woman of great +practical benevolence, exercised chiefly toward orphans. Just then her +thoughts and feelings were largely occupied with a lovely little girl, +the chain of whose history had been severed at the last link, and lost +utterly. + +A poor woman in Southwark had of her own motion, partly from love to +children and compassion for both them and their mothers, partly to earn +her own bread with pleasure, established a sort of _crèche_ in her two +rooms, where mothers who had work from home could bring their children +in the morning, and leave them till night. The child had been committed +to her charge day after day for some weeks. One morning, when she +brought her, the mother seemed out of health, and did not appear at +night to take her home. The next day the woman heard she was in the +small-pox-hospital. For a week or so, the money to pay for the child +came almost regularly, in postage-stamps, then ceased altogether, and +the woman heard nothing either from or of the mother. After a fortnight +she contrived to go to the hospital to inquire after her. No one +corresponding to her description was in the place. The name was a common +one, and several patients bearing it had lately died and been buried, +while others had recovered and were gone. Her inquiries in the +neighborhood had no better success: no one knew her, and she did not +even discover where she had lived. She could not bear the thought of +taking the child to the work-house, and kept her for six or eight weeks, +but she had a sickly son, a grown lad, to support, and in dread lest she +should be compelled to give her up to the parish, had applied for +counsel to the lady I have mentioned. When Mr. Drake arrived, she had +for some time been searching about in vain to find a nest for her. + +Since his boys had been taken from him, and the unprized girl left +behind had grown so precious, Mr. Drake had learned to love children as +the little ones of God. He had no doubt, like many people, a dread of +children with unknown antecedents: who could tell what root of +bitterness, beyond the common inheritance, might spring up in them? But +all that was known of this one's mother was unusually favorable; and +when his friend took him to see the child, his heart yearned after her. +He took her home to Dorothy, and she had grown up such as we have seen +her, a wild, roguish, sweet, forgetful, but not disobedient child--very +dear to both the Drakes, who called her their duckling. + +As we have seen, however, Mr. Drake had in his adversity grown fearful +and faint-hearted, and had begun to doubt whether he had a right to keep +her. And of course he had not, if it was to be at the expense of his +tradespeople. But he was of an impetuous nature, and would not give even +God time to do the thing that needed time to be done well. He saw a +crisis was at hand. Perhaps, however, God saw a spiritual, where he saw +a temporal crisis. + +Dorothy had a small sum, saved by her mother, so invested as to bring +her about twenty pounds a year, and of the last payment she had two +pounds in hand. Her father had nothing, and quarter-day was two months +off. This was the common knowledge of their affairs at which they +arrived as they sat at breakfast on the Monday morning, after the +saddest Sunday either of them had ever spent. They had just risen from +the table, and the old woman was removing the cloth, when a knock came +to the lane-door, and she went to open it, leaving the room-door ajar, +whereby the minister caught a glimpse of a blue apron, and feeling +himself turning sick, sat down again. Lisbeth re-entered with a rather +greasy-looking note, which was of course from the butcher, and Mr. +Drake's hand trembled as he opened it. Mr. Jones wrote that he would not +have troubled him, had he not asked for his bill; but, if it was quite +convenient, he would be glad to have the amount by the end of the week, +as he had a heavy payment to make the following Monday. Mr. Drake handed +the note to his daughter, rose hastily, and left the room. Dorothy threw +it down half-read, and followed him. He was opening the door, his hat in +his hand. + +"Where are you going in such a hurry, father dear?" she said. "Wait a +moment and I'll go with you." + +"My child, there is not a moment to lose!" he replied excitedly. + +"I did not read all the letter," she returned; "but I think he does not +want the money till the end of the week." + +"And what better shall we be then?" he rejoined, almost angrily. "The +man looks to me, and where will he find himself on Monday? Let us be as +honest at least as we can." + +"But we may be able to borrow it--or--who knows what might happen?" + +"There it is, my dear! Who knows what? We can be sure of nothing in this +world." + +"And what in the next, father?" + +The minister was silent. If God was anywhere, he was here as much as +there! That was not the matter in hand, however. He owed the money, and +was bound to let the man know that he could not pay it by the end of the +week. Without another word to Dorothy, he walked from the house, and, +like a man afraid of cowardice, went straight at the object of his +dismay. He was out of the lane and well into Pine street before he +thought to put on his hat. + +From afar he saw the butcher, standing in front of his shop--a tall, +thin man in blue. His steel glittered by his side, and a red nightcap +hung its tassel among the curls of his gray hair. He was discussing, +over a small joint of mutton, some point of economic interest with a +country customer in a check-shawl. To the minister's annoyance the woman +was one of his late congregation, and he would gladly have passed the +shop, had he had the courage. When he came near, the butcher turned from +the woman, and said, taking his nightcap by the tassel in rudimentary +obeisance. + +"At your service, sir." + +His courtesy added to Mr. Drake's confusion: it was plain the man +imagined he had brought him his money! Times were indeed changed since +his wife used to drive out in her brougham to pay the bills! Was this +what a man had for working in the vineyard the better part of a +lifetime? The property he did not heed. That had been the portion of the +messengers of heaven from the first. But the shame!--what was he to do +with that? Who ever heard of St. Paul not being able to pay a butcher's +bill! No doubt St. Paul was a mighty general, and he but a poor +subaltern, but in the service there was no respect of persons. On the +other hand, who ever heard of St. Paul having any bills to pay!--or for +that matter, indeed, of his marrying a rich wife, and getting into +expensive habits through popularity! Who ever heard of his being +dependent on a congregation! He accepted help sometimes, but had always +his goats'-hair and his tent-making to fall back upon!--Only, after all, +was the Lord never a hard master? Had he not let it come to this? + +Much more of the sort went through his mind in a flash. The country +woman had again drawn the attention of the butcher with a parting word. + +"You don't want a chicken to-day--do you, Mr. Drake?" she said, as she +turned to go. + +"No, thank you, Mrs. Thomson. How is your husband?" + +"Better, I thank you sir. Good morning, sir." + +"Mr. Jones," said the minister--and as he spoke, he stepped inside the +shop, removed his hat, and wiped his forehead, "I come to you with +shame. I have not money enough to pay your bill. Indeed I can not even +pay a portion of it till next quarter-day." + +"Don't mention it, Mr. Drake, sir." + +"But your bill on Monday, Mr. Jones!" + +"Oh! never mind that. I shall do very well, I dare say. I have a many as +owes me a good deal more than you do, sir, and I'm much obliged to you +for letting of me know at once. You see, sir, if you hadn't--" + +"Yes, I know: I asked for it! I am the sorrier I can't pay it after all. +It is quite disgraceful, but I simply can't help it." + +"Disgraceful, sir!" exclaimed Mr. Jones, almost as if hurt: "I wish they +thought as you do as has ten times the reason, sir!" + +"But I have a request to make," the pastor went on, heedless of the +butcher's remark, and pulling out a large and handsome gold watch: +"Would you oblige me by taking this watch in security until I do pay +you? It is worth a great deal more than your bill. It would add much to +the obligation, if you would put it out of sight somewhere, and say +nothing about it. If I should die before paying your bill, you will be +at liberty to sell it; and what is over, after deducting interest, you +will kindly hand to my daughter." + +Mr. Jones stared with open mouth. He thought the minister had lost his +senses. + +"What do you make of me, sir?" he said at last. "You go for to trust me +with a watch like that, and fancy I wouldn't trust you with a little +bill that ain't been owing three months yet! You make me that I don't +know myself, sir! Never you mention the bill to me again, sir. I'll ask +for it, all in good time. Can I serve you with any thing to-day, sir?" + +"No, I thank you. I must at least avoid adding to my debt." + +"I hope what you do have, you'll have of me, sir. I don't mind waiting a +goodish bit for my money, but what cuts me to the heart is to see any +one as owes me money a goin' over the way, as if 'e 'adn't 'a' found my +meat good enough to serve his turn, an' that was why he do it. That does +rile me!" + +"Take my word for it, Mr. Jones--all the meat we have we shall have of +you. But we must be careful. You see I am not quite so--so--" + +He stopped with a sickly smile. + +"Look ye here, Mr. Drake!" broke in the butcher: "you parsons ain't +proper brought up. You ain't learned to take care of yourselves. Now us +tradespeople, we're learned from the first to look arter number one, and +not on no account to forget which _is_ number one. But you parsons, +now,--you'll excuse me, sir; I don't mean no offense; you ain't brought +up to 't, an' it ain't to be expected of you--but it's a great neglect +in your eddication, sir; an' the consekence is as how us as knows better +'as to take care on you as don't know no better. I can't say I think +much o' them 'senters: they don't stick by their own; but you're a +honest man, sir, if ever there was a honest man as was again' the +church, an' ask you for that money, I never will, acause I know when you +can pay, it's pay you will. Keep your mind easy, sir: _I_ shan't come to +grief for lack o' what you owe me! Only don't you go a starving of +yourself, Mr. Drake. I don't hold with that nohow. Have a bit o' meat +when you want it, an' don't think over it twice. There!" + +The minister was just able to thank his new friend and no more. He held +out his hand to him, forgetful of the grease that had so often driven +him from the pavement to the street. The butcher gave it a squeeze that +nearly shot it out of his lubricated grasp, and they parted, both better +men for the interview. + +When Mr. Drake reached home, he met his daughter coming out to find him. +He took her hand, led her into the house and up to his study, and closed +the door. + +"Dorothy," he said, "it is sweet to be humbled. The Spirit can bring +water from the rock, and grace from a hard heart. I mean mine, not the +butcher's. He has behaved to me as I don't see how any but a Christian +could, and that although his principles are scarcely those of one who +had given up all for the truth. He is like the son in the parable who +said, I go not, but went; while I, much I fear me, am like the other who +said, I go, sir, but went not. Alas! I have always found it hard to be +grateful; there is something in it unpalatable to the old Adam; but from +the bottom of my heart I thank Mr. Jones, and I will pray God for him +ere I open a book. Dorothy, I begin to doubt our way of +church-membership. It _may_ make the good better; but if a bad one gets +in, it certainly makes him worse. I begin to think too, that every +minister ought to be independent of his flock--I do not mean by the pay +of the state, God forbid! but by having some trade or profession, if no +fortune. Still, if I had had the money to pay that bill, I should now be +where I am glad not to be--up on my castletop, instead of down at the +gate. He has made me poor that He might send me humility, and that I +find unspeakably precious. Perhaps He will send me the money next. But +may it not be intended also to make us live more simply--on vegetables +perhaps? Do you not remember how it fared with Daniel, Hananiah, +Mishael, and Azariah, when they refused the meat and the wine, and ate +pulse instead? At the end of ten days their countenances appeared fairer +and fatter in flesh than all the children which did eat the portion of +the king's meat. Pulse, you know, means peas and beans, and every thing +of that kind--which is now proved to be almost as full of nourishment as +meat itself, and to many constitutions more wholesome. Let us have a +dinner of beans. You can buy haricot beans at the grocer's--can you not? +If Ducky does not thrive on them, or they don't agree with you, my +Dorothy, you will have only to drop them. I am sure they will agree with +me. But let us try, and then the money I owe Mr. Jones, will not any +longer hang like a millstone about my neck." + +"We will begin this very day," said Dorothy, delighted to see her father +restored to equanimity. "I will go and see after a dinner of herbs.--We +shall have love with it anyhow, father!" she added, kissing him. + +That day the minister, who in his earlier days had been allowed by his +best friends to be a little particular about his food, and had been no +mean connoisseur in wines, found more pleasure at his table, from +lightness of heart, and the joy of a new independence, than he had had +for many a day. It added much also to his satisfaction with the +experiment, that, instead of sleeping, as his custom was, after dinner, +he was able to read without drowsiness even. Perhaps Dorothy's +experience was not quite so satisfactory, for she looked weary when they +sat down to tea. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +THE PARLOR AGAIN. + + +Faber had never made any effort to believe in a divine order of +things--indeed he had never made strenuous effort to believe in any +thing. It had never at all occurred to him that it might be a duty to +believe. He was a kindly and not a repellent man, but when he doubted +another, he doubted him; it never occurred to him that perhaps he ought +to believe in that man. There must be a lack of something, where a man's +sense of duty urges him mainly to denial. His existence is a positive +thing--his main utterance ought to be positive. I would not forget that +the nature of a denial may be such as to involve a strong positive. + +To Faber it seemed the true and therefore right thing, to deny the +existence of any such being as men call God. I heartily admit that such +denial may argue a nobler condition than that of the man who will reason +for the existence of what he calls a Deity, but omits to order his way +after what he professes to believe His will. At the same time, his +conclusion that he was not bound to believe in any God, seemed to lift a +certain weight off the heart of the doctor--the weight, namely, that +gathers partly from the knowledge of having done wrong things, partly +from the consciousness of not _being_ altogether right. It would be very +unfair, however, to leave the impression that this was the origin of all +the relief the doctor derived from the conclusion. For thereby he got +rid, in a great measure at least, of the notion--horrible in proportion +to the degree in which it is actually present to the mind, although, I +suspect, it is not, in a true sense, credible to any mind--of a cruel, +careless, unjust Being at the head of affairs. That such a notion should +exist at all, is mainly the fault of the mass of so-called religious +people, for they seem to believe in, and certainly proclaim such a God. +In their excuse it may be urged they tell the tale as it was told to +them; but the fault lies in this, that, with the gospel in their hands, +they have yet lived in such disregard of its precepts, that they have +never discovered their representation of the God of Truth to be such, +that the more honest a man is, the less can he accept it. That the +honest man, however, should not thereupon set himself to see whether +there might not be a true God notwithstanding, whether such a God was +not conceivable consistently with things as they are, whether the +believers had not distorted the revelation they professed to follow; +especially that he should prefer to believe in some sort of _vitalic_ +machine, equally void of beneficence and malevolence, existing because +it can not help it, and giving birth to all sorts of creatures, men and +women included, because it can not help it--must arise from a condition +of being, call it spiritual, moral, or mental--I can not be obliging +enough to add _cerebral,_ because so I should nullify my conclusion, +seeing there would be no substance left wherein it could be wrought +out--for which the man, I can not but think, will one day discover that +he was to blame--for which a living God sees that he is to blame, makes +all the excuse he can, and will give the needful punishment to the +uttermost lash. + +There are some again, to whom the idea of a God perfect as they could +imagine Him in love and devotion and truth, seems, they say, too good to +be true: such have not yet perceived that no God any thing less than +absolutely glorious in loveliness would be worth believing in, or such +as the human soul could believe in. But Faber did not belong to this +class--still less to that portion of it whose inconsolable grief over +the lack of such a God may any day blossom into hope of finding Him. He +was in practice at one with that portion of it who, accepting things at +their worst, find alleviation for their sorrows in the strenuous effort +to make the best of them; but he sought to content himself with the +order of things which, blind and deaf and non-willing, he said had +existed for evermore, most likely--the thing was hardly worth +discussing; blind, for we can not see that it sees; deaf, for we can not +hear that it hears; and without will, for we see no strife, purpose, or +change in its going! + +There was no God, then, and people would be more comfortable to know it. +In any case, as there was none, they ought to know it. As to his +certainty of there being none, Faber felt no desire to find one, had met +with no proof that there was one, and had reasons for supposing that +there was none. He had not searched very long or very wide, or with any +eager desire to discover Him, if indeed there should be a God that hid +Himself. His genial nature delighted in sympathy, and he sought it even +in that whose perfect operation, is the destruction of all sympathy. Who +does not know the pleasure of that moment of nascent communion, when +argument or expostulation has begun to tell, conviction begins to dawn, +and the first faint thrill of response is felt? But the joy may be +either of two very different kinds--delight in victory and the personal +success of persuasion, or the ecstasy of the shared vision of truth, in +which contact souls come nearer to each other than any closest +familiarity can effect. Such a nearness can be brought about by no +negation however genuine, or however evil may be the thing denied. + +Sympathy, then, such as he desired, Faber was now bent on finding, or +bringing about in Juliet Meredith. He would fain get nearer to her. +Something pushed, something drew him toward the lovely phenomenon into +which had flowered invisible Nature's bud of shapeless protoplasm. He +would have her trust him, believe him, love him. If he succeeded, so +much the greater would be the value and the pleasure of the conquest, +that it had been gained in spite of all her prejudices of education and +conscience. And if in the process of finding truth a home in her bosom, +he should cause her pain even to agony, would not the tenderness born of +their lonely need for each other, be far more consoling than any mere +aspiration after a visionary comforter? + +Juliet had been, so far as her father was concerned in her education, +religiously brought up. No doubt Captain Meredith was more fervid than +he was reasonable, but he was a true man, and in his regiment, on which +he brought all his influence to bear, had been regarded with respect, +even where not heartily loved. But her mother was one of those weakest +of women who can never forget the beauty they once possessed, or quite +believe they have lost it, remaining, even after the very traces of it +have vanished, as greedy as ever of admiration. Her maxims and +principles, if she could be said to have any of the latter, were not a +little opposed to her husband's; but she died when Juliet was only five +years old, and the child grew to be almost the companion of her father. +Hence it came that she heard much religious conversation, often +partaking not a little of the character of discussion and even of +dispute. She thus became familiar with the forms of a religious belief +as narrow as its partisans are numerous. Her heart did not remain +uninterested, but she was never in earnest sufficiently to discover what +a thing of beggarly elements the system was, and how incapable of +satisfying any childlike soul. She never questioned the truth of what +she heard, and became skilled in its idioms and arguments and forms of +thought. But the more familiar one becomes with any religious system, +while yet the conscience and will are unawakened and obedience has not +begun, the harder is it to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Such +familiarity is a soul-killing experience, and great will be the excuse +for some of those sons of religious parents who have gone further +toward hell than many born and bred thieves and sinners. + +When Juliet came to understand clearly that her new friend did mean +thorough-going unbelief, the rejection of _all_ the doctrines she had +been taught by him whose memory she revered, she was altogether shocked, +and for a day and a night regarded him as a monster of wickedness. But +her horror was mainly the reflex of that with which her father would +have regarded him, and all that was needed to moderate horror to +disapproval, was familiarity with his doctrines in the light of his +agreeable presence and undeniable good qualities. Thoroughly acquainted +as she believed herself with "the plan of salvation," Jesus of Nazareth +was to her but the vague shadow of something that was more than a man, +yet no man at all. I had nearly said that what He came to reveal had +become to her yet more vague from her nebulous notion of Him who was its +revelation. Her religion was, as a matter of course, as dusky and +uncertain, as the object-center of it was obscure and unrealized. Since +her father's death and her comparative isolation, she had read and +thought a good deal; some of my readers may even think she had read and +thought to tolerable purposes judging from her answers to Faber in the +first serious conversation they had; but her religion had lain as before +in a state of dull quiescence, until her late experience, realizing to +her the idea of the special care of which she stood so much in need, +awoke in her a keen sense of delight, and if not a sense of gratitude as +well, yet a dull desire to be grateful. + +The next day, as she sat pondering what had passed between them, +altogether unaware of her own weakness, she was suddenly seized with the +ambition--in its inward relations the same as his--of converting him to +her belief. The purpose justified an interest in him beyond what +gratitude obligated, and was in part the cause why she neither shrank +from his society, nor grew alarmed at the rapid growth of her intimacy. +But they only who love the truth simply and altogether, can really know +what they are about. + +I do not care to follow the intellectual duel between them. Argument, +save that of a man with himself, when council is held between heart, +will, imagination, conscience, vision, and intellect, is of little avail +or worth. Nothing, however, could have suited Faber's desires better. +Under the shadow of such difficulties as the wise man ponders and the +fool flaunts, difficulties which have been difficulties from the dawn +of human thought, and will in new shapes keep returning so long as the +human understanding yearns to infold its origin, Faber brought up an +array of arguments utterly destructive of the wretched theories of forms +of religion which were all she had to bring into the field: so wretched +and false were they--feeblest she found them just where she had regarded +them as invincible--that in destroying them Faber did even a poor part +of the work of a soldier of God: Mephistopheles describes himself as + + Ein Theil von jener Kraft, + Die stets das Böse will, und stets das Gute schafft, + . . . . . . . . . + . . . . der Geist der stets verneint. + +For the nature of Juliet's argument I must be content to refer any +curious reader to the false defenses made, and lies spoken for God, in +many a pulpit and many a volume, by the worshipers of letter and system, +who for their sakes "accept His person," and plead unrighteously for +Him. Before the common sense of Faber, they went down like toys, and +Juliet, without consciously yielding at first, soon came to perceive +that they were worse than worthless--weapons whose handles were sharper +than their blades. She had no others, nor metal of which to make any; +and what with the persuasive influence of the man, and the pleasure in +the mere exercise of her understanding, became more and more interested +as she saw the drift of his argument, and apprehended the weight of what +truth lay upon his side. For even the falsest argument is sustained in +virtue of some show of truth, or perhaps some crumb of reality belonging +to it. The absolute lie, if such be frameable by lips of men, can look +only the blackness of darkness it is. The lie that can hurt, hurts in +the strength of the second lie in which it is folded--a likeness to the +truth. It would have mattered little that she was driven from line after +line of her defense, had she not, while she seemed to herself to be its +champion, actually lost sight of that for which she thought she was +striving. + +It added much to Faber's influence on Juliet, that a tone of pathos and +an element of poetry generally pervaded the forms of his denial. The +tone was the more penetrating that it veiled the pride behind it all, +the pride namely of an unhealthy conscious individuality, the pride of +_self_ as self, which makes a man the center of his own universe, and a +mockery to all the demons of the real universe. That man only who rises +above the small yet mighty predilection, who sets the self of his own +consciousness behind his back, and cherishes only the self of the +Father's thought, the angel that beholds the eternal face, that man only +is a free and noble being, he only breathes the air of the infinite. +Another may well deny the existence of any such Father, any such +infinite, for he knows nothing of the nature of either, and his +testimony for it would be as worthless as that is which he gives against +it. + +The nature of Juliet Meredith was true and trusting--but in respect of +her mother she had been sown in weakness, and she was not yet raised in +strength. Because of his wife, Captain Meredith had more than once had +to exchange regiments. But from him Juliet had inherited a certain +strength of honest purpose, which had stood him in better stead than the +whole sum of his gifts and acquirements, which was by no means +despicable. + +Late one lovely evening in the early summer, they sat together in the +dusky parlor of the cottage, with the window to the garden open. The +sweetest of western airs came in, with a faint scent chiefly of damp +earth, moss, and primroses, in which, to the pensive imagination, the +faded yellow of the sunset seemed to bear a part. + +"I am sorry to say we must shut the window, Miss Meredith," said the +doctor, rising. "You must always be jealous of the night air. It will +never be friendly to you." + +"What enemies we have all about us!" she returned with a slight shiver, +which Faber attributed to the enemy in question, and feared his care had +not amounted to precaution. "It is strange," she went on, "that all +things should conspire, or at least rise, against 'the roof and crown of +things,' as Tennyson calls us. Are they jealous of us?" + +"Clearly, at all events, we are not at home amidst them--not genuinely +so," admitted the doctor. + +"And yet you say we are sprung of them?" said Juliet. + +"We have lifted ourselves above them," rejoined the doctor, "and must +conquer them next." + +"And until we conquer them," suggested Juliet, "our lifting above them +is in vain?" + +"For we return to them," assented Faber; and silence fell.--"Yes," he +resumed, "it is sad. The upper air is sweet, and the heart of man loves +the sun;--" + +"Then," interrupted Juliet, "why would you have me willing to go down +to the darkness?" + +"I would not have you willing. I would have you love the light as you +do. We can not but love the light, for it is good; and the sorrow that +we must leave it, and that so soon, only makes it dearer. The sense of +coming loss is, or ought to be, the strongest of all bonds between the +creatures of a day. The sweetest, saddest, most entrancing songs that +love can sing, must be but variations on this one theme.--'The morning +is clear; the dew mounts heavenward; the odor spreads; the sun looks +over the hill; the world breaks into laughter: let us love one another! +The sun grows hot, the shadow lies deep; let us sit in it, and remember; +the sea lies flashing in green, dulled with purple; the peacock spreads +his glories, a living garden of flowers; all is mute but the rush of the +stream: let us love one another! The soft evening draws nigh; the dew is +coming down again; the air is cool, dusky, and thin; it is sweeter than +the morning; other words of death gleam out of the deepening sky; the +birds close their wings and hide their heads, for death is near: let us +love one another! The night is come, and there is no morrow; it is dark; +the end is nigh; it grows cold; in the darkness and the cold we tremble, +we sink; a moment and we are no more; ah! ah, beloved! let us love, let +us cleave to one another, for we die!'" + +But it seems to me, that the pitifulness with which we ought to regard +each other in the horror of being the offspring of a love we do not +love, in the danger of wandering ever, the children of light, in the +midst of darkness, immeasurably surpasses the pitifulness demanded by +the fancy that we are the creatures of but a day. + +Moved in his soul by the sound of his own words, but himself the harp +upon which the fingers of a mightier Nature than he knew were playing a +prelude to a grander phantasy than he could comprehend, Faber caught the +hand of Juliet where it gleamed white in the gathering gloom. But she +withdrew it, saying in a tone which through the darkness seemed to him +to come from afar, tinged with mockery. + +"You ought to have been a poet--not a doctor, Mr. Faber!" + +The jar of her apparent coolness brought him back with a shock to the +commonplace. He almost shuddered. It was like a gust of icy wind +piercing a summer night. + +"I trust the doctor can rule the poet," he said, recovering his +self-possession with an effort, and rising. + +"The doctor ought at least to keep the poet from falsehood. Is false +poetry any better than false religion?" returned Juliet. + +"I do not quite see--" + +"Your day is not a true picture of life such as you would make it.--Let +me see! I will give you one.--Sit down.--Give me time.--'The morning is +dark; the mist hangs and will not rise; the sodden leaves sink under the +foot; overhead the boughs are bare; the cold creeps into bone and +marrow; let us love one another! The sun is buried in miles of vapor; +the birds sit mute on the damp twigs; the gathered drizzle slowly drips +from the eaves; the wood will not burn in the grate; there is a crust in +the larder, no wine in the cellar: let us love one another!'" + +"Yes!" cried Faber, again seizing her hand, "let us but love, and I am +content!" + +Again she withdrew it. + +"Nay, but hear my song out," she said, turning her face towards the +window.--In the fading light he saw a wild look of pain, which vanished +in a strange, bitter smile as she resumed.--"'The ashes of life's +volcano are falling; they bepowder my hair; its fires have withered the +rose of my lips; my forehead is wrinkled, my cheeks are furrowed, my +brows are sullen; I am weary, and discontented, and unlovely: ah, let us +love one another! The wheels of time grind on; my heart is sick, and +cares not for thee; I care not for myself, and thou art no longer lovely +to me; I can no more recall wherefore I desired thee once; I long only +for the endless sleep; death alone hath charms: to say, Let us love one +another, were now a mockery too bitter to be felt. Even sadness is +withered. No more can it make me sorrowful to brood over the days that +are gone, or to remember the song that once would have made my heart a +fountain of tears. Ah, hah! the folly to think we could love to the end! +But I care not; the fancy served its turn; and there is a grave for thee +and me--apart or together I care not, so I cease. Thou needst not love +me any more; I care not for thy love. I hardly care for the blessed +darkness itself. Give me no sweet oblivious antidote, no precious poison +such as I once prayed for when I feared the loss of love, that it might +open to me the gate of forgetfulness, take me softly in unseen arms, and +sink with me into the during dark. No; I will, not calmly, but in utter +indifference, await the end. I do not love thee; but I can eat, and I +enjoy my wine, and my rubber of whist--'" + +She broke into a dreadful laugh. It was all horribly unnatural! She +rose, and in the deepening twilight seemed to draw herself up far beyond +her height, then turned, and looked out on the shadowy last of the +sunset. Faber rose also. He felt her shudder, though she was not within +two arm's-lengths of him. He sprang to her side. + +"Miss Meredith--Juliet--you have suffered! The world has been too hard +for you! Let me do all I can to make up for it! I too know what +suffering is, and my heart is bleeding for you!" + +"What! are you not part of the world? Are you not her last-born--the +perfection of her heartlessness?--and will _you_ act the farce of +consolation? Is it the last stroke of the eternal mockery?" + +"Juliet," he said, and once more took her hand, "I love you." + +"As a man may!" she rejoined with scorn, and pulled her hand from his +grasp. "No! such love as you can give, is too poor even for me. Love you +I _will_ not. If you speak to me so again, you will drive me away. Talk +to me as you will of your void idol. Tell me of the darkness of his +dwelling, and the sanctuary it affords to poor, tormented, +specter-hunted humanity; but do not talk to me of love also, for where +your idol is, love can not be." + +Faber made a gentle apology, and withdrew--abashed and hurt--vexed with +himself, and annoyed with his failure. + +The moment he was gone, she cast herself on the sofa with a choked +scream, and sobbed, and ground her teeth, but shed no tear. Life had +long been poor, arid, vague; now there was not left even the luxury of +grief! Where all was loss, no loss was worth a tear. + +"It were good for me that I had never been born!" she cried. + +But the doctor came again and again, and looked devotion, though he +never spoke of love. He avoided also for a time any further pressing of +his opinions--talked of poetry, of science, of nature--all he said +tinged with the same sad glow. Then by degrees direct denial came up +again, and Juliet scarcely attempted opposition. Gradually she got quite +used to his doctrine, and as she got used to it, it seemed less +dreadful, and rather less sad. What wickedness could there be in denying +a God whom the very works attributed to him declared not to exist! Mr. +Faber was a man of science, and knew it. She could see for herself that +it must draw closer the bonds between human beings, to learn that there +was no such power to hurt them or aid them, or to claim lordship over +them, and enslave them to his will. For Juliet had never had a glimpse +of the idea, that in oneness with the love-creating Will, alone lies +freedom for the love created. When Faber perceived that his words had +begun and continued to influence her, he, on his part, grew more kindly +disposed toward her superstitions. + +Let me here remark that, until we see God as He is, and are changed into +His likeness, all our beliefs must partake more or less of superstition; +but if there be a God, the greatest superstition of all will be found to +have consisted in denying him. + +"Do not think me incapable," he said one day, after they had at length +slid back into their former freedom with each other, "of seeing much +that is lovely and gracious in the orthodox fancies of religion. Much +depends, of course, upon the nature of the person who holds them. No +belief could be beautiful in a mind that is unlovely. A sonnet of +Shakespeare can be no better than a burned cinder in such a mind as Mrs. +Ramshorn's. But there is Mr. Wingfold, the curate of the abbey-church! a +true, honest man, who will give even an infidel like me fair play: +nothing that finds acceptance with him can be other than noble, whether +it be true or not. I fear he expects me to come over to him one day. I +am sorry he will be disappointed, for he is a fellow quite free from the +flummery of his profession. For my part, I do not see why two friends +should not consent to respect each other's opinions, letting the one do +his best without a God to hinder him, and the other his best with his +belief in one to aid him. Such a pair might be the most emulous of +rivals in good works." + +Juliet returned no satisfactory response to this tentative remark; but +it was from no objection any longer in her mind to such a relation in +the abstract. She had not yet at all consented with herself to abandon +the faith of her father, but she did not see, and indeed it were hard +for any one in her condition to see, why a man and a woman, the one +denying after Faber's fashion, the other believing after hers, should +not live together, and love and help each other. Of all valueless +things, a merely speculative theology is one of the most valueless. To +her, God had never been much more than a name--a name, it is true, that +always occurred to her in any vivid moment of her life; but the Being +whose was that name, was vague to her as a storm of sand--hardly so much +her father as was the first forgotten ancestor of her line. And now it +was sad for her chat at such a time of peculiar emotion, when the heart +is ready to turn of itself toward its unseen origin, feeling after the +fountain of its love, the very occasion of the tide Godward should be an +influence destructive of the same. Under the growing fascination of the +handsome, noble-minded doctor, she was fast losing what little shadow of +faith she had possessed. The theology she had attempted to defend was so +faulty, so unfair to God, that Faber's atheism had an advantage over it +as easy as it was great. His unbelief was less selfish than Juliet's +faith; consequently her faith sank, as her conscience rose meeting what +was true in Faber's utterances. How could it be otherwise when she +opposed lies uttered for the truth, to truths uttered for the lie? the +truth itself she had never been true enough to look in the face. As her +arguments, yea the very things she argued for, went down before him, her +faith, which, to be faith, should have been in the living source of all +true argument, found no object, was swept away like the uprooted weed it +was, and whelmed in returning chaos. + +"If such is your God," he said, "I do Him a favor in denying His +existence, for His very being would be a disgrace to Himself. At times, +as I go my rounds, and think of the horrors of misery and suffering +before me, I feel as if I were out on a campaign against an Evil +supreme, the Author of them all. But when I reflect that He must then +actually create from very joy in the infliction and sight of agony, I am +ashamed of my foolish and cruel, though but momentary imagination, +and--'There can be no such being!' I say. "I but labor in a region of +inexorable law, blind as Justice herself; law that works for good in the +main, and whose carelessness of individual suffering it is for me, and +all who know in any way how, to supplement with the individual care of +man for his fellow-men, who, either from Nature's own necessity, or by +neglect or violation of her laws, find themselves in a sea of troubles." +For Nature herself, to the man who will work in harmony with her, +affords the means of alleviation, of restoration even--who knows if not +of something better still?--the means, that is, of encountering the +ills that result from the breach of her own laws; and the best the man +who would help his fellows can do, is to search after and find such +other laws, whose applied operation will restore the general conduction, +and render life after all an endurable, if not a desirable thing." + +"But you can do nothing with death," said Juliet. + +"Nothing--yet--alas!" + +"Is death a law, or a breach of law, then?" she asked. + +"That is a question I can not answer." + +"In any case, were it not better to let the race die out, instead of +laboriously piecing and patching at a too old garment, and so leave room +for a new race to come up, which the fruit of experience, both sweet and +bitter, left behind in books, might enable to avoid like ruin?" + +"Ages before they were able to read our books, they would have broken +the same laws, found the same evils, and be as far as we are now beyond +the help of foregone experiences: they would have the experience itself, +of whose essence it is, that it is still too late." + +"Then would not the kindest thing be to poison the race--as men on the +prairies meet fire with fire--and so with death foil Death and have done +with dying?" + +"It seems to me better to live on in the hope that someone may yet--in +some far-off age it may only be, but what a thing if it should +be!--discover the law of death, learn how to meet it, and, with its +fore-runners, disease and decay, banish it from the world. Would you +crush the dragonfly, the moth, or the bee, because its days are so few? +Rather would you not pitifully rescue them, that they might enjoy to +their natural end the wild intoxication of being?" + +"Ah, but they are happy while they live!" + +"So also are men--all men--for parts of their time. How many, do you +think, would thank me for the offered poison?" + +Talk after talk of this kind, which the scope of my history forbids me +to follow, took place between them, until at length Juliet, generally +silenced, came to be silenced not unwillingly. All the time, their +common humanity, each perceiving that the other had suffered, was urging +to mutual consolation. And all the time, that mysterious force, +inscrutable as creation itself, which draws the individual man and woman +together, was mightily at work between them--a force which, terrible as +is the array of its attendant shadows, will at length appear to have +been one of the most powerful in the redemption of the world. But Juliet +did nothing, said nothing, to attract Faber. He would have cast himself +before her as a slave begging an owner, but for something in her +carriage which constantly prevented him. At one time he read it as an +unforgotten grief, at another as a cherished affection, and trembled at +the thought of the agonies that might be in store for him. + +Weeks passed, and he had not made one inquiry after a situation for her. +It was not because he would gladly have, prolonged the present +arrangement of things, but that he found it almost impossible to bring +himself to talk about her. If she would but accept him, he thought--then +there would be no need! But he dared not urge her--mainly from fear of +failure, not at all from excess of modesty, seeing he soberly believed +such love and devotion as his, worth the acceptance of any woman--even +while-he believed also, that to be loved of a true woman was the one +only thing which could make up for the enormous swindle of life, in +which man must ever be a sorrow to himself, as ever lagging behind his +own child, his ideal. Even for this, the worm that must forever lie +gnawing in the heart of humanity, it would be consolation enough to +pluck together the roses of youth; they had it in their own power to die +while their odor was yet red. Why did she repel him? Doubtless, he +concluded over and over again, because, with her lofty ideal of love, a +love for this world only seemed to her a love not worth the stooping to +take. If he could but persuade her that the love offered in the agony of +the fire must be a nobler love than that whispered from a bed of roses, +then perhaps, dissolved in confluent sadness and sweetness, she would +hold out to him the chalice of her heart, and the one pearl of the world +would yet be his--a woman all his own--pure as a flower, sad as the +night, and deep as nature unfathomable. + +He had a grand idea of woman. He had been built with a goddess-niche in +his soul, and thought how he would worship the woman that could fill it. +There was a time when she must, beyond question, be one whose radiant +mirror had never reflected form of man but his: now he would be content +if for him she would abjure and obliterate her past. To make the woman +who had loved forget utterly, was a greater victory, he said, than to +wake love in the heart of a girl, and would yield him a finer treasure, +a richer conquest. Only, pure as snow she must be--pure as the sun +himself! Paul Faber was absolutely tyrannous in his notions as to +feminine purity. Like the diamond shield of Prince Arthur, Knight of +Magnificence, must be the purity that would satisfy this lord of the +race who could live without a God! Was he then such a master of purity +himself? one so immaculate that in him such aspiration was no +presumption? Was what he knew himself to be, an idea to mate with his +unspotted ideal? The notion men have of their own worth, and of claims +founded thereon, is amazing; most amazing of all is what a man will set +up to himself as the standard of the woman he will marry. What the woman +may have a right to claim, never enters his thought. He never doubts the +right or righteousness of aspiring to wed a woman between whose nature +and his lies a gulf, wide as between an angel praising God, and a devil +taking refuge from him in a swine. Never a shadow of compunction crosses +the leprous soul, as he stretches forth his arms to infold the clean +woman! Ah, white dove! thou must lie for a while among the pots. If only +thy mother be not more to blame than the wretch that acts but after his +kind! He does hot die of self-loathing! how then could he imagine the +horror of disgust with which a glimpse of him such as he is would blast +the soul of the woman?' Yet has he--what is it?--the virtue? the pride? +or the cruel insolence?--to shrink with rudest abhorrence from one who +is, in nature and history and ruin, his fitting and proper mate! To see +only how a man will be content to be himself the thing which he scorns +another for being, might well be enough to send any one crying to the +God there may be, to come between him and himself. Lord! what a turning +of things upside down there will be one day! What a setting of lasts +first, and firsts last! + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +THE PARK AT NESTLEY. + + +Just inside the park, on a mossy knoll, a little way from the ancient +wrought-iron gate that opened almost upon the one street of Owlkirk, the +rector dug the foundation of his chapel--an oblong Gothic hall, of two +squares and a half, capable of seating all in the parish nearer to it +than to the abbey church. In his wife's eyes, Mr. Bevis was now an +absolute saint, for not only had he begun to build a chapel in his own +grounds, but to read prayers in his own church! She was not the only +one, however, who remarked how devoutly he read them, and his presence +was a great comfort to Wingfold. He often objected to what his curate +preached--but only to his face, and seldom when they were not alone. +There was policy in this restraint: he had come to see that in all +probability he would have to give in--that his curate would most likely +satisfy him that he was right. The relation between them was marvelous +and lovely. The rector's was a quiet awakening, a gentle second birth +almost in old age. But then he had been but a boy all the time, and a +very good sort of boy. He had acted in no small measure according to the +light he had, and time was of course given him to grow in. It is not the +world alone that requires the fullness of its time to come, ere it can +receive a revelation; the individual also has to pass through his +various stages of Pagan, Guebre, Moslem, Jew, Essene--God knows what +all--before he can begin to see and understand the living Christ. The +child has to pass through all the phases of lower animal life; when, +change is arrested, he is born a monster; and in many a Christian the +rudiments of former stages are far from extinct--not seldom revive, and +for the time seem to reabsorb the development, making indeed a monstrous +show. + +"For myself,"--I give a passage from Wingfold's note-book, written for +his wife's reading--"I feel sometimes as if I were yet a pagan, +struggling hard to break through where I see a glimmer of something +better, called Christianity. In any case what I have, can be but a +foretaste of what I have yet to _be_; and if so, then indeed is there a +glory laid up for them that will have God, the _I_ of their _I_, to +throne it in the temple he has built, to pervade the life he has _lifed_ +out of himself. My soul is now as a chaos with a hungry heart of order +buried beneath its slime, that longs and longs for the moving of the +breath of God over its water and mud." + +The foundation-stone of the chapel was to be laid with a short and +simple ceremony, at which no clergy but themselves were to be present. +The rector had not consented, and the curate had not urged, that it +should remain unconsecrated; it was therefore uncertain, so far at least +as Wingfold knew, whether it was to be chapel or lecture hall. In either +case it was for the use and benefit of the villagers, and they were all +invited to be present. A few of the neighbors who were friends of the +rector and his wife, were also invited, and among them was Miss +Meredith. + +Mr. and Mrs. Bevis had long ere now called upon her, and found her, as +Mrs. Bevis said, fit for any society. She had lunched several times with +them, and, her health being now greatly restored, was the readier to +accept the present invitation, that she was growing again anxious about +employment. + +Almost every one was taken with her sweet manner, shaded with sadness. +At one time self-dissatisfaction had made her too anxious to please: in +the mirror of other minds she sought a less unfavorable reflection of +herself. But trouble had greatly modified this tendency, and taken the +too-much out of her courtesy. + +She and Mrs. Puckridge went together, and Faber, calling soon after, +found the door locked. He saw the gathering in the park, however, had +heard something about the ceremony, concluded they were assisting, and, +after a little questioning with himself, led his horse to the gate, made +fast the reins to it, went in, and approached the little assembly. Ere +he reached it, he saw them kneel, whereupon he made a circuit and got +behind a tree, for he would not willingly seem rude, and he dared not be +hypocritical. Thence he descried Juliet kneeling with the rest, and +could not help being rather annoyed. Neither could he help being a +little struck with the unusual kind of prayer the curate was making; for +he spoke as to the God of workmen, the God of invention and creation, +who made the hearts of his creatures so like his own that they must +build and make. + +When the observance was over, and the people were scattering in groups, +till they should be summoned to the repast prepared for them, the rector +caught sight of the doctor, and went to him. + +"Ha, Faber!" he cried, holding out his hand, "this _is_ kind of you! I +should hardly have expected you to be present on such an occasion!" + +"I hoped my presence would not offend you," answered the doctor. "I did +not presume to come closer than just within earshot of your devotions. +Neither must you think me unfriendly for keeping aloof." + +"Certainly not. I would not have you guilty of irreverence." + +"That could hardly be, if I recognized no presence." + +"There was at least," rejoined Mr. Bevis, "the presence of a good many +of your neighbors, to whom you never fail to recognize your duty, and +that is the second half of religion: would it not have showed want of +reverence toward them, to bring an unsympathetic presence into the midst +of their devotion?" + +"That I grant," said the doctor. + +"But it may be," said the curate, who had come up while they talked, +"that what you, perhaps justifiably, refuse to recognize as irreverence, +has its root in some fault of which you are not yet aware." + +"Then I'm not to blame for it," said Faber quietly. + +"But you might be terribly the loser by it." + +"That is, you mean, if there should be One to whom reverence is due?" + +"Yes." + +"Would that be fair, then--in an All-wise, that is, toward an ignorant +being?" + +"I think not. Therefore I look for something to reveal it to you. But, +although I dare not say you are to blame, because that would be to take +upon myself the office of a judge, which is God's alone, He only being +able to give fair play, I would yet have you search yourself, and see +whether you may not come upon something which keeps you from giving full +and honest attention to what some people, as honest as yourself, think +they see true. I am speaking only from my knowledge of myself, and the +conviction that we are all much alike. What if you should discover that +you do not really and absolutely disbelieve in a God?--that the human +nature is not capable of such a disbelief?--that your unbelief has been +only indifference and irreverence--and that to a Being grander and +nobler and fairer than human heart can conceive?" + +"If it be so, let Him punish me," said the doctor gravely. + +"If it be so, He will," said the curate solemnly, "--and you will thank +Him for it--after a while. The God of my belief is too good not to make +Himself known to a man who loves what is fair and honest, as you do." + +The doctor was silent. + +While they were talking thus, two ladies had left the others and now +approached them--Mrs. Wingfold and Miss Meredith. They had heard the +last few sentences, and seeing two clergymen against one infidel, +hastened with the generosity of women to render him what aid they might. + +"I am sure Mr. Faber is honest," said Helen. + +"That is much to say for any man," returned the curate. + +"If any man is, then," adjected Juliet. + +"That is a great _If_," rejoined Wingfold."--Are _you_ honest, Helen?" +he added, turning to his wife. + +"No," she answered; "but I am honester than I was a year ago." + +"So am I," said her husband; "and I hope to be honester yet before +another is over. It's a big thing to say, _I am honest_." + +Juliet was silent, and Helen, who was much interested with her, turned +to see how she was taking it. Her lips were as white as her face. Helen +attributed the change to anger, and was silent also. The same moment the +rector moved toward the place where the luncheon-tables were, and they +all accompanied him, Helen still walking, in a little anxiety, by +Juliet's side. It was some minutes before the color came back to her +lips; but when Helen next addressed her, she answered as gently and +sweetly as if the silence had been nothing but an ordinary one. + +"You will stay and lunch with us, Mr. Faber?" said the rector. "There +can be no hypocrisy in that--eh?" + +"Thank you," returned the doctor heartily; "but my work is waiting me, +and we all agree that _must_ be done, whatever our opinions as to the +ground of the obligation." + +"And no man can say you don't do it," rejoined the curate kindly. +"That's one thing we do agree in, as you say: let us hold by it, Faber, +and keep as good friends as we can, till we grow better ones." + +Faber could not quite match the curate in plain speaking: the pupil was +not up with his master yet. + +"Thank you, Wingfold," he returned, and his voice was not free of +emotion, though Juliet alone felt the tremble of the one vibrating +thread in it. "--Miss Meredith," he went on, turning to her, "I have +heard of something that perhaps may suit you: will you allow me to call +in the evening, and talk it over with you?" + +"Please do," responded Juliet eagerly. "Come before post-time if you +can. It may be necessary to write." + +"I will. Good morning." + +He made a general bow to the company and walked away, cutting off the +heads of the dandelions with his whip as he went. All followed with +their eyes his firm, graceful figure, as he strode over the grass in his +riding-boots and spurs. + +"He's a fine fellow that!" said the rector. "--But, bless me!" he added, +turning to his curate, "how things change! If you had told me a year +ago, the day would come when I should call an atheist a fine fellow, I +should almost have thought you must be one yourself! Yet here I am +saying it--and never in my life so much in earnest to be a Christian! +How is it, Wingfold, my boy?" + +"He who has the spirit of his Master, will speak the truth even of his +Master's enemies," answered the curate. "To this he is driven if he does +not go willingly, for he knows his Master loves his enemies. If you see +Faber a fine fellow, you say so, just as the Lord would, and try the +more to save him. A man who loves and serves his neighbor, let him speak +ever so many words against the Son of Man, is not sinning against the +Holy Ghost. He is still open to the sacred influence--the virtue which +is ever going forth from God to heal. It is the man who in the name of +religion opposes that which he sees to be good, who is in danger of +eternal sin." + +"Come, come, Wingfold! whatever you do, don't mis-quote," said the +rector. + +"I don't say it is the right reading," returned the curate, "but I can +hardly be convicted of misquoting, so long as it is that of the two +oldest manuscripts we have." + +"You always have the better of me," answered the rector. "But tell +me--are not the atheists of the present day a better sort of fellows +than those we used to hear of when we were young?" + +"I do think so. But, as one who believes with his whole soul, and +strives with his whole will, I attribute their betterness to the growing +influences of God upon the race through them that have believed. And I +am certain of this, that, whatever they are, it needs but time and +continued unbelief to bring them down to any level from whatever height. +They will either repent, or fall back into the worst things, believing +no more in their fellow-man and the duty they owe him--of which they now +rightly make so much, and yet not half enough--than they do in God and +His Christ. But I do not believe half the bad things Christians have +said and written of atheists. Indeed I do not believe the greater number +of those they have called such, were atheists at all. I suspect that +worse dishonesty, and greater injustice, are to be found among the +champions, lay and cleric, of religious Opinion, than in any other +class. If God were such a One as many of those who would fancy +themselves His apostles, the universe would be but a huge hell. Look at +certain of the so-called religious newspapers, for instance. Religious! +Their tongue is set on fire of hell. It may be said that they are mere +money-speculations; but what makes them pay? Who buys them? To please +whom do they write? Do not many buy them who are now and then themselves +disgusted with them? Why do they not refuse to touch the unclean things? +Instead of keeping the commandment, 'that he who loveth God love his +brother also,' these, the prime channels of Satanic influence in the +Church, powerfully teach, that He that loveth God must abuse his +brother--or he shall be himself abused." + +"I fancy," said the rector, "they would withhold the name of brother +from those they abuse." + +"No; not always." + +"They would from an unbeliever." + +"Yes. But let them then call him an enemy, and behave to him as +such--that is, love him, or at least try to give him the fair play to +which the most wicked of devils has the same right as the holiest of +saints. It is the vile falsehood and miserable unreality of Christians, +their faithlessness to their Master, their love of their own wretched +sects, their worldliness and unchristianity, their talking and not +doing, that has to answer, I suspect, for the greater part of our +present atheism." + +"I have seen a good deal of Mr. Faber of late," Juliet said, with a +slight tremor in her voice, "and he seems to me incapable of falling +into those vile conditions I used to hear attributed to atheists." + +"The atheism of some men," said the curate, "is a nobler thing than the +Christianity of some of the foremost of so-called and so-believed +Christians, and I may not doubt they will fare better at the last." + +The rector looked a little blank at this, but said nothing. He had so +often found, upon reflection, that what seemed extravagance in his +curate was yet the spirit of Scripture, that he had learned to suspend +judgment. + +Miss Meredith's face glowed with the pleasure of hearing justice +rendered the man in whom she was so much interested, and she looked the +more beautiful. She went soon after luncheon was over, leaving a +favorable impression behind her. Some of the ladies said she was much +too fond of the doctor; but the gentlemen admired her spirit in standing +up for him. Some objected to her paleness; others said it was not +paleness, but fairness, for her eyes and hair were as dark as the night; +but all agreed, that whatever it was to be called, her complexion was +peculiar--some for that very reason judging it the more admirable, and +others the contrary. Some said she was too stately, and attributed her +carriage to a pride to which, in her position, she had no right, they +said. Others judged that she needed such a bearing the more for +self-defense, especially if she had come down in the world. Her dress, +it was generally allowed, was a little too severe--some thought, in its +defiance of the fashion, assuming. No one disputed that she had been +accustomed to good society, and none could say that she had made the +slightest intrusive movement toward their circle. Still, why was it that +nobody knew any thing about her? + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +THE RECTORY. + + +The curate and his wife had a good deal of talk about Juliet as they +drove home from Nestley. Much pleased with herself, they heard from +their hostess what she had learned of her history, and were the more +interested. They must find her a situation, they agreed, where she would +feel at home; and in the meantime would let her understand that, if she +took up her abode in Glaston, and were so inclined, the town was large +enough to give a good hope of finding a few daily engagements. + +Before they left Nestley, Helen had said to Mrs. Bevis that she would +like to ask Miss Meredith to visit them for a few days. + +"No one knows much about her," remarked Mrs. Bevis, feeling responsible. + +"She can't be poison," returned Helen. "And if she were, she couldn't +hurt us. That's the good of being husband and wife: so long as you are +of one mind, you can do almost any thing." + +When Faber called upon Juliet in the evening, nothing passed between +them concerning the situation at which he had hinted. When he entered +she was seated as usual in the corner of the dingy little couch, under +the small window looking into the garden, in the shadow. She did not +rise, but held out her hand to him. He went hastily up to her, took the +hand she offered, sat down beside her, and at once broke into a full +declaration of his love--now voluble, now hesitating, now submissive, +now persuasive, but humblest when most passionate. Whatever the man's +conceit, or his estimate of the thing he would have her accept, it was +in all honesty and modesty that he offered her the surrender of the very +citadel of his being--alas, too "empty, swept, and garnished!" Juliet +kept her head turned from him; he felt the hand he held tremble, and +every now and then make a faint struggle to escape from his; but he +could not see that her emotion was such as hardly to be accounted for +either by pleasure at the hearing of welcome words, or sorrow that her +reply must cause pain. He ceased at length, and with eyes of longing +sought a glimpse of her face, and caught one. Its wild, waste expression +frightened him. It was pallid like an old sunset, and her breath came +and went stormily. Three times, in a growing agony of effort, her lips +failed of speech. She gave a sudden despairing cast of her head +sideways, her mouth opened a little as if with mere helplessness, she +threw a pitiful glance in his face, burst into a tumult of sobs, and +fell back on the couch. Not a tear came to her eyes, but such was her +trouble that she did not even care to lift her hand to her face to hide +the movements of its rebellious muscles. Faber, bewildered, but, from +the habits of his profession, master of himself, instantly prepared her +something, which she took obediently; and as soon as she was quieted a +little, mounted and rode away: two things were clear--one, that she +could not be indifferent to him; the other, that, whatever the cause of +her emotion, she would for the present be better without him. He was +both too kind and too proud to persist in presenting himself. + +The next morning Helen drew up her ponies at Mrs. Puckridge's door, and +Wingfold got out and stood by their heads, while she went in to call on +Miss Meredith. + +Juliet had passed a sleepless night, and greatly dreaded the next +interview with Faber. Helen's invitation, therefore, to pay them a few +days' visit, came to her like a redemption: in their house she would +have protection both from Faber and from herself. Heartily, with tears +in her eyes, she accepted it; and her cordial and grateful readiness +placed her yet a step higher in the regard of her new friends. The +acceptance of a favor may be the conferring of a greater. Quickly, +hurriedly, she put up "her bag of needments," and with a sad, sweet +smile of gentle apology, took the curate's place beside his wife, while +he got into the seat behind. + +Juliet, having been of late so much confined to the house, could not +keep back the tears called forth by the pleasure of the rapid motion +through the air, the constant change of scene, and that sense of human +story which haunts the mind in passing unknown houses and farms and +villages. An old thatched barn works as directly on the social feeling +as the ancient castle or venerable manor-seat; many a simple house will +move one's heart like a poem; many a cottage like a melody. When at last +she caught sight of the great church-tower, she clapped her hands with +delight. There was a place in which to wander and hide! she thought--in +which to find refuge and rest, and coolness and shadow! Even for Faber's +own sake she would not believe that faith a mere folly which had built +such a pile as that! Surely there was some way of meeting the terrible +things he said--if only she could find it! + +"Are you fastidious, Miss Meredith, or willing to do any thing that is +honest?" the curate asked rather abruptly, leaning forward from the back +seat. + +"If ever I was fastidious," she answered, "I think I am pretty nearly +cured. I should certainly like my work to be so far within my capacity +as to be pleasant to me." + +"Then there is no fear," answered the curate. "The people who don't get +on, are those that pick and choose upon false principles. They +generally attempt what they are unfit for, and deserve their +failures.--Are you willing to teach little puds and little tongues?" + +"Certainly." + +"Tell me what you are able to do?" + +"I would rather not. You might think differently when you came to know +me. But you can ask me any questions you please. I shan't hide my +knowledge, and I can't hide my ignorance." + +"Thank you," said the curate, and leaned back again in his seat. + +After luncheon, Helen found to her delight that, although Juliet was +deficient enough in the mechanics belonging to both voice and +instrument, she could yet sing and play with expression and facility, +while her voice was one of the loveliest she had ever heard. When the +curate came home from his afternoon attentions to the ailing of his +flock, he was delighted to hear his wife's report of her gifts. + +"Would you mind reading a page or two aloud?" he said to their visitor, +after they had had a cup of tea. "I often get my wife to read to me." + +She consented at once. He put a volume of Carlyle into her hand. She had +never even tasted a book of his before, yet presently caught the spirit +of the passage, and read charmingly. + +In the course of a day or two they discovered that she was sadly +defective in spelling, a paltry poverty no doubt, yet awkward for one +who would teach children. In grammar and arithmetic also the curate +found her lacking. Going from place to place with her father, she had +never been much at school, she said, and no one had ever compelled her +to attend to the dry things. But nothing could be more satisfactory than +the way in which she now, with the help of the curate and his wife, set +herself to learn; and until she should have gained such proficiency as +would enable them to speak of her acquirements with confidence, they +persuaded her, with no great difficulty, to continue their guest. +Wingfold, who had been a tutor in his day, was well qualified to assist +her, and she learned with wonderful rapidity. + +The point that most perplexed Wingfold with her was that, while very +capable of perceiving and admiring the good, she was yet capable of +admiring things of altogether inferior quality. What did it mean? Could +it arise from an excess of productive faculty, not yet sufficiently +differenced from the receptive? One could imagine such an excess ready +to seize the poorest molds, flow into them, and endow them for itself +with attributed life and power. He found also that she was familiar with +the modes of thought and expression peculiar to a certain school of +theology--embodiments from which, having done their good, and long +commenced doing their evil, Truth had begun to withdraw itself, +consuming as it withdrew. For the moment the fire ceases to be the life +of the bush in which it appears, the bush will begin to be consumed. At +the same time he could perfectly recognize the influence of Faber upon +her. For not unfrequently, the talk between the curate and his wife +would turn upon some point connected with the unbelief of the land, so +much more active, though but seemingly more extensive than heretofore; +when she would now make a remark, now ask a question, in which the +curate heard the doctor as plainly as if the words had come direct from +his lips: those who did not believe might answer so and so--might refuse +the evidence--might explain the thing differently. But she listened +well, and seemed to understand what they said. The best of her +undoubtedly appeared in her music, in which she was fundamentally far +superior to Helen, though by no means so well trained, taught or +practiced in it; whence Helen had the unspeakable delight, one which +only a humble, large and lofty mind can ever have, of consciously +ministering to the growth of another in the very thing wherein that +other is naturally the superior. The way to the blessedness that is in +music, as to all other blessednesses, lies through weary labors, and the +master must suffer with the disciple; Helen took Juliet like a child, +set her to scales and exercises, and made her practice hours a day. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +AT THE PIANO. + + +When Faber called on Juliet, the morning after the last interview +recorded, and found where she was gone, he did not doubt she had taken +refuge with her new friends from his importunity, and was at once +confirmed in the idea he had cherished through the whole wakeful night, +that the cause of her agitation was nothing else than the conflict +between her heart and a false sense of duty, born of prejudice and +superstition. She was not willing to send him away, and yet she dared +not accept him. Her behavior had certainly revealed any thing but +indifference, and therefore must not make him miserable. At the same +time if it was her pleasure to avoid him, what chance had he of seeing +her alone at the rectory? The thought made him so savage that for a +moment he almost imagined his friend had been playing him false. + +"I suppose he thinks every thing fair in religion, as well as in love +and war!" he said to himself. "It's a mighty stake, no doubt--a soul +like Juliet's!" + +He laughed scornfully. It was but a momentary yielding to the temptation +of injustice, however, for his conscience told him at once that the +curate was incapable of any thing either overbearing or underhand. He +would call on her as his patient, and satisfy himself at once how things +were between them. At best they had taken a bad turn. + +He judged it better, however, to let a day or two pass. When he did +call, he was shown into the drawing-room, where he found Helen at the +piano, and Juliet having a singing-lesson from her. Till then he had +never heard Juliet's song voice. A few notes of it dimly reached him as +he approached the room, and perhaps prepared him for the impression he +was about to receive: when the door opened, like a wind on a more mobile +sea, it raised sudden tumult in his soul. Not once in his life had he +ever been agitated in such fashion; he knew himself as he had never +known himself. It was as if some potent element, undreamed of before, +came rushing into the ordered sphere of his world, and shouldered its +elements from the rhythm of their going. It was a full contralto, with +pathos in the very heart of it, and it seemed to wrap itself round his +heart like a serpent of saddest splendor, and press the blood from it up +into his eyes. The ladies were too much occupied to hear him announced, +or note his entrance, as he stood by the door, absorbed, entranced. + +Presently he began to feel annoyed, and proceeded thereupon to take +precautions with himself. For Juliet was having a lesson of the severest +kind, in which she accepted every lightest hint with the most heedful +attention, and conformed thereto with the sweetest obedience; whence it +came that Faber, the next moment after fancying he had screwed his +temper to stoic pitch, found himself passing from displeasure to +indignation, and thence almost to fury, as again and again some +exquisite tone, that went thrilling through all his being, discovering +to him depths and recesses hitherto unimagined, was unceremoniously, or +with briefest apology, cut short for the sake of some suggestion from +Helen. Whether such suggestion was right or wrong, was to Faber not of +the smallest consequence: it was in itself a sacrilege, a breaking into +the house of life, a causing of that to cease whose very being was its +justification. Mrs. Wingfold! she was not fit to sing in the same chorus +with her! Juliet was altogether out of sight of her. He had heard Mrs. +Wingfold sing many a time, and she could no more bring out a note like +one of those she was daring to criticise, than a cat could emulate a +thrush! + +"Ah, Mr. Faber!--I did not know you were there," said Helen at length, +and rose. "We were so busy we never heard you." + +If she had looked at Juliet, she would have said _I_ instead of _we_. +Her kind manner brought Faber to himself a little. + +"Pray, do not apologize," he said. "I could have listened forever." + +"I don't wonder. It is not often one hears notes like those. Were you +aware what a voice you had saved to the world?" + +"Not in the least. Miss Meredith leaves her gifts to be discovered." + +"All good things wait the seeker," said Helen, who had taken to +preaching since she married the curate, some of her half-friends said; +the fact being that life had grown to her so gracious, so happy, so +serious, that she would not unfrequently say a thing worth saying. + +In the interstices of this little talk, Juliet and Faber had shaken +hands, and murmured a conventional word or two. + +"I suppose this is a professional visit?" said Helen. "Shall I leave you +with your patient?" + +As she put the question, however, she turned to Juliet. + +"There is not the least occasion," Juliet replied, a little eagerly, and +with a rather wan smile. "I am quite well, and have dismissed my +doctor." + +Faber was in the mood to imagine more than met the ear, and the words +seemed to him of cruel significance. A flush of anger rose to his +forehead, and battled with the paleness of chagrin. He said nothing. +But Juliet saw and understood. Instantly she held out her hand to him +again, and supplemented the offending speech with the words, + +"--but, I hope, retained my friend?" + +The light rushed again into Faber's eyes, and Juliet repented afresh, +for the words had wrought too far in the other direction. + +"That is," she amended, "if Mr. Faber will condescend to friendship, +after having played the tyrant so long." + +"I can only aspire to it," said the doctor. + +It sounded mere common compliment, the silliest thing between man and +woman, and Mrs. Wingfold divined nothing more: she was not quick in such +matters. Had she suspected, she might, not knowing the mind of the lady +have been a little perplexed. As it was, she did not leave the room, and +presently the curate entered, with a newspaper in his hand. + +"They're still at it, Faber," he said, "with their heated liquids and +animal life!" + +"I need not ask which side you take," said the doctor, not much inclined +to enter upon any discussion. + +"I take neither," answered the curate. "Where is the use, or indeed +possibility, so long as the men of science themselves are disputing +about the facts of experiment? It will be time enough to try to +understand them, when they are agreed and we know what the facts really +are. Whatever they may turn out to be, it is but a truism to say they +must be consistent with all other truth, although they may entirely +upset some of our notions of it." + +"To which side then do you lean, as to the weight of the evidence?" +asked Faber, rather listlessly. + +He had been making some experiments of his own in the direction referred +to. They were not so complete as he would have liked, for he found a +large country practice unfriendly to investigation; but, such as they +were, they favored the conclusion that no form of life appeared where +protection from the air was thorough. + +"I take the evidence," answered the curate, "to be in favor of what they +so absurdly call spontaneous generation." + +"I am surprised to hear you say so," returned Faber. "The conclusions +necessary thereupon, are opposed to all your theology." + +"Must I then, because I believe in a living Truth, be myself an unjust +judge?" said the curate. "But indeed the conclusions are opposed to no +theology I have any acquaintance with; and if they were, it would give +me no concern. Theology is not my origin, but God. Nor do I acknowledge +any theology but what Christ has taught, and has to teach me. When, and +under what circumstances, life comes first into human ken, can not +affect His lessons of trust and fairness. If I were to play tricks with +the truth, shirk an argument, refuse to look a fact in the face, I +should be ashamed to look Him in the face. What he requires of his +friends is pure, open-eyed truth." + +"But how," said the doctor, "can you grant spontaneous generation, and +believe in a Creator?" + +"I said the term was an absurd one," rejoined the curate. + +"Never mind the term then: you admit the fact?" said Faber. + +"What fact?" asked Wingfold. + +"That in a certain liquid, where all life has been destroyed, and where +no contact with life is admitted, life of itself appears," defined the +doctor. + +"No, no; I admit nothing of the sort," cried Wingfold. "I only admit +that the evidence seems in favor of believing that in some liquids that +have been heated to a high point, and kept from the air, life has yet +appeared. How can I tell whether _all_ life already there was first +destroyed? whether a yet higher temperature would not have destroyed yet +more life? What if the heat, presumed to destroy all known germs of life +in them, should be the means of developing other germs, further removed? +Then as to _spontaneity_, as to life appearing of itself, that question +involves something beyond physics. Absolute life can exist only of and +by itself, else were it no perfect thing; but will you say that a mass +of protoplasm--that _proto_ by the way is a begged question--exists by +its own power, appears by its own will? Is it not rather there because +it can not help it?" + +"It is there in virtue of the life that is in it," said Faber. + +"Of course; that is a mere truism," returned Wingfold, "equivalent to, +It lives in virtue of life. There is nothing _spontaneous_ in that. Its +life must in some way spring from the true, the original, the +self-existent life." + +"There you are begging the whole question," objected the doctor. + +"No; not the whole," persisted the curate; "for I fancy you will +yourself admit there is some blind driving law behind the phenomenon. +But now I will beg the whole question, if you like to say so, for the +sake of a bit of purely metaphysical argument: the law of life behind, +if it be spontaneously existent, can not be a blind, deaf, unconscious +law; if it be unconscious of itself, it can not be spontaneous; whatever +is of itself must be God, and the source of all non-spontaneous, that +is, all other existence." + +"Then it has been only a dispute about a word?" said Faber. + +"Yes, but a word involving a tremendous question," answered Wingfold. + +"Which I give up altogether," said the doctor, "asserting that there is +_nothing_ spontaneous, in the sense you give the word--the original +sense I admit. From all eternity a blind, unconscious law has been at +work, producing." + +"I say, an awful living Love and Truth and Right, creating children of +its own," said the curate--"and there is our difference." + +"Yes," assented Faber. + +"Anyhow, then," said Wingfold, "so far as regards the matter in hand, +all we can say is, that under such and such circumstances life +_appears--whence_, we believe differently; _how_, neither of us can +tell--perhaps will ever be able to tell. I can't talk in scientific +phrase like you, Faber, but truth is not tied to any form of words." + +"It is well disputed," said the doctor, "and I am inclined to grant that +the question with which we started does not immediately concern the +great differences between us." + +It was rather hard upon Faber to have to argue when out of condition and +with a lady beside to whom he was longing to pour out his soul--his +antagonist a man who never counted a sufficing victory gained, unless +his adversary had had light and wind both in his back. Trifling as was +the occasion of the present skirmish, he had taken his stand on the +lower ground. Faber imagined he read both triumph and pity in Juliet's +regard, and could scarcely endure his position a moment longer. + +"Shall we have some music?" said Wingfold. "--I see the piano open. Or +are you one of those worshipers of work, who put music in the morning in +the same category with looking on the wine when it is red?" + +"Theoretically, no; but practically, yes," answered Faber, "--at least +for to-day. I shouldn't like poor Widow Mullens to lie listening to the +sound of that old water-wheel, till it took up its parable against the +faithlessness of men in general, and the doctor in particular. I can't +do her much good, poor old soul, but I can at least make her fancy +herself of consequence enough not to be forgotten." + +The curate frowned a little--thoughtfully--but said nothing, and +followed his visitor to the door. When he returned, he said, + +"I wonder what it is in that man that won't let him believe!" + +"Perhaps he will yet, some day," said Juliet, softly. + +"He will; he must," answered the curate. "He always reminds me of the +young man who had kept the law, and whom our Lord loved. Surely he must +have been one of the first that came and laid his wealth at the +apostles' feet! May not even that half of the law which Faber tries to +keep, be school-master enough to lead him to Christ?--But come, Miss +Meredith; now for our mathematics!" + +Every two or three days the doctor called to see his late patient. She +wanted looking after, he said. But not once did he see her alone. He +could not tell from their behavior whether she or her hostess was to +blame for his recurring disappointment; but the fact was, that his ring +at the door-bell was the signal to Juliet not to be alone. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +THE PASTOR'S STUDY. + + +Happening at length to hear that visitors were expected, Juliet, +notwithstanding the assurances of her hostess that there was plenty of +room for her, insisted on finding lodgings, and taking more direct +measures for obtaining employment. But the curate had not been idle in +her affairs, and had already arranged for her with some of his own +people who had small children, only he had meant she should not begin +just yet. He wanted her both to be a little stronger, and to have got a +little further with one or two of her studies. And now, consulting with +Helen, he broached a new idea on the matter of her lodgment. + +A day or two before Jones, the butcher, had been talking to him about +Mr. Drake--saying how badly his congregation had behaved to him, and in +what trouble he had come to him, because he could not pay his bill. The +good fellow had all this time never mentioned the matter; and it was +from growing concern about the minister that he now spoke of it to the +curate. + +"We don't know all the circumstances, however, Mr. Jones," the curate +replied; "and perhaps Mr. Drake himself does not think so badly of it as +you do. He is a most worthy man. Mind you let him have whatever he +wants. I'll see to you. Don't mention it to a soul." + +"Bless your heart and liver, sir!" exclaimed the butcher, "he's ten +times too much of a gentleman to do a kindness to. I couldn't take no +liberty with that man--no, not if he was 'most dead of hunger. He'd eat +the rats out of his own cellar, I do believe, before he'd accept what +you may call a charity; and for buying when he knows he can't pay, why +he'd beg outright before he'd do that. What he do live on now I can't +nohow make out--and that's what doos make me angry with him--as if a +honest tradesman didn't know how to behave to a gentleman! Why, they +tell me, sir, he did use to drive his carriage and pair in London! And +now he's a doin' of his best to live on nothink at all!--leastways, so +they tell me--seem' as how he'd have 'em believe he was turned a--what's +it they call it!--a--a--a wegetablarian!--that's what he do, sir! But I +know better. He may be eatin' grass like a ox, as did that same old king +o' Israel as growed the feathers and claws in consequence; and I don't +say he ain't; but one thing I'm sure of, and that is, that if he be, +it's by cause he can't help it. Why, sir, I put it to you--no gentleman +would--if he could help it.--Why don't he come to me for a bit o' +wholesome meat?" he went on in a sorely injured tone. "He knows I'm +ready for anythink in reason! Them peas an' beans an' cabbages an' +porridges an' carrots an' turmits--why, sir, they ain't nothink at all +but water an' wind. I don't say as they mayn't keep a body alive for a +year or two, but, bless you, there's nothink in them; and the man'll be +a skelinton long before he's dead an' buried; an' I shed jest like to +know where's the good o' life on sich terms as them!" + +Thus Jones, the butcher--a man who never sold bad meat, never charged +for an ounce more than he delivered, and when he sold to the poor, +considered them. In buying and selling he had a weakness for giving the +fair play he demanded. He had a little spare money somewhere, but he did +not make a fortune out of hunger, retire early, and build churches. A +local preacher once asked him if he knew what was the plan of salvation. +He answered with the utmost innocence, cutting him off a great lump of +leg of beef for a family he had just told him was starving, that he +hadn't an idea, but no Christian could doubt it was all right. + +The curate, then, pondering over what Mr. Jones had told him, had an +idea; and now he and his wife were speedily of one mind as to attempting +an arrangement for Juliet with Miss Drake. What she would be able to pay +would, they thought, ease them a little, while she would have the +advantage of a better protection than a lodging with more humble people +would afford her. Juliet was willing for any thing they thought best. + +Wingfold therefore called on the minister, to make the proposal to him, +and was shown up to his study--a mere box, where there was just room for +a chair on each side of the little writing-table. The walls from top to +bottom were entirely hidden with books. + +Mr. Drake received him with a touching mixture of sadness and +cordiality, and heard in silence what he had to say. + +"It is very kind of you to think of us, Mr. Wingfold," he replied, after +a moment's pause. "But I fear the thing is impossible. Indeed, it is out +of the question. Circumstances are changed with us. Things are not as +they once were." + +There had always been a certain negative virtue in Mr. Drake, which only +his friends were able to see, and only the wisest of them to set over +against his display--this, namely, that he never attempted to gain +credit for what he knew he had not. As he was not above show, I can not +say he was safely above false show, for he who is capable of the one is +still in danger of the other; but he was altogether above deception: +that he scorned. If, in his time of plenty he liked men to be aware of +his worldly facilities, he now, in the time of his poverty, preferred +that men should be aware of the bonds in which he lived. His nature was +simple, and loved to let in the daylight. Concealment was altogether +alien to him. From morning to night anxious, he could not bear to be +supposed of easy heart. Some men think poverty such a shame that they +would rather be judged absolutely mean than confess it. Mr. Drake's +openness may have sprung from too great a desire for sympathy; or from +a diseased honesty--I can not tell; I will freely allow that if his +faith had been as a grain of mustard seed, he would not have been so +haunted with a sense of his poverty, as to be morbidly anxious to +confess it. He would have known that his affairs were in high charge: +and that, in the full flow of the fountain of prosperity, as well as in +the scanty, gravelly driblets from the hard-wrought pump of poverty, the +supply came all the same from under the throne of God, and he would not +have _felt_ poor. A man ought never to feel rich for riches, nor poor +for poverty. The perfect man must always feel rich, because God is rich. + +"The fact is," Mr. Drake went on, "we are very poor--absolutely poor, +Mr. Wingfold--so poor that I may not even refuse the trifling annuity my +late congregation will dole out to me." + +"I am sorry to know it," said the curate. + +"But I must take heed of injustice," the pastor resumed; "I do not think +they would have treated me so had they not imagined me possessed of +private means. The pity now is that the necessity which would make me +glad to fall in with your kind proposal itself renders the thing +impracticable. Even with what your friend would contribute to the +housekeeping we could not provide a table fit for her. But Dorothy ought +to have the pleasure of hearing your kind proposition: if you will allow +me I will call her." + +Dorothy was in the kitchen, making pastry--for the rare treat of a +chicken pudding: they had had a present of a couple of chickens from +Mrs. Thomson--when she heard her father's voice calling her from the top +of the little stair. When Lisbeth opened the door to the curate she was +on her way out, and had not yet returned; so she did not know any one +was with him, and hurried up with her arms bare. She recoiled half a +step when she saw Mr. Wingfold, then went frankly forward to welcome +him, her hands in her white pinafore. + +"It's only flour," she said, smiling. + +"It is a rare pleasure now-a-days to catch a lady at work" said +Wingfold. "My wife always dusts my study for me. I told her I would not +have it done except she did it--just to have the pleasure of seeing her +at it. My conviction is, that only a lady can become a thorough +servant." + +"Why don't you have lady-helps then?" said Dorothy. + +"Because I don't know where to find them. Ladies are scarce; and any +thing almost would be better than a houseful of half-ladies." + +"I think I understand," said Dorothy thoughtfully. + +Her father now stated Mr. Wingfold's proposal--in the tone of one sorry +to be unable to entertain it. + +"I see perfectly why you think we could not manage it, papa," said +Dorothy. "But why should not Miss Meredith lodge with us in the same way +as with Mrs. Puckridge? She could have the drawing-room and my bedroom, +and her meals by herself. Lisbeth is wretched for want of dinners to +cook." + +"Miss Meredith would hardly relish the idea of turning you out of your +drawing-room," said Wingfold. + +"Tell her it may save us from being turned out of the house. Tell her +she will be a great help to us," returned Dorothy eagerly. + +"My child," said her father, the tears standing in his eyes, "your +reproach sinks into my very soul." + +"My reproach, father!" repeated Dorothy aghast. "How you do mistake me! +I can't say with you that the will of God is every thing; but I can say +that far less than your will--your ability--will always be enough for +me." + +"My child," returned her father, "you go on to rebuke me! You are +immeasurably truer to me than I am to my God.--Mr. Wingfold, you love +the Lord, else I would not confess my sin to you: of late I have often +thought, or at least felt as if He was dealing hardly with me. Ah, my +dear sir! you are a young man: for the peace of your soul serve God so, +that, by the time you are my age, you may be sure of Him. I try hard to +put my trust in Him, but my faith is weak. It ought by this time to have +been strong. I always want to see the way He is leading me--to +understand something of what He is doing with me or teaching me, before +I can accept His will, or get my heart to consent not to complain. It +makes me very unhappy. I begin to fear that I have never known even the +beginning of confidence, and that faith has been with me but a thing of +the understanding and the lips." + +He bowed his head on his hands. Dorothy went up to him and laid a hand +on his shoulder, looking unspeakably sad. A sudden impulse moved the +curate. + +"Let us pray," he said, rising, and kneeled down. + +It was a strange, unlikely thing to do; but he was an unlikely man, and +did it. The others made haste to kneel also. + +"God of justice," he said, "Thou knowest how hard it is for us, and Thou +wilt be fair to us. We have seen no visions; we have never heard the +voice of Thy Son, of whom those tales, so dear to us, have come down the +ages; we have to fight on in much darkness of spirit and of mind, both +from the ignorance we can not help, and from the fault we could have +helped; we inherit blindness from the error of our fathers; and when +fear, or the dread of shame, or the pains of death, come upon us, we are +ready to despair, and cry out that there is no God, or, if there be, He +has forgotten His children. There are times when the darkness closes +about us like a wall, and Thou appearest nowhere, either in our hearts, +or in the outer universe; we can not tell whether the things we seemed +to do in Thy name, were not mere hypocrisies, and our very life is but a +gulf of darkness. We cry aloud, and our despair is as a fire in our +bones to make us cry; but to all our crying and listening, there seems +neither hearing nor answer in the boundless waste. Thou who knowest +Thyself God, who knowest Thyself that for which we groan, Thou whom +Jesus called Father, we appeal to Thee, not as we imagine Thee, but as +Thou seest Thyself, as Jesus knows Thee, to Thy very self we cry--help +us, O Cause of us! O Thou from whom alone we are this weakness, through +whom alone we can become strength, help us--be our Father. We ask for +nothing beyond what Thy Son has told us to ask. We beg for no signs or +wonders, but for Thy breath upon our souls, Thy spirit in our hearts. We +pray for no cloven tongues of fire--for no mighty rousing of brain or +imagination; but we do, with all our power of prayer, pray for Thy +spirit; we do not even pray to know that it is given to us; let us, if +so it pleases Thee, remain in doubt of the gift for years to come--but +lead us thereby. Knowing ourselves only as poor and feeble, aware only +of ordinary and common movements of mind and soul, may we yet be +possessed by the spirit of God, led by His will in ours. For all things +in a man, even those that seem to him the commonest and least uplifted, +are the creation of Thy heart, and by the lowly doors of our wavering +judgment, dull imagination, luke-warm love, and palsied will, Thou canst +enter and glorify all. Give us patience because our hope is in Thee, not +in ourselves. Work Thy will in us, and our prayers are ended. Amen." + +They rose. The curate said he would call again in the evening, bade +them good-by, and went. Mr. Drake turned to his daughter and said-- + +"Dorothy, that's not the way I have been used to pray or hear people +pray; nevertheless the young man seemed to speak very straight up to +God. It appears to me there was another spirit there with his. I will +humble myself before the Lord. Who knows but he may lift me up!" + +"What can my father mean by saying that perhaps God will lift him up?" +said Dorothy to herself when she was alone. "It seems to me if I only +knew God was anywhere, I should want no other lifting up. I should then +be lifted up above every thing forever." + +Had she said so to the curate, he would have told her that the only way +to be absolutely certain of God, is to see Him as He is, and for that we +must first become absolutely pure in heart. For this He is working in +us, and perfection and vision will flash together. Were conviction +possible without that purity and that vision, I imagine it would work +evil in us, fix in their imperfection our ideas, notions, feelings, +concerning God, give us for His glory the warped reflection of our +cracked and spotted and rippled glass, and so turn our worship into an +idolatry. + +Dorothy was a rather little woman, with lightish auburn hair, a large +and somewhat heavy forehead, fine gray eyes, small well-fashioned +features, a fair complexion on a thin skin, and a mouth that would have +been better in shape if it had not so often been informed of trouble. +With this trouble their poverty had nothing to do; that did not weigh +upon her a straw. She was proud to share her father's lot, and could +have lived on as little as any laboring woman with seven children. She +was indeed a trifle happier since her father's displacement, and would +have been happier still had he found it within the barest possibility to +decline the annuity allotted him; for, as far back as she could +remember, she had been aware of a dislike to his position--partly from +pride it may be, but partly also from a sense of the imperfection of the +relation between him and his people--one in which love must be +altogether predominant, else is it hateful--and chiefly because of a +certain sordid element in the community--a vile way of looking at sacred +things through the spectacles of mammon, more evident--I only say more +evident--in dissenting than in Church of England communities, because of +the pressure of expenses upon them. Perhaps the impossibility of +regarding her father's church with reverence, laid her mind more open to +the cause of her trouble--such doubts, namely, as an active intellect, +nourished on some of the best books, and disgusted with the weak fervor +of others rated high in her hearing, had been suggesting for years +before any words of Faber's reached her. The more her devout nature +longed to worship, the more she found it impossible to worship that +which was presented for her love and adoration. See believed entirely in +her father, but she knew he could not meet her doubts, for many things +made it plain that he had never had such himself. An ordinary mind that +has had doubts, and has encountered and overcome them, or verified and +found them the porters of the gates of truth, may be profoundly useful +to any mind similarly assailed; but no knowledge of books, no amount of +logic, no degree of acquaintance with the wisest conclusions of others, +can enable a man who has not encountered skepticism in his own mind, to +afford any essential help to those caught in the net. For one thing, +such a man will be incapable of conceiving the possibility that the net +may be the net of The Fisher of Men. + +Dorothy, therefore, was sorely oppressed. For a long time her life had +seemed withering from her, and now that her father was fainting on the +steep path, and she had no water to offer him, she was ready to cry +aloud in bitterness of spirit. + +She had never heard the curate preach--had heard talk of his oddity on +all sides, from men and women no more capable of judging him than the +caterpillar of judging the butterfly--which yet it must become. The +draper, who understood him, naturally shrunk from praising to her the +teaching for which he not unfrequently deserted that of her father, and +she never looked in the direction of him with any hope. Yet now, the +very first time she had heard him speak out of the abundance of his +heart, he had left behind him a faint brown ray of hope in hers. It was +very peculiar of him to break out in prayer after such an abrupt +fashion--in the presence of an older minister than himself--and praying +for him too! But there was such an appearance of reality about the man! +such a simplicity in his look! such a directness in his petitions! such +an active fervor of hope in his tone--without an atom of what she had +heard called _unction_! His thought and speech appeared to arise from no +separated sacred mood that might be assumed and laid aside, but from +present faith and feeling, from the absolute point of life at that +moment being lived by him. It was an immediate appeal to a hearing, and +understanding, and caring God, whose breath was the very air His +creatures breathed, the element of their life; an utter acknowledgment +of His will as the bliss of His sons and daughters! Such was the shining +of the curate's light, and it awoke hope in Dorothy. + +In the evening he came again as he had said, and brought Juliet. Each in +the other, Dorothy and she recognized suffering, and in a very few +moments every thing was arranged between them. Juliet was charmed with +the simplicity and intentness of Dorothy; in Juliet's manner and +carriage, Dorothy at once recognized a breeding superior to her own, and +at once laid hold of the excellence by acknowledging it. In a moment she +made Juliet understand how things were, and Juliet saw as quickly that +she must assent to the arrangement proposed. But she had not been with +them two days, when Dorothy found the drawing-room as open to her as +before she came, and far more pleasant. + +While the girls were talking below, the two clergymen sat again in the +study. + +"I have taken the liberty," said the curate, "of bringing an old book I +should like you to look at, if you don't mind--chiefly for the sake of +some verses that pleased me much when I read them first, and now please +me more when I read them for the tenth time. If you will allow me, I +will read them to you." + +Mr. Drake liked good poetry, but did not much relish being called upon +to admire, as he imagined he was now. He assented, of course, graciously +enough, and soon found his mistake. + +This is the poem Wingfold read: + + CONSIDER THE RAVENS. + + Lord, according to Thy words, + I have considered Thy birds; + And I find their life good, + And better the better understood; + Sowing neither corn nor wheat, + They have all that they can eat; + Reaping no more than they sow. + They have all they can stow; + Having neither barn nor store, + Hungry again, they eat more. + + Considering, I see too that they + Have a busy life, and plenty of play; + In the earth they dig their bills deep, + And work well though they do not heap; + Then to play in the air they are not loth, + And their nests between are better than both. + + But this is when there blow no storms; + When berries are plenty in winter, and worms; + When their feathers are thick, and oil is enough + To keep the cold out and the rain off: + If there should come a long hard frost, + Then it looks as Thy birds were lost. + + But I consider further, and find + A hungry bird has a free mind; + He is hungry to-day, not to-morrow; + Steals no comfort, no grief doth borrow; + This moment is his, Thy will hath said it, + The next is nothing till Thou hast made it. + + The bird has pain, but has no fear, + Which is the worst of any gear; + When cold and hunger and harm betide him, + He gathers them not to stuff inside him; + Content with the day's ill he has got, + He waits just, nor haggles with his lot; + Neither jumbles God's will + With driblets from his own still. + + But next I see, in my endeavor, + Thy birds here do not live forever; + That cold or hunger, sickness or age, + Finishes their earthly stage; + The rook drops without a stroke, + And never gives another croak; + Birds lie here, and birds lie there, + With little feathers all astare; + And in Thy own sermon, Thou + That the sparrow falls dost allow. + + It shall not cause me any alarm, + For neither so comes the bird to harm, + Seeing our Father, Thou hast said, + Is by the sparrow's dying bed; + Therefore it is a blessed place, + And the sparrow in high grace. + + It cometh therefore to this. Lord; + I have considered Thy word, + And henceforth will be Thy bird. + +By the time Wingfold ceased, the tears were running down the old man's +face. When he saw that, the curate rose at once, laid the book on the +table, shook hands with him, and went away. The minister laid his head +on the table, and wept. + +Juliet had soon almost as much teaching as she could manage. People +liked her, and children came to love her a little. A good report of her +spread. The work was hard, chiefly because it included more walking than +she had been accustomed to; but Dorothy generally walked with her, and +to the places furthest off, Helen frequently took her with her ponies, +and she got through the day's work pretty well. The fees were small, but +they sufficed, and made life a little easier to her host and his family. +Amanda got very fond of her, and, without pretending to teach her, +Juliet taught her a good deal. On Sundays she went to church; and +Dorothy, although it cost her a struggle to face the imputation of +resentment, by which the chapel-people would necessarily interpret the +change, went regularly with her, in the growing hope of receiving light +from the curate. Her father also not unfrequently accompanied her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +TWO MINDS. + + +All this time poor Faber, to his offer of himself to Juliet, had +received no answer but a swoon--or something very near it. Every attempt +he made to see her alone at the rectory had been foiled; and he almost +came to the conclusion that the curate and his wife had set themselves +to prejudice against himself a mind already prejudiced against his +principles. It added to his uneasiness that, as he soon discovered, she +went regularly to church. He knew the power and persuasion of Wingfold, +and looked upon his influence as antagonistic to his hopes. Pride, +anger, and fear were all at work in him; but he went on calling, and did +his best to preserve an untroubled demeanor. Juliet imagined no change +in his feelings, and her behavior to him was not such as to prevent them +from deepening still. + +Every time he went it was with a desperate resolution of laying his +hand on the veil in which she had wrapped herself, but every time he +found it impossible, for one reason or another, to make a single +movement toward withdrawing it. Again and again he tried to write to +her, but the haunting suspicion that she would lay his epistle before +her new friends, always made him throw down his pen in a smothering +indignation. He found himself compelled to wait what opportunity chance +or change might afford him. + +When he learned that she had gone to live with the Drakes, it was a +relief to him; for although he knew the minister was far more personal +in his hostility than Wingfold, he was confident his influence over her +would not be so great; and now he would have a better chance, he +thought, of seeing her alone. Meantime he took satisfaction in knowing +that he did not neglect a single patient, and that in no case had he +been less successful either as to diagnosis or treatment because of his +trouble. He pitied himself just a little as a martyr to the truth, a +martyr the more meritorious that the truth to which he sacrificed +himself gave him no hope for the future, and for the present no shadow +of compensation beyond the satisfaction of not being deceived. It +remains a question, however, which there was no one to put to +Faber--whether he had not some amends in relief from the notion, vaguely +it may be, yet unpleasantly haunting many minds--of a Supreme Being--a +Deity--putting forth claims to obedience--an uncomfortable sort of +phantom, however imaginary, for one to have brooding above him, and +continually coming between him and the freedom of an else empty +universe. To the human soul as I have learned to know it, an empty +universe would be as an exhausted receiver to the lungs that thirst for +air; but Faber liked the idea: how he would have liked the reality +remains another thing. I suspect that what we call damnation is +something as near it as it can be made; itself it can not be, for even +the damned must live by God's life. Was it, I repeat, no compensation +for his martyrdom to his precious truth, to know that to none had he to +render an account? Was he relieved from no misty sense of a moral +consciousness judging his, and ready to enforce its rebuke--a belief +which seems to me to involve the highest idea, the noblest pledge, the +richest promise of our nature? There may be men in whose turning from +implicit to explicit denial, no such element of relief is concerned--I +can not tell; but although the structure of Paul Faber's life had in it +material of noble sort, I doubt if he was one of such. + +The summer at length reigned lordly in the land. The roses were in +bloom, from the black purple to the warm white. Ah, those roses! He must +indeed be a God who invented the roses. They sank into the red hearts of +men and women, caused old men to sigh, young men to long, and women to +weep with strange ecstatic sadness. But their scent made Faber lonely +and poor, for the rose-heart would not open its leaves to him. + +The winds were soft and odor-laden. The wide meadows through which +flowed the river, seemed to smite the eye with their greenness; and the +black and red and white kine bent down their sleek necks among the +marsh-marigolds and the meadow-sweet and the hundred lovely things that +border the level water-courses, and fed on the blessed grass. Along the +banks, here with nets, there with rod and line, they caught the gleaming +salmon, and his silver armor flashed useless in the sun. The old pastor +sat much in his little summer-house, and paced his green walk on the +border of the Lythe; but in all the gold of the sunlight, in all the +glow and the plenty around him, his heart was oppressed with the sense +of his poverty. It was not that he could not do the thing he would, but +that he could not meet and rectify the thing he had done. He could +behave, he said to himself, neither as a gentleman nor a Christian, for +lack of money; and, worst of all, he could not get rid of a sense of +wrong--of rebellious heavings of heart, of resentments, of doubts that +came thick upon him--not of the existence of God, nor of His goodness +towards men in general, but of His kindness to himself. Logically, no +doubt, they were all bound in one, and the being that could be unfair to +a beetle could not be God, could not make a beetle; but our feelings, +especially where a wretched self is concerned, are notably illogical. + +The morning of a glorious day came in with saffron, gold, and crimson. +The color sobered, but the glory grew. The fleeting dyes passed, but the +azure sky, the white clouds, and the yellow fire remained. The larks +dropped down to their breakfast. The kine had long been busy at theirs, +for they had slept their short night in the midst of their food. Every +thing that could move was in motion, and what could not move was +shining, and what could not shine was feeling warm. But the pastor was +tossing restless. He had a troubled night. The rent of his house fell +due with the miserable pittance allowed him by the church; but the hard +thing was not that he had to pay nearly the whole of the latter to meet +the former, but that he must first take it. The thought of that burned +in his veins like poison. But he had no choice. To refuse it would be +dishonest; it would be to spare or perhaps indulge his feelings at the +expense of the guiltless. He must not kill himself, he said, because he +had insured his life, and the act would leave his daughter nearly +destitute. Yet how was the insurance longer to be paid? It _was_ hard, +with all his faults, to be brought to this! It _was_ hard that he who +all his life had been urging people to have faith, should have his own +turned into a mockery. + +Here heart and conscience together smote him. Well might his faith be +mocked, for what better was it than a mockery itself! Where was this +thing he called his faith? Was he not cherishing, talking flat +unbelief?--as much as telling God he did _not_ trust in Him? Where was +the faithlessness of which his faithlessness complained? A phantom of +its own! Yea, let God be true and every man a liar! Had the hour come, +and not the money? A fine faith it was that depended on the very +presence of the help!--that required for its existence that the supply +should come before the need!--a fine faith in truth, which still would +follow in the rear of sight!--But why then did God leave him thus +without faith? Why did not God make him able to trust? He had prayed +quite as much for faith as for money. His conscience replied, "That is +your part--the thing you will not do. If God put faith into your heart +without your stirring up your heart to believe, the faith would be God's +and not yours. It is true all is God's; he made this you call _me_, and +made it able to believe, and gave you Himself to believe in; and if +after that He were to make you believe without you doing your utmost +part, He would be making you down again into a sort of holy dog, not +making you grow a man like Christ Jesus His Son"--"But I have tried hard +to trust in Him," said the little self.--"Yes, and then fainted and +ceased," said the great self, the conscience. + +Thus it went on in the poor man's soul. Ever and anon he said to +himself, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him," and ever and anon +his heart sickened afresh, and he said to himself, "I shall go down to +the grave with shame, and my memorial will be debts unpaid, for the +Lord hath forsaken me." All the night he had lain wrestling with fear +and doubt: fear was hard upon him, but doubt was much harder. "If I +could but trust," he said, "I could endure any thing." + +In the splendor of the dawn, he fell into a troubled sleep, and a more +troubled dream, which woke him again to misery. Outside his chamber, the +world was rich in light, in song, in warmth, in odor, in growth, in +color, in space; inside, all was to him gloomy, groanful, cold, musty, +ungenial, dingy, confined; yet there was he more at ease, shrunk from +the light, and in the glorious morning that shone through the chinks of +his shutters, saw but an alien common day, not the coach of his Father, +come to carry him yet another stage toward his home. He was in want of +nothing at the moment. There were no holes in the well-polished shoes +that seemed to keep ghostly guard outside his chamber-door. The clothes +that lay by his bedside were indeed a little threadbare, but sound and +spotless. The hat that hung in the passage below might have been much +shabbier without necessarily indicating poverty. His walking-stick had a +gold knob like any earl's. If he did choose to smoke a church-warden, he +had a great silver-mounted meerschaum on his mantle-shelf. True, the +butcher's shop had for some time contributed nothing to his dinners, but +his vegetable diet agreed with him. He would himself have given any man +time, would as soon have taken his child by the throat as his debtor, +had worshiped God after a bettering fashion for forty years at least, +and yet would not give God time to do His best for him--the best that +perfect love, and power limited only by the lack of full consent in the +man himself, could do. + +His daughter always came into his room the first thing in the morning. +It was plain to her that he had been more restless than usual, and at +sight of his glazy red-rimmed eyes and gray face, her heart sank within +her. For a moment she was half angry with him, thinking in herself that +if she believed as he did, she would never trouble her heart about any +thing: her head should do all the business. But with his faith, she +would have done just the same as he, It is one thing to be so used to +certain statements and modes of thought that you take all for true, and +quite another so to believe the heart of it all, that you are in +essential and imperturbable peace and gladness because of it. But oh, +how the poor girl sighed for the freedom of a God to trust in! She could +content herself with the husks the swine ate, if she only knew that a +Father sat at the home-heart of the universe, wanting to have her. +Faithful in her faithlessness, she did her best to comfort her +_believing_ father: beyond the love that offered it, she had but cold +comfort to give. He did not listen to a word she said, and she left him +at last with a sigh, and went to get him his breakfast. When she +returned, she brought him his letters with his tea and toast. He told +her to take them away: she might open them herself if she liked; they +could be nothing but bills! She might take the tray too; he did not want +any breakfast: what right had he to eat what he had no money to pay for! +There would be a long bill at the baker's next! What right had any one +to live on other people! Dorothy told him she paid for every loaf as it +came, and that there was no bill at the baker's, though indeed he had +done his best to begin one. He stretched out his arms, drew her down to +his bosom, said she was his only comfort, then pushed her away, turned +his face to the wall, and wept. She saw it would be better to leave him, +and, knowing in this mood he would eat nothing, she carried the tray +with her. A few moments after, she came rushing up the stair like a +wind, and entered his room swiftly, her face "white with the whiteness +of what is dead." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +THE MINISTER'S BEDROOM. + + +The next day, in the afternoon, old Lisbeth appeared at the rectory, +with a hurried note, in which Dorothy begged Mr. Wingfold to come and +see her father. The curate rose at once and went. When he reached the +house, Dorothy, who had evidently been watching for his arrival, herself +opened the door. + +"What's the matter?" he asked. "Nothing alarming, I hope?" + +"I hope not," she answered. There was a strange light on her face, like +that of a sunless sky on a deep, shadowed well. "But I am a little +alarmed about him. He has suffered much of late. Ah, Mr. Wingfold, you +don't know how good he is! Of course, being no friend to the church--" + +"I don't wonder at that, the church is so little of a friend to +herself," interrupted the curate, relieved to find her so composed, for +as he came along he had dreaded something terrible. + +"He wants very much to see you. He thinks perhaps you may be able to +help him. I am sure if you can't nobody can. But please don't heed much +what he says about himself. He is feverish and excited. There is such a +thing--is there not?--as a morbid humility? I don't mean a false +humility, but one that passes over into a kind of self disgust." + +"I know what you mean," answered the curate, laying down his hat: he +never took his hat into a sick-room. + +Dorothy led the way up the narrow creaking stairs. + +It was a lowly little chamber in which the once popular preacher +lay--not so good as that he had occupied when a boy, two stories above +his father's shop. That shop had been a thorn in his spirit in the days +of his worldly success, but again and again this morning he had been +remembering it as a very haven of comfort and peace. He almost forgot +himself into a dream of it once; for one blessed moment, through the +upper half of the window he saw the snow falling in the street, while he +sat inside and half under the counter, reading Robinson Crusoe! Could +any thing short of heaven be so comfortable? + +As the curate stepped in, a grizzled head turned toward him a haggard +face with dry, bloodshot eyes, and a long hand came from the bed to +greet him. + +"Ah, Mr. Wingfold!" cried the minister, "God has forsaken me. If He had +only forgotten me, I could have borne that, I think; for, as Job says, +the time would have come when He would have had a desire to the work of +His hands. But He has turned His back upon me, and taken His free Spirit +from me. He has ceased to take His own way, to do His will with me, and +has given me my way and my will. Sit down, Mr. Wingfold. You can not +comfort me, but you are a true servant of God, and I will tell you my +sorrow. I am no friend to the church, as you know, but--" + +"So long as you are a friend of its Head, that goes for little with me," +said the curate. "But if you will allow me, I should like to say just +one word on the matter." + +He wished to try what a diversion of thought might do; not that he +foolishly desired to make him forget his trouble, but that he knew from +experience any gap might let in comfort. + +"Say on, Mr. Wingfold. I am a worm and no man." + +"It seems, then, to me a mistake for any community to spend precious +energy upon even a just finding of fault with another. The thing is, to +trim the lamp and clean the glass of our own, that it may be a light to +the world. It is just the same with communities as with individuals. The +community which casts if it be but the mote out of its own eye, does the +best thing it can for the beam in its neighbor's. For my part, I confess +that, so far as the clergy form and represent the Church of England, it +is and has for a long time been doing its best--not its worst, thank +God--to serve God and Mammon." + +"Ah! that's my beam!" cried the minister. "I have been serving Mammon +assiduously. I served him not a little in the time of my prosperity, +with confidence and show, and then in my adversity with fears and +complaints. Our Lord tells us expressly that we are to take no thought +for the morrow, because we can not serve God and Mammon. I have been +taking thought for a hundred morrows, and that not patiently, but +grumbling in my heart at His dealings with me. Therefore now He has cast +me off." + +"How do you know that He has cast you off?" asked the curate. + +"Because He has given me my own way with such a vengeance. I have been +pulling, pulling my hand out of His, and He has let me go, and I lie in +the dirt." + +"But you have not told me your grounds for concluding so." + +"Suppose a child had been crying and fretting after his mother for a +spoonful of jam," said the minister, quite gravely, "and at last she set +him down to a whole pot--what would you say to that?" + +"I should say she meant to give him a sharp lesson, perhaps a reproof as +well--certainly not that she meant to cast him off," answered Wingfold, +laughing. "But still I do not understand." + +"Have you not heard then? Didn't Dorothy tell you?" + +"She has told me nothing." + +"Not that my old uncle has left me a hundred thousand pounds and more?" + +The curate was on the point of saying, "I am very glad to hear it," +when the warning Dorothy had given him returned to his mind, and with it +the fear that the pastor was under a delusion--that, as a rich man is +sometimes not unnaturally seized with the mania of imagined poverty, so +this poor man's mental barometer had, from excess of poverty, turned its +index right round again to riches. + +"Oh!" he returned, lightly and soothingly, "perhaps it is not so bad as +that. You may have been misinformed. There may be some mistake." + +"No, no!" returned the minister; "it is true, every word of it. You +shall see the lawyers' letter. Dorothy has it, I think. My uncle was an +ironmonger in a country town, got on, and bought a little bit of land in +which he found iron. I knew he was flourishing, but he was a churchman +and a terrible Tory, and I never dreamed he would remember me. There had +been no communication between our family and his for many years. He must +have fancied me still a flourishing London minister, with a rich wife! +If he had had a suspicion of how sorely I needed a few pounds, I can not +believe he would have left me a farthing. He did not save his money to +waste it on bread and cheese, I can fancy him saying." + +Although a look almost of despair kept coming and going upon his face, +he lay so still, and spoke so quietly and collectedly, that Wingfold +began to wonder whether there might not be some fact in his statement. +He did not well know what to say. + +"When I heard the news from Dorothy--she read the letter first," Mr. +Drake went on, "--old fool that I was I was filled with such delight +that, although I could not have said whether I believed or not, the very +idea of the thing made me weep. Alas! Mr. Wingfold, I have had visions +of God in which the whole world would not have seemed worth a salt tear! +And now!--I jumped out of bed, and hurried on my clothes, but by the +time I came to kneel at my bedside, God was away. I could not speak a +word to Him! I had lost all the trouble that kept me crying after Him +like a little child at his mother's heels, the bond was broken and He +was out of sight. I tried to be thankful, but my heart was so full of +the money, it lay like a stuffed bag. But I dared not go even to my +study till I had prayed. I tramped up and down this little room, +thinking more about paying my butcher's bill than any thing else. I +would give him a silver snuff-box; but as to God and His goodness my +heart felt like a stone; I _could not_ lift it up. All at once I saw how +it was: He had heard my prayers in anger! Mr. Wingfold, the Lord has +sent me this money as He sent the quails to the Israelites: while it was +yet, as it were, between my teeth, He smote me with hardness of heart. O +my God! how shall I live in the world with a hundred thousand pounds +instead of my Father in heaven! If it were only that He had hidden His +face, I should be able to pray somehow! He has given me over to the +Mammon I was worshiping! Hypocrite that I am! how often have I not +pointed out to my people, while yet I dwelt in the land of Goshen, that +to fear poverty was the same thing as to love money, for that both came +of lack of faith in the living God! Therefore has He taken from me the +light of His countenance, which yet, Mr. Wingfold, with all my sins and +shortcomings, yea, and my hypocrisy, is the all in all to me!" + +He looked the curate in the face with such wild eyes as convinced him +that, even if perfectly sane at present, he was in no small danger of +losing his reason. + +"Then you would willingly give up this large fortune," he said, "and +return to your former condition?" + +"Rather than not be able to pray--I would! I would!" he cried; then +paused and added, "--if only He would give me enough to pay my debts and +not have to beg of other people." + +Then, with a tone suddenly changed to one of agonized effort, with +clenched hands, and eyes shut tight, he cried vehemently, as if in the +face of a lingering unwillingness to encounter again the miseries +through which he had been passing. + +"No, no, Lord! Forgive me. I will not think of conditions. Thy will be +done! Take the money and let me be a debtor and a beggar if Thou wilt, +only let me pray to Thee; and do Thou make it up to my creditors." + +Wingfold's spirit was greatly moved. Here was victory! Whether the +fortune was a fact or fancy, made no feature of difference. He thanked +God and took courage. The same instant the door opened, and Dorothy came +in hesitating, and looking strangely anxious. He threw her a +face-question. She gently bowed her head, and gave him a letter with a +broad black border which she held in her hand. + +He read it. No room for rational doubt was left. He folded it softly, +gave it back to her, and rising, kneeled down by the bedside, near the +foot, and said-- + +"Father, whose is the fullness of the earth, I thank Thee that Thou hast +set my brother's heel on the neck of his enemy. But the suddenness of +Thy relief from holy poverty and evil care, has so shaken his heart and +brain, or rather, perhaps, has made him think so keenly of his lack of +faith in his Father in heaven, that he fears Thou hast thrown him the +gift in disdain, as to a dog under the table, though never didst Thou +disdain a dog, and not given it as to a child, from Thy hand into his. +Father, let Thy spirit come with the gift, or take it again, and make +him poor and able to pray."--Here came an _amen_, groaned out as from +the bottom of a dungeon.--"Pardon him, Father," the curate prayed on, +"all his past discontent and the smallness of his faith. Thou art our +Father, and Thou knowest us tenfold better than we know ourselves; we +pray Thee not only to pardon us, but to make all righteous excuse for +us, when we dare not make any for ourselves, for Thou art the truth. We +will try to be better children. We will go on climbing the mount of God +through all the cloudy darkness that swaths it, yea, even in the face of +the worst terrors--that when we reach the top, we shall find no one +there."--Here Dorothy burst into sobs.--"Father!" thus the curate ended +his prayer, "take pity on Thy children. Thou wilt not give them a piece +of bread, in place of a stone--to poison them! The egg Thou givest will +not be a serpent's. We are Thine, and Thou art ours: in us be Thy will +done! Amen." + +As he rose from his knees, he saw that the minister had turned his face +to the wall, and lay perfectly still. Rightly judging that he was +renewing the vain effort to rouse, by force of the will, feelings which +had been stunned by the strange shock, he ventured to try a more +authoritative mode of address. + +"And now, Mr. Drake, you have got to spend this money," he said, "and +the sooner you set about it the better. Whatever may be your ideas about +the principal, you are bound to spend at least every penny of the +income." + +The sad-hearted man stared at the curate. + +"How is a man to do any thing whom God has forsaken?" he said. + +"If He had forsaken you, for as dreary work as it would be, you would +have to try to do your duty notwithstanding. But He has not forsaken +you. He has given you a very sharp lesson, I grant, and as such you must +take it, but that is the very opposite of forsaking you. He has let you +know what it is not to trust in Him, and what it would be to have money +that did not come from His hand. You did not conquer in the fight with +Mammon when you were poor, and God has given you another chance: He +expects you to get the better of him now you are rich. If God had +forsaken you, I should have found you strutting about and glorying over +imagined enemies." + +"Do you really think that is the mind of God toward me?" cried the poor +man, starting half up in bed. "_Do_ you think so?" he repeated, staring +at the curate almost as wildly as at first, but with a different +expression. + +"I do," said Wingfold; "and it will be a bad job indeed if you fail in +both trials. But that I am sure you will not. It is your business now to +get this money into your hands as soon as possible, and proceed to spend +it." + +"Would there be any harm in ordering a few things from the +tradespeople?" asked Dorothy. + +"How should there be?" returned Wingfold. + +"Because, you see," answered Dorothy, "we can't be sure of a bird in the +bush." + +"Can you be sure of it in your hands? It may spread its wings when you +least expect it. But Helen will be delighted to take the risk--up to a +few hundreds," he added laughing. + +"Somebody may dispute the will: they do sometimes," said Dorothy. + +"They do very often," answered Wingfold. "It does not look likely in the +present case; but our trust must be neither in the will nor in the +fortune, but in the living God. You have to get all the _good_ out of +this money you can. If you will walk over to the rectory with me now, +while your father gets up, we will carry the good news to my wife, and +she will lend you what money you like, so that you need order nothing +without paying for it." + +"Please ask her not to tell any body," said Mr. Drake. "I shouldn't like +it talked about before I understand it myself." + +"You are quite right. If I were you I would tell nobody yet but Mr. +Drew. He is a right man, and will help you to bear your good fortune. I +have always found good fortune harder to bear than bad." + +Dorothy ran to put her bonnet on. The curate went back to the bedside. +Mr. Drake had again turned his face to the wall. + +"Sixty years of age!" he was murmuring to himself. + +"Mr. Drake," said Wingfold, "so long as you bury yourself with the +centipedes in your own cellar, instead of going out into God's world, +you are tempting Satan and Mammon together to come and tempt you. +Worship the God who made the heaven and the earth, and the sea and the +mines of iron and gold, by doing His will in the heart of them. Don't +worship the poor picture of Him you have got hanging up in your +closet;--worship the living power beyond your ken. Be strong in Him +whose is your strength, and all strength. Help Him in His work with His +own. Give life to His gold. Rub the canker off it, by sending it from +hand to hand. You must rise and bestir yourself. I will come and see you +again to-morrow. Good-by for the present." + +He turned away and walked from the room. But his hand had scarcely left +the lock, when he heard the minister alight from his bed upon the floor. + +"He'll do!" said the curate to himself, and walked down the stair. + +When he got home, he left Dorothy with his wife, and going to his study, +wrote the following verses, which had grown in his mind as he walked +silent beside her:-- + + WHAT MAN IS THERE OF YOU? + + The homely words, how often read! + How seldom fully known! + "Which father of you, asked for bread, + Would give his son a stone?" + + How oft has bitter tear been shed, + And heaved how many a groan, + Because Thou wouldst not give for bread + The thing that was a stone! + + How oft the child Thou wouldst have fed, + Thy gift away has thrown! + He prayed, Thou heardst, and gav'st the bread: + He cried, it is a stone! + + Lord, if I ask in doubt or dread + Lest I be left to moan-- + I am the man who, asked for bread, + Would give his son a stone. + +As Dorothy returned from the rectory, where Helen had made her happier +than all the money by the kind words she said to her, she stopped at Mr. +Jones' shop, and bought of him a bit of loin of mutton. + +"Shan't I put it down, miss?" he suggested, seeing her take out her +purse.--Helen had just given her the purse: they had had great fun, with +both tears and laughter over it. + +"I would rather not--thank you very much," she replied with a smile. + +He gave her a kind, searching glance, and took the money. + +That day Juliet dined with them. When the joint appeared, Amanda, who +had been in the kitchen the greater part of the morning, clapped her +hands as at sight of an old acquaintance. + +"Dere it comes! dere it comes!" she cried. + +But the minister's grace was a little longer than she liked, for he was +trying hard to feel grateful. I think some people mistake pleasure and +satisfaction for thankfulness: Mr. Drake was not so to be taken in. Ere +long, however, he found them a good soil for thankfulness to grow +in.--So Amanda fidgeted not a little, and the moment the grace was +over-- + +"Now 'en! now 'en!" she almost screamed, her eyes sparkling with +delight. "'Iss is dinner!--'Ou don't have dinner every day, Miss +Mellidif!" + +"Be quiet, Ducky," said her aunt, as she called her. "You mustn't make +any remarks." + +"Ducky ain't makin' no marks," returned the child, looking anxiously at +the table-cloth, and was quiet but not for long. + +"Lisbef say surely papa's sip come home wif 'e nice dinner!" she said +next. + +"No, my ducky," said Mr. Drake: "it was God's ship that came with it." + +"Dood sip!" said the child. + +"It will come one day and another, and carry us all home," said the +minister. + +"Where Ducky's yeal own papa and mamma yive in a big house, papa?" asked +Amanda, more seriously. + +"I will tell you more about it when you are older," said Mr. Drake. "Now +let us eat the dinner God has sent us." He was evidently far happier +already, though his daughter could see that every now and then his +thoughts were away; she hoped they were thanking God. Before dinner was +over, he was talking quite cheerfully, drawing largely from his stores +both of reading and experience. After the child was gone, they told +Juliet of their good fortune. She congratulated them heartily, then +looked a little grave, and said-- + +"Perhaps you would like me to go?" + +"What!" said Mr. Drake; "does your friendship go no further than that? +Having helped us so much in adversity, will you forsake us the moment +prosperity looks in at the window?" + +Juliet gave one glance at Dorothy, smiled, and said no more. For +Dorothy, she was already building a castle for Juliet--busily. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +JULIET'S CHAMBER. + + +After tea, Mr. Drake and Dorothy went out for a walk together--a thing +they had not once done since the church-meeting of acrid memory in which +had been decreed the close of the minister's activity, at least in +Glaston. It was a lovely June twilight; the bats were flitting about +like the children of the gloamin', and the lamps of the laburnum and +lilac hung dusky among the trees of Osterfield Park. + +Juliet, left all but alone in the house, sat at her window, reading. Her +room was on the first floor, but the dining-room beneath it was of low +pitch, and at the lane-door there were two steps down into the house, so +that her window was at no great height above the lane. It was open, but +there was little to be seen from it, for immediately opposite rose a +high old garden-wall, hiding every thing with its gray bulk, lovelily +blotted with lichens and moss, brown and green and gold, except the +wall-flowers and stone-crop that grew on its coping, and a running plant +that hung down over it, like a long fringe worn thin. Had she put her +head out of the window, she would have seen in the one direction a +cow-house, and in the other the tall narrow iron gate of the garden--and +that was all. The twilight deepened as she read, until the words before +her began to play hide and seek; they got worse and worse, until she was +tired of catching at them; and when at last she stopped for a moment, +they were all gone like a troop of fairies, and her reading was ended. +She closed the book, and was soon dreaming awake; and the twilight world +was the globe in which the dream-fishes came and went--now swelling up +strange and near, now sinking away into the curious distance. + +Her mood was broken by the sound of hoofs, which she almost immediately +recognized as those of the doctor's red horse--great hoofs falling at +the end of long straight-flung steps. Her heart began to beat violently, +and confident in the protection of the gathering night, she rose and +looked cautiously out toward the side on which was the approach. In a +few moments, round the furthest visible corner, and past the gate in the +garden-wall, swung a huge shadowy form--gigantic in the dusk. She drew +back her head, but ere she could shape her mind to retreat from the +window, the solid gloom hurled itself thundering past, and she stood +trembling and lonely, with the ebb of Ruber's paces in her ears--and in +her hand a letter. In a minute she came to herself, closed her window, +drew down the blind, lighted a candle, set it on the window-sill, and +opened the letter. It contained these verses, and nothing more:-- + + My morning rose in laughter-- + A gold and azure day. + Dull clouds came trooping after, + Livid, and sullen gray. + + At noon, the rain did batter, + And it thundered like a hell: + I sighed, it is no matter, + At night I shall sleep as well. + + But I longed with a madness tender + For an evening like the morn, + That my day might die in splendor, + Not folded in mist forlorn-- + + Die like a tone elysian, + Like a bee in a cactus-flower, + Like a day-surprised vision, + Like a wind in a summer shower. + + Through the vaulted clouds about me + Broke trembling an azure space: + Was it a dream to flout me-- + Or was it a perfect face? + + The sky and the face together + Are gone, and the wind blows fell. + But what matters a dream or the weather? + At night it will all be well. + + For the day of life and labor, + Of ecstasy and pain, + Is only a beaten tabor, + And I shall not dream again. + + But as the old Night steals o'er me, + Deepening till all is dead, + I shall see thee still before me + Stand with averted head. + + And I shall think, Ah sorrow! + The _might_ that never was _may!_ + The night that has no morrow! + And the sunset all in gray! + +Juliet laid her head on her hands and wept. + +"Why should I not let him have his rosy sunset?" she thought. "It is all +he hopes for--cares for, I think--poor fellow! Am I not good enough to +give him that? What does it matter about me, if it is all but a vision +that flits between heaven and earth, and makes a passing shadow on human +brain and nerves?--a tale that is telling--then a tale that is told! +Much the good people make out of their better faith! Should _I_ be +troubled to learn that it was indeed a lasting sleep? If I were dead, +and found myself waking, should I want to rise, or go to sleep again? +Why should not I too dare to hope for an endless rest? Where would be +the wrong to any? If there be a God, He will have but to wake me to +punish me hard enough. Why should I not hope at least for such a lovely +thing? Can any one help desiring peace? Oh, to sleep, and sleep, and +wake no more forever and ever! I would not hasten the sleep; the end +will surely come, and why should we not enjoy the dream a little +longer--at least while it is a good dream, and the tossing has not +begun? There would always be a time. Why wake before our time out of the +day into the dark nothing? I should always want to see what to-morrow +and to-morrow and to-morrow would bring--that is, so long as he loved +me. He is noble, and sad, and beautiful, and gracious!--but would +he--could he love me to the end--even if--? Why should we not make the +best of what we have? Why should we not make life as happy to ourselves +and to others as we can--however worthless, however arrant a cheat it +may be? Even if there be no such thing as love, if it be all but a +lovely vanity, a bubble-play of color, why not let the bubble-globe +swell, and the tide of its ocean of color flow and rush and mingle and +change? Will it not break at last, and the last come soon enough, when +of all the glory is left but a tear on the grass? When we dream a +pleasant dream, and know it is but a dream, we will to dream on, and +quiet our minds that it may not be scared and flee: why should we not +yield to the stronger dream, that it may last yet another sweet, +beguiling moment? Why should he not love me--kiss me? Why should we not +be sad together, that we are not and can not be the real man and woman +we would--that we are but the forms of a dream--the fleeting shadows of +the night of Nature?--mourn together that the meddlesome hand of fate +should have roused us to consciousness and aspiration so long before the +maturity of our powers that we are but a laughter--no--a scorn and a +weeping to ourselves? We could at least sympathize with each other in +our common misery--bear with its weakness, comfort its regrets, hide its +mortifications, cherish its poor joys, and smooth the way down the +steepening slope to the grave! Then, if in the decrees of blind fate, +there should be a slow, dull procession toward perfection, if indeed +some human God be on the way to be born, it would be grand, although we +should know nothing of it, to have done our part fearless and hopeless, +to have lived and died that the triumphant Sorrow might sit throned on +the ever dying heart of the universe. But never, never would I have +chosen to live for that! Yes, one might choose to be born, if there were +suffering one might live or die to soften, to cure! That would be to be +like Paul Faber. To will to be born for that would be grand indeed!" + +In paths of thought like these her mind wandered, her head lying upon +her arms on the old-fashioned, wide-spread window-sill. At length, weary +with emotion and weeping, she fell fast asleep, and slept for some time. + +The house was very still. Mr. Drake and Dorothy were in no haste to +return. Amanda was asleep, and Lisbeth was in the kitchen--perhaps also +asleep. + +Juliet woke with a great start. Arms were around her from behind, +lifting her from her half-prone position of sorrowful rest. With a +terrified cry, she strove to free herself. + +"Juliet, my love! my heart! be still, and let me speak," said Faber. +His voice trembled as if full of tears. "I can bear this no longer. You +are my fate. I never lived till I knew you. I shall cease to live when I +know for certain that you turn from me." + +Juliet was like one half-drowned, just lifted from the water, struggling +to beat it away from eyes and ears and mouth. + +"Pray leave me, Mr. Faber," she cried, half-terrified, half-bewildered, +as she rose and turned toward him. But while she pushed him away with +one hand, she unconsciously clasped his arm tight with the other. "You +have no right to come into my room, and surprise me--startle me so! Do +go away. I will come to you." + +"Pardon, pardon, my angel! Do not speak so loud," he said, falling on +his knees, and clasping hers. + +"Do go away," persisted Juliet, trying to remove his grasp. "What will +they think if they find us--you here. They know I am perfectly well." + +"You drive me to liberties that make me tremble, Juliet. Everywhere you +avoid me. You are never to be seen without some hateful protector. Ages +ago I put up a prayer to you--one of life or death to me, and, like the +God you believe in, you have left it unanswered. You have no pity on the +sufferings you cause me! If your God _be_ cruel, why should you be cruel +too? Is not one tormentor enough in your universe? If there be a future +let us go on together to find it. If there be not, let us yet enjoy what +of life may be enjoyed. My past is a sad one--" + +Juliet shuddered. + +"Ah, my beautiful, you too have suffered!" he went on. "Let us be angels +of mercy to each other, each helping the other to forget! My griefs I +should count worthless if I might but erase yours." + +"I would I could say the same!" said Juliet, but only in her heart. + +"Whatever they may have been," he continued, "my highest ambition shall +be to make you forget them. We will love like beings whose only eternity +is the moment. Come with me, Juliet; we will go down into the last +darkness together, loving each other--and then peace. At least there is +no eternal hate in my poor, ice-cold religion, as there is in yours. I +am not suffering alone, Juliet. All whom it is my work to relieve, are +suffering from your unkindness. For a time I prided myself that I gave +every one of them as full attention as before, but I can not keep it up. +I am defeated. My brain seems deserting me. I mistake symptoms, forget +cases, confound medicines, fall into incredible blunders. My hand +trembles, my judgment wavers, my will is undecided. Juliet, you are +ruining me." + +"He saved my life," said Juliet to herself, "and that it is which has +brought him to this. He has a claim to me. I am his property. He found +me a castaway on the shore of Death, and gave me _his_ life to live +with. He must not suffer where I can prevent it."--She was on the point +of yielding. + +The same moment she heard a step in the lane approaching the door. + +"If you love me, do go now, dear Mr. Faber," she said. "I will see you +again. Do not urge me further to-night.--Ah, I wish! I wish!" she added, +with a deep sigh, and ceased. + +The steps came up to the door. There came a knock at it. They heard +Lisbeth go to open it. Faber rose. + +"Go into the drawing-room," said Juliet. "Lisbeth may be coming to fetch +me; she must not see you here." + +He obeyed. Without a word he left the chamber, and went into the +drawing-room. He had been hardly a moment there, when Wingfold entered. +It was almost dark, but the doctor stood against the window, and the +curate knew him. + +"Ah, Faber!" he said, "it is long since I saw you. But each has been +about his work, I suppose, and there could not be a better reason." + +"Under different masters, then," returned Faber, a little out of temper. + +"I don't exactly think so. All good work is done under the same master." + +"Pooh! Pooh!" + +"Who is your master, then?" + +"My conscience. Who is yours?" + +"The Author of my conscience." + +"A legendary personage!" + +"One who is every day making my conscience harder upon me. Until I +believed in Him, my conscience was dull and stupid--not half-awake, +indeed." + +"Oh! I see You mean my conscience is dull and stupid." + +"I do not. But if you were once lighted up with the light of the world, +you would pass just such a judgment on yourself. I can't think you so +different from myself, as that that shouldn't be the case; though most +heartily I grant you do your work ten times better than I did. And all +the time I thought myself an honest man! I wasn't. A man may honestly +think himself honest, and a fresh week's experience may make him doubt +it altogether. I sorely want a God to make me honest." + +Here Juliet entered the room, greeted Mr. Wingfold, and then shook hands +with Faber. He was glad the room was dark. + +"What do you think, Miss Meredith--is a man's conscience enough for his +guidance?" said the curate. + +"I don't know any thing about a man's conscience," answered Juliet. + +"A woman's then?" said the curate. + +"What else has she got?" returned Juliet. + +The doctor was inwardly cursing the curate for talking shop. Only, if a +man knows nothing so good, so beautiful, so necessary, as the things in +his shop, what else ought he to talk--especially if he is ready to give +them without money and without price? The doctor would have done better +to talk shop too. + +"Of course he has nothing else," answered the curate; "and if he had, he +must follow his conscience all the same." + +"There you are, Wingfold!--always talking paradoxes!" said Faber. + +"Why, man! you may only have a blundering boy to guide you, but if he is +your only guide, you must follow him. You don't therefore call him a +sufficient guide!" + +"What a logomachist you are! If it is a horn lantern you've got, you +needn't go mocking at it." + +"The lantern is not the light. Perhaps you can not change your horn for +glass, but what if you could better the light? Suppose the boy's father +knew all about the country, but you never thought it worth while to send +the lad to him for instructions?" + +"Suppose I didn't believe he had a father? Suppose he told me he +hadn't?" + +"Some men would call out to know if there was any body in the house to +give the boy a useful hint." + +"Oh bother! I'm quite content with my fellow." + +"Well, for my part I should count my conscience, were it ten times +better than it is, poor company on any journey. Nothing less than the +living Truth ever with me can make existence a peace to me,--that's the +joy of the Holy Ghost, Miss Meredith.--What if you should find one day, +Faber, that, of all facts, the thing you have been so coolly refusing +was the most precious and awful?" + +Faber had had more than enough of it. There was but one thing precious +to him; Juliet was the perfect flower of nature, the apex of law, the +last presentment of evolution, the final reason of things! The very soul +of the world stood there in the dusk, and there also stood the foolish +curate, whirling his little vortex of dust and ashes between him and +her! + +"It comes to this," said Faber; "what you say moves nothing in me. I am +aware of no need, no want of that Being of whom you speak. Surely if in +Him I did live and move and have my being, as some old heathen taught +your Saul of Tarsus, I should in one mode or another be aware of Him!" + +While he spoke, Mr. Drake and Dorothy had come into the room. They stood +silent. + +"That is a weighty word," said Wingfold. "But what if you feel His +presence every moment, only do not recognize it as such?" + +"Where would be the good of it to me then?" + +"The good of it to you might lie in the blinding. What if any further +revelation to one who did not seek it would but obstruct the knowledge +of Him? Truly revealed, the word would be read untruly--even as The Word +has been read by many in all ages. Only the pure in heart, we are told, +shall see Him. The man who, made by Him, does not desire Him--how should +he know Him?" + +"Why don't I desire Him then?--I don't." + +"That is for you to find out." + +"I do what I know to be right; even on your theory I ought to get on," +said Faber, turning from him with a laugh. + +"I think so too," replied Wingfold. "Go on, and prosper. Only, if there +be untruth in you alongside of the truth--? It might be, and you are not +awake to it. It is marvelous what things can co-exist in a human mind." + +"In that case, why should not your God help me?" + +"Why not? I think he will. But it may _have_ to be in a way you will not +like." + +"Well, well! good night. Talk is but talk, whatever be the subject of +it.--I beg your pardon," he added, shaking hands with the minister and +his daughter; "I did not see you come in. Good night." + +"I won't allow that talk is only talk, Faber," Wingfold called after him +with a friendly laugh. Then turning to Mr. Drake, "Pardon me," he said, +"for treating you with so much confidence. I saw you come in, but +believed you would rather have us end our talk than break it off." + +"Certainly. But I can't help thinking you grant him too much, Mr. +Wingfold," said the minister seriously. + +"I never find I lose by giving, even in argument," said the curate. +"Faber rides his hobby well, but the brute is a sorry jade. He will find +one day she has not a sound joint in her whole body." + +The man who is anxious to hold every point, will speedily bring a +question to a mere dispute about trifles, leaving the real matter, whose +elements may appeal to the godlike in every man, out in the cold. Such a +man, having gained his paltry point, will crow like the bantam he is, +while the other, who may be the greater, perhaps the better man, +although in the wrong, is embittered by his smallness, and turns away +with increased prejudice. Human nature can hardly be blamed for its +readiness to impute to the case the shallowness of its pleader. Few men +do more harm than those who, taking the right side, dispute for personal +victory, and argue, as they are sure then to do, ungenerously. But even +genuine argument for the truth is not preaching the gospel, neither is +he whose unbelief is thus assailed, likely to be brought thereby into +any mood but one unfit for receiving it. Argument should be kept to +books; preachers ought to have nothing to do with it--at all events in +the pulpit. There let them hold forth light, and let him who will, +receive it, and him who will not, forbear. God alone can convince, and +till the full time is come for the birth of the truth in a soul, the +words of even the Lord Himself are not there potent. + +"The man irritates me, I confess," said Mr. Drake. "I do not say he is +self-satisfied, but he is very self-sufficient." + +"He is such a good fellow," said Wingfold, "that I think God will not +let him go on like this very long. I think we shall live to see a change +upon him. But much as I esteem and love the man, I can not help a +suspicion that he has a great lump of pride somewhere about him, which +has not a little to do with his denials." + +Juliet's blood seemed seething in her veins as she heard her lover thus +weighed, and talked over; and therewith came the first rift of a +threatened breach betwixt her heart and the friends who had been so good +to her. He had done far more for her than any of them, and mere loyalty +seemed to call upon her to defend him; but she did not know how, and, +dissatisfied with herself as well as indignant with them, she maintained +an angry silence. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +OSTERFIELD PARK. + + +It was a long time since Mr. Drake and Dorothy had had such a talk +together, or had spent such a pleasant evening as that on which they +went into Osterfield Park to be alone with a knowledge of their changed +fortunes. The anxiety of each, differing so greatly from that of the +other, had tended to shut up each in loneliness beyond the hearing of +the other; so that, while there was no breach in their love, it was yet +in danger of having long to endure + + "an expansion, + Like gold to airy thinness beat." + +But this evening their souls rushed together. The father's anxiety was +chiefly elevated; the daughter's remained much what it was before; yet +these anxieties no longer availed to keep them apart. + +Each relation of life has its peculiar beauty of holiness; but that +beauty is the expression of its essential truth, and the essence itself +is so strong that it bestows upon its embodiment even the power of +partial metamorphosis with all other vital relations. How many daughters +have in the devotion of their tenderness, become as mothers to their own +fathers! Who has not known some sister more of a wife to a man than she +for whose sake he neglected her? But it will take the loves of all the +relations of life gathered in one, to shadow the love which, in the +kingdom of heaven, is recognized as due to each from each human being +_per se_. It is for the sake of the essential human, that all human +relations and all forms of them exist--that we may learn what it is, and +become capable of loving it aright. + +Dorothy would now have been as a mother to her father, had she had but a +good hope, if no more, of finding her Father in heaven. She was not at +peace enough to mother any body. She had indeed a grasp of the skirt of +His robe--only she could not be sure it was not the mere fringe of a +cloud she held. Not the less was her father all her care, and pride, and +joy. Of his faults she saw none: there was enough of the noble and +generous in him to hide them from a less partial beholder than a +daughter. They had never been serious in comparison with his virtues. I +do not mean that every fault is not so serious that a man must be +willing to die twenty deaths to get rid of it; but that, relatively to +the getting rid of it, a fault is serious or not, in proportion to the +depth of its root, rather than the amount of its foliage. Neither can +that be the worst-conditioned fault, the man's own suspicion of which +would make him hang his head in shame; those are his worst faults which +a man will start up to defend; those are the most dangerous moral +diseases whose symptoms are regarded as the signs of health. + +Like lovers they walked out together, with eyes only for each other, for +the good news had made them shy--through the lane, into the cross +street, and out into Pine street, along which they went westward, +meeting the gaze of the low sun, which wrapped them round in a veil of +light and dark, for the light made their eyes dark, so that they seemed +feeling their way out of the light into the shadow. + +"This is like life," said the pastor, looking down at the precious face +beside him: "our eyes can best see from under the shadow of +afflictions." + +"I would rather it were from under the shadow of God's wings," replied +Dorothy timidly. + +"So it is! so it is! Afflictions are but the shadow of His wings," said +her father eagerly. "Keep there, my child, and you will never need the +afflictions I have needed. I have been a hard one to save." + +But the child thought within herself, "Alas, father! you have never had +any afflictions which you or I either could not bear tenfold better than +what I have to bear." She was perhaps right. Only she did not know that +when she got through, all would be transfigured with the light of her +resurrection, just as her father's poverty now was in the light of his +plenty. + +Little more passed between them in the street. All the way to the +entrance of the park they were silent. There they exchanged a few words +with the sweet-faced little dwarf-woman that opened the gate, and those +few words set the currents of their thoughts singing yet more sweetly as +they flowed. They entered the great park, through the trees that +bordered it, still in silence, but when they reached the wide expanse of +grass, with its clumps of trees and thickets, simultaneously they +breathed a deep breath of the sweet wind, and the fountains of their +deeps were broken up. The evening was lovely, they wandered about long +in delight, and much was the trustful converse they held. It was getting +dark before they thought of returning. + +The father had been telling the daughter how he had mourned and wept +when his boys were taken from him, never thinking at all of the girl who +was left him. + +"And now," he said, "I would not part with my Dorothy to have them back +the finest boys in the world. What would my old age be without you, my +darling?" + +Dorothy's heart beat high. Surely there must be a Father in heaven too! +They walked a while in a great silence, for the heart of each was full. +And all the time scarce an allusion had been made to the money. + +As they returned they passed the new house, at some distance, on the +highest point in the park. It stood unfinished, with all its windows +boarded up. + +"The walls of that house," said Mr. Drake, "were scarcely above ground +when I came to Glaston. So they had been for twenty years, and so they +remained until, as you remember, the building was recommenced some three +or four years ago. Now, again, it is forsaken, and only the wind is at +home in it." + +"They tell me the estate is for sale," said Dorothy. "Those +building-lots, just where the lane leads into Pine street, I fancy +belong to it." + +"I wish," returned her father, "they would sell me that tumble-down +place in the hollow they call the Old House of Glaston. I shouldn't mind +paying a good sum for it. What a place it would be to live in! And what +a pleasure there would be in the making of it once more habitable, and +watching order dawn out of neglect!" + +"It would be delightful," responded Dorothy. "When I was a child, it +was one of my dreams that that house was my papa's--with the wild garden +and all the fruit, and the terrible lake, and the ghost of the lady that +goes about in the sack she was drowned in. But would you really buy it, +father, if you could get it?" + +"I think I should, Dorothy," answered Mr. Drake. + +"Would it not be damp--so much in the hollow? Is it not the lowest spot +in the park?" + +"In the park--yes; for the park drains into it. But the park lies high; +and you must note that the lake, deep as it is--very deep, yet drains +into the Lythe. For all they say of no bottom to it, I am nearly sure +the deepest part of the lake is higher than the surface of the river. If +I am right, then we could, if we pleased, empty the lake altogether--not +that I should like the place nearly so well without it. The situation is +charming--and so sheltered!--looking full south--just the place to keep +open house in!" + +"That is just like you, father!" cried Dorothy, clapping her hands once +and holding them together as she looked up at him. "The very day you +are out of prison, you want to begin to keep an open house!--Dear +father!" + +"Don't mistake me, my darling. There was a time, long ago, after your +mother was good enough to marry me, when--I am ashamed to confess it +even to you, my child--I did enjoy making a show. I wanted people to +see, that, although I was a minister of a sect looked down upon by the +wealthy priests of a worldly establishment, I knew how to live after the +world's fashion as well as they. That time you will scarcely recall, +Dorothy?" + +"I remember the coachman's buttons," answered Dorothy. + +"Well! I suppose it will be the same with not a few times and +circumstances we may try to recall in the other world. Some +insignificant thing will be all, and fittingly too, by which we shall be +able to identify them.--I liked to give nice dinner parties, and we +returned every invitation we accepted. I took much pains to have good +wines, and the right wines with the right dishes, and all that kind of +thing--though I dare say I made more blunders than I knew. Your mother +had been used to that way of living, and it was no show in her as it was +in me. Then I was proud of my library and the rare books in it. I +delighted in showing them, and talking over the rarity of this edition, +the tallness of that copy, the binding, and such-like follies. And where +was the wonder, seeing I served religion so much in the same +way--descanting upon the needlework that clothed the king's daughter, +instead of her inward glory! I do not say always, for I had my better +times. But how often have I not insisted on the mint and anise and +cummin, and forgotten the judgment, mercy and faith! How many sermons +have I not preached about the latchets of Christ's shoes, when I might +have been talking about Christ himself! But now I do not want a good +house to make a show with any more: I want to be hospitable. I don't +call giving dinners being hospitable. I would have my house a +hiding-place from the wind, a covert from the tempest. That would be to +be hospitable. Ah! if your mother were with us, my child! But you will +be my little wife, as you have been for so many years now.--God keeps +open house; I should like to keep open house.--I wonder does any body +ever preach hospitality as a Christian duty?" + +"I hope you won't keep a butler, and set up for grand, father," said +Dorothy. + +"Indeed I will not, my child. I would not run the risk of postponing the +pleasure of the Lord to that of inhospitable servants. I will look to +you to keep a warm, comfortable, welcoming house, and such servants only +as shall be hospitable in heart and behavior, and make no difference +between the poor and the rich." + +"I can't feel that any body is poor," said Dorothy, after a pause, +"except those that can't be sure of God.--They are so poor!" she added. + +"You are right, my child!" returned her father. "It was not my +poverty--it was not being sure of God that crushed me.--How long is it +since I was poor, Dorothy?" + +"Two days, father--not two till to-morrow morning." + +"It looks to me two centuries. My mind is at ease, and I have not paid a +debt yet! How vile of me to want the money in my own hand, and not be +content it should be in God's pocket, to come out just as it was wanted! +Alas! I have more faith in my uncle's leavings than in my Father's +generosity! But I must not forget gratitude in shame. Come, my child--no +one can see us--let us kneel down here on the grass and pray to God who +is in yon star just twinkling through the gray, and in my heart and in +yours, my child." + +I will not give the words of the minister's prayer. The words are not +the prayer. Mr. Drake's words were commonplace, with much of the +conventionality and platitude of prayer-meetings. He had always objected +to the formality of the Prayer-book, but the words of his own prayers +without book were far more formal; the prayer itself was in the heart, +not on the lips, and was far better than the words. But poor Dorothy +heard only the words, and they did not help her. They seemed rather to +freeze than revive her faith, making her feel as if she never could +believe in the God of her father. She was too unhappy to reason well, or +she might have seen that she was not bound to measure God by the way her +father talked to him--that the form of the prayer had to do with her +father, not immediately with God--that God might be altogether adorable, +notwithstanding the prayers of all heathens and of all saints. + +Their talk turned again upon the Old House of Glaston. + +"If it be true, as I have heard ever since I came," said Mr. Drake, +"that Lord de Barre means to pull down the house and plow up the garden, +and if he be so short of money as they say, he might perhaps take a few +thousands for it. The Lythe bounds the estate, and there makes a great +loop, so that a portion might be cut off by a straight line from one arm +of the curve to the other, which would be quite outside the park. I will +set some inquiry on foot. I have wished for a long time to leave the +river, only we had a lease. The Old House is nothing like so low as the +one we are in now. Besides, as I propose, we should have space to build, +if we found it desirable, on the level of the park." + +When they reached the gate on their return, a second dwarfish figure, a +man, pigeon-chested, short-necked, and asthmatic--a strange, gnome-like +figure, came from the lodge to open it. Every body in Glaston knew +Polwarth the gatekeeper. + +"How is the asthma to-night, Mr. Polwarth?" said the pastor. He had not +yet got rid of the tone in which in his young days he had been +accustomed to address the poor of his flock--a tone half familiar, half +condescending. To big ships barnacles will stick--and may add weeks to +the length of a voyage too. + +"Not very bad, thank you, Mr. Drake. But, bad or not, it is always a +friendly devil," answered the little man. + +"I am ast---- a little surprised to hear you use such----express +yourself so, Mr. Polwarth," said the minister. + +The little man laughed a quiet, huskily melodious, gently merry laugh. + +"I am not original in the idea, and scarcely so in my way of expressing +it. I am sorry you don't like it, Mr. Drake," he said. "I found it in +the second epistle to the Corinthians last night, and my heart has been +full of it ever since. It is surely no very bad sign if the truth should +make us merry at a time! It ought to do so, I think, seeing merriment is +one of the lower forms of bliss." + +"I am at a loss to understand you, Mr. Polwarth," said the minister. + +"I beg your pardon, Mr. Drake. I will come to the point. In the passage +I refer to St. Paul says: 'There was given to me a thorn in the flesh, +the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above +measure:'--am I not right in speaking of such a demon as a friendly one? +He was a gift from God." + +"I had not observed--that is, I had not taken particular notice of the +unusual combination of phrases in the passage," answered Mr. Drake. "It +is a very remarkable one, certainly. I remember no other in which a +messenger of Satan is spoken of as being _given_ by God." + +"Clearly, sir, St. Paul accepted him as something to be grateful for, so +soon as his mission was explained to him; and after that, who is to say +what may not be a gift of God! It won't do to grumble at any thing--will +it, sir?--when it may so unexpectedly turn out to be _given_ to us by +God. I begin to suspect that never, until we see a thing plainly a gift +of God, can we be sure that we see it right. I am quite certain the most +unpleasant things may be such gifts. I should be glad enough to part +with this asthma of mine, if it pleased God it should depart from me; +but would I yield a fraction of what it has brought me, for the best +lungs in England? I trow not!" + +"You are a happy man, Mr. Polwarth--if you can say that and abide by +it." + +"I _am_ a happy man, sir. I don't know what would come of me sometimes, +for very gladness, if I hadn't my good friend, the asthma-devil, to keep +me down a bit. Good night, sir," he added, for Mr. Drake was already +moving away. + +He felt superior to this man, set him down as forward, did not quite +approve of him. Always ready to judge involuntarily from externals, he +would have been shocked to discover how much the deformity of the man, +which caused him discomfort, prejudiced him also against him. Then +Polwarth seldom went to a place of worship, and when he did, went to +church! A cranky, visionary, talkative man, he was in Mr. Drake's eyes. +He set him down as one of those mystical interpreters of the Word, who +are always searching it for strange things, whose very insight leads +them to vagary, blinding them to the relative value of things. It is +amazing from what a mere fraction of fact concerning him, a man will +dare judge the whole of another man. In reality, little Polwarth could +have carried big Drake to the top of any hill Difficulty, up which, in +his spiritual pilgrimage, he had yet had to go panting and groaning--and +to the top of many another besides, within sight even of which the +minister would never come in this world. + +"He is too ready with his spiritual experience, that little man!--too +fond of airing it," said the minister to his daughter. "I don't quite +know what to make of him. He is a favorite with Mr. Wingfold; but my +experience makes me doubtful. I suspect prodigies." + +Now Polwarth was not in the habit of airing his religious experiences; +but all Glaston could see that the minister was in trouble, and he +caught at the first opportunity he had of showing his sympathy with him, +offering him a share of the comfort he had just been receiving himself. +He smiled at its apparent rejection, and closed the gate softly, saying +to himself that the good man would think of it yet, he was sure. + +Dorothy took little interest in Polwarth, little therefore in her +father's judgment of him. But, better even than Wingfold himself, that +poor physical failure of a man could have helped her from under every +gravestone that was now crushing the life out of her--not so much from +superiority of intellect, certainly not from superiority of learning, +but mainly because he was alive all through, because the life eternal +pervaded every atom of his life, every thought, every action. Door nor +window of his being had a lock to it! All of them were always on the +swing to the wind that bloweth where it listeth. Upon occasions when +most would seek refuge from the dark sky and gusty weather of trouble, +by hiding from the messengers of Satan in the deepest cellar of their +hearts, there to sit grumbling, Polwarth always went out into the open +air. If the wind was rough, there was none the less life in it: the +breath of God, it was rough to blow the faults from him, genial to put +fresh energy in him; if the rain fell, it was the water of cleansing and +growth. Misfortune he would not know by that name: there was no _mis_ +but in himself, and that the messenger of Satan was there to buffet. So +long as God was, all was right. No wonder the minister then was +incapable of measuring the gate-keeper! But Polwarth was right about +him--as he went home he pondered the passage to which he had referred +him, wondering whether he was to regard the fortune sent him as a +messenger of Satan given to buffet him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +THE SURGERY DOOR. + + +That Juliet loved Faber as she had at one time resolved never to love +man, she no longer attempted to conceal from herself; but she was far +from being prepared to confess the discovery to him. His atheism she +satisfactorily justified herself in being more ready to pity than to +blame. There were difficulties! There were more than difficulties! Not a +few of them she did not herself see how to get over! If her father had +been alive, then indeed!--children must not break their parents' hearts. +But if, as _appeared_ the most likely thing, that father, tenderly as +she had loved him, was gone from her forever, if life was but a flash +across from birth to the grave, why should not those who loved make the +best of it for each other during that one moment "brief as the lightning +in the collied night"? They must try to be the more to one another, and +the time was so short. All that Faber had ever pleaded was now +blossoming at once in her thought. She had not a doubt that he loved +her--as would have been enough once at all events. A man of men he +was!--noble, unselfish, independent, a ruler of himself, a benefactor of +his race! What right had those _believers_ to speak of him as they did? +In any personal question he was far their superior. That they +undervalued him, came all of their narrow prejudices! He was not of +their kind, therefore he must be below them! But there were first that +should be last, and last first! + +She felt herself no whit worthy of him. She believed herself not for a +moment comparable to him! But his infinite chivalry, gentleness, +compassion, would be her refuge! Such a man would bear with her +weaknesses, love her love, and forgive her sins! If he took her God from +her, he must take His place, and be a God-like man to her! Then, if +there should be any further truth discoverable, why indeed, as himself +said, should they not discover it together? Could they be as likely to +discover it apart, and distracted with longing? She must think about it +a little longer, though. She could not make up her mind the one way, and +would not the other. She would wait and see. She dared not yet. +Something might turn up to decide her. If she could but see into his +heart for a moment! + +All this later time, she had been going to church every Sunday, and +listening to sermons in which the curate poured out the energy of a +faith growing stronger day by day; but not a word he said had as yet +laid hold of one root-fiber of her being. She judged, she accepted, she +admired, she refused, she condemned, but she never _did_. To many souls +hell itself seems a less frightful alternative than the agony of +resolve, of turning, of being born again; but Juliet had never got so +far as that: she had never yet looked the thing required of her in the +face. She came herself to wonder that she had made any stand at all +against the arguments of Faber. But how is it that any one who has been +educated in Christianity, yet does not become the disciple of Jesus +Christ, avoids becoming an atheist? To such the whole thing must look so +unlike what it really is! Does he prefer to keep half believing the +revelation, in order to attribute to it elements altogether unlovely, +and so justify himself in refusing it? Were it not better to reject it +altogether if it be not fit to be believed in? If he be unable to do +that, if he dare not proclaim an intellectual unbelief, if some +reverence for father or mother, some inward drawing toward the good +thing, some desire to keep an open door of escape, prevent, what a +hideous folly is the moral disregard! "The thing is true, but I don't +mind it!" What is this acknowledged heedlessness, this apologetic +arrogance? Is it a timid mockery, or the putting forth of a finger in +the very face of the Life of the world? I know well how foolish words +like these must seem to such as Faber, but for such they are not +written; they are written for the men and women who close the lids of +but half-blinded eyes, and think they do God service by not denying +that there is not a sun in the heavens. There may be some denying Christ +who shall fare better than they, when He comes to judge the world with a +judgment which even those whom He sends from Him shall confess to be +absolutely fair--a judgment whose very righteousness may be a +consolation to some upon whom it falls heavily. + +That night Juliet hardly knew what she had said to Faber, and longed to +see him again. She slept little, and in the morning was weary and +exhausted. But he had set her the grand example of placing work before +every thing else, and she would do as he taught her. So, in the name of +her lover, and in spite of her headache, she rose to her day's duty. +Love delights to put on the livery of the loved. + +After breakfast, as was their custom, Dorothy walked with her to the +place where she gave her first lesson. The nearest way led past the +house of the doctor; but hitherto, as often as she could frame fitting +reason, generally on the ground that they were too early, and must make +a little longer walk of it, Juliet had contrived to avoid turning the +corner of Mr. Drew's shop. This day, however, she sought no excuse, and +they went the natural road. She wanted to pass his house--to get a +glimpse of him if she might. + +As they approached it, they were startled by a sudden noise of strife. +The next instant the door of the surgery, which was a small building +connected with the house by a passage, flew open, and a young man was +shot out. He half jumped, half fell down the six or eight steps, turned +at once, and ran up again. He had rather a refined look, notwithstanding +the annoyance and resentment that discomposed his features. The mat had +caught the door and he was just in time to prevent it from being shut in +his face. + +"I will _not_ submit to such treatment, Mr. Faber," cried the youth. "It +is not the part of a gentleman to forget that another is one." + +"To the devil with your _gentleman!_" they heard the doctor shout in a +rage, from behind the half-closed door. "The less said about the +gentleman the better, when the man is nowhere!" + +"Mr. Faber, I will allow no man to insult me," said the youth, and made +a fierce attempt to push the door open. + +"You are a wretch below insult," returned the doctor; and the next +moment the youth staggered again down the steps, this time to fall, in +awkward and ignominious fashion, half on the pavement, half in the road. + +Then out on the top of the steps came Paul Faber, white with wrath, too +full of indignation to see person or thing except the object of it. + +"You damned rascal!" he cried. "If you set foot on my premises again, it +will be at the risk of your contemptible life." + +"Come, come, Mr. Faber! this won't do," returned the youth, defiantly, +as he gathered himself up. "I don't want to make a row, but-- + +"_You_ don't want to make a row, you puppy! Then _I_ do. You don't come +into my house again. I'll have your traps turned out to +you.--Jenkins!--You had better leave the town as fast as you can, too, +for this won't be a secret." + +"You'll allow me to call on Mr. Crispin first?" + +"Do. Tell him the truth, and see whether he'll take the thing up! If I +were God, I'd damn you!" + +"Big words from you, Faber!" said the youth with a sneer, struggling +hard to keep the advantage he had in temper. "Every body knows you don't +believe there is any God." + +"Then there ought to be, so long as such as you 'ain't got your deserts. +_You_ set up for a doctor! I would sooner lose all the practice I ever +made than send _you_ to visit woman or child, you heartless miscreant!" + +The epithet the doctor really used here was stronger and more +contemptuous, but it is better to take the liberty of substituting this. + +"What have I done then to let loose all this Billingsgate?" cried the +young man indignantly. "I have done nothing the most distinguished in +the profession haven't done twenty times over." + +"I don't care a damn. What's the profession to humanity! For a wonder +the public is in the right on this question, and I side with the public. +The profession may go to--Turkey!"--Probably Turkey was not the place he +had intended to specify, but at the moment he caught sight of Juliet and +her companion.--"There!" he concluded, pointing to the door behind him, +"you go in and put your things up--_and be off_." + +Without another word, the young man ascended the steps, and entered the +house. + +Juliet stood staring, motionless and white. Again and again Dorothy +would have turned back, but Juliet grasped her by the arm, stood as if +frozen to the spot, and would not let her move. She _must_ know what it +meant. And all the time a little crowd had been gathering, as it well +might, even in a town no bigger than Glaston, at such uproar in its +usually so quiet streets. At first it was all women, who showed their +interest by a fixed regard of each speaker in the quarrel in turn, and a +confused staring from one to the other of themselves. No handle was yet +visible by which to lay hold of the affair. But the moment the young man +re-entered the surgery, and just as Faber was turning to go after him, +out, like a bolt, shot from the open door a long-legged, gaunt mongrel +dog, in such a pitiful state as I will not horrify my readers by +attempting to describe. It is enough to say that the knife had been used +upon him with a ghastly freedom. In an agony of soundless terror the +poor animal, who could never recover the usage he had had, and seemed +likely to tear from himself a part of his body at every bound, rushed +through the spectators, who scattered horror-stricken from his path. Ah, +what a wild waste look the creature had!--as if his spirit within him +were wan with dismay at the lawless invasion of his humble house of +life. A cry, almost a shriek, rose from the little crowd, to which a few +men had now added themselves. The doctor came dashing down the steps in +pursuit of him. The same instant, having just escaped collision with the +dog, up came Mr. Drew. His round face flamed like the sun in a fog with +anger and pity and indignation. He rushed straight at the doctor, and +would have collared him. Faber flung him from him without a word, and +ran on. The draper reeled, but recovered himself, and was starting to +follow, when Juliet, hurrying up, with white face and flashing eyes, +laid her hand on his arm, and said, in a voice of whose authoritative +tone she was herself unconscious, + +"Stop, Mr. Drew." + +The draper obeyed, but stood speechless with anger, not yet doubting it +was the doctor who had so misused the dog. + +"I have been here from the first," she went on. "Mr. Faber is as angry +as you are.--Please, Dorothy, will you come?--It is that assistant of +his, Mr. Drew! He hasn't been with him more than three days." + +With Dorothy beside her, Juliet now told him, loud enough for all to +hear, what they had heard and seen. "I must go and beg his pardon," said +the draper. "I had no right to come to such a hasty conclusion. I hope +he will not find it hard to forgive me." + +"You did no more than he would have done in your place," replied Juliet. +"--But," she added, "where is the God of that poor animal, Mr. Drew?" + +"I expect He's taken him by this time," answered the draper. "But I must +go and find the doctor." + +So saying, he turned and left them. The ladies went also, and the crowd +dispersed. But already rumors, as evil as discordant, were abroad in +Glaston to the prejudice of Faber, and at the door of his godlessness +was from all sides laid the charge of cruelty. + +How difficult it is to make prevalent the right notion of any thing! But +only a little reflection is required to explain the fact. The cause is, +that so few people give themselves the smallest trouble to understand +what is told them. The first thing suggested by the words spoken is +taken instead of the fact itself, and to that as a ground-plan all that +follows is fitted. People listen so badly, even when not sleepily, that +the wonder is any thing of consequence should ever be even approximately +understood. How appalling it would be to one anxious to convey a +meaning, to see the shapes his words assumed in the mind of his +listening friend! For, in place of falling upon the table of his +perception, kept steady by will and judgment, he would see them tumble +upon the sounding-board of his imagination, ever vibrating, and there be +danced like sand into all manner of shapes, according to the tune played +by the capricious instrument. Thus, in Glaston, the strangest stories of +barbarity and cruelty were now attributed to a man entirely incapable of +them. He was not one of the foul seekers after knowledge, and if he had +had a presentiment of the natural tendency of his opinions, he would +have trembled at the vision, and set himself to discover whether there +might not be truth in another way of things. + +As he went about in the afternoon amongst his sick and needy, the curate +heard several of these ill reports. Some communicated them to ease their +own horror, others in the notion of pleasing the believer by revolting +news of the unbeliever. In one house he was told that the poor young man +whom Dr. Faber had enticed to be his assistant, had behaved in the most +gentlemanly fashion, had thrown up his situation, consenting to the loss +of his salary, rather than connive at the horrors of cruelty in which +the doctor claimed his help. Great moan was made over the pity that +such a nice man should be given to such abominations; but where was the +wonder, some said, seeing he was the enemy of God, that he should be the +enemy of the beasts God had made? Much truth, and many wise reflections +were uttered, only they were not "as level as the cannon to his blank," +for they were pointed at the wrong man. + +There was one thing in which Wingfold differed from most of his +parishioners: he could hear with his judgment, and make his imagination +lie still. At the same time, in order to arrive the more certainly at +the truth, in any matter presented to him, he would, in general, listen +to the end of what any body had to say. So doing he let eagerness +exhaust itself, and did not by opposition in the first heat of +narration, excite partisan interest, or wake malevolent caution. If the +communication was worthy, he thus got all the worth of it; if it was +evil, he saw to the bottom of it, and discovered, if such were there, +the filthy reptile in the mud beneath, which was setting the whole ugly +pool in commotion. By this deliberateness he also gave the greater +weight to what answer he saw fit to give at last--sometimes with the +result of considerable confusion of face to the narrator. In the present +instance, he contented himself with the strongest assurance that the +whole story was a mistake so far as it applied to Mr. Faber, who had, in +fact, dismissed his assistant for the very crime of which they accused +himself. The next afternoon, he walked the whole length of Pine street +with the doctor, conversing all the way. + +Nor did he fail to turn the thing to advantage. He had for some time +been awaiting a fit opportunity for instructing his people upon a point +which he thought greatly neglected: here was the opportunity, and he +made haste to avail himself of it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +THE GROANS OF THE INARTICULATE. + + +The rest of the week was rainy, but Sunday rose a day of perfect summer. +As the curate went up the pulpit-stair, he felt as if the pulse of all +creation were beating in unison with his own; for to-day he was the +speaker for the speechless, the interpreter of groans to the creation of +God. + +He read, _Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them +shall not fall on the ground without your Father_, and said: + +"My friends, doth God care for sparrows? Or saith He it altogether for +our sakes, and not at all for the sparrows? No, truly; for indeed it +would be nothing to us if it were not every thing to the sparrows. The +word can not reach our door except through the sparrow's nest. For see! +what comfort would it be to us to be told we were of more value than +ever so many sparrows, if their value was nothing--if God only knew and +did not care for them? The saying would but import that we were of more +value than just nothing. Oh, how skillful is unbelief to take all the +color and all the sweetness and all the power out of the words of The +Word Himself! How many Christians are there not who take the passage to +mean that not a sparrow can fall to the ground without the _knowledge_ +of its Creator! A mighty thing that for the sparrow! If such a Christian +seemed to the sparrow the lawful interpreter of the sparrow's Creator, +he would make an infidel of the sparrow. What Christ-like heart, what +heart of loving man, could be content to take all the comfort to itself, +and leave none for the sparrows? Not that of our mighty brother Paul. In +his ears sounded, in his heart echoed, the cries of all the creation of +God. Their groanings that could not be uttered, roused the response of +his great compassion. When Christ was born in the heart of Paul, the +whole creation of God was born with him; nothing that could feel could +he help loving; in the trouble of the creatures' troubles, sprang to +life in his heart the hope, that all that could groan should yet +rejoice, that on the lowest servant in the house should yet descend the +fringe of the robe that was cast about the redeemed body of the Son. +_He_ was no pettifogging priest standing up for the rights of the +superior! An exclusive is a self-excluded Christian. They that shut the +door will find themselves on the wrong side of the door they have shut. +They that push with the horn and stamp with the hoof, can not be +admitted to the fold. St. Paul would acknowledge no distinctions. He saw +every wall--of seclusion, of exclusion, of partition, broken down. Jew +and Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond and free--all must come in to his +heart. Mankind was not enough to fill that divine space, enlarged to +infinitude by the presence of the Christ: angels, principalities, and +powers, must share in its conscious splendor. Not yet filled, yet +unsatisfied with beings to love, Paul spread forth his arms to the whole +groaning and troubled race of animals. Whatever could send forth a sigh +of discomfort, or heave a helpless limb in pain, he took to the bosom of +his hope and affection--yea, of his love and faith: on them, too, he saw +the cup of Christ's heart overflow. For Paul had heard, if not from His +own, yet from the lips of them that heard Him speak, the words, _Are not +five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten +before God?_ What if the little half-farthing things bear their share, +and always have borne, in that which is behind of the sufferings of +Christ? In any case, not one of them, not one so young that it topples +from the edge of its nest, unable to fly, is forgotten by the Father of +men. It shall not have a lonely deathbed, for the Father of Jesus will +be with it. It _must_ be true. It is indeed a daring word, but less +would not be enough for the hearts of men, for the glory of God, for the +need of the sparrow. I do not close my eyes to one of a thousand +seemingly contradictory facts. I misdoubt my reading of the small-print +notes, and appeal to the text, yea, beyond the text, even to the God of +the sparrows Himself. + +"I count it as belonging to the smallness of our faith, to the poorness +of our religion, to the rudimentary condition of our nature, that our +sympathy with God's creatures is so small. Whatever the narrowness of +our poverty-stricken, threadbare theories concerning them, whatever the +inhospitality and exclusiveness of our mean pride toward them, we can +not escape admitting that to them pain is pain, and comfort is comfort; +that they hunger and thirst; that sleep restores and death delivers +them: surely these are ground enough to the true heart wherefore it +should love and cherish them--the heart at least that believes with St. +Paul, that they need and have the salvation of Christ as well as we. +Right grievously, though blindly, do they groan after it. + +"The ignorance and pride which is forever sinking us toward them, are +the very elements in us which mislead us in our judgment concerning +them, causing us to imagine them not upon a lower merely, but upon an +altogether different footing in creation from our own. The same things +we call by one name in us, and by another in them. How jealous have not +men been as to allowing them any share worthy the name of reason! But +you may see a greater difference in this respect between the lowest and +the highest at a common school, than you will between them and us. A +pony that has taught itself without hands to pump water for its thirst, +an elephant that puts forth its mighty lip to lift the moving wheel of +the heavy wagon over the body of its fallen driver, has rather more to +plead on the score of intellect than many a schoolboy. Not a few of them +shed tears. A bishop, one of the foremost of our scholars, assured me +that once he saw a certain animal laugh while playing off a practical +joke on another of a different kind from himself. I do not mention the +kind of animal, because it would give occasion for a silly articulate +joke, far inferior to his practical one. I go further, and say, that I +more than suspect a rudimentary conscience in every animal. I care not +how remotely rudimentary. There must be in the moral world absolute and +right potent germinal facts which lie infinitudes beyond the reach of +any moral microscope, as in the natural world beyond the most powerful +of lenses. Yet surely in this respect also, one may see betwixt boys at +the same school greater differences than there are betwixt the highest +of the animals and the lowest of the humans. If you plead for time for +the boy to develop his poor rudimentary mollusk of a conscience, take it +and heartily welcome--but grant it the animals also. With some of them +it may need millions of years for any thing I know. Certainly in many +human beings it never comes plainly into our ken all the time they walk +the earth. Who shall say how far the vision of the apostle reached? but +surely the hope in which he says God Himself subjected the creature to +vanity, must have been an infinite hope: I will hope infinitely. That +the Bible gives any ground for the general fancy that at death an animal +ceases to exist, is but the merest dullest assumption. Neither is there +a single scientific argument, so far as I know, against the continued +existence of the animals, which would not tell equally against human +immortality. My hope is, that in some way, concerning which I do not now +choose to speculate, there may be progress, growth, for them also. While +I believe for myself, I _must_ hope for them. This much at least seems +clear--and I could press the argument further: if not one of them is +forgotten before God--and one of them yet passes out of being--then is +God the God of the dead and not of the living! But we praise Thee, we +bless Thee, we worship Thee, we glorify Thee, we give thanks to Thee for +Thy great glory, O Lord God, heavenly King, God the Father almighty! Thy +universe is life, life and not death. Even the death which awoke in the +bosom of Sin, Thy Son, opposing Himself to its hate, and letting it +spend its fury upon Him, hath abolished. I know nothing, therefore care +little, as to whether or not it may have pleased God to bring man up to +the hill of humanity through the swamps and thickets of lower animal +nature, but I do care that I should not now any more approach that +level, whether once rightly my own or not. For what is honor in the +animals, would be dishonor in me. Not the less may such be the +punishment, perhaps redemption, in store for some men and women. For +aught I know, or see unworthy in the thought, the self-sufficing +exquisite, for instance, may one day find himself chattering amongst +fellow apes in some monkey-village of Africa or Burmah. Nor is the +supposition absurd, though at first sight it may well so appear. Let us +remember that we carry in us the characteristics of each and every +animal. There is not one fiercest passion, one movement of affection, +one trait of animal economy, one quality either for praise or blame, +existing in them that does not exist in us. The relationship can not be +so very distant. And if theirs be so freely in us, why deny them so much +we call ours? Hear how one of the ablest doctors of the English church, +John Donne, Dean of St. Paul's in the reign of James the first, +writes:-- + + Man is a lump where all beasts kneaded be; + Wisdom makes him an ark where all agree; + The fool, in whom these beasts do live at jar, + Is sport to others, and a theater; + Nor scapes he so, but is himself their prey; + All which was man in him, is eat away; + And now his beasts on one another feed, + Yet couple in anger, and new monsters breed. + How happy's he which hath due place assigned + To his beasts, and disaforested his mind! + Impaled himself to keep them out, not in; + Can sow, and dares trust corn where they have been; + Can use his horse, goat, wolf, and every beast, + And is not ass himself to all the rest! + Else man not only is the herd of swine, + But he's those devils, too, which did incline + Them to an headlong rage, and made them worse; + For man can add weight to heaven's heaviest curse. + +"It astonishes me, friends, that we are not more terrified at +ourselves. Except the living Father have brought order, harmony, a +world, out of His chaos, a man is but a cage of unclean beasts, with no +one to rule them, however fine a gentleman he may think himself. Even in +this fair, well-ordered England of ours, at Kirkdale, in Yorkshire, was +discovered, some fifty years ago, a great cavern that had once been a +nest of gigantic hyenas, evidenced by their own broken bones, and the +crushed bones of tigers, elephants, bears, and many other creatures. See +to what a lovely peace the Creating Hand has even now brought our +England, far as she is yet from being a province in the kingdom of +Heaven; but see also in her former condition a type of the horror to +which our souls may festering sink, if we shut out His free spirit, and +have it no more moving upon the face of our waters. And when I say a +type, let us be assured there is no type worth the name which is not +poor to express the glory or the horror it represents. + +"To return to the animals: they are a care to God! they occupy part of +His thoughts; we have duties toward them, owe them friendliness, +tenderness. That God should see us use them as we do is a terrible +fact--a severe difficulty to faith. For to such a pass has the worship +of Knowledge--an idol vile even as Mammon himself, and more +cruel--arrived, that its priests, men kind as other men to their own +children, kind to the animals of their household, kind even to some of +the wild animals, men who will scatter crumbs to the robins in winter, +and set water for the sparrows on their house-top in summer, will yet, +in the worship of this their idol, in their greed after the hidden +things of the life of the flesh, without scruple, confessedly without +compunction, will, I say, dead to the natural motions of the divine +element in them, the inherited pity of God, subject innocent, helpless, +appealing, dumb souls to such tortures whose bare description would +justly set me forth to the blame of cruelty toward those who sat +listening to the same. Have these living, moving, seeing, hearing, +feeling creatures, who could not be but by the will and the presence of +Another any more than ourselves--have they no rights in this their +compelled existence? Does the most earnest worship of an idol excuse +robbery with violence extreme to obtain the sacrifices he loves? Does +the value of the thing that may be found there justify me in breaking +into the house of another's life? Does his ignorance of the existence of +that which I seek alter the case? Can it be right to water the tree of +knowledge with blood, and stir its boughs with the gusts of bitter +agony, that we may force its flowers into blossom before their time? +Sweetly human must be the delights of knowledge so gained! grand in +themselves, and ennobling in their tendencies! Will it justify the same +as a noble, a laudable, a worshipful endeavor to cover it with the +reason or pretext--God knows which--of such love for my own human kind +as strengthens me to the most ruthless torture of their poorer +relations, whose little treasure I would tear from them that it may +teach me how to add to their wealth? May my God give me grace to prefer +a hundred deaths to a life gained by the suffering of one simplest +creature. He holds his life as I hold mine by finding himself there +where I find myself. Shall I quiet my heart with the throbs of another +heart? soothe my nerves with the agonized tension of a system? live a +few days longer by a century of shrieking deaths? It were a hellish +wrong, a selfish, hateful, violent injustice. An evil life it were that +I gained or held by such foul means! How could I even attempt to justify +the injury, save on the plea that I am already better and more valuable +than he; that I am the stronger; that the possession of all the +pleasures of human intelligence gives me the right to turn the poor +innocent joys of his senses into pains before which, threatening my own +person, my very soul would grow gray with fear? Or let me grant what +many professional men deny utterly, that some knowledge of what is +called practical value to the race has been thus attained--what can be +its results at best but the adding of a cubit to the life? Grant that it +gave us an immortal earthly existence, one so happy that the most +sensual would never wish for death: what would it be by such means to +live forever? God in Heaven! who, what is the man who would dare live a +life wrung from the agonies of tortured innocents? Against the will of +my Maker, live by means that are an abhorrence to His soul! Such a life +must be all in the flesh! the spirit could have little share therein. +Could it be even a life of the flesh that came of treason committed +against essential animality? It could be but an abnormal monstrous +existence, that sprang, toadstool-like, from the blood-marsh of +cruelty--a life neither spiritual nor fleshey, but devilish. + +"It is true we are above the creatures--but not to keep them down; they +are for our use and service, but neither to be trodden under the foot of +pride, nor misused as ministers, at their worst cost of suffering, to +our inordinate desires of ease. After no such fashion did God give them +to be our helpers in living. To be tortured that we might gather ease! +none but a devil could have made them for that! When I see a man who +professes to believe not only in a God, but such a God as holds His +court in the person of Jesus Christ, assail with miserable cruelty the +scanty, lovely, timorous lives of the helpless about him, it sets my +soul aflame with such indignant wrath, with such a sense of horrible +incongruity and wrong to every harmony of Nature, human and divine, that +I have to make haste and rush to the feet of the Master, lest I should +scorn and hate where He has told me to love. Such a wretch, not content +that Christ should have died to save men, will tear Christ's living +things into palpitating shreds, that he may discover from them how +better to save the same men. Is this to be in the world as He was in the +world! Picture to yourselves one of these Christian inquirers erect +before his class of students: knife in hand, he is demonstrating to them +from the live animal, so fixed and screwed and wired that he cannot find +for his agony even the poor relief of a yelp, how this or that writhing +nerve or twitching muscle operates in the business of a life which his +demonstration has turned from the gift of love into a poisoned curse; +picture to yourself such a one so busied, suddenly raising his eyes and +seeing the eyes that see him! the eyes of Him who, when He hung upon the +cross, knew that He suffered for the whole creation of His Father, to +lift it out of darkness into light, out of wallowing chaos into order +and peace! Those eyes watching him, that pierced hand soothing his +victim, would not the knife fall from his hand in the divine paralysis +that shoots from the heart and conscience? Ah me! to have those eyes +upon me in any wrong-doing! One thing only could be worse--_not_ to have +them upon me--to be left with my devils. + +"You all know the immediate cause of the turning of our thoughts in this +direction--the sad case of cruelty that so unexpectedly rushed to light +in Glaston. So shocked was the man in whose house it took place that, as +he drove from his door the unhappy youth who was guilty of the crime, +this testimony, in the righteous indignation of his soul, believing, as +you are aware, in no God and Father of all, broke from him with +curses--'There ought to be a God to punish such cruelty.'--'Begone,' he +said. 'Never would I commit woman or child into the hands of a willful +author of suffering.' + +"We are to rule over the animals; the opposite of rule is torture, the +final culmination of anarchy. We slay them, and if with reason, then +with right. Therein we do them no wrong. Yourselves will bear me witness +however and always in this place, I have protested that death is no +evil, save as the element of injustice may be mingled therein. The sting +of death is sin. Death, righteously inflicted, I repeat, is the reverse +of an injury. + +"What if there is too much lavishment of human affection upon objects +less than human! it hurts less than if there were none. I confess that +it moves with strange discomfort one who has looked upon swarms of +motherless children, to see in a childless house a ruined dog, overfed, +and snarling with discomfort even on the blessed throne of childhood, +the lap of a woman. But even that is better than that the woman should +love no creature at all--infinitely better! It may be she loves as she +can. Her heart may not yet be equal to the love of a child, may be able +only to cherish a creature whose oppositions are merely amusing, and +whose presence, as doubtless it seems to her, gives rise to no +responsibilities. Let her love her dog--even although her foolish +treatment of him should delay the poor animal in its slow trot towards +canine perfection: she may come to love him better; she may herself +through him advance to the love and the saving of a child--who can tell? +But do not mistake me; there are women with hearts so divinely +insatiable in loving, that in the mere gaps of their untiring +ministration of humanity, they will fondle any living thing capable of +receiving the overflow of their affection. Let such love as they will; +they can hardly err. It is not of such that I have spoken. + +"Again, to how many a lonely woman is not life made endurable, even +pleasant, by the possession and the love of a devoted dog! The man who +would focus the burning glass of science upon the animal, may well mock +at such a mission, and speak words contemptuous of the yellow old maid +with her yellow ribbons and her yellow dog. Nor would it change his +countenance or soften his heart to be assured that that withered husk of +womanhood was lovely once, and the heart in it is loving still; that she +was reduced to all but misery by the self-indulgence of a brother, to +whom the desolation of a sister was but a pebble to pave the way to his +pleasures; that there is no one left her now to love, or to be grateful +for her love, but the creature which he regards merely as a box of +nature's secrets, worthy only of being rudely ransacked for what it may +contain, and thrown aside when shattered in the search. A box he is +indeed, in which lies inclosed a shining secret!--a truth too radiant +for the eyes of such a man as he; the love of a living God is in him and +his fellows, ranging the world in broken incarnation, ministering to +forlorn humanity in dumb yet divine service. Who knows, in their great +silence, how germane with ours may not be their share in the groanings +that can not be uttered! + +"Friends, there must be a hell. If we leave scripture and human belief +aside, science reveals to us that nature has her catastrophes--that +there is just so much of the failed cycle, of the unrecovered, the +unbalanced, the incompleted, the fallen-short, in her motions, that the +result must be collision, shattering resumption, the rage of unspeakable +fire. Our world and all the worlds of the system, are, I suppose, doomed +to fall back at length into their parent furnace. Then will come one end +and another beginning. There is many an end and many a beginning. At one +of those ends, and that not the furthest, must surely lie a hell, in +which, of all sins, the sin of cruelty, under whatever pretext +committed, will receive its meed from Him with whom there is no respect +of persons, but who giveth to every man according to his works. Nor will +it avail him to plead that in life he never believed in such +retribution; for a cruelty that would have been restrained by a fear of +hell was none the less hellworthy. + +"But I will not follow this track. The general conviction of humanity +will be found right against any conclusions calling themselves +scientific, that go beyond the scope or the reach of science. Neither +will I presume to suggest the operation of any _lex talionis_ in respect +of cruelty. I know little concerning the salvation by fire of which St. +Paul writes in his first epistle to the Corinthians; but I say this, +that if the difficulty of curing cruelty be commensurate with the horror +of its nature, then verily for the cruel must the furnace of wrath be +seven times heated. Ah! for them, poor injured ones, the wrong passes +away! Friendly, lovely death, the midwife of Heaven, comes to their +relief, and their pain sinks in precious peace. But what is to be done +for our brother's soul, bespattered with the gore of innocence? Shall +the cries and moans of the torture he inflicted haunt him like an evil +smell? Shall the phantoms of exquisite and sickening pains float +lambent about the fingers, and pass and repass through the heart and +brain, that sent their realities quivering and burning into the souls of +the speechless ones? It has been said somewhere that the hell for the +cruel man would be to have the faces of all the creatures he had wronged +come staring round him, with sad, weary eyes. But must not the divine +nature, the pitiful heart of the universe, have already begun to +reassert itself in him, before that would hurt him? Upon such a man the +justice in my heart desires this retribution--to desire more would be to +be more vile than he; to desire less would not be to love my +brother:--that the soul capable of such deeds shall be compelled to know +the nature of its deeds in the light of the absolute Truth--that the +eternal fact shall flame out from the divine region of its own +conscience until it writhe in the shame of being itself, loathe as +absolute horror the deeds which it would now justify, and long for +deliverance from that which it has made of itself. The moment the +discipline begins to blossom, the moment the man begins to thirst after +confession and reparation, then is he once more my brother; then from an +object of disgust in spite of pity, he becomes a being for all tender, +honest hearts in the universe of God to love, cherish, revere. + +"Meantime, you who behold with aching hearts the wrongs done to the +lower brethren that ought to be cherished as those to whom less has been +given, having done all, stand comforted in the thought that not one of +them suffers without the loving, caring, sustaining presence of the +great Father of the universe, the Father of men, the God and Father of +Jesus Christ, the God of the sparrows and the ravens and the oxen--yea, +of the lilies of the field." + +As might be expected, Mrs. Ramshorn was indignant. What right had he to +desecrate a pulpit of the Church of England by misusing it for the +publication of his foolish fancies about creatures that had not reason! +Of course nobody would think of being cruel to them, poor things! But +there was that silly man talking about them as if they were better +Christians than any of them! He was intruding into things he had not +seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind. + +The last portion of these remarks she made in the hearing of her niece, +who carried it home for the amusement of her husband. He said he could +laugh with a good conscience, for the reading of the passage, according +to the oldest manuscripts we have, was not "the things he hath not +seen," but "the things he hath seen," and he thought it meant--haunting +the visible, the sensuous, the fleshly, so, for, the satisfaction of an +earthly imagination, in love with embodiment for its own sake, +worshiping angels, and not keeping hold of the invisible, the real, the +true--the mind, namely, and spirit of the living Christ, the Head. + +"Poor auntie," replied Helen, "would hold herself quite above the +manuscripts. With her it is the merest sectarianism and radicalism to +meddle with the text as appointed to be read in churches. What was good +enough for the dean, must be far more than good enough for an +unbeneficed curate!" + +But the rector, who loved dogs and horses, was delighted with the +sermon. + +Faber's whole carriage and conduct in regard to the painful matter was +such as to add to Juliet's confidence in him. Somehow she grew more at +ease in his company, and no longer took pains to avoid him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +COW-LANE-CHAPEL. + + +By degrees Mr. Drake's mind grew quiet, and accommodated itself to the +condition of the new atmosphere in which at first it was so hard for him +to draw spiritual breath. He found himself again able to pray, and while +he bowed his head lower before God, he lifted up his heart higher toward +him. His uncle's bequest presenting no appropriative difficulties, he at +once set himself to be a faithful and wise steward of the grace of God, +to which holy activity the return of his peace was mainly owing. Now and +then the fear would return that God had sent him the money in +displeasure, that He had handed him over all his principal, and refused +to be his banker any more; and the light-winged, haunting dread took +from him a little even of the blameless pleasure that naturally +belonged to the paying of his debts. Also he now became plainly aware of +a sore fact which he had all his life dimly suspected--namely, that +there was in his nature a spot of the leprosy of avarice, the desire to +accumulate. Hence he grew almost afraid of his money, and his anxiety to +spend it freely and right, to keep it flowing lest it should pile up its +waves and drown his heart, went on steadily increasing. That he could +hoard now if he pleased gave him just the opportunity of burning the +very possibility out of his soul. It is those who are unaware of their +proclivities, and never pray against them, that must be led into +temptation, lest they should forever continue capable of evil. When a +man could do a thing, then first can he abstain from doing it. Now, with +his experience of both poverty and riches, the minister knew that he +must make them both follow like hounds at his heel. If he were not to +love money, if, even in the free use of it, he were to regard it with +honor, fear its loss, forget that it came from God, and must return to +God through holy channels, he must sink into a purely contemptible +slave. Where would be the room for any further repentance? He would have +had every chance, and failed in every trial the most opposed! He must be +lord of his wealth; Mammon must be the slave, not Walter Drake. Mammon +must be more than his brownie, more than his Robin Goodfellow; he must +be the subject Djin of a holy spell--holier than Solomon's wisdom, more +potent than the stamp of his seal. At present he almost feared him as a +Caliban to whom he might not be able to play Prospero, an Ufreet +half-escaped from his jar, a demon he had raised, for whom he must find +work, or be torn by him into fragments. The slave must have drudgery, +and the master must take heed that he never send him alone to do love's +dear service. + +"I am sixty," he said, to himself, "and I have learned to begin to +learn." Behind him his public life looked a mere tale that is told; his +faith in the things he had taught had been little better than that which +hangs about an ancient legend. He had been in a measure truthful; he had +endeavored to act upon what he taught; but alas! the accidents of faith +had so often been uppermost with him, instead of its eternal fundamental +truths! How unlike the affairs of the kingdom did all that +church-business look to him now!--the rich men ruling--the poor men +grumbling! In the whole assembly including himself, could he honestly +say he knew more than one man that sought the kingdom of Heaven +_first_? And yet he had been tolerably content, until they began to turn +against himself!--What better could they have done than get rid of him? +The whole history of their relation appeared now as a mess of untruth +shot through with threads of light. Now, now, he would strive to enter +in at the strait gate: the question was not of pushing others in. He +would mortify the spirit of worldly judgments and ambitions: he would be +humble as the servant of Christ. + +Dorothy's heart was relieved a little. She could read her father's +feelings better than most wives those of their husbands, and she knew he +was happier. But she was not herself happier. She would gladly have +parted with all the money for a word from any quarter that could have +assured her there was a God in Heaven who _loved_. But the teaching of +the curate had begun to tell upon her. She had begun to have a faint +perception that if the story of Jesus Christ was true, there might be a +Father to be loved, and being might be a bliss. The poorest glimmer of +His loveliness gives a dawn to our belief in a God; and a small amount +indeed of a genuine knowledge of Him will serve to neutralize the most +confident declaration that science is against the idea of a God--an +utterance absolutely false. Scientific men may be unbelievers, but it is +not from the teaching of science. Science teaches that a man must not +say he knows what he does not know; not that what a man does not know he +may say does not exist. I will grant, however, and willingly, that true +science is against Faber's idea of other people's idea of a God. I will +grant also that the tendency of one who exclusively studies science is +certainly to deny what no one has proved, and he is uninterested in +proving; but that is the fault of the man and his lack of science, not +of the science he has. If people understood better the arrogance of +which they are themselves guilty, they would be less ready to imagine +that a strong assertion necessarily implies knowledge. Nothing can be +known except what is true. A negative may be _fact_, but can not be +_known_ except by the knowledge of its opposite. I believe also that +nothing can be really _believed_, except it be true. But people think +they believe many things which they do not and can not in the real +sense. + +When, however, Dorothy came to concern herself about the will of God, in +trying to help her father to do the best with their money, she began to +reap a little genuine comfort, for then she found things begin to +explain themselves a little. The more a man occupies himself in doing +the works of the Father--the sort of thing the Father does, the easier +will he find it to believe that such a Father is at work in the world. + +In the curate Mr. Drake had found not only a man he could trust, but one +to whom, young as he was, he could look up; and it was a trait in the +minister nothing short of noble, that he did look up to the +curate--perhaps without knowing it. He had by this time all but lost +sight of the fact, once so monstrous, so unchristian in his eyes, that +he was the paid agent of a government-church; the sight of the man's own +house, built on a rock in which was a well of the water of life, had +made him nearly forget it. In his turn he could give the curate much; +the latter soon discovered that he knew a great deal more about Old +Testament criticism, church-history, and theology--understanding by the +last the records of what men had believed and argued about God--than he +did. They often disagreed and not seldom disputed; but while each held +the will and law of Christ as the very foundation of the world, and +obedience to Him as the way to possess it after its idea, how could they +fail to know that they were brothers? They were gentle with each other +for the love of Him whom in eager obedience they called Lord. + +The moment his property was his availably, the minister betook himself +to the curate. + +"Now," he said--he too had the gift of going pretty straight, though not +quite so straight as the curate--"Now, Mr. Wingfold, tell me plainly +what you think the first thing I ought to do with this money toward +making it a true gift of God. I mean, what can I do with it for somebody +else--some person or persons to whom money in my hands, not in theirs, +may become a small saviour?" + +"You want, in respect of your money," rejoined the curate, "to be in the +world as Christ was in the world, setting right what is wrong in ways +possible to you, and not counteracting His? You want to do the gospel as +well as preach it?" + +"That is what I mean--or rather what I wish to mean. You have said +it.--What do you count the first thing I should try to set right?" + +"I should say _injustice_. My very soul revolts against the talk about +kindness to the poor, when such a great part of their misery comes from +the injustice and greed of the rich." + +"I well understand," returned Mr. Drake, "that a man's first business is +to be just to his neighbor, but I do not so clearly see when he is to +interfere to make others just. Our Lord would not settle the division of +the inheritance between the two brothers." + +"No, but he gave them a lesson concerning avarice, and left that to +work. I don't suppose any body is unjust for love of injustice. I don't +understand the pure devilish very well--though I have glimpses into it. +Your way must be different from our Lord's in form, that it may be the +same in spirit: you have to work with money; His father had given Him +none. In His mission He was not to use all means--only the best. But +even He did not attack individuals to _make_ them do right; and if you +employ your money in doing justice to the oppressed and afflicted, to +those shorn of the commonest rights of humanity, it will be the most +powerful influence of all to wake the sleeping justice in the dull +hearts of other men. It is the business of any body who can, to set +right what any body has set wrong. I will give you a special instance, +which has been in my mind all the time. Last spring--and it was the same +the spring before, my first in Glaston--the floods brought misery upon +every family in what they call the Pottery here. How some of them get +through any wet season I can not think; but Faber will tell you what a +multitude of sore throats, cases of croup, scarlet-fever, and +diphtheria, he has to attend in those houses every spring and autumn. +They are crowded with laborers and their families, who, since the +railway came, have no choice but live there, and pay a much heavier rent +in proportion to their accommodation than you or I do--in proportion to +the value of the property, immensely heavier. Is it not hard? Men are +their brothers' keepers indeed--but it is in chains of wretchedness they +keep them. Then again--I am told that the owner of these cottages, who +draws a large yearly sum from them, and to the entreaties of his tenants +for really needful repairs, gives nothing but promises, is one of the +most influential attendants of a chapel you know, where, Sunday after +Sunday, the gospel is preached. If this be true, here again is a sad +wrong: what can those people think of religion so represented?" + +"I am a sinful man," exclaimed the pastor. "That Barwood is one of the +deacons. He is the owner of the chapel as well as the cottages. I ought +to have spoken to him years ago.--But," he cried, starting to his feet, +"the property is for sale! I saw it in the paper this very morning! +Thank God!"--He caught up his hat.--"I shall have no choice but buy the +chapel too," he added, with a queer, humorous smile; "--it is part of +the property.--Come with me, my dear sir. We must see to it directly. +You will speak: I would rather not appear in the affair until the +property is my own; but I will buy those houses, please God, and make +them such as His poor sons and daughters may live in without fear or +shame." + +The curate was not one to give a cold bath to enthusiasm. They went out +together, got all needful information, and within a month the +title-deeds were in Mr. Drake's possession. + +When the rumor reached the members of his late congregation that he had +come in for a large property, many called to congratulate him, and such +congratulations are pretty sure to be sincere. But he was both annoyed +and amused when--it was in the morning during business hours--Dorothy +came and told him, not without some show of disgust, that a deputation +from the church in Cow-lane was below. + +"We've taken the liberty of calling, in the name of the church, to +congratulate you, Mr. Drake," said their leader, rising with the rest as +the minister entered the dining-room. + +"Thank you," returned the minister quietly. + +"I fancy," said the other, who was Barwood himself, with a smile such as +heralds the facetious, "you will hardly condescend to receive our little +gratuity now?" + +"I shall not require it, gentlemen." + +"Of course we should never have offered you such a small sum, if we +hadn't known you were independent of us." + +"Why then did you offer it at all?" asked the minister. + +"As a token of our regard." + +"The regard could not be very lively that made no inquiry as to our +circumstances. My daughter had twenty pounds a year; I had nothing. We +were in no small peril of simple starvation." + +"Bless my soul! we hadn't an idea of such a thing, sir! Why didn't you +tell us?" + +Mr. Drake smiled, and made no other reply. + +"Well, sir," resumed Barwood, after a very brief pause, for he was a +man of magnificent assurance, "as it's all turned out so well, you'll +let bygones be bygones, and give us a hand?" + +"I am obliged to you for calling," said Mr. Drake, "--especially to you, +Mr. Barwood, because it gives me an opportunity of confessing a fault of +omission on my part toward you." + +Here the pastor was wrong. Not having done his duty when he ought, he +should have said nothing now it was needless for the wronged, and likely +only to irritate the wrong-doer. + +"Don't mention it, pray," said Mr. Barwood. "This is a time to forget +every thing." + +"I ought to have pointed out to you, Mr. Barwood," pursued the minister, +"both for your own sake and that of those poor families, your tenants, +that your property in this lower part of the town was quite unfit for +the habitation of human beings." + +"Don't let your conscience trouble you on the score of that neglect," +answered the deacon, his face flushing with anger, while he tried to +force a smile: "I shouldn't have paid the least attention to it if you +had. My firm opinion has always been that a minister's duty is to preach +the gospel, not meddle in the private affairs of the members of his +church; and if you knew all, Mr. Drake, you would not have gone out of +your way to make the remark. But that's neither here nor there, for it's +not the business as we've come upon.--Mr. Drake, it's a clear thing to +every one as looks into it, that the cause will never prosper so long as +that's the chapel we've got. We did think as perhaps a younger man might +do something to counteract church-influences; but there don't seem any +sign of betterment yet. In fact, thinks looks worse. No, sir! it's the +chapel as is the stumbling-block. What has religion got to do with +what's ugly and dirty! A place that any lady or gentleman, let he or she +be so much of a Christian, might turn up the nose and refrain the foot +from! No! I say; what we want is a new place of worship. Cow-lane is +behind the age--and _that_ musty! uw!" + +"With the words of truth left sticking on the walls?" suggested Mr. +Drake. + +"Ha! ha! ha!--Good that!" exclaimed several. + +But the pastor's face looked stern, and the voices dropped into rebuked +silence. + +"At least you'll allow, sir," persisted Barwood, "that the house of God +ought to be as good as the houses of his people. It stands to reason. +Depend upon it, He won't give us no success till we give Him a decent +house. What! are we to dwell in houses of cedar, and the ark of the Lord +in a tent? That's what it comes to, sir!" + +The pastor's spiritual gorge rose at this paganism in Jew clothing. + +"You think God loves newness and finery better than the old walls where +generations have worshiped?" he said. + +"I make no doubt of it, sir," answered Barwood. "What's generations to +him! He wants the people drawn to His house; and what there is in +Cow-lane to draw is more than I know." + +"I understand you wish to sell the chapel," said Mr. Drake. "Is it not +rather imprudent to bring down the value of your property before you +have got rid of it?" + +Barwood smiled a superior smile. He considered the bargain safe, and +thought the purchaser a man who was certain to pull the chapel down. + +"I know who the intending purchaser is," said Mr. Drake, "and----" + +Barwood's countenance changed: he bethought himself that the conveyance +was not completed, and half started from his chair. + +"You would never go to do such an unneighborly act," he cried, "as----" + +"--As conspire to bring down the value of a property the moment it had +passed out of my hands?--I would not, Mr. Barwood; and this very day the +intending purchaser shall know of your project." + +Barwood locked his teeth together, and grinned with rage. He jumped from +his seat, knocked it over in getting his hat from under it, and rushed +out of the house. Mr. Drake smiled, and looking calmly round on the rest +of the deacons, held his peace. It was a very awkward moment for them. +At length one of them, a small tradesman, ventured to speak. He dared +make no allusion to the catastrophe that had occurred. It would take +much reflection to get hold of the true weight and bearing of what they +had just heard and seen, for Barwood was a mighty man among them. + +"What we were thinking, sir," he said, "--and you will please to +remember, Mr. Drake, that I was always on your side, and it's better to +come to the point; there's a strong party of us in the church, sir, +that would like to have you back, and we was thinking if you would +condescend to help us, now as you're so well able to, sir, toward a new +chapel, now as you have the means, as well as the will, to do God +service, sir, what with the chapel-building society, and every man-jack +of us setting our shoulder to the wheel, and we should all do our very +best, we should get a nice, new, I won't say showy, but +attractive--that's the word, attractive place--not gaudy, you know, I +never would give in to that, but ornamental too--and in a word, +attractive--that's it--a place to which the people would be drawn by the +look of it outside, and kep' by the look of it inside--a place as would +make the people of Glaston say, 'Come, and let us go up to the house of +the Lord,'--if, with your help, sir, we had such a place, then perhaps +you would condescend to take the reins again, sir, and we should then +pay Mr. Rudd as your assistant, leaving the whole management in your +hands--to preach when you pleased, and leave it alone when you +didn't.--There, sir! I think that's much the whole thing in a +nut-shell." + +"And now will you tell me what result you would look for under such an +arrangement?" + +"We should look for the blessing of a little success; it's a many years +since we was favored with any." + +"And by success you mean----?" + +"A large attendance of regular hearers in the morning--not a seat to +let!--and the people of Glaston crowding to hear the word in the +evening, and going away because they can't get a foot inside the place! +That's the success _I_ should like to see." + +"What! would you have all Glaston such as yourselves!" exclaimed the +pastor indignantly. "Gentlemen, this is the crowning humiliation of my +life! Yet I am glad of it, because I deserve it, and it will help to +make and keep me humble. I see in you the wood and hay and stubble with +which, alas! I have been building all these years! I have been preaching +dissent instead of Christ, and there you are!--dissenters indeed--but +can I--can I call you Christians? Assuredly do I believe the form of +your church that ordained by the apostles, but woe is me for the +material whereof it is built! Were I to aid your plans with a single +penny in the hope of withdrawing one inhabitant of Glaston from the +preaching of Mr. Wingfold, a man who speaks the truth and fears nobody, +as I, alas! have feared you, because of your dullness of heart and +slowness of understanding, I should be doing the body of Christ a +grievous wrong. I have been as one beating the air in talking to you +against episcopacy when I ought to have been preaching against +dishonesty; eulogizing congregationalism, when I ought to have been +training you in the three abiding graces, and chiefly in the greatest of +them, charity. I have taken to pieces and put together for you the plan +of salvation, when I ought to have spoken only of Him who is the way and +the life. I have been losing my life, and helping you to lose yours. But +go to the abbey church, and there a man will stir you up to lay hold +upon God, will teach you to know Christ, each man for himself and not +for another. Shut up your chapel, put off your scheme for a new one, go +to the abbey church, and be filled with the finest of the wheat. Then +should this man depart, and one of the common episcopal train, whose God +is the church, and whose neighbor is the order of the priesthood, come +to take his place, and preach against dissent as I have so foolishly +preached against the church--then, and not until then, will the time be +to gather together your savings and build yourselves a house to pray in. +Then, if I am alive, as I hope I shall not be, come, and I will aid your +purpose liberally. Do not mistake me; I believe as strongly as ever I +did that the constitution of the Church of England is all wrong; that +the arrogance and assumption of her priesthood is essentially opposed to +the very idea of the kingdom of Heaven; that the Athanasian creed is +unintelligible, and where intelligible, cruel; but where I find my Lord +preached as only one who understands Him can preach Him, and as I never +could preach Him, and never heard Him preached before, even faults great +as those shall be to me as merest accidents. Gentlemen, every thing is +pure loss--chapels and creeds and churches--all is loss that comes +between us and Christ--individually, masterfully. And of unchristian +things one of the most unchristian is to dispute and separate in the +name of Him whose one object was, and whose one victory will be +unity.--Gentlemen, if you should ever ask me to preach to you, I will do +so with pleasure." + +They rose as one man, bade him an embarrassed good morning, and walked +from the room, some with their heads thrown back, other hanging them +forward in worshipful shame. The former spread the rumor that the old +minister had gone crazy, the latter began to go now and then to church. + +I may here mention, as I shall have no other opportunity, that a new +chapel was not built; that the young pastor soon left the old one; that +the deacons declared themselves unable to pay the rent; that Mr. Drake +took the place into his own hands, and preached there every Sunday +evening, but went always in the morning to hear Mr. Wingfold. There was +kindly human work of many sorts done by them in concert, and each felt +the other a true support. When the pastor and the parson chanced to meet +in some lowly cottage, it was never with embarrassment or apology, as if +they served two masters, but always with hearty and glad greeting, and +they always went away together. I doubt if wickedness does half as much +harm as sectarianism, whether it be the sectarianism of the church or of +dissent, the sectarianism whose virtue is condescension, or the +sectarianism whose vice is pride. Division has done more to hide Christ +from the view of men, than all the infidelity that has ever been spoken. +It is the half-Christian clergy of every denomination that are the main +cause of the so-called failure of the Church of Christ. Thank God, it +has not failed so miserably as to succeed in the estimation or to the +satisfaction of any party in it. + +But it was not merely in relation to forms of church government that the +heart of the pastor now in his old age began to widen. It is foolish to +say that after a certain age a man can not alter. That some men can +not--or will not, (God only can draw the line between those two _nots_) +I allow; but the cause is not age, and it is not universal. The man who +does not care and ceases to grow, becomes torpid, stiffens, is in a +sense dead; but he who has been growing all the time need never stop; +and where growth is, there is always capability of change: growth itself +is a succession of slow, melodious, ascending changes. + +The very next Sunday after the visit of their deputation to him, the +church in Cow-lane asked their old minister to preach to them. Dorothy, +as a matter of course, went with her father, although, dearly as she +loved him, she would have much preferred hearing what the curate had to +say. The pastor's text was, _Ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, +and have omitted the weightier matters of the law--judgment, mercy, and +faith_. In his sermon he enforced certain of the dogmas of a theology +which once expressed more truth "than falsehood, but now at least +_conveys_ more falsehood than truth, because of the changed conditions +of those who teach and those who hear it; for, even where his faith had +been vital enough to burst the verbally rigid, formal, and indeed +spiritually vulgar theology he had been taught, his intellect had not +been strong enough to cast off the husks. His expressions, assertions, +and arguments, tying up a bundle of mighty truth with cords taken from +the lumber-room and the ash-pit, grazed severely the tenderer nature of +his daughter. When they reached the house, and she found herself alone +with her father in his study, she broke suddenly into passionate +complaint--not that he should so represent God, seeing, for what she +knew, He might indeed be such, but that, so representing God, he should +expect men to love Him. It was not often that her sea, however troubled +in its depths, rose into such visible storm. She threw herself upon the +floor with a loud cry, and lay sobbing and weeping. Her father was +terribly startled, and stood for a moment as if stunned; then a faint +slow light began to break in upon him, and he stood silent, sad, and +thoughtful. He knew that he loved God, yet in what he said concerning +Him, in the impression he gave of Him, there was that which prevented +the best daughter in the world from loving her Father in Heaven! He +began to see that he had never really thought about these things; he had +been taught them but had never turned them over in the light, never +perceived the fact, that, however much truth might be there, there also +was what at least looked like a fearful lie against God. For a moment he +gazed with keen compassion on his daughter as she lay, actually writhing +in her agony, then kneeled beside her, and laying his hand upon her, +said gently: + +"Well, my dear, if those things are not true, my saying them will not +make them so." + +She sprung to her feet, threw her arms about his neck, kissed him, and +left the room. The minister remained upon his knees. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +THE DOCTOR'S HOUSE. + + +The holidays came, and Juliet took advantage of them to escape from what +had begun to be a bondage to her--the daily intercourse with people who +disapproved of the man she loved. In her thoughts even she took no +intellectual position against them with regard to what she called +doctrine, and Faber superstition. Her father had believed as they did; +she clung to his memory; perhaps she believed as he did; she could not +tell. There was time yet wherein to make up her mind. She had certainly +believed so once, she said to herself, and she might so believe again. +She would have been at first highly offended, but the next moment a +little pleased at being told that in reality she had never believed one +whit more than Faber, that she was at present indeed incapable of +believing. Probably she would have replied, "Then wherein am I to +blame?" But although a woman who sits with her child in her arms in the +midst of her burning house, half asleep, and half stifled and dazed with +the fierce smoke, may not be to blame, certainly the moment she is able +to excuse herself she is bound to make for the door. So long as men do +not feel that they are in a bad condition and in danger of worse, the +message of deliverance will sound to them as a threat. Yea, the offer of +absolute well-being upon the only possible conditions of the well-being +itself, must, if heard at all, rouse in them a discomfort whose cause +they attribute to the message, not to themselves; and immediately they +will endeavor to justify themselves in disregarding it. There are those +doing all they can to strengthen themselves in unbelief, who, if the +Lord were to appear plainly before their eyes, would tell Him they could +not help it, for He had not until then given them ground enough for +faith, and when He left them, would go on just as before, except that +they would speculate and pride themselves on the vision. If men say, "We +want no such deliverance," then the Maker of them must either destroy +them as vile things for whose existence He is to Himself accountable, or +compel them to change. If they say, "We choose to be destroyed," He, as +their Maker, has a choice in the matter too. Is He not free to say, "You +can not even slay yourselves, and I choose that you shall know the +death of living without Me; you shall learn to choose to live indeed. I +choose that you shall know what _I know_ to be good"? And however much +any individual consciousness may rebel, surely the individual +consciousness which called that other into being, and is the Father of +that being, fit to be such because of Himself He is such, has a right to +object that by rebellion His creature should destroy the very power by +which it rebels, and from a being capable of a divine freedom by +partaking of the divine nature, should make of itself the merest slave +incapable of will of any sort! Is it a wrong to compel His creature to +soar aloft into the ether of its origin, and find its deepest, its only +true self? It is God's knowing choice of life against man's ignorant +choice of death. + +But Juliet knew nothing of such a region of strife in the human soul. +She had no suspicion what an awful swamp lay around the prison of her +self-content--no, self-discontent--in which she lay chained. To her the +one good and desirable thing was the love and company of Paul Faber. He +was her saviour, she said to herself, and the woman who could not love +and trust and lean upon such a heart of devotion and unselfishness as +his, was unworthy of the smallest of his thoughts. He was nobility, +generosity, justice itself! If she sought to lay her faults bare to him, +he would but fold her to his bosom to shut them out from her own vision! +He would but lay his hand on the lips of confession, and silence them as +unbelievers in his perfect affection! He was better than the God the +Wingfolds and Drakes believed in, with whom humiliation was a condition +of acceptance! + +She told the Drakes that, for the air of Owlkirk, she was going to +occupy her old quarters with Mrs. Puckridge during the holidays. They +were not much surprised, for they had remarked a change in her manner, +and it was not long unexplained: for, walking from the Old House +together one evening rather late, they met her with the doctor in a +little frequented part of the park. When she left them, they knew she +would not return; and her tears betrayed that she knew it also. + +Meantime the negotiation for the purchase of the Old House of Glaston +was advancing with slow legal sinuosity. Mr. Drake had offered the full +value of the property, and the tender seemed to be regarded not +unfavorably. But his heart and mind were far more occupied with the +humbler property he had already secured in the town: that was now to be +fortified against the incursions of the river, with its attendant fevers +and agues. A survey of the ground had satisfied him that a wall at a +certain point would divert a great portion of the water, and this wall +he proceeded at once to build. He hoped in the end to inclose the ground +altogether, or at least to defend it at every assailable point, but +there were many other changes imperative, with difficulties such that +they could not all be coped with at once. The worst of the cottages must +be pulled down, and as they were all even over-full, he must contrive to +build first. Nor until that was done, could he effect much toward +rendering the best of them fit for human habitation. + +Some of the householders in the lower part of the adjoining street shook +their heads when they saw what the bricklayers were about. They had +reason to fear they were turning the water more upon them; and it seemed +a wrong that the wretched cottages which had from time immemorial been +accustomed to the water, should be now protected from it at the cost of +respectable houses! It did not occur to them that it might be time for +Lady Fortune to give her wheel a few inches of a turn. To common minds, +custom is always right so long as it is on their side. + +In the meantime the chapel in the park at Nestley had been advancing, +for the rector, who was by nature no dawdler where he was interested, +had been pushing it on; and at length on a certain Sunday evening in the +autumn, the people of the neighborhood having been invited to attend, +the rector read prayers in it, and the curate preached a sermon. At the +close of the service the congregation was informed that prayers would be +read there every Sunday evening, and that was all. Mrs. Bevis, honest +soul, the green-mantled pool of whose being might well desire a wind, if +only from a pair of bellows, to disturb its repose, for not a fish moved +to that end in its sunless deeps--I say deeps, for such there must have +been, although neither she nor her friends were acquainted with any +thing there but shallows--was the only one inclined to grumble at the +total absence of ceremonial pomp: she did want her husband to have the +credit of the great deed. + +About the same time it was that Juliet again sought the cottage at +Owlkirk, with the full consciousness that she went there to meet her +fate. Faber came to see her every day, and both Ruber and Niger began +to grow skinny. But I have already said enough to show the nature and +course of the stream, and am not bound to linger longer over its noise +among the pebbles. Some things are interesting rather for their results +than their process, and of such I confess it is to me the love-making of +these two.--"What! were they not human?" Yes: but with a truncated +humanity--even shorn of its flower-buds, and full only of variegated +leaves. It shall suffice therefore to say that, in a will-less sort of a +way, Juliet let the matter drift; that, although she withheld explicit +consent, she yet at length allowed Faber to speak as if she had given +it; that they had long ceased to talk about God or no God, about life +and death, about truth and superstition, and spoke only of love, and the +days at hand, and how they would spend them; that they poured out their +hearts in praising and worshiping each other; and that, at last, Juliet +found herself as firmly engaged to be Paul's wife, as if she had granted +every one of the promises he had sought to draw from her, but which she +had avoided giving in the weak fancy that thus she was holding herself +free. It was perfectly understood in all the neighborhood that the +doctor and Miss Meredith were engaged. Both Helen and Dorothy felt a +little hurt at her keeping an absolute silence toward them concerning +what the country seemed to know; but when they spoke of it to her, she +pointedly denied any engagement, and indeed although helplessly drifting +toward marriage, had not yet given absolute consent even in her own +mind. She dared not even then regard it as inevitable. Her two friends +came to the conclusion that she could not find the courage to face +disapproval, and perhaps feared expostulation. + +"She may well be ashamed of such an unequal yoking!" said Helen to her +husband. + +"There is no unequal yoking in it that I see," he returned. "In the +matter of faith, what is there to choose between them? I see nothing. +They may carry the yoke straight enough. If there _be_ one of them +further from the truth than the other, it must be the one who says, _I +go sir_, and goes not. Between _don't believe_ and _don't care, I_ don't +care to choose. Let them marry and God bless them. It will be good for +them--for one thing if for no other--it is sure to bring trouble to +both." + +"Indeed, Mr. Wingfold!" returned Helen playfully. + +"So that is how you regard marriage!--Sure to bring trouble!" + +She laid her head on his shoulder. + +"Trouble to every one, my Helen, like the gospel itself; more trouble to +you than to me, but none to either that will not serve to bring us +closer to each other," he answered. "But about those two--well, I am +both doubtful and hopeful. At all events I can not wish them not to +marry. I think it will be for both of them a step nearer to the truth. +The trouble will, perhaps, drive them to find God. That any one who had +seen and loved our Lord, should consent to marry one, whatever that one +was besides, who did not at least revere and try to obey Him, seems to +me impossible. But again I say there is no such matter involved between +them.--Shall I confess to you, that, with all her frankness, all her +charming ways, all the fullness of the gaze with which her black eyes +look into yours, there is something about Juliet that puzzles me? At +times I have thought she must be in some trouble, out of which she was +on the point of asking me to help her; at others I have fancied she was +trying to be agreeable against her inclination, and did not more than +half approve of me. Sometimes, I confess, the shadow of a doubt crosses +me: is she altogether a true woman? But that vanishes the moment she +smiles. I wish she could have been open with me. I could have helped +her, I am pretty sure. As it is, I have not got one step nearer the real +woman than when first I saw her at the rector's." + +"I know," said Helen. "But don't you think it may be that she has never +yet come to know any thing about herself--to perceive either fact or +mystery of her own nature? If she is a stranger to herself, she cannot +reveal herself--at least of her own will--to those about her. She is +just what I was, Thomas, before I knew you--a dull, sleepy-hearted thing +that sat on her dignity. Be sure she has not an idea of the divine truth +you have taught me to see underlying creation itself--namely, that every +thing possessed owes its very value as possession to the power which +that possession gives of parting with it." + +"You are a pupil worth having, Helen!--even if I had had to mourn all my +days that you would not love me." + +"And now you have said your mind about Juliet," Helen went on, "allow me +to say that I trust her more than I do Faber. I do not for a moment +imagine him consciously dishonest, but he makes too much show of his +honesty for me. I can not help feeling that he is selfish--and can a +selfish man be honest?" + +"Not thoroughly. I know that only too well, for I at all events am +selfish, Helen." + +"I don't see it; but if you are, you know it, and hate it, and strive +against it. I do not think he knows it, even when he says that every +body is selfish. Only, what better way to get rid of it than to love and +marry?" + +"Or to confirm it," said Wingfold thoughtfully. + +"I shouldn't wonder a bit if they're married already!" said Helen. + +She was not far from wrong, although not quite right. Already Faber had +more than hinted at a hurried marriage, as private as could be +compassed. It was impossible of course, to be married at church. That +would be to cast mockery on the marriage itself, as well as on what +Faber called his _beliefs_. The objection was entirely on Faber's side, +but Juliet did not hint at the least difference of feeling in the +matter. She let every thing take its way now. + +At length having, in a neighboring town, arranged all the necessary +preliminaries, Faber got one of the other doctors in Glaston to attend +to his practice for three weeks, and went to take a holiday. Juliet left +Owlkirk the same day. They met, were lawfully married, and at the close +of the three weeks, returned together to the doctor's house. + +The sort of thing did not please Glaston society, and although Faber was +too popular as a doctor to lose position by it, Glaston was slow in +acknowledging that it knew there was a lady at the head of his house. +Mrs. Wingfold and Miss Drake, however, set their neighbors a good +example, and by degrees there came about a dribbling sort of +recognition. Their social superiors stood the longest aloof--chiefly +because the lady had been a governess, and yet had behaved so like one +of themselves; they thought it well to give her a lesson. Most of them, +however, not willing to offend the leading doctor in the place, yielded +and called. Two elderly spinsters and Mrs. Ramshorn did not. The latter +declared she did not believe they were married. Most agreed they were +the handsomest couple ever seen in that quarter, and looked all right. + +Juliet returned the calls made upon her, at the proper retaliatory +intervals, and gradually her mode of existence fell into routine. The +doctor went out every day, and was out most of the day, while she sat at +home and worked or read. She had to amuse herself, and sometimes found +life duller than when she had to earn her bread--when, as she went from +place to place, she might at any turn meet Paul upon Ruber or Niger. +Already the weary weed of the commonplace had begun to show itself in +the marriage garden--a weed which, like all weeds, requires only neglect +for perfect development, when it will drive the lazy Eve who has never +made her life worth _living_, to ask whether life be worth _having_. She +was not a great reader. No book had ever yet been to her a well-spring +of life; and such books as she liked best it was perhaps just as well +that she could not easily procure in Glaston; for, always ready to +appreciate the noble, she had not moral discernment sufficient to +protect her from the influence of such books as paint poor action in +noble color. For a time also she was stinted in her natural nourishment: +her husband had ordered a grand piano from London for her, but it had +not yet arrived; and the first touch she laid on the tall +spinster-looking one that had stood in the drawing-room for fifty years, +with red silk wrinkles radiating from a gilt center, had made her +shriek. If only Paul would buy a yellow gig, like his friend Dr. May of +Broughill, and take her with him on his rounds! Or if she had a friend +or two to go and see when he was out!--friends like what Helen or even +Dorothy might have been: she was not going to be hand-in-glove with any +body that didn't like her Paul! She missed church too--not the prayers, +much; but she did like hearing what she counted a good sermon, that is, +a lively one. Her husband wanted her to take up some science, but if he +had considered that, with all her gift in music, she expressed an utter +indifference to thorough bass, he would hardly have been so foolish. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +THE PONY-CARRIAGE. + + +One Saturday morning the doctor was called to a place a good many miles +distant, and Juliet was left with the prospect of being longer alone +than usual. She felt it almost sultry although so late in the season, +and could not rest in the house. She pretended to herself she had some +shopping to do in Pine Street, but it was rather a longing for air and +motion that sent her out. Also, certain thoughts which she did not like, +had of late been coming more frequently, and she found it easier to +avoid them in the street. They were not such as troubled her from being +hard to think out. Properly speaking, she _thought_ less now than ever. +She often said nice things, but they were mostly the mere gracious +movements of a nature sweet, playful, trusting, fond of all beautiful +things, and quick to see artistic relation where her perception reached. + +As she turned the corner of Mr. Drew's shop, the house-door opened, and +a lady came out. It was Mr. Drew's lodger. Juliet knew nothing about +her, and was not aware that she had ever seen her; but the lady started +as if she recognized her. To that kind of thing Juliet was accustomed, +for her style of beauty was any thing but common. The lady's regard +however was so fixed that it drew hers, and as their eyes met, Juliet +felt something, almost a physical pain, shoot through her heart. She +could not understand it, but presently began to suspect, and by degrees +became quite certain that she had seen her before, though she could not +tell where. The effect the sight of her had had, indicated some painful +association, which she must recall before she could be at rest. She +turned in the other direction, and walked straight from the town, that +she might think without eyes upon her. + +Scene after scene of her life came back as she searched to find some +circumstance associated with that face. Once and again she seemed on the +point of laying hold of something, when the face itself vanished and she +had that to recall, and the search to resume from the beginning. In the +process many painful memories arose, some, connected with her mother, +unhappy in themselves, others, connected with her father, grown unhappy +from her marriage; for thereby she had built a wall between her thoughts +and her memories of him; and, if there should be a life beyond this, had +hollowed a gulf between them forever. + +Gradually her thoughts took another direction.--Could it be that already +the glamour had begun to disperse, the roses of love to wither, the +magic to lose its force, the common look of things to return? Paul was +as kind, as courteous, as considerate as ever, and yet there was a +difference. Her heart did not grow wild, her blood did not rush to her +face, when she heard the sound of his horse's hoofs in the street, +though she knew them instantly. Sadder and sadder grew her thoughts as +she walked along, careless whither. + +Had she begun to cease loving? No. She loved better than she knew, but +she must love infinitely better yet. The first glow was gone--already: +she had thought it would not go, and was miserable. She recalled that +even her honeymoon had a little disappointed her. I would not be +mistaken as implying that any of these her reflections had their origin +in what was _peculiar_ in the character, outlook, or speculation of +herself or her husband. The passion of love is but the vestibule--the +pylon--to the temple of love. A garden lies between the pylon and the +adytum. They that will enter the sanctuary must walk through the garden. +But some start to see the roses already withering, sit down and weep and +watch their decay, until at length the aged flowers hang drooping all +around them, and lo! their hearts are withered also, and when they rise +they turn their backs on the holy of holies, and their feet toward the +gate. + +Juliet was proud of her Paul, and loved him as much as she was yet +capable of loving. But she had thought they were enough for each other, +and already, although she was far from acknowledging it to herself, she +had, in the twilight of her thinking, begun to doubt it. Nor can she be +blamed for the doubt. Never man and woman yet succeeded in being all in +all to each other. + +It were presumption to say that a lonely God would be enough for +Himself, seeing that we can know nothing of God but as He is our Father. +What if the Creator Himself is sufficient to Himself in virtue of His +self-existent _creatorship_? Let my reader think it out. The lower we go +in the scale of creation, the more independent is the individual. The +richer and more perfect each of a married pair is in the other relations +of life, the more is each to the other. For us, the children of eternal +love, the very air our spirits breathe, and without which they can not +live, is the eternal life; for us, the brothers and sisters of a +countless family, the very space in which our souls can exist, is the +love of each and every soul of our kind. + +Such were not Juliet's thoughts. To her such would have seemed as unreal +as unintelligible. To her they would have looked just what some of my +readers will pronounce them, not in the least knowing what they are. She +was suddenly roused from her painful reverie by the pulling up of +Helen's ponies, with much clatter and wriggling recoil, close beside +her, making more fuss with their toy-carriage than the mightiest of +tractive steeds with the chariot of pomp. + +"Jump in, Juliet," cried their driver, addressing her with the greater +_abandon_ that she was resolved no stiffness on her part should deposit +a grain to the silting up of the channel of former affection. She was +one of the few who understand that no being can afford to let the +smallest love-germ die. + +Juliet hesitated. She was not a little bewildered with the sudden recall +from the moony plains of memory, and the demand for immediate action. +She answered uncertainly, trying to think what was involved. + +"I know your husband is not waiting you at home," pursued Helen. "I saw +him on Ruber, three fields off, riding away from Glaston. Jump in, dear. +You can make up that mind of yours in the carriage as well as upon the +road. I will set you down wherever you please. My husband is out too, so +the slaves can take their pleasure." + +Juliet could not resist, had little inclination to do so, yielded +without another word, and took her place beside Helen, a little shy of +being alone with her, yet glad of her company. Away went the ponies, and +as soon as she had got them settled to their work, Helen turned her face +toward Juliet. + +"I _am_ so glad to see you!" she said. + +Juliet's heart spoke too loud for her throat. It was a relief to her +that Helen had to keep her eyes on her charge, the quickness of whose +every motion rendered watchfulness right needful. + +"Have you returned Mrs. Bevis's call yet!" asked Helen. + +"No," murmured Juliet. "I haven't been able yet." + +"Well, here is a good chance. Sit where you are, and you will be at +Nestley in half an hour, and I shall be the more welcome. You are a +great favorite there!" + +"How kind you are!" said Juliet, the tears beginning to rise. "Indeed, +Mrs. Wingfold,----" + +"You _used_ to call me Helen!" said that lady, pulling up her ponies +with sudden energy, as they shied at a bit of paper on the road, and +nearly had themselves and all they drew in the ditch. + +"May I call you so still?" + +"Surely! What else?" + +"You are too good to me!" said Juliet, and wept outright. + +"My dear Juliet," returned Helen, "I will be quite plain with you, and +that will put things straight in a moment. Your friends understand +perfectly why you have avoided them of late, and are quite sure it is +from no unkindness to any of them. But neither must you imagine we think +hardly of you for marrying Mr. Faber. We detest his opinions so much +that we feel sure if you saw a little further into them, neither of you +would hold them." + +"But I don't--that is, I--" + +"You don't know whether you hold them or not: I understand quite well. +My husband says in your case it does not matter much; for if you had +ever really believed in Jesus Christ, you could not have done it. At all +events now the thing is done, there is no question about it left. Dear +Juliet, think of us as your friends still, who will always be glad to +see you, and ready to help you where we can." + +Juliet was weeping for genuine gladness now. But even as she wept, by +one of those strange movements of our being which those who have been +quickest to question them wonder at the most, it flashed upon her where +she had seen the lady that came from Mr. Drew's house, and her heart +sunk within her, for the place was associated with that portion of her +history which of all she would most gladly hide from herself. During the +rest of the drive she was so silent, that Helen at last gave up trying +to talk to her. Then first she observed how the clouds had risen on all +sides and were meeting above, and that the air was more still and sultry +than ever. + +Just as they got within Nestley-gate, a flash of lightning, scarcely +followed by a loud thunder-clap, shot from overhead. The ponies plunged, +reared, swayed asunder from the pole, nearly fell, and recovered +themselves only to dart off in wild terror. Juliet screamed. + +"Don't be frightened, child," said Helen. "There is no danger here. The +road is straight and there is nothing on it. I shall soon pull them up. +Only don't cry out: that will be as little to their taste as the +lightning." + +Juliet caught at the reins. + +"For God's sake, don't do that!" cried Helen, balking her clutch. "You +will kill us both." + +Juliet sunk back in her seat. The ponies went at full speed along the +road. The danger was small, for the park was upon both sides, level +with the drive, in which there was a slight ascent. Helen was perfectly +quiet, and went on gradually tightening her pull upon the reins. Before +they reached the house, she had entirely regained her command of them. +When she drew up to the door, they stood quite steady, but panting as if +their little sides would fly asunder. By this time Helen was red as a +rose; her eyes were flashing, and a smile was playing about her mouth; +but Juliet was like a lily on which the rain has been falling all night: +her very lips were bloodless. When Helen turned and saw her, she was far +more frightened than the ponies could make her. + +"Why, Juliet, my dear!" she said, "I had no thought you were so +terrified! What would your husband say to me for frightening you so! But +you are safe now." + +A servant came to take the ponies. Helen got out first, and gave her +hand to Juliet. + +"Don't think me a coward, Helen," she said. "It was the thunder. I never +could bear thunder." + +"I should be far more of a coward than you are, Juliet," answered Helen, +"if I believed, or even feared, that just a false step of little Zephyr +there, or one plunge more from Zoe, might wipe out the world, and I +should never more see the face of my husband." + +She spoke eagerly, lovingly, believingly. Juliet shivered, stopped, and +laid hold of the baluster rail. Things had been too much for her that +day. She looked so ill that Helen was again alarmed, but she soon came +to herself a little, and they went on to Mrs. Bevis's room. She received +them most kindly, made Mrs. Faber lie on the sofa, covered her over, for +she was still trembling, and got her a glass of wine. But she could not +drink it, and lay sobbing in vain endeavor to control herself. + +Meantime the clouds gathered thicker and thicker: the thunder-peal that +frightened the ponies had been but the herald of the storm, and now it +came on in earnest. The rain rushed suddenly on the earth, and as soon +as she heard it, Juliet ceased to sob. At every flash, however, although +she lay with her eyes shut, and her face pressed into the pillow, she +shivered and moaned.--"Why should one," thought Helen, "who is merely +and only the child of Nature, find herself so little at home with her?" +Presently Mr. Bevis came running in from the stable, drenched in +crossing to the house. As he passed to his room, he opened the door of +his wife's, and looked in. + +"I am glad to see you safely housed, ladies," he said. "You must make +up your minds to stay where you are. It will not clear before the moon +rises, and that will be about midnight. I will send John to tell your +husbands that you are not cowering under a hedge, and will not be home +to-night." + +He was a good weather-prophet. The rain went on. In the evening the two +husbands appeared, dripping. They had come on horseback together, and +would ride home again after dinner. The doctor would have to be out the +greater part of the Sunday, and would gladly leave his wife in such good +quarters; the curate would walk out to his preaching in the evening, and +drive home with Helen after it, taking Juliet, if she should be able to +accompany them. + +After dinner, when the ladies had left them, between the two clergymen +and the doctor arose the conversation of which I will now give the +substance, leaving the commencement, and taking it up at an advanced +point. + +"Now tell me," said Faber, in the tone of one satisfied he must be +allowed in the right, "which is the nobler--to serve your neighbor in +the hope of a future, believing in a God who will reward you, or to +serve him in the dark, obeying your conscience, with no other hope than +that those who come after you will be the better for you?" + +"I allow most heartily," answered Wingfold, "and with all admiration, +that it is indeed grand in one hopeless for himself to live well for the +sake of generations to come, which he will never see, and which will +never hear of him. But I will not allow that there is any thing grand in +being hopeless for one's self, or in serving the Unseen rather than +those about you, seeing it is easier to work for those who can not +oppose you, than to endure the contradiction of sinners. But I know you +agree with me that the best way to assist posterity is to be true to +your contemporaries, so there I need say no more--except that the +hopeless man can do the least for his fellows, being unable to give them +any thing that should render them other than hopeless themselves; and +if, for the grandeur of it, a man were to cast away his purse in order +to have the praise of parting with the two mites left in his pocket, you +would simply say the man was a fool. This much seems to me clear, that, +if there be no God, it may be nobler to be able to live without one; +but, if there be a God, it must be nobler not to be able to live +without Him. The moment, however, that nobility becomes the object in +any action, that moment the nobleness of the action vanishes. The man +who serves his fellow that he may himself be noble, misses the mark. He +alone who follows the truth, not he who follows nobility, shall attain +the noble. A man's nobility will, in the end, prove just commensurate +with his humanity--with the love he bears his neighbor--not the amount +of work he may have done for him. A man might throw a lordly gift to his +fellow, like a bone to a dog, and damn himself in the deed. You may +insult a dog by the way you give him his bone." + +"I dispute nothing of all that," said Faber--while good Mr. Bevis sat +listening hard, not quite able to follow the discussion; "but I know you +will admit that to do right from respect to any reward whatever, hardly +amounts to doing right at all." + +"I doubt if any man ever did or could do a thing worthy of passing as in +itself good, for the sake of a reward," rejoined Wingfold. "Certainly, +to do good for something else than good, is not good at all. But perhaps +a reward may so influence a low nature as to bring it a little into +contact with what is good, whence the better part of it may make some +acquaintance with good. Also, the desire of the approbation of the +Perfect, might nobly help a man who was finding his duty hard, for it +would humble as well as strengthen him, and is but another form of the +love of the good. The praise of God will always humble a man, I think." + +"There you are out of my depth," said Faber. "I know nothing about +that." + +"I go on then to say," continued the curate, "that a man may well be +strengthened and encouraged by the hope of being made a better and truer +man, and capable of greater self-forgetfulness and devotion. There is +nothing low in having respect to such a reward as that, is there?" + +"It seems to me better," persisted the doctor, "to do right for the sake +of duty, than for the sake of any goodness even that will come thereby +to yourself." + +"Assuredly, if self in the goodness, and not the goodness itself be the +object," assented Wingfold. "When a duty lies before one, self ought to +have no part in the gaze we fix upon it; but when thought reverts upon +himself, who would avoid the wish to be a better man? The man who will +not do a thing for duty, will never get so far as to derive any help +from the hope of goodness. But duty itself is only a stage toward +something better. It is but the impulse, God-given I believe, toward a +far more vital contact with the truth. We shall one day forget all about +duty, and do every thing from the love of the loveliness of it, the +satisfaction of the rightness of it. What would you say to a man who +ministered to the wants of his wife and family only from duty? Of course +you wish heartily that the man who neglects them would do it from any +cause, even were it fear of the whip; but the strongest and most +operative sense of duty would not satisfy you in such a relation. There +are depths within depths of righteousness. Duty is the only path to +freedom, but that freedom is the love that is beyond and prevents duty." + +"But," said Faber, "I have heard you say that to take from you your +belief in a God would be to render you incapable of action. Now, the +man--I don't mean myself, but the sort of a man for whom I stand +up--does act, does his duty, without the strength of that belief: is he +not then the stronger?--Let us drop the word _noble_." + +"In the case supposed, he would be the stronger--for a time at least," +replied the curate. "But you must remember that to take from me the joy +and glory of my life, namely the belief that I am the child of God, an +heir of the Infinite, with the hope of being made perfectly righteous, +loving like God Himself, would be something more than merely reducing me +to the level of a man who had never loved God, or seen in the +possibility of Him any thing to draw him. I should have lost the mighty +dream of the universe; he would be what and where he chose to be, and +might well be the more capable. Were I to be convinced there is no God, +and to recover by the mere force of animal life from the prostration +into which the conviction cast me, I should, I hope, try to do what duty +was left me, for I too should be filled, for a time at least, with an +endless pity for my fellows; but all would be so dreary, that I should +be almost paralyzed for serving them, and should long for death to do +them and myself the only good service. The thought of the generations +doomed to be born into a sunless present, would almost make me join any +conspiracy to put a stop to the race. I should agree with Hamlet that +the whole thing had better come to an end. Would it necessarily indicate +a lower nature, or condition, or habit of thought, that, having +cherished such hopes, I should, when I lost them, be more troubled than +one who never had had them?" + +"Still," said Faber, "I ask you to allow that a nature which can do +without help is greater than a nature which can not." + +"If the thing done were the same, I should allow it," answered the +curate; "but the things done will prove altogether different. And +another thing to be noted is, that, while the need of help might +indicate a lower nature, the capacity for receiving it must indicate a +higher. The mere fact of being able to live and act in more meager +spiritual circumstances, in itself proves nothing: it is not the highest +nature that has the fewest needs. The highest nature is the one that has +the most necessities, but the fewest of its own making. He is not the +greatest man who is the most independent, but he who thirsts most after +a conscious harmony with every element and portion of the mighty whole; +demands from every region thereof its influences to perfect his +individuality; regards that individuality as his kingdom, his treasure, +not to hold but to give; sees in his Self the one thing he can devote, +the one precious means of freedom by its sacrifice, and that in no +contempt or scorn, but in love to God and his children, the multitudes +of his kind. By dying ever thus, ever thus losing his soul, he lives +like God, and God knows him, and he knows God. This is too good to be +grasped, but not too good to be true. The highest is that which needs +the highest, the largest that which needs the most; the finest and +strongest that which to live must breath essential life, self-willed +life, God Himself. It follows that it is not the largest or the +strongest nature that will feel a loss the least. An ant will not gather +a grain of corn the less that his mother is dead, while a boy will turn +from his books and his play and his dinner because his bird is dead: is +the ant, therefore, the stronger nature?" + +"Is it not weak to be miserable?" said the doctor. + +"Yes--without good cause," answered the curate. "But you do not know +what it would be to me to lose my faith in my God. My misery would be a +misery to which no assurance of immortality or of happiness could bring +any thing but tenfold misery--the conviction that I should never be good +myself, never have any thing to love absolutely, never be able to make +amends for the wrongs I had done. Call such a feeling selfish if you +will: I can not help it. I can not count one fit for existence to whom +such things would be no grief. The worthy existence must hunger after +good. The largest nature must have the mightiest hunger. Who calls a +man selfish because he is hungry? He is selfish if he broods on the +pleasures of eating, and would not go without his dinner for the sake of +another; but if he had no hunger, where would be the room for his +self-denial? Besides, in spiritual things, the only way to give them to +your neighbors is to hunger after them yourself. There each man is a +mouth to the body of the whole creation. It can not be selfishness to +hunger and thirst after righteousness, which righteousness is just your +duty to your God and your neighbor. If there be any selfishness in it, +the very answer to your prayer will destroy it." + +"There you are again out of my region," said Faber. "But answer me one +thing: is it not weak to desire happiness?" + +"Yes; if the happiness is poor and low," rejoined Wingfold. "But the man +who would choose even the grandeur of duty before the bliss of the +truth, must be a lover of himself. Such a man must be traveling the road +to death. If there be a God, truth must be joy. If there be not, truth +may be misery.--But, honestly, I know not one advanced Christian who +tries to obey for the hope of Heaven or the fear of hell. Such ideas +have long vanished from such a man. He loves God; he loves truth; he +loves his fellow, and knows he must love him more. You judge of +Christianity either by those who are not true representatives of it, and +are indeed, less of Christians than yourself; or by others who, being +intellectually inferior, perhaps even stupid, belie Christ with their +dull theories concerning Him. Yet the latter may have in them a noble +seed, urging them up heights to you at present unconceived and +inconceivable; while, in the meantime, some of them serve their +generation well, and do as much for those that are to come after as you +do yourself." + +"There is always weight as well as force in what you urge, Wingfold," +returned Faber. "Still it looks to me just a cunningly devised fable--I +will not say of the priests, but of the human mind deceiving itself with +its own hopes and desires." + +"It may well look such to those who are outside of it, and it must at +length appear such to all who, feeling in it any claim upon them, yet do +not put it to the test of their obedience." + +"Well, you have had your turn, and now we are having ours--you of the +legends, we of the facts." + +"No," said Wingfold, "we have not had our turn, and you have been +having yours for a far longer time than we. But if, as you profess, you +are _doing_ the truth you see, it belongs to my belief that you will +come to see the truth you do not see. Christianity is not a failure; for +to it mainly is the fact owing that here is a class of men which, +believing in no God, yet believes in duty toward men. Look here: if +Christianity be the outcome of human aspiration, the natural growth of +the human soil, is it not strange it should be such an utter failure as +it seems to you? and as such a natural growth, it must be a failure, for +if it were a success, must not you be the very one to see it? If it is +false, it is worthless, or an evil: where then is your law of +development, if the highest result of that development is an evil to the +nature and the race?" + +"I do not grant it the highest result," said Faber. "It is a failure--a +false blossom, with a truer to follow." + +"To produce a superior architecture, poetry, music?" + +"Perhaps not. But a better science." + +"Are the architecture and poetry and music parts of the failure?" + +"Yes--but they are not altogether a failure, for they lay some truth at +the root of them all. Now we shall see what will come of turning away +from every thing we do not _know_." + +"That is not exactly what you mean, for that would be never to know any +thing more. But the highest you have in view is immeasurably below what +Christianity has always demanded of its followers." + +"But has never got from them, and never will. Look at the wars, the +hatreds, to which your _gospel_ has given rise! Look at Calvin and poor +Servetus! Look at the strifes and divisions of our own day! Look at the +religious newspapers!" + +"All granted. It is a chaos, the motions of whose organization must be +strife. The spirit of life is at war with the spasmatical body of death. +If Christianity be not still in the process of development, it is the +saddest of all failures." + +"The fact is, Wingfold, your prophet would have been King of the race if +He had not believed in a God." + +"I dare not speak the answer that rises to my lips," said Wingfold. "But +there is more truth in what you say than you think, and more of +essential lie also. My answer is, that the faith of Jesus in His God and +Father is, even now, saving me, setting me free from my one horror, +selfishness; making my life an unspeakable boon to me, letting me know +its roots in the eternal and perfect; giving me such love to my fellow, +that I trust at last to love him as Christ has loved me. But I do not +expect you to understand me. He in whom I believe said that a man must +be born again to enter into the kingdom of Heaven." + +The doctor laughed. + +"You then _are_ one of the double-born, Wingfold?" he said. + +"I believe, I think, I hope so," replied the curate, very gravely. + +"And you, Mr. Bevis?" + +"I don't know. I wish. I doubt," answered the rector, with equal +solemnity. + +"Oh, never fear!" said Faber, with a quiet smile, and rising, left the +clergymen together. + +But what a morning it was that came up after the storm! All night the +lightning had been flashing itself into peace, and gliding further and +further away. Bellowing and growling the thunder had crept with it; but +long after it could no more be heard, the lightning kept gleaming up, as +if from a sea of flame behind the horizon. The sun brought a glorious +day, and looked larger and mightier than before. To Helen, as she gazed +eastward from her window, he seemed ascending his lofty pulpit to preach +the story of the day named after him--the story of the Sun-day; the +rising again in splendor of the darkened and buried Sun of the universe, +with whom all the worlds and all their hearts and suns arose. A light +steam was floating up from the grass, and the raindrops were sparkling +everywhere. The day had arisen from the bosom of the night; peace and +graciousness from the bosom of the storm; she herself from the grave of +her sleep, over which had lain the turf of the darkness; and all was +fresh life and new hope. And through it all, reviving afresh with every +sign of Nature's universal law of birth, was the consciousness that her +life, her own self, was rising from the dead, was being new-born also. +She had not far to look back to the time when all was dull and dead in +her being: when the earthquake came, and the storm, and the fire; and +after them the still small voice, breathing rebuke, and hope, and +strength. Her whole world was now radiant with expectation. It was +through her husband the change had come to her, but he was not the rock +on which she built. For his sake she could go to hell--yea, cease to +exist; but there was One whom she loved more than him--the one One whose +love was the self-willed cause of all love, who from that love had sent +forth her husband and herself to love one another; whose heart was the +nest of their birth, the cradle of their growth, the rest of their +being. Yea, more than her husband she loved Him, her elder Brother, by +whom the Father had done it all, the Man who lived and died and rose +again so many hundred years ago. In Him, the perfect One, she hoped for +a perfect love to her husband, a perfect nature in herself. She knew how +Faber would have mocked at such a love, the very existence of whose +object she could not prove, how mocked at the notion that His life even +now was influencing hers. She knew how he would say it was merely love +and marriage that had wrought the change; but while she recognized them +as forces altogether divine, she knew that not only was the Son of Man +behind them, but that it was her obedience to Him and her confidence in +Him that had wrought the red heart of the change in her. She knew that +she would rather break with her husband altogether, than to do one +action contrary to the known mind and will of that Man. Faber would call +her faith a mighty, perhaps a lovely illusion: her life was an active +waiting for the revelation of its object in splendor before the +universe. The world seemed to her a grand march of resurrections--out of +every sorrow springing the joy at its heart, without which it could not +have been a sorrow; out of the troubles, and evils, and sufferings, and +cruelties that clouded its history, ever arising the human race, the +sons of God, redeemed in Him who had been made subject to death that He +might conquer Death for them and for his Father--a succession of mighty +facts, whose meanings only God can evolve, only the obedient heart +behold. + +On such a morning, so full of resurrection, Helen was only a little +troubled not to be one of her husband's congregation: she would take her +New Testament, and spend the sunny day in the open air. In the evening +he was coming, and would preach in the little chapel. If only Juliet +might hear him too! But she would not ask her to go. + +Juliet was better, for fatigue had compelled sleep. The morning had +brought her little hope, however, no sense of resurrection. A certain +dead thing had begun to move in its coffin; she was utterly alone with +it, and it made the world feel a tomb around her. Not all resurrections +are the resurrection of life, though in the end they will be found, even +to the lowest birth of the power of the enemy, to have contributed +thereto. She did not get up to breakfast; Helen persuaded her to rest, +and herself carried it to her. But she rose soon after, and declared +herself quite well. + +The rector drove to Glaston in his dog-cart to read prayers. Helen went +out into the park with her New Testament and George Herbert. Poor Juliet +was left with Mrs. Bevis, who happily could not be duller than usual, +although it was Sunday. By the time the rector returned, bringing his +curate with him, she was bored almost beyond endurance. She had not yet +such a love of wisdom as to be able to bear with folly. The foolish and +weak are the most easily disgusted with folly and weakness which is not +of their own sort, and are the last to make allowances for them. To +spend also the evening with the softly smiling old woman, who would not +go across the grass after such a rain the night before, was a thing not +to be contemplated. Juliet borrowed a pair of galoshes, and insisted on +going to the chapel. In vain the rector and his wife dissuaded her. +Neither Helen nor her husband said a word. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +A CONSCIENCE. + + +The chapel in the park at Nestley, having as yet received no color, and +having no organ or choir, was a cold, uninteresting little place. It was +neat, but had small beauty, and no history. Yet even already had begun +to gather in the hearts of two or three of the congregation a feeling of +quiet sacredness about it: some soft airs of the spirit-wind had been +wandering through their souls as they sat there and listened. And a +gentle awe, from old associations with lay worship, stole like a soft +twilight over Juliet as she entered. Even the antral dusk of an old +reverence may help to form the fitting mood through which shall slide +unhindered the still small voice that makes appeal to what of God is yet +awake in the soul. There were present about a score of villagers, and +the party from the house. + +Clad in no vestments of office, but holding in his hand the New +Testament, which was always held either there or in his pocket, Wingfold +rose to speak. He read: + +"_Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. For +there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that +shall not be know_." + +Then at once he began to show them, in the simplest interpretation, that +the hypocrite was one who pretended to be what he was not; who tried or +consented to look other and better than he was. That a man, from +unwillingness to look at the truth concerning himself, might be but +half-consciously assenting to the false appearance, would, he said, +nowise serve to save him from whatever of doom was involved in this +utterance of our Lord concerning the crime. These words of explanation +and caution premised, he began at the practical beginning, and spoke a +few forceful things on the necessity of absolute truth as to fact in +every communication between man and man, telling them that, so far as he +could understand His words recorded, our Lord's objection to swearing +lay chiefly in this, that it encouraged untruthfulness, tending to make +a man's yea less than yea, his nay other than nay. He said that many +people who told lies every day, would be shocked when they discovered +that they were liars; and that their lying must be discovered, for the +Lord said so. Every untruthfulness was a passing hypocrisy, and if they +would not come to be hypocrites out and out, they must begin to avoid it +by speaking every man the truth to his neighbor. If they did not begin +at once to speak the truth, they must grow worse and worse liars. The +Lord called hypocrisy _leaven_, because of its irresistible, perhaps as +well its unseen, growth and spread; he called it the leaven _of the +Pharisees_, because it was the all-pervading quality of their being, and +from them was working moral dissolution in the nation, eating like a +canker into it, by infecting with like hypocrisy all who looked up to +them. + +"Is it not a strange drift, this of men," said the curate, "to hide what +is, under the veil of what is not? to seek refuge in lies, as if that +which is not, could be an armor of adamant? to run from the daylight for +safety, deeper into the cave? In the cave house the creatures of the +night--the tigers and hyenas, the serpent and the old dragon of the +dark; in the light are true men and women, and the clear-eyed angels. +But the reason is only too plain; it is, alas! that they are themselves +of the darkness and not of the light. They do not fear their own. They +are more comfortable with the beasts of darkness than with the angels of +light. They dread the peering of holy eyes into their hearts; they feel +themselves naked and fear to be ashamed, therefore cast the garment of +hypocrisy about them. They have that in them so strange to the light +that they feel it must be hidden from the eye of day, as a thing +_hideous_, that is, a thing to be hidden. But the hypocrisy is worse +than all it would hide. That they have to hide again, as a more hideous +thing still. + +"God hides nothing. His very work from the beginning is _revelation_--a +casting aside of veil after veil, a showing unto men of truth after +truth. On and on, from fact to fact divine He advances, until at length +in His Son Jesus, He unveils His very face. Then begins a fresh +unveiling, for the very work of the Father is the work the Son Himself +has to do--to reveal. His life was the unveiling of Himself, and the +unveiling of the Son is still going on, and is that for the sake of +which the world exists. When He is unveiled, that is, when we know the +Son, we shall know the Father also. The whole of creation, its growth, +its history, the gathering total of human existence, is an unveiling of +the Father. He is the life, the eternal life, the _Only_. I see it--ah! +believe me--I see it as I can not say it. From month to month it grows +upon me. The lovely home-light, the One essence of peaceful being, is +God Himself. + +"He loves light and not darkness, therefore shines, therefore reveals. +True, there are infinite gulfs in Him, into which our small vision can +not pierce, but they are gulfs of light, and the truths there are +invisible only through excess of their own clarity. There is a darkness +that comes of effulgence, and the most veiling of all veils is the +light. That for which the eye exists is light, but _through_ light no +human eye can pierce.--I find myself beyond my depth. I am ever beyond +my depth, afloat in an infinite sea; but the depth of the sea knows me, +for the ocean of my being is God.--What I would say is this, that the +light is not blinding because God would hide, but because the truth is +too glorious for our vision. The effulgence of Himself God veiled that +He might unveil it--in his Son. Inter-universal spaces, aeons, +eternities--what word of vastness you can find or choose--take +unfathomable darkness itself, if you will, to express the infinitude of +God, that original splendor existing only to the consciousness of God +Himself--I say He hides it not, but is revealing it ever, forever, at +all cost of labor, yea of pain to Himself. His whole creation is a +sacrificing of Himself to the being and well-being of His little ones, +that, being wrought out at last into partakers of His divine nature, +that nature may be revealed in them to their divinest bliss. He brings +hidden things out of the light of His own being into the light of ours. + +"But see how different _we_ are--until we learn of Him! See the tendency +of man to conceal his treasures, to claim even truth as his own by +discovery, to hide it and be proud of it, gloating over that which he +thinks he has in himself, instead of groaning after the infinite of God! +We would be forever heaping together possessions, dragging things into +the cave of our finitude, our individual self, not perceiving that the +things which pass that dreariest of doors, whatever they may have been, +are thenceforth but 'straws, small sticks, and dust of the floor.' When +a man would have a truth in thither as if it were of private +interpretation, he drags in only the bag which the truth, remaining +outside, has burst and left. + +"Nowhere are such children of darkness born as in the caves of +hypocrisy; nowhere else can a man revel with such misshapen hybrids of +religion and sin. But, as one day will be found, I believe, a strength +of physical light before which even solid gold or blackest marble +becomes transparent, so is there a spiritual light before which all +veils of falsehood shall shrivel up and perish and cease to hide; so +that, in individual character, in the facts of being, in the densest of +Pharisaical hypocrisy, there is nothing covered that shall not be +revealed, nothing hid that shall not be known. + +"If then, brother or sister, thou hast that which would be hidden, make +haste and drag the thing from its covert into the presence of thy God, +thy Light, thy Saviour, that, if it be in itself good, it may be +cleansed; if evil, it may be stung through and through with the burning +arrows of truth, and perish in glad relief. For the one bliss of an evil +thing is to perish and pass; the evil thing, and that alone, is the +natural food of Death--nothing else will agree with the monster. If we +have such foul things, I say, within the circumference of our known +selves, we must confess the charnel-fact to ourselves and to God; and if +there be any one else who has a claim to know it, to that one also must +we confess, casting out the vile thing that we may be clean. Let us make +haste to open the doors of our lips and the windows of our humility, to +let out the demon of darkness, and in the angels of light--so abjuring +the evil. Be sure that concealment is utterly, absolutely hopeless. If +we do not thus ourselves open our house, the day will come when a +roaring blast of His wind, or the flame of His keen lightning, will +destroy every defense of darkness, and set us shivering before the +universe in our naked vileness; for there is nothing covered that shall +not be revealed, neither hid that shall not be known. Ah! well for man +that he can not hide! What vaults of uncleanness, what sinks of dreadful +horrors, would not the souls of some of us grow! But for every one of +them, as for the universe, comes the day of cleansing. Happy they who +hasten it! who open wide the doors, take the broom in the hand, and +begin to sweep! The dust may rise in clouds; the offense may be great; +the sweeper may pant and choke, and weep, yea, grow faint and sick with +self-disgust; but the end will be a clean house, and the light and wind +of Heaven shining and blowing clear and fresh and sweet through all its +chambers. Better so, than have a hurricane from God burst in doors and +windows, and sweep from his temple with the besom of destruction every +thing that loveth and maketh a lie. Brothers, sisters, let us be clean. +The light and the air around us are God's vast purifying furnace; out +into it let us cast all hypocrisy. Let us be open-hearted, and speak +every man the truth to his neighbor. Amen." + +The faces of the little congregation had been staring all the time at +the speaker's, as the flowers of a little garden stare at the sun. Like +a white lily that had begun to fade, that of Juliet had drawn the eyes +of the curate, as the whitest spot always will. But it had drawn his +heart also. Had her troubles already begun, poor girl? he thought. Had +the sweet book of marriage already begun to give out its bitterness? + +It was not just so. Marriage was good to her still. Not yet, though but +a thing of this world, as she and her husband were agreed, had it begun +to grow stale and wearisome. She was troubled. It was with no reaction +against the opinions to which she had practically yielded; but not the +less had the serpent of the truth bitten her, for it can bite through +the gauze of whatever opinions or theories. Conscious, persistent wrong +may harden and thicken the gauze to a quilted armor, but even through +that the sound of its teeth may wake up Don Worm, the conscience, and +then is the baser nature between the fell incensed points of mighty +opposites. It avails a man little to say he does not believe this or +that, if the while he can not rest because of some word spoken. True +speech, as well as true scripture, is given by inspiration of God; it +goes forth on the wind of the Spirit, with the ministry of fire. The sun +will shine, and the wind will blow, the floods will beat, and the fire +will burn, until the yielding soul, re-born into childhood, spreads +forth its hands and rushes to the Father. + +It was dark, and Juliet took the offered arm of the rector and walked +with him toward the house. Both were silent, for both had been touched. +The rector was busy tumbling over the contents now of this now of that +old chest and cabinet in the lumber-room of his memory, seeking for +things to get rid of by holy confession ere the hour of proclamation +should arrive. He was finding little yet beyond boyish escapades, and +faults and sins which he had abjured ages ago and almost forgotten. His +great sin, of which he had already repented, and was studying more and +more to repent--that of undertaking holy service for the sake of the +loaves and the fishes--then, in natural sequence, only taking the loaves +and the fishes, and doing no service in return, did not come under the +name of hypocrisy, being indeed a crime patent to the universe, even +when hidden from himself. When at length the heavy lids of his honest +sleepy-eyed nature arose, and he saw the truth of his condition, his +dull, sturdy soul had gathered itself like an old wrestler to the +struggle, and hardly knew what was required of it, or what it had to +overthrow, till it stood panting over its adversary. + +Juliet also was occupied--with no such search as the rector's, hardly +even with what could be called thought, but with something that must +either soon cause the keenest thought, or at length a spiritual +callosity: somewhere in her was a motion, a something turned and +twisted, ceased and began again, boring like an auger; or was it a +creature that tried to sleep, but ever and anon started awake, and with +fretful claws pulled at its nest in the fibers of her heart? + +The curate and his wife talked softly all the way back to the house. + +"Do you really think," said Helen, "that every fault one has ever +committed will one day be trumpeted out to the universe?" + +"That were hardly worth the while of the universe," answered her +husband. "Such an age-long howling of evil stupidities would be enough +to turn its brain with ennui and disgust. Nevertheless, the hypocrite +will certainly know himself discovered and shamed, and unable any longer +to hide himself from his neighbor. His past deeds also will be made +plain to all who, for further ends of rectification, require to know +them. Shame will then, I trust, be the first approach of his +redemption." + +Juliet, for she was close behind them, heard his words and shuddered. + +"You are feeling it cold, Mrs. Faber," said the rector, and, with the +fatherly familiarity of an old man, drew her cloak better around her. + +"It is not cold," she faltered; "but somehow the night-air always makes +me shiver." + +The rector pulled a muffler from his coat-pocket, and laid it like a +scarf on her shoulders. + +"How kind you are!" she murmured. "I don't deserve it." + +"Who deserves any thing?" said the rector. "I less, I am sure, than any +one I know. Only, if you will believe my curate, you have but to ask, +and have what you need." + +"I wasn't the first to say that, sir," Wingfold struck in, turning his +head over his shoulder. + +"I know that, my boy," answered Mr. Bevis; "but you were the first to +make me want to find its true.--I say, Mrs. Faber, what if it should +turn out after all, that there was a grand treasure hid in your field +and mine, that we never got the good of because we didn't believe it was +there and dig for it? What if this scatter-brained curate of mine should +be right when he talks so strangely about our living in the midst of +calling voices, cleansing fires, baptizing dews, and _won't_ hearken, +won't be clean, won't give up our sleep and our dreams for the very +bliss for which we cry out in them!" + +The old man had stopped, taken off his hat, and turned toward her. He +spoke with such a strange solemnity of voice that it could hardly have +been believed his by those who knew him as a judge of horses and not as +a reader of prayers. The other pair had stopped also. + +"I should call it very hard," returned Juliet, "to come so near it and +yet miss it." + +"Especially to be driven so near it against one's will, and yet succeed +in getting past without touching it," said the curate, with a flavor of +asperity. His wife gently pinched his arm, and he was ashamed. + +When they reached home, Juliet went straight to bed--or at least to her +room for the night. + +"I say, Wingfold," remarked the rector, as they sat alone after supper, +"that sermon of yours was above your congregation." + +"I am afraid you are right, sir. I am sorry. But if you had seen their +faces as I did, perhaps you would have modified the conclusion." + +"I am very glad I heard it, though," said the rector. + +They had more talk, and when Wingfold went up stairs, he found Helen +asleep. Annoyed with himself for having spoken harshly to Mrs. Faber, +and more than usually harassed by a sense of failure in his sermon, he +threw himself into a chair, and sat brooding and praying till the light +began to appear. Out of the reeds shaken all night in the wind, rose +with the morning this bird:-- + + THE SMOKE. + + Lord, I have laid my heart upon Thy altar, + But can not get the wood to burn; + It hardly flares ere it begins to falter, + And to the dark return. + + Old sap, or night-fallen dew, has damped the fuel; + In vain my breath would flame provoke; + Yet see--at every poor attempt's renewal + To Thee ascends the smoke. + + 'Tis all I have--smoke, failure, foiled endeavor, + Coldness, and doubt, and palsied lack; + Such as I have I send Thee;--perfect Giver, + Send Thou Thy lightning back. + +In the morning, as soon as breakfast was over, Helen's ponies were +brought to the door, she and Juliet got into the carriage, Wingfold +jumped up behind, and they returned to Glaston. Little was said on the +way, and Juliet seemed strangely depressed. They left her at her own +door. + +"What did that look mean?" said Wingfold to his wife, the moment they +were round the corner of Mr. Drew's shop. + +"You saw it then?" returned Helen. "I did not think you had been so +quick." + +"I saw what I could not help taking for relief," said the curate, "when +the maid told her that her husband was not at home." + +They said no more till they reached the rectory, where Helen followed +her husband to his study. + +"He can't have turned tyrant already!" she said, resuming the subject of +Juliet's look. "But she's afraid of him." + +"It did look like it," rejoined her husband. "Oh, Helen, what a hideous +thing fear of her husband must be for a woman, who has to spend not her +days only in his presence, but her nights by his side! I do wonder so +many women dare to be married. They would need all to have clean +consciences." + +"Or no end of faith in their husbands," said Helen. "If ever I come to +be afraid of you, it will be because I have done something very wrong +indeed." + +"Don't be too sure of that, Helen," returned Wingfold. "There are very +decent husbands as husbands go, who are yet unjust, exacting, selfish. +The most devoted of wives are sometimes afraid of the men they yet +consider the very models of husbands. It is a brutal shame that a woman +should feel afraid, or even uneasy, instead of safe, beside her +husband." + +"You are always on the side of the women, Thomas," said his wife; "and I +love you for it somehow--I can't tell why." + +"You make a mistake to begin with, my dear: you don't love me because I +am on the side of the women, but because I am on the side of the +wronged. If the man happened to be the injured party, and I took the +side of the woman, you would be down on me like an avalanche." + +"I dare say. But there is something more in it. I don't think I am +altogether mistaken. You don't talk like most men. They have such an +ugly way of asserting superiority, and sneering at women! That you never +do, and as a woman I am grateful for it." + +The same afternoon Dorothy Drake paid a visit to Mrs. Faber, and was +hardly seated before the feeling that something was wrong arose in her. +Plainly Juliet was suffering--from some cause she wished to conceal. +Several times she seemed to turn faint, hurriedly fanned herself, and +drew a deep breath. Once she rose hastily and went to the window, as if +struggling with some oppression, and returned looking very pale. + +Dorothy was frightened. + +"What is the matter, dear?" she said. + +"Nothing," answered Juliet, trying to smile. "Perhaps I took a little +cold last night," she added with a shiver. + +"Have you told your husband?" asked Dorothy. + +"I haven't seen him since Saturday," she answered quietly, but a pallor +almost deathly overspread her face. + +"I hope he will soon be home," said Dorothy. "Mind you tell him how you +feel the instant he comes in." + +Juliet answered with a smile, but that smile Dorothy never forgot. It +haunted her all the way home. When she entered her chamber, her eyes +fell upon the petal of a monthly rose, which had dropped from the little +tree in her window, and lay streaked and crumpled on the black earth of +the flower-pot: by one of those queer mental vagaries in which the +imagination and the logical faculty seem to combine to make sport of the +reason--"How is it that smile has got here before me?" she said to +herself. + +She sat down and thought. Could it be that Juliet had, like herself, +begun to find there could be no peace without the knowledge of an +absolute peace? If it were so, and she would but let her know it, then, +sisters at least in sorrow and search, they would together seek the +Father of their spirits, if haply they might find Him; together they +would cry to Him--and often: it might be He would hear them, and reveal +Himself. Her heart was sore all day, thinking of that sad face. Juliet, +whether she knew it or not, was, like herself, in trouble because she +had no God. + +The conclusion shows that Dorothy was far from hopeless. That she could +believe the lack of a God was the cause unknown to herself of her +friend's depression, implies an assurance of the human need of a God, +and a hope there might be One to be found. For herself, if she could but +find Him, she felt there would be nothing but bliss evermore. Dorothy +then was more hopeful than she herself knew. I doubt if absolute +hopelessness is ever born save at the word, _Depart from me_. Hope +springs with us from God Himself, and, however down-beaten, however sick +and nigh unto death, will evermore lift its head and rise again. + +She could say nothing to her father. She loved him--oh, how dearly! and +trusted him; where she could trust him at all!--oh, how perfectly! but +she had no confidence in his understanding of herself. The main cause +whence arose his insufficiency and her lack of trust was, that all his +faith in God was as yet scarcely more independent of thought-forms, +word-shapes, dogma and creed, than that of the Catholic or Calvinist. +How few are there whose faith is simple and mighty in the Father of +Jesus Christ, waiting to believe all that He will reveal to them! How +many of those who talk of faith as the one needful thing, will accept as +sufficient to the razing of the walls of partition between you and them, +your heartiest declaration that you believe _in Him_ with the whole +might of your nature, lay your soul bare to the revelation of His +spirit, and stir up your will to obey Him?--And then comes _your_ +temptation--to exclude, namely, from your love and sympathy the weak and +boisterous brethren who, after the fashion possible to them, believe in +your Lord, because they exclude you, and put as little confidence in +your truth as in your insight. If you do know more of Christ than they, +upon you lies the heavier obligation to be true to them, as was St. Paul +to the Judaizing Christians, whom these so much resemble, who were his +chief hindrance in the work his Master had given him to do. In Christ we +must forget Paul and Apollos and Cephas, pope and bishop and pastor and +presbyter, creed and interpretation and theory. Care-less of their +opinions, we must be careful of themselves--careful that we have salt in +ourselves, and that the salt lose not its savor, that the old man, dead +through Christ, shall not, vampire-like, creep from his grave and suck +the blood of the saints, by whatever name they be called, or however +little they may yet have entered into the freedom of the gospel that God +is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. + +How was Dorothy to get nearer to Juliet, find out her trouble, and +comfort her? + +"Alas!" she said to herself, "what a thing is marriage in separating +friends!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +THE OLD HOUSE OF GLASTON. + + +The same evening Dorothy and her father walked to the Old House. Already +the place looked much changed. The very day the deeds were signed, Mr. +Drake, who was not the man to postpone action a moment after the time +for it was come, had set men at work upon the substantial repairs. The +house was originally so well built that these were not so heavy as might +have been expected, and when completed they made little show of change. +The garden, however, looked quite another thing, for it had lifted +itself up from the wilderness in which it was suffocated, reviving like +a repentant soul reborn. Under its owner's keen watch, its ancient plan +had been rigidly regarded, its ancient features carefully retained. The +old bushes were well trimmed, but as yet nothing live, except weeds, had +been uprooted. The hedges and borders, of yew and holly and box, tall +and broad, looked very bare and broken and patchy; but now that the +shears had, after so long a season of neglect, removed the gathered +shade, the naked stems and branches would again send out the young +shoots of the spring, a new birth would begin everywhere, and the old +garden would dawn anew. For all his lack of sympathy with the older +forms of religious economy in the country, a thing, alas! too easy to +account for, the minister yet loved the past and felt its mystery. He +said once in a sermon--and it gave offense to more than one of his +deacons, for they scented in it _Germanism_,--"The love of the past, the +desire of the future, and the enjoyment of the present, make an +eternity, in which time is absorbed, its lapse lapses, and man partakes +of the immortality of his Maker. In each present personal being, we have +the whole past of our generation inclosed, to be re-developed with +endless difference in each individuality. Hence perhaps it comes that, +every now and then, into our consciousnesses float strange odors of +feeling, strange tones as of bygone affections, strange glimmers as of +forgotten truths, strange mental sensations of indescribable sort and +texture. Friends, I should be a terror to myself, did I not believe that +wherever my dim consciousness may come to itself, God is there." + +Dorothy would have hastened the lighter repairs inside the house as +well, so as to get into it as soon as possible; but her father very +wisely argued that it would be a pity to get the house in good +condition, and then, as soon as they went into it, and began to find how +it could be altered better to suit their tastes and necessities, have to +destroy a great part of what had just been done. His plan, therefore, +was to leave the house for the winter, now it was weather-tight, and +with the first of the summer partly occupy it as it was, find out its +faults and capabilities, and have it gradually repaired and altered to +their minds and requirements. There would in this way be plenty of time +to talk about every thing, even to the merest suggestion of fancy, and +discover what they would really like. + +But ever since the place had been theirs, Dorothy had been in the habit +of going almost daily to the house, with her book and her work, sitting +now in this, now in that empty room, undisturbed by the noises of the +workmen, chiefly outside: the foreman was a member of her father's +church, a devout man, and she knew every one of his people. She had +taken a strange fancy to those empty rooms: perhaps she felt them like +her own heart, waiting for something to come and fill them with life. +Nor was there any thing to prevent her, though the work was over for a +time, from indulging herself in going there still, as often as she +pleased, and she would remain there for hours, sometimes nearly the +whole day. In her present condition of mind and heart, she desired and +needed solitude: she was one of those who when troubled rush from their +fellows, and, urged by the human instinct after the divine, seek refuge +in loneliness--the cave on Horeb, the top of Mount Sinai, the closet +with shut door--any lonely place where, unseen, and dreading no eye, the +heart may call aloud to the God hidden behind the veil of the things +that do appear. + +How different, yet how fit to merge in a mutual sympathy, were the +thoughts of the two, as they wandered about the place that evening! +Dorothy was thinking her commonest thought--how happy she could be if +only she knew there was a Will central to the universe, willing all that +came to her--good or seeming-bad--a Will whom she might love and thank +for _all_ things. He would be to her no God whom she could thank only +when He sent her what was pleasant. She must be able to thank Him for +every thing, or she could thank Him for nothing. + +Her father was saying to himself he could not have believed the lifting +from his soul of such a gravestone of debt, would have made so little +difference to his happiness. He fancied honest Jones, the butcher, had +more mere pleasure from the silver snuff-box he had given him, than he +had himself from his fortune. Relieved he certainly was, but the relief +was not happiness. His debt had been the stone that blocked up the gate +of Paradise: the stone was rolled away, but the gate was not therefore +open. He seemed for the first time beginning to understand what he had +so often said, and in public too, and had thought he understood, that +God Himself, and not any or all of His gifts, is the life of a man. He +had got rid of the dread imagination that God had given him the money in +anger, as He had given the Israelites the quails, nor did he find that +the possession formed any barrier between him and God: his danger, now +seemed that of forgetting the love of the Giver in his anxiety to spend +the gift according to His will. + +"You and I ought to be very happy, my love," he said, as now they were +walking home. + +He had often said so before, and Dorothy had held her peace; but now, +with her eyes on the ground, she rejoined, in a low, rather broken +voice, + +"Why, papa?" + +"Because we are lifted above the anxiety that was crushing us into the +very mud," he answered, with surprise at her question. + +"It never troubled me so much as all that," she answered. "It is a great +relief to see you free from it, father; but otherwise, I can not say +that it has made much difference to me." + +"My dear Dorothy," said the minister, "it is time we should understand +each other. Your state of mind has for a long time troubled me; but +while debt lay so heavy upon me, I could give my attention to nothing +else. Why should there be any thing but perfect confidence between a +father and daughter who belong to each other alone in all the world? +Tell me what it is that so plainly oppresses you. What prevents you from +opening your heart to me? You can not doubt my love." + +"Never for one moment, father," she answered, almost eagerly, pressing +to her heart the arm on which she leaned. "I know I am safe with you +because I am yours, and yet somehow I can not get so close to you as I +would. Something comes between us, and prevents me." + +"What is it, my child? I will do all and every thing I can to remove +it." + +"You, dear father! I don't believe ever child had such a father." + +"Oh yes, my dear! many have had better fathers, but none better than I +hope one day by the grace of God to be to you. I am a poor creature, +Dorothy, but I love you as my own soul. You are the blessing of my days, +and my thoughts brood over you in the night: it would be in utter +content, if I only saw you happy. If your face were acquainted with +smiles, my heart would be acquainted with gladness." + +For a time neither said any thing more. The silent tears were streaming +from Dorothy's eyes. At length she spoke. + +"I wonder if I could tell you what it is without hurting you, father!" +she said. + +"I can hear any thing from you, my child," he answered. "Then I will +try. But I do not think I shall ever quite know my father on earth, or +be quite able to open my heart to him, until I have found my Father in +Heaven." + +"Ah, my child! is it so with you? Do you fear you have not yet given +yourself to the Saviour? Give yourself now. His arms are ever open to +receive you." + +"That is hardly the point, father.--Will you let me ask you any question +I please?" + +"Assuredly, my child." He always spoke, though quite unconsciously, with +a little of the _ex-cathedral_ tone. + +"Then tell me, father, are you just as sure of God as you are of me +standing here before you?" + +She had stopped and turned, and stood looking him full in the face with +wide, troubled eyes. + +Mr. Drake was silent. Hateful is the professional, contemptible is the +love of display, but in his case they floated only as vapors in the air +of a genuine soul. He was a true man, and as he could not say _yes_, +neither would he hide his _no_ in a multitude of words--at least to his +own daughter: he was not so sure of God as he was of that daughter, with +those eyes looking straight into his! Could it be that he never had +believed in God at all? The thought went through him with a great pang. +It was as if the moon grew dark above him, and the earth withered under +his feet. He stood before his child like one whose hypocrisy had been +proclaimed from the housetop. + +"Are you vexed with me, father?" said Dorothy sadly. + +"No, my child," answered the minister, in a voice of unnatural +composure. "But you stand before me there like, the very thought started +out of my soul, alive and visible, to question its own origin." + +"Ah, father!" cried Dorothy, "let us question our origin." + +The minister never even heard the words. + +"That very doubt, embodied there in my child, has, I now know, been +haunting me, dogging me behind, ever since I began to teach others," he +said, as if talking in his sleep. "Now it looks me in the face. Am I +myself to be a castaway?--Dorothy, I am _not_ sure of God--not as I am +sure of you, my darling." + +He stood silent. His ear expected a low-voiced, sorrowful reply. He +started at the tone of gladness in which Dorothy cried-- + +"Then, father, there is henceforth no cloud between us, for we are in +the same cloud together! It does not divide us, it only brings us closer +to each other. Help me, father: I am trying hard to find God. At the +same time, I confess I would rather not find Him, than find Him such as +I have sometimes heard you represent Him." + +"It may well be," returned her father--the _ex-cathedral_, the +professional tone had vanished utterly for the time, and he spoke with +the voice of an humble, true man--"it may well be that I have done Him +wrong; for since now at my age I am compelled to allow that I am not +sure of Him, what more likely than that I may have been cherishing wrong +ideas concerning Him, and so not looking in the right direction for +finding Him?" + +"Where did you get your notions of God, father--those, I mean, that you +took with you to the pulpit?" + +A year ago even, if he had been asked the same question, he would at +once have answered, "From the Word of God;" but now he hesitated, and +minutes passed before he began a reply. For he saw now that it was not +from the Bible _he_ had gathered them, whence soever they had come at +first. He pondered and searched--and found that the real answer eluded +him, hiding itself in a time beyond his earliest memory. It seemed +plain, therefore, that the source whence first he began to draw those +notions, right or wrong, must be the talk and behavior of the house in +which he was born, the words and carriage of his father and mother and +their friends. Next source to that came the sermons he heard on Sundays, +and the books given him to read. The Bible was one of those books, but +from the first he read it through the notions with which his mind was +already vaguely filled, and with the comments of his superiors around +him. Then followed the books recommended at college, this author and +that, and the lectures he heard there upon the attributes of God and the +plan of salvation. The spirit of commerce in the midst of which he had +been bred, did not occur to him as one of the sources. + +But he had perceived enough. He opened his mouth and bravely answered +her question as well as he could, not giving the Bible as the source +from which he had taken any one of the notions of God he had been in the +habit of presenting. + +"But mind," he added, "I do not allow that therefore my ideas must be +incorrect. If they be second-hand, they may yet be true. I do admit that +where they have continued only second-hand, they can have been of little +value to me." + +"What you allow, then, father," said Dorothy, "is that you have yourself +taken none of your ideas direct from the fountain-head?" + +"I am afraid I must confess it, my child--with this modification, that I +have thought many of them over a good deal, and altered some of them not +a little to make them fit the molds of truth in my mind." + +"I am so glad, father!" said Dorothy. "I was positively certain, from +what I knew of you--which is more than any one else in this world, I do +believe--that some of the things you said concerning God never could +have risen in your own mind." + +"They might be in the Bible for all that," said the minister, very +anxious to be and speak the right thing. "A man's heart is not to be +trusted for correct notions of God." + +"Nor yet for correct interpretation of the Bible, I should think," said +Dorothy. + +"True, my child," answered her father with a sigh, "--except as it be +already a Godlike heart. The Lord says a bramble-bush can not bring +forth grapes." + +"The notions you gathered of God from other people, must have come out +of their hearts, father?" + +"Out of somebody's heart?" + +"Just so," answered Dorothy. + +"Go on, my child," said her father. "Let me understand clearly your +drift." + +"I have heard Mr. Wingfold say," returned Dorothy, "that however men may +have been driven to form their ideas of God before Christ came, no man +can, with thorough honesty, take the name of a Christian, whose ideas of +the Father of men are gathered from any other field than the life, +thought, words, deeds, of the only Son of that Father. He says it is not +from the Bible as a book that we are to draw our ideas of God, but from +the living Man into whose presence that book brings us, Who is alive +now, and gives His spirit that they who read about Him may understand +what kind of being He is, and why He did as He did, and know Him, in +some possible measure, as He knows Himself.--I can only repeat the +lesson like a child." + +"I suspect," returned the minister, "that I have been greatly astray. +But after this, we will seek our Father together, in our Brother, Jesus +Christ." + +It was the initiation of a daily lesson together in the New Testament, +which, while it drew their hearts closer to each other, drew them, with +growing delight, nearer and nearer to the ideal of humanity, Jesus +Christ, in whom shines the glory of its Father. + +A man may look another in the face for a hundred years and not know him. +Men _have_ looked Jesus Christ in the face, and not known either Him or +his Father. It was needful that He should appear, to begin the knowing +of Him, but speedily was His visible presence taken away, that it might +not become, as assuredly it would have become, a veil to hide from men +the Father of their spirits. Do you long for the assurance of some +sensible sign? Do you ask why no intellectual proof is to be had? I tell +you that such would but delay, perhaps altogether impair for you, that +better, that best, that only vision, into which at last your world must +blossom--such a contact, namely, with the heart of God Himself, such a +perception of His being, and His absolute oneness with you, the child of +His thought, the individuality softly parted from His spirit, yet living +still and only by His presence and love, as, by its own radiance, will +sweep doubt away forever. Being then in the light and knowing it, the +lack of intellectual proof concerning that which is too high for it, +will trouble you no more than would your inability to silence a +metaphysician who declared that you had no real existence. It is for the +sake of such vision as God would give that you are denied such vision as +you would have. The Father of our spirits is not content that we should +know Him as we now know each other. There is a better, closer, nearer +than any human way of knowing, and to that He is guiding us across all +the swamps of our unteachableness, the seas of our faithlessness, the +desert of our ignorance. It is so very hard that we should have to wait +for that which we can not yet receive? Shall we complain of the shadows +cast upon our souls by the hand and the napkin polishing their mirrors +to the receiving of the more excellent glory! Have patience, children of +the Father. Pray always and do not faint. The mists and the storms and +the cold will pass--the sun and the sky are for evermore. There were no +volcanoes and no typhoons but for the warm heart of the earth, the soft +garment of the air, and the lordly sun over all. The most loving of you +can not imagine how one day the love of the Father will make you love +even your own. + +Much trustful talk passed between father and daughter as they walked +home: they were now nearer to each other than ever in their lives +before. + +"You don't mind my coming out here alone, papa?" said Dorothy, as, after +a little chat with the gate-keeper, they left the park. "I have of late +found it so good to be alone! I think I am beginning to learn to think." + +"Do in every thing just as you please, my child," said her father. "I +can have no objection to what you see good. Only don't be so late as to +make me anxious." + +"I like coming early," said Dorothy. "These lovely mornings make me feel +as if the struggles of life were over, and only a quiet old age were +left." + +The father looked anxiously at his daughter. Was she going to leave him? +It smote him to the heart that he had done so little to make her life a +blessed one. How hard no small portion of it had been! How worn and pale +she looked! Why did she not show fresh and bright like other young +women--Mrs. Faber for instance? He had not guided her steps into the way +of peace! At all events he had not led her home to the house of wisdom +and rest! Too good reason why--he had not himself yet found that home! +Henceforth, for her sake as well as his own, he would besiege the +heavenly grace with prayer. + +The opening of his heart in confessional response to his daughter, +proved one of those fresh starts in the spiritual life, of which a man +needs so many as he climbs to the heavenly gates. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + +PAUL FABER'S DRESSING-ROOM. + + +Faber did not reach home till a few minutes before the dinner hour. He +rode into the stable-yard, entered the house by the surgery, and went +straight to his dressing-room; for the roads were villianous, and +Ruber's large feet had made a wonderful sight of his master, who +respected his wife's carpet. At the same time he hoped, as it was so +near dinner-time, to find her in her chamber. She had, however, already +made her toilet, and was waiting his return in the drawing-room. Her +heart made a false motion and stung her when she heard his steps pass +the door and go up stairs, for generally he came to greet her the moment +he entered the house.--Had he seen any body!--Had he heard any thing? It +was ten dreadful minutes before he came down, but he entered cheerily, +with the gathered warmth of two days of pent-up affection. She did her +best to meet him as if nothing had happened. For indeed what had +happened--except her going to church? If nothing had taken place since +she saw him--since she knew him--why such perturbation? Was marriage a +slavery of the very soul, in which a wife was bound to confess every +thing to her husband, even to her most secret thoughts and feelings? Or +was a husband lord not only over the present and future of his wife, but +over her past also? Was she bound to disclose every thing that lay in +that past? If Paul made no claim upon her beyond the grave, could he +claim back upon the dead past before he knew her, a period over which +she had now no more control than over that when she would be but a +portion of the material all? + +But whatever might be Paul's theories of marriage or claims upon his +wife, it was enough for her miserable unrest that she was what is called +a living soul, with a history, and what has come to be called a +conscience--a something, that is, as most people regard it, which has +the power, and uses it, of making uncomfortable. + +The existence of such questions as I have indicated reveals that already +between her and him there showed space, separation, non-contact: Juliet +was too bewildered with misery to tell whether it was a cleft of a +hair's breadth, or a gulf across which no cry could reach; this moment +it seemed the one, the next the other. The knowledge which caused it had +troubled her while he sought her love, had troubled her on to the very +eve of her surrender. The deeper her love grew the more fiercely she +wrestled with the evil fact. A low moral development and the purest +resolve of an honest nature afforded her many pleas, and at length she +believed she had finally put it down. She had argued that, from the +opinions themselves of Faber, the thing could not consistently fail to +be as no thing to him. Even were she mistaken in this conclusion, it +would be to wrong his large nature, his generous love, his unselfish +regard, his tender pitifulness, to fail of putting her silent trust in +him. Besides, had she not read in the newspapers the utterance of a +certain worshipful judge on the bench that no man had any thing to do +with his wife's ante-nuptial history? The contract then was certainly +not retrospective. What in her remained unsatisfied after all her +arguments, reasons, and appeals to common sense and consequences, she +strove to strangle, and thought, hoped, she had succeeded. She willed +her will, made up her mind, yielded to Paul's solicitations, and put the +whole painful thing away from her. + +The step taken, the marriage over, nothing could any more affect either +fact. Only, unfortunately for the satisfaction and repose she had +desired and expected, her love to her husband had gone on growing after +they were married. True she sometimes fancied it otherwise, but while +the petals of the rose were falling, its capsule was filling; and +notwithstanding the opposite tendency of the deoxygenated atmosphere in +which their thoughts moved, she had begun already to long after an +absolute union with him. But this growth of her love, and aspiration +after its perfection, although at first they covered what was gone by +with a deepening mist of apparent oblivion, were all the time bringing +it closer to her consciousness--out of the far into the near. And now +suddenly that shape she knew of, lying in the bottom of the darkest pool +of the stagnant Past, had been stung into life by a wind of words that +swept through Nestley chapel, had stretched up a hideous neck and +threatening head from the deep, and was staring at her with sodden eyes: +henceforth she knew that the hideous Fact had its appointed place +between her and her beautiful Paul, the demon of the gulfy cleft that +parted them. + +The moment she spoke in reply to his greeting her husband also felt +something dividing them, but had no presentiment of its being any thing +of import. + +"You are over-tired, my love," he said, and taking her hand, felt her +pulse. It was feeble and frequent. + +"What have they been doing to you, my darling?" he asked. "Those little +demons of ponies running away again?" + +"No," she answered, scarce audibly. + +"Something has gone wrong with you," he persisted. "Have you caught +cold? None of the old symptoms, I hope?" + +"None, Paul. There is nothing the matter," she answered, laying her head +lightly, as if afraid of the liberty she took, upon his shoulder. His +arm went round her waist. + +"What is it, then, my wife?" he said tenderly. + +"Which would you rather have, Paul--have me die, or do something +wicked?" + +"Juliet, this will never do!" he returned quietly but almost severely. +"You have been again giving the reins to a morbid imagination. Weakness +and folly only can come of that. It is nothing better than hysteria." + +"No, but tell me, dear Paul," she persisted pleadingly. "Answer my +question. Do, please." + +"There is no such question to be answered," he returned. "You are not +going to die, and I am yet more certain you are not going to do any +thing wicked. Are you now?" + +"No, Paul. Indeed I am not. But----" + +"I have it!" he exclaimed. "You went to church at Nestley last night! +Confound them all with their humbug! You have been letting their +infernal nonsense get a hold of you again! It has quite upset you--that, +and going much too long without your dinner. What _can_ be keeping it?" +He left her hurriedly and rang the bell. "You must speak to the cook, my +love. She is getting out of the good habits I had so much trouble to +teach her. But no--no! you shall not be troubled with _my_ servants. I +will speak to her myself. After dinner I will read you some of my +favorite passages in Montaigne. No, you shall read to me: your French +is so much better than mine." + +Dinner was announced and nothing more was said. Paul ate well, Juliet +scarcely at all, but she managed to hide from him the offense. They rose +together and returned to the drawing-room. + +The moment Faber shut the door Juliet turned in the middle of the room, +and as he came up to her said, in a voice much unlike her own: + +"Paul, if I _were_ to do any thing very bad, as bad as could be, would +you forgive me?" + +"Come, my love," expostulated Faber, speaking more gently than before, +for he had had his dinner, "surely you are not going to spoil our +evening with any more such nonsense!" + +"Answer me, Paul, or I shall think you do not love me," she said, and +the tone of her entreaty verged upon demand. "Would you forgive me if I +had done something _very_ bad?" + +"Of course I should," he answered, with almost irritated haste, "--that +is, if I could ever bring myself to allow any thing you did was wrong. +Only, you would witch me out of opinion and judgment and every thing +else with two words from your dear lips." + +"Should I, Paul?" she said; and lifting her face from his shoulder, she +looked up in his from the depths of two dark fountains full of tears. +Never does the soul so nearly identify itself with matter as when +revealing itself through the eyes; never does matter so nearly lose +itself in spiritual absorption, as when two eyes like Juliet's are +possessed and glorified by the rush of the soul through their portals. +Faber kissed eyes and lips and neck in a glow of delight. She was the +vision of a most blessed dream, and she was his, all and altogether his! +He never thought then how his own uncreed and the prayer-book were of +the same mind that Death would one day part them. There is that in every +high and simple feeling that stamps it with eternity. For my own part I +believe that, if life has not long before twinned any twain, Death can +do nothing to divide them. The nature of each and every pure feeling, +even in the man who may sin away the very memory of it, is immortal; and +who knows from under what a depth of ashes the love of the saving God +may yet revive it! + +The next moment the doctor was summoned. When he returned, Juliet was in +bed, and pretended to be asleep. + +In the morning she appeared at the breakfast table so pale, so worn, so +troubled, that her husband was quite anxious about her. All she would +confess to was, that she had not slept well, and had a headache. +Attributing her condition to a nervous attack, he gave her some +medicine, took her to the drawing-room, and prescribed the new piano, +which he had already found the best of all sedatives for her. She +loathed the very thought of it--could no more have touched it than if +the ivory keys had been white hot steel. She watched him from the window +while he mounted his horse, but the moment the last red gleam of Ruber +vanished, she flung her arms above her head, and with a stifled cry +threw herself on a couch, stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth, and +in fierce dumb agony, tore it to shreds with hands and teeth. Presently +she rose, opened the door almost furtively, and stole softly down the +stair, looking this way and that, like one intent on some evil deed. At +the bottom she pushed a green baize-covered door, peeped into a passage, +then crept on tiptoe toward the surgery. Arrived there she darted to a +spot she knew, and stretched a trembling hand toward a bottle full of a +dark-colored liquid. As instantly she drew it back, and stood listening +with bated breath and terrified look. It _was_ a footstep approaching +the outer door of the surgery! She turned and fled from it, still +noiseless, and never stopped till she was in her own room. There she +shut and locked the door, fell on her knees by the bedside, and pressed +her face into the coverlid. She had no thought of praying. She wanted to +hide, only to hide. Neither was it from old habit she fell upon her +knees, for she had never been given to kneeling. I can not but think, +nevertheless, that there was a dumb germ of prayer at the heart of the +action--that falling upon her knees, and that hiding of her face. The +same moment something took place within her to which she could have +given no name, which she could have represented in no words, a something +which came she knew not whence, was she knew not what, and went she knew +not whither, of which indeed she would never have become aware except +for what followed, but which yet so wrought, that she rose from her +knees saying to herself, with clenched teeth and burning eyes, "I _will_ +tell him." + +As if she had known the moment of her death near, she began mechanically +to set every thing in order in the room, and as she came to herself she +was saying, "Let him kill me. I wish he would. I am quite willing to +die by his hand. He will be kind, and do it gently. He knows so many +ways!" + +It was a terrible day. She did not go out of her room again. Her mood +changed a hundred times. The resolve to confess alternated with wild +mockery and laughter, but still returned. She would struggle to persuade +herself that her whole condition was one of foolish exaggeration, of +senseless excitement about nothing--the merest delirium of feminine +fastidiousness; and the next instant would turn cold with horror at a +fresh glimpse of the mere fact. What could the wretched matter be to him +now--or to her? Who was the worse, or had ever been the worse but +herself? And what did it amount to? What claim had any one, what claim +could even a God, if such a being there were, have upon the past which +had gone from her, was no more in any possible sense within her reach +than if it had never been? Was it not as if it had never been? Was the +woman to be hurled--to hurl herself into misery for the fault of the +girl? It was all nonsense--a trifle at worst--a disagreeable trifle, no +doubt, but still a trifle! Only would to God she had died rather--even +although then she would never have known Paul!--Tut! she would never +have thought of it again but for that horrid woman that lived over the +draper's shop! All would have been well if she had but kept from +thinking about it! Nobody would have been a hair the worse then!--But, +poor Paul!--to be married to such a woman as she! + +If she were to be so foolish as let him know, how would it strike Paul? +What would he think of it? Ought she not to be sure of that before she +committed herself--before she uttered the irrevocable words? Would he +call it a trifle, or would he be ready to kill her? True, he had no +right, he _could_ have no right to know; but how horrible that there +should be any thought of right between them! still worse, any thing +whatever between them that he had no right to know! worst of all, that +she did not belong to him so utterly that he must have a right to know +_every_ thing about her! She _would_ tell him all! She would! she would! +she had no choice! she must!--But she need not tell him now. She was not +strong enough to utter the necessary words. But that made the thing very +dreadful! If she could not speak the words, how bad it must really +be!--Impossible to tell her Paul! That was pure absurdity.--Ah, but she +_could_ not! She would be certain to faint--or fall dead at his feet. +That would be well!--Yes! that would do! She would take a wine-glass +full of laudanum just before she told him; then, if he was kind, she +would confess the opium, and he could save her if he pleased; if he was +hard, she would say nothing, and die at his feet. She had hoped to die +in his arms--all that was left of eternity. But her life was his, he had +saved it with his own--oh horror! that it should have been to disgrace +him!--and it should not last a moment longer than it was a pleasure to +him. + +Worn out with thought and agony, she often fell asleep--only to start +awake in fresh misery, and go over and over the same torturing round. +Long before her husband appeared, she was in a burning fever. When he +came, he put her at once to bed, and tended her with a solicitude as +anxious as it was gentle. He soothed her to sleep, and then went and had +some dinner. + +On his return, finding, as he had expected, that she still slept, he sat +down by her bedside, and watched. Her slumber was broken with now and +then a deep sigh, now and then a moan. Alas, that we should do the +things that make for moan!--but at least I understand why we are left to +do them: it is because we can. A dull fire was burning in her soul, and +over it stood the caldron of her history, and it bubbled in sighs and +moans. + +Faber was ready enough to attribute every thing human to a physical +origin, but as he sat there pondering her condition, recalling her +emotion and strange speech of the night before, and watching the state +she was now in, an uneasiness began to gather--undefined, but other than +concerned her health. Something must be wrong somewhere. He kept +constantly assuring himself that at worst it could be but some mere +moleheap, of which her lovelily sensitive organization, under the +influence of a foolish preachment, made a mountain. Still, it was a huge +disorder to come from a trifle! At the same time who knew better than he +upon what a merest trifle nervous excitement will fix the attention! or +how to the mental eye such a speck will grow and grow until it absorb +the universe! Only a certain other disquieting thought, having come +once, would keep returning--that, thoroughly as he believed himself +acquainted with her mind, he had very little knowledge of her history. +He did not know a single friend of hers, had never met a person who knew +any thing of her family, or had even an acquaintance with her earlier +than his own. The thing he most dreaded was, that the shadow of some old +affection had returned upon her soul, and that, in her excessive +delicacy, she heaped blame upon herself that she had not absolutely +forgotten it. He flung from him in scorn every slightest suggestion of +blame. _His_ Juliet! his glorious Juliet! Bah!--But he must get her to +say what the matter was--for her own sake; he must help her to reveal +her trouble, whatever it might be--else how was he to do his best to +remove it! She should find he knew how to be generous! + +Thus thinking, he sat patient by her side, watching until the sun of her +consciousness should rise and scatter the clouds of sleep. Hour after +hour he sat, and still she slept, outwearied with the rack of emotion. +Morning had begun to peer gray through the window-curtains, when she +woke with a cry. + +She had been dreaming. In the little chapel in Nestley Park, she sat +listening to the curate's denouncement of hypocrisy, when suddenly the +scene changed: the pulpit had grown to a mighty cloud, upon which stood +an archangel with a trumpet in his hand. He cried that the hour of the +great doom had come for all who bore within them the knowledge of any +evil thing neither bemoaned before God nor confessed to man. Then he +lifted the great silver trumpet with a gleam to his lips, and every +fiber of her flesh quivered in expectation of the tearing blast that was +to follow; when instead, soft as a breath of spring from a bank of +primroses, came the words, uttered in the gentlest of sorrowful voices, +and the voice seemed that of her unbelieving Paul: "I will arise and go +to my Father." It was no wonder, therefore, that she woke with a cry. It +was one of indescribable emotion. When she saw his face bending over her +in anxious love, she threw her arms round his neck, burst into a storm +of weeping, and sobbed. + +"Oh Paul! husband! forgive me. I have sinned against you terribly--the +worst sin a woman can commit. Oh Paul! Paul! make me clean, or I am +lost." + +"Juliet, you are raving," he said, bewildered, a little angry, and at +her condition not a little alarmed. For the confession, it was +preposterous: they had not been many weeks married! "Calm yourself, or +you will give me a lunatic for a wife!" he said. Then changing his tone, +for his heart rebuked him, when he saw the ashy despair that spread over +her face and eyes, "Be still, my precious," he went on. "All is well. +You have been dreaming, and are not yet quite awake. It is the morphia +you had last night! Don't look so frightened. It is only your husband. +No one else is near you." + +With the tenderest smile he sought to reassure her, and would have +gently released himself from the agonized clasp of her arms about his +neck, that he might get her something. But she tightened her hold. + +"Don't leave me, Paul," she cried. "I was dreaming, but I am wide awake +now, and know only too well what I have done." + +"Dreams are nothing. The will is not in them," he said. But the thought +of his sweet wife even dreaming a thing to be repented of in such +dismay, tore his heart. For he was one of the many--not all of the +purest--who cherish an ideal of woman which, although indeed +poverty-stricken and crude, is to their minds of snowy favor, to their +judgment of loftiest excellence. I trust in God that many a woman, +despite the mud of doleful circumstance, yea, even the defilement that +comes first from within, has risen to a radiance of essential innocence +ineffably beyond that whose form stood white in Faber's imagination. For +I see and understand a little how God, giving righteousness, makes pure +of sin, and that verily--by no theological quibble of imputation, by no +play with words, by no shutting of the eyes, no oblivion, willful or +irresistible, but by very fact of cleansing, so that the consciousness +of the sinner becomes glistering as the raiment of the Lord on the mount +of His transfiguration. I do not expect the Pharisee who calls the +sinner evil names, and drags her up to judgment, to comprehend this; +but, woman, cry to thy Father in Heaven, for He can make thee white, +even to the contentment of that womanhood which thou hast thyself +outraged. + +Faber unconsciously prided himself on the severity of his requirements +of woman, and saw his own image reflected in the polish of his ideal; +and now a fear whose presence he would not acknowledge began to gnaw at +his heart, a vague suggestion's horrid image, to which he would yield no +space, to flit about his brain. + +"Would to God it were a dream, Paul!" answered the stricken wife. + +"You foolish child!" returned the nigh trembling husband, "how can you +expect me to believe, married but yesterday, you have already got tired +of me!" + +"Tired of you, Paul! I should desire no other eternal paradise than to +lie thus under your eyes forever." + +"Then for my sake, my darling wife, send away this extravagance, this +folly, this absurd fancy that has got such a hold of you. It will turn +to something serious if you do not resist it. There can be no truth in +it, and I am certain that one with any strength of character can do much +at least to prevent the deeper rooting of a fixed idea." But as he spoke +thus to her, in his own soul he was as one fighting the demons off with +a fan. "Tell me what the mighty matter is," he went on, "that I may +swear to you I love you the more for the worst weakness you have to +confess." + +"Ah, my love!" returned Juliet, "how like you are now to the Paul I have +dreamed of so often! But you will not be able to forgive me. I have read +somewhere that men never forgive--that their honor is before their wives +with them. Paul! if you should not be able to forgive me, you must help +me to die, and not be cruel to me." + +"Juliet, I will not listen to any more such foolish words. Either tell +me plainly what you mean, that I may convince you what a goose you are, +or be quiet and go to sleep again." + +"_Can_ it be that after all it does not signify so much?" she said +aloud, but only to herself, meditating in the light of a little +glow-worm of hope. "Oh if it could be so! And what is it really so much? +I have not murdered any body!--I _will_ tell you, Paul!" + +She drew his head closer down, laid her lips to his ear, gave a great +gasp, and whispered two or three words. He started up, sundering at once +the bonds of her clasped hands, cast one brief stare at her, turned, +walked, with a great quick stride to his dressing-room, entered, and +closed the door. + +As if with one rush of a fell wind, they were ages, deserts, empty +star-spaces apart! She was outside the universe, in the cold frenzy of +infinite loneliness. The wolves of despair were howling in her. But Paul +was in the next room! There was only the door between them! She sprung +from her bed and ran to a closet. The next moment she appeared in her +husband's dressing-room. + +Paul sat sunk together in his chair, his head hanging forward, his teeth +set, his whole shape, in limb and feature, carrying the show of +profound, of irrecoverable injury. He started to his feet when she +entered. She did not once lift her eyes to his face, but sunk on her +knees before him, hurriedly slipped her night-gown from her shoulders to +her waist, and over her head, bent toward the floor, held up to him a +riding-whip. + +They were baleful stars that looked down on that naked world beneath +them. + +To me scarce any thing is so utterly pathetic as the back. That of an +animal even is full of sad suggestion. But the human back!--It is the +other, the dark side of the human moon; the blind side of the being, +defenseless, and exposed to every thing; the ignorant side, turned +toward the abyss of its unknown origin; the unfeatured side, eyeless and +dumb and helpless--the enduring animal of the marvelous commonwealth, to +be given to the smiter, and to bend beneath the burden--lovely in its +patience and the tender forms of its strength. + +An evil word, resented by the lowest of our sisters, rushed to the man's +lips, but died there in a strangled murmur. + +"Paul!" said Juliet, in a voice from whose tone it seemed as if her soul +had sunk away, and was crying out of a hollow place of the earth, "take +it--take it. Strike me." + +He made no reply--stood utterly motionless, his teeth clenched so hard +that he could not have spoken without grinding them. She waited as +motionless, her face bowed to the floor, the whip held up over her head. + +"Paul!" she said again, "you saved my life once: save my soul now. Whip +me and take me again." + +He answered with only a strange unnatural laugh through his teeth. + +"Whip me and let me die then," she said. + +He spoke no word. She spoke again. Despair gave her both insight and +utterance--despair and great love, and the truth of God that underlies +even despair. + +"You pressed me to marry you," she said: "what was I to do? How could I +tell you? And I loved you so! I persuaded myself I was safe with +you--you were so generous. You would protect me from every thing, even +my own past. In your name I sent it away, and would not think of it +again. I said to myself you would not wish me to tell you the evil that +had befallen me. I persuaded myself you loved me enough even for that. I +held my peace trusting you. Oh my husband! my Paul! my heart is crushed. +The dreadful thing has come back. I thought it was gone from me, and +now it will not leave me any more. I am a horror to myself. There is no +one to punish and forgive me but you. Forgive me, my husband. You are +the God to whom I pray. If you pardon me I shall be content even with +myself. I shall seek no other pardon; your favor is all I care for. If +you take me for clean, I _am_ clean for all the world. You can make me +clean--you only. Do it, Paul; do it, husband. Make me clean that I may +look women in the face. Do, Paul, take the whip and strike me. I long +for my deserts at your hand. Do comfort me. I am waiting the sting of +it, Paul, to know that you have forgiven me. If I should cry out, it +will be for gladness.--Oh, my husband,"--here her voice rose to an agony +of entreaty--"I was but a girl--hardly more than a child in knowledge--I +did not know what I was doing. He was much older than I was, and I +trusted him!--O my God! I hardly know what I knew and what I did not +know: it was only when it was too late that I woke and understood. I +hate myself. I scorn myself. But am I to be wretched forever because of +that one fault, Paul? Will you not be my saviour and forgive me my sin? +Oh, do not drive me mad. I am only clinging to my reason. Whip me and I +shall be well. Take me again, Paul. I will not, if you like, even fancy +myself your wife any more. I will be your slave. You shall do with me +whatever you will. I will obey you to the very letter. Oh beat me and +let me go." + +She sunk prone on the floor, and clasped and kissed his feet. + +He took the whip from her hand. + +Of course a man can not strike a woman! He may tread her in the mire; he +may clasp her and then scorn her; he may kiss her close, and then dash +her from him into a dung-heap, but he must not strike her--that would be +unmanly! Oh! grace itself is the rage of the pitiful Othello to the +forbearance of many a self-contained, cold-blooded, self-careful slave, +that thinks himself a gentleman! Had not Faber been even then full of +his own precious self, had he yielded to her prayer or to his own wrath, +how many hours of agony would have been saved them both!--"What! would +you have had him really strike her?" I would have had him do _any thing_ +rather than choose himself and reject his wife: make of it what you +will. Had he struck once, had he seen the purple streak rise in the +snow, that instant his pride-frozen heart would have melted into a +torrent of grief; he would have flung himself on the floor beside her, +and in an agony of pity over her and horror at his own sacrilege, would +have clasped her to his bosom, and baptized her in the tears of remorse +and repentance; from that moment they would have been married indeed. + +When she felt him take the whip, the poor lady's heart gave a great +heave of hope; then her flesh quivered with fear. She closed her teeth +hard, to welcome the blow without a cry. Would he give her many stripes? +Then the last should be welcome as the first. Would it spoil her skin? +What matter if it was his own hand that did it! + +A brief delay--long to her! then the hiss, as it seemed, of the coming +blow! But instead of the pang she awaited, the sharp ring of breaking +glass followed: he had thrown the whip through the window into the +garden. The same moment he dragged his feet rudely from her embrace, and +left the room. The devil and the gentleman had conquered. He had spared +her, not in love, but in scorn. She gave one great cry of utter loss, +and lay senseless. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + +THE BOTTOMLESS POOL. + + +She came to herself in the gray dawn. She was cold as ice--cold to the +very heart, but she did not feel the cold: there was nothing in her to +compare it against; her very being was frozen. The man who had given her +life had thrown her from him. He cared less for her than for the +tortured dog. She was an outcast, defiled and miserable. Alas! alas! +this was what came of speaking the truth--of making confession! The +cruel scripture had wrought its own fulfillment, made a mock of her, and +ruined her husband's peace. She knew poor Paul would never be himself +again! She had carried the snake so long harmless in her bosom only to +let it at last creep from her lips into her husband's ear, sting the +vital core of her universe, and blast it forever! How foolish she had +been!--What was left her to do? What would her husband have her to do? +Oh misery! he cared no more what she did or did not do. She was +alone--utterly alone! But she need not live. + +Dimly, vaguely, the vapor of such thoughts as these passed through her +despairing soul, as she lifted herself from the floor and tottered back +to her room. Yet even then, in the very midst of her freezing misery, +there was, although she had not yet begun to recognize it, a nascent +comfort in that she had spoken and confessed. She would not really have +taken back her confession. And although the torture was greater, yet was +it more endurable than that she had been suffering before. She had told +him who had a right to know.--But, alas! what a deception was that dream +of the trumpet and the voice! A poor trick to entrap a helpless sinner! + +Slowly, with benumbed fingers and trembling hands, she dressed herself: +that bed she would lie in no more, for she had wronged her husband. +Whether before or after he was her husband, mattered nothing. To have +ever called him husband was the wrong. She had seemed that she was not, +else he would never have loved or sought her; she had outraged his +dignity, defiled him; he had cast her off, and she could not, would not +blame him. Happily for her endurance of her misery, she did not turn +upon her idol and cast him from his pedestal; she did not fix her gaze +upon his failure instead of her own; she did not espy the contemptible +in his conduct, and revolt from her allegiance. + +But was such a man then altogether the ideal of a woman's soul? Was he a +fit champion of humanity who would aid only within the limits of his +pride? who, when a despairing creature cried in soul-agony for help, +thought first and only of his own honor? The notion men call their honor +is the shadow of righteousness, the shape that is where the light is +not, the devil that dresses as nearly in angel-fashion as he can, but is +none the less for that a sneak and a coward. + +She put on her cloak and bonnet: the house was his, not hers. He and she +had never been one: she must go and meet her fate. There was one power, +at least, the key to the great door of liberty, which the weakest as +well as the strongest possessed: she could die. Ah, how welcome would +Death be now! Did he ever know or heed the right time to come, without +being sent for--without being compelled? In the meantime her only +anxiety was to get out of the house: away from Paul she would understand +more precisely what she had to do. With the feeling of his angry +presence, she could not think. Yet how she loved him--strong in his +virtue and indignation! She had not yet begun to pity herself, or to +allow to her heart that he was hard upon her. + +She was leaving the room when a glitter on her hand caught her eye: the +old diamond disk, which he had bought of her in her trouble, and +restored to her on her wedding-day, was answering the herald of the +sunrise. She drew it off: he must have it again. With it she drew off +also her wedding-ring. Together she laid them on the dressing table, +turned again, and with noiseless foot and desert heart went through the +house, opened the door, and stole into the street. A thin mist was +waiting for her. A lean cat, gray as the mist, stood on the steps of the +door opposite. No other living thing was to be seen. The air was chill. +The autumn rains were at hand. But her heart was the only desolation. + +Already she knew where she was going. In the street she turned to the +left. + +Shortly before, she had gone with Dorothy, for the first time, to see +the Old House, and there had had rather a narrow escape. Walking down +the garden they came to the pond or small lake, so well known to the +children of Glaston as bottomless. Two stone steps led from the end of +the principal walk down to the water, which was, at the time, nearly +level with the top of the second. On the upper step Juliet was standing, +not without fear, gazing into the gulf, which was yet far deeper than +she imagined, when, without the smallest preindication, the lower step +suddenly sank. Juliet sprung back to the walk, but turned instantly to +look again. She saw the stone sinking, and her eyes opened wider and +wider, as it swelled and thinned to a great, dull, wavering mass, grew +dimmer and dimmer, then melted away and vanished utterly. With "stricken +look," and fright-filled eyes, she turned to Dorothy, who was a little +behind her, and said, + +"How will you be able to sleep at night? I should be always fancying +myself sliding down into it through the darkness." + +To this place of terror she was now on the road. When consciousness +returned to her as she lay on the floor of her husband's dressing-room, +it brought with it first the awful pool and the sinking stone. She +seemed to stand watching it sink, lazily settling with a swing this way +and a sway that, into the bosom of the earth, down and down, and still +down. Nor did the vision leave her as she came more to herself. Even +when her mental eyes were at length quite open to the far more frightful +verities of her condition, half of her consciousness was still watching +the ever sinking stone; until at last she seemed to understand that it +was showing her a door out of her misery, one easy to open. + +She went the same way into the park that Dorothy had then taken +her--through a little door of privilege which she had shown her how to +open, and not by the lodge. The light was growing fast, but the sun was +not yet up. With feeble steps but feverous haste she hurried over the +grass. Her feet were wet through her thin shoes. Her dress was fringed +with dew. But there was no need for taking care of herself now; she felt +herself already beyond the reach of sickness. The still pond would soon +wash off the dew. + +Suddenly, with a tremor of waking hope, came the thought that, when she +was gone from his sight, the heart of her husband would perhaps turn +again toward her a little. For would he not then be avenged? would not +his justice be satisfied? She had been well drilled in the theological +lie, that punishment is the satisfaction of justice. + +"Oh, now I thank you, Paul!" she said, as she hastened along. "You +taught me the darkness, and made me brave to seek its refuge. Think of +me sometimes, Paul. I will come back to you if I can--but no, there is +no coming back, no greeting more, no shadows even to mingle their loves, +for in a dream there is but one that dreams. I shall be the one that +does not dream. There is nothing where I am going--not even the +darkness--nothing but nothing. Ah, would I were in it now! Let me make +haste. All will be one, for all will be none when I am there. Make you +haste too, and come into the darkness, Paul. It is soothing and soft and +cool. It will wash away the sin of the girl and leave you a----nothing." + +While she was hurrying toward the awful pool, her husband sat in his +study, sunk in a cold fury of conscious disgrace--not because of his +cruelty, not because he had cast a woman into hell--but because his +honor, his self-satisfaction in his own fate, was thrown to the worms. +Did he fail thus in consequence of having rejected the common belief? +No; something far above the _common_ belief it must be, that would have +enabled him to act otherwise. But had he _known_ the Man of the gospel, +he could not have left her. He would have taken her to his sorrowful +bosom, wept with her, forgotten himself in pitiful grief over the spot +upon her whiteness; he would have washed her clean with love and +husband-power. He would have welcomed his shame as his hold of her +burden, whereby to lift it, with all its misery and loss, from her heart +forever. Had Faber done so as he was, he would have come close up to the +gate of the kingdom of Heaven, for he would have been like-minded with +Him who sought not His own. His honor, forsooth! Pride is a mighty +honor! His pride was great indeed, but it was not grand! Nothing +reflected, nothing whose object is self, has in it the poorest element +of grandeur. Our selves are ours that we may lay them on the altar of +love. Lying there, bound and bleeding and burning if need be, they are +grand indeed--for they are in their noble place, and rejoicing in their +fate. But this man was miserable, because, the possessor of a priceless +jewel, he had found it was not such as would pass for flawless in the +judgment of men--judges themselves unjust, whose very hearts were full +of bribes. He sat there an injured husband, a wronged, woman-cheated, +mocked man--he in whose eyes even a smutch on her face would have +lowered a woman--who would not have listened to an angel with a broken +wing-feather! + +Let me not be supposed to make a little of Juliet's loss! What that +amounted to, let Juliet feel!--let any woman say, who loves a man, and +would be what that man thinks her! But I read, and think I understand, +the words of the perfect Purity: "Neither do I condemn thee: go and sin +no more." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + +A HEART. + + +If people were both observant and memorious, they would cease, I fancy, +to be astonished at coincidences. Rightly regarded, the universe is but +one coincidence--only where will has to be developed, there is need for +human play, and room for that must be provided in its spaces. The works +of God being from the beginning, and all his beginnings invisible either +from greatness or smallness or nearness or remoteness, numberless +coincidences may pass in every man's history, before he becomes capable +of knowing either the need or the good of them, or even of noting them. + +The same morning there was another awake and up early. When Juliet was +about half-way across the park, hurrying to the water, Dorothy was +opening the door of the empty house, seeking solitude that she might +find the one Dweller therein. She went straight to one of the upper +rooms looking out upon the garden, and kneeling prayed to her Unknown +God. As she kneeled, the first rays of the sunrise visited her face. +That face was in itself such an embodied prayer, that had any one seen +it, he might, when the beams fell upon it, have imagined he saw prayer +and answer meet. It was another sunrise Dorothy was looking for, but she +started and smiled when the warm rays touched her; they too came from +the home of answers. As the daisy mimics the sun, so is the central fire +of our system but a flower that blossoms in the eternal effulgence of +the unapproachable light. + +The God to whom we pray is nearer to us than the very prayer itself ere +it leaves the heart; hence His answers may well come to us through the +channel of our own thoughts. But the world too being itself one of His +thoughts, He may also well make the least likely of His creatures an +angel of His own will to us. Even the blind, if God be with him, that +is, if he knows he is blind and does not think he sees, may become a +leader of the blind up to the narrow gate. It is the blind who says _I +see_, that leads his fellow into the ditch. + +The window near which Dorothy kneeled, and toward which in the instinct +for light she had turned her face, looked straight down the garden, at +the foot of which the greater part of the circumference of the pond was +visible. But Dorothy, busy with her prayers, or rather with a weight of +hunger and thirst, from which like a burst of lightning skyward from the +overcharged earth, a prayer would now and then break and rush +heavenward, saw nothing of the outer world: between her and a sister +soul in mortal agony, hung the curtains of her eyelids. But there were +no shutters to her ears, and in at their portals all of a sudden darted +a great and bitter cry, as from a heart in the gripe of a fierce terror. +She had been so absorbed, and it so startled and shook her, that she +never could feel certain whether the cry she heard was of this world or +not. Half-asleep one hears such a cry, and can not tell whether it +entered his consciousness by the ear, or through some hidden channel of +the soul. Assured that waking ears heard nothing, he remains, it may be, +in equal doubt, whether it came from the other side of life or was the +mere cry of a dream. Before Dorothy was aware of a movement of her will, +she was on her feet, and staring from the window. Something was lying on +the grass beyond the garden wall, close to the pond: it looked like a +woman. She darted from the house, out of the garden, and down the other +side of the wall. When she came nearer she saw it was indeed a woman, +evidently insensible. She was bare-headed. Her bonnet was floating in +the pond; the wind had blown it almost to the middle of it. Her face was +turned toward the water. One hand was in it. The bank overhung the pond, +and with a single movement more she would probably have been beyond help +from Dorothy. She caught her by the arm, and dragged her from the brink, +before ever she looked in her face. Then to her amazement she saw it was +Juliet. She opened her eyes, and it was as if a lost soul looked out of +them upon Dorothy--a being to whom the world was nothing, so occupied +was it with some torment, which alone measured its existence--far away, +although it hung attached to the world by a single hook of brain and +nerve. + +"Juliet, my darling!" said Dorothy, her voice trembling with the love +which only souls that know trouble can feel for the troubled, "come with +me. I will take care of you." + +At the sound of her voice, Juliet shuddered. Then a better light came +into her eyes, and feebly she endeavored to get up. With Dorothy's help +she succeeded, but stood as if ready to sink again to the earth. She +drew her cloak about her, turned and stared at the water, turned again +and stared at Dorothy, at last threw herself into her arms, and sobbed +and wailed. For a few moments Dorothy held her in a close embrace. Then +she sought to lead her to the house, and Juliet yielded at once. She +took her into one of the lower rooms, and got her some water--it was all +she could get for her, and made her sit down on the window-seat. It +seemed a measureless time before she made the least attempt to speak; +and again and again when she began to try, she failed. She opened her +mouth, but no sounds would come. At length, interrupted with choking +gasps, low cries of despair, and long intervals of sobbing, she said +something like this: + +"I was going to drown myself. When I came in sight of the water, I fell +down in a half kind of faint. All the time I lay, I felt as if some one +was dragging me nearer and nearer to the pool. Then something came and +drew me back--and it was you, Dorothy. But you ought to have left me. I +am a wretch. There is no room for me in this world any more." She +stopped a moment, then fixing wide eyes on Dorothy's, said, "Oh Dorothy, +dear! there are awful things in the world! as awful as any you ever read +in a book!" + +"I know that, dear. But oh! I am sorry if any of them have come your +way. Tell me what is the matter. I _will_ help you if I can." + +"I dare not; I dare not! I should go raving mad if I said a word about +it." + +"Then don't tell me, my dear. Come with me up stairs; there is a warmer +room there--full of sunshine; you are nearly dead with cold. I came here +this morning, Juliet, to be alone and pray to God; and see what He has +sent me! You, dear! Come up stairs. Why, you are quite wet! You will get +your death of cold!" + +"Then it would be all right. I would rather not kill myself if I could +die without. But it must be somehow." + +"We'll talk about it afterward. Come now." + +With Dorothy's arm round her waist, Juliet climbed trembling to the +warmer room. On a rickety wooden chair, Dorothy made her sit in the +sunshine, while she went and gathered chips and shavings and bits of +wood left by the workmen. With these she soon kindled a fire in the +rusty grate. Then she took off Juliet's shoes and stockings, and put her +own upon her. She made no resistance, only her eyes followed Dorothy's +bare feet going to and fro, as if she felt something was wrong, and had +not strength to inquire into it. + +But Dorothy's heart rebuked her for its own lightness. It had not been +so light for many a day. It seemed as if God was letting her know that +He was there. She spread her cloak on a sunny spot of the floor, made +Juliet lie down upon it, put a bundle of shavings under her head, +covered her with her own cloak, which she had dried at the fire, and was +leaving the room. + +"Where are you going, Dorothy?" cried Juliet, seeming all at once to +wake up. + +"I am going to fetch your husband, dear," answered Dorothy. + +She gave a great cry, rose to her knees, and clasped Dorothy round +hers. + +"No, no, no!" she screamed. "You shall not. If you do, I swear I will +run straight to the pond." + +Notwithstanding the wildness of her voice and look, there was an evident +determination in both. + +"I will do nothing you don't like, dear," said Dorothy. "I thought that +was the best thing I could do for you." + +"No! no! no! any thing but that!" + +"Then of course I won't. But I must go and get you something to eat." + +"I could not swallow a mouthful; it would choke me. And where would be +the good of it, when life is over!" + +"Don't talk like that, dear. Life can't be over till it is taken from +us." + +"Ah, you would see it just as I do, if you knew all!" + +"Tell me all, then." + +"Where is the use, when there is no help?" + +"No help!" echoed Dorothy.--The words she had so often uttered in her +own heart, coming from the lips of another, carried in them an +incredible contradiction.--Could God make or the world breed the +irreparable?--"Juliet," she went on, after a little pause, "I have often +said the same myself, but--" + +"You!" interrupted Juliet; "you who always professed to believe!" + +Dorothy's ear could not distinguish whether the tone was of indignation +or of bitterness. + +"You never heard me, Juliet," she answered, "profess any thing. If my +surroundings did so for me, I could not help that. I never dared say I +believed any thing. But I hope--and, perhaps," she went on with a smile, +"seeing Hope is own sister to Faith, she may bring me to know her too +some day. Paul says----" + +Dorothy had been brought up a dissenter, and never said _St._ this one +or that, any more than the Christians of the New Testament. + +At the sound of the name, Juliet burst into tears, the first she shed, +for the word _Paul_, like the head of the javelin torn from the wound, +brought the whole fountain after it. She cast herself down again, and +lay and wept. Dorothy kneeled beside her, and laid a hand on her +shoulder. It was the only way she could reach her at all. + +"You see," she said at last, for the weeping went on and on, "there is +nothing will do you any good but your husband." + +"No, no; he has cast me from him forever!" she cried, in a strange wail +that rose to a shriek. + +"The wretch!" exclaimed Dorothy, clenching a fist whose little bones +looked fierce through the whitened skin. + +"No," returned Juliet, suddenly calmed, in a voice almost severe; "it is +I who am the wretch, to give you a moment in which to blame him. He has +done nothing but what is right." + +"I don't believe it." + +"I deserved it." + +"I am sure you did not. I would believe a thousand things against him +before I would believe one against you, my poor white queen!" cried +Dorothy, kissing her hand. + +She snatched it away, and covered her face with both hands. + +"I should only need to tell you one thing to convince you," she sobbed +from behind them. + +"Then tell it me, that I may not be unjust to him." + +"I can not." + +"I won't take your word against yourself," returned Dorothy +determinedly. "You will have to tell me, or leave me to think the worst +of him." She was moved by no vulgar curiosity: how is one to help +without knowing? "Tell me, my dear," she went on after a little; "tell +me all about it, and in the name of the God in whom I hope to believe, I +promise to give myself to your service." + +Thus adjured, Juliet found herself compelled. But with what +heart-tearing groans and sobs, with what intervals of dumbness, in which +the truth seemed unutterable for despair and shame, followed by what +hurrying of wild confession, as if she would cast it from her, the sad +tale found its way into Dorothy's aching heart, I will not attempt to +describe. It is enough that at last it was told, and that it had entered +at the wide-open, eternal doors of sympathy. If Juliet had lost a +husband, she had gained a friend, and that was something--indeed no +little thing--for in her kind the friend was more complete than the +husband. She was truer, more entire--in friendship nearly perfect. When +a final burst of tears had ended the story of loss and despair, a +silence fell. + +"Oh, those men! those men!" said Dorothy, in a low voice of bitterness, +as if she knew them and their ways well, though never had kiss of man +save her father lighted on her cheek. "--My poor darling!" she said +after another pause, "--and he cast you from him!--I suppose a woman's +heart," she went on after a third pause, "can never make up for the loss +of a man's, but here is mine for you to go into the very middle of, and +lie down there." + +Juliet had, as she told her story, risen to her knees. Dorothy was on +hers too, and as she spoke she opened wide her arms, and clasped the +despised wife to her bosom. None but the arms of her husband, Juliet +believed, could make her alive with forgiveness, yet she felt a strange +comfort in that embrace. It wrought upon her as if she had heard a +far-off whisper of the words: _Thy sins be forgiven thee_. And no +wonder: there was the bosom of one of the Lord's clean ones for her to +rest upon! It was her first lesson in the mighty truth that sin of all +things is mortal, and purity alone can live for evermore. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + +TWO MORE MINDS. + + +Nothing makes a man strong like a call upon him for help--a fact which +points at a unity more delicate and close and profound than heart has +yet perceived. It is but "a modern instance" how a mother, if she be but +a hen, becomes bold as a tigress for her periled offspring. A stranger +will fight for the stranger who puts his trust in him. The most foolish +of men will search his musty brain to find wise saws for his boy. An +anxious man, going to his friend to borrow, may return having lent him +instead. The man who has found nothing yet in the world save food for +the hard, sharp, clear intellect, will yet cast an eye around the +universe to see if perchance there may not be a God somewhere for the +hungering heart of his friend. The poor, but lovely, the doubting, yet +living faith of Dorothy arose, stretched out its crippled wings, and +began to arrange and straighten their disordered feathers. It is a fair +sight, any creature, be it but a fly, dressing its wings! Dorothy's were +feeble, ruffled, their pen-feathers bent and a little crushed; but +Juliet's were full of mud, paralyzed with disuse, and grievously singed +in the smoldering fire of her secret. A butterfly that has burned its +wings is not very unlike a caterpillar again. + +"Look here, Juliet," said Dorothy: "there must be some way out of it, or +there is no saving God in the universe.--Now don't begin to say there +isn't, because, you see, it is your only chance. It would be a pity to +make a fool of yourself by being over-wise, to lose every thing by +taking it for granted there is no God. If after all there should be one, +it would be the saddest thing to perish for want of Him. I won't say I +am as miserable as you, for I haven't a husband to trample on my heart; +but I am miserable enough, and want dreadfully to be saved. I don't call +this life worth living. Nothing is right, nothing goes well--there is no +harmony in me. I don't call it life at all. I want music and light in +me. I want a God to save me out of this wretchedness. I want health." + +"I thought you were never ill, Dorothy," murmured Juliet listlessly. + +"Is it possible you do not know what I mean?" returned Dorothy. "Do you +never feel wretched and sick in your very soul?--disgusted with +yourself, and longing to be lifted up out of yourself into a region of +higher conditions altogether?" + +That kind of thing Juliet had been learning to attribute to the state of +her health--had partly learned: it is hard to learn any thing false +_thoroughly_, for it _can not_ so be learned. It is true that it is +often, perhaps it is generally, in troubled health, that such thoughts +come first; but in nature there are facts of color that the cloudy day +reveals. So sure am I that many things which illness has led me to see +are true, that I would endlessly rather never be well than lose sight of +them. "So would any madman say of his fixed idea." I will keep my +madness, then, for therein most do I desire the noble: and to desire +what I desire, if it be but to desire, is better than to have all you +offer us in the name of truth. Through such desire and the hope of its +attainment, all greatest things have been wrought in the earth: I too +have my unbelief as well as you--I can not believe that a lie on the +belief of which has depended our highest development. You may say you +have a higher to bring in. But that higher you have become capable of by +the precedent lie. Yet you vaunt truth! You would sink us low indeed, +making out falsehood our best nourishment--at some period of our +history at least. If, however, what I call true and high, you call false +and low--my assertion that you have never seen that of which I so speak +will not help--then is there nothing left us but to part, each go his +own road, and wait the end--which according to my expectation will show +the truth, according to yours, being nothing, will show nothing. + +"I can not help thinking, if we could only get up there," Dorothy went +on,--"I mean into a life of which I can at least dream--if I could but +get my head and heart into the kingdom of Heaven, I should find that +every thing else would come right. I believe it is God Himself I +want--nothing will do but Himself in me. Mr. Wingfold says that we find +things all wrong about us, that they keep going against our will and our +liking, just to drive things right inside us, or at least to drive us +where we can get them put right; and that, as soon as their work is +done, the waves will lie down at our feet, or if not, we shall at least +walk over their crests." + +"It sounds very nice, and would comfort any body that wasn't in +trouble," said Juliet; "but you wouldn't care one bit for it all any +more than I do, if you had pain and love like mine pulling at your +heart." + +"I have seen a mother make sad faces enough over the baby at her +breast," said Dorothy. "Love and pain seem so strangely one in this +world, the wonder is how they will ever get parted. What God must feel +like, with this world hanging on to Him with all its pains and cries--!" + +"It's His own fault," said Juliet bitterly. "Why did He make us--or why +did He not make us good? I'm sure I don't know where was the use of +making me!" + +"Perhaps not much yet," replied Dorothy, "but then He hasn't made you, +He hasn't done with you yet. He is making you now, and you don't like +it." + +"No, I don't--if you call this making. Why does He do it? He could have +avoided all this trouble by leaving us alone." + +"I put something like the same question once to Mr. Wingfold," said +Dorothy, "and he told me it was impossible to show any one the truths of +the kingdom of Heaven; he must learn them for himself. 'I can do little +more,' he said, 'than give you my testimony that it seems to me all +right. If God has not made you good, He has made you with the feeling +that you ought to be good, and at least a half-conviction that to Him +you have to go for help to become good. When you are good, then you will +know why He did not make you good at first, and will be perfectly +satisfied with the reason, because you will find it good and just and +right--so good that it was altogether beyond the understanding of one +who was not good. I don't think,' he said, 'you will ever get a +thoroughly satisfactory answer to any question till you go to Himself +for it--and then it may take years to make you fit to receive, that is +to understand the answer.' Oh Juliet! sometimes I have felt in my heart +as if--I am afraid to say it, even to you,--" + +"_I_ shan't be shocked at any thing; I am long past that," sighed +Juliet. + +"It is not of you I am afraid," said Dorothy. "It is a kind of awe of +the universe I feel. But God is the universe; His is the only ear that +will hear me; and He knows my thoughts already. Juliet, I feel sometimes +as if I _must_ be good for God's sake; as if I was sorry for Him, +because He has such a troublesome nursery of children, that will not or +can not understand Him, and will not do what He tells them, and He all +the time doing the very best for them He can." + +"It may be all very true, or all great nonsense, Dorothy, dear; I don't +care a bit about it. All I care for is--I don't know what I care for--I +don't care for any thing any more--there is nothing left to care for. I +love my husband with a heart like to break--oh, how I wish it would! He +hates and despises me and I dare not wish that he wouldn't. If he were +to forgive me quite, I should yet feel that he ought to despise me, and +that would be all the same as if he did, and there is no help. Oh, how +horrid I look to him! I _can't_ bear it. I fancied it was all gone; but +there it is, and there it must be forever. I don't care about a God. If +there were a God, what would He be to me without my Paul?" + +"I think, Juliet, you will yet come to say, 'What would my Paul be to me +without my God?' I suspect we have no more idea than that lonely fly on +the window there, what it would be _to have a God_." + +"I don't care. I would rather go to hell with my Paul than go to Heaven +without him," moaned Juliet. + +"But what if God should be the only where to find your Paul?" said +Dorothy. "What if the gulf that parts you is just the gulf of a God not +believed in--a universe which neither of you can cross to meet the +other--just because you do not believe it is there at all?" + +Juliet made no answer--Dorothy could not tell whether from feeling or +from indifference. The fact was, the words conveyed no more meaning to +Juliet than they will to some of my readers. Why do I write them then? +Because there are some who will understand them at once, and others who +will grow to understand them. Dorothy was astonished to find herself +saying them. The demands of her new office of comforter gave shape to +many half-formed thoughts, substance to many shadowy perceptions, +something like music to not a few dim feelings moving within her; but +what she said hardly seemed her own at all. + +Had it not been for Wingfold's help, Dorothy might not have learned +these things in this world; but had it not been for Juliet, they would +have taken years more to blossom in her being, and so become her own. +Her faint hope seemed now to break forth suddenly into power. Whether or +not she was saying such things as were within the scope of Juliet's +apprehension, was a matter of comparatively little moment. As she lay +there in misery, rocking herself from side to side on the floor, she +would have taken hold of nothing. But love is the first comforter, and +where love and truth speak, the love will be felt where the truth is +never perceived. Love indeed is the highest in all truth; and the +pressure of a hand, a kiss, the caress of a child, will do more to save +sometimes than the wisest argument, even rightly understood. Love alone +is wisdom, love alone is power; and where love seems to fail it is where +self has stepped between and dulled the potency of its rays. + +Dorothy thought of another line of expostulation. + +"Juliet," she said, "suppose you were to drown yourself and your husband +were to repent?" + +"That is the only hope left me. You see yourself I have no choice." + +"You have no pity, it seems; for what then would become of him? What if +he should come to himself in bitter sorrow, in wild longing for your +forgiveness, but you had taken your forgiveness with you, where he had +no hope of ever finding it? Do you want to punish him? to make him as +miserable as yourself? to add immeasurably to the wrong you have done +him, by going where no word, no message, no letter can pass, no cry can +cross? No, Juliet--death can set nothing right. But if there be a God, +then nothing can go wrong but He can set it right, and set it right +better than it was before." + +"He could not make it better than it was." + +"What!--is that your ideal of love--a love that fails in the first +trial? If He could not better that, then indeed He were no God worth the +name." + +"Why then did He make us such--make such a world as is always going +wrong?" + +"Mr. Wingfold says it is always going righter the same time it is going +wrong. I grant He would have had no right to make a world that might go +further wrong than He could set right at His own cost. But if at His own +cost He turn its ills into goods? its ugliness into favor? Ah, if it +should be so, Juliet! It _may_ be so. I do not know. I have not found +Him yet. Help me to find Him. Let us seek Him together. If you find Him +you can not lose your husband. If Love is Lord of the world, love must +yet be Lord in his heart. It will wake, if not sooner, yet when the +bitterness has worn itself out, as Mr. Wingfold says all evil must, +because its heart is death and not life." + +"I don't care a straw for life. If I could but find my husband, I would +gladly die forever in his arms. It is not true that the soul longs for +immortality. I don't. I long only for love--for forgiveness--for my +husband." + +"But would you die so long as there was the poorest chance of regaining +your place in his heart?" + +"No. Give me the feeblest chance of that, and I will live. I could live +forever on the mere hope of it." + +"I can't give you any hope, but I have hope of it in my own heart." + +Juliet rose on her elbow. + +"But I am disgraced!" she said, almost indignantly. "It would be +disgrace to him to take me again! I remember one of the officers' +wives----. No, no! he hates and despises me. Besides I could never look +one of his friends in the face again. Every body will say I ran away +with some one--or that he sent me away because I was wicked. You all had +a prejudice against me from the very first." + +"Yes, in a way," confessed Dorothy. "It always seemed as if we did not +know you and could not get at you, as if you avoided us--with your +heart, I mean;--as if you had resolved we should not know you--as if you +had something you were afraid we should discover." + +"Ah, there it was, you see!" cried Juliet. "And now the hidden thing is +revealed! That was it: I never could get rid of the secret that was +gnawing at my life. Even when I was hardly aware of it, it was there. +Oh, if I had only been ugly, then Paul would never have thought of me!" + +She threw herself down again and buried her face. + +"Hide me; hide me," she went on, lifting to Dorothy her hands clasped in +an agony, while her face continued turned from her. "Let me stay here. +Let me die in peace. Nobody would ever think I was here." + +"That is just what has been coming and going in my mind," answered +Dorothy. "It is a strange old place: you might be here for months and +nobody know." + +"Oh! wouldn't you mind it? I shouldn't live long. I couldn't, you know!" + +"I will be your very sister, if you will let me," replied Dorothy; "only +then you must do what I tell you--and begin at once by promising not to +leave the house till I come back to you." + +As she spoke she rose. + +"But some one will come," said Juliet, half-rising, as if she would run +after her. + +"No one will. But if any one should--come here, I will show you a place +where nobody would find you." + +She helped her to rise, and led her from the room to a door in a rather +dark passage. This she opened, and, striking a light, showed an ordinary +closet, with pegs for hanging garments upon. The sides of it were +paneled, and in one of them, not readily distinguishable, was another +door. It opened into a room lighted only by a little window high up in a +wall, through whose dusty, cobwebbed panes, crept a modicum of +second-hand light from a stair. + +"There!" said Dorothy. "If you should hear any sound before I come back, +run in here. See what a bolt there is to the door. Mind you shut both. +You can close that shutter over the window too if you like--only nobody +can look in at it without getting a ladder, and there isn't one about +the place. I don't believe any one knows of this room but myself." + +Juliet was too miserable to be frightened at the look of it--which was +wretched enough. She promised not to leave the house, and Dorothy went. +Many times before she returned had Juliet fled from the sounds of +imagined approach, and taken refuge in the musty dusk of the room +withdrawn. When at last Dorothy came, she found her in it trembling. + +She came, bringing a basket with every thing needful for breakfast. She +had not told her father any thing: he was too simple, she said to +herself, to keep a secret with comfort; and she would risk any thing +rather than discovery while yet she did not clearly know what ought to +be done. Her version of the excellent French proverb--_Dans le doute, +abstiens-toi_--was, _When you are not sure, wait_--which goes a little +further, inasmuch as it indicates expectation, and may imply faith. With +difficulty she prevailed upon her to take some tea, and a little bread +and butter, feeding her like a child, and trying to comfort her with +hope. Juliet sat on the floor, leaning against the wall, the very +picture of despair, white like alabaster, rather than marble--with a +bluish whiteness. Her look was of one utterly lost. + +"We'll let the fire out now," said Dorothy; "for the sun is shining in +warm, and there had better be no smoke. The wood is rather scarce too. I +will get you some more, and here are matches: you can light it again +when you please." + +She then made her a bed on the floor with a quantity of wood shavings, +and some shawls she had brought, and when she had lain down upon it, +kneeled beside her, and covering her face with her hands, tried to pray. +But it seemed as if all the misery of humanity was laid upon her, and +God would not speak: not a sound would come from her throat, till she +burst into tears and sobs. It struck a strange chord in the soul of the +wife to hear the maiden weeping over her. But it was no private trouble, +it was the great need common to all men that opened the fountain of her +tears. It was hunger after the light that slays the darkness, after a +comfort to confront every woe, a life to lift above death, an antidote +to all wrong. It was one of the groanings of the spirit that can not be +uttered in words articulate, or even formed into thoughts defined. But +Juliet was filled only with the thought of herself and her husband, and +the tears of her friend but bedewed the leaves of her bitterness, did +not reach the dry roots of her misery. + +Dorothy's spirit revived when she found herself once more alone in the +park on her way home the second time. She must be of better courage, she +said to herself. Struggling in the Slough of Despond, she had come upon +one worse mired than she, for whose sake she must search yet more +vigorously after the hidden stepping-stones--the peaks whose bases are +the center of the world. + +"God help me!" she said ever and anon as she went, and every time she +said it, she quickened her pace and ran. + +It was just breakfast-time when she reached the house. Her father was +coming down the stair. + +"Would you mind, father," she said as they sat, "if I were to make a +room at the Old House a little comfortable?" + +"I mind nothing you please to do, Dorothy," he answered. "But you must +not become a recluse. In your search for God, you must not forsake your +neighbor." + +"If only I could find my neighbor!" she returned, with a rather sad +smile. "I shall never be able even to look for him, I think, till I have +found One nearer first." + +"You have surely found your neighbor when you have found his wounds, and +your hand is on the oil-flask," said her father, who knew her +indefatigable in her ministrations. + +"I don't feel it so," she answered. "When I am doing things for people, +my arms seem to be miles long." + +As soon as her father left the table, she got her basket again, filled +it from the larder and store-room, laid a book or two on the top, and +telling Lisbeth she was going to the Old House for the rest of the day, +set out on her third journey thither. To her delight she found Juliet +fast asleep. She sat down, rather tired, and began to reflect. Her great +fear was that Juliet would fall ill, and then what was to be done? How +was she to take the responsibility of nursing her? But she remembered +how the Lord had said she was to take no thought for the morrow; and +therewith she began to understand the word. She saw that one can not +_do_ any thing in to-morrow, and that all care which can not be put into +the work of to-day, is taken out of it. One thing seemed clear--that, so +long as it was Juliet's desire to remain concealed from her husband, she +had no right to act against that desire. Whether Juliet was right or +wrong, a sense of security was for the present absolutely necessary to +quiet her mind. It seemed therefore, the first thing she had to do was +to make that concealed room habitable for her. It was dreadful to think +of her being there alone at night, but her trouble was too great to +leave much room for fear--and anyhow there was no choice. So while +Juliet slept, she set about cleaning it, and hard work she found it. +Great also was the labor afterward, when, piece by piece, at night or in +the early morning, she carried thither every thing necessary to make +abode in it clean and warm and soft. + +The labor of love is its own reward, but Dorothy received much more. +For, in the fresh impulse and freedom born of this service, she soon +found, not only that she thought better and more clearly on the points +that troubled her, but that, thus spending herself, she grew more able +to believe there must be One whose glory is perfect ministration. Also, +her anxious concentration of thought upon the usurping thoughts of +others, with its tendency to diseased action in the logical powers, was +thereby checked, much to her relief. She was not finding an atom of what +is called proof; but when the longing heart finds itself able to hope +that the perfect is the fact, that the truth is alive, that the lovely +is rooted in eternal purpose, it can go on without such proof as belongs +to a lower stratum of things, and can not be had in these. When we rise +into the mountain air, we require no other testimony than that of our +lungs that we are in a healthful atmosphere. We do not find it necessary +to submit it to a quantitative analysis; we are content that we breathe +with joy, that we grow in strength, become lighter-hearted and +better-tempered. Truth is a very different thing from fact; it is the +loving contact of the soul with spiritual fact, vital and potent. It +does its work in the soul independently of all faculty or qualification +there for setting it forth or defending it. Truth in the inward parts is +a power, not an opinion. It were as poor a matter as any held by those +who deny it, if it had not its vitality in itself, if it depended upon +any buttressing of other and lower material. + +How should it be otherwise? If God be so near as the very idea of Him +necessitates, what other availing proof of His existence can there be, +than such _awareness_ as must come of the developing relation between +Him and us? The most satisfying of intellectual proofs, if such were to +be had, would be of no value. God would be no nearer to us for them all. +They would bring about no blossoming of the mighty fact. While He was in +our very souls, there would yet lie between Him and us a gulf of misery, +of no-knowledge. + +Peace is for those who _do_ the truth, not those who opine it. The true +man troubled by intellectual doubt, is so troubled unto further health +and growth. Let him be alive and hopeful, above all obedient, and he +will be able to wait for the deeper content which must follow with +completer insight. Men may say such a man but deceives himself, that +there is nothing of the kind he pleases himself with imagining; but this +is at least worth reflecting upon--that while the man who aspires fears +he may be deceiving himself, it is the man who does not aspire who +asserts that he is. One day the former may be sure, and the latter may +cease to deny, and begin to doubt. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. + +THE DOCTOR'S STUDY. + + +Paul Faber's condition, as he sat through the rest of that night in his +study, was about as near absolute misery as a man's could well be, in +this life, I imagine. The woman he had been watching through the first +part of it as his essential bliss, he had left in a swoon, lying naked +on the floor, and would not and did not go near her again. How could he? +Had he not been duped, sold, married to----?--That way madness lay! His +pride was bitterly wounded. Would it had been mortally! but pride seems +in some natures to thrive upon wounds, as in others does love. Faber's +pride grew and grew as he sat and brooded, or, rather, was brooded upon. + +He, Paul Faber, who knew his own worth, his truth, his love, his +devotion--he, with his grand ideas of woman and purity and unity, +conscious of deserving a woman's best regards--he, whose love (to speak +truly his unworded, undefined impression of himself) any woman might be +proud to call hers--he to be thus deceived! to have taken to his bosom +one who had before taken another to hers, and thought it yet good enough +for him! It would not bear thinking! Indignation and bitterest sense of +wrong almost crazed him. For evermore he must be a hypocrite, going +about with the knowledge of that concerning himself which he would not +have known by others! This was how the woman, whom he had brought back +from death with the life of his own heart, had served him! Years ago she +had sacrificed her bloom to some sneaking wretch who flattered a God +with prayers, then enticed and bewitched and married _him_! + +In all this thinking there was no thought but for himself--not one for +the woman whose agony had been patent even to his wrath-blinded eyes. In +what is the wretchedness of our condition more evident than in this, +that the sense of wrong always makes us unjust? It is a most humbling +thought. God help us. He forgot how she had avoided him, resisted him, +refused to confess the love which his goodness, his importunities, his +besieging love had compelled in her heart. It was true she ought either +to have refused him absolutely and left him, or confessed and left the +matter with him; but he ought to have remembered for another, if ever he +had known it for himself, the hardness of some duties; and what duty +could be more torturing to a delicate-minded woman than either of +those--to leave the man she loved in passionate pain, sore-wounded with +a sense of undeserved cruelty, or to give him the strength to send her +from him by confessing to his face what she could not recall in the +solitude of her own chamber but the agony would break out wet on her +forehead! We do our brother, our sister, grievous wrong, every time +that, in our selfish justice, we forget the excuse that mitigates the +blame. That God never does, for it would be to disregard the truth. As +He will never admit a false excuse, so will He never neglect a true one. +It may be He makes excuses which the sinner dares not think of; while +the most specious of false ones shrivel into ashes before Him. A man is +bound to think of all just excuse for his offender, for less than the +righteousness of God will not serve his turn. + +I would not have my reader set Faber down as heartless, His life showed +the contrary. But his pride was roused to such furious self-assertion, +that his heart lay beaten down under the sweep of its cyclone. Its turn +was only delayed. The heart is always there, and rage is not. The heart +is a constant, even when most intermittent force. It can bide its time. +Nor indeed did it now lie quite still; for the thought of that white, +self-offered sacrifice, let him rave as he would against the +stage-trickery of the scene, haunted him so, that once and again he had +to rouse an evil will to restrain him from rushing to clasp her to his +bosom. + +Then there was the question: why now had she told him all--if indeed she +had made a clean breast of it? Was it from love to him, or reviving +honesty in herself? From neither, he said. Superstition alone was at the +root of it. She had been to church, and the preaching of that honest +idiotic enthusiast, Wingfold, had terrified her.--Alas! what refuge in +her terror had she found with her husband? + +Before morning he had made up his mind as to the course he would pursue. +He would not publish his own shame, but neither would he leave the +smallest doubt in her mind as to what he thought of her, or what he felt +toward her. All should be utterly changed between them. He would behave +to her with extreme, with marked politeness; he would pay her every +attention woman could claim, but her friend, her husband, he would be no +more. His thoughts of vengeance took many turns, some of them childish. +He would always call her _Mrs. Faber_. Never, except they had friends, +would he sit in the same room with her. To avoid scandal, he would dine +with her, if he could not help being at home, but when he rose from the +table, it would be to go to his study. If he happened at any time to be +in the room with her when she rose to retire, he would light her candle, +carry it up stairs for her, open the door, make her a polite bow, and +leave her. Never once would he cross the threshold of her bedroom. She +should have plenty of money; the purse of an adventuress was a greedy +one, but he would do his best to fill it, nor once reproach her with +extravagance--of which fault, let me remark, she had never yet shown a +sign. He would refuse her nothing she asked of him--except it were in +any way himself. As soon as his old aunt died, he would get her a +brougham, but never would he sit in it by her side. Such, he thought, +would be the vengeance of a gentleman. Thus he fumed and raved and +trifled, in an agony of selfish suffering--a proud, injured man; and all +the time the object of his vengeful indignation was lying insensible on +the spot where she had prayed to him, her loving heart motionless within +a bosom of ice. + +In the morning he went to his dressing-room, had his bath, and went down +to breakfast, half-desiring his wife's appearance, that he might begin +his course of vindictive torture. He could not eat, and was just rising +to go out, when the door opened, and the parlor-maid, who served also as +Juliet's attendant, appeared. + +"I can't find mis'ess nowhere, sir," she said. Faber understood at once +that she had left him, and a terror, neither vague nor ill-founded, +possessed itself of him. He sprung from his seat, and darted up the +stair to her room. Little more than a glance was necessary to assure him +that she had gone deliberately, intending it should be forever. The +diamond ring lay on her dressing-table, spending itself in flashing back +the single ray of the sun that seemed to have stolen between the +curtains to find it; her wedding ring lay beside it, and the sparkle of +the diamonds stung his heart like a demoniacal laughter over it, the +more horrible that it was so silent and so lovely: it was but three days +since, in his wife's presence, he had been justifying suicide with every +argument he could bring to bear. It was true he had insisted on a proper +regard to circumstances, and especially on giving due consideration to +the question, whether the act would hurt others more than it would +relieve the person contemplating it; but, after the way he had treated +her, there could be no doubt how Juliet, if she thought of it at all, +was compelled to answer it. He rushed to the stable, saddled Ruber, and +galloped wildly away. At the end of the street he remembered that he had +not a single idea to guide him. She was lying dead somewhere, but +whether to turn east or west or north or south to find her, he had not +the slightest notion. His condition was horrible. For a moment or two he +was ready to blow his brains out: that, if the orthodox were right, was +his only chance for over-taking her. What a laughing-stock he would then +be to them all! The strangest, wildest, maddest thoughts came and went +as of themselves, and when at last he found himself seated on Ruber in +the middle of the street, an hour seemed to have passed. It was but a +few moments, and the thought that roused him was: could she have betaken +herself to her old lodging at Owlkirk? It was not likely; it was +possible: he would ride and see. + +"They will say I murdered her," he said to himself as he rode--so little +did he expect ever to see her again. "I don't care. They may prove it if +they can, and hang me. I shall make no defense. It will be but a fit end +to the farce of life." + +He laughed aloud, struck his spurs in Ruber's flanks, and rode wildly. +He was desperate. He knew neither what he felt nor what he desired. If +he had found her alive, he would, I do not doubt, have behaved to her +cruelly. His life had fallen in a heap about him; he was ruined, and +she had done it, he said, he thought, he believed. He was not aware how +much of his misery was occasioned by a shrinking dread of the judgments +of people he despised. Had he known it, he would have been yet more +miserable, for he would have scorned himself for it. There is so much in +us that is beyond our reach! + +Before arriving at Owlkirk, he made up his mind that, if she were not +there, he would ride to the town of Broughill--not in the hope of any +news of her, but because there dwelt the only professional friend he had +in the neighborhood--one who sympathized with his view of things, and +would not close his heart against him because he did not believe that +this horrid, ugly, disjointed thing of a world had been made by a God of +love. Generally, he had been in the habit of dwelling on the loveliness +of its developments, and the beauty of the gradual adaptation of life to +circumstance; but now it was plainer to him than ever, that, if made at +all, it was made by an evil being; "--for," he said, and said truly, "a +conscious being without a heart must be an evil being." This was the +righteous judgment of a man who could, by one tender, consoling word, +have made the sun rise upon a glorious world of conscious womanhood, but +would not say that word, and left that world lying in the tortured chaos +of a slow disintegration. This conscious being with a heart, this Paul +Faber, who saw that a God of love was the only God supposable, set his +own pride so far above love, that his one idea was, to satisfy the +justice of his outraged dignity by the torture of the sinner!--even +while all the time dimly aware of rebuke in his soul. If she should have +destroyed herself, he said once and again as he rode, was it more than a +just sacrifice to his wronged honor? As such he would accept it. If she +had, it was best--best for her, and best for him! What so much did it +matter! She was very lovely!--true--but what was the quintessence of +dust to him? Where either was there any great loss? He and she would +soon be wrapped up in the primal darkness, the mother and grave of all +things, together!--no, not together; not even in the dark of nothingness +could they two any more lie together! Hot tears forced their way into +his eyes, whence they rolled down, the lava of the soul, scorching his +cheeks. He struck his spurs into Ruber fiercely, and rode madly on. + +At length he neared the outskirts of Broughill. He had ridden at a +fearful pace across country, leaving all to his horse, who had carried +him wisely as well as bravely. But Ruber, although he had years of good +work left in him, was not in his first strength, and was getting +exhausted with his wild morning. For, all the way, his master, +apparently unconscious of every thing else, had been immediately aware +of the slightest slackening of muscle under him, the least faltering of +the onward pace, and, in the temper of the savage, which wakes the +moment the man of civilization is hard put to it, the moment he flagged, +still drove the cruel spurs into his flanks, when the grand, unresenting +creature would rush forward at straining speed--not, I venture to think, +so much in obedience to the pain, as in obedience to the will of his +master, fresh recognized through the pain. + +Close to the high road, where they were now approaching it through the +fields, a rail-fence had just been put up, inclosing a piece of ground +which the owner wished to let for building. That the fact might be +known, he was about to erect a post with a great board announcing it. +For this post a man had dug the hole, and then gone to his dinner. The +inclosure lay between Faber and the road, in the direct line he was +taking. On went Ruber blindly--more blindly than his master knew, for, +with the prolonged running, he had partially lost his sight, so that he +was close to the fence before he saw it. But he rose boldly, and cleared +it--to light, alas! on the other side with a foreleg in the hole. Down +he came with a terrible crash, pitched his master into the road upon his +head, and lay groaning with a broken leg. Faber neither spoke nor moved, +but lay as he fell. A poor woman ran to his assistance, and finding she +could do nothing for him, hurried to the town for help. His friend, who +was the first surgeon in the place, flew to the spot, and had him +carried to his house. It was a severe case of concussion of the brain. + +Poor old Ruber was speedily helped to a world better than this for +horses, I trust. + +Meantime Glaston was in commotion. The servants had spread the frightful +news that their mistress had vanished, and their master ridden off like +a madman. "But he won't find her alive, poor lady! I don't think," was +the general close of their communication, accompanied by a would-be +wise and really sympathetic shake of the head. In this conclusion most +agreed, for there was a general impression of something strange about +her, partly occasioned by the mysterious way in which Mrs. Puckridge had +spoken concerning her illness and the marvelous thing the doctor had +done to save her life. People now supposed that she had gone suddenly +mad, or, rather, that the latent madness so plain to read in those +splendid eyes of hers had been suddenly developed, and that under its +influence she had rushed away, and probably drowned herself. Nor were +there wanting, among the discontented women of Glaston, some who +regarded the event--vaguely to their own consciousness, I gladly +admit--as _almost a judgment_ upon Faber for marrying a woman of whom +nobody knew any thing. + +Hundreds went out to look for the body down the river. Many hurried to +an old quarry, half full of water, on the road to Broughill, and peered +horror-stricken over the edge, but said nothing. The boys of Glaston +were mainly of a mind that the pond at the Old House was of all places +the most likely to attract a suicide, for with the fascination of its +horrors they were themselves acquainted. Thither therefore they sped; +and soon Glaston received its expected second shock in the tidings that +a lady's bonnet had been found floating in the frightful pool: while in +the wet mass the boys brought back with them, some of her acquaintance +recognized with certainty a bonnet they had seen Mrs. Faber wear. There +was no room left for doubt; the body of the poor lady was lying at the +bottom of the pool! A multitude rushed at once to the spot, although +they knew it was impossible to drag the pool, so deep was it, and for +its depth so small. Neither would she ever come to the surface, they +said, for the pikes and eels would soon leave nothing but the skeleton. +So Glaston took the whole matter for ended, and began to settle down +again to its own affairs, condoling greatly with the poor gentleman, +such a favorite! who, so young, and after such a brief experience of +marriage, had lost, in such a sad way, a wife so handsome, so amiable, +so clever. But some said a doctor ought to have known better than marry +such a person, however handsome, and they hoped it would be a lesson to +him. On the whole, so sorry for him was Glaston, that, if the doctor +could then have gone about it invisible, he would have found he had more +friends and fewer enemies than he had supposed. + +For the first two or three days no one was surprised that he did not +make his appearance. They thought he was upon some false trail. But when +four days had elapsed and no news was heard of him, for his friend knew +nothing of what had happened, had written to Mrs. Faber, and the letter +lay unopened, some began to hint that he must have had a hand in his +wife's disappearance, and to breathe a presentiment that he would never +more be seen in Glaston. On the morning of the fifth day, however, his +accident was known, and that he was lying insensible at the house of his +friend, Dr. May; whereupon, although here and there might be heard the +expression of a pretty strong conviction as to the character of the +visitation, the sympathy both felt and uttered was larger than before. +The other medical men immediately divided his practice amongst them, to +keep it together against his possible return, though few believed he +would ever again look on scenes darkened by the memory of bliss so +suddenly blasted. + +For weeks his recovery was doubtful, during which time, even if they had +dared, it would have been useless to attempt acquainting him with what +all believed the certainty of his loss. But when at length he woke to a +memory of the past, and began to desire information, his friend was +compelled to answer his questions. He closed his lips, bowed his head on +his breast, gave a great sigh, and held his peace. Every one saw that he +was terribly stricken. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII. + +THE MIND OF JULIET. + + +There was one, however, who, I must confess, was not a little relieved +at the news of what had befallen Faber. For, although far from desiring +his death, which indeed would have ruined some of her warmest hopes for +Juliet, Dorothy greatly dreaded meeting him. She was a poor dissembler, +hated even the shadow of a lie, and here was a fact, which, if truth +could conceal it, must not be known. Her dread had been, that, the first +time she saw Faber, it would be beyond her power to look innocent, that +her knowledge would be legible in her face; and much she hoped their +first encounter might be in the presence of Helen or some other ignorant +friend, behind whose innocent front she might shelter her conscious +secrecy. To truth such a silence must feel like a culpable deception, +and I do not think such a painful position can ever arise except from +wrong somewhere. Dorothy could not tell a lie. She could not try to tell +one; and if she had tried, she would have been instantly discovered +through the enmity of her very being to the lie she told; from her lips +it would have been as transparent as the truth. It is no wonder +therefore that she felt relieved when first she heard of the durance in +which Faber was lying. But she felt equal to the withholding from Juliet +of the knowledge of her husband's condition for the present. She judged +that, seeing she had saved her friend's life, she had some right to +think and choose for the preservation of that life. + +Meantime she must beware of security, and cultivate caution; and so +successful was she, that weeks passed, and not a single doubt associated +Dorothy with knowledge where others desired to know. Not even her father +had a suspicion in the direction of the fact. She knew he would one day +approve both of what she did, and of her silence concerning it. To tell +him, thoroughly as he was to be trusted, would be to increase the risk; +and besides, she had no right to reveal a woman's secret to a man. + +It was a great satisfaction, however, notwithstanding her dread of +meeting him, to hear that Faber had at length returned to Glaston; for +if he had gone away, how could they have ever known what to do? For one +thing, if he were beyond their knowledge, he might any day, in full +confidence, go and marry again. + +Her father not unfrequently accompanied her to the Old House, but Juliet +and she had arranged such signals, and settled such understandings, that +the simple man saw nothing, heard nothing, forefelt nothing. Now and +then a little pang would quaver through Dorothy's bosom, when she caught +sight of him peering down into the terrible dusk of the pool, or heard +him utter some sympathetic hope for the future of poor Faber; but she +comforted herself with the thought of how glad he would be when she was +able to tell him all, and how he would laugh over the story of their +precautions against himself. + +Her chief anxiety was for Juliet's health, even more for the sake of +avoiding discovery, than for its own. When the nights were warm she +would sometimes take her out in the park, and every day, one time or +another, would make her walk in the garden while she kept watch on the +top of the steep slope. Her father would sometimes remark to a friend +how Dorothy's love of solitude seemed to grow upon her; but the remark +suggested nothing, and slowly Juliet was being forgotten at Glaston. + +It seemed to Dorothy strange that she did not fall ill. For the first +few days she was restless and miserable as human being could be. She had +but one change of mood: either she would talk feverously, or sit in the +gloomiest silence, now and then varied with a fit of abandoned weeping. +Every time Dorothy came from Glaston, she would overwhelm her with +questions--which at first Dorothy could easily meet, for she spoke +absolute fact when she said she knew nothing concerning her husband. +When at length the cause of his absence was understood, she told her he +was with his friend, Dr. May, at Broughill. Knowing the universal belief +that she had committed suicide, nothing could seem more natural. But +when, day after day, she heard the same thing for weeks, she began to +fear he would never be able to resume his practice, at least at Glaston, +and wept bitterly at the thought of the evil she had brought upon him +who had given her life, and love to boot. For her heart was a genuine +one, and dwelt far more on the wrong her too eager love had done him, +than on the hardness with which he had resented it. Nay, she admired him +for the fierceness of his resentment, witnessing, in her eyes, to the +purity of the man whom his neighbors regarded as wicked. + +After the first day, she paid even less heed to any thing of a religious +kind with which Dorothy, in the strength of her own desire after a +perfect stay, sought to rouse or console her. When Dorothy ventured on +such ground, which grew more and more seldom, she would sit listless, +heedless, with a far-away look. Sometimes when Dorothy fancied she had +been listening a little, her next words would show that her thoughts had +been only with her husband. When the subsiding of the deluge of her +agony, allowed words to carry meaning to her, any hint at supernal +consolation made her angry, and she rejected every thing Dorothy said, +almost with indignation. To seem even to accept such comfort, she would +have regarded as traitorous to her husband. Not the devotion of the +friend who gave up to her all of her life she could call her own, +sufficed to make her listen even with a poor patience. So absorbed was +she in her trouble, that she had no feeling of what poor Dorothy had +done for her. How can I blame her, poor lady! If existence was not a +thing to be enjoyed, as for her it certainly was not at present, how was +she to be thankful for what seemed its preservation? There was much +latent love to Dorothy in her heart; I may go further and say there was +much latent love to God in her heart, only the latter was very latent as +yet. When her heart was a little freer from grief and the agony of loss, +she would love Dorothy; but God must wait with his own patience--wait +long for the child of His love to learn that her very sorrow came of His +dearest affection. Who wants such affection as that? says the unloving. +No one, I answer; but every one who comes to know it, glorifies it as +the only love that ever could satisfy his being. + +Dorothy, who had within her the chill of her own doubt, soon yielded to +Juliet's coldness, and ceased to say anything that could be called +religious. She saw that it was not the time to speak; she must content +herself with being. Nor had it ever been any thing very definite she +could say. She had seldom gone beyond the expression of her own hope, +and the desire that her friend would look up. She could say that all the +men she knew, from books or in life, of the most delicate honesty, the +most genuine repentance, the most rigid self-denial, the loftiest +aspiration, were Christian men; but she could neither say her knowledge +of history or of life was large, nor that, of the men she knew who +professed to believe, the greater part were honest, or much ashamed, or +rigid against themselves, or lofty toward God. She saw that her part was +not instruction, but ministration, and that in obedience to Jesus in +whom she hoped to believe. What matter that poor Juliet denied Him? If +God commended His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners +Christ died for us,' He would be pleased with the cup of cold water +given to one that was not a disciple. Dorothy dared not say she was a +disciple herself; she dared only say that right gladly would she become +one, if she could. If only the lovely, the good, the tender, the pure, +the grand, the adorable, were also the absolutely true!--true not in the +human idea only, but in absolute fact, in divine existence! If the story +of Jesus was true, then joy to the universe, for all was well! She +waited, and hoped, and prayed and ministered. + +There is a great power in quiet, for God is in it. Not seldom He seems +to lay His hand on one of His children, as a mother lays hers on the +restless one in the crib, to still him. Then the child sleeps, but the +man begins to live up from the lower depths of his nature. So the +winter comes to still the plant whose life had been rushing to blossom +and fruit. When the hand of God is laid upon a man, vain moan, and +struggle and complaint, it may be indignant outcry follows; but when, +outwearied at last, he yields, if it be in dull submission to the +inexorable, and is still, then the God at the heart of him, the God that +is there or the man could not be, begins to grow. This point Juliet had +not yet reached, and her trouble went on. She saw no light, no possible +outlet. Her cries, her longings, her agonies, could not reach even the +ears, could never reach the heart of the man who had cast her off. He +believed her dead, might go and marry another, and what would be left +her then? Nothing but the death from which she now restrained herself, +lest, as Dorothy had taught her, she should deny him the fruits of a +softening heart and returning love. The moment she heard that he sought +another, she would seek Death and assuredly find him. One letter she +would write to leave behind her, and then go. He should see and +understand that the woman he despised for the fault of the girl, was yet +capable of the noblest act of a wife: she would die that he might +live--that it might be well with her husband. Having entertained, +comprehended and settled this idea in her mind, she became quieter. +After this, Dorothy might have spoken without stirring up so angry an +opposition. But it was quite as well she did not know it, and did not +speak. + +I have said that Dorothy wondered she did not fall ill. There was a hope +in Juliet's mind of which she had not spoken, but upon which, though +vaguely, she built further hope, and which may have had part in her +physical endurance: the sight of his baby might move the heart of her +husband to pardon her! + +But the time, even with the preoccupation of misery, grew very dreary. +She had never had any resources in herself except her music, and even if +here she had had any opportunity of drawing upon that, what is music but +a mockery to a breaking heart? Was music ever born of torture, of +misery? It is only when the cloud of sorrow is sinking in the sun-rays, +that the song-larks awake and ascend. A glory of some sort must fringe +the skirts of any sadness, the light of the sorrowing soul itself must +be shed upon it, and the cloud must be far enough removed to show the +reflected light, before it will yield any of the stuff of which songs +are made. And this light that gathers in song, what is it but hope +behind the sorrow--hope so little recognized as such, that it is often +called despair? It is reviving and not decay that sings even the saddest +of songs. + +Juliet had had little consciousness of her own being as an object of +reflection. Joy and sorrow came and went; she had never brooded. Never +until now, had she known any very deep love. Even that she bore her +father had not ripened into the grand love of the woman-child. She +forgot quickly; she hoped easily; she had had some courage, and +naturally much activity; she faced necessity by instinct, and took +almost no thought for the morrow--but this after the fashion of the +birds, not after the fashion required of those who can consider the +birds; it is one thing to take no thought, for want of thought, and +another to take no thought, from sufficing thought, whose flower is +confidence. The one way is the lovely way of God in the birds--the +other, His lovelier way in his men and women. She had in her the making +of a noble woman--only that is true of every woman; and it was no truer +of her than of every other woman, that, without religion, she could +never be, in any worthy sense, a woman at all. I know how narrow and +absurd this will sound to many of my readers, but such simply do not +know what religion means, and think I do not know what a woman means. +Hitherto her past had always turned to a dream as it glided away from +her; but now, in the pauses of her prime agony, the tide rose from the +infinite sea to which her river ran, and all her past was borne back +upon her, even to her far-gone childish quarrels with her silly mother, +and the neglect and disobedience she had too often been guilty of toward +her father. And the center of her memories was the hot coal of that one +secret; around that they all burned and hissed. Now for the first time +her past _was_, and she cowered and fled from it, a slave to her own +history, to her own deeds, to her own concealment. Alas, like many +another terror-stricken child, to whom the infinite bosom of tenderness +and love stretches out arms of shelter and healing and life, she turned +to the bosom of death, and imagined there a shelter of oblivious +darkness! For life is a thing so deep, so high, so pure, so far above +the reach of common thought, that, although shadowed out in all the +harmonic glories of color, and speech, and song, and scent, and motion, +and shine, yea, even of eyes and loving hands, to common minds--and the +more merely intellectual, the commoner are they--it seems but a +phantasm. To unchildlike minds, the region of love and worship, to +which lead the climbing stairs of duty, is but a nephelocockygia; they +acknowledge the stairs, however, thank God, and if they will but climb, +a hand will be held out to them. Now, to pray to a God, the very thought +of whose possible existence might seem enough to turn the coal of a dead +life into a diamond of eternal radiance, is with many such enough to +stamp a man a fool. It will surprise me nothing in the new world to hear +such men, finding they are not dead after all, begin at once to argue +that they were quite right in refusing to act upon any bare +possibility--forgetting that the questioning of possibilities has been +the source of all scientific knowledge. They may say that to them there +seemed no possibility; upon which will come the question--whence arose +their incapacity for seeing it? In the meantime, that the same condition +which constitutes the bliss of a child, should also be the essential +bliss of a man, is incomprehensible to him in whom the child is dead, or +so fast asleep that nothing but a trumpet of terror can awake him. That +the rules of the nursery--I mean the nursery where the true mother is +the present genius, not the hell at the top of a London house--that the +rules of the nursery over which broods a wise mother with outspread +wings of tenderness, should be the laws also of cosmic order, of a +world's well-being, of national greatness, and of all personal dignity, +may well be an old-wives'-fable to the man who dabbles at saving the +world by science, education, hygiene and other economics. There is a +knowledge that will do it, but of that he knows so little, that he will +not allow it to be a knowledge at all. Into what would he save the +world? His paradise would prove a ten times more miserable condition +than that out of which he thought to rescue it. + +But any thing that gives objectivity to trouble, that lifts the cloud so +far that, if but for a moment, it shows itself a cloud, instead of being +felt an enveloping, penetrating, palsying mist--setting it where the +mind can in its turn prey upon it, can play with it, paint it, may come +to sing of it, is a great help toward what health may yet be possible +for the troubled soul. With a woman's instinct, Dorothy borrowed from +the curate a volume of a certain more attractive edition of Shakespeare +than she herself possessed, and left it in Juliet's way, so arranged +that it should open at the tragedy of Othello. She thought that, if she +could be drawn into sympathy with suffering like, but different and +apart from her own, it would take her a little out of herself, and +might lighten the pressure of her load. Now Juliet had never read a play +of Shakespeare in her life, and knew Othello only after the vulgar +interpretation, as the type, that is, of jealousy; but when, in a pause +of the vague reverie of feeling which she called thought, a touch of +ennui supervening upon suffering, she began to read the play, the +condition of her own heart afforded her the insight necessary for +descrying more truly the Othello of Shakespeare's mind. She wept for +Desdemona's innocence and hard fate; but she pitied more the far harder +fate of Othello, and found the death of both a consolation for the +trouble their troubles had stirred up in her. + +The curate was in the habit of scribbling on his books, and at the end +of the play, which left a large blank on the page, had written a few +verses: as she sat dreaming over the tragedy, Juliet almost +unconsciously took them in. They were these: + + In the hot hell o' + Jealousy shines Othello-- + Love in despair, + An angel in flames! + While pure Desdemona + Waits him alone, a + Ghost in the air, + White with his blames. + +Becoming suddenly aware of their import, she burst out weeping afresh, +but with a very different weeping--Ah, if it might be so! Soon then had +the repentant Othello, rushing after his wife, explained all, and +received easiest pardon: he had but killed her. Her Paul would not even +do that for her! He did not love her enough for that. If she had but +thrown herself indeed into the lake, then perhaps--who could tell!--she +might now be nearer to him than she should ever be in this world. + +All the time, Dorothy was much and vainly exercised as to what might +become possible for the bringing of them together again. But it was not +as if any misunderstanding had arisen between them: such a difficulty +might any moment be removed by an explanation. The thing that divided +them was the original misunderstanding, which lies, deep and black as +the pit, between every soul and the soul next it, where self and not God +is the final thought. The gulf is forever crossed by "bright shoots of +everlastingness," the lightnings of involuntary affection; but nothing +less than the willed love of an infinite devotion will serve to close +it; any moment it may be lighted up from beneath, and the horrible +distance between them be laid bare. Into this gulf it was that, with +absolute gift of himself, the Lord, doing like his Father, cast Himself; +and by such devotion alone can His disciples become fellow-workers with +Him, help to slay the evil self in the world, and rouse the holy self to +like sacrifice, that the true, the eternal life of men, may arise +jubilant and crowned. Then is the old man of claims and rights and +disputes and fears, re-born a child whose are all things and who claims +and fears nothing. + +In ignorance of Faber's mood, whether he mourned over his harshness, or +justified himself in resentment, Dorothy could but wait, and turned +herself again to think what could be done for the consolation of her +friend. + +Could she, knowing her prayer might be one which God would not grant, +urge her to pray! For herself, she knew, if there was a God, what she +desired must be in accordance with His will; but if Juliet cried to him +to give her back her husband, and He did not, would not the silent +refusal, the deaf ear of Heaven, send back the cry in settled despair +upon her spirit? With her own fear Dorothy feared for her friend. She +had not yet come to see that, in whatever trouble a man may find +himself, the natural thing being to make his request known, his brother +may heartily tell him to pray. Why, what can a man do but pray? He is +here--helpless; and his Origin, the breather of his soul, his God, may +be somewhere. And what else should he pray about but the thing that +troubles him? Not surely the thing that does not trouble him? What is +the trouble there for, but to make him cry? It is the pull of God at his +being. Let a man only pray. Prayer is the sound to which not merely is +the ear of the Father open, but for which that ear is listening. Let him +pray for the thing he thinks he needs: for what else, I repeat, can he +pray? Let a man cry for that in whose loss life is growing black: the +heart of the Father is open. Only let the man know that, even for his +prayer, the Father will not give him a stone. But let the man pray, and +let God see to it how to answer him. If in his childishness and +ignorance he should ask for a serpent, he will not give him a serpent. +But it may yet be the Father will find some way of giving him his +heart's desire. God only knows how rich God is in power of gift. See +what He has done to make Himself able to give to His own heart's desire. +The giving of His Son was as the knife with which He would divide +Himself amongst His children. He knows, He only, the heart, the needs, +the deep desires, the hungry eternity, of each of them all. Therefore +let every man ask of God, Who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth +not--and see at least what will come of it. + +But he will speak like one of the foolish if he say thus: "Let God hear +me, and give me my desire, and I will trust in Him." That would be to +tempt the Lord his God. If a father gives his children their will +instead of his, they may well turn on him again and say: "Was it then +the part of a father to give me a scorpion because, not knowing what it +was, I asked for it? I besought him for a fancied joy, and lo! it is a +sorrow for evermore!" + +But it may be that sometimes God indeed does so, and to such a possible +complaint has this reply in Himself: "I gave thee what thou wouldst, +because not otherwise could I teach the stiff-necked his folly. Hadst +thou been patient, I would have made the thing a joy ere I gave it thee; +I would have changed the scorpion into a golden beetle, set with rubies +and sapphires. Have thou patience now." + +One thing is clear, that poor Juliet, like most women, and more men, +would never have begun to learn any thing worth learning, if she had not +been brought into genuine, downright trouble. Indeed I am not sure but +some of those who seem so good as to require no trouble, are just those +who have already been most severely tried. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX. + +ANOTHER MIND. + + +But while the two ladies were free of all suspicion of danger, and +indeed were quite safe, they were not alone in the knowledge of their +secret. There was one who, for some time, had been on the track of it, +and had long ago traced it with certainty to its covert: indeed he had +all but seen into it from the first. But, although to his intimate +friends known as a great and indeed wonderful talker, he was generally +regarded as a somewhat silent man, and in truth possessed to perfection +the gift of holding his tongue. Except that his outward insignificance +was so great as to pass the extreme, he was not one to attract +attention; but those who knew Wingfold well, heard him speak of Mr. +Polwarth, the gate-keeper, oftener than of any other; and from what she +heard him say, Dorothy had come to have a great reverence for the man, +although she knew him very little. + +In returning from Nestley with Juliet by her side, Helen had taken the +road through Osterfield Park. When they reached Polwarth's gate, she +had, as a matter of course, pulled up, that they might have a talk with +the keeper. He had, on the few occasions on which he caught a passing +glimpse of Miss Meredith, been struck with a something in her that to +him seemed to take from her beauty--that look of strangeness, namely, +which every one felt, and which I imagine to have come of the +consciousness of her secret, holding her back from blending with the +human wave; and now, therefore, while the carriage stood, he glanced +often at her countenance. + +From long observation, much silence and gentle pondering; from constant +illness, and frequent recurrence of great suffering; from loving +acceptance of the same, and hence an overflowing sympathy with every +form of humanity, even that more dimly revealed in the lower animals, +and especially suffering humanity; from deep acquaintance with the +motions of his own spirit, and the fullest conviction that one man is as +another; from the entire confidence of all who knew him, and the results +of his efforts to help them; above all, from persistently dwelling in +the secret place of the Most High, and thus entering into the hidden +things of life from the center whence the issues of them diverged--from +all these had been developed in him, through wisest use, an insight into +the natures of men, a power of reading the countenance, an apprehension +of what was moving in the mind, a contact, almost for the moment a +junction with the goings on of their spirits, which at times revealed to +him not only character, and prevailing purpose or drift of nature, but +even the main points of a past moral history. Sometimes indeed he would +recoil with terror from what seemed the threatened dawn in him of a +mysterious power, probably latent in every soul, of reading the future +of a person brought within certain points of spiritual range. What +startled him, however, may have been simply an involuntary conclusion, +instantaneously drawn, from the plain convergence of all the forces in +and upon the individual toward a point of final deliverance or of near +catastrophe: when "the mortal instruments" are steadily working for +evil, the only hope of deliverance lies in catastrophe. + +When Polwarth had thus an opportunity of reading Juliet's countenance, +it was not wearing its usual expression: the ferment set at work in her +mind by the curate's sermon had intensified the strangeness of it, even +to something almost of definement; and it so arrested him that after the +ponies had darted away like birds, he stood for a whole minute in the +spot and posture in which they had left him. + +"I never saw Polwarth look _distrait_ before," said the curate, and was +about to ask Juliet whether she had not been bewitching him, when the +far-away, miserable look of her checked him, and he dropped back into +his seat in silence. + +But Polwarth had had no sudden insight into Juliet's condition; all he +had seen was, that she was strangely troubled--and that with no single +feeling; that there was an undecided contest in her spirit; that +something was required of her which she had not yet resolved to yield. +Almost the moment she vanished from his sight, it dawned upon him that +she had a secret. As one knows by the signs of the heavens that the +matter of a storm is in them and must break out, so Polwarth had read in +Juliet's sky the inward throes of a pent convulsion. + +He knew something of the doctor, for he had met him again and again +where he himself was trying to serve; but they had never had +conversation together. Faber had not an idea of what was in the creature +who represented to him one of Nature's failures at man-making; while +Polwarth, from what he heard and saw of the doctor, knew him better than +he knew himself; and although the moment when he could serve him had not +begun to appear, looked for such a moment to come. There was so much +good in the man, that his heart longed to give him something worth +having. How Faber would have laughed at the notion! But Polwarth felt +confident that one day the friendly doctor would be led out of the +miserable desert where he cropped thistles and sage and fancied himself +a hero. And now in the drawn look of his wife's face, in the broken +lights of her eye, in the absorption and the start, he thought he +perceived the quarter whence unwelcome deliverance might be on its way, +and resolved to keep attention awake for what might appear. In his +inmost being he knew that the mission of man is to help his neighbors. +But in as much as he was ready to help, he recoiled from meddling. To +meddle is to destroy the holy chance. Meddlesomeness is the very +opposite of helpfulness, for it consists in forcing your self into +another self, instead of opening your self as a refuge to the other. +They are opposite extremes, and, like all extremes, touch. It is not +correct that extremes meet; they lean back to back. To Polwarth, a human +self was a shrine to be approached with reverence, even when he bore +deliverance in his hand. Anywhere, everywhere, in the seventh heaven or +the seventh hell, he could worship God with the outstretched arms of +love, the bended knees of joyous adoration, but in helping his fellow, +he not only worshiped but served God--ministered, that is, to the wants +of God--doing it unto Him in the least of His. He knew that, as the +Father unresting works for the weal of men, so every son, following the +Master-Son, must work also. Through weakness and suffering he had +learned it. But he never doubted that his work as much as his bread +would be given him, never rushed out wildly snatching at something to do +for God, never helped a lazy man to break stones, never preached to +foxes. It was what the Father gave him to do that he cared to do, and +that only. It was the man next him that he helped--the neighbor in need +of the help he had. He did not trouble himself greatly about the +happiness of men, but when the time and the opportunity arrived in which +to aid the struggling birth of the eternal bliss, the whole strength of +his being responded to the call. And now, having felt a thread vibrate, +like a sacred spider he sat in the center of his web of love, and waited +and watched. + +In proportion as the love is pure, and only in proportion to that, can +such be a pure and real calling. The least speck of self will defile +it--a little more may ruin its most hopeful effort. + +Two days after, he heard, from some of the boys hurrying to the pond, +that Mrs. Faber was missing. He followed them, and from a spot beyond +the house, looking down upon the lake, watched their proceedings. He +saw them find her bonnet--a result which left him room to doubt. Almost +the next moment a wavering film of blue smoke rising from the Old House +caught his eye. It did not surprise him, for he knew Dorothy Drake was +in the habit of going there--knew also by her face for what she went: +accustomed to seek solitude himself, he knew the relations of it. Very +little had passed between them. Sometimes two persons are like two drops +running alongside of each other down a window-pane: one marvels how it +is they can so long escape running together. Persons fit to be bosom +friends will meet and part for years, and never say much beyond +good-morning and good-night. + +But he bethought him that he had not before known her light a fire, and +the day certainly was not a cold one. Again, how was it that with the +cries of the boys in her ears, searching for a sight of the body in her +very garden, she had never come from the house, or even looked from a +window? Then it came to his mind what a place for concealment the Old +House was: he knew every corner of it; and thus he arrived at what was +almost the conviction that Mrs. Faber was there. When a day or two had +passed, he was satisfied that, for some reason or other, she was there +for refuge. The reason must be a good one, else Dorothy would not be +aiding--and it must of course have to do with her husband. + +He next noted how, for some time, Dorothy never went through his gate, +although he saw reason to believe she went to the Old House every day. +After a while, however, she went through it every day. They always +exchanged a few words as she passed, and he saw plainly enough that she +carried a secret. By and by he began to see the hover of words unuttered +about her mouth; she wished to speak about something but could not quite +make up her mind to it. He would sometimes meet her look with the +corresponding look of "Well, what is it?" but thereupon she would +invariably seem to change her mind, would bid him good morning, and pass +on. + + + + +CHAPTER XL. + +A DESOLATION. + + +When Faber at length returned to Glaston, his friends were shocked at +his appearance. Either the hand of the Lord, or the hand of crushing +chance, had been heavy upon him. A pale, haggard, worn, enfeebled man, +with an eye of suffering, and a look that shrunk from question, he +repaired to his desolate house. In the regard of his fellow-townsmen he +was as Job appeared to the eyes of his friends; and some of them, who +knew no more of religion than the sound of its name, pitied him that he +had not the comfort of it. All Glaston was tender to him. He walked +feebly, seldom showed the ghost of a smile, and then only from kindness, +never from pleasure. His face was now almost as white as that of his +lost Juliet. His brother doctors behaved with brotherly truth. They had +attended to all his patients, poor as well as rich, and now insisted +that he should resume his labors gradually, while they fulfilled his +lack. So at first he visited only his patients in the town, for he was +unable to ride; and his grand old horse, Ruber, in whom he trusted, and +whom he would have ventured sooner to mount than Niger, was gone! For +weeks he looked like a man of fifty; and although by degrees the +restorative influences of work began to tell upon him, he never +recovered the look of his years. Nobody tried to comfort him. Few dared, +for very reverence, speak to the man who carried in him such an awful +sorrow. Who would be so heartless as counsel him to forget it? and what +other counsel was there for one who refused like him? Who could have +brought himself to say to him--"There is loveliness yet left, and within +thy reach: take the good, etc.; forget the nothing that has been, in the +something that may yet for awhile avoid being nothing too; comfort thy +heart with a fresh love: the time will come to forget both, in the +everlasting tomb of the ancient darkness"? Few men would consent to be +comforted in accordance with their professed theories of life; and more +than most would Faber, at this period of his suffering, have scorned +such truth for comfort. As it was, men gave him a squeeze of the hand, +and women a tearful look; but from their sympathy he derived no +faintest pleasure, for he knew he deserved nothing that came from heart +of tenderness. Not that he had begun to condemn himself for his hardness +to the woman who, whatever her fault, yet honored him by confessing it, +or to bemoan her hard fate to whom a man had not been a hiding-place +from the wind, a covert from the tempest of life, a shadow-shelter from +the scorching of her own sin. As he recovered from the double shock, +and, his strength slowly returning, his work increased, bringing him +again into the run of common life, his sense of desolation increased. As +his head ached less, his heart ached the more, nor did the help he +ministered to his fellows any longer return in comfort to himself. +Hitherto his regard of annihilation had been as of something so distant, +that its approach was relatively by degrees infinitesimal, but as the +days went on, he began to derive a gray consolation from the thought +that he must at length cease to exist. He would not hasten the end; he +would be brave, and see the play out. Only it was all so dull! If a +woman looked kindly at him, if for a moment it gave him pleasure, the +next it was as an arrow in his heart. What a white splendor was vanished +from his life! Where were those great liquid orbs of radiating +darkness?--where was that smile with its flash of whiteness?--that form +so lithe, yet so stately, so perfect in modulation?--where were those +hands and feet that spoke without words, and took their own way with his +heart?--those arms--? His being shook to its center. One word of +tenderness and forgiveness, and all would have been his own still!--But +on what terms?--Of dishonor and falsehood, he said, and grew hard again. +He was sorry for Juliet, but she and not he was to blame. She had ruined +his life, as well as lost her own, and his was the harder case, for he +had to live on, and she had taken with her all the good the earth had +for him. She had been the sole object of his worship; he had +acknowledged no other divinity; she was the loveliness of all things; +but she had dropped from her pedestal, and gone down in the sea that +flows waveless and windless and silent around the worlds. Alas for life! +But he would bear on till its winter came. The years would be as tedious +as hell; but nothing that ends can be other than brief. Not willingly +even yet would he fail of what work was his. The world was bad enough; +he would not leave it worse than he had found it. He would work life +out, that he might die in peace. Fame truly there was none for him, but +his work would not be lost. The wretched race of men would suffer a +little the less that he had lived. Poor comfort, if more of health but +ministered to the potency of such anguish as now burrowed in him like a +mole of fire! + +There had been a time when, in the young pathos of things, he would shut +his eyes that the sunset might not wound him so sore; now, as he rode +homeward into the fronting sunset, he felt nothing, cared for nothing, +only ached with a dull aching through body and soul. He was still kind +to his fellows, but the glow of the kindness had vanished, and truest +thanks hardly waked the slightest thrill. + +He very seldom saw Wingfold now, and less than ever was inclined toward +his doctrine; for had it not been through him this misery had come upon +him? Had he not, with the confidence of all the sciences, uttered the +merest dreams as eternal truths? How could poor Juliet help supposing he +knew the things he asserted, and taking them for facts? The human heart +was the one unreasonable thing, sighing ever after that which is not! +Sprung from nothing, it yet desired a creator!--at least some hearts did +so: his did not; he knew better! + +There was of course no reason in this. Was the thing not a fact which +she had confessed? was he not a worshiper of fact? did he not even +dignify it with the name of truth? and could he wish his wife had kept +the miserable fact to herself, leaving him to his fools'-paradise of +ignorance? Why then should he feel resentment against the man whose +teaching had only compelled her to confess it?--But the thing was out of +the realm of science and its logic. + +Sometimes he grew fierce, and determined to face every possible agony, +endure all, and dominate his misery; but ever and anon it returned with +its own disabling sickness, bringing the sense of the unendurable. Of +his own motion he saw nobody except in his practice. He studied hard, +even to weariness and faintness, contrived strange experiments, and +caught, he believed, curious peeps into the house of life. Upon them he +founded theories as wild as they were daring, and hob-nobbed with death +and corruption. But life is at the will of the Maker, and misery can not +kill it. By degrees a little composure returned, and the old keen look +began to revive. But there were wrinkles on the forehead that had +hitherto been smooth as ivory; furrows, the dry water-courses of sorrow, +appeared on his cheeks, and a few silvery threads glinted in his hair. +His step was heavy, and his voice had lost its ring--the cheer was out +of it. He no more obtruded his opinions, for, as I have said, he shrunk +from all interchange, but he held to them as firmly as ever. He was not +to be driven from the truth by suffering! But there was a certain +strange movement in his spirit of which he took no note--a feeling of +resentment, as if against a God that yet did not exist, for making upon +him the experiment whether he might not, by oppression, be driven to +believe in Him. + +When Dorothy knew of his return, and his ways began to show that he +intended living just as before his marriage, the time seemed come for +telling Juliet of the accident and his recovery from the effects of it. +She went into violent hysterics, and the moment she could speak, blamed +Dorothy bitterly for not having told her before. + +"It is all your lying religion!" she said. + +"Your behavior, Juliet," answered Dorothy, putting on the matron, and +speaking with authority, "shows plainly how right I was. You were not to +be trusted, and I knew it. Had I told you, you would have rushed to him, +and been anything but welcome. He would not even have known you; and you +would have been two on the doctor's hands. You would have made +everything public, and when your husband came to himself, would probably +have been the death of him after all." + +"He may have begun to think more kindly of me by that time," said +Juliet, humbled a little. + +"We must not act on _may-haves_," answered Dorothy. + +"You say he looks wretched now," suggested Juliet. + +"And well he may, after concussion of the brain, not to mention what +preceded it," said Dorothy. + +She had come to see that Juliet required very plain speaking. She had so +long practiced the art of deceiving herself that she was skillful at it. +Indeed, but for the fault she had committed, she would all her life long +have been given to petting and pitying, justifying and approving of +herself. One can not help sometimes feeling that the only chance for +certain persons is to commit some fault sufficient to shame them out of +the self-satisfaction in which they burrow. A fault, if only it be great +and plain enough to exceed their powers of self-justification, may then +be, of God's mercy, not indeed an angel of light to draw them, but +verily a goblin of darkness to terrify them out of themselves. For the +powers of darkness are His servants also, though incapable of knowing +it: He who is first and last can, even of those that love the lie, make +slaves of the truth. And they who will not be sons shall be slaves, let +them rant and wear crowns as they please in the slaves' quarters. + +"You must not expect him to get over such a shock all at once," said +Dorothy. "--It may be," she continued, "that you were wrong in running +away from him. I do not pretend to judge between you, but, perhaps, +after the injury you had done him, you ought to have left it with him to +say what you were to do next. By taking it in your own hands, you may +have only added to the wrong." + +"And who helped me?" returned Juliet, in a tone of deep reproach. + +"Helped you to run from him, Juliet!--Really, if you were in the habit +of behaving to your husband as you do to me--!" She checked herself, and +resumed calmly--"You forget the facts of the case, my dear. So far from +helping you to run from him, I stopped you from running so far that +neither could he find you, nor you return to him again. But now we must +make the best of it by waiting. We must find out whether he wants you +again, or your absence is a relief to him. If I had been a man, I should +have been just as wild as he." + +She had seen in Juliet some signs that self-abhorrence was wanting, and +self-pity reviving, and she would connive at no unreality in her +treatment of herself. She was one thing when bowed to the earth in +misery and shame, and quite another if thinking herself hardly used on +all sides. + +It was a strange position for a young woman to be in--that of watcher +over the marriage relations of two persons, to neither of whom she could +be a friend otherwise than _ab extra_. Ere long she began almost to +despair. Day after day she heard or saw that Faber continued sunk in +himself, and how things were going there she could not tell. Was he +thinking about the wife he had lost, or brooding over the wrong she had +done him? There was the question--and who was to answer it? At the same +time she was all but certain, that, things being as they were, any +reconciliation that might be effected would owe itself merely to the +raising, as it were of the dead, and the root of bitterness would soon +trouble them afresh. If but one of them had begun the task of +self-conquest, there would be hope for both. But of such a change there +was in Juliet as yet no sign. + +Dorothy then understood her position--it was wonderful with what +clearness, but solitary necessity is a hot sun to ripen. What was she to +do? To what quarter--could she to any quarter look for help? Naturally +she thought first of Mr. Wingfold. But she did not feel at all sure that +he would consent to receive a communication upon any other understanding +than that he was to act in the matter as he might see best; and would it +be right to acquaint him with the secret of another when possibly he +might feel bound to reveal it? Besides, if he kept it hid, the result +might be blame to him; and blame, she reasoned, although a small matter +in regard to one like herself, might in respect of a man in the curate's +position involve serious consequences. While she thus reflected, it came +into her mind with what enthusiasm she had heard him speak of Mr. +Polwarth, attributing to him the beginnings of all enlightenment he had +himself ever received. Without this testimony, she would not have once +thought of him. Indeed she had been more than a little doubtful of him, +for she had never felt attracted to him, and from her knowledge of the +unhealthy religious atmosphere of the chapel, had got unreasonably +suspicious of cant. She had not had experience enough to distinguish +with any certainty the speech that comes from the head and that which +comes out of the fullness of the heart. A man must talk out of that +which is in him; his well must give out the water of its own spring; but +what seems a well maybe only a cistern, and the water by no means living +water. What she had once or twice heard him say, had rather repelled +than drawn her; but Dorothy had faith, and Mr. Wingfold had spoken. +Might she tell him? Ought she not to seek his help? Would he keep the +secret? Could he help if he would? Was he indeed as wise as they said? + +In the meantime, little as she thought it, Polwarth had been awaiting a +communication from her; but when he found that the question whose +presence was so visible in her whole bearing, neither died nor bore +fruit, he began to think whether he might not help her to speak. The +next time, therefore, that he opened the gate to her, he held in his +hand a little bud he had just broken from a monthly rose. It was a hard +little button, upon which the green leaves of its calyx clung as if +choking it. + +"What is the matter with this bud, do you think, Miss Drake?" he asked. + +"That you have plucked it," she answered sharply, throwing a suspicious +glance in his face. + +"No; that can not be it," he answered with a quiet smile of +intelligence. "It has been just as you see it for the last three days. I +only plucked it the moment I saw you coming." + +"Then the frost has caught it." + +"The frost _has_ caught it," he answered; "but I am not quite sure +whether the cause of its death was not rather its own life than the +frost." + +"I don't see what you mean by that, Mr. Polwarth," said Dorothy, +doubtfully, and with a feeling of discomfort. + +"I admit it sounds paradoxical," returned the little man. "What I mean +is, that the struggle of the life in it to unfold itself, rather than +any thing else, was the cause of its death." + +"But the frost was the cause of its not being able to unfold itself," +said Dorothy. + +"That I admit," said Polwarth; "and perhaps a weaker life in the flower +would have yielded sooner. I may have carried too far an analogy I was +seeking to establish between it and the human heart, in which repression +is so much more dangerous than mere oppression. Many a heart has +withered like my poor little bud, because it did not know its friend +when it saw him." + +Dorothy was frightened. He knew something! Or did he only suspect? +Perhaps he was merely guessing at her religious troubles, wanting to +help her. She must answer carefully. + +"I have no doubt you are right, Mr. Polwarth," she said; "but there are +some things it is not wise, and other things it would not be right to +speak about." + +"Quite true," he answered. "I did not think it wise to say any thing +sooner, but now I venture to ask how the poor lady does?" + +"What lady?" returned Dorothy, dreadfully startled, and turning white. + +"Mrs. Faber," answered Polwarth, with the utmost calmness. "Is she not +still at the Old House?" + +"Is it known, then?" faltered Dorothy. + +"To nobody but myself, so far as I am aware," replied the gatekeeper. + +"And how long have you known it?" + +"From the very day of her disappearance, I may say." + +"Why didn't you let me know sooner?" said Dorothy, feeling aggrieved, +though she would have found it hard to show wherein lay the injury. + +"For more reasons than one," answered Polwarth; "but one will be enough: +you did not trust me. It was well therefore to let you understand I +could keep a secret. I let you know now only because I see you are +troubled about her. I fear you have not got her to take any comfort, +poor lady!" + +Dorothy stood silent, gazing down with big, frightened eyes at the +strange creature who looked steadfastly up at her from under what seemed +a huge hat--for his head was as large as that of a tall man. He seemed +to be reading her very thoughts. + +"I can trust you, Miss Drake," he resumed. "If I did not, I should have +at once acquainted the authorities with my suspicions; for, you will +observe, you are hiding from a community a fact which it has a right to +know. But I have faith enough in you to believe that you are only +waiting a fit time, and have good reasons for what you do. If I can give +you any help, I am at your service." + +He took off his big hat, and turned away into the house. + +Dorothy stood fixed for a moment or two longer, then walked slowly away, +with her eyes on the ground. Before she reached the Old House, she had +made up her mind to tell Polwarth as much as she could without betraying +Juliet's secret, and to ask him to talk to her, for which she would +contrive an opportunity. + +For some time she had been growing more anxious every day. No sign of +change showed in any quarter; no way opened through the difficulties +that surrounded them, while these were greatly added to by the +likelihood appearing that another life was on its way into them. What +was to be done? How was she in her ignorance so to guard the hopeless +wife that motherhood might do something to console her? She had two +lives upon her hands, and did indeed want counsel. The man who knew +their secret already--the minor prophet, she had heard the curate call +him--might at least help her to the next step she must take. + +Juliet's mental condition was not at all encouraging. She was often +ailing and peevish, behaving as if she owed Dorothy grudge instead of +gratitude. And indeed to herself Dorothy would remark that if nothing +more came out of it than seemed likely now, Juliet would be under no +very ponderous obligation to her. She found it more and more difficult +to interest her in any thing. After Othello she did not read another +play. Nothing pleased her but to talk about her husband. If Dorothy had +seen him, Juliet had endless questions to put to her about him; and when +she had answered as many of them as she could, she would put them all +over again afresh. On one occasion when Dorothy could not say she +believed he was, when she saw him, thinking about his wife, Juliet went +into hysterics. She was growing so unmanageable that if Dorothy had not +partially opened her mind to Polwarth, she must at last have been +compelled to give her up. The charge was wearing her out; her strength +was giving way, and her temper growing so irritable that she was ashamed +of herself--and all without any good to Juliet. Twice she hinted at +letting her husband know where she was, but Juliet, although, on both +occasions, she had a moment before been talking as if Dorothy alone +prevented her from returning to him, fell on her knees in wild distress, +and entreated her to bear with her. At the smallest approach of the idea +toward actuality, the recollection rushed scorching back--of how she had +implored him, how she had humbled herself soul and body before him, how +he had turned from her with loathing, would not put forth a hand to lift +her from destruction and to restore her to peace, had left her naked on +the floor, nor once returned "to ask the spotted princess how she +fares"--and she shrunk with agony from any real thought of again +supplicating his mercy. + +Presently another difficulty began to show in the near distance: Mr. +Drake, having made up his mind as to the alterations he would have +effected, had begun to think there was no occasion to put off till the +spring, and talked of commencing work in the house at no distant day. +Dorothy therefore proposed to Juliet that, as it was impossible to +conceal her there much longer, she should go to some distant part of the +country, where she would contrive to follow her. But the thought of +moving further from her husband, whose nearness, though she dared not +seek him, seemed her only safety, was frightful to Juliet. The wasting +anxiety she caused Dorothy did not occur to her. Sorrow is not selfish, +but many persons are in sorrow entirely selfish. It makes them so +important in their own eyes, that they seem to have a claim upon all +that people can do for them. + +To the extent therefore, of what she might herself have known without +Juliet's confession, Dorothy, driven to her wits' end, resolved to open +the matter to the gatekeeper; and accordingly, one evening on her way +home, called at the lodge, and told Polwarth where and in what condition +she had found Mrs. Faber, and what she had done with her; that she did +not think it the part of a friend to advise her return to her husband at +present; that she would not herself hear of returning; that she had no +comfort, and her life was a burden to her; and that she could not +possibly keep her concealed much longer, and did not know what next to +do. + +Polwarth answered only that he must make the acquaintance of Mrs. Faber. +If that could be effected, he believed he should be able to help them +out of their difficulties. Between them, therefore, they must arrange a +plan for his meeting her. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI. + +THE OLD GARDEN. + + +The next morning, Juliet, walking listlessly up and down the garden, +turned the corner of a yew hedge, and came suddenly upon a figure that +might well have appeared one of the kobolds of German legend. He was +digging slowly but steadily, crooning a strange song--so low that, until +she saw him she did not hear him. + +She started back in dismay. The kobold neither raised his head nor +showed other sign than the ceasing of his song that he was aware of her +presence. Slowly and steadily he went on with his work. He was trenching +the ground deep, still throwing the earth from the bottom to the top. +Juliet, concluding he was deaf, and the ceasing of his song accidental, +turned softly, and would have retreated. But Polwarth, so far from being +deaf, heard better than most people. His senses, indeed, had been +sharpened by his infirmities--all but those of taste and smell, which +were fitful, now dull and now exquisitely keen. At the first movement +breaking the stillness into which consternation had cast her, he spoke. + +"Can you guess what I am doing, Mrs. Faber?" he said, throwing up a +spadeful and a glance together, like a man who could spare no time from +his work. + +Juliet's heart got in the way, and she could not answer him. She felt +much as a ghost, wandering through a house, might feel, if suddenly +addressed by the name she had borne in the old days, while yet she was +clothed in the garments of the flesh. Could it be that this man led such +a retired life that, although living so near Glaston, and seeing so many +at his gate, he had yet never heard that she had passed from the ken of +the living? Or could it be that Dorothy had betrayed her? She stood +quaking. The situation was strange. Before her was a man who did not +seem to know that what he knew concerning her was a secret from all the +world besides! And with that she had a sudden insight into the +consequence of the fact of her existence coming to her husband's +knowledge: would it not add to his contempt and scorn to know that she +was not even dead? Would he not at once conclude that she had been +contriving to work on his feelings, that she had been speculating on his +repentance, counting upon and awaiting such a return of his old +fondness, as would make him forget all her faults, and prepare him to +receive her again with delight?--But she must answer the creature! Ill +could she afford to offend him! But what was she to say? She had utterly +forgotten what he had said to her. She stood staring at him, unable to +speak. It was but for a few moments, but they were long as minutes. And +as she gazed, it seemed as if the strange being in the trench had dug +his way up from the lower parts of the earth, bringing her secret with +him, and come to ask her questions. What an earthy yet unearthly look he +had! Almost for the moment she believed the ancient rumors of other +races than those of mankind, that shared the earth with them, but led +such differently conditioned lives, that, in the course of ages, only a +scanty few of the unblending natures crossed each other's path, to stand +astare in mutual astonishment. + +Polwarth went on digging, nor once looked up. After a little while he +resumed, in the most natural way, speaking as if he had known her well: + +"Mr. Drake and I were talking, some weeks ago, about a certain curious +little old-fashioned flower in my garden at the back of the lodge. He +asked me if I could spare him a root of it. I told him I could spare him +any thing he would like to have, but that I would gladly give him every +flower in my garden, roots and all, if he would but let me dig three +yards square in his garden at the Old House, and have all that came up +of itself for a year." + +He paused again. Juliet neither spoke nor moved. He dug rather feebly +for a gnome, with panting, asthmatic breath. + +"Perhaps you are not aware, ma'am," he began again, and ceasing his +labor stood up leaning on the spade, which was nearly as high as +himself, "that many of the seeds which fall upon the ground do not grow, +yet, strange to tell, retain the power of growth. I suspect myself, but +have not had opportunity of testing the conjecture, that such fall in +their pods, or shells, and that before these are sufficiently decayed to +allow the sun and moisture and air to reach them, they have got covered +up in the soil too deep for those same influences. They say fishes a +long time bedded in ice will come to life again: I can not tell about +that, but it is well enough known that if you dig deep in any old +garden, such as this, ancient, perhaps forgotten flowers, will appear. +The fashion has changed, they have been neglected or uprooted, but all +the time their life is hid below. And the older they are, the nearer +perhaps to their primary idea!" + +By this time she was far more composed, though not yet had she made up +her mind what to say, or how to treat the dilemma in which she found +herself. + +After a brief pause therefore, he resumed again: + +"I don't fancy," he said, with a low, asthmatic laugh, "that we shall +have many forgotten weeds come up. They all, I suspect, keep pretty well +in the sun. But just think how the fierce digging of the crisis to which +the great Husbandman every now and then leads a nation, brings back to +the surface its old forgotten flowers. What virtues, for instance, the +Revolution brought to light as even yet in the nature of the corrupted +nobility of France!" + +"What a peculiar goblin it is!" thought Juliet, beginning to forget +herself a little in watching and listening to the strange creature. She +had often seen him before, but had always turned from him with a kind of +sympathetic shame: of course the poor creature could not bear to be +looked at; he must know himself improper! + +"I have sometimes wondered," Polwarth yet again resumed, "whether the +troubles without end that some people seem born to--I do not mean those +they bring upon themselves--may not be as subsoil plows, tearing deep +into the family mold, that the seeds of the lost virtues of their race +may in them be once more brought within reach of sun and air and dew. It +would be a pleasant, hopeful thought if one might hold it. Would it not, +ma'am?" + +"It would indeed," answered Juliet with a sigh, which rose from an +undefined feeling that if some hidden virtue would come up in her, it +would be welcome. How many people would like to be good, if only they +might be good without taking trouble about it! They do not like goodness +well enough to hunger and thirst after it, or to sell all that they have +that they may buy it; they will not batter at the gate of the kingdom of +Heaven; but they look with pleasure on this or that aerial castle of +righteousness, and think it would be rather nice to live in it! They do +not know that it is goodness all the time their very being is pining +after, and that they are starving their nature of its necessary food. +Then Polwarth's idea turned itself round in Juliet's mind, and grew +clearer, but assumed reference to weeds only, and not flowers. She +thought how that fault of hers had, like the seed of a poison-plant, +been buried for years, unknown to one alive, and forgotten almost by +herself--so diligently forgotten indeed, that it seemed to have +gradually slipped away over the horizon of her existence; and now here +it was at the surface again in all its horror and old reality! nor that +merely, for already it had blossomed and borne its rightful fruit of +dismay--an evil pod, filled with a sickening juice, and swarming with +gray flies.--But she must speak, and, if possible, prevent the odd +creature from going and publishing in Glaston that he had seen Mrs. +Faber, and she was at the Old House. + +"How did you know I was here?" she asked abruptly. + +"How do you know that I knew, ma'am?" returned Polwarth, in a tone which +took from the words all appearance of rudeness. + +"You were not in the least surprised to see me," she answered. + +"A man," returned the dwarf, "who keeps his eyes open may almost cease +to be surprised at any thing. In my time I have seen so much that is +wonderful--in fact every thing seems to me so wonderful that I hardly +expect to be surprised any more." + +He said this, desiring to provoke conversation. But Juliet took the +answer for an evasive one, and it strengthened her suspicion of Dorothy. +She was getting tired of her! Then there was only one thing left!--The +minor prophet had betaken himself again to his work, delving deeper, and +throwing slow spadeful after spadeful to the surface. + +"Miss Drake told you I was here!" said Juliet. + +"No, indeed, Mrs. Faber. No one told me," answered Polwarth. "I learned +it for myself. I could hardly help finding it out." + +"Then--then--does every body know it?" she faltered, her heart sinking +within her at the thought. + +"Indeed, ma'am, so far as I know, not a single person is aware you are +alive except Miss Drake and myself. I have not even told my niece who +lives with me, and who can keep a secret as well as myself." + +Juliet breathed a great sigh of relief. + +"Will you tell me why you have kept it so secret?" she asked. + +"Because it was your secret, ma'am, not mine." + +"But you were under no obligation to keep my secret." + +"How do you justify such a frightful statement as that, ma'am?" + +"Why, what could it matter to you?" + +"Every thing." + +"I do not understand. You have no interest in me. You could have no +inducement." + +"On the contrary, I had the strongest inducement: I saw that an +opportunity might come of serving you." + +"But that is just the unintelligible thing to me. There is no reason why +you should wish to serve me!" said Juliet, thinking to get at the bottom +of some design. + +"There you mistake, ma'am. I am under the most absolute and imperative +obligation to serve you--the greatest under which any being can find +himself." + +"What a ridiculous, crooked little monster!" said Juliet to herself. But +she began the same moment to think whether she might not turn the +creature's devotion to good account. She might at all events insure his +silence. + +"Would you be kind enough to explain yourself?" she said, now also +interested in the continuance of the conversation. + +"I would at once," replied Polwarth, "had I sufficient ground for hoping +you would understand my explanation." + +"I do not know that I am particularly stupid," she returned, with a wan +smile. + +"I have heard to the contrary," said Polwarth. "Yet I can not help +greatly doubting whether you will understand what I am now going to tell +you. For I will tell you--on the chance: I have no secrets--that is, of +my own.--I am one of those, Mrs. Faber," he went on after a moment's +pause, but his voice neither became more solemn in tone, nor did he +cease his digging, although it got slower, "who, against the +_non-evidence_ of their senses, believe there is a Master of men, the +one Master, a right perfect Man, who demands of them, and lets them know +in themselves the rectitude of the demand that they also shall be right +and true men, that is, true brothers to their brothers and sisters of +mankind. It is recorded too, and I believe it, that this Master said +that any service rendered to one of His people was rendered to Himself. +Therefore, for love of His will, even if I had no sympathy with you, +Mrs. Faber, I should feel bound to help you. As you can not believe me +interested in yourself, I must tell you that to betray your secret for +the satisfaction of a love of gossip, would be to sin against my highest +joy, against my own hope, against the heart of God, from which your +being and mine draws the life of its every moment." + +Juliet's heart seemed to turn sick at the thought of such a creature +claiming brotherhood with her. That it gave ground for such a claim, +seemed for the moment an irresistible argument against the existence of +a God. + +In her countenance Polwarth read at once that he had blundered, and a +sad, noble, humble smile irradiated his. It had its effect on Juliet. +She would be generous and forgive his presumption: she knew dwarfs were +always conceited--that wise Nature had provided them with high thoughts +wherewith to add the missing cubit to their stature. What repulsive +things Christianity taught! Her very flesh recoiled from the poor ape! + +"I trust you are satisfied, ma'am," the kobold added, after a moment's +vain expectation of a word from Juliet, "that your secret is safe with +me." + +"I am," answered Juliet, with a condescending motion of her stately +neck, saying to herself in feeling if not in conscious thought,--"After +all he is hardly human! I may accept his devotion as I would that of a +dog!" + +The moment she had thus far yielded, she began to long to speak of her +husband. Perhaps he can tell her something of him! At least he could +talk about him. She would have been eager to look on his reflection, had +it been possible, in the mind of a dog that loved him. She would turn +the conversation in a direction that might find him. + +"But I do not see," she went on, "how you, Mr. Polwarth--I think that is +your name--how you can, consistently with your principles,--" + +"Excuse me, ma'am: I can not even, by silence, seem to admit that you +know any thing whatever of my principles." + +"Oh!" she returned, with a smile of generous confession, "I was brought +up to believe as you do." + +"That but satisfies me that for the present you are incapable of knowing +any thing of my principles." + +"I do not wonder at your thinking so," she returned, with the +condescension of superior education, as she supposed, and yet with the +first motion of an unconscious respect for the odd little monster.--He, +with wheezing chest, went on throwing up the deep, damp, fresh earth, to +him smelling of marvelous things. Ruth would have ached all over to see +him working so hard!--"Still," Juliet went on, "supposing your judgment +of me correct, that only makes it the stranger you should imagine that +in serving such a one, you are pleasing Him you call your Master. He +says whosoever denies Him before men He will deny before the angels of +God." + +"What my Lord says He will do, He will do, as He meant it when He said +it: what He tells me to do, I try to understand and do. Now He has told +me of all things not to say that good comes of evil. He condemned that +in the Pharisees as the greatest of crimes. When, therefore, I see a man +like your husband, helping his neighbors near and far, being kind, +indeed loving, and good-hearted to all men,"--Here a great sigh, checked +and broken into many little ones, came in a tremulous chain from the +bosom of the wife--"I am bound to say that man is not scattering his +Master abroad. He is indeed opposing Him in words: he speaks against the +Son of Man; but that the Son of Man Himself says shall be forgiven him. +If I mistake in this, to my own Master I stand or fall." + +"How can He be his Master if he does not acknowledge Him?" + +"Because the very tongue with which he denies Him is yet His. I am the +master of the flowers that will now grow by my labor, though not one of +them will know me--how much more must He be the Master of the men He +has called into being, though they do not acknowledge Him! If the story +of the gospel be a true one, as with my heart and soul and all that is +in me I believe it is, then Jesus of Nazareth is Lord and Master of Mr. +Faber, and for him not to acknowledge it is to fall from the summit of +his being. To deny one's Master, is to be a slave." + +"You are very polite!" said Mrs. Faber, and turned away. She recalled +her imaginary danger, however, and turning again, said, "But though I +differ from you in opinion, Mr. Polwarth, I quite recognize you as no +common man, and put you upon your honor with regard to my secret." + +"Had you entrusted me with your secret, ma'am, the phrase would have had +more significance. But, obeying my Master, I do not require to think of +my own honor. Those who do not acknowledge their Master, can not afford +to forget it. But if they do not learn to obey Him, they will find by +the time they have got through what they call life, they have left +themselves little honor to boast of." + +"He has guessed my real secret!" thought poor Juliet, and turning away +in confusion, without a word of farewell, went straight into the house. +But before Dorothy, who had been on the watch at the top of the slope, +came in, she had begun to hope that the words of the forward, +disagreeable, conceited dwarf had in them nothing beyond a general +remark. + +When Dorothy entered, she instantly accused her of treachery. Dorothy, +repressing her indignation, begged she would go with her to Polwarth. +But when they reached the spot, the gnome had vanished. + +He had been digging only for the sake of the flowers buried in Juliet, +and had gone home to lie down. His bodily strength was exhausted, but +will and faith and purpose never forsook the soul cramped up in that +distorted frame. When greatly suffering, he would yet suffer with his +will--not merely resigning himself to the will of God, but desiring the +suffering that God willed. When the wearied soul could no longer keep +the summit of the task, when not strength merely, but the consciousness +of faith and duty failed him, he would cast faith and strength and duty, +all his being, into the gulf of the Father's will, and simply suffer, no +longer trying to feel any thing--waiting only until the Life should send +him light. + +Dorothy turned to Juliet. + +"You might have asked Mr. Polwarth, Juliet, whether I had betrayed +you," she said. + +"Now I think of it, he did say you had not told him. But how was I to +take the word of a creature like that?" + +"Juliet," said Dorothy, very angry, "I begin to doubt if you were worth +taking the trouble for!" + +She turned from her, and walked toward the house. Juliet rushed after +her and caught her in her arms. + +"Forgive me, Dorothy," she cried. "I am not in my right senses, I do +believe. What _is_ to be done now this--man knows it?" + +"Things are no worse than they were," said Dorothy, as quickly appeased +as angered. "On the contrary, I believe we have the only one to help us +who is able to do it. Why, Juliet, why what am I to do with you when my +father sends the carpenters and bricklayers to the house? They will be +into every corner! He talks of commencing next week, and I am at my +wits' end." + +"Oh! don't forsake me, Dorothy, after all you have done for me," cried +Juliet. "If you turn me out, there never was creature in the world so +forlorn as I shall be--absolutely helpless, Dorothy!" + +"I will do all I can for you, my poor Juliet; but if Mr. Polwarth do not +think of some way, I don't know what will become of us. You don't know +what you are guilty of in despising him. Mr. Wingfold speaks of him as +far the first man in Glaston." + +Certainly Mr. Wingfold, Mr. Drew, and some others of the best men in the +place, did think him, of those they knew, the greatest in the kingdom of +Heaven. Glaston was altogether of a different opinion. Which was the +right opinion, must be left to the measuring rod that shall finally be +applied to the statures of men. + +The history of the kingdom of Heaven--need I say I mean a very different +thing from what is called _church-history?_--is the only history that +will ever be able to show itself a history--that can ever come to be +thoroughly written, or to be read with a clear understanding; for it +alone will prove able to explain itself, while in doing so it will +explain all other attempted histories as well. Many of those who will +then be found first in the eternal record, may have been of little +regard in the eyes of even their religious contemporaries, may have been +absolutely unknown to generations that came after, and were yet the men +of life and potency, working as light, as salt, as leaven, in the +world. When the real worth of things is, over all, the measure of their +estimation, then is the kingdom of our God and His Christ. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII. + +THE POTTERY. + + +It had been a very dry autumn, and the periodical rains had been long +delayed, so that the minister had been able to do much for the houses he +had bought, called the Pottery. There had been but just rain enough to +reveal the advantage of the wall he had built to compel the water to +keep the wider street. Thoroughly dry and healthy it was impossible to +make them, at least in the time; but it is one thing to have the water +all about the place you stand on, and another to be up to the knees in +it. Not at that point only, however, but at every spot where the water +could enter freely, he had done what he could provisionally for the +defense of his poor colony--for alas! how much among the well-to-do, in +town or city, are the poor like colonists only!--and he had great hopes +of the result. Stone and brick and cement he had used freely, and one or +two of the people about began to have a glimmering idea of the use of +money after a gospel fashion--that is, for thorough work where and +_because_ it was needed. The curate was full of admiration and sympathy. +But the whole thing gave great dissatisfaction to others not a few. For, +as the currents of inundation would be somewhat altered in direction and +increased in force by his obstructions, it became necessary for several +others also to add to the defenses of their property, and this of course +was felt to be a grievance. Their personal inconveniences were like the +shilling that hides the moon, and, in the resentment they occasioned, +blinded their hearts to the seriousness of the evils from which their +merely temporary annoyance was the deliverance of their neighbors. A +fancy of prescriptive right in their own comforts outweighed all the +long and heavy sufferings of the others. Why should not their neighbors +continue miserable, when they had been miserable all their lives +hitherto? Those who, on the contrary, had been comfortable all their +lives, and liked it so much, ought to continue comfortable--even at +their expense. Why not let well alone? Or if people would be so +unreasonable as to want to be comfortable too, when nobody cared a straw +about them, let them make themselves comfortable without annoying those +superior beings who had been comfortable all the time!--Persons who, +consciously or unconsciously, reason thus, would do well to read with a +little attention the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, wherein it +seems recognized that a man's having been used to a thing may be just +the reason, not for the continuance, but for the alteration of his +condition. In the present case the person who most found himself +aggrieved, was the dishonest butcher. A piece of brick wall which the +minister had built in contact with the wall of his yard, would +indubitably cause such a rise in the water at the descent into the area +of his cellar, that, in order to its protection in a moderate flood--in +a great one the cellar was always filled--the addition to its defense of +two or three more rows of bricks would be required, carrying a +correspondent diminution of air and light. It is one of the punishments +overtaking those who wrong their neighbors, that not only do they feel +more keenly than others any injury done to themselves, but they take +many things for injuries that do not belong to the category. It was but +a matter of a few shillings at the most, but the man who did not scruple +to charge the less careful of his customers for undelivered ounces, +gathering to pounds and pounds of meat, resented bitterly the necessity +of the outlay. He knew, or ought to have known, that he had but to +acquaint the minister with the fact, to have the thing set right at +once; but the minister had found him out, and he therefore much +preferred the possession of his grievance to its removal. To his friends +he regretted that a minister of the gospel should be so corrupted by the +mammon of unrighteousness as to use it against members of his own +church: that, he said, was not the way to make friends with it. But on +the pretense of a Christian spirit, he avoided showing Mr. Drake any +sign of his resentment; for the face of his neighbors shames a man whose +heart condemns him but shames him not. He restricted himself to +grumbling, and brooded to counterplot the mischiefs of the minister. +What right had he to injure him for the sake of the poor? Was it not +written in the Bible: Thou shall not favor the poor man in his cause? +Was it not written also: For every man shall bear his own burden? That +was common sense! He did his share in supporting the poor that were +church-members, but was he to suffer for improvements on Drake's +property for the sake of a pack of roughs! Let him be charitable at his +own cost! etc., etc. Self is prolific in argument. + +It suited Mr. Drake well, notwithstanding his church republican +theories, against which, in the abstract, I could ill object, seeing the +whole current of Bible teaching is toward the God-inspired ideal +commonwealth--it suited a man like Mr. Drake well, I say, to be an +autocrat, and was a most happy thing for his tenants, for certainly no +other system of government than a wise autocracy will serve in regard to +the dwellings of the poor. And already, I repeat, he had effected not a +little. Several new cottages had been built, and one incorrigible old +one pulled down. But it had dawned upon him that, however desirable it +might be on a dry hill-side, on such a foundation as this a cottage was +the worst form of human dwelling that could be built. For when the whole +soil was in time of rain like a full sponge, every room upon it was +little better than a hollow in a cloud, and the right thing must be to +reduce contact with the soil as much as possible. One high house, +therefore, with many stories, and stone feet to stand upon, must be the +proper kind of building for such a situation. He must lift the first +house from the water, and set as many more houses as convenient upon it. + +He had therefore already so far prepared for the building of such a +house as should lift a good many families far above all deluge; that is, +he had dug the foundation, and deep, to get at the more solid ground. In +this he had been precipitate, as not unfrequently in his life; for while +he was yet meditating whether he should not lay the foundation +altogether solid, of the unporous stone of the neighborhood, the rains +began, and there was the great hole, to stand all the winter full of +water, in the middle of the cottages! + +The weather cleared again, but after a St. Martin's summer unusually +prolonged, the rain came down in terrible earnest. Day after day, the +clouds condensed, grew water, and poured like a squeezed sponge. A wet +November indeed it was--wet overhead--wet underfoot--wet all round! and +the rivers rose rapidly. + +When the Lythe rose beyond a certain point, it overflowed into a hollow, +hardly a valley, and thereby a portion of it descended almost straight +to Glaston. Hence it came that in a flood the town was invaded both by +the rise of the river from below, and by this current from above, on its +way to rejoin the main body of it, and the streets were soon turned into +canals. The currents of the slowly swelling river and of its temporary +branch then met in Pine street, and formed not a very rapid, but a heavy +run at ebb tide; for Glaston, though at some distance from the mouth of +the river, measuring by its course, was not far from the sea, which was +visible across the green flats, a silvery line on the horizon. Landward, +beyond the flats, high ground rose on all sides, and hence it was that +the floods came down so deep upon Glaston. + +On a certain Saturday it rained all the morning heavily, but toward the +afternoon cleared a little, so that many hoped the climax had been +reached, while the more experienced looked for worse. After sunset the +clouds gathered thicker than before, and the rain of the day was as +nothing to the torrent descending with a steady clash all night. When +the slow, dull morning came Glaston stood in the middle of a brown lake, +into which water was rushing from the sky in straight, continuous lines. +The prospect was discomposing. Some, too confident in the apparent +change, had omitted needful precautions, in most parts none were now +possible, and in many more none would have been of use. Most cellars +were full, and the water was rising on the ground-floors. It was a very +different affair from a flood in a mountainous country, but serious +enough, though without immediate danger to life. Many a person that +morning stepped out of bed up to the knee in muddy water. + +With the first of the dawn the curate stood peering from the window of +his dressing-room, through the water that coursed down the pane, to +discover the state of the country; for the window looked inland from the +skirt of the town. All was gray mist, brown water, and sheeting rain. +The only things clear were that not a soul would be at church that +morning, and that, though he could do nothing to divide them the bread +needful for their souls, he might do something for some of their bodies. +It was a happy thing it was Sunday, for, having laid in their stock of +bread the day before, people were not so dependent on the bakers, half +whose ovens must now be full of water. But most of the kitchens must be +flooded, he reasoned, the fire-wood soaking, and the coal in some +cellars inaccessible. The very lucifer-matches in many houses would be +as useless as the tinderbox of a shipwrecked sailor. And if the rain +were to cease at once the water would yet keep rising for many hours. He +turned from the window, took his bath in homoeopathic preparation, and +then went to wake his wife. + +She was one of those blessed women who always open their eyes smiling. +She owed very little of her power of sympathy to personal suffering; the +perfection of her health might have made one who was too anxious for her +spiritual growth even a little regretful. Her husband therefore had +seldom to think of sparing her when any thing had to be done. She could +lose a night's sleep without the smallest injury, and stand fatigue +better than most men; and in the requirements of the present necessity +there would be mingled a large element of adventure, almost of frolic, +full of delight to a vigorous organization. + +"What a good time of it the angels of wind and flame must have!" said +the curate to himself as he went to wake her. "What a delight to be +embodied as a wind, or a flame, or a rushing sea!--Come, Helen, my help! +Glaston wants you," he said softly in her ear. + +She started up. + +"What is it, Thomas?" she said, holding her eyes wider open than was +needful, to show him she was capable. + +"Nothing to frighten you, darling," he answered, "but plenty to be done. +The river is out, and the people are all asleep. Most of them will have +to wait for their breakfast, I fear. We shall have no prayers this +morning." + +"But plenty of divine service," rejoined Helen, with a smile for what +her aunt called one of his whims, as she got up and seized some of her +garments. + +"Take time for your bath, dear," said her husband. + +"There will be time for that afterward," she replied. "What shall I do +first?" + +"Wake the servants, and tell them to light the kitchen fire, and make +all the tea and coffee they can. But tell them to make it good. We shall +get more of every thing as soon as it is light. I'll go and bring the +boat. I had it drawn up and moored in the ruins ready to float +yesterday. I wish I hadn't put on my shirt though: I shall have to swim +for it, I fear." + +"I shall have one aired before you come back," said Helen. + +"Aired!" returned her husband: "you had better say watered. In five +minutes neither of us will have a dry stitch on. I'll take it off again, +and be content with my blue jersey." + +He hurried out into the rain. Happily there was no wind. + +Helen waked the servants. Before they appeared she had the fire lighted, +and as many utensils as it would accommodate set upon it with water. +When Wingfold returned, he found her in the midst of her household, +busily preparing every kind of eatable and drinkable they could lay +hands upon. + +He had brought his boat to the church yard and moored it between two +headstones: they would have their breakfast first, for there was no +saying when they might get any lunch, and food is work. Besides, there +was little to be gained by rousing people out of their good sleep: there +was no danger yet. + +"It is a great comfort," said the curate, as he drank his coffee, "to +see how Drake goes in heart and soul for his tenants. He is pompous--a +little, and something of a fine gentleman, but what is that beside his +great truth! That work of his is the simplest act of Christianity of a +public kind I have ever seen!" + +"But is there not a great change on him since he had his money?" said +Helen. "He seems to me so much humbler in his carriage and simpler in +his manners than before." + +"It is quite true," replied her husband. "It is mortifying to think," he +went on after a little pause, "how many of our clergy, from mere +beggarly pride, holding their rank superior--as better accredited +servants of the Carpenter of Nazareth, I suppose--would look down on +that man as a hedge-parson. The world they court looked down upon +themselves from a yet greater height once, and may come to do so again. +Perhaps the sooner the better, for then they will know which to choose. +Now they serve Mammon and think they serve God." + +"It is not quite so bad as that, surely!" said Helen. + +"If it is not worldly pride, what is it? I do not think it is spiritual +pride. Few get on far enough to be much in danger of that worst of all +vices. It must then be church-pride, and that is the worst form of +worldly pride, for it is a carrying into the kingdom of Heaven of the +habits and judgments of the kingdom of Satan. I am wrong! such things +can not be imported into the kingdom of Heaven: they can only be +imported into the Church, which is bad enough. Helen, the churchman's +pride is a thing to turn a saint sick with disgust, so utterly is it at +discord with the lovely human harmony he imagines himself the minister +of. He is the Pharisee, it may be the good Pharisee, of the kingdom of +Heaven; but if the proud churchman be in the kingdom at all, it must be +as one of the least in it. I don't believe one in ten who is guilty of +this pride is aware of the sin of it. Only the other evening I heard a +worthy canon say, it may have been more in joke than appeared, that he +would have all dissenters burned. Now the canon would not hang one of +them--but he does look down on them all with contempt. Such miserable +paltry weaknesses and wickednesses, for in a servant of the Kingdom the +feeling which suggests such a speech is wicked, are the moth holes in +the garments of the Church, the teredo in its piles, the dry rot in its +floors, the scaling and crumbling of its buttresses. They do more to +ruin what such men call the Church, even in outward respects, than any +of the rude attacks of those whom they thus despise. He who, in the name +of Christ, pushes his neighbor from him, is a schismatic, and that of +the worst and only dangerous type! But we had better be going. It's of +no use telling you to take your waterproof; you'd only be giving it to +the first poor woman we picked up." + +"I may as well have the good of it till then," said Helen, and ran to +fetch it, while the curate went to bring his boat to the house. + +When he opened the door, there was no longer a spot of earth or of sky +to be seen--only water, and the gray sponge filling the upper air, +through which coursed multitudinous perpendicular runnels of water. Clad +in a pair of old trowsers and a jersey, he went wading, and where the +ground dipped, swimming, to the western gate of the churchyard. In a few +minutes he was at the kitchen window, holding the boat in a long +painter, for the water, although quite up to the rectory walls, was not +yet deep enough there to float the boat with any body in it. The +servants handed him out the great cans they used at school-teas, full of +hot coffee, and baskets of bread, and he placed them in the boat, +covering them with a tarpaulin. Then Helen appeared at the door, in her +waterproof, with a great fur-cloak--to throw over him, she said, when +she took the oars, for she meant to have her share of the fun: it was so +seldom there was any going on a Sunday!--How she would have shocked her +aunt, and better women than she! + +"To-day," said the curate, "we shall praise God with the _mirth_ of the +good old hundredth psalm, and not with the _fear_ of the more modern +version." + +As he spoke he bent to his oars, and through a narrow lane the boat soon +shot into Pine-street--now a wide canal, banked with houses dreary and +dead, save where, from an upper window, peeped out here and there a +sleepy, dismayed countenance. In silence, except for the sounds of the +oars, and the dull rush of water everywhere, they slipped along. + +"This _is_ fun!" said Helen, where she sat and steered. + +"Very quiet fun as yet," answered the curate. "But it will get faster by +and by." + +As often as he saw any one at a window, he called out that tea and +coffee would be wanted for many a poor creature's breakfast. But here +they were all big houses, and he rowed swiftly past them, for his +business lay, not where there were servants and well-stocked larders, +but where there were mothers and children and old people, and little but +water besides. Nor had they left Pine street by many houses before they +came where help was right welcome. Down the first turning a miserable +cottage stood three feet deep in the water. Out jumped the curate with +the painter in his hand, and opened the door. + +On the bed, over the edge of which the water was lapping, sat a sickly +young woman in her night-dress, holding her baby to her bosom. She +stared for a moment with big eyes, then looked down, and said nothing; +but a rose-tinge mounted from her heart to her pale cheek. + +"Good morning, Martha!" said the curate cheerily. "Rather damp--ain't +it? Where's your husband?" + +"Away looking for work, sir," answered Martha, in a hopeless tone. + +"Then he won't miss you. Come along. Give me the baby." + +"I can't come like this, sir. I ain't got no clothes on." + +"Take them with you. You can't put them on: they're all wet. Mrs. +Wingfold is in the boat: she'll see to every thing you want. The door's +hardly wide enough to let the boat through, or I'd pull it close up to +the bed for you to get in." + +She hesitated. + +"Come along," he repeated. "I won't look at you. Or wait--I'll take the +baby, and come back for you. Then you won't get so wet." + +He took the baby from her arms, and turned to the door. + +"It ain't you as I mind, sir," said Martha, getting into the water at +once and following him, "--no more'n my own people; but all the town'll +be at the windows by this time." + +"Never mind; we'll see to you," he returned. + +In half a minute more, with the help of the windowsill, she was in the +boat, the fur-cloak wrapped about her and the baby, drinking the first +cup of the hot coffee. + +"We must take her home at once," said the curate. + +"You said we should have fun!" said Helen, the tears rushing into her +eyes. + +She had left the tiller, and, while the mother drank her coffee, was +patting the baby under the cloak. But she had to betake herself to the +tiller again, for the curate was not rowing straight. + +When they reached the rectory, the servants might all have been +grandmothers from the way they received the woman and her child. + +"Give them a warm bath together," said Helen, "as quickly as +possible.--And stay, let me out, Thomas--I must go and get Martha some +clothes. I shan't be a minute." + +The next time they returned, Wingfold, looking into the kitchen, could +hardly believe the sweet face he saw by the fire, so refined in its +comforted sadness, could be that of Martha. He thought whether the fine +linen, clean and white, may not help the righteousness even of the +saints a little. + +Their next take was a boat-load of children and an old grandmother. Most +of the houses had a higher story, and they took only those who had no +refuge. Many more, however, drank of their coffee and ate of their +bread. The whole of the morning they spent thus, calling, on their +passages, wherever they thought they could get help or find +accommodation. By noon a score of boats were out rendering similar +assistance. The water was higher than it had been for many years, and +was still rising. Faber had laid hands upon an old tub of a +salmon-coble, and was the first out after the curate. But there was no +fun in the poor doctor's boat. Once the curate's and his met in the +middle of Pine street--both as full of people as they could carry. +Wingfold and Helen greeted Faber frankly and kindly. He returned their +greeting with solemn courtesy, rowing heavily past. + +By lunch-time, Helen had her house almost full, and did not want to go +again: there was so much to be done! But her husband persuaded her to +give him one hour more: the servants were doing so well! he said. She +yielded. He rowed her to the church, taking up the sexton and his boy on +their way. There the crypts and vaults were full of water. Old +wood-carvings and bits of ancient coffins were floating about in them. +But the floor of the church was above the water: he landed Helen dry in +the porch, and led her to the organ-loft. Now the organ was one of great +power; seldom indeed, large as the church was, did they venture its full +force: he requested her to pull out every stop, and send the voice of +the church, in full blast, into every corner of Glaston. He would come +back for her in half an hour and take her home. He desired the sexton to +leave all the doors open, and remember that the instrument would want +every breath of wind he and his boy could raise. + +He had just laid hold of his oars, when out of the porch rushed a roar +of harmony that seemed to seize his boat and blow it away upon its +mission like a feather--for in the delight of the music the curate never +felt the arms that urged it swiftly along. After him it came pursuing, +and wafted him mightily on. Over the brown waters it went rolling, a +grand billow of innumerable involving and involved waves. He thought of +the spirit of God that moved on the face of the primeval waters, and out +of a chaos wrought a cosmos. "Would," he said to himself, "that ever +from the church door went forth such a spirit of harmony and healing of +peace and life! But the church's foes are they of her own household, who +with the axes and hammers of pride and exclusiveness and vulgar +priestliness, break the carved work of her numberless chapels, yea, +build doorless screens from floor to roof, dividing nave and choir and +chancel and transepts and aisles into sections numberless, and, with the +evil dust they raise, darken for ages the windows of her clerestory!" + +The curate was thinking of no party, but of individual spirit. Of the +priestliness I have encountered, I can not determine whether the worse +belonged to the Church of England or a certain body of Dissenters. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII. + +THE GATE-LODGE. + + +Mr Bevis had his horses put to, then taken away again, and an old hunter +saddled. But half-way from home he came to a burst bridge, and had to +return, much to the relief of his wife, who, when she had him in the +house again, could enjoy the rain, she said: it was so cosey and +comfortable to feel you could not go out, or any body call. I presume +she therein seemed to take a bond of fate, and doubly assure the +every-day dullness of her existence. Well, she was a good creature, and +doubtless a corner would be found for her up above, where a little more +work would probably be required of her. + +Polwarth and his niece Ruth rose late, for neither had slept well. When +they had breakfasted, they read together from the Bible: first the uncle +read the passage he had last got light upon--he was always getting light +upon passages, and then the niece the passage she had last been +gladdened by; after which they sat and chatted a long time by the +kitchen fire. + +"I am afraid your asthma was bad last night, uncle dear," said Ruth. "I +heard your breathing every time I woke." + +"It was, rather," answered the little man, "but I took my revenge, and +had a good crow over it." + +"I know what you mean, uncle: do let me hear the crow." + +He rose, and slowly climbing the stair to his chamber, returned with a +half sheet of paper in his hand, resumed his seat, and read the +following lines, which he had written in pencil when the light came: + + Satan, avaunt! + Nay, take thine hour; + Thou canst not daunt, + Thou hast no power; + Be welcome to thy nest, + Though it be in my breast. + + Burrow amain; + Dig like a mole; + Fill every vein + With half-burned coal; + Puff the keen dust about, + And all to choke me out. + + Fill music's ways + With creaking cries, + That no loud praise + May climb the skies; + And on my laboring chest + Lay mountains of unrest. + + My slumber steep + In dreams of haste, + That only sleep, + No rest I taste-- + With stiflings, rimes of rote, + And fingers on the throat. + + Satan, thy might + I do defy; + Live core of night, + I patient lie: + A wind comes up the gray + Will blow thee clean away. + + Christ's angel, Death, + All radiant white, + With one cold breath + Will scare thee quite, + And give my lungs an air + As fresh as answered prayer. + + So, Satan, do + Thy worst with me, + Until the True + Shall set me free, + And end what He began, + By making me a man. + +"It is not much of poetry, Ruth!" he said, raising his eyes from the +paper; "--no song of thrush or blackbird! I am ashamed that I called it +a cock-crow--for that is one of the finest things in the world--a +clarion defiance to darkness and sin--far too good a name for my poor +jingle--except, indeed, you call it a Cochin-china-cock-crow--from out a +very wheezy chest!" + +"'My strength is made perfect in weakness,'" said Ruth solemnly, +heedless of the depreciation. To her the verses were as full of meaning +as if she had made them herself. + +"I think I like the older reading better--that is, without the _My_," +said Polwarth: "'Strength is made perfect in weakness.' Somehow--I can +not explain the feeling--to hear a grand aphorism, spoken in widest +application, as a fact of more than humanity, of all creation, from the +mouth of the human God, the living Wisdom, seems to bring me close to +the very heart of the universe. Strength--strength itself--all over--is +made perfect in weakness;--a law of being, you see, Ruth! not a law of +Christian growth only, but a law of growth, even all the growth leading +up to the Christian, which growth is the highest kind of creation. The +Master's own strength was thus perfected, and so must be that of His +brothers and sisters. Ah, what a strength must be his!--how patient in +endurance--how gentle in exercise--how mighty in devotion--how fine in +its issues,-perfected by such suffering! Ah, my child, you suffer sorely +sometimes--I know it well! but shall we not let patience have her +perfect work, that we may--one day, Ruth, one day, my child--be perfect +and entire, wanting nothing?" + +Led by the climax of his tone, Ruth slipped from her stool on her knees. +Polwarth kneeled beside her, and said: + +"O Father of life, we praise Thee that one day Thou wilt take Thy poor +crooked creatures, and give them bodies like Christ's, perfect as His, +and full of Thy light. Help us to grow faster--as fast as Thou canst +help us to grow. Help us to keep our eyes on the opening of Thy hand, +that we may know the manna when it comes. O Lord, we rejoice that we are +Thy making, though Thy handiwork is not very clear in our outer man as +yet. We bless Thee that we feel Thy hand making us. What if it be in +pain! Evermore we hear the voice of the potter above the hum and grind +of his wheel. Father, Thou only knowest how we love Thee. Fashion the +clay to Thy beautiful will. To the eyes of men we are vessels of +dishonor, but we know Thou dost not despise us, for Thou hast made us, +and Thou dwellest with us. Thou hast made us love Thee, and hope in +Thee, and in Thy love we will be brave and endure. All in good time, O +Lord. Amen." + +While they thus prayed, kneeling on the stone floor of the little +kitchen, dark under the universal canopy of cloud, the rain went on +clashing and murmuring all around, rushing from the eaves, and +exploding with sharp hisses in the fire, and in the mingled noise they +had neither heard a low tap, several times repeated, nor the soft +opening of the door that followed. When they rose from their knees, it +was therefore with astonishment they saw a woman standing motionless in +the doorway, without cloak or bonnet, her dank garments clinging to her +form and dripping with rain. + +When Juliet woke that morning, she cared little that the sky was dull +and the earth dark. A selfish sorrow, a selfish love even, makes us +stupid, and Juliet had been growing more and more stupid. Many people, +it seems to me, through sorrow endured perforce and without a gracious +submission, slowly sink in the scale of existence. Such are some of +those middle-aged women, who might be the very strength of social +well-being, but have no aspiration, and hope only downward--after rich +husbands for their daughters, it may be--a new bonnet or an old +coronet--the devil knows what. + +Bad as the weather had been the day before, Dorothy had yet contrived to +visit her, and see that she was provided with every necessary; and +Juliet never doubted she would come that day also. She thought of +Dorothy's ministrations as we so often do of God's--as of things that +come of themselves, for which there is no occasion to be thankful. + +When she had finished the other little house-work required for her +comfort, a labor in which she found some little respite from the +gnawings of memory and the blankness of anticipation, she ended by +making up a good fire, though without a thought of Dorothy's being wet +when she arrived, and sitting down by the window, stared out at the +pools, spreading wider and wider on the gravel walks beneath her. She +sat till she grew chilly, then rose and dropped into an easy chair by +the fire, and fell fast asleep. + +She slept a long time, and woke in a terror, seeming to have waked +herself with a cry. The fire was out, and the hearth cold. She shivered +and drew her shawl about her. Then suddenly she remembered the frightful +dream she had had. + +She dreamed that she had just fled from her husband and gained the park, +when, the moment she entered it, something seized her from behind, and +bore her swiftly, as in the arms of a man--only she seemed to hear the +rush of wings behind her--the way she had been going. She struggled in +terror, but in vain; the power bore her swiftly on, and she knew +whither. Her very being recoiled from the horrible depth of the +motionless pool, in which, as she now seemed to know, lived one of the +loathsome creatures of the semi-chaotic era of the world, which had +survived its kind as well as its coevals, and was ages older than the +human race. The pool appeared--but not as she had known it, for it +boiled and heaved, bubbled and rose. From its lowest depths it was moved +to meet and receive her! Coil upon coil it lifted itself into the air, +towering like a waterspout, then stretched out a long, writhing, +shivering neck to take her from the invisible arms that bore her to her +doom. The neck shot out a head, and the head shot out the tongue of a +water-snake. She shrieked and woke, bathed in terror. + +With the memory of the dream not a little of its horror returned; she +rose to shake it off, and went to the window. What did she see there? +The fearsome pool had entered the garden, had come half-way to the +house, and was plainly rising every moment. More or less the pool had +haunted her ever since she came; she had seldom dared go nearer it than +half-way down the garden. But for the dulling influence of her misery, +it would have been an unendurable horror to her, now it was coming to +fetch her as she had seen it in her warning dream! Her brain reeled; for +a moment she gazed paralyzed with horror, then turned from the window, +and, with almost the conviction that the fiend of her vision was +pursuing her, fled from the house, and across the park, through the +sheets of rain, to the gate-lodge, nor stopped until, all unaware of +having once thought of him in her terror, she stood at the door of +Polwarth's cottage. + +Ruth was darting toward her with outstretched hands, when her uncle +stopped her. + +"Ruth, my child," he said, "run and light a fire in the parlor. I will +welcome our visitor." + +She turned instantly, and left the room. Then Polwarth went up to +Juliet, who stood trembling, unable to utter a word, and said, with +perfect old-fashioned courtesy, "You are heartily welcome, ma'am. I sent +Ruth away that I might first assure you that you are as safe with her as +with me. Sit here a moment, ma'am. You are so wet, I dare not place you +nearer to the fire.--Ruth!" + +She came instantly. + +"Ruth," he repeated, "this lady is Mrs. Faber. She is come to visit us +for a while. Nobody must know of it.--You need not be at all uneasy, +Mrs. Faber. Not a soul will come near us to-day. But I will lock the +door, to secure time, if any one should.--You will get Mrs. Faber's room +ready at once, Ruth. I will come and help you. But a spoonful of brandy +in hot water first, please.--Let me move your chair a little, ma'am--out +of the draught." + +Juliet in silence did every thing she was told, received the prescribed +antidote from Ruth, and was left alone in the kitchen. + +But the moment she was freed from one dread, she was seized by another; +suspicion took the place of terror; and as soon as she heard the toiling +of the goblins up the creaking staircase, she crept to the foot of it +after them, and with no more compunction than a princess in a +fairy-tale, set herself to listen. It was not difficult, for the little +inclosed staircase carried every word to the bottom of it. + +"I _thought_ she wasn't dead!" she heard Ruth exclaim joyfully; and the +words and tone set her wondering. + +"I saw you did not seem greatly astonished at the sight of her; but what +made you think such an unlikely thing?" rejoined her uncle. + +"I saw you did not believe she was dead. That was enough for me." + +"You are a witch, Ruth! I never said a word one way or the other." + +"Which showed that you were thinking, and made me think. You had +something in your mind which you did not choose to tell me yet." + +"Ah, child!" rejoined her uncle, in a solemn tone, "how difficult it is +to hide any thing! I don't think God wants any thing hidden. The light +is His region, His kingdom, His palace-home. It can only be evil, +outside or in, that makes us turn from the fullest light of the +universe. Truly one must be born again to enter into the kingdom!" + +Juliet heard every word, heard and was bewildered. The place in which +she had sought refuge was plainly little better than a kobold-cave, yet +merely from listening to the talk of the kobolds without half +understanding it, she had begun already to feel a sense of safety +stealing over her, such as she had never been for an instant aware of in +the Old House, even with Dorothy beside her. + +They went on talking, and she went on listening. They were so much her +inferiors there could be no impropriety in doing so! + +"The poor lady," she heard the man-goblin say, "has had some difference +with her husband; but whether she wants to hide from him or from the +whole world or from both, she only can tell. Our business is to take +care of her, and do for her what God may lay to our hand. What she +desires to hide, is sacred to us. We have no secrets of our own, Ruth, +and have the more room for those of other people who are unhappy enough +to have any. Let God reveal what He pleases: there are many who have no +right to know what they most desire to know. She needs nursing, poor +thing! We will pray to God for her." + +"But how shall we make her comfortable in such a poor little house?" +returned Ruth. "It is the dearest place in the world to me--but how will +she feel in it?" + +"We will keep her warm and clean," answered her uncle, "and that is all +an angel would require." + +"An angel!--yes," answered Ruth: "for angels don't eat; or, at least, if +they do, for I doubt if you will grant that they don't, I am certain +that they are not so hard to please as some people down here. The poor, +dear lady is delicate--you know she has always been--and I am not much +of a cook." + +"You are a very good cook, my dear. Perhaps you do not know a great many +dishes, but you are a dainty cook of those you do know. Few people can +have more need than we to be careful what they eat,--we have got such a +pair of troublesome cranky little bodies; and if you can suit them, I +feel sure you will be able to suit any invalid that is not fastidious by +nature rather than necessity." + +"I will do my best," said Ruth cheerily, comforted by her uncle's +confidence. "The worst is that, for her own sake, I must not get a girl +to help me." + +"The lady will help you with her own room," said Polwarth. "I have a +shrewd notion that it is only the _fine_ ladies, those that are so +little of ladies that they make so much of being ladies, who mind doing +things with their own hands. Now you must go and make her some tea, +while she gets in bed. She is sure to like tea best." + +Juliet retreated noiselessly, and when the woman-gnome entered the +kitchen, there sat the disconsolate lady where she had left her, still +like the outcast princess of a fairy-tale: she had walked in at the +door, and they had immediately begun to arrange for her stay, and the +strangest thing to Juliet was that she hardly felt it strange. It was +only as if she had come a day sooner than she was expected--which +indeed was very much the case, for Polwarth had been looking forward to +the possibility, and latterly to the likelihood of her becoming their +guest. + +"Your room is ready now," said Ruth, approaching her timidly, and +looking up at her with her woman's childlike face on the body of a +child. "Will you come?" + +Juliet rose and followed her to the garret-room with the dormer window, +in which Ruth slept. + +"Will you please get into bed as fast as you can," she said, "and when +you knock on the floor I will come and take away your clothes and get +them dried. Please to wrap this new blanket round you, lest the cold +sheets should give you a chill. They are well aired, though. I will +bring you a hot bottle, and some tea. Dinner will be ready soon." + +So saying she left the chamber softly. The creak of the door as she +closed it, and the white curtains of the bed and window, reminded Juliet +of a certain room she once occupied at the house of an old nurse, where +she had been happier than ever since in all her life, until her brief +bliss with Faber: she burst into tears, and weeping undressed and got +into bed. There the dryness and the warmth and the sense of safety +soothed her speedily; and with the comfort crept in the happy thought +that here she lay on the very edge of the high road to Glaston, and that +nothing could be more probable than that she would soon see her husband +ride past. With that one hope she could sit at a window watching for +centuries! "O Paul! Paul! my Paul!" she moaned. "If I could but be made +clean again for you! I would willingly be burned at the stake, if the +fire would only make me clean, for the chance of seeing you again in the +other world!" But as the comfort into her brain, so the peace of her new +surroundings stole into her heart. The fancy grew upon her that she was +in a fairy-tale, in which she must take every thing as it came, for she +could not alter the text. Fear vanished; neither staring eyes nor +creeping pool could find her in the guardianship of the benevolent +goblins. She fell fast asleep; and the large, clear, gray eyes of the +little woman gnome came and looked at her as she slept, and their gaze +did not rouse her. Softly she went, and came again; but, although dinner +was then ready, Ruth knew better than to wake her. She knew that sleep +is the chief nourisher in life's feast, and would not withdraw the +sacred dish. Her uncle said sleep was God's contrivance for giving man +the help he could not get into him while he was awake. So the loving +gnomes had their dinner together, putting aside the best portions of it +against the waking of the beautiful lady lying fast asleep above. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV. + +THE CORNER OF THE BUTCHER'S SHOP. + + +All that same Sunday morning, the minister and Dorothy had of course +plenty of work to their hand, for their more immediate neighbors were +all of the poor. Their own house, although situated on the very bank of +the river, was in no worse plight than most of the houses in the town, +for it stood upon an artificial elevation; and before long, while it had +its lower parts full of water like the rest, its upper rooms were filled +with people from the lanes around. But Mr. Drake's heart was in the +Pottery, for he was anxious as to the sufficiency of his measures. Many +of the neighbors, driven from their homes, had betaken themselves to his +inclosure, and when he went, he found the salmon-fishers still carrying +families thither. He set out at once to get what bread he could from the +baker's, a quantity of meat from the butcher, cheese, coffee, and tins +of biscuits and preserved meat from the grocers: all within his bounds +were either his own people or his guests, and he must do what he could +to feed them. For the first time he felt rich, and heartily glad and +grateful that he was. He could please God, his neighbor, and himself all +at once, getting no end of good out of the slave of which the +unrighteous make a god. + +He took Dorothy with him, for he would have felt helpless on such an +expedition without her judgment; and, as Lisbeth's hands were more than +full, they agreed it was better to take Amanda. Dorothy was far from +comfortable at having to leave Juliet alone all day, but the possibility +of her being compelled to omit her customary visit had been contemplated +between them, and she could not fail to understand it on this the first +occasion. Anyhow, better could not be, for the duty at home was far the +more pressing. That day she showed an energy which astonished even her +father. Nor did she fail of her reward. She received insights into +humanity which grew to real knowledge. I was going to say that, next to +an insight into the heart of God, an insight into the heart of a human +being is the most precious of things; but when I think of it--what is +the latter but the former? I will say this at least, that no one reads +the human heart well, to whom the reading reveals nothing of the heart +of the Father. The wire-gauze of sobering trouble over the flaming +flower of humanity, enabled Dorothy to see right down into its +fire-heart, and distinguish there the loveliest hues and shades. Where +the struggle for own life is in abeyance, and the struggle for other +life active, there the heart that God thought out and means to perfect, +the pure love-heart of His humans, reveals itself truly, and is gracious +to behold. For then the will of the individual sides divinely with his +divine impulse, and his heart is unified in good. When the will of the +man sides perfectly with the holy impulses in him, then all is well; for +then his mind is one with the mind of his Maker; God and man are one. + +Amanda shrieked with delight when she was carried to the boat, and went +on shrieking as she floated over flower-beds and box-borders, caught now +and then in bushes and overhanging branches. But the great fierce +current, ridging the middle of the brown lake as it followed the tide +out to the ocean, frightened her a little. The features of the flat +country were all but obliterated; trees only and houses and corn-stacks +stood out of the water, while in the direction of the sea where were +only meadows, all indication of land had vanished; one wide, brown level +was everywhere, with a great rushing serpent of water in the middle of +it. Amanda clapped her little hands in ecstasy. Never was there such a +child for exuberance of joy! her aunt thought. Or, if there were others +as glad, where were any who let the light of their gladness so shine +before men, invading, conquering them as she did with the rush of her +joy! Dorothy held fast to the skirt of her frock, fearing every instant +the explosive creature would jump overboard in elemental sympathy. But, +poled carefully along by Mr. Drake, they reached in safety a certain old +shed, and getting in at the door of the loft where a cow-keeper stored +his hay and straw, through that descended into the heart of the Pottery, +which its owner was delighted to find--not indeed dry under foot with +such a rain falling, but free from lateral invasion. + +His satisfaction, however, was of short duration. Dorothy went into one +of the nearer dwellings, and he was crossing an open space with Amanda, +to get help from a certain cottage in unloading the boat and +distributing its cargo, when he caught sight of a bubbling pool in the +middle of it. Alas! it was from a drain, whose covering had burst with +the pressure from within. He shouted for help. Out hurried men, women +and children on all sides. For a few moments he was entirely occupied in +giving orders, and let Amanda's hand go: every body knew her, and there +seemed no worse mischief within reach for her than dabbling in the +pools, to which she was still devoted. + +Two or three spades were soon plying busily, to make the breach a little +wider, while men ran to bring clay and stones from one of the condemned +cottages. Suddenly arose a great cry, and the crowd scattered in all +directions. The wall of defense at the corner of the butcher's shop had +given away, and a torrent was galloping across the Pottery, straight for +the spot where the water was rising from the drain. Amanda, gazing in +wonder at the fight of the people about her, stood right in its course, +but took no heed of it, or never saw it coming. It caught her, swept her +away, and tumbled with her, foaming and roaring, into the deep +foundation of which I have spoken. Her father had just missed her, and +was looking a little anxiously round, when a shriek of horror and fear +burst from the people, and they rushed to the hole. Without a word +spoken he knew Amanda was in it. He darted through them, scattering men +and women in all directions, but pulling off his coat as he ran. + +Though getting old, he was far from feeble, and had been a strong +swimmer in his youth. But he plunged heedlessly, and the torrent, still +falling some little height, caught him, and carried him almost to the +bottom. When he came to the top, he looked in vain for any sign of the +child. The crowd stood breathless on the brink. No one had seen her, +though all eyes were staring into the tumult. He dived, swam about +beneath, groping in the frightful opacity, but still in vain. Then down +through the water came a shout, and he shot to the surface--to see only +something white vanish. But the recoil of the torrent from below caught +her, and just as he was diving again, brought her up almost within +arm's-length of him. He darted to her, clasped her, and gained the +brink. He could not have got out, though the cavity was now brimful, but +ready hands had him in safety in a moment. Fifty arms were stretched to +take the child, but not even to Dorothy would he yield her. Ready to +fall at every step, he blundered through the water, which now spread +over the whole place, and followed by Dorothy in mute agony, was making +for the shed behind which lay his boat, when one of the salmon fishers, +who had brought his coble in at the gap, crossed them, and took them up. +Mr. Drake dropped into the bottom of the boat, with the child pressed to +his bosom. He could not speak. + +"To Doctor Faber's! For the child's life!" said Dorothy, and the fisher +rowed like a madman. + +Faber had just come in. He undressed the child with his own hands, +rubbed her dry, and did every thing to initiate respiration. For a long +time all seemed useless, but he persisted beyond the utmost verge of +hope. Mr. Drake and Dorothy stood in mute dismay. Neither was quite a +_child_ of God yet, and in the old man a rebellious spirit murmured: it +was hard that he should have evil for good! that his endeavors for his +people should be the loss of his child! + +Faber was on the point of ceasing his efforts in utter despair, when he +thought he felt a slight motion of the diaphragm, and renewed them +eagerly. She began to breathe. Suddenly she opened her eyes, looked at +him for a moment, then with a smile closed them again. To the watchers +heaven itself seemed to open in that smile. But Faber dropped the tiny +form, started a pace backward from the bed, and stood staring aghast. +The next moment he threw the blankets over the child, turned away, and +almost staggered from the room. In his surgery he poured himself out a +glass of brandy, swallowed it neat, sat down and held his head in his +hands. An instant after, he was by the child's side again, feeling her +pulse, and rubbing her limbs under the blankets. + +The minister's hands had turned blue, and he had begun to shiver, but a +smile of sweetest delight was on his face. + +"God bless me!" cried the doctor, "you've got no coat on! and you are +drenched! I never saw any thing but the child!" + +"He plunged into the horrible hole after her," said Dorothy. "How +wicked of me to forget him for any child under the sun! He got her out +all by himself, Mr. Faber!--Come home, father dear.--I will come back +and see to Amanda as soon as I have got him to bed." + +"Yes, Dorothy; let us go," said the minister, and put his hand on her +shoulder. His teeth chattered and his hand shook. + +The doctor rang the bell violently. + +"Neither of you shall leave this house to-night.--Take a hot bath to the +spare bedroom, and remove the sheets," he said to the housekeeper, who +had answered the summons. "My dear sir," he went on, turning again to +the minister, "you must get into the blankets at once. How careless of +me! The child's life will be dear at the cost of yours." + +"You have brought back the soul of the child to me, Mr. Faber," said the +minister, trembling, "and I can never thank you enough." + +"There won't be much to thank me for, if you have to go instead.--Miss +Drake, while I give your father his bath, you must go with Mrs. Roberts, +and put on dry clothes. Then you will be able to nurse him." + +As soon as Dorothy, whose garments Juliet had been wearing so long, was +dressed in some of hers, she went to her father's room. He was already +in bed, but it was long before they could get him warm. Then he grew +burning hot, and all night was talking in troubled dreams. Once Dorothy +heard him say, as if he had been talking to God face to face: "O my God, +if I had but once seen Thee, I do not think I could ever have mistrusted +Thee. But I could never be quite sure." + +The morning brought lucidity. How many dawns a morning brings! His first +words were "How goes it with the child?" Having heard that she had had a +good night, and was almost well, he turned over, and fell fast asleep. +Then Dorothy, who had been by his bed all night, resumed her own +garments, and went to the door. + + + + +CHAPTER XLV. + +HERE AND THERE. + + +The rain had ceased, and the flood was greatly diminished. It was +possible, she judged, to reach the Old House, and after a hasty +breakfast, she set out, leaving her father to Mrs. Roberts's care. The +flood left her no choice but go by the high road to Polwarth's gate, and +then she had often to wade through mud and water. The moment she saw the +gatekeeper, she knew somehow by his face that Juliet was in the lodge. +When she entered, she saw that already her new circumstances were +working upon her for peace. The spiritual atmosphere, so entirely human, +the sense that she was not and would not be alone, the strange talk +which they held openly before her, the food they coaxed her to eat, the +whole surrounding of thoughts and things as they should be, was +operating far more potently than could be measured by her understanding +of their effects, or even consciousness of their influences. She still +looked down upon the dwarfs, condescended to them, had a vague feeling +that she honored them by accepting their ministration--for which, one +day, she would requite them handsomely. Not the less had she all the +time a feeling that she was in the society of ministering spirits of +God, good and safe and true. From the Old House to the cottage was from +the Inferno to the Purgatorio, across whose borders faint wafts from +Paradise now and then strayed wandering. Without knowing it, she had +begun already to love the queer little woman, with the wretched body, +the fine head, and gentle, suffering face; while the indescribable awe, +into which her aversion to the kobold, with his pigeon-chest, his +wheezing breath, his great head, and his big, still face, which to such +eyes as the curate's seemed to be looking into both worlds at once, had +passed over, bore no unimportant part in that portion of her discipline +here commenced. One of the loftiest spirits of the middle earth, it was +long before she had quite ceased to regard him as a power of the nether +world, partly human, and at once something less and something more. Yet +even already she was beginning to feel at home with them! True, the +world in which they really lived was above her spiritual vision, as +beyond her intellectual comprehension, yet not the less was the air +around them the essential air of homeness; for the truths in which their +spirits lived and breathed, were the same which lie at the root of every +feeling of home-safety in the world, which make the bliss of the child +in his mother's bed, the bliss of young beasts in their nests, of birds +under their mother's wing. The love which inclosed her was far too great +for her--as the heaven of the mother's face is beyond the understanding +of the new-born child over whom she bends; but that mother's face is +nevertheless the child's joy and peace. She did not yet recognize it as +love, saw only the ministration; but it was what she sorely needed: she +said the sort of thing suited her, and at once began to fall in with it. +What it cost her entertainers, with organization as delicate as uncouth, +in the mere matter of bodily labor, she had not an idea--imagined indeed +that she gave them no trouble at all, because, having overheard the +conversation between them upon her arrival, she did herself a part of +the work required for her comfort in her own room. She never saw the +poor quarters to which Ruth for her sake had banished herself--never +perceived the fact that there was nothing good enough wherewith to repay +them except worshipful gratitude, love, admiration, and +submission--feelings she could not even have imagined possible in regard +to such inferiors. + +And now Dorothy had not a little to say to Juliet about her husband. In +telling what had taken place, however, she had to hear many more +questions than she was able to answer. + +"Does he really believe me dead, Dorothy?" was one of them. + +"I do not believe there is one person in Glaston who knows what he +thinks," answered Dorothy. "I have not heard of his once opening his +mouth on the subject. He is just as silent now as he used to be ready to +talk." + +"My poor Paul!" murmured Juliet, and hid her face and wept. + +Indeed not a soul in Glaston or elsewhere knew a single thought he had. +Certain mysterious advertisements in the county paper were imagined by +some to be his and to refer to his wife. Some, as the body had never +been seen, did begin to doubt whether she was dead. Some, on the other +hand, hinted that her husband had himself made away with her--for, they +argued, what could be easier to a doctor, and why, else, did he make no +search for the body? To Dorothy this supposed fact seemed to indicate a +belief that she was not dead--perhaps a hope that she would sooner +betray herself if he manifested no anxiety to find her. But she said +nothing of this to Juliet. + +Her news of him was the more acceptable to the famished heart of the +wife, that, from his great kindness to them all, and especially from the +perseverance which had restored to them their little Amanda, Dorothy's +heart had so warmed toward him, that she could not help speaking of him +in a tone far more agreeable to Juliet than hitherto she had been able +to use. His pale, worn look, and the tokens of trouble throughout his +demeanor, all more evident upon nearer approach, had also wrought upon +her; and she so described his care, anxiety, and tenderness over Amanda, +that Juliet became jealous of the child, as she would have been of any +dog she saw him caress. When all was told, and she was weary of asking +questions to which there were no answers, she fell back in her chair +with a sigh: alas, she was no nearer to him for the hearing of her ears! +While she lived she was open to his scorn, and deserved it the more that +she had _seemed_ to die! She must die; for then at last a little love +would revive in his heart, ere he died too and followed her nowhither. +Only first she must leave him his child to plead for her:--she used +sometimes to catch herself praying that the infant might be like her. + +"Look at my jacket!" said Dorothy. It was one of Juliet's, and she hoped +to make her smile. + +"Did Paul see you with my clothes on?" she said angrily. + +Dorothy started with the pang of hurt that shot through her. But the +compassionate smile on the face of Polwarth, who had just entered, and +had heard the last article of the conversation, at once set her right. +For not only was he capable of immediate sympathy with emotion, but of +revealing at once that he understood its cause. Ruth, who had come into +the room behind him, second only to her uncle in the insight of love, +followed his look by asking Dorothy if she might go to the Old House, as +soon as the weather permitted, to fetch some clothes for Mrs. Faber, who +had brought nothing with her but what she wore; whereupon Dorothy, +partly for leisure to fight her temper, said she would go herself, and +went. But when she returned, she gave the bag to Ruth at the door, and +went away without seeing Juliet again. She was getting tired of her +selfishness, she said to herself. Dorothy was not herself yet perfect in +love--which beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, +endureth all things. + +Faber too had been up all night--by the bedside of the little Amanda. +She scarcely needed such close attendance, for she slept soundly, and +was hardly at all feverish. Four or five times in the course of the +night, he turned down the bed-clothes to examine her body, as if he +feared some injury not hitherto apparent. Of such there was no sign. + +In his youth he had occupied himself much with comparative anatomy and +physiology. His predilection for these studies had greatly sharpened his +observation, and he noted many things that escaped the eyes of better +than ordinary observers. Amongst other kinds of things to which he kept +his eyes open, he was very quick at noting instances of the strange +persistency with which Nature perpetuates minute peculiarities, carrying +them on from generation to generation. Occupied with Amanda, a certain +imperfection in one of the curves of the outer ear attracted his +attention. It is as rare to see a perfect ear as to see a perfect form, +and the varieties of unfinished curves are many; but this imperfection +was very peculiar. At the same time it was so slight, that not even the +eye of a lover, none save that of a man of science, alive to minutest +indications, would probably have seen it. The sight of it startled Faber +not a little; it was the second instance of the peculiarity that had +come to his knowledge. It gave him a new idea to go upon, and when the +child suddenly opened her eyes, he saw another face looking at him out +of hers. The idea then haunted him; and whether it was that it +assimilated facts to itself, or that the signs were present, further +search afforded what was to him confirmation of the initiatory +suspicion. + +Notwithstanding the state of feebleness in which he found Mr. Drake the +next morning, he pressed him with question upon question, amounting to a +thorough cross-examination concerning Amanda's history, undeterred by +the fact that, whether itself merely bored, or its nature annoyed him, +his patient plainly disrelished his catechising. It was a subject which, +as his love to the child increased, had grown less and less agreeable to +Mr. Drake: she was to him so entirely his own that he had not the least +desire to find out any thing about her, to learn a single fact or hear a +single conjecture to remind him that she was not in every sense as well +as the best, his own daughter. He was therefore not a little annoyed at +the persistency of the doctor's questioning, but, being a courteous man, +and under endless obligation to him for the very child's sake as well as +his own, he combated disinclination, and with success, acquainting the +doctor with every point he knew concerning Amanda. Then first the doctor +grew capable of giving his attention to the minister himself; whose son +if he had been, he could hardly have shown him greater devotion. A whole +week passed before he would allow him to go home. Dorothy waited upon +him, and Amanda ran about the house. The doctor and she had been friends +from the first, and now, when he was at home, there was never any doubt +where Amanda was to be found. + +The same day on which the Drakes left him, Faber started by the +night-train for London, and was absent three days. + +Amanda was now perfectly well, but Mr. Drake continued poorly. Dorothy +was anxious to get him away from the river-side, and proposed putting +the workmen into the Old House at once. To this he readily consented, +but would not listen to her suggestion that in the meantime he should go +to some watering-place. He would be quite well in a day or two, and +there was no rest for him, he said, until the work so sadly bungled was +properly done. He did not believe his plans were defective, and could +not help doubting whether they had been faithfully carried out. But the +builder, a man of honest repute, protested also that he could not +account for the yielding of the wall, except he had had the mishap to +build over some deep drain, or old well, which was not likely, so close +to the river. He offered to put it up again at his own expense, when +perhaps they might discover the cause of the catastrophe. + +Sundry opinions and more than one rumor were current among the +neighbors. At last they were mostly divided into two parties, the one +professing the conviction that the butcher, who was known to have some +grudge at the minister, had, under the testudo-shelter of his +slaughter-house, undermined the wall; the other indignantly asserting +that the absurdity had no foundation except in the evil thoughts of +churchmen toward dissenters, being in fact a wicked slander. When the +suggestion reached the minister's ears, he, knowing the butcher, and +believing the builder, was inclined to institute investigations; but as +such a course was not likely to lead the butcher to repentance, he +resolved instead to consult with him how his premises might be included +in the defense. The butcher chuckled with conscious success, and for +some months always chuckled when sharpening his knife; but by and by the +coals of fire began to scorch, and went on scorching--the more that Mr. +Drake very soon became his landlord, and voluntarily gave him several +advantages. But he gave strict orders that there should be no dealings +with him. It was one thing, he said, to be good to the sinner, and +another to pass by his fault without confession, treating it like a mere +personal affair which might be forgotten. Before the butcher died, there +was not a man who knew him who did not believe he had undermined the +wall. He left a will assigning all his property to trustees, for the +building of a new chapel, but when his affairs came to be looked into, +there was hardly enough to pay his debts. + +The minister was now subject to a sort of ague, to which he paid far too +little heed. When Dorothy was not immediately looking after him, he +would slip out in any weather to see how things were going on in the +Pottery. It was no wonder, therefore, that his health did not improve. +But he could not be induced to regard his condition as at all serious. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI. + +THE MINISTER'S STUDY. + + +Helen was in the way of now and then writing music to any song that +specially took her fancy--not with foolish hankering after publication, +but for the pleasure of brooding in melody upon the words, and singing +them to her husband. One day he brought her a few stanzas, by an unknown +poet, which, he said, seemed to have in them a slightly new element. +They pleased her more than him, and began at once to sing themselves. No +sooner was her husband out of the room than she sat down to her piano +with them. Before the evening, she had written to them an air with a +simple accompaniment. When she now sung the verses to him, he told her, +to her immense delight, that he understood and liked them far better. +The next morning, having carried out one or two little suggestions he +had made, she was singing them by herself in the drawing-room, when +Faber, to whom she had sent because one of her servants was ill, +entered. He made a sign begging her to continue, and she finished the +song. + +"Will you let me see the words," he said. + +She handed them to him. He read them, laid down the manuscript, and, +requesting to be taken to his patient, turned to the door. Perhaps he +thought she had laid a music-snare for him. + +The verses were these: + + A YEAR SONG. + + Sighing above, + Rustling below, + Through the woods + The winds go. + Beneath, dead crowds; + Above, life bare; + And the besom winds + Sweep the air. + _Heart, leave thy woe; + Let the dead things go._ + + Through the brown leaves + Gold stars push; + A mist of green + Veils the bush. + Here a twitter, + There a croak! + They are coming-- + The spring-folk! + _Heart, be not dumb; + Let the live things come._ + + Through the beach + The winds go, + With a long speech, + Loud and slow. + The grass is fine, + And soft to lie in; + The sun doth shine + The blue sky in. + _Heart, be alive; + Let the new things thrive._ + + Round again! + Here now-- + A rimy fruit + On a bare bough! + There the winter + And the snow; + And a sighing ever + To fall and go! + _Heart, thy hour shall be; + Thy dead will comfort thee._ + +Faber was still folded in the atmosphere of the song when, from the +curate's door, he arrived at the minister's, resolved to make that +morning a certain disclosure--one he would gladly have avoided, but felt +bound in honor to make. The minister grew pale as he listened, but held +his peace. Not until the point came at which he found himself personally +concerned, did he utter a syllable. + +I will in my own words give the substance of the doctor's communication, +stating the facts a little more fairly to him than his pride would allow +him to put them in his narrative. + +Paul Faber was a student of St. Bartholomew's, and during some time held +there the office of assistant house-surgeon. Soon after his appointment, +he being then three and twenty, a young woman was taken into one of the +wards, in whom he gradually grew much interested. Her complaint caused +her much suffering, but was more tedious than dangerous. + +Attracted by her sweet looks, but more by her patience, and the +gratitude with which she received the attention shown her, he began to +talk to her a little, especially during a slight operation that had to +be not unfrequently performed. Then he came to giving her books to read, +and was often charmed with the truth and simplicity of the remarks she +would make. She had been earning her living as a clerk, had no friends +in London, and therefore no place to betake herself to in her illness +but the hospital. The day she left it, in the simplicity of her heart, +and with much timidity, she gave him a chain she had made for him of her +hair. On the ground of supplementary attention, partly desirable, partly +a pretext, but unassociated with any evil intent, he visited her after +in her lodging. The joy of her face, the light of her eyes when he +appeared, was enchanting to him. She pleased every gentle element of his +nature; her worship flattered him, her confidence bewitched him. His +feelings toward her were such that he never doubted he was her friend. +He did her no end of kindness; taught her much; gave her good advice as +to her behavior, and the dangers she was in; would have protected her +from every enemy, real and imaginary, while all the time, undesignedly, +he was depriving her of the very nerve of self-defense. He still gave +her books--and good books--Carlyle even, and Tennyson; read poetry with +her, and taught her to read aloud; went to her chapel with her sometimes +of a Sunday evening--for he was then, so he said, and so he imagined, a +thorough believer in revelation. He took her to the theater, to +pictures, to concerts, taking every care of her health, her manners, her +principles. But one enemy he forgot to guard her against: how is a man +to protect even the woman he loves from the hidden god of his +idolatry--his own grand contemptible self? + +It is needless to set the foot of narration upon every step of the +slow-descending stair. With all his tender feelings and generous love of +his kind, Paul Faber had not yet learned the simplest lesson of +humanity--that he who would not be a murderer, must be his brother's +keeper--still more his sister's, protecting every woman first of all +from himself--from every untruth in him, chiefly from every unhallowed +approach of his lower nature, from every thing that calls itself love +and is but its black shadow, its demon ever murmuring _I love_, that it +may devour. The priceless reward of such honesty is the power to love +better; but let no man insult his nature by imagining himself noble for +so carrying himself. As soon let him think himself noble that he is no +swindler. Doubtless Faber said to himself as well as to her, and said it +yet oftener when the recoil of his selfishness struck upon the door of +his conscience and roused Don Worm, that he would be true to her +forever. But what did he mean by the words? Did he know? Had they any +sense of which he would not have been ashamed even before the girl +herself? Would such truth as he contemplated make of him her +hiding-place from the wind, her covert from the tempest? He never even +thought whether to marry her or not, never vowed even in his heart not +to marry another. All he could have said was, that at the time he had no +intention of marrying another, and that he had the intention of keeping +her for himself indefinitely, which may be all the notion some people +have of _eternally_. But things went well with them, and they seemed to +themselves, notwithstanding the tears shed by one of them in secret, +only the better for the relation between them. + +At length a child was born. The heart of a woman is indeed infinite, but +time, her presence, her thoughts, her hands are finite: she could not +_seem_ so much a lover as before, because she must be a mother now: God +only can think of two things at once. In his enduring selfishness, Faber +felt the child come between them, and reproached her neglect, as he +called it. She answered him gently and reasonably; but now his bonds +began to weary him. She saw it, and in the misery of the waste vision +opening before her eyes, her temper, till now sweet as devoted, began to +change. And yet, while she loved her child the more passionately that +she loved her forebodingly, almost with the love of a woman already +forsaken, she was nearly mad sometimes with her own heart, that she +could not give herself so utterly as before to her idol. + +It took but one interview after he had confessed it to himself, to +reveal the fact to her that she had grown a burden to him. He came a +little seldomer, and by degrees which seemed to her terribly rapid, more +and more seldom. He had never recognized duty in his relation to her. I +do not mean that he had not done the effects of duty toward her; love +had as yet prevented the necessity of appeal to the stern daughter of +God. But what love with which our humanity is acquainted can keep +healthy without calling in the aid of Duty? Perfect Love is the mother +of all duties and all virtues, and needs not be admonished of her +children; but not until Love is perfected, may she, casting out Fear, +forget also Duty. And hence are the conditions of such a relation +altogether incongruous. For the moment the man, not yet debased, admits +a thought of duty, he is aware that far more is demanded of him than, +even for the sake of purest right, he has either the courage or the +conscience to yield. But even now Faber had not the most distant +intention of forsaking her; only why should he let her burden him, and +make his life miserable? There were other pleasures besides the company +of the most childishly devoted of women: why should he not take them? +Why should he give all his leisure to one who gave more than the half of +it to her baby? + +He had money of his own, and, never extravagant upon himself, was more +liberal to the poor girl than ever she desired. But there was nothing +mercenary in her. She was far more incapable of turpitude than he, for +she was of a higher nature, and loved much where he loved only a little. +She was nobler, sweetly prouder than he. She had sacrificed all to him +for love--could accept nothing from him without the love which alone is +the soul of any gift, alone makes it rich. She would not, could not see +him unhappy. In her fine generosity, struggling to be strong, she said +to herself, that, after all, she would leave him richer than she was +before--richer than he was now. He would not want the child he had given +her; she would, and she could, live for her, upon the memory of two +years of such love as, comforting herself in sad womanly pride, she +flattered herself woman had seldom enjoyed. She would not throw the past +from her because the weather of time had changed; she would not mar +every fair memory with the inky sponge of her present loss. She would +turn her back upon her sun ere he set quite, and carry with her into the +darkness the last gorgeous glow of his departure. While she had his +child, should she never see him again, there remained a bond between +them--a bond that could never be broken. He and she met in that child's +life--her being was the eternal fact of their unity. + +Both she and he had to learn that there was yet a closer bond between +them, necessary indeed to the fact that a child _could_ be born of them, +namely, that they two had issued from the one perfect Heart of love. And +every heart of perplexed man, although, too much for itself, it can not +conceive how the thing should be, has to learn that there, in that heart +whence it came, lies for it restoration, consolation, content. Herein, O +God, lies a task for Thy perfection, for the might of Thy +imagination--which needs but Thy will (and Thy suffering?) to be +creation! + +One evening when he paid her a visit after the absence of a week, he +found her charmingly dressed, and merry, but in a strange fashion which +he could not understand. The baby, she said, was down stairs with the +landlady, and she free for her Paul. She read to him, she sang to him, +she bewitched him afresh with the graces he had helped to develop in +her. He said to himself when he left her that surely never was there a +more gracious creature--and she was utterly his own! It was the last +flicker of the dying light--the gorgeous sunset she had resolved to +carry with her in her memory forever. When he sought her again the next +evening, he found her landlady in tears. She had vanished, taking with +her nothing but her child, and her child's garments. The gown she had +worn the night before hung in her bedroom--every thing but what she must +then be wearing was left behind. The woman wept, spoke of her with +genuine affection, and said she had paid every thing. To his questioning +she answered that they had gone away in a cab: she had called it, but +knew neither the man nor his number. Persuading himself she had but gone +to see some friend, he settled himself in her rooms to await her return, +but a week rightly served to consume his hope. The iron entered into his +soul, and for a time tortured him. He wept--but consoled himself that he +wept, for it proved to himself that he was not heartless. He comforted +himself further in the thought that she knew where to find him and that +when trouble came upon her, she would remember how good he had been to +her, and what a return she had made for it. Because he would not give up +every thing to her, liberty and all, she had left him! And in revenge, +having so long neglected him for the child, she had for the last once +roused in her every power of enchantment, had brought her every charm +into play, that she might lastingly bewitch him with the old spell, and +the undying memory of their first bliss--then left him to his lonely +misery! She had done what she could for the ruin of a man of education, +a man of family, a man on the way to distinction!--a man of genius, he +said even, but he was such only as every man is: he was a man of latent +genius. + +But verily, though our sympathy goes all with a woman like her, such a +man, however little he deserves, and however much he would scorn it, is +far more an object of pity. She has her love, has not been false +thereto, and one day will through suffering find the path to the door of +rest. When she left him, her soul was endlessly richer than his. The +music, of which he said she knew nothing, in her soul moved a deep wave, +while it blew but a sparkling ripple on his; the poetry they read +together echoed in a far profounder depth of her being, and I do not +believe she came to loathe it as he did; and when she read of Him who +reasoned that the sins of a certain woman must have been forgiven her, +else how could she love so much, she may well have been able, from the +depth of such another loving heart, to believe utterly in Him--while we +know that her poor, shrunken lover came to think it manly, honest, +reasonable, meritorious to deny Him. + +Weeks, months, years passed, but she never sought him; and he so far +forgot her by ceasing to think of her, that at length, when a chance +bubble did rise from the drowned memory, it broke instantly and +vanished. As to the child, he had almost forgotten whether _it_ was a +boy or a girl. + +But since, in his new desolation, he discovered her, beyond a doubt, in +the little Amanda, old memories had been crowding back upon his heart, +and he had begun to perceive how Amanda's mother must have felt when she +saw his love decaying visibly before her, and to suspect that it was in +the self-immolation of love that she had left him. His own character had +been hitherto so uniformly pervaded with a refined selfishness as to +afford no standpoint of a different soil, whence by contrast to +recognize the true nature of the rest; but now it began to reveal itself +to his conscious judgment. And at last it struck him that twice he had +been left--by women whom he loved--at least by women who loved him. Two +women had trusted him utterly, and he had failed them both! Next +followed the thought stinging him to the heart, that the former was the +purer of the two; that the one on whom he had looked down because of her +lack of education, and her familiarity with humble things and simple +forms of life, knew nothing of what men count evil, while she in whom he +had worshiped refinement, intellect, culture, beauty, song--she who, in +love-teachableness had received his doctrine against all the prejudices +of her education, was--what she had confessed herself! + +But, against all reason and logic, the result of this comparison was, +that Juliet returned fresh to his imagination in all the first witchery +of her loveliness; and presently he found himself for the first time +making excuses for her; if she had deceived him she had deceived him +from love; whatever her past, she had been true to him, and was, from +the moment she loved him, incapable of wrong.--He had cast her from him, +and she had sought refuge in the arms of the only rival he ever would +have had to fear--the bare-ribbed Death! + +Naturally followed the reflection--what was he to demand purity of any +woman?--Had he not accepted--yes, tempted, enticed from the woman who +preceded her, the sacrifice of one of the wings of her soul on the altar +of his selfishness! then driven her from him, thus maimed and helpless, +to the mercy of the rude blasts of the world! She, not he ever, had been +the noble one, the bountiful giver, the victim of shameless ingratitude. +Flattering himself that misery would drive her back to him, he had not +made a single effort to find her, or mourned that he could never make up +to her for the wrongs he had done her. He had not even hoped for a +future in which he might humble himself before her! What room was there +here to talk of honor! If she had not sunk to the streets it was through +her own virtue, and none of his care! And now she was dead! and his +child, but for the charity of a despised superstition, would have been +left an outcast in the London streets, to wither into the old-faced +weakling of a London workhouse! + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII. + +THE BLOWING OF THE WIND. + + +Smaller and smaller Faber felt as he pursued his plain, courageous +confession of wrong to the man whose life was even now in peril for the +sake of his neglected child. When he concluded with the expression of +his conviction that Amanda was his daughter, then first the old minister +spoke. His love had made him guess what was coming, and he was on his +guard. + +"May I ask what is your object in making this statement to me, Mr. +Faber?" he said coldly. + +"I am conscious of none but to confess the truth, and perform any duty +that may be mine in consequence of the discovery," said the doctor. + +"Do you wish this truth published to the people of Glaston?" inquired +the minister, in the same icy tone. + +"I have no such desire: but I am of course prepared to confess Amanda my +child, and to make you what amends may be possible for the trouble and +expense she has occasioned you." + +"Trouble! Expense!" cried the minister fiercely. "Do you mean in your +cold-blooded heart, that, because you, who have no claim to the child +but that of self-indulgence--because you believe her yours, I who have +for years carried her in my bosom, am going to give her up to a man, +who, all these years, has made not one effort to discover his missing +child? In the sight of God, which of us is her father? But I forget; +that is a question you can not understand. Whether or not you are her +father, I do not care a straw. You have not _proved_ it; and I tell you +that, until the court of chancery orders me to deliver up my darling to +you, to be taught there is no living Father of men--and that by the +fittest of all men to enforce the lie--not until then will I yield a +hair of her head to you. God grant, if you were her father, her mother +had more part in her than you!--A thousand times rather I would we had +both perished in the roaring mud, than that I should have to give her up +to you." + +He struck his fist on the table, rose, and turned from him. Faber also +rose, quietly, silent and pale. He stood a moment, waiting. Mr. Drake +turned. Faber made him an obeisance, and left the room. + +The minister was too hard upon him. He would not have been so hard but +for his atheism; he would not have been so hard if he could have seen +into his soul. But Faber felt he deserved it. Ere he reached home, +however, he had begun to think it rather hard that, when a man confessed +a wrong, and desired to make what reparation he could, he should have +the very candor of his confession thus thrown in his teeth. Verily, even +toward the righteous among men, candor is a perilous duty. + +He entered the surgery. There he had been making some experiments with +peroxide of manganese, a solution of which stood in a bottle on the +table. A ray of brilliant sunlight was upon it, casting its shadow on a +piece of white paper, a glorious red. It caught his eyes. He could never +tell what it had to do with the current of his thoughts, but neither +could he afterward get rid of the feeling that it had had some influence +upon it. For as he looked at it, scarcely knowing he did, and thinking +still how hard the minister had been upon him, suddenly he found himself +in the minister's place, and before him Juliet making her sad +confession: how had he met that confession? The whole scene returned, +and for the first time struck him right on the heart, and then first he +began to be in reality humbled in his own eyes. What if, after all, he +was but a poor creature? What if, instead of having any thing to be +proud of, he was in reality one who, before any jury of men or women +called to judge him, must hide his head in shame? + +The thought once allowed to enter and remain long enough to be +questioned, never more went far from him. For a time he walked in the +midst of a dull cloud, first of dread, then of dismay--a cloud from +which came thunders, and lightnings, and rain. It passed, and a +doubtful dawn rose dim and scared upon his consciousness, a dawn in +which the sun did not appear, and on which followed a gray, solemn day. +A humbler regard of himself had taken the place of confidence and +satisfaction. An undefined hunger, far from understood by himself, but +having vaguely for its object clearance and atonement and personal +purity even, had begun to grow, and move within him. The thought stung +him with keen self-contempt, yet think he must and did, that a woman +might be spotted not a little, and yet be good enough for him in the +eyes of retributive justice. He saw plainly that his treatment of his +wife, knowing what he did of himself, was a far worse shame than any +fault of which a girl, such as Juliet was at the time, could have been +guilty. And with that, for all that he believed it utterly in vain, his +longing after the love he had lost, grew and grew, ever passing over +into sickening despair, and then springing afresh; he longed for Juliet +as she had prayed to him--as the only power that could make him clean; +it seemed somehow as if she could even help him in his repentance for +the wrong done to Amanda's mother. The pride of the Pharisee was gone, +the dignity of the husband had vanished, and his soul longed after the +love that covers a multitude of sins, as the air in which alone his +spirit could breathe and live and find room. I set it down briefly: the +change passed upon him by many degrees, with countless alternations of +mood and feeling, and without the smallest conscious change of opinion. + +The rest of the day after receiving Faber's communication, poor Mr. +Drake roamed about like one on the verge of insanity, struggling to +retain lawful dominion over his thoughts. At times he was lost in +apprehensive melancholy, at times roused to such fierce anger that he +had to restrain himself from audible malediction. The following day +Dorothy would have sent for Faber, for he had a worse attack of the +fever than ever before, but he declared that the man should never again +cross his threshold. Dorothy concluded there had been a fresh outbreak +between them of the old volcano. He grew worse and worse, and did not +object to her sending for Dr. Mather; but he did not do him much good. +He was in a very critical state, and Dorothy was miserable about him. +The fever was persistent, and the cough which he had had ever since the +day that brought his illness, grew worse. His friends would gladly have +prevailed upon him to seek a warmer climate, but he would not hear of +it. + +Upon one occasion, Dorothy, encouraged by the presence of Dr. Mather, +was entreating him afresh to go somewhere from home for a while. + +"No, no: what would become of my money?" he answered, with a smile which +Dorothy understood. The doctor imagined it the speech of a man whom +previous poverty and suddenly supervening wealth had made penurious. + +"Oh!" he remarked reassuringly, "you need not spend a penny more abroad +than you do at home. The difference in the living would, in some places, +quite make up for the expense of the journey." + +The minister looked bewildered for a moment, then seemed to find +himself, smiled again, and replied-- + +"You do not quite understand me: I have a great deal of money to spend, +and it ought to be spent here in England where it was made--God knows +how." + +"You may get help to spend it in England, without throwing your life +away with it," said the doctor, who could not help thinking of his own +large family. + +"Yes, I dare say I might--from many--but it was given _me_ to spend--in +destroying injustice, in doing to men as others ought to have done to +them. My preaching was such a poor affair that it is taken from me, and +a lower calling given me--to spend money. If I do not well with that, +then indeed I am a lost man. If I be not faithful in that which is +another's, who will give me that which is my own? If I can not further +the coming of Christ, I can at least make a road or two, exalt a valley +or two, to prepare His way before Him." + +Thereupon it was the doctor's turn to smile. All that was to him as if +spoken in a language unknown, except that he recognized the religious +tone in it. "The man is true to his profession," he said to himself, +"--as he ought to be of course; but catch me spending _my_ money that +way, if I had but a hold of it!" + +His father died soon after, and he got a hold of the money he called +_his_, whereupon he parted with his practice, and by idleness and +self-indulgence, knowing all the time what he was about, brought on an +infirmity which no skill could cure, and is now a grumbling invalid, at +one or another of the German spas. I mention it partly because many +preferred this man to Faber on the ground that he went to church every +Sunday, and always shook his head at the other's atheism. + +Faber wrote a kind, respectful letter, somewhat injured in tone, to the +minister, saying he was much concerned to hear that he was not so well, +and expressing his apprehension that he himself had been in some measure +the cause of his relapse. He begged leave to assure him that he +perfectly recognized the absolute superiority of Mr. Drake's claim to +the child. He had never dreamed of asserting any right in her, except so +much as was implied in the acknowledgment of his duty to restore the +expense which his wrong and neglect had caused her true father; beyond +that he well knew he could make no return save in gratitude; but if he +might, for the very partial easing of his conscience, be permitted to +supply the means of the child's education, he was ready to sign an +agreement that all else connected with it should be left entirely to Mr. +Drake. He begged to be allowed to see her sometimes, for, long ere a +suspicion had crossed his mind that she was his, the child was already +dear to him. He was certain that her mother would have much preferred +Mr. Drake's influence to his own, and for her sake also, he would be +careful to disturb nothing. But he hoped Mr. Drake would remember that, +however unworthy, he was still her father. + +The minister was touched by the letter, moved also in the hope that an +arrow from the quiver of truth had found in the doctor a vulnerable +spot. He answered that he should be welcome to see the child when he +would; and that she should go to him when he pleased. He must promise, +however, as the honest man every body knew him to be, not to teach her +there was no God, or lead her to despise the instructions she received +at home. + +The word _honest_ was to Faber like a blow. He had come to the painful +conclusion that he was neither honest man nor gentleman. Doubtless he +would have knocked any one down who told him so, but then who had the +right to take with him the liberties of a conscience? Pure love only, I +suspect, can do that without wrong. He would not try less to be honest +in the time to come, but he had never been, and could no more ever feel +honest. It did not matter much. What was there worth any effort? All was +flat and miserable--a hideous long life! What did it matter what he was, +so long as he hurt nobody any more! He was tired of it all. + +It added greatly to his despondency that he found he could no longer +trust his temper. That the cause might be purely physical was no +consolation to him. He had been accustomed to depend on his +imperturbability, and now he could scarcely recall the feeling of the +mental condition. He did not suspect how much the change was owing to +his new-gained insight into his character, and the haunting +dissatisfaction it caused. + +To the minister he replied that he had been learning a good deal of +late, and among other things that the casting away of superstition did +not necessarily do much for the development of the moral nature; in +consequence of which discovery, he did not feel bound as before to +propagate the negative portions of his creed. If its denials were true, +he no longer believed them powerful for good; and merely as facts he did +not see that a man was required to disseminate them. Even here, however, +his opinion must go for little, seeing he had ceased to care much for +any thing, true or false. Life was no longer of any value to him, except +indeed he could be of service to Amanda. Mr. Drake might be assured she +was the last person on whom he would wish to bring to bear any of the +opinions so objectionable in his eyes. He would make him the most +comprehensive promise to that effect. Would Mr. Drake allow him to say +one thing more?--He was heartily ashamed of his past history; and if +there was one thing to make him wish there were a God--of which he saw +no chance--it was that he might beg of Him the power to make up for the +wrongs he had done, even if it should require an eternity of atonement. +Until he could hope for that, he must sincerely hold that his was the +better belief, as well as the likelier--namely, that the wronger and the +wronged went into darkness, friendly with oblivion, joy and sorrow alike +forgotten, there to bid adieu both to reproach and self-contempt. For +himself he had no desire after prolonged existence. Why should he desire +to live a day, not to say forever--worth nothing to himself, or to any +one? If there were a God, he would rather entreat Him, and that he would +do humbly enough, to unmake him again. Certainly, if there were a God, +He had not done over well by His creatures, making them so ignorant and +feeble that they could not fail to fall. Would Mr. Drake have made his +Amanda so? + +When Wingfold read the letter of which I have thus given the +substance--it was not until a long time after, in Polwarth's room--he +folded it softly together and said: + +"When he wrote that letter, Paul Faber was already becoming not merely a +man to love, but a man to revere." After a pause he added, "But what a +world it would be, filled with contented men, all capable of doing the +things for which they would despise themselves." + +It was some time before the minister was able to answer the letter +except by sending Amanda at once to the doctor with a message of kind +regards and thanks. But his inability to reply was quite as much from +the letter's giving him so much to think of first, as from his weakness +and fever. For he saw that to preach, as it was commonly understood, the +doctrine of the forgiveness of sins to such a man, would be useless: he +would rather believe in a God who would punish them, than in One who +would pass them by. To be told he was forgiven, would but rouse in him +contemptuous indignation. "What is that to me?" he would return. "I +remain what I am." Then grew up in the mind of the minister the +following plant of thought: "Things divine can only be shadowed in the +human; what is in man must be understood of God with the divine +difference--not only of degree, but of kind, involved in the fact that +He makes me, I can make nothing, and if I could, should yet be no less a +creature of Him the Creator; therefore, as the heavens are higher than +the earth, so His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and what we +call His forgiveness may be, must be something altogether transcending +the conception of man--overwhelming to such need as even that of Paul +Faber, whose soul has begun to hunger after righteousness, and whose +hunger must be a hunger that will not easily be satisfied." For a poor +nature will for a time be satisfied with a middling God; but as the +nature grows richer, the ideal of the God desired grows greater. The +true man can be satisfied only with a God of magnificence, never with a +God such as in his childhood and youth had been presented to Faber as +the God of the Bible. That God only whom Christ reveals to the humble +seeker, can ever satisfy human soul. + +Then it came into the minister's mind, thinking over Faber's religion +toward his fellows, and his lack toward God, how when the young man +asked Jesus what commandments he must keep up that he might inherit +eternal life, Jesus did not say a word concerning those of the first +table--not a word, that is, about his duty toward God; He spoke only of +his duty toward man. Then it struck him that our Lord gave him no sketch +or summary or part of a religious system--only told him what he asked, +the practical steps by which he might begin to climb toward eternal +life. One thing he lacked--namely, God Himself, but as to how God would +meet him, Jesus says nothing, but Himself meets him on those steps with +the offer of God. He treats the duties of the second table as a stair to +the first--a stair which, probably by its crumbling away in failure +beneath his feet as he ascended, would lift him to such a vision and +such a horror of final frustration, as would make him stretch forth his +hands, like the sinking Peter, to the living God, the life eternal which +he blindly sought, without whose closest presence he could never do the +simplest duty aright, even of those he had been doing from his youth up. +His measure of success, and his sense of utter failure, would together +lift him _toward_ the One Good. + +Thus, looking out upon truth from the cave of his brother's need, and +seeing the direction in which the shadow of his atheism fell, the +minister learned in what direction the clouded light lay, and turning +his gaze thitherward, learned much. It is only the aged who have dropped +thinking that become stupid. Such can learn no more, until first their +young nurse Death has taken off their clothes, and put the old babies to +bed. Of such was not Walter Drake. Certain of his formerly petted +doctrines he now threw away as worse than rubbish; others he dropped +with indifference; of some it was as if the angels picked his pockets +without his knowing it, or ever missing them; and still he found, +whatever so-called doctrine he parted with, that the one glowing truth +which had lain at the heart of it, buried, mired, obscured, not only +remained with him, but shone out fresh, restored to itself by the loss +of the clay-lump of worldly figures and phrases, in which the human +intellect had inclosed it. His faith was elevated, and so confirmed. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII. + +THE BORDER-LAND. + + +Mr. Drew, the draper, was, of all his friends, the one who most +frequently visited his old pastor. He had been the first, although a +deacon of the church, in part to forsake his ministry, and join the +worship of, as he honestly believed, a less scriptural community, +because in the abbey church he heard better news of God and His Kingdom: +to him rightly the gospel was every thing, and this church or that, save +for its sake, less than nothing and vanity. It had hurt Mr. Drake not a +little at first, but he found Drew in consequence only the more warmly +his personal friend, and since learning to know Wingfold, had heartily +justified his defection; and now that he was laid up, he missed +something any day that passed without a visit from the draper. One +evening Drew found him very poorly, though neither the doctor nor +Dorothy could prevail upon him to go to bed. He could not rest, but kept +walking about, his eye feverish, his pulse fluttering. He welcomed his +friend even more warmly than usual, and made him sit by the fire, while +he paced the room, turning and turning, like a caged animal that fain +would be king of infinite space. + +"I am sorry to see you so uncomfortable," said Mr. Drew. + +"On the contrary, I feel uncommonly well," replied the pastor. "I always +measure my health by my power of thinking; and to-night my thoughts are +like birds--or like bees rather, that keep flying in delight from one +lovely blossom to another. Only the fear keeps intruding that an hour +may be at hand, when my soul will be dark, and it will seem as if the +Lord had forsaken me." + +"But does not _our daily bread_ mean our spiritual as well as our bodily +bread?" said the draper. "Is it not just as wrong in respect of the one +as of the other to distrust God for to-morrow when you have enough for +to-day? Is He a God of times and seasons, of this and that, or is He the +All in all?" + +"You are right, old friend," said the minister, and ceasing his walk, he +sat down by the fire opposite him. "I am faithless still.--O Father in +Heaven, give us this day our daily bread.--I suspect, Drew, that I have +had as yet no more than the shadow of an idea how immediately I--we live +upon the Father.--I will tell you something. I had been thinking what it +would be if God were now to try me with heavenly poverty, as for a short +time he tried me with earthly poverty--that is, if he were to stint me +of life itself--not give me enough of Himself to live upon--enough to +make existence feel a good. The fancy grew to a fear, laid hold upon me, +and made me miserable. Suppose, for instance, I said to myself, I were +no more to have any larger visitation of thoughts and hopes and +aspirations than old Mrs. Bloxam, who sits from morning to night with +the same stocking on her needles, and absolutely the same expression, of +as near nothing as may be upon human countenance, nor changes whoever +speaks to her!" + +"She says the Lord is with her," suggested the draper. + +"Well!" rejoined the minister, in a slow, cogitative tone. + +"And plainly life is to her worth having," added the draper. "Clearly +she has as much of life as is necessary to her present stage." + +"You are right. I have been saying just the same things to myself; and, +I trust, when the Lord comes, He will not find me without faith. But +just suppose life _were_ to grow altogether uninteresting! Suppose +certain moods--such as you, with all your good spirits and blessed +temper, must surely sometimes have experienced--suppose they were to +become fixed, and life to seem utterly dull, God nowhere, and your own +dreary self, and nothing but that self, everywhere!" + +"Let me read you a chapter of St. John," said the draper. + +"Presently I will. But I am not in the right mood just this moment. Let +me tell you first how I came by my present mood. Don't mistake me: I am +not possessed by the idea--I am only trying to understand its nature, +and set a trap fit to catch it, if it should creep into my inner +premises, and from an idea swell to a seeming fact.--Well, I had a +strange kind of a vision last night--no, not a vision--yes, a kind of +vision--anyhow a very strange experience. I don't know whether the +draught the doctor gave me--I wish I had poor Faber back--this fellow is +fitter to doctor oxen and mules than men!--I don't know whether the +draught had any thing to do with it--I thought I tasted something sleepy +in it--anyhow, thought is thought, and truth is truth, whatever drug, no +less than whatever joy or sorrow, may have been midwife to it. The +first I remember of the mental experience, whatever it may have to be +called, is, that I was coming awake--returning to myself after some +period wherein consciousness had been quiescent. Of place, or time, or +circumstance, I knew nothing. I was only growing aware of being. I +speculated upon nothing. I did not even say to myself, 'I was dead, and +now I am coming alive.' I only felt. And I had but one feeling--and that +feeling was love--the outgoing of a longing heart toward--I could not +tell what;--toward--I can not describe the feeling--toward the only +existence there was, and that was every thing;--toward pure being, not +as an abstraction, but as the one actual fact, whence the world, men, +and me--a something I knew only by being myself an existence. It was +more me than myself; yet it was not me, or I could not have loved it. I +never thought me myself by myself; my very existence was the +consciousness of this absolute existence in and through and around me: +it made my heart burn, and the burning of my heart was my life--and the +burning was the presence of the Absolute. If you can imagine a growing +fruit, all blind and deaf, yet loving the tree it could neither look +upon nor hear, knowing it only through the unbroken arrival of its life +therefrom--that is something like what I felt. I suspect the _form_ of +the feeling was supplied by a shadowy memory of the time before I was +born, while yet my life grew upon the life of my mother. + +"By degrees came a change. What seemed the fire in me, burned and burned +until it began to grow light; in which light I began to remember things +I had read and known about Jesus Christ and His Father and my Father. +And with those memories the love grew and grew, till I could hardly bear +the glory of God and His Christ, it made me love so intensely. Then the +light seemed to begin to pass out beyond me somehow, and therewith I +remembered the words of the Lord, 'Let your light so shine before men,' +only I was not letting it shine, for while I loved like that, I could no +more keep it from shining than I could the sun. The next thing was, that +I began to think of one I had loved, then of another and another and +another--then of all together whom ever I had loved, one after another, +then all together. And the light that went out from me was as a nimbus +infolding every one in the speechlessness of my love. But lo! then, the +light staid not there, but, leaving them not, went on beyond them, +reaching and infolding every one of those also, whom, after the manner +of men, I had on earth merely known and not loved. And therewith I knew +that, for all the rest of the creation of God, I needed but the hearing +of the ears or the seeing of the eyes to love each and every one, in his +and her degree; whereupon such a perfection of bliss awoke in me, that +it seemed as if the fire of the divine sacrifice had at length seized +upon my soul, and I was dying of absolute glory--which is love and love +only. I had all things, yea the All. I was full and unutterably, +immeasurably content. Yet still the light went flowing out and out from +me, and love was life and life was light and light was love. On and on +it flowed, until at last it grew eyes to me, and I could see. Lo! before +me was the multitude of the brothers and sisters whom I +loved--individually--a many, many--not a mass;--I loved every individual +with that special, peculiar kind of love which alone belonged to that +one, and to that one alone. The sight dazzled the eyes which love itself +had opened. I said to myself, 'Ah, how radiant, how lovely, how divine +they are! and they are mine, every one--the many, for I love them!' + +"Then suddenly came a whisper--not to my ear--I heard it far away, but +whether in some distant cave of thought, away beyond the flaming walls +of the universe, or in some forgotten dungeon-corner of my own heart, I +could not tell. 'O man,' it said, 'what a being, what a life is thine! +See all these souls, these fires of life, regarding and loving thee! It +is in the glory of thy love their faces shine. Their hearts receive it, +and send it back in joy. Seest thou not all their eyes fixed upon thine? +Seest thou not the light come and go upon their faces, as the pulses of +thy heart flow and ebb? See, now they flash, and now they fade! Blessed +art thou, O man, as none else in the universe of God is blessed!' + +"It was, or seemed, only a voice. But therewith, horrible to tell, the +glow of another fire arose in me--an orange and red fire, and it went +out from me, and withered all the faces, and the next moment there was +darkness--all was black as night. But my being was still awake--only if +then there was bliss, now was there the absolute blackness of darkness, +the positive negation of bliss, the recoil of self to devour itself, and +forever. The consciousness of being was intense, but in all the universe +was there nothing to enter that being, and make it other than an +absolute loneliness. It was, and forever, a loveless, careless, +hopeless monotony of self-knowing--a hell with but one demon, and no +fire to make it cry: my self was the hell, my known self the demon of +it--a hell of which I could not find the walls, cold and dark and empty, +and I longed for a flame that I might know there was a God. Somehow I +only remembered God as a word, however; I knew nothing of my whence or +whither. One time there might have been a God, but there was none now: +if there ever was one, He must be dead. Certainly there was no God to +love--for if there was a God, how could the creature whose very essence +was to him an evil, love the Creator of him? I had the word _love_, and +I could reason about it in my mind, but I could not call up the memory +of what the feeling of it was like. The blackness grew and grew. I hated +life fiercely. I hated the very possibility of a God who had created me +a blot, a blackness. With that I felt blackness begin to go out from me, +as the light had gone before--not that I remembered the light; I had +forgotten all about it, and remembered it only after I awoke. Then came +the words of the Lord to me: 'If therefore the light that is in thee be +darkness, how great is that darkness!' And I knew what was coming: oh, +horror! in a moment more I should see the faces of those I had once +loved, dark with the blackness that went out from my very existence; +then I should hate them, and my being would then be a hell to which the +hell I now was would be a heaven! There was just grace enough left in me +for the hideousness of the terror to wake me. I was cold as if I had +been dipped in a well. But oh, how I thanked God that I was what I am, +and might yet hope after what I may be!" + +The minister's face was pale as the horse that grew gray when Death +mounted him; and his eyes shone with a feverous brilliancy. The draper +breathed a deep breath, and rubbed his white forehead. The minister rose +and began again to pace the room. Drew would have taken his departure, +but feared leaving him in such a state. He bethought himself of +something that might help to calm him, and took out his pocket-book. The +minister's dream had moved him deeply, but he restrained himself all he +could from manifesting his emotion. + +"Your vision," he said, "reminds me of some verses of Mr. Wingfold's, of +which Mrs. Wingfold very kindly let me take a copy. I have them here in +my pocket-book; may I read them to you?" + +The minister gave rather a listless consent, but that was enough for +Mr. Drew's object, and he read the following poem. + + SHALL THE DEAD PRAISE THEE? + + I can not praise Thee. By his instrument + The organ-master sits, nor moves a hand; + For see the organ pipes o'erthrown and bent, + Twisted and broke, like corn-stalks tempest-fanned! + + I well could praise Thee for a flower, a dove; + But not for life that is not life in me; + Not for a being that is less than love-- + A barren shoal half-lifted from a sea, + + And for the land whence no wind bloweth ships, + And all my living dead ones thither blown-- + Rather I'd kiss no more their precious lips, + Than carry them a heart so poor and prone. + + Yet I do bless Thee Thou art what Thou art, + That Thou dost know Thyself what Thou dost know-- + A perfect, simple, tender, rhythmic heart, + Beating Thy blood to all in bounteous flow. + + And I can bless Thee too for every smart, + For every disappointment, ache, and fear; + For every hook Thou fixest in my heart, + For every burning cord that draws me near. + + But prayer these wake, not song. Thyself I crave. + Come Thou, or all Thy gifts away I fling. + Thou silent, I am but an empty grave; + Think to me, Father, and I am a king. + + Then, like the wind-stirred bones, my pipes shall quake, + The air burst, as from burning house the blaze; + And swift contending harmonies shall shake + Thy windows with a storm of jubilant praise. + + Thee praised, I haste me humble to my own-- + Then love not shame shall bow me at their feet, + Then first and only to my stature grown, + Fulfilled of love, a servant all-complete. + +At first the minister seemed scarcely to listen, as he sat with closed +eyes and knitted brows, but gradually the wrinkles disappeared like +ripples, an expression of repose supervened, and when the draper lifted +his eyes at the close of his reading, there was a smile of quiet +satisfaction on the now aged-looking countenance. As he did not open his +eyes, Drew crept softly from the room, saying to Dorothy as he left the +house, that she _must_ get him to bed as soon as possible. She went to +him, and now found no difficulty in persuading him. But something, she +could not tell what, in his appearance, alarmed her, and she sent for +the doctor. He was not at home, and had expected to be out all night. +She sat by his bedside for hours, but at last, as he was quietly asleep, +ventured to lay herself on a couch in the room. There she too fell fast +asleep, and slept till morning, undisturbed. + +When she went to his bedside, she found him breathing softly, and +thought him still asleep. But he opened his eyes, looked at her for a +moment fixedly, and then said: + +"Dorothy, child of my heart! things may be very different from what we +have been taught, or what we may of ourselves desire; but every +difference will be the step of an ascending stair--each nearer and +nearer to the divine perfection which alone can satisfy the children of +a God, alone supply the poorest of their cravings." + +She stooped and kissed his hand, then hastened to get him some food. + +When she returned, he was gone up the stair of her future, leaving +behind him, like a last message that all was well, the loveliest smile +frozen upon a face of peace. The past had laid hold upon his body; he +was free in the Eternal. Dorothy was left standing at the top of the +stair of the present. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX. + +EMPTY HOUSES. + + +The desolation that seized on Dorothy seemed at first overwhelming. +There was no refuge for her. The child's tears, questions, and outbreaks +of merriment were but a trouble to her. Even Wingfold and Helen could do +little for her. Sorrow was her sole companion, her sole _comfort_ for a +time against the dreariness of life. Then came something better. As her +father's form receded from her, his spirit drew nigh. I mean no phantom +out of Hades--no consciousness of local presence: such things may be--I +think _sometimes_ they are; but I would rather know my friend better +through his death, than only be aware of his presence about me; that +will one day follow--how much the more precious that the absence will +have doubled its revelations, its nearness! To Dorothy her father's +character, especially as developed in his later struggles after +righteousness--the root-righteousness of God, opened itself up day by +day. She saw him combating his faults, dejected by his failures, +encouraged by his successes; and he grew to her the dearer for his +faults, as she perceived more plainly how little he had sided, how hard +he had fought with them. The very imperfections he repudiated gathered +him honor in the eyes of her love, sowed seeds of perennial tenderness +in her heart. She saw how, in those last days, he had been overcoming +the world with accelerated victory, and growing more and more of the +real father that no man can be until he has attained to the sonship. The +marvel is that our children are so tender and so trusting to the slow +developing father in us. The truth and faith which the great Father has +put in the heart of the child, makes him the nursing father of the +fatherhood in his father; and thus in part it is, that the children of +men will come at last to know the great Father. The family, with all its +powers for the development of society, is a family because it is born +and rooted in, and grows out of the very bosom of God. Gabriel told +Zacharias that his son John, to make ready a people prepared for the +Lord, should turn the hearts of the fathers to the children. + +Few griefs can be so paralyzing as, for a time, that of a true daughter +upon the departure, which at first she feels as the loss, of a true +parent; but through the rifts of such heartbreaks the light of love +shines clearer, and where love is, there is eternity: one day He who is +the Householder of the universe, will begin to bring out of its treasury +all the good old things, as well as the better new ones. How true must +be the bliss up to which the intense realities of such sorrows are +needful to force the way for the faithless heart and feeble will! Lord, +like Thy people of old, we need yet the background of the thunder-cloud +against which to behold Thee; but one day the only darkness around Thy +dwelling will be the too much of Thy brightness. For Thou art the +perfection which every heart sighs toward, no mind can attain unto. If +Thou wast One whom created mind could embrace, Thou wouldst be too small +for those whom Thou hast made in Thine own image, the infinite creatures +that seek their God, a Being to love and know infinitely. For the +created to know perfectly would be to be damned forever in the nutshell +of the finite. He who is His own cause, alone can understand perfectly +and remain infinite, for that which is known and that which knows are in +Him the same infinitude. + +Faber came to see Dorothy--solemn, sad, kind. He made no attempt at +condolence, did not speak a word of comfort; but he talked of the old +man, revealing for him a deep respect; and her heart was touched, and +turned itself toward him. Some change, she thought, must have passed +upon him. Her father had told her nothing of his relation to Amanda. It +would have to be done some day, but he shrunk from it. She could not +help suspecting there was more between Faber and him than she had at +first imagined; but there was in her a healthy contentment with +ignorance, and she asked no questions. Neither did Faber make any +attempt to find out whether she knew what had passed; even about Amanda +and any possible change in her future he was listless. He had never been +a man of plans, and had no room for any now under the rubbish of a +collapsed life. His days were gloomy and his nights troubled. He dreamed +constantly either of Amanda's mother, or of Juliet--sometimes of both +together, and of endless perplexity between them. Sometimes he woke +weeping. He did not now despise his tears, for they flowed neither from +suffering nor self-pity, but from love and sorrow and repentance. A +question of the possibility of his wife's being yet alive would +occasionally occur to him, but he always cast the thought from him as a +folly in which he dared not indulge lest it should grow upon him and +unman him altogether. Better she were dead than suffering what his +cruelty might have driven her to: he had weakened her self-respect by +insult, and then driven her out helpless. + +People said he took the loss of his wife coolly; but the fact was that, +in every quiet way, he had been doing all man could do to obtain what +information concerning her there might possibly be to be had. Naturally +he would have his proceedings as little as possible in the public mouth; +and to employ the police or the newspapers in such a quest was too +horrible. But he had made inquiries in all directions. He had put a +question or two to Polwarth, but at that time he _knew_ nothing of her, +and did not feel bound to disclose his suspicions. Not knowing to what +it might not expose her, he would not betray the refuge of a woman with +a woman. Faber learned what every body had learned, and for a time was +haunted by the horrible expectation of further news from the lake. Every +knock at the door made him start and turn pale. But the body had not +floated, and would not now. + +We have seen that, in the light thrown upon her fault from the revived +memory of his own, a reaction had set in: the tide of it grew fiercer as +it ran. He had deposed her idol--the God who she believed could pardon, +and the bare belief in whom certainly could comfort her; he had taken +the place with her of that imaginary, yet, for some, necessary being; +but when, in the agony of repentant shame, she looked to him for the +pardon he alone could give her, he had turned from her with loathing, +contempt, and insult! He was the one in the whole-earth, who, by saying +to her _Let it be forgotten_, could have lifted her into life and hope! +She had trusted in him, and he, an idol indeed, had crumbled in the +clinging arms of her faith! Had she not confessed to him what else he +would never have known, humbling herself in a very ecstasy of +repentance? Was it not an honor to any husband to have been so trusted +by his wife? And had he not from very scorn refused to strike her! Was +she not a woman still? a being before whom a man, when he can no longer +worship, must weep? Could _any_ fault, ten times worse than she had +committed, make her that she was no woman? that he, merely as a man, +owed her nothing? Her fault was grievous; it stung him to the soul: what +then was it not to her? Not now for his own shame merely, or the most, +did he lament it, but for the pity of it, that the lovely creature +should not be clean, had not deserved his adoration; that she was not +the ideal woman; that a glory had vanished from the earth; that she he +had loved was not in herself worthy. What then must be her sadness! And +this was his--the man's--response to her agony, this his balm for her +woe, his chivalry, his manhood--to dash her from him, and do his potent +part to fix forever upon her the stain which he bemoaned! Stained? Why +then did he not open his arms wide and take her, poor sad stain and all, +to the bosom of a love which, by the very agony of its own grief and +its pity over hers, would have burned her clean? What did it matter for +him? What was he? What was his honor? Had he had any, what fitter use +for honor than to sacrifice it for the redemption of a wife? That would +be to honor honor. But he had none. There was not a stone on the face of +the earth that would consent to be thrown at her by him! + +Ah men! men! gentlemen! was there ever such a poor sneaking scarecrow of +an idol as that gaping straw-stuffed inanity you worship, and call +_honor_? It is not Honor; it is but _your_ honor. It is neither gold, +nor silver, nor honest copper, but a vile, worthless pinchbeck. It may +be, however, for I have not the honor to belong to any of your clubs, +that you no longer insult the word by using it at all. It may be you +have deposed it, and enthroned another word of less significance to you +still. But what the recognized slang of the day may be is +nothing--therefore unnecessary to what I have to say--which is, that the +man is a wretched ape who will utter a word about a woman's virtue, when +in himself, soul and body, there is not a clean spot; when his body +nothing but the furnace of the grave, his soul nothing but the eternal +fire can purify. For him is many a harlot far too good: she is yet +capable of devotion; she would, like her sisters of old, recognize the +Holy if she saw Him, while he would pass by his Maker with a rude stare, +or the dullness of the brute which he has so assiduously cultivated in +him. + +By degrees Faber grew thoroughly disgusted with himself, then heartily +ashamed. Were it possible for me to give every finest shade and +gradation of the change he underwent, there would be still an +unrepresented mystery which I had not compassed. But were my analysis +correct as fact itself, and my showing of it as exact as words could +make it, never a man on whom some such change had not at least begun to +pass, would find in it any revelation. He ceased altogether to vaunt his +denials, not that now he had discarded them, but simply because he no +longer delighted in them. They were not interesting to him any more. He +grew yet paler and thinner. He ate little and slept ill--and the waking +hours of the night were hours of torture. He was out of health, and he +knew it, but that did not comfort him. It was wrong and its misery that +had made him ill, not illness that had made him miserable. Was he a +weakling, a fool not to let the past be the past? "Things without all +remedy should be without regard: what's done is done." But not every +strong man who has buried his murdered in his own garden, and set up no +stone over them, can forget where they lie. It needs something that is +not strength to be capable of that. The dead alone can bury their dead +so; and there is a bemoaning that may help to raise the dead. But +sometimes such dead come alive unbemoaned. Oblivion is not a tomb strong +enough to keep them down. The time may come when a man will find his +past but a cenotaph, and its dead all walking and making his present +night hideous. And when such dead walk so, it is a poor chance they do +not turn out vampires. + +When she had buried her dead out of her sight, Dorothy sought solitude +and the things unseen more than ever. The Wingfolds were like swallows +about her, never folding their wings of ministry, but not haunting her +with bodily visitation. She never refused to see them, but they +understood: the hour was not yet when their presence would be a comfort +to her. The only comfort the heart can take must come--not from, but +through itself. Day after day she would go into the park, avoiding the +lodge, and there brood on the memories of her father and his late words. +And ere long she began to feel nearer to him than she had ever felt +while he was with her. For, where the outward sign has been understood, +the withdrawing of it will bring the inward fact yet nearer. When our +Lord said the spirit of Himself would come to them after He was gone, He +but promised the working of one of the laws of His Father's kingdom: it +was about to operate in loftiest grade. + +Most people find the first of a bereavement more tolerable than what +follows. They find in its fever a support. When the wound in the earth +is closed, and the wave of life has again rushed over it, when things +have returned to their wonted, now desiccated show, then the very Sahara +of desolation opens around them, and for a time existence seems almost +insupportable. With Dorothy it was different. Alive in herself, she was +hungering and thirsting after life, therefore death could not have +dominion over her. + +To her surprise she found also--she could not tell how the illumination +had come--she wondered even how it should ever have been absent--that, +since her father's death, many of her difficulties had vanished. Some of +them, remembering there had been such, she could hardly recall +sufficiently to recognize them. She had been lifted into a region above +that wherein moved the questions which had then disturbed her peace. +From a point of clear vision, she saw the things themselves so +different, that those questions were no longer relevant. The things +themselves misconceived, naturally no satisfaction can be got from +meditation upon them, or from answers sought to the questions they +suggest. If it be objected that she had no better ground for believing +than before, I answer that, if a man should be drawing life from the +heart of God, it could matter little though he were unable to give a +satisfactory account of the mode of its derivation. That the man lives +is enough. That another denies the existence of any such life save in +the man's self-fooled imagination, is nothing to the man who lives it. +His business is not to raise the dead, but to live--not to convince the +blind that there is such a faculty as sight, but to make good use of his +eyes. He may not have an answer to any one objection raised by the +adopted children of Science--their adopted mother raises none--to that +which he believes; but there is no more need that should trouble +him, than that a child should doubt his bliss at his mother's breast, +because he can not give the chemical composition of the milk he draws: +that in the thing which is the root of the bliss, is rather beyond +chemistry. Is a man not blessed in his honesty, being unable to reason +of the first grounds of property? If there be truth, that truth must be +itself--must exercise its own blessing nature upon the soul which +receives it in loyal understanding--that is, in obedience. A man may +accept no end of things as facts which are not facts, and his mistakes +will not hurt him. He may be unable to receive many facts as facts, and +neither they nor his refusal of them will hurt him. He may not a whit +the less be living in and by the truth. He may be quite unable to answer +the doubts of another, but if, in the progress of his life, those doubts +should present themselves to his own soul, then will he be able to meet +them: he is in the region where all true answers are gathered. He may be +unable to receive this or that embodiment or form of truth, not having +yet grown to its level; but it is no matter so long as when he sees a +truth he does it: to see and not do would at once place him in eternal +danger. Hence a man of ordinary intellect and little imagination, may +yet be so radiant in nobility as, to the true poet-heart, to be right +worshipful. There is in the man who does the truth the radiance of life +essential, eternal--a glory infinitely beyond any that can belong to the +intellect, beyond any that can ever come within its scope to be judged, +proven, or denied by it. Through experiences doubtful even to the soul +in which they pass, the life may yet be flowing in. To know God is to be +in the secret place of all knowledge; and to trust Him changes the +atmosphere surrounding mystery and seeming contradiction, from one of +pain and fear to one of hope: the unknown may be some lovely truth in +store for us, which yet we are not good enough to apprehend. A man may +dream all night that he is awake, and when he does wake, be none the +less sure that he is awake in that he thought so all the night when he +was not; but he will find himself no more able to prove it than he would +have been then, only able to talk better about it. The differing +consciousnesses of the two conditions can not be _produced_ in evidence, +or embodied in forms of the understanding. But my main point is this, +that not to be intellectually certain of a truth, does not prevent the +heart that loves and obeys that truth from getting its truth-good, from +drawing life from its holy _factness_, present in the love of it. + +As yet Dorothy had no plans, except to carry out those of her father, +and, mainly for Juliet's sake, to remove to the old house as soon as +ever the work there was completed. But the repairs and alterations were +of some extent, and took months. Nor was she desirous of shortening +Juliet's sojourn with the Polwarths: the longer that lasted with safety, +the better for Juliet, and herself too, she thought. + +On Christmas eve, the curate gave his wife a little poem. Helen showed +it to Dorothy, and Dorothy to Juliet. By this time she had had some +genuine teaching--far more than she recognized as such, and the +spiritual song was not altogether without influence upon her. Here it +is: + + THAT HOLY THING. + + They all were looking for a king + To slay their foes, and lift them high: + Thou cam'st a little baby thing + That made a woman cry. + + O Son of Man, to right my lot + Naught but Thy presence can avail; + Yet on the road Thy wheels are not, + Nor on the sea Thy sail. + + My how or when Thou wilt not heed, + But come down Thine own secret stair, + That Thou mayst answer all my need, + Yea, every by-gone prayer. + + + + +CHAPTER L. + +FALLOW FIELDS. + + +The spring was bursting in bud and leaf before the workmen were out of +the Old House. The very next day, Dorothy commenced her removal. Every +stick of the old furniture she carried with her; every book of her +father's she placed on the shelves of the library he had designed. But +she took care not to seem neglectful of Juliet, never failing to carry +her the report of her husband as often as she saw him. It was to Juliet +like an odor from Paradise making her weep, when Dorothy said that he +looked sad--"so different from his old self!" + +One day Dorothy ventured, hardly to hint, but to approach a hint of +mediation. Juliet rose indignant: no one, were he an angel from Heaven, +should interfere between her husband and her! If they could not come +together without that, there should be a mediator, but not such as +Dorothy meant! + +"No, Dorothy!" she resumed, after a rather prolonged silence; "the very +word _mediation_ would imply a gulf between us that could not be passed. +But I have one petition to make to you, Dorothy. You _will_ be with me +in my trouble--won't you?" + +"Certainly, Juliet--please God, I will." + +"Then promise me, if I can't get through--if I am going to die, that you +will bring him to me. I _must_ see my Paul once again before the +darkness." + +"Wouldn't that be rather unkind--rather selfish?" returned Dorothy. + +She had been growing more and more pitiful of Paul. + +Juliet burst into tears, called Dorothy cruel, said she meant to kill +her. How was she to face it but in the hope of death? and how was she to +face death but in the hope of seeing Paul once again for the last time? +She was certain she was going to die; she knew it! and if Dorothy would +not promise, she was not going to wait for such a death! + +"But there will be a doctor," said Dorothy, "and how am I----" + +Juliet interrupted her--not with tears but words of indignation: Did +Dorothy dare imagine she would allow any man but her Paul to come near +her? Did she? Could she? What did she think of her? But of course she +was prejudiced against her! It was too cruel! + +The moment she could get in a word, Dorothy begged her to say what she +wished. + +"You do not imagine, Juliet," she said, "that I could take such a +responsibility on myself!" + +"I have thought it all over," answered Juliet. "There are women properly +qualified, and you must find one. When she says I am dying,--when she +gets frightened, you will send for my husband? Promise me." + +"Juliet, I will," answered Dorothy, and Juliet was satisfied. + +But notwithstanding her behavior's continuing so much the same, a +change, undivined by herself as well as unsuspected by her friend, had +begun to pass upon Juliet. Every change must begin further back than the +observation of man can reach--in regions, probably, of which we have no +knowledge. To the eyes of his own wife, a man may seem in the gall of +bitterness and the bond of iniquity, when "larger, other eyes than ours" +may be watching with delight the germ of righteousness swell within the +inclosing husk of evil. Sooner might the man of science detect the first +moment of actinic impact, and the simultaneously following change in the +hitherto slumbering acorn, than the watcher of humanity make himself +aware of the first movement of repentance. The influences now for some +time operative upon her, were the more powerful that she neither +suspected nor could avoid them. She had a vague notion that she was kind +to her host and hostess; that she was patronizing them; that her friend +Dorothy, with whom she would afterwards arrange the matter, filled their +hands for her use; that, in fact, they derived benefit from her +presence;--and surely they did, although not as she supposed. The only +benefits they reaped were invaluable ones--such as spring from love and +righteousness and neighborhood. She little thought how she interfered +with the simple pleasures and comforts of the two; how many a visit of +friends, whose talk was a holy revelry of thought and utterance, +Polwarth warded, to avoid the least danger of her discovery; how often +fear for her shook the delicate frame of Ruth; how often her host left +some book unbought, that he might procure instead some thing to tempt +her to eat; how often her hostess turned faint in cooking for her. The +crooked creatures pitied, as well they might, the lovely lady; they +believed that Christ was in her; that the deepest in her was the nature +He had made--His own, and not that which she had gathered to +herself--and thought her own. For the sake of the Christ hidden in her, +her own deepest, best, purest self; that she might be lifted from the +dust-heap of the life she had for herself ruined, into the clear air of +a pure will and the Divine Presence, they counted their best labor most +fitly spent. It is the human we love in each other--and the human is the +Christ. What we do not love is the devilish--no more the human than the +morrow's wormy mass was the manna of God. To be for the Christ in a man, +is the highest love you can give him; for in the unfolding alone of that +Christ can the individuality, the genuine peculiarity of the man, the +man himself, be perfected--the flower of his nature be developed, in its +own distinct loveliness, beauty, splendor, and brought to its idea. + +The main channel through which the influences of the gnomes reached the +princess, was their absolute simplicity. They spoke and acted what was +in them. Through this open utterance, their daily, common righteousness +revealed itself--their gentleness, their love of all things living, +their care of each other, their acceptance as the will of God concerning +them of whatever came, their general satisfaction with things as they +were--though it must in regard to some of them have been in the hope +that they would soon pass away, for one of the things Juliet least could +fail to observe was their suffering patience. They always spoke as if +they felt where their words were going--as if they were hearing them +arrive--as if the mind they addressed were a bright silver table on +which they must not set down even the cup of the water of life roughly: +it must make no scratch, no jar, no sound beyond a faint sweet +salutation. Pain had taught them not sensitiveness but delicacy. A +hundred are sensitive for one that is delicate. Sensitiveness is a +miserable, a cheap thing in itself, but invaluable if it be used for the +nurture of delicacy. They refused to receive offense, their care was to +give none. The burning spot in the center of that distorted spine, which +ought to have lifted Ruth up to a lovely woman, but had failed and sunk, +and ever after ached bitterly as if with defeat, had made her pitiful +over the pains of humanity: she could bear it, for there was something +in her deeper than pain; but alas for those who were not thus upheld! +Her agony drove her to pray for the whole human race, exposed to like +passion with her. The asthmatic choking which so often made Polwarth's +nights a long misery, taught him sympathy with all prisoners and +captives, chiefly with those bound in the bonds of an evil conscience: +to such he held himself specially devoted. They thought little of +bearing pain: to know they had caused it would have been torture. Each, +graciously uncomplaining, was tender over the ailing of the other. + +Juliet had not been long with them before she found the garments she had +in her fancy made for them, did not fit them, and she had to devise, +afresh. They were not gnomes, kobolds, goblins, or dwarfs, but a prince +and princess of sweet nobility, who had loved each other in beauty and +strength, and knew that they were each crushed in the shell of a cruel +and mendacious enchantment. How they served each other! The uncle would +just as readily help the niece with her saucepans, as the niece would +help the uncle to find a passage in Shakespeare or a stanza in George +Herbert. And to hear them talk! + +For some time Juliet did not understand them, and did not try. She had +not an idea what they were talking about. Then she began to imagine they +must be weak in the brain--a thing not unlikely with such spines as +theirs--and had silly secrets with each other, like children, which they +enjoyed talking about chiefly because none could understand but +themselves. Then she came to fancy it was herself and her affairs they +were talking about, deliberating upon--in some mental if not lingual +gibberish of their own. By and by it began to disclose itself to her, +that the wretched creatures, to mask their misery from themselves, were +actually playing at the kingdom of Heaven, speaking and judging and +concluding of things of this world by quite other laws, other scales, +other weights and measures than those in use in it. Every thing was +turned topsy-turvy in this their game of make-believe. Their religion +was their chief end and interest, and their work their play, as lightly +followed as diligently. What she counted their fancies, they seemed to +count their business; their fancies ran over upon their labor, and made +every day look and feel like a harvest-home, or the eve of a +long-desired journey, for which every preparation but the last and +lightest was over. Things in which she saw no significance made them +look very grave, and what she would have counted of some importance to +such as they, drew a mere smile from them. She saw all with bewildered +eyes, much as his neighbors looked upon the strange carriage of Lazarus, +as represented by Robert Browning in the wonderful letter of the Arab +physician. But after she had begun to take note of their sufferings, and +come to mark their calm, their peace, their lighted eyes, their ready +smiles, the patience of their very moans, she began to doubt whether +somehow they might not be touched to finer issues than she. It was not, +however, until after having, with no little reluctance and recoil, +ministered to them upon an occasion in which both were disabled for some +hours, that she began to _feel_ they had a hold upon something unseen, +the firmness of which hold made it hard to believe it closed upon an +unreality. If there was nothing there, then these dwarfs, in the +exercise of their foolish, diseased, distorted fancies, came nearer to +the act of creation than any grandest of poets; for these their +inventions did more than rectify for them the wrongs of their existence, +not only making of their chaos a habitable cosmos, but of themselves +heroic dwellers in the same. Within the charmed circle of this their +well-being, their unceasing ministrations to her wants, their +thoughtfulness about her likings and dislikings, their sweetness of +address, and wistful watching to discover the desire they might satisfy +or the solace they could bring, seemed every moment enticing her. They +soothed the aching of her wounds, mollified with ointment the stinging +rents in her wronged humanity. + +At first, when she found they had no set prayers in the house, she +concluded that, for all the talk of the old gnome in the garden, they +were not very religious. But by and by she began to discover that no one +could tell when they might not be praying. At the most unexpected times +she would hear her host's voice somewhere uttering tones of glad +beseeching, of out-poured adoration. One day, when she had a bad +headache, the little man came into her room, and, without a word to her, +kneeled by her bedside, and said, "Father, who through Thy Son knowest +pain, and Who dost even now in Thyself feel the pain of this Thy child, +help her to endure until Thou shall say it is enough, and send it from +her. Let it not overmaster her patience; let it not be too much for her. +What good it shall work in her, Thou, Lord, needest not that we should +instruct Thee." Therewith he rose, and left the room. + +For some weeks after, she was jealous of latent design to bring their +religion to bear upon her; but perceiving not a single direct approach, +not the most covert hint of attack, she became gradually convinced that +they had no such intent. Polwarth was an absolute serpent of holy +wisdom, and knew that upon certain conditions of the human being the +only powerful influences of religion are the all but insensible ones. A +man's religion, he said, ought never to be held too near his neighbor. +It was like violets: hidden in the banks, they fill the air with their +scent; but if a bunch of them is held to the nose, they stop away their +own sweetness. + +Not unfrequently she heard one of them reading to the other, and by and +by, came to join them occasionally. Sometimes it would be a passage of +the New Testament, sometimes of Shakespeare, or of this or that old +English book, of which, in her so-called education, Juliet had never +even heard, but of which the gatekeeper knew every landmark. He would +often stop the reading to talk, explaining and illustrating what the +writer meant, in a way that filled Juliet with wonder. "Strange!" she +would say to herself; "I never thought of that!" She did not suspect +that it would have been strange indeed if she had thought of it. + +In her soul began to spring a respect for her host and hostess, such as +she had never felt toward God or man. When, despite of many revulsions +it was a little established, it naturally went beyond them in the +direction of that which they revered. The momentary hush that preceded +the name of our Lord, and the smile that so often came with it; the +halo, as it were, which in their feeling surrounded Him; the confidence +of closest understanding, the radiant humility with which they +approached His idea; the way in which they brought the commonest +question side by side with the ideal of Him in their minds, considering +the one in the light of the other, and answering it thereby; the way in +which they took all He said and did on the fundamental understanding +that His relation to God was perfect, but His relation to men as yet an +imperfect, endeavoring relation, because of their distance from His +Father; these, with many another outcome of their genuine belief, began +at length to make her feel, not merely as if there had been, but as if +there really were such a person as Jesus Christ. The idea of Him ruled +potent in the lives of the two, filling heart and brain and hands and +feet: how could she help a certain awe before it, such as she had never +felt! + +Suddenly one day the suspicion awoke in her mind, that the reason why +they asked her no questions, put out no feelers after discovery +concerning her, must be that Dorothy had told them every thing: if it +was, never again would she utter word good or bad to one whose very +kindness, she said to herself, was betrayal! The first moment therefore +she saw Polwarth alone, unable to be still an instant with her doubt +unsolved, she asked him, "with sick assay," but point-blank, whether he +knew why she was in hiding from her husband. + +"I do not know, ma'am," he answered. + +"Miss Drake told you nothing?" pursued Juliet. + +"Nothing more than I knew already: that she could not deny when I put it +to her." + +"But how did you know any thing?" she almost cried out, in a sudden rush +of terror as to what the public knowledge of her might after all be. + +"If you will remember, ma'am," Polwarth replied, "I told you, the first +time I had the pleasure of speaking to you, that it was by observing and +reasoning upon what I observed, that I knew you were alive and at the +Old House. But it may be some satisfaction to you to see how the thing +took shape in my mind." + +Thereupon he set the whole process plainly before her. + +Fresh wonder, mingled with no little fear, laid hold upon Juliet. She +felt not merely as if he could look into her, but as if he had only to +look into himself to discover all her secrets. + +"I should not have imagined you a person to trouble himself to that +extent with other people's affairs," she said, turning away. + +"So far as my service can reach, the things of others are also mine," +replied Polwarth, very gently. + +"But you could not have had the smallest idea of serving me when you +made all those observations concerning me." + +"I had long desired to serve your husband, ma'am. Never from curiosity +would I have asked a single question about you or your affairs. But what +came to me I was at liberty to understand if I could, and use for lawful +ends if I might." + +Juliet was silent. She dared hardly think, lest the gnome should see her +very thoughts in their own darkness. Yet she yielded to one more urgent +question that kept pushing to get out. She tried to say the words +without thinking of the thing, lest he should thereby learn it. + +"I suppose then you have your own theory as to my reasons for seeking +shelter with Miss Drake for a while?" she said--and the moment she said +it, felt as if some demon had betrayed her, and used her organs to utter +the words. + +"If I have, ma'am," answered Polwarth, "it is for myself alone. I know +the sacredness of married life too well to speculate irreverently on its +affairs. I believe that many an awful crisis of human history is there +passed--such, I presume, as God only sees and understands. The more +carefully such are kept from the common eye and the common judgment, the +better, I think." + +If Juliet left him with yet a little added fear, it was also with +growing confidence, and some comfort, which the feeble presence of an +infant humility served to enlarge. + +Polwarth had not given much thought to the question of the cause of +their separation. That was not of his business. What he could not well +avoid seeing was, that it could hardly have taken place since their +marriage. He had at once, as a matter of course, concluded that it lay +with the husband, but from what he had since learned of Juliet's +character, he knew she had not the strength either of moral opinion or +of will to separate, for any reason past and gone, from the husband she +loved so passionately; and there he stopped, refusing to think further. +For he found himself on the verge of thinking what, in his boundless +respect for women, he shrank with deepest repugnance from entertaining +even as a transient flash of conjecture. + +One trifle I will here mention, as admitting laterally a single ray of +light upon Polwarth's character. Juliet had come to feel some desire to +be useful in the house beyond her own room, and descrying not only dust, +but what she judged disorder in her _landlord's_ little library--for +such she chose to consider him--which, to her astonishment in such a +mere cottage, consisted of many more books than her husband's, and ten +times as many readable ones, she offered to dust and rearrange them +properly: Polwarth instantly accepted her offer, with thanks--which were +solely for the kindness of the intent, he could not possibly be grateful +for the intended result--and left his books at her mercy. I do not know +another man who, loving his books like Polwarth, would have done so. +Every book had its own place. He could--I speak advisedly--have laid his +hand on any book of at least three hundred of them, in the dark. While +he used them with perfect freedom, and cared comparatively little about +their covers, he handled them with a delicacy that looked almost like +respect. He had seen ladies handle books, he said, laughing, to +Wingfold, in a fashion that would have made him afraid to trust them +with a child. It was a year after Juliet left the house before he got +them by degrees muddled into order again; for it was only as he used +them that he would alter their places, putting each, when he had done +with it for the moment, as near where it had been before as he could; +thus, in time, out of a neat chaos, restoring a useful work-a-day world. + +Dorothy's thoughts were in the meantime much occupied for Juliet. Now +that she was so sadly free, she could do more for her. She must occupy +her old quarters as soon as possible after the workmen had finished. She +thought at first of giving out that a friend in poor health was coming +to visit her, but she soon saw that would either involve lying or lead +to suspicion, and perhaps discovery, and resolved to keep her presence +in the house concealed from the outer world as before. But what was she +to do with respect to Lisbeth? Could she trust her with the secret? She +certainly could not trust Amanda. She would ask Helen to take the latter +for a while, and do her best to secure the silence of the former. + +She so represented the matter to Lisbeth as to rouse her heart in regard +to it even more than her wonder. But her injunctions to secrecy were so +earnest, that the old woman was offended. She was no slip of a girl, she +said, who did not know how to hold her tongue. She had had secrets to +keep before now, she said; and in proof of her perfect trustworthiness, +was proceeding to tell some of them, when she read her folly in +Dorothy's fixed regard, and ceased. + +"Lisbeth," said her mistress, "you have been a friend for sixteen years, +and I love you; but if I find that you have given the smallest hint even +that there is a secret in the house, I solemnly vow you shall not be +another night in it yourself, and I shall ever after think of you as a +wretched creature who periled the life of a poor, unhappy lady rather +than take the trouble to rule her own tongue." + +Lisbeth trembled, and did hold her tongue, in spite of the temptation to +feel herself for just one instant the most important person in Glaston. + +As the time went on, Juliet became more fretful, and more confiding. +She was never cross with Ruth--why, she could not have told; and when +she had been cross to Dorothy, she was sorry for it. She never said she +was sorry, but she tried to make up for it. Her husband had not taught +her the virtue, both for relief and purification, that lies in the +_acknowledgment_ of wrong. To take up blame that is our own, is to +wither the very root of it. + +Juliet was pleased at the near prospect of the change, for she had +naturally dreaded being ill in the limited accommodation of the lodge. +She formally thanked the two crushed and rumpled little angels, begged +them to visit her often, and proceeded to make her very small +preparations with a fitful cheerfulness. Something might come of the +change, she flattered herself. She had always indulged a vague fancy +that Dorothy was devising help for her; and it was in part the +disappointment of nothing having yet justified the expectation, that had +spoiled her behavior to her. But for a long time Dorothy had been +talking of Paul in a different tone, and that very morning had spoken of +him even with some admiration: it might be a prelude to something! Most +likely Dorothy knew more than she chose to say! She dared ask no +question for the dread of finding herself mistaken. She preferred the +ignorance that left room for hope. But she did not like all Dorothy said +in his praise; for her tone, if not her words, seemed to imply some kind +of change in him. He might have his faults, she said to herself, like +other men, but she had not yet discovered them; and any change would, in +her eyes, be for the worse. Would she ever see her own old Paul again? + +One day as Faber was riding at a good round trot along one of the back +streets of Glaston, approaching his own house, he saw Amanda, who still +took every opportunity of darting out at an open door, running to him +with outstretched arms, right in the face of Niger, just as if she +expected the horse to stop and take her up. Unable to trust him so well +as his dear old Ruber, he dismounted, and taking her in his arms, led +Niger to his stable. He learned from her that she was staying with the +Wingfolds, and took her home, after which his visits to the rectory were +frequent. + +The Wingfolds could not fail to remark the tenderness with which he +regarded the child. Indeed it soon became clear that it was for her sake +he came to them. The change that had begun in him, the loss of his +self-regard following on the loss of Juliet, had left a great gap in his +conscious being: into that gap had instantly begun to shoot the +all-clothing greenery of natural affection. His devotion to her did not +at first cause them any wonderment. Every body loved the little Amanda, +they saw in him only another of the child's conquests, and rejoiced in +the good the love might do him. Even when they saw him looking fixedly +at her with eyes over clear, they set it down to the frustrated +affection of the lonely, wifeless, childless man. But by degrees they +did come to wonder a little: his love seemed to grow almost a passion. +Strange thoughts began to move in their minds, looking from the one to +the other of this love and the late tragedy. + +"I wish," said the curate one morning, as they sat at breakfast, "if +only for Faber's sake, that something definite was known about poor +Juliet. There are rumors in the town, roving like poisonous fogs. Some +profess to believe he has murdered her, getting rid of her body utterly, +then spreading the report that she had run away. Others say she is mad, +and he has her in the house, but stupefied with drugs to keep her quiet. +Drew told me he had even heard it darkly hinted that he was making +experiments upon her, to discover the nature of life. It is dreadful to +think what a man is exposed to from evil imaginations groping after +theory. I dare hardly think what might happen should these fancies get +rooted among the people. Many of them are capable of brutality. For my +part, I don't believe the poor woman is dead yet." + +Helen replied she did not believe that, in her sound mind, Juliet would +have had the resolution to kill herself; but who could tell what state +of mind she was in at the time? There was always something mysterious +about her--something that seemed to want explanation. + +Between them it was concluded that, the next time Faber came, Wingfold +should be plain with him. He therefore told him that if he could cast +any light on his wife's disappearance, it was most desirable he should +do so; for reports were abroad greatly to his disadvantage. Faber +answered, with a sickly smile of something like contempt, that they had +had a quarrel the night before, for which he was to blame; that he had +left her, and the next morning she was gone, leaving every thing, even +to her wedding-ring, behind her, except the clothes she wore; that he +had done all he could to find her, but had been utterly foiled. More he +could not say. + +The next afternoon, he sought an interview with the curate in his +study, and told him every thing he had told Mr. Drake. The story seemed +to explain a good deal more than it did, leaving the curate with the +conviction that the disclosure of this former relation had caused the +quarrel between him and his wife, and more doubtful than ever as to +Juliet's having committed suicide. + + + + +CHAPTER LI. + +THE NEW OLD HOUSE. + + +It was a lovely moon-lighted midnight when they set out, the four of +them, to walk from the gate across the park to the Old House. Like +shadows they flitted over the green sward, all silent as shadows. +Scarcely a word was spoken as they went, and the stray syllable now and +then, was uttered softly as in the presence of the dead. Suddenly but +gently opened in Juliet's mind a sense of the wonder of life. The moon, +having labored through a heap of cloud into a lake of blue, seemed to +watch her with curious interest as she toiled over the level sward. The +air now and then made a soundless sigh about her head, like a waft of +wings invisible. The heavenly distances seemed to have come down and +closed her softly in. All at once, as if waked from an eternity of +unconsciousness, she found herself, by no will of her own, with no power +to say nay, present to herself--a target for sorrow to shoot at, a tree +for the joy-birds to light upon and depart--a woman, scorned of the man +she loved, bearing within her another life, which by no will of its own, +and with no power to say nay, must soon become aware of its own joys and +sorrows, and have no cause to bless her for her share in its being. Was +there no one to answer for it? Surely there must be a heart-life +somewhere in the universe, to whose will the un-self-willed life could +refer for the justification of its existence, for its motive, for the +idea of it that should make it seem right to itself--to whom it could +cry to have its divergence from that idea rectified! Was she not now, +she thought, upon her silent way to her own deathbed, walking, walking, +the phantom of herself, in her own funeral? What if, when the +bitterness of death was past, and her child was waking in this world, +she should be waking in another, to a new life, inevitable as the +former--another, yet the same? We know not whence we came--why may we +not be going whither we know not? We did not know we were coming here, +why may we not be going there without knowing it--this much more +open-eyed, more aware that we know we do not know? That terrible +morning, she had come this way, rushing swiftly to her death: she was +caught and dragged back from Hades, to be there-after--now, driven +slowly toward it, like an ox to the slaughter! She could not avoid her +doom--she _must_ encounter that which lay before her. That she shrunk +from it with fainting terror was nothing; on she must go! What an iron +net, what a combination of all chains and manacles and fetters and +iron-masks and cages and prisons was this existence--at least to a +woman, on whom was laid the burden of the generations to follow! In the +lore of centuries was there no spell whereby to be rid of it? no dark +saying that taught how to make sure death should be death, and not a +fresh waking? That the future is unknown, assures only danger! New +circumstances have seldom to the old heart proved better than the new +piece of cloth to the old garment. + +Thus meditated Juliet. She was beginning to learn that, until we get to +the heart of life, its outsides will be forever fretting us; that among +the mere garments of life, we can never be at home. She was hard to +teach, but God's circumstance had found her. + +When they came near the brow of the hollow, Dorothy ran on before, to +see that all was safe. Lisbeth was of course the only one in the house. +The descent was to Juliet like the going down to the gates of Death. + +Polwarth, who had been walking behind with Ruth, stepped to her side the +moment Dorothy left her. Looking up in her face, with the moonlight full +upon his large features, he said, + +"I have been feeling all the way, ma'am, as if Another was walking +beside us--the same who said, 'I am with you always even to the end of +the world.' He could not have meant that only for the few that were so +soon to follow Him home; He must have meant it for those also who should +believe by their word. Becoming disciples, all promises the Master made +to His disciples are theirs." + +"It matters little for poor me," answered Juliet with a sigh. "You know +I do not believe in Him." + +"But I believe in Him," answered Polwarth, "and Ruth believes in Him, +and so does Miss Drake; and if He be with us, he can not be far from +you." + +With that he stepped back to Ruth's side, and said no more. + +Dorothy opened the door quickly, the moment their feet were on the +steps; they entered quickly, and she closed it behind them at once, +fearful of some eye in the night. How different was the house from that +which Juliet had left! The hall was lighted with a soft lamp, showing +dull, warm colors on walls and floor. The dining-room door stood open; a +wood-fire was roaring on the hearth, and candles were burning on a snowy +table spread for a meal. Dorothy had a chamber-candle in her hand. She +showed the Polwarths into the dining-room, then turning to Juliet, said, + +"I will take you to your room, dear." + +"I have prepared your old quarters for you," she said, as they went up +the stair. + +With the words there rushed upon Juliet such a memory of mingled +dreariness and terror, that she could not reply. + +"You know it will be safest," added Dorothy, and as she spoke, set the +candle on a table at the top of the stair. They went along the passage, +and she opened the door of the closet. All was dark. + +She opened the door in the closet, and Juliet started back with +amazement. It was the loveliest room! and--like a marvel in a +fairy-tale--the great round moon was shining gloriously, first through +the upper branches of a large yew, and then through an oriel window, +filled with lozenges of soft greenish glass, through which fell a lovely +picture on the floor in light and shadow and something that was neither +or both. Juliet turned in delight, threw her arms round Dorothy, and +kissed her. + +"I thought I was going into a dungeon," she said, "and it is a room for +a princess!" + +"I sometimes almost believe, Juliet," returned Dorothy, "that God will +give us a great surprise one day." + +Juliet was tired, and did not want to hear about God. If Dorothy had +done all this, she thought, for the sake of reading her a good lesson, +it spoiled it all. She did not understand the love that gives beyond the +gift, that mantles over the cup and spills the wine into the spaces of +eternal hope. The room was so delicious that she begged to be excused +from going down to supper. Dorothy suggested it would not be gracious to +her friends. Much as she respected, and indeed loved them, Juliet +resented the word _friends_, but yielded. + +The little two would themselves rather have gone home--it was so +late--but staid, fearing to disappoint Dorothy. If they did run a risk +by doing so, it was for a good reason--therefore of no great +consequence. + +"How your good father will delight to watch you here sometimes, Miss +Drake," said Polwarth, "if those who are gone are permitted to see, +walking themselves unseen." + +Juliet shuddered. Dorothy's father not two months gone and the dreadful +little man to talk to her like that! + +"Do you then think," said Dorothy, "that the dead only seem to have gone +from us?" and her eyes looked like store-houses of holy questions. + +"I know so little," he answered, "that I dare hardly say I _think_ any +thing. But if, as our Lord implies, there be no such thing as that which +the change appears to us--nothing like that we are thinking of when we +call it _death_--may it not be that, obstinate as is the appearance of +separation, there is, notwithstanding, none of it?--I don't care, mind: +His will _is_, and that is every thing. But there can be no harm, where +I do not know His will, in venturing a _may be_. I am sure He likes His +little ones to tell their fancies in the dimmits about the nursery fire. +Our souls yearning after light of any sort must be a pleasure to him to +watch.--But on the other hand, to resume the subject, it may be that, as +it is good for us to miss them in the body that we may the better find +them in the spirit, so it may be good for them also to miss our bodies +that they may find our spirits." + +"But," suggested Ruth, "they had that kind of discipline while yet on +earth, in the death of those who went before them; and so another sort +might be better for them now. Might it not be more of a discipline for +them to see, in those left behind, how they themselves, from lack of +faith, went groping about in the dark, while crowds all about them knew +perfectly what they could not bring themselves to believe?" + +"It might, Ruth, it might; nor do I think any thing to the contrary. Or +it might be given to some and not to others, just as it was good for +them. It may be that some can see some, or can see them sometimes, and +watch their ways in partial glimpses of revelation. Who knows who may be +about the house when all its mortals are dead for the night, and the +last of the fires are burning unheeded! There are so many hours of both +day and night--in most houses--in which those in and those out of the +body need never cross each others' paths! And there are tales, legends, +reports, many mere fiction doubtless, but some possibly of a different +character, which represent this and that doer of evil as compelled, +either by the law of his or her own troubled being, or by some law +external thereto, ever, or at fixed intervals, to haunt the moldering +scenes of their past, and ever dream horribly afresh the deeds done in +the body. These, however, tend to no proof of what we have been speaking +about, for such 'extravagant and erring spirit' does not haunt the +living from love, but the dead from suffering. In this life, however, +few of us come really near to each other in the genuine simplicity of +love, and that may be the reason why the credible stories of love +meeting love across the strange difference are so few. It is a wonderful +touch, I always think, in the play of Hamlet, that, while the prince +gazes on the spirit of his father, noting every expression and +gesture--even his dress, as he passes through his late wife's chamber, +Gertrude, less unfaithful as widow than as wife, not only sees nothing, +but by no sigh or hint, no sense in the air, no beat of her own heart, +no creep even of her own flesh, divines his presence--is not only +certain that she sees nothing, but that she sees all there is. She is +the dead, not her husband. To the dead all are dead. The eternal life +makes manifest both life and death." + +"Please, Mr. Polwarth," said Juliet, "remember it is the middle of the +night. No doubt it is just the suitable time, but I would rather not +make one in an orgy of horrors. We have all to be alone presently." + +She hated to hear about death, and the grandest of words, Eternal Life, +which to most means nothing but prolonged existence, meant to her just +death. If she had stolen a magic spell for avoiding it, she could not +have shrunk more from any reference to the one thing commonest and most +inevitable. Often as she tried to imagine the reflection of her own +death in the mind of her Paul, the mere mention of the ugly thing seemed +to her ill-mannered, almost indecent. + +"The Lord is awake all night," said Polwarth, rising, "and therefore +the night is holy as the day.--Ruth, we should be rather frightened to +walk home under that awful sky, if we thought the Lord was not with us." + +"The night is fine enough," said Juliet. + +"Yes," said Ruth, replying to her uncle, not to Juliet; "but even if He +were asleep--you remember how He slept once, and yet reproached His +disciples with their fear and doubt." + +"I do; but in the little faith with which He reproached them, He +referred, not to Himself, but to His Father. Whether He slept or waked +it was all one: the Son may sleep, for the Father never sleeps." + +They stood beside each other, taking their leave: what little objects +they were, opposite the two graceful ladies, who also stood beside each +other, pleasant to look upon. Sorrow and suffering, lack and weakness, +though plain to see upon them both, had not yet greatly dimmed their +beauty. The faces of the dwarfs, on the other hand, were marked and +lined with suffering; but the suffering was dominated by peace and +strength. There was no sorrow there, little lack, no weakness or fear, +and a great hope. They never spent any time in pitying themselves; the +trouble that alone ever clouded their sky, was the suffering of others. +Even for this they had comfort--their constant ready help consoled both +the sufferer and themselves. + +"Will you come and see me, if you die first, uncle?" said Ruth, as they +walked home together in the moonlight. "You will think how lonely I am +without you." + +"If it be within the law of things, if I be at liberty, and the thing +seem good for you, my Ruth, you may be sure I will come to you. But of +one thing I am pretty certain, that such visions do not appear when +people are looking for them. You must not go staring into the dark +trying to see me. Do your work, pray your prayers, and be sure I love +you: if I am to come, I will come. It may be in the hot noon or in the +dark night: it may be with no sight and no sound, yet a knowledge of +presence; or I may be watching you, helping you perhaps and you never +know it until I come to fetch you at the last,--if I may. You have been +daughter and sister, and mother to me, my Ruth. You have been my one in +the world. God, I think sometimes, has planted about you and me, my +child, a cactus-hedge of ugliness, that we might be so near and so +lonely as to learn love as few have learned it in this world--love +without fear, or doubt, or pain, or anxiety--with constant satisfaction +in presence, and calm content in absence. Of the last, however, I can +not boast much, seeing we have not been parted a day for--how many years +is it, Ruth?--Ah, Ruth! a bliss beyond speech is waiting us in the +presence of the Master, where, seeing Him as He is, we shall grow like +Him and be no more either dwarfed or sickly. But you will have the same +face, Ruth, else I should be forever missing something." + +"But you do not think we shall be perfect all at once?" + +"No, not all at once; I can not believe that: God takes time to what He +does--the doing of it is itself good. It would be a sight for heavenly +eyes to see you, like a bent and broken and withered lily, straightening +and lengthening your stalk, and flushing into beauty.--But fancy what it +will be to see at length to the very heart of the person you love, and +love Him perfectly--and that _you_ can love _Him!_ Every love will then +be a separate heaven, and all the heavens will blend in one perfect +heaven--the love of God--the All in all." + +They were walking like children, hand in hand: Ruth pressed that of her +uncle, for she could not answer in words. + +Even to Dorothy their talk would have been vague, vague from the +intervening mist of her own atmosphere. To them it was vague only from +the wide stretch of its horizon, the distance of its zenith. There is +all difference between the vagueness belonging to an imperfect sight, +and the vagueness belonging to the distance of the outlook. But to walk +on up the hill of duty, is the only way out of the one into the other. I +think some only know they are laboring, hardly know they are climbing, +till they find themselves near the top. + + + + +CHAPTER LII. + +THE LEVEL OF THE LYTHE. + + +Dorothy's faith in Polwarth had in the meantime largely increased. She +had not only come to trust him thoroughly, but gained much strength from +the confidence. As soon as she had taken Juliet her breakfast the next +morning, she went to meet him in the park, for so they had arranged the +night before. + +She had before acquainted him with the promise Juliet had exacted from +her, that she would call her husband the moment she seemed in danger--a +possibility which Juliet regarded as a certainty; and had begged him to +think how they could contrive to have Faber within call. He had now a +plan to propose with this object in view, but began, apparently, at a +distance from it. + +"You know, Miss Drake," he said, "that I am well acquainted with every +yard of this ground. Had your honored father asked me whether the Old +House was desirable for a residence, I should have expressed +considerable doubt. But there is one thing which would greatly improve +it--would indeed, I hope, entirely remove my objection to it. Many years +ago I noted the state of the stone steps leading up to the door: they +were much and diversely out of the level; and the cause was evident with +the first great rain: the lake filled the whole garden--to the top of +the second step. Now this, if it take place only once a year, must of +course cause damp in the house. But I think there is more than that will +account for. I have been in the cellars repeatedly, both before and +since your father bought it; and always found them too damp. The cause +of it, I think, is, that the foundations are as low as the ordinary +level of the water in the pond, and the ground at that depth is of large +gravel: it seems to me that the water gets through to the house. I +should propose, therefore, that from the bank of the Lythe a tunnel be +commenced, rising at a gentle incline until it pierces the basin of the +lake. The ground is your own to the river, I believe?" + +"It is," answered Dorothy. "But I should be sorry to empty the lake +altogether." + +"My scheme," returned Polwarth, "includes a strong sluice, by which you +could keep the water at what height you pleased, and at any moment send +it into the river. The only danger would be of cutting through the +springs; and I fancy they are less likely to be on the side next the +river where the ground is softer, else they would probably have found +their way directly into it, instead of first hollowing out the pond." + +"Would it be a difficult thing to do?" asked Dorothy. + +"I think not," answered Polwarth. "But with your permission I will get a +friend of mine, an engineer, to look into it." + +"I leave it in your hands," said Dorothy.--"Do you think we will find +any thing at the bottom?" + +"Who can tell? But we do not know how near the bottom the tunnel may +bring us; there may be fathoms of mud below the level of the +river-bed.--One thing, thank God, we shall not find there!" + +The same week all was arranged with the engineer. By a certain day his +men were to be at work on the tunnel. + +For some time now, things had been going on much the same with all in +whom my narrative is interested. There come lulls in every process, +whether of growth or of tempest, whether of creation or destruction, and +those lulls, coming as they do in the midst of force, are precious in +their influence--because they are only lulls, and the forces are still +at work. All the time the volcano is quiet, something is going on below. +From the first moment of exhaustion, the next outbreak is preparing. To +be faint is to begin to gather, as well as to cease to expend. + +Faber had been growing better. He sat more erect on his horse; his eye +was keener, his voice more kindly, though hardly less sad, and his step +was firm. His love to the child, and her delight in his attentions, were +slowly leading him back to life. Every day, if but for a moment, he +contrived to see her, and the Wingfolds took care to remove every +obstacle from the way of their meeting. Little they thought why Dorothy +let them keep the child so long. As little did Dorothy know that what +she yielded for the sake of the wife, they desired for the sake of the +husband. + +At length one morning came a break: Faber received a note from the +gate-keeper, informing him that Miss Drake was having the pond at the +foot of her garden emptied into the Lythe by means of a tunnel, the +construction of which was already completed. They were now boring for a +small charge of gunpowder expected to liberate the water. The process of +emptying would probably be rapid, and he had taken the liberty of +informing Mr. Faber, thinking he might choose to be present. No one but +the persons employed would be allowed to enter the grounds. + +This news gave him a greater shock than he could have believed possible. +He thought he had "supped full of horrors!" At once he arranged with his +assistant for being absent the whole day; and rode out, followed by his +groom. At the gate Polwarth joined him, and walked beside him to the Old +House, where his groom, he said, could put up the horses. That done, he +accompanied him to the mouth of the tunnel, and there left him. + +Faber sat down on the stump of a felled tree, threw a big cloak, which +he had brought across the pommel of his saddle, over his knees, and +covered his face with his hands. Before him the river ran swiftly toward +the level country, making a noise of watery haste; also the wind was in +the woods, with the noises of branches and leaves, but the only sounds +he heard were the blows of the hammer on the boring-chisel, coming dull, +and as if from afar, out of the depths of the earth. What a strange, +awful significance they had to the heart of Faber! But the end was +delayed hour after hour, and there he still sat, now and then at a +louder noise than usual lifting up a white face, and staring toward the +mouth of the tunnel. At the explosion the water would probably rush in a +torrent from the pit, and in half an hour, perhaps, the pond would be +empty. But Polwarth had taken good care there should be no explosion +that day. Ever again came the blow of iron upon iron, and the boring had +begun afresh. + +Into her lovely chamber Dorothy had carried to Juliet the glad tidings +that her husband was within a few hundred yards of the house, and that +she might trust Mr. Polwarth to keep him there until all danger was +over. + +Juliet now manifested far more courage than she had given reason to +expect. It seemed as if her husband's nearness gave her strength to do +without his presence. + +At length the child, a lovely boy, lay asleep in Dorothy's arms. The +lovelier mother also slept. Polwarth was on his way to stop the work, +and let the doctor know that its completion must be postponed for a few +days, when he heard the voice of Lisbeth behind him, calling as she ran. +He turned and met her, then turned again and ran, as fast as his little +legs could carry him, to the doctor. + +"Mr. Faber," he cried, "there is a lady up there at the house, a friend +of Miss Drake's, taken suddenly ill. You are wanted as quickly as +possible." + +Faber answered not a word, but went with hasty strides up the bank, and +ran to the house. Polwarth followed as fast as he could, panting and +wheezing. Lisbeth received the doctor at the door. + +"Tell my man to saddle _my_ horse, and be at the back door immediately," +he said to her. + +Polwarth followed him up the stair to the landing, where Dorothy +received Faber, and led him to Juliet's room. The dwarf seated himself +on the top of the stair, almost within sight of the door. + + + + +CHAPTER LIII. + +MY LADY'S CHAMBER. + + +When Faber entered, a dim, rosy light from drawn window-curtains filled +the air; he could see little more than his way to the bed. Dorothy was +in terror lest the discovery he must presently make, should unnerve the +husband for what might be required of the doctor. But Juliet kept her +face turned aside, and a word from the nurse let him know at once what +was necessary. He turned to Dorothy, and said, + +"I must send my man home to fetch me something;" then to the nurse, and +said, "Go on as you are doing;" then once more to Dorothy, saying, "Come +with me, Miss Drake: I want writing things." + +He led the way from the room, and Dorothy followed. But scarcely were +they in the passage, when the little man rose and met them. Faber would +have pushed past him, annoyed, but Polwarth held out a little phial to +him. + +"Perhaps that is what you want, sir," he said. + +The doctor caught it hastily, almost angrily, from his hand, looked at +it, uncorked it, and put it to his nose. + +"Thank you," he said, "this is just what I wanted," and returned +instantly to the chamber. + +The little man resumed his patient seat on the side, breathing heavily. +Ten minutes of utter silence followed. Then Dorothy passed him with a +note in her hand, and hurried down the stair. The next instant Polwarth +heard the sound of Niger's hoofs tearing up the slope behind the house. + +"I have got some more medicines here, Miss Drake," he said, when she +reappeared on the stair. + +As he spoke he brought out phial after phial, as if his pockets widened +out below into the mysterious recesses of the earth to which as a gnome +he belonged. Dorothy, however, told him it was not a medicine the +doctor wanted now, but something else, she did not know what. Her face +was dreadfully white, but as calm as an icefield. She went back into the +room, and Polwarth sat down again. + +Not more than twenty minutes had passed when he heard again the soft +thunder of Niger's hoofs upon the sward; and in a minute more up came +Lisbeth, carrying a little morocco case, which she left at the door of +the room. + +Then an hour passed, during which he heard nothing. He sat motionless, +and his troubled lungs grew quiet. + +Suddenly he heard Dorothy's step behind him, and rose. + +"You had better come down stairs with me," she said, in a voice he +scarcely knew, and her face looked almost as if she had herself passed +through a terrible illness. + +"How is the poor lady?" he asked. + +"The immediate danger is over, the doctor says, but he seems in great +doubt. He has sent me away. Come with me: I want you to have a glass of +wine." + +"Has he recognized her?" + +"I do not know. I haven't seen any sign of it yet. But the room is +dark.--We can talk better below." + +"I am in want of nothing, my dear lady," said Polwarth. "I should much +prefer staying here--if you will permit me. There is no knowing when I +might be of service. I am far from unused to sick chambers." + +"Do as you please, Mr. Polwarth," said Dorothy, and going down the +stair, went into the garden. + +Once more Polwarth resumed his seat. + +There came the noise of a heavy fall, which shook him where he sat. He +started up, went to the door of the chamber, listened a moment, heard a +hurried step and the sweeping of garments, and making no more scruple, +opened it and looked in. + +All was silent, and the room was so dark he could see nothing. +Presently, however, he descried, in the middle of the floor, a prostrate +figure that could only be the doctor, for plainly it was the nurse on +her knees by him. He glanced toward the bed. There all was still. + +"She is gone!" he thought with himself; "and the poor fellow has +discovered who she was!" + +He went in. + +"Have you no brandy?" he said to the nurse. + +"On that table," she answered. + +"Lay his head down, and fetch it." + +Notwithstanding his appearance, the nurse obeyed: she knew the doctor +required brandy, but had lost her presence of mind. + +Polwarth took his hand. The pulse had vanished--and no wonder! Once +more, utterly careless of himself, had the healer drained his own +life-spring to supply that of his patient--knowing as little now what +that patient was to him as he knew then what she was going to be. A +thrill had indeed shot to his heart at the touch of her hand, scarcely +alive as it was, when first he felt her pulse; what he saw of her +averted face through the folded shadows of pillows and curtains both of +window and bed, woke wild suggestions; as he bared her arm, he almost +gave a cry: it was fortunate that there was not light enough to show the +scar of his own lancet; but, always at any critical moment +self-possessed to coldness, he schooled himself now with sternest +severity. He insisted to himself that he was in mortal danger of being +fooled by his imagination--that a certain indelible imprint on his brain +had begun to phosphoresce. If he did not banish the fancies crowding to +overwhelm him, his patient's life, and probably his own reason as well, +would be the penalty. Therefore, with will obstinately strained, he kept +his eyes turned from the face of the woman, drawn to it as they were +even by the terror of what his fancy might there show him, and held to +his duty in spite of growing agony. His brain, he said to himself, was +so fearfully excited, that he must not trust his senses: they would +reflect from within, instead of transmitting from without. And +victoriously did he rule, until, all the life he had in gift being +exhausted, his brain, deserted by his heart, gave way, and when he +turned from the bed, all but unconscious, he could only stagger a pace +or two, and fell like one dead. + +Polwarth got some brandy into his mouth with a teaspoon. In about a +minute, his heart began to beat. + +"I must open another vein," he murmured as if in a dream. + +When he had swallowed a third teaspoonful, he lifted his eyelids in a +dreary kind of way, saw Polwarth, and remembered that he had something +to attend to--a patient at the moment on his hands, probably--he could +not tell. + +"Tut! give me a wine-glass of the stuff," he said. + +Polwarth obeyed. The moment he swallowed it, he rose, rubbing his +forehead as if trying to remember, and mechanically turned toward the +bed. The nurse, afraid he might not yet know what he was about, stepped +between, saying softly, + +"She is asleep, sir, and breathing quietly." + +"Thank God!" he whispered with a sigh, and turning to a couch, laid +himself gently upon it. + +The nurse looked at Polwarth, as much as to say: "Who is to take the +command now?" + +"I shall be outside, nurse: call me if I can be useful to you," he +replied to the glance, and withdrew to his watch on the top of the +stair. + +After about a quarter of an hour, the nurse came out. + +"Do you want me?" said Polwarth, rising hastily. + +"No, sir," she answered. "The doctor says all immediate danger is over, +and he requires nobody with him. I am going to look after my baby. And +please, sir, nobody is to go in, for he says she must not be disturbed. +The slightest noise might spoil every thing: she must sleep now all she +can." + +"Very well," said Polwarth, and sat down again. + +The day went on; the sun went down; the shadows deepened; and not a +sound came from the room. Again and again Dorothy came and peeped up the +stair, but seeing the little man at his post, like Zacchaeus up the +sycamore, was satisfied, and withdrew. But at length Polwarth bethought +him that Ruth would be anxious, and rose reluctantly. The same instant +the door opened, and Faber appeared. He looked very pale and worn, +almost haggard. + +"Would you call Miss Drake?" he said. + +Polwarth went, and following Dorothy up the stair again, heard what +Faber said. + +"She is sleeping beautifully, but I dare not leave her. I must sit up +with her to-night. Send my man to tell my assistant that I shall not be +home. Could you let me have something to eat, and you take my place? And +there is Polwarth! _he_ has earned his dinner, if any one has. I do +believe we owe the poor lady's life to him." + +Dorothy ran to give the message and her own orders. Polwarth begged she +would tell the groom to say to Ruth as he passed that all was well; and +when the meal was ready, joined Faber. + +It was speedily over, for the doctor seemed anxious to be again with his +patient. Then Dorothy went to Polwarth. Both were full of the same +question: had Faber recognized his wife or not? Neither had come to a +certain conclusion. Dorothy thought he had, but that he was too hard and +proud to show it; Polwarth thought he had not, but had been powerfully +reminded of her. He had been talking strangely, he said, during their +dinner, and had drunk a good deal of wine in a hurried way. + +Polwarth's conclusion was correct: it was with an excitement almost +insane, and a pleasure the more sorrowful that he was aware of its +transientness, a pleasure now mingling, now alternating with utter +despair, that Faber returned to sit in the darkened chamber, watching +the woman who with such sweet torture reminded him of her whom he had +lost. What a strange, unfathomable thing is the pleasure given us by a +likeness! It is one of the mysteries of our humanity. Now she had seemed +more, now less like his Juliet; but all the time he could see her at +best only very partially. Ever since his fall, his sight had been weak, +especially in twilight, and even when, once or twice, he stood over her +as she slept, and strained his eyes to their utmost, he could not tell +what he saw. For, in the hope that, by the time it did come, its way +would have been prepared by a host of foregone thoughts, Dorothy had +schemed to delay as much as she could the discovery which she trusted in +her heart must come at last; and had therefore contrived, not by drawn +curtains merely, but by closed Venetian shutters as well, to darken the +room greatly. And now he had no light but a small lamp, with a shade. + +He had taken a book with him, but it was little he read that night. At +almost regular intervals he rose to see how his patient fared. She was +still floating in the twilight shallows of death, whether softly +drifting on the ebb-tide of sleep, out into the open sea, or, on its +flow, again up the river of life, he could not yet tell. Once the nurse +entered the room to see if any thing were wanted. Faber lifted his head, +and motioned her angrily away, making no ghost of a sound. The night +wore on, and still she slept. In his sleepless and bloodless brain +strangest thoughts and feelings went and came. The scents of old roses, +the stings of old sins, awoke and vanished, like the pulsing of +fire-flies. But even now he was the watcher of his own moods; and when +among the rest the thought would come: "What if this _should_ be my own +Juliet! Do not time and place agree with the possibility?" and for a +moment life seemed as if it would burst into the very madness of +delight, ever and again his common sense drove him to conclude that his +imagination was fooling him. He dared not yield to the intoxicating +idea. If he did, he would be like a man drinking poison, well knowing +that every sip, in itself a delight, brought him a step nearer to agony +and death! When she should wake, and he let the light fall upon her +face, he knew--so he said to himself--he _knew_ the likeness would +vanish in an appalling unlikeness, a mockery, a scoff of the whole night +and its lovely dream--in a face which, if beautiful as that of an angel, +not being Juliet's would be to him ugly, unnatural, a discord with the +music of his memory. Still the night was checkered with moments of +silvery bliss, in the indulgence of the mere, the known fancy of what it +would be if it _were_ she, vanishing ever in the reviving rebuke, that +he must nerve himself for the loss of that which the morning must +dispel. Yet, like one in a dream, who knows it is but a dream, and +scarce dares breathe lest he should break the mirrored ecstasy, he would +not carry the lamp to the bedside: no act of his should disperse the +airy flicker of the lovely doubt, not a movement, not a nearer glance, +until stern necessity should command. + +History knows well the tendency of things to repeat themselves. Similar +circumstances falling together must incline to the production of similar +consequent events. + +Toward morning Juliet awoke from her long sleep, but she had the vessel +of her brain too empty of the life of this world to recognize barely +that which was presented to her bodily vision. Over the march of two +worlds, that of her imagination, and that of fact, her soul hovered +fluttering, and blended the presentment of the two in the power of its +unity. + +The only thing she saw was the face of her husband, sadly lighted by the +dimmed lamp. It was some-distance away, near the middle of the room: it +seemed to her miles away, yet near enough to be addressed. It was a more +beautiful face now than ever before--than even then when first she took +it for the face of the Son of Man--more beautiful, and more like Him, +for it was more humane. Thin and pale with suffering, it was nowise +feeble, but the former self-sufficiency had vanished, and a still sorrow +had taken its place. + +He sat sunk in dim thought. A sound came that shook him as with an ague +fit. Even then he mastered his emotion, and sat still as a stone. Or was +it delight unmastered, and awe indefinable, that paralyzed him? He +dared not move lest he should break the spell. Were it fact, or were it +but yet further phantom play on his senses, it should unfold itself; not +with a sigh would he jar the unfolding, but, ear only, listen to the +end. In the utter stillness of the room, of the sleeping house, of the +dark, embracing night, he lay in famished wait for every word. + +"O Jesus," said the voice, as of one struggling with weariness, or one +who speaks her thoughts in a dream, imagining she reads from a book, a +gentle, tired voice--"O Jesus! after all, Thou art there! They told me +Thou wast dead, and gone nowhere! They said there never was such a One! +And there Thou art! O Jesus, what _am_ I to do? Art Thou going to do any +thing with me?--I wish I were a leper, or any thing that Thou wouldst +make clean! But how couldst Thou, for I never quite believed in Thee, +and never loved Thee before? And there was my Paul! oh, how I loved my +Paul! and _he_ wouldn't do it. I begged and begged him, for he was my +husband when I was alive--him to take me and make me clean, but he +wouldn't: he was too pure to pardon me. He let me lie in the dirt! It +was all right of him, but surely, Lord, Thou couldst afford to pity a +poor girl that hardly knew what she was doing. My heart is very sore, +and my whole body is ashamed, and I feel so stupid! Do help me if Thou +canst. I denied Thee, I know; but then I cared for nothing but my +husband; and the denial of a silly girl could not hurt Thee, if indeed +Thou art Lord of all worlds!--I know Thou wilt forgive me for that. But, +O Christ, please, if Thou canst any way do it, make me fit for Paul. +Tell him to beat me and forgive me.--O my Saviour, do not look at me so, +or I shall forget Paul himself, and die weeping for joy. Oh, my Lord! +Oh, my Paul!" + +For Paul had gently risen from his chair, and come one step +nearer--where he stood looking on her with such a smile as seldom has +been upon human face--a smile of unutterable sorrow, love, repentance, +hope. She gazed, speechless now, her spirit drinking in the vision of +that smile. It was like mountain air, like water, like wine, like +eternal life! It was forgiveness and peace from the Lord of all. And had +her brain been as clear as her heart, could she have taken it for less? +If the sinner forgave her, what did the Perfect? + +Paul dared not go nearer--partly from dread of the consequences of +increased emotion. Her lips began to move again, and her voice to +murmur, but he could distinguish only a word here and there. Slowly the +eyelids fell over the great dark eyes, the words dissolved into +syllables, the sounds ceased to be words at all, and vanished: her soul +had slipped away into some silent dream. + +Then at length he approached on tiptoe. For a few moments he stood and +gazed on the sleeping countenance--then dropped on his knees, and cried, + +"God, if Thou be anywhere, I thank Thee." + +Reader, who knowest better, do not mock him. Gently excuse him. His +brain was excited; there was a commotion in the particles of human +cauliflower; a rush of chemical changes and interchanges was going on; +the tide was setting for the vasty deep of marvel, which was nowhere but +within itself. And then he was in love with his wife, therefore open to +deceptions without end, for is not all love a longing after what never +was and never can be? + +He was beaten. But scorn him not for yielding. Think how he was beaten. +Could he help it that the life in him proved too much for the death with +which he had sided? Was it poltroonery to desert the cause of ruin for +that of growth? of essential slavery for ordered freedom? of +disintegration for vital and enlarging unity? He had "said to +corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my +sister;" but a Mightier than he, the Life that lighteth every man that +cometh into the world, had said, "O thou enemy, destruction shall have a +perpetual end;" and he could not stand against the life by which he +stood. When it comes to this, what can a man do? Remember he was a +created being--or, if you will not allow that, then something greatly +less. If not "loved into being" by a perfect Will, in his own image of +life and law, he had but a mother whom he never could see, because she +could never behold either herself or him: he was the offspring of the +dead, and must be pardoned if he gave a foolish cry after a parent worth +having. + +Wait, thou who countest such a cry a weak submission, until, having +refused to take thine hour with thee, thine hour overtakes thee: then +see if thou wilt stand out. Another's battle is easy. God only knows +with what earthquakes and thunders, that hour, on its way to find thee, +may level the mountains and valleys between. If thou wouldst be perfect +in the greatness of thy way, thou must learn to live in the fire of thy +own divine nature turned against thy conscious self: learn to smile +content in that, and thou wilt out-satan Satan in the putridity of +essential meanness, yea, self-satisfied in very virtue of thy shame, +thou wilt count it the throned apotheosis of inbred honor. But seeming +is not being--least of all self-seeming. Dishonor will yet be dishonor, +if all the fools in creation should be in love with it, and call it +glory. + +In an hour, Juliet woke again, vaguely remembering a heavenly dream, +whose odorous air yet lingered, and made her happy, she knew not why. +Then what a task would have been Faber's! For he must not go near her. +The balance of her life trembled on a knife-edge, and a touch might +incline it toward death. A sob might determine the doubt. + +But as soon as he saw sign that her sleep was beginning to break, he all +but extinguished the light, then having felt her pulse, listened to her +breathing, and satisfied himself generally of her condition, crept from +the room, and calling the nurse, told her to take his place. He would be +either in the next room, he said, or within call in the park. + +He threw himself on the bed, but could not rest: rose and had a bath; +listened at Juliet's door, and hearing no sound, went to the stable. +Niger greeted him with a neigh of pleasure. He made haste to saddle him, +his hands trembling so that he could hardly get the straps into the +girth buckles. + +"That's Niger!" said Juliet, hearing his whinny. "Is he come?" + +"Who, ma'am?" asked the nurse, a stranger to Glaston, of course. + +"The doctor--is he come?" + +"He's but just gone, ma'am. He's been sitting by you all night--would +let no one else come near you. Rather peculiar, in my opinion!" + +A soft flush, all the blood she could show, tinged her cheek. It was +Hope's own color--the reflection of a red rose from a white. + + + + +CHAPTER LIV. + +NOWHERE AND EVERYWHERE. + + +Faber sprung upon Niger's back, and galloped wildly through the park. +His soul was like a southern sea under a summer tornado. The slow dawn +was gathering under a smoky cloud with an edge of cold yellow; a thin +wind was abroad; rain had fallen in the night, and the grass was wet and +cool to Niger's hoofs; the earth sent up a savor, which like a soft warp +was crossed by a woof of sweet odors from leaf-buds and wild flowers, +and spangled here and there with a silver thread of bird song--for but +few of the beast-angels were awake yet. Through the fine consorting mass +of silence and odor, went the soft thunder of Niger's gallop over the +turf. His master's joy had overflowed into him: the creatures are not +all stupid that can not speak; some of them are _with us_ more than we +think. According to the grand old tale, God made his covenant with all +the beasts that came out of the ark as well as with Noah; for them also +he set his bow of hope in the cloud of fear; they are God's creatures, +God bless them! and if not exactly human, are, I think, something more +than _humanish_. Niger gave his soul with his legs to his master's mood +that morning. He was used to hard gallops with him across country, but +this was different; this was plainly a frolic, the first he had had +since he came into his service; and a frolic it should be! + +A deeper, loftier, lovelier morning was dawning in Faber's world unseen. +One dread burden was lifted from his being; his fierce pride, his +unmanly cruelty, his spotless selfishness, had not hunted a woman soul +quite into the moldy jaws of the grave; she was given back to him, to +tend, and heal, and love as he had never yet dreamed of loving! Endless +was the dawn that was breaking in him; unutterably sweet the joy. Life +was now to be lived--not endured. How he would nurse the lily he had +bruised and broken! From her own remorse he would shield her. He would +be to her a summer land--a refuge from the wind, a covert from the +tempest. He would be to her like that Saviour for whom, in her wandering +fancy, she had taken him: never more in vaguest thought would he turn +from her. If, in any evil mood, a thought unkind should dare glance back +at her past, he would clasp her the closer to his heart, the more to be +shielded that the shield itself was so poor. Once he laughed aloud as he +rode, to find himself actually wondering whether the story of the +resurrection _could_ be true; for what had the restoration of his Juliet +in common with the out-worn superstition? In any overwhelming joy, he +concluded, the heart leans to lovely marvel. + +But there is as much of the reasonable as of to us the marvelous in that +which alone has ever made credible proffer toward the filling of the +gulf whence issue all the groans of humanity. Let Him be tested by the +only test that can, on the supposition of His asserted nature, be +applied to Him--that of obedience to the words He has spoken--words that +commend themselves to every honest nature. Proof of other sort, if it +could be granted, would, leaving our natures where they were, only sink +us in condemnation. + +Why should I pursue the story further? and if not here, where better +should I stop? The true story has no end--no end. But endlessly dreary +would the story be, were there no Life living by its own will, no +perfect Will, one with an almighty heart, no Love in whom we live and +move and have our being. Offer me an eternity in all things else after +my own imagination, but without a perfect Father, and I say, no; let me +die, even as the unbelieving would have it. Not believing in the Father +of Jesus, they are _right_ in not desiring to live. Heartily do I +justify them therein. For all this talk and disputation about +immortality, wherein is regarded only the continuance of consciousness +beyond what we call death, it is to me, with whatever splendor of +intellectual coruscation it be accompanied, but little better than a +foolish babble, the crackling of thorns under a pot. Apart from Himself, +God forbid there should be any immortality. If it could be proved apart +from Him, then apart from Him it could be, and would be infinite +damnation. It is an impossibility, and were but an unmitigated evil. And +if it be impossible without Him, it can not be believed without Him: if +it could be proved without Him, the belief so gained would be an evil. +Only with the knowledge of the Father of Christ, did the endlessness of +being become a doctrine of bliss to men. If He be the first life, the +Author of his own, to speak after the language of men, and the origin +and source of all other life, it can be only by knowing Him that we can +know whether we shall live or die. Nay more, far more!--the knowledge +of Him by such innermost contact as is possible only between creator and +created, and possible only when the created has aspired to be one with +the will of the creator, such knowledge and such alone is life to the +created; it is the very life, that alone for the sake of which God +created us. If we are one with God in heart, in righteousness, in +desire, no death can touch us, for we are life, and the garment of +immortality, the endless length of days which is but the mere shadow of +the eternal, follows as a simple necessity: He is not the God of the +dead, or of the dying, but of the essentially alive. Without this inmost +knowledge of Him, this oneness with Him, we have no life in us, for _it +is life_, and that for the sake of which all this outward show of +things, and our troubled condition in the midst of them, exists. All +that is mighty, grand, harmonious, therefore in its own nature true, is. +If not, then dearly I thank the grim Death, that I shall die and not +live. Thus undeceived, my only terror would be that the unbelievers +might be but half right, and there might be a life, so-called, beyond +the grave without a God. + +My brother man, is the idea of a God too good or too foolish for thy +belief? or is it that thou art not great enough or humble enough to hold +it? In either case, I will believe it for thee and for me. Only be not +stiff-necked when the truth begins to draw thee: thou wilt find it hard +if she has to go behind and drive thee--hard to kick against the divine +goads, which, be thou ever so mulish, will be too much for thee at last. +Yea, the time will come when thou wilt goad thyself toward the divine. +But hear me this once more: the God, the Jesus, in whom I believe, are +not the God, the Jesus, in whom you fancy I believe: you know them not; +your idea of them is not mine. If you knew them you would believe in +them, for to know them is to believe in them. Say not, "Let Him teach +me, then," except you mean it in submissive desire; for He has been +teaching you all this time: if you have been doing His teaching, you are +on the way to learn more; if you hear and do not heed, where is the +wonder that the things I tell you sound in your ears as the muttering of +a dotard? They convey to you nothing, it may be: but that which makes of +them words--words--words, lies in you, not in me. Yours is the killing +power. They would bring you life, but the death in him that knoweth and +doeth not is strong; in your air they drop and die, winged things no +more. + +For days Faber took measures not to be seen by Juliet. But he was +constantly about the place, and when she woke from a sleep, they had +often to tell her that he had been by her side all the time she slept. +At night he was either in her room or in the next chamber. Dorothy used +to say to her that if she wanted her husband, she had only to go to +sleep. She was greatly tempted to pretend, but would not. + +At length Faber requested Dorothy to tell Juliet that the doctor said +she might send for her husband when she pleased. Much as he longed to +hear her voice, he would not come without her permission. + +He was by her side the next moment. But for minutes not a word was +spoken; a speechless embrace was all. + +It does not concern me to relate how by degrees they came to a close +understanding. Where love is, everything is easy, or, if not easy, yet +to be accomplished. Of course Faber made his return confession in full. +I will not say that Juliet had not her respondent pangs of retrospective +jealousy. Love, although an angel, has much to learn yet, and the demon +Jealousy may be one of the school masters of her coming perfection: God +only knows. There must be a divine way of casting out the demon; else +how would it be here-after? + +Unconfessed to each other, their falls would forever have been between +to part them; confessed, they drew them together in sorrow and humility +and mutual consoling. The little Amanda could not tell whether Juliet's +house or Dorothy's was her home: when at the one, she always talked of +the other as _home_. She called her father _papa_, and Juliet _mamma_; +Dorothy had been _auntie_ from the first. She always wrote her name, +_Amanda Duck Faber_. From all this the gossips of Glaston explained +everything satisfactorily: Juliet had left her husband on discovering +that he had a child of whose existence he had never told her; but +learning that the mother was dead, yielded at length, and was +reconciled. That was the nearest they ever came to the facts, and it was +not needful they should ever know more. The talkers of the world are not +on the jury of the court of the universe. There are many, doubtless, who +need the shame of a public exposure to make them recognize their own +doing for what it is; but of such Juliet had not been. Her husband knew +her fault--that was enough: he knew also his own immeasurably worse than +hers, but when they folded each other to the heart, they left their +faults outside--as God does, when He casts our sins behind His back, in +utter uncreation. + +I will say nothing definite as to the condition of mind at which Faber +had arrived when last Wingfold and he had a talk together. He was +growing, and that is all we can require of any man. He would not say he +was a believer in the supernal, but he believed more than he said, and +he never talked against belief. Also he went as often as he could to +church, which, little as it means in general, did not mean little when +the man was Paul Faber, and where the minister was Thomas Wingfold. + +It is time for the end. Here it is--in a little poem, which, on her next +birthday, the curate gave Dorothy: + + O wind of God, that blowest in the mind, + Blow, blow and wake the gentle spring in me; + Blow, swifter blow, a strong, warm summer wind, + Till all the flowers with eyes come out to see; + Blow till the fruit hangs red on every tree, + And our high-soaring song-larks meet thy dove-- + High the imperfect soars, descends the perfect Love. + + Blow not the less though winter cometh then; + Blow, wind of God, blow hither changes keen; + Let the spring creep into the ground again, + The flowers close all their eyes, not to be seen: + All lives in thee that ever once hath been: + Blow, fill my upper air with icy storms; + Breathe cold, O wind of God, and kill my canker-worms. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Paul Faber, Surgeon, by George MacDonald + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12387 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..313563e --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #12387 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12387) diff --git a/old/12387-8.txt b/old/12387-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ddc8d61 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12387-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,17076 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Paul Faber, Surgeon, by George MacDonald + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Paul Faber, Surgeon + +Author: George MacDonald + +Release Date: May 20, 2004 [EBook #12387] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PAUL FABER, SURGEON *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + +[Illustration: PAUL FABER.] + + + + +PAUL FABER, SURGEON + +BY GEORGE MACDONALD + + + + +1900 + + + + +CONTENTS. + +CHAP. + + I. THE LANE + II. THE MINISTER'S DOOR + III. THE MANOR HOUSE + IV. THE RECTORY + V. THE ROAD TO OWLKIRK + VI. THE COTTAGE + VII. THE PULPIT + VIII. THE MANOR HOUSE DINING-ROOM + IX. THE RECTORY DRAWING-ROOM + X. MR. DRAKE'S ARBOR + XI. THE CHAMBER AT THE COTTAGE + XII. THE MINISTER'S GARDEN + XIII. THE HEATH AT NESTLEY + XIV. THE GARDEN AT OWLKIRK + XV. THE PARLOR AT OWLKIRK + XVI. THE BUTCHER'S SHOP + XVII. THE PARLOR AGAIN + XVIII. THE PARK AT NESTLEY + XIX. THE RECTORY + XX. AT THE PIANO + XXI. THE PASTOR'S STUDY + XXII. TWO MINDS + XXIII. THE MINISTER'S BEDROOM + XXIV. JULIET'S CHAMBER + XXV. OSTERFIELD PARK + XXVI. THE SURGERY DOOR + XXVII. THE GROANS OF THE INARTICULATE + XXVIII. COW-LANE CHAPEL + XXIX. THE DOCTOR'S HOUSE + XXX. THE PONY-CARRIAGE + XXXI. A CONSCIENCE + XXXII. THE OLD HOUSE AT GLASTON + XXXIII. PAUL FABER'S DRESSING-ROOM + XXXIV. THE BOTTOMLESS POOL + XXXV. A HEART + XXXVI. TWO MORE MINDS + XXXVII. THE DOCTOR'S STUDY +XXXVIII. THE MIND OF JULIET + XXXIX. ANOTHER MIND + XL. A DESOLATION + XLI. THE OLD GARDEN + XLII. THE POTTERY + XLIII. THE GATE-LODGE + XLIV. THE CORNER OF THE BUTCHER'S SHOP + XLV. HERE AND THERE + XLVI. THE MINISTER'S STUDY + XLVII. THE BLOWING OF THE WIND + XLVIII. THE BORDER-LAND + XLIX. EMPTY HOUSES + L. FALLOW FIELDS + LI. THE NEW OLD HOUSE + LII. THE LEVEL OF THE LYTHE + LIII. MY LADY'S CHAMBER + LIV. NOWHERE AND EVERYWHERE + + + + +TO + +W.C.T. + +TUUM EST. + + Clear-windowed temple of the God of grace, + From the loud wind to me a hiding-place! + Thee gird broad lands with genial motions rife, + But in thee dwells, high-throned, the Life of life + Thy test no stagnant moat half-filled with mud, + But living waters witnessing in flood! + Thy priestess, beauty-clad, and gospel-shod, + A fellow laborer in the earth with God! + Good will art thou, and goodness all thy arts-- + Doves to their windows, and to thee fly hearts! + Take of the corn in thy dear shelter grown, + Which else the storm had all too rudely blown; + When to a higher temple thou shalt mount, + Thy earthly gifts in heavenly friends shall count; + Let these first-fruits enter thy lofty door, + And golden lie upon thy golden floor. + +G.M.D. + +PORTO FINO, _December_, 1878. + + + + +PAUL FABER. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE LANE. + + +The rector sat on the box of his carriage, driving his horses toward his +church, the grand old abbey-church of Glaston. His wife was inside, and +an old woman--he had stopped on the road to take her up--sat with her +basket on the foot-board behind. His coachman sat beside him; he never +took the reins when his master was there. Mr. Bevis drove like a +gentleman, in an easy, informal, yet thoroughly business-like way. His +horses were black--large, well-bred, and well-fed, but neither young nor +showy, and the harness was just the least bit shabby. Indeed, the entire +turnout, including his own hat and the coachman's, offered the beholder +that aspect of indifference to show, which, by the suggestion of a +nodding acquaintance with poverty, gave it the right clerical air of +being not of this world. Mrs. Bevis had her basket on the seat before +her, containing, beneath an upper stratum of flowers, some of the first +rhubarb of the season and a pound or two of fresh butter for a poor +relation in the town. + +The rector was a man about sixty, with keen gray eyes, a good-humored +mouth, a nose whose enlargement had not of late gone in the direction of +its original design, and a face more than inclining to the rubicund, +suggestive of good living as well as open air. Altogether he had the +look of a man who knew what he was about, and was on tolerable terms +with himself, and on still better with his neighbor. The heart under his +ribs was larger even than indicated by the benevolence of his +countenance and the humor hovering over his mouth. Upon the countenance +of his wife rested a placidity sinking almost into fatuity. Its features +were rather indications than completions, but there was a consciousness +of comfort about the mouth, and the eyes were alive. + +They were passing at a good speed through a varying country--now a +thicket of hazel, now great patches of furze upon open common, and anon +well-kept farm-hedges, and clumps of pine, the remnants of ancient +forest, when, halfway through a lane so narrow that the rector felt +every yard toward the other end a gain, his horses started, threw up +their heads, and looked for a moment wild as youth. Just in front of +them, in the air, over a high hedge, scarce touching the topmost twigs +with his hoofs, appeared a great red horse. Down he came into the road, +bringing with him a rather tall, certainly handsome, and even at first +sight, attractive rider. A dark brown mustache upon a somewhat smooth +sunburned face, and a stern settling of the strong yet delicately +finished features gave him a military look; but the sparkle of his blue +eyes contradicted his otherwise cold expression. He drew up close to the +hedge to make room for the carriage, but as he neared him Mr. Bevis +slackened his speed, and during the following talk they were moving +gently along with just room for the rider to keep clear of the off fore +wheel. + +"Heigh, Faber," said the clergyman, "you'll break your neck some day! +You should think of your patients, man. That wasn't a jump for any man +in his senses to take." + +"It is but fair to give my patients a chance now and then," returned the +surgeon, who never met the rector but there was a merry passage between +them. + +"Upon my word," said Mr. Bevis, "when you came over the hedge there, I +took you for Death in the Revelations, that had tired out his own and +changed horses with t'other one." + +As he spoke, he glanced back with a queer look, for he found himself +guilty of a little irreverence, and his conscience sat behind him in the +person of his wife. But that conscience was a very easy one, being +almost as incapable of seeing a joke as of refusing a request. + +"--How many have you bagged this week?" concluded the rector. + +"I haven't counted up yet," answered the surgeon. "--_You_'ve got one +behind, I see," he added, signing with his whip over his shoulder. + +"Poor old thing!" said the rector, as if excusing himself, "she's got a +heavy basket, and we all need a lift sometimes--eh, doctor?--into the +world and out again, at all events." + +There was more of the reflective in this utterance than the parson was +in the habit of displaying; but he liked the doctor, and, although as +well as every one else he knew him to be no friend to the church, or to +Christianity, or even to religious belief of any sort, his liking, +coupled with a vague sense of duty, had urged him to this most +unassuming attempt to cast the friendly arm of faith around the +unbeliever. + +"I plead guilty to the former," answered Faber, "but somehow I have +never practiced the euthanasia. The instincts of my profession, I +suppose are against it. Besides, that ought to be your business." + +"Not altogether," said the rector, with a kindly look from his box, +which, however, only fell on the top of the doctor's hat. + +Faber seemed to feel the influence of it notwithstanding, for he +returned, + +"If all clergymen were as liberal as you, Mr. Bevis, there would be more +danger of some of us giving in." + +The word _liberal_ seemed to rouse the rector to the fact that his +coachman sat on the box, yet another conscience, beside him. _Sub divo_ +one must not be _too_ liberal. There was a freedom that came out better +over a bottle of wine than over the backs of horses. With a word he +quickened the pace of his cleric steeds, and the doctor was dropped +parallel with the carriage window. There, catching sight of Mrs. Bevis, +of whose possible presence he had not thought once, he paid his +compliments, and made his apologies, then trotted his gaunt Ruber again +beside the wheel, and resumed talk, but not the same talk, with the +rector. For a few minutes it turned upon the state of this and that +ailing parishioner; for, while the rector left all the duties of public +service to his curate, he ministered to the ailing and poor upon and +immediately around his own little property, which was in that corner of +his parish furthest from the town; but ere long, as all talk was sure to +do between the parson and any body who owned but a donkey, it veered +round in a certain direction. + +"You don't seem to feed that horse of yours upon beans, Faber," he said. + +"I don't seem, I grant," returned the doctor; "but you should see him +feed! He eats enough for two, but he _can't_ make fat: all goes to +muscle and pluck." + +"Well, I must allow the less fat he has to carry the better, if you're +in the way of heaving him over such hedges on to the hard road. In my +best days I should never have faced a jump like that in cold blood," +said the rector. + +"I've got no little belongings of wife or child to make a prudent man of +me, you see," returned the surgeon. "At worst it's but a knock on the +head and a longish snooze." + +The rector fancied he felt his wife's shudder shake the carriage, but +the sensation was of his own producing. The careless defiant words +wrought in him an unaccountable kind of terror: it seemed almost as if +they had rushed of themselves from his own lips. + +"Take care, my dear sir," he said solemnly. "There may be something to +believe, though you don't believe it." + +"I must take the chance," replied Faber. "I will do my best to make +calamity of long life, by keeping the rheumatic and epileptic and +phthisical alive, while I know how. Where nothing _can_ be known, I +prefer not to intrude." + +A pause followed. At length said the rector, + +"You are so good a fellow, Faber, I wish you were better. When will you +come and dine with me?" + +"Soon, I hope," answered the surgeon, "but I am too busy at present. For +all her sweet ways and looks, the spring is not friendly to man, and my +work is to wage war with nature." + +A second pause followed. The rector would gladly have said something, +but nothing would come. + +"By the by," he said at length, "I thought I saw you pass the gate--let +me see--on Monday: why did you not look in?" + +"I hadn't a moment's time. I was sent for to a patient in the village." + +"Yes, I know; I heard of that. I wish you would give me your impression +of the lady. She is a stranger here.--John, that gate is swinging across +the road. Get down and shut it.--Who and what is she?" + +"That I should be glad to learn from you. All I know is that she is a +lady. There can not be two opinions as to that." + +"They tell me she is a beauty," said the parson. + +The doctor nodded his head emphatically. + +"Haven't you seen her?" he said. + +"Scarcely--only her back. She walks well. Do you know nothing about her? +Who has she with her?" + +"Nobody." + +"Then Mrs. Bevis shall call upon her." + +"I think at present she had better not. Mrs. Puckridge is a good old +soul, and pays her every attention." + +"What is the matter with her? Nothing infectious?" + +"Oh, no! She has caught a chill. I was afraid of pneumonia yesterday." + +"Then she is better?" + +"I confess I am a little anxious about her. But I ought not to be +dawdling like this, with half my patients to see. I must bid you good +morning.--Good morning, Mrs. Bevis." + +As he spoke, Faber drew rein, and let the carriage pass; then turned his +horse's head to the other side of the way, scrambled up the steep bank +to the field above, and galloped toward Glaston, whose great church rose +high in sight. Over hedge and ditch he rode straight for its tower. + +"The young fool!" said the rector, looking after him admiringly, and +pulling up his horses that he might more conveniently see him ride. + +"Jolly old fellow!" said the surgeon at his second jump. "I wonder how +much he believes now of all the rot! Enough to humbug himself with--not +a hair more. He has no passion for humbugging other people. There's that +curate of his now believes every thing, and would humbug the whole world +if he could! How any man can come to fool himself so thoroughly as that +man does, is a mystery to me!--I wonder what the rector's driving into +Glaston for on a Saturday." + +Paul Faber was a man who had espoused the cause of science with all the +energy of a suppressed poetic nature. He had such a horror of all kinds +of intellectual deception or mistake, that he would rather run the risk +of rejecting any number of truths than of accepting one error. In this +spirit he had concluded that, as no immediate communication had ever +reached his eye, or ear, or hand from any creator of men, he had no +ground for believing in the existence of such a creator; while a +thousand unfitnesses evident in the world, rendered the existence of one +perfectly wise and good and powerful, absolutely impossible. If one said +to him that he believed thousands of things he had never himself known, +he answered he did so upon testimony. If one rejoined that here too we +have testimony, he replied it was not credible testimony, but founded on +such experiences as he was justified in considering imaginary, seeing +they were like none he had ever had himself. When he was asked whether, +while he yet believed there was such a being as his mother told him of, +he had ever set himself to act upon that belief, he asserted himself +fortunate in the omission of what might have riveted on him the fetters +of a degrading faith. For years he had turned his face toward all +speculation favoring the non-existence of a creating Will, his back +toward all tending to show that such a one might be. Argument on the +latter side he set down as born of prejudice, and appealing to weakness; +on the other, as springing from courage, and appealing to honesty. He +had never put it to himself which would be the worse deception--to +believe there was a God when there was none; or to believe there was no +God when there was one. + +He had, however, a large share of the lower but equally indispensable +half of religion--that, namely, which has respect to one's fellows. Not +a man in Glaston was readier, by day or by night, to run to the help of +another, and that not merely in his professional capacity, but as a +neighbor, whatever the sort of help was needed. + +Thomas Wingfold, the curate, had a great respect for him. Having himself +passed through many phases of serious, and therefore painful doubt, he +was not as much shocked by the surgeon's unbelief as some whose real +faith was even less than Faber's; but he seldom laid himself out to +answer his objections. He sought rather, but as yet apparently in vain, +to cause the roots of those very objections to strike into, and thus +disclose to the man himself, the deeper strata of his being. This might +indeed at first only render him the more earnest in his denials, but at +length it would probably rouse in him that spiritual nature to which +alone such questions really belong, and which alone is capable of coping +with them. The first notable result, however, of the surgeon's +intercourse with the curate was, that, whereas he had till then kept his +opinions to himself in the presence of those who did not sympathize with +them, he now uttered his disbelief with such plainness as I have shown +him using toward the rector. This did not come of aggravated antagonism, +but of admiration of the curate's openness in the presentment of truths +which must be unacceptable to the majority of his congregation. + +There had arisen therefore betwixt the doctor and the curate a certain +sort of intimacy, which had at length come to the rector's ears. He had, +no doubt, before this heard many complaints against the latter, but he +had laughed them aside. No theologian himself, he had found the +questions hitherto raised in respect of Wingfold's teaching, altogether +beyond the pale of his interest. He could not comprehend why people +should not content themselves with being good Christians, minding their +own affairs, going to church, and so feeling safe for the next world. +What did opinion matter as long as they were good Christians? He did not +exactly know what he believed himself, but he hoped he was none the less +of a Christian for that! Was it not enough to hold fast whatever lay in +the apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian creed, without splitting +metaphysical hairs with your neighbor? But was it decent that his curate +should be hand and glove with one who denied the existence of God? He +did not for a moment doubt the faith of Wingfold; but a man must have +some respect for appearances: appearances were facts as well as +realities were facts. An honest man must not keep company with a thief, +if he would escape the judgment of being of thievish kind. Something +must be done; probably something said would be enough, and the rector +was now on his way to say it. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE MINISTER'S DOOR. + + +Every body knew Mr. Faber, whether he rode Ruber or Niger--Rubber and +Nigger, his groom called them--and many were the greetings that met him +as he passed along Pine Street, for, despite the brand of his atheism, +he was popular. The few ladies out shopping bowed graciously, for both +his manners and person were pleasing, and his professional attentions +were unexceptionable. When he dropped into a quick walk, to let Ruber +cool a little ere he reached his stall, he was several times accosted +and detained. The last who addressed him was Mr. Drew, the principal +draper of the town. He had been standing for some time in his shop-door, +but as Faber was about to turn the corner, he stepped out on the +pavement, and the doctor checked his horse in the gutter. + +"I wish you would look in upon Mr. Drake, sir," he said. "I am quite +uneasy about him. Indeed I am sure he must be in a bad way, though he +won't allow it. He's not an easy man to do any thing for, but just you +let me know what _can_ be done for him--and we'll contrive. A _nod_, you +know, doctor, etc." + +"I don't well see how I can," returned Faber. "To call now without being +sent for, when I never called before!--No, Mr. Drew, I don't think I +could." + +It was a lovely spring noon. The rain that had fallen heavily during the +night lay in flashing pools that filled the street with suns. Here and +there were little gardens before the houses, and the bushes in them were +hung with bright drops, so bright that the rain seemed to have fallen +from the sun himself, not from the clouds. + +"Why, goodness gracious!" cried the draper, "here's your excuse come +direct!" + +Under the very nose of the doctor's great horse stood a little +woman-child, staring straight up at the huge red head above her. Now +Ruber was not quite gentle, and it was with some dismay that his master, +although the animal showed no offense at the glowering little thing, +pulled him back a step or two with the curb, the thought darting through +him how easily with one pash of his mighty hoof the horse could +annihilate a mirrored universe. + +"Where from?" he asked, by what he would himself have called a +half-conscious cerebration. + +"From somewhere they say you don't believe in, doctor," answered the +draper. "It's little Amanda, the minister's own darling--Naughty little +dear!" he continued, his round good-humored face wrinkled all over with +smiles, as he caught up the truant, "what ever do you mean by splashing +through every gutter between home and here, making a little drab of +yourself? Why your frock is as wet as a dish-clout!--_and_ your shoes! +My gracious!" + +The little one answered only by patting his cheeks, which in shape much +resembled her own, with her little fat puds, as if she had been beating +a drum, while Faber looked down amused and interested. + +"Here, doctor!" the draper went on, "you take the little mischief on the +saddle before you, and carry her home: that will be your excuse." + +As he spoke he held up the child to him. Faber took her, and sitting as +far back in the saddle as he could, set her upon the pommel. She +screwed up her eyes, and grinned with delight, spreading her mouth wide, +and showing an incredible number of daintiest little teeth. When Ruber +began to move she shrieked in her ecstasy. + +Holding his horse to a walk, the doctor crossed the main street and went +down a side one toward the river, whence again he entered a narrow lane. +There with the handle of his whip he managed to ring the door-bell of a +little old-fashioned house which rose immediately from the lane without +even a footpath between. The door was opened by a lady-like young +woman, with smooth soft brown hair, a white forehead, and serious, +rather troubled eyes. + +"Aunty! aunty!" cried the child, "Ducky 'iding!" + +Miss Drake looked a little surprised. The doctor lifted his hat. She +gravely returned his greeting and stretched up her arms to take the +child. But she drew back, nestling against Faber. + +"Amanda! come, dear," said Miss Drake. "How kind of Dr. Faber to bring +you home! I'm afraid you've been a naughty child again--running out into +the street." + +"Such a g'eat 'ide!" cried Amanda, heedless of reproof. "A yeal +'ossy--big! big!" + +She spread her arms wide, in indication of the vastness of the upbearing +body whereon she sat. But still she leaned back against the doctor, and +he awaited the result in amused silence. Again her aunt raised her hands +to take her. + +"Mo' 'yide!" cried the child, looking up backward, to find Faber's eyes. + +But her aunt caught her by the feet, and amid struggling and laughter +drew her down, and held her in her arms. + +"I hope your father is pretty well, Miss Drake," said the doctor, +wasting no time in needless explanation. + +"Ducky," said the girl, setting down the child, "go and tell grandpapa +how kind Dr. Faber has been to you. Tell him he is at the door." Then +turning to Faber, "I am sorry to say he does not seem at all well," she +answered him. "He has had a good deal of annoyance lately, and at his +age that sort of thing tells." + +As she spoke she looked up at the doctor, full in his face, but with a +curious quaver in her eyes. Nor was it any wonder she should look at him +strangely, for she felt toward him very strangely: to her he was as it +were the apostle of a kakangel, the prophet of a doctrine that was +evil, yet perhaps was a truth. Terrible doubts had for some time been +assailing her--doubts which she could in part trace to him, and as he +sat there on Ruber, he looked like a beautiful evil angel, who _knew_ +there was no God--an evil angel whom the curate, by his bold speech, had +raised, and could not banish. + +The surgeon had scarcely begun a reply, when the old minister made his +appearance. He was a tall, well-built man, with strong features, rather +handsome than otherwise; but his hat hung on his occiput, gave his head +a look of weakness and oddity that by nature did not belong to it, while +baggy, ill-made clothes and big shoes manifested a reaction from the +over-trimness of earlier years. He greeted the doctor with a severe +smile. + +"I am much obliged to you, Mr. Faber," he said, "for bringing me home my +little runaway. Where did you find her?" + +"Under my horse's head, like the temple between the paws of the Sphinx," +answered Faber, speaking a parable without knowing it. + +"She is a fearless little damsel," said the minister, in a husky voice +that had once rung clear as a bell over crowded congregations--"too +fearless at times. But the very ignorance of danger seems the panoply of +childhood. And indeed who knows in the midst of what evils we all walk +that never touch us!" + +"A Solon of platitudes!" said the doctor to himself. + +"She has been in the river once, and almost twice," Mr. Drake went on. +"--I shall have to tie you with a string, pussie! Come away from the +horse. What if he should take to stroking you? I am afraid you would +find his hands both hard and heavy." + +"How do you stand this trying spring weather, Mr. Drake? I don't hear +the best accounts of you," said the surgeon, drawing Ruber a pace back +from the door. + +"I am as well as at my age I can perhaps expect to be," answered the +minister. "I am getting old--and--and--we all have our troubles, and, I +trust, our God also, to set them right for us," he added, with a +suggesting look in the face of the doctor. + +"By Jove!" said Faber to himself, "the spring weather has roused the +worshiping instinct! The clergy are awake to-day! I had better look out, +or it will soon be too hot for me." + +"I can't look you in the face, doctor," resumed the old man after a +pause, "and believe what people say of you. It can't be that you don't +even believe there _is_ a God?" + +Faber would rather have said nothing; but his integrity he must keep +fast hold of, or perish in his own esteem. + +"If there be one," he replied, "I only state a fact when I say He has +never given me ground sufficient to think so. You say yourselves He has +favorites to whom He reveals Himself: I am not one of them, and must +therefore of necessity be an unbeliever." + +"But think, Mr. Faber--if there should be a God, what an insult it is to +deny Him existence." + +"I can't see it," returned the surgeon, suppressing a laugh. "If there +be such a one, would He not have me speak the truth? Anyhow, what great +matter can it be to Him that one should say he has never seen Him, and +can't therefore believe He is to be seen? A god should be above that +sort of pride." + +The minister was too much shocked to find any answer beyond a sad +reproving shake of the head. But he felt almost as if the hearing of +such irreverence without withering retort, made him a party to the sin +against the Holy Ghost. Was he not now conferring with one of the +generals of the army of Antichrist? Ought he not to turn his back upon +him, and walk into the house? But a surge of concern for the frank young +fellow who sat so strong and alive upon the great horse, broke over his +heart, and he looked up at him pitifully. + +Faber mistook the cause and object of his evident emotion. + +"Come now, Mr. Drake, be frank with me," he said. "You are out of +health; let me know what is the matter. Though I'm not religious, I'm +not a humbug, and only speak the truth when I say I should be glad to +serve you. A man must be neighborly, or what is there left of him? Even +you will allow that our duty to our neighbor is half the law, and there +is some help in medicine, though I confess it is no science yet, and we +are but dabblers." + +"But," said Mr. Drake, "I don't choose to accept the help of one who +looks upon all who think with me as a set of humbugs, and regards those +who deny every thing as the only honest men." + +"By Jove! sir, I take you for an honest man, or I should never trouble +my head about you. What I say of such as you is, that, having inherited +a lot of humbug, you don't know it for such, and do the best you can +with it." + +"If such is your opinion of me--and I have no right to complain of it in +my own person--I should just like to ask you one question about +another," said Mr. Drake: "Do you in your heart believe that Jesus +Christ was an impostor?" + +"I believe, if the story about him be true, that he was a well-meaning +man, enormously self-deceived." + +"Your judgment seems to me enormously illogical. That any ordinarily +good man should so deceive himself, appears to my mind altogether +impossible and incredible." + +"Ah! but he was an extraordinarily good man." + +"Therefore the more likely to think too much of himself?" + +"Why not? I see the same thing in his followers all about me." + +"Doubtless the servant shall be as his master," said the minister, and +closed his mouth, resolved to speak no more. But his conscience woke, +and goaded him with the truth that had come from the mouth of its +enemy--the reproach his disciples brought upon their master, for, in the +judgment of the world, the master is as his disciples. + +"You Christians," the doctor went on, "seem to me to make yourselves, +most unnecessarily, the slaves of a fancied ideal. I have no such ideal +to contemplate; yet I am not aware that you do better by each other than +I am ready to do for any man. I can't pretend to love every body, but I +do my best for those I can help. Mr. Drake, I would gladly serve you." + +The old man said nothing. His mood was stormy. Would he accept life +itself from the hand of him who denied his Master?--seek to the powers +of darkness for cure?--kneel to Antichrist for favor, as if he and not +Jesus were lord of life and death? Would _he_ pray a man to whom the +Bible was no better than a book of ballads, to come betwixt him and the +evils of growing age and disappointment, to lighten for him the +grasshopper, and stay the mourners as they went about his streets! He +had half turned, and was on the point of walking silent into the house, +when he bethought himself of the impression it would make on the +unbeliever, if he were thus to meet the offer of his kindness. Half +turned, he stood hesitating. + +"I have a passion for therapeutics," persisted the doctor; "and if I +can do any thing to ease the yoke upon the shoulders of my fellows--" + +Mr. Drake did not hear the end of the sentence: he heard instead, +somewhere in his soul, a voice saying, "My yoke is easy, and my burden +is light." He _could_ not let Faber help him. + +"Doctor, you have the great gift of a kind heart," he began, still half +turned from him. + +"My heart is like other people's," interrupted Faber. "If a man wants +help, and I've got it, what more natural than that we should come +together?" + +There was in the doctor an opposition to every thing that had if it were +but the odor of religion about it, which might well have suggested doubt +of his own doubt, and weakness buttressing itself with assertion But the +case was not so. What untruth there was in him was of another and more +subtle kind. Neither must it be supposed that he was a propagandist, a +proselytizer. Say nothing, and the doctor said nothing. Fire but a +saloon pistol, however, and off went a great gun in answer--with no +bravado, for the doctor was a gentleman. + +"Mr. Faber," said the minister, now turning toward him, and looking him +full in the face, "if you had a friend whom you loved with all your +heart, would you be under obligation to a man who counted your +friendship a folly?" + +"The cases are not parallel. Say the man merely did not believe your +friend was alive, and there could be no insult to either." + +"If the denial of his being in life, opened the door to the greatest +wrongs that could be done him--and if that denial seemed to me to have +its source in some element of moral antagonism to him--_could_ I +accept--I put it to yourself, Mr. Faber--_could_ I accept assistance +from that man? Do not take it ill. You prize honesty; so do I: ten times +rather would I cease to live than accept life at the hand of an enemy to +my Lord and Master." + +"I am very sorry, Mr. Drake," said the doctor; "but from your point of +view I suppose you are right. Good morning." + +He turned Ruber from the minister's door, went off quickly, and entered +his own stable-yard just as the rector's carriage appeared at the +further end of the street. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE MANOR HOUSE. + + +Mr. Bevis drove up to the inn, threw the reins to his coachman, got +down, and helped his wife out of the carriage. Then they parted, she to +take her gift of flowers and butter to her poor relation, he to call +upon Mrs. Ramshorn. + +That lady, being, as every body knew, the widow of a dean, considered +herself the chief ecclesiastical authority in Glaston. Her acknowledged +friends would, if pressed, have found themselves compelled to admit that +her theology was both scanty and confused, that her influence was not of +the most elevating nature, and that those who doubted her personal piety +might have something to say in excuse of their uncharitableness; but she +spoke in the might of the matrimonial nimbus around her head, and her +claims were undisputed in Glaston. There was a propriety, springing from +quite another source, however, in the rector's turning his footsteps +first toward the Manor House, where she resided. For his curate, whom +his business in Glaston that Saturday concerned, had, some nine or ten +months before, married Mrs. Ramshorn's niece, Helen Lingard by name, who +for many years had lived with her aunt, adding, if not to the comforts +of the housekeeping, for Mrs. Ramshorn was plentifully enough provided +for the remnant of her abode in this world, yet considerably to the +style of her menage. Therefore, when all of a sudden, as it seemed, the +girl calmly insisted on marrying the curate, a man obnoxious to every +fiber of her aunt's ecclesiastical nature, and transferring to him, with +a most unrighteous scorn of marriage-settlements, the entire property +inherited from her father and brother, the disappointment of Mrs. +Ramshorn in her niece was equaled only by her disgust at the object of +her choice. + +With a firm, dignified step, as if he measured the distance, the rector +paced the pavement between the inn and the Manor House. He knew of no +cause for the veiling of an eyelash before human being. It was true he +had closed his eyes to certain faults in the man of good estate and old +name who had done him the honor of requesting the hand of his one +child, and, leaving her to judge for herself, had not given her the +knowledge which might have led her to another conclusion; it had +satisfied him that the man's wild oats were sown: after the crop he made +no inquiry. It was also true that he had not mentioned a certain vice in +the last horse he sold; but then he hoped the severe measures taken had +cured him. He was aware that at times he took a few glasses of port more +than he would have judged it proper to carry to the pulpit or the +communion table, for those he counted the presence of his Maker; but +there was a time for every thing. He was conscious to himself, I repeat, +of nothing to cause him shame, and in the tramp of his boots there was +certainly no self-abasement. It was true he performed next to none of +the duties of the rectorship--but then neither did he turn any of its +income to his own uses; part he paid his curate, and the rest he laid +out on the church, which might easily have consumed six times the amount +in desirable, if not absolutely needful repairs. What further question +could be made of the matter? the church had her work done, and one of +her most precious buildings preserved from ruin to the bargain. How +indignant he would have been at the suggestion that he was after all +only an idolater, worshiping what he called _The Church_, instead of the +Lord Christ, the heart-inhabiting, world-ruling king of heaven! But he +was a very good sort of idolater, and some of the Christian graces had +filtered through the roofs of the temple upon him--eminently those of +hospitality and general humanity--even uprightness so far as his light +extended; so that he did less to obstruct the religion he thought he +furthered, than some men who preach it as on the house-tops. + +It was from policy, not from confidence in Mrs. Ramshorn, that he went +to her first. He liked his curate, and every one knew she hated him. If, +of any thing he did, two interpretations were possible--one good, and +one bad, there was no room for a doubt as to which she would adopt and +publish. Not even to herself, however, did she allow that one chief +cause of her hatred was, that, having all her life been used to a pair +of horses, she had now to put up with only a brougham. + +To the brass knocker on her door, the rector applied himself, and sent a +confident announcement of his presence through the house. Almost +instantly the long-faced butler, half undertaker, half parish-clerk, +opened the door; and seeing the rector, drew it wide to the wall, +inviting him to step into the library, as he had no doubt Mrs. Ramshorn +would be at home to _him_. Nor was it long ere she appeared, in rather +youthful morning dress, and gave him a hearty welcome; after which, by +no very wide spirals of descent, the talk swooped presently upon the +curate. + +"The fact is," at length said the memorial shadow of the dean deceased, +"Mr. Wingfold is not a gentleman. It grieves me to say so of the husband +of my niece, who has been to me as my own child, but the truth must be +spoken. It may be difficult to keep such men out of holy orders, but if +ever the benefices of the church come to be freely bestowed upon them, +that moment the death-bell of religion is rung in England. My late +husband said so. While such men keep to barns and conventicles we can +despise them, but when they creep into the fold, then there is just +cause for alarm. The longer I live, the better I see my poor husband was +right." + +"I should scarcely have thought such a man as you describe could have +captivated Helen," said the rector with a smile. + +"Depend upon it she perceives her mistake well enough by this time," +returned Mrs. Ramshorn. "A lady born and bred _must_ make the discovery +before a week is over. But poor Helen always was headstrong! And in this +out-of-the-world place she saw so little of gentlemen!" + +The rector could not help thinking birth and breeding must go for little +indeed, if nothing less than marriage could reveal to a lady that a man +was not a gentleman. + +"Nobody knows," continued Mrs. Ramshorn, "who or what his father--not to +say his grandfather, was! But would you believe it! when I asked her +_who_ the man was, having a right to information concerning the person +she was about to connect with the family, she told me she had never +thought of inquiring. I pressed it upon her as a duty she owed to +society; she told me she was content with the man himself, and was not +going to ask him about his family. She would wait till they were +married! Actually, on my word as a lady, she said so, Mr. Bevis! What +could I do? She was of age, and independent fortune. And as to +gratitude, I know the ways of the world too well to look for that." + +"We old ones"--Mrs. Ramshorn bridled a little: she was only +fifty-seven!--"have had our turn, and theirs is come," said the rector +rather inconsequently. + +"And a pretty mess they are like to make of it!--what with infidelity +and blasphemy--I must say it--blasphemy!--Really you must do something, +Mr. Bevis. Things have arrived at such a pass that, I give you my word, +reflections not a few are made upon the rector for committing his flock +to the care of such a wolf--a fox _I_ call him." + +"To-morrow I shall hear him preach," said the parson. + +"Then I sincerely trust no one will give him warning of your intention: +he is so clever, he would throw dust in any body's eyes." + +The rector laughed. He had no overweening estimate of his own abilities, +but he did pride himself a little on his common sense. + +"But," the lady went on, "in a place like this, where every body talks, +I fear the chance is small against his hearing of your arrival. Anyhow I +would not have you trust to one sermon. He will say just the opposite +the next. He contradicts himself incredibly. Even in the same sermon I +have heard him say things diametrically opposite." + +"He can not have gone so far as to advocate the real presence: a rumor +of that has reached me," said the rector. + +"There it is!" cried Mrs. Ramshorn. "If you had asked me, I should have +said he insisted the holy eucharist meant neither more nor less than any +other meal to which some said a grace. The man has not an atom of +consistency in his nature. He will say and unsay as fast as one sentence +can follow the other, and if you tax him with it, he will support both +sides: at least, that is my experience with him. I speak as I find him." + +"What then would you have me do?" said the rector. "The straightforward +way would doubtless be to go to him." + +"You would, I fear, gain nothing by that. He is so specious! The only +safe way is to dismiss him without giving a reason. Otherwise, he will +certainly prove you in the wrong. Don't take my word. Get the opinion of +your church-wardens. Every body knows he has made an atheist of poor +Faber. It is sadder than I have words to say. He _was_ such a +gentlemanly fellow!" + +The rector took his departure, and made a series of calls upon those he +judged the most influential of the congregation. He did not think to ask +for what they were influential, or why he should go to them rather than +the people of the alms-house. What he heard embarrassed him not a +little. His friends spoke highly of Wingfold, his enemies otherwise: the +character of his friends his judge did not attempt to weigh with that of +his enemies, neither did he attempt to discover why these were his +enemies and those his friends. No more did he make the observation, +that, while his enemies differed in the things they said against him, +his friends agreed in those they said for him; the fact being, that +those who did as he roused their conscience to see they ought, more or +less understood the man and his aims; while those who would not submit +to the authority he brought to bear upon them, and yet tried to measure +and explain him after the standards of their own being and endeavors, +failed ludicrously. The church-wardens told him that, ever since he +came, the curate had done nothing but set the congregation by the ears; +and that he could not fail to receive as a weighty charge. But they told +him also that some of the principal dissenters declared him to be a +fountain of life in the place--and that seemed to him to involve the +worst accusation of all. For, without going so far as to hold, or even +say without meaning it, that dissenters ought to be burned, Mr. Bevis +regarded it as one of the first of merits, that a man should be a _good +churchman_. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE RECTORY. + + +The curate had been in the study all the morning. Three times had his +wife softly turned the handle of his door, but finding it locked, had +re-turned the handle yet more softly, and departed noiselessly. Next +time she knocked--and he came to her pale-eyed, but his face almost +luminous, and a smile hovering about his lips: she knew then that either +a battle had been fought amongst the hills, and he had won, or a +thought-storm had been raging, through which at length had descended the +meek-eyed Peace. She looked in his face for a moment with silent +reverence, then offered her lips, took him by the hand, and, without a +word, led him down the stair to their mid-day meal. When that was over, +she made him lie down, and taking a novel, read him asleep. She woke him +to an early tea--not, however, after it, to return to his study: in the +drawing-room, beside his wife, he always got the germ of his +discourse--his germon, he called it--ready for its growth in the pulpit. +Now he lay on the couch, now rose and stood, now walked about the room, +now threw himself again on the couch; while, all the time his wife +played softly on her piano, extemporizing and interweaving, with an +invention, taste, and expression, of which before her marriage she had +been quite incapable. + +The text in his mind was, "_Ye can not serve God and Mammon_." But not +once did he speak to his wife about it. He did not even tell her what +his text was. Long ago he had given her to understand that he could not +part with her as one of his congregation--could not therefore take her +into his sermon before he met her in her hearing phase in church, with +the rows of pews and faces betwixt him and her, making her once more one +of his flock, the same into whose heart he had so often agonized to pour +the words of rousing, of strength, of consolation. + +On the Saturday, except his wife saw good reason, she would let no one +trouble him, and almost the sole reason she counted good was trouble: if +a person was troubled, then he might trouble. His friends knew this, and +seldom came near him on a Saturday. But that evening, Mr. Drew, the +draper, who, although a dissenter, was one of the curate's warmest +friends, called late, when, he thought in his way of looking at sermons, +that for the morrow must be now finished, and laid aside like a parcel +for delivery the next morning. Helen went to him. He told her the rector +was in the town, had called upon not a few of his parishioners, and +doubtless was going to church in the morning. + +"Thank you, Mr. Drew. I perfectly understand your kindness," said Mrs. +Wingfold, "but I shall not tell my husband to-night." + +"Excuse the liberty, ma'am, but--but--do you think it well for a wife to +hide things from her husband?" + +Helen laughed merrily. + +"Assuredly not, as a rule," she replied. "But suppose I knew he would be +vexed with me if I told him some particular thing? Suppose I know now +that, when I do tell him on Monday, he will say to me, 'Thank you, wife. +I am glad you kept that from me till I had done my work,'--what then?" + +"All right _then_," answered the draper. + +You see, Mr. Drew, we think married people should be so sure of each +other that each should not only be content, but should prefer not to +know what the other thinks it better not to tell. If my husband +overheard any one calling me names, I don't think he would tell me. He +knows, as well as I do, that I am not yet good enough to behave better +to any one for knowing she hates and reviles me. It would be but to +propagate the evil, and for my part too, I would rather not be told." + +"I quite understand you, ma'am," answered the draper. + +"I know you do," returned Helen, with emphasis. + +Mr. Drew blushed to the top of his white forehead, while the lower part +of his face, which in its forms was insignificant, blossomed into a +smile as radiant as that of an infant. He knew Mrs. Wingfold was aware +of the fact, known only to two or three beside in the town, that the +lady, who for the last few months had been lodging in his house, was his +own wife, who had forsaken him twenty years before. The man who during +that time had passed for her husband, had been otherwise dishonest as +well, and had fled the country; she and her daughter, brought to +absolute want, were received into his house by her forsaken husband; +there they occupied the same chamber, the mother ordered every thing, +and the daughter did not know that she paid for nothing. If the ways of +transgressors are hard, those of a righteous man are not always easy. +When Mr. Drew would now and then stop suddenly in the street, take off +his hat and wipe his forehead, little people thought the round smiling +face had such a secret behind it. Had they surmised a skeleton in his +house, they would as little have suspected it masked in the handsome, +well-dressed woman of little over forty, who, with her pretty daughter +so tossy and airy, occupied his first floor, and was supposed to pay him +handsomely for it. + +The curate slept soundly, and woke in the morning eager to utter what he +had. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE ROAD TO OWLKIRK. + + +Paul Faber fared otherwise. Hardly was he in bed before he was called +out of it again. A messenger had come from Mrs. Puckridge to say that +Miss Meredith was worse, and if the doctor did not start at once, she +would be dead before he reached Owlkirk. He sent orders to his groom to +saddle Niger and bring him round instantly, and hurried on his clothes, +vexed that he had taken Ruber both in the morning and afternoon, and +could not have him now. But Niger was a good horse also: if he was but +two-thirds of Ruber's size, he was but one-third of his age, and saw +better at night. On the other hand he was less easily seen, but the +midnight there was so still and deserted, that that was of small +consequence. In a few minutes they were out together in a lane as dark +as pitch, compelled now to keep to the roads, for there was not light +enough to see the pocket-compass by which the surgeon sometimes steered +across country. + +Could we learn what waking-dreams haunted the boyhood of a man, we +should have a rare help toward understanding the character he has +developed. Those of the young Faber were, almost exclusively, of playing +the prince of help and deliverance among women and men. Like most boys +that dream, he dreamed himself rich and powerful, but the wealth and +power were for the good of his fellow-creatures. If it must be confessed +that he lingered most over the thanks and admiration he set to haunt his +dream-steps, and hover about his dream-person, it must be remembered +that he was the only real person in the dreams, and that he regarded +lovingly the mere shadows of his fellow-men. His dreams were not of +strength and destruction, but of influence and life. Even his revenges +never-reached further than the making of his enemies ashamed. + +It was the spirit of help, then, that had urged him into the profession +he followed. He had found much dirt about the door of it, and had not +been able to cross the threshold without some cleaving to his garments. +He is a high-souled youth indeed, in whom the low regards and corrupt +knowledge of his superiors will fail utterly of degrading influence; he +must be one stronger than Faber who can listen to scoffing materialism +from the lips of authority and experience, and not come to look upon +humanity and life with a less reverent regard. What man can learn to +look upon the dying as so much matter about to be rekneaded and +remodeled into a fresh mass of feverous joys, futile aspirations, and +stinging chagrins, without a self-contempt from which there is no +shelter but the poor hope that we may be a little better than we appear +to ourselves. But Faber escaped the worst. He did not learn to look on +humanity without respect, or to meet the stare of appealing eyes from +man or animal, without genuine response--without sympathy. He never +joined in any jest over suffering, not to say betted on the chance of +the man who lay panting under the terrors of an impending operation. Can +one be capable of such things, and not have sunk deep indeed in the +putrid pit of decomposing humanity? It is true that before he began to +practice, Faber had come to regard man as a body and not an embodiment, +the highest in him as dependent on his physical organization--as indeed +but the aroma, as it were, of its blossom the brain, therefore subject +to _all_ the vicissitudes of the human plant from which it rises; but he +had been touched to issues too fine to be absolutely interpenetrated and +inslaved by the reaction of accepted theories. His poetic nature, like +the indwelling fire of the world, was ever ready to play havoc with +induration and constriction, and the same moment when degrading +influences ceased to operate, the delicacy of his feeling began to +revive. Even at its lowest, this delicacy preserved him from much into +which vulgar natures plunge; it kept alive the memory of a lovely +mother; and fed the flame of that wondering, worshiping reverence for +women which is the saviour of men until the Truth Himself saves both. A +few years of worthy labor in his profession had done much to develop +him, and his character for uprightness, benevolence, and skill, with the +people of Glaston and its neighborhood, where he had been ministering +only about a year, was already of the highest. Even now, when, in a +fever of honesty, he declared there _could_ be no God in such an +ill-ordered world, so full was his heart of the human half of religion, +that he could not stand by the bedside of dying man or woman, without +lamenting that there was no consolation--that stern truth would allow +him to cast no feeblest glamour of hope upon the departing shadow. His +was a nobler nature than theirs who, believing no more than he, are +satisfied with the assurance that at the heart of the evils of the world +lie laws unchangeable. + +The main weak point in him was, that, while he was indeed +tender-hearted, and did no kindnesses to be seen of men, he did them to +be seen of himself: he saw him who did them all the time. The boy was in +the man; doing his deeds he sought, not the approbation merely, but the +admiration of his own consciousness. I am afraid to say this was +_wrong_, but it was poor and childish, crippled his walk, and obstructed +his higher development. He liked to _know_ himself a benefactor. Such a +man may well be of noble nature, but he is a mere dabbler in nobility. +Faber delighted in the thought that, having repudiated all motives of +personal interest involved in religious belief, all that regard for the +future, with its rewards and punishments, which, in his ignorance, +genuine or willful, of essential Christianity, he took for its main +potence, he ministered to his neighbor, doing to him as he would have +him do to himself, hopeless of any divine recognition, of any betterness +beyond the grave, in a fashion at least as noble as that of the most +devoted of Christians. It did not occur to him to ask if he loved him as +well--if his care about him was equal to his satisfaction in himself. +Neither did he reflect that the devotion he admired in himself had been +brought to the birth in him through others, in whom it was first +generated by a fast belief in an unselfish, loving, self-devoting God. +Had he inquired he might have discovered that this belief had carried +some men immeasurably further in the help of their fellows, than he had +yet gone. Indeed he might, I think, have found instances of men of faith +spending their lives for their fellows, whose defective theology or +diseased humility would not allow them to hope their own salvation. +Inquiry might have given him ground for fearing that with the love of +the _imagined_ God, the love of the indubitable man would decay and +vanish. But such as Faber was, he was both loved and honored by all whom +he had ever attended; and, with his fine tastes, his genial nature, his +quiet conscience, his good health, his enjoyment of life, his knowledge +and love of his profession, his activity, his tender heart--especially +to women and children, his keen intellect, and his devising though not +embodying imagination, if any man could get on without a God, Faber was +that man. He was now trying it, and as yet the trial had cost him no +effort: he seemed to himself to be doing very well indeed. And why +should he not do as well as the thousands, who counting themselves +religious people, get through the business of the hour, the day, the +week, the year, without one reference in any thing they do or abstain +from doing, to the will of God, or the words of Christ? If he was more +helpful to his fellows than they, he fared better; for actions in +themselves good, however imperfect the motives that give rise to them, +react blissfully upon character and nature. It is better to be an +atheist who does the will of God, than a so-called Christian who does +not. The atheist will not be dismissed because he said _Lord, Lord,_ and +did not obey. The thing that God loves is the only lovely thing, and he +who does it, does well, and is upon the way to discover that he does it +very badly. When he comes to do it as the will of the perfect Good, then +is he on the road to do it perfectly--that is, from love of its own +inherent self-constituted goodness, born in the heart of the Perfect. +The doing of things from duty is but a stage on the road to the kingdom +of truth and love. Not the less must the stage be journeyed; every path +diverging from it is "the flowery way that leads to the broad gate and +the great fire." + +It was with more than his usual zeal of helpfulness that Faber was now +riding toward Owlkirk, to revisit his new patient. Could he have +mistaken the symptoms of her attack? + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE COTTAGE. + + +Mrs. Puckridge was anxiously awaiting the doctor's arrival. She stood by +the bedside of her lodger, miserable in her ignorance and consequent +helplessness. The lady tossed and moaned, but for very pain could +neither toss nor moan much, and breathed--panted, rather--very quick. +Her color was white more than pale, and now and then she shivered from +head to foot, but her eyes burned. Mrs. Puckridge kept bringing her hot +flannels, and stood talking between the changes. + +"I wish the doctor would come!--Them doctors!--I hope to goodness Dr. +Faber wasn't out when the boy got to Glaston. Every body in this mortal +universe always is out when he's wanted: that's _my_ experience. You +ain't so old as me, miss. And Dr. Faber, you see, miss, he be such a +favorite as _have_ to go out to his dinner not unfrequent. They may have +to send miles to fetch him." + +She talked in the vain hope of distracting the poor lady's attention +from her suffering. + +It was a little up stairs cottage-room, the corners betwixt the ceiling +and the walls cut off by the slope of the roof. So dark was the night, +that, when Mrs. Puckridge carried the candle out of the room, the +unshaded dormer window did not show itself even by a bluish glimmer. But +light and dark were alike to her who lay in the little tent-bed, in the +midst of whose white curtains, white coverlid, and white pillows, her +large eyes, black as human eyes could ever be, were like wells of +darkness throwing out flashes of strange light. Her hair too was dark, +brown-black, of great plenty, and so fine that it seemed to go off in a +mist on the whiteness. It had been her custom to throw it over the back +of her bed, but in this old-fashioned one that was impossible, and it +lay, in loveliest confusion, scattered here and there over pillow and +coverlid, as if the wind had been tossing it all a long night at his +will. Some of it had strayed more than half way to the foot of the bed. +Her face, distorted almost though it was with distress, showed yet a +regularity of feature rarely to be seen in combination with such evident +power of expression. Suffering had not yet flattened the delicate +roundness of her cheek, or sharpened the angles of her chin. In her +whiteness, and her constrained, pang-thwarted motions from side to side, +she looked like a form of marble in the agonies of coming to life at the +prayer of some Pygmalion. In throwing out her arms, she had flung back +the bedclothes, and her daintily embroidered night-gown revealed a +rather large, grand throat, of the same rare whiteness. Her hands were +perfect--every finger and every nail-- + + Those fine[1] nimble brethren small, + Armed with pearl-shell helmets all. + +[Footnote 1: _Joshua Sylvester._ I suspect the word ought to be _five_, +not _fine_, as my copy (1613) has it.] + +When Mrs. Puckridge came into the room, she always set her candle on +the sill of the storm-window: it was there, happily, when the doctor +drew near the village, and it guided him to the cottage-gate. He +fastened Niger to the gate, crossed the little garden, gently lifted the +door-latch, and ascended the stair. He found the door of the chamber +open, signed to Mrs. Puckridge to be still, softly approached the bed, +and stood gazing in silence on the sufferer, who lay at the moment +apparently unconscious. But suddenly, as if she had become aware of a +presence, she flashed wide her great eyes, and the pitiful entreaty that +came into them when she saw him, went straight to his heart. Faber felt +more for the sufferings of some of the lower animals than for certain of +his patients; but children and women he would serve like a slave. The +dumb appeal of her eyes almost unmanned him. + +"I am sorry to see you so ill," he said, as he took her wrist. "You are +in pain: where?" + +Her other hand moved toward her side in reply. Every thing indicated +pleurisy--such that there was no longer room for gentle measures. She +must be relieved at once: he must open a vein. In the changed practice +of later days, it had seldom fallen to the lot of Faber to perform the +very simple operation of venesection, but that had little to do with the +trembling of the hands which annoyed him with himself, when he proceeded +to undo a sleeve of his patient's nightdress. Finding no button, he took +a pair of scissors from his pocket, cut ruthlessly through linen and +lace, and rolled back the sleeve. It disclosed an arm the sight of which +would have made a sculptor rejoice as over some marbles of old Greece. I +can not describe it, and if I could, for very love and reverence I would +rather let it alone. Faber felt his heart rise in his throat at the +necessity of breaking that exquisite surface with even such an +insignificant breach and blemish as the shining steel betwixt his +forefinger and thumb must occasion. But a slight tremble of the hand he +held acknowledged the intruding sharpness, and then the red parabola +rose from the golden bowl. He stroked the lovely arm to help its flow, +and soon the girl once more opened her eyes and looked at him. Already +her breathing was easier. But presently her eyes began to glaze with +approaching faintness, and he put his thumb on the wound. She smiled and +closed them. He bound up her arm, laid it gently by her side, gave her +something to drink, and sat down. He sat until he saw her sunk in a +quiet, gentle sleep: ease had dethroned pain, and order had begun to +dawn out of threatened chaos. + +"Thank God!" he said, involuntarily, and stood up: what all that meant, +God only knows. + +After various directions to Mrs. Puckridge, to which she seemed to +attend, but which, being as simple as necessary, I fear she forgot the +moment they were uttered, the doctor mounted, and rode away. The +darkness was gone, for the moon was rising, but when the road compelled +him to face her, she blinded him nearly as much. Slowly she rose through +a sky freckled with wavelets of cloud, and as she crept up amongst them +she brought them all out, in bluish, pearly, and opaline gray. Then, +suddenly almost, as it seemed, she left them, and walked up aloft, +drawing a thin veil around her as she ascended. All was so soft, so +sleepy, so vague, it seemed to Paul as he rode slowly along, himself +almost asleep, as if the Night had lost the blood he had caused to flow, +and the sweet exhaustion that followed had from the lady's brain +wandered out over Nature herself, as she sank, a lovelier Katadyomene, +into the hushed sea of pain-won repose. + +Was he in love with her? I do not know. I could tell, if I knew what +being in love is. I think no two loves were ever the same since the +creation of the world. I know that something had passed from her eyes to +his--but what? He may have been in love with her already; but ere long +my reader may be more sure than I that he was not. The Maker of men +alone understands His awful mystery between the man and the woman. But +without it, frightful indeed as are some of its results, assuredly the +world He has made would burst its binding rings and fly asunder in +shards, leaving His spirit nothing to enter, no time to work His lovely +will. + +It must be to any man a terrible thing to find himself in wild pain, +with no God of whom to entreat that his soul may not faint within him; +but to a man who can think as well as feel, it were a more terrible +thing still, to find himself afloat on the tide of a lovely passion, +with no God to whom to cry, accountable to Himself for that which He has +made. Will any man who has ever cast more than a glance into the +mysteries of his being, dare think himself sufficient to the ruling of +his nature? And if he rule it not, what shall he be but the sport of the +demons that will ride its tempests, that will rouse and torment its +ocean? What help then is there? What high-hearted man would consent to +be possessed and sweetly ruled by the loveliest of angels? Truly it were +but a daintier madness. Come thou, holy Love, father of my spirit, +nearer to the unknown deeper me than my consciousness is to its known +self, possess me utterly, for thou art more me than I am myself. Rule +thou. Then first I rule. Shadow me from the too radiant splendors of thy +own creative thought. Folded in thy calm, I shall love, and not die. And +ye, women, be the daughters of Him from whose heart came your mothers; +be the saviours of men, and neither their torment nor their prey! + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE PULPIT. + + +Before morning it rained hard again; but it cleared at sunrise, and the +first day of the week found the world new-washed. Glaston slept longer +than usual, however, for all the shine, and in the mounting sun looked +dead and deserted. There were no gay shop-windows to reflect his beams, +or fill them with rainbow colors. There were no carriages or carts, and +only, for a few moments, one rider. That was Paul Faber again, on Ruber +now, aglow in the morning. There were no children playing yet about the +streets or lanes; but the cries of some came at intervals from unseen +chambers, as the Sunday soap stung their eyes, or the Sunday comb tore +their matted locks. + +As Faber rode out of his stable-yard, Wingfold took his hat from its +peg, to walk through his churchyard. He lived almost in the churchyard, +for, happily, since his marriage the rectory had lost its tenants, and +Mr. Bevis had allowed him to occupy it, in lieu of part of his salary. +It was not yet church-time by hours, but he had a custom of going every +Sunday morning, in the fine weather, quite early, to sit for an hour or +two alone in the pulpit, amidst the absolute solitude and silence of the +great church. It was a door, he said, through which a man who could not +go to Horeb, might enter and find the power that dwells on mountain-tops +and in desert places. + +He went slowly through the churchyard, breathing deep breaths of the +delicious spring-morning air. Rain-drops were sparkling all over the +grassy graves, and in the hollows of the stones they had gathered in +pools. The eyes of the death-heads were full of water, as if weeping at +the defeat of their master. Every now and then a soft little wind awoke, +like a throb of the spirit of life, and shook together the scattered +drops upon the trees, and then down came diamond showers on the grass +and daisies of the mounds, and fed the green moss in the letters of the +epitaphs. Over all the sun was shining, as if everywhere and forever +spring was the order of things. And is it not so? Is not the idea of the +creation an eternal spring ever trembling on the verge of summer? It +seemed so to the curate, who was not given to sad, still less to +sentimental moralizing over the graves. From such moods his heart +recoiled. To him they were weak and mawkish, and in him they would have +been treacherous. No grave was to him the place where a friend was +lying; it was but a cenotaph--the place where the Lord had lain. + +"Let those possessed with demons haunt the tombs," he said, as he sat +down in the pulpit; "for me, I will turn my back upon them with the +risen Christ. Yes, friend, I hear you! I know what you say! You have +more affection than I? you can not forsake the last resting-place of the +beloved? Well, you may have more feeling than I; there is no gauge by +which I can tell, and if there were, it would be useless: we are as God +made us.--No, I will not say that: I will say rather, I am as God is +making me, and I shall one day be as He has made me. Meantime I know +that He will have me love my enemy tenfold more than now I love my +friend. Thou believest that the malefactor--ah, there was faith now! Of +two men dying together in agony and shame, the one beseeches of the +other the grace of a king! Thou believest, I say--at least thou +professest to believe that the malefactor was that very day with Jesus +in Paradise, and yet thou broodest over thy friend's grave, gathering +thy thoughts about the pitiful garment he left behind him, and letting +himself drift away into the unknown, forsaken of all but thy vaguest, +most shapeless thinkings! Tell me not thou fearest to enter there whence +has issued no revealing. It is God who gives thee thy mirror of +imagination, and if thou keep it clean, it will give thee back no shadow +but of the truth. Never a cry of love went forth from human heart but +it found some heavenly chord to fold it in. Be sure thy friend inhabits +a day not out of harmony with this morning of earthly spring, with this +sunlight, those rain-drops, that sweet wind that flows so softly over +his grave." + +It was the first sprouting of a _germon_. He covered it up and left it: +he had something else to talk to his people about this morning. + +While he sat thus in the pulpit, his wife was praying for him ere she +rose. She had not learned to love him in the vestibule of society, that +court of the Gentiles, but in the chamber of torture and the clouded +adytum of her own spiritual temple. For there a dark vapor had hid the +deity enthroned, until the words of His servant melted the gloom. Then +she saw that what she had taken for her own innermost chamber of awful +void, was the dwelling-place of the most high, most lovely, only One, +and through its windows she beheld a cosmos dawning out of chaos. +Therefore the wife walked beside the husband in the strength of a common +faith in absolute Good; and not seldom did the fire which the torch of +his prophecy had kindled upon her altar, kindle again that torch, when +some bitter wind of evil words, or mephitis of human perversity, or +thunder-rain of foiled charity, had extinguished it. She loved every +hair upon his head, but loved his well-being infinitely more than his +mortal life. A wrinkle on his forehead would cause her a pang, yet would +she a thousand times rather have seen him dead than known him guilty of +one of many things done openly by not a few of his profession. + +And now, as one sometimes wonders what he shall dream to-night, she sat +wondering what new thing, or what old thing fresher and more alive than +the new, would this day flow from his heart into hers. The following is +the substance of what, a few hours after, she did hear from him. His +rector, sitting between Mrs. Bevis and Mrs. Ramshorn, heard it also. The +radiance of truth shone from Wingfold's face as he spoke, and those of +the congregation who turned away from his words were those whose lives +ran counter to the spirit of them. Whatever he uttered grew out of a +whole world of thought, but it grew before them--that is, he always +thought afresh in the presence of the people, and spoke extempore. + +"'_Ye can not serve God and mammon_.' + +"Who said this? The Lord by whose name ye are called, in whose name +this house was built, and who will at last judge every one of us. And +yet how many of you are, and have been for years, trying your very +hardest to do the thing your Master tells you is impossible! Thou man! +Thou woman! I appeal to thine own conscience whether thou art not +striving to serve God and mammon. + +"But stay! am I right?--It can not be. For surely if a man strove hard +to serve God and mammon, he would presently discover the thing was +impossible. It is not easy to serve God, and it is easy to serve mammon; +if one strove to serve God, the hard thing, along with serving mammon, +the easy thing, the incompatibility of the two endeavors must appear. +The fact is there is no strife in you. With ease you serve mammon every +day and hour of your lives, and for God, you do not even ask yourselves +the question whether you are serving Him or no. Yet some of you are at +this very moment indignant that I call you servers of mammon. Those of +you who know that God knows you are His servants, know also that I do +not mean you; therefore, those who are indignant at being called the +servants of mammon, are so because they are indeed such. As I say these +words I do not lift my eyes, not that I am afraid to look you in the +face, as uttering an offensive thing, but that I would have your own +souls your accusers. + +"Let us consider for a moment the God you do not serve, and then for a +moment the mammon you do serve. The God you do not serve is the Father +of Lights, the Source of love, the Maker of man and woman, the Head of +the great family, the Father of fatherhood and motherhood; the +Life-giver who would die to preserve His children, but would rather slay +them than they should live the servants of evil; the God who can neither +think nor do nor endure any thing mean or unfair; the God of poetry and +music and every marvel; the God of the mountain tops, and the rivers +that run from the snows of death, to make the earth joyous with life; +the God of the valley and the wheat-field, the God who has set love +betwixt youth and maiden; the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, +the perfect; the God whom Christ knew, with whom Christ was satisfied, +of whom He declared that to know Him was eternal life. The mammon you do +serve is not a mere negation, but a positive Death. His temple is a +darkness, a black hollow, ever hungry, in the heart of man, who tumbles +into it every thing that should make life noble and lovely. To all who +serve him he makes it seem that his alone is the reasonable service. +His wages are death, but he calls them life, and they believe him. I +will tell you some of the marks of his service--a few of the badges of +his household--for he has no visible temple; no man bends the knee to +him; it is only his soul, his manhood, that the worshiper casts in the +dust before him. If a man talks of the main chance, meaning thereby that +of making money, or of number one, meaning thereby self, except indeed +he honestly jest, he is a servant of mammon. If, when thou makest a +bargain, thou thinkest _only_ of thyself and thy gain, though art a +servant of mammon. The eager looks of those that would get money, the +troubled looks of those who have lost it, worst of all the gloating +looks of them that have it, these are sure signs of the service of +mammon. If in the church thou sayest to the rich man, 'Sit here in a +good place,' and to the poor man, 'Stand there,' thou art a +mammon-server. If thou favorest the company of those whom men call +well-to-do, when they are only well-to-eat, well-to-drink, or +well-to-show, and declinest that of the simple and the meek, then in thy +deepest consciousness know that thou servest mammon, not God. If thy +hope of well-being in time to come, rests upon thy houses, or lands, or +business, or money in store, and not upon the living God, be thou +friendly and kind with the overflowings of thy possessions, or a churl +whom no man loves, thou art equally a server of mammon. If the loss of +thy goods would take from thee the joy of thy life; if it would tear thy +heart that the men thou hadst feasted should hold forth to thee the two +fingers instead of the whole hand; nay, if thy thought of to-morrow +makes thee quail before the duty of to-day, if thou broodest over the +evil that is not come, and turnest from the God who is with thee in the +life of the hour, thou servest mammon; he holds thee in his chain; thou +art his ape, whom he leads about the world for the mockery of his +fellow-devils. If with thy word, yea, even with thy judgment, thou +confessest that God is the only good, yet livest as if He had sent thee +into the world to make thyself rich before thou die; if it will add one +feeblest pang to the pains of thy death, to think that thou must leave +thy fair house, thy ancestral trees, thy horses, thy shop, thy books, +behind thee, then art thou a servant of mammon, and far truer to thy +master than he will prove to thee. Ah, slave! the moment the breath is +out of the body, lo, he has already deserted thee! and of all in which +thou didst rejoice, all that gave thee such power over thy fellows, +there is not left so much as a spike of thistle-down for the wind to +waft from thy sight. For all thou hast had, there is nothing to show. +Where is the friendship in which thou mightst have invested thy money, +in place of burying it in the maw of mammon? Troops of the dead might +now be coming to greet thee with love and service, hadst thou made thee +friends with thy money; but, alas! to thee it was not money, but mammon, +for thou didst love it--not for the righteousness and salvation thou by +its means mightst work in the earth, but for the honor it brought thee +among men, for the pleasures and immunities it purchased. Some of you +are saying in your hearts, 'Preach to thyself, and practice thine own +preaching;'--and you say well. And so I mean to do, lest having preached +to others I should be myself a cast-away--drowned with some of you in +the same pond of filth. God has put money in my power through the gift +of one whom you know. I shall endeavor to be a faithful steward of that +which God through her has committed to me in trust. Hear me, friends--to +none of you am I the less a friend that I tell you truths you would hide +from your own souls: money is not mammon; it is God's invention; it is +good and the gift of God. But for money and the need of it, there would +not be half the friendship in the world. It is powerful for good when +divinely used. Give it plenty of air, and it is sweet as the hawthorn; +shut it up, and it cankers and breeds worms. Like all the best gifts of +God, like the air and the water, it must have motion and change and +shakings asunder; like the earth itself, like the heart and mind of man, +it must be broken and turned, not heaped together and neglected. It is +an angel of mercy, whose wings are full of balm and dews and +refreshings; but when you lay hold of him, pluck his pinions, pen him in +a yard, and fall down and worship him--then, with the blessed vengeance +of his master, he deals plague and confusion and terror, to stay the +idolatry. If I misuse or waste or hoard the divine thing, I pray my +Master to see to it--my God to punish me. Any fire rather than be given +over to the mean idol! And now I will make an offer to my townsfolk in +the face of this congregation--that, whoever will, at the end of three +years, bring me his books, to him also will I lay open mine, that he +will see how I have sought to make friends of the mammon of +unrighteousness. Of the mammon-server I expect to be judged according +to the light that is in him, and that light I know to be darkness. + +"Friend, be not a slave. Be wary. Look not on the gold when it is yellow +in thy purse. Hoard not. In God's name, spend--spend on. Take heed how +thou spendest, but take heed that thou spend. Be thou as the sun in +heaven; let thy gold be thy rays, thy angels of love and life and +deliverance. Be thou a candle of the Lord to spread His light through +the world. If hitherto, in any fashion of faithlessness, thou hast +radiated darkness into the universe, humble thyself, and arise and +shine. + +"But if thou art poor, then look not on thy purse when it is empty. He +who desires more than God wills him to have, is also a servant of +mammon, for he trusts in what God has made, and not in God Himself. He +who laments what God has taken from him, he is a servant of mammon. He +who for care can not pray, is a servant of mammon. There are men in this +town who love and trust their horses more than the God that made them +and their horses too. None the less confidently will they give judgment +on the doctrine of God. But the opinion of no man who does not render +back his soul to the living God and live in Him, is, in religion, worth +the splinter of a straw. Friends, cast your idol into the furnace; melt +your mammon down, coin him up, make God's money of him, and send him +coursing. Make of him cups to carry the gift of God, the water of life, +through the world--in lovely justice to the oppressed, in healthful +labor to them whom no man hath hired, in rest to the weary who have +borne the burden and heat of the day, in joy to the heavy-hearted, in +laughter to the dull-spirited. Let them all be glad with reason, and +merry without revel. Ah! what gifts in music, in drama, in the tale, in +the picture, in the spectacle, in books and models, in flowers and +friendly feasting, what true gifts might not the mammon of +unrighteousness, changed back into the money of God, give to men and +women, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh! How would you not spend +your money for the Lord, if He needed it at your hand! He does need it; +for he that spends it upon the least of his fellows, spends it upon his +Lord. To hold fast upon God with one hand, and open wide the other to +your neighbor--that is religion; that is the law and the prophets, and +the true way to all better things that are yet to come.--Lord, defend us +from Mammon. Hold Thy temple against his foul invasion. Purify our +money with Thy air, and Thy sun, that it may be our slave, and Thou our +Master. Amen." + +The moment his sermon was ended, the curate always set himself to forget +it. This for three reasons: first, he was so dissatisfied with it, that +to think of it was painful--and the more, that many things he might have +said, and many better ways of saying what he had said, would constantly +present themselves. Second, it was useless to brood over what could not +be bettered; and, third, it was hurtful, inasmuch as it prevented the +growth of new, hopeful, invigorating thought, and took from his +strength, and the quality of his following endeavor. A man's labors must +pass like the sunrises and sunsets of the world. The next thing, not the +last, must be his care. When he reached home, he would therefore use +means to this end of diversion, and not unfrequently would write verses. +Here are those he wrote that afternoon. + + LET YOUR LIGHT SO SHINE. + + Sometimes, O Lord, thou lightest in my head + A lamp that well might Pharos all the lands; + Anon the light will neither burn nor spread + Shrouded in danger gray the beacon stands. + + A Pharos? Oh, dull brain! Oh, poor quenched lamp, + Under a bushel, with an earthy smell! + Moldering it lies, in rust and eating damp, + While the slow oil keeps oozing from its cell! + + For me it were enough to be a flower + Knowing its root in thee was somewhere hid-- + To blossom at the far appointed hour, + And fold in sleep when thou, my Nature, bid. + + But hear my brethren crying in the dark! + Light up my lamp that it may shine abroad. + Fain would I cry--See, brothers! sisters, mark! + This is the shining of light's father, God. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE MANOR HOUSE DINING-ROOM. + + +The rector never took his eyes off the preacher, but the preacher never +saw him. The reason was that he dared not let his eyes wander in the +direction of Mrs. Ramshorn; he was not yet so near perfection but that +the sight of her supercilious, unbelieving face, was a reviving cordial +to the old Adam, whom he was so anxious to poison with love and prayer. +Church over, the rector walked in silence, between the two ladies, to +the Manor House. He courted no greetings from the sheep of his neglected +flock as he went, and returned those offered with a constrained +solemnity. The moment they stood in the hall together, and before the +servant who had opened the door to them had quite disappeared, Mrs. +Ramshorn, to the indignant consternation of Mrs. Bevis, who was utterly +forgotten by both in the colloquy that ensued, turned sharp on the +rector, and said, + +"There! what do you say to your curate now?" + +"He _is_ enough to set the whole parish by the ears," he answered. + +"I told you so, Mr. Bevis!" + +"Only it does not follow that therefore he is in the wrong. Our Lord +Himself came not to send peace on earth but a sword." + +"Irreverence ill becomes a beneficed clergyman, Mr. Bevis," said Mrs. +Ramshorn--who very consistently regarded any practical reference to our +Lord as irrelevant, thence naturally as irreverent. + +"And, by Jove!" added the rector, heedless of her remark, and tumbling +back into an old college-habit, "I fear he is in the right; and if he +is, it will go hard with you and me at the last day, Mrs. Ramshorn." + +"Do you mean to say you are going to let that man turn every thing +topsy-turvy, and the congregation out of the church, John Bevis?" + +"I never saw such a congregation in it before, Mrs. Ramshorn." + +"It's little better than a low-bred conventicle now, and what it will +come to, if things go on like this, God knows." + +"That ought to be a comfort," said the rector. "But I hardly know yet +where I am. The fellow has knocked the wind out of me with his +personalities, and I haven't got my breath yet. Have you a bottle of +sherry open?" + +Mrs. Ramshorn led the way to the dining-room, where the early Sunday +dinner was already laid, and the decanters stood on the sideboard. The +rector poured himself out a large glass of sherry, and drank it off in +three mouthfuls. + +"Such buffoonery! such coarseness! such vulgarity! such indelicacy!" +cried Mrs. Ramshorn, while the parson was still occupied with the +sherry. "Not content with talking about himself in the pulpit, he must +even talk about his wife! What's he or his wife in the house of God? +When his gown is on, a clergyman is neither Mr. This nor Mr. That any +longer, but a priest of the Church of England, as by law established. My +poor Helen! She has thrown herself away upon a charlatan! And what will +become of her money in the hands of a man with such leveling notions, I +dread to think." + +"He said something about buying friends with it," said the rector. + +"Bribery and corruption must come natural to a fellow who could preach a +sermon like that after marrying money!" + +"Why, my good madam, would you have a man turn his back on a girl +because she has a purse in her pocket?" + +"But to pretend to despise it! And then, worst of all! I don't know +whether the indelicacy or the profanity was the greater!--when I think +of it now, I can scarcely believe I really heard it!--to offer to show +his books to every inquisitive fool itching to know _my_ niece's +fortune! Well, she shan't see a penny of mine--that I'm determined on." + +"You need not be uneasy about the books, Mrs. Ramshorn. You remember the +condition annexed?" + +"Stuff and hypocrisy! He's played his game well! But time will show." + +Mr. Bevis checked his answer. He was beginning to get disgusted with the +old cat, as he called her to himself. + +He too had made a good speculation in the hymeneo-money-market, +otherwise he could hardly have afforded to give up the exercise of his +profession. Mrs. Bevis had brought him the nice little property at +Owlkirk, where, if he worshiped mammon--and after his curate's sermon he +was not at all sure he did not--he worshiped him in a very moderate and +gentlemanly fashion. Every body liked the rector, and two or three +loved him a little. If it would be a stretch of the truth to call a man +a Christian who never yet in his life had consciously done a thing +because it was commanded by Christ, he was not therefore a godless man; +while, through the age-long process of spiritual infiltration, he had +received and retained much that was Christian. + +The ladies went to take off their bonnets, and their departure was a +relief to the rector. He helped himself to another glass of sherry, and +seated himself in the great easy chair formerly approved of the dean, +long promoted. But what are easy chairs to uneasy men? Dinner, however, +was at hand, and that would make a diversion in favor of less +disquieting thought. + +Mrs. Ramshorn, also, was uncomfortable--too much so to be relieved by +taking off her bonnet. She felt, with no little soreness, that the +rector was not with her in her depreciation of Wingfold. She did her +best to play the hostess, but the rector, while enjoying his dinner +despite discomfort in the inward parts, was in a mood of silence +altogether new both to himself and his companions. Mrs. Bevis, however, +talked away in a soft, continuous murmur. She was a good-natured, gentle +soul, without whose sort the world would be harder for many. She did not +contribute much to its positive enjoyment, but for my part, I can not +help being grateful even to a cat that will condescend to purr to me. +But she had not much mollifying influence on her hostess, who snarled, +and judged, and condemned, nor seemed to enjoy her dinner the less. When +it was over, the ladies went to the drawing-room; and the rector, +finding his company unpleasant, drank but a week-day's allowance of +wine, and went to have a look at his horses. + +They neighed a welcome the moment his boot struck the stones of the +yard, for they loved their master with all the love their strong, timid, +patient hearts were as yet capable of. Satisfied that they were +comfortable, for he found them busy with a large feed of oats and chaff +and Indian corn, he threw his arm over the back of his favorite, and +stood, leaning against her for minutes, half dreaming, half thinking. As +long as they were busy, their munching and grinding soothed him--held +him at least in quiescent mood; the moment it ceased, he seemed to +himself to wake up out of a dream. In that dream, however, he had been +more awake than any hour for long years, and had heard and seen many +things. He patted his mare lovingly, then, with a faint sense of +rebuked injustice, went into the horse's stall, and patted and stroked +him as he had never done before. + +He went into the inn, and asked for a cup of tea. He would have had a +sleep on Mrs. Pinks's sofa, as was his custom in his study--little +study, alas, went on there!--but he had a call to make, and must rouse +himself, and that was partly why he had sought the inn. For Mrs. +Ramshorn's household was so well ordered that nothing was to be had out +of the usual routine. It was like an American country inn, where, if you +arrive after supper, you will most likely have to starve till next +morning. Her servants, in fact, were her masters, and she dared not go +into her own kitchen for a jug of hot water. Possibly it was her +dethronement in her own house that made her, with a futile clutching +after lost respect, so anxious to rule in the abbey church. As it was, +although John Bevis and she had known each other long, and in some poor +sense intimately, he would never in her house have dared ask for a cup +of tea except it were on the table. But here was the ease of his inn, +where the landlady herself was proud to get him what he wanted. She made +the tea from her own caddy; and when he had drunk three cups of it, +washed his red face, and re-tied his white neck-cloth, he set out to +make his call. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE RECTORY DRAWING-ROOM. + + +The call was upon his curate. It was years since he had entered the +rectory. The people who last occupied it, he had scarcely known, and +even during its preparation for Wingfold he had not gone near the place. +Yet of that house had been his dream as he stood in his mare's stall, +and it was with a strange feeling he now approached it. Friends +generally took the pleasanter way to the garden door, opening on the +churchyard, but Mr. Bevis went round by the lane to the more public +entrance. + +All his years with his first wife had been spent in that house. She was +delicate when he married her, and soon grew sickly and suffering. One +after another her children died as babies. At last came one who lived, +and then the mother began to die. She was one of those lowly women who +apply the severity born of their creed to themselves, and spend only the +love born of the indwelling Spirit upon their neighbors. She was rather +melancholy, but hoped as much as she could, and when she could not hope +did not stand still, but walked on in the dark. I think when the sun +rises upon them, some people will be astonished to find how far they +have got in the dark. + +Her husband, without verifying for himself one of the things it was his +business to teach others, was yet held in some sort of communion with +sacred things by his love for his suffering wife, and his admiration of +her goodness and gentleness. He had looked up to her, though several +years younger than himself, with something of the same reverence with +which he had regarded his mother, a women with an element of greatness +in her. It was not possible he should ever have adopted her views, or in +any active manner allied himself with the school whose doctrines she +accepted as the logical embodiment of the gospel, but there was in him +all the time a vague something that was not far from the kingdom of +heaven. Some of his wife's friends looked upon him as a wolf in the +sheepfold; he was no wolf, he was only a hireling. Any neighborhood +might have been the better for having such a man as he for the parson of +the parish--only, for one commissioned to be in the world as he was in +the world!--why he knew more about the will of God as to a horse's legs, +than as to the heart of a man. As he drew near the house, the older and +tenderer time came to meet him, and the spirit of his suffering, +ministering wife seemed to overshadow him. Two tears grew half-way into +his eyes:--they were a little bloodshot, but kind, true eyes. He was not +sorry he had married again, for he and his wife were at peace with each +other, but he had found that the same part of his mind would not serve +to think of the two: they belonged to different zones of his unexplored +world. For one thing, his present wife looked up to him with perfect +admiration, and he, knowing his own poverty, rather looked down upon her +in consequence, though in a loving, gentle, and gentlemanlike way. + +He was shown into the same room, looking out on the churchyard, where in +the first months of his married life, he sat and heard his wife sing her +few songs, accompanying them on the little piano he had saved hard to +buy for her, until she made him love them. It had lasted only through +those few months; after her first baby died, she rarely sang. But all +the colors and forms of the room were different, and that made it easier +to check the lump rising in his throat. It was the faith of his curate +that had thus set his wife before him, although the two would hardly +have agreed in any confession narrower than the Apostles' creed. + +When Wingfold entered the room, the rector rose, went halfway to meet +him, and shook hands with him heartily. They seated themselves, and a +short silence followed. But the rector knew it was his part to speak. + +"I was in church this morning," he said, with a half-humorous glance +right into the clear gray eyes of his curate. + +"So my wife tells me," returned Wingfold with a smile. + +"You didn't know it then?" rejoined the rector, with now an almost +quizzical glance, in which hovered a little doubt. "I thought you were +preaching at me all the time." + +"God forbid!" said the curate; "I was not aware of your presence. I did +not even know you were in the town yesterday." + +"You must have had some one in your mind's eye. No man could speak as +you did this morning, who addressed mere abstract humanity." + +"I will not say that individuals did not come up before me; how can a +man help it where he knows every body in his congregation more or less? +But I give you my word, sir, I never thought of you." + +"Then you might have done so with the greatest propriety," returned the +rector. "My conscience sided with you all the time. You found me out. +I've got a bit of the muscle they call a heart left in me yet, though it +_has_ got rather leathery.--But what do they mean when they say you are +setting the parish by the ears?" + +"I don't know, sir. I have heard of no quarreling. I have made some +enemies, but they are not very dangerous, and I hope not very bitter +ones; and I have made many more friends, I am sure." + +"What they tell me is, that your congregation is divided--that they take +sides for and against you, which is a most undesirable thing, surely!" + +"It is indeed; and yet it may be a thing that, for a time, can not be +helped. Was there ever a man with the cure of souls, concerning whom +there has not been more or less of such division? But, if you will have +patience with me, sir, I am bold to say, believing in the force and +final victory of the truth, there will be more unity by and by." + +"I don't doubt it. But come now!--you are a thoroughly good +fellow--that, a blind horse could see in the dimmits--and I'm +accountable for the parish--couldn't you draw it a little milder, you +know? couldn't you make it just a little less peculiar--only the way of +putting it, I mean--so that it should look a little more like what they +have been used to? I'm only suggesting the thing, you know--dictating +nothing, on my soul, Mr. Wingfold. I am sure that, whatever you do, you +will act according to your own conscience, otherwise I should not +venture to say a word, lest I should lead you wrong." + +"If you will allow me," said the curate, "I will tell you my whole +story; and then if you should wish it, I will resign my curacy, without +saying a word more than that my rector thinks it better. Neither in +private shall I make a single remark in a different spirit." + +"Let me hear," said the rector. + +"Then if you will please take this chair, that I may know that I am not +wearying you bodily at least." + +The rector did as he was requested, laid his head back, crossed his +legs, and folded his hands over his worn waist-coat: he was not one of +the neat order of parsons; he had a not unwholesome disregard of his +outermost man, and did not know when he was shabby. Without an atom of +pomposity or air rectorial, he settled himself to listen. + +Condensing as much as he could, Wingfold told him how through great +doubt, and dismal trouble of mind, he had come to hope in God, and to +see that there was no choice for a man but to give himself, heart, and +soul, and body, to the love, and will, and care of the Being who had +made him. He could no longer, he said, regard his profession as any +thing less than a call to use every means and energy at his command for +the rousing of men and women from that spiritual sleep and moral +carelessness in which he had himself been so lately sunk. + +"I don't want to give up my curacy," he concluded. "Still less do I want +to leave Glaston, for there are here some whom I teach and some who +teach me. In all that has given ground for complaint, I have seemed to +myself to be but following the dictates of common sense; if you think me +wrong, I have no justification to offer. We both love God,----" + +"How do you know that?" interrupted the rector. "I wish you could make +me sure of that." + +"I do, I know I do," said the curate earnestly. "I can say no more." + +"My dear fellow, I haven't the merest shadow of a doubt of it," returned +the rector, smiling. "What I wished was, that you could make me sure _I_ +do." + +"Pardon me, my dear sir, but, judging from sore experience, if I could I +would rather make you doubt it; the doubt, even if an utter mistake, +would in the end be so much more profitable than any present +conviction." + +"You have your wish, then, Wingfold: I doubt it very much," replied the +rector. "I must go home and think about it all. You shall hear from me +in a day or two." + +As he spoke Mr. Bevis rose, and stood for a moment like a man greatly +urged to stretch his arms and legs. An air of uneasiness pervaded his +whole appearance. + +"Will you not stop and take tea with us?" said the curate. "My wife will +be disappointed if you do not. You have been good to her for twenty +years, she says." + +"She makes an old man of me," returned the rector musingly. "I remember +her such a tiny thing in a white frock and curls. Tell her what we have +been talking about, and beg her to excuse me. I _must_ go home." + +He took his hat from the table, shook hands with Wingfold, and walked +back to the inn. There he found his horses bedded, and the hostler away. +His coachman was gone too, nobody knew whither. + +To sleep at the inn would have given pointed offense, but he would +rather have done so than go back to the Manor House to hear his curate +abused. With the help of the barmaid, he put the horses to the carriage +himself, and to the astonishment of Mrs. Ramshorn and his wife, drew up +at the door of the Manor House. + +Expostulation on the part of the former was vain. The latter made none: +it was much the same to Mrs. Bevis where she was, so long as she was +with her husband. Indeed few things were more pleasant to her than +sitting in the carriage alone, contemplating the back of Mr. Bevis on +the box, and the motion of his elbows as he drove. Mrs. Ramshorn +received their adieux very stiffly, and never after mentioned the rector +without adding the epithet, "poor man!" + +Mrs. Bevis enjoyed the drive; Mr. Bevis did not. The doubt was growing +stronger and stronger all the way, that he had not behaved like a +gentleman in his relation to the head of the church. He had naturally, +as I have already shown, a fine, honorable, boyish if not childlike +nature; and the eyes of his mind were not so dim with good living as one +might have feared from the look of those in his head: in the glass of +loyalty he now saw himself a defaulter; in the scales of honor he +weighed and found himself wanting. Of true discipleship was not now the +question: he had not behaved like an honorable gentleman to Jesus +Christ. It was only in a spasm of terror St. Peter had denied him: John +Bevis had for nigh forty years been taking his pay, and for the last +thirty at least had done nothing in return. Either Jesus Christ did not +care, and then what was the church?--what the whole system of things +called Christianity?--or he did care, and what then was John Bevis in +the eyes of his Master? When they reached home, he went neither to the +stable nor the study, but, without even lighting a cigar, walked out on +the neighboring heath, where he found the universe rather gray about +him. When he returned he tried to behave as usual, but his wife saw that +he scarcely ate at supper, and left half of his brandy and water. She +set it down to the annoyance the curate had caused him, and wisely +forbore troubling him with questions. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +MR. DRAKE'S ARBOR. + + +While the curate was preaching that same Sunday morning, in the cool +cavernous church, with its great lights overhead, Walter Drake--the old +minister, he was now called by his disloyal congregation--sat in a +little arbor looking out on the river that flowed through the town to +the sea. Green grass went down from where he sat to the very water's +brink. It was a spot the old man loved, for there his best thoughts came +to him. There was in him a good deal of the stuff of which poets are +made, and since trouble overtook him, the river had more and more +gathered to itself the aspect of that in the Pilgrim's Progress; and +often, as he sat thus almost on its edge, he fancied himself waiting +the welcome summoms to go home. It was a tidal river, with many changes. +Now it flowed with a full, calm current, conquering the tide, like life +sweeping death with it down into the bosom of the eternal. Now it seemed +to stand still, as if aghast at the inroad of the awful thing; and then +the minister would bethink himself that it was the tide of the eternal +rising in the narrow earthly channel: men, he said to himself, called it +_death_, because they did not know what it was, or the loveliness of its +quickening energy. It fails on their sense by the might of its grand +excess, and they call it by the name of its opposite. A weary and rather +disappointed pilgrim, he thus comforted himself as he sat. + +There a great salmon rose and fell, gleaming like a bolt of silver in +the sun! There a little waterbeetle scurried along after some invisible +prey. The blue smoke of his pipe melted in the Sabbath air. The softened +sounds of a singing congregation came across gardens and hedges to his +ear. They sang with more energy than grace, and, not for the first time, +he felt they did. Were they indeed singing to the Lord, he asked +himself, or only to the idol Custom? A silence came: the young man in +the pulpit was giving out his text, and the faces that had turned +themselves up to Walter Drake as flowers to the sun, were now all +turning to the face of him they had chosen in his stead, "to minister to +them in holy things." He took his pipe from his mouth, and sat +motionless, with his eyes fixed on the ground. + +But why was he not at chapel himself? Could it be that he yielded to +temptation, actually preferring his clay pipe and the long glide of the +river, to the worship, and the hymns and the sermon? Had there not been +a time when he judged that man careless of the truth who did not go to +the chapel, and that man little better who went to the church? Yet there +he sat on a Sunday morning, the church on one side of him and the chapel +on the other, smoking his pipe! His daughter was at the chapel; she had +taken Ducky with her; the dog lay in the porch waiting for them; the cat +thought too much of herself to make friends with her master; he had +forgotten his New Testament on the study table; and now he had let his +pipe out. + +He was not well, it is true, but he was well enough to have gone. Was he +too proud to be taught where he had been a teacher? or was it that the +youth in his place taught there doctrines which neither they nor their +fathers had known? It could not surely be from resentment that they had +super-annuated him in the prime of his old age, with a pared third of +his late salary, which nothing but honesty in respect to the small +moneys he owed could have prevented him from refusing! + +In truth it was impossible the old minister should have any great esteem +for the flashy youth, proud of his small Latin and less Greek, a mere +unit of the hundreds whom the devil of ambition drives to preaching; one +who, whether the doctrines he taught were in the New Testament or not, +certainly never found them there, being but the merest disciple of a +disciple of a disciple, and fervid in words of which he perceived scarce +a glimmer of the divine purport. At the same time, he might have seen +points of resemblance between his own early history and that of the +callow chirper of divinity now holding forth from his pulpit, which +might have tended to mollify his judgment with sympathy. + +His people had behaved ill to him, and he could not say he was free from +resentment or pride, but he did make for them what excuse lay in the +fact that the congregation had been dwindling ever since the curate at +the abbey-church began to speak in such a strange outspoken fashion. +There now was a right sort of man! he said to himself. No attempted +oratory with him! no prepared surprises! no playhouse tricks! no studied +graces in wafture of hands and upheaved eyes! And yet at moments when he +became possessed with his object rather than subject, every inch of him +seemed alive. He was odd--very odd; perhaps he was crazy--but at least +he was honest. He had heard him himself, and judged him well worth +helping to what was better, for, alas! notwithstanding the vigor of his +preaching, he did not appear to have himself discovered as yet the +treasure hid in the field. He was, nevertheless, incomparably the +superior of the young man whom, expecting him to _draw_, the deacons of +his church, with the members behind them, had substituted for himself, +who had for more than fifteen years ministered to them the bread of +life. + +Bread!--Yes, I think it might honestly be called bread that Walter Drake +had ministered. It had not been free from chalk or potatoes: bits of +shell and peel might have been found in it, with an occasional bit of +dirt, and a hair or two; yes, even a little alum, and that is _bad_, +because it tends to destroy, not satisfy the hunger. There was sawdust +in it, and parchment-dust, and lumber-dust; it was ill salted, badly +baked, sad; sometimes it was blue-moldy, and sometimes even maggoty; but +the mass of it was honest flour, and those who did not recoil from the +look of it, or recognize the presence of the variety of foreign matter, +could live upon it, in a sense, up to a certain pitch of life. But a +great deal of it was not of his baking at all--he had been merely the +distributor--crumbling down other bakers' loaves and making them up +again in his own shapes. In his declining years, however, he had been +really beginning to learn the business. Only, in his congregation were +many who not merely preferred bad bread of certain kinds, but were +incapable of digesting any of high quality. + +He would have gone to chapel that morning had the young man been such as +he could respect. Neither his doctrine, nor the behavior of the church +to himself, would have kept him away. Had he followed his inclination he +would have gone to the church, only that would have looked spiteful. His +late congregation would easily excuse his non-attendance with them; they +would even pitifully explain to each other why he could not appear just +yet; but to go to church would be in their eyes unpardonable--a +declaration of a war of revenge. + +There was, however, a reason besides, why Mr. Drake could not go to +church that morning, and if not a more serious, it was a much more +painful one. Some short time before he had any ground to suspect that +his congregation was faltering in its loyalty to him, his daughter had +discovered that the chapel butcher, when he sent a piece of meat, +invariably charged for a few ounces beyond the weight delivered. Now Mr. +Drake was a man of such honesty that all kinds of cheating, down to the +most respectable, were abominable to him; that the man was a professor +of religion made his conduct unpardonable in his eyes, and that he was +one of his own congregation rendered it insupportable. Having taken +pains to satisfy himself of the fact, he declined to deal with him any +further, and did not spare to tell him why. The man was far too +dishonest to profit by the rebuke save in circumspection and cunning, +was revengeful in proportion to the justice of the accusation, and of +course brought his influence, which was not small, to bear upon the +votes of the church-members in respect of the pastorate. + +Had there been another butcher in connection with the chapel, Mr. Drake +would have turned to him, but as there was not, and they could not go +without meat, he had to betake himself to the principal butcher in the +place, who was a member of the Church of England. Soon after his +troubles commenced, and before many weeks were over he saw plainly +enough that he must either resign altogether, and go out into the great +world of dissent in search of some pastorless flock that might vote him +their crook, to be guided by him whither they wanted to go, and whither +most of them believed they knew the way as well as he, or accept the +pittance offered him. This would be to retire from the forefront of the +battle, and take an undistinguished place in the crowd of mere +camp-followers; but, for the sake of honesty, as I have already +explained, and with the hope that it might be only for a brief season, +he had chosen the latter half of the alternative. And truly it was a +great relief not to have to grind out of his poor, weary, groaning mill +the two inevitable weekly sermons--labor sufficient to darken the face +of nature to the conscientious man. For his people thought themselves +intellectual, and certainly were critical. Mere edification in holiness +was not enough for them. A large infusion of some polemic element was +necessary to make the meat savory and such as their souls loved. Their +ambition was not to grow in grace, but in social influence and +regard--to glorify their dissent, not the communion of saints. Upon the +chief corner-stone they would build their stubble of paltry religionism; +they would set up their ragged tent in the midst of the eternal temple, +careless how it blocked up window and stair. + +Now last week Mr. Drake had requested his new butcher to send his +bill--with some little anxiety, because of the sudden limitation of his +income; but when he saw it he was filled with horror. Amounting only to +a very few pounds, causes had come together to make it a large one in +comparison with the figures he was accustomed to see. Always feeding +some of his flock, he had at this time two sickly, nursing mothers who +drew their mortal life from his kitchen; and, besides, the doctor had, +some time ago, ordered a larger amount of animal food for the little +Amanda. In fine, the sum at the bottom of that long slip of paper, with +the wood-cut of a prize ox at the top of it, small as he would have +thought it at one period of his history, was greater than he could +imagine how to pay; and if he went to church, it would be to feel the +eye of the butcher and not that of the curate upon him all the time. It +was a dismay, a horror to him to have an account rendered which he could +not settle, and especially from his new butcher, after he had so +severely rebuked the old one. Where was the mighty difference in honesty +between himself and the offender? the one claimed for meat he had not +sold, the other ordered that for which he could not pay! Would not Mr. +Jones imagine he had left his fellow-butcher and come to him because he +had run up a large bill for which he was unable to write a check? This +was that over which the spirit of the man now brooded by far the most +painfully; this it was that made him leave his New Testament in the +study, let his pipe out, and look almost lovingly upon the fast-flowing +river, because it was a symbol of death. + +He had chosen preaching as a profession, just as so many take +orders--with this difference from a large proportion of such, that he +had striven powerfully to convince himself that he trusted in the merits +of the Redeemer. Had he not in this met with tolerable success, he would +not have yielded to the wish of his friends and left his father's shop +in his native country-town for a dissenting college in the neighborhood +of London. There he worked well, and became a good scholar, learning to +read in the true sense of the word, that is, to try the spirits as he +read. His character, so called, was sound, and his conscience, if not +sensitive, was firm and regnant. But he was injured both spiritually and +morally by some of the instructions there given. For one of the objects +held up as duties before him, was to become capable of rendering himself +_acceptable_ to a congregation. + +Most of the students were but too ready to regard, or at least to treat +this object as the first and foremost of duties. The master-duty of +devotion to Christ, and obedience to every word that proceeded out of +His mouth, was very much treated as a thing understood, requiring little +enforcement; while, the main thing demanded of them being sermons in +some sense their own--honey culled at least by their own bees, and not +bought in jars, much was said about the plan and composition of sermons, +about style and elocution, and action--all plainly and confessedly, with +a view to pulpit-_success_--the lowest of all low successes, and the +most worldly. + +These instructions Walter Drake accepted as the wisdom of the holy +serpent--devoted large attention to composition, labored to form his +style on the _best models_, and before beginning to write a sermon, +always heated the furnace of production with fuel from some exciting or +suggestive author: it would be more correct to say, fed the mill of +composition from some such source; one consequence of all which was, +that when at last, after many years, he did begin to develop some +individuality, he could not, and never did shake himself free of those +weary models; his thoughts, appearing in clothes which were not made for +them, wore always a certain stiffness and unreality which did not by +nature belong to them, blunting the impressions which his earnestness +and sincerity did notwithstanding make. + +Determined to _succeed_, he cultivated eloquence also--what he supposed +eloquence, that is, being, of course, merely elocution, to attain the +right gestures belonging to which he looked far more frequently into his +landlady's mirror, than for his spiritual action into the law of +liberty. He had his reward in the success he sought. But I must make +haste, for the story of worldly success is always a mean tale. In a few +years, and for not a few after, he was a popular preacher in one of the +suburbs of London--a good deal sought after, and greatly lauded. He +lived in comfort, indulged indeed in some amount of show; married a +widow with a large life-annuity, which between them they spent entirely, +and that not altogether in making friends with everlasting habitations; +in a word, gazed out on the social landscape far oftener than lifted his +eyes to the hills. + +After some ten or twelve years, a change began. They had three children; +the two boys, healthy and beautiful, took scarlatina and died; the poor, +sickly girl wailed on. His wife, who had always been more devoted to her +children than her husband, pined, and died also. Her money went, if not +with her, yet away from him. His spirits began to fail him, and his +small, puny, peaking daughter did not comfort him much. He was capable +of true, but not yet of pure love; at present his love was capricious. +Little Dora--a small Dorothy indeed in his estimation--had always been a +better child than either of her brothers, but he loved them the more +that others admired them, and her the less that others pitied her: he +did try to love her, for there was a large element of justice in his +nature. This, but for his being so much occupied with _making himself +acceptable_ to his congregation, would have given him a leadership in +the rising rebellion against a theology which crushed the hearts of men +by attributing injustice to their God. As it was, he lay at anchor, and +let the tide rush past him. + +Further change followed--gradual, but rapid. His congregation began to +discover that he was not the man he had been. They complained of lack of +variety in his preaching; said he took it too easy; did not study his +sermons sufficiently; often spoke extempore, which was a poor compliment +to _them_; did not visit with impartiality, and indeed had all along +favored the carriage people. There was a party in the church which had +not been cordial to him from the first; partly from his fault, partly +from theirs, he had always made them feel they were of the lower grade; +and from an increase of shops in the neighborhood, this party was now +gathering head. Their leaders went so far at length as to hint at a +necessity for explanation in regard to the accounts of certain charities +administered by the pastor. In these, unhappily, _lacunae_ were patent. +In his troubles the pastor had grown careless. But it was altogether to +his own loss, for not merely had the money been spent with a rigidity of +uprightness, such as few indeed of his accusers exercised in their +business affairs, but he had in his disbursements exceeded the +contribution committed to his charge. Confident, however, in his +position, and much occupied with other thoughts, he had taken no care to +set down the particulars of his expenditure, and his enemies did not +fail to hint a connection between this fact and the loss of his wife's +annuity. Worst of all, doubts of his orthodoxy began to be expressed by +the more ignorant, and harbored without examination by the less +ignorant. + +All at once he became aware of the general disloyalty of his flock, and +immediately resigned. Scarcely had he done so when he was invited to +Glaston, and received with open arms. There he would heal his wounds, +and spend the rest of his days in peace. "He caught a slip or two" in +descending, but soon began to find the valley of humiliation that +wholesome place which all true pilgrims have ever declared it. +Comparative retirement, some sense of lost labor, some suspicion of the +worth of the ends for which he had spent his strength, a waking desire +after the God in whom he had vaguely believed all the time he was +letting the dust of paltry accident inflame his eyes, blistering and +deadening his touch with the efflorescent crusts and agaric tumors upon +the dry bones of theology, gilding the vane of his chapel instead of +cleansing its porch and its floor--these all favored the birth in his +mind of the question, whether he had ever entered in at the straight +gate himself, or had not merely been standing by its side calling to +others to enter in. Was it even as well as this with him? Had he not +been more intent on gathering a wretched flock within the rough, +wool-stealing, wind-sifting, beggarly hurdles of his church, than on +housing true men and women safe in the fold of the true Shepherd? +Feeding troughs for the sheep there might be many in the fields, and +they might or might not be presided over by servants of the true +Shepherd, but the fold they were not! He grew humble before the Master, +and the Master began to lord it lovingly over him. He sought His +presence, and found Him; began to think less of books and rabbis, yea +even, for the time, of Paul and Apollos and Cephas, and to pore and +ponder over the living tale of the New Covenant; began to feel that the +Lord meant what He said, and that His apostles also meant what He said; +forgot Calvin a good deal, outgrew the influences of Jonathan Edwards, +and began to understand Jesus Christ. + +Few sights can be lovelier than that of a man who, having rushed up the +staircase of fame in his youth--what matter whether the fame of a paltry +world, or a paltry sect of that world!--comes slowly, gently, graciously +down in his old age, content to lose that which he never had, and +careful only to be honest at last. It had not been so with Walter Drake. +He had to come down first to begin to get the good of it, but once down, +it was not long ere he began to go up a very different stair indeed. A +change took place in him which turned all aims, all efforts, all +victories of the world, into the merest, most poverty-stricken trifling. +He had been a tarrer and smearer, a marker and shearer of sheep, rather +than a pastor; but now he recognized the rod and leaned on the staff of +the true Shepherd Who feeds both shepherds and sheep. Hearty were the +thanks he offered that he had been staid in his worse than foolish +career. + +Since then, he had got into a hollow in the valley, and at this moment, +as he sat in his summer-house, was looking from a verge abrupt into what +seemed a bottomless gulf of humiliation. For his handsome London house, +he had little better than a cottage, in which his study was not a +quarter of the size of the one he had left; he had sold two-thirds of +his books; for three men and four women servants, he had but one old +woman and his own daughter to do the work of the house; for all +quadrupedal menie, he had but a nondescript canine and a contemptuous +feline foundling; from a devoted congregation of comparatively educated +people, he had sunk to one in which there was not a person of higher +standing than a tradesman, and that congregation had now rejected him as +not up to their mark, turning him off to do his best with fifty pounds a +year. He had himself heard the cheating butcher remark in the open +street that it was quite enough, and more than ever his Master had. But +all these things were as nothing in his eyes beside his inability to pay +Mr. Jones's bill. He had outgrown his former self, but this kind of +misery it would be but deeper degradation to outgrow. All before this +had been but humiliation; this was shame. Now first he knew what poverty +was! Had God forgotten him? That could not be! that which could forget +could not be God. Did he not care then that such things should befall +his creatures? Were they but trifles in his eyes? He ceased thinking, +gave way to the feeling that God dealt hardly with him, and sat stupidly +indulging a sense of grievance--with self-pity, than which there is +scarce one more childish or enfeebling in the whole circle of the +emotions. Was this what God had brought him nearer to Himself for? was +this the end of a ministry in which he had, in some measure at least, +denied himself and served God and his fellow? He could bear any thing +but shame! That too could he have borne had he not been a teacher of +religion--one whose failure must brand him a hypocrite. How mean it +would sound--what a reproach to _the cause_, that the congregational +minister had run up a bill with a church-butcher which he was unable to +pay! It was the shame--the shame he could not bear! Ought he to have +been subjected to it? + +A humbler and better mood slowly dawned with unconscious change, and he +began to ponder with himself wherein he had been misusing the money +given him: either he had been misusing it, or God had not given him +enough, seeing it would not reach the end of his needs; but he could +think only of the poor he had fed, and the child he had adopted, and +surely God would overlook those points of extravagance. Still, if he had +not the means, he had not the right to do such things. It might not in +itself be wrong, but in respect of him it was as dishonest as if he had +spent the money on himself--not to mention that it was a thwarting of +the counsel of God, who, if He had meant them to be so aided, would have +sent him the money to spend upon them honestly. His one excuse was that +he could not have foreseen how soon his income was going to shrink to a +third. In future he would withhold his hand. But surely he might keep +the child? Nay, having once taken her in charge, he must keep the child. +It was a comfort, there could be no doubt about that. God had money +enough, and certainly He would enable him to do that! Only, why then did +He bring him to such poverty? + +So round in his mill he went, round and round again, and back to the old +evil mood. Either there was no God, or he was a hard-used man, whom his +Master did not mind bringing to shame before his enemies! He could not +tell which would triumph the more--the church-butcher over dissent, or +the chapel-butcher over the church-butcher, and the pastor who had +rebuked him for dishonesty! His very soul was disquieted within him. He +rose at last with a tear trickling down his cheek, and walked to and fro +in his garden. + +Things went on nevertheless as if all was right with the world. The +Lythe flowed to the sea, and the silver-mailed salmon leaped into the +more limpid air. The sun shone gracious over all his kingdom, and his +little praisers were loud in every bush. The primroses, earth-born suns, +were shining about in every border. The sound of the great organ came +from the grand old church, and the sound of many voices from the humble +chapel. Only, where was the heart of it all? + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +THE CHAMBER AT THE COTTAGE. + + +Meanwhile Faber was making a round, with the village of Owlkirk for the +end of it. Ere he was half-way thither, his groom was tearing after him +upon Niger, with a message from Mrs. Puckridge, which, however, did not +overtake him. He opened the cottage-door, and walked up stairs, +expecting to find his patient weak, but in the fairest of ways to +recover speedily. What was his horror to see her landlady weeping and +wringing her hands over the bed, and find the lady lying motionless, +with bloodless lips and distended nostrils--to all appearance dead! +Pillows, sheets, blankets, looked one mass of red. The bandage had +shifted while she slept, and all night her blood had softly flowed. Hers +was one of those peculiar organizations in which, from some cause but +dimly conjectured as yet, the blood once set flowing will flow on to +death, and even the tiniest wound is hard to stanch. Was the lovely +creature gone? In her wrists could discern no pulse. He folded back the +bed-clothes, and laid his ear to her heart. His whole soul listened. +Yes; there was certainly the faintest flutter. He watched a moment: yes; +he could see just the faintest tremor of the diaphragm. + +"Run," he cried, "--for God's sake run and bring me a jug of hot water, +and two or three basins. There is just a chance yet! If you make haste, +we may save her. Bring me a syringe. If you haven't one, run from house +to house till you get one. Her life depends on it." By this time he was +shouting after the hurrying landlady. + +In a minute or two she returned. + +"Have you got the syringe?" he cried, the moment he heard her step. + +To his great relief she had. He told her to wash it out thoroughly with +the hot water, unscrew the top, and take out the piston. While giving +his directions, he unbound the arm, enlarged the wound in the vein +longitudinally, and re-bound the arm tight below the elbow, then quickly +opened a vein of his own, and held the syringe to catch the spout that +followed. When it was full, he replaced the piston, telling Mrs. +Puckridge to put her thumb on his wound, turned the point of the syringe +up and drove a little out to get rid of the air, then, with the help of +a probe, inserted the nozzle into the wound, and gently forced in the +blood. That done, he placed his own thumbs on the two wounds, and made +the woman wash out the syringe in clean hot water. Then he filled it as +before, and again forced its contents into the lady's arm. This process +he went through repeatedly. Then, listening, he found her heart beating +quite perceptibly, though irregularly. Her breath was faintly coming and +going. Several times more he repeated the strange dose, then ceased, and +was occupied in binding up her arm, when she gave a great shuddering +sigh. By the time he had finished, the pulse was perceptible at her +wrist. Last of all he bound up his own wound, from which had escaped a +good deal beyond what he had used. While thus occupied, he turned sick, +and lay down on the floor. Presently, however, he grew able to crawl +from the room, and got into the garden at the back of the house, where +he walked softly to the little rude arbor at the end of it, and sat down +as if in a dream. But in the dream his soul felt wondrously awake. He +had been tasting death from the same cup with the beautiful woman who +lay there, coming alive with his life. A terrible weight was heaved from +his bosom. If she had died, he would have felt, all his life long, that +he had sent one of the loveliest of Nature's living dreams back to the +darkness and the worm, long years before her time, and with the foam of +the cup of life yet on her lips. Then a horror seized him at the +presumptuousness of the liberty he had taken. What if the beautiful +creature would rather have died than have the blood of a man, one she +neither loved nor knew, in her veins, and coursing through her very +heart! She must never know it. + +"I am very grateful," he said to himself; then smiled and wondered to +whom he was grateful. + +"How the old stamps and colors come out in the brain when one least +expects it!" he said. "What I meant was, _How glad I am!_" + +Honest as he was, he did not feel called upon to examine whether _glad_ +was really the word to represent the feeling which the thought of what +he had escaped, and of the creature he had saved from death, had sent up +into his consciousness. Glad he was indeed! but was there not mingled +with his gladness a touch of something else, very slight, yet potent +enough to make him mean _grateful_ when the word broke from him? and if +there was such a something, where did it come from? Perhaps if he had +caught and held the feeling, and submitted it to such a searching +scrutiny as he was capable of giving it, he might have doubted whether +any mother-instilled superstition ever struck root so deep as the depth +from which that seemed at least to come. I merely suggest it. The +feeling was a faint and poor one, and I do not care to reason from it. I +would not willingly waste upon small arguments, when I see more and more +clearly that our paltriest faults and dishonesties need one and the same +enormous cure. + +But indeed never had Faber less time to examine himself than now, had +he been so inclined. With that big wound in it, he would as soon have +left a shell in the lady's chamber with the fuse lighted, as her arm to +itself. He did not leave the village all day. He went to see another +patient in it, and one on its outskirts, but he had his dinner at the +little inn where he put up Ruber, and all night long he sat by the +bedside of his patient. There the lovely white face, blind like a statue +that never had eyes, and the perfect arm, which now and then, with a +restless, uneasy, feeble toss, she would fling over the counterpane, the +arm he had to watch as the very gate of death, grew into his heart. He +dreaded the moment when she would open her eyes, and his might no longer +wander at will over her countenance. Again and again in the night he put +a hand under her head, and held a cooling draught to her lips; but not +even when she drank did her eyes open: like a child too weak to trust +itself, therefore free of all anxiety and fear, she took whatever came, +questioning nothing. He sat at the foot of the bed, where, with the +slightest movement, he could, through the opening of the curtains, see +her perfectly. + +By some change of position, he had unknowingly drawn one of them back a +little from between her and him, as he sat thinking about her. The +candle shone full upon his face, but the other curtain was between the +candle and his patient. Suddenly she opened her eyes. + +A dream had been with her, and she did not yet know that it was gone. +She could hardly be said to _know_ any thing. Fever from loss of blood; +uneasiness, perhaps, from the presence in her system of elements +elsewhere fashioned and strangely foreign to its economy; the remnants +of sleep and of the dream; the bewilderment of sudden awaking--all had +combined to paralyze her judgment, and give her imagination full career. +When she opened her eyes, she saw a beautiful face, and nothing else, +and it seemed to her itself the source of the light by which she saw it. +Her dream had been one of great trouble; and when she beheld the shining +countenance, she thought it was the face of the Saviour: he was looking +down upon her heart, which he held in his hand, and reading all that was +written there. The tears rushed to her eyes, and the next moment Faber +saw two fountains of light and weeping in the face which had been but as +of loveliest marble. The curtain fell between them, and the lady thought +the vision had vanished. The doctor came softly through the dusk to her +bedside. He felt her pulse, looked to the bandage on her arm, gave her +something to drink, and left the room. Presently Mrs. Puckridge brought +her some beef tea. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE MINISTER'S GARDEN. + + +Up and down the garden paced the pastor, stung by the gadflies of debt. +If he were in London he could sell his watch and seals; he had a ring +somewhere, too--an antique, worth what now seemed a good deal; but his +wife had given him both. Besides, it would cost so much to go to London, +and he had no money. Mr. Drew, doubtless, would lend him what he wanted, +but he could not bring himself to ask him. If he parted with them in +Glaston, they would be put in the watchmaker's window, and that would be +a scandal--with the Baptists making head in the very next street! For, +notwithstanding the heartless way in which the Congregationalists had +treated him, theirs was the cause of scriptural Christianity, and it +made him shudder to think of bringing the smallest discredit upon the +denomination. The church-butcher was indeed a worse terror to him than +Apollyon had been to Christian, for it seemed to his faithlessness that +not even the weapon of All-prayer was equal to his discomfiture; nothing +could render him harmless but the payment of his bill. He began to look +back with something like horror upon the sermons he had preached on +honesty; for how would his inability to pay his debts appear in the eyes +of those who had heard them? Oh! why had he not paid for every thing as +they had it? Then when the time came that he could not pay, they would +only have had to go without, whereas now, there was the bill louring at +the back of the want! + +When Miss Drake returned from the chapel, she found her father leaning +on the sun-dial, where she had left him. To all appearance he had not +moved. He knew her step but did not stir. + +"Father!" she said. + +"It is a hard thing, my child," he responded, still without moving, +"when the valley of Humiliation comes next the river Death, and no land +of Beulah between! I had my good things in my youth, and now I have my +evil things." + +She laid her hand on his shoulder lovingly, tenderly, worshipfully, but +did not speak. + +"As you see me now, my Dorothy, my God's-gift, you would hardly believe +your father was once a young and popular preacher, ha, ha! Fool that I +was! I thought they prized my preaching, and loved me for what I taught +them. I thought I was somebody! With shame I confess it! Who were they, +or what was their judgment, to fool me in my own concerning myself! +Their praise was indeed a fit rock for me to build my shame upon." + +"But, father dear, what is even a sin when it is repented of?" + +"A shame forever, my child. Our Lord did not cast out even an apostle +for his conceit and self-sufficiency, but he let him fall." + +"He has not let you fall, father?" said Dorothy, with tearful eyes. + +"He is bringing my gray hairs with sorrow and shame to the grave, my +child." + +"Why, father!" cried the girl, shocked, as she well might be, at his +words, "what have I done to make you say that?" + +"Done, my darling! _you_ done? You have done nothing but righteousness +ever since you could do any thing! You have been like a mother to your +old father. It is that bill! that horrid butcher's bill!" + +Dorothy burst out laughing through her dismay, and wept and laughed +together for more than a minute ere she could recover herself. + +"Father! you dear father! you're too good to live! Why, there are forks +and spoons enough in the house to pay that paltry bill!--not to mention +the cream-jug which is, and the teapot which we thought was silver, +because Lady Sykes gave it us. Why didn't you tell me what was troubling +you, father dear?" + +"I can't bear--I never _could_ bear to owe money. I asked the man for +his bill some time ago. I could have paid it then, though it wouldn't +have left me a pound. The moment I looked at it, I felt as if the Lord +had forsaken me. It is easy for you to bear; you are not the one +accountable. I am. And if the pawnbroker or the silver-smith does stand +between me and absolute dishonesty, yet to find myself in such a +miserable condition, with next to nothing between us and the workhouse, +may well make me doubt whether I have been a true servant of the Lord, +for surely such shall never be ashamed! During these last days the enemy +has even dared to tempt me with the question, whether after all, these +unbelievers may not be right, and the God that ruleth in the earth a +mere projection of what the conscience and heart bribe the imagination +to construct for them!" + +"I wouldn't think that before I was driven to it, father," said Dorothy, +scarcely knowing what she said, for his doubt shot a poisoned arrow of +despair into the very heart of her heart. + +He, never doubting the security of his child's faith, had no slightest +suspicion into what a sore spot his words had carried torture. He did +not know that the genius of doubt--shall I call him angel or demon?--had +knocked at her door, had called through her window; that words dropped +by Faber, indicating that science was against all idea of a God, and the +confidence of their tone, had conjured up in her bosom hollow fears, +faint dismays, and stinging questions. Ready to trust, and incapable of +arrogance, it was hard for her to imagine how a man like Mr. Faber, +upright and kind and self-denying, could say such things if he did not +_know_ them true. The very word _science_ appeared to carry an awful +authority. She did not understand that it was only because science had +never come closer to Him than the mere sight of the fringe of the +outermost folds of the tabernacle of His presence, that her worshipers +dared assert there was no God. She did not perceive that nothing ever +science could find, could possibly be the God of men; that science is +only the human reflex of truth, and that truth itself can not be +measured by what of it is reflected from the mirror of the +understanding. She did not see that no incapacity of science to find +God, even touched the matter of honest men's belief that He made His +dwelling with the humble and contrite. Nothing she had learned from her +father either provided her with reply, or gave hope of finding argument +of discomfiture; nothing of all that went on at chapel or church seemed +to have any thing to do with the questions that presented themselves. + +Such a rough shaking of so-called faith, has been of endless service to +many, chiefly by exposing the insecurity of all foundations of belief, +save that which is discovered in digging with the spade of obedience. +Well indeed is it for all honest souls to be thus shaken, who have been +building upon doctrines concerning Christ, upon faith, upon experiences, +upon any thing but Christ Himself, as revealed by Himself and His spirit +to all who obey Him, and so revealing the Father--a doctrine just as +foolish as the rest to men like Faber, but the power of God and the +wisdom of God to such who know themselves lifted out of darkness and an +ever-present sense of something wrong--if it be only into twilight and +hope. + +Dorothy was a gift of God, and the trouble that gnawed at her heart she +would not let out to gnaw at her father's. + +"There's Ducky come to call us to dinner," she said, and rising, went to +meet her. + +"Dinner!" groaned Mr. Drake, and would have remained where he was. But +for Dorothy's sake he rose and followed her, feeling almost like a +repentant thief who had stolen the meal. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +THE HEATH AT NESTLEY. + + +On the Monday morning, Mr. Bevis's groom came to the rectory with a note +for the curate, begging him and Mrs. Wingfold to dine at Nestley the +same day if possible. + +"I know," the rector wrote, "Monday is, or ought to be, an idle day with +you, and I write instead of my wife, because I want to see you on +business. I would have come to you, had I not had reasons for wishing to +see you here rather than at Glaston. The earlier you can come and the +longer you can stay the better, but you shall go as soon after an early +dinner as you please. You are a bee and I am a drone. God bless you. + +JOHN BEVIS." + +The curate took the note to his wife. Things were at once arranged, an +answer of ready obedience committed to the groom, and Helen's +pony-carriage ordered out. + +The curate called every thing Helen's. He had a great contempt for the +spirit of men who marry rich wives and then lord it over their money, as +if they had done a fine thing in getting hold of it, and the wife had +been but keeping it from its rightful owner. They do not know what a +confession their whole bearing is, that, but for their wives' money, +they would be but the merest, poorest nobodies. So small are they that +even that suffices to make them feel big! But Helen did not like it, +especially when he would ask her if he might have this or that, or do so +and so. Any common man who heard him would have thought him afraid of +his wife; but a large-hearted woman would at once have understood, as +did Helen, that it all came of his fine sense of truth, and reality, and +obligation. Still Helen would have had him forget all such matters in +connection with her. They were one beyond obligation. She had given him +herself, and what were bank-notes after that? But he thought of her +always as an angel who had taken him in, to comfort, and bless, and +cherish him with love, that he might the better do the work of his God +and hers; therefore his obligation to her was his glory. + +"Your ponies go splendidly to-day, Helen," he said, as admiringly he +watched how her hands on the reins seemed to mold their movements. + +They were the tiniest, daintiest things, of the smallest ever seen in +harness, but with all the ways of big horses, therefore amusing in their +very grace. They were the delight of the children of Glaston and the +villages round. + +"Why _will_ you call them _my_ ponies, Thomas?" returned his wife, just +sufficiently vexed to find it easy to pretend to be cross. "I don't see +what good I have got by marrying you, if every thing is to be mine all +the same!" + +"Don't be unreasonable, my Helen!" said the curate, looking into the +lovely eyes whose colors seemed a little blown about in their rings. +"Don't you see it is my way of feeling to myself how much, and with what +a halo about them, they are mine? If I had bought them with my own +money, I should hardly care for them. Thank God, they are _not_ mine +that way, or in any way like that way. _You_ are mine, my life, and they +are yours--mine therefore because they are about you like your clothes +or your watch. They are mine as your handkerchief and your gloves are +mine--through worshiping love. Listen to reason. If a thing is yours it +is ten times more mine than if I had bought it, for, just because it is +yours, I am able to possess it as the meek, and not the land-owners, +inherit the earth. It makes _having_ such a deep and high--indeed a +perfect thing! I take pleasure without an atom of shame in every rich +thing you have brought me. Do you think, if you died, and I carried your +watch, I should ever cease to feel the watch was yours? Just so they are +your ponies; and if you don't like me to say so, you can contradict me +every time, you know, all the same." + +"I know people will think I am like the lady we heard of the other day, +who told her husband the sideboard was hers, not his. Thomas, I _hate_ +to look like the rich one, when all that makes life worth living for, or +fit to be lived, was and is given me by you." + +"No, no, no, my darling! don't say that; you terrify me. I was but the +postman that brought you the good news." + +"Well! and what else with me and the ponies and the money and all that? +Did I make the ponies? Or did I even earn the money that bought them? It +is only the money my father and brother have done with. Don't make me +look as if I did not behave like a lady to my own husband, Thomas." + +"Well, my beautiful, I'll make up for all my wrongs by ordering you +about as if I were the Marquis of Saluzzo, and you the patient Grisel." + +"I wish you would. You don't order me about half enough." + +"I'll try to do better. You shall see." + +Nestley was a lovely place, and the house was old enough to be quite +respectable--one of those houses with a history and a growth, which are +getting rarer every day as the ugly temples of mammon usurp their +places. It was dusky, cool, and somber--a little shabby, indeed, which +fell in harmoniously with its peculiar charm, and indeed added to it. A +lawn, not immaculate of the sweet fault of daisies, sank slowly to a +babbling little tributary of the Lythe, and beyond were fern-covered +slopes, and heather, and furze, and pine-woods. The rector was a +sensible Englishman, who objected to have things done after the taste of +his gardener instead of his own. He loved grass like a village poet, and +would have no flower-beds cut in his lawn. Neither would he have any +flowers planted in the summer to be taken up again before the winter. He +would have no cockney gardening about his place, he said. Perhaps that +was partly why he never employed any but his old cottagers about the +grounds; and the result was that for half the show he had twice the +loveliness. His ambition was to have every possible English garden +flower. + +As soon as his visitors arrived, he and his curate went away together, +and Mrs. Wingfold was shown into the drawing-room, where was Mrs. Bevis +with her knitting. A greater contrast than that of the two ladies then +seated together in the long, low, dusky room, it were not easy to +imagine. I am greatly puzzled to think what conscious good in life Mrs. +Bevis enjoyed--just as I am puzzled to understand the eagerness with +which horses, not hungry, and evidently in full enjoyment of the sun and +air and easy exercise, will yet hurry to their stable the moment their +heads are turned in the direction of them. Is it that they have no hope +in the unknown, and then alone, in all the vicissitudes of their day, +know their destination? Would but some good kind widow, of the same type +with Mrs. Bevis, without children, tell me wherefore she is unwilling to +die! She has no special friend to whom she unbosoms herself--indeed, so +far as any one knows, she has never had any thing of which to unbosom +herself. She has no pet--dog or cat or monkey or macaw, and has never +been seen to hug a child. She never reads poetry--I doubt if she knows +more than the first line of _How doth_. She reads neither novels nor +history, and looks at the newspaper as if the type were fly-spots. Yet +there she sits smiling! Why! oh! why? Probably she does not know. Never +did question, not to say doubt, cause those soft, square-ended fingers +to move one atom less measuredly in the construction of Mrs. Bevis's +muffetee, the sole knittable thing her nature seemed capable of. Never +was sock seen on her needles; the turning of the heel was too much for +her. That she had her virtues, however, was plain from the fact that her +servants staid with her years and years; and I can, beside, from +observation set down a few of them. She never asked her husband what he +would have for dinner. When he was ready to go out with her, she was +always ready too. She never gave one true reason, and kept back a +truer--possibly there was not room for two thoughts at once in her +brain. She never screwed down a dependent; never kept small tradespeople +waiting for their money; never refused a reasonable request. In fact, +she was a stuffed bag of virtues; the bag was of no great size, but +neither were the virtues insignificant. There are dozens of sorts of +people I should feel a far stronger objection to living with; but what +puzzles me is how she contrives to live with herself, never questioning +the comfort of the arrangement, or desiring that it should one day come +to an end. Surely she must be deep, and know some secret! + +For the other lady, Helen Lingard that was, she had since her marriage +altered considerably in the right direction. She used to be a little +dry, a little stiff, and a little stately. To the last I should be far +from objecting, were it not that her stateliness was of the mechanical +sort, belonging to the spine, and not to a soul uplift. Now it had left +her spine and settled in a soul that scorned the low and loved the +lowly. Her step was lighter, her voice more flexible, her laugh much +merrier and more frequent, for now her heart was gay. Her husband +praised God when he heard her laugh; the laugh suggested the praise, for +itself rang like praises. She would pull up her ponies in the middle of +the street, and at word or sign, the carriage would be full of children. +Whoever could might scramble in till it was full. At the least rudeness, +the offender would be ordered to the pavement, and would always obey, +generally weeping. She would drive two or three times up and down the +street with her load, then turn it out, and take another, and another, +until as many as she judged fit had had a taste of the pleasure. This +she had learned from seeing a costermonger fill his cart with children, +and push behind, while the donkey in front pulled them along the street, +to the praise and glory of God. + +She was overbearing in one thing, and that was submission. Once, when I +was in her husband's study, she made a remark on something he had said +or written, I forget what, for which her conscience of love immediately +smote her. She threw herself on the floor, crept under the writing table +at which he sat, and clasped his knees. + +"I beg your pardon, husband," she said sorrowfully. + +"Helen," he cried, laughing rather oddly, "you will make a consummate +idiot of me before you have done." + +"Forgive me," she pleaded. + +"I can't forgive you. How can I forgive where there is positively +nothing to be forgiven?" + +"I don't care what you say; I know better; you _must_ forgive me." + +"Nonsense!" + +"Forgive me." + +"Do get up. Don't be silly." + +"Forgive me. I will lie here till you do." + +"But your remark was perfectly true." + +"It makes no difference. I ought not to have said it like that. Forgive +me, or I will cry." + +I will tell no more of it. Perhaps it is silly of me to tell any, but it +moved me strangely. + +I have said enough to show there was a contrast between the two ladies. +As to what passed in the way of talk, that, from pure incapacity, I dare +not attempt to report. I did hear them talk once, and they laughed too, +but not one salient point could I lay hold of by which afterward to +recall their conversation. Do I dislike Mrs. Bevis? Not in the smallest +degree. I could read a book I loved in her presence. That would be +impossible to me in the presence of Mrs. Ramshorn. + +Mrs. Wingfold had developed a great faculty for liking people. It was +quite a fresh shoot of her nature, for she had before been rather of a +repellent disposition. I wish there were more, and amongst them some of +the best of people, similarly changed. Surely the latter would soon be, +if once they had a glimpse of how much the coming of the kingdom is +retarded by defect of courtesy. The people I mean are slow to _like_, +and until they come to _like_, they _seem_ to dislike. I have known such +whose manner was fit to imply entire disapprobation of the very +existence of those upon whom they looked for the first time. They might +then have been saying to themselves, "_I_ would never have created such +people!" Had I not known them, I could not have imagined them lovers of +God or man, though they were of both. True courtesy, that is, courtesy +born of a true heart, is a most lovely, and absolutely indispensable +grace--one that nobody but a Christian can thoroughly develop. God grant +us a "coming-on disposition," as Shakespeare calls it. Who shall tell +whose angel stands nearer to the face of the Father? Should my brother +stand lower in the social scale than I, shall I not be the more tender, +and respectful, and self-refusing toward him, that God has placed him +there who may all the time be greater than I? A year before, Helen could +hardly endure doughy Mrs. Bevis, but now she had found something to like +in her, and there was confidence and faith between them. So there they +sat, the elder lady meandering on, and Helen, who had taken care to +bring some work with her, every now and then casting a bright glance in +her face, or saying two or three words with a smile, or asking some +simple question. Mrs. Bevis talked chiefly of the supposed affairs and +undoubted illness of Miss Meredith, concerning both of which rather +strange reports had reached her. + +Meantime the gentlemen were walking through the park in earnest +conversation. They crossed the little brook and climbed to the heath on +the other side. There the rector stood, and turning to his companion, +said: + +"It's rather late in the day for a fellow to wake up, ain't it, +Wingfold? You see I was brought up to hate fanaticism, and that may have +blinded me to something you have seen and got a hold of. I wish I could +just see what it is, but I never was much of a theologian. Indeed I +suspect I am rather stupid in some things. But I would fain try to look +my duty in the face. It's not for me to start up and teach the people, +because I ought to have been doing it all this time: I've got nothing to +teach them. God only knows whether I haven't been breaking every one of +the commandments I used to read to them every Sunday." + +"But God does know, sir," said the curate, with even more than his usual +respect in his tone, "and that is well, for otherwise we might go on +breaking them forever." + +The rector gave him a sudden look, full in the face, but said nothing, +seemed to fall a thinking, and for some time was silent. + +"There's one thing clear," he resumed: "I've been taking pay, and doing +no work. I used to think I was at least doing no harm--that I was merely +using one of the privileges of my position: I not only paid a curate, +but all the repair the church ever got was from me. Now, however, for +the first time, I reflect that the money was not given me for that. +Doubtless it has been all the better for my congregation, but that is +only an instance of the good God brings out of evil, and the evil is +mine still. Then, again, there's all this property my wife brought me: +what have I done with that? The kingdom of heaven has not come a +hair's-breadth nearer for my being a parson of the Church of England; +neither are the people of England a shade the better that I am one of +her land-owners. It is surely time I did something, Wingfold, my boy!" + +"I think it is, sir," answered the curate. + +"Then, in God's name, what am I to do?" returned the rector, almost +testily. + +"Nobody can answer that question but yourself, sir," replied Wingfold. + +"It's no use my trying to preach. I could not write a sermon if I took a +month to it. If it were a paper on the management of a stable, now, I +think I could write that--respectably. I know what I am about there. I +could even write one on some of the diseases of horses and bullocks--but +that's not what the church pays me for. There's one thing though--it +comes over me strong that I should like to read prayers in the old place +again. I want to pray, and I don't know how; and it seems as if I could +shove in some of my own if I had them going through my head once again. +I tell you what: we won't make any fuss about it--what's in a name?--but +from this day you shall be incumbent, and I will be curate. You shall +preach--or what you please, and I shall read the prayers or not, just as +you please. Try what you can make of me, Wingfold. Don't ask me to do +what I can't, but help me to do what I can. Look here--here's what I've +been thinking--it came to me last night as I was walking about here +after coming from Glaston:--here, in this corner of the parish, we are a +long way from church. In the village there, there is no place of worship +except a little Methodist one. There isn't one of their--local +preachers, I believe they call them--that don't preach a deal better +than I could if I tried ever so much. It's vulgar enough sometimes, they +tell me, but then they preach, and mean it. Now I might mean it, but I +shouldn't preach;--for what is it to people at work all the week to have +a man read a sermon to them? You might as well drive a nail by pushing +it in with the palm of your hand. Those men use the hammer. Ill-bred, +conceited fellows, some of them, I happen to know, but they know their +business. Now why shouldn't I build a little place here on my own +ground, and get the bishop to consecrate it? I would read prayers for +you in the abbey church in the morning, and then you would not be too +tired to come and preach here in the evening. I would read the prayers +here too, if you liked." + +"I think your scheme delightful," answered the curate, after a moment's +pause. "I would only venture to suggest one improvement--that you should +not have your chapel consecrated. You will find it ever so much more +useful. It will then be dedicated to the God of the whole earth, instead +of the God of the Church of England." + +"Why! ain't they the same?" cried the rector, half aghast, as he stopped +and faced round on the curate. + +"Yes," answered Wingfold; "and all will be well when the Church of +England really recognizes the fact. Meantime its idea of God is such as +will not at all fit the God of the whole earth. And that is why she is +in bondage. Except she burst the bonds of her own selfishness, she will +burst her heart and go to pieces, as her enemies would have her. Every +piece will be alive, though, I trust, more or less." + +"I don't understand you," said the rector. "What has all that to do with +the consecration of my chapel?" + +"If you don't consecrate it," answered Wingfold, "it will remain a +portion of the universe, a thoroughfare for all divine influences, open +as the heavens to every wind that blows. Consecration--" + +Here the curate checked himself. He was going to say--"is another word +for congestion,"--but he bethought himself what a wicked thing it would +be, for the satisfaction of speaking his mind, to disturb that of his +rector, brooding over a good work. + +"But," he concluded therefore, "there will be time enough to think about +that. The scheme is a delightful one. Apart from it, however, +altogether--if you would but read prayers in your own church, it would +wonderfully strengthen my hands. Only I am afraid I should shock you +sometimes." + +"I will take my chance of that. If you do, I will tell you of it. And if +I do what you don't like, you must tell me of it. I trust neither of us +will find the other incapable of understanding his neighbor's position." + +They walked to the spot which the rector had already in his mind as the +most suitable for the projected chapel. It was a bit of gently rising +ground, near one of the gates, whence they could see the whole of the +little village of Owlkirk. One of the nearest cottages was that of Mrs. +Puckridge. They saw the doctor ride in at the other end of the street, +stop there, fasten his horse to the paling, and go in. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +THE GARDEN AT OWLKIRK. + + +No sooner had Faber left the cottage that same morning, than the foolish +Mrs. Puckridge proceeded to pour out to the patient, still agitated both +with her dream and her waking vision, all the terrible danger she had +been in, and the marvelous way in which the doctor had brought her back +from the threshold of death. Every drop of the little blood in her body +seemed to rush to her face, then back to her heart, leaving behind it a +look of terror. She covered her face with the sheet, and lay so long +without moving that her nurse was alarmed. When she drew the sheet back, +she found her in a faint, and it was with great difficulty she brought +her out of it. But not one word could she get from her. She did not seem +even to hear what she said. Presently she grew restless, and soon her +flushed cheek and bright eye indicated an increase of fever. When Faber +saw her, he was much disappointed, perceived at once that something had +excited her, and strongly suspected that, for all her promises, Mrs. +Puckridge had betrayed the means by which he recovered her. + +He said to himself that he had had no choice, but then neither had the +lady, and the thing might be hateful to her. She might be in love, and +then how she must abominate the business, and detest him! It was +horrible to think of her knowing it. But for knowing it, she would never +be a whit the worse, for he never had a day's illness in his life and +knew of no taint in his family. + +When she saw him approach her bedside, a look reminding him of the +ripple of a sudden cold gust passing with the shadow of a cloud over +still water swept across her face. She closed her eyes, and turned a +little from him. What color she had, came and went painfully. Cursing in +his heart the faithlessness of Mrs. Puckridge, he assumed his coldest, +hardest professional manner, felt her pulse with the gentlest, yet most +peremptory inquiry, gave her attendant some authoritative directions, +and left her, saying he would call again in the afternoon. + +During seven days he visited her twice a day. He had good cause to be +anxious, and her recovery was very slow. Once and again appeared +threatenings of the primary complaint, while from the tardiness with +which her veins refilled, he feared for her lungs. During all these +visits, hardly a word beyond the most necessary passed between them. +After that time they were reduced to one a day. Ever as the lady grew +stronger, she seemed to become colder, and her manner grew more distant. +After a fortnight, he again reduced them to one in two days--very +unwillingly, for by that time she had come to occupy nearly as much of +his thoughts as all the rest of his patients together. She made him feel +that his visits were less than welcome to her, except for the help they +brought her, allowed him no insight into her character and ways of +thinking, behaved to him indeed with such restraint, that he could +recall no expression of her face the memory of which drew him to dwell +upon it; yet her face and form possessed him with their mere perfection. +He had to set himself sometimes to get rid of what seemed all but her +very presence, for it threatened to unfit him for the right discharge of +his duties. He was haunted with the form to which he had given a renewal +of life, as a murderer is haunted with the form of the man he has +killed. In those marvelous intervals betwixt sleep and waking, when the +soul is like a _camera obscura_, into which throng shapes unbidden, hers +had displaced all others, and came constantly--now flashing with +feverous radiance, now pale and bloodless as death itself. But ever and +always her countenance wore a look of aversion. She seemed in these +visions, to regard him as a vile necromancer, who first cast her into +the sepulcher, and then brought her back by some hellish art. She had +fascinated him. But he would not allow that he was in love with her. A +man may be fascinated and hate. A man is not necessarily in love with +the woman whose form haunts him. So said Faber to himself; and I can not +yet tell whether he was in love with her or not. I do not know where the +individuality of love commences--when love begins to be love. He must +have been a good way toward that point, however, to have thus betaken +himself to denial. He was the more interested to prove himself free, +that he feared, almost believed, there was a lover concerned, and that +was the reason she hated him so severely for what he had done. + +He had long come to the conclusion that circumstances had straitened +themselves around her. Experience had given him a keen eye, and he had +noted several things about her dress. For one thing, while he had +observed that her under-clothing was peculiarly dainty, he had once or +twice caught a glimpse of such an incongruity as he was compelled to set +down to poverty. Besides, what reason in which poverty bore no part, +could a lady have for being alone in a poor country lodging, without +even a maid? Indeed, might it not be the consciousness of the +peculiarity of her position, and no dislike to him, that made her treat +him with such impenetrable politeness? Might she not well dread being +misunderstood! + +She would be wanting to pay him for his attendance--and what was he to +do? He must let her pay something, or she would consider herself still +more grievously wronged by him, but how was he to take the money from +her hand? It was very hard that ephemeral creatures of the earth, born +but to die, to gleam out upon the black curtain and vanish again, might +not, for the brief time the poor yet glorious bubble swelled and +throbbed, offer and accept from each other even a few sunbeams in which +to dance! Would not the inevitable rain beat them down at night, and +"mass them into the common clay"? How then could they hurt each +other--why should they fear it--when they were all wandering home to the +black, obliterative bosom of their grandmother Night? He well knew a +certain reply to such reflection, but so he talked with himself. + +He would take his leave as if she were a duchess. But he would not until +she made him feel another visit would be an intrusion. + +One day Mrs. Puckridge met him at the door, looking mysterious. She +pointed with her thumb over her shoulder to indicate that the lady was +in the garden, but at the same time nudged him with her elbow, confident +that the impartment she had to make would justify the liberty, and led +the way into the little parlor. + +"Please, sir, and tell me," she said, turning and closing the door, +"what I be to do. She says she's got no money to pay neither me nor the +doctor, so she give me this, and wants me to sell it. I daren't show it! +They'd say I stole it! She declares that if I mention to a living soul +where I got it, she'll never speak to me again. In course she didn't +mean you, sir, seein' as doctors an' clergymen ain't nobody--leastways +nobody to speak on--and I'm sure I beg your pardon, sir, but my meanin' +is as they ain't them as ain't to be told things. I declare I'm most +terrified to set eyes on the thing!" + +She handed the doctor a little morocco case. He opened it, and saw a +ring, which was plainly of value. It was old-fashioned--a round mass of +small diamonds with a good-sized central one. + +"You are quite right," he said. "The ring is far too valuable for you to +dispose of. Bring it to my house at four o'clock, and I will get rid of +it for you." + +Mrs. Puckridge was greatly relieved, and ended the interview by leading +the way to the back-door. When she opened it, he saw his patient sitting +in the little arbor. She rose, and came to meet him. + +"You see I am quite well now," she said, holding out her hand. + +Her tone was guarded, but surely the ice was melting a little! Was she +taking courage at the near approach of her deliverance? + +She stooped to pick a double daisy from the border. Prompt as he +generally was, he could say nothing: he knew what was coming next. She +spoke while still she stooped. + +"When you come again," she said, "will you kindly let me know how much I +am in your debt?" + +As she ended she rose and stood before him, but she looked no higher +than his shirt-studs. She was ashamed to speak of her indebtedness as an +amount that could be reckoned. The whiteness of her cheek grew warm, +which was all her complexion ever revealed of a blush. It showed plainer +in the deepened darkness of her eyes, and the tremulous increase of +light in them. + +"I will," he replied, without the smallest response of confusion, for he +had recovered himself. "You will be careful!" he added. "Indeed you +must, or you will never be strong." + +She answered only with a little sigh, as if weakness was such a +weariness! and looked away across the garden-hedge out into the +infinite--into more of it at least I think, than Faber recognized. + +"And of all things," he went on, "wear shoes--every time you have to +step off a carpet--not mere foot-gloves like those." + +"Is this a healthy place, Doctor Faber?" she asked, looking haughtier, +he thought, but plainly with a little trouble in her eyes. + +"Decidedly," he answered. "And when you are able to walk on the heath +you will find the air invigorating. Only please mind what I say about +your shoes.--May I ask if you intend remaining here any time?" + +"I have already remained so much longer than I intended, that I am +afraid to say. My plans are now uncertain." + +"Excuse me--I know I presume--but in our profession we must venture a +little now and then--could you not have some friend with you until you +are perfectly strong again? After what you have come through, it may be +years before you are quite what you were. I don't want to frighten +you--only to make you careful." + +"There is no one," she answered in a low voice, which trembled a little. + +"No one--?" repeated Faber, as if waiting for the end of the sentence. +But his heart gave a great bound. + +"No one to come to me. I am alone in the world. My mother died when I +was a child and my father two years ago. He was an officer. I was his +only child, and used to go about with him. I have no friends." + +Her voice faltered more and more. When it ceased she seemed choking a +cry. + +"Since then," she resumed, "I have been a governess. My last situation +was in Yorkshire, in a cold part of the county, and my health began to +fail me. I heard that Glaston was a warm place, and one where I should +be likely to get employment. But I was taken ill on my way there, and +forced to stop. A lady in the train told me this was such a sweet, quiet +little place, and so when we got to the station I came on here." + +Again Faber could not speak. The thought of a lady like her traveling +about alone looking for work was frightful! "And they talk of a God in +the world!" he said to himself--and felt as if he never could forgive +Him. + +"I have papers to show," she added quietly, as if bethinking herself +that he might be taking her for an impostor. + +All the time she had never looked him in the face. She had fixed her +gaze on the far horizon, but a smile, half pitiful, half proud, +flickered about the wonderful curves of her upper lip. + +"I am glad you have told me," he said. "I may be of service to you, if +you will permit me. I know a great many families about here." + +"Oh, thank you!" she cried, and with an expression of dawning hope, +which made her seem more beautiful than ever, she raised her eyes and +looked him full in the face: it was the first time he had seen her eyes +lighted up, except with fever. Then she turned from him, and, apparently +lost in relief, walked toward the arbor a few steps distant. He followed +her, a little behind, for the path was narrow, his eyes fixed on her +exquisite cheek. It was but a moment, yet the very silence seemed to +become conscious. All at once she grew paler, shuddered, put her hand to +her head, and entering the arbor, sat down. Faber was alarmed. Her hand +was quite cold. She would have drawn it away, but he insisted on feeling +her pulse. + +"You must come in at once," he said. + +She rose, visibly trembling. He supported her into the house, made her +lie down, got a hot bottle for her feet, and covered her with shawls and +blankets. + +"You are quite unfit for any exertion yet," he said, and seated himself +near her. "You must consent to be an invalid for a while. Do not be +anxious. There is no fear of your finding what you want by the time you +are able for it. I pledge myself. Keep your mind perfectly easy." + +She answered him with a look that dazzled him. Her very eyelids seemed +radiant with thankfulness. The beauty that had fixed his regard was now +but a mask through which her soul was breaking, assimilating it. His +eyes sank before the look, and he felt himself catching his breath like +a drowning man. When he raised them again he saw tears streaming down +her face. He rose, and saying he would call again in the evening, left +the room. + +During the rest of his round he did not find it easy to give due +attention to his other cases. His custom was to brood upon them as he +rode; but now that look and the tears that followed seemed to bewilder +him, taking from him all command of his thought. + +Ere long the shadow that ever haunts the steps of the angel, Love, the +shadow whose name is Beneficence, began to reassume its earlier tyranny. +Oh, the bliss of knowing one's self the source of well-being, the stay +and protector, the comfort and life, to such a woman! of wrapping her +round in days of peace, instead of anxiety and pain and labor! But ever +the thought of her looking up to him as the source of her freedom, was +present through it all. What a glory to be the object of such looks as +he had never in his dearest dreams imagined! It made his head swim, even +in the very moment while his great Ruber, astonished at what his master +required of him that day, rose to some high thorny hedge, or stiff rail. +He was perfectly honest; the consequence he sought was only in his own +eyes--and in hers; there was nothing of vulgar patronage in the feeling; +not an atom of low purpose for self in it. The whole mental condition +was nothing worse than the blossom of the dream of his childhood--the +dream of being _the_ benefactor of his race, of being loved and +worshiped for his kindness. But the poison of the dream had grown more +active in its blossom. Since then the credit of goodness with himself +had gathered sway over his spirit; and stoical pride in goodness is a +far worse and lower thing than delight in the thanks of our fellows. He +was a mere slave to his own ideal, and that ideal was not brother to the +angel that beholds the face of the Father. Now he had taken a backward +step in time, but a forward step in his real history, for again another +than himself had a part in his dream. It would be long yet, however, ere +he learned so to love goodness as to forget its beauty. To him who _is_ +good, goodness has ceased to be either object or abstraction; it is _in_ +him--a thirst to give; a solemn, quiet passion to bless; a delight in +beholding well-being. Ah, how we dream and prate of love, until the holy +fire of the true divine love, the love that God kindles in a man toward +his fellows, burns the shadow of it out! + +In the afternoon Mrs. Puckridge appeared with the ring. He took it, told +her to wait, and went out. In a few minutes he returned, and, to the +woman's astonishment, gave her fifty pounds in notes. He did not tell +her he had been to nobody but his own banker. The ring he laid carefully +aside, with no definite resolve concerning it, but the great hope of +somehow managing that it should return to her one day. The thought shot +across his heaven--what a lovely wedding present it would make! and the +meteor drew a long train of shining fancies after it. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +THE PARLOR AT OWLKIRK. + + +When he called, as he had said, in the evening, she looked much better, +and there was even a touch of playfulness in her manner. He could not +but hope some crisis had been passed. The money she had received for the +ring had probably something to do with it. Perhaps she had not known how +valuable the ring was. Thereupon in his conscientiousness he began to +doubt whether he had given her its worth. In reality he had exceeded it +by a few pounds, as he discovered upon inquiry afterward in London. +Anyhow it did not much matter, he said to himself: he was sure to find +some way of restoring it to her. + +Suddenly she looked up, and said hurriedly: + +"I can never repay you, Dr. Faber. No one can do the impossible." + +"You can repay me," returned Faber. + +"How?" she said, looking startled. + +"By never again thinking of obligation to me." + +"You must not ask that of me," she rejoined. "It would not be right." + +The tinge of a rose not absolutely white floated over her face and +forehead as she spoke. + +"Then I shall be content," he replied, "if you will say nothing about it +until you are well settled. After that I promise to send you a bill as +long as a snipe's." + +She smiled, looked up brightly, and said, + +"You promise?" + +"I do." + +"If you don't keep your promise, I shall have to take severe measures. +Don't fancy me without money. I _could_ pay you now--at least I think +so." + +It was a great good sign of her that she could talk about money plainly +as she did. It wants a thoroughbred soul to talk _just_ right about +money. Most people treat money like a bosom-sin: they follow it +earnestly, but do not talk about it at all in society. + +"I only pay six shillings a week for my lodgings!" she added, with a +merry laugh. + +What had become of her constraint and stateliness? Courtesy itself +seemed gone, and simple trust in its place! Was she years younger than +he had thought her? She was hemming something, which demanded her eyes, +but every now and then she cast up a glance, and they were black suns +unclouding over a white sea. Every look made a vintage in the doctor's +heart. There _could_ be no man in the case! Only again, would fifty +pounds, with the loss of a family ring, serve to account for such a +change? Might she not have heard from somebody since he saw her +yesterday? In her presence he dared not follow the thought. + +Some books were lying on the table which could not well be Mrs. +Puckridge's. He took up one: it was _In Memoriam_. + +"Do you like Tennyson?" she asked. + +"That is a hard question to answer straight off," he replied.--He had +once liked Tennyson, else he would not have answered so.--"Had you asked +me if I liked _In Memoriam_" he went on, "I could more easily have +answered you." + +"Then, don't you like _In Memoriam_?" + +"No; it is weak and exaggerated." + +"Ah! you don't understand it. I didn't until after my father died. Then +I began to know what it meant, and now think it the most beautiful poem +I ever read." + +"You are fond of poetry, then?" + +"I don't read much; but I think there is more in some poetry than in all +the prose in the world." + +"That is a good deal to say." + +"A good deal too much, when I think that I haven't read, I suppose, +twenty books in my life--that is, books worth calling books: I don't +mean novels and things of that kind. Yet I can not believe twenty years +of good reading would make me change my mind about _In Memoriam_.--You +don't like poetry?" + +"I can't say I do--much. I like Pope and Crabbe--and--let me see--well, +I used to like Thomson. I like the men that give you things just as they +are. I do not like the poets that mix themselves up with what they see, +and then rave about Nature. I confess myself a lover of the truth beyond +all things." + +"But are you sure," she returned, looking him gently but straight in +the eyes, "that, in your anxiety not to make more of things than they +are, you do not make less of them than they are?" + +"There is no fear of that," returned Faber sadly, with an unconscious +shake of the head. "So long as there is youth and imagination on that +side to paint them,--" + +"Excuse me: are you not begging the question? Do they paint, or do they +see what they say? Some profess to believe that the child sees more +truly than the grown man--that the latter is the one who paints,--paints +out, that is, with a coarse brush." + +"You mean Wordsworth." + +"Not him only." + +"True; no end of poets besides. They all say it now-a-days." + +"But surely, Mr. Faber, if there be a God,--" + +"Ah!" interrupted the doctor, "there, _you_ beg the question. Suppose +there should be no God, what then?" + +"Then, I grant you, there could be no poetry. Somebody says poetry is +the speech of hope; and certainly if there were no God, there could be +no hope." + +Faber was struck with what she said, not from any feeling that there was +truth in it, but from its indication of a not illogical mind. He was on +the point of replying that certain kinds of poetry, and _In Memoriam_ in +particular, seemed to him more like the speech of a despair that had not +the courage to confess itself and die; but he saw she had not a +suspicion he spoke as he did for any thing but argument, and feared to +fray his bird by scattering his crumbs too roughly. He honestly believed +deliverance from the superstition into which he granted a fine nature +was readier to fall than a common one, the greatest gift one human being +could offer to another; but at the same time he could not bear to think +of her recoil from such utterance of his unfaith as he had now almost +got into the habit of making. He bethought himself, too, that he had +already misrepresented himself, in giving her the impression that he was +incapable of enjoying poetry of the more imaginative sort. He had indeed +in his youth been passionately fond of such verse. Then came a time in +which he turned from it with a sick dismay. Feelings and memories of +agony, which a word, a line, would rouse in him afresh, had brought him +to avoid it with an aversion seemingly deep-rooted as an instinct, and +mounting even to loathing; and when at length he cast from him the +semi-beliefs of his education, he persuaded himself that he disliked it +for its falsehood. He read his philosophy by the troubled light of wrong +and suffering, and that is not the light of the morning, but of a +burning house. Of all poems, naturally enough, he then disliked _In +Memoriam_ the most; and now it made him almost angry that Juliet +Meredith should like so much what he so much disliked. Not that he would +have a lady indifferent to poetry. That would argue a lack of poetry in +herself, and such a lady would be like a scentless rose. You could not +expect, who indeed could wish a lady to be scientific in her ways of +regarding things? Was she not the live concentration, the perfect +outcome, of the vast poetic show of Nature? In shape, in motion of body +and brain, in tone and look, in color and hair, in faithfulness to old +dolls and carelessness of hearts, was she not the sublimation, the +essence of sunsets, and fading roses, and butterflies, and snows, and +running waters, and changing clouds, and cold, shadowy moonlight? He +argued thus more now in sorrow than in anger; for what was the woman but +a bubble on the sand of the infinite soulless sea--a bubble of a hundred +lovely hues, that must shine because it could not help it, and for the +same reason break? She was not to blame. Let her shine and glow, and +sparkle, and vanish. For him, he cared for nothing but science--nothing +that did not promise one day to yield up its kernel to the seeker. To +him science stood for truth, and for truth in the inward parts stood +obedience to the laws of Nature. If he was one of a poor race, he would +rise above his fellows by being good to them in their misery; while for +himself he would confess to no misery. Let the laws of Nature +work--eyeless and heartless as the whirlwind; he would live his life, be +himself, be Nature, and depart without a murmur. No scratch on the face +of time, insignificant even as the pressure of a fern-leaf upon coal, +should tell that he had ever thought his fate hard. He would do his +endeavor and die and return to nothing--not then more dumb of complaint +than now. Such had been for years his stern philosophy, and why should +it now trouble him that a woman thought differently? Did the sound of +faith from such lips, the look of hope in such eyes, stir any thing out +of sight in his heart? Was it for a moment as if the corner of a veil +were lifted, the lower edge of a mist, and he saw something fair beyond? +Came there a little glow and flutter out of the old time? "All forget," +he said to himself. "I too have forgotten. Why should not Nature forget? +Why should I be fooled any more? Is it not enough?" + +Yet as he sat gazing, in the broad light of day, through the cottage +window, across whose panes waved the little red bells of the common +fuchsia, something that had nothing to do with science and yet _was_, +seemed to linger and hover over the little garden--something from the +very depths of loveliest folly. Was it the refrain of an old song? or +the smell of withered rose leaves? or was there indeed a kind of light +such as never was on sea or shore? + +Whatever it was, it was out of the midst of it the voice of the lady +seemed to come--a clear musical voice in common speech, but now veiled +and trembling, as if it brooded hearkening over the words it uttered: + + "I wrong the grave with fears untrue: + Shall love be blamed for want of faith? + There must be wisdom with great Death: + The dead shall look me through and through. + + "Be near us when we climb or fall: + Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours + With larger other eyes than ours, + To make allowance for us all." + +She ceased, and the silence was like that which follows sweet music. + +"Ah! you think of your father!" he hazarded, and hoped indeed it was her +father of whom she was thinking. + +She made no answer. He turned toward her in anxiety. She was struggling +with emotion. The next instant the tears gushed into her eyes, while a +smile seemed to struggle from her lips, and spread a little way over her +face. It was inexpressibly touching. + +"He was my friend," she said. "I shall never have such love again." + +"All is not lost when much is lost," said the doctor, with sad comfort. +"There are spring days in winter." + +"And _you_ don't like poetry!" she said, a sweet playful scorn shining +through her tears. + +"I spoke but a sober truth," he returned; "--so sober that it seems but +the sadder for its truth. The struggle of life is to make the best of +things that might be worse." + +She looked at him pitifully. For a moment her lips parted, then a +strange look as of sudden bodily pain crossed her face, her lips closed, +and her mouth looked as if it were locked. She shut the book which lay +upon her knee, and resumed her needlework. A shadow settled upon her +face. + +"What a pity such a woman should be wasted in believing lies!" thought +the doctor. "How much better it would be if she would look things in the +face, and resolve to live as she can, doing her best and enduring her +worst, and waiting for the end! And yet, seeing color is not the thing +itself, and only in the brain whose eye looks upon it, why should I +think it better? why should she not shine in the color of her fancy? why +should she grow gray because the color is only in herself? We are but +bubbles flying from the round of Nature's mill-wheel. Our joys and +griefs are the colors that play upon the bubbles. Their throbs and +ripples and changes are our music and poetry, and their bursting is our +endless repose. Let us waver and float and shine in the sun; let us bear +pitifully and be kind; for the night cometh, and there an end." + +But in the sad silence, he and the lady were perhaps drifting further +and further apart! + +"I did not mean," he said, plunging into what came first, "that I could +not enjoy verse of the kind you prefer--as verse. I took the matter by +the more serious handle, because, evidently, you accepted the tone and +the scope of it. I have a weakness for honesty." + +"There is something not right about you, though, Mr. Faber--if I could +find it out," said Miss Meredith. "You can not mean you enjoy any thing +you do not believe in?" + +"Surely there are many things one can enjoy without believing in them?" + +"On the contrary, it seems to me that enjoying a thing is only another +word for believing in it. If I thought the sweetest air on the violin +had no truth in it, I could not listen to it a moment longer." + +"Of course the air has all the truth it pretends to--the truth, that is, +of the relations of sounds and of intervals--also, of course, the truth +of its relation as a whole to that creative something in the human mind +which gave birth to it." + +"That is not all it pretends. It pretends that the something it gives +birth to in the human mind is also a true thing." + +"Is there not then another way also, in which the violin may be said to +be true? Its tone throughout is of suffering: does it not mourn that +neither what gives rise to it, nor what it gives rise to, is any thing +but a lovely vapor--the phantom of an existence not to be lived, only to +be dreamed? Does it not mourn that a man, though necessarily in harmony +with the laws under which he lives, yet can not be sufficiently +conscious of that harmony to keep him from straining after his dream?" + +"Ah!" said Miss Meredith, "then there is strife in the kingdom, and it +can not stand!" + +"There is strife in the kingdom, and it can not stand," said the doctor, +with mingled assent and assertion. "Hence it is forever falling." + +"But it is forever renewed," she objected. + +"With what renewal?" rejoined Faber. "What return is there from the jaws +of death? The individual is gone. A new consciousness is not a renewal +of consciousness." + +She looked at him keenly. + +"It is hard, is it not?" she said. + +"I will not deny that in certain moods it looks so," he answered. + +She did not perceive his drift, and was feeling after it. + +"Surely," she said, "the thing that ought to be, is the thing that must +be." + +"How can we tell that?" he returned. "What do we see like it in nature? +Whatever lives and thrives--animal or vegetable--or human--it is all +one--every thing that lives and thrives, is forever living and thriving +on the loss, the defeat, the death of another. There is no unity save +absolutely by means of destruction. Destruction is indeed the very +center and framework of the sole existing unity. I will not, therefore, +as some do, call Nature cruel: what right have I to complain? Nature can +not help it. She is no more to blame for bringing me forth, than I am to +blame for being brought forth. Ought is merely the reflex of like. We +call ourselves the highest in Nature--and probably we are, being the +apparent result of the whole--whence, naturally, having risen, we seek +to rise, we feel after something we fancy higher. For as to the system +in which we live, we are so ignorant that we can but blunderingly feel +our way in it; and if we knew all its laws, we could neither order nor +control, save by a poor subservience. We are the slaves of our +circumstance, therefore betake ourselves to dreams of what _ought to +be_." + +Miss Meredith was silent for a time. + +"I can not see how to answer you," she said at length. "But you do not +disturb my hope of seeing my father again. We have a sure word of +prophecy." + +Faber suppressed the smile of courteous contempt that was ready to break +forth, and she went on: + +"It would ill become me to doubt to-day, as you will grant when I tell +you a wonderful fact. This morning I had not money enough to buy myself +the pair of strong shoes you told me I must wear. I had nothing left but +a few trinkets of my mother's--one of them a ring I thought worth about +ten pounds. I gave it to my landlady to sell for me, hoping she would +get five for it. She brought me fifty, and I am rich!" + +Her last words trembled with triumph. He had himself been building her +up in her foolish faith! But he took consolation in thinking how easily +with a word he could any moment destroy that buttress of her phantom +house. It was he, the unbeliever, and no God in or out of her Bible, +that had helped her! It did not occur to him that she might after all +see in him only a reed blown of a divine wind. + +"I am glad to hear of your good fortune," he answered. "I can not say I +see how it bears on the argument. You had in your possession more than +you knew." + +"Does the length of its roots alter the kind of the plant?" she asked. +"Do we not know in all nature and history that God likes to see things +grow? That must be the best way. It may be the only right way. If that +ring was given to my mother against the time when the last child of her +race should find herself otherwise helpless, would the fact that the +provision was made so early turn the result into a mere chance meeting +of necessity and subsidy? Am I bound to call every good thing I receive +a chance, except an angel come down visibly out of the blue sky and give +it to me? That would be to believe in a God who could not work His will +by His own laws. Here I am, free and hopeful--all I needed. Every thing +was dark and troubled yesterday; the sun is up to-day." + +"There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood leads +on to fortune," said the doctor. + +"I begin to fear you mean what you say, Mr. Faber. I hoped it was only +for argument's sake," returned Miss Meredith. + +She did not raise her eyes from her work this time. Faber saw that she +was distressed if not hurt, and that her soul had closed its lips to +him. He sprang to his feet, and stood bending before her. + +"Miss Meredith," he said, "forgive me. I have offended you." + +"You have not offended me," she said quietly. + +"Hurt you then, which is worse." + +"How should I have got through," she said, as if to herself, and dropped +her hands with her work on her knees, "if I had not believed there was +One caring for me all the time, even when I was most alone!" + +"Do you never lose that faith?" asked the doctor. + +"Yes; many and many a time. But it always comes back." + +"Comes and goes with your health." + +"No--is strongest sometimes when I am furthest from well." + +"When you are most feverish," said the doctor. "What a fool I am to go +on contradicting her!" he added to himself. + +"I think I know you better than you imagine, Mr. Faber," said Miss +Meredith, after just a moment's pause. "You are one of those men who +like to represent themselves worse than they are. I at least am bound to +think better of you than you would have me. One who lives as you do for +other people, can not be so far from the truth as your words." + +Faber honestly repudiated the praise, for he felt it more than he +deserved. He did try to do well by his neighbor, but was aware of no +such devotion as it implied. Of late he had found his work bore him not +a little--especially when riding away from Owlkirk. The praise, +notwithstanding, sounded sweet from her lips, was sweeter still from her +eyes, and from the warmer white of her cheek, which had begun to resume +its soft roundness. + +"Ah!" thought the doctor, as he rode slowly home, "were it not for +sickness, age, and death, this world of ours would be no bad place to +live in. Surely mine is the most needful and the noblest of +callings!--to fight for youth, and health, and love; against age, and +sickness, and decay! to fight death to the last, even knowing he must +have the best of it in the end! to set law against law, and do what +poor thing may be done to reconcile the inexorable with the desirable! +Who knows--if law be blind, and I am a man that can see--for at the +last, and only at the last do eyes come in the head of Nature--who knows +but I may find out amongst the blind laws to which I am the eyes, that +blind law which lies nearest the root of life!--Ah, what a dreamer I +should have been, had I lived in the time when great dreams were +possible! Beyond a doubt I should have sat brooding over the elixir of +life, cooking and mixing, heating and cooling, watching for the flash in +the goblet. We know so much now, that the range of hope is sadly +limited! A thousand dark ways of what seemed blissful possibility are +now closed to us, because there the light now shines, and shows naught +but despair. Yet why should the thing be absurd? Can any one tell _why_ +this organism we call man should not go on working forever? Why should +it not, since its law is change and renewal, go on changing and renewing +forever? Why should it get tired? Why should its law work more feeble, +its relations hold less firmly, after a hundred years, than after ten? +Why should it grow and grow, then sink and sink? No one knows a reason. +Then why should it be absurd to seek what shall encounter the unknown +cause, and encountering reveal it? Might science be brought to the pitch +that such a woman should live to all the ages, how many common lives +might not well be spared to such an end! How many noble ones would not +willingly cease for such a consummation--dying that life should be lord, +and death no longer king!" + +Plainly Faber's materialism sprang from no defect in the region of the +imagination; but I find myself unable to determine how much honesty, and +how much pride and the desire to be satisfied with himself, had +relatively to do with it. I would not be understood to imply that he had +an unusual amount of pride; and I am sure he was less easily satisfied +with himself than most are. Most people will make excuses for themselves +which they would neither make nor accept for their neighbor; their own +failures and follies trouble them little: Faber was of another sort. As +ready as any other man to discover what could be said on his side, he +was not so ready to adopt it. He required a good deal of himself. But +then he unconsciously compared himself with his acquaintances, and made +what he knew of them the gauge, if not the measure, of what he required +of himself. + +It were unintelligible how a man should prefer being the slave of blind +helpless Law to being the child of living Wisdom, should believe in the +absolute Nothing rather than in the perfect Will, were it not that he +does not, can not see the Wisdom or the Will, except he draw nigh +thereto. + +I shall be answered: + +"We do not prefer. We mourn the change which yet we can not resist. We +would gladly have the God of our former faith, were it possible any +longer to believe in Him." + +I answer again: + +"Are you sure of what you say? Do you in reality mourn over your lost +faith? For my part, I would rather disbelieve with you, than have what +you have lost. For I would rather have no God than the God whom you +suppose me to believe in, and whom therefore I take to be the God in +whom you imagine you believed in the days of your ignorance. That those +were days of ignorance, I do not doubt; but are these the days of your +knowledge? The time will come when you will see deeper into your own +hearts than now, and will be humbled, like not a few other men, by what +you behold." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +THE BUTCHER'S SHOP. + + +About four years previous to the time of which I am now writing, and +while yet Mr. Drake was in high repute among the people of Cowlane +chapel, he went to London to visit an old friend, a woman of great +practical benevolence, exercised chiefly toward orphans. Just then her +thoughts and feelings were largely occupied with a lovely little girl, +the chain of whose history had been severed at the last link, and lost +utterly. + +A poor woman in Southwark had of her own motion, partly from love to +children and compassion for both them and their mothers, partly to earn +her own bread with pleasure, established a sort of _crèche_ in her two +rooms, where mothers who had work from home could bring their children +in the morning, and leave them till night. The child had been committed +to her charge day after day for some weeks. One morning, when she +brought her, the mother seemed out of health, and did not appear at +night to take her home. The next day the woman heard she was in the +small-pox-hospital. For a week or so, the money to pay for the child +came almost regularly, in postage-stamps, then ceased altogether, and +the woman heard nothing either from or of the mother. After a fortnight +she contrived to go to the hospital to inquire after her. No one +corresponding to her description was in the place. The name was a common +one, and several patients bearing it had lately died and been buried, +while others had recovered and were gone. Her inquiries in the +neighborhood had no better success: no one knew her, and she did not +even discover where she had lived. She could not bear the thought of +taking the child to the work-house, and kept her for six or eight weeks, +but she had a sickly son, a grown lad, to support, and in dread lest she +should be compelled to give her up to the parish, had applied for +counsel to the lady I have mentioned. When Mr. Drake arrived, she had +for some time been searching about in vain to find a nest for her. + +Since his boys had been taken from him, and the unprized girl left +behind had grown so precious, Mr. Drake had learned to love children as +the little ones of God. He had no doubt, like many people, a dread of +children with unknown antecedents: who could tell what root of +bitterness, beyond the common inheritance, might spring up in them? But +all that was known of this one's mother was unusually favorable; and +when his friend took him to see the child, his heart yearned after her. +He took her home to Dorothy, and she had grown up such as we have seen +her, a wild, roguish, sweet, forgetful, but not disobedient child--very +dear to both the Drakes, who called her their duckling. + +As we have seen, however, Mr. Drake had in his adversity grown fearful +and faint-hearted, and had begun to doubt whether he had a right to keep +her. And of course he had not, if it was to be at the expense of his +tradespeople. But he was of an impetuous nature, and would not give even +God time to do the thing that needed time to be done well. He saw a +crisis was at hand. Perhaps, however, God saw a spiritual, where he saw +a temporal crisis. + +Dorothy had a small sum, saved by her mother, so invested as to bring +her about twenty pounds a year, and of the last payment she had two +pounds in hand. Her father had nothing, and quarter-day was two months +off. This was the common knowledge of their affairs at which they +arrived as they sat at breakfast on the Monday morning, after the +saddest Sunday either of them had ever spent. They had just risen from +the table, and the old woman was removing the cloth, when a knock came +to the lane-door, and she went to open it, leaving the room-door ajar, +whereby the minister caught a glimpse of a blue apron, and feeling +himself turning sick, sat down again. Lisbeth re-entered with a rather +greasy-looking note, which was of course from the butcher, and Mr. +Drake's hand trembled as he opened it. Mr. Jones wrote that he would not +have troubled him, had he not asked for his bill; but, if it was quite +convenient, he would be glad to have the amount by the end of the week, +as he had a heavy payment to make the following Monday. Mr. Drake handed +the note to his daughter, rose hastily, and left the room. Dorothy threw +it down half-read, and followed him. He was opening the door, his hat in +his hand. + +"Where are you going in such a hurry, father dear?" she said. "Wait a +moment and I'll go with you." + +"My child, there is not a moment to lose!" he replied excitedly. + +"I did not read all the letter," she returned; "but I think he does not +want the money till the end of the week." + +"And what better shall we be then?" he rejoined, almost angrily. "The +man looks to me, and where will he find himself on Monday? Let us be as +honest at least as we can." + +"But we may be able to borrow it--or--who knows what might happen?" + +"There it is, my dear! Who knows what? We can be sure of nothing in this +world." + +"And what in the next, father?" + +The minister was silent. If God was anywhere, he was here as much as +there! That was not the matter in hand, however. He owed the money, and +was bound to let the man know that he could not pay it by the end of the +week. Without another word to Dorothy, he walked from the house, and, +like a man afraid of cowardice, went straight at the object of his +dismay. He was out of the lane and well into Pine street before he +thought to put on his hat. + +From afar he saw the butcher, standing in front of his shop--a tall, +thin man in blue. His steel glittered by his side, and a red nightcap +hung its tassel among the curls of his gray hair. He was discussing, +over a small joint of mutton, some point of economic interest with a +country customer in a check-shawl. To the minister's annoyance the woman +was one of his late congregation, and he would gladly have passed the +shop, had he had the courage. When he came near, the butcher turned from +the woman, and said, taking his nightcap by the tassel in rudimentary +obeisance. + +"At your service, sir." + +His courtesy added to Mr. Drake's confusion: it was plain the man +imagined he had brought him his money! Times were indeed changed since +his wife used to drive out in her brougham to pay the bills! Was this +what a man had for working in the vineyard the better part of a +lifetime? The property he did not heed. That had been the portion of the +messengers of heaven from the first. But the shame!--what was he to do +with that? Who ever heard of St. Paul not being able to pay a butcher's +bill! No doubt St. Paul was a mighty general, and he but a poor +subaltern, but in the service there was no respect of persons. On the +other hand, who ever heard of St. Paul having any bills to pay!--or for +that matter, indeed, of his marrying a rich wife, and getting into +expensive habits through popularity! Who ever heard of his being +dependent on a congregation! He accepted help sometimes, but had always +his goats'-hair and his tent-making to fall back upon!--Only, after all, +was the Lord never a hard master? Had he not let it come to this? + +Much more of the sort went through his mind in a flash. The country +woman had again drawn the attention of the butcher with a parting word. + +"You don't want a chicken to-day--do you, Mr. Drake?" she said, as she +turned to go. + +"No, thank you, Mrs. Thomson. How is your husband?" + +"Better, I thank you sir. Good morning, sir." + +"Mr. Jones," said the minister--and as he spoke, he stepped inside the +shop, removed his hat, and wiped his forehead, "I come to you with +shame. I have not money enough to pay your bill. Indeed I can not even +pay a portion of it till next quarter-day." + +"Don't mention it, Mr. Drake, sir." + +"But your bill on Monday, Mr. Jones!" + +"Oh! never mind that. I shall do very well, I dare say. I have a many as +owes me a good deal more than you do, sir, and I'm much obliged to you +for letting of me know at once. You see, sir, if you hadn't--" + +"Yes, I know: I asked for it! I am the sorrier I can't pay it after all. +It is quite disgraceful, but I simply can't help it." + +"Disgraceful, sir!" exclaimed Mr. Jones, almost as if hurt: "I wish they +thought as you do as has ten times the reason, sir!" + +"But I have a request to make," the pastor went on, heedless of the +butcher's remark, and pulling out a large and handsome gold watch: +"Would you oblige me by taking this watch in security until I do pay +you? It is worth a great deal more than your bill. It would add much to +the obligation, if you would put it out of sight somewhere, and say +nothing about it. If I should die before paying your bill, you will be +at liberty to sell it; and what is over, after deducting interest, you +will kindly hand to my daughter." + +Mr. Jones stared with open mouth. He thought the minister had lost his +senses. + +"What do you make of me, sir?" he said at last. "You go for to trust me +with a watch like that, and fancy I wouldn't trust you with a little +bill that ain't been owing three months yet! You make me that I don't +know myself, sir! Never you mention the bill to me again, sir. I'll ask +for it, all in good time. Can I serve you with any thing to-day, sir?" + +"No, I thank you. I must at least avoid adding to my debt." + +"I hope what you do have, you'll have of me, sir. I don't mind waiting a +goodish bit for my money, but what cuts me to the heart is to see any +one as owes me money a goin' over the way, as if 'e 'adn't 'a' found my +meat good enough to serve his turn, an' that was why he do it. That does +rile me!" + +"Take my word for it, Mr. Jones--all the meat we have we shall have of +you. But we must be careful. You see I am not quite so--so--" + +He stopped with a sickly smile. + +"Look ye here, Mr. Drake!" broke in the butcher: "you parsons ain't +proper brought up. You ain't learned to take care of yourselves. Now us +tradespeople, we're learned from the first to look arter number one, and +not on no account to forget which _is_ number one. But you parsons, +now,--you'll excuse me, sir; I don't mean no offense; you ain't brought +up to 't, an' it ain't to be expected of you--but it's a great neglect +in your eddication, sir; an' the consekence is as how us as knows better +'as to take care on you as don't know no better. I can't say I think +much o' them 'senters: they don't stick by their own; but you're a +honest man, sir, if ever there was a honest man as was again' the +church, an' ask you for that money, I never will, acause I know when you +can pay, it's pay you will. Keep your mind easy, sir: _I_ shan't come to +grief for lack o' what you owe me! Only don't you go a starving of +yourself, Mr. Drake. I don't hold with that nohow. Have a bit o' meat +when you want it, an' don't think over it twice. There!" + +The minister was just able to thank his new friend and no more. He held +out his hand to him, forgetful of the grease that had so often driven +him from the pavement to the street. The butcher gave it a squeeze that +nearly shot it out of his lubricated grasp, and they parted, both better +men for the interview. + +When Mr. Drake reached home, he met his daughter coming out to find him. +He took her hand, led her into the house and up to his study, and closed +the door. + +"Dorothy," he said, "it is sweet to be humbled. The Spirit can bring +water from the rock, and grace from a hard heart. I mean mine, not the +butcher's. He has behaved to me as I don't see how any but a Christian +could, and that although his principles are scarcely those of one who +had given up all for the truth. He is like the son in the parable who +said, I go not, but went; while I, much I fear me, am like the other who +said, I go, sir, but went not. Alas! I have always found it hard to be +grateful; there is something in it unpalatable to the old Adam; but from +the bottom of my heart I thank Mr. Jones, and I will pray God for him +ere I open a book. Dorothy, I begin to doubt our way of +church-membership. It _may_ make the good better; but if a bad one gets +in, it certainly makes him worse. I begin to think too, that every +minister ought to be independent of his flock--I do not mean by the pay +of the state, God forbid! but by having some trade or profession, if no +fortune. Still, if I had had the money to pay that bill, I should now be +where I am glad not to be--up on my castletop, instead of down at the +gate. He has made me poor that He might send me humility, and that I +find unspeakably precious. Perhaps He will send me the money next. But +may it not be intended also to make us live more simply--on vegetables +perhaps? Do you not remember how it fared with Daniel, Hananiah, +Mishael, and Azariah, when they refused the meat and the wine, and ate +pulse instead? At the end of ten days their countenances appeared fairer +and fatter in flesh than all the children which did eat the portion of +the king's meat. Pulse, you know, means peas and beans, and every thing +of that kind--which is now proved to be almost as full of nourishment as +meat itself, and to many constitutions more wholesome. Let us have a +dinner of beans. You can buy haricot beans at the grocer's--can you not? +If Ducky does not thrive on them, or they don't agree with you, my +Dorothy, you will have only to drop them. I am sure they will agree with +me. But let us try, and then the money I owe Mr. Jones, will not any +longer hang like a millstone about my neck." + +"We will begin this very day," said Dorothy, delighted to see her father +restored to equanimity. "I will go and see after a dinner of herbs.--We +shall have love with it anyhow, father!" she added, kissing him. + +That day the minister, who in his earlier days had been allowed by his +best friends to be a little particular about his food, and had been no +mean connoisseur in wines, found more pleasure at his table, from +lightness of heart, and the joy of a new independence, than he had had +for many a day. It added much also to his satisfaction with the +experiment, that, instead of sleeping, as his custom was, after dinner, +he was able to read without drowsiness even. Perhaps Dorothy's +experience was not quite so satisfactory, for she looked weary when they +sat down to tea. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +THE PARLOR AGAIN. + + +Faber had never made any effort to believe in a divine order of +things--indeed he had never made strenuous effort to believe in any +thing. It had never at all occurred to him that it might be a duty to +believe. He was a kindly and not a repellent man, but when he doubted +another, he doubted him; it never occurred to him that perhaps he ought +to believe in that man. There must be a lack of something, where a man's +sense of duty urges him mainly to denial. His existence is a positive +thing--his main utterance ought to be positive. I would not forget that +the nature of a denial may be such as to involve a strong positive. + +To Faber it seemed the true and therefore right thing, to deny the +existence of any such being as men call God. I heartily admit that such +denial may argue a nobler condition than that of the man who will reason +for the existence of what he calls a Deity, but omits to order his way +after what he professes to believe His will. At the same time, his +conclusion that he was not bound to believe in any God, seemed to lift a +certain weight off the heart of the doctor--the weight, namely, that +gathers partly from the knowledge of having done wrong things, partly +from the consciousness of not _being_ altogether right. It would be very +unfair, however, to leave the impression that this was the origin of all +the relief the doctor derived from the conclusion. For thereby he got +rid, in a great measure at least, of the notion--horrible in proportion +to the degree in which it is actually present to the mind, although, I +suspect, it is not, in a true sense, credible to any mind--of a cruel, +careless, unjust Being at the head of affairs. That such a notion should +exist at all, is mainly the fault of the mass of so-called religious +people, for they seem to believe in, and certainly proclaim such a God. +In their excuse it may be urged they tell the tale as it was told to +them; but the fault lies in this, that, with the gospel in their hands, +they have yet lived in such disregard of its precepts, that they have +never discovered their representation of the God of Truth to be such, +that the more honest a man is, the less can he accept it. That the +honest man, however, should not thereupon set himself to see whether +there might not be a true God notwithstanding, whether such a God was +not conceivable consistently with things as they are, whether the +believers had not distorted the revelation they professed to follow; +especially that he should prefer to believe in some sort of _vitalic_ +machine, equally void of beneficence and malevolence, existing because +it can not help it, and giving birth to all sorts of creatures, men and +women included, because it can not help it--must arise from a condition +of being, call it spiritual, moral, or mental--I can not be obliging +enough to add _cerebral,_ because so I should nullify my conclusion, +seeing there would be no substance left wherein it could be wrought +out--for which the man, I can not but think, will one day discover that +he was to blame--for which a living God sees that he is to blame, makes +all the excuse he can, and will give the needful punishment to the +uttermost lash. + +There are some again, to whom the idea of a God perfect as they could +imagine Him in love and devotion and truth, seems, they say, too good to +be true: such have not yet perceived that no God any thing less than +absolutely glorious in loveliness would be worth believing in, or such +as the human soul could believe in. But Faber did not belong to this +class--still less to that portion of it whose inconsolable grief over +the lack of such a God may any day blossom into hope of finding Him. He +was in practice at one with that portion of it who, accepting things at +their worst, find alleviation for their sorrows in the strenuous effort +to make the best of them; but he sought to content himself with the +order of things which, blind and deaf and non-willing, he said had +existed for evermore, most likely--the thing was hardly worth +discussing; blind, for we can not see that it sees; deaf, for we can not +hear that it hears; and without will, for we see no strife, purpose, or +change in its going! + +There was no God, then, and people would be more comfortable to know it. +In any case, as there was none, they ought to know it. As to his +certainty of there being none, Faber felt no desire to find one, had met +with no proof that there was one, and had reasons for supposing that +there was none. He had not searched very long or very wide, or with any +eager desire to discover Him, if indeed there should be a God that hid +Himself. His genial nature delighted in sympathy, and he sought it even +in that whose perfect operation, is the destruction of all sympathy. Who +does not know the pleasure of that moment of nascent communion, when +argument or expostulation has begun to tell, conviction begins to dawn, +and the first faint thrill of response is felt? But the joy may be +either of two very different kinds--delight in victory and the personal +success of persuasion, or the ecstasy of the shared vision of truth, in +which contact souls come nearer to each other than any closest +familiarity can effect. Such a nearness can be brought about by no +negation however genuine, or however evil may be the thing denied. + +Sympathy, then, such as he desired, Faber was now bent on finding, or +bringing about in Juliet Meredith. He would fain get nearer to her. +Something pushed, something drew him toward the lovely phenomenon into +which had flowered invisible Nature's bud of shapeless protoplasm. He +would have her trust him, believe him, love him. If he succeeded, so +much the greater would be the value and the pleasure of the conquest, +that it had been gained in spite of all her prejudices of education and +conscience. And if in the process of finding truth a home in her bosom, +he should cause her pain even to agony, would not the tenderness born of +their lonely need for each other, be far more consoling than any mere +aspiration after a visionary comforter? + +Juliet had been, so far as her father was concerned in her education, +religiously brought up. No doubt Captain Meredith was more fervid than +he was reasonable, but he was a true man, and in his regiment, on which +he brought all his influence to bear, had been regarded with respect, +even where not heartily loved. But her mother was one of those weakest +of women who can never forget the beauty they once possessed, or quite +believe they have lost it, remaining, even after the very traces of it +have vanished, as greedy as ever of admiration. Her maxims and +principles, if she could be said to have any of the latter, were not a +little opposed to her husband's; but she died when Juliet was only five +years old, and the child grew to be almost the companion of her father. +Hence it came that she heard much religious conversation, often +partaking not a little of the character of discussion and even of +dispute. She thus became familiar with the forms of a religious belief +as narrow as its partisans are numerous. Her heart did not remain +uninterested, but she was never in earnest sufficiently to discover what +a thing of beggarly elements the system was, and how incapable of +satisfying any childlike soul. She never questioned the truth of what +she heard, and became skilled in its idioms and arguments and forms of +thought. But the more familiar one becomes with any religious system, +while yet the conscience and will are unawakened and obedience has not +begun, the harder is it to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Such +familiarity is a soul-killing experience, and great will be the excuse +for some of those sons of religious parents who have gone further +toward hell than many born and bred thieves and sinners. + +When Juliet came to understand clearly that her new friend did mean +thorough-going unbelief, the rejection of _all_ the doctrines she had +been taught by him whose memory she revered, she was altogether shocked, +and for a day and a night regarded him as a monster of wickedness. But +her horror was mainly the reflex of that with which her father would +have regarded him, and all that was needed to moderate horror to +disapproval, was familiarity with his doctrines in the light of his +agreeable presence and undeniable good qualities. Thoroughly acquainted +as she believed herself with "the plan of salvation," Jesus of Nazareth +was to her but the vague shadow of something that was more than a man, +yet no man at all. I had nearly said that what He came to reveal had +become to her yet more vague from her nebulous notion of Him who was its +revelation. Her religion was, as a matter of course, as dusky and +uncertain, as the object-center of it was obscure and unrealized. Since +her father's death and her comparative isolation, she had read and +thought a good deal; some of my readers may even think she had read and +thought to tolerable purposes judging from her answers to Faber in the +first serious conversation they had; but her religion had lain as before +in a state of dull quiescence, until her late experience, realizing to +her the idea of the special care of which she stood so much in need, +awoke in her a keen sense of delight, and if not a sense of gratitude as +well, yet a dull desire to be grateful. + +The next day, as she sat pondering what had passed between them, +altogether unaware of her own weakness, she was suddenly seized with the +ambition--in its inward relations the same as his--of converting him to +her belief. The purpose justified an interest in him beyond what +gratitude obligated, and was in part the cause why she neither shrank +from his society, nor grew alarmed at the rapid growth of her intimacy. +But they only who love the truth simply and altogether, can really know +what they are about. + +I do not care to follow the intellectual duel between them. Argument, +save that of a man with himself, when council is held between heart, +will, imagination, conscience, vision, and intellect, is of little avail +or worth. Nothing, however, could have suited Faber's desires better. +Under the shadow of such difficulties as the wise man ponders and the +fool flaunts, difficulties which have been difficulties from the dawn +of human thought, and will in new shapes keep returning so long as the +human understanding yearns to infold its origin, Faber brought up an +array of arguments utterly destructive of the wretched theories of forms +of religion which were all she had to bring into the field: so wretched +and false were they--feeblest she found them just where she had regarded +them as invincible--that in destroying them Faber did even a poor part +of the work of a soldier of God: Mephistopheles describes himself as + + Ein Theil von jener Kraft, + Die stets das Böse will, und stets das Gute schafft, + . . . . . . . . . + . . . . der Geist der stets verneint. + +For the nature of Juliet's argument I must be content to refer any +curious reader to the false defenses made, and lies spoken for God, in +many a pulpit and many a volume, by the worshipers of letter and system, +who for their sakes "accept His person," and plead unrighteously for +Him. Before the common sense of Faber, they went down like toys, and +Juliet, without consciously yielding at first, soon came to perceive +that they were worse than worthless--weapons whose handles were sharper +than their blades. She had no others, nor metal of which to make any; +and what with the persuasive influence of the man, and the pleasure in +the mere exercise of her understanding, became more and more interested +as she saw the drift of his argument, and apprehended the weight of what +truth lay upon his side. For even the falsest argument is sustained in +virtue of some show of truth, or perhaps some crumb of reality belonging +to it. The absolute lie, if such be frameable by lips of men, can look +only the blackness of darkness it is. The lie that can hurt, hurts in +the strength of the second lie in which it is folded--a likeness to the +truth. It would have mattered little that she was driven from line after +line of her defense, had she not, while she seemed to herself to be its +champion, actually lost sight of that for which she thought she was +striving. + +It added much to Faber's influence on Juliet, that a tone of pathos and +an element of poetry generally pervaded the forms of his denial. The +tone was the more penetrating that it veiled the pride behind it all, +the pride namely of an unhealthy conscious individuality, the pride of +_self_ as self, which makes a man the center of his own universe, and a +mockery to all the demons of the real universe. That man only who rises +above the small yet mighty predilection, who sets the self of his own +consciousness behind his back, and cherishes only the self of the +Father's thought, the angel that beholds the eternal face, that man only +is a free and noble being, he only breathes the air of the infinite. +Another may well deny the existence of any such Father, any such +infinite, for he knows nothing of the nature of either, and his +testimony for it would be as worthless as that is which he gives against +it. + +The nature of Juliet Meredith was true and trusting--but in respect of +her mother she had been sown in weakness, and she was not yet raised in +strength. Because of his wife, Captain Meredith had more than once had +to exchange regiments. But from him Juliet had inherited a certain +strength of honest purpose, which had stood him in better stead than the +whole sum of his gifts and acquirements, which was by no means +despicable. + +Late one lovely evening in the early summer, they sat together in the +dusky parlor of the cottage, with the window to the garden open. The +sweetest of western airs came in, with a faint scent chiefly of damp +earth, moss, and primroses, in which, to the pensive imagination, the +faded yellow of the sunset seemed to bear a part. + +"I am sorry to say we must shut the window, Miss Meredith," said the +doctor, rising. "You must always be jealous of the night air. It will +never be friendly to you." + +"What enemies we have all about us!" she returned with a slight shiver, +which Faber attributed to the enemy in question, and feared his care had +not amounted to precaution. "It is strange," she went on, "that all +things should conspire, or at least rise, against 'the roof and crown of +things,' as Tennyson calls us. Are they jealous of us?" + +"Clearly, at all events, we are not at home amidst them--not genuinely +so," admitted the doctor. + +"And yet you say we are sprung of them?" said Juliet. + +"We have lifted ourselves above them," rejoined the doctor, "and must +conquer them next." + +"And until we conquer them," suggested Juliet, "our lifting above them +is in vain?" + +"For we return to them," assented Faber; and silence fell.--"Yes," he +resumed, "it is sad. The upper air is sweet, and the heart of man loves +the sun;--" + +"Then," interrupted Juliet, "why would you have me willing to go down +to the darkness?" + +"I would not have you willing. I would have you love the light as you +do. We can not but love the light, for it is good; and the sorrow that +we must leave it, and that so soon, only makes it dearer. The sense of +coming loss is, or ought to be, the strongest of all bonds between the +creatures of a day. The sweetest, saddest, most entrancing songs that +love can sing, must be but variations on this one theme.--'The morning +is clear; the dew mounts heavenward; the odor spreads; the sun looks +over the hill; the world breaks into laughter: let us love one another! +The sun grows hot, the shadow lies deep; let us sit in it, and remember; +the sea lies flashing in green, dulled with purple; the peacock spreads +his glories, a living garden of flowers; all is mute but the rush of the +stream: let us love one another! The soft evening draws nigh; the dew is +coming down again; the air is cool, dusky, and thin; it is sweeter than +the morning; other words of death gleam out of the deepening sky; the +birds close their wings and hide their heads, for death is near: let us +love one another! The night is come, and there is no morrow; it is dark; +the end is nigh; it grows cold; in the darkness and the cold we tremble, +we sink; a moment and we are no more; ah! ah, beloved! let us love, let +us cleave to one another, for we die!'" + +But it seems to me, that the pitifulness with which we ought to regard +each other in the horror of being the offspring of a love we do not +love, in the danger of wandering ever, the children of light, in the +midst of darkness, immeasurably surpasses the pitifulness demanded by +the fancy that we are the creatures of but a day. + +Moved in his soul by the sound of his own words, but himself the harp +upon which the fingers of a mightier Nature than he knew were playing a +prelude to a grander phantasy than he could comprehend, Faber caught the +hand of Juliet where it gleamed white in the gathering gloom. But she +withdrew it, saying in a tone which through the darkness seemed to him +to come from afar, tinged with mockery. + +"You ought to have been a poet--not a doctor, Mr. Faber!" + +The jar of her apparent coolness brought him back with a shock to the +commonplace. He almost shuddered. It was like a gust of icy wind +piercing a summer night. + +"I trust the doctor can rule the poet," he said, recovering his +self-possession with an effort, and rising. + +"The doctor ought at least to keep the poet from falsehood. Is false +poetry any better than false religion?" returned Juliet. + +"I do not quite see--" + +"Your day is not a true picture of life such as you would make it.--Let +me see! I will give you one.--Sit down.--Give me time.--'The morning is +dark; the mist hangs and will not rise; the sodden leaves sink under the +foot; overhead the boughs are bare; the cold creeps into bone and +marrow; let us love one another! The sun is buried in miles of vapor; +the birds sit mute on the damp twigs; the gathered drizzle slowly drips +from the eaves; the wood will not burn in the grate; there is a crust in +the larder, no wine in the cellar: let us love one another!'" + +"Yes!" cried Faber, again seizing her hand, "let us but love, and I am +content!" + +Again she withdrew it. + +"Nay, but hear my song out," she said, turning her face towards the +window.--In the fading light he saw a wild look of pain, which vanished +in a strange, bitter smile as she resumed.--"'The ashes of life's +volcano are falling; they bepowder my hair; its fires have withered the +rose of my lips; my forehead is wrinkled, my cheeks are furrowed, my +brows are sullen; I am weary, and discontented, and unlovely: ah, let us +love one another! The wheels of time grind on; my heart is sick, and +cares not for thee; I care not for myself, and thou art no longer lovely +to me; I can no more recall wherefore I desired thee once; I long only +for the endless sleep; death alone hath charms: to say, Let us love one +another, were now a mockery too bitter to be felt. Even sadness is +withered. No more can it make me sorrowful to brood over the days that +are gone, or to remember the song that once would have made my heart a +fountain of tears. Ah, hah! the folly to think we could love to the end! +But I care not; the fancy served its turn; and there is a grave for thee +and me--apart or together I care not, so I cease. Thou needst not love +me any more; I care not for thy love. I hardly care for the blessed +darkness itself. Give me no sweet oblivious antidote, no precious poison +such as I once prayed for when I feared the loss of love, that it might +open to me the gate of forgetfulness, take me softly in unseen arms, and +sink with me into the during dark. No; I will, not calmly, but in utter +indifference, await the end. I do not love thee; but I can eat, and I +enjoy my wine, and my rubber of whist--'" + +She broke into a dreadful laugh. It was all horribly unnatural! She +rose, and in the deepening twilight seemed to draw herself up far beyond +her height, then turned, and looked out on the shadowy last of the +sunset. Faber rose also. He felt her shudder, though she was not within +two arm's-lengths of him. He sprang to her side. + +"Miss Meredith--Juliet--you have suffered! The world has been too hard +for you! Let me do all I can to make up for it! I too know what +suffering is, and my heart is bleeding for you!" + +"What! are you not part of the world? Are you not her last-born--the +perfection of her heartlessness?--and will _you_ act the farce of +consolation? Is it the last stroke of the eternal mockery?" + +"Juliet," he said, and once more took her hand, "I love you." + +"As a man may!" she rejoined with scorn, and pulled her hand from his +grasp. "No! such love as you can give, is too poor even for me. Love you +I _will_ not. If you speak to me so again, you will drive me away. Talk +to me as you will of your void idol. Tell me of the darkness of his +dwelling, and the sanctuary it affords to poor, tormented, +specter-hunted humanity; but do not talk to me of love also, for where +your idol is, love can not be." + +Faber made a gentle apology, and withdrew--abashed and hurt--vexed with +himself, and annoyed with his failure. + +The moment he was gone, she cast herself on the sofa with a choked +scream, and sobbed, and ground her teeth, but shed no tear. Life had +long been poor, arid, vague; now there was not left even the luxury of +grief! Where all was loss, no loss was worth a tear. + +"It were good for me that I had never been born!" she cried. + +But the doctor came again and again, and looked devotion, though he +never spoke of love. He avoided also for a time any further pressing of +his opinions--talked of poetry, of science, of nature--all he said +tinged with the same sad glow. Then by degrees direct denial came up +again, and Juliet scarcely attempted opposition. Gradually she got quite +used to his doctrine, and as she got used to it, it seemed less +dreadful, and rather less sad. What wickedness could there be in denying +a God whom the very works attributed to him declared not to exist! Mr. +Faber was a man of science, and knew it. She could see for herself that +it must draw closer the bonds between human beings, to learn that there +was no such power to hurt them or aid them, or to claim lordship over +them, and enslave them to his will. For Juliet had never had a glimpse +of the idea, that in oneness with the love-creating Will, alone lies +freedom for the love created. When Faber perceived that his words had +begun and continued to influence her, he, on his part, grew more kindly +disposed toward her superstitions. + +Let me here remark that, until we see God as He is, and are changed into +His likeness, all our beliefs must partake more or less of superstition; +but if there be a God, the greatest superstition of all will be found to +have consisted in denying him. + +"Do not think me incapable," he said one day, after they had at length +slid back into their former freedom with each other, "of seeing much +that is lovely and gracious in the orthodox fancies of religion. Much +depends, of course, upon the nature of the person who holds them. No +belief could be beautiful in a mind that is unlovely. A sonnet of +Shakespeare can be no better than a burned cinder in such a mind as Mrs. +Ramshorn's. But there is Mr. Wingfold, the curate of the abbey-church! a +true, honest man, who will give even an infidel like me fair play: +nothing that finds acceptance with him can be other than noble, whether +it be true or not. I fear he expects me to come over to him one day. I +am sorry he will be disappointed, for he is a fellow quite free from the +flummery of his profession. For my part, I do not see why two friends +should not consent to respect each other's opinions, letting the one do +his best without a God to hinder him, and the other his best with his +belief in one to aid him. Such a pair might be the most emulous of +rivals in good works." + +Juliet returned no satisfactory response to this tentative remark; but +it was from no objection any longer in her mind to such a relation in +the abstract. She had not yet at all consented with herself to abandon +the faith of her father, but she did not see, and indeed it were hard +for any one in her condition to see, why a man and a woman, the one +denying after Faber's fashion, the other believing after hers, should +not live together, and love and help each other. Of all valueless +things, a merely speculative theology is one of the most valueless. To +her, God had never been much more than a name--a name, it is true, that +always occurred to her in any vivid moment of her life; but the Being +whose was that name, was vague to her as a storm of sand--hardly so much +her father as was the first forgotten ancestor of her line. And now it +was sad for her chat at such a time of peculiar emotion, when the heart +is ready to turn of itself toward its unseen origin, feeling after the +fountain of its love, the very occasion of the tide Godward should be an +influence destructive of the same. Under the growing fascination of the +handsome, noble-minded doctor, she was fast losing what little shadow of +faith she had possessed. The theology she had attempted to defend was so +faulty, so unfair to God, that Faber's atheism had an advantage over it +as easy as it was great. His unbelief was less selfish than Juliet's +faith; consequently her faith sank, as her conscience rose meeting what +was true in Faber's utterances. How could it be otherwise when she +opposed lies uttered for the truth, to truths uttered for the lie? the +truth itself she had never been true enough to look in the face. As her +arguments, yea the very things she argued for, went down before him, her +faith, which, to be faith, should have been in the living source of all +true argument, found no object, was swept away like the uprooted weed it +was, and whelmed in returning chaos. + +"If such is your God," he said, "I do Him a favor in denying His +existence, for His very being would be a disgrace to Himself. At times, +as I go my rounds, and think of the horrors of misery and suffering +before me, I feel as if I were out on a campaign against an Evil +supreme, the Author of them all. But when I reflect that He must then +actually create from very joy in the infliction and sight of agony, I am +ashamed of my foolish and cruel, though but momentary imagination, +and--'There can be no such being!' I say. "I but labor in a region of +inexorable law, blind as Justice herself; law that works for good in the +main, and whose carelessness of individual suffering it is for me, and +all who know in any way how, to supplement with the individual care of +man for his fellow-men, who, either from Nature's own necessity, or by +neglect or violation of her laws, find themselves in a sea of troubles." +For Nature herself, to the man who will work in harmony with her, +affords the means of alleviation, of restoration even--who knows if not +of something better still?--the means, that is, of encountering the +ills that result from the breach of her own laws; and the best the man +who would help his fellows can do, is to search after and find such +other laws, whose applied operation will restore the general conduction, +and render life after all an endurable, if not a desirable thing." + +"But you can do nothing with death," said Juliet. + +"Nothing--yet--alas!" + +"Is death a law, or a breach of law, then?" she asked. + +"That is a question I can not answer." + +"In any case, were it not better to let the race die out, instead of +laboriously piecing and patching at a too old garment, and so leave room +for a new race to come up, which the fruit of experience, both sweet and +bitter, left behind in books, might enable to avoid like ruin?" + +"Ages before they were able to read our books, they would have broken +the same laws, found the same evils, and be as far as we are now beyond +the help of foregone experiences: they would have the experience itself, +of whose essence it is, that it is still too late." + +"Then would not the kindest thing be to poison the race--as men on the +prairies meet fire with fire--and so with death foil Death and have done +with dying?" + +"It seems to me better to live on in the hope that someone may yet--in +some far-off age it may only be, but what a thing if it should +be!--discover the law of death, learn how to meet it, and, with its +fore-runners, disease and decay, banish it from the world. Would you +crush the dragonfly, the moth, or the bee, because its days are so few? +Rather would you not pitifully rescue them, that they might enjoy to +their natural end the wild intoxication of being?" + +"Ah, but they are happy while they live!" + +"So also are men--all men--for parts of their time. How many, do you +think, would thank me for the offered poison?" + +Talk after talk of this kind, which the scope of my history forbids me +to follow, took place between them, until at length Juliet, generally +silenced, came to be silenced not unwillingly. All the time, their +common humanity, each perceiving that the other had suffered, was urging +to mutual consolation. And all the time, that mysterious force, +inscrutable as creation itself, which draws the individual man and woman +together, was mightily at work between them--a force which, terrible as +is the array of its attendant shadows, will at length appear to have +been one of the most powerful in the redemption of the world. But Juliet +did nothing, said nothing, to attract Faber. He would have cast himself +before her as a slave begging an owner, but for something in her +carriage which constantly prevented him. At one time he read it as an +unforgotten grief, at another as a cherished affection, and trembled at +the thought of the agonies that might be in store for him. + +Weeks passed, and he had not made one inquiry after a situation for her. +It was not because he would gladly have, prolonged the present +arrangement of things, but that he found it almost impossible to bring +himself to talk about her. If she would but accept him, he thought--then +there would be no need! But he dared not urge her--mainly from fear of +failure, not at all from excess of modesty, seeing he soberly believed +such love and devotion as his, worth the acceptance of any woman--even +while-he believed also, that to be loved of a true woman was the one +only thing which could make up for the enormous swindle of life, in +which man must ever be a sorrow to himself, as ever lagging behind his +own child, his ideal. Even for this, the worm that must forever lie +gnawing in the heart of humanity, it would be consolation enough to +pluck together the roses of youth; they had it in their own power to die +while their odor was yet red. Why did she repel him? Doubtless, he +concluded over and over again, because, with her lofty ideal of love, a +love for this world only seemed to her a love not worth the stooping to +take. If he could but persuade her that the love offered in the agony of +the fire must be a nobler love than that whispered from a bed of roses, +then perhaps, dissolved in confluent sadness and sweetness, she would +hold out to him the chalice of her heart, and the one pearl of the world +would yet be his--a woman all his own--pure as a flower, sad as the +night, and deep as nature unfathomable. + +He had a grand idea of woman. He had been built with a goddess-niche in +his soul, and thought how he would worship the woman that could fill it. +There was a time when she must, beyond question, be one whose radiant +mirror had never reflected form of man but his: now he would be content +if for him she would abjure and obliterate her past. To make the woman +who had loved forget utterly, was a greater victory, he said, than to +wake love in the heart of a girl, and would yield him a finer treasure, +a richer conquest. Only, pure as snow she must be--pure as the sun +himself! Paul Faber was absolutely tyrannous in his notions as to +feminine purity. Like the diamond shield of Prince Arthur, Knight of +Magnificence, must be the purity that would satisfy this lord of the +race who could live without a God! Was he then such a master of purity +himself? one so immaculate that in him such aspiration was no +presumption? Was what he knew himself to be, an idea to mate with his +unspotted ideal? The notion men have of their own worth, and of claims +founded thereon, is amazing; most amazing of all is what a man will set +up to himself as the standard of the woman he will marry. What the woman +may have a right to claim, never enters his thought. He never doubts the +right or righteousness of aspiring to wed a woman between whose nature +and his lies a gulf, wide as between an angel praising God, and a devil +taking refuge from him in a swine. Never a shadow of compunction crosses +the leprous soul, as he stretches forth his arms to infold the clean +woman! Ah, white dove! thou must lie for a while among the pots. If only +thy mother be not more to blame than the wretch that acts but after his +kind! He does hot die of self-loathing! how then could he imagine the +horror of disgust with which a glimpse of him such as he is would blast +the soul of the woman?' Yet has he--what is it?--the virtue? the pride? +or the cruel insolence?--to shrink with rudest abhorrence from one who +is, in nature and history and ruin, his fitting and proper mate! To see +only how a man will be content to be himself the thing which he scorns +another for being, might well be enough to send any one crying to the +God there may be, to come between him and himself. Lord! what a turning +of things upside down there will be one day! What a setting of lasts +first, and firsts last! + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +THE PARK AT NESTLEY. + + +Just inside the park, on a mossy knoll, a little way from the ancient +wrought-iron gate that opened almost upon the one street of Owlkirk, the +rector dug the foundation of his chapel--an oblong Gothic hall, of two +squares and a half, capable of seating all in the parish nearer to it +than to the abbey church. In his wife's eyes, Mr. Bevis was now an +absolute saint, for not only had he begun to build a chapel in his own +grounds, but to read prayers in his own church! She was not the only +one, however, who remarked how devoutly he read them, and his presence +was a great comfort to Wingfold. He often objected to what his curate +preached--but only to his face, and seldom when they were not alone. +There was policy in this restraint: he had come to see that in all +probability he would have to give in--that his curate would most likely +satisfy him that he was right. The relation between them was marvelous +and lovely. The rector's was a quiet awakening, a gentle second birth +almost in old age. But then he had been but a boy all the time, and a +very good sort of boy. He had acted in no small measure according to the +light he had, and time was of course given him to grow in. It is not the +world alone that requires the fullness of its time to come, ere it can +receive a revelation; the individual also has to pass through his +various stages of Pagan, Guebre, Moslem, Jew, Essene--God knows what +all--before he can begin to see and understand the living Christ. The +child has to pass through all the phases of lower animal life; when, +change is arrested, he is born a monster; and in many a Christian the +rudiments of former stages are far from extinct--not seldom revive, and +for the time seem to reabsorb the development, making indeed a monstrous +show. + +"For myself,"--I give a passage from Wingfold's note-book, written for +his wife's reading--"I feel sometimes as if I were yet a pagan, +struggling hard to break through where I see a glimmer of something +better, called Christianity. In any case what I have, can be but a +foretaste of what I have yet to _be_; and if so, then indeed is there a +glory laid up for them that will have God, the _I_ of their _I_, to +throne it in the temple he has built, to pervade the life he has _lifed_ +out of himself. My soul is now as a chaos with a hungry heart of order +buried beneath its slime, that longs and longs for the moving of the +breath of God over its water and mud." + +The foundation-stone of the chapel was to be laid with a short and +simple ceremony, at which no clergy but themselves were to be present. +The rector had not consented, and the curate had not urged, that it +should remain unconsecrated; it was therefore uncertain, so far at least +as Wingfold knew, whether it was to be chapel or lecture hall. In either +case it was for the use and benefit of the villagers, and they were all +invited to be present. A few of the neighbors who were friends of the +rector and his wife, were also invited, and among them was Miss +Meredith. + +Mr. and Mrs. Bevis had long ere now called upon her, and found her, as +Mrs. Bevis said, fit for any society. She had lunched several times with +them, and, her health being now greatly restored, was the readier to +accept the present invitation, that she was growing again anxious about +employment. + +Almost every one was taken with her sweet manner, shaded with sadness. +At one time self-dissatisfaction had made her too anxious to please: in +the mirror of other minds she sought a less unfavorable reflection of +herself. But trouble had greatly modified this tendency, and taken the +too-much out of her courtesy. + +She and Mrs. Puckridge went together, and Faber, calling soon after, +found the door locked. He saw the gathering in the park, however, had +heard something about the ceremony, concluded they were assisting, and, +after a little questioning with himself, led his horse to the gate, made +fast the reins to it, went in, and approached the little assembly. Ere +he reached it, he saw them kneel, whereupon he made a circuit and got +behind a tree, for he would not willingly seem rude, and he dared not be +hypocritical. Thence he descried Juliet kneeling with the rest, and +could not help being rather annoyed. Neither could he help being a +little struck with the unusual kind of prayer the curate was making; for +he spoke as to the God of workmen, the God of invention and creation, +who made the hearts of his creatures so like his own that they must +build and make. + +When the observance was over, and the people were scattering in groups, +till they should be summoned to the repast prepared for them, the rector +caught sight of the doctor, and went to him. + +"Ha, Faber!" he cried, holding out his hand, "this _is_ kind of you! I +should hardly have expected you to be present on such an occasion!" + +"I hoped my presence would not offend you," answered the doctor. "I did +not presume to come closer than just within earshot of your devotions. +Neither must you think me unfriendly for keeping aloof." + +"Certainly not. I would not have you guilty of irreverence." + +"That could hardly be, if I recognized no presence." + +"There was at least," rejoined Mr. Bevis, "the presence of a good many +of your neighbors, to whom you never fail to recognize your duty, and +that is the second half of religion: would it not have showed want of +reverence toward them, to bring an unsympathetic presence into the midst +of their devotion?" + +"That I grant," said the doctor. + +"But it may be," said the curate, who had come up while they talked, +"that what you, perhaps justifiably, refuse to recognize as irreverence, +has its root in some fault of which you are not yet aware." + +"Then I'm not to blame for it," said Faber quietly. + +"But you might be terribly the loser by it." + +"That is, you mean, if there should be One to whom reverence is due?" + +"Yes." + +"Would that be fair, then--in an All-wise, that is, toward an ignorant +being?" + +"I think not. Therefore I look for something to reveal it to you. But, +although I dare not say you are to blame, because that would be to take +upon myself the office of a judge, which is God's alone, He only being +able to give fair play, I would yet have you search yourself, and see +whether you may not come upon something which keeps you from giving full +and honest attention to what some people, as honest as yourself, think +they see true. I am speaking only from my knowledge of myself, and the +conviction that we are all much alike. What if you should discover that +you do not really and absolutely disbelieve in a God?--that the human +nature is not capable of such a disbelief?--that your unbelief has been +only indifference and irreverence--and that to a Being grander and +nobler and fairer than human heart can conceive?" + +"If it be so, let Him punish me," said the doctor gravely. + +"If it be so, He will," said the curate solemnly, "--and you will thank +Him for it--after a while. The God of my belief is too good not to make +Himself known to a man who loves what is fair and honest, as you do." + +The doctor was silent. + +While they were talking thus, two ladies had left the others and now +approached them--Mrs. Wingfold and Miss Meredith. They had heard the +last few sentences, and seeing two clergymen against one infidel, +hastened with the generosity of women to render him what aid they might. + +"I am sure Mr. Faber is honest," said Helen. + +"That is much to say for any man," returned the curate. + +"If any man is, then," adjected Juliet. + +"That is a great _If_," rejoined Wingfold."--Are _you_ honest, Helen?" +he added, turning to his wife. + +"No," she answered; "but I am honester than I was a year ago." + +"So am I," said her husband; "and I hope to be honester yet before +another is over. It's a big thing to say, _I am honest_." + +Juliet was silent, and Helen, who was much interested with her, turned +to see how she was taking it. Her lips were as white as her face. Helen +attributed the change to anger, and was silent also. The same moment the +rector moved toward the place where the luncheon-tables were, and they +all accompanied him, Helen still walking, in a little anxiety, by +Juliet's side. It was some minutes before the color came back to her +lips; but when Helen next addressed her, she answered as gently and +sweetly as if the silence had been nothing but an ordinary one. + +"You will stay and lunch with us, Mr. Faber?" said the rector. "There +can be no hypocrisy in that--eh?" + +"Thank you," returned the doctor heartily; "but my work is waiting me, +and we all agree that _must_ be done, whatever our opinions as to the +ground of the obligation." + +"And no man can say you don't do it," rejoined the curate kindly. +"That's one thing we do agree in, as you say: let us hold by it, Faber, +and keep as good friends as we can, till we grow better ones." + +Faber could not quite match the curate in plain speaking: the pupil was +not up with his master yet. + +"Thank you, Wingfold," he returned, and his voice was not free of +emotion, though Juliet alone felt the tremble of the one vibrating +thread in it. "--Miss Meredith," he went on, turning to her, "I have +heard of something that perhaps may suit you: will you allow me to call +in the evening, and talk it over with you?" + +"Please do," responded Juliet eagerly. "Come before post-time if you +can. It may be necessary to write." + +"I will. Good morning." + +He made a general bow to the company and walked away, cutting off the +heads of the dandelions with his whip as he went. All followed with +their eyes his firm, graceful figure, as he strode over the grass in his +riding-boots and spurs. + +"He's a fine fellow that!" said the rector. "--But, bless me!" he added, +turning to his curate, "how things change! If you had told me a year +ago, the day would come when I should call an atheist a fine fellow, I +should almost have thought you must be one yourself! Yet here I am +saying it--and never in my life so much in earnest to be a Christian! +How is it, Wingfold, my boy?" + +"He who has the spirit of his Master, will speak the truth even of his +Master's enemies," answered the curate. "To this he is driven if he does +not go willingly, for he knows his Master loves his enemies. If you see +Faber a fine fellow, you say so, just as the Lord would, and try the +more to save him. A man who loves and serves his neighbor, let him speak +ever so many words against the Son of Man, is not sinning against the +Holy Ghost. He is still open to the sacred influence--the virtue which +is ever going forth from God to heal. It is the man who in the name of +religion opposes that which he sees to be good, who is in danger of +eternal sin." + +"Come, come, Wingfold! whatever you do, don't mis-quote," said the +rector. + +"I don't say it is the right reading," returned the curate, "but I can +hardly be convicted of misquoting, so long as it is that of the two +oldest manuscripts we have." + +"You always have the better of me," answered the rector. "But tell +me--are not the atheists of the present day a better sort of fellows +than those we used to hear of when we were young?" + +"I do think so. But, as one who believes with his whole soul, and +strives with his whole will, I attribute their betterness to the growing +influences of God upon the race through them that have believed. And I +am certain of this, that, whatever they are, it needs but time and +continued unbelief to bring them down to any level from whatever height. +They will either repent, or fall back into the worst things, believing +no more in their fellow-man and the duty they owe him--of which they now +rightly make so much, and yet not half enough--than they do in God and +His Christ. But I do not believe half the bad things Christians have +said and written of atheists. Indeed I do not believe the greater number +of those they have called such, were atheists at all. I suspect that +worse dishonesty, and greater injustice, are to be found among the +champions, lay and cleric, of religious Opinion, than in any other +class. If God were such a One as many of those who would fancy +themselves His apostles, the universe would be but a huge hell. Look at +certain of the so-called religious newspapers, for instance. Religious! +Their tongue is set on fire of hell. It may be said that they are mere +money-speculations; but what makes them pay? Who buys them? To please +whom do they write? Do not many buy them who are now and then themselves +disgusted with them? Why do they not refuse to touch the unclean things? +Instead of keeping the commandment, 'that he who loveth God love his +brother also,' these, the prime channels of Satanic influence in the +Church, powerfully teach, that He that loveth God must abuse his +brother--or he shall be himself abused." + +"I fancy," said the rector, "they would withhold the name of brother +from those they abuse." + +"No; not always." + +"They would from an unbeliever." + +"Yes. But let them then call him an enemy, and behave to him as +such--that is, love him, or at least try to give him the fair play to +which the most wicked of devils has the same right as the holiest of +saints. It is the vile falsehood and miserable unreality of Christians, +their faithlessness to their Master, their love of their own wretched +sects, their worldliness and unchristianity, their talking and not +doing, that has to answer, I suspect, for the greater part of our +present atheism." + +"I have seen a good deal of Mr. Faber of late," Juliet said, with a +slight tremor in her voice, "and he seems to me incapable of falling +into those vile conditions I used to hear attributed to atheists." + +"The atheism of some men," said the curate, "is a nobler thing than the +Christianity of some of the foremost of so-called and so-believed +Christians, and I may not doubt they will fare better at the last." + +The rector looked a little blank at this, but said nothing. He had so +often found, upon reflection, that what seemed extravagance in his +curate was yet the spirit of Scripture, that he had learned to suspend +judgment. + +Miss Meredith's face glowed with the pleasure of hearing justice +rendered the man in whom she was so much interested, and she looked the +more beautiful. She went soon after luncheon was over, leaving a +favorable impression behind her. Some of the ladies said she was much +too fond of the doctor; but the gentlemen admired her spirit in standing +up for him. Some objected to her paleness; others said it was not +paleness, but fairness, for her eyes and hair were as dark as the night; +but all agreed, that whatever it was to be called, her complexion was +peculiar--some for that very reason judging it the more admirable, and +others the contrary. Some said she was too stately, and attributed her +carriage to a pride to which, in her position, she had no right, they +said. Others judged that she needed such a bearing the more for +self-defense, especially if she had come down in the world. Her dress, +it was generally allowed, was a little too severe--some thought, in its +defiance of the fashion, assuming. No one disputed that she had been +accustomed to good society, and none could say that she had made the +slightest intrusive movement toward their circle. Still, why was it that +nobody knew any thing about her? + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +THE RECTORY. + + +The curate and his wife had a good deal of talk about Juliet as they +drove home from Nestley. Much pleased with herself, they heard from +their hostess what she had learned of her history, and were the more +interested. They must find her a situation, they agreed, where she would +feel at home; and in the meantime would let her understand that, if she +took up her abode in Glaston, and were so inclined, the town was large +enough to give a good hope of finding a few daily engagements. + +Before they left Nestley, Helen had said to Mrs. Bevis that she would +like to ask Miss Meredith to visit them for a few days. + +"No one knows much about her," remarked Mrs. Bevis, feeling responsible. + +"She can't be poison," returned Helen. "And if she were, she couldn't +hurt us. That's the good of being husband and wife: so long as you are +of one mind, you can do almost any thing." + +When Faber called upon Juliet in the evening, nothing passed between +them concerning the situation at which he had hinted. When he entered +she was seated as usual in the corner of the dingy little couch, under +the small window looking into the garden, in the shadow. She did not +rise, but held out her hand to him. He went hastily up to her, took the +hand she offered, sat down beside her, and at once broke into a full +declaration of his love--now voluble, now hesitating, now submissive, +now persuasive, but humblest when most passionate. Whatever the man's +conceit, or his estimate of the thing he would have her accept, it was +in all honesty and modesty that he offered her the surrender of the very +citadel of his being--alas, too "empty, swept, and garnished!" Juliet +kept her head turned from him; he felt the hand he held tremble, and +every now and then make a faint struggle to escape from his; but he +could not see that her emotion was such as hardly to be accounted for +either by pleasure at the hearing of welcome words, or sorrow that her +reply must cause pain. He ceased at length, and with eyes of longing +sought a glimpse of her face, and caught one. Its wild, waste expression +frightened him. It was pallid like an old sunset, and her breath came +and went stormily. Three times, in a growing agony of effort, her lips +failed of speech. She gave a sudden despairing cast of her head +sideways, her mouth opened a little as if with mere helplessness, she +threw a pitiful glance in his face, burst into a tumult of sobs, and +fell back on the couch. Not a tear came to her eyes, but such was her +trouble that she did not even care to lift her hand to her face to hide +the movements of its rebellious muscles. Faber, bewildered, but, from +the habits of his profession, master of himself, instantly prepared her +something, which she took obediently; and as soon as she was quieted a +little, mounted and rode away: two things were clear--one, that she +could not be indifferent to him; the other, that, whatever the cause of +her emotion, she would for the present be better without him. He was +both too kind and too proud to persist in presenting himself. + +The next morning Helen drew up her ponies at Mrs. Puckridge's door, and +Wingfold got out and stood by their heads, while she went in to call on +Miss Meredith. + +Juliet had passed a sleepless night, and greatly dreaded the next +interview with Faber. Helen's invitation, therefore, to pay them a few +days' visit, came to her like a redemption: in their house she would +have protection both from Faber and from herself. Heartily, with tears +in her eyes, she accepted it; and her cordial and grateful readiness +placed her yet a step higher in the regard of her new friends. The +acceptance of a favor may be the conferring of a greater. Quickly, +hurriedly, she put up "her bag of needments," and with a sad, sweet +smile of gentle apology, took the curate's place beside his wife, while +he got into the seat behind. + +Juliet, having been of late so much confined to the house, could not +keep back the tears called forth by the pleasure of the rapid motion +through the air, the constant change of scene, and that sense of human +story which haunts the mind in passing unknown houses and farms and +villages. An old thatched barn works as directly on the social feeling +as the ancient castle or venerable manor-seat; many a simple house will +move one's heart like a poem; many a cottage like a melody. When at last +she caught sight of the great church-tower, she clapped her hands with +delight. There was a place in which to wander and hide! she thought--in +which to find refuge and rest, and coolness and shadow! Even for Faber's +own sake she would not believe that faith a mere folly which had built +such a pile as that! Surely there was some way of meeting the terrible +things he said--if only she could find it! + +"Are you fastidious, Miss Meredith, or willing to do any thing that is +honest?" the curate asked rather abruptly, leaning forward from the back +seat. + +"If ever I was fastidious," she answered, "I think I am pretty nearly +cured. I should certainly like my work to be so far within my capacity +as to be pleasant to me." + +"Then there is no fear," answered the curate. "The people who don't get +on, are those that pick and choose upon false principles. They +generally attempt what they are unfit for, and deserve their +failures.--Are you willing to teach little puds and little tongues?" + +"Certainly." + +"Tell me what you are able to do?" + +"I would rather not. You might think differently when you came to know +me. But you can ask me any questions you please. I shan't hide my +knowledge, and I can't hide my ignorance." + +"Thank you," said the curate, and leaned back again in his seat. + +After luncheon, Helen found to her delight that, although Juliet was +deficient enough in the mechanics belonging to both voice and +instrument, she could yet sing and play with expression and facility, +while her voice was one of the loveliest she had ever heard. When the +curate came home from his afternoon attentions to the ailing of his +flock, he was delighted to hear his wife's report of her gifts. + +"Would you mind reading a page or two aloud?" he said to their visitor, +after they had had a cup of tea. "I often get my wife to read to me." + +She consented at once. He put a volume of Carlyle into her hand. She had +never even tasted a book of his before, yet presently caught the spirit +of the passage, and read charmingly. + +In the course of a day or two they discovered that she was sadly +defective in spelling, a paltry poverty no doubt, yet awkward for one +who would teach children. In grammar and arithmetic also the curate +found her lacking. Going from place to place with her father, she had +never been much at school, she said, and no one had ever compelled her +to attend to the dry things. But nothing could be more satisfactory than +the way in which she now, with the help of the curate and his wife, set +herself to learn; and until she should have gained such proficiency as +would enable them to speak of her acquirements with confidence, they +persuaded her, with no great difficulty, to continue their guest. +Wingfold, who had been a tutor in his day, was well qualified to assist +her, and she learned with wonderful rapidity. + +The point that most perplexed Wingfold with her was that, while very +capable of perceiving and admiring the good, she was yet capable of +admiring things of altogether inferior quality. What did it mean? Could +it arise from an excess of productive faculty, not yet sufficiently +differenced from the receptive? One could imagine such an excess ready +to seize the poorest molds, flow into them, and endow them for itself +with attributed life and power. He found also that she was familiar with +the modes of thought and expression peculiar to a certain school of +theology--embodiments from which, having done their good, and long +commenced doing their evil, Truth had begun to withdraw itself, +consuming as it withdrew. For the moment the fire ceases to be the life +of the bush in which it appears, the bush will begin to be consumed. At +the same time he could perfectly recognize the influence of Faber upon +her. For not unfrequently, the talk between the curate and his wife +would turn upon some point connected with the unbelief of the land, so +much more active, though but seemingly more extensive than heretofore; +when she would now make a remark, now ask a question, in which the +curate heard the doctor as plainly as if the words had come direct from +his lips: those who did not believe might answer so and so--might refuse +the evidence--might explain the thing differently. But she listened +well, and seemed to understand what they said. The best of her +undoubtedly appeared in her music, in which she was fundamentally far +superior to Helen, though by no means so well trained, taught or +practiced in it; whence Helen had the unspeakable delight, one which +only a humble, large and lofty mind can ever have, of consciously +ministering to the growth of another in the very thing wherein that +other is naturally the superior. The way to the blessedness that is in +music, as to all other blessednesses, lies through weary labors, and the +master must suffer with the disciple; Helen took Juliet like a child, +set her to scales and exercises, and made her practice hours a day. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +AT THE PIANO. + + +When Faber called on Juliet, the morning after the last interview +recorded, and found where she was gone, he did not doubt she had taken +refuge with her new friends from his importunity, and was at once +confirmed in the idea he had cherished through the whole wakeful night, +that the cause of her agitation was nothing else than the conflict +between her heart and a false sense of duty, born of prejudice and +superstition. She was not willing to send him away, and yet she dared +not accept him. Her behavior had certainly revealed any thing but +indifference, and therefore must not make him miserable. At the same +time if it was her pleasure to avoid him, what chance had he of seeing +her alone at the rectory? The thought made him so savage that for a +moment he almost imagined his friend had been playing him false. + +"I suppose he thinks every thing fair in religion, as well as in love +and war!" he said to himself. "It's a mighty stake, no doubt--a soul +like Juliet's!" + +He laughed scornfully. It was but a momentary yielding to the temptation +of injustice, however, for his conscience told him at once that the +curate was incapable of any thing either overbearing or underhand. He +would call on her as his patient, and satisfy himself at once how things +were between them. At best they had taken a bad turn. + +He judged it better, however, to let a day or two pass. When he did +call, he was shown into the drawing-room, where he found Helen at the +piano, and Juliet having a singing-lesson from her. Till then he had +never heard Juliet's song voice. A few notes of it dimly reached him as +he approached the room, and perhaps prepared him for the impression he +was about to receive: when the door opened, like a wind on a more mobile +sea, it raised sudden tumult in his soul. Not once in his life had he +ever been agitated in such fashion; he knew himself as he had never +known himself. It was as if some potent element, undreamed of before, +came rushing into the ordered sphere of his world, and shouldered its +elements from the rhythm of their going. It was a full contralto, with +pathos in the very heart of it, and it seemed to wrap itself round his +heart like a serpent of saddest splendor, and press the blood from it up +into his eyes. The ladies were too much occupied to hear him announced, +or note his entrance, as he stood by the door, absorbed, entranced. + +Presently he began to feel annoyed, and proceeded thereupon to take +precautions with himself. For Juliet was having a lesson of the severest +kind, in which she accepted every lightest hint with the most heedful +attention, and conformed thereto with the sweetest obedience; whence it +came that Faber, the next moment after fancying he had screwed his +temper to stoic pitch, found himself passing from displeasure to +indignation, and thence almost to fury, as again and again some +exquisite tone, that went thrilling through all his being, discovering +to him depths and recesses hitherto unimagined, was unceremoniously, or +with briefest apology, cut short for the sake of some suggestion from +Helen. Whether such suggestion was right or wrong, was to Faber not of +the smallest consequence: it was in itself a sacrilege, a breaking into +the house of life, a causing of that to cease whose very being was its +justification. Mrs. Wingfold! she was not fit to sing in the same chorus +with her! Juliet was altogether out of sight of her. He had heard Mrs. +Wingfold sing many a time, and she could no more bring out a note like +one of those she was daring to criticise, than a cat could emulate a +thrush! + +"Ah, Mr. Faber!--I did not know you were there," said Helen at length, +and rose. "We were so busy we never heard you." + +If she had looked at Juliet, she would have said _I_ instead of _we_. +Her kind manner brought Faber to himself a little. + +"Pray, do not apologize," he said. "I could have listened forever." + +"I don't wonder. It is not often one hears notes like those. Were you +aware what a voice you had saved to the world?" + +"Not in the least. Miss Meredith leaves her gifts to be discovered." + +"All good things wait the seeker," said Helen, who had taken to +preaching since she married the curate, some of her half-friends said; +the fact being that life had grown to her so gracious, so happy, so +serious, that she would not unfrequently say a thing worth saying. + +In the interstices of this little talk, Juliet and Faber had shaken +hands, and murmured a conventional word or two. + +"I suppose this is a professional visit?" said Helen. "Shall I leave you +with your patient?" + +As she put the question, however, she turned to Juliet. + +"There is not the least occasion," Juliet replied, a little eagerly, and +with a rather wan smile. "I am quite well, and have dismissed my +doctor." + +Faber was in the mood to imagine more than met the ear, and the words +seemed to him of cruel significance. A flush of anger rose to his +forehead, and battled with the paleness of chagrin. He said nothing. +But Juliet saw and understood. Instantly she held out her hand to him +again, and supplemented the offending speech with the words, + +"--but, I hope, retained my friend?" + +The light rushed again into Faber's eyes, and Juliet repented afresh, +for the words had wrought too far in the other direction. + +"That is," she amended, "if Mr. Faber will condescend to friendship, +after having played the tyrant so long." + +"I can only aspire to it," said the doctor. + +It sounded mere common compliment, the silliest thing between man and +woman, and Mrs. Wingfold divined nothing more: she was not quick in such +matters. Had she suspected, she might, not knowing the mind of the lady +have been a little perplexed. As it was, she did not leave the room, and +presently the curate entered, with a newspaper in his hand. + +"They're still at it, Faber," he said, "with their heated liquids and +animal life!" + +"I need not ask which side you take," said the doctor, not much inclined +to enter upon any discussion. + +"I take neither," answered the curate. "Where is the use, or indeed +possibility, so long as the men of science themselves are disputing +about the facts of experiment? It will be time enough to try to +understand them, when they are agreed and we know what the facts really +are. Whatever they may turn out to be, it is but a truism to say they +must be consistent with all other truth, although they may entirely +upset some of our notions of it." + +"To which side then do you lean, as to the weight of the evidence?" +asked Faber, rather listlessly. + +He had been making some experiments of his own in the direction referred +to. They were not so complete as he would have liked, for he found a +large country practice unfriendly to investigation; but, such as they +were, they favored the conclusion that no form of life appeared where +protection from the air was thorough. + +"I take the evidence," answered the curate, "to be in favor of what they +so absurdly call spontaneous generation." + +"I am surprised to hear you say so," returned Faber. "The conclusions +necessary thereupon, are opposed to all your theology." + +"Must I then, because I believe in a living Truth, be myself an unjust +judge?" said the curate. "But indeed the conclusions are opposed to no +theology I have any acquaintance with; and if they were, it would give +me no concern. Theology is not my origin, but God. Nor do I acknowledge +any theology but what Christ has taught, and has to teach me. When, and +under what circumstances, life comes first into human ken, can not +affect His lessons of trust and fairness. If I were to play tricks with +the truth, shirk an argument, refuse to look a fact in the face, I +should be ashamed to look Him in the face. What he requires of his +friends is pure, open-eyed truth." + +"But how," said the doctor, "can you grant spontaneous generation, and +believe in a Creator?" + +"I said the term was an absurd one," rejoined the curate. + +"Never mind the term then: you admit the fact?" said Faber. + +"What fact?" asked Wingfold. + +"That in a certain liquid, where all life has been destroyed, and where +no contact with life is admitted, life of itself appears," defined the +doctor. + +"No, no; I admit nothing of the sort," cried Wingfold. "I only admit +that the evidence seems in favor of believing that in some liquids that +have been heated to a high point, and kept from the air, life has yet +appeared. How can I tell whether _all_ life already there was first +destroyed? whether a yet higher temperature would not have destroyed yet +more life? What if the heat, presumed to destroy all known germs of life +in them, should be the means of developing other germs, further removed? +Then as to _spontaneity_, as to life appearing of itself, that question +involves something beyond physics. Absolute life can exist only of and +by itself, else were it no perfect thing; but will you say that a mass +of protoplasm--that _proto_ by the way is a begged question--exists by +its own power, appears by its own will? Is it not rather there because +it can not help it?" + +"It is there in virtue of the life that is in it," said Faber. + +"Of course; that is a mere truism," returned Wingfold, "equivalent to, +It lives in virtue of life. There is nothing _spontaneous_ in that. Its +life must in some way spring from the true, the original, the +self-existent life." + +"There you are begging the whole question," objected the doctor. + +"No; not the whole," persisted the curate; "for I fancy you will +yourself admit there is some blind driving law behind the phenomenon. +But now I will beg the whole question, if you like to say so, for the +sake of a bit of purely metaphysical argument: the law of life behind, +if it be spontaneously existent, can not be a blind, deaf, unconscious +law; if it be unconscious of itself, it can not be spontaneous; whatever +is of itself must be God, and the source of all non-spontaneous, that +is, all other existence." + +"Then it has been only a dispute about a word?" said Faber. + +"Yes, but a word involving a tremendous question," answered Wingfold. + +"Which I give up altogether," said the doctor, "asserting that there is +_nothing_ spontaneous, in the sense you give the word--the original +sense I admit. From all eternity a blind, unconscious law has been at +work, producing." + +"I say, an awful living Love and Truth and Right, creating children of +its own," said the curate--"and there is our difference." + +"Yes," assented Faber. + +"Anyhow, then," said Wingfold, "so far as regards the matter in hand, +all we can say is, that under such and such circumstances life +_appears--whence_, we believe differently; _how_, neither of us can +tell--perhaps will ever be able to tell. I can't talk in scientific +phrase like you, Faber, but truth is not tied to any form of words." + +"It is well disputed," said the doctor, "and I am inclined to grant that +the question with which we started does not immediately concern the +great differences between us." + +It was rather hard upon Faber to have to argue when out of condition and +with a lady beside to whom he was longing to pour out his soul--his +antagonist a man who never counted a sufficing victory gained, unless +his adversary had had light and wind both in his back. Trifling as was +the occasion of the present skirmish, he had taken his stand on the +lower ground. Faber imagined he read both triumph and pity in Juliet's +regard, and could scarcely endure his position a moment longer. + +"Shall we have some music?" said Wingfold. "--I see the piano open. Or +are you one of those worshipers of work, who put music in the morning in +the same category with looking on the wine when it is red?" + +"Theoretically, no; but practically, yes," answered Faber, "--at least +for to-day. I shouldn't like poor Widow Mullens to lie listening to the +sound of that old water-wheel, till it took up its parable against the +faithlessness of men in general, and the doctor in particular. I can't +do her much good, poor old soul, but I can at least make her fancy +herself of consequence enough not to be forgotten." + +The curate frowned a little--thoughtfully--but said nothing, and +followed his visitor to the door. When he returned, he said, + +"I wonder what it is in that man that won't let him believe!" + +"Perhaps he will yet, some day," said Juliet, softly. + +"He will; he must," answered the curate. "He always reminds me of the +young man who had kept the law, and whom our Lord loved. Surely he must +have been one of the first that came and laid his wealth at the +apostles' feet! May not even that half of the law which Faber tries to +keep, be school-master enough to lead him to Christ?--But come, Miss +Meredith; now for our mathematics!" + +Every two or three days the doctor called to see his late patient. She +wanted looking after, he said. But not once did he see her alone. He +could not tell from their behavior whether she or her hostess was to +blame for his recurring disappointment; but the fact was, that his ring +at the door-bell was the signal to Juliet not to be alone. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +THE PASTOR'S STUDY. + + +Happening at length to hear that visitors were expected, Juliet, +notwithstanding the assurances of her hostess that there was plenty of +room for her, insisted on finding lodgings, and taking more direct +measures for obtaining employment. But the curate had not been idle in +her affairs, and had already arranged for her with some of his own +people who had small children, only he had meant she should not begin +just yet. He wanted her both to be a little stronger, and to have got a +little further with one or two of her studies. And now, consulting with +Helen, he broached a new idea on the matter of her lodgment. + +A day or two before Jones, the butcher, had been talking to him about +Mr. Drake--saying how badly his congregation had behaved to him, and in +what trouble he had come to him, because he could not pay his bill. The +good fellow had all this time never mentioned the matter; and it was +from growing concern about the minister that he now spoke of it to the +curate. + +"We don't know all the circumstances, however, Mr. Jones," the curate +replied; "and perhaps Mr. Drake himself does not think so badly of it as +you do. He is a most worthy man. Mind you let him have whatever he +wants. I'll see to you. Don't mention it to a soul." + +"Bless your heart and liver, sir!" exclaimed the butcher, "he's ten +times too much of a gentleman to do a kindness to. I couldn't take no +liberty with that man--no, not if he was 'most dead of hunger. He'd eat +the rats out of his own cellar, I do believe, before he'd accept what +you may call a charity; and for buying when he knows he can't pay, why +he'd beg outright before he'd do that. What he do live on now I can't +nohow make out--and that's what doos make me angry with him--as if a +honest tradesman didn't know how to behave to a gentleman! Why, they +tell me, sir, he did use to drive his carriage and pair in London! And +now he's a doin' of his best to live on nothink at all!--leastways, so +they tell me--seem' as how he'd have 'em believe he was turned a--what's +it they call it!--a--a--a wegetablarian!--that's what he do, sir! But I +know better. He may be eatin' grass like a ox, as did that same old king +o' Israel as growed the feathers and claws in consequence; and I don't +say he ain't; but one thing I'm sure of, and that is, that if he be, +it's by cause he can't help it. Why, sir, I put it to you--no gentleman +would--if he could help it.--Why don't he come to me for a bit o' +wholesome meat?" he went on in a sorely injured tone. "He knows I'm +ready for anythink in reason! Them peas an' beans an' cabbages an' +porridges an' carrots an' turmits--why, sir, they ain't nothink at all +but water an' wind. I don't say as they mayn't keep a body alive for a +year or two, but, bless you, there's nothink in them; and the man'll be +a skelinton long before he's dead an' buried; an' I shed jest like to +know where's the good o' life on sich terms as them!" + +Thus Jones, the butcher--a man who never sold bad meat, never charged +for an ounce more than he delivered, and when he sold to the poor, +considered them. In buying and selling he had a weakness for giving the +fair play he demanded. He had a little spare money somewhere, but he did +not make a fortune out of hunger, retire early, and build churches. A +local preacher once asked him if he knew what was the plan of salvation. +He answered with the utmost innocence, cutting him off a great lump of +leg of beef for a family he had just told him was starving, that he +hadn't an idea, but no Christian could doubt it was all right. + +The curate, then, pondering over what Mr. Jones had told him, had an +idea; and now he and his wife were speedily of one mind as to attempting +an arrangement for Juliet with Miss Drake. What she would be able to pay +would, they thought, ease them a little, while she would have the +advantage of a better protection than a lodging with more humble people +would afford her. Juliet was willing for any thing they thought best. + +Wingfold therefore called on the minister, to make the proposal to him, +and was shown up to his study--a mere box, where there was just room for +a chair on each side of the little writing-table. The walls from top to +bottom were entirely hidden with books. + +Mr. Drake received him with a touching mixture of sadness and +cordiality, and heard in silence what he had to say. + +"It is very kind of you to think of us, Mr. Wingfold," he replied, after +a moment's pause. "But I fear the thing is impossible. Indeed, it is out +of the question. Circumstances are changed with us. Things are not as +they once were." + +There had always been a certain negative virtue in Mr. Drake, which only +his friends were able to see, and only the wisest of them to set over +against his display--this, namely, that he never attempted to gain +credit for what he knew he had not. As he was not above show, I can not +say he was safely above false show, for he who is capable of the one is +still in danger of the other; but he was altogether above deception: +that he scorned. If, in his time of plenty he liked men to be aware of +his worldly facilities, he now, in the time of his poverty, preferred +that men should be aware of the bonds in which he lived. His nature was +simple, and loved to let in the daylight. Concealment was altogether +alien to him. From morning to night anxious, he could not bear to be +supposed of easy heart. Some men think poverty such a shame that they +would rather be judged absolutely mean than confess it. Mr. Drake's +openness may have sprung from too great a desire for sympathy; or from +a diseased honesty--I can not tell; I will freely allow that if his +faith had been as a grain of mustard seed, he would not have been so +haunted with a sense of his poverty, as to be morbidly anxious to +confess it. He would have known that his affairs were in high charge: +and that, in the full flow of the fountain of prosperity, as well as in +the scanty, gravelly driblets from the hard-wrought pump of poverty, the +supply came all the same from under the throne of God, and he would not +have _felt_ poor. A man ought never to feel rich for riches, nor poor +for poverty. The perfect man must always feel rich, because God is rich. + +"The fact is," Mr. Drake went on, "we are very poor--absolutely poor, +Mr. Wingfold--so poor that I may not even refuse the trifling annuity my +late congregation will dole out to me." + +"I am sorry to know it," said the curate. + +"But I must take heed of injustice," the pastor resumed; "I do not think +they would have treated me so had they not imagined me possessed of +private means. The pity now is that the necessity which would make me +glad to fall in with your kind proposal itself renders the thing +impracticable. Even with what your friend would contribute to the +housekeeping we could not provide a table fit for her. But Dorothy ought +to have the pleasure of hearing your kind proposition: if you will allow +me I will call her." + +Dorothy was in the kitchen, making pastry--for the rare treat of a +chicken pudding: they had had a present of a couple of chickens from +Mrs. Thomson--when she heard her father's voice calling her from the top +of the little stair. When Lisbeth opened the door to the curate she was +on her way out, and had not yet returned; so she did not know any one +was with him, and hurried up with her arms bare. She recoiled half a +step when she saw Mr. Wingfold, then went frankly forward to welcome +him, her hands in her white pinafore. + +"It's only flour," she said, smiling. + +"It is a rare pleasure now-a-days to catch a lady at work" said +Wingfold. "My wife always dusts my study for me. I told her I would not +have it done except she did it--just to have the pleasure of seeing her +at it. My conviction is, that only a lady can become a thorough +servant." + +"Why don't you have lady-helps then?" said Dorothy. + +"Because I don't know where to find them. Ladies are scarce; and any +thing almost would be better than a houseful of half-ladies." + +"I think I understand," said Dorothy thoughtfully. + +Her father now stated Mr. Wingfold's proposal--in the tone of one sorry +to be unable to entertain it. + +"I see perfectly why you think we could not manage it, papa," said +Dorothy. "But why should not Miss Meredith lodge with us in the same way +as with Mrs. Puckridge? She could have the drawing-room and my bedroom, +and her meals by herself. Lisbeth is wretched for want of dinners to +cook." + +"Miss Meredith would hardly relish the idea of turning you out of your +drawing-room," said Wingfold. + +"Tell her it may save us from being turned out of the house. Tell her +she will be a great help to us," returned Dorothy eagerly. + +"My child," said her father, the tears standing in his eyes, "your +reproach sinks into my very soul." + +"My reproach, father!" repeated Dorothy aghast. "How you do mistake me! +I can't say with you that the will of God is every thing; but I can say +that far less than your will--your ability--will always be enough for +me." + +"My child," returned her father, "you go on to rebuke me! You are +immeasurably truer to me than I am to my God.--Mr. Wingfold, you love +the Lord, else I would not confess my sin to you: of late I have often +thought, or at least felt as if He was dealing hardly with me. Ah, my +dear sir! you are a young man: for the peace of your soul serve God so, +that, by the time you are my age, you may be sure of Him. I try hard to +put my trust in Him, but my faith is weak. It ought by this time to have +been strong. I always want to see the way He is leading me--to +understand something of what He is doing with me or teaching me, before +I can accept His will, or get my heart to consent not to complain. It +makes me very unhappy. I begin to fear that I have never known even the +beginning of confidence, and that faith has been with me but a thing of +the understanding and the lips." + +He bowed his head on his hands. Dorothy went up to him and laid a hand +on his shoulder, looking unspeakably sad. A sudden impulse moved the +curate. + +"Let us pray," he said, rising, and kneeled down. + +It was a strange, unlikely thing to do; but he was an unlikely man, and +did it. The others made haste to kneel also. + +"God of justice," he said, "Thou knowest how hard it is for us, and Thou +wilt be fair to us. We have seen no visions; we have never heard the +voice of Thy Son, of whom those tales, so dear to us, have come down the +ages; we have to fight on in much darkness of spirit and of mind, both +from the ignorance we can not help, and from the fault we could have +helped; we inherit blindness from the error of our fathers; and when +fear, or the dread of shame, or the pains of death, come upon us, we are +ready to despair, and cry out that there is no God, or, if there be, He +has forgotten His children. There are times when the darkness closes +about us like a wall, and Thou appearest nowhere, either in our hearts, +or in the outer universe; we can not tell whether the things we seemed +to do in Thy name, were not mere hypocrisies, and our very life is but a +gulf of darkness. We cry aloud, and our despair is as a fire in our +bones to make us cry; but to all our crying and listening, there seems +neither hearing nor answer in the boundless waste. Thou who knowest +Thyself God, who knowest Thyself that for which we groan, Thou whom +Jesus called Father, we appeal to Thee, not as we imagine Thee, but as +Thou seest Thyself, as Jesus knows Thee, to Thy very self we cry--help +us, O Cause of us! O Thou from whom alone we are this weakness, through +whom alone we can become strength, help us--be our Father. We ask for +nothing beyond what Thy Son has told us to ask. We beg for no signs or +wonders, but for Thy breath upon our souls, Thy spirit in our hearts. We +pray for no cloven tongues of fire--for no mighty rousing of brain or +imagination; but we do, with all our power of prayer, pray for Thy +spirit; we do not even pray to know that it is given to us; let us, if +so it pleases Thee, remain in doubt of the gift for years to come--but +lead us thereby. Knowing ourselves only as poor and feeble, aware only +of ordinary and common movements of mind and soul, may we yet be +possessed by the spirit of God, led by His will in ours. For all things +in a man, even those that seem to him the commonest and least uplifted, +are the creation of Thy heart, and by the lowly doors of our wavering +judgment, dull imagination, luke-warm love, and palsied will, Thou canst +enter and glorify all. Give us patience because our hope is in Thee, not +in ourselves. Work Thy will in us, and our prayers are ended. Amen." + +They rose. The curate said he would call again in the evening, bade +them good-by, and went. Mr. Drake turned to his daughter and said-- + +"Dorothy, that's not the way I have been used to pray or hear people +pray; nevertheless the young man seemed to speak very straight up to +God. It appears to me there was another spirit there with his. I will +humble myself before the Lord. Who knows but he may lift me up!" + +"What can my father mean by saying that perhaps God will lift him up?" +said Dorothy to herself when she was alone. "It seems to me if I only +knew God was anywhere, I should want no other lifting up. I should then +be lifted up above every thing forever." + +Had she said so to the curate, he would have told her that the only way +to be absolutely certain of God, is to see Him as He is, and for that we +must first become absolutely pure in heart. For this He is working in +us, and perfection and vision will flash together. Were conviction +possible without that purity and that vision, I imagine it would work +evil in us, fix in their imperfection our ideas, notions, feelings, +concerning God, give us for His glory the warped reflection of our +cracked and spotted and rippled glass, and so turn our worship into an +idolatry. + +Dorothy was a rather little woman, with lightish auburn hair, a large +and somewhat heavy forehead, fine gray eyes, small well-fashioned +features, a fair complexion on a thin skin, and a mouth that would have +been better in shape if it had not so often been informed of trouble. +With this trouble their poverty had nothing to do; that did not weigh +upon her a straw. She was proud to share her father's lot, and could +have lived on as little as any laboring woman with seven children. She +was indeed a trifle happier since her father's displacement, and would +have been happier still had he found it within the barest possibility to +decline the annuity allotted him; for, as far back as she could +remember, she had been aware of a dislike to his position--partly from +pride it may be, but partly also from a sense of the imperfection of the +relation between him and his people--one in which love must be +altogether predominant, else is it hateful--and chiefly because of a +certain sordid element in the community--a vile way of looking at sacred +things through the spectacles of mammon, more evident--I only say more +evident--in dissenting than in Church of England communities, because of +the pressure of expenses upon them. Perhaps the impossibility of +regarding her father's church with reverence, laid her mind more open to +the cause of her trouble--such doubts, namely, as an active intellect, +nourished on some of the best books, and disgusted with the weak fervor +of others rated high in her hearing, had been suggesting for years +before any words of Faber's reached her. The more her devout nature +longed to worship, the more she found it impossible to worship that +which was presented for her love and adoration. See believed entirely in +her father, but she knew he could not meet her doubts, for many things +made it plain that he had never had such himself. An ordinary mind that +has had doubts, and has encountered and overcome them, or verified and +found them the porters of the gates of truth, may be profoundly useful +to any mind similarly assailed; but no knowledge of books, no amount of +logic, no degree of acquaintance with the wisest conclusions of others, +can enable a man who has not encountered skepticism in his own mind, to +afford any essential help to those caught in the net. For one thing, +such a man will be incapable of conceiving the possibility that the net +may be the net of The Fisher of Men. + +Dorothy, therefore, was sorely oppressed. For a long time her life had +seemed withering from her, and now that her father was fainting on the +steep path, and she had no water to offer him, she was ready to cry +aloud in bitterness of spirit. + +She had never heard the curate preach--had heard talk of his oddity on +all sides, from men and women no more capable of judging him than the +caterpillar of judging the butterfly--which yet it must become. The +draper, who understood him, naturally shrunk from praising to her the +teaching for which he not unfrequently deserted that of her father, and +she never looked in the direction of him with any hope. Yet now, the +very first time she had heard him speak out of the abundance of his +heart, he had left behind him a faint brown ray of hope in hers. It was +very peculiar of him to break out in prayer after such an abrupt +fashion--in the presence of an older minister than himself--and praying +for him too! But there was such an appearance of reality about the man! +such a simplicity in his look! such a directness in his petitions! such +an active fervor of hope in his tone--without an atom of what she had +heard called _unction_! His thought and speech appeared to arise from no +separated sacred mood that might be assumed and laid aside, but from +present faith and feeling, from the absolute point of life at that +moment being lived by him. It was an immediate appeal to a hearing, and +understanding, and caring God, whose breath was the very air His +creatures breathed, the element of their life; an utter acknowledgment +of His will as the bliss of His sons and daughters! Such was the shining +of the curate's light, and it awoke hope in Dorothy. + +In the evening he came again as he had said, and brought Juliet. Each in +the other, Dorothy and she recognized suffering, and in a very few +moments every thing was arranged between them. Juliet was charmed with +the simplicity and intentness of Dorothy; in Juliet's manner and +carriage, Dorothy at once recognized a breeding superior to her own, and +at once laid hold of the excellence by acknowledging it. In a moment she +made Juliet understand how things were, and Juliet saw as quickly that +she must assent to the arrangement proposed. But she had not been with +them two days, when Dorothy found the drawing-room as open to her as +before she came, and far more pleasant. + +While the girls were talking below, the two clergymen sat again in the +study. + +"I have taken the liberty," said the curate, "of bringing an old book I +should like you to look at, if you don't mind--chiefly for the sake of +some verses that pleased me much when I read them first, and now please +me more when I read them for the tenth time. If you will allow me, I +will read them to you." + +Mr. Drake liked good poetry, but did not much relish being called upon +to admire, as he imagined he was now. He assented, of course, graciously +enough, and soon found his mistake. + +This is the poem Wingfold read: + + CONSIDER THE RAVENS. + + Lord, according to Thy words, + I have considered Thy birds; + And I find their life good, + And better the better understood; + Sowing neither corn nor wheat, + They have all that they can eat; + Reaping no more than they sow. + They have all they can stow; + Having neither barn nor store, + Hungry again, they eat more. + + Considering, I see too that they + Have a busy life, and plenty of play; + In the earth they dig their bills deep, + And work well though they do not heap; + Then to play in the air they are not loth, + And their nests between are better than both. + + But this is when there blow no storms; + When berries are plenty in winter, and worms; + When their feathers are thick, and oil is enough + To keep the cold out and the rain off: + If there should come a long hard frost, + Then it looks as Thy birds were lost. + + But I consider further, and find + A hungry bird has a free mind; + He is hungry to-day, not to-morrow; + Steals no comfort, no grief doth borrow; + This moment is his, Thy will hath said it, + The next is nothing till Thou hast made it. + + The bird has pain, but has no fear, + Which is the worst of any gear; + When cold and hunger and harm betide him, + He gathers them not to stuff inside him; + Content with the day's ill he has got, + He waits just, nor haggles with his lot; + Neither jumbles God's will + With driblets from his own still. + + But next I see, in my endeavor, + Thy birds here do not live forever; + That cold or hunger, sickness or age, + Finishes their earthly stage; + The rook drops without a stroke, + And never gives another croak; + Birds lie here, and birds lie there, + With little feathers all astare; + And in Thy own sermon, Thou + That the sparrow falls dost allow. + + It shall not cause me any alarm, + For neither so comes the bird to harm, + Seeing our Father, Thou hast said, + Is by the sparrow's dying bed; + Therefore it is a blessed place, + And the sparrow in high grace. + + It cometh therefore to this. Lord; + I have considered Thy word, + And henceforth will be Thy bird. + +By the time Wingfold ceased, the tears were running down the old man's +face. When he saw that, the curate rose at once, laid the book on the +table, shook hands with him, and went away. The minister laid his head +on the table, and wept. + +Juliet had soon almost as much teaching as she could manage. People +liked her, and children came to love her a little. A good report of her +spread. The work was hard, chiefly because it included more walking than +she had been accustomed to; but Dorothy generally walked with her, and +to the places furthest off, Helen frequently took her with her ponies, +and she got through the day's work pretty well. The fees were small, but +they sufficed, and made life a little easier to her host and his family. +Amanda got very fond of her, and, without pretending to teach her, +Juliet taught her a good deal. On Sundays she went to church; and +Dorothy, although it cost her a struggle to face the imputation of +resentment, by which the chapel-people would necessarily interpret the +change, went regularly with her, in the growing hope of receiving light +from the curate. Her father also not unfrequently accompanied her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +TWO MINDS. + + +All this time poor Faber, to his offer of himself to Juliet, had +received no answer but a swoon--or something very near it. Every attempt +he made to see her alone at the rectory had been foiled; and he almost +came to the conclusion that the curate and his wife had set themselves +to prejudice against himself a mind already prejudiced against his +principles. It added to his uneasiness that, as he soon discovered, she +went regularly to church. He knew the power and persuasion of Wingfold, +and looked upon his influence as antagonistic to his hopes. Pride, +anger, and fear were all at work in him; but he went on calling, and did +his best to preserve an untroubled demeanor. Juliet imagined no change +in his feelings, and her behavior to him was not such as to prevent them +from deepening still. + +Every time he went it was with a desperate resolution of laying his +hand on the veil in which she had wrapped herself, but every time he +found it impossible, for one reason or another, to make a single +movement toward withdrawing it. Again and again he tried to write to +her, but the haunting suspicion that she would lay his epistle before +her new friends, always made him throw down his pen in a smothering +indignation. He found himself compelled to wait what opportunity chance +or change might afford him. + +When he learned that she had gone to live with the Drakes, it was a +relief to him; for although he knew the minister was far more personal +in his hostility than Wingfold, he was confident his influence over her +would not be so great; and now he would have a better chance, he +thought, of seeing her alone. Meantime he took satisfaction in knowing +that he did not neglect a single patient, and that in no case had he +been less successful either as to diagnosis or treatment because of his +trouble. He pitied himself just a little as a martyr to the truth, a +martyr the more meritorious that the truth to which he sacrificed +himself gave him no hope for the future, and for the present no shadow +of compensation beyond the satisfaction of not being deceived. It +remains a question, however, which there was no one to put to +Faber--whether he had not some amends in relief from the notion, vaguely +it may be, yet unpleasantly haunting many minds--of a Supreme Being--a +Deity--putting forth claims to obedience--an uncomfortable sort of +phantom, however imaginary, for one to have brooding above him, and +continually coming between him and the freedom of an else empty +universe. To the human soul as I have learned to know it, an empty +universe would be as an exhausted receiver to the lungs that thirst for +air; but Faber liked the idea: how he would have liked the reality +remains another thing. I suspect that what we call damnation is +something as near it as it can be made; itself it can not be, for even +the damned must live by God's life. Was it, I repeat, no compensation +for his martyrdom to his precious truth, to know that to none had he to +render an account? Was he relieved from no misty sense of a moral +consciousness judging his, and ready to enforce its rebuke--a belief +which seems to me to involve the highest idea, the noblest pledge, the +richest promise of our nature? There may be men in whose turning from +implicit to explicit denial, no such element of relief is concerned--I +can not tell; but although the structure of Paul Faber's life had in it +material of noble sort, I doubt if he was one of such. + +The summer at length reigned lordly in the land. The roses were in +bloom, from the black purple to the warm white. Ah, those roses! He must +indeed be a God who invented the roses. They sank into the red hearts of +men and women, caused old men to sigh, young men to long, and women to +weep with strange ecstatic sadness. But their scent made Faber lonely +and poor, for the rose-heart would not open its leaves to him. + +The winds were soft and odor-laden. The wide meadows through which +flowed the river, seemed to smite the eye with their greenness; and the +black and red and white kine bent down their sleek necks among the +marsh-marigolds and the meadow-sweet and the hundred lovely things that +border the level water-courses, and fed on the blessed grass. Along the +banks, here with nets, there with rod and line, they caught the gleaming +salmon, and his silver armor flashed useless in the sun. The old pastor +sat much in his little summer-house, and paced his green walk on the +border of the Lythe; but in all the gold of the sunlight, in all the +glow and the plenty around him, his heart was oppressed with the sense +of his poverty. It was not that he could not do the thing he would, but +that he could not meet and rectify the thing he had done. He could +behave, he said to himself, neither as a gentleman nor a Christian, for +lack of money; and, worst of all, he could not get rid of a sense of +wrong--of rebellious heavings of heart, of resentments, of doubts that +came thick upon him--not of the existence of God, nor of His goodness +towards men in general, but of His kindness to himself. Logically, no +doubt, they were all bound in one, and the being that could be unfair to +a beetle could not be God, could not make a beetle; but our feelings, +especially where a wretched self is concerned, are notably illogical. + +The morning of a glorious day came in with saffron, gold, and crimson. +The color sobered, but the glory grew. The fleeting dyes passed, but the +azure sky, the white clouds, and the yellow fire remained. The larks +dropped down to their breakfast. The kine had long been busy at theirs, +for they had slept their short night in the midst of their food. Every +thing that could move was in motion, and what could not move was +shining, and what could not shine was feeling warm. But the pastor was +tossing restless. He had a troubled night. The rent of his house fell +due with the miserable pittance allowed him by the church; but the hard +thing was not that he had to pay nearly the whole of the latter to meet +the former, but that he must first take it. The thought of that burned +in his veins like poison. But he had no choice. To refuse it would be +dishonest; it would be to spare or perhaps indulge his feelings at the +expense of the guiltless. He must not kill himself, he said, because he +had insured his life, and the act would leave his daughter nearly +destitute. Yet how was the insurance longer to be paid? It _was_ hard, +with all his faults, to be brought to this! It _was_ hard that he who +all his life had been urging people to have faith, should have his own +turned into a mockery. + +Here heart and conscience together smote him. Well might his faith be +mocked, for what better was it than a mockery itself! Where was this +thing he called his faith? Was he not cherishing, talking flat +unbelief?--as much as telling God he did _not_ trust in Him? Where was +the faithlessness of which his faithlessness complained? A phantom of +its own! Yea, let God be true and every man a liar! Had the hour come, +and not the money? A fine faith it was that depended on the very +presence of the help!--that required for its existence that the supply +should come before the need!--a fine faith in truth, which still would +follow in the rear of sight!--But why then did God leave him thus +without faith? Why did not God make him able to trust? He had prayed +quite as much for faith as for money. His conscience replied, "That is +your part--the thing you will not do. If God put faith into your heart +without your stirring up your heart to believe, the faith would be God's +and not yours. It is true all is God's; he made this you call _me_, and +made it able to believe, and gave you Himself to believe in; and if +after that He were to make you believe without you doing your utmost +part, He would be making you down again into a sort of holy dog, not +making you grow a man like Christ Jesus His Son"--"But I have tried hard +to trust in Him," said the little self.--"Yes, and then fainted and +ceased," said the great self, the conscience. + +Thus it went on in the poor man's soul. Ever and anon he said to +himself, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him," and ever and anon +his heart sickened afresh, and he said to himself, "I shall go down to +the grave with shame, and my memorial will be debts unpaid, for the +Lord hath forsaken me." All the night he had lain wrestling with fear +and doubt: fear was hard upon him, but doubt was much harder. "If I +could but trust," he said, "I could endure any thing." + +In the splendor of the dawn, he fell into a troubled sleep, and a more +troubled dream, which woke him again to misery. Outside his chamber, the +world was rich in light, in song, in warmth, in odor, in growth, in +color, in space; inside, all was to him gloomy, groanful, cold, musty, +ungenial, dingy, confined; yet there was he more at ease, shrunk from +the light, and in the glorious morning that shone through the chinks of +his shutters, saw but an alien common day, not the coach of his Father, +come to carry him yet another stage toward his home. He was in want of +nothing at the moment. There were no holes in the well-polished shoes +that seemed to keep ghostly guard outside his chamber-door. The clothes +that lay by his bedside were indeed a little threadbare, but sound and +spotless. The hat that hung in the passage below might have been much +shabbier without necessarily indicating poverty. His walking-stick had a +gold knob like any earl's. If he did choose to smoke a church-warden, he +had a great silver-mounted meerschaum on his mantle-shelf. True, the +butcher's shop had for some time contributed nothing to his dinners, but +his vegetable diet agreed with him. He would himself have given any man +time, would as soon have taken his child by the throat as his debtor, +had worshiped God after a bettering fashion for forty years at least, +and yet would not give God time to do His best for him--the best that +perfect love, and power limited only by the lack of full consent in the +man himself, could do. + +His daughter always came into his room the first thing in the morning. +It was plain to her that he had been more restless than usual, and at +sight of his glazy red-rimmed eyes and gray face, her heart sank within +her. For a moment she was half angry with him, thinking in herself that +if she believed as he did, she would never trouble her heart about any +thing: her head should do all the business. But with his faith, she +would have done just the same as he, It is one thing to be so used to +certain statements and modes of thought that you take all for true, and +quite another so to believe the heart of it all, that you are in +essential and imperturbable peace and gladness because of it. But oh, +how the poor girl sighed for the freedom of a God to trust in! She could +content herself with the husks the swine ate, if she only knew that a +Father sat at the home-heart of the universe, wanting to have her. +Faithful in her faithlessness, she did her best to comfort her +_believing_ father: beyond the love that offered it, she had but cold +comfort to give. He did not listen to a word she said, and she left him +at last with a sigh, and went to get him his breakfast. When she +returned, she brought him his letters with his tea and toast. He told +her to take them away: she might open them herself if she liked; they +could be nothing but bills! She might take the tray too; he did not want +any breakfast: what right had he to eat what he had no money to pay for! +There would be a long bill at the baker's next! What right had any one +to live on other people! Dorothy told him she paid for every loaf as it +came, and that there was no bill at the baker's, though indeed he had +done his best to begin one. He stretched out his arms, drew her down to +his bosom, said she was his only comfort, then pushed her away, turned +his face to the wall, and wept. She saw it would be better to leave him, +and, knowing in this mood he would eat nothing, she carried the tray +with her. A few moments after, she came rushing up the stair like a +wind, and entered his room swiftly, her face "white with the whiteness +of what is dead." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +THE MINISTER'S BEDROOM. + + +The next day, in the afternoon, old Lisbeth appeared at the rectory, +with a hurried note, in which Dorothy begged Mr. Wingfold to come and +see her father. The curate rose at once and went. When he reached the +house, Dorothy, who had evidently been watching for his arrival, herself +opened the door. + +"What's the matter?" he asked. "Nothing alarming, I hope?" + +"I hope not," she answered. There was a strange light on her face, like +that of a sunless sky on a deep, shadowed well. "But I am a little +alarmed about him. He has suffered much of late. Ah, Mr. Wingfold, you +don't know how good he is! Of course, being no friend to the church--" + +"I don't wonder at that, the church is so little of a friend to +herself," interrupted the curate, relieved to find her so composed, for +as he came along he had dreaded something terrible. + +"He wants very much to see you. He thinks perhaps you may be able to +help him. I am sure if you can't nobody can. But please don't heed much +what he says about himself. He is feverish and excited. There is such a +thing--is there not?--as a morbid humility? I don't mean a false +humility, but one that passes over into a kind of self disgust." + +"I know what you mean," answered the curate, laying down his hat: he +never took his hat into a sick-room. + +Dorothy led the way up the narrow creaking stairs. + +It was a lowly little chamber in which the once popular preacher +lay--not so good as that he had occupied when a boy, two stories above +his father's shop. That shop had been a thorn in his spirit in the days +of his worldly success, but again and again this morning he had been +remembering it as a very haven of comfort and peace. He almost forgot +himself into a dream of it once; for one blessed moment, through the +upper half of the window he saw the snow falling in the street, while he +sat inside and half under the counter, reading Robinson Crusoe! Could +any thing short of heaven be so comfortable? + +As the curate stepped in, a grizzled head turned toward him a haggard +face with dry, bloodshot eyes, and a long hand came from the bed to +greet him. + +"Ah, Mr. Wingfold!" cried the minister, "God has forsaken me. If He had +only forgotten me, I could have borne that, I think; for, as Job says, +the time would have come when He would have had a desire to the work of +His hands. But He has turned His back upon me, and taken His free Spirit +from me. He has ceased to take His own way, to do His will with me, and +has given me my way and my will. Sit down, Mr. Wingfold. You can not +comfort me, but you are a true servant of God, and I will tell you my +sorrow. I am no friend to the church, as you know, but--" + +"So long as you are a friend of its Head, that goes for little with me," +said the curate. "But if you will allow me, I should like to say just +one word on the matter." + +He wished to try what a diversion of thought might do; not that he +foolishly desired to make him forget his trouble, but that he knew from +experience any gap might let in comfort. + +"Say on, Mr. Wingfold. I am a worm and no man." + +"It seems, then, to me a mistake for any community to spend precious +energy upon even a just finding of fault with another. The thing is, to +trim the lamp and clean the glass of our own, that it may be a light to +the world. It is just the same with communities as with individuals. The +community which casts if it be but the mote out of its own eye, does the +best thing it can for the beam in its neighbor's. For my part, I confess +that, so far as the clergy form and represent the Church of England, it +is and has for a long time been doing its best--not its worst, thank +God--to serve God and Mammon." + +"Ah! that's my beam!" cried the minister. "I have been serving Mammon +assiduously. I served him not a little in the time of my prosperity, +with confidence and show, and then in my adversity with fears and +complaints. Our Lord tells us expressly that we are to take no thought +for the morrow, because we can not serve God and Mammon. I have been +taking thought for a hundred morrows, and that not patiently, but +grumbling in my heart at His dealings with me. Therefore now He has cast +me off." + +"How do you know that He has cast you off?" asked the curate. + +"Because He has given me my own way with such a vengeance. I have been +pulling, pulling my hand out of His, and He has let me go, and I lie in +the dirt." + +"But you have not told me your grounds for concluding so." + +"Suppose a child had been crying and fretting after his mother for a +spoonful of jam," said the minister, quite gravely, "and at last she set +him down to a whole pot--what would you say to that?" + +"I should say she meant to give him a sharp lesson, perhaps a reproof as +well--certainly not that she meant to cast him off," answered Wingfold, +laughing. "But still I do not understand." + +"Have you not heard then? Didn't Dorothy tell you?" + +"She has told me nothing." + +"Not that my old uncle has left me a hundred thousand pounds and more?" + +The curate was on the point of saying, "I am very glad to hear it," +when the warning Dorothy had given him returned to his mind, and with it +the fear that the pastor was under a delusion--that, as a rich man is +sometimes not unnaturally seized with the mania of imagined poverty, so +this poor man's mental barometer had, from excess of poverty, turned its +index right round again to riches. + +"Oh!" he returned, lightly and soothingly, "perhaps it is not so bad as +that. You may have been misinformed. There may be some mistake." + +"No, no!" returned the minister; "it is true, every word of it. You +shall see the lawyers' letter. Dorothy has it, I think. My uncle was an +ironmonger in a country town, got on, and bought a little bit of land in +which he found iron. I knew he was flourishing, but he was a churchman +and a terrible Tory, and I never dreamed he would remember me. There had +been no communication between our family and his for many years. He must +have fancied me still a flourishing London minister, with a rich wife! +If he had had a suspicion of how sorely I needed a few pounds, I can not +believe he would have left me a farthing. He did not save his money to +waste it on bread and cheese, I can fancy him saying." + +Although a look almost of despair kept coming and going upon his face, +he lay so still, and spoke so quietly and collectedly, that Wingfold +began to wonder whether there might not be some fact in his statement. +He did not well know what to say. + +"When I heard the news from Dorothy--she read the letter first," Mr. +Drake went on, "--old fool that I was I was filled with such delight +that, although I could not have said whether I believed or not, the very +idea of the thing made me weep. Alas! Mr. Wingfold, I have had visions +of God in which the whole world would not have seemed worth a salt tear! +And now!--I jumped out of bed, and hurried on my clothes, but by the +time I came to kneel at my bedside, God was away. I could not speak a +word to Him! I had lost all the trouble that kept me crying after Him +like a little child at his mother's heels, the bond was broken and He +was out of sight. I tried to be thankful, but my heart was so full of +the money, it lay like a stuffed bag. But I dared not go even to my +study till I had prayed. I tramped up and down this little room, +thinking more about paying my butcher's bill than any thing else. I +would give him a silver snuff-box; but as to God and His goodness my +heart felt like a stone; I _could not_ lift it up. All at once I saw how +it was: He had heard my prayers in anger! Mr. Wingfold, the Lord has +sent me this money as He sent the quails to the Israelites: while it was +yet, as it were, between my teeth, He smote me with hardness of heart. O +my God! how shall I live in the world with a hundred thousand pounds +instead of my Father in heaven! If it were only that He had hidden His +face, I should be able to pray somehow! He has given me over to the +Mammon I was worshiping! Hypocrite that I am! how often have I not +pointed out to my people, while yet I dwelt in the land of Goshen, that +to fear poverty was the same thing as to love money, for that both came +of lack of faith in the living God! Therefore has He taken from me the +light of His countenance, which yet, Mr. Wingfold, with all my sins and +shortcomings, yea, and my hypocrisy, is the all in all to me!" + +He looked the curate in the face with such wild eyes as convinced him +that, even if perfectly sane at present, he was in no small danger of +losing his reason. + +"Then you would willingly give up this large fortune," he said, "and +return to your former condition?" + +"Rather than not be able to pray--I would! I would!" he cried; then +paused and added, "--if only He would give me enough to pay my debts and +not have to beg of other people." + +Then, with a tone suddenly changed to one of agonized effort, with +clenched hands, and eyes shut tight, he cried vehemently, as if in the +face of a lingering unwillingness to encounter again the miseries +through which he had been passing. + +"No, no, Lord! Forgive me. I will not think of conditions. Thy will be +done! Take the money and let me be a debtor and a beggar if Thou wilt, +only let me pray to Thee; and do Thou make it up to my creditors." + +Wingfold's spirit was greatly moved. Here was victory! Whether the +fortune was a fact or fancy, made no feature of difference. He thanked +God and took courage. The same instant the door opened, and Dorothy came +in hesitating, and looking strangely anxious. He threw her a +face-question. She gently bowed her head, and gave him a letter with a +broad black border which she held in her hand. + +He read it. No room for rational doubt was left. He folded it softly, +gave it back to her, and rising, kneeled down by the bedside, near the +foot, and said-- + +"Father, whose is the fullness of the earth, I thank Thee that Thou hast +set my brother's heel on the neck of his enemy. But the suddenness of +Thy relief from holy poverty and evil care, has so shaken his heart and +brain, or rather, perhaps, has made him think so keenly of his lack of +faith in his Father in heaven, that he fears Thou hast thrown him the +gift in disdain, as to a dog under the table, though never didst Thou +disdain a dog, and not given it as to a child, from Thy hand into his. +Father, let Thy spirit come with the gift, or take it again, and make +him poor and able to pray."--Here came an _amen_, groaned out as from +the bottom of a dungeon.--"Pardon him, Father," the curate prayed on, +"all his past discontent and the smallness of his faith. Thou art our +Father, and Thou knowest us tenfold better than we know ourselves; we +pray Thee not only to pardon us, but to make all righteous excuse for +us, when we dare not make any for ourselves, for Thou art the truth. We +will try to be better children. We will go on climbing the mount of God +through all the cloudy darkness that swaths it, yea, even in the face of +the worst terrors--that when we reach the top, we shall find no one +there."--Here Dorothy burst into sobs.--"Father!" thus the curate ended +his prayer, "take pity on Thy children. Thou wilt not give them a piece +of bread, in place of a stone--to poison them! The egg Thou givest will +not be a serpent's. We are Thine, and Thou art ours: in us be Thy will +done! Amen." + +As he rose from his knees, he saw that the minister had turned his face +to the wall, and lay perfectly still. Rightly judging that he was +renewing the vain effort to rouse, by force of the will, feelings which +had been stunned by the strange shock, he ventured to try a more +authoritative mode of address. + +"And now, Mr. Drake, you have got to spend this money," he said, "and +the sooner you set about it the better. Whatever may be your ideas about +the principal, you are bound to spend at least every penny of the +income." + +The sad-hearted man stared at the curate. + +"How is a man to do any thing whom God has forsaken?" he said. + +"If He had forsaken you, for as dreary work as it would be, you would +have to try to do your duty notwithstanding. But He has not forsaken +you. He has given you a very sharp lesson, I grant, and as such you must +take it, but that is the very opposite of forsaking you. He has let you +know what it is not to trust in Him, and what it would be to have money +that did not come from His hand. You did not conquer in the fight with +Mammon when you were poor, and God has given you another chance: He +expects you to get the better of him now you are rich. If God had +forsaken you, I should have found you strutting about and glorying over +imagined enemies." + +"Do you really think that is the mind of God toward me?" cried the poor +man, starting half up in bed. "_Do_ you think so?" he repeated, staring +at the curate almost as wildly as at first, but with a different +expression. + +"I do," said Wingfold; "and it will be a bad job indeed if you fail in +both trials. But that I am sure you will not. It is your business now to +get this money into your hands as soon as possible, and proceed to spend +it." + +"Would there be any harm in ordering a few things from the +tradespeople?" asked Dorothy. + +"How should there be?" returned Wingfold. + +"Because, you see," answered Dorothy, "we can't be sure of a bird in the +bush." + +"Can you be sure of it in your hands? It may spread its wings when you +least expect it. But Helen will be delighted to take the risk--up to a +few hundreds," he added laughing. + +"Somebody may dispute the will: they do sometimes," said Dorothy. + +"They do very often," answered Wingfold. "It does not look likely in the +present case; but our trust must be neither in the will nor in the +fortune, but in the living God. You have to get all the _good_ out of +this money you can. If you will walk over to the rectory with me now, +while your father gets up, we will carry the good news to my wife, and +she will lend you what money you like, so that you need order nothing +without paying for it." + +"Please ask her not to tell any body," said Mr. Drake. "I shouldn't like +it talked about before I understand it myself." + +"You are quite right. If I were you I would tell nobody yet but Mr. +Drew. He is a right man, and will help you to bear your good fortune. I +have always found good fortune harder to bear than bad." + +Dorothy ran to put her bonnet on. The curate went back to the bedside. +Mr. Drake had again turned his face to the wall. + +"Sixty years of age!" he was murmuring to himself. + +"Mr. Drake," said Wingfold, "so long as you bury yourself with the +centipedes in your own cellar, instead of going out into God's world, +you are tempting Satan and Mammon together to come and tempt you. +Worship the God who made the heaven and the earth, and the sea and the +mines of iron and gold, by doing His will in the heart of them. Don't +worship the poor picture of Him you have got hanging up in your +closet;--worship the living power beyond your ken. Be strong in Him +whose is your strength, and all strength. Help Him in His work with His +own. Give life to His gold. Rub the canker off it, by sending it from +hand to hand. You must rise and bestir yourself. I will come and see you +again to-morrow. Good-by for the present." + +He turned away and walked from the room. But his hand had scarcely left +the lock, when he heard the minister alight from his bed upon the floor. + +"He'll do!" said the curate to himself, and walked down the stair. + +When he got home, he left Dorothy with his wife, and going to his study, +wrote the following verses, which had grown in his mind as he walked +silent beside her:-- + + WHAT MAN IS THERE OF YOU? + + The homely words, how often read! + How seldom fully known! + "Which father of you, asked for bread, + Would give his son a stone?" + + How oft has bitter tear been shed, + And heaved how many a groan, + Because Thou wouldst not give for bread + The thing that was a stone! + + How oft the child Thou wouldst have fed, + Thy gift away has thrown! + He prayed, Thou heardst, and gav'st the bread: + He cried, it is a stone! + + Lord, if I ask in doubt or dread + Lest I be left to moan-- + I am the man who, asked for bread, + Would give his son a stone. + +As Dorothy returned from the rectory, where Helen had made her happier +than all the money by the kind words she said to her, she stopped at Mr. +Jones' shop, and bought of him a bit of loin of mutton. + +"Shan't I put it down, miss?" he suggested, seeing her take out her +purse.--Helen had just given her the purse: they had had great fun, with +both tears and laughter over it. + +"I would rather not--thank you very much," she replied with a smile. + +He gave her a kind, searching glance, and took the money. + +That day Juliet dined with them. When the joint appeared, Amanda, who +had been in the kitchen the greater part of the morning, clapped her +hands as at sight of an old acquaintance. + +"Dere it comes! dere it comes!" she cried. + +But the minister's grace was a little longer than she liked, for he was +trying hard to feel grateful. I think some people mistake pleasure and +satisfaction for thankfulness: Mr. Drake was not so to be taken in. Ere +long, however, he found them a good soil for thankfulness to grow +in.--So Amanda fidgeted not a little, and the moment the grace was +over-- + +"Now 'en! now 'en!" she almost screamed, her eyes sparkling with +delight. "'Iss is dinner!--'Ou don't have dinner every day, Miss +Mellidif!" + +"Be quiet, Ducky," said her aunt, as she called her. "You mustn't make +any remarks." + +"Ducky ain't makin' no marks," returned the child, looking anxiously at +the table-cloth, and was quiet but not for long. + +"Lisbef say surely papa's sip come home wif 'e nice dinner!" she said +next. + +"No, my ducky," said Mr. Drake: "it was God's ship that came with it." + +"Dood sip!" said the child. + +"It will come one day and another, and carry us all home," said the +minister. + +"Where Ducky's yeal own papa and mamma yive in a big house, papa?" asked +Amanda, more seriously. + +"I will tell you more about it when you are older," said Mr. Drake. "Now +let us eat the dinner God has sent us." He was evidently far happier +already, though his daughter could see that every now and then his +thoughts were away; she hoped they were thanking God. Before dinner was +over, he was talking quite cheerfully, drawing largely from his stores +both of reading and experience. After the child was gone, they told +Juliet of their good fortune. She congratulated them heartily, then +looked a little grave, and said-- + +"Perhaps you would like me to go?" + +"What!" said Mr. Drake; "does your friendship go no further than that? +Having helped us so much in adversity, will you forsake us the moment +prosperity looks in at the window?" + +Juliet gave one glance at Dorothy, smiled, and said no more. For +Dorothy, she was already building a castle for Juliet--busily. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +JULIET'S CHAMBER. + + +After tea, Mr. Drake and Dorothy went out for a walk together--a thing +they had not once done since the church-meeting of acrid memory in which +had been decreed the close of the minister's activity, at least in +Glaston. It was a lovely June twilight; the bats were flitting about +like the children of the gloamin', and the lamps of the laburnum and +lilac hung dusky among the trees of Osterfield Park. + +Juliet, left all but alone in the house, sat at her window, reading. Her +room was on the first floor, but the dining-room beneath it was of low +pitch, and at the lane-door there were two steps down into the house, so +that her window was at no great height above the lane. It was open, but +there was little to be seen from it, for immediately opposite rose a +high old garden-wall, hiding every thing with its gray bulk, lovelily +blotted with lichens and moss, brown and green and gold, except the +wall-flowers and stone-crop that grew on its coping, and a running plant +that hung down over it, like a long fringe worn thin. Had she put her +head out of the window, she would have seen in the one direction a +cow-house, and in the other the tall narrow iron gate of the garden--and +that was all. The twilight deepened as she read, until the words before +her began to play hide and seek; they got worse and worse, until she was +tired of catching at them; and when at last she stopped for a moment, +they were all gone like a troop of fairies, and her reading was ended. +She closed the book, and was soon dreaming awake; and the twilight world +was the globe in which the dream-fishes came and went--now swelling up +strange and near, now sinking away into the curious distance. + +Her mood was broken by the sound of hoofs, which she almost immediately +recognized as those of the doctor's red horse--great hoofs falling at +the end of long straight-flung steps. Her heart began to beat violently, +and confident in the protection of the gathering night, she rose and +looked cautiously out toward the side on which was the approach. In a +few moments, round the furthest visible corner, and past the gate in the +garden-wall, swung a huge shadowy form--gigantic in the dusk. She drew +back her head, but ere she could shape her mind to retreat from the +window, the solid gloom hurled itself thundering past, and she stood +trembling and lonely, with the ebb of Ruber's paces in her ears--and in +her hand a letter. In a minute she came to herself, closed her window, +drew down the blind, lighted a candle, set it on the window-sill, and +opened the letter. It contained these verses, and nothing more:-- + + My morning rose in laughter-- + A gold and azure day. + Dull clouds came trooping after, + Livid, and sullen gray. + + At noon, the rain did batter, + And it thundered like a hell: + I sighed, it is no matter, + At night I shall sleep as well. + + But I longed with a madness tender + For an evening like the morn, + That my day might die in splendor, + Not folded in mist forlorn-- + + Die like a tone elysian, + Like a bee in a cactus-flower, + Like a day-surprised vision, + Like a wind in a summer shower. + + Through the vaulted clouds about me + Broke trembling an azure space: + Was it a dream to flout me-- + Or was it a perfect face? + + The sky and the face together + Are gone, and the wind blows fell. + But what matters a dream or the weather? + At night it will all be well. + + For the day of life and labor, + Of ecstasy and pain, + Is only a beaten tabor, + And I shall not dream again. + + But as the old Night steals o'er me, + Deepening till all is dead, + I shall see thee still before me + Stand with averted head. + + And I shall think, Ah sorrow! + The _might_ that never was _may!_ + The night that has no morrow! + And the sunset all in gray! + +Juliet laid her head on her hands and wept. + +"Why should I not let him have his rosy sunset?" she thought. "It is all +he hopes for--cares for, I think--poor fellow! Am I not good enough to +give him that? What does it matter about me, if it is all but a vision +that flits between heaven and earth, and makes a passing shadow on human +brain and nerves?--a tale that is telling--then a tale that is told! +Much the good people make out of their better faith! Should _I_ be +troubled to learn that it was indeed a lasting sleep? If I were dead, +and found myself waking, should I want to rise, or go to sleep again? +Why should not I too dare to hope for an endless rest? Where would be +the wrong to any? If there be a God, He will have but to wake me to +punish me hard enough. Why should I not hope at least for such a lovely +thing? Can any one help desiring peace? Oh, to sleep, and sleep, and +wake no more forever and ever! I would not hasten the sleep; the end +will surely come, and why should we not enjoy the dream a little +longer--at least while it is a good dream, and the tossing has not +begun? There would always be a time. Why wake before our time out of the +day into the dark nothing? I should always want to see what to-morrow +and to-morrow and to-morrow would bring--that is, so long as he loved +me. He is noble, and sad, and beautiful, and gracious!--but would +he--could he love me to the end--even if--? Why should we not make the +best of what we have? Why should we not make life as happy to ourselves +and to others as we can--however worthless, however arrant a cheat it +may be? Even if there be no such thing as love, if it be all but a +lovely vanity, a bubble-play of color, why not let the bubble-globe +swell, and the tide of its ocean of color flow and rush and mingle and +change? Will it not break at last, and the last come soon enough, when +of all the glory is left but a tear on the grass? When we dream a +pleasant dream, and know it is but a dream, we will to dream on, and +quiet our minds that it may not be scared and flee: why should we not +yield to the stronger dream, that it may last yet another sweet, +beguiling moment? Why should he not love me--kiss me? Why should we not +be sad together, that we are not and can not be the real man and woman +we would--that we are but the forms of a dream--the fleeting shadows of +the night of Nature?--mourn together that the meddlesome hand of fate +should have roused us to consciousness and aspiration so long before the +maturity of our powers that we are but a laughter--no--a scorn and a +weeping to ourselves? We could at least sympathize with each other in +our common misery--bear with its weakness, comfort its regrets, hide its +mortifications, cherish its poor joys, and smooth the way down the +steepening slope to the grave! Then, if in the decrees of blind fate, +there should be a slow, dull procession toward perfection, if indeed +some human God be on the way to be born, it would be grand, although we +should know nothing of it, to have done our part fearless and hopeless, +to have lived and died that the triumphant Sorrow might sit throned on +the ever dying heart of the universe. But never, never would I have +chosen to live for that! Yes, one might choose to be born, if there were +suffering one might live or die to soften, to cure! That would be to be +like Paul Faber. To will to be born for that would be grand indeed!" + +In paths of thought like these her mind wandered, her head lying upon +her arms on the old-fashioned, wide-spread window-sill. At length, weary +with emotion and weeping, she fell fast asleep, and slept for some time. + +The house was very still. Mr. Drake and Dorothy were in no haste to +return. Amanda was asleep, and Lisbeth was in the kitchen--perhaps also +asleep. + +Juliet woke with a great start. Arms were around her from behind, +lifting her from her half-prone position of sorrowful rest. With a +terrified cry, she strove to free herself. + +"Juliet, my love! my heart! be still, and let me speak," said Faber. +His voice trembled as if full of tears. "I can bear this no longer. You +are my fate. I never lived till I knew you. I shall cease to live when I +know for certain that you turn from me." + +Juliet was like one half-drowned, just lifted from the water, struggling +to beat it away from eyes and ears and mouth. + +"Pray leave me, Mr. Faber," she cried, half-terrified, half-bewildered, +as she rose and turned toward him. But while she pushed him away with +one hand, she unconsciously clasped his arm tight with the other. "You +have no right to come into my room, and surprise me--startle me so! Do +go away. I will come to you." + +"Pardon, pardon, my angel! Do not speak so loud," he said, falling on +his knees, and clasping hers. + +"Do go away," persisted Juliet, trying to remove his grasp. "What will +they think if they find us--you here. They know I am perfectly well." + +"You drive me to liberties that make me tremble, Juliet. Everywhere you +avoid me. You are never to be seen without some hateful protector. Ages +ago I put up a prayer to you--one of life or death to me, and, like the +God you believe in, you have left it unanswered. You have no pity on the +sufferings you cause me! If your God _be_ cruel, why should you be cruel +too? Is not one tormentor enough in your universe? If there be a future +let us go on together to find it. If there be not, let us yet enjoy what +of life may be enjoyed. My past is a sad one--" + +Juliet shuddered. + +"Ah, my beautiful, you too have suffered!" he went on. "Let us be angels +of mercy to each other, each helping the other to forget! My griefs I +should count worthless if I might but erase yours." + +"I would I could say the same!" said Juliet, but only in her heart. + +"Whatever they may have been," he continued, "my highest ambition shall +be to make you forget them. We will love like beings whose only eternity +is the moment. Come with me, Juliet; we will go down into the last +darkness together, loving each other--and then peace. At least there is +no eternal hate in my poor, ice-cold religion, as there is in yours. I +am not suffering alone, Juliet. All whom it is my work to relieve, are +suffering from your unkindness. For a time I prided myself that I gave +every one of them as full attention as before, but I can not keep it up. +I am defeated. My brain seems deserting me. I mistake symptoms, forget +cases, confound medicines, fall into incredible blunders. My hand +trembles, my judgment wavers, my will is undecided. Juliet, you are +ruining me." + +"He saved my life," said Juliet to herself, "and that it is which has +brought him to this. He has a claim to me. I am his property. He found +me a castaway on the shore of Death, and gave me _his_ life to live +with. He must not suffer where I can prevent it."--She was on the point +of yielding. + +The same moment she heard a step in the lane approaching the door. + +"If you love me, do go now, dear Mr. Faber," she said. "I will see you +again. Do not urge me further to-night.--Ah, I wish! I wish!" she added, +with a deep sigh, and ceased. + +The steps came up to the door. There came a knock at it. They heard +Lisbeth go to open it. Faber rose. + +"Go into the drawing-room," said Juliet. "Lisbeth may be coming to fetch +me; she must not see you here." + +He obeyed. Without a word he left the chamber, and went into the +drawing-room. He had been hardly a moment there, when Wingfold entered. +It was almost dark, but the doctor stood against the window, and the +curate knew him. + +"Ah, Faber!" he said, "it is long since I saw you. But each has been +about his work, I suppose, and there could not be a better reason." + +"Under different masters, then," returned Faber, a little out of temper. + +"I don't exactly think so. All good work is done under the same master." + +"Pooh! Pooh!" + +"Who is your master, then?" + +"My conscience. Who is yours?" + +"The Author of my conscience." + +"A legendary personage!" + +"One who is every day making my conscience harder upon me. Until I +believed in Him, my conscience was dull and stupid--not half-awake, +indeed." + +"Oh! I see You mean my conscience is dull and stupid." + +"I do not. But if you were once lighted up with the light of the world, +you would pass just such a judgment on yourself. I can't think you so +different from myself, as that that shouldn't be the case; though most +heartily I grant you do your work ten times better than I did. And all +the time I thought myself an honest man! I wasn't. A man may honestly +think himself honest, and a fresh week's experience may make him doubt +it altogether. I sorely want a God to make me honest." + +Here Juliet entered the room, greeted Mr. Wingfold, and then shook hands +with Faber. He was glad the room was dark. + +"What do you think, Miss Meredith--is a man's conscience enough for his +guidance?" said the curate. + +"I don't know any thing about a man's conscience," answered Juliet. + +"A woman's then?" said the curate. + +"What else has she got?" returned Juliet. + +The doctor was inwardly cursing the curate for talking shop. Only, if a +man knows nothing so good, so beautiful, so necessary, as the things in +his shop, what else ought he to talk--especially if he is ready to give +them without money and without price? The doctor would have done better +to talk shop too. + +"Of course he has nothing else," answered the curate; "and if he had, he +must follow his conscience all the same." + +"There you are, Wingfold!--always talking paradoxes!" said Faber. + +"Why, man! you may only have a blundering boy to guide you, but if he is +your only guide, you must follow him. You don't therefore call him a +sufficient guide!" + +"What a logomachist you are! If it is a horn lantern you've got, you +needn't go mocking at it." + +"The lantern is not the light. Perhaps you can not change your horn for +glass, but what if you could better the light? Suppose the boy's father +knew all about the country, but you never thought it worth while to send +the lad to him for instructions?" + +"Suppose I didn't believe he had a father? Suppose he told me he +hadn't?" + +"Some men would call out to know if there was any body in the house to +give the boy a useful hint." + +"Oh bother! I'm quite content with my fellow." + +"Well, for my part I should count my conscience, were it ten times +better than it is, poor company on any journey. Nothing less than the +living Truth ever with me can make existence a peace to me,--that's the +joy of the Holy Ghost, Miss Meredith.--What if you should find one day, +Faber, that, of all facts, the thing you have been so coolly refusing +was the most precious and awful?" + +Faber had had more than enough of it. There was but one thing precious +to him; Juliet was the perfect flower of nature, the apex of law, the +last presentment of evolution, the final reason of things! The very soul +of the world stood there in the dusk, and there also stood the foolish +curate, whirling his little vortex of dust and ashes between him and +her! + +"It comes to this," said Faber; "what you say moves nothing in me. I am +aware of no need, no want of that Being of whom you speak. Surely if in +Him I did live and move and have my being, as some old heathen taught +your Saul of Tarsus, I should in one mode or another be aware of Him!" + +While he spoke, Mr. Drake and Dorothy had come into the room. They stood +silent. + +"That is a weighty word," said Wingfold. "But what if you feel His +presence every moment, only do not recognize it as such?" + +"Where would be the good of it to me then?" + +"The good of it to you might lie in the blinding. What if any further +revelation to one who did not seek it would but obstruct the knowledge +of Him? Truly revealed, the word would be read untruly--even as The Word +has been read by many in all ages. Only the pure in heart, we are told, +shall see Him. The man who, made by Him, does not desire Him--how should +he know Him?" + +"Why don't I desire Him then?--I don't." + +"That is for you to find out." + +"I do what I know to be right; even on your theory I ought to get on," +said Faber, turning from him with a laugh. + +"I think so too," replied Wingfold. "Go on, and prosper. Only, if there +be untruth in you alongside of the truth--? It might be, and you are not +awake to it. It is marvelous what things can co-exist in a human mind." + +"In that case, why should not your God help me?" + +"Why not? I think he will. But it may _have_ to be in a way you will not +like." + +"Well, well! good night. Talk is but talk, whatever be the subject of +it.--I beg your pardon," he added, shaking hands with the minister and +his daughter; "I did not see you come in. Good night." + +"I won't allow that talk is only talk, Faber," Wingfold called after him +with a friendly laugh. Then turning to Mr. Drake, "Pardon me," he said, +"for treating you with so much confidence. I saw you come in, but +believed you would rather have us end our talk than break it off." + +"Certainly. But I can't help thinking you grant him too much, Mr. +Wingfold," said the minister seriously. + +"I never find I lose by giving, even in argument," said the curate. +"Faber rides his hobby well, but the brute is a sorry jade. He will find +one day she has not a sound joint in her whole body." + +The man who is anxious to hold every point, will speedily bring a +question to a mere dispute about trifles, leaving the real matter, whose +elements may appeal to the godlike in every man, out in the cold. Such a +man, having gained his paltry point, will crow like the bantam he is, +while the other, who may be the greater, perhaps the better man, +although in the wrong, is embittered by his smallness, and turns away +with increased prejudice. Human nature can hardly be blamed for its +readiness to impute to the case the shallowness of its pleader. Few men +do more harm than those who, taking the right side, dispute for personal +victory, and argue, as they are sure then to do, ungenerously. But even +genuine argument for the truth is not preaching the gospel, neither is +he whose unbelief is thus assailed, likely to be brought thereby into +any mood but one unfit for receiving it. Argument should be kept to +books; preachers ought to have nothing to do with it--at all events in +the pulpit. There let them hold forth light, and let him who will, +receive it, and him who will not, forbear. God alone can convince, and +till the full time is come for the birth of the truth in a soul, the +words of even the Lord Himself are not there potent. + +"The man irritates me, I confess," said Mr. Drake. "I do not say he is +self-satisfied, but he is very self-sufficient." + +"He is such a good fellow," said Wingfold, "that I think God will not +let him go on like this very long. I think we shall live to see a change +upon him. But much as I esteem and love the man, I can not help a +suspicion that he has a great lump of pride somewhere about him, which +has not a little to do with his denials." + +Juliet's blood seemed seething in her veins as she heard her lover thus +weighed, and talked over; and therewith came the first rift of a +threatened breach betwixt her heart and the friends who had been so good +to her. He had done far more for her than any of them, and mere loyalty +seemed to call upon her to defend him; but she did not know how, and, +dissatisfied with herself as well as indignant with them, she maintained +an angry silence. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +OSTERFIELD PARK. + + +It was a long time since Mr. Drake and Dorothy had had such a talk +together, or had spent such a pleasant evening as that on which they +went into Osterfield Park to be alone with a knowledge of their changed +fortunes. The anxiety of each, differing so greatly from that of the +other, had tended to shut up each in loneliness beyond the hearing of +the other; so that, while there was no breach in their love, it was yet +in danger of having long to endure + + "an expansion, + Like gold to airy thinness beat." + +But this evening their souls rushed together. The father's anxiety was +chiefly elevated; the daughter's remained much what it was before; yet +these anxieties no longer availed to keep them apart. + +Each relation of life has its peculiar beauty of holiness; but that +beauty is the expression of its essential truth, and the essence itself +is so strong that it bestows upon its embodiment even the power of +partial metamorphosis with all other vital relations. How many daughters +have in the devotion of their tenderness, become as mothers to their own +fathers! Who has not known some sister more of a wife to a man than she +for whose sake he neglected her? But it will take the loves of all the +relations of life gathered in one, to shadow the love which, in the +kingdom of heaven, is recognized as due to each from each human being +_per se_. It is for the sake of the essential human, that all human +relations and all forms of them exist--that we may learn what it is, and +become capable of loving it aright. + +Dorothy would now have been as a mother to her father, had she had but a +good hope, if no more, of finding her Father in heaven. She was not at +peace enough to mother any body. She had indeed a grasp of the skirt of +His robe--only she could not be sure it was not the mere fringe of a +cloud she held. Not the less was her father all her care, and pride, and +joy. Of his faults she saw none: there was enough of the noble and +generous in him to hide them from a less partial beholder than a +daughter. They had never been serious in comparison with his virtues. I +do not mean that every fault is not so serious that a man must be +willing to die twenty deaths to get rid of it; but that, relatively to +the getting rid of it, a fault is serious or not, in proportion to the +depth of its root, rather than the amount of its foliage. Neither can +that be the worst-conditioned fault, the man's own suspicion of which +would make him hang his head in shame; those are his worst faults which +a man will start up to defend; those are the most dangerous moral +diseases whose symptoms are regarded as the signs of health. + +Like lovers they walked out together, with eyes only for each other, for +the good news had made them shy--through the lane, into the cross +street, and out into Pine street, along which they went westward, +meeting the gaze of the low sun, which wrapped them round in a veil of +light and dark, for the light made their eyes dark, so that they seemed +feeling their way out of the light into the shadow. + +"This is like life," said the pastor, looking down at the precious face +beside him: "our eyes can best see from under the shadow of +afflictions." + +"I would rather it were from under the shadow of God's wings," replied +Dorothy timidly. + +"So it is! so it is! Afflictions are but the shadow of His wings," said +her father eagerly. "Keep there, my child, and you will never need the +afflictions I have needed. I have been a hard one to save." + +But the child thought within herself, "Alas, father! you have never had +any afflictions which you or I either could not bear tenfold better than +what I have to bear." She was perhaps right. Only she did not know that +when she got through, all would be transfigured with the light of her +resurrection, just as her father's poverty now was in the light of his +plenty. + +Little more passed between them in the street. All the way to the +entrance of the park they were silent. There they exchanged a few words +with the sweet-faced little dwarf-woman that opened the gate, and those +few words set the currents of their thoughts singing yet more sweetly as +they flowed. They entered the great park, through the trees that +bordered it, still in silence, but when they reached the wide expanse of +grass, with its clumps of trees and thickets, simultaneously they +breathed a deep breath of the sweet wind, and the fountains of their +deeps were broken up. The evening was lovely, they wandered about long +in delight, and much was the trustful converse they held. It was getting +dark before they thought of returning. + +The father had been telling the daughter how he had mourned and wept +when his boys were taken from him, never thinking at all of the girl who +was left him. + +"And now," he said, "I would not part with my Dorothy to have them back +the finest boys in the world. What would my old age be without you, my +darling?" + +Dorothy's heart beat high. Surely there must be a Father in heaven too! +They walked a while in a great silence, for the heart of each was full. +And all the time scarce an allusion had been made to the money. + +As they returned they passed the new house, at some distance, on the +highest point in the park. It stood unfinished, with all its windows +boarded up. + +"The walls of that house," said Mr. Drake, "were scarcely above ground +when I came to Glaston. So they had been for twenty years, and so they +remained until, as you remember, the building was recommenced some three +or four years ago. Now, again, it is forsaken, and only the wind is at +home in it." + +"They tell me the estate is for sale," said Dorothy. "Those +building-lots, just where the lane leads into Pine street, I fancy +belong to it." + +"I wish," returned her father, "they would sell me that tumble-down +place in the hollow they call the Old House of Glaston. I shouldn't mind +paying a good sum for it. What a place it would be to live in! And what +a pleasure there would be in the making of it once more habitable, and +watching order dawn out of neglect!" + +"It would be delightful," responded Dorothy. "When I was a child, it +was one of my dreams that that house was my papa's--with the wild garden +and all the fruit, and the terrible lake, and the ghost of the lady that +goes about in the sack she was drowned in. But would you really buy it, +father, if you could get it?" + +"I think I should, Dorothy," answered Mr. Drake. + +"Would it not be damp--so much in the hollow? Is it not the lowest spot +in the park?" + +"In the park--yes; for the park drains into it. But the park lies high; +and you must note that the lake, deep as it is--very deep, yet drains +into the Lythe. For all they say of no bottom to it, I am nearly sure +the deepest part of the lake is higher than the surface of the river. If +I am right, then we could, if we pleased, empty the lake altogether--not +that I should like the place nearly so well without it. The situation is +charming--and so sheltered!--looking full south--just the place to keep +open house in!" + +"That is just like you, father!" cried Dorothy, clapping her hands once +and holding them together as she looked up at him. "The very day you +are out of prison, you want to begin to keep an open house!--Dear +father!" + +"Don't mistake me, my darling. There was a time, long ago, after your +mother was good enough to marry me, when--I am ashamed to confess it +even to you, my child--I did enjoy making a show. I wanted people to +see, that, although I was a minister of a sect looked down upon by the +wealthy priests of a worldly establishment, I knew how to live after the +world's fashion as well as they. That time you will scarcely recall, +Dorothy?" + +"I remember the coachman's buttons," answered Dorothy. + +"Well! I suppose it will be the same with not a few times and +circumstances we may try to recall in the other world. Some +insignificant thing will be all, and fittingly too, by which we shall be +able to identify them.--I liked to give nice dinner parties, and we +returned every invitation we accepted. I took much pains to have good +wines, and the right wines with the right dishes, and all that kind of +thing--though I dare say I made more blunders than I knew. Your mother +had been used to that way of living, and it was no show in her as it was +in me. Then I was proud of my library and the rare books in it. I +delighted in showing them, and talking over the rarity of this edition, +the tallness of that copy, the binding, and such-like follies. And where +was the wonder, seeing I served religion so much in the same +way--descanting upon the needlework that clothed the king's daughter, +instead of her inward glory! I do not say always, for I had my better +times. But how often have I not insisted on the mint and anise and +cummin, and forgotten the judgment, mercy and faith! How many sermons +have I not preached about the latchets of Christ's shoes, when I might +have been talking about Christ himself! But now I do not want a good +house to make a show with any more: I want to be hospitable. I don't +call giving dinners being hospitable. I would have my house a +hiding-place from the wind, a covert from the tempest. That would be to +be hospitable. Ah! if your mother were with us, my child! But you will +be my little wife, as you have been for so many years now.--God keeps +open house; I should like to keep open house.--I wonder does any body +ever preach hospitality as a Christian duty?" + +"I hope you won't keep a butler, and set up for grand, father," said +Dorothy. + +"Indeed I will not, my child. I would not run the risk of postponing the +pleasure of the Lord to that of inhospitable servants. I will look to +you to keep a warm, comfortable, welcoming house, and such servants only +as shall be hospitable in heart and behavior, and make no difference +between the poor and the rich." + +"I can't feel that any body is poor," said Dorothy, after a pause, +"except those that can't be sure of God.--They are so poor!" she added. + +"You are right, my child!" returned her father. "It was not my +poverty--it was not being sure of God that crushed me.--How long is it +since I was poor, Dorothy?" + +"Two days, father--not two till to-morrow morning." + +"It looks to me two centuries. My mind is at ease, and I have not paid a +debt yet! How vile of me to want the money in my own hand, and not be +content it should be in God's pocket, to come out just as it was wanted! +Alas! I have more faith in my uncle's leavings than in my Father's +generosity! But I must not forget gratitude in shame. Come, my child--no +one can see us--let us kneel down here on the grass and pray to God who +is in yon star just twinkling through the gray, and in my heart and in +yours, my child." + +I will not give the words of the minister's prayer. The words are not +the prayer. Mr. Drake's words were commonplace, with much of the +conventionality and platitude of prayer-meetings. He had always objected +to the formality of the Prayer-book, but the words of his own prayers +without book were far more formal; the prayer itself was in the heart, +not on the lips, and was far better than the words. But poor Dorothy +heard only the words, and they did not help her. They seemed rather to +freeze than revive her faith, making her feel as if she never could +believe in the God of her father. She was too unhappy to reason well, or +she might have seen that she was not bound to measure God by the way her +father talked to him--that the form of the prayer had to do with her +father, not immediately with God--that God might be altogether adorable, +notwithstanding the prayers of all heathens and of all saints. + +Their talk turned again upon the Old House of Glaston. + +"If it be true, as I have heard ever since I came," said Mr. Drake, +"that Lord de Barre means to pull down the house and plow up the garden, +and if he be so short of money as they say, he might perhaps take a few +thousands for it. The Lythe bounds the estate, and there makes a great +loop, so that a portion might be cut off by a straight line from one arm +of the curve to the other, which would be quite outside the park. I will +set some inquiry on foot. I have wished for a long time to leave the +river, only we had a lease. The Old House is nothing like so low as the +one we are in now. Besides, as I propose, we should have space to build, +if we found it desirable, on the level of the park." + +When they reached the gate on their return, a second dwarfish figure, a +man, pigeon-chested, short-necked, and asthmatic--a strange, gnome-like +figure, came from the lodge to open it. Every body in Glaston knew +Polwarth the gatekeeper. + +"How is the asthma to-night, Mr. Polwarth?" said the pastor. He had not +yet got rid of the tone in which in his young days he had been +accustomed to address the poor of his flock--a tone half familiar, half +condescending. To big ships barnacles will stick--and may add weeks to +the length of a voyage too. + +"Not very bad, thank you, Mr. Drake. But, bad or not, it is always a +friendly devil," answered the little man. + +"I am ast---- a little surprised to hear you use such----express +yourself so, Mr. Polwarth," said the minister. + +The little man laughed a quiet, huskily melodious, gently merry laugh. + +"I am not original in the idea, and scarcely so in my way of expressing +it. I am sorry you don't like it, Mr. Drake," he said. "I found it in +the second epistle to the Corinthians last night, and my heart has been +full of it ever since. It is surely no very bad sign if the truth should +make us merry at a time! It ought to do so, I think, seeing merriment is +one of the lower forms of bliss." + +"I am at a loss to understand you, Mr. Polwarth," said the minister. + +"I beg your pardon, Mr. Drake. I will come to the point. In the passage +I refer to St. Paul says: 'There was given to me a thorn in the flesh, +the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above +measure:'--am I not right in speaking of such a demon as a friendly one? +He was a gift from God." + +"I had not observed--that is, I had not taken particular notice of the +unusual combination of phrases in the passage," answered Mr. Drake. "It +is a very remarkable one, certainly. I remember no other in which a +messenger of Satan is spoken of as being _given_ by God." + +"Clearly, sir, St. Paul accepted him as something to be grateful for, so +soon as his mission was explained to him; and after that, who is to say +what may not be a gift of God! It won't do to grumble at any thing--will +it, sir?--when it may so unexpectedly turn out to be _given_ to us by +God. I begin to suspect that never, until we see a thing plainly a gift +of God, can we be sure that we see it right. I am quite certain the most +unpleasant things may be such gifts. I should be glad enough to part +with this asthma of mine, if it pleased God it should depart from me; +but would I yield a fraction of what it has brought me, for the best +lungs in England? I trow not!" + +"You are a happy man, Mr. Polwarth--if you can say that and abide by +it." + +"I _am_ a happy man, sir. I don't know what would come of me sometimes, +for very gladness, if I hadn't my good friend, the asthma-devil, to keep +me down a bit. Good night, sir," he added, for Mr. Drake was already +moving away. + +He felt superior to this man, set him down as forward, did not quite +approve of him. Always ready to judge involuntarily from externals, he +would have been shocked to discover how much the deformity of the man, +which caused him discomfort, prejudiced him also against him. Then +Polwarth seldom went to a place of worship, and when he did, went to +church! A cranky, visionary, talkative man, he was in Mr. Drake's eyes. +He set him down as one of those mystical interpreters of the Word, who +are always searching it for strange things, whose very insight leads +them to vagary, blinding them to the relative value of things. It is +amazing from what a mere fraction of fact concerning him, a man will +dare judge the whole of another man. In reality, little Polwarth could +have carried big Drake to the top of any hill Difficulty, up which, in +his spiritual pilgrimage, he had yet had to go panting and groaning--and +to the top of many another besides, within sight even of which the +minister would never come in this world. + +"He is too ready with his spiritual experience, that little man!--too +fond of airing it," said the minister to his daughter. "I don't quite +know what to make of him. He is a favorite with Mr. Wingfold; but my +experience makes me doubtful. I suspect prodigies." + +Now Polwarth was not in the habit of airing his religious experiences; +but all Glaston could see that the minister was in trouble, and he +caught at the first opportunity he had of showing his sympathy with him, +offering him a share of the comfort he had just been receiving himself. +He smiled at its apparent rejection, and closed the gate softly, saying +to himself that the good man would think of it yet, he was sure. + +Dorothy took little interest in Polwarth, little therefore in her +father's judgment of him. But, better even than Wingfold himself, that +poor physical failure of a man could have helped her from under every +gravestone that was now crushing the life out of her--not so much from +superiority of intellect, certainly not from superiority of learning, +but mainly because he was alive all through, because the life eternal +pervaded every atom of his life, every thought, every action. Door nor +window of his being had a lock to it! All of them were always on the +swing to the wind that bloweth where it listeth. Upon occasions when +most would seek refuge from the dark sky and gusty weather of trouble, +by hiding from the messengers of Satan in the deepest cellar of their +hearts, there to sit grumbling, Polwarth always went out into the open +air. If the wind was rough, there was none the less life in it: the +breath of God, it was rough to blow the faults from him, genial to put +fresh energy in him; if the rain fell, it was the water of cleansing and +growth. Misfortune he would not know by that name: there was no _mis_ +but in himself, and that the messenger of Satan was there to buffet. So +long as God was, all was right. No wonder the minister then was +incapable of measuring the gate-keeper! But Polwarth was right about +him--as he went home he pondered the passage to which he had referred +him, wondering whether he was to regard the fortune sent him as a +messenger of Satan given to buffet him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +THE SURGERY DOOR. + + +That Juliet loved Faber as she had at one time resolved never to love +man, she no longer attempted to conceal from herself; but she was far +from being prepared to confess the discovery to him. His atheism she +satisfactorily justified herself in being more ready to pity than to +blame. There were difficulties! There were more than difficulties! Not a +few of them she did not herself see how to get over! If her father had +been alive, then indeed!--children must not break their parents' hearts. +But if, as _appeared_ the most likely thing, that father, tenderly as +she had loved him, was gone from her forever, if life was but a flash +across from birth to the grave, why should not those who loved make the +best of it for each other during that one moment "brief as the lightning +in the collied night"? They must try to be the more to one another, and +the time was so short. All that Faber had ever pleaded was now +blossoming at once in her thought. She had not a doubt that he loved +her--as would have been enough once at all events. A man of men he +was!--noble, unselfish, independent, a ruler of himself, a benefactor of +his race! What right had those _believers_ to speak of him as they did? +In any personal question he was far their superior. That they +undervalued him, came all of their narrow prejudices! He was not of +their kind, therefore he must be below them! But there were first that +should be last, and last first! + +She felt herself no whit worthy of him. She believed herself not for a +moment comparable to him! But his infinite chivalry, gentleness, +compassion, would be her refuge! Such a man would bear with her +weaknesses, love her love, and forgive her sins! If he took her God from +her, he must take His place, and be a God-like man to her! Then, if +there should be any further truth discoverable, why indeed, as himself +said, should they not discover it together? Could they be as likely to +discover it apart, and distracted with longing? She must think about it +a little longer, though. She could not make up her mind the one way, and +would not the other. She would wait and see. She dared not yet. +Something might turn up to decide her. If she could but see into his +heart for a moment! + +All this later time, she had been going to church every Sunday, and +listening to sermons in which the curate poured out the energy of a +faith growing stronger day by day; but not a word he said had as yet +laid hold of one root-fiber of her being. She judged, she accepted, she +admired, she refused, she condemned, but she never _did_. To many souls +hell itself seems a less frightful alternative than the agony of +resolve, of turning, of being born again; but Juliet had never got so +far as that: she had never yet looked the thing required of her in the +face. She came herself to wonder that she had made any stand at all +against the arguments of Faber. But how is it that any one who has been +educated in Christianity, yet does not become the disciple of Jesus +Christ, avoids becoming an atheist? To such the whole thing must look so +unlike what it really is! Does he prefer to keep half believing the +revelation, in order to attribute to it elements altogether unlovely, +and so justify himself in refusing it? Were it not better to reject it +altogether if it be not fit to be believed in? If he be unable to do +that, if he dare not proclaim an intellectual unbelief, if some +reverence for father or mother, some inward drawing toward the good +thing, some desire to keep an open door of escape, prevent, what a +hideous folly is the moral disregard! "The thing is true, but I don't +mind it!" What is this acknowledged heedlessness, this apologetic +arrogance? Is it a timid mockery, or the putting forth of a finger in +the very face of the Life of the world? I know well how foolish words +like these must seem to such as Faber, but for such they are not +written; they are written for the men and women who close the lids of +but half-blinded eyes, and think they do God service by not denying +that there is not a sun in the heavens. There may be some denying Christ +who shall fare better than they, when He comes to judge the world with a +judgment which even those whom He sends from Him shall confess to be +absolutely fair--a judgment whose very righteousness may be a +consolation to some upon whom it falls heavily. + +That night Juliet hardly knew what she had said to Faber, and longed to +see him again. She slept little, and in the morning was weary and +exhausted. But he had set her the grand example of placing work before +every thing else, and she would do as he taught her. So, in the name of +her lover, and in spite of her headache, she rose to her day's duty. +Love delights to put on the livery of the loved. + +After breakfast, as was their custom, Dorothy walked with her to the +place where she gave her first lesson. The nearest way led past the +house of the doctor; but hitherto, as often as she could frame fitting +reason, generally on the ground that they were too early, and must make +a little longer walk of it, Juliet had contrived to avoid turning the +corner of Mr. Drew's shop. This day, however, she sought no excuse, and +they went the natural road. She wanted to pass his house--to get a +glimpse of him if she might. + +As they approached it, they were startled by a sudden noise of strife. +The next instant the door of the surgery, which was a small building +connected with the house by a passage, flew open, and a young man was +shot out. He half jumped, half fell down the six or eight steps, turned +at once, and ran up again. He had rather a refined look, notwithstanding +the annoyance and resentment that discomposed his features. The mat had +caught the door and he was just in time to prevent it from being shut in +his face. + +"I will _not_ submit to such treatment, Mr. Faber," cried the youth. "It +is not the part of a gentleman to forget that another is one." + +"To the devil with your _gentleman!_" they heard the doctor shout in a +rage, from behind the half-closed door. "The less said about the +gentleman the better, when the man is nowhere!" + +"Mr. Faber, I will allow no man to insult me," said the youth, and made +a fierce attempt to push the door open. + +"You are a wretch below insult," returned the doctor; and the next +moment the youth staggered again down the steps, this time to fall, in +awkward and ignominious fashion, half on the pavement, half in the road. + +Then out on the top of the steps came Paul Faber, white with wrath, too +full of indignation to see person or thing except the object of it. + +"You damned rascal!" he cried. "If you set foot on my premises again, it +will be at the risk of your contemptible life." + +"Come, come, Mr. Faber! this won't do," returned the youth, defiantly, +as he gathered himself up. "I don't want to make a row, but-- + +"_You_ don't want to make a row, you puppy! Then _I_ do. You don't come +into my house again. I'll have your traps turned out to +you.--Jenkins!--You had better leave the town as fast as you can, too, +for this won't be a secret." + +"You'll allow me to call on Mr. Crispin first?" + +"Do. Tell him the truth, and see whether he'll take the thing up! If I +were God, I'd damn you!" + +"Big words from you, Faber!" said the youth with a sneer, struggling +hard to keep the advantage he had in temper. "Every body knows you don't +believe there is any God." + +"Then there ought to be, so long as such as you 'ain't got your deserts. +_You_ set up for a doctor! I would sooner lose all the practice I ever +made than send _you_ to visit woman or child, you heartless miscreant!" + +The epithet the doctor really used here was stronger and more +contemptuous, but it is better to take the liberty of substituting this. + +"What have I done then to let loose all this Billingsgate?" cried the +young man indignantly. "I have done nothing the most distinguished in +the profession haven't done twenty times over." + +"I don't care a damn. What's the profession to humanity! For a wonder +the public is in the right on this question, and I side with the public. +The profession may go to--Turkey!"--Probably Turkey was not the place he +had intended to specify, but at the moment he caught sight of Juliet and +her companion.--"There!" he concluded, pointing to the door behind him, +"you go in and put your things up--_and be off_." + +Without another word, the young man ascended the steps, and entered the +house. + +Juliet stood staring, motionless and white. Again and again Dorothy +would have turned back, but Juliet grasped her by the arm, stood as if +frozen to the spot, and would not let her move. She _must_ know what it +meant. And all the time a little crowd had been gathering, as it well +might, even in a town no bigger than Glaston, at such uproar in its +usually so quiet streets. At first it was all women, who showed their +interest by a fixed regard of each speaker in the quarrel in turn, and a +confused staring from one to the other of themselves. No handle was yet +visible by which to lay hold of the affair. But the moment the young man +re-entered the surgery, and just as Faber was turning to go after him, +out, like a bolt, shot from the open door a long-legged, gaunt mongrel +dog, in such a pitiful state as I will not horrify my readers by +attempting to describe. It is enough to say that the knife had been used +upon him with a ghastly freedom. In an agony of soundless terror the +poor animal, who could never recover the usage he had had, and seemed +likely to tear from himself a part of his body at every bound, rushed +through the spectators, who scattered horror-stricken from his path. Ah, +what a wild waste look the creature had!--as if his spirit within him +were wan with dismay at the lawless invasion of his humble house of +life. A cry, almost a shriek, rose from the little crowd, to which a few +men had now added themselves. The doctor came dashing down the steps in +pursuit of him. The same instant, having just escaped collision with the +dog, up came Mr. Drew. His round face flamed like the sun in a fog with +anger and pity and indignation. He rushed straight at the doctor, and +would have collared him. Faber flung him from him without a word, and +ran on. The draper reeled, but recovered himself, and was starting to +follow, when Juliet, hurrying up, with white face and flashing eyes, +laid her hand on his arm, and said, in a voice of whose authoritative +tone she was herself unconscious, + +"Stop, Mr. Drew." + +The draper obeyed, but stood speechless with anger, not yet doubting it +was the doctor who had so misused the dog. + +"I have been here from the first," she went on. "Mr. Faber is as angry +as you are.--Please, Dorothy, will you come?--It is that assistant of +his, Mr. Drew! He hasn't been with him more than three days." + +With Dorothy beside her, Juliet now told him, loud enough for all to +hear, what they had heard and seen. "I must go and beg his pardon," said +the draper. "I had no right to come to such a hasty conclusion. I hope +he will not find it hard to forgive me." + +"You did no more than he would have done in your place," replied Juliet. +"--But," she added, "where is the God of that poor animal, Mr. Drew?" + +"I expect He's taken him by this time," answered the draper. "But I must +go and find the doctor." + +So saying, he turned and left them. The ladies went also, and the crowd +dispersed. But already rumors, as evil as discordant, were abroad in +Glaston to the prejudice of Faber, and at the door of his godlessness +was from all sides laid the charge of cruelty. + +How difficult it is to make prevalent the right notion of any thing! But +only a little reflection is required to explain the fact. The cause is, +that so few people give themselves the smallest trouble to understand +what is told them. The first thing suggested by the words spoken is +taken instead of the fact itself, and to that as a ground-plan all that +follows is fitted. People listen so badly, even when not sleepily, that +the wonder is any thing of consequence should ever be even approximately +understood. How appalling it would be to one anxious to convey a +meaning, to see the shapes his words assumed in the mind of his +listening friend! For, in place of falling upon the table of his +perception, kept steady by will and judgment, he would see them tumble +upon the sounding-board of his imagination, ever vibrating, and there be +danced like sand into all manner of shapes, according to the tune played +by the capricious instrument. Thus, in Glaston, the strangest stories of +barbarity and cruelty were now attributed to a man entirely incapable of +them. He was not one of the foul seekers after knowledge, and if he had +had a presentiment of the natural tendency of his opinions, he would +have trembled at the vision, and set himself to discover whether there +might not be truth in another way of things. + +As he went about in the afternoon amongst his sick and needy, the curate +heard several of these ill reports. Some communicated them to ease their +own horror, others in the notion of pleasing the believer by revolting +news of the unbeliever. In one house he was told that the poor young man +whom Dr. Faber had enticed to be his assistant, had behaved in the most +gentlemanly fashion, had thrown up his situation, consenting to the loss +of his salary, rather than connive at the horrors of cruelty in which +the doctor claimed his help. Great moan was made over the pity that +such a nice man should be given to such abominations; but where was the +wonder, some said, seeing he was the enemy of God, that he should be the +enemy of the beasts God had made? Much truth, and many wise reflections +were uttered, only they were not "as level as the cannon to his blank," +for they were pointed at the wrong man. + +There was one thing in which Wingfold differed from most of his +parishioners: he could hear with his judgment, and make his imagination +lie still. At the same time, in order to arrive the more certainly at +the truth, in any matter presented to him, he would, in general, listen +to the end of what any body had to say. So doing he let eagerness +exhaust itself, and did not by opposition in the first heat of +narration, excite partisan interest, or wake malevolent caution. If the +communication was worthy, he thus got all the worth of it; if it was +evil, he saw to the bottom of it, and discovered, if such were there, +the filthy reptile in the mud beneath, which was setting the whole ugly +pool in commotion. By this deliberateness he also gave the greater +weight to what answer he saw fit to give at last--sometimes with the +result of considerable confusion of face to the narrator. In the present +instance, he contented himself with the strongest assurance that the +whole story was a mistake so far as it applied to Mr. Faber, who had, in +fact, dismissed his assistant for the very crime of which they accused +himself. The next afternoon, he walked the whole length of Pine street +with the doctor, conversing all the way. + +Nor did he fail to turn the thing to advantage. He had for some time +been awaiting a fit opportunity for instructing his people upon a point +which he thought greatly neglected: here was the opportunity, and he +made haste to avail himself of it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +THE GROANS OF THE INARTICULATE. + + +The rest of the week was rainy, but Sunday rose a day of perfect summer. +As the curate went up the pulpit-stair, he felt as if the pulse of all +creation were beating in unison with his own; for to-day he was the +speaker for the speechless, the interpreter of groans to the creation of +God. + +He read, _Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them +shall not fall on the ground without your Father_, and said: + +"My friends, doth God care for sparrows? Or saith He it altogether for +our sakes, and not at all for the sparrows? No, truly; for indeed it +would be nothing to us if it were not every thing to the sparrows. The +word can not reach our door except through the sparrow's nest. For see! +what comfort would it be to us to be told we were of more value than +ever so many sparrows, if their value was nothing--if God only knew and +did not care for them? The saying would but import that we were of more +value than just nothing. Oh, how skillful is unbelief to take all the +color and all the sweetness and all the power out of the words of The +Word Himself! How many Christians are there not who take the passage to +mean that not a sparrow can fall to the ground without the _knowledge_ +of its Creator! A mighty thing that for the sparrow! If such a Christian +seemed to the sparrow the lawful interpreter of the sparrow's Creator, +he would make an infidel of the sparrow. What Christ-like heart, what +heart of loving man, could be content to take all the comfort to itself, +and leave none for the sparrows? Not that of our mighty brother Paul. In +his ears sounded, in his heart echoed, the cries of all the creation of +God. Their groanings that could not be uttered, roused the response of +his great compassion. When Christ was born in the heart of Paul, the +whole creation of God was born with him; nothing that could feel could +he help loving; in the trouble of the creatures' troubles, sprang to +life in his heart the hope, that all that could groan should yet +rejoice, that on the lowest servant in the house should yet descend the +fringe of the robe that was cast about the redeemed body of the Son. +_He_ was no pettifogging priest standing up for the rights of the +superior! An exclusive is a self-excluded Christian. They that shut the +door will find themselves on the wrong side of the door they have shut. +They that push with the horn and stamp with the hoof, can not be +admitted to the fold. St. Paul would acknowledge no distinctions. He saw +every wall--of seclusion, of exclusion, of partition, broken down. Jew +and Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond and free--all must come in to his +heart. Mankind was not enough to fill that divine space, enlarged to +infinitude by the presence of the Christ: angels, principalities, and +powers, must share in its conscious splendor. Not yet filled, yet +unsatisfied with beings to love, Paul spread forth his arms to the whole +groaning and troubled race of animals. Whatever could send forth a sigh +of discomfort, or heave a helpless limb in pain, he took to the bosom of +his hope and affection--yea, of his love and faith: on them, too, he saw +the cup of Christ's heart overflow. For Paul had heard, if not from His +own, yet from the lips of them that heard Him speak, the words, _Are not +five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten +before God?_ What if the little half-farthing things bear their share, +and always have borne, in that which is behind of the sufferings of +Christ? In any case, not one of them, not one so young that it topples +from the edge of its nest, unable to fly, is forgotten by the Father of +men. It shall not have a lonely deathbed, for the Father of Jesus will +be with it. It _must_ be true. It is indeed a daring word, but less +would not be enough for the hearts of men, for the glory of God, for the +need of the sparrow. I do not close my eyes to one of a thousand +seemingly contradictory facts. I misdoubt my reading of the small-print +notes, and appeal to the text, yea, beyond the text, even to the God of +the sparrows Himself. + +"I count it as belonging to the smallness of our faith, to the poorness +of our religion, to the rudimentary condition of our nature, that our +sympathy with God's creatures is so small. Whatever the narrowness of +our poverty-stricken, threadbare theories concerning them, whatever the +inhospitality and exclusiveness of our mean pride toward them, we can +not escape admitting that to them pain is pain, and comfort is comfort; +that they hunger and thirst; that sleep restores and death delivers +them: surely these are ground enough to the true heart wherefore it +should love and cherish them--the heart at least that believes with St. +Paul, that they need and have the salvation of Christ as well as we. +Right grievously, though blindly, do they groan after it. + +"The ignorance and pride which is forever sinking us toward them, are +the very elements in us which mislead us in our judgment concerning +them, causing us to imagine them not upon a lower merely, but upon an +altogether different footing in creation from our own. The same things +we call by one name in us, and by another in them. How jealous have not +men been as to allowing them any share worthy the name of reason! But +you may see a greater difference in this respect between the lowest and +the highest at a common school, than you will between them and us. A +pony that has taught itself without hands to pump water for its thirst, +an elephant that puts forth its mighty lip to lift the moving wheel of +the heavy wagon over the body of its fallen driver, has rather more to +plead on the score of intellect than many a schoolboy. Not a few of them +shed tears. A bishop, one of the foremost of our scholars, assured me +that once he saw a certain animal laugh while playing off a practical +joke on another of a different kind from himself. I do not mention the +kind of animal, because it would give occasion for a silly articulate +joke, far inferior to his practical one. I go further, and say, that I +more than suspect a rudimentary conscience in every animal. I care not +how remotely rudimentary. There must be in the moral world absolute and +right potent germinal facts which lie infinitudes beyond the reach of +any moral microscope, as in the natural world beyond the most powerful +of lenses. Yet surely in this respect also, one may see betwixt boys at +the same school greater differences than there are betwixt the highest +of the animals and the lowest of the humans. If you plead for time for +the boy to develop his poor rudimentary mollusk of a conscience, take it +and heartily welcome--but grant it the animals also. With some of them +it may need millions of years for any thing I know. Certainly in many +human beings it never comes plainly into our ken all the time they walk +the earth. Who shall say how far the vision of the apostle reached? but +surely the hope in which he says God Himself subjected the creature to +vanity, must have been an infinite hope: I will hope infinitely. That +the Bible gives any ground for the general fancy that at death an animal +ceases to exist, is but the merest dullest assumption. Neither is there +a single scientific argument, so far as I know, against the continued +existence of the animals, which would not tell equally against human +immortality. My hope is, that in some way, concerning which I do not now +choose to speculate, there may be progress, growth, for them also. While +I believe for myself, I _must_ hope for them. This much at least seems +clear--and I could press the argument further: if not one of them is +forgotten before God--and one of them yet passes out of being--then is +God the God of the dead and not of the living! But we praise Thee, we +bless Thee, we worship Thee, we glorify Thee, we give thanks to Thee for +Thy great glory, O Lord God, heavenly King, God the Father almighty! Thy +universe is life, life and not death. Even the death which awoke in the +bosom of Sin, Thy Son, opposing Himself to its hate, and letting it +spend its fury upon Him, hath abolished. I know nothing, therefore care +little, as to whether or not it may have pleased God to bring man up to +the hill of humanity through the swamps and thickets of lower animal +nature, but I do care that I should not now any more approach that +level, whether once rightly my own or not. For what is honor in the +animals, would be dishonor in me. Not the less may such be the +punishment, perhaps redemption, in store for some men and women. For +aught I know, or see unworthy in the thought, the self-sufficing +exquisite, for instance, may one day find himself chattering amongst +fellow apes in some monkey-village of Africa or Burmah. Nor is the +supposition absurd, though at first sight it may well so appear. Let us +remember that we carry in us the characteristics of each and every +animal. There is not one fiercest passion, one movement of affection, +one trait of animal economy, one quality either for praise or blame, +existing in them that does not exist in us. The relationship can not be +so very distant. And if theirs be so freely in us, why deny them so much +we call ours? Hear how one of the ablest doctors of the English church, +John Donne, Dean of St. Paul's in the reign of James the first, +writes:-- + + Man is a lump where all beasts kneaded be; + Wisdom makes him an ark where all agree; + The fool, in whom these beasts do live at jar, + Is sport to others, and a theater; + Nor scapes he so, but is himself their prey; + All which was man in him, is eat away; + And now his beasts on one another feed, + Yet couple in anger, and new monsters breed. + How happy's he which hath due place assigned + To his beasts, and disaforested his mind! + Impaled himself to keep them out, not in; + Can sow, and dares trust corn where they have been; + Can use his horse, goat, wolf, and every beast, + And is not ass himself to all the rest! + Else man not only is the herd of swine, + But he's those devils, too, which did incline + Them to an headlong rage, and made them worse; + For man can add weight to heaven's heaviest curse. + +"It astonishes me, friends, that we are not more terrified at +ourselves. Except the living Father have brought order, harmony, a +world, out of His chaos, a man is but a cage of unclean beasts, with no +one to rule them, however fine a gentleman he may think himself. Even in +this fair, well-ordered England of ours, at Kirkdale, in Yorkshire, was +discovered, some fifty years ago, a great cavern that had once been a +nest of gigantic hyenas, evidenced by their own broken bones, and the +crushed bones of tigers, elephants, bears, and many other creatures. See +to what a lovely peace the Creating Hand has even now brought our +England, far as she is yet from being a province in the kingdom of +Heaven; but see also in her former condition a type of the horror to +which our souls may festering sink, if we shut out His free spirit, and +have it no more moving upon the face of our waters. And when I say a +type, let us be assured there is no type worth the name which is not +poor to express the glory or the horror it represents. + +"To return to the animals: they are a care to God! they occupy part of +His thoughts; we have duties toward them, owe them friendliness, +tenderness. That God should see us use them as we do is a terrible +fact--a severe difficulty to faith. For to such a pass has the worship +of Knowledge--an idol vile even as Mammon himself, and more +cruel--arrived, that its priests, men kind as other men to their own +children, kind to the animals of their household, kind even to some of +the wild animals, men who will scatter crumbs to the robins in winter, +and set water for the sparrows on their house-top in summer, will yet, +in the worship of this their idol, in their greed after the hidden +things of the life of the flesh, without scruple, confessedly without +compunction, will, I say, dead to the natural motions of the divine +element in them, the inherited pity of God, subject innocent, helpless, +appealing, dumb souls to such tortures whose bare description would +justly set me forth to the blame of cruelty toward those who sat +listening to the same. Have these living, moving, seeing, hearing, +feeling creatures, who could not be but by the will and the presence of +Another any more than ourselves--have they no rights in this their +compelled existence? Does the most earnest worship of an idol excuse +robbery with violence extreme to obtain the sacrifices he loves? Does +the value of the thing that may be found there justify me in breaking +into the house of another's life? Does his ignorance of the existence of +that which I seek alter the case? Can it be right to water the tree of +knowledge with blood, and stir its boughs with the gusts of bitter +agony, that we may force its flowers into blossom before their time? +Sweetly human must be the delights of knowledge so gained! grand in +themselves, and ennobling in their tendencies! Will it justify the same +as a noble, a laudable, a worshipful endeavor to cover it with the +reason or pretext--God knows which--of such love for my own human kind +as strengthens me to the most ruthless torture of their poorer +relations, whose little treasure I would tear from them that it may +teach me how to add to their wealth? May my God give me grace to prefer +a hundred deaths to a life gained by the suffering of one simplest +creature. He holds his life as I hold mine by finding himself there +where I find myself. Shall I quiet my heart with the throbs of another +heart? soothe my nerves with the agonized tension of a system? live a +few days longer by a century of shrieking deaths? It were a hellish +wrong, a selfish, hateful, violent injustice. An evil life it were that +I gained or held by such foul means! How could I even attempt to justify +the injury, save on the plea that I am already better and more valuable +than he; that I am the stronger; that the possession of all the +pleasures of human intelligence gives me the right to turn the poor +innocent joys of his senses into pains before which, threatening my own +person, my very soul would grow gray with fear? Or let me grant what +many professional men deny utterly, that some knowledge of what is +called practical value to the race has been thus attained--what can be +its results at best but the adding of a cubit to the life? Grant that it +gave us an immortal earthly existence, one so happy that the most +sensual would never wish for death: what would it be by such means to +live forever? God in Heaven! who, what is the man who would dare live a +life wrung from the agonies of tortured innocents? Against the will of +my Maker, live by means that are an abhorrence to His soul! Such a life +must be all in the flesh! the spirit could have little share therein. +Could it be even a life of the flesh that came of treason committed +against essential animality? It could be but an abnormal monstrous +existence, that sprang, toadstool-like, from the blood-marsh of +cruelty--a life neither spiritual nor fleshey, but devilish. + +"It is true we are above the creatures--but not to keep them down; they +are for our use and service, but neither to be trodden under the foot of +pride, nor misused as ministers, at their worst cost of suffering, to +our inordinate desires of ease. After no such fashion did God give them +to be our helpers in living. To be tortured that we might gather ease! +none but a devil could have made them for that! When I see a man who +professes to believe not only in a God, but such a God as holds His +court in the person of Jesus Christ, assail with miserable cruelty the +scanty, lovely, timorous lives of the helpless about him, it sets my +soul aflame with such indignant wrath, with such a sense of horrible +incongruity and wrong to every harmony of Nature, human and divine, that +I have to make haste and rush to the feet of the Master, lest I should +scorn and hate where He has told me to love. Such a wretch, not content +that Christ should have died to save men, will tear Christ's living +things into palpitating shreds, that he may discover from them how +better to save the same men. Is this to be in the world as He was in the +world! Picture to yourselves one of these Christian inquirers erect +before his class of students: knife in hand, he is demonstrating to them +from the live animal, so fixed and screwed and wired that he cannot find +for his agony even the poor relief of a yelp, how this or that writhing +nerve or twitching muscle operates in the business of a life which his +demonstration has turned from the gift of love into a poisoned curse; +picture to yourself such a one so busied, suddenly raising his eyes and +seeing the eyes that see him! the eyes of Him who, when He hung upon the +cross, knew that He suffered for the whole creation of His Father, to +lift it out of darkness into light, out of wallowing chaos into order +and peace! Those eyes watching him, that pierced hand soothing his +victim, would not the knife fall from his hand in the divine paralysis +that shoots from the heart and conscience? Ah me! to have those eyes +upon me in any wrong-doing! One thing only could be worse--_not_ to have +them upon me--to be left with my devils. + +"You all know the immediate cause of the turning of our thoughts in this +direction--the sad case of cruelty that so unexpectedly rushed to light +in Glaston. So shocked was the man in whose house it took place that, as +he drove from his door the unhappy youth who was guilty of the crime, +this testimony, in the righteous indignation of his soul, believing, as +you are aware, in no God and Father of all, broke from him with +curses--'There ought to be a God to punish such cruelty.'--'Begone,' he +said. 'Never would I commit woman or child into the hands of a willful +author of suffering.' + +"We are to rule over the animals; the opposite of rule is torture, the +final culmination of anarchy. We slay them, and if with reason, then +with right. Therein we do them no wrong. Yourselves will bear me witness +however and always in this place, I have protested that death is no +evil, save as the element of injustice may be mingled therein. The sting +of death is sin. Death, righteously inflicted, I repeat, is the reverse +of an injury. + +"What if there is too much lavishment of human affection upon objects +less than human! it hurts less than if there were none. I confess that +it moves with strange discomfort one who has looked upon swarms of +motherless children, to see in a childless house a ruined dog, overfed, +and snarling with discomfort even on the blessed throne of childhood, +the lap of a woman. But even that is better than that the woman should +love no creature at all--infinitely better! It may be she loves as she +can. Her heart may not yet be equal to the love of a child, may be able +only to cherish a creature whose oppositions are merely amusing, and +whose presence, as doubtless it seems to her, gives rise to no +responsibilities. Let her love her dog--even although her foolish +treatment of him should delay the poor animal in its slow trot towards +canine perfection: she may come to love him better; she may herself +through him advance to the love and the saving of a child--who can tell? +But do not mistake me; there are women with hearts so divinely +insatiable in loving, that in the mere gaps of their untiring +ministration of humanity, they will fondle any living thing capable of +receiving the overflow of their affection. Let such love as they will; +they can hardly err. It is not of such that I have spoken. + +"Again, to how many a lonely woman is not life made endurable, even +pleasant, by the possession and the love of a devoted dog! The man who +would focus the burning glass of science upon the animal, may well mock +at such a mission, and speak words contemptuous of the yellow old maid +with her yellow ribbons and her yellow dog. Nor would it change his +countenance or soften his heart to be assured that that withered husk of +womanhood was lovely once, and the heart in it is loving still; that she +was reduced to all but misery by the self-indulgence of a brother, to +whom the desolation of a sister was but a pebble to pave the way to his +pleasures; that there is no one left her now to love, or to be grateful +for her love, but the creature which he regards merely as a box of +nature's secrets, worthy only of being rudely ransacked for what it may +contain, and thrown aside when shattered in the search. A box he is +indeed, in which lies inclosed a shining secret!--a truth too radiant +for the eyes of such a man as he; the love of a living God is in him and +his fellows, ranging the world in broken incarnation, ministering to +forlorn humanity in dumb yet divine service. Who knows, in their great +silence, how germane with ours may not be their share in the groanings +that can not be uttered! + +"Friends, there must be a hell. If we leave scripture and human belief +aside, science reveals to us that nature has her catastrophes--that +there is just so much of the failed cycle, of the unrecovered, the +unbalanced, the incompleted, the fallen-short, in her motions, that the +result must be collision, shattering resumption, the rage of unspeakable +fire. Our world and all the worlds of the system, are, I suppose, doomed +to fall back at length into their parent furnace. Then will come one end +and another beginning. There is many an end and many a beginning. At one +of those ends, and that not the furthest, must surely lie a hell, in +which, of all sins, the sin of cruelty, under whatever pretext +committed, will receive its meed from Him with whom there is no respect +of persons, but who giveth to every man according to his works. Nor will +it avail him to plead that in life he never believed in such +retribution; for a cruelty that would have been restrained by a fear of +hell was none the less hellworthy. + +"But I will not follow this track. The general conviction of humanity +will be found right against any conclusions calling themselves +scientific, that go beyond the scope or the reach of science. Neither +will I presume to suggest the operation of any _lex talionis_ in respect +of cruelty. I know little concerning the salvation by fire of which St. +Paul writes in his first epistle to the Corinthians; but I say this, +that if the difficulty of curing cruelty be commensurate with the horror +of its nature, then verily for the cruel must the furnace of wrath be +seven times heated. Ah! for them, poor injured ones, the wrong passes +away! Friendly, lovely death, the midwife of Heaven, comes to their +relief, and their pain sinks in precious peace. But what is to be done +for our brother's soul, bespattered with the gore of innocence? Shall +the cries and moans of the torture he inflicted haunt him like an evil +smell? Shall the phantoms of exquisite and sickening pains float +lambent about the fingers, and pass and repass through the heart and +brain, that sent their realities quivering and burning into the souls of +the speechless ones? It has been said somewhere that the hell for the +cruel man would be to have the faces of all the creatures he had wronged +come staring round him, with sad, weary eyes. But must not the divine +nature, the pitiful heart of the universe, have already begun to +reassert itself in him, before that would hurt him? Upon such a man the +justice in my heart desires this retribution--to desire more would be to +be more vile than he; to desire less would not be to love my +brother:--that the soul capable of such deeds shall be compelled to know +the nature of its deeds in the light of the absolute Truth--that the +eternal fact shall flame out from the divine region of its own +conscience until it writhe in the shame of being itself, loathe as +absolute horror the deeds which it would now justify, and long for +deliverance from that which it has made of itself. The moment the +discipline begins to blossom, the moment the man begins to thirst after +confession and reparation, then is he once more my brother; then from an +object of disgust in spite of pity, he becomes a being for all tender, +honest hearts in the universe of God to love, cherish, revere. + +"Meantime, you who behold with aching hearts the wrongs done to the +lower brethren that ought to be cherished as those to whom less has been +given, having done all, stand comforted in the thought that not one of +them suffers without the loving, caring, sustaining presence of the +great Father of the universe, the Father of men, the God and Father of +Jesus Christ, the God of the sparrows and the ravens and the oxen--yea, +of the lilies of the field." + +As might be expected, Mrs. Ramshorn was indignant. What right had he to +desecrate a pulpit of the Church of England by misusing it for the +publication of his foolish fancies about creatures that had not reason! +Of course nobody would think of being cruel to them, poor things! But +there was that silly man talking about them as if they were better +Christians than any of them! He was intruding into things he had not +seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind. + +The last portion of these remarks she made in the hearing of her niece, +who carried it home for the amusement of her husband. He said he could +laugh with a good conscience, for the reading of the passage, according +to the oldest manuscripts we have, was not "the things he hath not +seen," but "the things he hath seen," and he thought it meant--haunting +the visible, the sensuous, the fleshly, so, for, the satisfaction of an +earthly imagination, in love with embodiment for its own sake, +worshiping angels, and not keeping hold of the invisible, the real, the +true--the mind, namely, and spirit of the living Christ, the Head. + +"Poor auntie," replied Helen, "would hold herself quite above the +manuscripts. With her it is the merest sectarianism and radicalism to +meddle with the text as appointed to be read in churches. What was good +enough for the dean, must be far more than good enough for an +unbeneficed curate!" + +But the rector, who loved dogs and horses, was delighted with the +sermon. + +Faber's whole carriage and conduct in regard to the painful matter was +such as to add to Juliet's confidence in him. Somehow she grew more at +ease in his company, and no longer took pains to avoid him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +COW-LANE-CHAPEL. + + +By degrees Mr. Drake's mind grew quiet, and accommodated itself to the +condition of the new atmosphere in which at first it was so hard for him +to draw spiritual breath. He found himself again able to pray, and while +he bowed his head lower before God, he lifted up his heart higher toward +him. His uncle's bequest presenting no appropriative difficulties, he at +once set himself to be a faithful and wise steward of the grace of God, +to which holy activity the return of his peace was mainly owing. Now and +then the fear would return that God had sent him the money in +displeasure, that He had handed him over all his principal, and refused +to be his banker any more; and the light-winged, haunting dread took +from him a little even of the blameless pleasure that naturally +belonged to the paying of his debts. Also he now became plainly aware of +a sore fact which he had all his life dimly suspected--namely, that +there was in his nature a spot of the leprosy of avarice, the desire to +accumulate. Hence he grew almost afraid of his money, and his anxiety to +spend it freely and right, to keep it flowing lest it should pile up its +waves and drown his heart, went on steadily increasing. That he could +hoard now if he pleased gave him just the opportunity of burning the +very possibility out of his soul. It is those who are unaware of their +proclivities, and never pray against them, that must be led into +temptation, lest they should forever continue capable of evil. When a +man could do a thing, then first can he abstain from doing it. Now, with +his experience of both poverty and riches, the minister knew that he +must make them both follow like hounds at his heel. If he were not to +love money, if, even in the free use of it, he were to regard it with +honor, fear its loss, forget that it came from God, and must return to +God through holy channels, he must sink into a purely contemptible +slave. Where would be the room for any further repentance? He would have +had every chance, and failed in every trial the most opposed! He must be +lord of his wealth; Mammon must be the slave, not Walter Drake. Mammon +must be more than his brownie, more than his Robin Goodfellow; he must +be the subject Djin of a holy spell--holier than Solomon's wisdom, more +potent than the stamp of his seal. At present he almost feared him as a +Caliban to whom he might not be able to play Prospero, an Ufreet +half-escaped from his jar, a demon he had raised, for whom he must find +work, or be torn by him into fragments. The slave must have drudgery, +and the master must take heed that he never send him alone to do love's +dear service. + +"I am sixty," he said, to himself, "and I have learned to begin to +learn." Behind him his public life looked a mere tale that is told; his +faith in the things he had taught had been little better than that which +hangs about an ancient legend. He had been in a measure truthful; he had +endeavored to act upon what he taught; but alas! the accidents of faith +had so often been uppermost with him, instead of its eternal fundamental +truths! How unlike the affairs of the kingdom did all that +church-business look to him now!--the rich men ruling--the poor men +grumbling! In the whole assembly including himself, could he honestly +say he knew more than one man that sought the kingdom of Heaven +_first_? And yet he had been tolerably content, until they began to turn +against himself!--What better could they have done than get rid of him? +The whole history of their relation appeared now as a mess of untruth +shot through with threads of light. Now, now, he would strive to enter +in at the strait gate: the question was not of pushing others in. He +would mortify the spirit of worldly judgments and ambitions: he would be +humble as the servant of Christ. + +Dorothy's heart was relieved a little. She could read her father's +feelings better than most wives those of their husbands, and she knew he +was happier. But she was not herself happier. She would gladly have +parted with all the money for a word from any quarter that could have +assured her there was a God in Heaven who _loved_. But the teaching of +the curate had begun to tell upon her. She had begun to have a faint +perception that if the story of Jesus Christ was true, there might be a +Father to be loved, and being might be a bliss. The poorest glimmer of +His loveliness gives a dawn to our belief in a God; and a small amount +indeed of a genuine knowledge of Him will serve to neutralize the most +confident declaration that science is against the idea of a God--an +utterance absolutely false. Scientific men may be unbelievers, but it is +not from the teaching of science. Science teaches that a man must not +say he knows what he does not know; not that what a man does not know he +may say does not exist. I will grant, however, and willingly, that true +science is against Faber's idea of other people's idea of a God. I will +grant also that the tendency of one who exclusively studies science is +certainly to deny what no one has proved, and he is uninterested in +proving; but that is the fault of the man and his lack of science, not +of the science he has. If people understood better the arrogance of +which they are themselves guilty, they would be less ready to imagine +that a strong assertion necessarily implies knowledge. Nothing can be +known except what is true. A negative may be _fact_, but can not be +_known_ except by the knowledge of its opposite. I believe also that +nothing can be really _believed_, except it be true. But people think +they believe many things which they do not and can not in the real +sense. + +When, however, Dorothy came to concern herself about the will of God, in +trying to help her father to do the best with their money, she began to +reap a little genuine comfort, for then she found things begin to +explain themselves a little. The more a man occupies himself in doing +the works of the Father--the sort of thing the Father does, the easier +will he find it to believe that such a Father is at work in the world. + +In the curate Mr. Drake had found not only a man he could trust, but one +to whom, young as he was, he could look up; and it was a trait in the +minister nothing short of noble, that he did look up to the +curate--perhaps without knowing it. He had by this time all but lost +sight of the fact, once so monstrous, so unchristian in his eyes, that +he was the paid agent of a government-church; the sight of the man's own +house, built on a rock in which was a well of the water of life, had +made him nearly forget it. In his turn he could give the curate much; +the latter soon discovered that he knew a great deal more about Old +Testament criticism, church-history, and theology--understanding by the +last the records of what men had believed and argued about God--than he +did. They often disagreed and not seldom disputed; but while each held +the will and law of Christ as the very foundation of the world, and +obedience to Him as the way to possess it after its idea, how could they +fail to know that they were brothers? They were gentle with each other +for the love of Him whom in eager obedience they called Lord. + +The moment his property was his availably, the minister betook himself +to the curate. + +"Now," he said--he too had the gift of going pretty straight, though not +quite so straight as the curate--"Now, Mr. Wingfold, tell me plainly +what you think the first thing I ought to do with this money toward +making it a true gift of God. I mean, what can I do with it for somebody +else--some person or persons to whom money in my hands, not in theirs, +may become a small saviour?" + +"You want, in respect of your money," rejoined the curate, "to be in the +world as Christ was in the world, setting right what is wrong in ways +possible to you, and not counteracting His? You want to do the gospel as +well as preach it?" + +"That is what I mean--or rather what I wish to mean. You have said +it.--What do you count the first thing I should try to set right?" + +"I should say _injustice_. My very soul revolts against the talk about +kindness to the poor, when such a great part of their misery comes from +the injustice and greed of the rich." + +"I well understand," returned Mr. Drake, "that a man's first business is +to be just to his neighbor, but I do not so clearly see when he is to +interfere to make others just. Our Lord would not settle the division of +the inheritance between the two brothers." + +"No, but he gave them a lesson concerning avarice, and left that to +work. I don't suppose any body is unjust for love of injustice. I don't +understand the pure devilish very well--though I have glimpses into it. +Your way must be different from our Lord's in form, that it may be the +same in spirit: you have to work with money; His father had given Him +none. In His mission He was not to use all means--only the best. But +even He did not attack individuals to _make_ them do right; and if you +employ your money in doing justice to the oppressed and afflicted, to +those shorn of the commonest rights of humanity, it will be the most +powerful influence of all to wake the sleeping justice in the dull +hearts of other men. It is the business of any body who can, to set +right what any body has set wrong. I will give you a special instance, +which has been in my mind all the time. Last spring--and it was the same +the spring before, my first in Glaston--the floods brought misery upon +every family in what they call the Pottery here. How some of them get +through any wet season I can not think; but Faber will tell you what a +multitude of sore throats, cases of croup, scarlet-fever, and +diphtheria, he has to attend in those houses every spring and autumn. +They are crowded with laborers and their families, who, since the +railway came, have no choice but live there, and pay a much heavier rent +in proportion to their accommodation than you or I do--in proportion to +the value of the property, immensely heavier. Is it not hard? Men are +their brothers' keepers indeed--but it is in chains of wretchedness they +keep them. Then again--I am told that the owner of these cottages, who +draws a large yearly sum from them, and to the entreaties of his tenants +for really needful repairs, gives nothing but promises, is one of the +most influential attendants of a chapel you know, where, Sunday after +Sunday, the gospel is preached. If this be true, here again is a sad +wrong: what can those people think of religion so represented?" + +"I am a sinful man," exclaimed the pastor. "That Barwood is one of the +deacons. He is the owner of the chapel as well as the cottages. I ought +to have spoken to him years ago.--But," he cried, starting to his feet, +"the property is for sale! I saw it in the paper this very morning! +Thank God!"--He caught up his hat.--"I shall have no choice but buy the +chapel too," he added, with a queer, humorous smile; "--it is part of +the property.--Come with me, my dear sir. We must see to it directly. +You will speak: I would rather not appear in the affair until the +property is my own; but I will buy those houses, please God, and make +them such as His poor sons and daughters may live in without fear or +shame." + +The curate was not one to give a cold bath to enthusiasm. They went out +together, got all needful information, and within a month the +title-deeds were in Mr. Drake's possession. + +When the rumor reached the members of his late congregation that he had +come in for a large property, many called to congratulate him, and such +congratulations are pretty sure to be sincere. But he was both annoyed +and amused when--it was in the morning during business hours--Dorothy +came and told him, not without some show of disgust, that a deputation +from the church in Cow-lane was below. + +"We've taken the liberty of calling, in the name of the church, to +congratulate you, Mr. Drake," said their leader, rising with the rest as +the minister entered the dining-room. + +"Thank you," returned the minister quietly. + +"I fancy," said the other, who was Barwood himself, with a smile such as +heralds the facetious, "you will hardly condescend to receive our little +gratuity now?" + +"I shall not require it, gentlemen." + +"Of course we should never have offered you such a small sum, if we +hadn't known you were independent of us." + +"Why then did you offer it at all?" asked the minister. + +"As a token of our regard." + +"The regard could not be very lively that made no inquiry as to our +circumstances. My daughter had twenty pounds a year; I had nothing. We +were in no small peril of simple starvation." + +"Bless my soul! we hadn't an idea of such a thing, sir! Why didn't you +tell us?" + +Mr. Drake smiled, and made no other reply. + +"Well, sir," resumed Barwood, after a very brief pause, for he was a +man of magnificent assurance, "as it's all turned out so well, you'll +let bygones be bygones, and give us a hand?" + +"I am obliged to you for calling," said Mr. Drake, "--especially to you, +Mr. Barwood, because it gives me an opportunity of confessing a fault of +omission on my part toward you." + +Here the pastor was wrong. Not having done his duty when he ought, he +should have said nothing now it was needless for the wronged, and likely +only to irritate the wrong-doer. + +"Don't mention it, pray," said Mr. Barwood. "This is a time to forget +every thing." + +"I ought to have pointed out to you, Mr. Barwood," pursued the minister, +"both for your own sake and that of those poor families, your tenants, +that your property in this lower part of the town was quite unfit for +the habitation of human beings." + +"Don't let your conscience trouble you on the score of that neglect," +answered the deacon, his face flushing with anger, while he tried to +force a smile: "I shouldn't have paid the least attention to it if you +had. My firm opinion has always been that a minister's duty is to preach +the gospel, not meddle in the private affairs of the members of his +church; and if you knew all, Mr. Drake, you would not have gone out of +your way to make the remark. But that's neither here nor there, for it's +not the business as we've come upon.--Mr. Drake, it's a clear thing to +every one as looks into it, that the cause will never prosper so long as +that's the chapel we've got. We did think as perhaps a younger man might +do something to counteract church-influences; but there don't seem any +sign of betterment yet. In fact, thinks looks worse. No, sir! it's the +chapel as is the stumbling-block. What has religion got to do with +what's ugly and dirty! A place that any lady or gentleman, let he or she +be so much of a Christian, might turn up the nose and refrain the foot +from! No! I say; what we want is a new place of worship. Cow-lane is +behind the age--and _that_ musty! uw!" + +"With the words of truth left sticking on the walls?" suggested Mr. +Drake. + +"Ha! ha! ha!--Good that!" exclaimed several. + +But the pastor's face looked stern, and the voices dropped into rebuked +silence. + +"At least you'll allow, sir," persisted Barwood, "that the house of God +ought to be as good as the houses of his people. It stands to reason. +Depend upon it, He won't give us no success till we give Him a decent +house. What! are we to dwell in houses of cedar, and the ark of the Lord +in a tent? That's what it comes to, sir!" + +The pastor's spiritual gorge rose at this paganism in Jew clothing. + +"You think God loves newness and finery better than the old walls where +generations have worshiped?" he said. + +"I make no doubt of it, sir," answered Barwood. "What's generations to +him! He wants the people drawn to His house; and what there is in +Cow-lane to draw is more than I know." + +"I understand you wish to sell the chapel," said Mr. Drake. "Is it not +rather imprudent to bring down the value of your property before you +have got rid of it?" + +Barwood smiled a superior smile. He considered the bargain safe, and +thought the purchaser a man who was certain to pull the chapel down. + +"I know who the intending purchaser is," said Mr. Drake, "and----" + +Barwood's countenance changed: he bethought himself that the conveyance +was not completed, and half started from his chair. + +"You would never go to do such an unneighborly act," he cried, "as----" + +"--As conspire to bring down the value of a property the moment it had +passed out of my hands?--I would not, Mr. Barwood; and this very day the +intending purchaser shall know of your project." + +Barwood locked his teeth together, and grinned with rage. He jumped from +his seat, knocked it over in getting his hat from under it, and rushed +out of the house. Mr. Drake smiled, and looking calmly round on the rest +of the deacons, held his peace. It was a very awkward moment for them. +At length one of them, a small tradesman, ventured to speak. He dared +make no allusion to the catastrophe that had occurred. It would take +much reflection to get hold of the true weight and bearing of what they +had just heard and seen, for Barwood was a mighty man among them. + +"What we were thinking, sir," he said, "--and you will please to +remember, Mr. Drake, that I was always on your side, and it's better to +come to the point; there's a strong party of us in the church, sir, +that would like to have you back, and we was thinking if you would +condescend to help us, now as you're so well able to, sir, toward a new +chapel, now as you have the means, as well as the will, to do God +service, sir, what with the chapel-building society, and every man-jack +of us setting our shoulder to the wheel, and we should all do our very +best, we should get a nice, new, I won't say showy, but +attractive--that's the word, attractive place--not gaudy, you know, I +never would give in to that, but ornamental too--and in a word, +attractive--that's it--a place to which the people would be drawn by the +look of it outside, and kep' by the look of it inside--a place as would +make the people of Glaston say, 'Come, and let us go up to the house of +the Lord,'--if, with your help, sir, we had such a place, then perhaps +you would condescend to take the reins again, sir, and we should then +pay Mr. Rudd as your assistant, leaving the whole management in your +hands--to preach when you pleased, and leave it alone when you +didn't.--There, sir! I think that's much the whole thing in a +nut-shell." + +"And now will you tell me what result you would look for under such an +arrangement?" + +"We should look for the blessing of a little success; it's a many years +since we was favored with any." + +"And by success you mean----?" + +"A large attendance of regular hearers in the morning--not a seat to +let!--and the people of Glaston crowding to hear the word in the +evening, and going away because they can't get a foot inside the place! +That's the success _I_ should like to see." + +"What! would you have all Glaston such as yourselves!" exclaimed the +pastor indignantly. "Gentlemen, this is the crowning humiliation of my +life! Yet I am glad of it, because I deserve it, and it will help to +make and keep me humble. I see in you the wood and hay and stubble with +which, alas! I have been building all these years! I have been preaching +dissent instead of Christ, and there you are!--dissenters indeed--but +can I--can I call you Christians? Assuredly do I believe the form of +your church that ordained by the apostles, but woe is me for the +material whereof it is built! Were I to aid your plans with a single +penny in the hope of withdrawing one inhabitant of Glaston from the +preaching of Mr. Wingfold, a man who speaks the truth and fears nobody, +as I, alas! have feared you, because of your dullness of heart and +slowness of understanding, I should be doing the body of Christ a +grievous wrong. I have been as one beating the air in talking to you +against episcopacy when I ought to have been preaching against +dishonesty; eulogizing congregationalism, when I ought to have been +training you in the three abiding graces, and chiefly in the greatest of +them, charity. I have taken to pieces and put together for you the plan +of salvation, when I ought to have spoken only of Him who is the way and +the life. I have been losing my life, and helping you to lose yours. But +go to the abbey church, and there a man will stir you up to lay hold +upon God, will teach you to know Christ, each man for himself and not +for another. Shut up your chapel, put off your scheme for a new one, go +to the abbey church, and be filled with the finest of the wheat. Then +should this man depart, and one of the common episcopal train, whose God +is the church, and whose neighbor is the order of the priesthood, come +to take his place, and preach against dissent as I have so foolishly +preached against the church--then, and not until then, will the time be +to gather together your savings and build yourselves a house to pray in. +Then, if I am alive, as I hope I shall not be, come, and I will aid your +purpose liberally. Do not mistake me; I believe as strongly as ever I +did that the constitution of the Church of England is all wrong; that +the arrogance and assumption of her priesthood is essentially opposed to +the very idea of the kingdom of Heaven; that the Athanasian creed is +unintelligible, and where intelligible, cruel; but where I find my Lord +preached as only one who understands Him can preach Him, and as I never +could preach Him, and never heard Him preached before, even faults great +as those shall be to me as merest accidents. Gentlemen, every thing is +pure loss--chapels and creeds and churches--all is loss that comes +between us and Christ--individually, masterfully. And of unchristian +things one of the most unchristian is to dispute and separate in the +name of Him whose one object was, and whose one victory will be +unity.--Gentlemen, if you should ever ask me to preach to you, I will do +so with pleasure." + +They rose as one man, bade him an embarrassed good morning, and walked +from the room, some with their heads thrown back, other hanging them +forward in worshipful shame. The former spread the rumor that the old +minister had gone crazy, the latter began to go now and then to church. + +I may here mention, as I shall have no other opportunity, that a new +chapel was not built; that the young pastor soon left the old one; that +the deacons declared themselves unable to pay the rent; that Mr. Drake +took the place into his own hands, and preached there every Sunday +evening, but went always in the morning to hear Mr. Wingfold. There was +kindly human work of many sorts done by them in concert, and each felt +the other a true support. When the pastor and the parson chanced to meet +in some lowly cottage, it was never with embarrassment or apology, as if +they served two masters, but always with hearty and glad greeting, and +they always went away together. I doubt if wickedness does half as much +harm as sectarianism, whether it be the sectarianism of the church or of +dissent, the sectarianism whose virtue is condescension, or the +sectarianism whose vice is pride. Division has done more to hide Christ +from the view of men, than all the infidelity that has ever been spoken. +It is the half-Christian clergy of every denomination that are the main +cause of the so-called failure of the Church of Christ. Thank God, it +has not failed so miserably as to succeed in the estimation or to the +satisfaction of any party in it. + +But it was not merely in relation to forms of church government that the +heart of the pastor now in his old age began to widen. It is foolish to +say that after a certain age a man can not alter. That some men can +not--or will not, (God only can draw the line between those two _nots_) +I allow; but the cause is not age, and it is not universal. The man who +does not care and ceases to grow, becomes torpid, stiffens, is in a +sense dead; but he who has been growing all the time need never stop; +and where growth is, there is always capability of change: growth itself +is a succession of slow, melodious, ascending changes. + +The very next Sunday after the visit of their deputation to him, the +church in Cow-lane asked their old minister to preach to them. Dorothy, +as a matter of course, went with her father, although, dearly as she +loved him, she would have much preferred hearing what the curate had to +say. The pastor's text was, _Ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, +and have omitted the weightier matters of the law--judgment, mercy, and +faith_. In his sermon he enforced certain of the dogmas of a theology +which once expressed more truth "than falsehood, but now at least +_conveys_ more falsehood than truth, because of the changed conditions +of those who teach and those who hear it; for, even where his faith had +been vital enough to burst the verbally rigid, formal, and indeed +spiritually vulgar theology he had been taught, his intellect had not +been strong enough to cast off the husks. His expressions, assertions, +and arguments, tying up a bundle of mighty truth with cords taken from +the lumber-room and the ash-pit, grazed severely the tenderer nature of +his daughter. When they reached the house, and she found herself alone +with her father in his study, she broke suddenly into passionate +complaint--not that he should so represent God, seeing, for what she +knew, He might indeed be such, but that, so representing God, he should +expect men to love Him. It was not often that her sea, however troubled +in its depths, rose into such visible storm. She threw herself upon the +floor with a loud cry, and lay sobbing and weeping. Her father was +terribly startled, and stood for a moment as if stunned; then a faint +slow light began to break in upon him, and he stood silent, sad, and +thoughtful. He knew that he loved God, yet in what he said concerning +Him, in the impression he gave of Him, there was that which prevented +the best daughter in the world from loving her Father in Heaven! He +began to see that he had never really thought about these things; he had +been taught them but had never turned them over in the light, never +perceived the fact, that, however much truth might be there, there also +was what at least looked like a fearful lie against God. For a moment he +gazed with keen compassion on his daughter as she lay, actually writhing +in her agony, then kneeled beside her, and laying his hand upon her, +said gently: + +"Well, my dear, if those things are not true, my saying them will not +make them so." + +She sprung to her feet, threw her arms about his neck, kissed him, and +left the room. The minister remained upon his knees. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +THE DOCTOR'S HOUSE. + + +The holidays came, and Juliet took advantage of them to escape from what +had begun to be a bondage to her--the daily intercourse with people who +disapproved of the man she loved. In her thoughts even she took no +intellectual position against them with regard to what she called +doctrine, and Faber superstition. Her father had believed as they did; +she clung to his memory; perhaps she believed as he did; she could not +tell. There was time yet wherein to make up her mind. She had certainly +believed so once, she said to herself, and she might so believe again. +She would have been at first highly offended, but the next moment a +little pleased at being told that in reality she had never believed one +whit more than Faber, that she was at present indeed incapable of +believing. Probably she would have replied, "Then wherein am I to +blame?" But although a woman who sits with her child in her arms in the +midst of her burning house, half asleep, and half stifled and dazed with +the fierce smoke, may not be to blame, certainly the moment she is able +to excuse herself she is bound to make for the door. So long as men do +not feel that they are in a bad condition and in danger of worse, the +message of deliverance will sound to them as a threat. Yea, the offer of +absolute well-being upon the only possible conditions of the well-being +itself, must, if heard at all, rouse in them a discomfort whose cause +they attribute to the message, not to themselves; and immediately they +will endeavor to justify themselves in disregarding it. There are those +doing all they can to strengthen themselves in unbelief, who, if the +Lord were to appear plainly before their eyes, would tell Him they could +not help it, for He had not until then given them ground enough for +faith, and when He left them, would go on just as before, except that +they would speculate and pride themselves on the vision. If men say, "We +want no such deliverance," then the Maker of them must either destroy +them as vile things for whose existence He is to Himself accountable, or +compel them to change. If they say, "We choose to be destroyed," He, as +their Maker, has a choice in the matter too. Is He not free to say, "You +can not even slay yourselves, and I choose that you shall know the +death of living without Me; you shall learn to choose to live indeed. I +choose that you shall know what _I know_ to be good"? And however much +any individual consciousness may rebel, surely the individual +consciousness which called that other into being, and is the Father of +that being, fit to be such because of Himself He is such, has a right to +object that by rebellion His creature should destroy the very power by +which it rebels, and from a being capable of a divine freedom by +partaking of the divine nature, should make of itself the merest slave +incapable of will of any sort! Is it a wrong to compel His creature to +soar aloft into the ether of its origin, and find its deepest, its only +true self? It is God's knowing choice of life against man's ignorant +choice of death. + +But Juliet knew nothing of such a region of strife in the human soul. +She had no suspicion what an awful swamp lay around the prison of her +self-content--no, self-discontent--in which she lay chained. To her the +one good and desirable thing was the love and company of Paul Faber. He +was her saviour, she said to herself, and the woman who could not love +and trust and lean upon such a heart of devotion and unselfishness as +his, was unworthy of the smallest of his thoughts. He was nobility, +generosity, justice itself! If she sought to lay her faults bare to him, +he would but fold her to his bosom to shut them out from her own vision! +He would but lay his hand on the lips of confession, and silence them as +unbelievers in his perfect affection! He was better than the God the +Wingfolds and Drakes believed in, with whom humiliation was a condition +of acceptance! + +She told the Drakes that, for the air of Owlkirk, she was going to +occupy her old quarters with Mrs. Puckridge during the holidays. They +were not much surprised, for they had remarked a change in her manner, +and it was not long unexplained: for, walking from the Old House +together one evening rather late, they met her with the doctor in a +little frequented part of the park. When she left them, they knew she +would not return; and her tears betrayed that she knew it also. + +Meantime the negotiation for the purchase of the Old House of Glaston +was advancing with slow legal sinuosity. Mr. Drake had offered the full +value of the property, and the tender seemed to be regarded not +unfavorably. But his heart and mind were far more occupied with the +humbler property he had already secured in the town: that was now to be +fortified against the incursions of the river, with its attendant fevers +and agues. A survey of the ground had satisfied him that a wall at a +certain point would divert a great portion of the water, and this wall +he proceeded at once to build. He hoped in the end to inclose the ground +altogether, or at least to defend it at every assailable point, but +there were many other changes imperative, with difficulties such that +they could not all be coped with at once. The worst of the cottages must +be pulled down, and as they were all even over-full, he must contrive to +build first. Nor until that was done, could he effect much toward +rendering the best of them fit for human habitation. + +Some of the householders in the lower part of the adjoining street shook +their heads when they saw what the bricklayers were about. They had +reason to fear they were turning the water more upon them; and it seemed +a wrong that the wretched cottages which had from time immemorial been +accustomed to the water, should be now protected from it at the cost of +respectable houses! It did not occur to them that it might be time for +Lady Fortune to give her wheel a few inches of a turn. To common minds, +custom is always right so long as it is on their side. + +In the meantime the chapel in the park at Nestley had been advancing, +for the rector, who was by nature no dawdler where he was interested, +had been pushing it on; and at length on a certain Sunday evening in the +autumn, the people of the neighborhood having been invited to attend, +the rector read prayers in it, and the curate preached a sermon. At the +close of the service the congregation was informed that prayers would be +read there every Sunday evening, and that was all. Mrs. Bevis, honest +soul, the green-mantled pool of whose being might well desire a wind, if +only from a pair of bellows, to disturb its repose, for not a fish moved +to that end in its sunless deeps--I say deeps, for such there must have +been, although neither she nor her friends were acquainted with any +thing there but shallows--was the only one inclined to grumble at the +total absence of ceremonial pomp: she did want her husband to have the +credit of the great deed. + +About the same time it was that Juliet again sought the cottage at +Owlkirk, with the full consciousness that she went there to meet her +fate. Faber came to see her every day, and both Ruber and Niger began +to grow skinny. But I have already said enough to show the nature and +course of the stream, and am not bound to linger longer over its noise +among the pebbles. Some things are interesting rather for their results +than their process, and of such I confess it is to me the love-making of +these two.--"What! were they not human?" Yes: but with a truncated +humanity--even shorn of its flower-buds, and full only of variegated +leaves. It shall suffice therefore to say that, in a will-less sort of a +way, Juliet let the matter drift; that, although she withheld explicit +consent, she yet at length allowed Faber to speak as if she had given +it; that they had long ceased to talk about God or no God, about life +and death, about truth and superstition, and spoke only of love, and the +days at hand, and how they would spend them; that they poured out their +hearts in praising and worshiping each other; and that, at last, Juliet +found herself as firmly engaged to be Paul's wife, as if she had granted +every one of the promises he had sought to draw from her, but which she +had avoided giving in the weak fancy that thus she was holding herself +free. It was perfectly understood in all the neighborhood that the +doctor and Miss Meredith were engaged. Both Helen and Dorothy felt a +little hurt at her keeping an absolute silence toward them concerning +what the country seemed to know; but when they spoke of it to her, she +pointedly denied any engagement, and indeed although helplessly drifting +toward marriage, had not yet given absolute consent even in her own +mind. She dared not even then regard it as inevitable. Her two friends +came to the conclusion that she could not find the courage to face +disapproval, and perhaps feared expostulation. + +"She may well be ashamed of such an unequal yoking!" said Helen to her +husband. + +"There is no unequal yoking in it that I see," he returned. "In the +matter of faith, what is there to choose between them? I see nothing. +They may carry the yoke straight enough. If there _be_ one of them +further from the truth than the other, it must be the one who says, _I +go sir_, and goes not. Between _don't believe_ and _don't care, I_ don't +care to choose. Let them marry and God bless them. It will be good for +them--for one thing if for no other--it is sure to bring trouble to +both." + +"Indeed, Mr. Wingfold!" returned Helen playfully. + +"So that is how you regard marriage!--Sure to bring trouble!" + +She laid her head on his shoulder. + +"Trouble to every one, my Helen, like the gospel itself; more trouble to +you than to me, but none to either that will not serve to bring us +closer to each other," he answered. "But about those two--well, I am +both doubtful and hopeful. At all events I can not wish them not to +marry. I think it will be for both of them a step nearer to the truth. +The trouble will, perhaps, drive them to find God. That any one who had +seen and loved our Lord, should consent to marry one, whatever that one +was besides, who did not at least revere and try to obey Him, seems to +me impossible. But again I say there is no such matter involved between +them.--Shall I confess to you, that, with all her frankness, all her +charming ways, all the fullness of the gaze with which her black eyes +look into yours, there is something about Juliet that puzzles me? At +times I have thought she must be in some trouble, out of which she was +on the point of asking me to help her; at others I have fancied she was +trying to be agreeable against her inclination, and did not more than +half approve of me. Sometimes, I confess, the shadow of a doubt crosses +me: is she altogether a true woman? But that vanishes the moment she +smiles. I wish she could have been open with me. I could have helped +her, I am pretty sure. As it is, I have not got one step nearer the real +woman than when first I saw her at the rector's." + +"I know," said Helen. "But don't you think it may be that she has never +yet come to know any thing about herself--to perceive either fact or +mystery of her own nature? If she is a stranger to herself, she cannot +reveal herself--at least of her own will--to those about her. She is +just what I was, Thomas, before I knew you--a dull, sleepy-hearted thing +that sat on her dignity. Be sure she has not an idea of the divine truth +you have taught me to see underlying creation itself--namely, that every +thing possessed owes its very value as possession to the power which +that possession gives of parting with it." + +"You are a pupil worth having, Helen!--even if I had had to mourn all my +days that you would not love me." + +"And now you have said your mind about Juliet," Helen went on, "allow me +to say that I trust her more than I do Faber. I do not for a moment +imagine him consciously dishonest, but he makes too much show of his +honesty for me. I can not help feeling that he is selfish--and can a +selfish man be honest?" + +"Not thoroughly. I know that only too well, for I at all events am +selfish, Helen." + +"I don't see it; but if you are, you know it, and hate it, and strive +against it. I do not think he knows it, even when he says that every +body is selfish. Only, what better way to get rid of it than to love and +marry?" + +"Or to confirm it," said Wingfold thoughtfully. + +"I shouldn't wonder a bit if they're married already!" said Helen. + +She was not far from wrong, although not quite right. Already Faber had +more than hinted at a hurried marriage, as private as could be +compassed. It was impossible of course, to be married at church. That +would be to cast mockery on the marriage itself, as well as on what +Faber called his _beliefs_. The objection was entirely on Faber's side, +but Juliet did not hint at the least difference of feeling in the +matter. She let every thing take its way now. + +At length having, in a neighboring town, arranged all the necessary +preliminaries, Faber got one of the other doctors in Glaston to attend +to his practice for three weeks, and went to take a holiday. Juliet left +Owlkirk the same day. They met, were lawfully married, and at the close +of the three weeks, returned together to the doctor's house. + +The sort of thing did not please Glaston society, and although Faber was +too popular as a doctor to lose position by it, Glaston was slow in +acknowledging that it knew there was a lady at the head of his house. +Mrs. Wingfold and Miss Drake, however, set their neighbors a good +example, and by degrees there came about a dribbling sort of +recognition. Their social superiors stood the longest aloof--chiefly +because the lady had been a governess, and yet had behaved so like one +of themselves; they thought it well to give her a lesson. Most of them, +however, not willing to offend the leading doctor in the place, yielded +and called. Two elderly spinsters and Mrs. Ramshorn did not. The latter +declared she did not believe they were married. Most agreed they were +the handsomest couple ever seen in that quarter, and looked all right. + +Juliet returned the calls made upon her, at the proper retaliatory +intervals, and gradually her mode of existence fell into routine. The +doctor went out every day, and was out most of the day, while she sat at +home and worked or read. She had to amuse herself, and sometimes found +life duller than when she had to earn her bread--when, as she went from +place to place, she might at any turn meet Paul upon Ruber or Niger. +Already the weary weed of the commonplace had begun to show itself in +the marriage garden--a weed which, like all weeds, requires only neglect +for perfect development, when it will drive the lazy Eve who has never +made her life worth _living_, to ask whether life be worth _having_. She +was not a great reader. No book had ever yet been to her a well-spring +of life; and such books as she liked best it was perhaps just as well +that she could not easily procure in Glaston; for, always ready to +appreciate the noble, she had not moral discernment sufficient to +protect her from the influence of such books as paint poor action in +noble color. For a time also she was stinted in her natural nourishment: +her husband had ordered a grand piano from London for her, but it had +not yet arrived; and the first touch she laid on the tall +spinster-looking one that had stood in the drawing-room for fifty years, +with red silk wrinkles radiating from a gilt center, had made her +shriek. If only Paul would buy a yellow gig, like his friend Dr. May of +Broughill, and take her with him on his rounds! Or if she had a friend +or two to go and see when he was out!--friends like what Helen or even +Dorothy might have been: she was not going to be hand-in-glove with any +body that didn't like her Paul! She missed church too--not the prayers, +much; but she did like hearing what she counted a good sermon, that is, +a lively one. Her husband wanted her to take up some science, but if he +had considered that, with all her gift in music, she expressed an utter +indifference to thorough bass, he would hardly have been so foolish. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +THE PONY-CARRIAGE. + + +One Saturday morning the doctor was called to a place a good many miles +distant, and Juliet was left with the prospect of being longer alone +than usual. She felt it almost sultry although so late in the season, +and could not rest in the house. She pretended to herself she had some +shopping to do in Pine Street, but it was rather a longing for air and +motion that sent her out. Also, certain thoughts which she did not like, +had of late been coming more frequently, and she found it easier to +avoid them in the street. They were not such as troubled her from being +hard to think out. Properly speaking, she _thought_ less now than ever. +She often said nice things, but they were mostly the mere gracious +movements of a nature sweet, playful, trusting, fond of all beautiful +things, and quick to see artistic relation where her perception reached. + +As she turned the corner of Mr. Drew's shop, the house-door opened, and +a lady came out. It was Mr. Drew's lodger. Juliet knew nothing about +her, and was not aware that she had ever seen her; but the lady started +as if she recognized her. To that kind of thing Juliet was accustomed, +for her style of beauty was any thing but common. The lady's regard +however was so fixed that it drew hers, and as their eyes met, Juliet +felt something, almost a physical pain, shoot through her heart. She +could not understand it, but presently began to suspect, and by degrees +became quite certain that she had seen her before, though she could not +tell where. The effect the sight of her had had, indicated some painful +association, which she must recall before she could be at rest. She +turned in the other direction, and walked straight from the town, that +she might think without eyes upon her. + +Scene after scene of her life came back as she searched to find some +circumstance associated with that face. Once and again she seemed on the +point of laying hold of something, when the face itself vanished and she +had that to recall, and the search to resume from the beginning. In the +process many painful memories arose, some, connected with her mother, +unhappy in themselves, others, connected with her father, grown unhappy +from her marriage; for thereby she had built a wall between her thoughts +and her memories of him; and, if there should be a life beyond this, had +hollowed a gulf between them forever. + +Gradually her thoughts took another direction.--Could it be that already +the glamour had begun to disperse, the roses of love to wither, the +magic to lose its force, the common look of things to return? Paul was +as kind, as courteous, as considerate as ever, and yet there was a +difference. Her heart did not grow wild, her blood did not rush to her +face, when she heard the sound of his horse's hoofs in the street, +though she knew them instantly. Sadder and sadder grew her thoughts as +she walked along, careless whither. + +Had she begun to cease loving? No. She loved better than she knew, but +she must love infinitely better yet. The first glow was gone--already: +she had thought it would not go, and was miserable. She recalled that +even her honeymoon had a little disappointed her. I would not be +mistaken as implying that any of these her reflections had their origin +in what was _peculiar_ in the character, outlook, or speculation of +herself or her husband. The passion of love is but the vestibule--the +pylon--to the temple of love. A garden lies between the pylon and the +adytum. They that will enter the sanctuary must walk through the garden. +But some start to see the roses already withering, sit down and weep and +watch their decay, until at length the aged flowers hang drooping all +around them, and lo! their hearts are withered also, and when they rise +they turn their backs on the holy of holies, and their feet toward the +gate. + +Juliet was proud of her Paul, and loved him as much as she was yet +capable of loving. But she had thought they were enough for each other, +and already, although she was far from acknowledging it to herself, she +had, in the twilight of her thinking, begun to doubt it. Nor can she be +blamed for the doubt. Never man and woman yet succeeded in being all in +all to each other. + +It were presumption to say that a lonely God would be enough for +Himself, seeing that we can know nothing of God but as He is our Father. +What if the Creator Himself is sufficient to Himself in virtue of His +self-existent _creatorship_? Let my reader think it out. The lower we go +in the scale of creation, the more independent is the individual. The +richer and more perfect each of a married pair is in the other relations +of life, the more is each to the other. For us, the children of eternal +love, the very air our spirits breathe, and without which they can not +live, is the eternal life; for us, the brothers and sisters of a +countless family, the very space in which our souls can exist, is the +love of each and every soul of our kind. + +Such were not Juliet's thoughts. To her such would have seemed as unreal +as unintelligible. To her they would have looked just what some of my +readers will pronounce them, not in the least knowing what they are. She +was suddenly roused from her painful reverie by the pulling up of +Helen's ponies, with much clatter and wriggling recoil, close beside +her, making more fuss with their toy-carriage than the mightiest of +tractive steeds with the chariot of pomp. + +"Jump in, Juliet," cried their driver, addressing her with the greater +_abandon_ that she was resolved no stiffness on her part should deposit +a grain to the silting up of the channel of former affection. She was +one of the few who understand that no being can afford to let the +smallest love-germ die. + +Juliet hesitated. She was not a little bewildered with the sudden recall +from the moony plains of memory, and the demand for immediate action. +She answered uncertainly, trying to think what was involved. + +"I know your husband is not waiting you at home," pursued Helen. "I saw +him on Ruber, three fields off, riding away from Glaston. Jump in, dear. +You can make up that mind of yours in the carriage as well as upon the +road. I will set you down wherever you please. My husband is out too, so +the slaves can take their pleasure." + +Juliet could not resist, had little inclination to do so, yielded +without another word, and took her place beside Helen, a little shy of +being alone with her, yet glad of her company. Away went the ponies, and +as soon as she had got them settled to their work, Helen turned her face +toward Juliet. + +"I _am_ so glad to see you!" she said. + +Juliet's heart spoke too loud for her throat. It was a relief to her +that Helen had to keep her eyes on her charge, the quickness of whose +every motion rendered watchfulness right needful. + +"Have you returned Mrs. Bevis's call yet!" asked Helen. + +"No," murmured Juliet. "I haven't been able yet." + +"Well, here is a good chance. Sit where you are, and you will be at +Nestley in half an hour, and I shall be the more welcome. You are a +great favorite there!" + +"How kind you are!" said Juliet, the tears beginning to rise. "Indeed, +Mrs. Wingfold,----" + +"You _used_ to call me Helen!" said that lady, pulling up her ponies +with sudden energy, as they shied at a bit of paper on the road, and +nearly had themselves and all they drew in the ditch. + +"May I call you so still?" + +"Surely! What else?" + +"You are too good to me!" said Juliet, and wept outright. + +"My dear Juliet," returned Helen, "I will be quite plain with you, and +that will put things straight in a moment. Your friends understand +perfectly why you have avoided them of late, and are quite sure it is +from no unkindness to any of them. But neither must you imagine we think +hardly of you for marrying Mr. Faber. We detest his opinions so much +that we feel sure if you saw a little further into them, neither of you +would hold them." + +"But I don't--that is, I--" + +"You don't know whether you hold them or not: I understand quite well. +My husband says in your case it does not matter much; for if you had +ever really believed in Jesus Christ, you could not have done it. At all +events now the thing is done, there is no question about it left. Dear +Juliet, think of us as your friends still, who will always be glad to +see you, and ready to help you where we can." + +Juliet was weeping for genuine gladness now. But even as she wept, by +one of those strange movements of our being which those who have been +quickest to question them wonder at the most, it flashed upon her where +she had seen the lady that came from Mr. Drew's house, and her heart +sunk within her, for the place was associated with that portion of her +history which of all she would most gladly hide from herself. During the +rest of the drive she was so silent, that Helen at last gave up trying +to talk to her. Then first she observed how the clouds had risen on all +sides and were meeting above, and that the air was more still and sultry +than ever. + +Just as they got within Nestley-gate, a flash of lightning, scarcely +followed by a loud thunder-clap, shot from overhead. The ponies plunged, +reared, swayed asunder from the pole, nearly fell, and recovered +themselves only to dart off in wild terror. Juliet screamed. + +"Don't be frightened, child," said Helen. "There is no danger here. The +road is straight and there is nothing on it. I shall soon pull them up. +Only don't cry out: that will be as little to their taste as the +lightning." + +Juliet caught at the reins. + +"For God's sake, don't do that!" cried Helen, balking her clutch. "You +will kill us both." + +Juliet sunk back in her seat. The ponies went at full speed along the +road. The danger was small, for the park was upon both sides, level +with the drive, in which there was a slight ascent. Helen was perfectly +quiet, and went on gradually tightening her pull upon the reins. Before +they reached the house, she had entirely regained her command of them. +When she drew up to the door, they stood quite steady, but panting as if +their little sides would fly asunder. By this time Helen was red as a +rose; her eyes were flashing, and a smile was playing about her mouth; +but Juliet was like a lily on which the rain has been falling all night: +her very lips were bloodless. When Helen turned and saw her, she was far +more frightened than the ponies could make her. + +"Why, Juliet, my dear!" she said, "I had no thought you were so +terrified! What would your husband say to me for frightening you so! But +you are safe now." + +A servant came to take the ponies. Helen got out first, and gave her +hand to Juliet. + +"Don't think me a coward, Helen," she said. "It was the thunder. I never +could bear thunder." + +"I should be far more of a coward than you are, Juliet," answered Helen, +"if I believed, or even feared, that just a false step of little Zephyr +there, or one plunge more from Zoe, might wipe out the world, and I +should never more see the face of my husband." + +She spoke eagerly, lovingly, believingly. Juliet shivered, stopped, and +laid hold of the baluster rail. Things had been too much for her that +day. She looked so ill that Helen was again alarmed, but she soon came +to herself a little, and they went on to Mrs. Bevis's room. She received +them most kindly, made Mrs. Faber lie on the sofa, covered her over, for +she was still trembling, and got her a glass of wine. But she could not +drink it, and lay sobbing in vain endeavor to control herself. + +Meantime the clouds gathered thicker and thicker: the thunder-peal that +frightened the ponies had been but the herald of the storm, and now it +came on in earnest. The rain rushed suddenly on the earth, and as soon +as she heard it, Juliet ceased to sob. At every flash, however, although +she lay with her eyes shut, and her face pressed into the pillow, she +shivered and moaned.--"Why should one," thought Helen, "who is merely +and only the child of Nature, find herself so little at home with her?" +Presently Mr. Bevis came running in from the stable, drenched in +crossing to the house. As he passed to his room, he opened the door of +his wife's, and looked in. + +"I am glad to see you safely housed, ladies," he said. "You must make +up your minds to stay where you are. It will not clear before the moon +rises, and that will be about midnight. I will send John to tell your +husbands that you are not cowering under a hedge, and will not be home +to-night." + +He was a good weather-prophet. The rain went on. In the evening the two +husbands appeared, dripping. They had come on horseback together, and +would ride home again after dinner. The doctor would have to be out the +greater part of the Sunday, and would gladly leave his wife in such good +quarters; the curate would walk out to his preaching in the evening, and +drive home with Helen after it, taking Juliet, if she should be able to +accompany them. + +After dinner, when the ladies had left them, between the two clergymen +and the doctor arose the conversation of which I will now give the +substance, leaving the commencement, and taking it up at an advanced +point. + +"Now tell me," said Faber, in the tone of one satisfied he must be +allowed in the right, "which is the nobler--to serve your neighbor in +the hope of a future, believing in a God who will reward you, or to +serve him in the dark, obeying your conscience, with no other hope than +that those who come after you will be the better for you?" + +"I allow most heartily," answered Wingfold, "and with all admiration, +that it is indeed grand in one hopeless for himself to live well for the +sake of generations to come, which he will never see, and which will +never hear of him. But I will not allow that there is any thing grand in +being hopeless for one's self, or in serving the Unseen rather than +those about you, seeing it is easier to work for those who can not +oppose you, than to endure the contradiction of sinners. But I know you +agree with me that the best way to assist posterity is to be true to +your contemporaries, so there I need say no more--except that the +hopeless man can do the least for his fellows, being unable to give them +any thing that should render them other than hopeless themselves; and +if, for the grandeur of it, a man were to cast away his purse in order +to have the praise of parting with the two mites left in his pocket, you +would simply say the man was a fool. This much seems to me clear, that, +if there be no God, it may be nobler to be able to live without one; +but, if there be a God, it must be nobler not to be able to live +without Him. The moment, however, that nobility becomes the object in +any action, that moment the nobleness of the action vanishes. The man +who serves his fellow that he may himself be noble, misses the mark. He +alone who follows the truth, not he who follows nobility, shall attain +the noble. A man's nobility will, in the end, prove just commensurate +with his humanity--with the love he bears his neighbor--not the amount +of work he may have done for him. A man might throw a lordly gift to his +fellow, like a bone to a dog, and damn himself in the deed. You may +insult a dog by the way you give him his bone." + +"I dispute nothing of all that," said Faber--while good Mr. Bevis sat +listening hard, not quite able to follow the discussion; "but I know you +will admit that to do right from respect to any reward whatever, hardly +amounts to doing right at all." + +"I doubt if any man ever did or could do a thing worthy of passing as in +itself good, for the sake of a reward," rejoined Wingfold. "Certainly, +to do good for something else than good, is not good at all. But perhaps +a reward may so influence a low nature as to bring it a little into +contact with what is good, whence the better part of it may make some +acquaintance with good. Also, the desire of the approbation of the +Perfect, might nobly help a man who was finding his duty hard, for it +would humble as well as strengthen him, and is but another form of the +love of the good. The praise of God will always humble a man, I think." + +"There you are out of my depth," said Faber. "I know nothing about +that." + +"I go on then to say," continued the curate, "that a man may well be +strengthened and encouraged by the hope of being made a better and truer +man, and capable of greater self-forgetfulness and devotion. There is +nothing low in having respect to such a reward as that, is there?" + +"It seems to me better," persisted the doctor, "to do right for the sake +of duty, than for the sake of any goodness even that will come thereby +to yourself." + +"Assuredly, if self in the goodness, and not the goodness itself be the +object," assented Wingfold. "When a duty lies before one, self ought to +have no part in the gaze we fix upon it; but when thought reverts upon +himself, who would avoid the wish to be a better man? The man who will +not do a thing for duty, will never get so far as to derive any help +from the hope of goodness. But duty itself is only a stage toward +something better. It is but the impulse, God-given I believe, toward a +far more vital contact with the truth. We shall one day forget all about +duty, and do every thing from the love of the loveliness of it, the +satisfaction of the rightness of it. What would you say to a man who +ministered to the wants of his wife and family only from duty? Of course +you wish heartily that the man who neglects them would do it from any +cause, even were it fear of the whip; but the strongest and most +operative sense of duty would not satisfy you in such a relation. There +are depths within depths of righteousness. Duty is the only path to +freedom, but that freedom is the love that is beyond and prevents duty." + +"But," said Faber, "I have heard you say that to take from you your +belief in a God would be to render you incapable of action. Now, the +man--I don't mean myself, but the sort of a man for whom I stand +up--does act, does his duty, without the strength of that belief: is he +not then the stronger?--Let us drop the word _noble_." + +"In the case supposed, he would be the stronger--for a time at least," +replied the curate. "But you must remember that to take from me the joy +and glory of my life, namely the belief that I am the child of God, an +heir of the Infinite, with the hope of being made perfectly righteous, +loving like God Himself, would be something more than merely reducing me +to the level of a man who had never loved God, or seen in the +possibility of Him any thing to draw him. I should have lost the mighty +dream of the universe; he would be what and where he chose to be, and +might well be the more capable. Were I to be convinced there is no God, +and to recover by the mere force of animal life from the prostration +into which the conviction cast me, I should, I hope, try to do what duty +was left me, for I too should be filled, for a time at least, with an +endless pity for my fellows; but all would be so dreary, that I should +be almost paralyzed for serving them, and should long for death to do +them and myself the only good service. The thought of the generations +doomed to be born into a sunless present, would almost make me join any +conspiracy to put a stop to the race. I should agree with Hamlet that +the whole thing had better come to an end. Would it necessarily indicate +a lower nature, or condition, or habit of thought, that, having +cherished such hopes, I should, when I lost them, be more troubled than +one who never had had them?" + +"Still," said Faber, "I ask you to allow that a nature which can do +without help is greater than a nature which can not." + +"If the thing done were the same, I should allow it," answered the +curate; "but the things done will prove altogether different. And +another thing to be noted is, that, while the need of help might +indicate a lower nature, the capacity for receiving it must indicate a +higher. The mere fact of being able to live and act in more meager +spiritual circumstances, in itself proves nothing: it is not the highest +nature that has the fewest needs. The highest nature is the one that has +the most necessities, but the fewest of its own making. He is not the +greatest man who is the most independent, but he who thirsts most after +a conscious harmony with every element and portion of the mighty whole; +demands from every region thereof its influences to perfect his +individuality; regards that individuality as his kingdom, his treasure, +not to hold but to give; sees in his Self the one thing he can devote, +the one precious means of freedom by its sacrifice, and that in no +contempt or scorn, but in love to God and his children, the multitudes +of his kind. By dying ever thus, ever thus losing his soul, he lives +like God, and God knows him, and he knows God. This is too good to be +grasped, but not too good to be true. The highest is that which needs +the highest, the largest that which needs the most; the finest and +strongest that which to live must breath essential life, self-willed +life, God Himself. It follows that it is not the largest or the +strongest nature that will feel a loss the least. An ant will not gather +a grain of corn the less that his mother is dead, while a boy will turn +from his books and his play and his dinner because his bird is dead: is +the ant, therefore, the stronger nature?" + +"Is it not weak to be miserable?" said the doctor. + +"Yes--without good cause," answered the curate. "But you do not know +what it would be to me to lose my faith in my God. My misery would be a +misery to which no assurance of immortality or of happiness could bring +any thing but tenfold misery--the conviction that I should never be good +myself, never have any thing to love absolutely, never be able to make +amends for the wrongs I had done. Call such a feeling selfish if you +will: I can not help it. I can not count one fit for existence to whom +such things would be no grief. The worthy existence must hunger after +good. The largest nature must have the mightiest hunger. Who calls a +man selfish because he is hungry? He is selfish if he broods on the +pleasures of eating, and would not go without his dinner for the sake of +another; but if he had no hunger, where would be the room for his +self-denial? Besides, in spiritual things, the only way to give them to +your neighbors is to hunger after them yourself. There each man is a +mouth to the body of the whole creation. It can not be selfishness to +hunger and thirst after righteousness, which righteousness is just your +duty to your God and your neighbor. If there be any selfishness in it, +the very answer to your prayer will destroy it." + +"There you are again out of my region," said Faber. "But answer me one +thing: is it not weak to desire happiness?" + +"Yes; if the happiness is poor and low," rejoined Wingfold. "But the man +who would choose even the grandeur of duty before the bliss of the +truth, must be a lover of himself. Such a man must be traveling the road +to death. If there be a God, truth must be joy. If there be not, truth +may be misery.--But, honestly, I know not one advanced Christian who +tries to obey for the hope of Heaven or the fear of hell. Such ideas +have long vanished from such a man. He loves God; he loves truth; he +loves his fellow, and knows he must love him more. You judge of +Christianity either by those who are not true representatives of it, and +are indeed, less of Christians than yourself; or by others who, being +intellectually inferior, perhaps even stupid, belie Christ with their +dull theories concerning Him. Yet the latter may have in them a noble +seed, urging them up heights to you at present unconceived and +inconceivable; while, in the meantime, some of them serve their +generation well, and do as much for those that are to come after as you +do yourself." + +"There is always weight as well as force in what you urge, Wingfold," +returned Faber. "Still it looks to me just a cunningly devised fable--I +will not say of the priests, but of the human mind deceiving itself with +its own hopes and desires." + +"It may well look such to those who are outside of it, and it must at +length appear such to all who, feeling in it any claim upon them, yet do +not put it to the test of their obedience." + +"Well, you have had your turn, and now we are having ours--you of the +legends, we of the facts." + +"No," said Wingfold, "we have not had our turn, and you have been +having yours for a far longer time than we. But if, as you profess, you +are _doing_ the truth you see, it belongs to my belief that you will +come to see the truth you do not see. Christianity is not a failure; for +to it mainly is the fact owing that here is a class of men which, +believing in no God, yet believes in duty toward men. Look here: if +Christianity be the outcome of human aspiration, the natural growth of +the human soil, is it not strange it should be such an utter failure as +it seems to you? and as such a natural growth, it must be a failure, for +if it were a success, must not you be the very one to see it? If it is +false, it is worthless, or an evil: where then is your law of +development, if the highest result of that development is an evil to the +nature and the race?" + +"I do not grant it the highest result," said Faber. "It is a failure--a +false blossom, with a truer to follow." + +"To produce a superior architecture, poetry, music?" + +"Perhaps not. But a better science." + +"Are the architecture and poetry and music parts of the failure?" + +"Yes--but they are not altogether a failure, for they lay some truth at +the root of them all. Now we shall see what will come of turning away +from every thing we do not _know_." + +"That is not exactly what you mean, for that would be never to know any +thing more. But the highest you have in view is immeasurably below what +Christianity has always demanded of its followers." + +"But has never got from them, and never will. Look at the wars, the +hatreds, to which your _gospel_ has given rise! Look at Calvin and poor +Servetus! Look at the strifes and divisions of our own day! Look at the +religious newspapers!" + +"All granted. It is a chaos, the motions of whose organization must be +strife. The spirit of life is at war with the spasmatical body of death. +If Christianity be not still in the process of development, it is the +saddest of all failures." + +"The fact is, Wingfold, your prophet would have been King of the race if +He had not believed in a God." + +"I dare not speak the answer that rises to my lips," said Wingfold. "But +there is more truth in what you say than you think, and more of +essential lie also. My answer is, that the faith of Jesus in His God and +Father is, even now, saving me, setting me free from my one horror, +selfishness; making my life an unspeakable boon to me, letting me know +its roots in the eternal and perfect; giving me such love to my fellow, +that I trust at last to love him as Christ has loved me. But I do not +expect you to understand me. He in whom I believe said that a man must +be born again to enter into the kingdom of Heaven." + +The doctor laughed. + +"You then _are_ one of the double-born, Wingfold?" he said. + +"I believe, I think, I hope so," replied the curate, very gravely. + +"And you, Mr. Bevis?" + +"I don't know. I wish. I doubt," answered the rector, with equal +solemnity. + +"Oh, never fear!" said Faber, with a quiet smile, and rising, left the +clergymen together. + +But what a morning it was that came up after the storm! All night the +lightning had been flashing itself into peace, and gliding further and +further away. Bellowing and growling the thunder had crept with it; but +long after it could no more be heard, the lightning kept gleaming up, as +if from a sea of flame behind the horizon. The sun brought a glorious +day, and looked larger and mightier than before. To Helen, as she gazed +eastward from her window, he seemed ascending his lofty pulpit to preach +the story of the day named after him--the story of the Sun-day; the +rising again in splendor of the darkened and buried Sun of the universe, +with whom all the worlds and all their hearts and suns arose. A light +steam was floating up from the grass, and the raindrops were sparkling +everywhere. The day had arisen from the bosom of the night; peace and +graciousness from the bosom of the storm; she herself from the grave of +her sleep, over which had lain the turf of the darkness; and all was +fresh life and new hope. And through it all, reviving afresh with every +sign of Nature's universal law of birth, was the consciousness that her +life, her own self, was rising from the dead, was being new-born also. +She had not far to look back to the time when all was dull and dead in +her being: when the earthquake came, and the storm, and the fire; and +after them the still small voice, breathing rebuke, and hope, and +strength. Her whole world was now radiant with expectation. It was +through her husband the change had come to her, but he was not the rock +on which she built. For his sake she could go to hell--yea, cease to +exist; but there was One whom she loved more than him--the one One whose +love was the self-willed cause of all love, who from that love had sent +forth her husband and herself to love one another; whose heart was the +nest of their birth, the cradle of their growth, the rest of their +being. Yea, more than her husband she loved Him, her elder Brother, by +whom the Father had done it all, the Man who lived and died and rose +again so many hundred years ago. In Him, the perfect One, she hoped for +a perfect love to her husband, a perfect nature in herself. She knew how +Faber would have mocked at such a love, the very existence of whose +object she could not prove, how mocked at the notion that His life even +now was influencing hers. She knew how he would say it was merely love +and marriage that had wrought the change; but while she recognized them +as forces altogether divine, she knew that not only was the Son of Man +behind them, but that it was her obedience to Him and her confidence in +Him that had wrought the red heart of the change in her. She knew that +she would rather break with her husband altogether, than to do one +action contrary to the known mind and will of that Man. Faber would call +her faith a mighty, perhaps a lovely illusion: her life was an active +waiting for the revelation of its object in splendor before the +universe. The world seemed to her a grand march of resurrections--out of +every sorrow springing the joy at its heart, without which it could not +have been a sorrow; out of the troubles, and evils, and sufferings, and +cruelties that clouded its history, ever arising the human race, the +sons of God, redeemed in Him who had been made subject to death that He +might conquer Death for them and for his Father--a succession of mighty +facts, whose meanings only God can evolve, only the obedient heart +behold. + +On such a morning, so full of resurrection, Helen was only a little +troubled not to be one of her husband's congregation: she would take her +New Testament, and spend the sunny day in the open air. In the evening +he was coming, and would preach in the little chapel. If only Juliet +might hear him too! But she would not ask her to go. + +Juliet was better, for fatigue had compelled sleep. The morning had +brought her little hope, however, no sense of resurrection. A certain +dead thing had begun to move in its coffin; she was utterly alone with +it, and it made the world feel a tomb around her. Not all resurrections +are the resurrection of life, though in the end they will be found, even +to the lowest birth of the power of the enemy, to have contributed +thereto. She did not get up to breakfast; Helen persuaded her to rest, +and herself carried it to her. But she rose soon after, and declared +herself quite well. + +The rector drove to Glaston in his dog-cart to read prayers. Helen went +out into the park with her New Testament and George Herbert. Poor Juliet +was left with Mrs. Bevis, who happily could not be duller than usual, +although it was Sunday. By the time the rector returned, bringing his +curate with him, she was bored almost beyond endurance. She had not yet +such a love of wisdom as to be able to bear with folly. The foolish and +weak are the most easily disgusted with folly and weakness which is not +of their own sort, and are the last to make allowances for them. To +spend also the evening with the softly smiling old woman, who would not +go across the grass after such a rain the night before, was a thing not +to be contemplated. Juliet borrowed a pair of galoshes, and insisted on +going to the chapel. In vain the rector and his wife dissuaded her. +Neither Helen nor her husband said a word. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +A CONSCIENCE. + + +The chapel in the park at Nestley, having as yet received no color, and +having no organ or choir, was a cold, uninteresting little place. It was +neat, but had small beauty, and no history. Yet even already had begun +to gather in the hearts of two or three of the congregation a feeling of +quiet sacredness about it: some soft airs of the spirit-wind had been +wandering through their souls as they sat there and listened. And a +gentle awe, from old associations with lay worship, stole like a soft +twilight over Juliet as she entered. Even the antral dusk of an old +reverence may help to form the fitting mood through which shall slide +unhindered the still small voice that makes appeal to what of God is yet +awake in the soul. There were present about a score of villagers, and +the party from the house. + +Clad in no vestments of office, but holding in his hand the New +Testament, which was always held either there or in his pocket, Wingfold +rose to speak. He read: + +"_Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. For +there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that +shall not be know_." + +Then at once he began to show them, in the simplest interpretation, that +the hypocrite was one who pretended to be what he was not; who tried or +consented to look other and better than he was. That a man, from +unwillingness to look at the truth concerning himself, might be but +half-consciously assenting to the false appearance, would, he said, +nowise serve to save him from whatever of doom was involved in this +utterance of our Lord concerning the crime. These words of explanation +and caution premised, he began at the practical beginning, and spoke a +few forceful things on the necessity of absolute truth as to fact in +every communication between man and man, telling them that, so far as he +could understand His words recorded, our Lord's objection to swearing +lay chiefly in this, that it encouraged untruthfulness, tending to make +a man's yea less than yea, his nay other than nay. He said that many +people who told lies every day, would be shocked when they discovered +that they were liars; and that their lying must be discovered, for the +Lord said so. Every untruthfulness was a passing hypocrisy, and if they +would not come to be hypocrites out and out, they must begin to avoid it +by speaking every man the truth to his neighbor. If they did not begin +at once to speak the truth, they must grow worse and worse liars. The +Lord called hypocrisy _leaven_, because of its irresistible, perhaps as +well its unseen, growth and spread; he called it the leaven _of the +Pharisees_, because it was the all-pervading quality of their being, and +from them was working moral dissolution in the nation, eating like a +canker into it, by infecting with like hypocrisy all who looked up to +them. + +"Is it not a strange drift, this of men," said the curate, "to hide what +is, under the veil of what is not? to seek refuge in lies, as if that +which is not, could be an armor of adamant? to run from the daylight for +safety, deeper into the cave? In the cave house the creatures of the +night--the tigers and hyenas, the serpent and the old dragon of the +dark; in the light are true men and women, and the clear-eyed angels. +But the reason is only too plain; it is, alas! that they are themselves +of the darkness and not of the light. They do not fear their own. They +are more comfortable with the beasts of darkness than with the angels of +light. They dread the peering of holy eyes into their hearts; they feel +themselves naked and fear to be ashamed, therefore cast the garment of +hypocrisy about them. They have that in them so strange to the light +that they feel it must be hidden from the eye of day, as a thing +_hideous_, that is, a thing to be hidden. But the hypocrisy is worse +than all it would hide. That they have to hide again, as a more hideous +thing still. + +"God hides nothing. His very work from the beginning is _revelation_--a +casting aside of veil after veil, a showing unto men of truth after +truth. On and on, from fact to fact divine He advances, until at length +in His Son Jesus, He unveils His very face. Then begins a fresh +unveiling, for the very work of the Father is the work the Son Himself +has to do--to reveal. His life was the unveiling of Himself, and the +unveiling of the Son is still going on, and is that for the sake of +which the world exists. When He is unveiled, that is, when we know the +Son, we shall know the Father also. The whole of creation, its growth, +its history, the gathering total of human existence, is an unveiling of +the Father. He is the life, the eternal life, the _Only_. I see it--ah! +believe me--I see it as I can not say it. From month to month it grows +upon me. The lovely home-light, the One essence of peaceful being, is +God Himself. + +"He loves light and not darkness, therefore shines, therefore reveals. +True, there are infinite gulfs in Him, into which our small vision can +not pierce, but they are gulfs of light, and the truths there are +invisible only through excess of their own clarity. There is a darkness +that comes of effulgence, and the most veiling of all veils is the +light. That for which the eye exists is light, but _through_ light no +human eye can pierce.--I find myself beyond my depth. I am ever beyond +my depth, afloat in an infinite sea; but the depth of the sea knows me, +for the ocean of my being is God.--What I would say is this, that the +light is not blinding because God would hide, but because the truth is +too glorious for our vision. The effulgence of Himself God veiled that +He might unveil it--in his Son. Inter-universal spaces, aeons, +eternities--what word of vastness you can find or choose--take +unfathomable darkness itself, if you will, to express the infinitude of +God, that original splendor existing only to the consciousness of God +Himself--I say He hides it not, but is revealing it ever, forever, at +all cost of labor, yea of pain to Himself. His whole creation is a +sacrificing of Himself to the being and well-being of His little ones, +that, being wrought out at last into partakers of His divine nature, +that nature may be revealed in them to their divinest bliss. He brings +hidden things out of the light of His own being into the light of ours. + +"But see how different _we_ are--until we learn of Him! See the tendency +of man to conceal his treasures, to claim even truth as his own by +discovery, to hide it and be proud of it, gloating over that which he +thinks he has in himself, instead of groaning after the infinite of God! +We would be forever heaping together possessions, dragging things into +the cave of our finitude, our individual self, not perceiving that the +things which pass that dreariest of doors, whatever they may have been, +are thenceforth but 'straws, small sticks, and dust of the floor.' When +a man would have a truth in thither as if it were of private +interpretation, he drags in only the bag which the truth, remaining +outside, has burst and left. + +"Nowhere are such children of darkness born as in the caves of +hypocrisy; nowhere else can a man revel with such misshapen hybrids of +religion and sin. But, as one day will be found, I believe, a strength +of physical light before which even solid gold or blackest marble +becomes transparent, so is there a spiritual light before which all +veils of falsehood shall shrivel up and perish and cease to hide; so +that, in individual character, in the facts of being, in the densest of +Pharisaical hypocrisy, there is nothing covered that shall not be +revealed, nothing hid that shall not be known. + +"If then, brother or sister, thou hast that which would be hidden, make +haste and drag the thing from its covert into the presence of thy God, +thy Light, thy Saviour, that, if it be in itself good, it may be +cleansed; if evil, it may be stung through and through with the burning +arrows of truth, and perish in glad relief. For the one bliss of an evil +thing is to perish and pass; the evil thing, and that alone, is the +natural food of Death--nothing else will agree with the monster. If we +have such foul things, I say, within the circumference of our known +selves, we must confess the charnel-fact to ourselves and to God; and if +there be any one else who has a claim to know it, to that one also must +we confess, casting out the vile thing that we may be clean. Let us make +haste to open the doors of our lips and the windows of our humility, to +let out the demon of darkness, and in the angels of light--so abjuring +the evil. Be sure that concealment is utterly, absolutely hopeless. If +we do not thus ourselves open our house, the day will come when a +roaring blast of His wind, or the flame of His keen lightning, will +destroy every defense of darkness, and set us shivering before the +universe in our naked vileness; for there is nothing covered that shall +not be revealed, neither hid that shall not be known. Ah! well for man +that he can not hide! What vaults of uncleanness, what sinks of dreadful +horrors, would not the souls of some of us grow! But for every one of +them, as for the universe, comes the day of cleansing. Happy they who +hasten it! who open wide the doors, take the broom in the hand, and +begin to sweep! The dust may rise in clouds; the offense may be great; +the sweeper may pant and choke, and weep, yea, grow faint and sick with +self-disgust; but the end will be a clean house, and the light and wind +of Heaven shining and blowing clear and fresh and sweet through all its +chambers. Better so, than have a hurricane from God burst in doors and +windows, and sweep from his temple with the besom of destruction every +thing that loveth and maketh a lie. Brothers, sisters, let us be clean. +The light and the air around us are God's vast purifying furnace; out +into it let us cast all hypocrisy. Let us be open-hearted, and speak +every man the truth to his neighbor. Amen." + +The faces of the little congregation had been staring all the time at +the speaker's, as the flowers of a little garden stare at the sun. Like +a white lily that had begun to fade, that of Juliet had drawn the eyes +of the curate, as the whitest spot always will. But it had drawn his +heart also. Had her troubles already begun, poor girl? he thought. Had +the sweet book of marriage already begun to give out its bitterness? + +It was not just so. Marriage was good to her still. Not yet, though but +a thing of this world, as she and her husband were agreed, had it begun +to grow stale and wearisome. She was troubled. It was with no reaction +against the opinions to which she had practically yielded; but not the +less had the serpent of the truth bitten her, for it can bite through +the gauze of whatever opinions or theories. Conscious, persistent wrong +may harden and thicken the gauze to a quilted armor, but even through +that the sound of its teeth may wake up Don Worm, the conscience, and +then is the baser nature between the fell incensed points of mighty +opposites. It avails a man little to say he does not believe this or +that, if the while he can not rest because of some word spoken. True +speech, as well as true scripture, is given by inspiration of God; it +goes forth on the wind of the Spirit, with the ministry of fire. The sun +will shine, and the wind will blow, the floods will beat, and the fire +will burn, until the yielding soul, re-born into childhood, spreads +forth its hands and rushes to the Father. + +It was dark, and Juliet took the offered arm of the rector and walked +with him toward the house. Both were silent, for both had been touched. +The rector was busy tumbling over the contents now of this now of that +old chest and cabinet in the lumber-room of his memory, seeking for +things to get rid of by holy confession ere the hour of proclamation +should arrive. He was finding little yet beyond boyish escapades, and +faults and sins which he had abjured ages ago and almost forgotten. His +great sin, of which he had already repented, and was studying more and +more to repent--that of undertaking holy service for the sake of the +loaves and the fishes--then, in natural sequence, only taking the loaves +and the fishes, and doing no service in return, did not come under the +name of hypocrisy, being indeed a crime patent to the universe, even +when hidden from himself. When at length the heavy lids of his honest +sleepy-eyed nature arose, and he saw the truth of his condition, his +dull, sturdy soul had gathered itself like an old wrestler to the +struggle, and hardly knew what was required of it, or what it had to +overthrow, till it stood panting over its adversary. + +Juliet also was occupied--with no such search as the rector's, hardly +even with what could be called thought, but with something that must +either soon cause the keenest thought, or at length a spiritual +callosity: somewhere in her was a motion, a something turned and +twisted, ceased and began again, boring like an auger; or was it a +creature that tried to sleep, but ever and anon started awake, and with +fretful claws pulled at its nest in the fibers of her heart? + +The curate and his wife talked softly all the way back to the house. + +"Do you really think," said Helen, "that every fault one has ever +committed will one day be trumpeted out to the universe?" + +"That were hardly worth the while of the universe," answered her +husband. "Such an age-long howling of evil stupidities would be enough +to turn its brain with ennui and disgust. Nevertheless, the hypocrite +will certainly know himself discovered and shamed, and unable any longer +to hide himself from his neighbor. His past deeds also will be made +plain to all who, for further ends of rectification, require to know +them. Shame will then, I trust, be the first approach of his +redemption." + +Juliet, for she was close behind them, heard his words and shuddered. + +"You are feeling it cold, Mrs. Faber," said the rector, and, with the +fatherly familiarity of an old man, drew her cloak better around her. + +"It is not cold," she faltered; "but somehow the night-air always makes +me shiver." + +The rector pulled a muffler from his coat-pocket, and laid it like a +scarf on her shoulders. + +"How kind you are!" she murmured. "I don't deserve it." + +"Who deserves any thing?" said the rector. "I less, I am sure, than any +one I know. Only, if you will believe my curate, you have but to ask, +and have what you need." + +"I wasn't the first to say that, sir," Wingfold struck in, turning his +head over his shoulder. + +"I know that, my boy," answered Mr. Bevis; "but you were the first to +make me want to find its true.--I say, Mrs. Faber, what if it should +turn out after all, that there was a grand treasure hid in your field +and mine, that we never got the good of because we didn't believe it was +there and dig for it? What if this scatter-brained curate of mine should +be right when he talks so strangely about our living in the midst of +calling voices, cleansing fires, baptizing dews, and _won't_ hearken, +won't be clean, won't give up our sleep and our dreams for the very +bliss for which we cry out in them!" + +The old man had stopped, taken off his hat, and turned toward her. He +spoke with such a strange solemnity of voice that it could hardly have +been believed his by those who knew him as a judge of horses and not as +a reader of prayers. The other pair had stopped also. + +"I should call it very hard," returned Juliet, "to come so near it and +yet miss it." + +"Especially to be driven so near it against one's will, and yet succeed +in getting past without touching it," said the curate, with a flavor of +asperity. His wife gently pinched his arm, and he was ashamed. + +When they reached home, Juliet went straight to bed--or at least to her +room for the night. + +"I say, Wingfold," remarked the rector, as they sat alone after supper, +"that sermon of yours was above your congregation." + +"I am afraid you are right, sir. I am sorry. But if you had seen their +faces as I did, perhaps you would have modified the conclusion." + +"I am very glad I heard it, though," said the rector. + +They had more talk, and when Wingfold went up stairs, he found Helen +asleep. Annoyed with himself for having spoken harshly to Mrs. Faber, +and more than usually harassed by a sense of failure in his sermon, he +threw himself into a chair, and sat brooding and praying till the light +began to appear. Out of the reeds shaken all night in the wind, rose +with the morning this bird:-- + + THE SMOKE. + + Lord, I have laid my heart upon Thy altar, + But can not get the wood to burn; + It hardly flares ere it begins to falter, + And to the dark return. + + Old sap, or night-fallen dew, has damped the fuel; + In vain my breath would flame provoke; + Yet see--at every poor attempt's renewal + To Thee ascends the smoke. + + 'Tis all I have--smoke, failure, foiled endeavor, + Coldness, and doubt, and palsied lack; + Such as I have I send Thee;--perfect Giver, + Send Thou Thy lightning back. + +In the morning, as soon as breakfast was over, Helen's ponies were +brought to the door, she and Juliet got into the carriage, Wingfold +jumped up behind, and they returned to Glaston. Little was said on the +way, and Juliet seemed strangely depressed. They left her at her own +door. + +"What did that look mean?" said Wingfold to his wife, the moment they +were round the corner of Mr. Drew's shop. + +"You saw it then?" returned Helen. "I did not think you had been so +quick." + +"I saw what I could not help taking for relief," said the curate, "when +the maid told her that her husband was not at home." + +They said no more till they reached the rectory, where Helen followed +her husband to his study. + +"He can't have turned tyrant already!" she said, resuming the subject of +Juliet's look. "But she's afraid of him." + +"It did look like it," rejoined her husband. "Oh, Helen, what a hideous +thing fear of her husband must be for a woman, who has to spend not her +days only in his presence, but her nights by his side! I do wonder so +many women dare to be married. They would need all to have clean +consciences." + +"Or no end of faith in their husbands," said Helen. "If ever I come to +be afraid of you, it will be because I have done something very wrong +indeed." + +"Don't be too sure of that, Helen," returned Wingfold. "There are very +decent husbands as husbands go, who are yet unjust, exacting, selfish. +The most devoted of wives are sometimes afraid of the men they yet +consider the very models of husbands. It is a brutal shame that a woman +should feel afraid, or even uneasy, instead of safe, beside her +husband." + +"You are always on the side of the women, Thomas," said his wife; "and I +love you for it somehow--I can't tell why." + +"You make a mistake to begin with, my dear: you don't love me because I +am on the side of the women, but because I am on the side of the +wronged. If the man happened to be the injured party, and I took the +side of the woman, you would be down on me like an avalanche." + +"I dare say. But there is something more in it. I don't think I am +altogether mistaken. You don't talk like most men. They have such an +ugly way of asserting superiority, and sneering at women! That you never +do, and as a woman I am grateful for it." + +The same afternoon Dorothy Drake paid a visit to Mrs. Faber, and was +hardly seated before the feeling that something was wrong arose in her. +Plainly Juliet was suffering--from some cause she wished to conceal. +Several times she seemed to turn faint, hurriedly fanned herself, and +drew a deep breath. Once she rose hastily and went to the window, as if +struggling with some oppression, and returned looking very pale. + +Dorothy was frightened. + +"What is the matter, dear?" she said. + +"Nothing," answered Juliet, trying to smile. "Perhaps I took a little +cold last night," she added with a shiver. + +"Have you told your husband?" asked Dorothy. + +"I haven't seen him since Saturday," she answered quietly, but a pallor +almost deathly overspread her face. + +"I hope he will soon be home," said Dorothy. "Mind you tell him how you +feel the instant he comes in." + +Juliet answered with a smile, but that smile Dorothy never forgot. It +haunted her all the way home. When she entered her chamber, her eyes +fell upon the petal of a monthly rose, which had dropped from the little +tree in her window, and lay streaked and crumpled on the black earth of +the flower-pot: by one of those queer mental vagaries in which the +imagination and the logical faculty seem to combine to make sport of the +reason--"How is it that smile has got here before me?" she said to +herself. + +She sat down and thought. Could it be that Juliet had, like herself, +begun to find there could be no peace without the knowledge of an +absolute peace? If it were so, and she would but let her know it, then, +sisters at least in sorrow and search, they would together seek the +Father of their spirits, if haply they might find Him; together they +would cry to Him--and often: it might be He would hear them, and reveal +Himself. Her heart was sore all day, thinking of that sad face. Juliet, +whether she knew it or not, was, like herself, in trouble because she +had no God. + +The conclusion shows that Dorothy was far from hopeless. That she could +believe the lack of a God was the cause unknown to herself of her +friend's depression, implies an assurance of the human need of a God, +and a hope there might be One to be found. For herself, if she could but +find Him, she felt there would be nothing but bliss evermore. Dorothy +then was more hopeful than she herself knew. I doubt if absolute +hopelessness is ever born save at the word, _Depart from me_. Hope +springs with us from God Himself, and, however down-beaten, however sick +and nigh unto death, will evermore lift its head and rise again. + +She could say nothing to her father. She loved him--oh, how dearly! and +trusted him; where she could trust him at all!--oh, how perfectly! but +she had no confidence in his understanding of herself. The main cause +whence arose his insufficiency and her lack of trust was, that all his +faith in God was as yet scarcely more independent of thought-forms, +word-shapes, dogma and creed, than that of the Catholic or Calvinist. +How few are there whose faith is simple and mighty in the Father of +Jesus Christ, waiting to believe all that He will reveal to them! How +many of those who talk of faith as the one needful thing, will accept as +sufficient to the razing of the walls of partition between you and them, +your heartiest declaration that you believe _in Him_ with the whole +might of your nature, lay your soul bare to the revelation of His +spirit, and stir up your will to obey Him?--And then comes _your_ +temptation--to exclude, namely, from your love and sympathy the weak and +boisterous brethren who, after the fashion possible to them, believe in +your Lord, because they exclude you, and put as little confidence in +your truth as in your insight. If you do know more of Christ than they, +upon you lies the heavier obligation to be true to them, as was St. Paul +to the Judaizing Christians, whom these so much resemble, who were his +chief hindrance in the work his Master had given him to do. In Christ we +must forget Paul and Apollos and Cephas, pope and bishop and pastor and +presbyter, creed and interpretation and theory. Care-less of their +opinions, we must be careful of themselves--careful that we have salt in +ourselves, and that the salt lose not its savor, that the old man, dead +through Christ, shall not, vampire-like, creep from his grave and suck +the blood of the saints, by whatever name they be called, or however +little they may yet have entered into the freedom of the gospel that God +is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. + +How was Dorothy to get nearer to Juliet, find out her trouble, and +comfort her? + +"Alas!" she said to herself, "what a thing is marriage in separating +friends!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +THE OLD HOUSE OF GLASTON. + + +The same evening Dorothy and her father walked to the Old House. Already +the place looked much changed. The very day the deeds were signed, Mr. +Drake, who was not the man to postpone action a moment after the time +for it was come, had set men at work upon the substantial repairs. The +house was originally so well built that these were not so heavy as might +have been expected, and when completed they made little show of change. +The garden, however, looked quite another thing, for it had lifted +itself up from the wilderness in which it was suffocated, reviving like +a repentant soul reborn. Under its owner's keen watch, its ancient plan +had been rigidly regarded, its ancient features carefully retained. The +old bushes were well trimmed, but as yet nothing live, except weeds, had +been uprooted. The hedges and borders, of yew and holly and box, tall +and broad, looked very bare and broken and patchy; but now that the +shears had, after so long a season of neglect, removed the gathered +shade, the naked stems and branches would again send out the young +shoots of the spring, a new birth would begin everywhere, and the old +garden would dawn anew. For all his lack of sympathy with the older +forms of religious economy in the country, a thing, alas! too easy to +account for, the minister yet loved the past and felt its mystery. He +said once in a sermon--and it gave offense to more than one of his +deacons, for they scented in it _Germanism_,--"The love of the past, the +desire of the future, and the enjoyment of the present, make an +eternity, in which time is absorbed, its lapse lapses, and man partakes +of the immortality of his Maker. In each present personal being, we have +the whole past of our generation inclosed, to be re-developed with +endless difference in each individuality. Hence perhaps it comes that, +every now and then, into our consciousnesses float strange odors of +feeling, strange tones as of bygone affections, strange glimmers as of +forgotten truths, strange mental sensations of indescribable sort and +texture. Friends, I should be a terror to myself, did I not believe that +wherever my dim consciousness may come to itself, God is there." + +Dorothy would have hastened the lighter repairs inside the house as +well, so as to get into it as soon as possible; but her father very +wisely argued that it would be a pity to get the house in good +condition, and then, as soon as they went into it, and began to find how +it could be altered better to suit their tastes and necessities, have to +destroy a great part of what had just been done. His plan, therefore, +was to leave the house for the winter, now it was weather-tight, and +with the first of the summer partly occupy it as it was, find out its +faults and capabilities, and have it gradually repaired and altered to +their minds and requirements. There would in this way be plenty of time +to talk about every thing, even to the merest suggestion of fancy, and +discover what they would really like. + +But ever since the place had been theirs, Dorothy had been in the habit +of going almost daily to the house, with her book and her work, sitting +now in this, now in that empty room, undisturbed by the noises of the +workmen, chiefly outside: the foreman was a member of her father's +church, a devout man, and she knew every one of his people. She had +taken a strange fancy to those empty rooms: perhaps she felt them like +her own heart, waiting for something to come and fill them with life. +Nor was there any thing to prevent her, though the work was over for a +time, from indulging herself in going there still, as often as she +pleased, and she would remain there for hours, sometimes nearly the +whole day. In her present condition of mind and heart, she desired and +needed solitude: she was one of those who when troubled rush from their +fellows, and, urged by the human instinct after the divine, seek refuge +in loneliness--the cave on Horeb, the top of Mount Sinai, the closet +with shut door--any lonely place where, unseen, and dreading no eye, the +heart may call aloud to the God hidden behind the veil of the things +that do appear. + +How different, yet how fit to merge in a mutual sympathy, were the +thoughts of the two, as they wandered about the place that evening! +Dorothy was thinking her commonest thought--how happy she could be if +only she knew there was a Will central to the universe, willing all that +came to her--good or seeming-bad--a Will whom she might love and thank +for _all_ things. He would be to her no God whom she could thank only +when He sent her what was pleasant. She must be able to thank Him for +every thing, or she could thank Him for nothing. + +Her father was saying to himself he could not have believed the lifting +from his soul of such a gravestone of debt, would have made so little +difference to his happiness. He fancied honest Jones, the butcher, had +more mere pleasure from the silver snuff-box he had given him, than he +had himself from his fortune. Relieved he certainly was, but the relief +was not happiness. His debt had been the stone that blocked up the gate +of Paradise: the stone was rolled away, but the gate was not therefore +open. He seemed for the first time beginning to understand what he had +so often said, and in public too, and had thought he understood, that +God Himself, and not any or all of His gifts, is the life of a man. He +had got rid of the dread imagination that God had given him the money in +anger, as He had given the Israelites the quails, nor did he find that +the possession formed any barrier between him and God: his danger, now +seemed that of forgetting the love of the Giver in his anxiety to spend +the gift according to His will. + +"You and I ought to be very happy, my love," he said, as now they were +walking home. + +He had often said so before, and Dorothy had held her peace; but now, +with her eyes on the ground, she rejoined, in a low, rather broken +voice, + +"Why, papa?" + +"Because we are lifted above the anxiety that was crushing us into the +very mud," he answered, with surprise at her question. + +"It never troubled me so much as all that," she answered. "It is a great +relief to see you free from it, father; but otherwise, I can not say +that it has made much difference to me." + +"My dear Dorothy," said the minister, "it is time we should understand +each other. Your state of mind has for a long time troubled me; but +while debt lay so heavy upon me, I could give my attention to nothing +else. Why should there be any thing but perfect confidence between a +father and daughter who belong to each other alone in all the world? +Tell me what it is that so plainly oppresses you. What prevents you from +opening your heart to me? You can not doubt my love." + +"Never for one moment, father," she answered, almost eagerly, pressing +to her heart the arm on which she leaned. "I know I am safe with you +because I am yours, and yet somehow I can not get so close to you as I +would. Something comes between us, and prevents me." + +"What is it, my child? I will do all and every thing I can to remove +it." + +"You, dear father! I don't believe ever child had such a father." + +"Oh yes, my dear! many have had better fathers, but none better than I +hope one day by the grace of God to be to you. I am a poor creature, +Dorothy, but I love you as my own soul. You are the blessing of my days, +and my thoughts brood over you in the night: it would be in utter +content, if I only saw you happy. If your face were acquainted with +smiles, my heart would be acquainted with gladness." + +For a time neither said any thing more. The silent tears were streaming +from Dorothy's eyes. At length she spoke. + +"I wonder if I could tell you what it is without hurting you, father!" +she said. + +"I can hear any thing from you, my child," he answered. "Then I will +try. But I do not think I shall ever quite know my father on earth, or +be quite able to open my heart to him, until I have found my Father in +Heaven." + +"Ah, my child! is it so with you? Do you fear you have not yet given +yourself to the Saviour? Give yourself now. His arms are ever open to +receive you." + +"That is hardly the point, father.--Will you let me ask you any question +I please?" + +"Assuredly, my child." He always spoke, though quite unconsciously, with +a little of the _ex-cathedral_ tone. + +"Then tell me, father, are you just as sure of God as you are of me +standing here before you?" + +She had stopped and turned, and stood looking him full in the face with +wide, troubled eyes. + +Mr. Drake was silent. Hateful is the professional, contemptible is the +love of display, but in his case they floated only as vapors in the air +of a genuine soul. He was a true man, and as he could not say _yes_, +neither would he hide his _no_ in a multitude of words--at least to his +own daughter: he was not so sure of God as he was of that daughter, with +those eyes looking straight into his! Could it be that he never had +believed in God at all? The thought went through him with a great pang. +It was as if the moon grew dark above him, and the earth withered under +his feet. He stood before his child like one whose hypocrisy had been +proclaimed from the housetop. + +"Are you vexed with me, father?" said Dorothy sadly. + +"No, my child," answered the minister, in a voice of unnatural +composure. "But you stand before me there like, the very thought started +out of my soul, alive and visible, to question its own origin." + +"Ah, father!" cried Dorothy, "let us question our origin." + +The minister never even heard the words. + +"That very doubt, embodied there in my child, has, I now know, been +haunting me, dogging me behind, ever since I began to teach others," he +said, as if talking in his sleep. "Now it looks me in the face. Am I +myself to be a castaway?--Dorothy, I am _not_ sure of God--not as I am +sure of you, my darling." + +He stood silent. His ear expected a low-voiced, sorrowful reply. He +started at the tone of gladness in which Dorothy cried-- + +"Then, father, there is henceforth no cloud between us, for we are in +the same cloud together! It does not divide us, it only brings us closer +to each other. Help me, father: I am trying hard to find God. At the +same time, I confess I would rather not find Him, than find Him such as +I have sometimes heard you represent Him." + +"It may well be," returned her father--the _ex-cathedral_, the +professional tone had vanished utterly for the time, and he spoke with +the voice of an humble, true man--"it may well be that I have done Him +wrong; for since now at my age I am compelled to allow that I am not +sure of Him, what more likely than that I may have been cherishing wrong +ideas concerning Him, and so not looking in the right direction for +finding Him?" + +"Where did you get your notions of God, father--those, I mean, that you +took with you to the pulpit?" + +A year ago even, if he had been asked the same question, he would at +once have answered, "From the Word of God;" but now he hesitated, and +minutes passed before he began a reply. For he saw now that it was not +from the Bible _he_ had gathered them, whence soever they had come at +first. He pondered and searched--and found that the real answer eluded +him, hiding itself in a time beyond his earliest memory. It seemed +plain, therefore, that the source whence first he began to draw those +notions, right or wrong, must be the talk and behavior of the house in +which he was born, the words and carriage of his father and mother and +their friends. Next source to that came the sermons he heard on Sundays, +and the books given him to read. The Bible was one of those books, but +from the first he read it through the notions with which his mind was +already vaguely filled, and with the comments of his superiors around +him. Then followed the books recommended at college, this author and +that, and the lectures he heard there upon the attributes of God and the +plan of salvation. The spirit of commerce in the midst of which he had +been bred, did not occur to him as one of the sources. + +But he had perceived enough. He opened his mouth and bravely answered +her question as well as he could, not giving the Bible as the source +from which he had taken any one of the notions of God he had been in the +habit of presenting. + +"But mind," he added, "I do not allow that therefore my ideas must be +incorrect. If they be second-hand, they may yet be true. I do admit that +where they have continued only second-hand, they can have been of little +value to me." + +"What you allow, then, father," said Dorothy, "is that you have yourself +taken none of your ideas direct from the fountain-head?" + +"I am afraid I must confess it, my child--with this modification, that I +have thought many of them over a good deal, and altered some of them not +a little to make them fit the molds of truth in my mind." + +"I am so glad, father!" said Dorothy. "I was positively certain, from +what I knew of you--which is more than any one else in this world, I do +believe--that some of the things you said concerning God never could +have risen in your own mind." + +"They might be in the Bible for all that," said the minister, very +anxious to be and speak the right thing. "A man's heart is not to be +trusted for correct notions of God." + +"Nor yet for correct interpretation of the Bible, I should think," said +Dorothy. + +"True, my child," answered her father with a sigh, "--except as it be +already a Godlike heart. The Lord says a bramble-bush can not bring +forth grapes." + +"The notions you gathered of God from other people, must have come out +of their hearts, father?" + +"Out of somebody's heart?" + +"Just so," answered Dorothy. + +"Go on, my child," said her father. "Let me understand clearly your +drift." + +"I have heard Mr. Wingfold say," returned Dorothy, "that however men may +have been driven to form their ideas of God before Christ came, no man +can, with thorough honesty, take the name of a Christian, whose ideas of +the Father of men are gathered from any other field than the life, +thought, words, deeds, of the only Son of that Father. He says it is not +from the Bible as a book that we are to draw our ideas of God, but from +the living Man into whose presence that book brings us, Who is alive +now, and gives His spirit that they who read about Him may understand +what kind of being He is, and why He did as He did, and know Him, in +some possible measure, as He knows Himself.--I can only repeat the +lesson like a child." + +"I suspect," returned the minister, "that I have been greatly astray. +But after this, we will seek our Father together, in our Brother, Jesus +Christ." + +It was the initiation of a daily lesson together in the New Testament, +which, while it drew their hearts closer to each other, drew them, with +growing delight, nearer and nearer to the ideal of humanity, Jesus +Christ, in whom shines the glory of its Father. + +A man may look another in the face for a hundred years and not know him. +Men _have_ looked Jesus Christ in the face, and not known either Him or +his Father. It was needful that He should appear, to begin the knowing +of Him, but speedily was His visible presence taken away, that it might +not become, as assuredly it would have become, a veil to hide from men +the Father of their spirits. Do you long for the assurance of some +sensible sign? Do you ask why no intellectual proof is to be had? I tell +you that such would but delay, perhaps altogether impair for you, that +better, that best, that only vision, into which at last your world must +blossom--such a contact, namely, with the heart of God Himself, such a +perception of His being, and His absolute oneness with you, the child of +His thought, the individuality softly parted from His spirit, yet living +still and only by His presence and love, as, by its own radiance, will +sweep doubt away forever. Being then in the light and knowing it, the +lack of intellectual proof concerning that which is too high for it, +will trouble you no more than would your inability to silence a +metaphysician who declared that you had no real existence. It is for the +sake of such vision as God would give that you are denied such vision as +you would have. The Father of our spirits is not content that we should +know Him as we now know each other. There is a better, closer, nearer +than any human way of knowing, and to that He is guiding us across all +the swamps of our unteachableness, the seas of our faithlessness, the +desert of our ignorance. It is so very hard that we should have to wait +for that which we can not yet receive? Shall we complain of the shadows +cast upon our souls by the hand and the napkin polishing their mirrors +to the receiving of the more excellent glory! Have patience, children of +the Father. Pray always and do not faint. The mists and the storms and +the cold will pass--the sun and the sky are for evermore. There were no +volcanoes and no typhoons but for the warm heart of the earth, the soft +garment of the air, and the lordly sun over all. The most loving of you +can not imagine how one day the love of the Father will make you love +even your own. + +Much trustful talk passed between father and daughter as they walked +home: they were now nearer to each other than ever in their lives +before. + +"You don't mind my coming out here alone, papa?" said Dorothy, as, after +a little chat with the gate-keeper, they left the park. "I have of late +found it so good to be alone! I think I am beginning to learn to think." + +"Do in every thing just as you please, my child," said her father. "I +can have no objection to what you see good. Only don't be so late as to +make me anxious." + +"I like coming early," said Dorothy. "These lovely mornings make me feel +as if the struggles of life were over, and only a quiet old age were +left." + +The father looked anxiously at his daughter. Was she going to leave him? +It smote him to the heart that he had done so little to make her life a +blessed one. How hard no small portion of it had been! How worn and pale +she looked! Why did she not show fresh and bright like other young +women--Mrs. Faber for instance? He had not guided her steps into the way +of peace! At all events he had not led her home to the house of wisdom +and rest! Too good reason why--he had not himself yet found that home! +Henceforth, for her sake as well as his own, he would besiege the +heavenly grace with prayer. + +The opening of his heart in confessional response to his daughter, +proved one of those fresh starts in the spiritual life, of which a man +needs so many as he climbs to the heavenly gates. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + +PAUL FABER'S DRESSING-ROOM. + + +Faber did not reach home till a few minutes before the dinner hour. He +rode into the stable-yard, entered the house by the surgery, and went +straight to his dressing-room; for the roads were villianous, and +Ruber's large feet had made a wonderful sight of his master, who +respected his wife's carpet. At the same time he hoped, as it was so +near dinner-time, to find her in her chamber. She had, however, already +made her toilet, and was waiting his return in the drawing-room. Her +heart made a false motion and stung her when she heard his steps pass +the door and go up stairs, for generally he came to greet her the moment +he entered the house.--Had he seen any body!--Had he heard any thing? It +was ten dreadful minutes before he came down, but he entered cheerily, +with the gathered warmth of two days of pent-up affection. She did her +best to meet him as if nothing had happened. For indeed what had +happened--except her going to church? If nothing had taken place since +she saw him--since she knew him--why such perturbation? Was marriage a +slavery of the very soul, in which a wife was bound to confess every +thing to her husband, even to her most secret thoughts and feelings? Or +was a husband lord not only over the present and future of his wife, but +over her past also? Was she bound to disclose every thing that lay in +that past? If Paul made no claim upon her beyond the grave, could he +claim back upon the dead past before he knew her, a period over which +she had now no more control than over that when she would be but a +portion of the material all? + +But whatever might be Paul's theories of marriage or claims upon his +wife, it was enough for her miserable unrest that she was what is called +a living soul, with a history, and what has come to be called a +conscience--a something, that is, as most people regard it, which has +the power, and uses it, of making uncomfortable. + +The existence of such questions as I have indicated reveals that already +between her and him there showed space, separation, non-contact: Juliet +was too bewildered with misery to tell whether it was a cleft of a +hair's breadth, or a gulf across which no cry could reach; this moment +it seemed the one, the next the other. The knowledge which caused it had +troubled her while he sought her love, had troubled her on to the very +eve of her surrender. The deeper her love grew the more fiercely she +wrestled with the evil fact. A low moral development and the purest +resolve of an honest nature afforded her many pleas, and at length she +believed she had finally put it down. She had argued that, from the +opinions themselves of Faber, the thing could not consistently fail to +be as no thing to him. Even were she mistaken in this conclusion, it +would be to wrong his large nature, his generous love, his unselfish +regard, his tender pitifulness, to fail of putting her silent trust in +him. Besides, had she not read in the newspapers the utterance of a +certain worshipful judge on the bench that no man had any thing to do +with his wife's ante-nuptial history? The contract then was certainly +not retrospective. What in her remained unsatisfied after all her +arguments, reasons, and appeals to common sense and consequences, she +strove to strangle, and thought, hoped, she had succeeded. She willed +her will, made up her mind, yielded to Paul's solicitations, and put the +whole painful thing away from her. + +The step taken, the marriage over, nothing could any more affect either +fact. Only, unfortunately for the satisfaction and repose she had +desired and expected, her love to her husband had gone on growing after +they were married. True she sometimes fancied it otherwise, but while +the petals of the rose were falling, its capsule was filling; and +notwithstanding the opposite tendency of the deoxygenated atmosphere in +which their thoughts moved, she had begun already to long after an +absolute union with him. But this growth of her love, and aspiration +after its perfection, although at first they covered what was gone by +with a deepening mist of apparent oblivion, were all the time bringing +it closer to her consciousness--out of the far into the near. And now +suddenly that shape she knew of, lying in the bottom of the darkest pool +of the stagnant Past, had been stung into life by a wind of words that +swept through Nestley chapel, had stretched up a hideous neck and +threatening head from the deep, and was staring at her with sodden eyes: +henceforth she knew that the hideous Fact had its appointed place +between her and her beautiful Paul, the demon of the gulfy cleft that +parted them. + +The moment she spoke in reply to his greeting her husband also felt +something dividing them, but had no presentiment of its being any thing +of import. + +"You are over-tired, my love," he said, and taking her hand, felt her +pulse. It was feeble and frequent. + +"What have they been doing to you, my darling?" he asked. "Those little +demons of ponies running away again?" + +"No," she answered, scarce audibly. + +"Something has gone wrong with you," he persisted. "Have you caught +cold? None of the old symptoms, I hope?" + +"None, Paul. There is nothing the matter," she answered, laying her head +lightly, as if afraid of the liberty she took, upon his shoulder. His +arm went round her waist. + +"What is it, then, my wife?" he said tenderly. + +"Which would you rather have, Paul--have me die, or do something +wicked?" + +"Juliet, this will never do!" he returned quietly but almost severely. +"You have been again giving the reins to a morbid imagination. Weakness +and folly only can come of that. It is nothing better than hysteria." + +"No, but tell me, dear Paul," she persisted pleadingly. "Answer my +question. Do, please." + +"There is no such question to be answered," he returned. "You are not +going to die, and I am yet more certain you are not going to do any +thing wicked. Are you now?" + +"No, Paul. Indeed I am not. But----" + +"I have it!" he exclaimed. "You went to church at Nestley last night! +Confound them all with their humbug! You have been letting their +infernal nonsense get a hold of you again! It has quite upset you--that, +and going much too long without your dinner. What _can_ be keeping it?" +He left her hurriedly and rang the bell. "You must speak to the cook, my +love. She is getting out of the good habits I had so much trouble to +teach her. But no--no! you shall not be troubled with _my_ servants. I +will speak to her myself. After dinner I will read you some of my +favorite passages in Montaigne. No, you shall read to me: your French +is so much better than mine." + +Dinner was announced and nothing more was said. Paul ate well, Juliet +scarcely at all, but she managed to hide from him the offense. They rose +together and returned to the drawing-room. + +The moment Faber shut the door Juliet turned in the middle of the room, +and as he came up to her said, in a voice much unlike her own: + +"Paul, if I _were_ to do any thing very bad, as bad as could be, would +you forgive me?" + +"Come, my love," expostulated Faber, speaking more gently than before, +for he had had his dinner, "surely you are not going to spoil our +evening with any more such nonsense!" + +"Answer me, Paul, or I shall think you do not love me," she said, and +the tone of her entreaty verged upon demand. "Would you forgive me if I +had done something _very_ bad?" + +"Of course I should," he answered, with almost irritated haste, "--that +is, if I could ever bring myself to allow any thing you did was wrong. +Only, you would witch me out of opinion and judgment and every thing +else with two words from your dear lips." + +"Should I, Paul?" she said; and lifting her face from his shoulder, she +looked up in his from the depths of two dark fountains full of tears. +Never does the soul so nearly identify itself with matter as when +revealing itself through the eyes; never does matter so nearly lose +itself in spiritual absorption, as when two eyes like Juliet's are +possessed and glorified by the rush of the soul through their portals. +Faber kissed eyes and lips and neck in a glow of delight. She was the +vision of a most blessed dream, and she was his, all and altogether his! +He never thought then how his own uncreed and the prayer-book were of +the same mind that Death would one day part them. There is that in every +high and simple feeling that stamps it with eternity. For my own part I +believe that, if life has not long before twinned any twain, Death can +do nothing to divide them. The nature of each and every pure feeling, +even in the man who may sin away the very memory of it, is immortal; and +who knows from under what a depth of ashes the love of the saving God +may yet revive it! + +The next moment the doctor was summoned. When he returned, Juliet was in +bed, and pretended to be asleep. + +In the morning she appeared at the breakfast table so pale, so worn, so +troubled, that her husband was quite anxious about her. All she would +confess to was, that she had not slept well, and had a headache. +Attributing her condition to a nervous attack, he gave her some +medicine, took her to the drawing-room, and prescribed the new piano, +which he had already found the best of all sedatives for her. She +loathed the very thought of it--could no more have touched it than if +the ivory keys had been white hot steel. She watched him from the window +while he mounted his horse, but the moment the last red gleam of Ruber +vanished, she flung her arms above her head, and with a stifled cry +threw herself on a couch, stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth, and +in fierce dumb agony, tore it to shreds with hands and teeth. Presently +she rose, opened the door almost furtively, and stole softly down the +stair, looking this way and that, like one intent on some evil deed. At +the bottom she pushed a green baize-covered door, peeped into a passage, +then crept on tiptoe toward the surgery. Arrived there she darted to a +spot she knew, and stretched a trembling hand toward a bottle full of a +dark-colored liquid. As instantly she drew it back, and stood listening +with bated breath and terrified look. It _was_ a footstep approaching +the outer door of the surgery! She turned and fled from it, still +noiseless, and never stopped till she was in her own room. There she +shut and locked the door, fell on her knees by the bedside, and pressed +her face into the coverlid. She had no thought of praying. She wanted to +hide, only to hide. Neither was it from old habit she fell upon her +knees, for she had never been given to kneeling. I can not but think, +nevertheless, that there was a dumb germ of prayer at the heart of the +action--that falling upon her knees, and that hiding of her face. The +same moment something took place within her to which she could have +given no name, which she could have represented in no words, a something +which came she knew not whence, was she knew not what, and went she knew +not whither, of which indeed she would never have become aware except +for what followed, but which yet so wrought, that she rose from her +knees saying to herself, with clenched teeth and burning eyes, "I _will_ +tell him." + +As if she had known the moment of her death near, she began mechanically +to set every thing in order in the room, and as she came to herself she +was saying, "Let him kill me. I wish he would. I am quite willing to +die by his hand. He will be kind, and do it gently. He knows so many +ways!" + +It was a terrible day. She did not go out of her room again. Her mood +changed a hundred times. The resolve to confess alternated with wild +mockery and laughter, but still returned. She would struggle to persuade +herself that her whole condition was one of foolish exaggeration, of +senseless excitement about nothing--the merest delirium of feminine +fastidiousness; and the next instant would turn cold with horror at a +fresh glimpse of the mere fact. What could the wretched matter be to him +now--or to her? Who was the worse, or had ever been the worse but +herself? And what did it amount to? What claim had any one, what claim +could even a God, if such a being there were, have upon the past which +had gone from her, was no more in any possible sense within her reach +than if it had never been? Was it not as if it had never been? Was the +woman to be hurled--to hurl herself into misery for the fault of the +girl? It was all nonsense--a trifle at worst--a disagreeable trifle, no +doubt, but still a trifle! Only would to God she had died rather--even +although then she would never have known Paul!--Tut! she would never +have thought of it again but for that horrid woman that lived over the +draper's shop! All would have been well if she had but kept from +thinking about it! Nobody would have been a hair the worse then!--But, +poor Paul!--to be married to such a woman as she! + +If she were to be so foolish as let him know, how would it strike Paul? +What would he think of it? Ought she not to be sure of that before she +committed herself--before she uttered the irrevocable words? Would he +call it a trifle, or would he be ready to kill her? True, he had no +right, he _could_ have no right to know; but how horrible that there +should be any thought of right between them! still worse, any thing +whatever between them that he had no right to know! worst of all, that +she did not belong to him so utterly that he must have a right to know +_every_ thing about her! She _would_ tell him all! She would! she would! +she had no choice! she must!--But she need not tell him now. She was not +strong enough to utter the necessary words. But that made the thing very +dreadful! If she could not speak the words, how bad it must really +be!--Impossible to tell her Paul! That was pure absurdity.--Ah, but she +_could_ not! She would be certain to faint--or fall dead at his feet. +That would be well!--Yes! that would do! She would take a wine-glass +full of laudanum just before she told him; then, if he was kind, she +would confess the opium, and he could save her if he pleased; if he was +hard, she would say nothing, and die at his feet. She had hoped to die +in his arms--all that was left of eternity. But her life was his, he had +saved it with his own--oh horror! that it should have been to disgrace +him!--and it should not last a moment longer than it was a pleasure to +him. + +Worn out with thought and agony, she often fell asleep--only to start +awake in fresh misery, and go over and over the same torturing round. +Long before her husband appeared, she was in a burning fever. When he +came, he put her at once to bed, and tended her with a solicitude as +anxious as it was gentle. He soothed her to sleep, and then went and had +some dinner. + +On his return, finding, as he had expected, that she still slept, he sat +down by her bedside, and watched. Her slumber was broken with now and +then a deep sigh, now and then a moan. Alas, that we should do the +things that make for moan!--but at least I understand why we are left to +do them: it is because we can. A dull fire was burning in her soul, and +over it stood the caldron of her history, and it bubbled in sighs and +moans. + +Faber was ready enough to attribute every thing human to a physical +origin, but as he sat there pondering her condition, recalling her +emotion and strange speech of the night before, and watching the state +she was now in, an uneasiness began to gather--undefined, but other than +concerned her health. Something must be wrong somewhere. He kept +constantly assuring himself that at worst it could be but some mere +moleheap, of which her lovelily sensitive organization, under the +influence of a foolish preachment, made a mountain. Still, it was a huge +disorder to come from a trifle! At the same time who knew better than he +upon what a merest trifle nervous excitement will fix the attention! or +how to the mental eye such a speck will grow and grow until it absorb +the universe! Only a certain other disquieting thought, having come +once, would keep returning--that, thoroughly as he believed himself +acquainted with her mind, he had very little knowledge of her history. +He did not know a single friend of hers, had never met a person who knew +any thing of her family, or had even an acquaintance with her earlier +than his own. The thing he most dreaded was, that the shadow of some old +affection had returned upon her soul, and that, in her excessive +delicacy, she heaped blame upon herself that she had not absolutely +forgotten it. He flung from him in scorn every slightest suggestion of +blame. _His_ Juliet! his glorious Juliet! Bah!--But he must get her to +say what the matter was--for her own sake; he must help her to reveal +her trouble, whatever it might be--else how was he to do his best to +remove it! She should find he knew how to be generous! + +Thus thinking, he sat patient by her side, watching until the sun of her +consciousness should rise and scatter the clouds of sleep. Hour after +hour he sat, and still she slept, outwearied with the rack of emotion. +Morning had begun to peer gray through the window-curtains, when she +woke with a cry. + +She had been dreaming. In the little chapel in Nestley Park, she sat +listening to the curate's denouncement of hypocrisy, when suddenly the +scene changed: the pulpit had grown to a mighty cloud, upon which stood +an archangel with a trumpet in his hand. He cried that the hour of the +great doom had come for all who bore within them the knowledge of any +evil thing neither bemoaned before God nor confessed to man. Then he +lifted the great silver trumpet with a gleam to his lips, and every +fiber of her flesh quivered in expectation of the tearing blast that was +to follow; when instead, soft as a breath of spring from a bank of +primroses, came the words, uttered in the gentlest of sorrowful voices, +and the voice seemed that of her unbelieving Paul: "I will arise and go +to my Father." It was no wonder, therefore, that she woke with a cry. It +was one of indescribable emotion. When she saw his face bending over her +in anxious love, she threw her arms round his neck, burst into a storm +of weeping, and sobbed. + +"Oh Paul! husband! forgive me. I have sinned against you terribly--the +worst sin a woman can commit. Oh Paul! Paul! make me clean, or I am +lost." + +"Juliet, you are raving," he said, bewildered, a little angry, and at +her condition not a little alarmed. For the confession, it was +preposterous: they had not been many weeks married! "Calm yourself, or +you will give me a lunatic for a wife!" he said. Then changing his tone, +for his heart rebuked him, when he saw the ashy despair that spread over +her face and eyes, "Be still, my precious," he went on. "All is well. +You have been dreaming, and are not yet quite awake. It is the morphia +you had last night! Don't look so frightened. It is only your husband. +No one else is near you." + +With the tenderest smile he sought to reassure her, and would have +gently released himself from the agonized clasp of her arms about his +neck, that he might get her something. But she tightened her hold. + +"Don't leave me, Paul," she cried. "I was dreaming, but I am wide awake +now, and know only too well what I have done." + +"Dreams are nothing. The will is not in them," he said. But the thought +of his sweet wife even dreaming a thing to be repented of in such +dismay, tore his heart. For he was one of the many--not all of the +purest--who cherish an ideal of woman which, although indeed +poverty-stricken and crude, is to their minds of snowy favor, to their +judgment of loftiest excellence. I trust in God that many a woman, +despite the mud of doleful circumstance, yea, even the defilement that +comes first from within, has risen to a radiance of essential innocence +ineffably beyond that whose form stood white in Faber's imagination. For +I see and understand a little how God, giving righteousness, makes pure +of sin, and that verily--by no theological quibble of imputation, by no +play with words, by no shutting of the eyes, no oblivion, willful or +irresistible, but by very fact of cleansing, so that the consciousness +of the sinner becomes glistering as the raiment of the Lord on the mount +of His transfiguration. I do not expect the Pharisee who calls the +sinner evil names, and drags her up to judgment, to comprehend this; +but, woman, cry to thy Father in Heaven, for He can make thee white, +even to the contentment of that womanhood which thou hast thyself +outraged. + +Faber unconsciously prided himself on the severity of his requirements +of woman, and saw his own image reflected in the polish of his ideal; +and now a fear whose presence he would not acknowledge began to gnaw at +his heart, a vague suggestion's horrid image, to which he would yield no +space, to flit about his brain. + +"Would to God it were a dream, Paul!" answered the stricken wife. + +"You foolish child!" returned the nigh trembling husband, "how can you +expect me to believe, married but yesterday, you have already got tired +of me!" + +"Tired of you, Paul! I should desire no other eternal paradise than to +lie thus under your eyes forever." + +"Then for my sake, my darling wife, send away this extravagance, this +folly, this absurd fancy that has got such a hold of you. It will turn +to something serious if you do not resist it. There can be no truth in +it, and I am certain that one with any strength of character can do much +at least to prevent the deeper rooting of a fixed idea." But as he spoke +thus to her, in his own soul he was as one fighting the demons off with +a fan. "Tell me what the mighty matter is," he went on, "that I may +swear to you I love you the more for the worst weakness you have to +confess." + +"Ah, my love!" returned Juliet, "how like you are now to the Paul I have +dreamed of so often! But you will not be able to forgive me. I have read +somewhere that men never forgive--that their honor is before their wives +with them. Paul! if you should not be able to forgive me, you must help +me to die, and not be cruel to me." + +"Juliet, I will not listen to any more such foolish words. Either tell +me plainly what you mean, that I may convince you what a goose you are, +or be quiet and go to sleep again." + +"_Can_ it be that after all it does not signify so much?" she said +aloud, but only to herself, meditating in the light of a little +glow-worm of hope. "Oh if it could be so! And what is it really so much? +I have not murdered any body!--I _will_ tell you, Paul!" + +She drew his head closer down, laid her lips to his ear, gave a great +gasp, and whispered two or three words. He started up, sundering at once +the bonds of her clasped hands, cast one brief stare at her, turned, +walked, with a great quick stride to his dressing-room, entered, and +closed the door. + +As if with one rush of a fell wind, they were ages, deserts, empty +star-spaces apart! She was outside the universe, in the cold frenzy of +infinite loneliness. The wolves of despair were howling in her. But Paul +was in the next room! There was only the door between them! She sprung +from her bed and ran to a closet. The next moment she appeared in her +husband's dressing-room. + +Paul sat sunk together in his chair, his head hanging forward, his teeth +set, his whole shape, in limb and feature, carrying the show of +profound, of irrecoverable injury. He started to his feet when she +entered. She did not once lift her eyes to his face, but sunk on her +knees before him, hurriedly slipped her night-gown from her shoulders to +her waist, and over her head, bent toward the floor, held up to him a +riding-whip. + +They were baleful stars that looked down on that naked world beneath +them. + +To me scarce any thing is so utterly pathetic as the back. That of an +animal even is full of sad suggestion. But the human back!--It is the +other, the dark side of the human moon; the blind side of the being, +defenseless, and exposed to every thing; the ignorant side, turned +toward the abyss of its unknown origin; the unfeatured side, eyeless and +dumb and helpless--the enduring animal of the marvelous commonwealth, to +be given to the smiter, and to bend beneath the burden--lovely in its +patience and the tender forms of its strength. + +An evil word, resented by the lowest of our sisters, rushed to the man's +lips, but died there in a strangled murmur. + +"Paul!" said Juliet, in a voice from whose tone it seemed as if her soul +had sunk away, and was crying out of a hollow place of the earth, "take +it--take it. Strike me." + +He made no reply--stood utterly motionless, his teeth clenched so hard +that he could not have spoken without grinding them. She waited as +motionless, her face bowed to the floor, the whip held up over her head. + +"Paul!" she said again, "you saved my life once: save my soul now. Whip +me and take me again." + +He answered with only a strange unnatural laugh through his teeth. + +"Whip me and let me die then," she said. + +He spoke no word. She spoke again. Despair gave her both insight and +utterance--despair and great love, and the truth of God that underlies +even despair. + +"You pressed me to marry you," she said: "what was I to do? How could I +tell you? And I loved you so! I persuaded myself I was safe with +you--you were so generous. You would protect me from every thing, even +my own past. In your name I sent it away, and would not think of it +again. I said to myself you would not wish me to tell you the evil that +had befallen me. I persuaded myself you loved me enough even for that. I +held my peace trusting you. Oh my husband! my Paul! my heart is crushed. +The dreadful thing has come back. I thought it was gone from me, and +now it will not leave me any more. I am a horror to myself. There is no +one to punish and forgive me but you. Forgive me, my husband. You are +the God to whom I pray. If you pardon me I shall be content even with +myself. I shall seek no other pardon; your favor is all I care for. If +you take me for clean, I _am_ clean for all the world. You can make me +clean--you only. Do it, Paul; do it, husband. Make me clean that I may +look women in the face. Do, Paul, take the whip and strike me. I long +for my deserts at your hand. Do comfort me. I am waiting the sting of +it, Paul, to know that you have forgiven me. If I should cry out, it +will be for gladness.--Oh, my husband,"--here her voice rose to an agony +of entreaty--"I was but a girl--hardly more than a child in knowledge--I +did not know what I was doing. He was much older than I was, and I +trusted him!--O my God! I hardly know what I knew and what I did not +know: it was only when it was too late that I woke and understood. I +hate myself. I scorn myself. But am I to be wretched forever because of +that one fault, Paul? Will you not be my saviour and forgive me my sin? +Oh, do not drive me mad. I am only clinging to my reason. Whip me and I +shall be well. Take me again, Paul. I will not, if you like, even fancy +myself your wife any more. I will be your slave. You shall do with me +whatever you will. I will obey you to the very letter. Oh beat me and +let me go." + +She sunk prone on the floor, and clasped and kissed his feet. + +He took the whip from her hand. + +Of course a man can not strike a woman! He may tread her in the mire; he +may clasp her and then scorn her; he may kiss her close, and then dash +her from him into a dung-heap, but he must not strike her--that would be +unmanly! Oh! grace itself is the rage of the pitiful Othello to the +forbearance of many a self-contained, cold-blooded, self-careful slave, +that thinks himself a gentleman! Had not Faber been even then full of +his own precious self, had he yielded to her prayer or to his own wrath, +how many hours of agony would have been saved them both!--"What! would +you have had him really strike her?" I would have had him do _any thing_ +rather than choose himself and reject his wife: make of it what you +will. Had he struck once, had he seen the purple streak rise in the +snow, that instant his pride-frozen heart would have melted into a +torrent of grief; he would have flung himself on the floor beside her, +and in an agony of pity over her and horror at his own sacrilege, would +have clasped her to his bosom, and baptized her in the tears of remorse +and repentance; from that moment they would have been married indeed. + +When she felt him take the whip, the poor lady's heart gave a great +heave of hope; then her flesh quivered with fear. She closed her teeth +hard, to welcome the blow without a cry. Would he give her many stripes? +Then the last should be welcome as the first. Would it spoil her skin? +What matter if it was his own hand that did it! + +A brief delay--long to her! then the hiss, as it seemed, of the coming +blow! But instead of the pang she awaited, the sharp ring of breaking +glass followed: he had thrown the whip through the window into the +garden. The same moment he dragged his feet rudely from her embrace, and +left the room. The devil and the gentleman had conquered. He had spared +her, not in love, but in scorn. She gave one great cry of utter loss, +and lay senseless. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + +THE BOTTOMLESS POOL. + + +She came to herself in the gray dawn. She was cold as ice--cold to the +very heart, but she did not feel the cold: there was nothing in her to +compare it against; her very being was frozen. The man who had given her +life had thrown her from him. He cared less for her than for the +tortured dog. She was an outcast, defiled and miserable. Alas! alas! +this was what came of speaking the truth--of making confession! The +cruel scripture had wrought its own fulfillment, made a mock of her, and +ruined her husband's peace. She knew poor Paul would never be himself +again! She had carried the snake so long harmless in her bosom only to +let it at last creep from her lips into her husband's ear, sting the +vital core of her universe, and blast it forever! How foolish she had +been!--What was left her to do? What would her husband have her to do? +Oh misery! he cared no more what she did or did not do. She was +alone--utterly alone! But she need not live. + +Dimly, vaguely, the vapor of such thoughts as these passed through her +despairing soul, as she lifted herself from the floor and tottered back +to her room. Yet even then, in the very midst of her freezing misery, +there was, although she had not yet begun to recognize it, a nascent +comfort in that she had spoken and confessed. She would not really have +taken back her confession. And although the torture was greater, yet was +it more endurable than that she had been suffering before. She had told +him who had a right to know.--But, alas! what a deception was that dream +of the trumpet and the voice! A poor trick to entrap a helpless sinner! + +Slowly, with benumbed fingers and trembling hands, she dressed herself: +that bed she would lie in no more, for she had wronged her husband. +Whether before or after he was her husband, mattered nothing. To have +ever called him husband was the wrong. She had seemed that she was not, +else he would never have loved or sought her; she had outraged his +dignity, defiled him; he had cast her off, and she could not, would not +blame him. Happily for her endurance of her misery, she did not turn +upon her idol and cast him from his pedestal; she did not fix her gaze +upon his failure instead of her own; she did not espy the contemptible +in his conduct, and revolt from her allegiance. + +But was such a man then altogether the ideal of a woman's soul? Was he a +fit champion of humanity who would aid only within the limits of his +pride? who, when a despairing creature cried in soul-agony for help, +thought first and only of his own honor? The notion men call their honor +is the shadow of righteousness, the shape that is where the light is +not, the devil that dresses as nearly in angel-fashion as he can, but is +none the less for that a sneak and a coward. + +She put on her cloak and bonnet: the house was his, not hers. He and she +had never been one: she must go and meet her fate. There was one power, +at least, the key to the great door of liberty, which the weakest as +well as the strongest possessed: she could die. Ah, how welcome would +Death be now! Did he ever know or heed the right time to come, without +being sent for--without being compelled? In the meantime her only +anxiety was to get out of the house: away from Paul she would understand +more precisely what she had to do. With the feeling of his angry +presence, she could not think. Yet how she loved him--strong in his +virtue and indignation! She had not yet begun to pity herself, or to +allow to her heart that he was hard upon her. + +She was leaving the room when a glitter on her hand caught her eye: the +old diamond disk, which he had bought of her in her trouble, and +restored to her on her wedding-day, was answering the herald of the +sunrise. She drew it off: he must have it again. With it she drew off +also her wedding-ring. Together she laid them on the dressing table, +turned again, and with noiseless foot and desert heart went through the +house, opened the door, and stole into the street. A thin mist was +waiting for her. A lean cat, gray as the mist, stood on the steps of the +door opposite. No other living thing was to be seen. The air was chill. +The autumn rains were at hand. But her heart was the only desolation. + +Already she knew where she was going. In the street she turned to the +left. + +Shortly before, she had gone with Dorothy, for the first time, to see +the Old House, and there had had rather a narrow escape. Walking down +the garden they came to the pond or small lake, so well known to the +children of Glaston as bottomless. Two stone steps led from the end of +the principal walk down to the water, which was, at the time, nearly +level with the top of the second. On the upper step Juliet was standing, +not without fear, gazing into the gulf, which was yet far deeper than +she imagined, when, without the smallest preindication, the lower step +suddenly sank. Juliet sprung back to the walk, but turned instantly to +look again. She saw the stone sinking, and her eyes opened wider and +wider, as it swelled and thinned to a great, dull, wavering mass, grew +dimmer and dimmer, then melted away and vanished utterly. With "stricken +look," and fright-filled eyes, she turned to Dorothy, who was a little +behind her, and said, + +"How will you be able to sleep at night? I should be always fancying +myself sliding down into it through the darkness." + +To this place of terror she was now on the road. When consciousness +returned to her as she lay on the floor of her husband's dressing-room, +it brought with it first the awful pool and the sinking stone. She +seemed to stand watching it sink, lazily settling with a swing this way +and a sway that, into the bosom of the earth, down and down, and still +down. Nor did the vision leave her as she came more to herself. Even +when her mental eyes were at length quite open to the far more frightful +verities of her condition, half of her consciousness was still watching +the ever sinking stone; until at last she seemed to understand that it +was showing her a door out of her misery, one easy to open. + +She went the same way into the park that Dorothy had then taken +her--through a little door of privilege which she had shown her how to +open, and not by the lodge. The light was growing fast, but the sun was +not yet up. With feeble steps but feverous haste she hurried over the +grass. Her feet were wet through her thin shoes. Her dress was fringed +with dew. But there was no need for taking care of herself now; she felt +herself already beyond the reach of sickness. The still pond would soon +wash off the dew. + +Suddenly, with a tremor of waking hope, came the thought that, when she +was gone from his sight, the heart of her husband would perhaps turn +again toward her a little. For would he not then be avenged? would not +his justice be satisfied? She had been well drilled in the theological +lie, that punishment is the satisfaction of justice. + +"Oh, now I thank you, Paul!" she said, as she hastened along. "You +taught me the darkness, and made me brave to seek its refuge. Think of +me sometimes, Paul. I will come back to you if I can--but no, there is +no coming back, no greeting more, no shadows even to mingle their loves, +for in a dream there is but one that dreams. I shall be the one that +does not dream. There is nothing where I am going--not even the +darkness--nothing but nothing. Ah, would I were in it now! Let me make +haste. All will be one, for all will be none when I am there. Make you +haste too, and come into the darkness, Paul. It is soothing and soft and +cool. It will wash away the sin of the girl and leave you a----nothing." + +While she was hurrying toward the awful pool, her husband sat in his +study, sunk in a cold fury of conscious disgrace--not because of his +cruelty, not because he had cast a woman into hell--but because his +honor, his self-satisfaction in his own fate, was thrown to the worms. +Did he fail thus in consequence of having rejected the common belief? +No; something far above the _common_ belief it must be, that would have +enabled him to act otherwise. But had he _known_ the Man of the gospel, +he could not have left her. He would have taken her to his sorrowful +bosom, wept with her, forgotten himself in pitiful grief over the spot +upon her whiteness; he would have washed her clean with love and +husband-power. He would have welcomed his shame as his hold of her +burden, whereby to lift it, with all its misery and loss, from her heart +forever. Had Faber done so as he was, he would have come close up to the +gate of the kingdom of Heaven, for he would have been like-minded with +Him who sought not His own. His honor, forsooth! Pride is a mighty +honor! His pride was great indeed, but it was not grand! Nothing +reflected, nothing whose object is self, has in it the poorest element +of grandeur. Our selves are ours that we may lay them on the altar of +love. Lying there, bound and bleeding and burning if need be, they are +grand indeed--for they are in their noble place, and rejoicing in their +fate. But this man was miserable, because, the possessor of a priceless +jewel, he had found it was not such as would pass for flawless in the +judgment of men--judges themselves unjust, whose very hearts were full +of bribes. He sat there an injured husband, a wronged, woman-cheated, +mocked man--he in whose eyes even a smutch on her face would have +lowered a woman--who would not have listened to an angel with a broken +wing-feather! + +Let me not be supposed to make a little of Juliet's loss! What that +amounted to, let Juliet feel!--let any woman say, who loves a man, and +would be what that man thinks her! But I read, and think I understand, +the words of the perfect Purity: "Neither do I condemn thee: go and sin +no more." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + +A HEART. + + +If people were both observant and memorious, they would cease, I fancy, +to be astonished at coincidences. Rightly regarded, the universe is but +one coincidence--only where will has to be developed, there is need for +human play, and room for that must be provided in its spaces. The works +of God being from the beginning, and all his beginnings invisible either +from greatness or smallness or nearness or remoteness, numberless +coincidences may pass in every man's history, before he becomes capable +of knowing either the need or the good of them, or even of noting them. + +The same morning there was another awake and up early. When Juliet was +about half-way across the park, hurrying to the water, Dorothy was +opening the door of the empty house, seeking solitude that she might +find the one Dweller therein. She went straight to one of the upper +rooms looking out upon the garden, and kneeling prayed to her Unknown +God. As she kneeled, the first rays of the sunrise visited her face. +That face was in itself such an embodied prayer, that had any one seen +it, he might, when the beams fell upon it, have imagined he saw prayer +and answer meet. It was another sunrise Dorothy was looking for, but she +started and smiled when the warm rays touched her; they too came from +the home of answers. As the daisy mimics the sun, so is the central fire +of our system but a flower that blossoms in the eternal effulgence of +the unapproachable light. + +The God to whom we pray is nearer to us than the very prayer itself ere +it leaves the heart; hence His answers may well come to us through the +channel of our own thoughts. But the world too being itself one of His +thoughts, He may also well make the least likely of His creatures an +angel of His own will to us. Even the blind, if God be with him, that +is, if he knows he is blind and does not think he sees, may become a +leader of the blind up to the narrow gate. It is the blind who says _I +see_, that leads his fellow into the ditch. + +The window near which Dorothy kneeled, and toward which in the instinct +for light she had turned her face, looked straight down the garden, at +the foot of which the greater part of the circumference of the pond was +visible. But Dorothy, busy with her prayers, or rather with a weight of +hunger and thirst, from which like a burst of lightning skyward from the +overcharged earth, a prayer would now and then break and rush +heavenward, saw nothing of the outer world: between her and a sister +soul in mortal agony, hung the curtains of her eyelids. But there were +no shutters to her ears, and in at their portals all of a sudden darted +a great and bitter cry, as from a heart in the gripe of a fierce terror. +She had been so absorbed, and it so startled and shook her, that she +never could feel certain whether the cry she heard was of this world or +not. Half-asleep one hears such a cry, and can not tell whether it +entered his consciousness by the ear, or through some hidden channel of +the soul. Assured that waking ears heard nothing, he remains, it may be, +in equal doubt, whether it came from the other side of life or was the +mere cry of a dream. Before Dorothy was aware of a movement of her will, +she was on her feet, and staring from the window. Something was lying on +the grass beyond the garden wall, close to the pond: it looked like a +woman. She darted from the house, out of the garden, and down the other +side of the wall. When she came nearer she saw it was indeed a woman, +evidently insensible. She was bare-headed. Her bonnet was floating in +the pond; the wind had blown it almost to the middle of it. Her face was +turned toward the water. One hand was in it. The bank overhung the pond, +and with a single movement more she would probably have been beyond help +from Dorothy. She caught her by the arm, and dragged her from the brink, +before ever she looked in her face. Then to her amazement she saw it was +Juliet. She opened her eyes, and it was as if a lost soul looked out of +them upon Dorothy--a being to whom the world was nothing, so occupied +was it with some torment, which alone measured its existence--far away, +although it hung attached to the world by a single hook of brain and +nerve. + +"Juliet, my darling!" said Dorothy, her voice trembling with the love +which only souls that know trouble can feel for the troubled, "come with +me. I will take care of you." + +At the sound of her voice, Juliet shuddered. Then a better light came +into her eyes, and feebly she endeavored to get up. With Dorothy's help +she succeeded, but stood as if ready to sink again to the earth. She +drew her cloak about her, turned and stared at the water, turned again +and stared at Dorothy, at last threw herself into her arms, and sobbed +and wailed. For a few moments Dorothy held her in a close embrace. Then +she sought to lead her to the house, and Juliet yielded at once. She +took her into one of the lower rooms, and got her some water--it was all +she could get for her, and made her sit down on the window-seat. It +seemed a measureless time before she made the least attempt to speak; +and again and again when she began to try, she failed. She opened her +mouth, but no sounds would come. At length, interrupted with choking +gasps, low cries of despair, and long intervals of sobbing, she said +something like this: + +"I was going to drown myself. When I came in sight of the water, I fell +down in a half kind of faint. All the time I lay, I felt as if some one +was dragging me nearer and nearer to the pool. Then something came and +drew me back--and it was you, Dorothy. But you ought to have left me. I +am a wretch. There is no room for me in this world any more." She +stopped a moment, then fixing wide eyes on Dorothy's, said, "Oh Dorothy, +dear! there are awful things in the world! as awful as any you ever read +in a book!" + +"I know that, dear. But oh! I am sorry if any of them have come your +way. Tell me what is the matter. I _will_ help you if I can." + +"I dare not; I dare not! I should go raving mad if I said a word about +it." + +"Then don't tell me, my dear. Come with me up stairs; there is a warmer +room there--full of sunshine; you are nearly dead with cold. I came here +this morning, Juliet, to be alone and pray to God; and see what He has +sent me! You, dear! Come up stairs. Why, you are quite wet! You will get +your death of cold!" + +"Then it would be all right. I would rather not kill myself if I could +die without. But it must be somehow." + +"We'll talk about it afterward. Come now." + +With Dorothy's arm round her waist, Juliet climbed trembling to the +warmer room. On a rickety wooden chair, Dorothy made her sit in the +sunshine, while she went and gathered chips and shavings and bits of +wood left by the workmen. With these she soon kindled a fire in the +rusty grate. Then she took off Juliet's shoes and stockings, and put her +own upon her. She made no resistance, only her eyes followed Dorothy's +bare feet going to and fro, as if she felt something was wrong, and had +not strength to inquire into it. + +But Dorothy's heart rebuked her for its own lightness. It had not been +so light for many a day. It seemed as if God was letting her know that +He was there. She spread her cloak on a sunny spot of the floor, made +Juliet lie down upon it, put a bundle of shavings under her head, +covered her with her own cloak, which she had dried at the fire, and was +leaving the room. + +"Where are you going, Dorothy?" cried Juliet, seeming all at once to +wake up. + +"I am going to fetch your husband, dear," answered Dorothy. + +She gave a great cry, rose to her knees, and clasped Dorothy round +hers. + +"No, no, no!" she screamed. "You shall not. If you do, I swear I will +run straight to the pond." + +Notwithstanding the wildness of her voice and look, there was an evident +determination in both. + +"I will do nothing you don't like, dear," said Dorothy. "I thought that +was the best thing I could do for you." + +"No! no! no! any thing but that!" + +"Then of course I won't. But I must go and get you something to eat." + +"I could not swallow a mouthful; it would choke me. And where would be +the good of it, when life is over!" + +"Don't talk like that, dear. Life can't be over till it is taken from +us." + +"Ah, you would see it just as I do, if you knew all!" + +"Tell me all, then." + +"Where is the use, when there is no help?" + +"No help!" echoed Dorothy.--The words she had so often uttered in her +own heart, coming from the lips of another, carried in them an +incredible contradiction.--Could God make or the world breed the +irreparable?--"Juliet," she went on, after a little pause, "I have often +said the same myself, but--" + +"You!" interrupted Juliet; "you who always professed to believe!" + +Dorothy's ear could not distinguish whether the tone was of indignation +or of bitterness. + +"You never heard me, Juliet," she answered, "profess any thing. If my +surroundings did so for me, I could not help that. I never dared say I +believed any thing. But I hope--and, perhaps," she went on with a smile, +"seeing Hope is own sister to Faith, she may bring me to know her too +some day. Paul says----" + +Dorothy had been brought up a dissenter, and never said _St._ this one +or that, any more than the Christians of the New Testament. + +At the sound of the name, Juliet burst into tears, the first she shed, +for the word _Paul_, like the head of the javelin torn from the wound, +brought the whole fountain after it. She cast herself down again, and +lay and wept. Dorothy kneeled beside her, and laid a hand on her +shoulder. It was the only way she could reach her at all. + +"You see," she said at last, for the weeping went on and on, "there is +nothing will do you any good but your husband." + +"No, no; he has cast me from him forever!" she cried, in a strange wail +that rose to a shriek. + +"The wretch!" exclaimed Dorothy, clenching a fist whose little bones +looked fierce through the whitened skin. + +"No," returned Juliet, suddenly calmed, in a voice almost severe; "it is +I who am the wretch, to give you a moment in which to blame him. He has +done nothing but what is right." + +"I don't believe it." + +"I deserved it." + +"I am sure you did not. I would believe a thousand things against him +before I would believe one against you, my poor white queen!" cried +Dorothy, kissing her hand. + +She snatched it away, and covered her face with both hands. + +"I should only need to tell you one thing to convince you," she sobbed +from behind them. + +"Then tell it me, that I may not be unjust to him." + +"I can not." + +"I won't take your word against yourself," returned Dorothy +determinedly. "You will have to tell me, or leave me to think the worst +of him." She was moved by no vulgar curiosity: how is one to help +without knowing? "Tell me, my dear," she went on after a little; "tell +me all about it, and in the name of the God in whom I hope to believe, I +promise to give myself to your service." + +Thus adjured, Juliet found herself compelled. But with what +heart-tearing groans and sobs, with what intervals of dumbness, in which +the truth seemed unutterable for despair and shame, followed by what +hurrying of wild confession, as if she would cast it from her, the sad +tale found its way into Dorothy's aching heart, I will not attempt to +describe. It is enough that at last it was told, and that it had entered +at the wide-open, eternal doors of sympathy. If Juliet had lost a +husband, she had gained a friend, and that was something--indeed no +little thing--for in her kind the friend was more complete than the +husband. She was truer, more entire--in friendship nearly perfect. When +a final burst of tears had ended the story of loss and despair, a +silence fell. + +"Oh, those men! those men!" said Dorothy, in a low voice of bitterness, +as if she knew them and their ways well, though never had kiss of man +save her father lighted on her cheek. "--My poor darling!" she said +after another pause, "--and he cast you from him!--I suppose a woman's +heart," she went on after a third pause, "can never make up for the loss +of a man's, but here is mine for you to go into the very middle of, and +lie down there." + +Juliet had, as she told her story, risen to her knees. Dorothy was on +hers too, and as she spoke she opened wide her arms, and clasped the +despised wife to her bosom. None but the arms of her husband, Juliet +believed, could make her alive with forgiveness, yet she felt a strange +comfort in that embrace. It wrought upon her as if she had heard a +far-off whisper of the words: _Thy sins be forgiven thee_. And no +wonder: there was the bosom of one of the Lord's clean ones for her to +rest upon! It was her first lesson in the mighty truth that sin of all +things is mortal, and purity alone can live for evermore. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + +TWO MORE MINDS. + + +Nothing makes a man strong like a call upon him for help--a fact which +points at a unity more delicate and close and profound than heart has +yet perceived. It is but "a modern instance" how a mother, if she be but +a hen, becomes bold as a tigress for her periled offspring. A stranger +will fight for the stranger who puts his trust in him. The most foolish +of men will search his musty brain to find wise saws for his boy. An +anxious man, going to his friend to borrow, may return having lent him +instead. The man who has found nothing yet in the world save food for +the hard, sharp, clear intellect, will yet cast an eye around the +universe to see if perchance there may not be a God somewhere for the +hungering heart of his friend. The poor, but lovely, the doubting, yet +living faith of Dorothy arose, stretched out its crippled wings, and +began to arrange and straighten their disordered feathers. It is a fair +sight, any creature, be it but a fly, dressing its wings! Dorothy's were +feeble, ruffled, their pen-feathers bent and a little crushed; but +Juliet's were full of mud, paralyzed with disuse, and grievously singed +in the smoldering fire of her secret. A butterfly that has burned its +wings is not very unlike a caterpillar again. + +"Look here, Juliet," said Dorothy: "there must be some way out of it, or +there is no saving God in the universe.--Now don't begin to say there +isn't, because, you see, it is your only chance. It would be a pity to +make a fool of yourself by being over-wise, to lose every thing by +taking it for granted there is no God. If after all there should be one, +it would be the saddest thing to perish for want of Him. I won't say I +am as miserable as you, for I haven't a husband to trample on my heart; +but I am miserable enough, and want dreadfully to be saved. I don't call +this life worth living. Nothing is right, nothing goes well--there is no +harmony in me. I don't call it life at all. I want music and light in +me. I want a God to save me out of this wretchedness. I want health." + +"I thought you were never ill, Dorothy," murmured Juliet listlessly. + +"Is it possible you do not know what I mean?" returned Dorothy. "Do you +never feel wretched and sick in your very soul?--disgusted with +yourself, and longing to be lifted up out of yourself into a region of +higher conditions altogether?" + +That kind of thing Juliet had been learning to attribute to the state of +her health--had partly learned: it is hard to learn any thing false +_thoroughly_, for it _can not_ so be learned. It is true that it is +often, perhaps it is generally, in troubled health, that such thoughts +come first; but in nature there are facts of color that the cloudy day +reveals. So sure am I that many things which illness has led me to see +are true, that I would endlessly rather never be well than lose sight of +them. "So would any madman say of his fixed idea." I will keep my +madness, then, for therein most do I desire the noble: and to desire +what I desire, if it be but to desire, is better than to have all you +offer us in the name of truth. Through such desire and the hope of its +attainment, all greatest things have been wrought in the earth: I too +have my unbelief as well as you--I can not believe that a lie on the +belief of which has depended our highest development. You may say you +have a higher to bring in. But that higher you have become capable of by +the precedent lie. Yet you vaunt truth! You would sink us low indeed, +making out falsehood our best nourishment--at some period of our +history at least. If, however, what I call true and high, you call false +and low--my assertion that you have never seen that of which I so speak +will not help--then is there nothing left us but to part, each go his +own road, and wait the end--which according to my expectation will show +the truth, according to yours, being nothing, will show nothing. + +"I can not help thinking, if we could only get up there," Dorothy went +on,--"I mean into a life of which I can at least dream--if I could but +get my head and heart into the kingdom of Heaven, I should find that +every thing else would come right. I believe it is God Himself I +want--nothing will do but Himself in me. Mr. Wingfold says that we find +things all wrong about us, that they keep going against our will and our +liking, just to drive things right inside us, or at least to drive us +where we can get them put right; and that, as soon as their work is +done, the waves will lie down at our feet, or if not, we shall at least +walk over their crests." + +"It sounds very nice, and would comfort any body that wasn't in +trouble," said Juliet; "but you wouldn't care one bit for it all any +more than I do, if you had pain and love like mine pulling at your +heart." + +"I have seen a mother make sad faces enough over the baby at her +breast," said Dorothy. "Love and pain seem so strangely one in this +world, the wonder is how they will ever get parted. What God must feel +like, with this world hanging on to Him with all its pains and cries--!" + +"It's His own fault," said Juliet bitterly. "Why did He make us--or why +did He not make us good? I'm sure I don't know where was the use of +making me!" + +"Perhaps not much yet," replied Dorothy, "but then He hasn't made you, +He hasn't done with you yet. He is making you now, and you don't like +it." + +"No, I don't--if you call this making. Why does He do it? He could have +avoided all this trouble by leaving us alone." + +"I put something like the same question once to Mr. Wingfold," said +Dorothy, "and he told me it was impossible to show any one the truths of +the kingdom of Heaven; he must learn them for himself. 'I can do little +more,' he said, 'than give you my testimony that it seems to me all +right. If God has not made you good, He has made you with the feeling +that you ought to be good, and at least a half-conviction that to Him +you have to go for help to become good. When you are good, then you will +know why He did not make you good at first, and will be perfectly +satisfied with the reason, because you will find it good and just and +right--so good that it was altogether beyond the understanding of one +who was not good. I don't think,' he said, 'you will ever get a +thoroughly satisfactory answer to any question till you go to Himself +for it--and then it may take years to make you fit to receive, that is +to understand the answer.' Oh Juliet! sometimes I have felt in my heart +as if--I am afraid to say it, even to you,--" + +"_I_ shan't be shocked at any thing; I am long past that," sighed +Juliet. + +"It is not of you I am afraid," said Dorothy. "It is a kind of awe of +the universe I feel. But God is the universe; His is the only ear that +will hear me; and He knows my thoughts already. Juliet, I feel sometimes +as if I _must_ be good for God's sake; as if I was sorry for Him, +because He has such a troublesome nursery of children, that will not or +can not understand Him, and will not do what He tells them, and He all +the time doing the very best for them He can." + +"It may be all very true, or all great nonsense, Dorothy, dear; I don't +care a bit about it. All I care for is--I don't know what I care for--I +don't care for any thing any more--there is nothing left to care for. I +love my husband with a heart like to break--oh, how I wish it would! He +hates and despises me and I dare not wish that he wouldn't. If he were +to forgive me quite, I should yet feel that he ought to despise me, and +that would be all the same as if he did, and there is no help. Oh, how +horrid I look to him! I _can't_ bear it. I fancied it was all gone; but +there it is, and there it must be forever. I don't care about a God. If +there were a God, what would He be to me without my Paul?" + +"I think, Juliet, you will yet come to say, 'What would my Paul be to me +without my God?' I suspect we have no more idea than that lonely fly on +the window there, what it would be _to have a God_." + +"I don't care. I would rather go to hell with my Paul than go to Heaven +without him," moaned Juliet. + +"But what if God should be the only where to find your Paul?" said +Dorothy. "What if the gulf that parts you is just the gulf of a God not +believed in--a universe which neither of you can cross to meet the +other--just because you do not believe it is there at all?" + +Juliet made no answer--Dorothy could not tell whether from feeling or +from indifference. The fact was, the words conveyed no more meaning to +Juliet than they will to some of my readers. Why do I write them then? +Because there are some who will understand them at once, and others who +will grow to understand them. Dorothy was astonished to find herself +saying them. The demands of her new office of comforter gave shape to +many half-formed thoughts, substance to many shadowy perceptions, +something like music to not a few dim feelings moving within her; but +what she said hardly seemed her own at all. + +Had it not been for Wingfold's help, Dorothy might not have learned +these things in this world; but had it not been for Juliet, they would +have taken years more to blossom in her being, and so become her own. +Her faint hope seemed now to break forth suddenly into power. Whether or +not she was saying such things as were within the scope of Juliet's +apprehension, was a matter of comparatively little moment. As she lay +there in misery, rocking herself from side to side on the floor, she +would have taken hold of nothing. But love is the first comforter, and +where love and truth speak, the love will be felt where the truth is +never perceived. Love indeed is the highest in all truth; and the +pressure of a hand, a kiss, the caress of a child, will do more to save +sometimes than the wisest argument, even rightly understood. Love alone +is wisdom, love alone is power; and where love seems to fail it is where +self has stepped between and dulled the potency of its rays. + +Dorothy thought of another line of expostulation. + +"Juliet," she said, "suppose you were to drown yourself and your husband +were to repent?" + +"That is the only hope left me. You see yourself I have no choice." + +"You have no pity, it seems; for what then would become of him? What if +he should come to himself in bitter sorrow, in wild longing for your +forgiveness, but you had taken your forgiveness with you, where he had +no hope of ever finding it? Do you want to punish him? to make him as +miserable as yourself? to add immeasurably to the wrong you have done +him, by going where no word, no message, no letter can pass, no cry can +cross? No, Juliet--death can set nothing right. But if there be a God, +then nothing can go wrong but He can set it right, and set it right +better than it was before." + +"He could not make it better than it was." + +"What!--is that your ideal of love--a love that fails in the first +trial? If He could not better that, then indeed He were no God worth the +name." + +"Why then did He make us such--make such a world as is always going +wrong?" + +"Mr. Wingfold says it is always going righter the same time it is going +wrong. I grant He would have had no right to make a world that might go +further wrong than He could set right at His own cost. But if at His own +cost He turn its ills into goods? its ugliness into favor? Ah, if it +should be so, Juliet! It _may_ be so. I do not know. I have not found +Him yet. Help me to find Him. Let us seek Him together. If you find Him +you can not lose your husband. If Love is Lord of the world, love must +yet be Lord in his heart. It will wake, if not sooner, yet when the +bitterness has worn itself out, as Mr. Wingfold says all evil must, +because its heart is death and not life." + +"I don't care a straw for life. If I could but find my husband, I would +gladly die forever in his arms. It is not true that the soul longs for +immortality. I don't. I long only for love--for forgiveness--for my +husband." + +"But would you die so long as there was the poorest chance of regaining +your place in his heart?" + +"No. Give me the feeblest chance of that, and I will live. I could live +forever on the mere hope of it." + +"I can't give you any hope, but I have hope of it in my own heart." + +Juliet rose on her elbow. + +"But I am disgraced!" she said, almost indignantly. "It would be +disgrace to him to take me again! I remember one of the officers' +wives----. No, no! he hates and despises me. Besides I could never look +one of his friends in the face again. Every body will say I ran away +with some one--or that he sent me away because I was wicked. You all had +a prejudice against me from the very first." + +"Yes, in a way," confessed Dorothy. "It always seemed as if we did not +know you and could not get at you, as if you avoided us--with your +heart, I mean;--as if you had resolved we should not know you--as if you +had something you were afraid we should discover." + +"Ah, there it was, you see!" cried Juliet. "And now the hidden thing is +revealed! That was it: I never could get rid of the secret that was +gnawing at my life. Even when I was hardly aware of it, it was there. +Oh, if I had only been ugly, then Paul would never have thought of me!" + +She threw herself down again and buried her face. + +"Hide me; hide me," she went on, lifting to Dorothy her hands clasped in +an agony, while her face continued turned from her. "Let me stay here. +Let me die in peace. Nobody would ever think I was here." + +"That is just what has been coming and going in my mind," answered +Dorothy. "It is a strange old place: you might be here for months and +nobody know." + +"Oh! wouldn't you mind it? I shouldn't live long. I couldn't, you know!" + +"I will be your very sister, if you will let me," replied Dorothy; "only +then you must do what I tell you--and begin at once by promising not to +leave the house till I come back to you." + +As she spoke she rose. + +"But some one will come," said Juliet, half-rising, as if she would run +after her. + +"No one will. But if any one should--come here, I will show you a place +where nobody would find you." + +She helped her to rise, and led her from the room to a door in a rather +dark passage. This she opened, and, striking a light, showed an ordinary +closet, with pegs for hanging garments upon. The sides of it were +paneled, and in one of them, not readily distinguishable, was another +door. It opened into a room lighted only by a little window high up in a +wall, through whose dusty, cobwebbed panes, crept a modicum of +second-hand light from a stair. + +"There!" said Dorothy. "If you should hear any sound before I come back, +run in here. See what a bolt there is to the door. Mind you shut both. +You can close that shutter over the window too if you like--only nobody +can look in at it without getting a ladder, and there isn't one about +the place. I don't believe any one knows of this room but myself." + +Juliet was too miserable to be frightened at the look of it--which was +wretched enough. She promised not to leave the house, and Dorothy went. +Many times before she returned had Juliet fled from the sounds of +imagined approach, and taken refuge in the musty dusk of the room +withdrawn. When at last Dorothy came, she found her in it trembling. + +She came, bringing a basket with every thing needful for breakfast. She +had not told her father any thing: he was too simple, she said to +herself, to keep a secret with comfort; and she would risk any thing +rather than discovery while yet she did not clearly know what ought to +be done. Her version of the excellent French proverb--_Dans le doute, +abstiens-toi_--was, _When you are not sure, wait_--which goes a little +further, inasmuch as it indicates expectation, and may imply faith. With +difficulty she prevailed upon her to take some tea, and a little bread +and butter, feeding her like a child, and trying to comfort her with +hope. Juliet sat on the floor, leaning against the wall, the very +picture of despair, white like alabaster, rather than marble--with a +bluish whiteness. Her look was of one utterly lost. + +"We'll let the fire out now," said Dorothy; "for the sun is shining in +warm, and there had better be no smoke. The wood is rather scarce too. I +will get you some more, and here are matches: you can light it again +when you please." + +She then made her a bed on the floor with a quantity of wood shavings, +and some shawls she had brought, and when she had lain down upon it, +kneeled beside her, and covering her face with her hands, tried to pray. +But it seemed as if all the misery of humanity was laid upon her, and +God would not speak: not a sound would come from her throat, till she +burst into tears and sobs. It struck a strange chord in the soul of the +wife to hear the maiden weeping over her. But it was no private trouble, +it was the great need common to all men that opened the fountain of her +tears. It was hunger after the light that slays the darkness, after a +comfort to confront every woe, a life to lift above death, an antidote +to all wrong. It was one of the groanings of the spirit that can not be +uttered in words articulate, or even formed into thoughts defined. But +Juliet was filled only with the thought of herself and her husband, and +the tears of her friend but bedewed the leaves of her bitterness, did +not reach the dry roots of her misery. + +Dorothy's spirit revived when she found herself once more alone in the +park on her way home the second time. She must be of better courage, she +said to herself. Struggling in the Slough of Despond, she had come upon +one worse mired than she, for whose sake she must search yet more +vigorously after the hidden stepping-stones--the peaks whose bases are +the center of the world. + +"God help me!" she said ever and anon as she went, and every time she +said it, she quickened her pace and ran. + +It was just breakfast-time when she reached the house. Her father was +coming down the stair. + +"Would you mind, father," she said as they sat, "if I were to make a +room at the Old House a little comfortable?" + +"I mind nothing you please to do, Dorothy," he answered. "But you must +not become a recluse. In your search for God, you must not forsake your +neighbor." + +"If only I could find my neighbor!" she returned, with a rather sad +smile. "I shall never be able even to look for him, I think, till I have +found One nearer first." + +"You have surely found your neighbor when you have found his wounds, and +your hand is on the oil-flask," said her father, who knew her +indefatigable in her ministrations. + +"I don't feel it so," she answered. "When I am doing things for people, +my arms seem to be miles long." + +As soon as her father left the table, she got her basket again, filled +it from the larder and store-room, laid a book or two on the top, and +telling Lisbeth she was going to the Old House for the rest of the day, +set out on her third journey thither. To her delight she found Juliet +fast asleep. She sat down, rather tired, and began to reflect. Her great +fear was that Juliet would fall ill, and then what was to be done? How +was she to take the responsibility of nursing her? But she remembered +how the Lord had said she was to take no thought for the morrow; and +therewith she began to understand the word. She saw that one can not +_do_ any thing in to-morrow, and that all care which can not be put into +the work of to-day, is taken out of it. One thing seemed clear--that, so +long as it was Juliet's desire to remain concealed from her husband, she +had no right to act against that desire. Whether Juliet was right or +wrong, a sense of security was for the present absolutely necessary to +quiet her mind. It seemed therefore, the first thing she had to do was +to make that concealed room habitable for her. It was dreadful to think +of her being there alone at night, but her trouble was too great to +leave much room for fear--and anyhow there was no choice. So while +Juliet slept, she set about cleaning it, and hard work she found it. +Great also was the labor afterward, when, piece by piece, at night or in +the early morning, she carried thither every thing necessary to make +abode in it clean and warm and soft. + +The labor of love is its own reward, but Dorothy received much more. +For, in the fresh impulse and freedom born of this service, she soon +found, not only that she thought better and more clearly on the points +that troubled her, but that, thus spending herself, she grew more able +to believe there must be One whose glory is perfect ministration. Also, +her anxious concentration of thought upon the usurping thoughts of +others, with its tendency to diseased action in the logical powers, was +thereby checked, much to her relief. She was not finding an atom of what +is called proof; but when the longing heart finds itself able to hope +that the perfect is the fact, that the truth is alive, that the lovely +is rooted in eternal purpose, it can go on without such proof as belongs +to a lower stratum of things, and can not be had in these. When we rise +into the mountain air, we require no other testimony than that of our +lungs that we are in a healthful atmosphere. We do not find it necessary +to submit it to a quantitative analysis; we are content that we breathe +with joy, that we grow in strength, become lighter-hearted and +better-tempered. Truth is a very different thing from fact; it is the +loving contact of the soul with spiritual fact, vital and potent. It +does its work in the soul independently of all faculty or qualification +there for setting it forth or defending it. Truth in the inward parts is +a power, not an opinion. It were as poor a matter as any held by those +who deny it, if it had not its vitality in itself, if it depended upon +any buttressing of other and lower material. + +How should it be otherwise? If God be so near as the very idea of Him +necessitates, what other availing proof of His existence can there be, +than such _awareness_ as must come of the developing relation between +Him and us? The most satisfying of intellectual proofs, if such were to +be had, would be of no value. God would be no nearer to us for them all. +They would bring about no blossoming of the mighty fact. While He was in +our very souls, there would yet lie between Him and us a gulf of misery, +of no-knowledge. + +Peace is for those who _do_ the truth, not those who opine it. The true +man troubled by intellectual doubt, is so troubled unto further health +and growth. Let him be alive and hopeful, above all obedient, and he +will be able to wait for the deeper content which must follow with +completer insight. Men may say such a man but deceives himself, that +there is nothing of the kind he pleases himself with imagining; but this +is at least worth reflecting upon--that while the man who aspires fears +he may be deceiving himself, it is the man who does not aspire who +asserts that he is. One day the former may be sure, and the latter may +cease to deny, and begin to doubt. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. + +THE DOCTOR'S STUDY. + + +Paul Faber's condition, as he sat through the rest of that night in his +study, was about as near absolute misery as a man's could well be, in +this life, I imagine. The woman he had been watching through the first +part of it as his essential bliss, he had left in a swoon, lying naked +on the floor, and would not and did not go near her again. How could he? +Had he not been duped, sold, married to----?--That way madness lay! His +pride was bitterly wounded. Would it had been mortally! but pride seems +in some natures to thrive upon wounds, as in others does love. Faber's +pride grew and grew as he sat and brooded, or, rather, was brooded upon. + +He, Paul Faber, who knew his own worth, his truth, his love, his +devotion--he, with his grand ideas of woman and purity and unity, +conscious of deserving a woman's best regards--he, whose love (to speak +truly his unworded, undefined impression of himself) any woman might be +proud to call hers--he to be thus deceived! to have taken to his bosom +one who had before taken another to hers, and thought it yet good enough +for him! It would not bear thinking! Indignation and bitterest sense of +wrong almost crazed him. For evermore he must be a hypocrite, going +about with the knowledge of that concerning himself which he would not +have known by others! This was how the woman, whom he had brought back +from death with the life of his own heart, had served him! Years ago she +had sacrificed her bloom to some sneaking wretch who flattered a God +with prayers, then enticed and bewitched and married _him_! + +In all this thinking there was no thought but for himself--not one for +the woman whose agony had been patent even to his wrath-blinded eyes. In +what is the wretchedness of our condition more evident than in this, +that the sense of wrong always makes us unjust? It is a most humbling +thought. God help us. He forgot how she had avoided him, resisted him, +refused to confess the love which his goodness, his importunities, his +besieging love had compelled in her heart. It was true she ought either +to have refused him absolutely and left him, or confessed and left the +matter with him; but he ought to have remembered for another, if ever he +had known it for himself, the hardness of some duties; and what duty +could be more torturing to a delicate-minded woman than either of +those--to leave the man she loved in passionate pain, sore-wounded with +a sense of undeserved cruelty, or to give him the strength to send her +from him by confessing to his face what she could not recall in the +solitude of her own chamber but the agony would break out wet on her +forehead! We do our brother, our sister, grievous wrong, every time +that, in our selfish justice, we forget the excuse that mitigates the +blame. That God never does, for it would be to disregard the truth. As +He will never admit a false excuse, so will He never neglect a true one. +It may be He makes excuses which the sinner dares not think of; while +the most specious of false ones shrivel into ashes before Him. A man is +bound to think of all just excuse for his offender, for less than the +righteousness of God will not serve his turn. + +I would not have my reader set Faber down as heartless, His life showed +the contrary. But his pride was roused to such furious self-assertion, +that his heart lay beaten down under the sweep of its cyclone. Its turn +was only delayed. The heart is always there, and rage is not. The heart +is a constant, even when most intermittent force. It can bide its time. +Nor indeed did it now lie quite still; for the thought of that white, +self-offered sacrifice, let him rave as he would against the +stage-trickery of the scene, haunted him so, that once and again he had +to rouse an evil will to restrain him from rushing to clasp her to his +bosom. + +Then there was the question: why now had she told him all--if indeed she +had made a clean breast of it? Was it from love to him, or reviving +honesty in herself? From neither, he said. Superstition alone was at the +root of it. She had been to church, and the preaching of that honest +idiotic enthusiast, Wingfold, had terrified her.--Alas! what refuge in +her terror had she found with her husband? + +Before morning he had made up his mind as to the course he would pursue. +He would not publish his own shame, but neither would he leave the +smallest doubt in her mind as to what he thought of her, or what he felt +toward her. All should be utterly changed between them. He would behave +to her with extreme, with marked politeness; he would pay her every +attention woman could claim, but her friend, her husband, he would be no +more. His thoughts of vengeance took many turns, some of them childish. +He would always call her _Mrs. Faber_. Never, except they had friends, +would he sit in the same room with her. To avoid scandal, he would dine +with her, if he could not help being at home, but when he rose from the +table, it would be to go to his study. If he happened at any time to be +in the room with her when she rose to retire, he would light her candle, +carry it up stairs for her, open the door, make her a polite bow, and +leave her. Never once would he cross the threshold of her bedroom. She +should have plenty of money; the purse of an adventuress was a greedy +one, but he would do his best to fill it, nor once reproach her with +extravagance--of which fault, let me remark, she had never yet shown a +sign. He would refuse her nothing she asked of him--except it were in +any way himself. As soon as his old aunt died, he would get her a +brougham, but never would he sit in it by her side. Such, he thought, +would be the vengeance of a gentleman. Thus he fumed and raved and +trifled, in an agony of selfish suffering--a proud, injured man; and all +the time the object of his vengeful indignation was lying insensible on +the spot where she had prayed to him, her loving heart motionless within +a bosom of ice. + +In the morning he went to his dressing-room, had his bath, and went down +to breakfast, half-desiring his wife's appearance, that he might begin +his course of vindictive torture. He could not eat, and was just rising +to go out, when the door opened, and the parlor-maid, who served also as +Juliet's attendant, appeared. + +"I can't find mis'ess nowhere, sir," she said. Faber understood at once +that she had left him, and a terror, neither vague nor ill-founded, +possessed itself of him. He sprung from his seat, and darted up the +stair to her room. Little more than a glance was necessary to assure him +that she had gone deliberately, intending it should be forever. The +diamond ring lay on her dressing-table, spending itself in flashing back +the single ray of the sun that seemed to have stolen between the +curtains to find it; her wedding ring lay beside it, and the sparkle of +the diamonds stung his heart like a demoniacal laughter over it, the +more horrible that it was so silent and so lovely: it was but three days +since, in his wife's presence, he had been justifying suicide with every +argument he could bring to bear. It was true he had insisted on a proper +regard to circumstances, and especially on giving due consideration to +the question, whether the act would hurt others more than it would +relieve the person contemplating it; but, after the way he had treated +her, there could be no doubt how Juliet, if she thought of it at all, +was compelled to answer it. He rushed to the stable, saddled Ruber, and +galloped wildly away. At the end of the street he remembered that he had +not a single idea to guide him. She was lying dead somewhere, but +whether to turn east or west or north or south to find her, he had not +the slightest notion. His condition was horrible. For a moment or two he +was ready to blow his brains out: that, if the orthodox were right, was +his only chance for over-taking her. What a laughing-stock he would then +be to them all! The strangest, wildest, maddest thoughts came and went +as of themselves, and when at last he found himself seated on Ruber in +the middle of the street, an hour seemed to have passed. It was but a +few moments, and the thought that roused him was: could she have betaken +herself to her old lodging at Owlkirk? It was not likely; it was +possible: he would ride and see. + +"They will say I murdered her," he said to himself as he rode--so little +did he expect ever to see her again. "I don't care. They may prove it if +they can, and hang me. I shall make no defense. It will be but a fit end +to the farce of life." + +He laughed aloud, struck his spurs in Ruber's flanks, and rode wildly. +He was desperate. He knew neither what he felt nor what he desired. If +he had found her alive, he would, I do not doubt, have behaved to her +cruelly. His life had fallen in a heap about him; he was ruined, and +she had done it, he said, he thought, he believed. He was not aware how +much of his misery was occasioned by a shrinking dread of the judgments +of people he despised. Had he known it, he would have been yet more +miserable, for he would have scorned himself for it. There is so much in +us that is beyond our reach! + +Before arriving at Owlkirk, he made up his mind that, if she were not +there, he would ride to the town of Broughill--not in the hope of any +news of her, but because there dwelt the only professional friend he had +in the neighborhood--one who sympathized with his view of things, and +would not close his heart against him because he did not believe that +this horrid, ugly, disjointed thing of a world had been made by a God of +love. Generally, he had been in the habit of dwelling on the loveliness +of its developments, and the beauty of the gradual adaptation of life to +circumstance; but now it was plainer to him than ever, that, if made at +all, it was made by an evil being; "--for," he said, and said truly, "a +conscious being without a heart must be an evil being." This was the +righteous judgment of a man who could, by one tender, consoling word, +have made the sun rise upon a glorious world of conscious womanhood, but +would not say that word, and left that world lying in the tortured chaos +of a slow disintegration. This conscious being with a heart, this Paul +Faber, who saw that a God of love was the only God supposable, set his +own pride so far above love, that his one idea was, to satisfy the +justice of his outraged dignity by the torture of the sinner!--even +while all the time dimly aware of rebuke in his soul. If she should have +destroyed herself, he said once and again as he rode, was it more than a +just sacrifice to his wronged honor? As such he would accept it. If she +had, it was best--best for her, and best for him! What so much did it +matter! She was very lovely!--true--but what was the quintessence of +dust to him? Where either was there any great loss? He and she would +soon be wrapped up in the primal darkness, the mother and grave of all +things, together!--no, not together; not even in the dark of nothingness +could they two any more lie together! Hot tears forced their way into +his eyes, whence they rolled down, the lava of the soul, scorching his +cheeks. He struck his spurs into Ruber fiercely, and rode madly on. + +At length he neared the outskirts of Broughill. He had ridden at a +fearful pace across country, leaving all to his horse, who had carried +him wisely as well as bravely. But Ruber, although he had years of good +work left in him, was not in his first strength, and was getting +exhausted with his wild morning. For, all the way, his master, +apparently unconscious of every thing else, had been immediately aware +of the slightest slackening of muscle under him, the least faltering of +the onward pace, and, in the temper of the savage, which wakes the +moment the man of civilization is hard put to it, the moment he flagged, +still drove the cruel spurs into his flanks, when the grand, unresenting +creature would rush forward at straining speed--not, I venture to think, +so much in obedience to the pain, as in obedience to the will of his +master, fresh recognized through the pain. + +Close to the high road, where they were now approaching it through the +fields, a rail-fence had just been put up, inclosing a piece of ground +which the owner wished to let for building. That the fact might be +known, he was about to erect a post with a great board announcing it. +For this post a man had dug the hole, and then gone to his dinner. The +inclosure lay between Faber and the road, in the direct line he was +taking. On went Ruber blindly--more blindly than his master knew, for, +with the prolonged running, he had partially lost his sight, so that he +was close to the fence before he saw it. But he rose boldly, and cleared +it--to light, alas! on the other side with a foreleg in the hole. Down +he came with a terrible crash, pitched his master into the road upon his +head, and lay groaning with a broken leg. Faber neither spoke nor moved, +but lay as he fell. A poor woman ran to his assistance, and finding she +could do nothing for him, hurried to the town for help. His friend, who +was the first surgeon in the place, flew to the spot, and had him +carried to his house. It was a severe case of concussion of the brain. + +Poor old Ruber was speedily helped to a world better than this for +horses, I trust. + +Meantime Glaston was in commotion. The servants had spread the frightful +news that their mistress had vanished, and their master ridden off like +a madman. "But he won't find her alive, poor lady! I don't think," was +the general close of their communication, accompanied by a would-be +wise and really sympathetic shake of the head. In this conclusion most +agreed, for there was a general impression of something strange about +her, partly occasioned by the mysterious way in which Mrs. Puckridge had +spoken concerning her illness and the marvelous thing the doctor had +done to save her life. People now supposed that she had gone suddenly +mad, or, rather, that the latent madness so plain to read in those +splendid eyes of hers had been suddenly developed, and that under its +influence she had rushed away, and probably drowned herself. Nor were +there wanting, among the discontented women of Glaston, some who +regarded the event--vaguely to their own consciousness, I gladly +admit--as _almost a judgment_ upon Faber for marrying a woman of whom +nobody knew any thing. + +Hundreds went out to look for the body down the river. Many hurried to +an old quarry, half full of water, on the road to Broughill, and peered +horror-stricken over the edge, but said nothing. The boys of Glaston +were mainly of a mind that the pond at the Old House was of all places +the most likely to attract a suicide, for with the fascination of its +horrors they were themselves acquainted. Thither therefore they sped; +and soon Glaston received its expected second shock in the tidings that +a lady's bonnet had been found floating in the frightful pool: while in +the wet mass the boys brought back with them, some of her acquaintance +recognized with certainty a bonnet they had seen Mrs. Faber wear. There +was no room left for doubt; the body of the poor lady was lying at the +bottom of the pool! A multitude rushed at once to the spot, although +they knew it was impossible to drag the pool, so deep was it, and for +its depth so small. Neither would she ever come to the surface, they +said, for the pikes and eels would soon leave nothing but the skeleton. +So Glaston took the whole matter for ended, and began to settle down +again to its own affairs, condoling greatly with the poor gentleman, +such a favorite! who, so young, and after such a brief experience of +marriage, had lost, in such a sad way, a wife so handsome, so amiable, +so clever. But some said a doctor ought to have known better than marry +such a person, however handsome, and they hoped it would be a lesson to +him. On the whole, so sorry for him was Glaston, that, if the doctor +could then have gone about it invisible, he would have found he had more +friends and fewer enemies than he had supposed. + +For the first two or three days no one was surprised that he did not +make his appearance. They thought he was upon some false trail. But when +four days had elapsed and no news was heard of him, for his friend knew +nothing of what had happened, had written to Mrs. Faber, and the letter +lay unopened, some began to hint that he must have had a hand in his +wife's disappearance, and to breathe a presentiment that he would never +more be seen in Glaston. On the morning of the fifth day, however, his +accident was known, and that he was lying insensible at the house of his +friend, Dr. May; whereupon, although here and there might be heard the +expression of a pretty strong conviction as to the character of the +visitation, the sympathy both felt and uttered was larger than before. +The other medical men immediately divided his practice amongst them, to +keep it together against his possible return, though few believed he +would ever again look on scenes darkened by the memory of bliss so +suddenly blasted. + +For weeks his recovery was doubtful, during which time, even if they had +dared, it would have been useless to attempt acquainting him with what +all believed the certainty of his loss. But when at length he woke to a +memory of the past, and began to desire information, his friend was +compelled to answer his questions. He closed his lips, bowed his head on +his breast, gave a great sigh, and held his peace. Every one saw that he +was terribly stricken. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII. + +THE MIND OF JULIET. + + +There was one, however, who, I must confess, was not a little relieved +at the news of what had befallen Faber. For, although far from desiring +his death, which indeed would have ruined some of her warmest hopes for +Juliet, Dorothy greatly dreaded meeting him. She was a poor dissembler, +hated even the shadow of a lie, and here was a fact, which, if truth +could conceal it, must not be known. Her dread had been, that, the first +time she saw Faber, it would be beyond her power to look innocent, that +her knowledge would be legible in her face; and much she hoped their +first encounter might be in the presence of Helen or some other ignorant +friend, behind whose innocent front she might shelter her conscious +secrecy. To truth such a silence must feel like a culpable deception, +and I do not think such a painful position can ever arise except from +wrong somewhere. Dorothy could not tell a lie. She could not try to tell +one; and if she had tried, she would have been instantly discovered +through the enmity of her very being to the lie she told; from her lips +it would have been as transparent as the truth. It is no wonder +therefore that she felt relieved when first she heard of the durance in +which Faber was lying. But she felt equal to the withholding from Juliet +of the knowledge of her husband's condition for the present. She judged +that, seeing she had saved her friend's life, she had some right to +think and choose for the preservation of that life. + +Meantime she must beware of security, and cultivate caution; and so +successful was she, that weeks passed, and not a single doubt associated +Dorothy with knowledge where others desired to know. Not even her father +had a suspicion in the direction of the fact. She knew he would one day +approve both of what she did, and of her silence concerning it. To tell +him, thoroughly as he was to be trusted, would be to increase the risk; +and besides, she had no right to reveal a woman's secret to a man. + +It was a great satisfaction, however, notwithstanding her dread of +meeting him, to hear that Faber had at length returned to Glaston; for +if he had gone away, how could they have ever known what to do? For one +thing, if he were beyond their knowledge, he might any day, in full +confidence, go and marry again. + +Her father not unfrequently accompanied her to the Old House, but Juliet +and she had arranged such signals, and settled such understandings, that +the simple man saw nothing, heard nothing, forefelt nothing. Now and +then a little pang would quaver through Dorothy's bosom, when she caught +sight of him peering down into the terrible dusk of the pool, or heard +him utter some sympathetic hope for the future of poor Faber; but she +comforted herself with the thought of how glad he would be when she was +able to tell him all, and how he would laugh over the story of their +precautions against himself. + +Her chief anxiety was for Juliet's health, even more for the sake of +avoiding discovery, than for its own. When the nights were warm she +would sometimes take her out in the park, and every day, one time or +another, would make her walk in the garden while she kept watch on the +top of the steep slope. Her father would sometimes remark to a friend +how Dorothy's love of solitude seemed to grow upon her; but the remark +suggested nothing, and slowly Juliet was being forgotten at Glaston. + +It seemed to Dorothy strange that she did not fall ill. For the first +few days she was restless and miserable as human being could be. She had +but one change of mood: either she would talk feverously, or sit in the +gloomiest silence, now and then varied with a fit of abandoned weeping. +Every time Dorothy came from Glaston, she would overwhelm her with +questions--which at first Dorothy could easily meet, for she spoke +absolute fact when she said she knew nothing concerning her husband. +When at length the cause of his absence was understood, she told her he +was with his friend, Dr. May, at Broughill. Knowing the universal belief +that she had committed suicide, nothing could seem more natural. But +when, day after day, she heard the same thing for weeks, she began to +fear he would never be able to resume his practice, at least at Glaston, +and wept bitterly at the thought of the evil she had brought upon him +who had given her life, and love to boot. For her heart was a genuine +one, and dwelt far more on the wrong her too eager love had done him, +than on the hardness with which he had resented it. Nay, she admired him +for the fierceness of his resentment, witnessing, in her eyes, to the +purity of the man whom his neighbors regarded as wicked. + +After the first day, she paid even less heed to any thing of a religious +kind with which Dorothy, in the strength of her own desire after a +perfect stay, sought to rouse or console her. When Dorothy ventured on +such ground, which grew more and more seldom, she would sit listless, +heedless, with a far-away look. Sometimes when Dorothy fancied she had +been listening a little, her next words would show that her thoughts had +been only with her husband. When the subsiding of the deluge of her +agony, allowed words to carry meaning to her, any hint at supernal +consolation made her angry, and she rejected every thing Dorothy said, +almost with indignation. To seem even to accept such comfort, she would +have regarded as traitorous to her husband. Not the devotion of the +friend who gave up to her all of her life she could call her own, +sufficed to make her listen even with a poor patience. So absorbed was +she in her trouble, that she had no feeling of what poor Dorothy had +done for her. How can I blame her, poor lady! If existence was not a +thing to be enjoyed, as for her it certainly was not at present, how was +she to be thankful for what seemed its preservation? There was much +latent love to Dorothy in her heart; I may go further and say there was +much latent love to God in her heart, only the latter was very latent as +yet. When her heart was a little freer from grief and the agony of loss, +she would love Dorothy; but God must wait with his own patience--wait +long for the child of His love to learn that her very sorrow came of His +dearest affection. Who wants such affection as that? says the unloving. +No one, I answer; but every one who comes to know it, glorifies it as +the only love that ever could satisfy his being. + +Dorothy, who had within her the chill of her own doubt, soon yielded to +Juliet's coldness, and ceased to say anything that could be called +religious. She saw that it was not the time to speak; she must content +herself with being. Nor had it ever been any thing very definite she +could say. She had seldom gone beyond the expression of her own hope, +and the desire that her friend would look up. She could say that all the +men she knew, from books or in life, of the most delicate honesty, the +most genuine repentance, the most rigid self-denial, the loftiest +aspiration, were Christian men; but she could neither say her knowledge +of history or of life was large, nor that, of the men she knew who +professed to believe, the greater part were honest, or much ashamed, or +rigid against themselves, or lofty toward God. She saw that her part was +not instruction, but ministration, and that in obedience to Jesus in +whom she hoped to believe. What matter that poor Juliet denied Him? If +God commended His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners +Christ died for us,' He would be pleased with the cup of cold water +given to one that was not a disciple. Dorothy dared not say she was a +disciple herself; she dared only say that right gladly would she become +one, if she could. If only the lovely, the good, the tender, the pure, +the grand, the adorable, were also the absolutely true!--true not in the +human idea only, but in absolute fact, in divine existence! If the story +of Jesus was true, then joy to the universe, for all was well! She +waited, and hoped, and prayed and ministered. + +There is a great power in quiet, for God is in it. Not seldom He seems +to lay His hand on one of His children, as a mother lays hers on the +restless one in the crib, to still him. Then the child sleeps, but the +man begins to live up from the lower depths of his nature. So the +winter comes to still the plant whose life had been rushing to blossom +and fruit. When the hand of God is laid upon a man, vain moan, and +struggle and complaint, it may be indignant outcry follows; but when, +outwearied at last, he yields, if it be in dull submission to the +inexorable, and is still, then the God at the heart of him, the God that +is there or the man could not be, begins to grow. This point Juliet had +not yet reached, and her trouble went on. She saw no light, no possible +outlet. Her cries, her longings, her agonies, could not reach even the +ears, could never reach the heart of the man who had cast her off. He +believed her dead, might go and marry another, and what would be left +her then? Nothing but the death from which she now restrained herself, +lest, as Dorothy had taught her, she should deny him the fruits of a +softening heart and returning love. The moment she heard that he sought +another, she would seek Death and assuredly find him. One letter she +would write to leave behind her, and then go. He should see and +understand that the woman he despised for the fault of the girl, was yet +capable of the noblest act of a wife: she would die that he might +live--that it might be well with her husband. Having entertained, +comprehended and settled this idea in her mind, she became quieter. +After this, Dorothy might have spoken without stirring up so angry an +opposition. But it was quite as well she did not know it, and did not +speak. + +I have said that Dorothy wondered she did not fall ill. There was a hope +in Juliet's mind of which she had not spoken, but upon which, though +vaguely, she built further hope, and which may have had part in her +physical endurance: the sight of his baby might move the heart of her +husband to pardon her! + +But the time, even with the preoccupation of misery, grew very dreary. +She had never had any resources in herself except her music, and even if +here she had had any opportunity of drawing upon that, what is music but +a mockery to a breaking heart? Was music ever born of torture, of +misery? It is only when the cloud of sorrow is sinking in the sun-rays, +that the song-larks awake and ascend. A glory of some sort must fringe +the skirts of any sadness, the light of the sorrowing soul itself must +be shed upon it, and the cloud must be far enough removed to show the +reflected light, before it will yield any of the stuff of which songs +are made. And this light that gathers in song, what is it but hope +behind the sorrow--hope so little recognized as such, that it is often +called despair? It is reviving and not decay that sings even the saddest +of songs. + +Juliet had had little consciousness of her own being as an object of +reflection. Joy and sorrow came and went; she had never brooded. Never +until now, had she known any very deep love. Even that she bore her +father had not ripened into the grand love of the woman-child. She +forgot quickly; she hoped easily; she had had some courage, and +naturally much activity; she faced necessity by instinct, and took +almost no thought for the morrow--but this after the fashion of the +birds, not after the fashion required of those who can consider the +birds; it is one thing to take no thought, for want of thought, and +another to take no thought, from sufficing thought, whose flower is +confidence. The one way is the lovely way of God in the birds--the +other, His lovelier way in his men and women. She had in her the making +of a noble woman--only that is true of every woman; and it was no truer +of her than of every other woman, that, without religion, she could +never be, in any worthy sense, a woman at all. I know how narrow and +absurd this will sound to many of my readers, but such simply do not +know what religion means, and think I do not know what a woman means. +Hitherto her past had always turned to a dream as it glided away from +her; but now, in the pauses of her prime agony, the tide rose from the +infinite sea to which her river ran, and all her past was borne back +upon her, even to her far-gone childish quarrels with her silly mother, +and the neglect and disobedience she had too often been guilty of toward +her father. And the center of her memories was the hot coal of that one +secret; around that they all burned and hissed. Now for the first time +her past _was_, and she cowered and fled from it, a slave to her own +history, to her own deeds, to her own concealment. Alas, like many +another terror-stricken child, to whom the infinite bosom of tenderness +and love stretches out arms of shelter and healing and life, she turned +to the bosom of death, and imagined there a shelter of oblivious +darkness! For life is a thing so deep, so high, so pure, so far above +the reach of common thought, that, although shadowed out in all the +harmonic glories of color, and speech, and song, and scent, and motion, +and shine, yea, even of eyes and loving hands, to common minds--and the +more merely intellectual, the commoner are they--it seems but a +phantasm. To unchildlike minds, the region of love and worship, to +which lead the climbing stairs of duty, is but a nephelocockygia; they +acknowledge the stairs, however, thank God, and if they will but climb, +a hand will be held out to them. Now, to pray to a God, the very thought +of whose possible existence might seem enough to turn the coal of a dead +life into a diamond of eternal radiance, is with many such enough to +stamp a man a fool. It will surprise me nothing in the new world to hear +such men, finding they are not dead after all, begin at once to argue +that they were quite right in refusing to act upon any bare +possibility--forgetting that the questioning of possibilities has been +the source of all scientific knowledge. They may say that to them there +seemed no possibility; upon which will come the question--whence arose +their incapacity for seeing it? In the meantime, that the same condition +which constitutes the bliss of a child, should also be the essential +bliss of a man, is incomprehensible to him in whom the child is dead, or +so fast asleep that nothing but a trumpet of terror can awake him. That +the rules of the nursery--I mean the nursery where the true mother is +the present genius, not the hell at the top of a London house--that the +rules of the nursery over which broods a wise mother with outspread +wings of tenderness, should be the laws also of cosmic order, of a +world's well-being, of national greatness, and of all personal dignity, +may well be an old-wives'-fable to the man who dabbles at saving the +world by science, education, hygiene and other economics. There is a +knowledge that will do it, but of that he knows so little, that he will +not allow it to be a knowledge at all. Into what would he save the +world? His paradise would prove a ten times more miserable condition +than that out of which he thought to rescue it. + +But any thing that gives objectivity to trouble, that lifts the cloud so +far that, if but for a moment, it shows itself a cloud, instead of being +felt an enveloping, penetrating, palsying mist--setting it where the +mind can in its turn prey upon it, can play with it, paint it, may come +to sing of it, is a great help toward what health may yet be possible +for the troubled soul. With a woman's instinct, Dorothy borrowed from +the curate a volume of a certain more attractive edition of Shakespeare +than she herself possessed, and left it in Juliet's way, so arranged +that it should open at the tragedy of Othello. She thought that, if she +could be drawn into sympathy with suffering like, but different and +apart from her own, it would take her a little out of herself, and +might lighten the pressure of her load. Now Juliet had never read a play +of Shakespeare in her life, and knew Othello only after the vulgar +interpretation, as the type, that is, of jealousy; but when, in a pause +of the vague reverie of feeling which she called thought, a touch of +ennui supervening upon suffering, she began to read the play, the +condition of her own heart afforded her the insight necessary for +descrying more truly the Othello of Shakespeare's mind. She wept for +Desdemona's innocence and hard fate; but she pitied more the far harder +fate of Othello, and found the death of both a consolation for the +trouble their troubles had stirred up in her. + +The curate was in the habit of scribbling on his books, and at the end +of the play, which left a large blank on the page, had written a few +verses: as she sat dreaming over the tragedy, Juliet almost +unconsciously took them in. They were these: + + In the hot hell o' + Jealousy shines Othello-- + Love in despair, + An angel in flames! + While pure Desdemona + Waits him alone, a + Ghost in the air, + White with his blames. + +Becoming suddenly aware of their import, she burst out weeping afresh, +but with a very different weeping--Ah, if it might be so! Soon then had +the repentant Othello, rushing after his wife, explained all, and +received easiest pardon: he had but killed her. Her Paul would not even +do that for her! He did not love her enough for that. If she had but +thrown herself indeed into the lake, then perhaps--who could tell!--she +might now be nearer to him than she should ever be in this world. + +All the time, Dorothy was much and vainly exercised as to what might +become possible for the bringing of them together again. But it was not +as if any misunderstanding had arisen between them: such a difficulty +might any moment be removed by an explanation. The thing that divided +them was the original misunderstanding, which lies, deep and black as +the pit, between every soul and the soul next it, where self and not God +is the final thought. The gulf is forever crossed by "bright shoots of +everlastingness," the lightnings of involuntary affection; but nothing +less than the willed love of an infinite devotion will serve to close +it; any moment it may be lighted up from beneath, and the horrible +distance between them be laid bare. Into this gulf it was that, with +absolute gift of himself, the Lord, doing like his Father, cast Himself; +and by such devotion alone can His disciples become fellow-workers with +Him, help to slay the evil self in the world, and rouse the holy self to +like sacrifice, that the true, the eternal life of men, may arise +jubilant and crowned. Then is the old man of claims and rights and +disputes and fears, re-born a child whose are all things and who claims +and fears nothing. + +In ignorance of Faber's mood, whether he mourned over his harshness, or +justified himself in resentment, Dorothy could but wait, and turned +herself again to think what could be done for the consolation of her +friend. + +Could she, knowing her prayer might be one which God would not grant, +urge her to pray! For herself, she knew, if there was a God, what she +desired must be in accordance with His will; but if Juliet cried to him +to give her back her husband, and He did not, would not the silent +refusal, the deaf ear of Heaven, send back the cry in settled despair +upon her spirit? With her own fear Dorothy feared for her friend. She +had not yet come to see that, in whatever trouble a man may find +himself, the natural thing being to make his request known, his brother +may heartily tell him to pray. Why, what can a man do but pray? He is +here--helpless; and his Origin, the breather of his soul, his God, may +be somewhere. And what else should he pray about but the thing that +troubles him? Not surely the thing that does not trouble him? What is +the trouble there for, but to make him cry? It is the pull of God at his +being. Let a man only pray. Prayer is the sound to which not merely is +the ear of the Father open, but for which that ear is listening. Let him +pray for the thing he thinks he needs: for what else, I repeat, can he +pray? Let a man cry for that in whose loss life is growing black: the +heart of the Father is open. Only let the man know that, even for his +prayer, the Father will not give him a stone. But let the man pray, and +let God see to it how to answer him. If in his childishness and +ignorance he should ask for a serpent, he will not give him a serpent. +But it may yet be the Father will find some way of giving him his +heart's desire. God only knows how rich God is in power of gift. See +what He has done to make Himself able to give to His own heart's desire. +The giving of His Son was as the knife with which He would divide +Himself amongst His children. He knows, He only, the heart, the needs, +the deep desires, the hungry eternity, of each of them all. Therefore +let every man ask of God, Who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth +not--and see at least what will come of it. + +But he will speak like one of the foolish if he say thus: "Let God hear +me, and give me my desire, and I will trust in Him." That would be to +tempt the Lord his God. If a father gives his children their will +instead of his, they may well turn on him again and say: "Was it then +the part of a father to give me a scorpion because, not knowing what it +was, I asked for it? I besought him for a fancied joy, and lo! it is a +sorrow for evermore!" + +But it may be that sometimes God indeed does so, and to such a possible +complaint has this reply in Himself: "I gave thee what thou wouldst, +because not otherwise could I teach the stiff-necked his folly. Hadst +thou been patient, I would have made the thing a joy ere I gave it thee; +I would have changed the scorpion into a golden beetle, set with rubies +and sapphires. Have thou patience now." + +One thing is clear, that poor Juliet, like most women, and more men, +would never have begun to learn any thing worth learning, if she had not +been brought into genuine, downright trouble. Indeed I am not sure but +some of those who seem so good as to require no trouble, are just those +who have already been most severely tried. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX. + +ANOTHER MIND. + + +But while the two ladies were free of all suspicion of danger, and +indeed were quite safe, they were not alone in the knowledge of their +secret. There was one who, for some time, had been on the track of it, +and had long ago traced it with certainty to its covert: indeed he had +all but seen into it from the first. But, although to his intimate +friends known as a great and indeed wonderful talker, he was generally +regarded as a somewhat silent man, and in truth possessed to perfection +the gift of holding his tongue. Except that his outward insignificance +was so great as to pass the extreme, he was not one to attract +attention; but those who knew Wingfold well, heard him speak of Mr. +Polwarth, the gate-keeper, oftener than of any other; and from what she +heard him say, Dorothy had come to have a great reverence for the man, +although she knew him very little. + +In returning from Nestley with Juliet by her side, Helen had taken the +road through Osterfield Park. When they reached Polwarth's gate, she +had, as a matter of course, pulled up, that they might have a talk with +the keeper. He had, on the few occasions on which he caught a passing +glimpse of Miss Meredith, been struck with a something in her that to +him seemed to take from her beauty--that look of strangeness, namely, +which every one felt, and which I imagine to have come of the +consciousness of her secret, holding her back from blending with the +human wave; and now, therefore, while the carriage stood, he glanced +often at her countenance. + +From long observation, much silence and gentle pondering; from constant +illness, and frequent recurrence of great suffering; from loving +acceptance of the same, and hence an overflowing sympathy with every +form of humanity, even that more dimly revealed in the lower animals, +and especially suffering humanity; from deep acquaintance with the +motions of his own spirit, and the fullest conviction that one man is as +another; from the entire confidence of all who knew him, and the results +of his efforts to help them; above all, from persistently dwelling in +the secret place of the Most High, and thus entering into the hidden +things of life from the center whence the issues of them diverged--from +all these had been developed in him, through wisest use, an insight into +the natures of men, a power of reading the countenance, an apprehension +of what was moving in the mind, a contact, almost for the moment a +junction with the goings on of their spirits, which at times revealed to +him not only character, and prevailing purpose or drift of nature, but +even the main points of a past moral history. Sometimes indeed he would +recoil with terror from what seemed the threatened dawn in him of a +mysterious power, probably latent in every soul, of reading the future +of a person brought within certain points of spiritual range. What +startled him, however, may have been simply an involuntary conclusion, +instantaneously drawn, from the plain convergence of all the forces in +and upon the individual toward a point of final deliverance or of near +catastrophe: when "the mortal instruments" are steadily working for +evil, the only hope of deliverance lies in catastrophe. + +When Polwarth had thus an opportunity of reading Juliet's countenance, +it was not wearing its usual expression: the ferment set at work in her +mind by the curate's sermon had intensified the strangeness of it, even +to something almost of definement; and it so arrested him that after the +ponies had darted away like birds, he stood for a whole minute in the +spot and posture in which they had left him. + +"I never saw Polwarth look _distrait_ before," said the curate, and was +about to ask Juliet whether she had not been bewitching him, when the +far-away, miserable look of her checked him, and he dropped back into +his seat in silence. + +But Polwarth had had no sudden insight into Juliet's condition; all he +had seen was, that she was strangely troubled--and that with no single +feeling; that there was an undecided contest in her spirit; that +something was required of her which she had not yet resolved to yield. +Almost the moment she vanished from his sight, it dawned upon him that +she had a secret. As one knows by the signs of the heavens that the +matter of a storm is in them and must break out, so Polwarth had read in +Juliet's sky the inward throes of a pent convulsion. + +He knew something of the doctor, for he had met him again and again +where he himself was trying to serve; but they had never had +conversation together. Faber had not an idea of what was in the creature +who represented to him one of Nature's failures at man-making; while +Polwarth, from what he heard and saw of the doctor, knew him better than +he knew himself; and although the moment when he could serve him had not +begun to appear, looked for such a moment to come. There was so much +good in the man, that his heart longed to give him something worth +having. How Faber would have laughed at the notion! But Polwarth felt +confident that one day the friendly doctor would be led out of the +miserable desert where he cropped thistles and sage and fancied himself +a hero. And now in the drawn look of his wife's face, in the broken +lights of her eye, in the absorption and the start, he thought he +perceived the quarter whence unwelcome deliverance might be on its way, +and resolved to keep attention awake for what might appear. In his +inmost being he knew that the mission of man is to help his neighbors. +But in as much as he was ready to help, he recoiled from meddling. To +meddle is to destroy the holy chance. Meddlesomeness is the very +opposite of helpfulness, for it consists in forcing your self into +another self, instead of opening your self as a refuge to the other. +They are opposite extremes, and, like all extremes, touch. It is not +correct that extremes meet; they lean back to back. To Polwarth, a human +self was a shrine to be approached with reverence, even when he bore +deliverance in his hand. Anywhere, everywhere, in the seventh heaven or +the seventh hell, he could worship God with the outstretched arms of +love, the bended knees of joyous adoration, but in helping his fellow, +he not only worshiped but served God--ministered, that is, to the wants +of God--doing it unto Him in the least of His. He knew that, as the +Father unresting works for the weal of men, so every son, following the +Master-Son, must work also. Through weakness and suffering he had +learned it. But he never doubted that his work as much as his bread +would be given him, never rushed out wildly snatching at something to do +for God, never helped a lazy man to break stones, never preached to +foxes. It was what the Father gave him to do that he cared to do, and +that only. It was the man next him that he helped--the neighbor in need +of the help he had. He did not trouble himself greatly about the +happiness of men, but when the time and the opportunity arrived in which +to aid the struggling birth of the eternal bliss, the whole strength of +his being responded to the call. And now, having felt a thread vibrate, +like a sacred spider he sat in the center of his web of love, and waited +and watched. + +In proportion as the love is pure, and only in proportion to that, can +such be a pure and real calling. The least speck of self will defile +it--a little more may ruin its most hopeful effort. + +Two days after, he heard, from some of the boys hurrying to the pond, +that Mrs. Faber was missing. He followed them, and from a spot beyond +the house, looking down upon the lake, watched their proceedings. He +saw them find her bonnet--a result which left him room to doubt. Almost +the next moment a wavering film of blue smoke rising from the Old House +caught his eye. It did not surprise him, for he knew Dorothy Drake was +in the habit of going there--knew also by her face for what she went: +accustomed to seek solitude himself, he knew the relations of it. Very +little had passed between them. Sometimes two persons are like two drops +running alongside of each other down a window-pane: one marvels how it +is they can so long escape running together. Persons fit to be bosom +friends will meet and part for years, and never say much beyond +good-morning and good-night. + +But he bethought him that he had not before known her light a fire, and +the day certainly was not a cold one. Again, how was it that with the +cries of the boys in her ears, searching for a sight of the body in her +very garden, she had never come from the house, or even looked from a +window? Then it came to his mind what a place for concealment the Old +House was: he knew every corner of it; and thus he arrived at what was +almost the conviction that Mrs. Faber was there. When a day or two had +passed, he was satisfied that, for some reason or other, she was there +for refuge. The reason must be a good one, else Dorothy would not be +aiding--and it must of course have to do with her husband. + +He next noted how, for some time, Dorothy never went through his gate, +although he saw reason to believe she went to the Old House every day. +After a while, however, she went through it every day. They always +exchanged a few words as she passed, and he saw plainly enough that she +carried a secret. By and by he began to see the hover of words unuttered +about her mouth; she wished to speak about something but could not quite +make up her mind to it. He would sometimes meet her look with the +corresponding look of "Well, what is it?" but thereupon she would +invariably seem to change her mind, would bid him good morning, and pass +on. + + + + +CHAPTER XL. + +A DESOLATION. + + +When Faber at length returned to Glaston, his friends were shocked at +his appearance. Either the hand of the Lord, or the hand of crushing +chance, had been heavy upon him. A pale, haggard, worn, enfeebled man, +with an eye of suffering, and a look that shrunk from question, he +repaired to his desolate house. In the regard of his fellow-townsmen he +was as Job appeared to the eyes of his friends; and some of them, who +knew no more of religion than the sound of its name, pitied him that he +had not the comfort of it. All Glaston was tender to him. He walked +feebly, seldom showed the ghost of a smile, and then only from kindness, +never from pleasure. His face was now almost as white as that of his +lost Juliet. His brother doctors behaved with brotherly truth. They had +attended to all his patients, poor as well as rich, and now insisted +that he should resume his labors gradually, while they fulfilled his +lack. So at first he visited only his patients in the town, for he was +unable to ride; and his grand old horse, Ruber, in whom he trusted, and +whom he would have ventured sooner to mount than Niger, was gone! For +weeks he looked like a man of fifty; and although by degrees the +restorative influences of work began to tell upon him, he never +recovered the look of his years. Nobody tried to comfort him. Few dared, +for very reverence, speak to the man who carried in him such an awful +sorrow. Who would be so heartless as counsel him to forget it? and what +other counsel was there for one who refused like him? Who could have +brought himself to say to him--"There is loveliness yet left, and within +thy reach: take the good, etc.; forget the nothing that has been, in the +something that may yet for awhile avoid being nothing too; comfort thy +heart with a fresh love: the time will come to forget both, in the +everlasting tomb of the ancient darkness"? Few men would consent to be +comforted in accordance with their professed theories of life; and more +than most would Faber, at this period of his suffering, have scorned +such truth for comfort. As it was, men gave him a squeeze of the hand, +and women a tearful look; but from their sympathy he derived no +faintest pleasure, for he knew he deserved nothing that came from heart +of tenderness. Not that he had begun to condemn himself for his hardness +to the woman who, whatever her fault, yet honored him by confessing it, +or to bemoan her hard fate to whom a man had not been a hiding-place +from the wind, a covert from the tempest of life, a shadow-shelter from +the scorching of her own sin. As he recovered from the double shock, +and, his strength slowly returning, his work increased, bringing him +again into the run of common life, his sense of desolation increased. As +his head ached less, his heart ached the more, nor did the help he +ministered to his fellows any longer return in comfort to himself. +Hitherto his regard of annihilation had been as of something so distant, +that its approach was relatively by degrees infinitesimal, but as the +days went on, he began to derive a gray consolation from the thought +that he must at length cease to exist. He would not hasten the end; he +would be brave, and see the play out. Only it was all so dull! If a +woman looked kindly at him, if for a moment it gave him pleasure, the +next it was as an arrow in his heart. What a white splendor was vanished +from his life! Where were those great liquid orbs of radiating +darkness?--where was that smile with its flash of whiteness?--that form +so lithe, yet so stately, so perfect in modulation?--where were those +hands and feet that spoke without words, and took their own way with his +heart?--those arms--? His being shook to its center. One word of +tenderness and forgiveness, and all would have been his own still!--But +on what terms?--Of dishonor and falsehood, he said, and grew hard again. +He was sorry for Juliet, but she and not he was to blame. She had ruined +his life, as well as lost her own, and his was the harder case, for he +had to live on, and she had taken with her all the good the earth had +for him. She had been the sole object of his worship; he had +acknowledged no other divinity; she was the loveliness of all things; +but she had dropped from her pedestal, and gone down in the sea that +flows waveless and windless and silent around the worlds. Alas for life! +But he would bear on till its winter came. The years would be as tedious +as hell; but nothing that ends can be other than brief. Not willingly +even yet would he fail of what work was his. The world was bad enough; +he would not leave it worse than he had found it. He would work life +out, that he might die in peace. Fame truly there was none for him, but +his work would not be lost. The wretched race of men would suffer a +little the less that he had lived. Poor comfort, if more of health but +ministered to the potency of such anguish as now burrowed in him like a +mole of fire! + +There had been a time when, in the young pathos of things, he would shut +his eyes that the sunset might not wound him so sore; now, as he rode +homeward into the fronting sunset, he felt nothing, cared for nothing, +only ached with a dull aching through body and soul. He was still kind +to his fellows, but the glow of the kindness had vanished, and truest +thanks hardly waked the slightest thrill. + +He very seldom saw Wingfold now, and less than ever was inclined toward +his doctrine; for had it not been through him this misery had come upon +him? Had he not, with the confidence of all the sciences, uttered the +merest dreams as eternal truths? How could poor Juliet help supposing he +knew the things he asserted, and taking them for facts? The human heart +was the one unreasonable thing, sighing ever after that which is not! +Sprung from nothing, it yet desired a creator!--at least some hearts did +so: his did not; he knew better! + +There was of course no reason in this. Was the thing not a fact which +she had confessed? was he not a worshiper of fact? did he not even +dignify it with the name of truth? and could he wish his wife had kept +the miserable fact to herself, leaving him to his fools'-paradise of +ignorance? Why then should he feel resentment against the man whose +teaching had only compelled her to confess it?--But the thing was out of +the realm of science and its logic. + +Sometimes he grew fierce, and determined to face every possible agony, +endure all, and dominate his misery; but ever and anon it returned with +its own disabling sickness, bringing the sense of the unendurable. Of +his own motion he saw nobody except in his practice. He studied hard, +even to weariness and faintness, contrived strange experiments, and +caught, he believed, curious peeps into the house of life. Upon them he +founded theories as wild as they were daring, and hob-nobbed with death +and corruption. But life is at the will of the Maker, and misery can not +kill it. By degrees a little composure returned, and the old keen look +began to revive. But there were wrinkles on the forehead that had +hitherto been smooth as ivory; furrows, the dry water-courses of sorrow, +appeared on his cheeks, and a few silvery threads glinted in his hair. +His step was heavy, and his voice had lost its ring--the cheer was out +of it. He no more obtruded his opinions, for, as I have said, he shrunk +from all interchange, but he held to them as firmly as ever. He was not +to be driven from the truth by suffering! But there was a certain +strange movement in his spirit of which he took no note--a feeling of +resentment, as if against a God that yet did not exist, for making upon +him the experiment whether he might not, by oppression, be driven to +believe in Him. + +When Dorothy knew of his return, and his ways began to show that he +intended living just as before his marriage, the time seemed come for +telling Juliet of the accident and his recovery from the effects of it. +She went into violent hysterics, and the moment she could speak, blamed +Dorothy bitterly for not having told her before. + +"It is all your lying religion!" she said. + +"Your behavior, Juliet," answered Dorothy, putting on the matron, and +speaking with authority, "shows plainly how right I was. You were not to +be trusted, and I knew it. Had I told you, you would have rushed to him, +and been anything but welcome. He would not even have known you; and you +would have been two on the doctor's hands. You would have made +everything public, and when your husband came to himself, would probably +have been the death of him after all." + +"He may have begun to think more kindly of me by that time," said +Juliet, humbled a little. + +"We must not act on _may-haves_," answered Dorothy. + +"You say he looks wretched now," suggested Juliet. + +"And well he may, after concussion of the brain, not to mention what +preceded it," said Dorothy. + +She had come to see that Juliet required very plain speaking. She had so +long practiced the art of deceiving herself that she was skillful at it. +Indeed, but for the fault she had committed, she would all her life long +have been given to petting and pitying, justifying and approving of +herself. One can not help sometimes feeling that the only chance for +certain persons is to commit some fault sufficient to shame them out of +the self-satisfaction in which they burrow. A fault, if only it be great +and plain enough to exceed their powers of self-justification, may then +be, of God's mercy, not indeed an angel of light to draw them, but +verily a goblin of darkness to terrify them out of themselves. For the +powers of darkness are His servants also, though incapable of knowing +it: He who is first and last can, even of those that love the lie, make +slaves of the truth. And they who will not be sons shall be slaves, let +them rant and wear crowns as they please in the slaves' quarters. + +"You must not expect him to get over such a shock all at once," said +Dorothy. "--It may be," she continued, "that you were wrong in running +away from him. I do not pretend to judge between you, but, perhaps, +after the injury you had done him, you ought to have left it with him to +say what you were to do next. By taking it in your own hands, you may +have only added to the wrong." + +"And who helped me?" returned Juliet, in a tone of deep reproach. + +"Helped you to run from him, Juliet!--Really, if you were in the habit +of behaving to your husband as you do to me--!" She checked herself, and +resumed calmly--"You forget the facts of the case, my dear. So far from +helping you to run from him, I stopped you from running so far that +neither could he find you, nor you return to him again. But now we must +make the best of it by waiting. We must find out whether he wants you +again, or your absence is a relief to him. If I had been a man, I should +have been just as wild as he." + +She had seen in Juliet some signs that self-abhorrence was wanting, and +self-pity reviving, and she would connive at no unreality in her +treatment of herself. She was one thing when bowed to the earth in +misery and shame, and quite another if thinking herself hardly used on +all sides. + +It was a strange position for a young woman to be in--that of watcher +over the marriage relations of two persons, to neither of whom she could +be a friend otherwise than _ab extra_. Ere long she began almost to +despair. Day after day she heard or saw that Faber continued sunk in +himself, and how things were going there she could not tell. Was he +thinking about the wife he had lost, or brooding over the wrong she had +done him? There was the question--and who was to answer it? At the same +time she was all but certain, that, things being as they were, any +reconciliation that might be effected would owe itself merely to the +raising, as it were of the dead, and the root of bitterness would soon +trouble them afresh. If but one of them had begun the task of +self-conquest, there would be hope for both. But of such a change there +was in Juliet as yet no sign. + +Dorothy then understood her position--it was wonderful with what +clearness, but solitary necessity is a hot sun to ripen. What was she to +do? To what quarter--could she to any quarter look for help? Naturally +she thought first of Mr. Wingfold. But she did not feel at all sure that +he would consent to receive a communication upon any other understanding +than that he was to act in the matter as he might see best; and would it +be right to acquaint him with the secret of another when possibly he +might feel bound to reveal it? Besides, if he kept it hid, the result +might be blame to him; and blame, she reasoned, although a small matter +in regard to one like herself, might in respect of a man in the curate's +position involve serious consequences. While she thus reflected, it came +into her mind with what enthusiasm she had heard him speak of Mr. +Polwarth, attributing to him the beginnings of all enlightenment he had +himself ever received. Without this testimony, she would not have once +thought of him. Indeed she had been more than a little doubtful of him, +for she had never felt attracted to him, and from her knowledge of the +unhealthy religious atmosphere of the chapel, had got unreasonably +suspicious of cant. She had not had experience enough to distinguish +with any certainty the speech that comes from the head and that which +comes out of the fullness of the heart. A man must talk out of that +which is in him; his well must give out the water of its own spring; but +what seems a well maybe only a cistern, and the water by no means living +water. What she had once or twice heard him say, had rather repelled +than drawn her; but Dorothy had faith, and Mr. Wingfold had spoken. +Might she tell him? Ought she not to seek his help? Would he keep the +secret? Could he help if he would? Was he indeed as wise as they said? + +In the meantime, little as she thought it, Polwarth had been awaiting a +communication from her; but when he found that the question whose +presence was so visible in her whole bearing, neither died nor bore +fruit, he began to think whether he might not help her to speak. The +next time, therefore, that he opened the gate to her, he held in his +hand a little bud he had just broken from a monthly rose. It was a hard +little button, upon which the green leaves of its calyx clung as if +choking it. + +"What is the matter with this bud, do you think, Miss Drake?" he asked. + +"That you have plucked it," she answered sharply, throwing a suspicious +glance in his face. + +"No; that can not be it," he answered with a quiet smile of +intelligence. "It has been just as you see it for the last three days. I +only plucked it the moment I saw you coming." + +"Then the frost has caught it." + +"The frost _has_ caught it," he answered; "but I am not quite sure +whether the cause of its death was not rather its own life than the +frost." + +"I don't see what you mean by that, Mr. Polwarth," said Dorothy, +doubtfully, and with a feeling of discomfort. + +"I admit it sounds paradoxical," returned the little man. "What I mean +is, that the struggle of the life in it to unfold itself, rather than +any thing else, was the cause of its death." + +"But the frost was the cause of its not being able to unfold itself," +said Dorothy. + +"That I admit," said Polwarth; "and perhaps a weaker life in the flower +would have yielded sooner. I may have carried too far an analogy I was +seeking to establish between it and the human heart, in which repression +is so much more dangerous than mere oppression. Many a heart has +withered like my poor little bud, because it did not know its friend +when it saw him." + +Dorothy was frightened. He knew something! Or did he only suspect? +Perhaps he was merely guessing at her religious troubles, wanting to +help her. She must answer carefully. + +"I have no doubt you are right, Mr. Polwarth," she said; "but there are +some things it is not wise, and other things it would not be right to +speak about." + +"Quite true," he answered. "I did not think it wise to say any thing +sooner, but now I venture to ask how the poor lady does?" + +"What lady?" returned Dorothy, dreadfully startled, and turning white. + +"Mrs. Faber," answered Polwarth, with the utmost calmness. "Is she not +still at the Old House?" + +"Is it known, then?" faltered Dorothy. + +"To nobody but myself, so far as I am aware," replied the gatekeeper. + +"And how long have you known it?" + +"From the very day of her disappearance, I may say." + +"Why didn't you let me know sooner?" said Dorothy, feeling aggrieved, +though she would have found it hard to show wherein lay the injury. + +"For more reasons than one," answered Polwarth; "but one will be enough: +you did not trust me. It was well therefore to let you understand I +could keep a secret. I let you know now only because I see you are +troubled about her. I fear you have not got her to take any comfort, +poor lady!" + +Dorothy stood silent, gazing down with big, frightened eyes at the +strange creature who looked steadfastly up at her from under what seemed +a huge hat--for his head was as large as that of a tall man. He seemed +to be reading her very thoughts. + +"I can trust you, Miss Drake," he resumed. "If I did not, I should have +at once acquainted the authorities with my suspicions; for, you will +observe, you are hiding from a community a fact which it has a right to +know. But I have faith enough in you to believe that you are only +waiting a fit time, and have good reasons for what you do. If I can give +you any help, I am at your service." + +He took off his big hat, and turned away into the house. + +Dorothy stood fixed for a moment or two longer, then walked slowly away, +with her eyes on the ground. Before she reached the Old House, she had +made up her mind to tell Polwarth as much as she could without betraying +Juliet's secret, and to ask him to talk to her, for which she would +contrive an opportunity. + +For some time she had been growing more anxious every day. No sign of +change showed in any quarter; no way opened through the difficulties +that surrounded them, while these were greatly added to by the +likelihood appearing that another life was on its way into them. What +was to be done? How was she in her ignorance so to guard the hopeless +wife that motherhood might do something to console her? She had two +lives upon her hands, and did indeed want counsel. The man who knew +their secret already--the minor prophet, she had heard the curate call +him--might at least help her to the next step she must take. + +Juliet's mental condition was not at all encouraging. She was often +ailing and peevish, behaving as if she owed Dorothy grudge instead of +gratitude. And indeed to herself Dorothy would remark that if nothing +more came out of it than seemed likely now, Juliet would be under no +very ponderous obligation to her. She found it more and more difficult +to interest her in any thing. After Othello she did not read another +play. Nothing pleased her but to talk about her husband. If Dorothy had +seen him, Juliet had endless questions to put to her about him; and when +she had answered as many of them as she could, she would put them all +over again afresh. On one occasion when Dorothy could not say she +believed he was, when she saw him, thinking about his wife, Juliet went +into hysterics. She was growing so unmanageable that if Dorothy had not +partially opened her mind to Polwarth, she must at last have been +compelled to give her up. The charge was wearing her out; her strength +was giving way, and her temper growing so irritable that she was ashamed +of herself--and all without any good to Juliet. Twice she hinted at +letting her husband know where she was, but Juliet, although, on both +occasions, she had a moment before been talking as if Dorothy alone +prevented her from returning to him, fell on her knees in wild distress, +and entreated her to bear with her. At the smallest approach of the idea +toward actuality, the recollection rushed scorching back--of how she had +implored him, how she had humbled herself soul and body before him, how +he had turned from her with loathing, would not put forth a hand to lift +her from destruction and to restore her to peace, had left her naked on +the floor, nor once returned "to ask the spotted princess how she +fares"--and she shrunk with agony from any real thought of again +supplicating his mercy. + +Presently another difficulty began to show in the near distance: Mr. +Drake, having made up his mind as to the alterations he would have +effected, had begun to think there was no occasion to put off till the +spring, and talked of commencing work in the house at no distant day. +Dorothy therefore proposed to Juliet that, as it was impossible to +conceal her there much longer, she should go to some distant part of the +country, where she would contrive to follow her. But the thought of +moving further from her husband, whose nearness, though she dared not +seek him, seemed her only safety, was frightful to Juliet. The wasting +anxiety she caused Dorothy did not occur to her. Sorrow is not selfish, +but many persons are in sorrow entirely selfish. It makes them so +important in their own eyes, that they seem to have a claim upon all +that people can do for them. + +To the extent therefore, of what she might herself have known without +Juliet's confession, Dorothy, driven to her wits' end, resolved to open +the matter to the gatekeeper; and accordingly, one evening on her way +home, called at the lodge, and told Polwarth where and in what condition +she had found Mrs. Faber, and what she had done with her; that she did +not think it the part of a friend to advise her return to her husband at +present; that she would not herself hear of returning; that she had no +comfort, and her life was a burden to her; and that she could not +possibly keep her concealed much longer, and did not know what next to +do. + +Polwarth answered only that he must make the acquaintance of Mrs. Faber. +If that could be effected, he believed he should be able to help them +out of their difficulties. Between them, therefore, they must arrange a +plan for his meeting her. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI. + +THE OLD GARDEN. + + +The next morning, Juliet, walking listlessly up and down the garden, +turned the corner of a yew hedge, and came suddenly upon a figure that +might well have appeared one of the kobolds of German legend. He was +digging slowly but steadily, crooning a strange song--so low that, until +she saw him she did not hear him. + +She started back in dismay. The kobold neither raised his head nor +showed other sign than the ceasing of his song that he was aware of her +presence. Slowly and steadily he went on with his work. He was trenching +the ground deep, still throwing the earth from the bottom to the top. +Juliet, concluding he was deaf, and the ceasing of his song accidental, +turned softly, and would have retreated. But Polwarth, so far from being +deaf, heard better than most people. His senses, indeed, had been +sharpened by his infirmities--all but those of taste and smell, which +were fitful, now dull and now exquisitely keen. At the first movement +breaking the stillness into which consternation had cast her, he spoke. + +"Can you guess what I am doing, Mrs. Faber?" he said, throwing up a +spadeful and a glance together, like a man who could spare no time from +his work. + +Juliet's heart got in the way, and she could not answer him. She felt +much as a ghost, wandering through a house, might feel, if suddenly +addressed by the name she had borne in the old days, while yet she was +clothed in the garments of the flesh. Could it be that this man led such +a retired life that, although living so near Glaston, and seeing so many +at his gate, he had yet never heard that she had passed from the ken of +the living? Or could it be that Dorothy had betrayed her? She stood +quaking. The situation was strange. Before her was a man who did not +seem to know that what he knew concerning her was a secret from all the +world besides! And with that she had a sudden insight into the +consequence of the fact of her existence coming to her husband's +knowledge: would it not add to his contempt and scorn to know that she +was not even dead? Would he not at once conclude that she had been +contriving to work on his feelings, that she had been speculating on his +repentance, counting upon and awaiting such a return of his old +fondness, as would make him forget all her faults, and prepare him to +receive her again with delight?--But she must answer the creature! Ill +could she afford to offend him! But what was she to say? She had utterly +forgotten what he had said to her. She stood staring at him, unable to +speak. It was but for a few moments, but they were long as minutes. And +as she gazed, it seemed as if the strange being in the trench had dug +his way up from the lower parts of the earth, bringing her secret with +him, and come to ask her questions. What an earthy yet unearthly look he +had! Almost for the moment she believed the ancient rumors of other +races than those of mankind, that shared the earth with them, but led +such differently conditioned lives, that, in the course of ages, only a +scanty few of the unblending natures crossed each other's path, to stand +astare in mutual astonishment. + +Polwarth went on digging, nor once looked up. After a little while he +resumed, in the most natural way, speaking as if he had known her well: + +"Mr. Drake and I were talking, some weeks ago, about a certain curious +little old-fashioned flower in my garden at the back of the lodge. He +asked me if I could spare him a root of it. I told him I could spare him +any thing he would like to have, but that I would gladly give him every +flower in my garden, roots and all, if he would but let me dig three +yards square in his garden at the Old House, and have all that came up +of itself for a year." + +He paused again. Juliet neither spoke nor moved. He dug rather feebly +for a gnome, with panting, asthmatic breath. + +"Perhaps you are not aware, ma'am," he began again, and ceasing his +labor stood up leaning on the spade, which was nearly as high as +himself, "that many of the seeds which fall upon the ground do not grow, +yet, strange to tell, retain the power of growth. I suspect myself, but +have not had opportunity of testing the conjecture, that such fall in +their pods, or shells, and that before these are sufficiently decayed to +allow the sun and moisture and air to reach them, they have got covered +up in the soil too deep for those same influences. They say fishes a +long time bedded in ice will come to life again: I can not tell about +that, but it is well enough known that if you dig deep in any old +garden, such as this, ancient, perhaps forgotten flowers, will appear. +The fashion has changed, they have been neglected or uprooted, but all +the time their life is hid below. And the older they are, the nearer +perhaps to their primary idea!" + +By this time she was far more composed, though not yet had she made up +her mind what to say, or how to treat the dilemma in which she found +herself. + +After a brief pause therefore, he resumed again: + +"I don't fancy," he said, with a low, asthmatic laugh, "that we shall +have many forgotten weeds come up. They all, I suspect, keep pretty well +in the sun. But just think how the fierce digging of the crisis to which +the great Husbandman every now and then leads a nation, brings back to +the surface its old forgotten flowers. What virtues, for instance, the +Revolution brought to light as even yet in the nature of the corrupted +nobility of France!" + +"What a peculiar goblin it is!" thought Juliet, beginning to forget +herself a little in watching and listening to the strange creature. She +had often seen him before, but had always turned from him with a kind of +sympathetic shame: of course the poor creature could not bear to be +looked at; he must know himself improper! + +"I have sometimes wondered," Polwarth yet again resumed, "whether the +troubles without end that some people seem born to--I do not mean those +they bring upon themselves--may not be as subsoil plows, tearing deep +into the family mold, that the seeds of the lost virtues of their race +may in them be once more brought within reach of sun and air and dew. It +would be a pleasant, hopeful thought if one might hold it. Would it not, +ma'am?" + +"It would indeed," answered Juliet with a sigh, which rose from an +undefined feeling that if some hidden virtue would come up in her, it +would be welcome. How many people would like to be good, if only they +might be good without taking trouble about it! They do not like goodness +well enough to hunger and thirst after it, or to sell all that they have +that they may buy it; they will not batter at the gate of the kingdom of +Heaven; but they look with pleasure on this or that aerial castle of +righteousness, and think it would be rather nice to live in it! They do +not know that it is goodness all the time their very being is pining +after, and that they are starving their nature of its necessary food. +Then Polwarth's idea turned itself round in Juliet's mind, and grew +clearer, but assumed reference to weeds only, and not flowers. She +thought how that fault of hers had, like the seed of a poison-plant, +been buried for years, unknown to one alive, and forgotten almost by +herself--so diligently forgotten indeed, that it seemed to have +gradually slipped away over the horizon of her existence; and now here +it was at the surface again in all its horror and old reality! nor that +merely, for already it had blossomed and borne its rightful fruit of +dismay--an evil pod, filled with a sickening juice, and swarming with +gray flies.--But she must speak, and, if possible, prevent the odd +creature from going and publishing in Glaston that he had seen Mrs. +Faber, and she was at the Old House. + +"How did you know I was here?" she asked abruptly. + +"How do you know that I knew, ma'am?" returned Polwarth, in a tone which +took from the words all appearance of rudeness. + +"You were not in the least surprised to see me," she answered. + +"A man," returned the dwarf, "who keeps his eyes open may almost cease +to be surprised at any thing. In my time I have seen so much that is +wonderful--in fact every thing seems to me so wonderful that I hardly +expect to be surprised any more." + +He said this, desiring to provoke conversation. But Juliet took the +answer for an evasive one, and it strengthened her suspicion of Dorothy. +She was getting tired of her! Then there was only one thing left!--The +minor prophet had betaken himself again to his work, delving deeper, and +throwing slow spadeful after spadeful to the surface. + +"Miss Drake told you I was here!" said Juliet. + +"No, indeed, Mrs. Faber. No one told me," answered Polwarth. "I learned +it for myself. I could hardly help finding it out." + +"Then--then--does every body know it?" she faltered, her heart sinking +within her at the thought. + +"Indeed, ma'am, so far as I know, not a single person is aware you are +alive except Miss Drake and myself. I have not even told my niece who +lives with me, and who can keep a secret as well as myself." + +Juliet breathed a great sigh of relief. + +"Will you tell me why you have kept it so secret?" she asked. + +"Because it was your secret, ma'am, not mine." + +"But you were under no obligation to keep my secret." + +"How do you justify such a frightful statement as that, ma'am?" + +"Why, what could it matter to you?" + +"Every thing." + +"I do not understand. You have no interest in me. You could have no +inducement." + +"On the contrary, I had the strongest inducement: I saw that an +opportunity might come of serving you." + +"But that is just the unintelligible thing to me. There is no reason why +you should wish to serve me!" said Juliet, thinking to get at the bottom +of some design. + +"There you mistake, ma'am. I am under the most absolute and imperative +obligation to serve you--the greatest under which any being can find +himself." + +"What a ridiculous, crooked little monster!" said Juliet to herself. But +she began the same moment to think whether she might not turn the +creature's devotion to good account. She might at all events insure his +silence. + +"Would you be kind enough to explain yourself?" she said, now also +interested in the continuance of the conversation. + +"I would at once," replied Polwarth, "had I sufficient ground for hoping +you would understand my explanation." + +"I do not know that I am particularly stupid," she returned, with a wan +smile. + +"I have heard to the contrary," said Polwarth. "Yet I can not help +greatly doubting whether you will understand what I am now going to tell +you. For I will tell you--on the chance: I have no secrets--that is, of +my own.--I am one of those, Mrs. Faber," he went on after a moment's +pause, but his voice neither became more solemn in tone, nor did he +cease his digging, although it got slower, "who, against the +_non-evidence_ of their senses, believe there is a Master of men, the +one Master, a right perfect Man, who demands of them, and lets them know +in themselves the rectitude of the demand that they also shall be right +and true men, that is, true brothers to their brothers and sisters of +mankind. It is recorded too, and I believe it, that this Master said +that any service rendered to one of His people was rendered to Himself. +Therefore, for love of His will, even if I had no sympathy with you, +Mrs. Faber, I should feel bound to help you. As you can not believe me +interested in yourself, I must tell you that to betray your secret for +the satisfaction of a love of gossip, would be to sin against my highest +joy, against my own hope, against the heart of God, from which your +being and mine draws the life of its every moment." + +Juliet's heart seemed to turn sick at the thought of such a creature +claiming brotherhood with her. That it gave ground for such a claim, +seemed for the moment an irresistible argument against the existence of +a God. + +In her countenance Polwarth read at once that he had blundered, and a +sad, noble, humble smile irradiated his. It had its effect on Juliet. +She would be generous and forgive his presumption: she knew dwarfs were +always conceited--that wise Nature had provided them with high thoughts +wherewith to add the missing cubit to their stature. What repulsive +things Christianity taught! Her very flesh recoiled from the poor ape! + +"I trust you are satisfied, ma'am," the kobold added, after a moment's +vain expectation of a word from Juliet, "that your secret is safe with +me." + +"I am," answered Juliet, with a condescending motion of her stately +neck, saying to herself in feeling if not in conscious thought,--"After +all he is hardly human! I may accept his devotion as I would that of a +dog!" + +The moment she had thus far yielded, she began to long to speak of her +husband. Perhaps he can tell her something of him! At least he could +talk about him. She would have been eager to look on his reflection, had +it been possible, in the mind of a dog that loved him. She would turn +the conversation in a direction that might find him. + +"But I do not see," she went on, "how you, Mr. Polwarth--I think that is +your name--how you can, consistently with your principles,--" + +"Excuse me, ma'am: I can not even, by silence, seem to admit that you +know any thing whatever of my principles." + +"Oh!" she returned, with a smile of generous confession, "I was brought +up to believe as you do." + +"That but satisfies me that for the present you are incapable of knowing +any thing of my principles." + +"I do not wonder at your thinking so," she returned, with the +condescension of superior education, as she supposed, and yet with the +first motion of an unconscious respect for the odd little monster.--He, +with wheezing chest, went on throwing up the deep, damp, fresh earth, to +him smelling of marvelous things. Ruth would have ached all over to see +him working so hard!--"Still," Juliet went on, "supposing your judgment +of me correct, that only makes it the stranger you should imagine that +in serving such a one, you are pleasing Him you call your Master. He +says whosoever denies Him before men He will deny before the angels of +God." + +"What my Lord says He will do, He will do, as He meant it when He said +it: what He tells me to do, I try to understand and do. Now He has told +me of all things not to say that good comes of evil. He condemned that +in the Pharisees as the greatest of crimes. When, therefore, I see a man +like your husband, helping his neighbors near and far, being kind, +indeed loving, and good-hearted to all men,"--Here a great sigh, checked +and broken into many little ones, came in a tremulous chain from the +bosom of the wife--"I am bound to say that man is not scattering his +Master abroad. He is indeed opposing Him in words: he speaks against the +Son of Man; but that the Son of Man Himself says shall be forgiven him. +If I mistake in this, to my own Master I stand or fall." + +"How can He be his Master if he does not acknowledge Him?" + +"Because the very tongue with which he denies Him is yet His. I am the +master of the flowers that will now grow by my labor, though not one of +them will know me--how much more must He be the Master of the men He +has called into being, though they do not acknowledge Him! If the story +of the gospel be a true one, as with my heart and soul and all that is +in me I believe it is, then Jesus of Nazareth is Lord and Master of Mr. +Faber, and for him not to acknowledge it is to fall from the summit of +his being. To deny one's Master, is to be a slave." + +"You are very polite!" said Mrs. Faber, and turned away. She recalled +her imaginary danger, however, and turning again, said, "But though I +differ from you in opinion, Mr. Polwarth, I quite recognize you as no +common man, and put you upon your honor with regard to my secret." + +"Had you entrusted me with your secret, ma'am, the phrase would have had +more significance. But, obeying my Master, I do not require to think of +my own honor. Those who do not acknowledge their Master, can not afford +to forget it. But if they do not learn to obey Him, they will find by +the time they have got through what they call life, they have left +themselves little honor to boast of." + +"He has guessed my real secret!" thought poor Juliet, and turning away +in confusion, without a word of farewell, went straight into the house. +But before Dorothy, who had been on the watch at the top of the slope, +came in, she had begun to hope that the words of the forward, +disagreeable, conceited dwarf had in them nothing beyond a general +remark. + +When Dorothy entered, she instantly accused her of treachery. Dorothy, +repressing her indignation, begged she would go with her to Polwarth. +But when they reached the spot, the gnome had vanished. + +He had been digging only for the sake of the flowers buried in Juliet, +and had gone home to lie down. His bodily strength was exhausted, but +will and faith and purpose never forsook the soul cramped up in that +distorted frame. When greatly suffering, he would yet suffer with his +will--not merely resigning himself to the will of God, but desiring the +suffering that God willed. When the wearied soul could no longer keep +the summit of the task, when not strength merely, but the consciousness +of faith and duty failed him, he would cast faith and strength and duty, +all his being, into the gulf of the Father's will, and simply suffer, no +longer trying to feel any thing--waiting only until the Life should send +him light. + +Dorothy turned to Juliet. + +"You might have asked Mr. Polwarth, Juliet, whether I had betrayed +you," she said. + +"Now I think of it, he did say you had not told him. But how was I to +take the word of a creature like that?" + +"Juliet," said Dorothy, very angry, "I begin to doubt if you were worth +taking the trouble for!" + +She turned from her, and walked toward the house. Juliet rushed after +her and caught her in her arms. + +"Forgive me, Dorothy," she cried. "I am not in my right senses, I do +believe. What _is_ to be done now this--man knows it?" + +"Things are no worse than they were," said Dorothy, as quickly appeased +as angered. "On the contrary, I believe we have the only one to help us +who is able to do it. Why, Juliet, why what am I to do with you when my +father sends the carpenters and bricklayers to the house? They will be +into every corner! He talks of commencing next week, and I am at my +wits' end." + +"Oh! don't forsake me, Dorothy, after all you have done for me," cried +Juliet. "If you turn me out, there never was creature in the world so +forlorn as I shall be--absolutely helpless, Dorothy!" + +"I will do all I can for you, my poor Juliet; but if Mr. Polwarth do not +think of some way, I don't know what will become of us. You don't know +what you are guilty of in despising him. Mr. Wingfold speaks of him as +far the first man in Glaston." + +Certainly Mr. Wingfold, Mr. Drew, and some others of the best men in the +place, did think him, of those they knew, the greatest in the kingdom of +Heaven. Glaston was altogether of a different opinion. Which was the +right opinion, must be left to the measuring rod that shall finally be +applied to the statures of men. + +The history of the kingdom of Heaven--need I say I mean a very different +thing from what is called _church-history?_--is the only history that +will ever be able to show itself a history--that can ever come to be +thoroughly written, or to be read with a clear understanding; for it +alone will prove able to explain itself, while in doing so it will +explain all other attempted histories as well. Many of those who will +then be found first in the eternal record, may have been of little +regard in the eyes of even their religious contemporaries, may have been +absolutely unknown to generations that came after, and were yet the men +of life and potency, working as light, as salt, as leaven, in the +world. When the real worth of things is, over all, the measure of their +estimation, then is the kingdom of our God and His Christ. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII. + +THE POTTERY. + + +It had been a very dry autumn, and the periodical rains had been long +delayed, so that the minister had been able to do much for the houses he +had bought, called the Pottery. There had been but just rain enough to +reveal the advantage of the wall he had built to compel the water to +keep the wider street. Thoroughly dry and healthy it was impossible to +make them, at least in the time; but it is one thing to have the water +all about the place you stand on, and another to be up to the knees in +it. Not at that point only, however, but at every spot where the water +could enter freely, he had done what he could provisionally for the +defense of his poor colony--for alas! how much among the well-to-do, in +town or city, are the poor like colonists only!--and he had great hopes +of the result. Stone and brick and cement he had used freely, and one or +two of the people about began to have a glimmering idea of the use of +money after a gospel fashion--that is, for thorough work where and +_because_ it was needed. The curate was full of admiration and sympathy. +But the whole thing gave great dissatisfaction to others not a few. For, +as the currents of inundation would be somewhat altered in direction and +increased in force by his obstructions, it became necessary for several +others also to add to the defenses of their property, and this of course +was felt to be a grievance. Their personal inconveniences were like the +shilling that hides the moon, and, in the resentment they occasioned, +blinded their hearts to the seriousness of the evils from which their +merely temporary annoyance was the deliverance of their neighbors. A +fancy of prescriptive right in their own comforts outweighed all the +long and heavy sufferings of the others. Why should not their neighbors +continue miserable, when they had been miserable all their lives +hitherto? Those who, on the contrary, had been comfortable all their +lives, and liked it so much, ought to continue comfortable--even at +their expense. Why not let well alone? Or if people would be so +unreasonable as to want to be comfortable too, when nobody cared a straw +about them, let them make themselves comfortable without annoying those +superior beings who had been comfortable all the time!--Persons who, +consciously or unconsciously, reason thus, would do well to read with a +little attention the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, wherein it +seems recognized that a man's having been used to a thing may be just +the reason, not for the continuance, but for the alteration of his +condition. In the present case the person who most found himself +aggrieved, was the dishonest butcher. A piece of brick wall which the +minister had built in contact with the wall of his yard, would +indubitably cause such a rise in the water at the descent into the area +of his cellar, that, in order to its protection in a moderate flood--in +a great one the cellar was always filled--the addition to its defense of +two or three more rows of bricks would be required, carrying a +correspondent diminution of air and light. It is one of the punishments +overtaking those who wrong their neighbors, that not only do they feel +more keenly than others any injury done to themselves, but they take +many things for injuries that do not belong to the category. It was but +a matter of a few shillings at the most, but the man who did not scruple +to charge the less careful of his customers for undelivered ounces, +gathering to pounds and pounds of meat, resented bitterly the necessity +of the outlay. He knew, or ought to have known, that he had but to +acquaint the minister with the fact, to have the thing set right at +once; but the minister had found him out, and he therefore much +preferred the possession of his grievance to its removal. To his friends +he regretted that a minister of the gospel should be so corrupted by the +mammon of unrighteousness as to use it against members of his own +church: that, he said, was not the way to make friends with it. But on +the pretense of a Christian spirit, he avoided showing Mr. Drake any +sign of his resentment; for the face of his neighbors shames a man whose +heart condemns him but shames him not. He restricted himself to +grumbling, and brooded to counterplot the mischiefs of the minister. +What right had he to injure him for the sake of the poor? Was it not +written in the Bible: Thou shall not favor the poor man in his cause? +Was it not written also: For every man shall bear his own burden? That +was common sense! He did his share in supporting the poor that were +church-members, but was he to suffer for improvements on Drake's +property for the sake of a pack of roughs! Let him be charitable at his +own cost! etc., etc. Self is prolific in argument. + +It suited Mr. Drake well, notwithstanding his church republican +theories, against which, in the abstract, I could ill object, seeing the +whole current of Bible teaching is toward the God-inspired ideal +commonwealth--it suited a man like Mr. Drake well, I say, to be an +autocrat, and was a most happy thing for his tenants, for certainly no +other system of government than a wise autocracy will serve in regard to +the dwellings of the poor. And already, I repeat, he had effected not a +little. Several new cottages had been built, and one incorrigible old +one pulled down. But it had dawned upon him that, however desirable it +might be on a dry hill-side, on such a foundation as this a cottage was +the worst form of human dwelling that could be built. For when the whole +soil was in time of rain like a full sponge, every room upon it was +little better than a hollow in a cloud, and the right thing must be to +reduce contact with the soil as much as possible. One high house, +therefore, with many stories, and stone feet to stand upon, must be the +proper kind of building for such a situation. He must lift the first +house from the water, and set as many more houses as convenient upon it. + +He had therefore already so far prepared for the building of such a +house as should lift a good many families far above all deluge; that is, +he had dug the foundation, and deep, to get at the more solid ground. In +this he had been precipitate, as not unfrequently in his life; for while +he was yet meditating whether he should not lay the foundation +altogether solid, of the unporous stone of the neighborhood, the rains +began, and there was the great hole, to stand all the winter full of +water, in the middle of the cottages! + +The weather cleared again, but after a St. Martin's summer unusually +prolonged, the rain came down in terrible earnest. Day after day, the +clouds condensed, grew water, and poured like a squeezed sponge. A wet +November indeed it was--wet overhead--wet underfoot--wet all round! and +the rivers rose rapidly. + +When the Lythe rose beyond a certain point, it overflowed into a hollow, +hardly a valley, and thereby a portion of it descended almost straight +to Glaston. Hence it came that in a flood the town was invaded both by +the rise of the river from below, and by this current from above, on its +way to rejoin the main body of it, and the streets were soon turned into +canals. The currents of the slowly swelling river and of its temporary +branch then met in Pine street, and formed not a very rapid, but a heavy +run at ebb tide; for Glaston, though at some distance from the mouth of +the river, measuring by its course, was not far from the sea, which was +visible across the green flats, a silvery line on the horizon. Landward, +beyond the flats, high ground rose on all sides, and hence it was that +the floods came down so deep upon Glaston. + +On a certain Saturday it rained all the morning heavily, but toward the +afternoon cleared a little, so that many hoped the climax had been +reached, while the more experienced looked for worse. After sunset the +clouds gathered thicker than before, and the rain of the day was as +nothing to the torrent descending with a steady clash all night. When +the slow, dull morning came Glaston stood in the middle of a brown lake, +into which water was rushing from the sky in straight, continuous lines. +The prospect was discomposing. Some, too confident in the apparent +change, had omitted needful precautions, in most parts none were now +possible, and in many more none would have been of use. Most cellars +were full, and the water was rising on the ground-floors. It was a very +different affair from a flood in a mountainous country, but serious +enough, though without immediate danger to life. Many a person that +morning stepped out of bed up to the knee in muddy water. + +With the first of the dawn the curate stood peering from the window of +his dressing-room, through the water that coursed down the pane, to +discover the state of the country; for the window looked inland from the +skirt of the town. All was gray mist, brown water, and sheeting rain. +The only things clear were that not a soul would be at church that +morning, and that, though he could do nothing to divide them the bread +needful for their souls, he might do something for some of their bodies. +It was a happy thing it was Sunday, for, having laid in their stock of +bread the day before, people were not so dependent on the bakers, half +whose ovens must now be full of water. But most of the kitchens must be +flooded, he reasoned, the fire-wood soaking, and the coal in some +cellars inaccessible. The very lucifer-matches in many houses would be +as useless as the tinderbox of a shipwrecked sailor. And if the rain +were to cease at once the water would yet keep rising for many hours. He +turned from the window, took his bath in homoeopathic preparation, and +then went to wake his wife. + +She was one of those blessed women who always open their eyes smiling. +She owed very little of her power of sympathy to personal suffering; the +perfection of her health might have made one who was too anxious for her +spiritual growth even a little regretful. Her husband therefore had +seldom to think of sparing her when any thing had to be done. She could +lose a night's sleep without the smallest injury, and stand fatigue +better than most men; and in the requirements of the present necessity +there would be mingled a large element of adventure, almost of frolic, +full of delight to a vigorous organization. + +"What a good time of it the angels of wind and flame must have!" said +the curate to himself as he went to wake her. "What a delight to be +embodied as a wind, or a flame, or a rushing sea!--Come, Helen, my help! +Glaston wants you," he said softly in her ear. + +She started up. + +"What is it, Thomas?" she said, holding her eyes wider open than was +needful, to show him she was capable. + +"Nothing to frighten you, darling," he answered, "but plenty to be done. +The river is out, and the people are all asleep. Most of them will have +to wait for their breakfast, I fear. We shall have no prayers this +morning." + +"But plenty of divine service," rejoined Helen, with a smile for what +her aunt called one of his whims, as she got up and seized some of her +garments. + +"Take time for your bath, dear," said her husband. + +"There will be time for that afterward," she replied. "What shall I do +first?" + +"Wake the servants, and tell them to light the kitchen fire, and make +all the tea and coffee they can. But tell them to make it good. We shall +get more of every thing as soon as it is light. I'll go and bring the +boat. I had it drawn up and moored in the ruins ready to float +yesterday. I wish I hadn't put on my shirt though: I shall have to swim +for it, I fear." + +"I shall have one aired before you come back," said Helen. + +"Aired!" returned her husband: "you had better say watered. In five +minutes neither of us will have a dry stitch on. I'll take it off again, +and be content with my blue jersey." + +He hurried out into the rain. Happily there was no wind. + +Helen waked the servants. Before they appeared she had the fire lighted, +and as many utensils as it would accommodate set upon it with water. +When Wingfold returned, he found her in the midst of her household, +busily preparing every kind of eatable and drinkable they could lay +hands upon. + +He had brought his boat to the church yard and moored it between two +headstones: they would have their breakfast first, for there was no +saying when they might get any lunch, and food is work. Besides, there +was little to be gained by rousing people out of their good sleep: there +was no danger yet. + +"It is a great comfort," said the curate, as he drank his coffee, "to +see how Drake goes in heart and soul for his tenants. He is pompous--a +little, and something of a fine gentleman, but what is that beside his +great truth! That work of his is the simplest act of Christianity of a +public kind I have ever seen!" + +"But is there not a great change on him since he had his money?" said +Helen. "He seems to me so much humbler in his carriage and simpler in +his manners than before." + +"It is quite true," replied her husband. "It is mortifying to think," he +went on after a little pause, "how many of our clergy, from mere +beggarly pride, holding their rank superior--as better accredited +servants of the Carpenter of Nazareth, I suppose--would look down on +that man as a hedge-parson. The world they court looked down upon +themselves from a yet greater height once, and may come to do so again. +Perhaps the sooner the better, for then they will know which to choose. +Now they serve Mammon and think they serve God." + +"It is not quite so bad as that, surely!" said Helen. + +"If it is not worldly pride, what is it? I do not think it is spiritual +pride. Few get on far enough to be much in danger of that worst of all +vices. It must then be church-pride, and that is the worst form of +worldly pride, for it is a carrying into the kingdom of Heaven of the +habits and judgments of the kingdom of Satan. I am wrong! such things +can not be imported into the kingdom of Heaven: they can only be +imported into the Church, which is bad enough. Helen, the churchman's +pride is a thing to turn a saint sick with disgust, so utterly is it at +discord with the lovely human harmony he imagines himself the minister +of. He is the Pharisee, it may be the good Pharisee, of the kingdom of +Heaven; but if the proud churchman be in the kingdom at all, it must be +as one of the least in it. I don't believe one in ten who is guilty of +this pride is aware of the sin of it. Only the other evening I heard a +worthy canon say, it may have been more in joke than appeared, that he +would have all dissenters burned. Now the canon would not hang one of +them--but he does look down on them all with contempt. Such miserable +paltry weaknesses and wickednesses, for in a servant of the Kingdom the +feeling which suggests such a speech is wicked, are the moth holes in +the garments of the Church, the teredo in its piles, the dry rot in its +floors, the scaling and crumbling of its buttresses. They do more to +ruin what such men call the Church, even in outward respects, than any +of the rude attacks of those whom they thus despise. He who, in the name +of Christ, pushes his neighbor from him, is a schismatic, and that of +the worst and only dangerous type! But we had better be going. It's of +no use telling you to take your waterproof; you'd only be giving it to +the first poor woman we picked up." + +"I may as well have the good of it till then," said Helen, and ran to +fetch it, while the curate went to bring his boat to the house. + +When he opened the door, there was no longer a spot of earth or of sky +to be seen--only water, and the gray sponge filling the upper air, +through which coursed multitudinous perpendicular runnels of water. Clad +in a pair of old trowsers and a jersey, he went wading, and where the +ground dipped, swimming, to the western gate of the churchyard. In a few +minutes he was at the kitchen window, holding the boat in a long +painter, for the water, although quite up to the rectory walls, was not +yet deep enough there to float the boat with any body in it. The +servants handed him out the great cans they used at school-teas, full of +hot coffee, and baskets of bread, and he placed them in the boat, +covering them with a tarpaulin. Then Helen appeared at the door, in her +waterproof, with a great fur-cloak--to throw over him, she said, when +she took the oars, for she meant to have her share of the fun: it was so +seldom there was any going on a Sunday!--How she would have shocked her +aunt, and better women than she! + +"To-day," said the curate, "we shall praise God with the _mirth_ of the +good old hundredth psalm, and not with the _fear_ of the more modern +version." + +As he spoke he bent to his oars, and through a narrow lane the boat soon +shot into Pine-street--now a wide canal, banked with houses dreary and +dead, save where, from an upper window, peeped out here and there a +sleepy, dismayed countenance. In silence, except for the sounds of the +oars, and the dull rush of water everywhere, they slipped along. + +"This _is_ fun!" said Helen, where she sat and steered. + +"Very quiet fun as yet," answered the curate. "But it will get faster by +and by." + +As often as he saw any one at a window, he called out that tea and +coffee would be wanted for many a poor creature's breakfast. But here +they were all big houses, and he rowed swiftly past them, for his +business lay, not where there were servants and well-stocked larders, +but where there were mothers and children and old people, and little but +water besides. Nor had they left Pine street by many houses before they +came where help was right welcome. Down the first turning a miserable +cottage stood three feet deep in the water. Out jumped the curate with +the painter in his hand, and opened the door. + +On the bed, over the edge of which the water was lapping, sat a sickly +young woman in her night-dress, holding her baby to her bosom. She +stared for a moment with big eyes, then looked down, and said nothing; +but a rose-tinge mounted from her heart to her pale cheek. + +"Good morning, Martha!" said the curate cheerily. "Rather damp--ain't +it? Where's your husband?" + +"Away looking for work, sir," answered Martha, in a hopeless tone. + +"Then he won't miss you. Come along. Give me the baby." + +"I can't come like this, sir. I ain't got no clothes on." + +"Take them with you. You can't put them on: they're all wet. Mrs. +Wingfold is in the boat: she'll see to every thing you want. The door's +hardly wide enough to let the boat through, or I'd pull it close up to +the bed for you to get in." + +She hesitated. + +"Come along," he repeated. "I won't look at you. Or wait--I'll take the +baby, and come back for you. Then you won't get so wet." + +He took the baby from her arms, and turned to the door. + +"It ain't you as I mind, sir," said Martha, getting into the water at +once and following him, "--no more'n my own people; but all the town'll +be at the windows by this time." + +"Never mind; we'll see to you," he returned. + +In half a minute more, with the help of the windowsill, she was in the +boat, the fur-cloak wrapped about her and the baby, drinking the first +cup of the hot coffee. + +"We must take her home at once," said the curate. + +"You said we should have fun!" said Helen, the tears rushing into her +eyes. + +She had left the tiller, and, while the mother drank her coffee, was +patting the baby under the cloak. But she had to betake herself to the +tiller again, for the curate was not rowing straight. + +When they reached the rectory, the servants might all have been +grandmothers from the way they received the woman and her child. + +"Give them a warm bath together," said Helen, "as quickly as +possible.--And stay, let me out, Thomas--I must go and get Martha some +clothes. I shan't be a minute." + +The next time they returned, Wingfold, looking into the kitchen, could +hardly believe the sweet face he saw by the fire, so refined in its +comforted sadness, could be that of Martha. He thought whether the fine +linen, clean and white, may not help the righteousness even of the +saints a little. + +Their next take was a boat-load of children and an old grandmother. Most +of the houses had a higher story, and they took only those who had no +refuge. Many more, however, drank of their coffee and ate of their +bread. The whole of the morning they spent thus, calling, on their +passages, wherever they thought they could get help or find +accommodation. By noon a score of boats were out rendering similar +assistance. The water was higher than it had been for many years, and +was still rising. Faber had laid hands upon an old tub of a +salmon-coble, and was the first out after the curate. But there was no +fun in the poor doctor's boat. Once the curate's and his met in the +middle of Pine street--both as full of people as they could carry. +Wingfold and Helen greeted Faber frankly and kindly. He returned their +greeting with solemn courtesy, rowing heavily past. + +By lunch-time, Helen had her house almost full, and did not want to go +again: there was so much to be done! But her husband persuaded her to +give him one hour more: the servants were doing so well! he said. She +yielded. He rowed her to the church, taking up the sexton and his boy on +their way. There the crypts and vaults were full of water. Old +wood-carvings and bits of ancient coffins were floating about in them. +But the floor of the church was above the water: he landed Helen dry in +the porch, and led her to the organ-loft. Now the organ was one of great +power; seldom indeed, large as the church was, did they venture its full +force: he requested her to pull out every stop, and send the voice of +the church, in full blast, into every corner of Glaston. He would come +back for her in half an hour and take her home. He desired the sexton to +leave all the doors open, and remember that the instrument would want +every breath of wind he and his boy could raise. + +He had just laid hold of his oars, when out of the porch rushed a roar +of harmony that seemed to seize his boat and blow it away upon its +mission like a feather--for in the delight of the music the curate never +felt the arms that urged it swiftly along. After him it came pursuing, +and wafted him mightily on. Over the brown waters it went rolling, a +grand billow of innumerable involving and involved waves. He thought of +the spirit of God that moved on the face of the primeval waters, and out +of a chaos wrought a cosmos. "Would," he said to himself, "that ever +from the church door went forth such a spirit of harmony and healing of +peace and life! But the church's foes are they of her own household, who +with the axes and hammers of pride and exclusiveness and vulgar +priestliness, break the carved work of her numberless chapels, yea, +build doorless screens from floor to roof, dividing nave and choir and +chancel and transepts and aisles into sections numberless, and, with the +evil dust they raise, darken for ages the windows of her clerestory!" + +The curate was thinking of no party, but of individual spirit. Of the +priestliness I have encountered, I can not determine whether the worse +belonged to the Church of England or a certain body of Dissenters. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII. + +THE GATE-LODGE. + + +Mr Bevis had his horses put to, then taken away again, and an old hunter +saddled. But half-way from home he came to a burst bridge, and had to +return, much to the relief of his wife, who, when she had him in the +house again, could enjoy the rain, she said: it was so cosey and +comfortable to feel you could not go out, or any body call. I presume +she therein seemed to take a bond of fate, and doubly assure the +every-day dullness of her existence. Well, she was a good creature, and +doubtless a corner would be found for her up above, where a little more +work would probably be required of her. + +Polwarth and his niece Ruth rose late, for neither had slept well. When +they had breakfasted, they read together from the Bible: first the uncle +read the passage he had last got light upon--he was always getting light +upon passages, and then the niece the passage she had last been +gladdened by; after which they sat and chatted a long time by the +kitchen fire. + +"I am afraid your asthma was bad last night, uncle dear," said Ruth. "I +heard your breathing every time I woke." + +"It was, rather," answered the little man, "but I took my revenge, and +had a good crow over it." + +"I know what you mean, uncle: do let me hear the crow." + +He rose, and slowly climbing the stair to his chamber, returned with a +half sheet of paper in his hand, resumed his seat, and read the +following lines, which he had written in pencil when the light came: + + Satan, avaunt! + Nay, take thine hour; + Thou canst not daunt, + Thou hast no power; + Be welcome to thy nest, + Though it be in my breast. + + Burrow amain; + Dig like a mole; + Fill every vein + With half-burned coal; + Puff the keen dust about, + And all to choke me out. + + Fill music's ways + With creaking cries, + That no loud praise + May climb the skies; + And on my laboring chest + Lay mountains of unrest. + + My slumber steep + In dreams of haste, + That only sleep, + No rest I taste-- + With stiflings, rimes of rote, + And fingers on the throat. + + Satan, thy might + I do defy; + Live core of night, + I patient lie: + A wind comes up the gray + Will blow thee clean away. + + Christ's angel, Death, + All radiant white, + With one cold breath + Will scare thee quite, + And give my lungs an air + As fresh as answered prayer. + + So, Satan, do + Thy worst with me, + Until the True + Shall set me free, + And end what He began, + By making me a man. + +"It is not much of poetry, Ruth!" he said, raising his eyes from the +paper; "--no song of thrush or blackbird! I am ashamed that I called it +a cock-crow--for that is one of the finest things in the world--a +clarion defiance to darkness and sin--far too good a name for my poor +jingle--except, indeed, you call it a Cochin-china-cock-crow--from out a +very wheezy chest!" + +"'My strength is made perfect in weakness,'" said Ruth solemnly, +heedless of the depreciation. To her the verses were as full of meaning +as if she had made them herself. + +"I think I like the older reading better--that is, without the _My_," +said Polwarth: "'Strength is made perfect in weakness.' Somehow--I can +not explain the feeling--to hear a grand aphorism, spoken in widest +application, as a fact of more than humanity, of all creation, from the +mouth of the human God, the living Wisdom, seems to bring me close to +the very heart of the universe. Strength--strength itself--all over--is +made perfect in weakness;--a law of being, you see, Ruth! not a law of +Christian growth only, but a law of growth, even all the growth leading +up to the Christian, which growth is the highest kind of creation. The +Master's own strength was thus perfected, and so must be that of His +brothers and sisters. Ah, what a strength must be his!--how patient in +endurance--how gentle in exercise--how mighty in devotion--how fine in +its issues,-perfected by such suffering! Ah, my child, you suffer sorely +sometimes--I know it well! but shall we not let patience have her +perfect work, that we may--one day, Ruth, one day, my child--be perfect +and entire, wanting nothing?" + +Led by the climax of his tone, Ruth slipped from her stool on her knees. +Polwarth kneeled beside her, and said: + +"O Father of life, we praise Thee that one day Thou wilt take Thy poor +crooked creatures, and give them bodies like Christ's, perfect as His, +and full of Thy light. Help us to grow faster--as fast as Thou canst +help us to grow. Help us to keep our eyes on the opening of Thy hand, +that we may know the manna when it comes. O Lord, we rejoice that we are +Thy making, though Thy handiwork is not very clear in our outer man as +yet. We bless Thee that we feel Thy hand making us. What if it be in +pain! Evermore we hear the voice of the potter above the hum and grind +of his wheel. Father, Thou only knowest how we love Thee. Fashion the +clay to Thy beautiful will. To the eyes of men we are vessels of +dishonor, but we know Thou dost not despise us, for Thou hast made us, +and Thou dwellest with us. Thou hast made us love Thee, and hope in +Thee, and in Thy love we will be brave and endure. All in good time, O +Lord. Amen." + +While they thus prayed, kneeling on the stone floor of the little +kitchen, dark under the universal canopy of cloud, the rain went on +clashing and murmuring all around, rushing from the eaves, and +exploding with sharp hisses in the fire, and in the mingled noise they +had neither heard a low tap, several times repeated, nor the soft +opening of the door that followed. When they rose from their knees, it +was therefore with astonishment they saw a woman standing motionless in +the doorway, without cloak or bonnet, her dank garments clinging to her +form and dripping with rain. + +When Juliet woke that morning, she cared little that the sky was dull +and the earth dark. A selfish sorrow, a selfish love even, makes us +stupid, and Juliet had been growing more and more stupid. Many people, +it seems to me, through sorrow endured perforce and without a gracious +submission, slowly sink in the scale of existence. Such are some of +those middle-aged women, who might be the very strength of social +well-being, but have no aspiration, and hope only downward--after rich +husbands for their daughters, it may be--a new bonnet or an old +coronet--the devil knows what. + +Bad as the weather had been the day before, Dorothy had yet contrived to +visit her, and see that she was provided with every necessary; and +Juliet never doubted she would come that day also. She thought of +Dorothy's ministrations as we so often do of God's--as of things that +come of themselves, for which there is no occasion to be thankful. + +When she had finished the other little house-work required for her +comfort, a labor in which she found some little respite from the +gnawings of memory and the blankness of anticipation, she ended by +making up a good fire, though without a thought of Dorothy's being wet +when she arrived, and sitting down by the window, stared out at the +pools, spreading wider and wider on the gravel walks beneath her. She +sat till she grew chilly, then rose and dropped into an easy chair by +the fire, and fell fast asleep. + +She slept a long time, and woke in a terror, seeming to have waked +herself with a cry. The fire was out, and the hearth cold. She shivered +and drew her shawl about her. Then suddenly she remembered the frightful +dream she had had. + +She dreamed that she had just fled from her husband and gained the park, +when, the moment she entered it, something seized her from behind, and +bore her swiftly, as in the arms of a man--only she seemed to hear the +rush of wings behind her--the way she had been going. She struggled in +terror, but in vain; the power bore her swiftly on, and she knew +whither. Her very being recoiled from the horrible depth of the +motionless pool, in which, as she now seemed to know, lived one of the +loathsome creatures of the semi-chaotic era of the world, which had +survived its kind as well as its coevals, and was ages older than the +human race. The pool appeared--but not as she had known it, for it +boiled and heaved, bubbled and rose. From its lowest depths it was moved +to meet and receive her! Coil upon coil it lifted itself into the air, +towering like a waterspout, then stretched out a long, writhing, +shivering neck to take her from the invisible arms that bore her to her +doom. The neck shot out a head, and the head shot out the tongue of a +water-snake. She shrieked and woke, bathed in terror. + +With the memory of the dream not a little of its horror returned; she +rose to shake it off, and went to the window. What did she see there? +The fearsome pool had entered the garden, had come half-way to the +house, and was plainly rising every moment. More or less the pool had +haunted her ever since she came; she had seldom dared go nearer it than +half-way down the garden. But for the dulling influence of her misery, +it would have been an unendurable horror to her, now it was coming to +fetch her as she had seen it in her warning dream! Her brain reeled; for +a moment she gazed paralyzed with horror, then turned from the window, +and, with almost the conviction that the fiend of her vision was +pursuing her, fled from the house, and across the park, through the +sheets of rain, to the gate-lodge, nor stopped until, all unaware of +having once thought of him in her terror, she stood at the door of +Polwarth's cottage. + +Ruth was darting toward her with outstretched hands, when her uncle +stopped her. + +"Ruth, my child," he said, "run and light a fire in the parlor. I will +welcome our visitor." + +She turned instantly, and left the room. Then Polwarth went up to +Juliet, who stood trembling, unable to utter a word, and said, with +perfect old-fashioned courtesy, "You are heartily welcome, ma'am. I sent +Ruth away that I might first assure you that you are as safe with her as +with me. Sit here a moment, ma'am. You are so wet, I dare not place you +nearer to the fire.--Ruth!" + +She came instantly. + +"Ruth," he repeated, "this lady is Mrs. Faber. She is come to visit us +for a while. Nobody must know of it.--You need not be at all uneasy, +Mrs. Faber. Not a soul will come near us to-day. But I will lock the +door, to secure time, if any one should.--You will get Mrs. Faber's room +ready at once, Ruth. I will come and help you. But a spoonful of brandy +in hot water first, please.--Let me move your chair a little, ma'am--out +of the draught." + +Juliet in silence did every thing she was told, received the prescribed +antidote from Ruth, and was left alone in the kitchen. + +But the moment she was freed from one dread, she was seized by another; +suspicion took the place of terror; and as soon as she heard the toiling +of the goblins up the creaking staircase, she crept to the foot of it +after them, and with no more compunction than a princess in a +fairy-tale, set herself to listen. It was not difficult, for the little +inclosed staircase carried every word to the bottom of it. + +"I _thought_ she wasn't dead!" she heard Ruth exclaim joyfully; and the +words and tone set her wondering. + +"I saw you did not seem greatly astonished at the sight of her; but what +made you think such an unlikely thing?" rejoined her uncle. + +"I saw you did not believe she was dead. That was enough for me." + +"You are a witch, Ruth! I never said a word one way or the other." + +"Which showed that you were thinking, and made me think. You had +something in your mind which you did not choose to tell me yet." + +"Ah, child!" rejoined her uncle, in a solemn tone, "how difficult it is +to hide any thing! I don't think God wants any thing hidden. The light +is His region, His kingdom, His palace-home. It can only be evil, +outside or in, that makes us turn from the fullest light of the +universe. Truly one must be born again to enter into the kingdom!" + +Juliet heard every word, heard and was bewildered. The place in which +she had sought refuge was plainly little better than a kobold-cave, yet +merely from listening to the talk of the kobolds without half +understanding it, she had begun already to feel a sense of safety +stealing over her, such as she had never been for an instant aware of in +the Old House, even with Dorothy beside her. + +They went on talking, and she went on listening. They were so much her +inferiors there could be no impropriety in doing so! + +"The poor lady," she heard the man-goblin say, "has had some difference +with her husband; but whether she wants to hide from him or from the +whole world or from both, she only can tell. Our business is to take +care of her, and do for her what God may lay to our hand. What she +desires to hide, is sacred to us. We have no secrets of our own, Ruth, +and have the more room for those of other people who are unhappy enough +to have any. Let God reveal what He pleases: there are many who have no +right to know what they most desire to know. She needs nursing, poor +thing! We will pray to God for her." + +"But how shall we make her comfortable in such a poor little house?" +returned Ruth. "It is the dearest place in the world to me--but how will +she feel in it?" + +"We will keep her warm and clean," answered her uncle, "and that is all +an angel would require." + +"An angel!--yes," answered Ruth: "for angels don't eat; or, at least, if +they do, for I doubt if you will grant that they don't, I am certain +that they are not so hard to please as some people down here. The poor, +dear lady is delicate--you know she has always been--and I am not much +of a cook." + +"You are a very good cook, my dear. Perhaps you do not know a great many +dishes, but you are a dainty cook of those you do know. Few people can +have more need than we to be careful what they eat,--we have got such a +pair of troublesome cranky little bodies; and if you can suit them, I +feel sure you will be able to suit any invalid that is not fastidious by +nature rather than necessity." + +"I will do my best," said Ruth cheerily, comforted by her uncle's +confidence. "The worst is that, for her own sake, I must not get a girl +to help me." + +"The lady will help you with her own room," said Polwarth. "I have a +shrewd notion that it is only the _fine_ ladies, those that are so +little of ladies that they make so much of being ladies, who mind doing +things with their own hands. Now you must go and make her some tea, +while she gets in bed. She is sure to like tea best." + +Juliet retreated noiselessly, and when the woman-gnome entered the +kitchen, there sat the disconsolate lady where she had left her, still +like the outcast princess of a fairy-tale: she had walked in at the +door, and they had immediately begun to arrange for her stay, and the +strangest thing to Juliet was that she hardly felt it strange. It was +only as if she had come a day sooner than she was expected--which +indeed was very much the case, for Polwarth had been looking forward to +the possibility, and latterly to the likelihood of her becoming their +guest. + +"Your room is ready now," said Ruth, approaching her timidly, and +looking up at her with her woman's childlike face on the body of a +child. "Will you come?" + +Juliet rose and followed her to the garret-room with the dormer window, +in which Ruth slept. + +"Will you please get into bed as fast as you can," she said, "and when +you knock on the floor I will come and take away your clothes and get +them dried. Please to wrap this new blanket round you, lest the cold +sheets should give you a chill. They are well aired, though. I will +bring you a hot bottle, and some tea. Dinner will be ready soon." + +So saying she left the chamber softly. The creak of the door as she +closed it, and the white curtains of the bed and window, reminded Juliet +of a certain room she once occupied at the house of an old nurse, where +she had been happier than ever since in all her life, until her brief +bliss with Faber: she burst into tears, and weeping undressed and got +into bed. There the dryness and the warmth and the sense of safety +soothed her speedily; and with the comfort crept in the happy thought +that here she lay on the very edge of the high road to Glaston, and that +nothing could be more probable than that she would soon see her husband +ride past. With that one hope she could sit at a window watching for +centuries! "O Paul! Paul! my Paul!" she moaned. "If I could but be made +clean again for you! I would willingly be burned at the stake, if the +fire would only make me clean, for the chance of seeing you again in the +other world!" But as the comfort into her brain, so the peace of her new +surroundings stole into her heart. The fancy grew upon her that she was +in a fairy-tale, in which she must take every thing as it came, for she +could not alter the text. Fear vanished; neither staring eyes nor +creeping pool could find her in the guardianship of the benevolent +goblins. She fell fast asleep; and the large, clear, gray eyes of the +little woman gnome came and looked at her as she slept, and their gaze +did not rouse her. Softly she went, and came again; but, although dinner +was then ready, Ruth knew better than to wake her. She knew that sleep +is the chief nourisher in life's feast, and would not withdraw the +sacred dish. Her uncle said sleep was God's contrivance for giving man +the help he could not get into him while he was awake. So the loving +gnomes had their dinner together, putting aside the best portions of it +against the waking of the beautiful lady lying fast asleep above. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV. + +THE CORNER OF THE BUTCHER'S SHOP. + + +All that same Sunday morning, the minister and Dorothy had of course +plenty of work to their hand, for their more immediate neighbors were +all of the poor. Their own house, although situated on the very bank of +the river, was in no worse plight than most of the houses in the town, +for it stood upon an artificial elevation; and before long, while it had +its lower parts full of water like the rest, its upper rooms were filled +with people from the lanes around. But Mr. Drake's heart was in the +Pottery, for he was anxious as to the sufficiency of his measures. Many +of the neighbors, driven from their homes, had betaken themselves to his +inclosure, and when he went, he found the salmon-fishers still carrying +families thither. He set out at once to get what bread he could from the +baker's, a quantity of meat from the butcher, cheese, coffee, and tins +of biscuits and preserved meat from the grocers: all within his bounds +were either his own people or his guests, and he must do what he could +to feed them. For the first time he felt rich, and heartily glad and +grateful that he was. He could please God, his neighbor, and himself all +at once, getting no end of good out of the slave of which the +unrighteous make a god. + +He took Dorothy with him, for he would have felt helpless on such an +expedition without her judgment; and, as Lisbeth's hands were more than +full, they agreed it was better to take Amanda. Dorothy was far from +comfortable at having to leave Juliet alone all day, but the possibility +of her being compelled to omit her customary visit had been contemplated +between them, and she could not fail to understand it on this the first +occasion. Anyhow, better could not be, for the duty at home was far the +more pressing. That day she showed an energy which astonished even her +father. Nor did she fail of her reward. She received insights into +humanity which grew to real knowledge. I was going to say that, next to +an insight into the heart of God, an insight into the heart of a human +being is the most precious of things; but when I think of it--what is +the latter but the former? I will say this at least, that no one reads +the human heart well, to whom the reading reveals nothing of the heart +of the Father. The wire-gauze of sobering trouble over the flaming +flower of humanity, enabled Dorothy to see right down into its +fire-heart, and distinguish there the loveliest hues and shades. Where +the struggle for own life is in abeyance, and the struggle for other +life active, there the heart that God thought out and means to perfect, +the pure love-heart of His humans, reveals itself truly, and is gracious +to behold. For then the will of the individual sides divinely with his +divine impulse, and his heart is unified in good. When the will of the +man sides perfectly with the holy impulses in him, then all is well; for +then his mind is one with the mind of his Maker; God and man are one. + +Amanda shrieked with delight when she was carried to the boat, and went +on shrieking as she floated over flower-beds and box-borders, caught now +and then in bushes and overhanging branches. But the great fierce +current, ridging the middle of the brown lake as it followed the tide +out to the ocean, frightened her a little. The features of the flat +country were all but obliterated; trees only and houses and corn-stacks +stood out of the water, while in the direction of the sea where were +only meadows, all indication of land had vanished; one wide, brown level +was everywhere, with a great rushing serpent of water in the middle of +it. Amanda clapped her little hands in ecstasy. Never was there such a +child for exuberance of joy! her aunt thought. Or, if there were others +as glad, where were any who let the light of their gladness so shine +before men, invading, conquering them as she did with the rush of her +joy! Dorothy held fast to the skirt of her frock, fearing every instant +the explosive creature would jump overboard in elemental sympathy. But, +poled carefully along by Mr. Drake, they reached in safety a certain old +shed, and getting in at the door of the loft where a cow-keeper stored +his hay and straw, through that descended into the heart of the Pottery, +which its owner was delighted to find--not indeed dry under foot with +such a rain falling, but free from lateral invasion. + +His satisfaction, however, was of short duration. Dorothy went into one +of the nearer dwellings, and he was crossing an open space with Amanda, +to get help from a certain cottage in unloading the boat and +distributing its cargo, when he caught sight of a bubbling pool in the +middle of it. Alas! it was from a drain, whose covering had burst with +the pressure from within. He shouted for help. Out hurried men, women +and children on all sides. For a few moments he was entirely occupied in +giving orders, and let Amanda's hand go: every body knew her, and there +seemed no worse mischief within reach for her than dabbling in the +pools, to which she was still devoted. + +Two or three spades were soon plying busily, to make the breach a little +wider, while men ran to bring clay and stones from one of the condemned +cottages. Suddenly arose a great cry, and the crowd scattered in all +directions. The wall of defense at the corner of the butcher's shop had +given away, and a torrent was galloping across the Pottery, straight for +the spot where the water was rising from the drain. Amanda, gazing in +wonder at the fight of the people about her, stood right in its course, +but took no heed of it, or never saw it coming. It caught her, swept her +away, and tumbled with her, foaming and roaring, into the deep +foundation of which I have spoken. Her father had just missed her, and +was looking a little anxiously round, when a shriek of horror and fear +burst from the people, and they rushed to the hole. Without a word +spoken he knew Amanda was in it. He darted through them, scattering men +and women in all directions, but pulling off his coat as he ran. + +Though getting old, he was far from feeble, and had been a strong +swimmer in his youth. But he plunged heedlessly, and the torrent, still +falling some little height, caught him, and carried him almost to the +bottom. When he came to the top, he looked in vain for any sign of the +child. The crowd stood breathless on the brink. No one had seen her, +though all eyes were staring into the tumult. He dived, swam about +beneath, groping in the frightful opacity, but still in vain. Then down +through the water came a shout, and he shot to the surface--to see only +something white vanish. But the recoil of the torrent from below caught +her, and just as he was diving again, brought her up almost within +arm's-length of him. He darted to her, clasped her, and gained the +brink. He could not have got out, though the cavity was now brimful, but +ready hands had him in safety in a moment. Fifty arms were stretched to +take the child, but not even to Dorothy would he yield her. Ready to +fall at every step, he blundered through the water, which now spread +over the whole place, and followed by Dorothy in mute agony, was making +for the shed behind which lay his boat, when one of the salmon fishers, +who had brought his coble in at the gap, crossed them, and took them up. +Mr. Drake dropped into the bottom of the boat, with the child pressed to +his bosom. He could not speak. + +"To Doctor Faber's! For the child's life!" said Dorothy, and the fisher +rowed like a madman. + +Faber had just come in. He undressed the child with his own hands, +rubbed her dry, and did every thing to initiate respiration. For a long +time all seemed useless, but he persisted beyond the utmost verge of +hope. Mr. Drake and Dorothy stood in mute dismay. Neither was quite a +_child_ of God yet, and in the old man a rebellious spirit murmured: it +was hard that he should have evil for good! that his endeavors for his +people should be the loss of his child! + +Faber was on the point of ceasing his efforts in utter despair, when he +thought he felt a slight motion of the diaphragm, and renewed them +eagerly. She began to breathe. Suddenly she opened her eyes, looked at +him for a moment, then with a smile closed them again. To the watchers +heaven itself seemed to open in that smile. But Faber dropped the tiny +form, started a pace backward from the bed, and stood staring aghast. +The next moment he threw the blankets over the child, turned away, and +almost staggered from the room. In his surgery he poured himself out a +glass of brandy, swallowed it neat, sat down and held his head in his +hands. An instant after, he was by the child's side again, feeling her +pulse, and rubbing her limbs under the blankets. + +The minister's hands had turned blue, and he had begun to shiver, but a +smile of sweetest delight was on his face. + +"God bless me!" cried the doctor, "you've got no coat on! and you are +drenched! I never saw any thing but the child!" + +"He plunged into the horrible hole after her," said Dorothy. "How +wicked of me to forget him for any child under the sun! He got her out +all by himself, Mr. Faber!--Come home, father dear.--I will come back +and see to Amanda as soon as I have got him to bed." + +"Yes, Dorothy; let us go," said the minister, and put his hand on her +shoulder. His teeth chattered and his hand shook. + +The doctor rang the bell violently. + +"Neither of you shall leave this house to-night.--Take a hot bath to the +spare bedroom, and remove the sheets," he said to the housekeeper, who +had answered the summons. "My dear sir," he went on, turning again to +the minister, "you must get into the blankets at once. How careless of +me! The child's life will be dear at the cost of yours." + +"You have brought back the soul of the child to me, Mr. Faber," said the +minister, trembling, "and I can never thank you enough." + +"There won't be much to thank me for, if you have to go instead.--Miss +Drake, while I give your father his bath, you must go with Mrs. Roberts, +and put on dry clothes. Then you will be able to nurse him." + +As soon as Dorothy, whose garments Juliet had been wearing so long, was +dressed in some of hers, she went to her father's room. He was already +in bed, but it was long before they could get him warm. Then he grew +burning hot, and all night was talking in troubled dreams. Once Dorothy +heard him say, as if he had been talking to God face to face: "O my God, +if I had but once seen Thee, I do not think I could ever have mistrusted +Thee. But I could never be quite sure." + +The morning brought lucidity. How many dawns a morning brings! His first +words were "How goes it with the child?" Having heard that she had had a +good night, and was almost well, he turned over, and fell fast asleep. +Then Dorothy, who had been by his bed all night, resumed her own +garments, and went to the door. + + + + +CHAPTER XLV. + +HERE AND THERE. + + +The rain had ceased, and the flood was greatly diminished. It was +possible, she judged, to reach the Old House, and after a hasty +breakfast, she set out, leaving her father to Mrs. Roberts's care. The +flood left her no choice but go by the high road to Polwarth's gate, and +then she had often to wade through mud and water. The moment she saw the +gatekeeper, she knew somehow by his face that Juliet was in the lodge. +When she entered, she saw that already her new circumstances were +working upon her for peace. The spiritual atmosphere, so entirely human, +the sense that she was not and would not be alone, the strange talk +which they held openly before her, the food they coaxed her to eat, the +whole surrounding of thoughts and things as they should be, was +operating far more potently than could be measured by her understanding +of their effects, or even consciousness of their influences. She still +looked down upon the dwarfs, condescended to them, had a vague feeling +that she honored them by accepting their ministration--for which, one +day, she would requite them handsomely. Not the less had she all the +time a feeling that she was in the society of ministering spirits of +God, good and safe and true. From the Old House to the cottage was from +the Inferno to the Purgatorio, across whose borders faint wafts from +Paradise now and then strayed wandering. Without knowing it, she had +begun already to love the queer little woman, with the wretched body, +the fine head, and gentle, suffering face; while the indescribable awe, +into which her aversion to the kobold, with his pigeon-chest, his +wheezing breath, his great head, and his big, still face, which to such +eyes as the curate's seemed to be looking into both worlds at once, had +passed over, bore no unimportant part in that portion of her discipline +here commenced. One of the loftiest spirits of the middle earth, it was +long before she had quite ceased to regard him as a power of the nether +world, partly human, and at once something less and something more. Yet +even already she was beginning to feel at home with them! True, the +world in which they really lived was above her spiritual vision, as +beyond her intellectual comprehension, yet not the less was the air +around them the essential air of homeness; for the truths in which their +spirits lived and breathed, were the same which lie at the root of every +feeling of home-safety in the world, which make the bliss of the child +in his mother's bed, the bliss of young beasts in their nests, of birds +under their mother's wing. The love which inclosed her was far too great +for her--as the heaven of the mother's face is beyond the understanding +of the new-born child over whom she bends; but that mother's face is +nevertheless the child's joy and peace. She did not yet recognize it as +love, saw only the ministration; but it was what she sorely needed: she +said the sort of thing suited her, and at once began to fall in with it. +What it cost her entertainers, with organization as delicate as uncouth, +in the mere matter of bodily labor, she had not an idea--imagined indeed +that she gave them no trouble at all, because, having overheard the +conversation between them upon her arrival, she did herself a part of +the work required for her comfort in her own room. She never saw the +poor quarters to which Ruth for her sake had banished herself--never +perceived the fact that there was nothing good enough wherewith to repay +them except worshipful gratitude, love, admiration, and +submission--feelings she could not even have imagined possible in regard +to such inferiors. + +And now Dorothy had not a little to say to Juliet about her husband. In +telling what had taken place, however, she had to hear many more +questions than she was able to answer. + +"Does he really believe me dead, Dorothy?" was one of them. + +"I do not believe there is one person in Glaston who knows what he +thinks," answered Dorothy. "I have not heard of his once opening his +mouth on the subject. He is just as silent now as he used to be ready to +talk." + +"My poor Paul!" murmured Juliet, and hid her face and wept. + +Indeed not a soul in Glaston or elsewhere knew a single thought he had. +Certain mysterious advertisements in the county paper were imagined by +some to be his and to refer to his wife. Some, as the body had never +been seen, did begin to doubt whether she was dead. Some, on the other +hand, hinted that her husband had himself made away with her--for, they +argued, what could be easier to a doctor, and why, else, did he make no +search for the body? To Dorothy this supposed fact seemed to indicate a +belief that she was not dead--perhaps a hope that she would sooner +betray herself if he manifested no anxiety to find her. But she said +nothing of this to Juliet. + +Her news of him was the more acceptable to the famished heart of the +wife, that, from his great kindness to them all, and especially from the +perseverance which had restored to them their little Amanda, Dorothy's +heart had so warmed toward him, that she could not help speaking of him +in a tone far more agreeable to Juliet than hitherto she had been able +to use. His pale, worn look, and the tokens of trouble throughout his +demeanor, all more evident upon nearer approach, had also wrought upon +her; and she so described his care, anxiety, and tenderness over Amanda, +that Juliet became jealous of the child, as she would have been of any +dog she saw him caress. When all was told, and she was weary of asking +questions to which there were no answers, she fell back in her chair +with a sigh: alas, she was no nearer to him for the hearing of her ears! +While she lived she was open to his scorn, and deserved it the more that +she had _seemed_ to die! She must die; for then at last a little love +would revive in his heart, ere he died too and followed her nowhither. +Only first she must leave him his child to plead for her:--she used +sometimes to catch herself praying that the infant might be like her. + +"Look at my jacket!" said Dorothy. It was one of Juliet's, and she hoped +to make her smile. + +"Did Paul see you with my clothes on?" she said angrily. + +Dorothy started with the pang of hurt that shot through her. But the +compassionate smile on the face of Polwarth, who had just entered, and +had heard the last article of the conversation, at once set her right. +For not only was he capable of immediate sympathy with emotion, but of +revealing at once that he understood its cause. Ruth, who had come into +the room behind him, second only to her uncle in the insight of love, +followed his look by asking Dorothy if she might go to the Old House, as +soon as the weather permitted, to fetch some clothes for Mrs. Faber, who +had brought nothing with her but what she wore; whereupon Dorothy, +partly for leisure to fight her temper, said she would go herself, and +went. But when she returned, she gave the bag to Ruth at the door, and +went away without seeing Juliet again. She was getting tired of her +selfishness, she said to herself. Dorothy was not herself yet perfect in +love--which beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, +endureth all things. + +Faber too had been up all night--by the bedside of the little Amanda. +She scarcely needed such close attendance, for she slept soundly, and +was hardly at all feverish. Four or five times in the course of the +night, he turned down the bed-clothes to examine her body, as if he +feared some injury not hitherto apparent. Of such there was no sign. + +In his youth he had occupied himself much with comparative anatomy and +physiology. His predilection for these studies had greatly sharpened his +observation, and he noted many things that escaped the eyes of better +than ordinary observers. Amongst other kinds of things to which he kept +his eyes open, he was very quick at noting instances of the strange +persistency with which Nature perpetuates minute peculiarities, carrying +them on from generation to generation. Occupied with Amanda, a certain +imperfection in one of the curves of the outer ear attracted his +attention. It is as rare to see a perfect ear as to see a perfect form, +and the varieties of unfinished curves are many; but this imperfection +was very peculiar. At the same time it was so slight, that not even the +eye of a lover, none save that of a man of science, alive to minutest +indications, would probably have seen it. The sight of it startled Faber +not a little; it was the second instance of the peculiarity that had +come to his knowledge. It gave him a new idea to go upon, and when the +child suddenly opened her eyes, he saw another face looking at him out +of hers. The idea then haunted him; and whether it was that it +assimilated facts to itself, or that the signs were present, further +search afforded what was to him confirmation of the initiatory +suspicion. + +Notwithstanding the state of feebleness in which he found Mr. Drake the +next morning, he pressed him with question upon question, amounting to a +thorough cross-examination concerning Amanda's history, undeterred by +the fact that, whether itself merely bored, or its nature annoyed him, +his patient plainly disrelished his catechising. It was a subject which, +as his love to the child increased, had grown less and less agreeable to +Mr. Drake: she was to him so entirely his own that he had not the least +desire to find out any thing about her, to learn a single fact or hear a +single conjecture to remind him that she was not in every sense as well +as the best, his own daughter. He was therefore not a little annoyed at +the persistency of the doctor's questioning, but, being a courteous man, +and under endless obligation to him for the very child's sake as well as +his own, he combated disinclination, and with success, acquainting the +doctor with every point he knew concerning Amanda. Then first the doctor +grew capable of giving his attention to the minister himself; whose son +if he had been, he could hardly have shown him greater devotion. A whole +week passed before he would allow him to go home. Dorothy waited upon +him, and Amanda ran about the house. The doctor and she had been friends +from the first, and now, when he was at home, there was never any doubt +where Amanda was to be found. + +The same day on which the Drakes left him, Faber started by the +night-train for London, and was absent three days. + +Amanda was now perfectly well, but Mr. Drake continued poorly. Dorothy +was anxious to get him away from the river-side, and proposed putting +the workmen into the Old House at once. To this he readily consented, +but would not listen to her suggestion that in the meantime he should go +to some watering-place. He would be quite well in a day or two, and +there was no rest for him, he said, until the work so sadly bungled was +properly done. He did not believe his plans were defective, and could +not help doubting whether they had been faithfully carried out. But the +builder, a man of honest repute, protested also that he could not +account for the yielding of the wall, except he had had the mishap to +build over some deep drain, or old well, which was not likely, so close +to the river. He offered to put it up again at his own expense, when +perhaps they might discover the cause of the catastrophe. + +Sundry opinions and more than one rumor were current among the +neighbors. At last they were mostly divided into two parties, the one +professing the conviction that the butcher, who was known to have some +grudge at the minister, had, under the testudo-shelter of his +slaughter-house, undermined the wall; the other indignantly asserting +that the absurdity had no foundation except in the evil thoughts of +churchmen toward dissenters, being in fact a wicked slander. When the +suggestion reached the minister's ears, he, knowing the butcher, and +believing the builder, was inclined to institute investigations; but as +such a course was not likely to lead the butcher to repentance, he +resolved instead to consult with him how his premises might be included +in the defense. The butcher chuckled with conscious success, and for +some months always chuckled when sharpening his knife; but by and by the +coals of fire began to scorch, and went on scorching--the more that Mr. +Drake very soon became his landlord, and voluntarily gave him several +advantages. But he gave strict orders that there should be no dealings +with him. It was one thing, he said, to be good to the sinner, and +another to pass by his fault without confession, treating it like a mere +personal affair which might be forgotten. Before the butcher died, there +was not a man who knew him who did not believe he had undermined the +wall. He left a will assigning all his property to trustees, for the +building of a new chapel, but when his affairs came to be looked into, +there was hardly enough to pay his debts. + +The minister was now subject to a sort of ague, to which he paid far too +little heed. When Dorothy was not immediately looking after him, he +would slip out in any weather to see how things were going on in the +Pottery. It was no wonder, therefore, that his health did not improve. +But he could not be induced to regard his condition as at all serious. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI. + +THE MINISTER'S STUDY. + + +Helen was in the way of now and then writing music to any song that +specially took her fancy--not with foolish hankering after publication, +but for the pleasure of brooding in melody upon the words, and singing +them to her husband. One day he brought her a few stanzas, by an unknown +poet, which, he said, seemed to have in them a slightly new element. +They pleased her more than him, and began at once to sing themselves. No +sooner was her husband out of the room than she sat down to her piano +with them. Before the evening, she had written to them an air with a +simple accompaniment. When she now sung the verses to him, he told her, +to her immense delight, that he understood and liked them far better. +The next morning, having carried out one or two little suggestions he +had made, she was singing them by herself in the drawing-room, when +Faber, to whom she had sent because one of her servants was ill, +entered. He made a sign begging her to continue, and she finished the +song. + +"Will you let me see the words," he said. + +She handed them to him. He read them, laid down the manuscript, and, +requesting to be taken to his patient, turned to the door. Perhaps he +thought she had laid a music-snare for him. + +The verses were these: + + A YEAR SONG. + + Sighing above, + Rustling below, + Through the woods + The winds go. + Beneath, dead crowds; + Above, life bare; + And the besom winds + Sweep the air. + _Heart, leave thy woe; + Let the dead things go._ + + Through the brown leaves + Gold stars push; + A mist of green + Veils the bush. + Here a twitter, + There a croak! + They are coming-- + The spring-folk! + _Heart, be not dumb; + Let the live things come._ + + Through the beach + The winds go, + With a long speech, + Loud and slow. + The grass is fine, + And soft to lie in; + The sun doth shine + The blue sky in. + _Heart, be alive; + Let the new things thrive._ + + Round again! + Here now-- + A rimy fruit + On a bare bough! + There the winter + And the snow; + And a sighing ever + To fall and go! + _Heart, thy hour shall be; + Thy dead will comfort thee._ + +Faber was still folded in the atmosphere of the song when, from the +curate's door, he arrived at the minister's, resolved to make that +morning a certain disclosure--one he would gladly have avoided, but felt +bound in honor to make. The minister grew pale as he listened, but held +his peace. Not until the point came at which he found himself personally +concerned, did he utter a syllable. + +I will in my own words give the substance of the doctor's communication, +stating the facts a little more fairly to him than his pride would allow +him to put them in his narrative. + +Paul Faber was a student of St. Bartholomew's, and during some time held +there the office of assistant house-surgeon. Soon after his appointment, +he being then three and twenty, a young woman was taken into one of the +wards, in whom he gradually grew much interested. Her complaint caused +her much suffering, but was more tedious than dangerous. + +Attracted by her sweet looks, but more by her patience, and the +gratitude with which she received the attention shown her, he began to +talk to her a little, especially during a slight operation that had to +be not unfrequently performed. Then he came to giving her books to read, +and was often charmed with the truth and simplicity of the remarks she +would make. She had been earning her living as a clerk, had no friends +in London, and therefore no place to betake herself to in her illness +but the hospital. The day she left it, in the simplicity of her heart, +and with much timidity, she gave him a chain she had made for him of her +hair. On the ground of supplementary attention, partly desirable, partly +a pretext, but unassociated with any evil intent, he visited her after +in her lodging. The joy of her face, the light of her eyes when he +appeared, was enchanting to him. She pleased every gentle element of his +nature; her worship flattered him, her confidence bewitched him. His +feelings toward her were such that he never doubted he was her friend. +He did her no end of kindness; taught her much; gave her good advice as +to her behavior, and the dangers she was in; would have protected her +from every enemy, real and imaginary, while all the time, undesignedly, +he was depriving her of the very nerve of self-defense. He still gave +her books--and good books--Carlyle even, and Tennyson; read poetry with +her, and taught her to read aloud; went to her chapel with her sometimes +of a Sunday evening--for he was then, so he said, and so he imagined, a +thorough believer in revelation. He took her to the theater, to +pictures, to concerts, taking every care of her health, her manners, her +principles. But one enemy he forgot to guard her against: how is a man +to protect even the woman he loves from the hidden god of his +idolatry--his own grand contemptible self? + +It is needless to set the foot of narration upon every step of the +slow-descending stair. With all his tender feelings and generous love of +his kind, Paul Faber had not yet learned the simplest lesson of +humanity--that he who would not be a murderer, must be his brother's +keeper--still more his sister's, protecting every woman first of all +from himself--from every untruth in him, chiefly from every unhallowed +approach of his lower nature, from every thing that calls itself love +and is but its black shadow, its demon ever murmuring _I love_, that it +may devour. The priceless reward of such honesty is the power to love +better; but let no man insult his nature by imagining himself noble for +so carrying himself. As soon let him think himself noble that he is no +swindler. Doubtless Faber said to himself as well as to her, and said it +yet oftener when the recoil of his selfishness struck upon the door of +his conscience and roused Don Worm, that he would be true to her +forever. But what did he mean by the words? Did he know? Had they any +sense of which he would not have been ashamed even before the girl +herself? Would such truth as he contemplated make of him her +hiding-place from the wind, her covert from the tempest? He never even +thought whether to marry her or not, never vowed even in his heart not +to marry another. All he could have said was, that at the time he had no +intention of marrying another, and that he had the intention of keeping +her for himself indefinitely, which may be all the notion some people +have of _eternally_. But things went well with them, and they seemed to +themselves, notwithstanding the tears shed by one of them in secret, +only the better for the relation between them. + +At length a child was born. The heart of a woman is indeed infinite, but +time, her presence, her thoughts, her hands are finite: she could not +_seem_ so much a lover as before, because she must be a mother now: God +only can think of two things at once. In his enduring selfishness, Faber +felt the child come between them, and reproached her neglect, as he +called it. She answered him gently and reasonably; but now his bonds +began to weary him. She saw it, and in the misery of the waste vision +opening before her eyes, her temper, till now sweet as devoted, began to +change. And yet, while she loved her child the more passionately that +she loved her forebodingly, almost with the love of a woman already +forsaken, she was nearly mad sometimes with her own heart, that she +could not give herself so utterly as before to her idol. + +It took but one interview after he had confessed it to himself, to +reveal the fact to her that she had grown a burden to him. He came a +little seldomer, and by degrees which seemed to her terribly rapid, more +and more seldom. He had never recognized duty in his relation to her. I +do not mean that he had not done the effects of duty toward her; love +had as yet prevented the necessity of appeal to the stern daughter of +God. But what love with which our humanity is acquainted can keep +healthy without calling in the aid of Duty? Perfect Love is the mother +of all duties and all virtues, and needs not be admonished of her +children; but not until Love is perfected, may she, casting out Fear, +forget also Duty. And hence are the conditions of such a relation +altogether incongruous. For the moment the man, not yet debased, admits +a thought of duty, he is aware that far more is demanded of him than, +even for the sake of purest right, he has either the courage or the +conscience to yield. But even now Faber had not the most distant +intention of forsaking her; only why should he let her burden him, and +make his life miserable? There were other pleasures besides the company +of the most childishly devoted of women: why should he not take them? +Why should he give all his leisure to one who gave more than the half of +it to her baby? + +He had money of his own, and, never extravagant upon himself, was more +liberal to the poor girl than ever she desired. But there was nothing +mercenary in her. She was far more incapable of turpitude than he, for +she was of a higher nature, and loved much where he loved only a little. +She was nobler, sweetly prouder than he. She had sacrificed all to him +for love--could accept nothing from him without the love which alone is +the soul of any gift, alone makes it rich. She would not, could not see +him unhappy. In her fine generosity, struggling to be strong, she said +to herself, that, after all, she would leave him richer than she was +before--richer than he was now. He would not want the child he had given +her; she would, and she could, live for her, upon the memory of two +years of such love as, comforting herself in sad womanly pride, she +flattered herself woman had seldom enjoyed. She would not throw the past +from her because the weather of time had changed; she would not mar +every fair memory with the inky sponge of her present loss. She would +turn her back upon her sun ere he set quite, and carry with her into the +darkness the last gorgeous glow of his departure. While she had his +child, should she never see him again, there remained a bond between +them--a bond that could never be broken. He and she met in that child's +life--her being was the eternal fact of their unity. + +Both she and he had to learn that there was yet a closer bond between +them, necessary indeed to the fact that a child _could_ be born of them, +namely, that they two had issued from the one perfect Heart of love. And +every heart of perplexed man, although, too much for itself, it can not +conceive how the thing should be, has to learn that there, in that heart +whence it came, lies for it restoration, consolation, content. Herein, O +God, lies a task for Thy perfection, for the might of Thy +imagination--which needs but Thy will (and Thy suffering?) to be +creation! + +One evening when he paid her a visit after the absence of a week, he +found her charmingly dressed, and merry, but in a strange fashion which +he could not understand. The baby, she said, was down stairs with the +landlady, and she free for her Paul. She read to him, she sang to him, +she bewitched him afresh with the graces he had helped to develop in +her. He said to himself when he left her that surely never was there a +more gracious creature--and she was utterly his own! It was the last +flicker of the dying light--the gorgeous sunset she had resolved to +carry with her in her memory forever. When he sought her again the next +evening, he found her landlady in tears. She had vanished, taking with +her nothing but her child, and her child's garments. The gown she had +worn the night before hung in her bedroom--every thing but what she must +then be wearing was left behind. The woman wept, spoke of her with +genuine affection, and said she had paid every thing. To his questioning +she answered that they had gone away in a cab: she had called it, but +knew neither the man nor his number. Persuading himself she had but gone +to see some friend, he settled himself in her rooms to await her return, +but a week rightly served to consume his hope. The iron entered into his +soul, and for a time tortured him. He wept--but consoled himself that he +wept, for it proved to himself that he was not heartless. He comforted +himself further in the thought that she knew where to find him and that +when trouble came upon her, she would remember how good he had been to +her, and what a return she had made for it. Because he would not give up +every thing to her, liberty and all, she had left him! And in revenge, +having so long neglected him for the child, she had for the last once +roused in her every power of enchantment, had brought her every charm +into play, that she might lastingly bewitch him with the old spell, and +the undying memory of their first bliss--then left him to his lonely +misery! She had done what she could for the ruin of a man of education, +a man of family, a man on the way to distinction!--a man of genius, he +said even, but he was such only as every man is: he was a man of latent +genius. + +But verily, though our sympathy goes all with a woman like her, such a +man, however little he deserves, and however much he would scorn it, is +far more an object of pity. She has her love, has not been false +thereto, and one day will through suffering find the path to the door of +rest. When she left him, her soul was endlessly richer than his. The +music, of which he said she knew nothing, in her soul moved a deep wave, +while it blew but a sparkling ripple on his; the poetry they read +together echoed in a far profounder depth of her being, and I do not +believe she came to loathe it as he did; and when she read of Him who +reasoned that the sins of a certain woman must have been forgiven her, +else how could she love so much, she may well have been able, from the +depth of such another loving heart, to believe utterly in Him--while we +know that her poor, shrunken lover came to think it manly, honest, +reasonable, meritorious to deny Him. + +Weeks, months, years passed, but she never sought him; and he so far +forgot her by ceasing to think of her, that at length, when a chance +bubble did rise from the drowned memory, it broke instantly and +vanished. As to the child, he had almost forgotten whether _it_ was a +boy or a girl. + +But since, in his new desolation, he discovered her, beyond a doubt, in +the little Amanda, old memories had been crowding back upon his heart, +and he had begun to perceive how Amanda's mother must have felt when she +saw his love decaying visibly before her, and to suspect that it was in +the self-immolation of love that she had left him. His own character had +been hitherto so uniformly pervaded with a refined selfishness as to +afford no standpoint of a different soil, whence by contrast to +recognize the true nature of the rest; but now it began to reveal itself +to his conscious judgment. And at last it struck him that twice he had +been left--by women whom he loved--at least by women who loved him. Two +women had trusted him utterly, and he had failed them both! Next +followed the thought stinging him to the heart, that the former was the +purer of the two; that the one on whom he had looked down because of her +lack of education, and her familiarity with humble things and simple +forms of life, knew nothing of what men count evil, while she in whom he +had worshiped refinement, intellect, culture, beauty, song--she who, in +love-teachableness had received his doctrine against all the prejudices +of her education, was--what she had confessed herself! + +But, against all reason and logic, the result of this comparison was, +that Juliet returned fresh to his imagination in all the first witchery +of her loveliness; and presently he found himself for the first time +making excuses for her; if she had deceived him she had deceived him +from love; whatever her past, she had been true to him, and was, from +the moment she loved him, incapable of wrong.--He had cast her from him, +and she had sought refuge in the arms of the only rival he ever would +have had to fear--the bare-ribbed Death! + +Naturally followed the reflection--what was he to demand purity of any +woman?--Had he not accepted--yes, tempted, enticed from the woman who +preceded her, the sacrifice of one of the wings of her soul on the altar +of his selfishness! then driven her from him, thus maimed and helpless, +to the mercy of the rude blasts of the world! She, not he ever, had been +the noble one, the bountiful giver, the victim of shameless ingratitude. +Flattering himself that misery would drive her back to him, he had not +made a single effort to find her, or mourned that he could never make up +to her for the wrongs he had done her. He had not even hoped for a +future in which he might humble himself before her! What room was there +here to talk of honor! If she had not sunk to the streets it was through +her own virtue, and none of his care! And now she was dead! and his +child, but for the charity of a despised superstition, would have been +left an outcast in the London streets, to wither into the old-faced +weakling of a London workhouse! + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII. + +THE BLOWING OF THE WIND. + + +Smaller and smaller Faber felt as he pursued his plain, courageous +confession of wrong to the man whose life was even now in peril for the +sake of his neglected child. When he concluded with the expression of +his conviction that Amanda was his daughter, then first the old minister +spoke. His love had made him guess what was coming, and he was on his +guard. + +"May I ask what is your object in making this statement to me, Mr. +Faber?" he said coldly. + +"I am conscious of none but to confess the truth, and perform any duty +that may be mine in consequence of the discovery," said the doctor. + +"Do you wish this truth published to the people of Glaston?" inquired +the minister, in the same icy tone. + +"I have no such desire: but I am of course prepared to confess Amanda my +child, and to make you what amends may be possible for the trouble and +expense she has occasioned you." + +"Trouble! Expense!" cried the minister fiercely. "Do you mean in your +cold-blooded heart, that, because you, who have no claim to the child +but that of self-indulgence--because you believe her yours, I who have +for years carried her in my bosom, am going to give her up to a man, +who, all these years, has made not one effort to discover his missing +child? In the sight of God, which of us is her father? But I forget; +that is a question you can not understand. Whether or not you are her +father, I do not care a straw. You have not _proved_ it; and I tell you +that, until the court of chancery orders me to deliver up my darling to +you, to be taught there is no living Father of men--and that by the +fittest of all men to enforce the lie--not until then will I yield a +hair of her head to you. God grant, if you were her father, her mother +had more part in her than you!--A thousand times rather I would we had +both perished in the roaring mud, than that I should have to give her up +to you." + +He struck his fist on the table, rose, and turned from him. Faber also +rose, quietly, silent and pale. He stood a moment, waiting. Mr. Drake +turned. Faber made him an obeisance, and left the room. + +The minister was too hard upon him. He would not have been so hard but +for his atheism; he would not have been so hard if he could have seen +into his soul. But Faber felt he deserved it. Ere he reached home, +however, he had begun to think it rather hard that, when a man confessed +a wrong, and desired to make what reparation he could, he should have +the very candor of his confession thus thrown in his teeth. Verily, even +toward the righteous among men, candor is a perilous duty. + +He entered the surgery. There he had been making some experiments with +peroxide of manganese, a solution of which stood in a bottle on the +table. A ray of brilliant sunlight was upon it, casting its shadow on a +piece of white paper, a glorious red. It caught his eyes. He could never +tell what it had to do with the current of his thoughts, but neither +could he afterward get rid of the feeling that it had had some influence +upon it. For as he looked at it, scarcely knowing he did, and thinking +still how hard the minister had been upon him, suddenly he found himself +in the minister's place, and before him Juliet making her sad +confession: how had he met that confession? The whole scene returned, +and for the first time struck him right on the heart, and then first he +began to be in reality humbled in his own eyes. What if, after all, he +was but a poor creature? What if, instead of having any thing to be +proud of, he was in reality one who, before any jury of men or women +called to judge him, must hide his head in shame? + +The thought once allowed to enter and remain long enough to be +questioned, never more went far from him. For a time he walked in the +midst of a dull cloud, first of dread, then of dismay--a cloud from +which came thunders, and lightnings, and rain. It passed, and a +doubtful dawn rose dim and scared upon his consciousness, a dawn in +which the sun did not appear, and on which followed a gray, solemn day. +A humbler regard of himself had taken the place of confidence and +satisfaction. An undefined hunger, far from understood by himself, but +having vaguely for its object clearance and atonement and personal +purity even, had begun to grow, and move within him. The thought stung +him with keen self-contempt, yet think he must and did, that a woman +might be spotted not a little, and yet be good enough for him in the +eyes of retributive justice. He saw plainly that his treatment of his +wife, knowing what he did of himself, was a far worse shame than any +fault of which a girl, such as Juliet was at the time, could have been +guilty. And with that, for all that he believed it utterly in vain, his +longing after the love he had lost, grew and grew, ever passing over +into sickening despair, and then springing afresh; he longed for Juliet +as she had prayed to him--as the only power that could make him clean; +it seemed somehow as if she could even help him in his repentance for +the wrong done to Amanda's mother. The pride of the Pharisee was gone, +the dignity of the husband had vanished, and his soul longed after the +love that covers a multitude of sins, as the air in which alone his +spirit could breathe and live and find room. I set it down briefly: the +change passed upon him by many degrees, with countless alternations of +mood and feeling, and without the smallest conscious change of opinion. + +The rest of the day after receiving Faber's communication, poor Mr. +Drake roamed about like one on the verge of insanity, struggling to +retain lawful dominion over his thoughts. At times he was lost in +apprehensive melancholy, at times roused to such fierce anger that he +had to restrain himself from audible malediction. The following day +Dorothy would have sent for Faber, for he had a worse attack of the +fever than ever before, but he declared that the man should never again +cross his threshold. Dorothy concluded there had been a fresh outbreak +between them of the old volcano. He grew worse and worse, and did not +object to her sending for Dr. Mather; but he did not do him much good. +He was in a very critical state, and Dorothy was miserable about him. +The fever was persistent, and the cough which he had had ever since the +day that brought his illness, grew worse. His friends would gladly have +prevailed upon him to seek a warmer climate, but he would not hear of +it. + +Upon one occasion, Dorothy, encouraged by the presence of Dr. Mather, +was entreating him afresh to go somewhere from home for a while. + +"No, no: what would become of my money?" he answered, with a smile which +Dorothy understood. The doctor imagined it the speech of a man whom +previous poverty and suddenly supervening wealth had made penurious. + +"Oh!" he remarked reassuringly, "you need not spend a penny more abroad +than you do at home. The difference in the living would, in some places, +quite make up for the expense of the journey." + +The minister looked bewildered for a moment, then seemed to find +himself, smiled again, and replied-- + +"You do not quite understand me: I have a great deal of money to spend, +and it ought to be spent here in England where it was made--God knows +how." + +"You may get help to spend it in England, without throwing your life +away with it," said the doctor, who could not help thinking of his own +large family. + +"Yes, I dare say I might--from many--but it was given _me_ to spend--in +destroying injustice, in doing to men as others ought to have done to +them. My preaching was such a poor affair that it is taken from me, and +a lower calling given me--to spend money. If I do not well with that, +then indeed I am a lost man. If I be not faithful in that which is +another's, who will give me that which is my own? If I can not further +the coming of Christ, I can at least make a road or two, exalt a valley +or two, to prepare His way before Him." + +Thereupon it was the doctor's turn to smile. All that was to him as if +spoken in a language unknown, except that he recognized the religious +tone in it. "The man is true to his profession," he said to himself, +"--as he ought to be of course; but catch me spending _my_ money that +way, if I had but a hold of it!" + +His father died soon after, and he got a hold of the money he called +_his_, whereupon he parted with his practice, and by idleness and +self-indulgence, knowing all the time what he was about, brought on an +infirmity which no skill could cure, and is now a grumbling invalid, at +one or another of the German spas. I mention it partly because many +preferred this man to Faber on the ground that he went to church every +Sunday, and always shook his head at the other's atheism. + +Faber wrote a kind, respectful letter, somewhat injured in tone, to the +minister, saying he was much concerned to hear that he was not so well, +and expressing his apprehension that he himself had been in some measure +the cause of his relapse. He begged leave to assure him that he +perfectly recognized the absolute superiority of Mr. Drake's claim to +the child. He had never dreamed of asserting any right in her, except so +much as was implied in the acknowledgment of his duty to restore the +expense which his wrong and neglect had caused her true father; beyond +that he well knew he could make no return save in gratitude; but if he +might, for the very partial easing of his conscience, be permitted to +supply the means of the child's education, he was ready to sign an +agreement that all else connected with it should be left entirely to Mr. +Drake. He begged to be allowed to see her sometimes, for, long ere a +suspicion had crossed his mind that she was his, the child was already +dear to him. He was certain that her mother would have much preferred +Mr. Drake's influence to his own, and for her sake also, he would be +careful to disturb nothing. But he hoped Mr. Drake would remember that, +however unworthy, he was still her father. + +The minister was touched by the letter, moved also in the hope that an +arrow from the quiver of truth had found in the doctor a vulnerable +spot. He answered that he should be welcome to see the child when he +would; and that she should go to him when he pleased. He must promise, +however, as the honest man every body knew him to be, not to teach her +there was no God, or lead her to despise the instructions she received +at home. + +The word _honest_ was to Faber like a blow. He had come to the painful +conclusion that he was neither honest man nor gentleman. Doubtless he +would have knocked any one down who told him so, but then who had the +right to take with him the liberties of a conscience? Pure love only, I +suspect, can do that without wrong. He would not try less to be honest +in the time to come, but he had never been, and could no more ever feel +honest. It did not matter much. What was there worth any effort? All was +flat and miserable--a hideous long life! What did it matter what he was, +so long as he hurt nobody any more! He was tired of it all. + +It added greatly to his despondency that he found he could no longer +trust his temper. That the cause might be purely physical was no +consolation to him. He had been accustomed to depend on his +imperturbability, and now he could scarcely recall the feeling of the +mental condition. He did not suspect how much the change was owing to +his new-gained insight into his character, and the haunting +dissatisfaction it caused. + +To the minister he replied that he had been learning a good deal of +late, and among other things that the casting away of superstition did +not necessarily do much for the development of the moral nature; in +consequence of which discovery, he did not feel bound as before to +propagate the negative portions of his creed. If its denials were true, +he no longer believed them powerful for good; and merely as facts he did +not see that a man was required to disseminate them. Even here, however, +his opinion must go for little, seeing he had ceased to care much for +any thing, true or false. Life was no longer of any value to him, except +indeed he could be of service to Amanda. Mr. Drake might be assured she +was the last person on whom he would wish to bring to bear any of the +opinions so objectionable in his eyes. He would make him the most +comprehensive promise to that effect. Would Mr. Drake allow him to say +one thing more?--He was heartily ashamed of his past history; and if +there was one thing to make him wish there were a God--of which he saw +no chance--it was that he might beg of Him the power to make up for the +wrongs he had done, even if it should require an eternity of atonement. +Until he could hope for that, he must sincerely hold that his was the +better belief, as well as the likelier--namely, that the wronger and the +wronged went into darkness, friendly with oblivion, joy and sorrow alike +forgotten, there to bid adieu both to reproach and self-contempt. For +himself he had no desire after prolonged existence. Why should he desire +to live a day, not to say forever--worth nothing to himself, or to any +one? If there were a God, he would rather entreat Him, and that he would +do humbly enough, to unmake him again. Certainly, if there were a God, +He had not done over well by His creatures, making them so ignorant and +feeble that they could not fail to fall. Would Mr. Drake have made his +Amanda so? + +When Wingfold read the letter of which I have thus given the +substance--it was not until a long time after, in Polwarth's room--he +folded it softly together and said: + +"When he wrote that letter, Paul Faber was already becoming not merely a +man to love, but a man to revere." After a pause he added, "But what a +world it would be, filled with contented men, all capable of doing the +things for which they would despise themselves." + +It was some time before the minister was able to answer the letter +except by sending Amanda at once to the doctor with a message of kind +regards and thanks. But his inability to reply was quite as much from +the letter's giving him so much to think of first, as from his weakness +and fever. For he saw that to preach, as it was commonly understood, the +doctrine of the forgiveness of sins to such a man, would be useless: he +would rather believe in a God who would punish them, than in One who +would pass them by. To be told he was forgiven, would but rouse in him +contemptuous indignation. "What is that to me?" he would return. "I +remain what I am." Then grew up in the mind of the minister the +following plant of thought: "Things divine can only be shadowed in the +human; what is in man must be understood of God with the divine +difference--not only of degree, but of kind, involved in the fact that +He makes me, I can make nothing, and if I could, should yet be no less a +creature of Him the Creator; therefore, as the heavens are higher than +the earth, so His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and what we +call His forgiveness may be, must be something altogether transcending +the conception of man--overwhelming to such need as even that of Paul +Faber, whose soul has begun to hunger after righteousness, and whose +hunger must be a hunger that will not easily be satisfied." For a poor +nature will for a time be satisfied with a middling God; but as the +nature grows richer, the ideal of the God desired grows greater. The +true man can be satisfied only with a God of magnificence, never with a +God such as in his childhood and youth had been presented to Faber as +the God of the Bible. That God only whom Christ reveals to the humble +seeker, can ever satisfy human soul. + +Then it came into the minister's mind, thinking over Faber's religion +toward his fellows, and his lack toward God, how when the young man +asked Jesus what commandments he must keep up that he might inherit +eternal life, Jesus did not say a word concerning those of the first +table--not a word, that is, about his duty toward God; He spoke only of +his duty toward man. Then it struck him that our Lord gave him no sketch +or summary or part of a religious system--only told him what he asked, +the practical steps by which he might begin to climb toward eternal +life. One thing he lacked--namely, God Himself, but as to how God would +meet him, Jesus says nothing, but Himself meets him on those steps with +the offer of God. He treats the duties of the second table as a stair to +the first--a stair which, probably by its crumbling away in failure +beneath his feet as he ascended, would lift him to such a vision and +such a horror of final frustration, as would make him stretch forth his +hands, like the sinking Peter, to the living God, the life eternal which +he blindly sought, without whose closest presence he could never do the +simplest duty aright, even of those he had been doing from his youth up. +His measure of success, and his sense of utter failure, would together +lift him _toward_ the One Good. + +Thus, looking out upon truth from the cave of his brother's need, and +seeing the direction in which the shadow of his atheism fell, the +minister learned in what direction the clouded light lay, and turning +his gaze thitherward, learned much. It is only the aged who have dropped +thinking that become stupid. Such can learn no more, until first their +young nurse Death has taken off their clothes, and put the old babies to +bed. Of such was not Walter Drake. Certain of his formerly petted +doctrines he now threw away as worse than rubbish; others he dropped +with indifference; of some it was as if the angels picked his pockets +without his knowing it, or ever missing them; and still he found, +whatever so-called doctrine he parted with, that the one glowing truth +which had lain at the heart of it, buried, mired, obscured, not only +remained with him, but shone out fresh, restored to itself by the loss +of the clay-lump of worldly figures and phrases, in which the human +intellect had inclosed it. His faith was elevated, and so confirmed. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII. + +THE BORDER-LAND. + + +Mr. Drew, the draper, was, of all his friends, the one who most +frequently visited his old pastor. He had been the first, although a +deacon of the church, in part to forsake his ministry, and join the +worship of, as he honestly believed, a less scriptural community, +because in the abbey church he heard better news of God and His Kingdom: +to him rightly the gospel was every thing, and this church or that, save +for its sake, less than nothing and vanity. It had hurt Mr. Drake not a +little at first, but he found Drew in consequence only the more warmly +his personal friend, and since learning to know Wingfold, had heartily +justified his defection; and now that he was laid up, he missed +something any day that passed without a visit from the draper. One +evening Drew found him very poorly, though neither the doctor nor +Dorothy could prevail upon him to go to bed. He could not rest, but kept +walking about, his eye feverish, his pulse fluttering. He welcomed his +friend even more warmly than usual, and made him sit by the fire, while +he paced the room, turning and turning, like a caged animal that fain +would be king of infinite space. + +"I am sorry to see you so uncomfortable," said Mr. Drew. + +"On the contrary, I feel uncommonly well," replied the pastor. "I always +measure my health by my power of thinking; and to-night my thoughts are +like birds--or like bees rather, that keep flying in delight from one +lovely blossom to another. Only the fear keeps intruding that an hour +may be at hand, when my soul will be dark, and it will seem as if the +Lord had forsaken me." + +"But does not _our daily bread_ mean our spiritual as well as our bodily +bread?" said the draper. "Is it not just as wrong in respect of the one +as of the other to distrust God for to-morrow when you have enough for +to-day? Is He a God of times and seasons, of this and that, or is He the +All in all?" + +"You are right, old friend," said the minister, and ceasing his walk, he +sat down by the fire opposite him. "I am faithless still.--O Father in +Heaven, give us this day our daily bread.--I suspect, Drew, that I have +had as yet no more than the shadow of an idea how immediately I--we live +upon the Father.--I will tell you something. I had been thinking what it +would be if God were now to try me with heavenly poverty, as for a short +time he tried me with earthly poverty--that is, if he were to stint me +of life itself--not give me enough of Himself to live upon--enough to +make existence feel a good. The fancy grew to a fear, laid hold upon me, +and made me miserable. Suppose, for instance, I said to myself, I were +no more to have any larger visitation of thoughts and hopes and +aspirations than old Mrs. Bloxam, who sits from morning to night with +the same stocking on her needles, and absolutely the same expression, of +as near nothing as may be upon human countenance, nor changes whoever +speaks to her!" + +"She says the Lord is with her," suggested the draper. + +"Well!" rejoined the minister, in a slow, cogitative tone. + +"And plainly life is to her worth having," added the draper. "Clearly +she has as much of life as is necessary to her present stage." + +"You are right. I have been saying just the same things to myself; and, +I trust, when the Lord comes, He will not find me without faith. But +just suppose life _were_ to grow altogether uninteresting! Suppose +certain moods--such as you, with all your good spirits and blessed +temper, must surely sometimes have experienced--suppose they were to +become fixed, and life to seem utterly dull, God nowhere, and your own +dreary self, and nothing but that self, everywhere!" + +"Let me read you a chapter of St. John," said the draper. + +"Presently I will. But I am not in the right mood just this moment. Let +me tell you first how I came by my present mood. Don't mistake me: I am +not possessed by the idea--I am only trying to understand its nature, +and set a trap fit to catch it, if it should creep into my inner +premises, and from an idea swell to a seeming fact.--Well, I had a +strange kind of a vision last night--no, not a vision--yes, a kind of +vision--anyhow a very strange experience. I don't know whether the +draught the doctor gave me--I wish I had poor Faber back--this fellow is +fitter to doctor oxen and mules than men!--I don't know whether the +draught had any thing to do with it--I thought I tasted something sleepy +in it--anyhow, thought is thought, and truth is truth, whatever drug, no +less than whatever joy or sorrow, may have been midwife to it. The +first I remember of the mental experience, whatever it may have to be +called, is, that I was coming awake--returning to myself after some +period wherein consciousness had been quiescent. Of place, or time, or +circumstance, I knew nothing. I was only growing aware of being. I +speculated upon nothing. I did not even say to myself, 'I was dead, and +now I am coming alive.' I only felt. And I had but one feeling--and that +feeling was love--the outgoing of a longing heart toward--I could not +tell what;--toward--I can not describe the feeling--toward the only +existence there was, and that was every thing;--toward pure being, not +as an abstraction, but as the one actual fact, whence the world, men, +and me--a something I knew only by being myself an existence. It was +more me than myself; yet it was not me, or I could not have loved it. I +never thought me myself by myself; my very existence was the +consciousness of this absolute existence in and through and around me: +it made my heart burn, and the burning of my heart was my life--and the +burning was the presence of the Absolute. If you can imagine a growing +fruit, all blind and deaf, yet loving the tree it could neither look +upon nor hear, knowing it only through the unbroken arrival of its life +therefrom--that is something like what I felt. I suspect the _form_ of +the feeling was supplied by a shadowy memory of the time before I was +born, while yet my life grew upon the life of my mother. + +"By degrees came a change. What seemed the fire in me, burned and burned +until it began to grow light; in which light I began to remember things +I had read and known about Jesus Christ and His Father and my Father. +And with those memories the love grew and grew, till I could hardly bear +the glory of God and His Christ, it made me love so intensely. Then the +light seemed to begin to pass out beyond me somehow, and therewith I +remembered the words of the Lord, 'Let your light so shine before men,' +only I was not letting it shine, for while I loved like that, I could no +more keep it from shining than I could the sun. The next thing was, that +I began to think of one I had loved, then of another and another and +another--then of all together whom ever I had loved, one after another, +then all together. And the light that went out from me was as a nimbus +infolding every one in the speechlessness of my love. But lo! then, the +light staid not there, but, leaving them not, went on beyond them, +reaching and infolding every one of those also, whom, after the manner +of men, I had on earth merely known and not loved. And therewith I knew +that, for all the rest of the creation of God, I needed but the hearing +of the ears or the seeing of the eyes to love each and every one, in his +and her degree; whereupon such a perfection of bliss awoke in me, that +it seemed as if the fire of the divine sacrifice had at length seized +upon my soul, and I was dying of absolute glory--which is love and love +only. I had all things, yea the All. I was full and unutterably, +immeasurably content. Yet still the light went flowing out and out from +me, and love was life and life was light and light was love. On and on +it flowed, until at last it grew eyes to me, and I could see. Lo! before +me was the multitude of the brothers and sisters whom I +loved--individually--a many, many--not a mass;--I loved every individual +with that special, peculiar kind of love which alone belonged to that +one, and to that one alone. The sight dazzled the eyes which love itself +had opened. I said to myself, 'Ah, how radiant, how lovely, how divine +they are! and they are mine, every one--the many, for I love them!' + +"Then suddenly came a whisper--not to my ear--I heard it far away, but +whether in some distant cave of thought, away beyond the flaming walls +of the universe, or in some forgotten dungeon-corner of my own heart, I +could not tell. 'O man,' it said, 'what a being, what a life is thine! +See all these souls, these fires of life, regarding and loving thee! It +is in the glory of thy love their faces shine. Their hearts receive it, +and send it back in joy. Seest thou not all their eyes fixed upon thine? +Seest thou not the light come and go upon their faces, as the pulses of +thy heart flow and ebb? See, now they flash, and now they fade! Blessed +art thou, O man, as none else in the universe of God is blessed!' + +"It was, or seemed, only a voice. But therewith, horrible to tell, the +glow of another fire arose in me--an orange and red fire, and it went +out from me, and withered all the faces, and the next moment there was +darkness--all was black as night. But my being was still awake--only if +then there was bliss, now was there the absolute blackness of darkness, +the positive negation of bliss, the recoil of self to devour itself, and +forever. The consciousness of being was intense, but in all the universe +was there nothing to enter that being, and make it other than an +absolute loneliness. It was, and forever, a loveless, careless, +hopeless monotony of self-knowing--a hell with but one demon, and no +fire to make it cry: my self was the hell, my known self the demon of +it--a hell of which I could not find the walls, cold and dark and empty, +and I longed for a flame that I might know there was a God. Somehow I +only remembered God as a word, however; I knew nothing of my whence or +whither. One time there might have been a God, but there was none now: +if there ever was one, He must be dead. Certainly there was no God to +love--for if there was a God, how could the creature whose very essence +was to him an evil, love the Creator of him? I had the word _love_, and +I could reason about it in my mind, but I could not call up the memory +of what the feeling of it was like. The blackness grew and grew. I hated +life fiercely. I hated the very possibility of a God who had created me +a blot, a blackness. With that I felt blackness begin to go out from me, +as the light had gone before--not that I remembered the light; I had +forgotten all about it, and remembered it only after I awoke. Then came +the words of the Lord to me: 'If therefore the light that is in thee be +darkness, how great is that darkness!' And I knew what was coming: oh, +horror! in a moment more I should see the faces of those I had once +loved, dark with the blackness that went out from my very existence; +then I should hate them, and my being would then be a hell to which the +hell I now was would be a heaven! There was just grace enough left in me +for the hideousness of the terror to wake me. I was cold as if I had +been dipped in a well. But oh, how I thanked God that I was what I am, +and might yet hope after what I may be!" + +The minister's face was pale as the horse that grew gray when Death +mounted him; and his eyes shone with a feverous brilliancy. The draper +breathed a deep breath, and rubbed his white forehead. The minister rose +and began again to pace the room. Drew would have taken his departure, +but feared leaving him in such a state. He bethought himself of +something that might help to calm him, and took out his pocket-book. The +minister's dream had moved him deeply, but he restrained himself all he +could from manifesting his emotion. + +"Your vision," he said, "reminds me of some verses of Mr. Wingfold's, of +which Mrs. Wingfold very kindly let me take a copy. I have them here in +my pocket-book; may I read them to you?" + +The minister gave rather a listless consent, but that was enough for +Mr. Drew's object, and he read the following poem. + + SHALL THE DEAD PRAISE THEE? + + I can not praise Thee. By his instrument + The organ-master sits, nor moves a hand; + For see the organ pipes o'erthrown and bent, + Twisted and broke, like corn-stalks tempest-fanned! + + I well could praise Thee for a flower, a dove; + But not for life that is not life in me; + Not for a being that is less than love-- + A barren shoal half-lifted from a sea, + + And for the land whence no wind bloweth ships, + And all my living dead ones thither blown-- + Rather I'd kiss no more their precious lips, + Than carry them a heart so poor and prone. + + Yet I do bless Thee Thou art what Thou art, + That Thou dost know Thyself what Thou dost know-- + A perfect, simple, tender, rhythmic heart, + Beating Thy blood to all in bounteous flow. + + And I can bless Thee too for every smart, + For every disappointment, ache, and fear; + For every hook Thou fixest in my heart, + For every burning cord that draws me near. + + But prayer these wake, not song. Thyself I crave. + Come Thou, or all Thy gifts away I fling. + Thou silent, I am but an empty grave; + Think to me, Father, and I am a king. + + Then, like the wind-stirred bones, my pipes shall quake, + The air burst, as from burning house the blaze; + And swift contending harmonies shall shake + Thy windows with a storm of jubilant praise. + + Thee praised, I haste me humble to my own-- + Then love not shame shall bow me at their feet, + Then first and only to my stature grown, + Fulfilled of love, a servant all-complete. + +At first the minister seemed scarcely to listen, as he sat with closed +eyes and knitted brows, but gradually the wrinkles disappeared like +ripples, an expression of repose supervened, and when the draper lifted +his eyes at the close of his reading, there was a smile of quiet +satisfaction on the now aged-looking countenance. As he did not open his +eyes, Drew crept softly from the room, saying to Dorothy as he left the +house, that she _must_ get him to bed as soon as possible. She went to +him, and now found no difficulty in persuading him. But something, she +could not tell what, in his appearance, alarmed her, and she sent for +the doctor. He was not at home, and had expected to be out all night. +She sat by his bedside for hours, but at last, as he was quietly asleep, +ventured to lay herself on a couch in the room. There she too fell fast +asleep, and slept till morning, undisturbed. + +When she went to his bedside, she found him breathing softly, and +thought him still asleep. But he opened his eyes, looked at her for a +moment fixedly, and then said: + +"Dorothy, child of my heart! things may be very different from what we +have been taught, or what we may of ourselves desire; but every +difference will be the step of an ascending stair--each nearer and +nearer to the divine perfection which alone can satisfy the children of +a God, alone supply the poorest of their cravings." + +She stooped and kissed his hand, then hastened to get him some food. + +When she returned, he was gone up the stair of her future, leaving +behind him, like a last message that all was well, the loveliest smile +frozen upon a face of peace. The past had laid hold upon his body; he +was free in the Eternal. Dorothy was left standing at the top of the +stair of the present. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX. + +EMPTY HOUSES. + + +The desolation that seized on Dorothy seemed at first overwhelming. +There was no refuge for her. The child's tears, questions, and outbreaks +of merriment were but a trouble to her. Even Wingfold and Helen could do +little for her. Sorrow was her sole companion, her sole _comfort_ for a +time against the dreariness of life. Then came something better. As her +father's form receded from her, his spirit drew nigh. I mean no phantom +out of Hades--no consciousness of local presence: such things may be--I +think _sometimes_ they are; but I would rather know my friend better +through his death, than only be aware of his presence about me; that +will one day follow--how much the more precious that the absence will +have doubled its revelations, its nearness! To Dorothy her father's +character, especially as developed in his later struggles after +righteousness--the root-righteousness of God, opened itself up day by +day. She saw him combating his faults, dejected by his failures, +encouraged by his successes; and he grew to her the dearer for his +faults, as she perceived more plainly how little he had sided, how hard +he had fought with them. The very imperfections he repudiated gathered +him honor in the eyes of her love, sowed seeds of perennial tenderness +in her heart. She saw how, in those last days, he had been overcoming +the world with accelerated victory, and growing more and more of the +real father that no man can be until he has attained to the sonship. The +marvel is that our children are so tender and so trusting to the slow +developing father in us. The truth and faith which the great Father has +put in the heart of the child, makes him the nursing father of the +fatherhood in his father; and thus in part it is, that the children of +men will come at last to know the great Father. The family, with all its +powers for the development of society, is a family because it is born +and rooted in, and grows out of the very bosom of God. Gabriel told +Zacharias that his son John, to make ready a people prepared for the +Lord, should turn the hearts of the fathers to the children. + +Few griefs can be so paralyzing as, for a time, that of a true daughter +upon the departure, which at first she feels as the loss, of a true +parent; but through the rifts of such heartbreaks the light of love +shines clearer, and where love is, there is eternity: one day He who is +the Householder of the universe, will begin to bring out of its treasury +all the good old things, as well as the better new ones. How true must +be the bliss up to which the intense realities of such sorrows are +needful to force the way for the faithless heart and feeble will! Lord, +like Thy people of old, we need yet the background of the thunder-cloud +against which to behold Thee; but one day the only darkness around Thy +dwelling will be the too much of Thy brightness. For Thou art the +perfection which every heart sighs toward, no mind can attain unto. If +Thou wast One whom created mind could embrace, Thou wouldst be too small +for those whom Thou hast made in Thine own image, the infinite creatures +that seek their God, a Being to love and know infinitely. For the +created to know perfectly would be to be damned forever in the nutshell +of the finite. He who is His own cause, alone can understand perfectly +and remain infinite, for that which is known and that which knows are in +Him the same infinitude. + +Faber came to see Dorothy--solemn, sad, kind. He made no attempt at +condolence, did not speak a word of comfort; but he talked of the old +man, revealing for him a deep respect; and her heart was touched, and +turned itself toward him. Some change, she thought, must have passed +upon him. Her father had told her nothing of his relation to Amanda. It +would have to be done some day, but he shrunk from it. She could not +help suspecting there was more between Faber and him than she had at +first imagined; but there was in her a healthy contentment with +ignorance, and she asked no questions. Neither did Faber make any +attempt to find out whether she knew what had passed; even about Amanda +and any possible change in her future he was listless. He had never been +a man of plans, and had no room for any now under the rubbish of a +collapsed life. His days were gloomy and his nights troubled. He dreamed +constantly either of Amanda's mother, or of Juliet--sometimes of both +together, and of endless perplexity between them. Sometimes he woke +weeping. He did not now despise his tears, for they flowed neither from +suffering nor self-pity, but from love and sorrow and repentance. A +question of the possibility of his wife's being yet alive would +occasionally occur to him, but he always cast the thought from him as a +folly in which he dared not indulge lest it should grow upon him and +unman him altogether. Better she were dead than suffering what his +cruelty might have driven her to: he had weakened her self-respect by +insult, and then driven her out helpless. + +People said he took the loss of his wife coolly; but the fact was that, +in every quiet way, he had been doing all man could do to obtain what +information concerning her there might possibly be to be had. Naturally +he would have his proceedings as little as possible in the public mouth; +and to employ the police or the newspapers in such a quest was too +horrible. But he had made inquiries in all directions. He had put a +question or two to Polwarth, but at that time he _knew_ nothing of her, +and did not feel bound to disclose his suspicions. Not knowing to what +it might not expose her, he would not betray the refuge of a woman with +a woman. Faber learned what every body had learned, and for a time was +haunted by the horrible expectation of further news from the lake. Every +knock at the door made him start and turn pale. But the body had not +floated, and would not now. + +We have seen that, in the light thrown upon her fault from the revived +memory of his own, a reaction had set in: the tide of it grew fiercer as +it ran. He had deposed her idol--the God who she believed could pardon, +and the bare belief in whom certainly could comfort her; he had taken +the place with her of that imaginary, yet, for some, necessary being; +but when, in the agony of repentant shame, she looked to him for the +pardon he alone could give her, he had turned from her with loathing, +contempt, and insult! He was the one in the whole-earth, who, by saying +to her _Let it be forgotten_, could have lifted her into life and hope! +She had trusted in him, and he, an idol indeed, had crumbled in the +clinging arms of her faith! Had she not confessed to him what else he +would never have known, humbling herself in a very ecstasy of +repentance? Was it not an honor to any husband to have been so trusted +by his wife? And had he not from very scorn refused to strike her! Was +she not a woman still? a being before whom a man, when he can no longer +worship, must weep? Could _any_ fault, ten times worse than she had +committed, make her that she was no woman? that he, merely as a man, +owed her nothing? Her fault was grievous; it stung him to the soul: what +then was it not to her? Not now for his own shame merely, or the most, +did he lament it, but for the pity of it, that the lovely creature +should not be clean, had not deserved his adoration; that she was not +the ideal woman; that a glory had vanished from the earth; that she he +had loved was not in herself worthy. What then must be her sadness! And +this was his--the man's--response to her agony, this his balm for her +woe, his chivalry, his manhood--to dash her from him, and do his potent +part to fix forever upon her the stain which he bemoaned! Stained? Why +then did he not open his arms wide and take her, poor sad stain and all, +to the bosom of a love which, by the very agony of its own grief and +its pity over hers, would have burned her clean? What did it matter for +him? What was he? What was his honor? Had he had any, what fitter use +for honor than to sacrifice it for the redemption of a wife? That would +be to honor honor. But he had none. There was not a stone on the face of +the earth that would consent to be thrown at her by him! + +Ah men! men! gentlemen! was there ever such a poor sneaking scarecrow of +an idol as that gaping straw-stuffed inanity you worship, and call +_honor_? It is not Honor; it is but _your_ honor. It is neither gold, +nor silver, nor honest copper, but a vile, worthless pinchbeck. It may +be, however, for I have not the honor to belong to any of your clubs, +that you no longer insult the word by using it at all. It may be you +have deposed it, and enthroned another word of less significance to you +still. But what the recognized slang of the day may be is +nothing--therefore unnecessary to what I have to say--which is, that the +man is a wretched ape who will utter a word about a woman's virtue, when +in himself, soul and body, there is not a clean spot; when his body +nothing but the furnace of the grave, his soul nothing but the eternal +fire can purify. For him is many a harlot far too good: she is yet +capable of devotion; she would, like her sisters of old, recognize the +Holy if she saw Him, while he would pass by his Maker with a rude stare, +or the dullness of the brute which he has so assiduously cultivated in +him. + +By degrees Faber grew thoroughly disgusted with himself, then heartily +ashamed. Were it possible for me to give every finest shade and +gradation of the change he underwent, there would be still an +unrepresented mystery which I had not compassed. But were my analysis +correct as fact itself, and my showing of it as exact as words could +make it, never a man on whom some such change had not at least begun to +pass, would find in it any revelation. He ceased altogether to vaunt his +denials, not that now he had discarded them, but simply because he no +longer delighted in them. They were not interesting to him any more. He +grew yet paler and thinner. He ate little and slept ill--and the waking +hours of the night were hours of torture. He was out of health, and he +knew it, but that did not comfort him. It was wrong and its misery that +had made him ill, not illness that had made him miserable. Was he a +weakling, a fool not to let the past be the past? "Things without all +remedy should be without regard: what's done is done." But not every +strong man who has buried his murdered in his own garden, and set up no +stone over them, can forget where they lie. It needs something that is +not strength to be capable of that. The dead alone can bury their dead +so; and there is a bemoaning that may help to raise the dead. But +sometimes such dead come alive unbemoaned. Oblivion is not a tomb strong +enough to keep them down. The time may come when a man will find his +past but a cenotaph, and its dead all walking and making his present +night hideous. And when such dead walk so, it is a poor chance they do +not turn out vampires. + +When she had buried her dead out of her sight, Dorothy sought solitude +and the things unseen more than ever. The Wingfolds were like swallows +about her, never folding their wings of ministry, but not haunting her +with bodily visitation. She never refused to see them, but they +understood: the hour was not yet when their presence would be a comfort +to her. The only comfort the heart can take must come--not from, but +through itself. Day after day she would go into the park, avoiding the +lodge, and there brood on the memories of her father and his late words. +And ere long she began to feel nearer to him than she had ever felt +while he was with her. For, where the outward sign has been understood, +the withdrawing of it will bring the inward fact yet nearer. When our +Lord said the spirit of Himself would come to them after He was gone, He +but promised the working of one of the laws of His Father's kingdom: it +was about to operate in loftiest grade. + +Most people find the first of a bereavement more tolerable than what +follows. They find in its fever a support. When the wound in the earth +is closed, and the wave of life has again rushed over it, when things +have returned to their wonted, now desiccated show, then the very Sahara +of desolation opens around them, and for a time existence seems almost +insupportable. With Dorothy it was different. Alive in herself, she was +hungering and thirsting after life, therefore death could not have +dominion over her. + +To her surprise she found also--she could not tell how the illumination +had come--she wondered even how it should ever have been absent--that, +since her father's death, many of her difficulties had vanished. Some of +them, remembering there had been such, she could hardly recall +sufficiently to recognize them. She had been lifted into a region above +that wherein moved the questions which had then disturbed her peace. +From a point of clear vision, she saw the things themselves so +different, that those questions were no longer relevant. The things +themselves misconceived, naturally no satisfaction can be got from +meditation upon them, or from answers sought to the questions they +suggest. If it be objected that she had no better ground for believing +than before, I answer that, if a man should be drawing life from the +heart of God, it could matter little though he were unable to give a +satisfactory account of the mode of its derivation. That the man lives +is enough. That another denies the existence of any such life save in +the man's self-fooled imagination, is nothing to the man who lives it. +His business is not to raise the dead, but to live--not to convince the +blind that there is such a faculty as sight, but to make good use of his +eyes. He may not have an answer to any one objection raised by the +adopted children of Science--their adopted mother raises none--to that +which he believes; but there is no more need that should trouble +him, than that a child should doubt his bliss at his mother's breast, +because he can not give the chemical composition of the milk he draws: +that in the thing which is the root of the bliss, is rather beyond +chemistry. Is a man not blessed in his honesty, being unable to reason +of the first grounds of property? If there be truth, that truth must be +itself--must exercise its own blessing nature upon the soul which +receives it in loyal understanding--that is, in obedience. A man may +accept no end of things as facts which are not facts, and his mistakes +will not hurt him. He may be unable to receive many facts as facts, and +neither they nor his refusal of them will hurt him. He may not a whit +the less be living in and by the truth. He may be quite unable to answer +the doubts of another, but if, in the progress of his life, those doubts +should present themselves to his own soul, then will he be able to meet +them: he is in the region where all true answers are gathered. He may be +unable to receive this or that embodiment or form of truth, not having +yet grown to its level; but it is no matter so long as when he sees a +truth he does it: to see and not do would at once place him in eternal +danger. Hence a man of ordinary intellect and little imagination, may +yet be so radiant in nobility as, to the true poet-heart, to be right +worshipful. There is in the man who does the truth the radiance of life +essential, eternal--a glory infinitely beyond any that can belong to the +intellect, beyond any that can ever come within its scope to be judged, +proven, or denied by it. Through experiences doubtful even to the soul +in which they pass, the life may yet be flowing in. To know God is to be +in the secret place of all knowledge; and to trust Him changes the +atmosphere surrounding mystery and seeming contradiction, from one of +pain and fear to one of hope: the unknown may be some lovely truth in +store for us, which yet we are not good enough to apprehend. A man may +dream all night that he is awake, and when he does wake, be none the +less sure that he is awake in that he thought so all the night when he +was not; but he will find himself no more able to prove it than he would +have been then, only able to talk better about it. The differing +consciousnesses of the two conditions can not be _produced_ in evidence, +or embodied in forms of the understanding. But my main point is this, +that not to be intellectually certain of a truth, does not prevent the +heart that loves and obeys that truth from getting its truth-good, from +drawing life from its holy _factness_, present in the love of it. + +As yet Dorothy had no plans, except to carry out those of her father, +and, mainly for Juliet's sake, to remove to the old house as soon as +ever the work there was completed. But the repairs and alterations were +of some extent, and took months. Nor was she desirous of shortening +Juliet's sojourn with the Polwarths: the longer that lasted with safety, +the better for Juliet, and herself too, she thought. + +On Christmas eve, the curate gave his wife a little poem. Helen showed +it to Dorothy, and Dorothy to Juliet. By this time she had had some +genuine teaching--far more than she recognized as such, and the +spiritual song was not altogether without influence upon her. Here it +is: + + THAT HOLY THING. + + They all were looking for a king + To slay their foes, and lift them high: + Thou cam'st a little baby thing + That made a woman cry. + + O Son of Man, to right my lot + Naught but Thy presence can avail; + Yet on the road Thy wheels are not, + Nor on the sea Thy sail. + + My how or when Thou wilt not heed, + But come down Thine own secret stair, + That Thou mayst answer all my need, + Yea, every by-gone prayer. + + + + +CHAPTER L. + +FALLOW FIELDS. + + +The spring was bursting in bud and leaf before the workmen were out of +the Old House. The very next day, Dorothy commenced her removal. Every +stick of the old furniture she carried with her; every book of her +father's she placed on the shelves of the library he had designed. But +she took care not to seem neglectful of Juliet, never failing to carry +her the report of her husband as often as she saw him. It was to Juliet +like an odor from Paradise making her weep, when Dorothy said that he +looked sad--"so different from his old self!" + +One day Dorothy ventured, hardly to hint, but to approach a hint of +mediation. Juliet rose indignant: no one, were he an angel from Heaven, +should interfere between her husband and her! If they could not come +together without that, there should be a mediator, but not such as +Dorothy meant! + +"No, Dorothy!" she resumed, after a rather prolonged silence; "the very +word _mediation_ would imply a gulf between us that could not be passed. +But I have one petition to make to you, Dorothy. You _will_ be with me +in my trouble--won't you?" + +"Certainly, Juliet--please God, I will." + +"Then promise me, if I can't get through--if I am going to die, that you +will bring him to me. I _must_ see my Paul once again before the +darkness." + +"Wouldn't that be rather unkind--rather selfish?" returned Dorothy. + +She had been growing more and more pitiful of Paul. + +Juliet burst into tears, called Dorothy cruel, said she meant to kill +her. How was she to face it but in the hope of death? and how was she to +face death but in the hope of seeing Paul once again for the last time? +She was certain she was going to die; she knew it! and if Dorothy would +not promise, she was not going to wait for such a death! + +"But there will be a doctor," said Dorothy, "and how am I----" + +Juliet interrupted her--not with tears but words of indignation: Did +Dorothy dare imagine she would allow any man but her Paul to come near +her? Did she? Could she? What did she think of her? But of course she +was prejudiced against her! It was too cruel! + +The moment she could get in a word, Dorothy begged her to say what she +wished. + +"You do not imagine, Juliet," she said, "that I could take such a +responsibility on myself!" + +"I have thought it all over," answered Juliet. "There are women properly +qualified, and you must find one. When she says I am dying,--when she +gets frightened, you will send for my husband? Promise me." + +"Juliet, I will," answered Dorothy, and Juliet was satisfied. + +But notwithstanding her behavior's continuing so much the same, a +change, undivined by herself as well as unsuspected by her friend, had +begun to pass upon Juliet. Every change must begin further back than the +observation of man can reach--in regions, probably, of which we have no +knowledge. To the eyes of his own wife, a man may seem in the gall of +bitterness and the bond of iniquity, when "larger, other eyes than ours" +may be watching with delight the germ of righteousness swell within the +inclosing husk of evil. Sooner might the man of science detect the first +moment of actinic impact, and the simultaneously following change in the +hitherto slumbering acorn, than the watcher of humanity make himself +aware of the first movement of repentance. The influences now for some +time operative upon her, were the more powerful that she neither +suspected nor could avoid them. She had a vague notion that she was kind +to her host and hostess; that she was patronizing them; that her friend +Dorothy, with whom she would afterwards arrange the matter, filled their +hands for her use; that, in fact, they derived benefit from her +presence;--and surely they did, although not as she supposed. The only +benefits they reaped were invaluable ones--such as spring from love and +righteousness and neighborhood. She little thought how she interfered +with the simple pleasures and comforts of the two; how many a visit of +friends, whose talk was a holy revelry of thought and utterance, +Polwarth warded, to avoid the least danger of her discovery; how often +fear for her shook the delicate frame of Ruth; how often her host left +some book unbought, that he might procure instead some thing to tempt +her to eat; how often her hostess turned faint in cooking for her. The +crooked creatures pitied, as well they might, the lovely lady; they +believed that Christ was in her; that the deepest in her was the nature +He had made--His own, and not that which she had gathered to +herself--and thought her own. For the sake of the Christ hidden in her, +her own deepest, best, purest self; that she might be lifted from the +dust-heap of the life she had for herself ruined, into the clear air of +a pure will and the Divine Presence, they counted their best labor most +fitly spent. It is the human we love in each other--and the human is the +Christ. What we do not love is the devilish--no more the human than the +morrow's wormy mass was the manna of God. To be for the Christ in a man, +is the highest love you can give him; for in the unfolding alone of that +Christ can the individuality, the genuine peculiarity of the man, the +man himself, be perfected--the flower of his nature be developed, in its +own distinct loveliness, beauty, splendor, and brought to its idea. + +The main channel through which the influences of the gnomes reached the +princess, was their absolute simplicity. They spoke and acted what was +in them. Through this open utterance, their daily, common righteousness +revealed itself--their gentleness, their love of all things living, +their care of each other, their acceptance as the will of God concerning +them of whatever came, their general satisfaction with things as they +were--though it must in regard to some of them have been in the hope +that they would soon pass away, for one of the things Juliet least could +fail to observe was their suffering patience. They always spoke as if +they felt where their words were going--as if they were hearing them +arrive--as if the mind they addressed were a bright silver table on +which they must not set down even the cup of the water of life roughly: +it must make no scratch, no jar, no sound beyond a faint sweet +salutation. Pain had taught them not sensitiveness but delicacy. A +hundred are sensitive for one that is delicate. Sensitiveness is a +miserable, a cheap thing in itself, but invaluable if it be used for the +nurture of delicacy. They refused to receive offense, their care was to +give none. The burning spot in the center of that distorted spine, which +ought to have lifted Ruth up to a lovely woman, but had failed and sunk, +and ever after ached bitterly as if with defeat, had made her pitiful +over the pains of humanity: she could bear it, for there was something +in her deeper than pain; but alas for those who were not thus upheld! +Her agony drove her to pray for the whole human race, exposed to like +passion with her. The asthmatic choking which so often made Polwarth's +nights a long misery, taught him sympathy with all prisoners and +captives, chiefly with those bound in the bonds of an evil conscience: +to such he held himself specially devoted. They thought little of +bearing pain: to know they had caused it would have been torture. Each, +graciously uncomplaining, was tender over the ailing of the other. + +Juliet had not been long with them before she found the garments she had +in her fancy made for them, did not fit them, and she had to devise, +afresh. They were not gnomes, kobolds, goblins, or dwarfs, but a prince +and princess of sweet nobility, who had loved each other in beauty and +strength, and knew that they were each crushed in the shell of a cruel +and mendacious enchantment. How they served each other! The uncle would +just as readily help the niece with her saucepans, as the niece would +help the uncle to find a passage in Shakespeare or a stanza in George +Herbert. And to hear them talk! + +For some time Juliet did not understand them, and did not try. She had +not an idea what they were talking about. Then she began to imagine they +must be weak in the brain--a thing not unlikely with such spines as +theirs--and had silly secrets with each other, like children, which they +enjoyed talking about chiefly because none could understand but +themselves. Then she came to fancy it was herself and her affairs they +were talking about, deliberating upon--in some mental if not lingual +gibberish of their own. By and by it began to disclose itself to her, +that the wretched creatures, to mask their misery from themselves, were +actually playing at the kingdom of Heaven, speaking and judging and +concluding of things of this world by quite other laws, other scales, +other weights and measures than those in use in it. Every thing was +turned topsy-turvy in this their game of make-believe. Their religion +was their chief end and interest, and their work their play, as lightly +followed as diligently. What she counted their fancies, they seemed to +count their business; their fancies ran over upon their labor, and made +every day look and feel like a harvest-home, or the eve of a +long-desired journey, for which every preparation but the last and +lightest was over. Things in which she saw no significance made them +look very grave, and what she would have counted of some importance to +such as they, drew a mere smile from them. She saw all with bewildered +eyes, much as his neighbors looked upon the strange carriage of Lazarus, +as represented by Robert Browning in the wonderful letter of the Arab +physician. But after she had begun to take note of their sufferings, and +come to mark their calm, their peace, their lighted eyes, their ready +smiles, the patience of their very moans, she began to doubt whether +somehow they might not be touched to finer issues than she. It was not, +however, until after having, with no little reluctance and recoil, +ministered to them upon an occasion in which both were disabled for some +hours, that she began to _feel_ they had a hold upon something unseen, +the firmness of which hold made it hard to believe it closed upon an +unreality. If there was nothing there, then these dwarfs, in the +exercise of their foolish, diseased, distorted fancies, came nearer to +the act of creation than any grandest of poets; for these their +inventions did more than rectify for them the wrongs of their existence, +not only making of their chaos a habitable cosmos, but of themselves +heroic dwellers in the same. Within the charmed circle of this their +well-being, their unceasing ministrations to her wants, their +thoughtfulness about her likings and dislikings, their sweetness of +address, and wistful watching to discover the desire they might satisfy +or the solace they could bring, seemed every moment enticing her. They +soothed the aching of her wounds, mollified with ointment the stinging +rents in her wronged humanity. + +At first, when she found they had no set prayers in the house, she +concluded that, for all the talk of the old gnome in the garden, they +were not very religious. But by and by she began to discover that no one +could tell when they might not be praying. At the most unexpected times +she would hear her host's voice somewhere uttering tones of glad +beseeching, of out-poured adoration. One day, when she had a bad +headache, the little man came into her room, and, without a word to her, +kneeled by her bedside, and said, "Father, who through Thy Son knowest +pain, and Who dost even now in Thyself feel the pain of this Thy child, +help her to endure until Thou shall say it is enough, and send it from +her. Let it not overmaster her patience; let it not be too much for her. +What good it shall work in her, Thou, Lord, needest not that we should +instruct Thee." Therewith he rose, and left the room. + +For some weeks after, she was jealous of latent design to bring their +religion to bear upon her; but perceiving not a single direct approach, +not the most covert hint of attack, she became gradually convinced that +they had no such intent. Polwarth was an absolute serpent of holy +wisdom, and knew that upon certain conditions of the human being the +only powerful influences of religion are the all but insensible ones. A +man's religion, he said, ought never to be held too near his neighbor. +It was like violets: hidden in the banks, they fill the air with their +scent; but if a bunch of them is held to the nose, they stop away their +own sweetness. + +Not unfrequently she heard one of them reading to the other, and by and +by, came to join them occasionally. Sometimes it would be a passage of +the New Testament, sometimes of Shakespeare, or of this or that old +English book, of which, in her so-called education, Juliet had never +even heard, but of which the gatekeeper knew every landmark. He would +often stop the reading to talk, explaining and illustrating what the +writer meant, in a way that filled Juliet with wonder. "Strange!" she +would say to herself; "I never thought of that!" She did not suspect +that it would have been strange indeed if she had thought of it. + +In her soul began to spring a respect for her host and hostess, such as +she had never felt toward God or man. When, despite of many revulsions +it was a little established, it naturally went beyond them in the +direction of that which they revered. The momentary hush that preceded +the name of our Lord, and the smile that so often came with it; the +halo, as it were, which in their feeling surrounded Him; the confidence +of closest understanding, the radiant humility with which they +approached His idea; the way in which they brought the commonest +question side by side with the ideal of Him in their minds, considering +the one in the light of the other, and answering it thereby; the way in +which they took all He said and did on the fundamental understanding +that His relation to God was perfect, but His relation to men as yet an +imperfect, endeavoring relation, because of their distance from His +Father; these, with many another outcome of their genuine belief, began +at length to make her feel, not merely as if there had been, but as if +there really were such a person as Jesus Christ. The idea of Him ruled +potent in the lives of the two, filling heart and brain and hands and +feet: how could she help a certain awe before it, such as she had never +felt! + +Suddenly one day the suspicion awoke in her mind, that the reason why +they asked her no questions, put out no feelers after discovery +concerning her, must be that Dorothy had told them every thing: if it +was, never again would she utter word good or bad to one whose very +kindness, she said to herself, was betrayal! The first moment therefore +she saw Polwarth alone, unable to be still an instant with her doubt +unsolved, she asked him, "with sick assay," but point-blank, whether he +knew why she was in hiding from her husband. + +"I do not know, ma'am," he answered. + +"Miss Drake told you nothing?" pursued Juliet. + +"Nothing more than I knew already: that she could not deny when I put it +to her." + +"But how did you know any thing?" she almost cried out, in a sudden rush +of terror as to what the public knowledge of her might after all be. + +"If you will remember, ma'am," Polwarth replied, "I told you, the first +time I had the pleasure of speaking to you, that it was by observing and +reasoning upon what I observed, that I knew you were alive and at the +Old House. But it may be some satisfaction to you to see how the thing +took shape in my mind." + +Thereupon he set the whole process plainly before her. + +Fresh wonder, mingled with no little fear, laid hold upon Juliet. She +felt not merely as if he could look into her, but as if he had only to +look into himself to discover all her secrets. + +"I should not have imagined you a person to trouble himself to that +extent with other people's affairs," she said, turning away. + +"So far as my service can reach, the things of others are also mine," +replied Polwarth, very gently. + +"But you could not have had the smallest idea of serving me when you +made all those observations concerning me." + +"I had long desired to serve your husband, ma'am. Never from curiosity +would I have asked a single question about you or your affairs. But what +came to me I was at liberty to understand if I could, and use for lawful +ends if I might." + +Juliet was silent. She dared hardly think, lest the gnome should see her +very thoughts in their own darkness. Yet she yielded to one more urgent +question that kept pushing to get out. She tried to say the words +without thinking of the thing, lest he should thereby learn it. + +"I suppose then you have your own theory as to my reasons for seeking +shelter with Miss Drake for a while?" she said--and the moment she said +it, felt as if some demon had betrayed her, and used her organs to utter +the words. + +"If I have, ma'am," answered Polwarth, "it is for myself alone. I know +the sacredness of married life too well to speculate irreverently on its +affairs. I believe that many an awful crisis of human history is there +passed--such, I presume, as God only sees and understands. The more +carefully such are kept from the common eye and the common judgment, the +better, I think." + +If Juliet left him with yet a little added fear, it was also with +growing confidence, and some comfort, which the feeble presence of an +infant humility served to enlarge. + +Polwarth had not given much thought to the question of the cause of +their separation. That was not of his business. What he could not well +avoid seeing was, that it could hardly have taken place since their +marriage. He had at once, as a matter of course, concluded that it lay +with the husband, but from what he had since learned of Juliet's +character, he knew she had not the strength either of moral opinion or +of will to separate, for any reason past and gone, from the husband she +loved so passionately; and there he stopped, refusing to think further. +For he found himself on the verge of thinking what, in his boundless +respect for women, he shrank with deepest repugnance from entertaining +even as a transient flash of conjecture. + +One trifle I will here mention, as admitting laterally a single ray of +light upon Polwarth's character. Juliet had come to feel some desire to +be useful in the house beyond her own room, and descrying not only dust, +but what she judged disorder in her _landlord's_ little library--for +such she chose to consider him--which, to her astonishment in such a +mere cottage, consisted of many more books than her husband's, and ten +times as many readable ones, she offered to dust and rearrange them +properly: Polwarth instantly accepted her offer, with thanks--which were +solely for the kindness of the intent, he could not possibly be grateful +for the intended result--and left his books at her mercy. I do not know +another man who, loving his books like Polwarth, would have done so. +Every book had its own place. He could--I speak advisedly--have laid his +hand on any book of at least three hundred of them, in the dark. While +he used them with perfect freedom, and cared comparatively little about +their covers, he handled them with a delicacy that looked almost like +respect. He had seen ladies handle books, he said, laughing, to +Wingfold, in a fashion that would have made him afraid to trust them +with a child. It was a year after Juliet left the house before he got +them by degrees muddled into order again; for it was only as he used +them that he would alter their places, putting each, when he had done +with it for the moment, as near where it had been before as he could; +thus, in time, out of a neat chaos, restoring a useful work-a-day world. + +Dorothy's thoughts were in the meantime much occupied for Juliet. Now +that she was so sadly free, she could do more for her. She must occupy +her old quarters as soon as possible after the workmen had finished. She +thought at first of giving out that a friend in poor health was coming +to visit her, but she soon saw that would either involve lying or lead +to suspicion, and perhaps discovery, and resolved to keep her presence +in the house concealed from the outer world as before. But what was she +to do with respect to Lisbeth? Could she trust her with the secret? She +certainly could not trust Amanda. She would ask Helen to take the latter +for a while, and do her best to secure the silence of the former. + +She so represented the matter to Lisbeth as to rouse her heart in regard +to it even more than her wonder. But her injunctions to secrecy were so +earnest, that the old woman was offended. She was no slip of a girl, she +said, who did not know how to hold her tongue. She had had secrets to +keep before now, she said; and in proof of her perfect trustworthiness, +was proceeding to tell some of them, when she read her folly in +Dorothy's fixed regard, and ceased. + +"Lisbeth," said her mistress, "you have been a friend for sixteen years, +and I love you; but if I find that you have given the smallest hint even +that there is a secret in the house, I solemnly vow you shall not be +another night in it yourself, and I shall ever after think of you as a +wretched creature who periled the life of a poor, unhappy lady rather +than take the trouble to rule her own tongue." + +Lisbeth trembled, and did hold her tongue, in spite of the temptation to +feel herself for just one instant the most important person in Glaston. + +As the time went on, Juliet became more fretful, and more confiding. +She was never cross with Ruth--why, she could not have told; and when +she had been cross to Dorothy, she was sorry for it. She never said she +was sorry, but she tried to make up for it. Her husband had not taught +her the virtue, both for relief and purification, that lies in the +_acknowledgment_ of wrong. To take up blame that is our own, is to +wither the very root of it. + +Juliet was pleased at the near prospect of the change, for she had +naturally dreaded being ill in the limited accommodation of the lodge. +She formally thanked the two crushed and rumpled little angels, begged +them to visit her often, and proceeded to make her very small +preparations with a fitful cheerfulness. Something might come of the +change, she flattered herself. She had always indulged a vague fancy +that Dorothy was devising help for her; and it was in part the +disappointment of nothing having yet justified the expectation, that had +spoiled her behavior to her. But for a long time Dorothy had been +talking of Paul in a different tone, and that very morning had spoken of +him even with some admiration: it might be a prelude to something! Most +likely Dorothy knew more than she chose to say! She dared ask no +question for the dread of finding herself mistaken. She preferred the +ignorance that left room for hope. But she did not like all Dorothy said +in his praise; for her tone, if not her words, seemed to imply some kind +of change in him. He might have his faults, she said to herself, like +other men, but she had not yet discovered them; and any change would, in +her eyes, be for the worse. Would she ever see her own old Paul again? + +One day as Faber was riding at a good round trot along one of the back +streets of Glaston, approaching his own house, he saw Amanda, who still +took every opportunity of darting out at an open door, running to him +with outstretched arms, right in the face of Niger, just as if she +expected the horse to stop and take her up. Unable to trust him so well +as his dear old Ruber, he dismounted, and taking her in his arms, led +Niger to his stable. He learned from her that she was staying with the +Wingfolds, and took her home, after which his visits to the rectory were +frequent. + +The Wingfolds could not fail to remark the tenderness with which he +regarded the child. Indeed it soon became clear that it was for her sake +he came to them. The change that had begun in him, the loss of his +self-regard following on the loss of Juliet, had left a great gap in his +conscious being: into that gap had instantly begun to shoot the +all-clothing greenery of natural affection. His devotion to her did not +at first cause them any wonderment. Every body loved the little Amanda, +they saw in him only another of the child's conquests, and rejoiced in +the good the love might do him. Even when they saw him looking fixedly +at her with eyes over clear, they set it down to the frustrated +affection of the lonely, wifeless, childless man. But by degrees they +did come to wonder a little: his love seemed to grow almost a passion. +Strange thoughts began to move in their minds, looking from the one to +the other of this love and the late tragedy. + +"I wish," said the curate one morning, as they sat at breakfast, "if +only for Faber's sake, that something definite was known about poor +Juliet. There are rumors in the town, roving like poisonous fogs. Some +profess to believe he has murdered her, getting rid of her body utterly, +then spreading the report that she had run away. Others say she is mad, +and he has her in the house, but stupefied with drugs to keep her quiet. +Drew told me he had even heard it darkly hinted that he was making +experiments upon her, to discover the nature of life. It is dreadful to +think what a man is exposed to from evil imaginations groping after +theory. I dare hardly think what might happen should these fancies get +rooted among the people. Many of them are capable of brutality. For my +part, I don't believe the poor woman is dead yet." + +Helen replied she did not believe that, in her sound mind, Juliet would +have had the resolution to kill herself; but who could tell what state +of mind she was in at the time? There was always something mysterious +about her--something that seemed to want explanation. + +Between them it was concluded that, the next time Faber came, Wingfold +should be plain with him. He therefore told him that if he could cast +any light on his wife's disappearance, it was most desirable he should +do so; for reports were abroad greatly to his disadvantage. Faber +answered, with a sickly smile of something like contempt, that they had +had a quarrel the night before, for which he was to blame; that he had +left her, and the next morning she was gone, leaving every thing, even +to her wedding-ring, behind her, except the clothes she wore; that he +had done all he could to find her, but had been utterly foiled. More he +could not say. + +The next afternoon, he sought an interview with the curate in his +study, and told him every thing he had told Mr. Drake. The story seemed +to explain a good deal more than it did, leaving the curate with the +conviction that the disclosure of this former relation had caused the +quarrel between him and his wife, and more doubtful than ever as to +Juliet's having committed suicide. + + + + +CHAPTER LI. + +THE NEW OLD HOUSE. + + +It was a lovely moon-lighted midnight when they set out, the four of +them, to walk from the gate across the park to the Old House. Like +shadows they flitted over the green sward, all silent as shadows. +Scarcely a word was spoken as they went, and the stray syllable now and +then, was uttered softly as in the presence of the dead. Suddenly but +gently opened in Juliet's mind a sense of the wonder of life. The moon, +having labored through a heap of cloud into a lake of blue, seemed to +watch her with curious interest as she toiled over the level sward. The +air now and then made a soundless sigh about her head, like a waft of +wings invisible. The heavenly distances seemed to have come down and +closed her softly in. All at once, as if waked from an eternity of +unconsciousness, she found herself, by no will of her own, with no power +to say nay, present to herself--a target for sorrow to shoot at, a tree +for the joy-birds to light upon and depart--a woman, scorned of the man +she loved, bearing within her another life, which by no will of its own, +and with no power to say nay, must soon become aware of its own joys and +sorrows, and have no cause to bless her for her share in its being. Was +there no one to answer for it? Surely there must be a heart-life +somewhere in the universe, to whose will the un-self-willed life could +refer for the justification of its existence, for its motive, for the +idea of it that should make it seem right to itself--to whom it could +cry to have its divergence from that idea rectified! Was she not now, +she thought, upon her silent way to her own deathbed, walking, walking, +the phantom of herself, in her own funeral? What if, when the +bitterness of death was past, and her child was waking in this world, +she should be waking in another, to a new life, inevitable as the +former--another, yet the same? We know not whence we came--why may we +not be going whither we know not? We did not know we were coming here, +why may we not be going there without knowing it--this much more +open-eyed, more aware that we know we do not know? That terrible +morning, she had come this way, rushing swiftly to her death: she was +caught and dragged back from Hades, to be there-after--now, driven +slowly toward it, like an ox to the slaughter! She could not avoid her +doom--she _must_ encounter that which lay before her. That she shrunk +from it with fainting terror was nothing; on she must go! What an iron +net, what a combination of all chains and manacles and fetters and +iron-masks and cages and prisons was this existence--at least to a +woman, on whom was laid the burden of the generations to follow! In the +lore of centuries was there no spell whereby to be rid of it? no dark +saying that taught how to make sure death should be death, and not a +fresh waking? That the future is unknown, assures only danger! New +circumstances have seldom to the old heart proved better than the new +piece of cloth to the old garment. + +Thus meditated Juliet. She was beginning to learn that, until we get to +the heart of life, its outsides will be forever fretting us; that among +the mere garments of life, we can never be at home. She was hard to +teach, but God's circumstance had found her. + +When they came near the brow of the hollow, Dorothy ran on before, to +see that all was safe. Lisbeth was of course the only one in the house. +The descent was to Juliet like the going down to the gates of Death. + +Polwarth, who had been walking behind with Ruth, stepped to her side the +moment Dorothy left her. Looking up in her face, with the moonlight full +upon his large features, he said, + +"I have been feeling all the way, ma'am, as if Another was walking +beside us--the same who said, 'I am with you always even to the end of +the world.' He could not have meant that only for the few that were so +soon to follow Him home; He must have meant it for those also who should +believe by their word. Becoming disciples, all promises the Master made +to His disciples are theirs." + +"It matters little for poor me," answered Juliet with a sigh. "You know +I do not believe in Him." + +"But I believe in Him," answered Polwarth, "and Ruth believes in Him, +and so does Miss Drake; and if He be with us, he can not be far from +you." + +With that he stepped back to Ruth's side, and said no more. + +Dorothy opened the door quickly, the moment their feet were on the +steps; they entered quickly, and she closed it behind them at once, +fearful of some eye in the night. How different was the house from that +which Juliet had left! The hall was lighted with a soft lamp, showing +dull, warm colors on walls and floor. The dining-room door stood open; a +wood-fire was roaring on the hearth, and candles were burning on a snowy +table spread for a meal. Dorothy had a chamber-candle in her hand. She +showed the Polwarths into the dining-room, then turning to Juliet, said, + +"I will take you to your room, dear." + +"I have prepared your old quarters for you," she said, as they went up +the stair. + +With the words there rushed upon Juliet such a memory of mingled +dreariness and terror, that she could not reply. + +"You know it will be safest," added Dorothy, and as she spoke, set the +candle on a table at the top of the stair. They went along the passage, +and she opened the door of the closet. All was dark. + +She opened the door in the closet, and Juliet started back with +amazement. It was the loveliest room! and--like a marvel in a +fairy-tale--the great round moon was shining gloriously, first through +the upper branches of a large yew, and then through an oriel window, +filled with lozenges of soft greenish glass, through which fell a lovely +picture on the floor in light and shadow and something that was neither +or both. Juliet turned in delight, threw her arms round Dorothy, and +kissed her. + +"I thought I was going into a dungeon," she said, "and it is a room for +a princess!" + +"I sometimes almost believe, Juliet," returned Dorothy, "that God will +give us a great surprise one day." + +Juliet was tired, and did not want to hear about God. If Dorothy had +done all this, she thought, for the sake of reading her a good lesson, +it spoiled it all. She did not understand the love that gives beyond the +gift, that mantles over the cup and spills the wine into the spaces of +eternal hope. The room was so delicious that she begged to be excused +from going down to supper. Dorothy suggested it would not be gracious to +her friends. Much as she respected, and indeed loved them, Juliet +resented the word _friends_, but yielded. + +The little two would themselves rather have gone home--it was so +late--but staid, fearing to disappoint Dorothy. If they did run a risk +by doing so, it was for a good reason--therefore of no great +consequence. + +"How your good father will delight to watch you here sometimes, Miss +Drake," said Polwarth, "if those who are gone are permitted to see, +walking themselves unseen." + +Juliet shuddered. Dorothy's father not two months gone and the dreadful +little man to talk to her like that! + +"Do you then think," said Dorothy, "that the dead only seem to have gone +from us?" and her eyes looked like store-houses of holy questions. + +"I know so little," he answered, "that I dare hardly say I _think_ any +thing. But if, as our Lord implies, there be no such thing as that which +the change appears to us--nothing like that we are thinking of when we +call it _death_--may it not be that, obstinate as is the appearance of +separation, there is, notwithstanding, none of it?--I don't care, mind: +His will _is_, and that is every thing. But there can be no harm, where +I do not know His will, in venturing a _may be_. I am sure He likes His +little ones to tell their fancies in the dimmits about the nursery fire. +Our souls yearning after light of any sort must be a pleasure to him to +watch.--But on the other hand, to resume the subject, it may be that, as +it is good for us to miss them in the body that we may the better find +them in the spirit, so it may be good for them also to miss our bodies +that they may find our spirits." + +"But," suggested Ruth, "they had that kind of discipline while yet on +earth, in the death of those who went before them; and so another sort +might be better for them now. Might it not be more of a discipline for +them to see, in those left behind, how they themselves, from lack of +faith, went groping about in the dark, while crowds all about them knew +perfectly what they could not bring themselves to believe?" + +"It might, Ruth, it might; nor do I think any thing to the contrary. Or +it might be given to some and not to others, just as it was good for +them. It may be that some can see some, or can see them sometimes, and +watch their ways in partial glimpses of revelation. Who knows who may be +about the house when all its mortals are dead for the night, and the +last of the fires are burning unheeded! There are so many hours of both +day and night--in most houses--in which those in and those out of the +body need never cross each others' paths! And there are tales, legends, +reports, many mere fiction doubtless, but some possibly of a different +character, which represent this and that doer of evil as compelled, +either by the law of his or her own troubled being, or by some law +external thereto, ever, or at fixed intervals, to haunt the moldering +scenes of their past, and ever dream horribly afresh the deeds done in +the body. These, however, tend to no proof of what we have been speaking +about, for such 'extravagant and erring spirit' does not haunt the +living from love, but the dead from suffering. In this life, however, +few of us come really near to each other in the genuine simplicity of +love, and that may be the reason why the credible stories of love +meeting love across the strange difference are so few. It is a wonderful +touch, I always think, in the play of Hamlet, that, while the prince +gazes on the spirit of his father, noting every expression and +gesture--even his dress, as he passes through his late wife's chamber, +Gertrude, less unfaithful as widow than as wife, not only sees nothing, +but by no sigh or hint, no sense in the air, no beat of her own heart, +no creep even of her own flesh, divines his presence--is not only +certain that she sees nothing, but that she sees all there is. She is +the dead, not her husband. To the dead all are dead. The eternal life +makes manifest both life and death." + +"Please, Mr. Polwarth," said Juliet, "remember it is the middle of the +night. No doubt it is just the suitable time, but I would rather not +make one in an orgy of horrors. We have all to be alone presently." + +She hated to hear about death, and the grandest of words, Eternal Life, +which to most means nothing but prolonged existence, meant to her just +death. If she had stolen a magic spell for avoiding it, she could not +have shrunk more from any reference to the one thing commonest and most +inevitable. Often as she tried to imagine the reflection of her own +death in the mind of her Paul, the mere mention of the ugly thing seemed +to her ill-mannered, almost indecent. + +"The Lord is awake all night," said Polwarth, rising, "and therefore +the night is holy as the day.--Ruth, we should be rather frightened to +walk home under that awful sky, if we thought the Lord was not with us." + +"The night is fine enough," said Juliet. + +"Yes," said Ruth, replying to her uncle, not to Juliet; "but even if He +were asleep--you remember how He slept once, and yet reproached His +disciples with their fear and doubt." + +"I do; but in the little faith with which He reproached them, He +referred, not to Himself, but to His Father. Whether He slept or waked +it was all one: the Son may sleep, for the Father never sleeps." + +They stood beside each other, taking their leave: what little objects +they were, opposite the two graceful ladies, who also stood beside each +other, pleasant to look upon. Sorrow and suffering, lack and weakness, +though plain to see upon them both, had not yet greatly dimmed their +beauty. The faces of the dwarfs, on the other hand, were marked and +lined with suffering; but the suffering was dominated by peace and +strength. There was no sorrow there, little lack, no weakness or fear, +and a great hope. They never spent any time in pitying themselves; the +trouble that alone ever clouded their sky, was the suffering of others. +Even for this they had comfort--their constant ready help consoled both +the sufferer and themselves. + +"Will you come and see me, if you die first, uncle?" said Ruth, as they +walked home together in the moonlight. "You will think how lonely I am +without you." + +"If it be within the law of things, if I be at liberty, and the thing +seem good for you, my Ruth, you may be sure I will come to you. But of +one thing I am pretty certain, that such visions do not appear when +people are looking for them. You must not go staring into the dark +trying to see me. Do your work, pray your prayers, and be sure I love +you: if I am to come, I will come. It may be in the hot noon or in the +dark night: it may be with no sight and no sound, yet a knowledge of +presence; or I may be watching you, helping you perhaps and you never +know it until I come to fetch you at the last,--if I may. You have been +daughter and sister, and mother to me, my Ruth. You have been my one in +the world. God, I think sometimes, has planted about you and me, my +child, a cactus-hedge of ugliness, that we might be so near and so +lonely as to learn love as few have learned it in this world--love +without fear, or doubt, or pain, or anxiety--with constant satisfaction +in presence, and calm content in absence. Of the last, however, I can +not boast much, seeing we have not been parted a day for--how many years +is it, Ruth?--Ah, Ruth! a bliss beyond speech is waiting us in the +presence of the Master, where, seeing Him as He is, we shall grow like +Him and be no more either dwarfed or sickly. But you will have the same +face, Ruth, else I should be forever missing something." + +"But you do not think we shall be perfect all at once?" + +"No, not all at once; I can not believe that: God takes time to what He +does--the doing of it is itself good. It would be a sight for heavenly +eyes to see you, like a bent and broken and withered lily, straightening +and lengthening your stalk, and flushing into beauty.--But fancy what it +will be to see at length to the very heart of the person you love, and +love Him perfectly--and that _you_ can love _Him!_ Every love will then +be a separate heaven, and all the heavens will blend in one perfect +heaven--the love of God--the All in all." + +They were walking like children, hand in hand: Ruth pressed that of her +uncle, for she could not answer in words. + +Even to Dorothy their talk would have been vague, vague from the +intervening mist of her own atmosphere. To them it was vague only from +the wide stretch of its horizon, the distance of its zenith. There is +all difference between the vagueness belonging to an imperfect sight, +and the vagueness belonging to the distance of the outlook. But to walk +on up the hill of duty, is the only way out of the one into the other. I +think some only know they are laboring, hardly know they are climbing, +till they find themselves near the top. + + + + +CHAPTER LII. + +THE LEVEL OF THE LYTHE. + + +Dorothy's faith in Polwarth had in the meantime largely increased. She +had not only come to trust him thoroughly, but gained much strength from +the confidence. As soon as she had taken Juliet her breakfast the next +morning, she went to meet him in the park, for so they had arranged the +night before. + +She had before acquainted him with the promise Juliet had exacted from +her, that she would call her husband the moment she seemed in danger--a +possibility which Juliet regarded as a certainty; and had begged him to +think how they could contrive to have Faber within call. He had now a +plan to propose with this object in view, but began, apparently, at a +distance from it. + +"You know, Miss Drake," he said, "that I am well acquainted with every +yard of this ground. Had your honored father asked me whether the Old +House was desirable for a residence, I should have expressed +considerable doubt. But there is one thing which would greatly improve +it--would indeed, I hope, entirely remove my objection to it. Many years +ago I noted the state of the stone steps leading up to the door: they +were much and diversely out of the level; and the cause was evident with +the first great rain: the lake filled the whole garden--to the top of +the second step. Now this, if it take place only once a year, must of +course cause damp in the house. But I think there is more than that will +account for. I have been in the cellars repeatedly, both before and +since your father bought it; and always found them too damp. The cause +of it, I think, is, that the foundations are as low as the ordinary +level of the water in the pond, and the ground at that depth is of large +gravel: it seems to me that the water gets through to the house. I +should propose, therefore, that from the bank of the Lythe a tunnel be +commenced, rising at a gentle incline until it pierces the basin of the +lake. The ground is your own to the river, I believe?" + +"It is," answered Dorothy. "But I should be sorry to empty the lake +altogether." + +"My scheme," returned Polwarth, "includes a strong sluice, by which you +could keep the water at what height you pleased, and at any moment send +it into the river. The only danger would be of cutting through the +springs; and I fancy they are less likely to be on the side next the +river where the ground is softer, else they would probably have found +their way directly into it, instead of first hollowing out the pond." + +"Would it be a difficult thing to do?" asked Dorothy. + +"I think not," answered Polwarth. "But with your permission I will get a +friend of mine, an engineer, to look into it." + +"I leave it in your hands," said Dorothy.--"Do you think we will find +any thing at the bottom?" + +"Who can tell? But we do not know how near the bottom the tunnel may +bring us; there may be fathoms of mud below the level of the +river-bed.--One thing, thank God, we shall not find there!" + +The same week all was arranged with the engineer. By a certain day his +men were to be at work on the tunnel. + +For some time now, things had been going on much the same with all in +whom my narrative is interested. There come lulls in every process, +whether of growth or of tempest, whether of creation or destruction, and +those lulls, coming as they do in the midst of force, are precious in +their influence--because they are only lulls, and the forces are still +at work. All the time the volcano is quiet, something is going on below. +From the first moment of exhaustion, the next outbreak is preparing. To +be faint is to begin to gather, as well as to cease to expend. + +Faber had been growing better. He sat more erect on his horse; his eye +was keener, his voice more kindly, though hardly less sad, and his step +was firm. His love to the child, and her delight in his attentions, were +slowly leading him back to life. Every day, if but for a moment, he +contrived to see her, and the Wingfolds took care to remove every +obstacle from the way of their meeting. Little they thought why Dorothy +let them keep the child so long. As little did Dorothy know that what +she yielded for the sake of the wife, they desired for the sake of the +husband. + +At length one morning came a break: Faber received a note from the +gate-keeper, informing him that Miss Drake was having the pond at the +foot of her garden emptied into the Lythe by means of a tunnel, the +construction of which was already completed. They were now boring for a +small charge of gunpowder expected to liberate the water. The process of +emptying would probably be rapid, and he had taken the liberty of +informing Mr. Faber, thinking he might choose to be present. No one but +the persons employed would be allowed to enter the grounds. + +This news gave him a greater shock than he could have believed possible. +He thought he had "supped full of horrors!" At once he arranged with his +assistant for being absent the whole day; and rode out, followed by his +groom. At the gate Polwarth joined him, and walked beside him to the Old +House, where his groom, he said, could put up the horses. That done, he +accompanied him to the mouth of the tunnel, and there left him. + +Faber sat down on the stump of a felled tree, threw a big cloak, which +he had brought across the pommel of his saddle, over his knees, and +covered his face with his hands. Before him the river ran swiftly toward +the level country, making a noise of watery haste; also the wind was in +the woods, with the noises of branches and leaves, but the only sounds +he heard were the blows of the hammer on the boring-chisel, coming dull, +and as if from afar, out of the depths of the earth. What a strange, +awful significance they had to the heart of Faber! But the end was +delayed hour after hour, and there he still sat, now and then at a +louder noise than usual lifting up a white face, and staring toward the +mouth of the tunnel. At the explosion the water would probably rush in a +torrent from the pit, and in half an hour, perhaps, the pond would be +empty. But Polwarth had taken good care there should be no explosion +that day. Ever again came the blow of iron upon iron, and the boring had +begun afresh. + +Into her lovely chamber Dorothy had carried to Juliet the glad tidings +that her husband was within a few hundred yards of the house, and that +she might trust Mr. Polwarth to keep him there until all danger was +over. + +Juliet now manifested far more courage than she had given reason to +expect. It seemed as if her husband's nearness gave her strength to do +without his presence. + +At length the child, a lovely boy, lay asleep in Dorothy's arms. The +lovelier mother also slept. Polwarth was on his way to stop the work, +and let the doctor know that its completion must be postponed for a few +days, when he heard the voice of Lisbeth behind him, calling as she ran. +He turned and met her, then turned again and ran, as fast as his little +legs could carry him, to the doctor. + +"Mr. Faber," he cried, "there is a lady up there at the house, a friend +of Miss Drake's, taken suddenly ill. You are wanted as quickly as +possible." + +Faber answered not a word, but went with hasty strides up the bank, and +ran to the house. Polwarth followed as fast as he could, panting and +wheezing. Lisbeth received the doctor at the door. + +"Tell my man to saddle _my_ horse, and be at the back door immediately," +he said to her. + +Polwarth followed him up the stair to the landing, where Dorothy +received Faber, and led him to Juliet's room. The dwarf seated himself +on the top of the stair, almost within sight of the door. + + + + +CHAPTER LIII. + +MY LADY'S CHAMBER. + + +When Faber entered, a dim, rosy light from drawn window-curtains filled +the air; he could see little more than his way to the bed. Dorothy was +in terror lest the discovery he must presently make, should unnerve the +husband for what might be required of the doctor. But Juliet kept her +face turned aside, and a word from the nurse let him know at once what +was necessary. He turned to Dorothy, and said, + +"I must send my man home to fetch me something;" then to the nurse, and +said, "Go on as you are doing;" then once more to Dorothy, saying, "Come +with me, Miss Drake: I want writing things." + +He led the way from the room, and Dorothy followed. But scarcely were +they in the passage, when the little man rose and met them. Faber would +have pushed past him, annoyed, but Polwarth held out a little phial to +him. + +"Perhaps that is what you want, sir," he said. + +The doctor caught it hastily, almost angrily, from his hand, looked at +it, uncorked it, and put it to his nose. + +"Thank you," he said, "this is just what I wanted," and returned +instantly to the chamber. + +The little man resumed his patient seat on the side, breathing heavily. +Ten minutes of utter silence followed. Then Dorothy passed him with a +note in her hand, and hurried down the stair. The next instant Polwarth +heard the sound of Niger's hoofs tearing up the slope behind the house. + +"I have got some more medicines here, Miss Drake," he said, when she +reappeared on the stair. + +As he spoke he brought out phial after phial, as if his pockets widened +out below into the mysterious recesses of the earth to which as a gnome +he belonged. Dorothy, however, told him it was not a medicine the +doctor wanted now, but something else, she did not know what. Her face +was dreadfully white, but as calm as an icefield. She went back into the +room, and Polwarth sat down again. + +Not more than twenty minutes had passed when he heard again the soft +thunder of Niger's hoofs upon the sward; and in a minute more up came +Lisbeth, carrying a little morocco case, which she left at the door of +the room. + +Then an hour passed, during which he heard nothing. He sat motionless, +and his troubled lungs grew quiet. + +Suddenly he heard Dorothy's step behind him, and rose. + +"You had better come down stairs with me," she said, in a voice he +scarcely knew, and her face looked almost as if she had herself passed +through a terrible illness. + +"How is the poor lady?" he asked. + +"The immediate danger is over, the doctor says, but he seems in great +doubt. He has sent me away. Come with me: I want you to have a glass of +wine." + +"Has he recognized her?" + +"I do not know. I haven't seen any sign of it yet. But the room is +dark.--We can talk better below." + +"I am in want of nothing, my dear lady," said Polwarth. "I should much +prefer staying here--if you will permit me. There is no knowing when I +might be of service. I am far from unused to sick chambers." + +"Do as you please, Mr. Polwarth," said Dorothy, and going down the +stair, went into the garden. + +Once more Polwarth resumed his seat. + +There came the noise of a heavy fall, which shook him where he sat. He +started up, went to the door of the chamber, listened a moment, heard a +hurried step and the sweeping of garments, and making no more scruple, +opened it and looked in. + +All was silent, and the room was so dark he could see nothing. +Presently, however, he descried, in the middle of the floor, a prostrate +figure that could only be the doctor, for plainly it was the nurse on +her knees by him. He glanced toward the bed. There all was still. + +"She is gone!" he thought with himself; "and the poor fellow has +discovered who she was!" + +He went in. + +"Have you no brandy?" he said to the nurse. + +"On that table," she answered. + +"Lay his head down, and fetch it." + +Notwithstanding his appearance, the nurse obeyed: she knew the doctor +required brandy, but had lost her presence of mind. + +Polwarth took his hand. The pulse had vanished--and no wonder! Once +more, utterly careless of himself, had the healer drained his own +life-spring to supply that of his patient--knowing as little now what +that patient was to him as he knew then what she was going to be. A +thrill had indeed shot to his heart at the touch of her hand, scarcely +alive as it was, when first he felt her pulse; what he saw of her +averted face through the folded shadows of pillows and curtains both of +window and bed, woke wild suggestions; as he bared her arm, he almost +gave a cry: it was fortunate that there was not light enough to show the +scar of his own lancet; but, always at any critical moment +self-possessed to coldness, he schooled himself now with sternest +severity. He insisted to himself that he was in mortal danger of being +fooled by his imagination--that a certain indelible imprint on his brain +had begun to phosphoresce. If he did not banish the fancies crowding to +overwhelm him, his patient's life, and probably his own reason as well, +would be the penalty. Therefore, with will obstinately strained, he kept +his eyes turned from the face of the woman, drawn to it as they were +even by the terror of what his fancy might there show him, and held to +his duty in spite of growing agony. His brain, he said to himself, was +so fearfully excited, that he must not trust his senses: they would +reflect from within, instead of transmitting from without. And +victoriously did he rule, until, all the life he had in gift being +exhausted, his brain, deserted by his heart, gave way, and when he +turned from the bed, all but unconscious, he could only stagger a pace +or two, and fell like one dead. + +Polwarth got some brandy into his mouth with a teaspoon. In about a +minute, his heart began to beat. + +"I must open another vein," he murmured as if in a dream. + +When he had swallowed a third teaspoonful, he lifted his eyelids in a +dreary kind of way, saw Polwarth, and remembered that he had something +to attend to--a patient at the moment on his hands, probably--he could +not tell. + +"Tut! give me a wine-glass of the stuff," he said. + +Polwarth obeyed. The moment he swallowed it, he rose, rubbing his +forehead as if trying to remember, and mechanically turned toward the +bed. The nurse, afraid he might not yet know what he was about, stepped +between, saying softly, + +"She is asleep, sir, and breathing quietly." + +"Thank God!" he whispered with a sigh, and turning to a couch, laid +himself gently upon it. + +The nurse looked at Polwarth, as much as to say: "Who is to take the +command now?" + +"I shall be outside, nurse: call me if I can be useful to you," he +replied to the glance, and withdrew to his watch on the top of the +stair. + +After about a quarter of an hour, the nurse came out. + +"Do you want me?" said Polwarth, rising hastily. + +"No, sir," she answered. "The doctor says all immediate danger is over, +and he requires nobody with him. I am going to look after my baby. And +please, sir, nobody is to go in, for he says she must not be disturbed. +The slightest noise might spoil every thing: she must sleep now all she +can." + +"Very well," said Polwarth, and sat down again. + +The day went on; the sun went down; the shadows deepened; and not a +sound came from the room. Again and again Dorothy came and peeped up the +stair, but seeing the little man at his post, like Zacchaeus up the +sycamore, was satisfied, and withdrew. But at length Polwarth bethought +him that Ruth would be anxious, and rose reluctantly. The same instant +the door opened, and Faber appeared. He looked very pale and worn, +almost haggard. + +"Would you call Miss Drake?" he said. + +Polwarth went, and following Dorothy up the stair again, heard what +Faber said. + +"She is sleeping beautifully, but I dare not leave her. I must sit up +with her to-night. Send my man to tell my assistant that I shall not be +home. Could you let me have something to eat, and you take my place? And +there is Polwarth! _he_ has earned his dinner, if any one has. I do +believe we owe the poor lady's life to him." + +Dorothy ran to give the message and her own orders. Polwarth begged she +would tell the groom to say to Ruth as he passed that all was well; and +when the meal was ready, joined Faber. + +It was speedily over, for the doctor seemed anxious to be again with his +patient. Then Dorothy went to Polwarth. Both were full of the same +question: had Faber recognized his wife or not? Neither had come to a +certain conclusion. Dorothy thought he had, but that he was too hard and +proud to show it; Polwarth thought he had not, but had been powerfully +reminded of her. He had been talking strangely, he said, during their +dinner, and had drunk a good deal of wine in a hurried way. + +Polwarth's conclusion was correct: it was with an excitement almost +insane, and a pleasure the more sorrowful that he was aware of its +transientness, a pleasure now mingling, now alternating with utter +despair, that Faber returned to sit in the darkened chamber, watching +the woman who with such sweet torture reminded him of her whom he had +lost. What a strange, unfathomable thing is the pleasure given us by a +likeness! It is one of the mysteries of our humanity. Now she had seemed +more, now less like his Juliet; but all the time he could see her at +best only very partially. Ever since his fall, his sight had been weak, +especially in twilight, and even when, once or twice, he stood over her +as she slept, and strained his eyes to their utmost, he could not tell +what he saw. For, in the hope that, by the time it did come, its way +would have been prepared by a host of foregone thoughts, Dorothy had +schemed to delay as much as she could the discovery which she trusted in +her heart must come at last; and had therefore contrived, not by drawn +curtains merely, but by closed Venetian shutters as well, to darken the +room greatly. And now he had no light but a small lamp, with a shade. + +He had taken a book with him, but it was little he read that night. At +almost regular intervals he rose to see how his patient fared. She was +still floating in the twilight shallows of death, whether softly +drifting on the ebb-tide of sleep, out into the open sea, or, on its +flow, again up the river of life, he could not yet tell. Once the nurse +entered the room to see if any thing were wanted. Faber lifted his head, +and motioned her angrily away, making no ghost of a sound. The night +wore on, and still she slept. In his sleepless and bloodless brain +strangest thoughts and feelings went and came. The scents of old roses, +the stings of old sins, awoke and vanished, like the pulsing of +fire-flies. But even now he was the watcher of his own moods; and when +among the rest the thought would come: "What if this _should_ be my own +Juliet! Do not time and place agree with the possibility?" and for a +moment life seemed as if it would burst into the very madness of +delight, ever and again his common sense drove him to conclude that his +imagination was fooling him. He dared not yield to the intoxicating +idea. If he did, he would be like a man drinking poison, well knowing +that every sip, in itself a delight, brought him a step nearer to agony +and death! When she should wake, and he let the light fall upon her +face, he knew--so he said to himself--he _knew_ the likeness would +vanish in an appalling unlikeness, a mockery, a scoff of the whole night +and its lovely dream--in a face which, if beautiful as that of an angel, +not being Juliet's would be to him ugly, unnatural, a discord with the +music of his memory. Still the night was checkered with moments of +silvery bliss, in the indulgence of the mere, the known fancy of what it +would be if it _were_ she, vanishing ever in the reviving rebuke, that +he must nerve himself for the loss of that which the morning must +dispel. Yet, like one in a dream, who knows it is but a dream, and +scarce dares breathe lest he should break the mirrored ecstasy, he would +not carry the lamp to the bedside: no act of his should disperse the +airy flicker of the lovely doubt, not a movement, not a nearer glance, +until stern necessity should command. + +History knows well the tendency of things to repeat themselves. Similar +circumstances falling together must incline to the production of similar +consequent events. + +Toward morning Juliet awoke from her long sleep, but she had the vessel +of her brain too empty of the life of this world to recognize barely +that which was presented to her bodily vision. Over the march of two +worlds, that of her imagination, and that of fact, her soul hovered +fluttering, and blended the presentment of the two in the power of its +unity. + +The only thing she saw was the face of her husband, sadly lighted by the +dimmed lamp. It was some-distance away, near the middle of the room: it +seemed to her miles away, yet near enough to be addressed. It was a more +beautiful face now than ever before--than even then when first she took +it for the face of the Son of Man--more beautiful, and more like Him, +for it was more humane. Thin and pale with suffering, it was nowise +feeble, but the former self-sufficiency had vanished, and a still sorrow +had taken its place. + +He sat sunk in dim thought. A sound came that shook him as with an ague +fit. Even then he mastered his emotion, and sat still as a stone. Or was +it delight unmastered, and awe indefinable, that paralyzed him? He +dared not move lest he should break the spell. Were it fact, or were it +but yet further phantom play on his senses, it should unfold itself; not +with a sigh would he jar the unfolding, but, ear only, listen to the +end. In the utter stillness of the room, of the sleeping house, of the +dark, embracing night, he lay in famished wait for every word. + +"O Jesus," said the voice, as of one struggling with weariness, or one +who speaks her thoughts in a dream, imagining she reads from a book, a +gentle, tired voice--"O Jesus! after all, Thou art there! They told me +Thou wast dead, and gone nowhere! They said there never was such a One! +And there Thou art! O Jesus, what _am_ I to do? Art Thou going to do any +thing with me?--I wish I were a leper, or any thing that Thou wouldst +make clean! But how couldst Thou, for I never quite believed in Thee, +and never loved Thee before? And there was my Paul! oh, how I loved my +Paul! and _he_ wouldn't do it. I begged and begged him, for he was my +husband when I was alive--him to take me and make me clean, but he +wouldn't: he was too pure to pardon me. He let me lie in the dirt! It +was all right of him, but surely, Lord, Thou couldst afford to pity a +poor girl that hardly knew what she was doing. My heart is very sore, +and my whole body is ashamed, and I feel so stupid! Do help me if Thou +canst. I denied Thee, I know; but then I cared for nothing but my +husband; and the denial of a silly girl could not hurt Thee, if indeed +Thou art Lord of all worlds!--I know Thou wilt forgive me for that. But, +O Christ, please, if Thou canst any way do it, make me fit for Paul. +Tell him to beat me and forgive me.--O my Saviour, do not look at me so, +or I shall forget Paul himself, and die weeping for joy. Oh, my Lord! +Oh, my Paul!" + +For Paul had gently risen from his chair, and come one step +nearer--where he stood looking on her with such a smile as seldom has +been upon human face--a smile of unutterable sorrow, love, repentance, +hope. She gazed, speechless now, her spirit drinking in the vision of +that smile. It was like mountain air, like water, like wine, like +eternal life! It was forgiveness and peace from the Lord of all. And had +her brain been as clear as her heart, could she have taken it for less? +If the sinner forgave her, what did the Perfect? + +Paul dared not go nearer--partly from dread of the consequences of +increased emotion. Her lips began to move again, and her voice to +murmur, but he could distinguish only a word here and there. Slowly the +eyelids fell over the great dark eyes, the words dissolved into +syllables, the sounds ceased to be words at all, and vanished: her soul +had slipped away into some silent dream. + +Then at length he approached on tiptoe. For a few moments he stood and +gazed on the sleeping countenance--then dropped on his knees, and cried, + +"God, if Thou be anywhere, I thank Thee." + +Reader, who knowest better, do not mock him. Gently excuse him. His +brain was excited; there was a commotion in the particles of human +cauliflower; a rush of chemical changes and interchanges was going on; +the tide was setting for the vasty deep of marvel, which was nowhere but +within itself. And then he was in love with his wife, therefore open to +deceptions without end, for is not all love a longing after what never +was and never can be? + +He was beaten. But scorn him not for yielding. Think how he was beaten. +Could he help it that the life in him proved too much for the death with +which he had sided? Was it poltroonery to desert the cause of ruin for +that of growth? of essential slavery for ordered freedom? of +disintegration for vital and enlarging unity? He had "said to +corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my +sister;" but a Mightier than he, the Life that lighteth every man that +cometh into the world, had said, "O thou enemy, destruction shall have a +perpetual end;" and he could not stand against the life by which he +stood. When it comes to this, what can a man do? Remember he was a +created being--or, if you will not allow that, then something greatly +less. If not "loved into being" by a perfect Will, in his own image of +life and law, he had but a mother whom he never could see, because she +could never behold either herself or him: he was the offspring of the +dead, and must be pardoned if he gave a foolish cry after a parent worth +having. + +Wait, thou who countest such a cry a weak submission, until, having +refused to take thine hour with thee, thine hour overtakes thee: then +see if thou wilt stand out. Another's battle is easy. God only knows +with what earthquakes and thunders, that hour, on its way to find thee, +may level the mountains and valleys between. If thou wouldst be perfect +in the greatness of thy way, thou must learn to live in the fire of thy +own divine nature turned against thy conscious self: learn to smile +content in that, and thou wilt out-satan Satan in the putridity of +essential meanness, yea, self-satisfied in very virtue of thy shame, +thou wilt count it the throned apotheosis of inbred honor. But seeming +is not being--least of all self-seeming. Dishonor will yet be dishonor, +if all the fools in creation should be in love with it, and call it +glory. + +In an hour, Juliet woke again, vaguely remembering a heavenly dream, +whose odorous air yet lingered, and made her happy, she knew not why. +Then what a task would have been Faber's! For he must not go near her. +The balance of her life trembled on a knife-edge, and a touch might +incline it toward death. A sob might determine the doubt. + +But as soon as he saw sign that her sleep was beginning to break, he all +but extinguished the light, then having felt her pulse, listened to her +breathing, and satisfied himself generally of her condition, crept from +the room, and calling the nurse, told her to take his place. He would be +either in the next room, he said, or within call in the park. + +He threw himself on the bed, but could not rest: rose and had a bath; +listened at Juliet's door, and hearing no sound, went to the stable. +Niger greeted him with a neigh of pleasure. He made haste to saddle him, +his hands trembling so that he could hardly get the straps into the +girth buckles. + +"That's Niger!" said Juliet, hearing his whinny. "Is he come?" + +"Who, ma'am?" asked the nurse, a stranger to Glaston, of course. + +"The doctor--is he come?" + +"He's but just gone, ma'am. He's been sitting by you all night--would +let no one else come near you. Rather peculiar, in my opinion!" + +A soft flush, all the blood she could show, tinged her cheek. It was +Hope's own color--the reflection of a red rose from a white. + + + + +CHAPTER LIV. + +NOWHERE AND EVERYWHERE. + + +Faber sprung upon Niger's back, and galloped wildly through the park. +His soul was like a southern sea under a summer tornado. The slow dawn +was gathering under a smoky cloud with an edge of cold yellow; a thin +wind was abroad; rain had fallen in the night, and the grass was wet and +cool to Niger's hoofs; the earth sent up a savor, which like a soft warp +was crossed by a woof of sweet odors from leaf-buds and wild flowers, +and spangled here and there with a silver thread of bird song--for but +few of the beast-angels were awake yet. Through the fine consorting mass +of silence and odor, went the soft thunder of Niger's gallop over the +turf. His master's joy had overflowed into him: the creatures are not +all stupid that can not speak; some of them are _with us_ more than we +think. According to the grand old tale, God made his covenant with all +the beasts that came out of the ark as well as with Noah; for them also +he set his bow of hope in the cloud of fear; they are God's creatures, +God bless them! and if not exactly human, are, I think, something more +than _humanish_. Niger gave his soul with his legs to his master's mood +that morning. He was used to hard gallops with him across country, but +this was different; this was plainly a frolic, the first he had had +since he came into his service; and a frolic it should be! + +A deeper, loftier, lovelier morning was dawning in Faber's world unseen. +One dread burden was lifted from his being; his fierce pride, his +unmanly cruelty, his spotless selfishness, had not hunted a woman soul +quite into the moldy jaws of the grave; she was given back to him, to +tend, and heal, and love as he had never yet dreamed of loving! Endless +was the dawn that was breaking in him; unutterably sweet the joy. Life +was now to be lived--not endured. How he would nurse the lily he had +bruised and broken! From her own remorse he would shield her. He would +be to her a summer land--a refuge from the wind, a covert from the +tempest. He would be to her like that Saviour for whom, in her wandering +fancy, she had taken him: never more in vaguest thought would he turn +from her. If, in any evil mood, a thought unkind should dare glance back +at her past, he would clasp her the closer to his heart, the more to be +shielded that the shield itself was so poor. Once he laughed aloud as he +rode, to find himself actually wondering whether the story of the +resurrection _could_ be true; for what had the restoration of his Juliet +in common with the out-worn superstition? In any overwhelming joy, he +concluded, the heart leans to lovely marvel. + +But there is as much of the reasonable as of to us the marvelous in that +which alone has ever made credible proffer toward the filling of the +gulf whence issue all the groans of humanity. Let Him be tested by the +only test that can, on the supposition of His asserted nature, be +applied to Him--that of obedience to the words He has spoken--words that +commend themselves to every honest nature. Proof of other sort, if it +could be granted, would, leaving our natures where they were, only sink +us in condemnation. + +Why should I pursue the story further? and if not here, where better +should I stop? The true story has no end--no end. But endlessly dreary +would the story be, were there no Life living by its own will, no +perfect Will, one with an almighty heart, no Love in whom we live and +move and have our being. Offer me an eternity in all things else after +my own imagination, but without a perfect Father, and I say, no; let me +die, even as the unbelieving would have it. Not believing in the Father +of Jesus, they are _right_ in not desiring to live. Heartily do I +justify them therein. For all this talk and disputation about +immortality, wherein is regarded only the continuance of consciousness +beyond what we call death, it is to me, with whatever splendor of +intellectual coruscation it be accompanied, but little better than a +foolish babble, the crackling of thorns under a pot. Apart from Himself, +God forbid there should be any immortality. If it could be proved apart +from Him, then apart from Him it could be, and would be infinite +damnation. It is an impossibility, and were but an unmitigated evil. And +if it be impossible without Him, it can not be believed without Him: if +it could be proved without Him, the belief so gained would be an evil. +Only with the knowledge of the Father of Christ, did the endlessness of +being become a doctrine of bliss to men. If He be the first life, the +Author of his own, to speak after the language of men, and the origin +and source of all other life, it can be only by knowing Him that we can +know whether we shall live or die. Nay more, far more!--the knowledge +of Him by such innermost contact as is possible only between creator and +created, and possible only when the created has aspired to be one with +the will of the creator, such knowledge and such alone is life to the +created; it is the very life, that alone for the sake of which God +created us. If we are one with God in heart, in righteousness, in +desire, no death can touch us, for we are life, and the garment of +immortality, the endless length of days which is but the mere shadow of +the eternal, follows as a simple necessity: He is not the God of the +dead, or of the dying, but of the essentially alive. Without this inmost +knowledge of Him, this oneness with Him, we have no life in us, for _it +is life_, and that for the sake of which all this outward show of +things, and our troubled condition in the midst of them, exists. All +that is mighty, grand, harmonious, therefore in its own nature true, is. +If not, then dearly I thank the grim Death, that I shall die and not +live. Thus undeceived, my only terror would be that the unbelievers +might be but half right, and there might be a life, so-called, beyond +the grave without a God. + +My brother man, is the idea of a God too good or too foolish for thy +belief? or is it that thou art not great enough or humble enough to hold +it? In either case, I will believe it for thee and for me. Only be not +stiff-necked when the truth begins to draw thee: thou wilt find it hard +if she has to go behind and drive thee--hard to kick against the divine +goads, which, be thou ever so mulish, will be too much for thee at last. +Yea, the time will come when thou wilt goad thyself toward the divine. +But hear me this once more: the God, the Jesus, in whom I believe, are +not the God, the Jesus, in whom you fancy I believe: you know them not; +your idea of them is not mine. If you knew them you would believe in +them, for to know them is to believe in them. Say not, "Let Him teach +me, then," except you mean it in submissive desire; for He has been +teaching you all this time: if you have been doing His teaching, you are +on the way to learn more; if you hear and do not heed, where is the +wonder that the things I tell you sound in your ears as the muttering of +a dotard? They convey to you nothing, it may be: but that which makes of +them words--words--words, lies in you, not in me. Yours is the killing +power. They would bring you life, but the death in him that knoweth and +doeth not is strong; in your air they drop and die, winged things no +more. + +For days Faber took measures not to be seen by Juliet. But he was +constantly about the place, and when she woke from a sleep, they had +often to tell her that he had been by her side all the time she slept. +At night he was either in her room or in the next chamber. Dorothy used +to say to her that if she wanted her husband, she had only to go to +sleep. She was greatly tempted to pretend, but would not. + +At length Faber requested Dorothy to tell Juliet that the doctor said +she might send for her husband when she pleased. Much as he longed to +hear her voice, he would not come without her permission. + +He was by her side the next moment. But for minutes not a word was +spoken; a speechless embrace was all. + +It does not concern me to relate how by degrees they came to a close +understanding. Where love is, everything is easy, or, if not easy, yet +to be accomplished. Of course Faber made his return confession in full. +I will not say that Juliet had not her respondent pangs of retrospective +jealousy. Love, although an angel, has much to learn yet, and the demon +Jealousy may be one of the school masters of her coming perfection: God +only knows. There must be a divine way of casting out the demon; else +how would it be here-after? + +Unconfessed to each other, their falls would forever have been between +to part them; confessed, they drew them together in sorrow and humility +and mutual consoling. The little Amanda could not tell whether Juliet's +house or Dorothy's was her home: when at the one, she always talked of +the other as _home_. She called her father _papa_, and Juliet _mamma_; +Dorothy had been _auntie_ from the first. She always wrote her name, +_Amanda Duck Faber_. From all this the gossips of Glaston explained +everything satisfactorily: Juliet had left her husband on discovering +that he had a child of whose existence he had never told her; but +learning that the mother was dead, yielded at length, and was +reconciled. That was the nearest they ever came to the facts, and it was +not needful they should ever know more. The talkers of the world are not +on the jury of the court of the universe. There are many, doubtless, who +need the shame of a public exposure to make them recognize their own +doing for what it is; but of such Juliet had not been. Her husband knew +her fault--that was enough: he knew also his own immeasurably worse than +hers, but when they folded each other to the heart, they left their +faults outside--as God does, when He casts our sins behind His back, in +utter uncreation. + +I will say nothing definite as to the condition of mind at which Faber +had arrived when last Wingfold and he had a talk together. He was +growing, and that is all we can require of any man. He would not say he +was a believer in the supernal, but he believed more than he said, and +he never talked against belief. Also he went as often as he could to +church, which, little as it means in general, did not mean little when +the man was Paul Faber, and where the minister was Thomas Wingfold. + +It is time for the end. Here it is--in a little poem, which, on her next +birthday, the curate gave Dorothy: + + O wind of God, that blowest in the mind, + Blow, blow and wake the gentle spring in me; + Blow, swifter blow, a strong, warm summer wind, + Till all the flowers with eyes come out to see; + Blow till the fruit hangs red on every tree, + And our high-soaring song-larks meet thy dove-- + High the imperfect soars, descends the perfect Love. + + Blow not the less though winter cometh then; + Blow, wind of God, blow hither changes keen; + Let the spring creep into the ground again, + The flowers close all their eyes, not to be seen: + All lives in thee that ever once hath been: + Blow, fill my upper air with icy storms; + Breathe cold, O wind of God, and kill my canker-worms. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Paul Faber, Surgeon, by George MacDonald + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PAUL FABER, SURGEON *** + +***** This file should be named 12387-8.txt or 12387-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/3/8/12387/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + + https://www.gutenberg.org/etext06 + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/12387-8.zip b/old/12387-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..34cdbec --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12387-8.zip diff --git a/old/12387.txt b/old/12387.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dea23ec --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12387.txt @@ -0,0 +1,17076 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Paul Faber, Surgeon, by George MacDonald + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Paul Faber, Surgeon + +Author: George MacDonald + +Release Date: May 20, 2004 [EBook #12387] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PAUL FABER, SURGEON *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + +[Illustration: PAUL FABER.] + + + + +PAUL FABER, SURGEON + +BY GEORGE MACDONALD + + + + +1900 + + + + +CONTENTS. + +CHAP. + + I. THE LANE + II. THE MINISTER'S DOOR + III. THE MANOR HOUSE + IV. THE RECTORY + V. THE ROAD TO OWLKIRK + VI. THE COTTAGE + VII. THE PULPIT + VIII. THE MANOR HOUSE DINING-ROOM + IX. THE RECTORY DRAWING-ROOM + X. MR. DRAKE'S ARBOR + XI. THE CHAMBER AT THE COTTAGE + XII. THE MINISTER'S GARDEN + XIII. THE HEATH AT NESTLEY + XIV. THE GARDEN AT OWLKIRK + XV. THE PARLOR AT OWLKIRK + XVI. THE BUTCHER'S SHOP + XVII. THE PARLOR AGAIN + XVIII. THE PARK AT NESTLEY + XIX. THE RECTORY + XX. AT THE PIANO + XXI. THE PASTOR'S STUDY + XXII. TWO MINDS + XXIII. THE MINISTER'S BEDROOM + XXIV. JULIET'S CHAMBER + XXV. OSTERFIELD PARK + XXVI. THE SURGERY DOOR + XXVII. THE GROANS OF THE INARTICULATE + XXVIII. COW-LANE CHAPEL + XXIX. THE DOCTOR'S HOUSE + XXX. THE PONY-CARRIAGE + XXXI. A CONSCIENCE + XXXII. THE OLD HOUSE AT GLASTON + XXXIII. PAUL FABER'S DRESSING-ROOM + XXXIV. THE BOTTOMLESS POOL + XXXV. A HEART + XXXVI. TWO MORE MINDS + XXXVII. THE DOCTOR'S STUDY +XXXVIII. THE MIND OF JULIET + XXXIX. ANOTHER MIND + XL. A DESOLATION + XLI. THE OLD GARDEN + XLII. THE POTTERY + XLIII. THE GATE-LODGE + XLIV. THE CORNER OF THE BUTCHER'S SHOP + XLV. HERE AND THERE + XLVI. THE MINISTER'S STUDY + XLVII. THE BLOWING OF THE WIND + XLVIII. THE BORDER-LAND + XLIX. EMPTY HOUSES + L. FALLOW FIELDS + LI. THE NEW OLD HOUSE + LII. THE LEVEL OF THE LYTHE + LIII. MY LADY'S CHAMBER + LIV. NOWHERE AND EVERYWHERE + + + + +TO + +W.C.T. + +TUUM EST. + + Clear-windowed temple of the God of grace, + From the loud wind to me a hiding-place! + Thee gird broad lands with genial motions rife, + But in thee dwells, high-throned, the Life of life + Thy test no stagnant moat half-filled with mud, + But living waters witnessing in flood! + Thy priestess, beauty-clad, and gospel-shod, + A fellow laborer in the earth with God! + Good will art thou, and goodness all thy arts-- + Doves to their windows, and to thee fly hearts! + Take of the corn in thy dear shelter grown, + Which else the storm had all too rudely blown; + When to a higher temple thou shalt mount, + Thy earthly gifts in heavenly friends shall count; + Let these first-fruits enter thy lofty door, + And golden lie upon thy golden floor. + +G.M.D. + +PORTO FINO, _December_, 1878. + + + + +PAUL FABER. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE LANE. + + +The rector sat on the box of his carriage, driving his horses toward his +church, the grand old abbey-church of Glaston. His wife was inside, and +an old woman--he had stopped on the road to take her up--sat with her +basket on the foot-board behind. His coachman sat beside him; he never +took the reins when his master was there. Mr. Bevis drove like a +gentleman, in an easy, informal, yet thoroughly business-like way. His +horses were black--large, well-bred, and well-fed, but neither young nor +showy, and the harness was just the least bit shabby. Indeed, the entire +turnout, including his own hat and the coachman's, offered the beholder +that aspect of indifference to show, which, by the suggestion of a +nodding acquaintance with poverty, gave it the right clerical air of +being not of this world. Mrs. Bevis had her basket on the seat before +her, containing, beneath an upper stratum of flowers, some of the first +rhubarb of the season and a pound or two of fresh butter for a poor +relation in the town. + +The rector was a man about sixty, with keen gray eyes, a good-humored +mouth, a nose whose enlargement had not of late gone in the direction of +its original design, and a face more than inclining to the rubicund, +suggestive of good living as well as open air. Altogether he had the +look of a man who knew what he was about, and was on tolerable terms +with himself, and on still better with his neighbor. The heart under his +ribs was larger even than indicated by the benevolence of his +countenance and the humor hovering over his mouth. Upon the countenance +of his wife rested a placidity sinking almost into fatuity. Its features +were rather indications than completions, but there was a consciousness +of comfort about the mouth, and the eyes were alive. + +They were passing at a good speed through a varying country--now a +thicket of hazel, now great patches of furze upon open common, and anon +well-kept farm-hedges, and clumps of pine, the remnants of ancient +forest, when, halfway through a lane so narrow that the rector felt +every yard toward the other end a gain, his horses started, threw up +their heads, and looked for a moment wild as youth. Just in front of +them, in the air, over a high hedge, scarce touching the topmost twigs +with his hoofs, appeared a great red horse. Down he came into the road, +bringing with him a rather tall, certainly handsome, and even at first +sight, attractive rider. A dark brown mustache upon a somewhat smooth +sunburned face, and a stern settling of the strong yet delicately +finished features gave him a military look; but the sparkle of his blue +eyes contradicted his otherwise cold expression. He drew up close to the +hedge to make room for the carriage, but as he neared him Mr. Bevis +slackened his speed, and during the following talk they were moving +gently along with just room for the rider to keep clear of the off fore +wheel. + +"Heigh, Faber," said the clergyman, "you'll break your neck some day! +You should think of your patients, man. That wasn't a jump for any man +in his senses to take." + +"It is but fair to give my patients a chance now and then," returned the +surgeon, who never met the rector but there was a merry passage between +them. + +"Upon my word," said Mr. Bevis, "when you came over the hedge there, I +took you for Death in the Revelations, that had tired out his own and +changed horses with t'other one." + +As he spoke, he glanced back with a queer look, for he found himself +guilty of a little irreverence, and his conscience sat behind him in the +person of his wife. But that conscience was a very easy one, being +almost as incapable of seeing a joke as of refusing a request. + +"--How many have you bagged this week?" concluded the rector. + +"I haven't counted up yet," answered the surgeon. "--_You_'ve got one +behind, I see," he added, signing with his whip over his shoulder. + +"Poor old thing!" said the rector, as if excusing himself, "she's got a +heavy basket, and we all need a lift sometimes--eh, doctor?--into the +world and out again, at all events." + +There was more of the reflective in this utterance than the parson was +in the habit of displaying; but he liked the doctor, and, although as +well as every one else he knew him to be no friend to the church, or to +Christianity, or even to religious belief of any sort, his liking, +coupled with a vague sense of duty, had urged him to this most +unassuming attempt to cast the friendly arm of faith around the +unbeliever. + +"I plead guilty to the former," answered Faber, "but somehow I have +never practiced the euthanasia. The instincts of my profession, I +suppose are against it. Besides, that ought to be your business." + +"Not altogether," said the rector, with a kindly look from his box, +which, however, only fell on the top of the doctor's hat. + +Faber seemed to feel the influence of it notwithstanding, for he +returned, + +"If all clergymen were as liberal as you, Mr. Bevis, there would be more +danger of some of us giving in." + +The word _liberal_ seemed to rouse the rector to the fact that his +coachman sat on the box, yet another conscience, beside him. _Sub divo_ +one must not be _too_ liberal. There was a freedom that came out better +over a bottle of wine than over the backs of horses. With a word he +quickened the pace of his cleric steeds, and the doctor was dropped +parallel with the carriage window. There, catching sight of Mrs. Bevis, +of whose possible presence he had not thought once, he paid his +compliments, and made his apologies, then trotted his gaunt Ruber again +beside the wheel, and resumed talk, but not the same talk, with the +rector. For a few minutes it turned upon the state of this and that +ailing parishioner; for, while the rector left all the duties of public +service to his curate, he ministered to the ailing and poor upon and +immediately around his own little property, which was in that corner of +his parish furthest from the town; but ere long, as all talk was sure to +do between the parson and any body who owned but a donkey, it veered +round in a certain direction. + +"You don't seem to feed that horse of yours upon beans, Faber," he said. + +"I don't seem, I grant," returned the doctor; "but you should see him +feed! He eats enough for two, but he _can't_ make fat: all goes to +muscle and pluck." + +"Well, I must allow the less fat he has to carry the better, if you're +in the way of heaving him over such hedges on to the hard road. In my +best days I should never have faced a jump like that in cold blood," +said the rector. + +"I've got no little belongings of wife or child to make a prudent man of +me, you see," returned the surgeon. "At worst it's but a knock on the +head and a longish snooze." + +The rector fancied he felt his wife's shudder shake the carriage, but +the sensation was of his own producing. The careless defiant words +wrought in him an unaccountable kind of terror: it seemed almost as if +they had rushed of themselves from his own lips. + +"Take care, my dear sir," he said solemnly. "There may be something to +believe, though you don't believe it." + +"I must take the chance," replied Faber. "I will do my best to make +calamity of long life, by keeping the rheumatic and epileptic and +phthisical alive, while I know how. Where nothing _can_ be known, I +prefer not to intrude." + +A pause followed. At length said the rector, + +"You are so good a fellow, Faber, I wish you were better. When will you +come and dine with me?" + +"Soon, I hope," answered the surgeon, "but I am too busy at present. For +all her sweet ways and looks, the spring is not friendly to man, and my +work is to wage war with nature." + +A second pause followed. The rector would gladly have said something, +but nothing would come. + +"By the by," he said at length, "I thought I saw you pass the gate--let +me see--on Monday: why did you not look in?" + +"I hadn't a moment's time. I was sent for to a patient in the village." + +"Yes, I know; I heard of that. I wish you would give me your impression +of the lady. She is a stranger here.--John, that gate is swinging across +the road. Get down and shut it.--Who and what is she?" + +"That I should be glad to learn from you. All I know is that she is a +lady. There can not be two opinions as to that." + +"They tell me she is a beauty," said the parson. + +The doctor nodded his head emphatically. + +"Haven't you seen her?" he said. + +"Scarcely--only her back. She walks well. Do you know nothing about her? +Who has she with her?" + +"Nobody." + +"Then Mrs. Bevis shall call upon her." + +"I think at present she had better not. Mrs. Puckridge is a good old +soul, and pays her every attention." + +"What is the matter with her? Nothing infectious?" + +"Oh, no! She has caught a chill. I was afraid of pneumonia yesterday." + +"Then she is better?" + +"I confess I am a little anxious about her. But I ought not to be +dawdling like this, with half my patients to see. I must bid you good +morning.--Good morning, Mrs. Bevis." + +As he spoke, Faber drew rein, and let the carriage pass; then turned his +horse's head to the other side of the way, scrambled up the steep bank +to the field above, and galloped toward Glaston, whose great church rose +high in sight. Over hedge and ditch he rode straight for its tower. + +"The young fool!" said the rector, looking after him admiringly, and +pulling up his horses that he might more conveniently see him ride. + +"Jolly old fellow!" said the surgeon at his second jump. "I wonder how +much he believes now of all the rot! Enough to humbug himself with--not +a hair more. He has no passion for humbugging other people. There's that +curate of his now believes every thing, and would humbug the whole world +if he could! How any man can come to fool himself so thoroughly as that +man does, is a mystery to me!--I wonder what the rector's driving into +Glaston for on a Saturday." + +Paul Faber was a man who had espoused the cause of science with all the +energy of a suppressed poetic nature. He had such a horror of all kinds +of intellectual deception or mistake, that he would rather run the risk +of rejecting any number of truths than of accepting one error. In this +spirit he had concluded that, as no immediate communication had ever +reached his eye, or ear, or hand from any creator of men, he had no +ground for believing in the existence of such a creator; while a +thousand unfitnesses evident in the world, rendered the existence of one +perfectly wise and good and powerful, absolutely impossible. If one said +to him that he believed thousands of things he had never himself known, +he answered he did so upon testimony. If one rejoined that here too we +have testimony, he replied it was not credible testimony, but founded on +such experiences as he was justified in considering imaginary, seeing +they were like none he had ever had himself. When he was asked whether, +while he yet believed there was such a being as his mother told him of, +he had ever set himself to act upon that belief, he asserted himself +fortunate in the omission of what might have riveted on him the fetters +of a degrading faith. For years he had turned his face toward all +speculation favoring the non-existence of a creating Will, his back +toward all tending to show that such a one might be. Argument on the +latter side he set down as born of prejudice, and appealing to weakness; +on the other, as springing from courage, and appealing to honesty. He +had never put it to himself which would be the worse deception--to +believe there was a God when there was none; or to believe there was no +God when there was one. + +He had, however, a large share of the lower but equally indispensable +half of religion--that, namely, which has respect to one's fellows. Not +a man in Glaston was readier, by day or by night, to run to the help of +another, and that not merely in his professional capacity, but as a +neighbor, whatever the sort of help was needed. + +Thomas Wingfold, the curate, had a great respect for him. Having himself +passed through many phases of serious, and therefore painful doubt, he +was not as much shocked by the surgeon's unbelief as some whose real +faith was even less than Faber's; but he seldom laid himself out to +answer his objections. He sought rather, but as yet apparently in vain, +to cause the roots of those very objections to strike into, and thus +disclose to the man himself, the deeper strata of his being. This might +indeed at first only render him the more earnest in his denials, but at +length it would probably rouse in him that spiritual nature to which +alone such questions really belong, and which alone is capable of coping +with them. The first notable result, however, of the surgeon's +intercourse with the curate was, that, whereas he had till then kept his +opinions to himself in the presence of those who did not sympathize with +them, he now uttered his disbelief with such plainness as I have shown +him using toward the rector. This did not come of aggravated antagonism, +but of admiration of the curate's openness in the presentment of truths +which must be unacceptable to the majority of his congregation. + +There had arisen therefore betwixt the doctor and the curate a certain +sort of intimacy, which had at length come to the rector's ears. He had, +no doubt, before this heard many complaints against the latter, but he +had laughed them aside. No theologian himself, he had found the +questions hitherto raised in respect of Wingfold's teaching, altogether +beyond the pale of his interest. He could not comprehend why people +should not content themselves with being good Christians, minding their +own affairs, going to church, and so feeling safe for the next world. +What did opinion matter as long as they were good Christians? He did not +exactly know what he believed himself, but he hoped he was none the less +of a Christian for that! Was it not enough to hold fast whatever lay in +the apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian creed, without splitting +metaphysical hairs with your neighbor? But was it decent that his curate +should be hand and glove with one who denied the existence of God? He +did not for a moment doubt the faith of Wingfold; but a man must have +some respect for appearances: appearances were facts as well as +realities were facts. An honest man must not keep company with a thief, +if he would escape the judgment of being of thievish kind. Something +must be done; probably something said would be enough, and the rector +was now on his way to say it. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE MINISTER'S DOOR. + + +Every body knew Mr. Faber, whether he rode Ruber or Niger--Rubber and +Nigger, his groom called them--and many were the greetings that met him +as he passed along Pine Street, for, despite the brand of his atheism, +he was popular. The few ladies out shopping bowed graciously, for both +his manners and person were pleasing, and his professional attentions +were unexceptionable. When he dropped into a quick walk, to let Ruber +cool a little ere he reached his stall, he was several times accosted +and detained. The last who addressed him was Mr. Drew, the principal +draper of the town. He had been standing for some time in his shop-door, +but as Faber was about to turn the corner, he stepped out on the +pavement, and the doctor checked his horse in the gutter. + +"I wish you would look in upon Mr. Drake, sir," he said. "I am quite +uneasy about him. Indeed I am sure he must be in a bad way, though he +won't allow it. He's not an easy man to do any thing for, but just you +let me know what _can_ be done for him--and we'll contrive. A _nod_, you +know, doctor, etc." + +"I don't well see how I can," returned Faber. "To call now without being +sent for, when I never called before!--No, Mr. Drew, I don't think I +could." + +It was a lovely spring noon. The rain that had fallen heavily during the +night lay in flashing pools that filled the street with suns. Here and +there were little gardens before the houses, and the bushes in them were +hung with bright drops, so bright that the rain seemed to have fallen +from the sun himself, not from the clouds. + +"Why, goodness gracious!" cried the draper, "here's your excuse come +direct!" + +Under the very nose of the doctor's great horse stood a little +woman-child, staring straight up at the huge red head above her. Now +Ruber was not quite gentle, and it was with some dismay that his master, +although the animal showed no offense at the glowering little thing, +pulled him back a step or two with the curb, the thought darting through +him how easily with one pash of his mighty hoof the horse could +annihilate a mirrored universe. + +"Where from?" he asked, by what he would himself have called a +half-conscious cerebration. + +"From somewhere they say you don't believe in, doctor," answered the +draper. "It's little Amanda, the minister's own darling--Naughty little +dear!" he continued, his round good-humored face wrinkled all over with +smiles, as he caught up the truant, "what ever do you mean by splashing +through every gutter between home and here, making a little drab of +yourself? Why your frock is as wet as a dish-clout!--_and_ your shoes! +My gracious!" + +The little one answered only by patting his cheeks, which in shape much +resembled her own, with her little fat puds, as if she had been beating +a drum, while Faber looked down amused and interested. + +"Here, doctor!" the draper went on, "you take the little mischief on the +saddle before you, and carry her home: that will be your excuse." + +As he spoke he held up the child to him. Faber took her, and sitting as +far back in the saddle as he could, set her upon the pommel. She +screwed up her eyes, and grinned with delight, spreading her mouth wide, +and showing an incredible number of daintiest little teeth. When Ruber +began to move she shrieked in her ecstasy. + +Holding his horse to a walk, the doctor crossed the main street and went +down a side one toward the river, whence again he entered a narrow lane. +There with the handle of his whip he managed to ring the door-bell of a +little old-fashioned house which rose immediately from the lane without +even a footpath between. The door was opened by a lady-like young +woman, with smooth soft brown hair, a white forehead, and serious, +rather troubled eyes. + +"Aunty! aunty!" cried the child, "Ducky 'iding!" + +Miss Drake looked a little surprised. The doctor lifted his hat. She +gravely returned his greeting and stretched up her arms to take the +child. But she drew back, nestling against Faber. + +"Amanda! come, dear," said Miss Drake. "How kind of Dr. Faber to bring +you home! I'm afraid you've been a naughty child again--running out into +the street." + +"Such a g'eat 'ide!" cried Amanda, heedless of reproof. "A yeal +'ossy--big! big!" + +She spread her arms wide, in indication of the vastness of the upbearing +body whereon she sat. But still she leaned back against the doctor, and +he awaited the result in amused silence. Again her aunt raised her hands +to take her. + +"Mo' 'yide!" cried the child, looking up backward, to find Faber's eyes. + +But her aunt caught her by the feet, and amid struggling and laughter +drew her down, and held her in her arms. + +"I hope your father is pretty well, Miss Drake," said the doctor, +wasting no time in needless explanation. + +"Ducky," said the girl, setting down the child, "go and tell grandpapa +how kind Dr. Faber has been to you. Tell him he is at the door." Then +turning to Faber, "I am sorry to say he does not seem at all well," she +answered him. "He has had a good deal of annoyance lately, and at his +age that sort of thing tells." + +As she spoke she looked up at the doctor, full in his face, but with a +curious quaver in her eyes. Nor was it any wonder she should look at him +strangely, for she felt toward him very strangely: to her he was as it +were the apostle of a kakangel, the prophet of a doctrine that was +evil, yet perhaps was a truth. Terrible doubts had for some time been +assailing her--doubts which she could in part trace to him, and as he +sat there on Ruber, he looked like a beautiful evil angel, who _knew_ +there was no God--an evil angel whom the curate, by his bold speech, had +raised, and could not banish. + +The surgeon had scarcely begun a reply, when the old minister made his +appearance. He was a tall, well-built man, with strong features, rather +handsome than otherwise; but his hat hung on his occiput, gave his head +a look of weakness and oddity that by nature did not belong to it, while +baggy, ill-made clothes and big shoes manifested a reaction from the +over-trimness of earlier years. He greeted the doctor with a severe +smile. + +"I am much obliged to you, Mr. Faber," he said, "for bringing me home my +little runaway. Where did you find her?" + +"Under my horse's head, like the temple between the paws of the Sphinx," +answered Faber, speaking a parable without knowing it. + +"She is a fearless little damsel," said the minister, in a husky voice +that had once rung clear as a bell over crowded congregations--"too +fearless at times. But the very ignorance of danger seems the panoply of +childhood. And indeed who knows in the midst of what evils we all walk +that never touch us!" + +"A Solon of platitudes!" said the doctor to himself. + +"She has been in the river once, and almost twice," Mr. Drake went on. +"--I shall have to tie you with a string, pussie! Come away from the +horse. What if he should take to stroking you? I am afraid you would +find his hands both hard and heavy." + +"How do you stand this trying spring weather, Mr. Drake? I don't hear +the best accounts of you," said the surgeon, drawing Ruber a pace back +from the door. + +"I am as well as at my age I can perhaps expect to be," answered the +minister. "I am getting old--and--and--we all have our troubles, and, I +trust, our God also, to set them right for us," he added, with a +suggesting look in the face of the doctor. + +"By Jove!" said Faber to himself, "the spring weather has roused the +worshiping instinct! The clergy are awake to-day! I had better look out, +or it will soon be too hot for me." + +"I can't look you in the face, doctor," resumed the old man after a +pause, "and believe what people say of you. It can't be that you don't +even believe there _is_ a God?" + +Faber would rather have said nothing; but his integrity he must keep +fast hold of, or perish in his own esteem. + +"If there be one," he replied, "I only state a fact when I say He has +never given me ground sufficient to think so. You say yourselves He has +favorites to whom He reveals Himself: I am not one of them, and must +therefore of necessity be an unbeliever." + +"But think, Mr. Faber--if there should be a God, what an insult it is to +deny Him existence." + +"I can't see it," returned the surgeon, suppressing a laugh. "If there +be such a one, would He not have me speak the truth? Anyhow, what great +matter can it be to Him that one should say he has never seen Him, and +can't therefore believe He is to be seen? A god should be above that +sort of pride." + +The minister was too much shocked to find any answer beyond a sad +reproving shake of the head. But he felt almost as if the hearing of +such irreverence without withering retort, made him a party to the sin +against the Holy Ghost. Was he not now conferring with one of the +generals of the army of Antichrist? Ought he not to turn his back upon +him, and walk into the house? But a surge of concern for the frank young +fellow who sat so strong and alive upon the great horse, broke over his +heart, and he looked up at him pitifully. + +Faber mistook the cause and object of his evident emotion. + +"Come now, Mr. Drake, be frank with me," he said. "You are out of +health; let me know what is the matter. Though I'm not religious, I'm +not a humbug, and only speak the truth when I say I should be glad to +serve you. A man must be neighborly, or what is there left of him? Even +you will allow that our duty to our neighbor is half the law, and there +is some help in medicine, though I confess it is no science yet, and we +are but dabblers." + +"But," said Mr. Drake, "I don't choose to accept the help of one who +looks upon all who think with me as a set of humbugs, and regards those +who deny every thing as the only honest men." + +"By Jove! sir, I take you for an honest man, or I should never trouble +my head about you. What I say of such as you is, that, having inherited +a lot of humbug, you don't know it for such, and do the best you can +with it." + +"If such is your opinion of me--and I have no right to complain of it in +my own person--I should just like to ask you one question about +another," said Mr. Drake: "Do you in your heart believe that Jesus +Christ was an impostor?" + +"I believe, if the story about him be true, that he was a well-meaning +man, enormously self-deceived." + +"Your judgment seems to me enormously illogical. That any ordinarily +good man should so deceive himself, appears to my mind altogether +impossible and incredible." + +"Ah! but he was an extraordinarily good man." + +"Therefore the more likely to think too much of himself?" + +"Why not? I see the same thing in his followers all about me." + +"Doubtless the servant shall be as his master," said the minister, and +closed his mouth, resolved to speak no more. But his conscience woke, +and goaded him with the truth that had come from the mouth of its +enemy--the reproach his disciples brought upon their master, for, in the +judgment of the world, the master is as his disciples. + +"You Christians," the doctor went on, "seem to me to make yourselves, +most unnecessarily, the slaves of a fancied ideal. I have no such ideal +to contemplate; yet I am not aware that you do better by each other than +I am ready to do for any man. I can't pretend to love every body, but I +do my best for those I can help. Mr. Drake, I would gladly serve you." + +The old man said nothing. His mood was stormy. Would he accept life +itself from the hand of him who denied his Master?--seek to the powers +of darkness for cure?--kneel to Antichrist for favor, as if he and not +Jesus were lord of life and death? Would _he_ pray a man to whom the +Bible was no better than a book of ballads, to come betwixt him and the +evils of growing age and disappointment, to lighten for him the +grasshopper, and stay the mourners as they went about his streets! He +had half turned, and was on the point of walking silent into the house, +when he bethought himself of the impression it would make on the +unbeliever, if he were thus to meet the offer of his kindness. Half +turned, he stood hesitating. + +"I have a passion for therapeutics," persisted the doctor; "and if I +can do any thing to ease the yoke upon the shoulders of my fellows--" + +Mr. Drake did not hear the end of the sentence: he heard instead, +somewhere in his soul, a voice saying, "My yoke is easy, and my burden +is light." He _could_ not let Faber help him. + +"Doctor, you have the great gift of a kind heart," he began, still half +turned from him. + +"My heart is like other people's," interrupted Faber. "If a man wants +help, and I've got it, what more natural than that we should come +together?" + +There was in the doctor an opposition to every thing that had if it were +but the odor of religion about it, which might well have suggested doubt +of his own doubt, and weakness buttressing itself with assertion But the +case was not so. What untruth there was in him was of another and more +subtle kind. Neither must it be supposed that he was a propagandist, a +proselytizer. Say nothing, and the doctor said nothing. Fire but a +saloon pistol, however, and off went a great gun in answer--with no +bravado, for the doctor was a gentleman. + +"Mr. Faber," said the minister, now turning toward him, and looking him +full in the face, "if you had a friend whom you loved with all your +heart, would you be under obligation to a man who counted your +friendship a folly?" + +"The cases are not parallel. Say the man merely did not believe your +friend was alive, and there could be no insult to either." + +"If the denial of his being in life, opened the door to the greatest +wrongs that could be done him--and if that denial seemed to me to have +its source in some element of moral antagonism to him--_could_ I +accept--I put it to yourself, Mr. Faber--_could_ I accept assistance +from that man? Do not take it ill. You prize honesty; so do I: ten times +rather would I cease to live than accept life at the hand of an enemy to +my Lord and Master." + +"I am very sorry, Mr. Drake," said the doctor; "but from your point of +view I suppose you are right. Good morning." + +He turned Ruber from the minister's door, went off quickly, and entered +his own stable-yard just as the rector's carriage appeared at the +further end of the street. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE MANOR HOUSE. + + +Mr. Bevis drove up to the inn, threw the reins to his coachman, got +down, and helped his wife out of the carriage. Then they parted, she to +take her gift of flowers and butter to her poor relation, he to call +upon Mrs. Ramshorn. + +That lady, being, as every body knew, the widow of a dean, considered +herself the chief ecclesiastical authority in Glaston. Her acknowledged +friends would, if pressed, have found themselves compelled to admit that +her theology was both scanty and confused, that her influence was not of +the most elevating nature, and that those who doubted her personal piety +might have something to say in excuse of their uncharitableness; but she +spoke in the might of the matrimonial nimbus around her head, and her +claims were undisputed in Glaston. There was a propriety, springing from +quite another source, however, in the rector's turning his footsteps +first toward the Manor House, where she resided. For his curate, whom +his business in Glaston that Saturday concerned, had, some nine or ten +months before, married Mrs. Ramshorn's niece, Helen Lingard by name, who +for many years had lived with her aunt, adding, if not to the comforts +of the housekeeping, for Mrs. Ramshorn was plentifully enough provided +for the remnant of her abode in this world, yet considerably to the +style of her menage. Therefore, when all of a sudden, as it seemed, the +girl calmly insisted on marrying the curate, a man obnoxious to every +fiber of her aunt's ecclesiastical nature, and transferring to him, with +a most unrighteous scorn of marriage-settlements, the entire property +inherited from her father and brother, the disappointment of Mrs. +Ramshorn in her niece was equaled only by her disgust at the object of +her choice. + +With a firm, dignified step, as if he measured the distance, the rector +paced the pavement between the inn and the Manor House. He knew of no +cause for the veiling of an eyelash before human being. It was true he +had closed his eyes to certain faults in the man of good estate and old +name who had done him the honor of requesting the hand of his one +child, and, leaving her to judge for herself, had not given her the +knowledge which might have led her to another conclusion; it had +satisfied him that the man's wild oats were sown: after the crop he made +no inquiry. It was also true that he had not mentioned a certain vice in +the last horse he sold; but then he hoped the severe measures taken had +cured him. He was aware that at times he took a few glasses of port more +than he would have judged it proper to carry to the pulpit or the +communion table, for those he counted the presence of his Maker; but +there was a time for every thing. He was conscious to himself, I repeat, +of nothing to cause him shame, and in the tramp of his boots there was +certainly no self-abasement. It was true he performed next to none of +the duties of the rectorship--but then neither did he turn any of its +income to his own uses; part he paid his curate, and the rest he laid +out on the church, which might easily have consumed six times the amount +in desirable, if not absolutely needful repairs. What further question +could be made of the matter? the church had her work done, and one of +her most precious buildings preserved from ruin to the bargain. How +indignant he would have been at the suggestion that he was after all +only an idolater, worshiping what he called _The Church_, instead of the +Lord Christ, the heart-inhabiting, world-ruling king of heaven! But he +was a very good sort of idolater, and some of the Christian graces had +filtered through the roofs of the temple upon him--eminently those of +hospitality and general humanity--even uprightness so far as his light +extended; so that he did less to obstruct the religion he thought he +furthered, than some men who preach it as on the house-tops. + +It was from policy, not from confidence in Mrs. Ramshorn, that he went +to her first. He liked his curate, and every one knew she hated him. If, +of any thing he did, two interpretations were possible--one good, and +one bad, there was no room for a doubt as to which she would adopt and +publish. Not even to herself, however, did she allow that one chief +cause of her hatred was, that, having all her life been used to a pair +of horses, she had now to put up with only a brougham. + +To the brass knocker on her door, the rector applied himself, and sent a +confident announcement of his presence through the house. Almost +instantly the long-faced butler, half undertaker, half parish-clerk, +opened the door; and seeing the rector, drew it wide to the wall, +inviting him to step into the library, as he had no doubt Mrs. Ramshorn +would be at home to _him_. Nor was it long ere she appeared, in rather +youthful morning dress, and gave him a hearty welcome; after which, by +no very wide spirals of descent, the talk swooped presently upon the +curate. + +"The fact is," at length said the memorial shadow of the dean deceased, +"Mr. Wingfold is not a gentleman. It grieves me to say so of the husband +of my niece, who has been to me as my own child, but the truth must be +spoken. It may be difficult to keep such men out of holy orders, but if +ever the benefices of the church come to be freely bestowed upon them, +that moment the death-bell of religion is rung in England. My late +husband said so. While such men keep to barns and conventicles we can +despise them, but when they creep into the fold, then there is just +cause for alarm. The longer I live, the better I see my poor husband was +right." + +"I should scarcely have thought such a man as you describe could have +captivated Helen," said the rector with a smile. + +"Depend upon it she perceives her mistake well enough by this time," +returned Mrs. Ramshorn. "A lady born and bred _must_ make the discovery +before a week is over. But poor Helen always was headstrong! And in this +out-of-the-world place she saw so little of gentlemen!" + +The rector could not help thinking birth and breeding must go for little +indeed, if nothing less than marriage could reveal to a lady that a man +was not a gentleman. + +"Nobody knows," continued Mrs. Ramshorn, "who or what his father--not to +say his grandfather, was! But would you believe it! when I asked her +_who_ the man was, having a right to information concerning the person +she was about to connect with the family, she told me she had never +thought of inquiring. I pressed it upon her as a duty she owed to +society; she told me she was content with the man himself, and was not +going to ask him about his family. She would wait till they were +married! Actually, on my word as a lady, she said so, Mr. Bevis! What +could I do? She was of age, and independent fortune. And as to +gratitude, I know the ways of the world too well to look for that." + +"We old ones"--Mrs. Ramshorn bridled a little: she was only +fifty-seven!--"have had our turn, and theirs is come," said the rector +rather inconsequently. + +"And a pretty mess they are like to make of it!--what with infidelity +and blasphemy--I must say it--blasphemy!--Really you must do something, +Mr. Bevis. Things have arrived at such a pass that, I give you my word, +reflections not a few are made upon the rector for committing his flock +to the care of such a wolf--a fox _I_ call him." + +"To-morrow I shall hear him preach," said the parson. + +"Then I sincerely trust no one will give him warning of your intention: +he is so clever, he would throw dust in any body's eyes." + +The rector laughed. He had no overweening estimate of his own abilities, +but he did pride himself a little on his common sense. + +"But," the lady went on, "in a place like this, where every body talks, +I fear the chance is small against his hearing of your arrival. Anyhow I +would not have you trust to one sermon. He will say just the opposite +the next. He contradicts himself incredibly. Even in the same sermon I +have heard him say things diametrically opposite." + +"He can not have gone so far as to advocate the real presence: a rumor +of that has reached me," said the rector. + +"There it is!" cried Mrs. Ramshorn. "If you had asked me, I should have +said he insisted the holy eucharist meant neither more nor less than any +other meal to which some said a grace. The man has not an atom of +consistency in his nature. He will say and unsay as fast as one sentence +can follow the other, and if you tax him with it, he will support both +sides: at least, that is my experience with him. I speak as I find him." + +"What then would you have me do?" said the rector. "The straightforward +way would doubtless be to go to him." + +"You would, I fear, gain nothing by that. He is so specious! The only +safe way is to dismiss him without giving a reason. Otherwise, he will +certainly prove you in the wrong. Don't take my word. Get the opinion of +your church-wardens. Every body knows he has made an atheist of poor +Faber. It is sadder than I have words to say. He _was_ such a +gentlemanly fellow!" + +The rector took his departure, and made a series of calls upon those he +judged the most influential of the congregation. He did not think to ask +for what they were influential, or why he should go to them rather than +the people of the alms-house. What he heard embarrassed him not a +little. His friends spoke highly of Wingfold, his enemies otherwise: the +character of his friends his judge did not attempt to weigh with that of +his enemies, neither did he attempt to discover why these were his +enemies and those his friends. No more did he make the observation, +that, while his enemies differed in the things they said against him, +his friends agreed in those they said for him; the fact being, that +those who did as he roused their conscience to see they ought, more or +less understood the man and his aims; while those who would not submit +to the authority he brought to bear upon them, and yet tried to measure +and explain him after the standards of their own being and endeavors, +failed ludicrously. The church-wardens told him that, ever since he +came, the curate had done nothing but set the congregation by the ears; +and that he could not fail to receive as a weighty charge. But they told +him also that some of the principal dissenters declared him to be a +fountain of life in the place--and that seemed to him to involve the +worst accusation of all. For, without going so far as to hold, or even +say without meaning it, that dissenters ought to be burned, Mr. Bevis +regarded it as one of the first of merits, that a man should be a _good +churchman_. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE RECTORY. + + +The curate had been in the study all the morning. Three times had his +wife softly turned the handle of his door, but finding it locked, had +re-turned the handle yet more softly, and departed noiselessly. Next +time she knocked--and he came to her pale-eyed, but his face almost +luminous, and a smile hovering about his lips: she knew then that either +a battle had been fought amongst the hills, and he had won, or a +thought-storm had been raging, through which at length had descended the +meek-eyed Peace. She looked in his face for a moment with silent +reverence, then offered her lips, took him by the hand, and, without a +word, led him down the stair to their mid-day meal. When that was over, +she made him lie down, and taking a novel, read him asleep. She woke him +to an early tea--not, however, after it, to return to his study: in the +drawing-room, beside his wife, he always got the germ of his +discourse--his germon, he called it--ready for its growth in the pulpit. +Now he lay on the couch, now rose and stood, now walked about the room, +now threw himself again on the couch; while, all the time his wife +played softly on her piano, extemporizing and interweaving, with an +invention, taste, and expression, of which before her marriage she had +been quite incapable. + +The text in his mind was, "_Ye can not serve God and Mammon_." But not +once did he speak to his wife about it. He did not even tell her what +his text was. Long ago he had given her to understand that he could not +part with her as one of his congregation--could not therefore take her +into his sermon before he met her in her hearing phase in church, with +the rows of pews and faces betwixt him and her, making her once more one +of his flock, the same into whose heart he had so often agonized to pour +the words of rousing, of strength, of consolation. + +On the Saturday, except his wife saw good reason, she would let no one +trouble him, and almost the sole reason she counted good was trouble: if +a person was troubled, then he might trouble. His friends knew this, and +seldom came near him on a Saturday. But that evening, Mr. Drew, the +draper, who, although a dissenter, was one of the curate's warmest +friends, called late, when, he thought in his way of looking at sermons, +that for the morrow must be now finished, and laid aside like a parcel +for delivery the next morning. Helen went to him. He told her the rector +was in the town, had called upon not a few of his parishioners, and +doubtless was going to church in the morning. + +"Thank you, Mr. Drew. I perfectly understand your kindness," said Mrs. +Wingfold, "but I shall not tell my husband to-night." + +"Excuse the liberty, ma'am, but--but--do you think it well for a wife to +hide things from her husband?" + +Helen laughed merrily. + +"Assuredly not, as a rule," she replied. "But suppose I knew he would be +vexed with me if I told him some particular thing? Suppose I know now +that, when I do tell him on Monday, he will say to me, 'Thank you, wife. +I am glad you kept that from me till I had done my work,'--what then?" + +"All right _then_," answered the draper. + +You see, Mr. Drew, we think married people should be so sure of each +other that each should not only be content, but should prefer not to +know what the other thinks it better not to tell. If my husband +overheard any one calling me names, I don't think he would tell me. He +knows, as well as I do, that I am not yet good enough to behave better +to any one for knowing she hates and reviles me. It would be but to +propagate the evil, and for my part too, I would rather not be told." + +"I quite understand you, ma'am," answered the draper. + +"I know you do," returned Helen, with emphasis. + +Mr. Drew blushed to the top of his white forehead, while the lower part +of his face, which in its forms was insignificant, blossomed into a +smile as radiant as that of an infant. He knew Mrs. Wingfold was aware +of the fact, known only to two or three beside in the town, that the +lady, who for the last few months had been lodging in his house, was his +own wife, who had forsaken him twenty years before. The man who during +that time had passed for her husband, had been otherwise dishonest as +well, and had fled the country; she and her daughter, brought to +absolute want, were received into his house by her forsaken husband; +there they occupied the same chamber, the mother ordered every thing, +and the daughter did not know that she paid for nothing. If the ways of +transgressors are hard, those of a righteous man are not always easy. +When Mr. Drew would now and then stop suddenly in the street, take off +his hat and wipe his forehead, little people thought the round smiling +face had such a secret behind it. Had they surmised a skeleton in his +house, they would as little have suspected it masked in the handsome, +well-dressed woman of little over forty, who, with her pretty daughter +so tossy and airy, occupied his first floor, and was supposed to pay him +handsomely for it. + +The curate slept soundly, and woke in the morning eager to utter what he +had. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE ROAD TO OWLKIRK. + + +Paul Faber fared otherwise. Hardly was he in bed before he was called +out of it again. A messenger had come from Mrs. Puckridge to say that +Miss Meredith was worse, and if the doctor did not start at once, she +would be dead before he reached Owlkirk. He sent orders to his groom to +saddle Niger and bring him round instantly, and hurried on his clothes, +vexed that he had taken Ruber both in the morning and afternoon, and +could not have him now. But Niger was a good horse also: if he was but +two-thirds of Ruber's size, he was but one-third of his age, and saw +better at night. On the other hand he was less easily seen, but the +midnight there was so still and deserted, that that was of small +consequence. In a few minutes they were out together in a lane as dark +as pitch, compelled now to keep to the roads, for there was not light +enough to see the pocket-compass by which the surgeon sometimes steered +across country. + +Could we learn what waking-dreams haunted the boyhood of a man, we +should have a rare help toward understanding the character he has +developed. Those of the young Faber were, almost exclusively, of playing +the prince of help and deliverance among women and men. Like most boys +that dream, he dreamed himself rich and powerful, but the wealth and +power were for the good of his fellow-creatures. If it must be confessed +that he lingered most over the thanks and admiration he set to haunt his +dream-steps, and hover about his dream-person, it must be remembered +that he was the only real person in the dreams, and that he regarded +lovingly the mere shadows of his fellow-men. His dreams were not of +strength and destruction, but of influence and life. Even his revenges +never-reached further than the making of his enemies ashamed. + +It was the spirit of help, then, that had urged him into the profession +he followed. He had found much dirt about the door of it, and had not +been able to cross the threshold without some cleaving to his garments. +He is a high-souled youth indeed, in whom the low regards and corrupt +knowledge of his superiors will fail utterly of degrading influence; he +must be one stronger than Faber who can listen to scoffing materialism +from the lips of authority and experience, and not come to look upon +humanity and life with a less reverent regard. What man can learn to +look upon the dying as so much matter about to be rekneaded and +remodeled into a fresh mass of feverous joys, futile aspirations, and +stinging chagrins, without a self-contempt from which there is no +shelter but the poor hope that we may be a little better than we appear +to ourselves. But Faber escaped the worst. He did not learn to look on +humanity without respect, or to meet the stare of appealing eyes from +man or animal, without genuine response--without sympathy. He never +joined in any jest over suffering, not to say betted on the chance of +the man who lay panting under the terrors of an impending operation. Can +one be capable of such things, and not have sunk deep indeed in the +putrid pit of decomposing humanity? It is true that before he began to +practice, Faber had come to regard man as a body and not an embodiment, +the highest in him as dependent on his physical organization--as indeed +but the aroma, as it were, of its blossom the brain, therefore subject +to _all_ the vicissitudes of the human plant from which it rises; but he +had been touched to issues too fine to be absolutely interpenetrated and +inslaved by the reaction of accepted theories. His poetic nature, like +the indwelling fire of the world, was ever ready to play havoc with +induration and constriction, and the same moment when degrading +influences ceased to operate, the delicacy of his feeling began to +revive. Even at its lowest, this delicacy preserved him from much into +which vulgar natures plunge; it kept alive the memory of a lovely +mother; and fed the flame of that wondering, worshiping reverence for +women which is the saviour of men until the Truth Himself saves both. A +few years of worthy labor in his profession had done much to develop +him, and his character for uprightness, benevolence, and skill, with the +people of Glaston and its neighborhood, where he had been ministering +only about a year, was already of the highest. Even now, when, in a +fever of honesty, he declared there _could_ be no God in such an +ill-ordered world, so full was his heart of the human half of religion, +that he could not stand by the bedside of dying man or woman, without +lamenting that there was no consolation--that stern truth would allow +him to cast no feeblest glamour of hope upon the departing shadow. His +was a nobler nature than theirs who, believing no more than he, are +satisfied with the assurance that at the heart of the evils of the world +lie laws unchangeable. + +The main weak point in him was, that, while he was indeed +tender-hearted, and did no kindnesses to be seen of men, he did them to +be seen of himself: he saw him who did them all the time. The boy was in +the man; doing his deeds he sought, not the approbation merely, but the +admiration of his own consciousness. I am afraid to say this was +_wrong_, but it was poor and childish, crippled his walk, and obstructed +his higher development. He liked to _know_ himself a benefactor. Such a +man may well be of noble nature, but he is a mere dabbler in nobility. +Faber delighted in the thought that, having repudiated all motives of +personal interest involved in religious belief, all that regard for the +future, with its rewards and punishments, which, in his ignorance, +genuine or willful, of essential Christianity, he took for its main +potence, he ministered to his neighbor, doing to him as he would have +him do to himself, hopeless of any divine recognition, of any betterness +beyond the grave, in a fashion at least as noble as that of the most +devoted of Christians. It did not occur to him to ask if he loved him as +well--if his care about him was equal to his satisfaction in himself. +Neither did he reflect that the devotion he admired in himself had been +brought to the birth in him through others, in whom it was first +generated by a fast belief in an unselfish, loving, self-devoting God. +Had he inquired he might have discovered that this belief had carried +some men immeasurably further in the help of their fellows, than he had +yet gone. Indeed he might, I think, have found instances of men of faith +spending their lives for their fellows, whose defective theology or +diseased humility would not allow them to hope their own salvation. +Inquiry might have given him ground for fearing that with the love of +the _imagined_ God, the love of the indubitable man would decay and +vanish. But such as Faber was, he was both loved and honored by all whom +he had ever attended; and, with his fine tastes, his genial nature, his +quiet conscience, his good health, his enjoyment of life, his knowledge +and love of his profession, his activity, his tender heart--especially +to women and children, his keen intellect, and his devising though not +embodying imagination, if any man could get on without a God, Faber was +that man. He was now trying it, and as yet the trial had cost him no +effort: he seemed to himself to be doing very well indeed. And why +should he not do as well as the thousands, who counting themselves +religious people, get through the business of the hour, the day, the +week, the year, without one reference in any thing they do or abstain +from doing, to the will of God, or the words of Christ? If he was more +helpful to his fellows than they, he fared better; for actions in +themselves good, however imperfect the motives that give rise to them, +react blissfully upon character and nature. It is better to be an +atheist who does the will of God, than a so-called Christian who does +not. The atheist will not be dismissed because he said _Lord, Lord,_ and +did not obey. The thing that God loves is the only lovely thing, and he +who does it, does well, and is upon the way to discover that he does it +very badly. When he comes to do it as the will of the perfect Good, then +is he on the road to do it perfectly--that is, from love of its own +inherent self-constituted goodness, born in the heart of the Perfect. +The doing of things from duty is but a stage on the road to the kingdom +of truth and love. Not the less must the stage be journeyed; every path +diverging from it is "the flowery way that leads to the broad gate and +the great fire." + +It was with more than his usual zeal of helpfulness that Faber was now +riding toward Owlkirk, to revisit his new patient. Could he have +mistaken the symptoms of her attack? + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE COTTAGE. + + +Mrs. Puckridge was anxiously awaiting the doctor's arrival. She stood by +the bedside of her lodger, miserable in her ignorance and consequent +helplessness. The lady tossed and moaned, but for very pain could +neither toss nor moan much, and breathed--panted, rather--very quick. +Her color was white more than pale, and now and then she shivered from +head to foot, but her eyes burned. Mrs. Puckridge kept bringing her hot +flannels, and stood talking between the changes. + +"I wish the doctor would come!--Them doctors!--I hope to goodness Dr. +Faber wasn't out when the boy got to Glaston. Every body in this mortal +universe always is out when he's wanted: that's _my_ experience. You +ain't so old as me, miss. And Dr. Faber, you see, miss, he be such a +favorite as _have_ to go out to his dinner not unfrequent. They may have +to send miles to fetch him." + +She talked in the vain hope of distracting the poor lady's attention +from her suffering. + +It was a little up stairs cottage-room, the corners betwixt the ceiling +and the walls cut off by the slope of the roof. So dark was the night, +that, when Mrs. Puckridge carried the candle out of the room, the +unshaded dormer window did not show itself even by a bluish glimmer. But +light and dark were alike to her who lay in the little tent-bed, in the +midst of whose white curtains, white coverlid, and white pillows, her +large eyes, black as human eyes could ever be, were like wells of +darkness throwing out flashes of strange light. Her hair too was dark, +brown-black, of great plenty, and so fine that it seemed to go off in a +mist on the whiteness. It had been her custom to throw it over the back +of her bed, but in this old-fashioned one that was impossible, and it +lay, in loveliest confusion, scattered here and there over pillow and +coverlid, as if the wind had been tossing it all a long night at his +will. Some of it had strayed more than half way to the foot of the bed. +Her face, distorted almost though it was with distress, showed yet a +regularity of feature rarely to be seen in combination with such evident +power of expression. Suffering had not yet flattened the delicate +roundness of her cheek, or sharpened the angles of her chin. In her +whiteness, and her constrained, pang-thwarted motions from side to side, +she looked like a form of marble in the agonies of coming to life at the +prayer of some Pygmalion. In throwing out her arms, she had flung back +the bedclothes, and her daintily embroidered night-gown revealed a +rather large, grand throat, of the same rare whiteness. Her hands were +perfect--every finger and every nail-- + + Those fine[1] nimble brethren small, + Armed with pearl-shell helmets all. + +[Footnote 1: _Joshua Sylvester._ I suspect the word ought to be _five_, +not _fine_, as my copy (1613) has it.] + +When Mrs. Puckridge came into the room, she always set her candle on +the sill of the storm-window: it was there, happily, when the doctor +drew near the village, and it guided him to the cottage-gate. He +fastened Niger to the gate, crossed the little garden, gently lifted the +door-latch, and ascended the stair. He found the door of the chamber +open, signed to Mrs. Puckridge to be still, softly approached the bed, +and stood gazing in silence on the sufferer, who lay at the moment +apparently unconscious. But suddenly, as if she had become aware of a +presence, she flashed wide her great eyes, and the pitiful entreaty that +came into them when she saw him, went straight to his heart. Faber felt +more for the sufferings of some of the lower animals than for certain of +his patients; but children and women he would serve like a slave. The +dumb appeal of her eyes almost unmanned him. + +"I am sorry to see you so ill," he said, as he took her wrist. "You are +in pain: where?" + +Her other hand moved toward her side in reply. Every thing indicated +pleurisy--such that there was no longer room for gentle measures. She +must be relieved at once: he must open a vein. In the changed practice +of later days, it had seldom fallen to the lot of Faber to perform the +very simple operation of venesection, but that had little to do with the +trembling of the hands which annoyed him with himself, when he proceeded +to undo a sleeve of his patient's nightdress. Finding no button, he took +a pair of scissors from his pocket, cut ruthlessly through linen and +lace, and rolled back the sleeve. It disclosed an arm the sight of which +would have made a sculptor rejoice as over some marbles of old Greece. I +can not describe it, and if I could, for very love and reverence I would +rather let it alone. Faber felt his heart rise in his throat at the +necessity of breaking that exquisite surface with even such an +insignificant breach and blemish as the shining steel betwixt his +forefinger and thumb must occasion. But a slight tremble of the hand he +held acknowledged the intruding sharpness, and then the red parabola +rose from the golden bowl. He stroked the lovely arm to help its flow, +and soon the girl once more opened her eyes and looked at him. Already +her breathing was easier. But presently her eyes began to glaze with +approaching faintness, and he put his thumb on the wound. She smiled and +closed them. He bound up her arm, laid it gently by her side, gave her +something to drink, and sat down. He sat until he saw her sunk in a +quiet, gentle sleep: ease had dethroned pain, and order had begun to +dawn out of threatened chaos. + +"Thank God!" he said, involuntarily, and stood up: what all that meant, +God only knows. + +After various directions to Mrs. Puckridge, to which she seemed to +attend, but which, being as simple as necessary, I fear she forgot the +moment they were uttered, the doctor mounted, and rode away. The +darkness was gone, for the moon was rising, but when the road compelled +him to face her, she blinded him nearly as much. Slowly she rose through +a sky freckled with wavelets of cloud, and as she crept up amongst them +she brought them all out, in bluish, pearly, and opaline gray. Then, +suddenly almost, as it seemed, she left them, and walked up aloft, +drawing a thin veil around her as she ascended. All was so soft, so +sleepy, so vague, it seemed to Paul as he rode slowly along, himself +almost asleep, as if the Night had lost the blood he had caused to flow, +and the sweet exhaustion that followed had from the lady's brain +wandered out over Nature herself, as she sank, a lovelier Katadyomene, +into the hushed sea of pain-won repose. + +Was he in love with her? I do not know. I could tell, if I knew what +being in love is. I think no two loves were ever the same since the +creation of the world. I know that something had passed from her eyes to +his--but what? He may have been in love with her already; but ere long +my reader may be more sure than I that he was not. The Maker of men +alone understands His awful mystery between the man and the woman. But +without it, frightful indeed as are some of its results, assuredly the +world He has made would burst its binding rings and fly asunder in +shards, leaving His spirit nothing to enter, no time to work His lovely +will. + +It must be to any man a terrible thing to find himself in wild pain, +with no God of whom to entreat that his soul may not faint within him; +but to a man who can think as well as feel, it were a more terrible +thing still, to find himself afloat on the tide of a lovely passion, +with no God to whom to cry, accountable to Himself for that which He has +made. Will any man who has ever cast more than a glance into the +mysteries of his being, dare think himself sufficient to the ruling of +his nature? And if he rule it not, what shall he be but the sport of the +demons that will ride its tempests, that will rouse and torment its +ocean? What help then is there? What high-hearted man would consent to +be possessed and sweetly ruled by the loveliest of angels? Truly it were +but a daintier madness. Come thou, holy Love, father of my spirit, +nearer to the unknown deeper me than my consciousness is to its known +self, possess me utterly, for thou art more me than I am myself. Rule +thou. Then first I rule. Shadow me from the too radiant splendors of thy +own creative thought. Folded in thy calm, I shall love, and not die. And +ye, women, be the daughters of Him from whose heart came your mothers; +be the saviours of men, and neither their torment nor their prey! + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE PULPIT. + + +Before morning it rained hard again; but it cleared at sunrise, and the +first day of the week found the world new-washed. Glaston slept longer +than usual, however, for all the shine, and in the mounting sun looked +dead and deserted. There were no gay shop-windows to reflect his beams, +or fill them with rainbow colors. There were no carriages or carts, and +only, for a few moments, one rider. That was Paul Faber again, on Ruber +now, aglow in the morning. There were no children playing yet about the +streets or lanes; but the cries of some came at intervals from unseen +chambers, as the Sunday soap stung their eyes, or the Sunday comb tore +their matted locks. + +As Faber rode out of his stable-yard, Wingfold took his hat from its +peg, to walk through his churchyard. He lived almost in the churchyard, +for, happily, since his marriage the rectory had lost its tenants, and +Mr. Bevis had allowed him to occupy it, in lieu of part of his salary. +It was not yet church-time by hours, but he had a custom of going every +Sunday morning, in the fine weather, quite early, to sit for an hour or +two alone in the pulpit, amidst the absolute solitude and silence of the +great church. It was a door, he said, through which a man who could not +go to Horeb, might enter and find the power that dwells on mountain-tops +and in desert places. + +He went slowly through the churchyard, breathing deep breaths of the +delicious spring-morning air. Rain-drops were sparkling all over the +grassy graves, and in the hollows of the stones they had gathered in +pools. The eyes of the death-heads were full of water, as if weeping at +the defeat of their master. Every now and then a soft little wind awoke, +like a throb of the spirit of life, and shook together the scattered +drops upon the trees, and then down came diamond showers on the grass +and daisies of the mounds, and fed the green moss in the letters of the +epitaphs. Over all the sun was shining, as if everywhere and forever +spring was the order of things. And is it not so? Is not the idea of the +creation an eternal spring ever trembling on the verge of summer? It +seemed so to the curate, who was not given to sad, still less to +sentimental moralizing over the graves. From such moods his heart +recoiled. To him they were weak and mawkish, and in him they would have +been treacherous. No grave was to him the place where a friend was +lying; it was but a cenotaph--the place where the Lord had lain. + +"Let those possessed with demons haunt the tombs," he said, as he sat +down in the pulpit; "for me, I will turn my back upon them with the +risen Christ. Yes, friend, I hear you! I know what you say! You have +more affection than I? you can not forsake the last resting-place of the +beloved? Well, you may have more feeling than I; there is no gauge by +which I can tell, and if there were, it would be useless: we are as God +made us.--No, I will not say that: I will say rather, I am as God is +making me, and I shall one day be as He has made me. Meantime I know +that He will have me love my enemy tenfold more than now I love my +friend. Thou believest that the malefactor--ah, there was faith now! Of +two men dying together in agony and shame, the one beseeches of the +other the grace of a king! Thou believest, I say--at least thou +professest to believe that the malefactor was that very day with Jesus +in Paradise, and yet thou broodest over thy friend's grave, gathering +thy thoughts about the pitiful garment he left behind him, and letting +himself drift away into the unknown, forsaken of all but thy vaguest, +most shapeless thinkings! Tell me not thou fearest to enter there whence +has issued no revealing. It is God who gives thee thy mirror of +imagination, and if thou keep it clean, it will give thee back no shadow +but of the truth. Never a cry of love went forth from human heart but +it found some heavenly chord to fold it in. Be sure thy friend inhabits +a day not out of harmony with this morning of earthly spring, with this +sunlight, those rain-drops, that sweet wind that flows so softly over +his grave." + +It was the first sprouting of a _germon_. He covered it up and left it: +he had something else to talk to his people about this morning. + +While he sat thus in the pulpit, his wife was praying for him ere she +rose. She had not learned to love him in the vestibule of society, that +court of the Gentiles, but in the chamber of torture and the clouded +adytum of her own spiritual temple. For there a dark vapor had hid the +deity enthroned, until the words of His servant melted the gloom. Then +she saw that what she had taken for her own innermost chamber of awful +void, was the dwelling-place of the most high, most lovely, only One, +and through its windows she beheld a cosmos dawning out of chaos. +Therefore the wife walked beside the husband in the strength of a common +faith in absolute Good; and not seldom did the fire which the torch of +his prophecy had kindled upon her altar, kindle again that torch, when +some bitter wind of evil words, or mephitis of human perversity, or +thunder-rain of foiled charity, had extinguished it. She loved every +hair upon his head, but loved his well-being infinitely more than his +mortal life. A wrinkle on his forehead would cause her a pang, yet would +she a thousand times rather have seen him dead than known him guilty of +one of many things done openly by not a few of his profession. + +And now, as one sometimes wonders what he shall dream to-night, she sat +wondering what new thing, or what old thing fresher and more alive than +the new, would this day flow from his heart into hers. The following is +the substance of what, a few hours after, she did hear from him. His +rector, sitting between Mrs. Bevis and Mrs. Ramshorn, heard it also. The +radiance of truth shone from Wingfold's face as he spoke, and those of +the congregation who turned away from his words were those whose lives +ran counter to the spirit of them. Whatever he uttered grew out of a +whole world of thought, but it grew before them--that is, he always +thought afresh in the presence of the people, and spoke extempore. + +"'_Ye can not serve God and mammon_.' + +"Who said this? The Lord by whose name ye are called, in whose name +this house was built, and who will at last judge every one of us. And +yet how many of you are, and have been for years, trying your very +hardest to do the thing your Master tells you is impossible! Thou man! +Thou woman! I appeal to thine own conscience whether thou art not +striving to serve God and mammon. + +"But stay! am I right?--It can not be. For surely if a man strove hard +to serve God and mammon, he would presently discover the thing was +impossible. It is not easy to serve God, and it is easy to serve mammon; +if one strove to serve God, the hard thing, along with serving mammon, +the easy thing, the incompatibility of the two endeavors must appear. +The fact is there is no strife in you. With ease you serve mammon every +day and hour of your lives, and for God, you do not even ask yourselves +the question whether you are serving Him or no. Yet some of you are at +this very moment indignant that I call you servers of mammon. Those of +you who know that God knows you are His servants, know also that I do +not mean you; therefore, those who are indignant at being called the +servants of mammon, are so because they are indeed such. As I say these +words I do not lift my eyes, not that I am afraid to look you in the +face, as uttering an offensive thing, but that I would have your own +souls your accusers. + +"Let us consider for a moment the God you do not serve, and then for a +moment the mammon you do serve. The God you do not serve is the Father +of Lights, the Source of love, the Maker of man and woman, the Head of +the great family, the Father of fatherhood and motherhood; the +Life-giver who would die to preserve His children, but would rather slay +them than they should live the servants of evil; the God who can neither +think nor do nor endure any thing mean or unfair; the God of poetry and +music and every marvel; the God of the mountain tops, and the rivers +that run from the snows of death, to make the earth joyous with life; +the God of the valley and the wheat-field, the God who has set love +betwixt youth and maiden; the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, +the perfect; the God whom Christ knew, with whom Christ was satisfied, +of whom He declared that to know Him was eternal life. The mammon you do +serve is not a mere negation, but a positive Death. His temple is a +darkness, a black hollow, ever hungry, in the heart of man, who tumbles +into it every thing that should make life noble and lovely. To all who +serve him he makes it seem that his alone is the reasonable service. +His wages are death, but he calls them life, and they believe him. I +will tell you some of the marks of his service--a few of the badges of +his household--for he has no visible temple; no man bends the knee to +him; it is only his soul, his manhood, that the worshiper casts in the +dust before him. If a man talks of the main chance, meaning thereby that +of making money, or of number one, meaning thereby self, except indeed +he honestly jest, he is a servant of mammon. If, when thou makest a +bargain, thou thinkest _only_ of thyself and thy gain, though art a +servant of mammon. The eager looks of those that would get money, the +troubled looks of those who have lost it, worst of all the gloating +looks of them that have it, these are sure signs of the service of +mammon. If in the church thou sayest to the rich man, 'Sit here in a +good place,' and to the poor man, 'Stand there,' thou art a +mammon-server. If thou favorest the company of those whom men call +well-to-do, when they are only well-to-eat, well-to-drink, or +well-to-show, and declinest that of the simple and the meek, then in thy +deepest consciousness know that thou servest mammon, not God. If thy +hope of well-being in time to come, rests upon thy houses, or lands, or +business, or money in store, and not upon the living God, be thou +friendly and kind with the overflowings of thy possessions, or a churl +whom no man loves, thou art equally a server of mammon. If the loss of +thy goods would take from thee the joy of thy life; if it would tear thy +heart that the men thou hadst feasted should hold forth to thee the two +fingers instead of the whole hand; nay, if thy thought of to-morrow +makes thee quail before the duty of to-day, if thou broodest over the +evil that is not come, and turnest from the God who is with thee in the +life of the hour, thou servest mammon; he holds thee in his chain; thou +art his ape, whom he leads about the world for the mockery of his +fellow-devils. If with thy word, yea, even with thy judgment, thou +confessest that God is the only good, yet livest as if He had sent thee +into the world to make thyself rich before thou die; if it will add one +feeblest pang to the pains of thy death, to think that thou must leave +thy fair house, thy ancestral trees, thy horses, thy shop, thy books, +behind thee, then art thou a servant of mammon, and far truer to thy +master than he will prove to thee. Ah, slave! the moment the breath is +out of the body, lo, he has already deserted thee! and of all in which +thou didst rejoice, all that gave thee such power over thy fellows, +there is not left so much as a spike of thistle-down for the wind to +waft from thy sight. For all thou hast had, there is nothing to show. +Where is the friendship in which thou mightst have invested thy money, +in place of burying it in the maw of mammon? Troops of the dead might +now be coming to greet thee with love and service, hadst thou made thee +friends with thy money; but, alas! to thee it was not money, but mammon, +for thou didst love it--not for the righteousness and salvation thou by +its means mightst work in the earth, but for the honor it brought thee +among men, for the pleasures and immunities it purchased. Some of you +are saying in your hearts, 'Preach to thyself, and practice thine own +preaching;'--and you say well. And so I mean to do, lest having preached +to others I should be myself a cast-away--drowned with some of you in +the same pond of filth. God has put money in my power through the gift +of one whom you know. I shall endeavor to be a faithful steward of that +which God through her has committed to me in trust. Hear me, friends--to +none of you am I the less a friend that I tell you truths you would hide +from your own souls: money is not mammon; it is God's invention; it is +good and the gift of God. But for money and the need of it, there would +not be half the friendship in the world. It is powerful for good when +divinely used. Give it plenty of air, and it is sweet as the hawthorn; +shut it up, and it cankers and breeds worms. Like all the best gifts of +God, like the air and the water, it must have motion and change and +shakings asunder; like the earth itself, like the heart and mind of man, +it must be broken and turned, not heaped together and neglected. It is +an angel of mercy, whose wings are full of balm and dews and +refreshings; but when you lay hold of him, pluck his pinions, pen him in +a yard, and fall down and worship him--then, with the blessed vengeance +of his master, he deals plague and confusion and terror, to stay the +idolatry. If I misuse or waste or hoard the divine thing, I pray my +Master to see to it--my God to punish me. Any fire rather than be given +over to the mean idol! And now I will make an offer to my townsfolk in +the face of this congregation--that, whoever will, at the end of three +years, bring me his books, to him also will I lay open mine, that he +will see how I have sought to make friends of the mammon of +unrighteousness. Of the mammon-server I expect to be judged according +to the light that is in him, and that light I know to be darkness. + +"Friend, be not a slave. Be wary. Look not on the gold when it is yellow +in thy purse. Hoard not. In God's name, spend--spend on. Take heed how +thou spendest, but take heed that thou spend. Be thou as the sun in +heaven; let thy gold be thy rays, thy angels of love and life and +deliverance. Be thou a candle of the Lord to spread His light through +the world. If hitherto, in any fashion of faithlessness, thou hast +radiated darkness into the universe, humble thyself, and arise and +shine. + +"But if thou art poor, then look not on thy purse when it is empty. He +who desires more than God wills him to have, is also a servant of +mammon, for he trusts in what God has made, and not in God Himself. He +who laments what God has taken from him, he is a servant of mammon. He +who for care can not pray, is a servant of mammon. There are men in this +town who love and trust their horses more than the God that made them +and their horses too. None the less confidently will they give judgment +on the doctrine of God. But the opinion of no man who does not render +back his soul to the living God and live in Him, is, in religion, worth +the splinter of a straw. Friends, cast your idol into the furnace; melt +your mammon down, coin him up, make God's money of him, and send him +coursing. Make of him cups to carry the gift of God, the water of life, +through the world--in lovely justice to the oppressed, in healthful +labor to them whom no man hath hired, in rest to the weary who have +borne the burden and heat of the day, in joy to the heavy-hearted, in +laughter to the dull-spirited. Let them all be glad with reason, and +merry without revel. Ah! what gifts in music, in drama, in the tale, in +the picture, in the spectacle, in books and models, in flowers and +friendly feasting, what true gifts might not the mammon of +unrighteousness, changed back into the money of God, give to men and +women, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh! How would you not spend +your money for the Lord, if He needed it at your hand! He does need it; +for he that spends it upon the least of his fellows, spends it upon his +Lord. To hold fast upon God with one hand, and open wide the other to +your neighbor--that is religion; that is the law and the prophets, and +the true way to all better things that are yet to come.--Lord, defend us +from Mammon. Hold Thy temple against his foul invasion. Purify our +money with Thy air, and Thy sun, that it may be our slave, and Thou our +Master. Amen." + +The moment his sermon was ended, the curate always set himself to forget +it. This for three reasons: first, he was so dissatisfied with it, that +to think of it was painful--and the more, that many things he might have +said, and many better ways of saying what he had said, would constantly +present themselves. Second, it was useless to brood over what could not +be bettered; and, third, it was hurtful, inasmuch as it prevented the +growth of new, hopeful, invigorating thought, and took from his +strength, and the quality of his following endeavor. A man's labors must +pass like the sunrises and sunsets of the world. The next thing, not the +last, must be his care. When he reached home, he would therefore use +means to this end of diversion, and not unfrequently would write verses. +Here are those he wrote that afternoon. + + LET YOUR LIGHT SO SHINE. + + Sometimes, O Lord, thou lightest in my head + A lamp that well might Pharos all the lands; + Anon the light will neither burn nor spread + Shrouded in danger gray the beacon stands. + + A Pharos? Oh, dull brain! Oh, poor quenched lamp, + Under a bushel, with an earthy smell! + Moldering it lies, in rust and eating damp, + While the slow oil keeps oozing from its cell! + + For me it were enough to be a flower + Knowing its root in thee was somewhere hid-- + To blossom at the far appointed hour, + And fold in sleep when thou, my Nature, bid. + + But hear my brethren crying in the dark! + Light up my lamp that it may shine abroad. + Fain would I cry--See, brothers! sisters, mark! + This is the shining of light's father, God. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE MANOR HOUSE DINING-ROOM. + + +The rector never took his eyes off the preacher, but the preacher never +saw him. The reason was that he dared not let his eyes wander in the +direction of Mrs. Ramshorn; he was not yet so near perfection but that +the sight of her supercilious, unbelieving face, was a reviving cordial +to the old Adam, whom he was so anxious to poison with love and prayer. +Church over, the rector walked in silence, between the two ladies, to +the Manor House. He courted no greetings from the sheep of his neglected +flock as he went, and returned those offered with a constrained +solemnity. The moment they stood in the hall together, and before the +servant who had opened the door to them had quite disappeared, Mrs. +Ramshorn, to the indignant consternation of Mrs. Bevis, who was utterly +forgotten by both in the colloquy that ensued, turned sharp on the +rector, and said, + +"There! what do you say to your curate now?" + +"He _is_ enough to set the whole parish by the ears," he answered. + +"I told you so, Mr. Bevis!" + +"Only it does not follow that therefore he is in the wrong. Our Lord +Himself came not to send peace on earth but a sword." + +"Irreverence ill becomes a beneficed clergyman, Mr. Bevis," said Mrs. +Ramshorn--who very consistently regarded any practical reference to our +Lord as irrelevant, thence naturally as irreverent. + +"And, by Jove!" added the rector, heedless of her remark, and tumbling +back into an old college-habit, "I fear he is in the right; and if he +is, it will go hard with you and me at the last day, Mrs. Ramshorn." + +"Do you mean to say you are going to let that man turn every thing +topsy-turvy, and the congregation out of the church, John Bevis?" + +"I never saw such a congregation in it before, Mrs. Ramshorn." + +"It's little better than a low-bred conventicle now, and what it will +come to, if things go on like this, God knows." + +"That ought to be a comfort," said the rector. "But I hardly know yet +where I am. The fellow has knocked the wind out of me with his +personalities, and I haven't got my breath yet. Have you a bottle of +sherry open?" + +Mrs. Ramshorn led the way to the dining-room, where the early Sunday +dinner was already laid, and the decanters stood on the sideboard. The +rector poured himself out a large glass of sherry, and drank it off in +three mouthfuls. + +"Such buffoonery! such coarseness! such vulgarity! such indelicacy!" +cried Mrs. Ramshorn, while the parson was still occupied with the +sherry. "Not content with talking about himself in the pulpit, he must +even talk about his wife! What's he or his wife in the house of God? +When his gown is on, a clergyman is neither Mr. This nor Mr. That any +longer, but a priest of the Church of England, as by law established. My +poor Helen! She has thrown herself away upon a charlatan! And what will +become of her money in the hands of a man with such leveling notions, I +dread to think." + +"He said something about buying friends with it," said the rector. + +"Bribery and corruption must come natural to a fellow who could preach a +sermon like that after marrying money!" + +"Why, my good madam, would you have a man turn his back on a girl +because she has a purse in her pocket?" + +"But to pretend to despise it! And then, worst of all! I don't know +whether the indelicacy or the profanity was the greater!--when I think +of it now, I can scarcely believe I really heard it!--to offer to show +his books to every inquisitive fool itching to know _my_ niece's +fortune! Well, she shan't see a penny of mine--that I'm determined on." + +"You need not be uneasy about the books, Mrs. Ramshorn. You remember the +condition annexed?" + +"Stuff and hypocrisy! He's played his game well! But time will show." + +Mr. Bevis checked his answer. He was beginning to get disgusted with the +old cat, as he called her to himself. + +He too had made a good speculation in the hymeneo-money-market, +otherwise he could hardly have afforded to give up the exercise of his +profession. Mrs. Bevis had brought him the nice little property at +Owlkirk, where, if he worshiped mammon--and after his curate's sermon he +was not at all sure he did not--he worshiped him in a very moderate and +gentlemanly fashion. Every body liked the rector, and two or three +loved him a little. If it would be a stretch of the truth to call a man +a Christian who never yet in his life had consciously done a thing +because it was commanded by Christ, he was not therefore a godless man; +while, through the age-long process of spiritual infiltration, he had +received and retained much that was Christian. + +The ladies went to take off their bonnets, and their departure was a +relief to the rector. He helped himself to another glass of sherry, and +seated himself in the great easy chair formerly approved of the dean, +long promoted. But what are easy chairs to uneasy men? Dinner, however, +was at hand, and that would make a diversion in favor of less +disquieting thought. + +Mrs. Ramshorn, also, was uncomfortable--too much so to be relieved by +taking off her bonnet. She felt, with no little soreness, that the +rector was not with her in her depreciation of Wingfold. She did her +best to play the hostess, but the rector, while enjoying his dinner +despite discomfort in the inward parts, was in a mood of silence +altogether new both to himself and his companions. Mrs. Bevis, however, +talked away in a soft, continuous murmur. She was a good-natured, gentle +soul, without whose sort the world would be harder for many. She did not +contribute much to its positive enjoyment, but for my part, I can not +help being grateful even to a cat that will condescend to purr to me. +But she had not much mollifying influence on her hostess, who snarled, +and judged, and condemned, nor seemed to enjoy her dinner the less. When +it was over, the ladies went to the drawing-room; and the rector, +finding his company unpleasant, drank but a week-day's allowance of +wine, and went to have a look at his horses. + +They neighed a welcome the moment his boot struck the stones of the +yard, for they loved their master with all the love their strong, timid, +patient hearts were as yet capable of. Satisfied that they were +comfortable, for he found them busy with a large feed of oats and chaff +and Indian corn, he threw his arm over the back of his favorite, and +stood, leaning against her for minutes, half dreaming, half thinking. As +long as they were busy, their munching and grinding soothed him--held +him at least in quiescent mood; the moment it ceased, he seemed to +himself to wake up out of a dream. In that dream, however, he had been +more awake than any hour for long years, and had heard and seen many +things. He patted his mare lovingly, then, with a faint sense of +rebuked injustice, went into the horse's stall, and patted and stroked +him as he had never done before. + +He went into the inn, and asked for a cup of tea. He would have had a +sleep on Mrs. Pinks's sofa, as was his custom in his study--little +study, alas, went on there!--but he had a call to make, and must rouse +himself, and that was partly why he had sought the inn. For Mrs. +Ramshorn's household was so well ordered that nothing was to be had out +of the usual routine. It was like an American country inn, where, if you +arrive after supper, you will most likely have to starve till next +morning. Her servants, in fact, were her masters, and she dared not go +into her own kitchen for a jug of hot water. Possibly it was her +dethronement in her own house that made her, with a futile clutching +after lost respect, so anxious to rule in the abbey church. As it was, +although John Bevis and she had known each other long, and in some poor +sense intimately, he would never in her house have dared ask for a cup +of tea except it were on the table. But here was the ease of his inn, +where the landlady herself was proud to get him what he wanted. She made +the tea from her own caddy; and when he had drunk three cups of it, +washed his red face, and re-tied his white neck-cloth, he set out to +make his call. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE RECTORY DRAWING-ROOM. + + +The call was upon his curate. It was years since he had entered the +rectory. The people who last occupied it, he had scarcely known, and +even during its preparation for Wingfold he had not gone near the place. +Yet of that house had been his dream as he stood in his mare's stall, +and it was with a strange feeling he now approached it. Friends +generally took the pleasanter way to the garden door, opening on the +churchyard, but Mr. Bevis went round by the lane to the more public +entrance. + +All his years with his first wife had been spent in that house. She was +delicate when he married her, and soon grew sickly and suffering. One +after another her children died as babies. At last came one who lived, +and then the mother began to die. She was one of those lowly women who +apply the severity born of their creed to themselves, and spend only the +love born of the indwelling Spirit upon their neighbors. She was rather +melancholy, but hoped as much as she could, and when she could not hope +did not stand still, but walked on in the dark. I think when the sun +rises upon them, some people will be astonished to find how far they +have got in the dark. + +Her husband, without verifying for himself one of the things it was his +business to teach others, was yet held in some sort of communion with +sacred things by his love for his suffering wife, and his admiration of +her goodness and gentleness. He had looked up to her, though several +years younger than himself, with something of the same reverence with +which he had regarded his mother, a women with an element of greatness +in her. It was not possible he should ever have adopted her views, or in +any active manner allied himself with the school whose doctrines she +accepted as the logical embodiment of the gospel, but there was in him +all the time a vague something that was not far from the kingdom of +heaven. Some of his wife's friends looked upon him as a wolf in the +sheepfold; he was no wolf, he was only a hireling. Any neighborhood +might have been the better for having such a man as he for the parson of +the parish--only, for one commissioned to be in the world as he was in +the world!--why he knew more about the will of God as to a horse's legs, +than as to the heart of a man. As he drew near the house, the older and +tenderer time came to meet him, and the spirit of his suffering, +ministering wife seemed to overshadow him. Two tears grew half-way into +his eyes:--they were a little bloodshot, but kind, true eyes. He was not +sorry he had married again, for he and his wife were at peace with each +other, but he had found that the same part of his mind would not serve +to think of the two: they belonged to different zones of his unexplored +world. For one thing, his present wife looked up to him with perfect +admiration, and he, knowing his own poverty, rather looked down upon her +in consequence, though in a loving, gentle, and gentlemanlike way. + +He was shown into the same room, looking out on the churchyard, where in +the first months of his married life, he sat and heard his wife sing her +few songs, accompanying them on the little piano he had saved hard to +buy for her, until she made him love them. It had lasted only through +those few months; after her first baby died, she rarely sang. But all +the colors and forms of the room were different, and that made it easier +to check the lump rising in his throat. It was the faith of his curate +that had thus set his wife before him, although the two would hardly +have agreed in any confession narrower than the Apostles' creed. + +When Wingfold entered the room, the rector rose, went halfway to meet +him, and shook hands with him heartily. They seated themselves, and a +short silence followed. But the rector knew it was his part to speak. + +"I was in church this morning," he said, with a half-humorous glance +right into the clear gray eyes of his curate. + +"So my wife tells me," returned Wingfold with a smile. + +"You didn't know it then?" rejoined the rector, with now an almost +quizzical glance, in which hovered a little doubt. "I thought you were +preaching at me all the time." + +"God forbid!" said the curate; "I was not aware of your presence. I did +not even know you were in the town yesterday." + +"You must have had some one in your mind's eye. No man could speak as +you did this morning, who addressed mere abstract humanity." + +"I will not say that individuals did not come up before me; how can a +man help it where he knows every body in his congregation more or less? +But I give you my word, sir, I never thought of you." + +"Then you might have done so with the greatest propriety," returned the +rector. "My conscience sided with you all the time. You found me out. +I've got a bit of the muscle they call a heart left in me yet, though it +_has_ got rather leathery.--But what do they mean when they say you are +setting the parish by the ears?" + +"I don't know, sir. I have heard of no quarreling. I have made some +enemies, but they are not very dangerous, and I hope not very bitter +ones; and I have made many more friends, I am sure." + +"What they tell me is, that your congregation is divided--that they take +sides for and against you, which is a most undesirable thing, surely!" + +"It is indeed; and yet it may be a thing that, for a time, can not be +helped. Was there ever a man with the cure of souls, concerning whom +there has not been more or less of such division? But, if you will have +patience with me, sir, I am bold to say, believing in the force and +final victory of the truth, there will be more unity by and by." + +"I don't doubt it. But come now!--you are a thoroughly good +fellow--that, a blind horse could see in the dimmits--and I'm +accountable for the parish--couldn't you draw it a little milder, you +know? couldn't you make it just a little less peculiar--only the way of +putting it, I mean--so that it should look a little more like what they +have been used to? I'm only suggesting the thing, you know--dictating +nothing, on my soul, Mr. Wingfold. I am sure that, whatever you do, you +will act according to your own conscience, otherwise I should not +venture to say a word, lest I should lead you wrong." + +"If you will allow me," said the curate, "I will tell you my whole +story; and then if you should wish it, I will resign my curacy, without +saying a word more than that my rector thinks it better. Neither in +private shall I make a single remark in a different spirit." + +"Let me hear," said the rector. + +"Then if you will please take this chair, that I may know that I am not +wearying you bodily at least." + +The rector did as he was requested, laid his head back, crossed his +legs, and folded his hands over his worn waist-coat: he was not one of +the neat order of parsons; he had a not unwholesome disregard of his +outermost man, and did not know when he was shabby. Without an atom of +pomposity or air rectorial, he settled himself to listen. + +Condensing as much as he could, Wingfold told him how through great +doubt, and dismal trouble of mind, he had come to hope in God, and to +see that there was no choice for a man but to give himself, heart, and +soul, and body, to the love, and will, and care of the Being who had +made him. He could no longer, he said, regard his profession as any +thing less than a call to use every means and energy at his command for +the rousing of men and women from that spiritual sleep and moral +carelessness in which he had himself been so lately sunk. + +"I don't want to give up my curacy," he concluded. "Still less do I want +to leave Glaston, for there are here some whom I teach and some who +teach me. In all that has given ground for complaint, I have seemed to +myself to be but following the dictates of common sense; if you think me +wrong, I have no justification to offer. We both love God,----" + +"How do you know that?" interrupted the rector. "I wish you could make +me sure of that." + +"I do, I know I do," said the curate earnestly. "I can say no more." + +"My dear fellow, I haven't the merest shadow of a doubt of it," returned +the rector, smiling. "What I wished was, that you could make me sure _I_ +do." + +"Pardon me, my dear sir, but, judging from sore experience, if I could I +would rather make you doubt it; the doubt, even if an utter mistake, +would in the end be so much more profitable than any present +conviction." + +"You have your wish, then, Wingfold: I doubt it very much," replied the +rector. "I must go home and think about it all. You shall hear from me +in a day or two." + +As he spoke Mr. Bevis rose, and stood for a moment like a man greatly +urged to stretch his arms and legs. An air of uneasiness pervaded his +whole appearance. + +"Will you not stop and take tea with us?" said the curate. "My wife will +be disappointed if you do not. You have been good to her for twenty +years, she says." + +"She makes an old man of me," returned the rector musingly. "I remember +her such a tiny thing in a white frock and curls. Tell her what we have +been talking about, and beg her to excuse me. I _must_ go home." + +He took his hat from the table, shook hands with Wingfold, and walked +back to the inn. There he found his horses bedded, and the hostler away. +His coachman was gone too, nobody knew whither. + +To sleep at the inn would have given pointed offense, but he would +rather have done so than go back to the Manor House to hear his curate +abused. With the help of the barmaid, he put the horses to the carriage +himself, and to the astonishment of Mrs. Ramshorn and his wife, drew up +at the door of the Manor House. + +Expostulation on the part of the former was vain. The latter made none: +it was much the same to Mrs. Bevis where she was, so long as she was +with her husband. Indeed few things were more pleasant to her than +sitting in the carriage alone, contemplating the back of Mr. Bevis on +the box, and the motion of his elbows as he drove. Mrs. Ramshorn +received their adieux very stiffly, and never after mentioned the rector +without adding the epithet, "poor man!" + +Mrs. Bevis enjoyed the drive; Mr. Bevis did not. The doubt was growing +stronger and stronger all the way, that he had not behaved like a +gentleman in his relation to the head of the church. He had naturally, +as I have already shown, a fine, honorable, boyish if not childlike +nature; and the eyes of his mind were not so dim with good living as one +might have feared from the look of those in his head: in the glass of +loyalty he now saw himself a defaulter; in the scales of honor he +weighed and found himself wanting. Of true discipleship was not now the +question: he had not behaved like an honorable gentleman to Jesus +Christ. It was only in a spasm of terror St. Peter had denied him: John +Bevis had for nigh forty years been taking his pay, and for the last +thirty at least had done nothing in return. Either Jesus Christ did not +care, and then what was the church?--what the whole system of things +called Christianity?--or he did care, and what then was John Bevis in +the eyes of his Master? When they reached home, he went neither to the +stable nor the study, but, without even lighting a cigar, walked out on +the neighboring heath, where he found the universe rather gray about +him. When he returned he tried to behave as usual, but his wife saw that +he scarcely ate at supper, and left half of his brandy and water. She +set it down to the annoyance the curate had caused him, and wisely +forbore troubling him with questions. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +MR. DRAKE'S ARBOR. + + +While the curate was preaching that same Sunday morning, in the cool +cavernous church, with its great lights overhead, Walter Drake--the old +minister, he was now called by his disloyal congregation--sat in a +little arbor looking out on the river that flowed through the town to +the sea. Green grass went down from where he sat to the very water's +brink. It was a spot the old man loved, for there his best thoughts came +to him. There was in him a good deal of the stuff of which poets are +made, and since trouble overtook him, the river had more and more +gathered to itself the aspect of that in the Pilgrim's Progress; and +often, as he sat thus almost on its edge, he fancied himself waiting +the welcome summoms to go home. It was a tidal river, with many changes. +Now it flowed with a full, calm current, conquering the tide, like life +sweeping death with it down into the bosom of the eternal. Now it seemed +to stand still, as if aghast at the inroad of the awful thing; and then +the minister would bethink himself that it was the tide of the eternal +rising in the narrow earthly channel: men, he said to himself, called it +_death_, because they did not know what it was, or the loveliness of its +quickening energy. It fails on their sense by the might of its grand +excess, and they call it by the name of its opposite. A weary and rather +disappointed pilgrim, he thus comforted himself as he sat. + +There a great salmon rose and fell, gleaming like a bolt of silver in +the sun! There a little waterbeetle scurried along after some invisible +prey. The blue smoke of his pipe melted in the Sabbath air. The softened +sounds of a singing congregation came across gardens and hedges to his +ear. They sang with more energy than grace, and, not for the first time, +he felt they did. Were they indeed singing to the Lord, he asked +himself, or only to the idol Custom? A silence came: the young man in +the pulpit was giving out his text, and the faces that had turned +themselves up to Walter Drake as flowers to the sun, were now all +turning to the face of him they had chosen in his stead, "to minister to +them in holy things." He took his pipe from his mouth, and sat +motionless, with his eyes fixed on the ground. + +But why was he not at chapel himself? Could it be that he yielded to +temptation, actually preferring his clay pipe and the long glide of the +river, to the worship, and the hymns and the sermon? Had there not been +a time when he judged that man careless of the truth who did not go to +the chapel, and that man little better who went to the church? Yet there +he sat on a Sunday morning, the church on one side of him and the chapel +on the other, smoking his pipe! His daughter was at the chapel; she had +taken Ducky with her; the dog lay in the porch waiting for them; the cat +thought too much of herself to make friends with her master; he had +forgotten his New Testament on the study table; and now he had let his +pipe out. + +He was not well, it is true, but he was well enough to have gone. Was he +too proud to be taught where he had been a teacher? or was it that the +youth in his place taught there doctrines which neither they nor their +fathers had known? It could not surely be from resentment that they had +super-annuated him in the prime of his old age, with a pared third of +his late salary, which nothing but honesty in respect to the small +moneys he owed could have prevented him from refusing! + +In truth it was impossible the old minister should have any great esteem +for the flashy youth, proud of his small Latin and less Greek, a mere +unit of the hundreds whom the devil of ambition drives to preaching; one +who, whether the doctrines he taught were in the New Testament or not, +certainly never found them there, being but the merest disciple of a +disciple of a disciple, and fervid in words of which he perceived scarce +a glimmer of the divine purport. At the same time, he might have seen +points of resemblance between his own early history and that of the +callow chirper of divinity now holding forth from his pulpit, which +might have tended to mollify his judgment with sympathy. + +His people had behaved ill to him, and he could not say he was free from +resentment or pride, but he did make for them what excuse lay in the +fact that the congregation had been dwindling ever since the curate at +the abbey-church began to speak in such a strange outspoken fashion. +There now was a right sort of man! he said to himself. No attempted +oratory with him! no prepared surprises! no playhouse tricks! no studied +graces in wafture of hands and upheaved eyes! And yet at moments when he +became possessed with his object rather than subject, every inch of him +seemed alive. He was odd--very odd; perhaps he was crazy--but at least +he was honest. He had heard him himself, and judged him well worth +helping to what was better, for, alas! notwithstanding the vigor of his +preaching, he did not appear to have himself discovered as yet the +treasure hid in the field. He was, nevertheless, incomparably the +superior of the young man whom, expecting him to _draw_, the deacons of +his church, with the members behind them, had substituted for himself, +who had for more than fifteen years ministered to them the bread of +life. + +Bread!--Yes, I think it might honestly be called bread that Walter Drake +had ministered. It had not been free from chalk or potatoes: bits of +shell and peel might have been found in it, with an occasional bit of +dirt, and a hair or two; yes, even a little alum, and that is _bad_, +because it tends to destroy, not satisfy the hunger. There was sawdust +in it, and parchment-dust, and lumber-dust; it was ill salted, badly +baked, sad; sometimes it was blue-moldy, and sometimes even maggoty; but +the mass of it was honest flour, and those who did not recoil from the +look of it, or recognize the presence of the variety of foreign matter, +could live upon it, in a sense, up to a certain pitch of life. But a +great deal of it was not of his baking at all--he had been merely the +distributor--crumbling down other bakers' loaves and making them up +again in his own shapes. In his declining years, however, he had been +really beginning to learn the business. Only, in his congregation were +many who not merely preferred bad bread of certain kinds, but were +incapable of digesting any of high quality. + +He would have gone to chapel that morning had the young man been such as +he could respect. Neither his doctrine, nor the behavior of the church +to himself, would have kept him away. Had he followed his inclination he +would have gone to the church, only that would have looked spiteful. His +late congregation would easily excuse his non-attendance with them; they +would even pitifully explain to each other why he could not appear just +yet; but to go to church would be in their eyes unpardonable--a +declaration of a war of revenge. + +There was, however, a reason besides, why Mr. Drake could not go to +church that morning, and if not a more serious, it was a much more +painful one. Some short time before he had any ground to suspect that +his congregation was faltering in its loyalty to him, his daughter had +discovered that the chapel butcher, when he sent a piece of meat, +invariably charged for a few ounces beyond the weight delivered. Now Mr. +Drake was a man of such honesty that all kinds of cheating, down to the +most respectable, were abominable to him; that the man was a professor +of religion made his conduct unpardonable in his eyes, and that he was +one of his own congregation rendered it insupportable. Having taken +pains to satisfy himself of the fact, he declined to deal with him any +further, and did not spare to tell him why. The man was far too +dishonest to profit by the rebuke save in circumspection and cunning, +was revengeful in proportion to the justice of the accusation, and of +course brought his influence, which was not small, to bear upon the +votes of the church-members in respect of the pastorate. + +Had there been another butcher in connection with the chapel, Mr. Drake +would have turned to him, but as there was not, and they could not go +without meat, he had to betake himself to the principal butcher in the +place, who was a member of the Church of England. Soon after his +troubles commenced, and before many weeks were over he saw plainly +enough that he must either resign altogether, and go out into the great +world of dissent in search of some pastorless flock that might vote him +their crook, to be guided by him whither they wanted to go, and whither +most of them believed they knew the way as well as he, or accept the +pittance offered him. This would be to retire from the forefront of the +battle, and take an undistinguished place in the crowd of mere +camp-followers; but, for the sake of honesty, as I have already +explained, and with the hope that it might be only for a brief season, +he had chosen the latter half of the alternative. And truly it was a +great relief not to have to grind out of his poor, weary, groaning mill +the two inevitable weekly sermons--labor sufficient to darken the face +of nature to the conscientious man. For his people thought themselves +intellectual, and certainly were critical. Mere edification in holiness +was not enough for them. A large infusion of some polemic element was +necessary to make the meat savory and such as their souls loved. Their +ambition was not to grow in grace, but in social influence and +regard--to glorify their dissent, not the communion of saints. Upon the +chief corner-stone they would build their stubble of paltry religionism; +they would set up their ragged tent in the midst of the eternal temple, +careless how it blocked up window and stair. + +Now last week Mr. Drake had requested his new butcher to send his +bill--with some little anxiety, because of the sudden limitation of his +income; but when he saw it he was filled with horror. Amounting only to +a very few pounds, causes had come together to make it a large one in +comparison with the figures he was accustomed to see. Always feeding +some of his flock, he had at this time two sickly, nursing mothers who +drew their mortal life from his kitchen; and, besides, the doctor had, +some time ago, ordered a larger amount of animal food for the little +Amanda. In fine, the sum at the bottom of that long slip of paper, with +the wood-cut of a prize ox at the top of it, small as he would have +thought it at one period of his history, was greater than he could +imagine how to pay; and if he went to church, it would be to feel the +eye of the butcher and not that of the curate upon him all the time. It +was a dismay, a horror to him to have an account rendered which he could +not settle, and especially from his new butcher, after he had so +severely rebuked the old one. Where was the mighty difference in honesty +between himself and the offender? the one claimed for meat he had not +sold, the other ordered that for which he could not pay! Would not Mr. +Jones imagine he had left his fellow-butcher and come to him because he +had run up a large bill for which he was unable to write a check? This +was that over which the spirit of the man now brooded by far the most +painfully; this it was that made him leave his New Testament in the +study, let his pipe out, and look almost lovingly upon the fast-flowing +river, because it was a symbol of death. + +He had chosen preaching as a profession, just as so many take +orders--with this difference from a large proportion of such, that he +had striven powerfully to convince himself that he trusted in the merits +of the Redeemer. Had he not in this met with tolerable success, he would +not have yielded to the wish of his friends and left his father's shop +in his native country-town for a dissenting college in the neighborhood +of London. There he worked well, and became a good scholar, learning to +read in the true sense of the word, that is, to try the spirits as he +read. His character, so called, was sound, and his conscience, if not +sensitive, was firm and regnant. But he was injured both spiritually and +morally by some of the instructions there given. For one of the objects +held up as duties before him, was to become capable of rendering himself +_acceptable_ to a congregation. + +Most of the students were but too ready to regard, or at least to treat +this object as the first and foremost of duties. The master-duty of +devotion to Christ, and obedience to every word that proceeded out of +His mouth, was very much treated as a thing understood, requiring little +enforcement; while, the main thing demanded of them being sermons in +some sense their own--honey culled at least by their own bees, and not +bought in jars, much was said about the plan and composition of sermons, +about style and elocution, and action--all plainly and confessedly, with +a view to pulpit-_success_--the lowest of all low successes, and the +most worldly. + +These instructions Walter Drake accepted as the wisdom of the holy +serpent--devoted large attention to composition, labored to form his +style on the _best models_, and before beginning to write a sermon, +always heated the furnace of production with fuel from some exciting or +suggestive author: it would be more correct to say, fed the mill of +composition from some such source; one consequence of all which was, +that when at last, after many years, he did begin to develop some +individuality, he could not, and never did shake himself free of those +weary models; his thoughts, appearing in clothes which were not made for +them, wore always a certain stiffness and unreality which did not by +nature belong to them, blunting the impressions which his earnestness +and sincerity did notwithstanding make. + +Determined to _succeed_, he cultivated eloquence also--what he supposed +eloquence, that is, being, of course, merely elocution, to attain the +right gestures belonging to which he looked far more frequently into his +landlady's mirror, than for his spiritual action into the law of +liberty. He had his reward in the success he sought. But I must make +haste, for the story of worldly success is always a mean tale. In a few +years, and for not a few after, he was a popular preacher in one of the +suburbs of London--a good deal sought after, and greatly lauded. He +lived in comfort, indulged indeed in some amount of show; married a +widow with a large life-annuity, which between them they spent entirely, +and that not altogether in making friends with everlasting habitations; +in a word, gazed out on the social landscape far oftener than lifted his +eyes to the hills. + +After some ten or twelve years, a change began. They had three children; +the two boys, healthy and beautiful, took scarlatina and died; the poor, +sickly girl wailed on. His wife, who had always been more devoted to her +children than her husband, pined, and died also. Her money went, if not +with her, yet away from him. His spirits began to fail him, and his +small, puny, peaking daughter did not comfort him much. He was capable +of true, but not yet of pure love; at present his love was capricious. +Little Dora--a small Dorothy indeed in his estimation--had always been a +better child than either of her brothers, but he loved them the more +that others admired them, and her the less that others pitied her: he +did try to love her, for there was a large element of justice in his +nature. This, but for his being so much occupied with _making himself +acceptable_ to his congregation, would have given him a leadership in +the rising rebellion against a theology which crushed the hearts of men +by attributing injustice to their God. As it was, he lay at anchor, and +let the tide rush past him. + +Further change followed--gradual, but rapid. His congregation began to +discover that he was not the man he had been. They complained of lack of +variety in his preaching; said he took it too easy; did not study his +sermons sufficiently; often spoke extempore, which was a poor compliment +to _them_; did not visit with impartiality, and indeed had all along +favored the carriage people. There was a party in the church which had +not been cordial to him from the first; partly from his fault, partly +from theirs, he had always made them feel they were of the lower grade; +and from an increase of shops in the neighborhood, this party was now +gathering head. Their leaders went so far at length as to hint at a +necessity for explanation in regard to the accounts of certain charities +administered by the pastor. In these, unhappily, _lacunae_ were patent. +In his troubles the pastor had grown careless. But it was altogether to +his own loss, for not merely had the money been spent with a rigidity of +uprightness, such as few indeed of his accusers exercised in their +business affairs, but he had in his disbursements exceeded the +contribution committed to his charge. Confident, however, in his +position, and much occupied with other thoughts, he had taken no care to +set down the particulars of his expenditure, and his enemies did not +fail to hint a connection between this fact and the loss of his wife's +annuity. Worst of all, doubts of his orthodoxy began to be expressed by +the more ignorant, and harbored without examination by the less +ignorant. + +All at once he became aware of the general disloyalty of his flock, and +immediately resigned. Scarcely had he done so when he was invited to +Glaston, and received with open arms. There he would heal his wounds, +and spend the rest of his days in peace. "He caught a slip or two" in +descending, but soon began to find the valley of humiliation that +wholesome place which all true pilgrims have ever declared it. +Comparative retirement, some sense of lost labor, some suspicion of the +worth of the ends for which he had spent his strength, a waking desire +after the God in whom he had vaguely believed all the time he was +letting the dust of paltry accident inflame his eyes, blistering and +deadening his touch with the efflorescent crusts and agaric tumors upon +the dry bones of theology, gilding the vane of his chapel instead of +cleansing its porch and its floor--these all favored the birth in his +mind of the question, whether he had ever entered in at the straight +gate himself, or had not merely been standing by its side calling to +others to enter in. Was it even as well as this with him? Had he not +been more intent on gathering a wretched flock within the rough, +wool-stealing, wind-sifting, beggarly hurdles of his church, than on +housing true men and women safe in the fold of the true Shepherd? +Feeding troughs for the sheep there might be many in the fields, and +they might or might not be presided over by servants of the true +Shepherd, but the fold they were not! He grew humble before the Master, +and the Master began to lord it lovingly over him. He sought His +presence, and found Him; began to think less of books and rabbis, yea +even, for the time, of Paul and Apollos and Cephas, and to pore and +ponder over the living tale of the New Covenant; began to feel that the +Lord meant what He said, and that His apostles also meant what He said; +forgot Calvin a good deal, outgrew the influences of Jonathan Edwards, +and began to understand Jesus Christ. + +Few sights can be lovelier than that of a man who, having rushed up the +staircase of fame in his youth--what matter whether the fame of a paltry +world, or a paltry sect of that world!--comes slowly, gently, graciously +down in his old age, content to lose that which he never had, and +careful only to be honest at last. It had not been so with Walter Drake. +He had to come down first to begin to get the good of it, but once down, +it was not long ere he began to go up a very different stair indeed. A +change took place in him which turned all aims, all efforts, all +victories of the world, into the merest, most poverty-stricken trifling. +He had been a tarrer and smearer, a marker and shearer of sheep, rather +than a pastor; but now he recognized the rod and leaned on the staff of +the true Shepherd Who feeds both shepherds and sheep. Hearty were the +thanks he offered that he had been staid in his worse than foolish +career. + +Since then, he had got into a hollow in the valley, and at this moment, +as he sat in his summer-house, was looking from a verge abrupt into what +seemed a bottomless gulf of humiliation. For his handsome London house, +he had little better than a cottage, in which his study was not a +quarter of the size of the one he had left; he had sold two-thirds of +his books; for three men and four women servants, he had but one old +woman and his own daughter to do the work of the house; for all +quadrupedal menie, he had but a nondescript canine and a contemptuous +feline foundling; from a devoted congregation of comparatively educated +people, he had sunk to one in which there was not a person of higher +standing than a tradesman, and that congregation had now rejected him as +not up to their mark, turning him off to do his best with fifty pounds a +year. He had himself heard the cheating butcher remark in the open +street that it was quite enough, and more than ever his Master had. But +all these things were as nothing in his eyes beside his inability to pay +Mr. Jones's bill. He had outgrown his former self, but this kind of +misery it would be but deeper degradation to outgrow. All before this +had been but humiliation; this was shame. Now first he knew what poverty +was! Had God forgotten him? That could not be! that which could forget +could not be God. Did he not care then that such things should befall +his creatures? Were they but trifles in his eyes? He ceased thinking, +gave way to the feeling that God dealt hardly with him, and sat stupidly +indulging a sense of grievance--with self-pity, than which there is +scarce one more childish or enfeebling in the whole circle of the +emotions. Was this what God had brought him nearer to Himself for? was +this the end of a ministry in which he had, in some measure at least, +denied himself and served God and his fellow? He could bear any thing +but shame! That too could he have borne had he not been a teacher of +religion--one whose failure must brand him a hypocrite. How mean it +would sound--what a reproach to _the cause_, that the congregational +minister had run up a bill with a church-butcher which he was unable to +pay! It was the shame--the shame he could not bear! Ought he to have +been subjected to it? + +A humbler and better mood slowly dawned with unconscious change, and he +began to ponder with himself wherein he had been misusing the money +given him: either he had been misusing it, or God had not given him +enough, seeing it would not reach the end of his needs; but he could +think only of the poor he had fed, and the child he had adopted, and +surely God would overlook those points of extravagance. Still, if he had +not the means, he had not the right to do such things. It might not in +itself be wrong, but in respect of him it was as dishonest as if he had +spent the money on himself--not to mention that it was a thwarting of +the counsel of God, who, if He had meant them to be so aided, would have +sent him the money to spend upon them honestly. His one excuse was that +he could not have foreseen how soon his income was going to shrink to a +third. In future he would withhold his hand. But surely he might keep +the child? Nay, having once taken her in charge, he must keep the child. +It was a comfort, there could be no doubt about that. God had money +enough, and certainly He would enable him to do that! Only, why then did +He bring him to such poverty? + +So round in his mill he went, round and round again, and back to the old +evil mood. Either there was no God, or he was a hard-used man, whom his +Master did not mind bringing to shame before his enemies! He could not +tell which would triumph the more--the church-butcher over dissent, or +the chapel-butcher over the church-butcher, and the pastor who had +rebuked him for dishonesty! His very soul was disquieted within him. He +rose at last with a tear trickling down his cheek, and walked to and fro +in his garden. + +Things went on nevertheless as if all was right with the world. The +Lythe flowed to the sea, and the silver-mailed salmon leaped into the +more limpid air. The sun shone gracious over all his kingdom, and his +little praisers were loud in every bush. The primroses, earth-born suns, +were shining about in every border. The sound of the great organ came +from the grand old church, and the sound of many voices from the humble +chapel. Only, where was the heart of it all? + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +THE CHAMBER AT THE COTTAGE. + + +Meanwhile Faber was making a round, with the village of Owlkirk for the +end of it. Ere he was half-way thither, his groom was tearing after him +upon Niger, with a message from Mrs. Puckridge, which, however, did not +overtake him. He opened the cottage-door, and walked up stairs, +expecting to find his patient weak, but in the fairest of ways to +recover speedily. What was his horror to see her landlady weeping and +wringing her hands over the bed, and find the lady lying motionless, +with bloodless lips and distended nostrils--to all appearance dead! +Pillows, sheets, blankets, looked one mass of red. The bandage had +shifted while she slept, and all night her blood had softly flowed. Hers +was one of those peculiar organizations in which, from some cause but +dimly conjectured as yet, the blood once set flowing will flow on to +death, and even the tiniest wound is hard to stanch. Was the lovely +creature gone? In her wrists could discern no pulse. He folded back the +bed-clothes, and laid his ear to her heart. His whole soul listened. +Yes; there was certainly the faintest flutter. He watched a moment: yes; +he could see just the faintest tremor of the diaphragm. + +"Run," he cried, "--for God's sake run and bring me a jug of hot water, +and two or three basins. There is just a chance yet! If you make haste, +we may save her. Bring me a syringe. If you haven't one, run from house +to house till you get one. Her life depends on it." By this time he was +shouting after the hurrying landlady. + +In a minute or two she returned. + +"Have you got the syringe?" he cried, the moment he heard her step. + +To his great relief she had. He told her to wash it out thoroughly with +the hot water, unscrew the top, and take out the piston. While giving +his directions, he unbound the arm, enlarged the wound in the vein +longitudinally, and re-bound the arm tight below the elbow, then quickly +opened a vein of his own, and held the syringe to catch the spout that +followed. When it was full, he replaced the piston, telling Mrs. +Puckridge to put her thumb on his wound, turned the point of the syringe +up and drove a little out to get rid of the air, then, with the help of +a probe, inserted the nozzle into the wound, and gently forced in the +blood. That done, he placed his own thumbs on the two wounds, and made +the woman wash out the syringe in clean hot water. Then he filled it as +before, and again forced its contents into the lady's arm. This process +he went through repeatedly. Then, listening, he found her heart beating +quite perceptibly, though irregularly. Her breath was faintly coming and +going. Several times more he repeated the strange dose, then ceased, and +was occupied in binding up her arm, when she gave a great shuddering +sigh. By the time he had finished, the pulse was perceptible at her +wrist. Last of all he bound up his own wound, from which had escaped a +good deal beyond what he had used. While thus occupied, he turned sick, +and lay down on the floor. Presently, however, he grew able to crawl +from the room, and got into the garden at the back of the house, where +he walked softly to the little rude arbor at the end of it, and sat down +as if in a dream. But in the dream his soul felt wondrously awake. He +had been tasting death from the same cup with the beautiful woman who +lay there, coming alive with his life. A terrible weight was heaved from +his bosom. If she had died, he would have felt, all his life long, that +he had sent one of the loveliest of Nature's living dreams back to the +darkness and the worm, long years before her time, and with the foam of +the cup of life yet on her lips. Then a horror seized him at the +presumptuousness of the liberty he had taken. What if the beautiful +creature would rather have died than have the blood of a man, one she +neither loved nor knew, in her veins, and coursing through her very +heart! She must never know it. + +"I am very grateful," he said to himself; then smiled and wondered to +whom he was grateful. + +"How the old stamps and colors come out in the brain when one least +expects it!" he said. "What I meant was, _How glad I am!_" + +Honest as he was, he did not feel called upon to examine whether _glad_ +was really the word to represent the feeling which the thought of what +he had escaped, and of the creature he had saved from death, had sent up +into his consciousness. Glad he was indeed! but was there not mingled +with his gladness a touch of something else, very slight, yet potent +enough to make him mean _grateful_ when the word broke from him? and if +there was such a something, where did it come from? Perhaps if he had +caught and held the feeling, and submitted it to such a searching +scrutiny as he was capable of giving it, he might have doubted whether +any mother-instilled superstition ever struck root so deep as the depth +from which that seemed at least to come. I merely suggest it. The +feeling was a faint and poor one, and I do not care to reason from it. I +would not willingly waste upon small arguments, when I see more and more +clearly that our paltriest faults and dishonesties need one and the same +enormous cure. + +But indeed never had Faber less time to examine himself than now, had +he been so inclined. With that big wound in it, he would as soon have +left a shell in the lady's chamber with the fuse lighted, as her arm to +itself. He did not leave the village all day. He went to see another +patient in it, and one on its outskirts, but he had his dinner at the +little inn where he put up Ruber, and all night long he sat by the +bedside of his patient. There the lovely white face, blind like a statue +that never had eyes, and the perfect arm, which now and then, with a +restless, uneasy, feeble toss, she would fling over the counterpane, the +arm he had to watch as the very gate of death, grew into his heart. He +dreaded the moment when she would open her eyes, and his might no longer +wander at will over her countenance. Again and again in the night he put +a hand under her head, and held a cooling draught to her lips; but not +even when she drank did her eyes open: like a child too weak to trust +itself, therefore free of all anxiety and fear, she took whatever came, +questioning nothing. He sat at the foot of the bed, where, with the +slightest movement, he could, through the opening of the curtains, see +her perfectly. + +By some change of position, he had unknowingly drawn one of them back a +little from between her and him, as he sat thinking about her. The +candle shone full upon his face, but the other curtain was between the +candle and his patient. Suddenly she opened her eyes. + +A dream had been with her, and she did not yet know that it was gone. +She could hardly be said to _know_ any thing. Fever from loss of blood; +uneasiness, perhaps, from the presence in her system of elements +elsewhere fashioned and strangely foreign to its economy; the remnants +of sleep and of the dream; the bewilderment of sudden awaking--all had +combined to paralyze her judgment, and give her imagination full career. +When she opened her eyes, she saw a beautiful face, and nothing else, +and it seemed to her itself the source of the light by which she saw it. +Her dream had been one of great trouble; and when she beheld the shining +countenance, she thought it was the face of the Saviour: he was looking +down upon her heart, which he held in his hand, and reading all that was +written there. The tears rushed to her eyes, and the next moment Faber +saw two fountains of light and weeping in the face which had been but as +of loveliest marble. The curtain fell between them, and the lady thought +the vision had vanished. The doctor came softly through the dusk to her +bedside. He felt her pulse, looked to the bandage on her arm, gave her +something to drink, and left the room. Presently Mrs. Puckridge brought +her some beef tea. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE MINISTER'S GARDEN. + + +Up and down the garden paced the pastor, stung by the gadflies of debt. +If he were in London he could sell his watch and seals; he had a ring +somewhere, too--an antique, worth what now seemed a good deal; but his +wife had given him both. Besides, it would cost so much to go to London, +and he had no money. Mr. Drew, doubtless, would lend him what he wanted, +but he could not bring himself to ask him. If he parted with them in +Glaston, they would be put in the watchmaker's window, and that would be +a scandal--with the Baptists making head in the very next street! For, +notwithstanding the heartless way in which the Congregationalists had +treated him, theirs was the cause of scriptural Christianity, and it +made him shudder to think of bringing the smallest discredit upon the +denomination. The church-butcher was indeed a worse terror to him than +Apollyon had been to Christian, for it seemed to his faithlessness that +not even the weapon of All-prayer was equal to his discomfiture; nothing +could render him harmless but the payment of his bill. He began to look +back with something like horror upon the sermons he had preached on +honesty; for how would his inability to pay his debts appear in the eyes +of those who had heard them? Oh! why had he not paid for every thing as +they had it? Then when the time came that he could not pay, they would +only have had to go without, whereas now, there was the bill louring at +the back of the want! + +When Miss Drake returned from the chapel, she found her father leaning +on the sun-dial, where she had left him. To all appearance he had not +moved. He knew her step but did not stir. + +"Father!" she said. + +"It is a hard thing, my child," he responded, still without moving, +"when the valley of Humiliation comes next the river Death, and no land +of Beulah between! I had my good things in my youth, and now I have my +evil things." + +She laid her hand on his shoulder lovingly, tenderly, worshipfully, but +did not speak. + +"As you see me now, my Dorothy, my God's-gift, you would hardly believe +your father was once a young and popular preacher, ha, ha! Fool that I +was! I thought they prized my preaching, and loved me for what I taught +them. I thought I was somebody! With shame I confess it! Who were they, +or what was their judgment, to fool me in my own concerning myself! +Their praise was indeed a fit rock for me to build my shame upon." + +"But, father dear, what is even a sin when it is repented of?" + +"A shame forever, my child. Our Lord did not cast out even an apostle +for his conceit and self-sufficiency, but he let him fall." + +"He has not let you fall, father?" said Dorothy, with tearful eyes. + +"He is bringing my gray hairs with sorrow and shame to the grave, my +child." + +"Why, father!" cried the girl, shocked, as she well might be, at his +words, "what have I done to make you say that?" + +"Done, my darling! _you_ done? You have done nothing but righteousness +ever since you could do any thing! You have been like a mother to your +old father. It is that bill! that horrid butcher's bill!" + +Dorothy burst out laughing through her dismay, and wept and laughed +together for more than a minute ere she could recover herself. + +"Father! you dear father! you're too good to live! Why, there are forks +and spoons enough in the house to pay that paltry bill!--not to mention +the cream-jug which is, and the teapot which we thought was silver, +because Lady Sykes gave it us. Why didn't you tell me what was troubling +you, father dear?" + +"I can't bear--I never _could_ bear to owe money. I asked the man for +his bill some time ago. I could have paid it then, though it wouldn't +have left me a pound. The moment I looked at it, I felt as if the Lord +had forsaken me. It is easy for you to bear; you are not the one +accountable. I am. And if the pawnbroker or the silver-smith does stand +between me and absolute dishonesty, yet to find myself in such a +miserable condition, with next to nothing between us and the workhouse, +may well make me doubt whether I have been a true servant of the Lord, +for surely such shall never be ashamed! During these last days the enemy +has even dared to tempt me with the question, whether after all, these +unbelievers may not be right, and the God that ruleth in the earth a +mere projection of what the conscience and heart bribe the imagination +to construct for them!" + +"I wouldn't think that before I was driven to it, father," said Dorothy, +scarcely knowing what she said, for his doubt shot a poisoned arrow of +despair into the very heart of her heart. + +He, never doubting the security of his child's faith, had no slightest +suspicion into what a sore spot his words had carried torture. He did +not know that the genius of doubt--shall I call him angel or demon?--had +knocked at her door, had called through her window; that words dropped +by Faber, indicating that science was against all idea of a God, and the +confidence of their tone, had conjured up in her bosom hollow fears, +faint dismays, and stinging questions. Ready to trust, and incapable of +arrogance, it was hard for her to imagine how a man like Mr. Faber, +upright and kind and self-denying, could say such things if he did not +_know_ them true. The very word _science_ appeared to carry an awful +authority. She did not understand that it was only because science had +never come closer to Him than the mere sight of the fringe of the +outermost folds of the tabernacle of His presence, that her worshipers +dared assert there was no God. She did not perceive that nothing ever +science could find, could possibly be the God of men; that science is +only the human reflex of truth, and that truth itself can not be +measured by what of it is reflected from the mirror of the +understanding. She did not see that no incapacity of science to find +God, even touched the matter of honest men's belief that He made His +dwelling with the humble and contrite. Nothing she had learned from her +father either provided her with reply, or gave hope of finding argument +of discomfiture; nothing of all that went on at chapel or church seemed +to have any thing to do with the questions that presented themselves. + +Such a rough shaking of so-called faith, has been of endless service to +many, chiefly by exposing the insecurity of all foundations of belief, +save that which is discovered in digging with the spade of obedience. +Well indeed is it for all honest souls to be thus shaken, who have been +building upon doctrines concerning Christ, upon faith, upon experiences, +upon any thing but Christ Himself, as revealed by Himself and His spirit +to all who obey Him, and so revealing the Father--a doctrine just as +foolish as the rest to men like Faber, but the power of God and the +wisdom of God to such who know themselves lifted out of darkness and an +ever-present sense of something wrong--if it be only into twilight and +hope. + +Dorothy was a gift of God, and the trouble that gnawed at her heart she +would not let out to gnaw at her father's. + +"There's Ducky come to call us to dinner," she said, and rising, went to +meet her. + +"Dinner!" groaned Mr. Drake, and would have remained where he was. But +for Dorothy's sake he rose and followed her, feeling almost like a +repentant thief who had stolen the meal. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +THE HEATH AT NESTLEY. + + +On the Monday morning, Mr. Bevis's groom came to the rectory with a note +for the curate, begging him and Mrs. Wingfold to dine at Nestley the +same day if possible. + +"I know," the rector wrote, "Monday is, or ought to be, an idle day with +you, and I write instead of my wife, because I want to see you on +business. I would have come to you, had I not had reasons for wishing to +see you here rather than at Glaston. The earlier you can come and the +longer you can stay the better, but you shall go as soon after an early +dinner as you please. You are a bee and I am a drone. God bless you. + +JOHN BEVIS." + +The curate took the note to his wife. Things were at once arranged, an +answer of ready obedience committed to the groom, and Helen's +pony-carriage ordered out. + +The curate called every thing Helen's. He had a great contempt for the +spirit of men who marry rich wives and then lord it over their money, as +if they had done a fine thing in getting hold of it, and the wife had +been but keeping it from its rightful owner. They do not know what a +confession their whole bearing is, that, but for their wives' money, +they would be but the merest, poorest nobodies. So small are they that +even that suffices to make them feel big! But Helen did not like it, +especially when he would ask her if he might have this or that, or do so +and so. Any common man who heard him would have thought him afraid of +his wife; but a large-hearted woman would at once have understood, as +did Helen, that it all came of his fine sense of truth, and reality, and +obligation. Still Helen would have had him forget all such matters in +connection with her. They were one beyond obligation. She had given him +herself, and what were bank-notes after that? But he thought of her +always as an angel who had taken him in, to comfort, and bless, and +cherish him with love, that he might the better do the work of his God +and hers; therefore his obligation to her was his glory. + +"Your ponies go splendidly to-day, Helen," he said, as admiringly he +watched how her hands on the reins seemed to mold their movements. + +They were the tiniest, daintiest things, of the smallest ever seen in +harness, but with all the ways of big horses, therefore amusing in their +very grace. They were the delight of the children of Glaston and the +villages round. + +"Why _will_ you call them _my_ ponies, Thomas?" returned his wife, just +sufficiently vexed to find it easy to pretend to be cross. "I don't see +what good I have got by marrying you, if every thing is to be mine all +the same!" + +"Don't be unreasonable, my Helen!" said the curate, looking into the +lovely eyes whose colors seemed a little blown about in their rings. +"Don't you see it is my way of feeling to myself how much, and with what +a halo about them, they are mine? If I had bought them with my own +money, I should hardly care for them. Thank God, they are _not_ mine +that way, or in any way like that way. _You_ are mine, my life, and they +are yours--mine therefore because they are about you like your clothes +or your watch. They are mine as your handkerchief and your gloves are +mine--through worshiping love. Listen to reason. If a thing is yours it +is ten times more mine than if I had bought it, for, just because it is +yours, I am able to possess it as the meek, and not the land-owners, +inherit the earth. It makes _having_ such a deep and high--indeed a +perfect thing! I take pleasure without an atom of shame in every rich +thing you have brought me. Do you think, if you died, and I carried your +watch, I should ever cease to feel the watch was yours? Just so they are +your ponies; and if you don't like me to say so, you can contradict me +every time, you know, all the same." + +"I know people will think I am like the lady we heard of the other day, +who told her husband the sideboard was hers, not his. Thomas, I _hate_ +to look like the rich one, when all that makes life worth living for, or +fit to be lived, was and is given me by you." + +"No, no, no, my darling! don't say that; you terrify me. I was but the +postman that brought you the good news." + +"Well! and what else with me and the ponies and the money and all that? +Did I make the ponies? Or did I even earn the money that bought them? It +is only the money my father and brother have done with. Don't make me +look as if I did not behave like a lady to my own husband, Thomas." + +"Well, my beautiful, I'll make up for all my wrongs by ordering you +about as if I were the Marquis of Saluzzo, and you the patient Grisel." + +"I wish you would. You don't order me about half enough." + +"I'll try to do better. You shall see." + +Nestley was a lovely place, and the house was old enough to be quite +respectable--one of those houses with a history and a growth, which are +getting rarer every day as the ugly temples of mammon usurp their +places. It was dusky, cool, and somber--a little shabby, indeed, which +fell in harmoniously with its peculiar charm, and indeed added to it. A +lawn, not immaculate of the sweet fault of daisies, sank slowly to a +babbling little tributary of the Lythe, and beyond were fern-covered +slopes, and heather, and furze, and pine-woods. The rector was a +sensible Englishman, who objected to have things done after the taste of +his gardener instead of his own. He loved grass like a village poet, and +would have no flower-beds cut in his lawn. Neither would he have any +flowers planted in the summer to be taken up again before the winter. He +would have no cockney gardening about his place, he said. Perhaps that +was partly why he never employed any but his old cottagers about the +grounds; and the result was that for half the show he had twice the +loveliness. His ambition was to have every possible English garden +flower. + +As soon as his visitors arrived, he and his curate went away together, +and Mrs. Wingfold was shown into the drawing-room, where was Mrs. Bevis +with her knitting. A greater contrast than that of the two ladies then +seated together in the long, low, dusky room, it were not easy to +imagine. I am greatly puzzled to think what conscious good in life Mrs. +Bevis enjoyed--just as I am puzzled to understand the eagerness with +which horses, not hungry, and evidently in full enjoyment of the sun and +air and easy exercise, will yet hurry to their stable the moment their +heads are turned in the direction of them. Is it that they have no hope +in the unknown, and then alone, in all the vicissitudes of their day, +know their destination? Would but some good kind widow, of the same type +with Mrs. Bevis, without children, tell me wherefore she is unwilling to +die! She has no special friend to whom she unbosoms herself--indeed, so +far as any one knows, she has never had any thing of which to unbosom +herself. She has no pet--dog or cat or monkey or macaw, and has never +been seen to hug a child. She never reads poetry--I doubt if she knows +more than the first line of _How doth_. She reads neither novels nor +history, and looks at the newspaper as if the type were fly-spots. Yet +there she sits smiling! Why! oh! why? Probably she does not know. Never +did question, not to say doubt, cause those soft, square-ended fingers +to move one atom less measuredly in the construction of Mrs. Bevis's +muffetee, the sole knittable thing her nature seemed capable of. Never +was sock seen on her needles; the turning of the heel was too much for +her. That she had her virtues, however, was plain from the fact that her +servants staid with her years and years; and I can, beside, from +observation set down a few of them. She never asked her husband what he +would have for dinner. When he was ready to go out with her, she was +always ready too. She never gave one true reason, and kept back a +truer--possibly there was not room for two thoughts at once in her +brain. She never screwed down a dependent; never kept small tradespeople +waiting for their money; never refused a reasonable request. In fact, +she was a stuffed bag of virtues; the bag was of no great size, but +neither were the virtues insignificant. There are dozens of sorts of +people I should feel a far stronger objection to living with; but what +puzzles me is how she contrives to live with herself, never questioning +the comfort of the arrangement, or desiring that it should one day come +to an end. Surely she must be deep, and know some secret! + +For the other lady, Helen Lingard that was, she had since her marriage +altered considerably in the right direction. She used to be a little +dry, a little stiff, and a little stately. To the last I should be far +from objecting, were it not that her stateliness was of the mechanical +sort, belonging to the spine, and not to a soul uplift. Now it had left +her spine and settled in a soul that scorned the low and loved the +lowly. Her step was lighter, her voice more flexible, her laugh much +merrier and more frequent, for now her heart was gay. Her husband +praised God when he heard her laugh; the laugh suggested the praise, for +itself rang like praises. She would pull up her ponies in the middle of +the street, and at word or sign, the carriage would be full of children. +Whoever could might scramble in till it was full. At the least rudeness, +the offender would be ordered to the pavement, and would always obey, +generally weeping. She would drive two or three times up and down the +street with her load, then turn it out, and take another, and another, +until as many as she judged fit had had a taste of the pleasure. This +she had learned from seeing a costermonger fill his cart with children, +and push behind, while the donkey in front pulled them along the street, +to the praise and glory of God. + +She was overbearing in one thing, and that was submission. Once, when I +was in her husband's study, she made a remark on something he had said +or written, I forget what, for which her conscience of love immediately +smote her. She threw herself on the floor, crept under the writing table +at which he sat, and clasped his knees. + +"I beg your pardon, husband," she said sorrowfully. + +"Helen," he cried, laughing rather oddly, "you will make a consummate +idiot of me before you have done." + +"Forgive me," she pleaded. + +"I can't forgive you. How can I forgive where there is positively +nothing to be forgiven?" + +"I don't care what you say; I know better; you _must_ forgive me." + +"Nonsense!" + +"Forgive me." + +"Do get up. Don't be silly." + +"Forgive me. I will lie here till you do." + +"But your remark was perfectly true." + +"It makes no difference. I ought not to have said it like that. Forgive +me, or I will cry." + +I will tell no more of it. Perhaps it is silly of me to tell any, but it +moved me strangely. + +I have said enough to show there was a contrast between the two ladies. +As to what passed in the way of talk, that, from pure incapacity, I dare +not attempt to report. I did hear them talk once, and they laughed too, +but not one salient point could I lay hold of by which afterward to +recall their conversation. Do I dislike Mrs. Bevis? Not in the smallest +degree. I could read a book I loved in her presence. That would be +impossible to me in the presence of Mrs. Ramshorn. + +Mrs. Wingfold had developed a great faculty for liking people. It was +quite a fresh shoot of her nature, for she had before been rather of a +repellent disposition. I wish there were more, and amongst them some of +the best of people, similarly changed. Surely the latter would soon be, +if once they had a glimpse of how much the coming of the kingdom is +retarded by defect of courtesy. The people I mean are slow to _like_, +and until they come to _like_, they _seem_ to dislike. I have known such +whose manner was fit to imply entire disapprobation of the very +existence of those upon whom they looked for the first time. They might +then have been saying to themselves, "_I_ would never have created such +people!" Had I not known them, I could not have imagined them lovers of +God or man, though they were of both. True courtesy, that is, courtesy +born of a true heart, is a most lovely, and absolutely indispensable +grace--one that nobody but a Christian can thoroughly develop. God grant +us a "coming-on disposition," as Shakespeare calls it. Who shall tell +whose angel stands nearer to the face of the Father? Should my brother +stand lower in the social scale than I, shall I not be the more tender, +and respectful, and self-refusing toward him, that God has placed him +there who may all the time be greater than I? A year before, Helen could +hardly endure doughy Mrs. Bevis, but now she had found something to like +in her, and there was confidence and faith between them. So there they +sat, the elder lady meandering on, and Helen, who had taken care to +bring some work with her, every now and then casting a bright glance in +her face, or saying two or three words with a smile, or asking some +simple question. Mrs. Bevis talked chiefly of the supposed affairs and +undoubted illness of Miss Meredith, concerning both of which rather +strange reports had reached her. + +Meantime the gentlemen were walking through the park in earnest +conversation. They crossed the little brook and climbed to the heath on +the other side. There the rector stood, and turning to his companion, +said: + +"It's rather late in the day for a fellow to wake up, ain't it, +Wingfold? You see I was brought up to hate fanaticism, and that may have +blinded me to something you have seen and got a hold of. I wish I could +just see what it is, but I never was much of a theologian. Indeed I +suspect I am rather stupid in some things. But I would fain try to look +my duty in the face. It's not for me to start up and teach the people, +because I ought to have been doing it all this time: I've got nothing to +teach them. God only knows whether I haven't been breaking every one of +the commandments I used to read to them every Sunday." + +"But God does know, sir," said the curate, with even more than his usual +respect in his tone, "and that is well, for otherwise we might go on +breaking them forever." + +The rector gave him a sudden look, full in the face, but said nothing, +seemed to fall a thinking, and for some time was silent. + +"There's one thing clear," he resumed: "I've been taking pay, and doing +no work. I used to think I was at least doing no harm--that I was merely +using one of the privileges of my position: I not only paid a curate, +but all the repair the church ever got was from me. Now, however, for +the first time, I reflect that the money was not given me for that. +Doubtless it has been all the better for my congregation, but that is +only an instance of the good God brings out of evil, and the evil is +mine still. Then, again, there's all this property my wife brought me: +what have I done with that? The kingdom of heaven has not come a +hair's-breadth nearer for my being a parson of the Church of England; +neither are the people of England a shade the better that I am one of +her land-owners. It is surely time I did something, Wingfold, my boy!" + +"I think it is, sir," answered the curate. + +"Then, in God's name, what am I to do?" returned the rector, almost +testily. + +"Nobody can answer that question but yourself, sir," replied Wingfold. + +"It's no use my trying to preach. I could not write a sermon if I took a +month to it. If it were a paper on the management of a stable, now, I +think I could write that--respectably. I know what I am about there. I +could even write one on some of the diseases of horses and bullocks--but +that's not what the church pays me for. There's one thing though--it +comes over me strong that I should like to read prayers in the old place +again. I want to pray, and I don't know how; and it seems as if I could +shove in some of my own if I had them going through my head once again. +I tell you what: we won't make any fuss about it--what's in a name?--but +from this day you shall be incumbent, and I will be curate. You shall +preach--or what you please, and I shall read the prayers or not, just as +you please. Try what you can make of me, Wingfold. Don't ask me to do +what I can't, but help me to do what I can. Look here--here's what I've +been thinking--it came to me last night as I was walking about here +after coming from Glaston:--here, in this corner of the parish, we are a +long way from church. In the village there, there is no place of worship +except a little Methodist one. There isn't one of their--local +preachers, I believe they call them--that don't preach a deal better +than I could if I tried ever so much. It's vulgar enough sometimes, they +tell me, but then they preach, and mean it. Now I might mean it, but I +shouldn't preach;--for what is it to people at work all the week to have +a man read a sermon to them? You might as well drive a nail by pushing +it in with the palm of your hand. Those men use the hammer. Ill-bred, +conceited fellows, some of them, I happen to know, but they know their +business. Now why shouldn't I build a little place here on my own +ground, and get the bishop to consecrate it? I would read prayers for +you in the abbey church in the morning, and then you would not be too +tired to come and preach here in the evening. I would read the prayers +here too, if you liked." + +"I think your scheme delightful," answered the curate, after a moment's +pause. "I would only venture to suggest one improvement--that you should +not have your chapel consecrated. You will find it ever so much more +useful. It will then be dedicated to the God of the whole earth, instead +of the God of the Church of England." + +"Why! ain't they the same?" cried the rector, half aghast, as he stopped +and faced round on the curate. + +"Yes," answered Wingfold; "and all will be well when the Church of +England really recognizes the fact. Meantime its idea of God is such as +will not at all fit the God of the whole earth. And that is why she is +in bondage. Except she burst the bonds of her own selfishness, she will +burst her heart and go to pieces, as her enemies would have her. Every +piece will be alive, though, I trust, more or less." + +"I don't understand you," said the rector. "What has all that to do with +the consecration of my chapel?" + +"If you don't consecrate it," answered Wingfold, "it will remain a +portion of the universe, a thoroughfare for all divine influences, open +as the heavens to every wind that blows. Consecration--" + +Here the curate checked himself. He was going to say--"is another word +for congestion,"--but he bethought himself what a wicked thing it would +be, for the satisfaction of speaking his mind, to disturb that of his +rector, brooding over a good work. + +"But," he concluded therefore, "there will be time enough to think about +that. The scheme is a delightful one. Apart from it, however, +altogether--if you would but read prayers in your own church, it would +wonderfully strengthen my hands. Only I am afraid I should shock you +sometimes." + +"I will take my chance of that. If you do, I will tell you of it. And if +I do what you don't like, you must tell me of it. I trust neither of us +will find the other incapable of understanding his neighbor's position." + +They walked to the spot which the rector had already in his mind as the +most suitable for the projected chapel. It was a bit of gently rising +ground, near one of the gates, whence they could see the whole of the +little village of Owlkirk. One of the nearest cottages was that of Mrs. +Puckridge. They saw the doctor ride in at the other end of the street, +stop there, fasten his horse to the paling, and go in. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +THE GARDEN AT OWLKIRK. + + +No sooner had Faber left the cottage that same morning, than the foolish +Mrs. Puckridge proceeded to pour out to the patient, still agitated both +with her dream and her waking vision, all the terrible danger she had +been in, and the marvelous way in which the doctor had brought her back +from the threshold of death. Every drop of the little blood in her body +seemed to rush to her face, then back to her heart, leaving behind it a +look of terror. She covered her face with the sheet, and lay so long +without moving that her nurse was alarmed. When she drew the sheet back, +she found her in a faint, and it was with great difficulty she brought +her out of it. But not one word could she get from her. She did not seem +even to hear what she said. Presently she grew restless, and soon her +flushed cheek and bright eye indicated an increase of fever. When Faber +saw her, he was much disappointed, perceived at once that something had +excited her, and strongly suspected that, for all her promises, Mrs. +Puckridge had betrayed the means by which he recovered her. + +He said to himself that he had had no choice, but then neither had the +lady, and the thing might be hateful to her. She might be in love, and +then how she must abominate the business, and detest him! It was +horrible to think of her knowing it. But for knowing it, she would never +be a whit the worse, for he never had a day's illness in his life and +knew of no taint in his family. + +When she saw him approach her bedside, a look reminding him of the +ripple of a sudden cold gust passing with the shadow of a cloud over +still water swept across her face. She closed her eyes, and turned a +little from him. What color she had, came and went painfully. Cursing in +his heart the faithlessness of Mrs. Puckridge, he assumed his coldest, +hardest professional manner, felt her pulse with the gentlest, yet most +peremptory inquiry, gave her attendant some authoritative directions, +and left her, saying he would call again in the afternoon. + +During seven days he visited her twice a day. He had good cause to be +anxious, and her recovery was very slow. Once and again appeared +threatenings of the primary complaint, while from the tardiness with +which her veins refilled, he feared for her lungs. During all these +visits, hardly a word beyond the most necessary passed between them. +After that time they were reduced to one a day. Ever as the lady grew +stronger, she seemed to become colder, and her manner grew more distant. +After a fortnight, he again reduced them to one in two days--very +unwillingly, for by that time she had come to occupy nearly as much of +his thoughts as all the rest of his patients together. She made him feel +that his visits were less than welcome to her, except for the help they +brought her, allowed him no insight into her character and ways of +thinking, behaved to him indeed with such restraint, that he could +recall no expression of her face the memory of which drew him to dwell +upon it; yet her face and form possessed him with their mere perfection. +He had to set himself sometimes to get rid of what seemed all but her +very presence, for it threatened to unfit him for the right discharge of +his duties. He was haunted with the form to which he had given a renewal +of life, as a murderer is haunted with the form of the man he has +killed. In those marvelous intervals betwixt sleep and waking, when the +soul is like a _camera obscura_, into which throng shapes unbidden, hers +had displaced all others, and came constantly--now flashing with +feverous radiance, now pale and bloodless as death itself. But ever and +always her countenance wore a look of aversion. She seemed in these +visions, to regard him as a vile necromancer, who first cast her into +the sepulcher, and then brought her back by some hellish art. She had +fascinated him. But he would not allow that he was in love with her. A +man may be fascinated and hate. A man is not necessarily in love with +the woman whose form haunts him. So said Faber to himself; and I can not +yet tell whether he was in love with her or not. I do not know where the +individuality of love commences--when love begins to be love. He must +have been a good way toward that point, however, to have thus betaken +himself to denial. He was the more interested to prove himself free, +that he feared, almost believed, there was a lover concerned, and that +was the reason she hated him so severely for what he had done. + +He had long come to the conclusion that circumstances had straitened +themselves around her. Experience had given him a keen eye, and he had +noted several things about her dress. For one thing, while he had +observed that her under-clothing was peculiarly dainty, he had once or +twice caught a glimpse of such an incongruity as he was compelled to set +down to poverty. Besides, what reason in which poverty bore no part, +could a lady have for being alone in a poor country lodging, without +even a maid? Indeed, might it not be the consciousness of the +peculiarity of her position, and no dislike to him, that made her treat +him with such impenetrable politeness? Might she not well dread being +misunderstood! + +She would be wanting to pay him for his attendance--and what was he to +do? He must let her pay something, or she would consider herself still +more grievously wronged by him, but how was he to take the money from +her hand? It was very hard that ephemeral creatures of the earth, born +but to die, to gleam out upon the black curtain and vanish again, might +not, for the brief time the poor yet glorious bubble swelled and +throbbed, offer and accept from each other even a few sunbeams in which +to dance! Would not the inevitable rain beat them down at night, and +"mass them into the common clay"? How then could they hurt each +other--why should they fear it--when they were all wandering home to the +black, obliterative bosom of their grandmother Night? He well knew a +certain reply to such reflection, but so he talked with himself. + +He would take his leave as if she were a duchess. But he would not until +she made him feel another visit would be an intrusion. + +One day Mrs. Puckridge met him at the door, looking mysterious. She +pointed with her thumb over her shoulder to indicate that the lady was +in the garden, but at the same time nudged him with her elbow, confident +that the impartment she had to make would justify the liberty, and led +the way into the little parlor. + +"Please, sir, and tell me," she said, turning and closing the door, +"what I be to do. She says she's got no money to pay neither me nor the +doctor, so she give me this, and wants me to sell it. I daren't show it! +They'd say I stole it! She declares that if I mention to a living soul +where I got it, she'll never speak to me again. In course she didn't +mean you, sir, seein' as doctors an' clergymen ain't nobody--leastways +nobody to speak on--and I'm sure I beg your pardon, sir, but my meanin' +is as they ain't them as ain't to be told things. I declare I'm most +terrified to set eyes on the thing!" + +She handed the doctor a little morocco case. He opened it, and saw a +ring, which was plainly of value. It was old-fashioned--a round mass of +small diamonds with a good-sized central one. + +"You are quite right," he said. "The ring is far too valuable for you to +dispose of. Bring it to my house at four o'clock, and I will get rid of +it for you." + +Mrs. Puckridge was greatly relieved, and ended the interview by leading +the way to the back-door. When she opened it, he saw his patient sitting +in the little arbor. She rose, and came to meet him. + +"You see I am quite well now," she said, holding out her hand. + +Her tone was guarded, but surely the ice was melting a little! Was she +taking courage at the near approach of her deliverance? + +She stooped to pick a double daisy from the border. Prompt as he +generally was, he could say nothing: he knew what was coming next. She +spoke while still she stooped. + +"When you come again," she said, "will you kindly let me know how much I +am in your debt?" + +As she ended she rose and stood before him, but she looked no higher +than his shirt-studs. She was ashamed to speak of her indebtedness as an +amount that could be reckoned. The whiteness of her cheek grew warm, +which was all her complexion ever revealed of a blush. It showed plainer +in the deepened darkness of her eyes, and the tremulous increase of +light in them. + +"I will," he replied, without the smallest response of confusion, for he +had recovered himself. "You will be careful!" he added. "Indeed you +must, or you will never be strong." + +She answered only with a little sigh, as if weakness was such a +weariness! and looked away across the garden-hedge out into the +infinite--into more of it at least I think, than Faber recognized. + +"And of all things," he went on, "wear shoes--every time you have to +step off a carpet--not mere foot-gloves like those." + +"Is this a healthy place, Doctor Faber?" she asked, looking haughtier, +he thought, but plainly with a little trouble in her eyes. + +"Decidedly," he answered. "And when you are able to walk on the heath +you will find the air invigorating. Only please mind what I say about +your shoes.--May I ask if you intend remaining here any time?" + +"I have already remained so much longer than I intended, that I am +afraid to say. My plans are now uncertain." + +"Excuse me--I know I presume--but in our profession we must venture a +little now and then--could you not have some friend with you until you +are perfectly strong again? After what you have come through, it may be +years before you are quite what you were. I don't want to frighten +you--only to make you careful." + +"There is no one," she answered in a low voice, which trembled a little. + +"No one--?" repeated Faber, as if waiting for the end of the sentence. +But his heart gave a great bound. + +"No one to come to me. I am alone in the world. My mother died when I +was a child and my father two years ago. He was an officer. I was his +only child, and used to go about with him. I have no friends." + +Her voice faltered more and more. When it ceased she seemed choking a +cry. + +"Since then," she resumed, "I have been a governess. My last situation +was in Yorkshire, in a cold part of the county, and my health began to +fail me. I heard that Glaston was a warm place, and one where I should +be likely to get employment. But I was taken ill on my way there, and +forced to stop. A lady in the train told me this was such a sweet, quiet +little place, and so when we got to the station I came on here." + +Again Faber could not speak. The thought of a lady like her traveling +about alone looking for work was frightful! "And they talk of a God in +the world!" he said to himself--and felt as if he never could forgive +Him. + +"I have papers to show," she added quietly, as if bethinking herself +that he might be taking her for an impostor. + +All the time she had never looked him in the face. She had fixed her +gaze on the far horizon, but a smile, half pitiful, half proud, +flickered about the wonderful curves of her upper lip. + +"I am glad you have told me," he said. "I may be of service to you, if +you will permit me. I know a great many families about here." + +"Oh, thank you!" she cried, and with an expression of dawning hope, +which made her seem more beautiful than ever, she raised her eyes and +looked him full in the face: it was the first time he had seen her eyes +lighted up, except with fever. Then she turned from him, and, apparently +lost in relief, walked toward the arbor a few steps distant. He followed +her, a little behind, for the path was narrow, his eyes fixed on her +exquisite cheek. It was but a moment, yet the very silence seemed to +become conscious. All at once she grew paler, shuddered, put her hand to +her head, and entering the arbor, sat down. Faber was alarmed. Her hand +was quite cold. She would have drawn it away, but he insisted on feeling +her pulse. + +"You must come in at once," he said. + +She rose, visibly trembling. He supported her into the house, made her +lie down, got a hot bottle for her feet, and covered her with shawls and +blankets. + +"You are quite unfit for any exertion yet," he said, and seated himself +near her. "You must consent to be an invalid for a while. Do not be +anxious. There is no fear of your finding what you want by the time you +are able for it. I pledge myself. Keep your mind perfectly easy." + +She answered him with a look that dazzled him. Her very eyelids seemed +radiant with thankfulness. The beauty that had fixed his regard was now +but a mask through which her soul was breaking, assimilating it. His +eyes sank before the look, and he felt himself catching his breath like +a drowning man. When he raised them again he saw tears streaming down +her face. He rose, and saying he would call again in the evening, left +the room. + +During the rest of his round he did not find it easy to give due +attention to his other cases. His custom was to brood upon them as he +rode; but now that look and the tears that followed seemed to bewilder +him, taking from him all command of his thought. + +Ere long the shadow that ever haunts the steps of the angel, Love, the +shadow whose name is Beneficence, began to reassume its earlier tyranny. +Oh, the bliss of knowing one's self the source of well-being, the stay +and protector, the comfort and life, to such a woman! of wrapping her +round in days of peace, instead of anxiety and pain and labor! But ever +the thought of her looking up to him as the source of her freedom, was +present through it all. What a glory to be the object of such looks as +he had never in his dearest dreams imagined! It made his head swim, even +in the very moment while his great Ruber, astonished at what his master +required of him that day, rose to some high thorny hedge, or stiff rail. +He was perfectly honest; the consequence he sought was only in his own +eyes--and in hers; there was nothing of vulgar patronage in the feeling; +not an atom of low purpose for self in it. The whole mental condition +was nothing worse than the blossom of the dream of his childhood--the +dream of being _the_ benefactor of his race, of being loved and +worshiped for his kindness. But the poison of the dream had grown more +active in its blossom. Since then the credit of goodness with himself +had gathered sway over his spirit; and stoical pride in goodness is a +far worse and lower thing than delight in the thanks of our fellows. He +was a mere slave to his own ideal, and that ideal was not brother to the +angel that beholds the face of the Father. Now he had taken a backward +step in time, but a forward step in his real history, for again another +than himself had a part in his dream. It would be long yet, however, ere +he learned so to love goodness as to forget its beauty. To him who _is_ +good, goodness has ceased to be either object or abstraction; it is _in_ +him--a thirst to give; a solemn, quiet passion to bless; a delight in +beholding well-being. Ah, how we dream and prate of love, until the holy +fire of the true divine love, the love that God kindles in a man toward +his fellows, burns the shadow of it out! + +In the afternoon Mrs. Puckridge appeared with the ring. He took it, told +her to wait, and went out. In a few minutes he returned, and, to the +woman's astonishment, gave her fifty pounds in notes. He did not tell +her he had been to nobody but his own banker. The ring he laid carefully +aside, with no definite resolve concerning it, but the great hope of +somehow managing that it should return to her one day. The thought shot +across his heaven--what a lovely wedding present it would make! and the +meteor drew a long train of shining fancies after it. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +THE PARLOR AT OWLKIRK. + + +When he called, as he had said, in the evening, she looked much better, +and there was even a touch of playfulness in her manner. He could not +but hope some crisis had been passed. The money she had received for the +ring had probably something to do with it. Perhaps she had not known how +valuable the ring was. Thereupon in his conscientiousness he began to +doubt whether he had given her its worth. In reality he had exceeded it +by a few pounds, as he discovered upon inquiry afterward in London. +Anyhow it did not much matter, he said to himself: he was sure to find +some way of restoring it to her. + +Suddenly she looked up, and said hurriedly: + +"I can never repay you, Dr. Faber. No one can do the impossible." + +"You can repay me," returned Faber. + +"How?" she said, looking startled. + +"By never again thinking of obligation to me." + +"You must not ask that of me," she rejoined. "It would not be right." + +The tinge of a rose not absolutely white floated over her face and +forehead as she spoke. + +"Then I shall be content," he replied, "if you will say nothing about it +until you are well settled. After that I promise to send you a bill as +long as a snipe's." + +She smiled, looked up brightly, and said, + +"You promise?" + +"I do." + +"If you don't keep your promise, I shall have to take severe measures. +Don't fancy me without money. I _could_ pay you now--at least I think +so." + +It was a great good sign of her that she could talk about money plainly +as she did. It wants a thoroughbred soul to talk _just_ right about +money. Most people treat money like a bosom-sin: they follow it +earnestly, but do not talk about it at all in society. + +"I only pay six shillings a week for my lodgings!" she added, with a +merry laugh. + +What had become of her constraint and stateliness? Courtesy itself +seemed gone, and simple trust in its place! Was she years younger than +he had thought her? She was hemming something, which demanded her eyes, +but every now and then she cast up a glance, and they were black suns +unclouding over a white sea. Every look made a vintage in the doctor's +heart. There _could_ be no man in the case! Only again, would fifty +pounds, with the loss of a family ring, serve to account for such a +change? Might she not have heard from somebody since he saw her +yesterday? In her presence he dared not follow the thought. + +Some books were lying on the table which could not well be Mrs. +Puckridge's. He took up one: it was _In Memoriam_. + +"Do you like Tennyson?" she asked. + +"That is a hard question to answer straight off," he replied.--He had +once liked Tennyson, else he would not have answered so.--"Had you asked +me if I liked _In Memoriam_" he went on, "I could more easily have +answered you." + +"Then, don't you like _In Memoriam_?" + +"No; it is weak and exaggerated." + +"Ah! you don't understand it. I didn't until after my father died. Then +I began to know what it meant, and now think it the most beautiful poem +I ever read." + +"You are fond of poetry, then?" + +"I don't read much; but I think there is more in some poetry than in all +the prose in the world." + +"That is a good deal to say." + +"A good deal too much, when I think that I haven't read, I suppose, +twenty books in my life--that is, books worth calling books: I don't +mean novels and things of that kind. Yet I can not believe twenty years +of good reading would make me change my mind about _In Memoriam_.--You +don't like poetry?" + +"I can't say I do--much. I like Pope and Crabbe--and--let me see--well, +I used to like Thomson. I like the men that give you things just as they +are. I do not like the poets that mix themselves up with what they see, +and then rave about Nature. I confess myself a lover of the truth beyond +all things." + +"But are you sure," she returned, looking him gently but straight in +the eyes, "that, in your anxiety not to make more of things than they +are, you do not make less of them than they are?" + +"There is no fear of that," returned Faber sadly, with an unconscious +shake of the head. "So long as there is youth and imagination on that +side to paint them,--" + +"Excuse me: are you not begging the question? Do they paint, or do they +see what they say? Some profess to believe that the child sees more +truly than the grown man--that the latter is the one who paints,--paints +out, that is, with a coarse brush." + +"You mean Wordsworth." + +"Not him only." + +"True; no end of poets besides. They all say it now-a-days." + +"But surely, Mr. Faber, if there be a God,--" + +"Ah!" interrupted the doctor, "there, _you_ beg the question. Suppose +there should be no God, what then?" + +"Then, I grant you, there could be no poetry. Somebody says poetry is +the speech of hope; and certainly if there were no God, there could be +no hope." + +Faber was struck with what she said, not from any feeling that there was +truth in it, but from its indication of a not illogical mind. He was on +the point of replying that certain kinds of poetry, and _In Memoriam_ in +particular, seemed to him more like the speech of a despair that had not +the courage to confess itself and die; but he saw she had not a +suspicion he spoke as he did for any thing but argument, and feared to +fray his bird by scattering his crumbs too roughly. He honestly believed +deliverance from the superstition into which he granted a fine nature +was readier to fall than a common one, the greatest gift one human being +could offer to another; but at the same time he could not bear to think +of her recoil from such utterance of his unfaith as he had now almost +got into the habit of making. He bethought himself, too, that he had +already misrepresented himself, in giving her the impression that he was +incapable of enjoying poetry of the more imaginative sort. He had indeed +in his youth been passionately fond of such verse. Then came a time in +which he turned from it with a sick dismay. Feelings and memories of +agony, which a word, a line, would rouse in him afresh, had brought him +to avoid it with an aversion seemingly deep-rooted as an instinct, and +mounting even to loathing; and when at length he cast from him the +semi-beliefs of his education, he persuaded himself that he disliked it +for its falsehood. He read his philosophy by the troubled light of wrong +and suffering, and that is not the light of the morning, but of a +burning house. Of all poems, naturally enough, he then disliked _In +Memoriam_ the most; and now it made him almost angry that Juliet +Meredith should like so much what he so much disliked. Not that he would +have a lady indifferent to poetry. That would argue a lack of poetry in +herself, and such a lady would be like a scentless rose. You could not +expect, who indeed could wish a lady to be scientific in her ways of +regarding things? Was she not the live concentration, the perfect +outcome, of the vast poetic show of Nature? In shape, in motion of body +and brain, in tone and look, in color and hair, in faithfulness to old +dolls and carelessness of hearts, was she not the sublimation, the +essence of sunsets, and fading roses, and butterflies, and snows, and +running waters, and changing clouds, and cold, shadowy moonlight? He +argued thus more now in sorrow than in anger; for what was the woman but +a bubble on the sand of the infinite soulless sea--a bubble of a hundred +lovely hues, that must shine because it could not help it, and for the +same reason break? She was not to blame. Let her shine and glow, and +sparkle, and vanish. For him, he cared for nothing but science--nothing +that did not promise one day to yield up its kernel to the seeker. To +him science stood for truth, and for truth in the inward parts stood +obedience to the laws of Nature. If he was one of a poor race, he would +rise above his fellows by being good to them in their misery; while for +himself he would confess to no misery. Let the laws of Nature +work--eyeless and heartless as the whirlwind; he would live his life, be +himself, be Nature, and depart without a murmur. No scratch on the face +of time, insignificant even as the pressure of a fern-leaf upon coal, +should tell that he had ever thought his fate hard. He would do his +endeavor and die and return to nothing--not then more dumb of complaint +than now. Such had been for years his stern philosophy, and why should +it now trouble him that a woman thought differently? Did the sound of +faith from such lips, the look of hope in such eyes, stir any thing out +of sight in his heart? Was it for a moment as if the corner of a veil +were lifted, the lower edge of a mist, and he saw something fair beyond? +Came there a little glow and flutter out of the old time? "All forget," +he said to himself. "I too have forgotten. Why should not Nature forget? +Why should I be fooled any more? Is it not enough?" + +Yet as he sat gazing, in the broad light of day, through the cottage +window, across whose panes waved the little red bells of the common +fuchsia, something that had nothing to do with science and yet _was_, +seemed to linger and hover over the little garden--something from the +very depths of loveliest folly. Was it the refrain of an old song? or +the smell of withered rose leaves? or was there indeed a kind of light +such as never was on sea or shore? + +Whatever it was, it was out of the midst of it the voice of the lady +seemed to come--a clear musical voice in common speech, but now veiled +and trembling, as if it brooded hearkening over the words it uttered: + + "I wrong the grave with fears untrue: + Shall love be blamed for want of faith? + There must be wisdom with great Death: + The dead shall look me through and through. + + "Be near us when we climb or fall: + Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours + With larger other eyes than ours, + To make allowance for us all." + +She ceased, and the silence was like that which follows sweet music. + +"Ah! you think of your father!" he hazarded, and hoped indeed it was her +father of whom she was thinking. + +She made no answer. He turned toward her in anxiety. She was struggling +with emotion. The next instant the tears gushed into her eyes, while a +smile seemed to struggle from her lips, and spread a little way over her +face. It was inexpressibly touching. + +"He was my friend," she said. "I shall never have such love again." + +"All is not lost when much is lost," said the doctor, with sad comfort. +"There are spring days in winter." + +"And _you_ don't like poetry!" she said, a sweet playful scorn shining +through her tears. + +"I spoke but a sober truth," he returned; "--so sober that it seems but +the sadder for its truth. The struggle of life is to make the best of +things that might be worse." + +She looked at him pitifully. For a moment her lips parted, then a +strange look as of sudden bodily pain crossed her face, her lips closed, +and her mouth looked as if it were locked. She shut the book which lay +upon her knee, and resumed her needlework. A shadow settled upon her +face. + +"What a pity such a woman should be wasted in believing lies!" thought +the doctor. "How much better it would be if she would look things in the +face, and resolve to live as she can, doing her best and enduring her +worst, and waiting for the end! And yet, seeing color is not the thing +itself, and only in the brain whose eye looks upon it, why should I +think it better? why should she not shine in the color of her fancy? why +should she grow gray because the color is only in herself? We are but +bubbles flying from the round of Nature's mill-wheel. Our joys and +griefs are the colors that play upon the bubbles. Their throbs and +ripples and changes are our music and poetry, and their bursting is our +endless repose. Let us waver and float and shine in the sun; let us bear +pitifully and be kind; for the night cometh, and there an end." + +But in the sad silence, he and the lady were perhaps drifting further +and further apart! + +"I did not mean," he said, plunging into what came first, "that I could +not enjoy verse of the kind you prefer--as verse. I took the matter by +the more serious handle, because, evidently, you accepted the tone and +the scope of it. I have a weakness for honesty." + +"There is something not right about you, though, Mr. Faber--if I could +find it out," said Miss Meredith. "You can not mean you enjoy any thing +you do not believe in?" + +"Surely there are many things one can enjoy without believing in them?" + +"On the contrary, it seems to me that enjoying a thing is only another +word for believing in it. If I thought the sweetest air on the violin +had no truth in it, I could not listen to it a moment longer." + +"Of course the air has all the truth it pretends to--the truth, that is, +of the relations of sounds and of intervals--also, of course, the truth +of its relation as a whole to that creative something in the human mind +which gave birth to it." + +"That is not all it pretends. It pretends that the something it gives +birth to in the human mind is also a true thing." + +"Is there not then another way also, in which the violin may be said to +be true? Its tone throughout is of suffering: does it not mourn that +neither what gives rise to it, nor what it gives rise to, is any thing +but a lovely vapor--the phantom of an existence not to be lived, only to +be dreamed? Does it not mourn that a man, though necessarily in harmony +with the laws under which he lives, yet can not be sufficiently +conscious of that harmony to keep him from straining after his dream?" + +"Ah!" said Miss Meredith, "then there is strife in the kingdom, and it +can not stand!" + +"There is strife in the kingdom, and it can not stand," said the doctor, +with mingled assent and assertion. "Hence it is forever falling." + +"But it is forever renewed," she objected. + +"With what renewal?" rejoined Faber. "What return is there from the jaws +of death? The individual is gone. A new consciousness is not a renewal +of consciousness." + +She looked at him keenly. + +"It is hard, is it not?" she said. + +"I will not deny that in certain moods it looks so," he answered. + +She did not perceive his drift, and was feeling after it. + +"Surely," she said, "the thing that ought to be, is the thing that must +be." + +"How can we tell that?" he returned. "What do we see like it in nature? +Whatever lives and thrives--animal or vegetable--or human--it is all +one--every thing that lives and thrives, is forever living and thriving +on the loss, the defeat, the death of another. There is no unity save +absolutely by means of destruction. Destruction is indeed the very +center and framework of the sole existing unity. I will not, therefore, +as some do, call Nature cruel: what right have I to complain? Nature can +not help it. She is no more to blame for bringing me forth, than I am to +blame for being brought forth. Ought is merely the reflex of like. We +call ourselves the highest in Nature--and probably we are, being the +apparent result of the whole--whence, naturally, having risen, we seek +to rise, we feel after something we fancy higher. For as to the system +in which we live, we are so ignorant that we can but blunderingly feel +our way in it; and if we knew all its laws, we could neither order nor +control, save by a poor subservience. We are the slaves of our +circumstance, therefore betake ourselves to dreams of what _ought to +be_." + +Miss Meredith was silent for a time. + +"I can not see how to answer you," she said at length. "But you do not +disturb my hope of seeing my father again. We have a sure word of +prophecy." + +Faber suppressed the smile of courteous contempt that was ready to break +forth, and she went on: + +"It would ill become me to doubt to-day, as you will grant when I tell +you a wonderful fact. This morning I had not money enough to buy myself +the pair of strong shoes you told me I must wear. I had nothing left but +a few trinkets of my mother's--one of them a ring I thought worth about +ten pounds. I gave it to my landlady to sell for me, hoping she would +get five for it. She brought me fifty, and I am rich!" + +Her last words trembled with triumph. He had himself been building her +up in her foolish faith! But he took consolation in thinking how easily +with a word he could any moment destroy that buttress of her phantom +house. It was he, the unbeliever, and no God in or out of her Bible, +that had helped her! It did not occur to him that she might after all +see in him only a reed blown of a divine wind. + +"I am glad to hear of your good fortune," he answered. "I can not say I +see how it bears on the argument. You had in your possession more than +you knew." + +"Does the length of its roots alter the kind of the plant?" she asked. +"Do we not know in all nature and history that God likes to see things +grow? That must be the best way. It may be the only right way. If that +ring was given to my mother against the time when the last child of her +race should find herself otherwise helpless, would the fact that the +provision was made so early turn the result into a mere chance meeting +of necessity and subsidy? Am I bound to call every good thing I receive +a chance, except an angel come down visibly out of the blue sky and give +it to me? That would be to believe in a God who could not work His will +by His own laws. Here I am, free and hopeful--all I needed. Every thing +was dark and troubled yesterday; the sun is up to-day." + +"There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood leads +on to fortune," said the doctor. + +"I begin to fear you mean what you say, Mr. Faber. I hoped it was only +for argument's sake," returned Miss Meredith. + +She did not raise her eyes from her work this time. Faber saw that she +was distressed if not hurt, and that her soul had closed its lips to +him. He sprang to his feet, and stood bending before her. + +"Miss Meredith," he said, "forgive me. I have offended you." + +"You have not offended me," she said quietly. + +"Hurt you then, which is worse." + +"How should I have got through," she said, as if to herself, and dropped +her hands with her work on her knees, "if I had not believed there was +One caring for me all the time, even when I was most alone!" + +"Do you never lose that faith?" asked the doctor. + +"Yes; many and many a time. But it always comes back." + +"Comes and goes with your health." + +"No--is strongest sometimes when I am furthest from well." + +"When you are most feverish," said the doctor. "What a fool I am to go +on contradicting her!" he added to himself. + +"I think I know you better than you imagine, Mr. Faber," said Miss +Meredith, after just a moment's pause. "You are one of those men who +like to represent themselves worse than they are. I at least am bound to +think better of you than you would have me. One who lives as you do for +other people, can not be so far from the truth as your words." + +Faber honestly repudiated the praise, for he felt it more than he +deserved. He did try to do well by his neighbor, but was aware of no +such devotion as it implied. Of late he had found his work bore him not +a little--especially when riding away from Owlkirk. The praise, +notwithstanding, sounded sweet from her lips, was sweeter still from her +eyes, and from the warmer white of her cheek, which had begun to resume +its soft roundness. + +"Ah!" thought the doctor, as he rode slowly home, "were it not for +sickness, age, and death, this world of ours would be no bad place to +live in. Surely mine is the most needful and the noblest of +callings!--to fight for youth, and health, and love; against age, and +sickness, and decay! to fight death to the last, even knowing he must +have the best of it in the end! to set law against law, and do what +poor thing may be done to reconcile the inexorable with the desirable! +Who knows--if law be blind, and I am a man that can see--for at the +last, and only at the last do eyes come in the head of Nature--who knows +but I may find out amongst the blind laws to which I am the eyes, that +blind law which lies nearest the root of life!--Ah, what a dreamer I +should have been, had I lived in the time when great dreams were +possible! Beyond a doubt I should have sat brooding over the elixir of +life, cooking and mixing, heating and cooling, watching for the flash in +the goblet. We know so much now, that the range of hope is sadly +limited! A thousand dark ways of what seemed blissful possibility are +now closed to us, because there the light now shines, and shows naught +but despair. Yet why should the thing be absurd? Can any one tell _why_ +this organism we call man should not go on working forever? Why should +it not, since its law is change and renewal, go on changing and renewing +forever? Why should it get tired? Why should its law work more feeble, +its relations hold less firmly, after a hundred years, than after ten? +Why should it grow and grow, then sink and sink? No one knows a reason. +Then why should it be absurd to seek what shall encounter the unknown +cause, and encountering reveal it? Might science be brought to the pitch +that such a woman should live to all the ages, how many common lives +might not well be spared to such an end! How many noble ones would not +willingly cease for such a consummation--dying that life should be lord, +and death no longer king!" + +Plainly Faber's materialism sprang from no defect in the region of the +imagination; but I find myself unable to determine how much honesty, and +how much pride and the desire to be satisfied with himself, had +relatively to do with it. I would not be understood to imply that he had +an unusual amount of pride; and I am sure he was less easily satisfied +with himself than most are. Most people will make excuses for themselves +which they would neither make nor accept for their neighbor; their own +failures and follies trouble them little: Faber was of another sort. As +ready as any other man to discover what could be said on his side, he +was not so ready to adopt it. He required a good deal of himself. But +then he unconsciously compared himself with his acquaintances, and made +what he knew of them the gauge, if not the measure, of what he required +of himself. + +It were unintelligible how a man should prefer being the slave of blind +helpless Law to being the child of living Wisdom, should believe in the +absolute Nothing rather than in the perfect Will, were it not that he +does not, can not see the Wisdom or the Will, except he draw nigh +thereto. + +I shall be answered: + +"We do not prefer. We mourn the change which yet we can not resist. We +would gladly have the God of our former faith, were it possible any +longer to believe in Him." + +I answer again: + +"Are you sure of what you say? Do you in reality mourn over your lost +faith? For my part, I would rather disbelieve with you, than have what +you have lost. For I would rather have no God than the God whom you +suppose me to believe in, and whom therefore I take to be the God in +whom you imagine you believed in the days of your ignorance. That those +were days of ignorance, I do not doubt; but are these the days of your +knowledge? The time will come when you will see deeper into your own +hearts than now, and will be humbled, like not a few other men, by what +you behold." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +THE BUTCHER'S SHOP. + + +About four years previous to the time of which I am now writing, and +while yet Mr. Drake was in high repute among the people of Cowlane +chapel, he went to London to visit an old friend, a woman of great +practical benevolence, exercised chiefly toward orphans. Just then her +thoughts and feelings were largely occupied with a lovely little girl, +the chain of whose history had been severed at the last link, and lost +utterly. + +A poor woman in Southwark had of her own motion, partly from love to +children and compassion for both them and their mothers, partly to earn +her own bread with pleasure, established a sort of _creche_ in her two +rooms, where mothers who had work from home could bring their children +in the morning, and leave them till night. The child had been committed +to her charge day after day for some weeks. One morning, when she +brought her, the mother seemed out of health, and did not appear at +night to take her home. The next day the woman heard she was in the +small-pox-hospital. For a week or so, the money to pay for the child +came almost regularly, in postage-stamps, then ceased altogether, and +the woman heard nothing either from or of the mother. After a fortnight +she contrived to go to the hospital to inquire after her. No one +corresponding to her description was in the place. The name was a common +one, and several patients bearing it had lately died and been buried, +while others had recovered and were gone. Her inquiries in the +neighborhood had no better success: no one knew her, and she did not +even discover where she had lived. She could not bear the thought of +taking the child to the work-house, and kept her for six or eight weeks, +but she had a sickly son, a grown lad, to support, and in dread lest she +should be compelled to give her up to the parish, had applied for +counsel to the lady I have mentioned. When Mr. Drake arrived, she had +for some time been searching about in vain to find a nest for her. + +Since his boys had been taken from him, and the unprized girl left +behind had grown so precious, Mr. Drake had learned to love children as +the little ones of God. He had no doubt, like many people, a dread of +children with unknown antecedents: who could tell what root of +bitterness, beyond the common inheritance, might spring up in them? But +all that was known of this one's mother was unusually favorable; and +when his friend took him to see the child, his heart yearned after her. +He took her home to Dorothy, and she had grown up such as we have seen +her, a wild, roguish, sweet, forgetful, but not disobedient child--very +dear to both the Drakes, who called her their duckling. + +As we have seen, however, Mr. Drake had in his adversity grown fearful +and faint-hearted, and had begun to doubt whether he had a right to keep +her. And of course he had not, if it was to be at the expense of his +tradespeople. But he was of an impetuous nature, and would not give even +God time to do the thing that needed time to be done well. He saw a +crisis was at hand. Perhaps, however, God saw a spiritual, where he saw +a temporal crisis. + +Dorothy had a small sum, saved by her mother, so invested as to bring +her about twenty pounds a year, and of the last payment she had two +pounds in hand. Her father had nothing, and quarter-day was two months +off. This was the common knowledge of their affairs at which they +arrived as they sat at breakfast on the Monday morning, after the +saddest Sunday either of them had ever spent. They had just risen from +the table, and the old woman was removing the cloth, when a knock came +to the lane-door, and she went to open it, leaving the room-door ajar, +whereby the minister caught a glimpse of a blue apron, and feeling +himself turning sick, sat down again. Lisbeth re-entered with a rather +greasy-looking note, which was of course from the butcher, and Mr. +Drake's hand trembled as he opened it. Mr. Jones wrote that he would not +have troubled him, had he not asked for his bill; but, if it was quite +convenient, he would be glad to have the amount by the end of the week, +as he had a heavy payment to make the following Monday. Mr. Drake handed +the note to his daughter, rose hastily, and left the room. Dorothy threw +it down half-read, and followed him. He was opening the door, his hat in +his hand. + +"Where are you going in such a hurry, father dear?" she said. "Wait a +moment and I'll go with you." + +"My child, there is not a moment to lose!" he replied excitedly. + +"I did not read all the letter," she returned; "but I think he does not +want the money till the end of the week." + +"And what better shall we be then?" he rejoined, almost angrily. "The +man looks to me, and where will he find himself on Monday? Let us be as +honest at least as we can." + +"But we may be able to borrow it--or--who knows what might happen?" + +"There it is, my dear! Who knows what? We can be sure of nothing in this +world." + +"And what in the next, father?" + +The minister was silent. If God was anywhere, he was here as much as +there! That was not the matter in hand, however. He owed the money, and +was bound to let the man know that he could not pay it by the end of the +week. Without another word to Dorothy, he walked from the house, and, +like a man afraid of cowardice, went straight at the object of his +dismay. He was out of the lane and well into Pine street before he +thought to put on his hat. + +From afar he saw the butcher, standing in front of his shop--a tall, +thin man in blue. His steel glittered by his side, and a red nightcap +hung its tassel among the curls of his gray hair. He was discussing, +over a small joint of mutton, some point of economic interest with a +country customer in a check-shawl. To the minister's annoyance the woman +was one of his late congregation, and he would gladly have passed the +shop, had he had the courage. When he came near, the butcher turned from +the woman, and said, taking his nightcap by the tassel in rudimentary +obeisance. + +"At your service, sir." + +His courtesy added to Mr. Drake's confusion: it was plain the man +imagined he had brought him his money! Times were indeed changed since +his wife used to drive out in her brougham to pay the bills! Was this +what a man had for working in the vineyard the better part of a +lifetime? The property he did not heed. That had been the portion of the +messengers of heaven from the first. But the shame!--what was he to do +with that? Who ever heard of St. Paul not being able to pay a butcher's +bill! No doubt St. Paul was a mighty general, and he but a poor +subaltern, but in the service there was no respect of persons. On the +other hand, who ever heard of St. Paul having any bills to pay!--or for +that matter, indeed, of his marrying a rich wife, and getting into +expensive habits through popularity! Who ever heard of his being +dependent on a congregation! He accepted help sometimes, but had always +his goats'-hair and his tent-making to fall back upon!--Only, after all, +was the Lord never a hard master? Had he not let it come to this? + +Much more of the sort went through his mind in a flash. The country +woman had again drawn the attention of the butcher with a parting word. + +"You don't want a chicken to-day--do you, Mr. Drake?" she said, as she +turned to go. + +"No, thank you, Mrs. Thomson. How is your husband?" + +"Better, I thank you sir. Good morning, sir." + +"Mr. Jones," said the minister--and as he spoke, he stepped inside the +shop, removed his hat, and wiped his forehead, "I come to you with +shame. I have not money enough to pay your bill. Indeed I can not even +pay a portion of it till next quarter-day." + +"Don't mention it, Mr. Drake, sir." + +"But your bill on Monday, Mr. Jones!" + +"Oh! never mind that. I shall do very well, I dare say. I have a many as +owes me a good deal more than you do, sir, and I'm much obliged to you +for letting of me know at once. You see, sir, if you hadn't--" + +"Yes, I know: I asked for it! I am the sorrier I can't pay it after all. +It is quite disgraceful, but I simply can't help it." + +"Disgraceful, sir!" exclaimed Mr. Jones, almost as if hurt: "I wish they +thought as you do as has ten times the reason, sir!" + +"But I have a request to make," the pastor went on, heedless of the +butcher's remark, and pulling out a large and handsome gold watch: +"Would you oblige me by taking this watch in security until I do pay +you? It is worth a great deal more than your bill. It would add much to +the obligation, if you would put it out of sight somewhere, and say +nothing about it. If I should die before paying your bill, you will be +at liberty to sell it; and what is over, after deducting interest, you +will kindly hand to my daughter." + +Mr. Jones stared with open mouth. He thought the minister had lost his +senses. + +"What do you make of me, sir?" he said at last. "You go for to trust me +with a watch like that, and fancy I wouldn't trust you with a little +bill that ain't been owing three months yet! You make me that I don't +know myself, sir! Never you mention the bill to me again, sir. I'll ask +for it, all in good time. Can I serve you with any thing to-day, sir?" + +"No, I thank you. I must at least avoid adding to my debt." + +"I hope what you do have, you'll have of me, sir. I don't mind waiting a +goodish bit for my money, but what cuts me to the heart is to see any +one as owes me money a goin' over the way, as if 'e 'adn't 'a' found my +meat good enough to serve his turn, an' that was why he do it. That does +rile me!" + +"Take my word for it, Mr. Jones--all the meat we have we shall have of +you. But we must be careful. You see I am not quite so--so--" + +He stopped with a sickly smile. + +"Look ye here, Mr. Drake!" broke in the butcher: "you parsons ain't +proper brought up. You ain't learned to take care of yourselves. Now us +tradespeople, we're learned from the first to look arter number one, and +not on no account to forget which _is_ number one. But you parsons, +now,--you'll excuse me, sir; I don't mean no offense; you ain't brought +up to 't, an' it ain't to be expected of you--but it's a great neglect +in your eddication, sir; an' the consekence is as how us as knows better +'as to take care on you as don't know no better. I can't say I think +much o' them 'senters: they don't stick by their own; but you're a +honest man, sir, if ever there was a honest man as was again' the +church, an' ask you for that money, I never will, acause I know when you +can pay, it's pay you will. Keep your mind easy, sir: _I_ shan't come to +grief for lack o' what you owe me! Only don't you go a starving of +yourself, Mr. Drake. I don't hold with that nohow. Have a bit o' meat +when you want it, an' don't think over it twice. There!" + +The minister was just able to thank his new friend and no more. He held +out his hand to him, forgetful of the grease that had so often driven +him from the pavement to the street. The butcher gave it a squeeze that +nearly shot it out of his lubricated grasp, and they parted, both better +men for the interview. + +When Mr. Drake reached home, he met his daughter coming out to find him. +He took her hand, led her into the house and up to his study, and closed +the door. + +"Dorothy," he said, "it is sweet to be humbled. The Spirit can bring +water from the rock, and grace from a hard heart. I mean mine, not the +butcher's. He has behaved to me as I don't see how any but a Christian +could, and that although his principles are scarcely those of one who +had given up all for the truth. He is like the son in the parable who +said, I go not, but went; while I, much I fear me, am like the other who +said, I go, sir, but went not. Alas! I have always found it hard to be +grateful; there is something in it unpalatable to the old Adam; but from +the bottom of my heart I thank Mr. Jones, and I will pray God for him +ere I open a book. Dorothy, I begin to doubt our way of +church-membership. It _may_ make the good better; but if a bad one gets +in, it certainly makes him worse. I begin to think too, that every +minister ought to be independent of his flock--I do not mean by the pay +of the state, God forbid! but by having some trade or profession, if no +fortune. Still, if I had had the money to pay that bill, I should now be +where I am glad not to be--up on my castletop, instead of down at the +gate. He has made me poor that He might send me humility, and that I +find unspeakably precious. Perhaps He will send me the money next. But +may it not be intended also to make us live more simply--on vegetables +perhaps? Do you not remember how it fared with Daniel, Hananiah, +Mishael, and Azariah, when they refused the meat and the wine, and ate +pulse instead? At the end of ten days their countenances appeared fairer +and fatter in flesh than all the children which did eat the portion of +the king's meat. Pulse, you know, means peas and beans, and every thing +of that kind--which is now proved to be almost as full of nourishment as +meat itself, and to many constitutions more wholesome. Let us have a +dinner of beans. You can buy haricot beans at the grocer's--can you not? +If Ducky does not thrive on them, or they don't agree with you, my +Dorothy, you will have only to drop them. I am sure they will agree with +me. But let us try, and then the money I owe Mr. Jones, will not any +longer hang like a millstone about my neck." + +"We will begin this very day," said Dorothy, delighted to see her father +restored to equanimity. "I will go and see after a dinner of herbs.--We +shall have love with it anyhow, father!" she added, kissing him. + +That day the minister, who in his earlier days had been allowed by his +best friends to be a little particular about his food, and had been no +mean connoisseur in wines, found more pleasure at his table, from +lightness of heart, and the joy of a new independence, than he had had +for many a day. It added much also to his satisfaction with the +experiment, that, instead of sleeping, as his custom was, after dinner, +he was able to read without drowsiness even. Perhaps Dorothy's +experience was not quite so satisfactory, for she looked weary when they +sat down to tea. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +THE PARLOR AGAIN. + + +Faber had never made any effort to believe in a divine order of +things--indeed he had never made strenuous effort to believe in any +thing. It had never at all occurred to him that it might be a duty to +believe. He was a kindly and not a repellent man, but when he doubted +another, he doubted him; it never occurred to him that perhaps he ought +to believe in that man. There must be a lack of something, where a man's +sense of duty urges him mainly to denial. His existence is a positive +thing--his main utterance ought to be positive. I would not forget that +the nature of a denial may be such as to involve a strong positive. + +To Faber it seemed the true and therefore right thing, to deny the +existence of any such being as men call God. I heartily admit that such +denial may argue a nobler condition than that of the man who will reason +for the existence of what he calls a Deity, but omits to order his way +after what he professes to believe His will. At the same time, his +conclusion that he was not bound to believe in any God, seemed to lift a +certain weight off the heart of the doctor--the weight, namely, that +gathers partly from the knowledge of having done wrong things, partly +from the consciousness of not _being_ altogether right. It would be very +unfair, however, to leave the impression that this was the origin of all +the relief the doctor derived from the conclusion. For thereby he got +rid, in a great measure at least, of the notion--horrible in proportion +to the degree in which it is actually present to the mind, although, I +suspect, it is not, in a true sense, credible to any mind--of a cruel, +careless, unjust Being at the head of affairs. That such a notion should +exist at all, is mainly the fault of the mass of so-called religious +people, for they seem to believe in, and certainly proclaim such a God. +In their excuse it may be urged they tell the tale as it was told to +them; but the fault lies in this, that, with the gospel in their hands, +they have yet lived in such disregard of its precepts, that they have +never discovered their representation of the God of Truth to be such, +that the more honest a man is, the less can he accept it. That the +honest man, however, should not thereupon set himself to see whether +there might not be a true God notwithstanding, whether such a God was +not conceivable consistently with things as they are, whether the +believers had not distorted the revelation they professed to follow; +especially that he should prefer to believe in some sort of _vitalic_ +machine, equally void of beneficence and malevolence, existing because +it can not help it, and giving birth to all sorts of creatures, men and +women included, because it can not help it--must arise from a condition +of being, call it spiritual, moral, or mental--I can not be obliging +enough to add _cerebral,_ because so I should nullify my conclusion, +seeing there would be no substance left wherein it could be wrought +out--for which the man, I can not but think, will one day discover that +he was to blame--for which a living God sees that he is to blame, makes +all the excuse he can, and will give the needful punishment to the +uttermost lash. + +There are some again, to whom the idea of a God perfect as they could +imagine Him in love and devotion and truth, seems, they say, too good to +be true: such have not yet perceived that no God any thing less than +absolutely glorious in loveliness would be worth believing in, or such +as the human soul could believe in. But Faber did not belong to this +class--still less to that portion of it whose inconsolable grief over +the lack of such a God may any day blossom into hope of finding Him. He +was in practice at one with that portion of it who, accepting things at +their worst, find alleviation for their sorrows in the strenuous effort +to make the best of them; but he sought to content himself with the +order of things which, blind and deaf and non-willing, he said had +existed for evermore, most likely--the thing was hardly worth +discussing; blind, for we can not see that it sees; deaf, for we can not +hear that it hears; and without will, for we see no strife, purpose, or +change in its going! + +There was no God, then, and people would be more comfortable to know it. +In any case, as there was none, they ought to know it. As to his +certainty of there being none, Faber felt no desire to find one, had met +with no proof that there was one, and had reasons for supposing that +there was none. He had not searched very long or very wide, or with any +eager desire to discover Him, if indeed there should be a God that hid +Himself. His genial nature delighted in sympathy, and he sought it even +in that whose perfect operation, is the destruction of all sympathy. Who +does not know the pleasure of that moment of nascent communion, when +argument or expostulation has begun to tell, conviction begins to dawn, +and the first faint thrill of response is felt? But the joy may be +either of two very different kinds--delight in victory and the personal +success of persuasion, or the ecstasy of the shared vision of truth, in +which contact souls come nearer to each other than any closest +familiarity can effect. Such a nearness can be brought about by no +negation however genuine, or however evil may be the thing denied. + +Sympathy, then, such as he desired, Faber was now bent on finding, or +bringing about in Juliet Meredith. He would fain get nearer to her. +Something pushed, something drew him toward the lovely phenomenon into +which had flowered invisible Nature's bud of shapeless protoplasm. He +would have her trust him, believe him, love him. If he succeeded, so +much the greater would be the value and the pleasure of the conquest, +that it had been gained in spite of all her prejudices of education and +conscience. And if in the process of finding truth a home in her bosom, +he should cause her pain even to agony, would not the tenderness born of +their lonely need for each other, be far more consoling than any mere +aspiration after a visionary comforter? + +Juliet had been, so far as her father was concerned in her education, +religiously brought up. No doubt Captain Meredith was more fervid than +he was reasonable, but he was a true man, and in his regiment, on which +he brought all his influence to bear, had been regarded with respect, +even where not heartily loved. But her mother was one of those weakest +of women who can never forget the beauty they once possessed, or quite +believe they have lost it, remaining, even after the very traces of it +have vanished, as greedy as ever of admiration. Her maxims and +principles, if she could be said to have any of the latter, were not a +little opposed to her husband's; but she died when Juliet was only five +years old, and the child grew to be almost the companion of her father. +Hence it came that she heard much religious conversation, often +partaking not a little of the character of discussion and even of +dispute. She thus became familiar with the forms of a religious belief +as narrow as its partisans are numerous. Her heart did not remain +uninterested, but she was never in earnest sufficiently to discover what +a thing of beggarly elements the system was, and how incapable of +satisfying any childlike soul. She never questioned the truth of what +she heard, and became skilled in its idioms and arguments and forms of +thought. But the more familiar one becomes with any religious system, +while yet the conscience and will are unawakened and obedience has not +begun, the harder is it to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Such +familiarity is a soul-killing experience, and great will be the excuse +for some of those sons of religious parents who have gone further +toward hell than many born and bred thieves and sinners. + +When Juliet came to understand clearly that her new friend did mean +thorough-going unbelief, the rejection of _all_ the doctrines she had +been taught by him whose memory she revered, she was altogether shocked, +and for a day and a night regarded him as a monster of wickedness. But +her horror was mainly the reflex of that with which her father would +have regarded him, and all that was needed to moderate horror to +disapproval, was familiarity with his doctrines in the light of his +agreeable presence and undeniable good qualities. Thoroughly acquainted +as she believed herself with "the plan of salvation," Jesus of Nazareth +was to her but the vague shadow of something that was more than a man, +yet no man at all. I had nearly said that what He came to reveal had +become to her yet more vague from her nebulous notion of Him who was its +revelation. Her religion was, as a matter of course, as dusky and +uncertain, as the object-center of it was obscure and unrealized. Since +her father's death and her comparative isolation, she had read and +thought a good deal; some of my readers may even think she had read and +thought to tolerable purposes judging from her answers to Faber in the +first serious conversation they had; but her religion had lain as before +in a state of dull quiescence, until her late experience, realizing to +her the idea of the special care of which she stood so much in need, +awoke in her a keen sense of delight, and if not a sense of gratitude as +well, yet a dull desire to be grateful. + +The next day, as she sat pondering what had passed between them, +altogether unaware of her own weakness, she was suddenly seized with the +ambition--in its inward relations the same as his--of converting him to +her belief. The purpose justified an interest in him beyond what +gratitude obligated, and was in part the cause why she neither shrank +from his society, nor grew alarmed at the rapid growth of her intimacy. +But they only who love the truth simply and altogether, can really know +what they are about. + +I do not care to follow the intellectual duel between them. Argument, +save that of a man with himself, when council is held between heart, +will, imagination, conscience, vision, and intellect, is of little avail +or worth. Nothing, however, could have suited Faber's desires better. +Under the shadow of such difficulties as the wise man ponders and the +fool flaunts, difficulties which have been difficulties from the dawn +of human thought, and will in new shapes keep returning so long as the +human understanding yearns to infold its origin, Faber brought up an +array of arguments utterly destructive of the wretched theories of forms +of religion which were all she had to bring into the field: so wretched +and false were they--feeblest she found them just where she had regarded +them as invincible--that in destroying them Faber did even a poor part +of the work of a soldier of God: Mephistopheles describes himself as + + Ein Theil von jener Kraft, + Die stets das Boese will, und stets das Gute schafft, + . . . . . . . . . + . . . . der Geist der stets verneint. + +For the nature of Juliet's argument I must be content to refer any +curious reader to the false defenses made, and lies spoken for God, in +many a pulpit and many a volume, by the worshipers of letter and system, +who for their sakes "accept His person," and plead unrighteously for +Him. Before the common sense of Faber, they went down like toys, and +Juliet, without consciously yielding at first, soon came to perceive +that they were worse than worthless--weapons whose handles were sharper +than their blades. She had no others, nor metal of which to make any; +and what with the persuasive influence of the man, and the pleasure in +the mere exercise of her understanding, became more and more interested +as she saw the drift of his argument, and apprehended the weight of what +truth lay upon his side. For even the falsest argument is sustained in +virtue of some show of truth, or perhaps some crumb of reality belonging +to it. The absolute lie, if such be frameable by lips of men, can look +only the blackness of darkness it is. The lie that can hurt, hurts in +the strength of the second lie in which it is folded--a likeness to the +truth. It would have mattered little that she was driven from line after +line of her defense, had she not, while she seemed to herself to be its +champion, actually lost sight of that for which she thought she was +striving. + +It added much to Faber's influence on Juliet, that a tone of pathos and +an element of poetry generally pervaded the forms of his denial. The +tone was the more penetrating that it veiled the pride behind it all, +the pride namely of an unhealthy conscious individuality, the pride of +_self_ as self, which makes a man the center of his own universe, and a +mockery to all the demons of the real universe. That man only who rises +above the small yet mighty predilection, who sets the self of his own +consciousness behind his back, and cherishes only the self of the +Father's thought, the angel that beholds the eternal face, that man only +is a free and noble being, he only breathes the air of the infinite. +Another may well deny the existence of any such Father, any such +infinite, for he knows nothing of the nature of either, and his +testimony for it would be as worthless as that is which he gives against +it. + +The nature of Juliet Meredith was true and trusting--but in respect of +her mother she had been sown in weakness, and she was not yet raised in +strength. Because of his wife, Captain Meredith had more than once had +to exchange regiments. But from him Juliet had inherited a certain +strength of honest purpose, which had stood him in better stead than the +whole sum of his gifts and acquirements, which was by no means +despicable. + +Late one lovely evening in the early summer, they sat together in the +dusky parlor of the cottage, with the window to the garden open. The +sweetest of western airs came in, with a faint scent chiefly of damp +earth, moss, and primroses, in which, to the pensive imagination, the +faded yellow of the sunset seemed to bear a part. + +"I am sorry to say we must shut the window, Miss Meredith," said the +doctor, rising. "You must always be jealous of the night air. It will +never be friendly to you." + +"What enemies we have all about us!" she returned with a slight shiver, +which Faber attributed to the enemy in question, and feared his care had +not amounted to precaution. "It is strange," she went on, "that all +things should conspire, or at least rise, against 'the roof and crown of +things,' as Tennyson calls us. Are they jealous of us?" + +"Clearly, at all events, we are not at home amidst them--not genuinely +so," admitted the doctor. + +"And yet you say we are sprung of them?" said Juliet. + +"We have lifted ourselves above them," rejoined the doctor, "and must +conquer them next." + +"And until we conquer them," suggested Juliet, "our lifting above them +is in vain?" + +"For we return to them," assented Faber; and silence fell.--"Yes," he +resumed, "it is sad. The upper air is sweet, and the heart of man loves +the sun;--" + +"Then," interrupted Juliet, "why would you have me willing to go down +to the darkness?" + +"I would not have you willing. I would have you love the light as you +do. We can not but love the light, for it is good; and the sorrow that +we must leave it, and that so soon, only makes it dearer. The sense of +coming loss is, or ought to be, the strongest of all bonds between the +creatures of a day. The sweetest, saddest, most entrancing songs that +love can sing, must be but variations on this one theme.--'The morning +is clear; the dew mounts heavenward; the odor spreads; the sun looks +over the hill; the world breaks into laughter: let us love one another! +The sun grows hot, the shadow lies deep; let us sit in it, and remember; +the sea lies flashing in green, dulled with purple; the peacock spreads +his glories, a living garden of flowers; all is mute but the rush of the +stream: let us love one another! The soft evening draws nigh; the dew is +coming down again; the air is cool, dusky, and thin; it is sweeter than +the morning; other words of death gleam out of the deepening sky; the +birds close their wings and hide their heads, for death is near: let us +love one another! The night is come, and there is no morrow; it is dark; +the end is nigh; it grows cold; in the darkness and the cold we tremble, +we sink; a moment and we are no more; ah! ah, beloved! let us love, let +us cleave to one another, for we die!'" + +But it seems to me, that the pitifulness with which we ought to regard +each other in the horror of being the offspring of a love we do not +love, in the danger of wandering ever, the children of light, in the +midst of darkness, immeasurably surpasses the pitifulness demanded by +the fancy that we are the creatures of but a day. + +Moved in his soul by the sound of his own words, but himself the harp +upon which the fingers of a mightier Nature than he knew were playing a +prelude to a grander phantasy than he could comprehend, Faber caught the +hand of Juliet where it gleamed white in the gathering gloom. But she +withdrew it, saying in a tone which through the darkness seemed to him +to come from afar, tinged with mockery. + +"You ought to have been a poet--not a doctor, Mr. Faber!" + +The jar of her apparent coolness brought him back with a shock to the +commonplace. He almost shuddered. It was like a gust of icy wind +piercing a summer night. + +"I trust the doctor can rule the poet," he said, recovering his +self-possession with an effort, and rising. + +"The doctor ought at least to keep the poet from falsehood. Is false +poetry any better than false religion?" returned Juliet. + +"I do not quite see--" + +"Your day is not a true picture of life such as you would make it.--Let +me see! I will give you one.--Sit down.--Give me time.--'The morning is +dark; the mist hangs and will not rise; the sodden leaves sink under the +foot; overhead the boughs are bare; the cold creeps into bone and +marrow; let us love one another! The sun is buried in miles of vapor; +the birds sit mute on the damp twigs; the gathered drizzle slowly drips +from the eaves; the wood will not burn in the grate; there is a crust in +the larder, no wine in the cellar: let us love one another!'" + +"Yes!" cried Faber, again seizing her hand, "let us but love, and I am +content!" + +Again she withdrew it. + +"Nay, but hear my song out," she said, turning her face towards the +window.--In the fading light he saw a wild look of pain, which vanished +in a strange, bitter smile as she resumed.--"'The ashes of life's +volcano are falling; they bepowder my hair; its fires have withered the +rose of my lips; my forehead is wrinkled, my cheeks are furrowed, my +brows are sullen; I am weary, and discontented, and unlovely: ah, let us +love one another! The wheels of time grind on; my heart is sick, and +cares not for thee; I care not for myself, and thou art no longer lovely +to me; I can no more recall wherefore I desired thee once; I long only +for the endless sleep; death alone hath charms: to say, Let us love one +another, were now a mockery too bitter to be felt. Even sadness is +withered. No more can it make me sorrowful to brood over the days that +are gone, or to remember the song that once would have made my heart a +fountain of tears. Ah, hah! the folly to think we could love to the end! +But I care not; the fancy served its turn; and there is a grave for thee +and me--apart or together I care not, so I cease. Thou needst not love +me any more; I care not for thy love. I hardly care for the blessed +darkness itself. Give me no sweet oblivious antidote, no precious poison +such as I once prayed for when I feared the loss of love, that it might +open to me the gate of forgetfulness, take me softly in unseen arms, and +sink with me into the during dark. No; I will, not calmly, but in utter +indifference, await the end. I do not love thee; but I can eat, and I +enjoy my wine, and my rubber of whist--'" + +She broke into a dreadful laugh. It was all horribly unnatural! She +rose, and in the deepening twilight seemed to draw herself up far beyond +her height, then turned, and looked out on the shadowy last of the +sunset. Faber rose also. He felt her shudder, though she was not within +two arm's-lengths of him. He sprang to her side. + +"Miss Meredith--Juliet--you have suffered! The world has been too hard +for you! Let me do all I can to make up for it! I too know what +suffering is, and my heart is bleeding for you!" + +"What! are you not part of the world? Are you not her last-born--the +perfection of her heartlessness?--and will _you_ act the farce of +consolation? Is it the last stroke of the eternal mockery?" + +"Juliet," he said, and once more took her hand, "I love you." + +"As a man may!" she rejoined with scorn, and pulled her hand from his +grasp. "No! such love as you can give, is too poor even for me. Love you +I _will_ not. If you speak to me so again, you will drive me away. Talk +to me as you will of your void idol. Tell me of the darkness of his +dwelling, and the sanctuary it affords to poor, tormented, +specter-hunted humanity; but do not talk to me of love also, for where +your idol is, love can not be." + +Faber made a gentle apology, and withdrew--abashed and hurt--vexed with +himself, and annoyed with his failure. + +The moment he was gone, she cast herself on the sofa with a choked +scream, and sobbed, and ground her teeth, but shed no tear. Life had +long been poor, arid, vague; now there was not left even the luxury of +grief! Where all was loss, no loss was worth a tear. + +"It were good for me that I had never been born!" she cried. + +But the doctor came again and again, and looked devotion, though he +never spoke of love. He avoided also for a time any further pressing of +his opinions--talked of poetry, of science, of nature--all he said +tinged with the same sad glow. Then by degrees direct denial came up +again, and Juliet scarcely attempted opposition. Gradually she got quite +used to his doctrine, and as she got used to it, it seemed less +dreadful, and rather less sad. What wickedness could there be in denying +a God whom the very works attributed to him declared not to exist! Mr. +Faber was a man of science, and knew it. She could see for herself that +it must draw closer the bonds between human beings, to learn that there +was no such power to hurt them or aid them, or to claim lordship over +them, and enslave them to his will. For Juliet had never had a glimpse +of the idea, that in oneness with the love-creating Will, alone lies +freedom for the love created. When Faber perceived that his words had +begun and continued to influence her, he, on his part, grew more kindly +disposed toward her superstitions. + +Let me here remark that, until we see God as He is, and are changed into +His likeness, all our beliefs must partake more or less of superstition; +but if there be a God, the greatest superstition of all will be found to +have consisted in denying him. + +"Do not think me incapable," he said one day, after they had at length +slid back into their former freedom with each other, "of seeing much +that is lovely and gracious in the orthodox fancies of religion. Much +depends, of course, upon the nature of the person who holds them. No +belief could be beautiful in a mind that is unlovely. A sonnet of +Shakespeare can be no better than a burned cinder in such a mind as Mrs. +Ramshorn's. But there is Mr. Wingfold, the curate of the abbey-church! a +true, honest man, who will give even an infidel like me fair play: +nothing that finds acceptance with him can be other than noble, whether +it be true or not. I fear he expects me to come over to him one day. I +am sorry he will be disappointed, for he is a fellow quite free from the +flummery of his profession. For my part, I do not see why two friends +should not consent to respect each other's opinions, letting the one do +his best without a God to hinder him, and the other his best with his +belief in one to aid him. Such a pair might be the most emulous of +rivals in good works." + +Juliet returned no satisfactory response to this tentative remark; but +it was from no objection any longer in her mind to such a relation in +the abstract. She had not yet at all consented with herself to abandon +the faith of her father, but she did not see, and indeed it were hard +for any one in her condition to see, why a man and a woman, the one +denying after Faber's fashion, the other believing after hers, should +not live together, and love and help each other. Of all valueless +things, a merely speculative theology is one of the most valueless. To +her, God had never been much more than a name--a name, it is true, that +always occurred to her in any vivid moment of her life; but the Being +whose was that name, was vague to her as a storm of sand--hardly so much +her father as was the first forgotten ancestor of her line. And now it +was sad for her chat at such a time of peculiar emotion, when the heart +is ready to turn of itself toward its unseen origin, feeling after the +fountain of its love, the very occasion of the tide Godward should be an +influence destructive of the same. Under the growing fascination of the +handsome, noble-minded doctor, she was fast losing what little shadow of +faith she had possessed. The theology she had attempted to defend was so +faulty, so unfair to God, that Faber's atheism had an advantage over it +as easy as it was great. His unbelief was less selfish than Juliet's +faith; consequently her faith sank, as her conscience rose meeting what +was true in Faber's utterances. How could it be otherwise when she +opposed lies uttered for the truth, to truths uttered for the lie? the +truth itself she had never been true enough to look in the face. As her +arguments, yea the very things she argued for, went down before him, her +faith, which, to be faith, should have been in the living source of all +true argument, found no object, was swept away like the uprooted weed it +was, and whelmed in returning chaos. + +"If such is your God," he said, "I do Him a favor in denying His +existence, for His very being would be a disgrace to Himself. At times, +as I go my rounds, and think of the horrors of misery and suffering +before me, I feel as if I were out on a campaign against an Evil +supreme, the Author of them all. But when I reflect that He must then +actually create from very joy in the infliction and sight of agony, I am +ashamed of my foolish and cruel, though but momentary imagination, +and--'There can be no such being!' I say. "I but labor in a region of +inexorable law, blind as Justice herself; law that works for good in the +main, and whose carelessness of individual suffering it is for me, and +all who know in any way how, to supplement with the individual care of +man for his fellow-men, who, either from Nature's own necessity, or by +neglect or violation of her laws, find themselves in a sea of troubles." +For Nature herself, to the man who will work in harmony with her, +affords the means of alleviation, of restoration even--who knows if not +of something better still?--the means, that is, of encountering the +ills that result from the breach of her own laws; and the best the man +who would help his fellows can do, is to search after and find such +other laws, whose applied operation will restore the general conduction, +and render life after all an endurable, if not a desirable thing." + +"But you can do nothing with death," said Juliet. + +"Nothing--yet--alas!" + +"Is death a law, or a breach of law, then?" she asked. + +"That is a question I can not answer." + +"In any case, were it not better to let the race die out, instead of +laboriously piecing and patching at a too old garment, and so leave room +for a new race to come up, which the fruit of experience, both sweet and +bitter, left behind in books, might enable to avoid like ruin?" + +"Ages before they were able to read our books, they would have broken +the same laws, found the same evils, and be as far as we are now beyond +the help of foregone experiences: they would have the experience itself, +of whose essence it is, that it is still too late." + +"Then would not the kindest thing be to poison the race--as men on the +prairies meet fire with fire--and so with death foil Death and have done +with dying?" + +"It seems to me better to live on in the hope that someone may yet--in +some far-off age it may only be, but what a thing if it should +be!--discover the law of death, learn how to meet it, and, with its +fore-runners, disease and decay, banish it from the world. Would you +crush the dragonfly, the moth, or the bee, because its days are so few? +Rather would you not pitifully rescue them, that they might enjoy to +their natural end the wild intoxication of being?" + +"Ah, but they are happy while they live!" + +"So also are men--all men--for parts of their time. How many, do you +think, would thank me for the offered poison?" + +Talk after talk of this kind, which the scope of my history forbids me +to follow, took place between them, until at length Juliet, generally +silenced, came to be silenced not unwillingly. All the time, their +common humanity, each perceiving that the other had suffered, was urging +to mutual consolation. And all the time, that mysterious force, +inscrutable as creation itself, which draws the individual man and woman +together, was mightily at work between them--a force which, terrible as +is the array of its attendant shadows, will at length appear to have +been one of the most powerful in the redemption of the world. But Juliet +did nothing, said nothing, to attract Faber. He would have cast himself +before her as a slave begging an owner, but for something in her +carriage which constantly prevented him. At one time he read it as an +unforgotten grief, at another as a cherished affection, and trembled at +the thought of the agonies that might be in store for him. + +Weeks passed, and he had not made one inquiry after a situation for her. +It was not because he would gladly have, prolonged the present +arrangement of things, but that he found it almost impossible to bring +himself to talk about her. If she would but accept him, he thought--then +there would be no need! But he dared not urge her--mainly from fear of +failure, not at all from excess of modesty, seeing he soberly believed +such love and devotion as his, worth the acceptance of any woman--even +while-he believed also, that to be loved of a true woman was the one +only thing which could make up for the enormous swindle of life, in +which man must ever be a sorrow to himself, as ever lagging behind his +own child, his ideal. Even for this, the worm that must forever lie +gnawing in the heart of humanity, it would be consolation enough to +pluck together the roses of youth; they had it in their own power to die +while their odor was yet red. Why did she repel him? Doubtless, he +concluded over and over again, because, with her lofty ideal of love, a +love for this world only seemed to her a love not worth the stooping to +take. If he could but persuade her that the love offered in the agony of +the fire must be a nobler love than that whispered from a bed of roses, +then perhaps, dissolved in confluent sadness and sweetness, she would +hold out to him the chalice of her heart, and the one pearl of the world +would yet be his--a woman all his own--pure as a flower, sad as the +night, and deep as nature unfathomable. + +He had a grand idea of woman. He had been built with a goddess-niche in +his soul, and thought how he would worship the woman that could fill it. +There was a time when she must, beyond question, be one whose radiant +mirror had never reflected form of man but his: now he would be content +if for him she would abjure and obliterate her past. To make the woman +who had loved forget utterly, was a greater victory, he said, than to +wake love in the heart of a girl, and would yield him a finer treasure, +a richer conquest. Only, pure as snow she must be--pure as the sun +himself! Paul Faber was absolutely tyrannous in his notions as to +feminine purity. Like the diamond shield of Prince Arthur, Knight of +Magnificence, must be the purity that would satisfy this lord of the +race who could live without a God! Was he then such a master of purity +himself? one so immaculate that in him such aspiration was no +presumption? Was what he knew himself to be, an idea to mate with his +unspotted ideal? The notion men have of their own worth, and of claims +founded thereon, is amazing; most amazing of all is what a man will set +up to himself as the standard of the woman he will marry. What the woman +may have a right to claim, never enters his thought. He never doubts the +right or righteousness of aspiring to wed a woman between whose nature +and his lies a gulf, wide as between an angel praising God, and a devil +taking refuge from him in a swine. Never a shadow of compunction crosses +the leprous soul, as he stretches forth his arms to infold the clean +woman! Ah, white dove! thou must lie for a while among the pots. If only +thy mother be not more to blame than the wretch that acts but after his +kind! He does hot die of self-loathing! how then could he imagine the +horror of disgust with which a glimpse of him such as he is would blast +the soul of the woman?' Yet has he--what is it?--the virtue? the pride? +or the cruel insolence?--to shrink with rudest abhorrence from one who +is, in nature and history and ruin, his fitting and proper mate! To see +only how a man will be content to be himself the thing which he scorns +another for being, might well be enough to send any one crying to the +God there may be, to come between him and himself. Lord! what a turning +of things upside down there will be one day! What a setting of lasts +first, and firsts last! + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +THE PARK AT NESTLEY. + + +Just inside the park, on a mossy knoll, a little way from the ancient +wrought-iron gate that opened almost upon the one street of Owlkirk, the +rector dug the foundation of his chapel--an oblong Gothic hall, of two +squares and a half, capable of seating all in the parish nearer to it +than to the abbey church. In his wife's eyes, Mr. Bevis was now an +absolute saint, for not only had he begun to build a chapel in his own +grounds, but to read prayers in his own church! She was not the only +one, however, who remarked how devoutly he read them, and his presence +was a great comfort to Wingfold. He often objected to what his curate +preached--but only to his face, and seldom when they were not alone. +There was policy in this restraint: he had come to see that in all +probability he would have to give in--that his curate would most likely +satisfy him that he was right. The relation between them was marvelous +and lovely. The rector's was a quiet awakening, a gentle second birth +almost in old age. But then he had been but a boy all the time, and a +very good sort of boy. He had acted in no small measure according to the +light he had, and time was of course given him to grow in. It is not the +world alone that requires the fullness of its time to come, ere it can +receive a revelation; the individual also has to pass through his +various stages of Pagan, Guebre, Moslem, Jew, Essene--God knows what +all--before he can begin to see and understand the living Christ. The +child has to pass through all the phases of lower animal life; when, +change is arrested, he is born a monster; and in many a Christian the +rudiments of former stages are far from extinct--not seldom revive, and +for the time seem to reabsorb the development, making indeed a monstrous +show. + +"For myself,"--I give a passage from Wingfold's note-book, written for +his wife's reading--"I feel sometimes as if I were yet a pagan, +struggling hard to break through where I see a glimmer of something +better, called Christianity. In any case what I have, can be but a +foretaste of what I have yet to _be_; and if so, then indeed is there a +glory laid up for them that will have God, the _I_ of their _I_, to +throne it in the temple he has built, to pervade the life he has _lifed_ +out of himself. My soul is now as a chaos with a hungry heart of order +buried beneath its slime, that longs and longs for the moving of the +breath of God over its water and mud." + +The foundation-stone of the chapel was to be laid with a short and +simple ceremony, at which no clergy but themselves were to be present. +The rector had not consented, and the curate had not urged, that it +should remain unconsecrated; it was therefore uncertain, so far at least +as Wingfold knew, whether it was to be chapel or lecture hall. In either +case it was for the use and benefit of the villagers, and they were all +invited to be present. A few of the neighbors who were friends of the +rector and his wife, were also invited, and among them was Miss +Meredith. + +Mr. and Mrs. Bevis had long ere now called upon her, and found her, as +Mrs. Bevis said, fit for any society. She had lunched several times with +them, and, her health being now greatly restored, was the readier to +accept the present invitation, that she was growing again anxious about +employment. + +Almost every one was taken with her sweet manner, shaded with sadness. +At one time self-dissatisfaction had made her too anxious to please: in +the mirror of other minds she sought a less unfavorable reflection of +herself. But trouble had greatly modified this tendency, and taken the +too-much out of her courtesy. + +She and Mrs. Puckridge went together, and Faber, calling soon after, +found the door locked. He saw the gathering in the park, however, had +heard something about the ceremony, concluded they were assisting, and, +after a little questioning with himself, led his horse to the gate, made +fast the reins to it, went in, and approached the little assembly. Ere +he reached it, he saw them kneel, whereupon he made a circuit and got +behind a tree, for he would not willingly seem rude, and he dared not be +hypocritical. Thence he descried Juliet kneeling with the rest, and +could not help being rather annoyed. Neither could he help being a +little struck with the unusual kind of prayer the curate was making; for +he spoke as to the God of workmen, the God of invention and creation, +who made the hearts of his creatures so like his own that they must +build and make. + +When the observance was over, and the people were scattering in groups, +till they should be summoned to the repast prepared for them, the rector +caught sight of the doctor, and went to him. + +"Ha, Faber!" he cried, holding out his hand, "this _is_ kind of you! I +should hardly have expected you to be present on such an occasion!" + +"I hoped my presence would not offend you," answered the doctor. "I did +not presume to come closer than just within earshot of your devotions. +Neither must you think me unfriendly for keeping aloof." + +"Certainly not. I would not have you guilty of irreverence." + +"That could hardly be, if I recognized no presence." + +"There was at least," rejoined Mr. Bevis, "the presence of a good many +of your neighbors, to whom you never fail to recognize your duty, and +that is the second half of religion: would it not have showed want of +reverence toward them, to bring an unsympathetic presence into the midst +of their devotion?" + +"That I grant," said the doctor. + +"But it may be," said the curate, who had come up while they talked, +"that what you, perhaps justifiably, refuse to recognize as irreverence, +has its root in some fault of which you are not yet aware." + +"Then I'm not to blame for it," said Faber quietly. + +"But you might be terribly the loser by it." + +"That is, you mean, if there should be One to whom reverence is due?" + +"Yes." + +"Would that be fair, then--in an All-wise, that is, toward an ignorant +being?" + +"I think not. Therefore I look for something to reveal it to you. But, +although I dare not say you are to blame, because that would be to take +upon myself the office of a judge, which is God's alone, He only being +able to give fair play, I would yet have you search yourself, and see +whether you may not come upon something which keeps you from giving full +and honest attention to what some people, as honest as yourself, think +they see true. I am speaking only from my knowledge of myself, and the +conviction that we are all much alike. What if you should discover that +you do not really and absolutely disbelieve in a God?--that the human +nature is not capable of such a disbelief?--that your unbelief has been +only indifference and irreverence--and that to a Being grander and +nobler and fairer than human heart can conceive?" + +"If it be so, let Him punish me," said the doctor gravely. + +"If it be so, He will," said the curate solemnly, "--and you will thank +Him for it--after a while. The God of my belief is too good not to make +Himself known to a man who loves what is fair and honest, as you do." + +The doctor was silent. + +While they were talking thus, two ladies had left the others and now +approached them--Mrs. Wingfold and Miss Meredith. They had heard the +last few sentences, and seeing two clergymen against one infidel, +hastened with the generosity of women to render him what aid they might. + +"I am sure Mr. Faber is honest," said Helen. + +"That is much to say for any man," returned the curate. + +"If any man is, then," adjected Juliet. + +"That is a great _If_," rejoined Wingfold."--Are _you_ honest, Helen?" +he added, turning to his wife. + +"No," she answered; "but I am honester than I was a year ago." + +"So am I," said her husband; "and I hope to be honester yet before +another is over. It's a big thing to say, _I am honest_." + +Juliet was silent, and Helen, who was much interested with her, turned +to see how she was taking it. Her lips were as white as her face. Helen +attributed the change to anger, and was silent also. The same moment the +rector moved toward the place where the luncheon-tables were, and they +all accompanied him, Helen still walking, in a little anxiety, by +Juliet's side. It was some minutes before the color came back to her +lips; but when Helen next addressed her, she answered as gently and +sweetly as if the silence had been nothing but an ordinary one. + +"You will stay and lunch with us, Mr. Faber?" said the rector. "There +can be no hypocrisy in that--eh?" + +"Thank you," returned the doctor heartily; "but my work is waiting me, +and we all agree that _must_ be done, whatever our opinions as to the +ground of the obligation." + +"And no man can say you don't do it," rejoined the curate kindly. +"That's one thing we do agree in, as you say: let us hold by it, Faber, +and keep as good friends as we can, till we grow better ones." + +Faber could not quite match the curate in plain speaking: the pupil was +not up with his master yet. + +"Thank you, Wingfold," he returned, and his voice was not free of +emotion, though Juliet alone felt the tremble of the one vibrating +thread in it. "--Miss Meredith," he went on, turning to her, "I have +heard of something that perhaps may suit you: will you allow me to call +in the evening, and talk it over with you?" + +"Please do," responded Juliet eagerly. "Come before post-time if you +can. It may be necessary to write." + +"I will. Good morning." + +He made a general bow to the company and walked away, cutting off the +heads of the dandelions with his whip as he went. All followed with +their eyes his firm, graceful figure, as he strode over the grass in his +riding-boots and spurs. + +"He's a fine fellow that!" said the rector. "--But, bless me!" he added, +turning to his curate, "how things change! If you had told me a year +ago, the day would come when I should call an atheist a fine fellow, I +should almost have thought you must be one yourself! Yet here I am +saying it--and never in my life so much in earnest to be a Christian! +How is it, Wingfold, my boy?" + +"He who has the spirit of his Master, will speak the truth even of his +Master's enemies," answered the curate. "To this he is driven if he does +not go willingly, for he knows his Master loves his enemies. If you see +Faber a fine fellow, you say so, just as the Lord would, and try the +more to save him. A man who loves and serves his neighbor, let him speak +ever so many words against the Son of Man, is not sinning against the +Holy Ghost. He is still open to the sacred influence--the virtue which +is ever going forth from God to heal. It is the man who in the name of +religion opposes that which he sees to be good, who is in danger of +eternal sin." + +"Come, come, Wingfold! whatever you do, don't mis-quote," said the +rector. + +"I don't say it is the right reading," returned the curate, "but I can +hardly be convicted of misquoting, so long as it is that of the two +oldest manuscripts we have." + +"You always have the better of me," answered the rector. "But tell +me--are not the atheists of the present day a better sort of fellows +than those we used to hear of when we were young?" + +"I do think so. But, as one who believes with his whole soul, and +strives with his whole will, I attribute their betterness to the growing +influences of God upon the race through them that have believed. And I +am certain of this, that, whatever they are, it needs but time and +continued unbelief to bring them down to any level from whatever height. +They will either repent, or fall back into the worst things, believing +no more in their fellow-man and the duty they owe him--of which they now +rightly make so much, and yet not half enough--than they do in God and +His Christ. But I do not believe half the bad things Christians have +said and written of atheists. Indeed I do not believe the greater number +of those they have called such, were atheists at all. I suspect that +worse dishonesty, and greater injustice, are to be found among the +champions, lay and cleric, of religious Opinion, than in any other +class. If God were such a One as many of those who would fancy +themselves His apostles, the universe would be but a huge hell. Look at +certain of the so-called religious newspapers, for instance. Religious! +Their tongue is set on fire of hell. It may be said that they are mere +money-speculations; but what makes them pay? Who buys them? To please +whom do they write? Do not many buy them who are now and then themselves +disgusted with them? Why do they not refuse to touch the unclean things? +Instead of keeping the commandment, 'that he who loveth God love his +brother also,' these, the prime channels of Satanic influence in the +Church, powerfully teach, that He that loveth God must abuse his +brother--or he shall be himself abused." + +"I fancy," said the rector, "they would withhold the name of brother +from those they abuse." + +"No; not always." + +"They would from an unbeliever." + +"Yes. But let them then call him an enemy, and behave to him as +such--that is, love him, or at least try to give him the fair play to +which the most wicked of devils has the same right as the holiest of +saints. It is the vile falsehood and miserable unreality of Christians, +their faithlessness to their Master, their love of their own wretched +sects, their worldliness and unchristianity, their talking and not +doing, that has to answer, I suspect, for the greater part of our +present atheism." + +"I have seen a good deal of Mr. Faber of late," Juliet said, with a +slight tremor in her voice, "and he seems to me incapable of falling +into those vile conditions I used to hear attributed to atheists." + +"The atheism of some men," said the curate, "is a nobler thing than the +Christianity of some of the foremost of so-called and so-believed +Christians, and I may not doubt they will fare better at the last." + +The rector looked a little blank at this, but said nothing. He had so +often found, upon reflection, that what seemed extravagance in his +curate was yet the spirit of Scripture, that he had learned to suspend +judgment. + +Miss Meredith's face glowed with the pleasure of hearing justice +rendered the man in whom she was so much interested, and she looked the +more beautiful. She went soon after luncheon was over, leaving a +favorable impression behind her. Some of the ladies said she was much +too fond of the doctor; but the gentlemen admired her spirit in standing +up for him. Some objected to her paleness; others said it was not +paleness, but fairness, for her eyes and hair were as dark as the night; +but all agreed, that whatever it was to be called, her complexion was +peculiar--some for that very reason judging it the more admirable, and +others the contrary. Some said she was too stately, and attributed her +carriage to a pride to which, in her position, she had no right, they +said. Others judged that she needed such a bearing the more for +self-defense, especially if she had come down in the world. Her dress, +it was generally allowed, was a little too severe--some thought, in its +defiance of the fashion, assuming. No one disputed that she had been +accustomed to good society, and none could say that she had made the +slightest intrusive movement toward their circle. Still, why was it that +nobody knew any thing about her? + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +THE RECTORY. + + +The curate and his wife had a good deal of talk about Juliet as they +drove home from Nestley. Much pleased with herself, they heard from +their hostess what she had learned of her history, and were the more +interested. They must find her a situation, they agreed, where she would +feel at home; and in the meantime would let her understand that, if she +took up her abode in Glaston, and were so inclined, the town was large +enough to give a good hope of finding a few daily engagements. + +Before they left Nestley, Helen had said to Mrs. Bevis that she would +like to ask Miss Meredith to visit them for a few days. + +"No one knows much about her," remarked Mrs. Bevis, feeling responsible. + +"She can't be poison," returned Helen. "And if she were, she couldn't +hurt us. That's the good of being husband and wife: so long as you are +of one mind, you can do almost any thing." + +When Faber called upon Juliet in the evening, nothing passed between +them concerning the situation at which he had hinted. When he entered +she was seated as usual in the corner of the dingy little couch, under +the small window looking into the garden, in the shadow. She did not +rise, but held out her hand to him. He went hastily up to her, took the +hand she offered, sat down beside her, and at once broke into a full +declaration of his love--now voluble, now hesitating, now submissive, +now persuasive, but humblest when most passionate. Whatever the man's +conceit, or his estimate of the thing he would have her accept, it was +in all honesty and modesty that he offered her the surrender of the very +citadel of his being--alas, too "empty, swept, and garnished!" Juliet +kept her head turned from him; he felt the hand he held tremble, and +every now and then make a faint struggle to escape from his; but he +could not see that her emotion was such as hardly to be accounted for +either by pleasure at the hearing of welcome words, or sorrow that her +reply must cause pain. He ceased at length, and with eyes of longing +sought a glimpse of her face, and caught one. Its wild, waste expression +frightened him. It was pallid like an old sunset, and her breath came +and went stormily. Three times, in a growing agony of effort, her lips +failed of speech. She gave a sudden despairing cast of her head +sideways, her mouth opened a little as if with mere helplessness, she +threw a pitiful glance in his face, burst into a tumult of sobs, and +fell back on the couch. Not a tear came to her eyes, but such was her +trouble that she did not even care to lift her hand to her face to hide +the movements of its rebellious muscles. Faber, bewildered, but, from +the habits of his profession, master of himself, instantly prepared her +something, which she took obediently; and as soon as she was quieted a +little, mounted and rode away: two things were clear--one, that she +could not be indifferent to him; the other, that, whatever the cause of +her emotion, she would for the present be better without him. He was +both too kind and too proud to persist in presenting himself. + +The next morning Helen drew up her ponies at Mrs. Puckridge's door, and +Wingfold got out and stood by their heads, while she went in to call on +Miss Meredith. + +Juliet had passed a sleepless night, and greatly dreaded the next +interview with Faber. Helen's invitation, therefore, to pay them a few +days' visit, came to her like a redemption: in their house she would +have protection both from Faber and from herself. Heartily, with tears +in her eyes, she accepted it; and her cordial and grateful readiness +placed her yet a step higher in the regard of her new friends. The +acceptance of a favor may be the conferring of a greater. Quickly, +hurriedly, she put up "her bag of needments," and with a sad, sweet +smile of gentle apology, took the curate's place beside his wife, while +he got into the seat behind. + +Juliet, having been of late so much confined to the house, could not +keep back the tears called forth by the pleasure of the rapid motion +through the air, the constant change of scene, and that sense of human +story which haunts the mind in passing unknown houses and farms and +villages. An old thatched barn works as directly on the social feeling +as the ancient castle or venerable manor-seat; many a simple house will +move one's heart like a poem; many a cottage like a melody. When at last +she caught sight of the great church-tower, she clapped her hands with +delight. There was a place in which to wander and hide! she thought--in +which to find refuge and rest, and coolness and shadow! Even for Faber's +own sake she would not believe that faith a mere folly which had built +such a pile as that! Surely there was some way of meeting the terrible +things he said--if only she could find it! + +"Are you fastidious, Miss Meredith, or willing to do any thing that is +honest?" the curate asked rather abruptly, leaning forward from the back +seat. + +"If ever I was fastidious," she answered, "I think I am pretty nearly +cured. I should certainly like my work to be so far within my capacity +as to be pleasant to me." + +"Then there is no fear," answered the curate. "The people who don't get +on, are those that pick and choose upon false principles. They +generally attempt what they are unfit for, and deserve their +failures.--Are you willing to teach little puds and little tongues?" + +"Certainly." + +"Tell me what you are able to do?" + +"I would rather not. You might think differently when you came to know +me. But you can ask me any questions you please. I shan't hide my +knowledge, and I can't hide my ignorance." + +"Thank you," said the curate, and leaned back again in his seat. + +After luncheon, Helen found to her delight that, although Juliet was +deficient enough in the mechanics belonging to both voice and +instrument, she could yet sing and play with expression and facility, +while her voice was one of the loveliest she had ever heard. When the +curate came home from his afternoon attentions to the ailing of his +flock, he was delighted to hear his wife's report of her gifts. + +"Would you mind reading a page or two aloud?" he said to their visitor, +after they had had a cup of tea. "I often get my wife to read to me." + +She consented at once. He put a volume of Carlyle into her hand. She had +never even tasted a book of his before, yet presently caught the spirit +of the passage, and read charmingly. + +In the course of a day or two they discovered that she was sadly +defective in spelling, a paltry poverty no doubt, yet awkward for one +who would teach children. In grammar and arithmetic also the curate +found her lacking. Going from place to place with her father, she had +never been much at school, she said, and no one had ever compelled her +to attend to the dry things. But nothing could be more satisfactory than +the way in which she now, with the help of the curate and his wife, set +herself to learn; and until she should have gained such proficiency as +would enable them to speak of her acquirements with confidence, they +persuaded her, with no great difficulty, to continue their guest. +Wingfold, who had been a tutor in his day, was well qualified to assist +her, and she learned with wonderful rapidity. + +The point that most perplexed Wingfold with her was that, while very +capable of perceiving and admiring the good, she was yet capable of +admiring things of altogether inferior quality. What did it mean? Could +it arise from an excess of productive faculty, not yet sufficiently +differenced from the receptive? One could imagine such an excess ready +to seize the poorest molds, flow into them, and endow them for itself +with attributed life and power. He found also that she was familiar with +the modes of thought and expression peculiar to a certain school of +theology--embodiments from which, having done their good, and long +commenced doing their evil, Truth had begun to withdraw itself, +consuming as it withdrew. For the moment the fire ceases to be the life +of the bush in which it appears, the bush will begin to be consumed. At +the same time he could perfectly recognize the influence of Faber upon +her. For not unfrequently, the talk between the curate and his wife +would turn upon some point connected with the unbelief of the land, so +much more active, though but seemingly more extensive than heretofore; +when she would now make a remark, now ask a question, in which the +curate heard the doctor as plainly as if the words had come direct from +his lips: those who did not believe might answer so and so--might refuse +the evidence--might explain the thing differently. But she listened +well, and seemed to understand what they said. The best of her +undoubtedly appeared in her music, in which she was fundamentally far +superior to Helen, though by no means so well trained, taught or +practiced in it; whence Helen had the unspeakable delight, one which +only a humble, large and lofty mind can ever have, of consciously +ministering to the growth of another in the very thing wherein that +other is naturally the superior. The way to the blessedness that is in +music, as to all other blessednesses, lies through weary labors, and the +master must suffer with the disciple; Helen took Juliet like a child, +set her to scales and exercises, and made her practice hours a day. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +AT THE PIANO. + + +When Faber called on Juliet, the morning after the last interview +recorded, and found where she was gone, he did not doubt she had taken +refuge with her new friends from his importunity, and was at once +confirmed in the idea he had cherished through the whole wakeful night, +that the cause of her agitation was nothing else than the conflict +between her heart and a false sense of duty, born of prejudice and +superstition. She was not willing to send him away, and yet she dared +not accept him. Her behavior had certainly revealed any thing but +indifference, and therefore must not make him miserable. At the same +time if it was her pleasure to avoid him, what chance had he of seeing +her alone at the rectory? The thought made him so savage that for a +moment he almost imagined his friend had been playing him false. + +"I suppose he thinks every thing fair in religion, as well as in love +and war!" he said to himself. "It's a mighty stake, no doubt--a soul +like Juliet's!" + +He laughed scornfully. It was but a momentary yielding to the temptation +of injustice, however, for his conscience told him at once that the +curate was incapable of any thing either overbearing or underhand. He +would call on her as his patient, and satisfy himself at once how things +were between them. At best they had taken a bad turn. + +He judged it better, however, to let a day or two pass. When he did +call, he was shown into the drawing-room, where he found Helen at the +piano, and Juliet having a singing-lesson from her. Till then he had +never heard Juliet's song voice. A few notes of it dimly reached him as +he approached the room, and perhaps prepared him for the impression he +was about to receive: when the door opened, like a wind on a more mobile +sea, it raised sudden tumult in his soul. Not once in his life had he +ever been agitated in such fashion; he knew himself as he had never +known himself. It was as if some potent element, undreamed of before, +came rushing into the ordered sphere of his world, and shouldered its +elements from the rhythm of their going. It was a full contralto, with +pathos in the very heart of it, and it seemed to wrap itself round his +heart like a serpent of saddest splendor, and press the blood from it up +into his eyes. The ladies were too much occupied to hear him announced, +or note his entrance, as he stood by the door, absorbed, entranced. + +Presently he began to feel annoyed, and proceeded thereupon to take +precautions with himself. For Juliet was having a lesson of the severest +kind, in which she accepted every lightest hint with the most heedful +attention, and conformed thereto with the sweetest obedience; whence it +came that Faber, the next moment after fancying he had screwed his +temper to stoic pitch, found himself passing from displeasure to +indignation, and thence almost to fury, as again and again some +exquisite tone, that went thrilling through all his being, discovering +to him depths and recesses hitherto unimagined, was unceremoniously, or +with briefest apology, cut short for the sake of some suggestion from +Helen. Whether such suggestion was right or wrong, was to Faber not of +the smallest consequence: it was in itself a sacrilege, a breaking into +the house of life, a causing of that to cease whose very being was its +justification. Mrs. Wingfold! she was not fit to sing in the same chorus +with her! Juliet was altogether out of sight of her. He had heard Mrs. +Wingfold sing many a time, and she could no more bring out a note like +one of those she was daring to criticise, than a cat could emulate a +thrush! + +"Ah, Mr. Faber!--I did not know you were there," said Helen at length, +and rose. "We were so busy we never heard you." + +If she had looked at Juliet, she would have said _I_ instead of _we_. +Her kind manner brought Faber to himself a little. + +"Pray, do not apologize," he said. "I could have listened forever." + +"I don't wonder. It is not often one hears notes like those. Were you +aware what a voice you had saved to the world?" + +"Not in the least. Miss Meredith leaves her gifts to be discovered." + +"All good things wait the seeker," said Helen, who had taken to +preaching since she married the curate, some of her half-friends said; +the fact being that life had grown to her so gracious, so happy, so +serious, that she would not unfrequently say a thing worth saying. + +In the interstices of this little talk, Juliet and Faber had shaken +hands, and murmured a conventional word or two. + +"I suppose this is a professional visit?" said Helen. "Shall I leave you +with your patient?" + +As she put the question, however, she turned to Juliet. + +"There is not the least occasion," Juliet replied, a little eagerly, and +with a rather wan smile. "I am quite well, and have dismissed my +doctor." + +Faber was in the mood to imagine more than met the ear, and the words +seemed to him of cruel significance. A flush of anger rose to his +forehead, and battled with the paleness of chagrin. He said nothing. +But Juliet saw and understood. Instantly she held out her hand to him +again, and supplemented the offending speech with the words, + +"--but, I hope, retained my friend?" + +The light rushed again into Faber's eyes, and Juliet repented afresh, +for the words had wrought too far in the other direction. + +"That is," she amended, "if Mr. Faber will condescend to friendship, +after having played the tyrant so long." + +"I can only aspire to it," said the doctor. + +It sounded mere common compliment, the silliest thing between man and +woman, and Mrs. Wingfold divined nothing more: she was not quick in such +matters. Had she suspected, she might, not knowing the mind of the lady +have been a little perplexed. As it was, she did not leave the room, and +presently the curate entered, with a newspaper in his hand. + +"They're still at it, Faber," he said, "with their heated liquids and +animal life!" + +"I need not ask which side you take," said the doctor, not much inclined +to enter upon any discussion. + +"I take neither," answered the curate. "Where is the use, or indeed +possibility, so long as the men of science themselves are disputing +about the facts of experiment? It will be time enough to try to +understand them, when they are agreed and we know what the facts really +are. Whatever they may turn out to be, it is but a truism to say they +must be consistent with all other truth, although they may entirely +upset some of our notions of it." + +"To which side then do you lean, as to the weight of the evidence?" +asked Faber, rather listlessly. + +He had been making some experiments of his own in the direction referred +to. They were not so complete as he would have liked, for he found a +large country practice unfriendly to investigation; but, such as they +were, they favored the conclusion that no form of life appeared where +protection from the air was thorough. + +"I take the evidence," answered the curate, "to be in favor of what they +so absurdly call spontaneous generation." + +"I am surprised to hear you say so," returned Faber. "The conclusions +necessary thereupon, are opposed to all your theology." + +"Must I then, because I believe in a living Truth, be myself an unjust +judge?" said the curate. "But indeed the conclusions are opposed to no +theology I have any acquaintance with; and if they were, it would give +me no concern. Theology is not my origin, but God. Nor do I acknowledge +any theology but what Christ has taught, and has to teach me. When, and +under what circumstances, life comes first into human ken, can not +affect His lessons of trust and fairness. If I were to play tricks with +the truth, shirk an argument, refuse to look a fact in the face, I +should be ashamed to look Him in the face. What he requires of his +friends is pure, open-eyed truth." + +"But how," said the doctor, "can you grant spontaneous generation, and +believe in a Creator?" + +"I said the term was an absurd one," rejoined the curate. + +"Never mind the term then: you admit the fact?" said Faber. + +"What fact?" asked Wingfold. + +"That in a certain liquid, where all life has been destroyed, and where +no contact with life is admitted, life of itself appears," defined the +doctor. + +"No, no; I admit nothing of the sort," cried Wingfold. "I only admit +that the evidence seems in favor of believing that in some liquids that +have been heated to a high point, and kept from the air, life has yet +appeared. How can I tell whether _all_ life already there was first +destroyed? whether a yet higher temperature would not have destroyed yet +more life? What if the heat, presumed to destroy all known germs of life +in them, should be the means of developing other germs, further removed? +Then as to _spontaneity_, as to life appearing of itself, that question +involves something beyond physics. Absolute life can exist only of and +by itself, else were it no perfect thing; but will you say that a mass +of protoplasm--that _proto_ by the way is a begged question--exists by +its own power, appears by its own will? Is it not rather there because +it can not help it?" + +"It is there in virtue of the life that is in it," said Faber. + +"Of course; that is a mere truism," returned Wingfold, "equivalent to, +It lives in virtue of life. There is nothing _spontaneous_ in that. Its +life must in some way spring from the true, the original, the +self-existent life." + +"There you are begging the whole question," objected the doctor. + +"No; not the whole," persisted the curate; "for I fancy you will +yourself admit there is some blind driving law behind the phenomenon. +But now I will beg the whole question, if you like to say so, for the +sake of a bit of purely metaphysical argument: the law of life behind, +if it be spontaneously existent, can not be a blind, deaf, unconscious +law; if it be unconscious of itself, it can not be spontaneous; whatever +is of itself must be God, and the source of all non-spontaneous, that +is, all other existence." + +"Then it has been only a dispute about a word?" said Faber. + +"Yes, but a word involving a tremendous question," answered Wingfold. + +"Which I give up altogether," said the doctor, "asserting that there is +_nothing_ spontaneous, in the sense you give the word--the original +sense I admit. From all eternity a blind, unconscious law has been at +work, producing." + +"I say, an awful living Love and Truth and Right, creating children of +its own," said the curate--"and there is our difference." + +"Yes," assented Faber. + +"Anyhow, then," said Wingfold, "so far as regards the matter in hand, +all we can say is, that under such and such circumstances life +_appears--whence_, we believe differently; _how_, neither of us can +tell--perhaps will ever be able to tell. I can't talk in scientific +phrase like you, Faber, but truth is not tied to any form of words." + +"It is well disputed," said the doctor, "and I am inclined to grant that +the question with which we started does not immediately concern the +great differences between us." + +It was rather hard upon Faber to have to argue when out of condition and +with a lady beside to whom he was longing to pour out his soul--his +antagonist a man who never counted a sufficing victory gained, unless +his adversary had had light and wind both in his back. Trifling as was +the occasion of the present skirmish, he had taken his stand on the +lower ground. Faber imagined he read both triumph and pity in Juliet's +regard, and could scarcely endure his position a moment longer. + +"Shall we have some music?" said Wingfold. "--I see the piano open. Or +are you one of those worshipers of work, who put music in the morning in +the same category with looking on the wine when it is red?" + +"Theoretically, no; but practically, yes," answered Faber, "--at least +for to-day. I shouldn't like poor Widow Mullens to lie listening to the +sound of that old water-wheel, till it took up its parable against the +faithlessness of men in general, and the doctor in particular. I can't +do her much good, poor old soul, but I can at least make her fancy +herself of consequence enough not to be forgotten." + +The curate frowned a little--thoughtfully--but said nothing, and +followed his visitor to the door. When he returned, he said, + +"I wonder what it is in that man that won't let him believe!" + +"Perhaps he will yet, some day," said Juliet, softly. + +"He will; he must," answered the curate. "He always reminds me of the +young man who had kept the law, and whom our Lord loved. Surely he must +have been one of the first that came and laid his wealth at the +apostles' feet! May not even that half of the law which Faber tries to +keep, be school-master enough to lead him to Christ?--But come, Miss +Meredith; now for our mathematics!" + +Every two or three days the doctor called to see his late patient. She +wanted looking after, he said. But not once did he see her alone. He +could not tell from their behavior whether she or her hostess was to +blame for his recurring disappointment; but the fact was, that his ring +at the door-bell was the signal to Juliet not to be alone. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +THE PASTOR'S STUDY. + + +Happening at length to hear that visitors were expected, Juliet, +notwithstanding the assurances of her hostess that there was plenty of +room for her, insisted on finding lodgings, and taking more direct +measures for obtaining employment. But the curate had not been idle in +her affairs, and had already arranged for her with some of his own +people who had small children, only he had meant she should not begin +just yet. He wanted her both to be a little stronger, and to have got a +little further with one or two of her studies. And now, consulting with +Helen, he broached a new idea on the matter of her lodgment. + +A day or two before Jones, the butcher, had been talking to him about +Mr. Drake--saying how badly his congregation had behaved to him, and in +what trouble he had come to him, because he could not pay his bill. The +good fellow had all this time never mentioned the matter; and it was +from growing concern about the minister that he now spoke of it to the +curate. + +"We don't know all the circumstances, however, Mr. Jones," the curate +replied; "and perhaps Mr. Drake himself does not think so badly of it as +you do. He is a most worthy man. Mind you let him have whatever he +wants. I'll see to you. Don't mention it to a soul." + +"Bless your heart and liver, sir!" exclaimed the butcher, "he's ten +times too much of a gentleman to do a kindness to. I couldn't take no +liberty with that man--no, not if he was 'most dead of hunger. He'd eat +the rats out of his own cellar, I do believe, before he'd accept what +you may call a charity; and for buying when he knows he can't pay, why +he'd beg outright before he'd do that. What he do live on now I can't +nohow make out--and that's what doos make me angry with him--as if a +honest tradesman didn't know how to behave to a gentleman! Why, they +tell me, sir, he did use to drive his carriage and pair in London! And +now he's a doin' of his best to live on nothink at all!--leastways, so +they tell me--seem' as how he'd have 'em believe he was turned a--what's +it they call it!--a--a--a wegetablarian!--that's what he do, sir! But I +know better. He may be eatin' grass like a ox, as did that same old king +o' Israel as growed the feathers and claws in consequence; and I don't +say he ain't; but one thing I'm sure of, and that is, that if he be, +it's by cause he can't help it. Why, sir, I put it to you--no gentleman +would--if he could help it.--Why don't he come to me for a bit o' +wholesome meat?" he went on in a sorely injured tone. "He knows I'm +ready for anythink in reason! Them peas an' beans an' cabbages an' +porridges an' carrots an' turmits--why, sir, they ain't nothink at all +but water an' wind. I don't say as they mayn't keep a body alive for a +year or two, but, bless you, there's nothink in them; and the man'll be +a skelinton long before he's dead an' buried; an' I shed jest like to +know where's the good o' life on sich terms as them!" + +Thus Jones, the butcher--a man who never sold bad meat, never charged +for an ounce more than he delivered, and when he sold to the poor, +considered them. In buying and selling he had a weakness for giving the +fair play he demanded. He had a little spare money somewhere, but he did +not make a fortune out of hunger, retire early, and build churches. A +local preacher once asked him if he knew what was the plan of salvation. +He answered with the utmost innocence, cutting him off a great lump of +leg of beef for a family he had just told him was starving, that he +hadn't an idea, but no Christian could doubt it was all right. + +The curate, then, pondering over what Mr. Jones had told him, had an +idea; and now he and his wife were speedily of one mind as to attempting +an arrangement for Juliet with Miss Drake. What she would be able to pay +would, they thought, ease them a little, while she would have the +advantage of a better protection than a lodging with more humble people +would afford her. Juliet was willing for any thing they thought best. + +Wingfold therefore called on the minister, to make the proposal to him, +and was shown up to his study--a mere box, where there was just room for +a chair on each side of the little writing-table. The walls from top to +bottom were entirely hidden with books. + +Mr. Drake received him with a touching mixture of sadness and +cordiality, and heard in silence what he had to say. + +"It is very kind of you to think of us, Mr. Wingfold," he replied, after +a moment's pause. "But I fear the thing is impossible. Indeed, it is out +of the question. Circumstances are changed with us. Things are not as +they once were." + +There had always been a certain negative virtue in Mr. Drake, which only +his friends were able to see, and only the wisest of them to set over +against his display--this, namely, that he never attempted to gain +credit for what he knew he had not. As he was not above show, I can not +say he was safely above false show, for he who is capable of the one is +still in danger of the other; but he was altogether above deception: +that he scorned. If, in his time of plenty he liked men to be aware of +his worldly facilities, he now, in the time of his poverty, preferred +that men should be aware of the bonds in which he lived. His nature was +simple, and loved to let in the daylight. Concealment was altogether +alien to him. From morning to night anxious, he could not bear to be +supposed of easy heart. Some men think poverty such a shame that they +would rather be judged absolutely mean than confess it. Mr. Drake's +openness may have sprung from too great a desire for sympathy; or from +a diseased honesty--I can not tell; I will freely allow that if his +faith had been as a grain of mustard seed, he would not have been so +haunted with a sense of his poverty, as to be morbidly anxious to +confess it. He would have known that his affairs were in high charge: +and that, in the full flow of the fountain of prosperity, as well as in +the scanty, gravelly driblets from the hard-wrought pump of poverty, the +supply came all the same from under the throne of God, and he would not +have _felt_ poor. A man ought never to feel rich for riches, nor poor +for poverty. The perfect man must always feel rich, because God is rich. + +"The fact is," Mr. Drake went on, "we are very poor--absolutely poor, +Mr. Wingfold--so poor that I may not even refuse the trifling annuity my +late congregation will dole out to me." + +"I am sorry to know it," said the curate. + +"But I must take heed of injustice," the pastor resumed; "I do not think +they would have treated me so had they not imagined me possessed of +private means. The pity now is that the necessity which would make me +glad to fall in with your kind proposal itself renders the thing +impracticable. Even with what your friend would contribute to the +housekeeping we could not provide a table fit for her. But Dorothy ought +to have the pleasure of hearing your kind proposition: if you will allow +me I will call her." + +Dorothy was in the kitchen, making pastry--for the rare treat of a +chicken pudding: they had had a present of a couple of chickens from +Mrs. Thomson--when she heard her father's voice calling her from the top +of the little stair. When Lisbeth opened the door to the curate she was +on her way out, and had not yet returned; so she did not know any one +was with him, and hurried up with her arms bare. She recoiled half a +step when she saw Mr. Wingfold, then went frankly forward to welcome +him, her hands in her white pinafore. + +"It's only flour," she said, smiling. + +"It is a rare pleasure now-a-days to catch a lady at work" said +Wingfold. "My wife always dusts my study for me. I told her I would not +have it done except she did it--just to have the pleasure of seeing her +at it. My conviction is, that only a lady can become a thorough +servant." + +"Why don't you have lady-helps then?" said Dorothy. + +"Because I don't know where to find them. Ladies are scarce; and any +thing almost would be better than a houseful of half-ladies." + +"I think I understand," said Dorothy thoughtfully. + +Her father now stated Mr. Wingfold's proposal--in the tone of one sorry +to be unable to entertain it. + +"I see perfectly why you think we could not manage it, papa," said +Dorothy. "But why should not Miss Meredith lodge with us in the same way +as with Mrs. Puckridge? She could have the drawing-room and my bedroom, +and her meals by herself. Lisbeth is wretched for want of dinners to +cook." + +"Miss Meredith would hardly relish the idea of turning you out of your +drawing-room," said Wingfold. + +"Tell her it may save us from being turned out of the house. Tell her +she will be a great help to us," returned Dorothy eagerly. + +"My child," said her father, the tears standing in his eyes, "your +reproach sinks into my very soul." + +"My reproach, father!" repeated Dorothy aghast. "How you do mistake me! +I can't say with you that the will of God is every thing; but I can say +that far less than your will--your ability--will always be enough for +me." + +"My child," returned her father, "you go on to rebuke me! You are +immeasurably truer to me than I am to my God.--Mr. Wingfold, you love +the Lord, else I would not confess my sin to you: of late I have often +thought, or at least felt as if He was dealing hardly with me. Ah, my +dear sir! you are a young man: for the peace of your soul serve God so, +that, by the time you are my age, you may be sure of Him. I try hard to +put my trust in Him, but my faith is weak. It ought by this time to have +been strong. I always want to see the way He is leading me--to +understand something of what He is doing with me or teaching me, before +I can accept His will, or get my heart to consent not to complain. It +makes me very unhappy. I begin to fear that I have never known even the +beginning of confidence, and that faith has been with me but a thing of +the understanding and the lips." + +He bowed his head on his hands. Dorothy went up to him and laid a hand +on his shoulder, looking unspeakably sad. A sudden impulse moved the +curate. + +"Let us pray," he said, rising, and kneeled down. + +It was a strange, unlikely thing to do; but he was an unlikely man, and +did it. The others made haste to kneel also. + +"God of justice," he said, "Thou knowest how hard it is for us, and Thou +wilt be fair to us. We have seen no visions; we have never heard the +voice of Thy Son, of whom those tales, so dear to us, have come down the +ages; we have to fight on in much darkness of spirit and of mind, both +from the ignorance we can not help, and from the fault we could have +helped; we inherit blindness from the error of our fathers; and when +fear, or the dread of shame, or the pains of death, come upon us, we are +ready to despair, and cry out that there is no God, or, if there be, He +has forgotten His children. There are times when the darkness closes +about us like a wall, and Thou appearest nowhere, either in our hearts, +or in the outer universe; we can not tell whether the things we seemed +to do in Thy name, were not mere hypocrisies, and our very life is but a +gulf of darkness. We cry aloud, and our despair is as a fire in our +bones to make us cry; but to all our crying and listening, there seems +neither hearing nor answer in the boundless waste. Thou who knowest +Thyself God, who knowest Thyself that for which we groan, Thou whom +Jesus called Father, we appeal to Thee, not as we imagine Thee, but as +Thou seest Thyself, as Jesus knows Thee, to Thy very self we cry--help +us, O Cause of us! O Thou from whom alone we are this weakness, through +whom alone we can become strength, help us--be our Father. We ask for +nothing beyond what Thy Son has told us to ask. We beg for no signs or +wonders, but for Thy breath upon our souls, Thy spirit in our hearts. We +pray for no cloven tongues of fire--for no mighty rousing of brain or +imagination; but we do, with all our power of prayer, pray for Thy +spirit; we do not even pray to know that it is given to us; let us, if +so it pleases Thee, remain in doubt of the gift for years to come--but +lead us thereby. Knowing ourselves only as poor and feeble, aware only +of ordinary and common movements of mind and soul, may we yet be +possessed by the spirit of God, led by His will in ours. For all things +in a man, even those that seem to him the commonest and least uplifted, +are the creation of Thy heart, and by the lowly doors of our wavering +judgment, dull imagination, luke-warm love, and palsied will, Thou canst +enter and glorify all. Give us patience because our hope is in Thee, not +in ourselves. Work Thy will in us, and our prayers are ended. Amen." + +They rose. The curate said he would call again in the evening, bade +them good-by, and went. Mr. Drake turned to his daughter and said-- + +"Dorothy, that's not the way I have been used to pray or hear people +pray; nevertheless the young man seemed to speak very straight up to +God. It appears to me there was another spirit there with his. I will +humble myself before the Lord. Who knows but he may lift me up!" + +"What can my father mean by saying that perhaps God will lift him up?" +said Dorothy to herself when she was alone. "It seems to me if I only +knew God was anywhere, I should want no other lifting up. I should then +be lifted up above every thing forever." + +Had she said so to the curate, he would have told her that the only way +to be absolutely certain of God, is to see Him as He is, and for that we +must first become absolutely pure in heart. For this He is working in +us, and perfection and vision will flash together. Were conviction +possible without that purity and that vision, I imagine it would work +evil in us, fix in their imperfection our ideas, notions, feelings, +concerning God, give us for His glory the warped reflection of our +cracked and spotted and rippled glass, and so turn our worship into an +idolatry. + +Dorothy was a rather little woman, with lightish auburn hair, a large +and somewhat heavy forehead, fine gray eyes, small well-fashioned +features, a fair complexion on a thin skin, and a mouth that would have +been better in shape if it had not so often been informed of trouble. +With this trouble their poverty had nothing to do; that did not weigh +upon her a straw. She was proud to share her father's lot, and could +have lived on as little as any laboring woman with seven children. She +was indeed a trifle happier since her father's displacement, and would +have been happier still had he found it within the barest possibility to +decline the annuity allotted him; for, as far back as she could +remember, she had been aware of a dislike to his position--partly from +pride it may be, but partly also from a sense of the imperfection of the +relation between him and his people--one in which love must be +altogether predominant, else is it hateful--and chiefly because of a +certain sordid element in the community--a vile way of looking at sacred +things through the spectacles of mammon, more evident--I only say more +evident--in dissenting than in Church of England communities, because of +the pressure of expenses upon them. Perhaps the impossibility of +regarding her father's church with reverence, laid her mind more open to +the cause of her trouble--such doubts, namely, as an active intellect, +nourished on some of the best books, and disgusted with the weak fervor +of others rated high in her hearing, had been suggesting for years +before any words of Faber's reached her. The more her devout nature +longed to worship, the more she found it impossible to worship that +which was presented for her love and adoration. See believed entirely in +her father, but she knew he could not meet her doubts, for many things +made it plain that he had never had such himself. An ordinary mind that +has had doubts, and has encountered and overcome them, or verified and +found them the porters of the gates of truth, may be profoundly useful +to any mind similarly assailed; but no knowledge of books, no amount of +logic, no degree of acquaintance with the wisest conclusions of others, +can enable a man who has not encountered skepticism in his own mind, to +afford any essential help to those caught in the net. For one thing, +such a man will be incapable of conceiving the possibility that the net +may be the net of The Fisher of Men. + +Dorothy, therefore, was sorely oppressed. For a long time her life had +seemed withering from her, and now that her father was fainting on the +steep path, and she had no water to offer him, she was ready to cry +aloud in bitterness of spirit. + +She had never heard the curate preach--had heard talk of his oddity on +all sides, from men and women no more capable of judging him than the +caterpillar of judging the butterfly--which yet it must become. The +draper, who understood him, naturally shrunk from praising to her the +teaching for which he not unfrequently deserted that of her father, and +she never looked in the direction of him with any hope. Yet now, the +very first time she had heard him speak out of the abundance of his +heart, he had left behind him a faint brown ray of hope in hers. It was +very peculiar of him to break out in prayer after such an abrupt +fashion--in the presence of an older minister than himself--and praying +for him too! But there was such an appearance of reality about the man! +such a simplicity in his look! such a directness in his petitions! such +an active fervor of hope in his tone--without an atom of what she had +heard called _unction_! His thought and speech appeared to arise from no +separated sacred mood that might be assumed and laid aside, but from +present faith and feeling, from the absolute point of life at that +moment being lived by him. It was an immediate appeal to a hearing, and +understanding, and caring God, whose breath was the very air His +creatures breathed, the element of their life; an utter acknowledgment +of His will as the bliss of His sons and daughters! Such was the shining +of the curate's light, and it awoke hope in Dorothy. + +In the evening he came again as he had said, and brought Juliet. Each in +the other, Dorothy and she recognized suffering, and in a very few +moments every thing was arranged between them. Juliet was charmed with +the simplicity and intentness of Dorothy; in Juliet's manner and +carriage, Dorothy at once recognized a breeding superior to her own, and +at once laid hold of the excellence by acknowledging it. In a moment she +made Juliet understand how things were, and Juliet saw as quickly that +she must assent to the arrangement proposed. But she had not been with +them two days, when Dorothy found the drawing-room as open to her as +before she came, and far more pleasant. + +While the girls were talking below, the two clergymen sat again in the +study. + +"I have taken the liberty," said the curate, "of bringing an old book I +should like you to look at, if you don't mind--chiefly for the sake of +some verses that pleased me much when I read them first, and now please +me more when I read them for the tenth time. If you will allow me, I +will read them to you." + +Mr. Drake liked good poetry, but did not much relish being called upon +to admire, as he imagined he was now. He assented, of course, graciously +enough, and soon found his mistake. + +This is the poem Wingfold read: + + CONSIDER THE RAVENS. + + Lord, according to Thy words, + I have considered Thy birds; + And I find their life good, + And better the better understood; + Sowing neither corn nor wheat, + They have all that they can eat; + Reaping no more than they sow. + They have all they can stow; + Having neither barn nor store, + Hungry again, they eat more. + + Considering, I see too that they + Have a busy life, and plenty of play; + In the earth they dig their bills deep, + And work well though they do not heap; + Then to play in the air they are not loth, + And their nests between are better than both. + + But this is when there blow no storms; + When berries are plenty in winter, and worms; + When their feathers are thick, and oil is enough + To keep the cold out and the rain off: + If there should come a long hard frost, + Then it looks as Thy birds were lost. + + But I consider further, and find + A hungry bird has a free mind; + He is hungry to-day, not to-morrow; + Steals no comfort, no grief doth borrow; + This moment is his, Thy will hath said it, + The next is nothing till Thou hast made it. + + The bird has pain, but has no fear, + Which is the worst of any gear; + When cold and hunger and harm betide him, + He gathers them not to stuff inside him; + Content with the day's ill he has got, + He waits just, nor haggles with his lot; + Neither jumbles God's will + With driblets from his own still. + + But next I see, in my endeavor, + Thy birds here do not live forever; + That cold or hunger, sickness or age, + Finishes their earthly stage; + The rook drops without a stroke, + And never gives another croak; + Birds lie here, and birds lie there, + With little feathers all astare; + And in Thy own sermon, Thou + That the sparrow falls dost allow. + + It shall not cause me any alarm, + For neither so comes the bird to harm, + Seeing our Father, Thou hast said, + Is by the sparrow's dying bed; + Therefore it is a blessed place, + And the sparrow in high grace. + + It cometh therefore to this. Lord; + I have considered Thy word, + And henceforth will be Thy bird. + +By the time Wingfold ceased, the tears were running down the old man's +face. When he saw that, the curate rose at once, laid the book on the +table, shook hands with him, and went away. The minister laid his head +on the table, and wept. + +Juliet had soon almost as much teaching as she could manage. People +liked her, and children came to love her a little. A good report of her +spread. The work was hard, chiefly because it included more walking than +she had been accustomed to; but Dorothy generally walked with her, and +to the places furthest off, Helen frequently took her with her ponies, +and she got through the day's work pretty well. The fees were small, but +they sufficed, and made life a little easier to her host and his family. +Amanda got very fond of her, and, without pretending to teach her, +Juliet taught her a good deal. On Sundays she went to church; and +Dorothy, although it cost her a struggle to face the imputation of +resentment, by which the chapel-people would necessarily interpret the +change, went regularly with her, in the growing hope of receiving light +from the curate. Her father also not unfrequently accompanied her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +TWO MINDS. + + +All this time poor Faber, to his offer of himself to Juliet, had +received no answer but a swoon--or something very near it. Every attempt +he made to see her alone at the rectory had been foiled; and he almost +came to the conclusion that the curate and his wife had set themselves +to prejudice against himself a mind already prejudiced against his +principles. It added to his uneasiness that, as he soon discovered, she +went regularly to church. He knew the power and persuasion of Wingfold, +and looked upon his influence as antagonistic to his hopes. Pride, +anger, and fear were all at work in him; but he went on calling, and did +his best to preserve an untroubled demeanor. Juliet imagined no change +in his feelings, and her behavior to him was not such as to prevent them +from deepening still. + +Every time he went it was with a desperate resolution of laying his +hand on the veil in which she had wrapped herself, but every time he +found it impossible, for one reason or another, to make a single +movement toward withdrawing it. Again and again he tried to write to +her, but the haunting suspicion that she would lay his epistle before +her new friends, always made him throw down his pen in a smothering +indignation. He found himself compelled to wait what opportunity chance +or change might afford him. + +When he learned that she had gone to live with the Drakes, it was a +relief to him; for although he knew the minister was far more personal +in his hostility than Wingfold, he was confident his influence over her +would not be so great; and now he would have a better chance, he +thought, of seeing her alone. Meantime he took satisfaction in knowing +that he did not neglect a single patient, and that in no case had he +been less successful either as to diagnosis or treatment because of his +trouble. He pitied himself just a little as a martyr to the truth, a +martyr the more meritorious that the truth to which he sacrificed +himself gave him no hope for the future, and for the present no shadow +of compensation beyond the satisfaction of not being deceived. It +remains a question, however, which there was no one to put to +Faber--whether he had not some amends in relief from the notion, vaguely +it may be, yet unpleasantly haunting many minds--of a Supreme Being--a +Deity--putting forth claims to obedience--an uncomfortable sort of +phantom, however imaginary, for one to have brooding above him, and +continually coming between him and the freedom of an else empty +universe. To the human soul as I have learned to know it, an empty +universe would be as an exhausted receiver to the lungs that thirst for +air; but Faber liked the idea: how he would have liked the reality +remains another thing. I suspect that what we call damnation is +something as near it as it can be made; itself it can not be, for even +the damned must live by God's life. Was it, I repeat, no compensation +for his martyrdom to his precious truth, to know that to none had he to +render an account? Was he relieved from no misty sense of a moral +consciousness judging his, and ready to enforce its rebuke--a belief +which seems to me to involve the highest idea, the noblest pledge, the +richest promise of our nature? There may be men in whose turning from +implicit to explicit denial, no such element of relief is concerned--I +can not tell; but although the structure of Paul Faber's life had in it +material of noble sort, I doubt if he was one of such. + +The summer at length reigned lordly in the land. The roses were in +bloom, from the black purple to the warm white. Ah, those roses! He must +indeed be a God who invented the roses. They sank into the red hearts of +men and women, caused old men to sigh, young men to long, and women to +weep with strange ecstatic sadness. But their scent made Faber lonely +and poor, for the rose-heart would not open its leaves to him. + +The winds were soft and odor-laden. The wide meadows through which +flowed the river, seemed to smite the eye with their greenness; and the +black and red and white kine bent down their sleek necks among the +marsh-marigolds and the meadow-sweet and the hundred lovely things that +border the level water-courses, and fed on the blessed grass. Along the +banks, here with nets, there with rod and line, they caught the gleaming +salmon, and his silver armor flashed useless in the sun. The old pastor +sat much in his little summer-house, and paced his green walk on the +border of the Lythe; but in all the gold of the sunlight, in all the +glow and the plenty around him, his heart was oppressed with the sense +of his poverty. It was not that he could not do the thing he would, but +that he could not meet and rectify the thing he had done. He could +behave, he said to himself, neither as a gentleman nor a Christian, for +lack of money; and, worst of all, he could not get rid of a sense of +wrong--of rebellious heavings of heart, of resentments, of doubts that +came thick upon him--not of the existence of God, nor of His goodness +towards men in general, but of His kindness to himself. Logically, no +doubt, they were all bound in one, and the being that could be unfair to +a beetle could not be God, could not make a beetle; but our feelings, +especially where a wretched self is concerned, are notably illogical. + +The morning of a glorious day came in with saffron, gold, and crimson. +The color sobered, but the glory grew. The fleeting dyes passed, but the +azure sky, the white clouds, and the yellow fire remained. The larks +dropped down to their breakfast. The kine had long been busy at theirs, +for they had slept their short night in the midst of their food. Every +thing that could move was in motion, and what could not move was +shining, and what could not shine was feeling warm. But the pastor was +tossing restless. He had a troubled night. The rent of his house fell +due with the miserable pittance allowed him by the church; but the hard +thing was not that he had to pay nearly the whole of the latter to meet +the former, but that he must first take it. The thought of that burned +in his veins like poison. But he had no choice. To refuse it would be +dishonest; it would be to spare or perhaps indulge his feelings at the +expense of the guiltless. He must not kill himself, he said, because he +had insured his life, and the act would leave his daughter nearly +destitute. Yet how was the insurance longer to be paid? It _was_ hard, +with all his faults, to be brought to this! It _was_ hard that he who +all his life had been urging people to have faith, should have his own +turned into a mockery. + +Here heart and conscience together smote him. Well might his faith be +mocked, for what better was it than a mockery itself! Where was this +thing he called his faith? Was he not cherishing, talking flat +unbelief?--as much as telling God he did _not_ trust in Him? Where was +the faithlessness of which his faithlessness complained? A phantom of +its own! Yea, let God be true and every man a liar! Had the hour come, +and not the money? A fine faith it was that depended on the very +presence of the help!--that required for its existence that the supply +should come before the need!--a fine faith in truth, which still would +follow in the rear of sight!--But why then did God leave him thus +without faith? Why did not God make him able to trust? He had prayed +quite as much for faith as for money. His conscience replied, "That is +your part--the thing you will not do. If God put faith into your heart +without your stirring up your heart to believe, the faith would be God's +and not yours. It is true all is God's; he made this you call _me_, and +made it able to believe, and gave you Himself to believe in; and if +after that He were to make you believe without you doing your utmost +part, He would be making you down again into a sort of holy dog, not +making you grow a man like Christ Jesus His Son"--"But I have tried hard +to trust in Him," said the little self.--"Yes, and then fainted and +ceased," said the great self, the conscience. + +Thus it went on in the poor man's soul. Ever and anon he said to +himself, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him," and ever and anon +his heart sickened afresh, and he said to himself, "I shall go down to +the grave with shame, and my memorial will be debts unpaid, for the +Lord hath forsaken me." All the night he had lain wrestling with fear +and doubt: fear was hard upon him, but doubt was much harder. "If I +could but trust," he said, "I could endure any thing." + +In the splendor of the dawn, he fell into a troubled sleep, and a more +troubled dream, which woke him again to misery. Outside his chamber, the +world was rich in light, in song, in warmth, in odor, in growth, in +color, in space; inside, all was to him gloomy, groanful, cold, musty, +ungenial, dingy, confined; yet there was he more at ease, shrunk from +the light, and in the glorious morning that shone through the chinks of +his shutters, saw but an alien common day, not the coach of his Father, +come to carry him yet another stage toward his home. He was in want of +nothing at the moment. There were no holes in the well-polished shoes +that seemed to keep ghostly guard outside his chamber-door. The clothes +that lay by his bedside were indeed a little threadbare, but sound and +spotless. The hat that hung in the passage below might have been much +shabbier without necessarily indicating poverty. His walking-stick had a +gold knob like any earl's. If he did choose to smoke a church-warden, he +had a great silver-mounted meerschaum on his mantle-shelf. True, the +butcher's shop had for some time contributed nothing to his dinners, but +his vegetable diet agreed with him. He would himself have given any man +time, would as soon have taken his child by the throat as his debtor, +had worshiped God after a bettering fashion for forty years at least, +and yet would not give God time to do His best for him--the best that +perfect love, and power limited only by the lack of full consent in the +man himself, could do. + +His daughter always came into his room the first thing in the morning. +It was plain to her that he had been more restless than usual, and at +sight of his glazy red-rimmed eyes and gray face, her heart sank within +her. For a moment she was half angry with him, thinking in herself that +if she believed as he did, she would never trouble her heart about any +thing: her head should do all the business. But with his faith, she +would have done just the same as he, It is one thing to be so used to +certain statements and modes of thought that you take all for true, and +quite another so to believe the heart of it all, that you are in +essential and imperturbable peace and gladness because of it. But oh, +how the poor girl sighed for the freedom of a God to trust in! She could +content herself with the husks the swine ate, if she only knew that a +Father sat at the home-heart of the universe, wanting to have her. +Faithful in her faithlessness, she did her best to comfort her +_believing_ father: beyond the love that offered it, she had but cold +comfort to give. He did not listen to a word she said, and she left him +at last with a sigh, and went to get him his breakfast. When she +returned, she brought him his letters with his tea and toast. He told +her to take them away: she might open them herself if she liked; they +could be nothing but bills! She might take the tray too; he did not want +any breakfast: what right had he to eat what he had no money to pay for! +There would be a long bill at the baker's next! What right had any one +to live on other people! Dorothy told him she paid for every loaf as it +came, and that there was no bill at the baker's, though indeed he had +done his best to begin one. He stretched out his arms, drew her down to +his bosom, said she was his only comfort, then pushed her away, turned +his face to the wall, and wept. She saw it would be better to leave him, +and, knowing in this mood he would eat nothing, she carried the tray +with her. A few moments after, she came rushing up the stair like a +wind, and entered his room swiftly, her face "white with the whiteness +of what is dead." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +THE MINISTER'S BEDROOM. + + +The next day, in the afternoon, old Lisbeth appeared at the rectory, +with a hurried note, in which Dorothy begged Mr. Wingfold to come and +see her father. The curate rose at once and went. When he reached the +house, Dorothy, who had evidently been watching for his arrival, herself +opened the door. + +"What's the matter?" he asked. "Nothing alarming, I hope?" + +"I hope not," she answered. There was a strange light on her face, like +that of a sunless sky on a deep, shadowed well. "But I am a little +alarmed about him. He has suffered much of late. Ah, Mr. Wingfold, you +don't know how good he is! Of course, being no friend to the church--" + +"I don't wonder at that, the church is so little of a friend to +herself," interrupted the curate, relieved to find her so composed, for +as he came along he had dreaded something terrible. + +"He wants very much to see you. He thinks perhaps you may be able to +help him. I am sure if you can't nobody can. But please don't heed much +what he says about himself. He is feverish and excited. There is such a +thing--is there not?--as a morbid humility? I don't mean a false +humility, but one that passes over into a kind of self disgust." + +"I know what you mean," answered the curate, laying down his hat: he +never took his hat into a sick-room. + +Dorothy led the way up the narrow creaking stairs. + +It was a lowly little chamber in which the once popular preacher +lay--not so good as that he had occupied when a boy, two stories above +his father's shop. That shop had been a thorn in his spirit in the days +of his worldly success, but again and again this morning he had been +remembering it as a very haven of comfort and peace. He almost forgot +himself into a dream of it once; for one blessed moment, through the +upper half of the window he saw the snow falling in the street, while he +sat inside and half under the counter, reading Robinson Crusoe! Could +any thing short of heaven be so comfortable? + +As the curate stepped in, a grizzled head turned toward him a haggard +face with dry, bloodshot eyes, and a long hand came from the bed to +greet him. + +"Ah, Mr. Wingfold!" cried the minister, "God has forsaken me. If He had +only forgotten me, I could have borne that, I think; for, as Job says, +the time would have come when He would have had a desire to the work of +His hands. But He has turned His back upon me, and taken His free Spirit +from me. He has ceased to take His own way, to do His will with me, and +has given me my way and my will. Sit down, Mr. Wingfold. You can not +comfort me, but you are a true servant of God, and I will tell you my +sorrow. I am no friend to the church, as you know, but--" + +"So long as you are a friend of its Head, that goes for little with me," +said the curate. "But if you will allow me, I should like to say just +one word on the matter." + +He wished to try what a diversion of thought might do; not that he +foolishly desired to make him forget his trouble, but that he knew from +experience any gap might let in comfort. + +"Say on, Mr. Wingfold. I am a worm and no man." + +"It seems, then, to me a mistake for any community to spend precious +energy upon even a just finding of fault with another. The thing is, to +trim the lamp and clean the glass of our own, that it may be a light to +the world. It is just the same with communities as with individuals. The +community which casts if it be but the mote out of its own eye, does the +best thing it can for the beam in its neighbor's. For my part, I confess +that, so far as the clergy form and represent the Church of England, it +is and has for a long time been doing its best--not its worst, thank +God--to serve God and Mammon." + +"Ah! that's my beam!" cried the minister. "I have been serving Mammon +assiduously. I served him not a little in the time of my prosperity, +with confidence and show, and then in my adversity with fears and +complaints. Our Lord tells us expressly that we are to take no thought +for the morrow, because we can not serve God and Mammon. I have been +taking thought for a hundred morrows, and that not patiently, but +grumbling in my heart at His dealings with me. Therefore now He has cast +me off." + +"How do you know that He has cast you off?" asked the curate. + +"Because He has given me my own way with such a vengeance. I have been +pulling, pulling my hand out of His, and He has let me go, and I lie in +the dirt." + +"But you have not told me your grounds for concluding so." + +"Suppose a child had been crying and fretting after his mother for a +spoonful of jam," said the minister, quite gravely, "and at last she set +him down to a whole pot--what would you say to that?" + +"I should say she meant to give him a sharp lesson, perhaps a reproof as +well--certainly not that she meant to cast him off," answered Wingfold, +laughing. "But still I do not understand." + +"Have you not heard then? Didn't Dorothy tell you?" + +"She has told me nothing." + +"Not that my old uncle has left me a hundred thousand pounds and more?" + +The curate was on the point of saying, "I am very glad to hear it," +when the warning Dorothy had given him returned to his mind, and with it +the fear that the pastor was under a delusion--that, as a rich man is +sometimes not unnaturally seized with the mania of imagined poverty, so +this poor man's mental barometer had, from excess of poverty, turned its +index right round again to riches. + +"Oh!" he returned, lightly and soothingly, "perhaps it is not so bad as +that. You may have been misinformed. There may be some mistake." + +"No, no!" returned the minister; "it is true, every word of it. You +shall see the lawyers' letter. Dorothy has it, I think. My uncle was an +ironmonger in a country town, got on, and bought a little bit of land in +which he found iron. I knew he was flourishing, but he was a churchman +and a terrible Tory, and I never dreamed he would remember me. There had +been no communication between our family and his for many years. He must +have fancied me still a flourishing London minister, with a rich wife! +If he had had a suspicion of how sorely I needed a few pounds, I can not +believe he would have left me a farthing. He did not save his money to +waste it on bread and cheese, I can fancy him saying." + +Although a look almost of despair kept coming and going upon his face, +he lay so still, and spoke so quietly and collectedly, that Wingfold +began to wonder whether there might not be some fact in his statement. +He did not well know what to say. + +"When I heard the news from Dorothy--she read the letter first," Mr. +Drake went on, "--old fool that I was I was filled with such delight +that, although I could not have said whether I believed or not, the very +idea of the thing made me weep. Alas! Mr. Wingfold, I have had visions +of God in which the whole world would not have seemed worth a salt tear! +And now!--I jumped out of bed, and hurried on my clothes, but by the +time I came to kneel at my bedside, God was away. I could not speak a +word to Him! I had lost all the trouble that kept me crying after Him +like a little child at his mother's heels, the bond was broken and He +was out of sight. I tried to be thankful, but my heart was so full of +the money, it lay like a stuffed bag. But I dared not go even to my +study till I had prayed. I tramped up and down this little room, +thinking more about paying my butcher's bill than any thing else. I +would give him a silver snuff-box; but as to God and His goodness my +heart felt like a stone; I _could not_ lift it up. All at once I saw how +it was: He had heard my prayers in anger! Mr. Wingfold, the Lord has +sent me this money as He sent the quails to the Israelites: while it was +yet, as it were, between my teeth, He smote me with hardness of heart. O +my God! how shall I live in the world with a hundred thousand pounds +instead of my Father in heaven! If it were only that He had hidden His +face, I should be able to pray somehow! He has given me over to the +Mammon I was worshiping! Hypocrite that I am! how often have I not +pointed out to my people, while yet I dwelt in the land of Goshen, that +to fear poverty was the same thing as to love money, for that both came +of lack of faith in the living God! Therefore has He taken from me the +light of His countenance, which yet, Mr. Wingfold, with all my sins and +shortcomings, yea, and my hypocrisy, is the all in all to me!" + +He looked the curate in the face with such wild eyes as convinced him +that, even if perfectly sane at present, he was in no small danger of +losing his reason. + +"Then you would willingly give up this large fortune," he said, "and +return to your former condition?" + +"Rather than not be able to pray--I would! I would!" he cried; then +paused and added, "--if only He would give me enough to pay my debts and +not have to beg of other people." + +Then, with a tone suddenly changed to one of agonized effort, with +clenched hands, and eyes shut tight, he cried vehemently, as if in the +face of a lingering unwillingness to encounter again the miseries +through which he had been passing. + +"No, no, Lord! Forgive me. I will not think of conditions. Thy will be +done! Take the money and let me be a debtor and a beggar if Thou wilt, +only let me pray to Thee; and do Thou make it up to my creditors." + +Wingfold's spirit was greatly moved. Here was victory! Whether the +fortune was a fact or fancy, made no feature of difference. He thanked +God and took courage. The same instant the door opened, and Dorothy came +in hesitating, and looking strangely anxious. He threw her a +face-question. She gently bowed her head, and gave him a letter with a +broad black border which she held in her hand. + +He read it. No room for rational doubt was left. He folded it softly, +gave it back to her, and rising, kneeled down by the bedside, near the +foot, and said-- + +"Father, whose is the fullness of the earth, I thank Thee that Thou hast +set my brother's heel on the neck of his enemy. But the suddenness of +Thy relief from holy poverty and evil care, has so shaken his heart and +brain, or rather, perhaps, has made him think so keenly of his lack of +faith in his Father in heaven, that he fears Thou hast thrown him the +gift in disdain, as to a dog under the table, though never didst Thou +disdain a dog, and not given it as to a child, from Thy hand into his. +Father, let Thy spirit come with the gift, or take it again, and make +him poor and able to pray."--Here came an _amen_, groaned out as from +the bottom of a dungeon.--"Pardon him, Father," the curate prayed on, +"all his past discontent and the smallness of his faith. Thou art our +Father, and Thou knowest us tenfold better than we know ourselves; we +pray Thee not only to pardon us, but to make all righteous excuse for +us, when we dare not make any for ourselves, for Thou art the truth. We +will try to be better children. We will go on climbing the mount of God +through all the cloudy darkness that swaths it, yea, even in the face of +the worst terrors--that when we reach the top, we shall find no one +there."--Here Dorothy burst into sobs.--"Father!" thus the curate ended +his prayer, "take pity on Thy children. Thou wilt not give them a piece +of bread, in place of a stone--to poison them! The egg Thou givest will +not be a serpent's. We are Thine, and Thou art ours: in us be Thy will +done! Amen." + +As he rose from his knees, he saw that the minister had turned his face +to the wall, and lay perfectly still. Rightly judging that he was +renewing the vain effort to rouse, by force of the will, feelings which +had been stunned by the strange shock, he ventured to try a more +authoritative mode of address. + +"And now, Mr. Drake, you have got to spend this money," he said, "and +the sooner you set about it the better. Whatever may be your ideas about +the principal, you are bound to spend at least every penny of the +income." + +The sad-hearted man stared at the curate. + +"How is a man to do any thing whom God has forsaken?" he said. + +"If He had forsaken you, for as dreary work as it would be, you would +have to try to do your duty notwithstanding. But He has not forsaken +you. He has given you a very sharp lesson, I grant, and as such you must +take it, but that is the very opposite of forsaking you. He has let you +know what it is not to trust in Him, and what it would be to have money +that did not come from His hand. You did not conquer in the fight with +Mammon when you were poor, and God has given you another chance: He +expects you to get the better of him now you are rich. If God had +forsaken you, I should have found you strutting about and glorying over +imagined enemies." + +"Do you really think that is the mind of God toward me?" cried the poor +man, starting half up in bed. "_Do_ you think so?" he repeated, staring +at the curate almost as wildly as at first, but with a different +expression. + +"I do," said Wingfold; "and it will be a bad job indeed if you fail in +both trials. But that I am sure you will not. It is your business now to +get this money into your hands as soon as possible, and proceed to spend +it." + +"Would there be any harm in ordering a few things from the +tradespeople?" asked Dorothy. + +"How should there be?" returned Wingfold. + +"Because, you see," answered Dorothy, "we can't be sure of a bird in the +bush." + +"Can you be sure of it in your hands? It may spread its wings when you +least expect it. But Helen will be delighted to take the risk--up to a +few hundreds," he added laughing. + +"Somebody may dispute the will: they do sometimes," said Dorothy. + +"They do very often," answered Wingfold. "It does not look likely in the +present case; but our trust must be neither in the will nor in the +fortune, but in the living God. You have to get all the _good_ out of +this money you can. If you will walk over to the rectory with me now, +while your father gets up, we will carry the good news to my wife, and +she will lend you what money you like, so that you need order nothing +without paying for it." + +"Please ask her not to tell any body," said Mr. Drake. "I shouldn't like +it talked about before I understand it myself." + +"You are quite right. If I were you I would tell nobody yet but Mr. +Drew. He is a right man, and will help you to bear your good fortune. I +have always found good fortune harder to bear than bad." + +Dorothy ran to put her bonnet on. The curate went back to the bedside. +Mr. Drake had again turned his face to the wall. + +"Sixty years of age!" he was murmuring to himself. + +"Mr. Drake," said Wingfold, "so long as you bury yourself with the +centipedes in your own cellar, instead of going out into God's world, +you are tempting Satan and Mammon together to come and tempt you. +Worship the God who made the heaven and the earth, and the sea and the +mines of iron and gold, by doing His will in the heart of them. Don't +worship the poor picture of Him you have got hanging up in your +closet;--worship the living power beyond your ken. Be strong in Him +whose is your strength, and all strength. Help Him in His work with His +own. Give life to His gold. Rub the canker off it, by sending it from +hand to hand. You must rise and bestir yourself. I will come and see you +again to-morrow. Good-by for the present." + +He turned away and walked from the room. But his hand had scarcely left +the lock, when he heard the minister alight from his bed upon the floor. + +"He'll do!" said the curate to himself, and walked down the stair. + +When he got home, he left Dorothy with his wife, and going to his study, +wrote the following verses, which had grown in his mind as he walked +silent beside her:-- + + WHAT MAN IS THERE OF YOU? + + The homely words, how often read! + How seldom fully known! + "Which father of you, asked for bread, + Would give his son a stone?" + + How oft has bitter tear been shed, + And heaved how many a groan, + Because Thou wouldst not give for bread + The thing that was a stone! + + How oft the child Thou wouldst have fed, + Thy gift away has thrown! + He prayed, Thou heardst, and gav'st the bread: + He cried, it is a stone! + + Lord, if I ask in doubt or dread + Lest I be left to moan-- + I am the man who, asked for bread, + Would give his son a stone. + +As Dorothy returned from the rectory, where Helen had made her happier +than all the money by the kind words she said to her, she stopped at Mr. +Jones' shop, and bought of him a bit of loin of mutton. + +"Shan't I put it down, miss?" he suggested, seeing her take out her +purse.--Helen had just given her the purse: they had had great fun, with +both tears and laughter over it. + +"I would rather not--thank you very much," she replied with a smile. + +He gave her a kind, searching glance, and took the money. + +That day Juliet dined with them. When the joint appeared, Amanda, who +had been in the kitchen the greater part of the morning, clapped her +hands as at sight of an old acquaintance. + +"Dere it comes! dere it comes!" she cried. + +But the minister's grace was a little longer than she liked, for he was +trying hard to feel grateful. I think some people mistake pleasure and +satisfaction for thankfulness: Mr. Drake was not so to be taken in. Ere +long, however, he found them a good soil for thankfulness to grow +in.--So Amanda fidgeted not a little, and the moment the grace was +over-- + +"Now 'en! now 'en!" she almost screamed, her eyes sparkling with +delight. "'Iss is dinner!--'Ou don't have dinner every day, Miss +Mellidif!" + +"Be quiet, Ducky," said her aunt, as she called her. "You mustn't make +any remarks." + +"Ducky ain't makin' no marks," returned the child, looking anxiously at +the table-cloth, and was quiet but not for long. + +"Lisbef say surely papa's sip come home wif 'e nice dinner!" she said +next. + +"No, my ducky," said Mr. Drake: "it was God's ship that came with it." + +"Dood sip!" said the child. + +"It will come one day and another, and carry us all home," said the +minister. + +"Where Ducky's yeal own papa and mamma yive in a big house, papa?" asked +Amanda, more seriously. + +"I will tell you more about it when you are older," said Mr. Drake. "Now +let us eat the dinner God has sent us." He was evidently far happier +already, though his daughter could see that every now and then his +thoughts were away; she hoped they were thanking God. Before dinner was +over, he was talking quite cheerfully, drawing largely from his stores +both of reading and experience. After the child was gone, they told +Juliet of their good fortune. She congratulated them heartily, then +looked a little grave, and said-- + +"Perhaps you would like me to go?" + +"What!" said Mr. Drake; "does your friendship go no further than that? +Having helped us so much in adversity, will you forsake us the moment +prosperity looks in at the window?" + +Juliet gave one glance at Dorothy, smiled, and said no more. For +Dorothy, she was already building a castle for Juliet--busily. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +JULIET'S CHAMBER. + + +After tea, Mr. Drake and Dorothy went out for a walk together--a thing +they had not once done since the church-meeting of acrid memory in which +had been decreed the close of the minister's activity, at least in +Glaston. It was a lovely June twilight; the bats were flitting about +like the children of the gloamin', and the lamps of the laburnum and +lilac hung dusky among the trees of Osterfield Park. + +Juliet, left all but alone in the house, sat at her window, reading. Her +room was on the first floor, but the dining-room beneath it was of low +pitch, and at the lane-door there were two steps down into the house, so +that her window was at no great height above the lane. It was open, but +there was little to be seen from it, for immediately opposite rose a +high old garden-wall, hiding every thing with its gray bulk, lovelily +blotted with lichens and moss, brown and green and gold, except the +wall-flowers and stone-crop that grew on its coping, and a running plant +that hung down over it, like a long fringe worn thin. Had she put her +head out of the window, she would have seen in the one direction a +cow-house, and in the other the tall narrow iron gate of the garden--and +that was all. The twilight deepened as she read, until the words before +her began to play hide and seek; they got worse and worse, until she was +tired of catching at them; and when at last she stopped for a moment, +they were all gone like a troop of fairies, and her reading was ended. +She closed the book, and was soon dreaming awake; and the twilight world +was the globe in which the dream-fishes came and went--now swelling up +strange and near, now sinking away into the curious distance. + +Her mood was broken by the sound of hoofs, which she almost immediately +recognized as those of the doctor's red horse--great hoofs falling at +the end of long straight-flung steps. Her heart began to beat violently, +and confident in the protection of the gathering night, she rose and +looked cautiously out toward the side on which was the approach. In a +few moments, round the furthest visible corner, and past the gate in the +garden-wall, swung a huge shadowy form--gigantic in the dusk. She drew +back her head, but ere she could shape her mind to retreat from the +window, the solid gloom hurled itself thundering past, and she stood +trembling and lonely, with the ebb of Ruber's paces in her ears--and in +her hand a letter. In a minute she came to herself, closed her window, +drew down the blind, lighted a candle, set it on the window-sill, and +opened the letter. It contained these verses, and nothing more:-- + + My morning rose in laughter-- + A gold and azure day. + Dull clouds came trooping after, + Livid, and sullen gray. + + At noon, the rain did batter, + And it thundered like a hell: + I sighed, it is no matter, + At night I shall sleep as well. + + But I longed with a madness tender + For an evening like the morn, + That my day might die in splendor, + Not folded in mist forlorn-- + + Die like a tone elysian, + Like a bee in a cactus-flower, + Like a day-surprised vision, + Like a wind in a summer shower. + + Through the vaulted clouds about me + Broke trembling an azure space: + Was it a dream to flout me-- + Or was it a perfect face? + + The sky and the face together + Are gone, and the wind blows fell. + But what matters a dream or the weather? + At night it will all be well. + + For the day of life and labor, + Of ecstasy and pain, + Is only a beaten tabor, + And I shall not dream again. + + But as the old Night steals o'er me, + Deepening till all is dead, + I shall see thee still before me + Stand with averted head. + + And I shall think, Ah sorrow! + The _might_ that never was _may!_ + The night that has no morrow! + And the sunset all in gray! + +Juliet laid her head on her hands and wept. + +"Why should I not let him have his rosy sunset?" she thought. "It is all +he hopes for--cares for, I think--poor fellow! Am I not good enough to +give him that? What does it matter about me, if it is all but a vision +that flits between heaven and earth, and makes a passing shadow on human +brain and nerves?--a tale that is telling--then a tale that is told! +Much the good people make out of their better faith! Should _I_ be +troubled to learn that it was indeed a lasting sleep? If I were dead, +and found myself waking, should I want to rise, or go to sleep again? +Why should not I too dare to hope for an endless rest? Where would be +the wrong to any? If there be a God, He will have but to wake me to +punish me hard enough. Why should I not hope at least for such a lovely +thing? Can any one help desiring peace? Oh, to sleep, and sleep, and +wake no more forever and ever! I would not hasten the sleep; the end +will surely come, and why should we not enjoy the dream a little +longer--at least while it is a good dream, and the tossing has not +begun? There would always be a time. Why wake before our time out of the +day into the dark nothing? I should always want to see what to-morrow +and to-morrow and to-morrow would bring--that is, so long as he loved +me. He is noble, and sad, and beautiful, and gracious!--but would +he--could he love me to the end--even if--? Why should we not make the +best of what we have? Why should we not make life as happy to ourselves +and to others as we can--however worthless, however arrant a cheat it +may be? Even if there be no such thing as love, if it be all but a +lovely vanity, a bubble-play of color, why not let the bubble-globe +swell, and the tide of its ocean of color flow and rush and mingle and +change? Will it not break at last, and the last come soon enough, when +of all the glory is left but a tear on the grass? When we dream a +pleasant dream, and know it is but a dream, we will to dream on, and +quiet our minds that it may not be scared and flee: why should we not +yield to the stronger dream, that it may last yet another sweet, +beguiling moment? Why should he not love me--kiss me? Why should we not +be sad together, that we are not and can not be the real man and woman +we would--that we are but the forms of a dream--the fleeting shadows of +the night of Nature?--mourn together that the meddlesome hand of fate +should have roused us to consciousness and aspiration so long before the +maturity of our powers that we are but a laughter--no--a scorn and a +weeping to ourselves? We could at least sympathize with each other in +our common misery--bear with its weakness, comfort its regrets, hide its +mortifications, cherish its poor joys, and smooth the way down the +steepening slope to the grave! Then, if in the decrees of blind fate, +there should be a slow, dull procession toward perfection, if indeed +some human God be on the way to be born, it would be grand, although we +should know nothing of it, to have done our part fearless and hopeless, +to have lived and died that the triumphant Sorrow might sit throned on +the ever dying heart of the universe. But never, never would I have +chosen to live for that! Yes, one might choose to be born, if there were +suffering one might live or die to soften, to cure! That would be to be +like Paul Faber. To will to be born for that would be grand indeed!" + +In paths of thought like these her mind wandered, her head lying upon +her arms on the old-fashioned, wide-spread window-sill. At length, weary +with emotion and weeping, she fell fast asleep, and slept for some time. + +The house was very still. Mr. Drake and Dorothy were in no haste to +return. Amanda was asleep, and Lisbeth was in the kitchen--perhaps also +asleep. + +Juliet woke with a great start. Arms were around her from behind, +lifting her from her half-prone position of sorrowful rest. With a +terrified cry, she strove to free herself. + +"Juliet, my love! my heart! be still, and let me speak," said Faber. +His voice trembled as if full of tears. "I can bear this no longer. You +are my fate. I never lived till I knew you. I shall cease to live when I +know for certain that you turn from me." + +Juliet was like one half-drowned, just lifted from the water, struggling +to beat it away from eyes and ears and mouth. + +"Pray leave me, Mr. Faber," she cried, half-terrified, half-bewildered, +as she rose and turned toward him. But while she pushed him away with +one hand, she unconsciously clasped his arm tight with the other. "You +have no right to come into my room, and surprise me--startle me so! Do +go away. I will come to you." + +"Pardon, pardon, my angel! Do not speak so loud," he said, falling on +his knees, and clasping hers. + +"Do go away," persisted Juliet, trying to remove his grasp. "What will +they think if they find us--you here. They know I am perfectly well." + +"You drive me to liberties that make me tremble, Juliet. Everywhere you +avoid me. You are never to be seen without some hateful protector. Ages +ago I put up a prayer to you--one of life or death to me, and, like the +God you believe in, you have left it unanswered. You have no pity on the +sufferings you cause me! If your God _be_ cruel, why should you be cruel +too? Is not one tormentor enough in your universe? If there be a future +let us go on together to find it. If there be not, let us yet enjoy what +of life may be enjoyed. My past is a sad one--" + +Juliet shuddered. + +"Ah, my beautiful, you too have suffered!" he went on. "Let us be angels +of mercy to each other, each helping the other to forget! My griefs I +should count worthless if I might but erase yours." + +"I would I could say the same!" said Juliet, but only in her heart. + +"Whatever they may have been," he continued, "my highest ambition shall +be to make you forget them. We will love like beings whose only eternity +is the moment. Come with me, Juliet; we will go down into the last +darkness together, loving each other--and then peace. At least there is +no eternal hate in my poor, ice-cold religion, as there is in yours. I +am not suffering alone, Juliet. All whom it is my work to relieve, are +suffering from your unkindness. For a time I prided myself that I gave +every one of them as full attention as before, but I can not keep it up. +I am defeated. My brain seems deserting me. I mistake symptoms, forget +cases, confound medicines, fall into incredible blunders. My hand +trembles, my judgment wavers, my will is undecided. Juliet, you are +ruining me." + +"He saved my life," said Juliet to herself, "and that it is which has +brought him to this. He has a claim to me. I am his property. He found +me a castaway on the shore of Death, and gave me _his_ life to live +with. He must not suffer where I can prevent it."--She was on the point +of yielding. + +The same moment she heard a step in the lane approaching the door. + +"If you love me, do go now, dear Mr. Faber," she said. "I will see you +again. Do not urge me further to-night.--Ah, I wish! I wish!" she added, +with a deep sigh, and ceased. + +The steps came up to the door. There came a knock at it. They heard +Lisbeth go to open it. Faber rose. + +"Go into the drawing-room," said Juliet. "Lisbeth may be coming to fetch +me; she must not see you here." + +He obeyed. Without a word he left the chamber, and went into the +drawing-room. He had been hardly a moment there, when Wingfold entered. +It was almost dark, but the doctor stood against the window, and the +curate knew him. + +"Ah, Faber!" he said, "it is long since I saw you. But each has been +about his work, I suppose, and there could not be a better reason." + +"Under different masters, then," returned Faber, a little out of temper. + +"I don't exactly think so. All good work is done under the same master." + +"Pooh! Pooh!" + +"Who is your master, then?" + +"My conscience. Who is yours?" + +"The Author of my conscience." + +"A legendary personage!" + +"One who is every day making my conscience harder upon me. Until I +believed in Him, my conscience was dull and stupid--not half-awake, +indeed." + +"Oh! I see You mean my conscience is dull and stupid." + +"I do not. But if you were once lighted up with the light of the world, +you would pass just such a judgment on yourself. I can't think you so +different from myself, as that that shouldn't be the case; though most +heartily I grant you do your work ten times better than I did. And all +the time I thought myself an honest man! I wasn't. A man may honestly +think himself honest, and a fresh week's experience may make him doubt +it altogether. I sorely want a God to make me honest." + +Here Juliet entered the room, greeted Mr. Wingfold, and then shook hands +with Faber. He was glad the room was dark. + +"What do you think, Miss Meredith--is a man's conscience enough for his +guidance?" said the curate. + +"I don't know any thing about a man's conscience," answered Juliet. + +"A woman's then?" said the curate. + +"What else has she got?" returned Juliet. + +The doctor was inwardly cursing the curate for talking shop. Only, if a +man knows nothing so good, so beautiful, so necessary, as the things in +his shop, what else ought he to talk--especially if he is ready to give +them without money and without price? The doctor would have done better +to talk shop too. + +"Of course he has nothing else," answered the curate; "and if he had, he +must follow his conscience all the same." + +"There you are, Wingfold!--always talking paradoxes!" said Faber. + +"Why, man! you may only have a blundering boy to guide you, but if he is +your only guide, you must follow him. You don't therefore call him a +sufficient guide!" + +"What a logomachist you are! If it is a horn lantern you've got, you +needn't go mocking at it." + +"The lantern is not the light. Perhaps you can not change your horn for +glass, but what if you could better the light? Suppose the boy's father +knew all about the country, but you never thought it worth while to send +the lad to him for instructions?" + +"Suppose I didn't believe he had a father? Suppose he told me he +hadn't?" + +"Some men would call out to know if there was any body in the house to +give the boy a useful hint." + +"Oh bother! I'm quite content with my fellow." + +"Well, for my part I should count my conscience, were it ten times +better than it is, poor company on any journey. Nothing less than the +living Truth ever with me can make existence a peace to me,--that's the +joy of the Holy Ghost, Miss Meredith.--What if you should find one day, +Faber, that, of all facts, the thing you have been so coolly refusing +was the most precious and awful?" + +Faber had had more than enough of it. There was but one thing precious +to him; Juliet was the perfect flower of nature, the apex of law, the +last presentment of evolution, the final reason of things! The very soul +of the world stood there in the dusk, and there also stood the foolish +curate, whirling his little vortex of dust and ashes between him and +her! + +"It comes to this," said Faber; "what you say moves nothing in me. I am +aware of no need, no want of that Being of whom you speak. Surely if in +Him I did live and move and have my being, as some old heathen taught +your Saul of Tarsus, I should in one mode or another be aware of Him!" + +While he spoke, Mr. Drake and Dorothy had come into the room. They stood +silent. + +"That is a weighty word," said Wingfold. "But what if you feel His +presence every moment, only do not recognize it as such?" + +"Where would be the good of it to me then?" + +"The good of it to you might lie in the blinding. What if any further +revelation to one who did not seek it would but obstruct the knowledge +of Him? Truly revealed, the word would be read untruly--even as The Word +has been read by many in all ages. Only the pure in heart, we are told, +shall see Him. The man who, made by Him, does not desire Him--how should +he know Him?" + +"Why don't I desire Him then?--I don't." + +"That is for you to find out." + +"I do what I know to be right; even on your theory I ought to get on," +said Faber, turning from him with a laugh. + +"I think so too," replied Wingfold. "Go on, and prosper. Only, if there +be untruth in you alongside of the truth--? It might be, and you are not +awake to it. It is marvelous what things can co-exist in a human mind." + +"In that case, why should not your God help me?" + +"Why not? I think he will. But it may _have_ to be in a way you will not +like." + +"Well, well! good night. Talk is but talk, whatever be the subject of +it.--I beg your pardon," he added, shaking hands with the minister and +his daughter; "I did not see you come in. Good night." + +"I won't allow that talk is only talk, Faber," Wingfold called after him +with a friendly laugh. Then turning to Mr. Drake, "Pardon me," he said, +"for treating you with so much confidence. I saw you come in, but +believed you would rather have us end our talk than break it off." + +"Certainly. But I can't help thinking you grant him too much, Mr. +Wingfold," said the minister seriously. + +"I never find I lose by giving, even in argument," said the curate. +"Faber rides his hobby well, but the brute is a sorry jade. He will find +one day she has not a sound joint in her whole body." + +The man who is anxious to hold every point, will speedily bring a +question to a mere dispute about trifles, leaving the real matter, whose +elements may appeal to the godlike in every man, out in the cold. Such a +man, having gained his paltry point, will crow like the bantam he is, +while the other, who may be the greater, perhaps the better man, +although in the wrong, is embittered by his smallness, and turns away +with increased prejudice. Human nature can hardly be blamed for its +readiness to impute to the case the shallowness of its pleader. Few men +do more harm than those who, taking the right side, dispute for personal +victory, and argue, as they are sure then to do, ungenerously. But even +genuine argument for the truth is not preaching the gospel, neither is +he whose unbelief is thus assailed, likely to be brought thereby into +any mood but one unfit for receiving it. Argument should be kept to +books; preachers ought to have nothing to do with it--at all events in +the pulpit. There let them hold forth light, and let him who will, +receive it, and him who will not, forbear. God alone can convince, and +till the full time is come for the birth of the truth in a soul, the +words of even the Lord Himself are not there potent. + +"The man irritates me, I confess," said Mr. Drake. "I do not say he is +self-satisfied, but he is very self-sufficient." + +"He is such a good fellow," said Wingfold, "that I think God will not +let him go on like this very long. I think we shall live to see a change +upon him. But much as I esteem and love the man, I can not help a +suspicion that he has a great lump of pride somewhere about him, which +has not a little to do with his denials." + +Juliet's blood seemed seething in her veins as she heard her lover thus +weighed, and talked over; and therewith came the first rift of a +threatened breach betwixt her heart and the friends who had been so good +to her. He had done far more for her than any of them, and mere loyalty +seemed to call upon her to defend him; but she did not know how, and, +dissatisfied with herself as well as indignant with them, she maintained +an angry silence. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +OSTERFIELD PARK. + + +It was a long time since Mr. Drake and Dorothy had had such a talk +together, or had spent such a pleasant evening as that on which they +went into Osterfield Park to be alone with a knowledge of their changed +fortunes. The anxiety of each, differing so greatly from that of the +other, had tended to shut up each in loneliness beyond the hearing of +the other; so that, while there was no breach in their love, it was yet +in danger of having long to endure + + "an expansion, + Like gold to airy thinness beat." + +But this evening their souls rushed together. The father's anxiety was +chiefly elevated; the daughter's remained much what it was before; yet +these anxieties no longer availed to keep them apart. + +Each relation of life has its peculiar beauty of holiness; but that +beauty is the expression of its essential truth, and the essence itself +is so strong that it bestows upon its embodiment even the power of +partial metamorphosis with all other vital relations. How many daughters +have in the devotion of their tenderness, become as mothers to their own +fathers! Who has not known some sister more of a wife to a man than she +for whose sake he neglected her? But it will take the loves of all the +relations of life gathered in one, to shadow the love which, in the +kingdom of heaven, is recognized as due to each from each human being +_per se_. It is for the sake of the essential human, that all human +relations and all forms of them exist--that we may learn what it is, and +become capable of loving it aright. + +Dorothy would now have been as a mother to her father, had she had but a +good hope, if no more, of finding her Father in heaven. She was not at +peace enough to mother any body. She had indeed a grasp of the skirt of +His robe--only she could not be sure it was not the mere fringe of a +cloud she held. Not the less was her father all her care, and pride, and +joy. Of his faults she saw none: there was enough of the noble and +generous in him to hide them from a less partial beholder than a +daughter. They had never been serious in comparison with his virtues. I +do not mean that every fault is not so serious that a man must be +willing to die twenty deaths to get rid of it; but that, relatively to +the getting rid of it, a fault is serious or not, in proportion to the +depth of its root, rather than the amount of its foliage. Neither can +that be the worst-conditioned fault, the man's own suspicion of which +would make him hang his head in shame; those are his worst faults which +a man will start up to defend; those are the most dangerous moral +diseases whose symptoms are regarded as the signs of health. + +Like lovers they walked out together, with eyes only for each other, for +the good news had made them shy--through the lane, into the cross +street, and out into Pine street, along which they went westward, +meeting the gaze of the low sun, which wrapped them round in a veil of +light and dark, for the light made their eyes dark, so that they seemed +feeling their way out of the light into the shadow. + +"This is like life," said the pastor, looking down at the precious face +beside him: "our eyes can best see from under the shadow of +afflictions." + +"I would rather it were from under the shadow of God's wings," replied +Dorothy timidly. + +"So it is! so it is! Afflictions are but the shadow of His wings," said +her father eagerly. "Keep there, my child, and you will never need the +afflictions I have needed. I have been a hard one to save." + +But the child thought within herself, "Alas, father! you have never had +any afflictions which you or I either could not bear tenfold better than +what I have to bear." She was perhaps right. Only she did not know that +when she got through, all would be transfigured with the light of her +resurrection, just as her father's poverty now was in the light of his +plenty. + +Little more passed between them in the street. All the way to the +entrance of the park they were silent. There they exchanged a few words +with the sweet-faced little dwarf-woman that opened the gate, and those +few words set the currents of their thoughts singing yet more sweetly as +they flowed. They entered the great park, through the trees that +bordered it, still in silence, but when they reached the wide expanse of +grass, with its clumps of trees and thickets, simultaneously they +breathed a deep breath of the sweet wind, and the fountains of their +deeps were broken up. The evening was lovely, they wandered about long +in delight, and much was the trustful converse they held. It was getting +dark before they thought of returning. + +The father had been telling the daughter how he had mourned and wept +when his boys were taken from him, never thinking at all of the girl who +was left him. + +"And now," he said, "I would not part with my Dorothy to have them back +the finest boys in the world. What would my old age be without you, my +darling?" + +Dorothy's heart beat high. Surely there must be a Father in heaven too! +They walked a while in a great silence, for the heart of each was full. +And all the time scarce an allusion had been made to the money. + +As they returned they passed the new house, at some distance, on the +highest point in the park. It stood unfinished, with all its windows +boarded up. + +"The walls of that house," said Mr. Drake, "were scarcely above ground +when I came to Glaston. So they had been for twenty years, and so they +remained until, as you remember, the building was recommenced some three +or four years ago. Now, again, it is forsaken, and only the wind is at +home in it." + +"They tell me the estate is for sale," said Dorothy. "Those +building-lots, just where the lane leads into Pine street, I fancy +belong to it." + +"I wish," returned her father, "they would sell me that tumble-down +place in the hollow they call the Old House of Glaston. I shouldn't mind +paying a good sum for it. What a place it would be to live in! And what +a pleasure there would be in the making of it once more habitable, and +watching order dawn out of neglect!" + +"It would be delightful," responded Dorothy. "When I was a child, it +was one of my dreams that that house was my papa's--with the wild garden +and all the fruit, and the terrible lake, and the ghost of the lady that +goes about in the sack she was drowned in. But would you really buy it, +father, if you could get it?" + +"I think I should, Dorothy," answered Mr. Drake. + +"Would it not be damp--so much in the hollow? Is it not the lowest spot +in the park?" + +"In the park--yes; for the park drains into it. But the park lies high; +and you must note that the lake, deep as it is--very deep, yet drains +into the Lythe. For all they say of no bottom to it, I am nearly sure +the deepest part of the lake is higher than the surface of the river. If +I am right, then we could, if we pleased, empty the lake altogether--not +that I should like the place nearly so well without it. The situation is +charming--and so sheltered!--looking full south--just the place to keep +open house in!" + +"That is just like you, father!" cried Dorothy, clapping her hands once +and holding them together as she looked up at him. "The very day you +are out of prison, you want to begin to keep an open house!--Dear +father!" + +"Don't mistake me, my darling. There was a time, long ago, after your +mother was good enough to marry me, when--I am ashamed to confess it +even to you, my child--I did enjoy making a show. I wanted people to +see, that, although I was a minister of a sect looked down upon by the +wealthy priests of a worldly establishment, I knew how to live after the +world's fashion as well as they. That time you will scarcely recall, +Dorothy?" + +"I remember the coachman's buttons," answered Dorothy. + +"Well! I suppose it will be the same with not a few times and +circumstances we may try to recall in the other world. Some +insignificant thing will be all, and fittingly too, by which we shall be +able to identify them.--I liked to give nice dinner parties, and we +returned every invitation we accepted. I took much pains to have good +wines, and the right wines with the right dishes, and all that kind of +thing--though I dare say I made more blunders than I knew. Your mother +had been used to that way of living, and it was no show in her as it was +in me. Then I was proud of my library and the rare books in it. I +delighted in showing them, and talking over the rarity of this edition, +the tallness of that copy, the binding, and such-like follies. And where +was the wonder, seeing I served religion so much in the same +way--descanting upon the needlework that clothed the king's daughter, +instead of her inward glory! I do not say always, for I had my better +times. But how often have I not insisted on the mint and anise and +cummin, and forgotten the judgment, mercy and faith! How many sermons +have I not preached about the latchets of Christ's shoes, when I might +have been talking about Christ himself! But now I do not want a good +house to make a show with any more: I want to be hospitable. I don't +call giving dinners being hospitable. I would have my house a +hiding-place from the wind, a covert from the tempest. That would be to +be hospitable. Ah! if your mother were with us, my child! But you will +be my little wife, as you have been for so many years now.--God keeps +open house; I should like to keep open house.--I wonder does any body +ever preach hospitality as a Christian duty?" + +"I hope you won't keep a butler, and set up for grand, father," said +Dorothy. + +"Indeed I will not, my child. I would not run the risk of postponing the +pleasure of the Lord to that of inhospitable servants. I will look to +you to keep a warm, comfortable, welcoming house, and such servants only +as shall be hospitable in heart and behavior, and make no difference +between the poor and the rich." + +"I can't feel that any body is poor," said Dorothy, after a pause, +"except those that can't be sure of God.--They are so poor!" she added. + +"You are right, my child!" returned her father. "It was not my +poverty--it was not being sure of God that crushed me.--How long is it +since I was poor, Dorothy?" + +"Two days, father--not two till to-morrow morning." + +"It looks to me two centuries. My mind is at ease, and I have not paid a +debt yet! How vile of me to want the money in my own hand, and not be +content it should be in God's pocket, to come out just as it was wanted! +Alas! I have more faith in my uncle's leavings than in my Father's +generosity! But I must not forget gratitude in shame. Come, my child--no +one can see us--let us kneel down here on the grass and pray to God who +is in yon star just twinkling through the gray, and in my heart and in +yours, my child." + +I will not give the words of the minister's prayer. The words are not +the prayer. Mr. Drake's words were commonplace, with much of the +conventionality and platitude of prayer-meetings. He had always objected +to the formality of the Prayer-book, but the words of his own prayers +without book were far more formal; the prayer itself was in the heart, +not on the lips, and was far better than the words. But poor Dorothy +heard only the words, and they did not help her. They seemed rather to +freeze than revive her faith, making her feel as if she never could +believe in the God of her father. She was too unhappy to reason well, or +she might have seen that she was not bound to measure God by the way her +father talked to him--that the form of the prayer had to do with her +father, not immediately with God--that God might be altogether adorable, +notwithstanding the prayers of all heathens and of all saints. + +Their talk turned again upon the Old House of Glaston. + +"If it be true, as I have heard ever since I came," said Mr. Drake, +"that Lord de Barre means to pull down the house and plow up the garden, +and if he be so short of money as they say, he might perhaps take a few +thousands for it. The Lythe bounds the estate, and there makes a great +loop, so that a portion might be cut off by a straight line from one arm +of the curve to the other, which would be quite outside the park. I will +set some inquiry on foot. I have wished for a long time to leave the +river, only we had a lease. The Old House is nothing like so low as the +one we are in now. Besides, as I propose, we should have space to build, +if we found it desirable, on the level of the park." + +When they reached the gate on their return, a second dwarfish figure, a +man, pigeon-chested, short-necked, and asthmatic--a strange, gnome-like +figure, came from the lodge to open it. Every body in Glaston knew +Polwarth the gatekeeper. + +"How is the asthma to-night, Mr. Polwarth?" said the pastor. He had not +yet got rid of the tone in which in his young days he had been +accustomed to address the poor of his flock--a tone half familiar, half +condescending. To big ships barnacles will stick--and may add weeks to +the length of a voyage too. + +"Not very bad, thank you, Mr. Drake. But, bad or not, it is always a +friendly devil," answered the little man. + +"I am ast---- a little surprised to hear you use such----express +yourself so, Mr. Polwarth," said the minister. + +The little man laughed a quiet, huskily melodious, gently merry laugh. + +"I am not original in the idea, and scarcely so in my way of expressing +it. I am sorry you don't like it, Mr. Drake," he said. "I found it in +the second epistle to the Corinthians last night, and my heart has been +full of it ever since. It is surely no very bad sign if the truth should +make us merry at a time! It ought to do so, I think, seeing merriment is +one of the lower forms of bliss." + +"I am at a loss to understand you, Mr. Polwarth," said the minister. + +"I beg your pardon, Mr. Drake. I will come to the point. In the passage +I refer to St. Paul says: 'There was given to me a thorn in the flesh, +the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above +measure:'--am I not right in speaking of such a demon as a friendly one? +He was a gift from God." + +"I had not observed--that is, I had not taken particular notice of the +unusual combination of phrases in the passage," answered Mr. Drake. "It +is a very remarkable one, certainly. I remember no other in which a +messenger of Satan is spoken of as being _given_ by God." + +"Clearly, sir, St. Paul accepted him as something to be grateful for, so +soon as his mission was explained to him; and after that, who is to say +what may not be a gift of God! It won't do to grumble at any thing--will +it, sir?--when it may so unexpectedly turn out to be _given_ to us by +God. I begin to suspect that never, until we see a thing plainly a gift +of God, can we be sure that we see it right. I am quite certain the most +unpleasant things may be such gifts. I should be glad enough to part +with this asthma of mine, if it pleased God it should depart from me; +but would I yield a fraction of what it has brought me, for the best +lungs in England? I trow not!" + +"You are a happy man, Mr. Polwarth--if you can say that and abide by +it." + +"I _am_ a happy man, sir. I don't know what would come of me sometimes, +for very gladness, if I hadn't my good friend, the asthma-devil, to keep +me down a bit. Good night, sir," he added, for Mr. Drake was already +moving away. + +He felt superior to this man, set him down as forward, did not quite +approve of him. Always ready to judge involuntarily from externals, he +would have been shocked to discover how much the deformity of the man, +which caused him discomfort, prejudiced him also against him. Then +Polwarth seldom went to a place of worship, and when he did, went to +church! A cranky, visionary, talkative man, he was in Mr. Drake's eyes. +He set him down as one of those mystical interpreters of the Word, who +are always searching it for strange things, whose very insight leads +them to vagary, blinding them to the relative value of things. It is +amazing from what a mere fraction of fact concerning him, a man will +dare judge the whole of another man. In reality, little Polwarth could +have carried big Drake to the top of any hill Difficulty, up which, in +his spiritual pilgrimage, he had yet had to go panting and groaning--and +to the top of many another besides, within sight even of which the +minister would never come in this world. + +"He is too ready with his spiritual experience, that little man!--too +fond of airing it," said the minister to his daughter. "I don't quite +know what to make of him. He is a favorite with Mr. Wingfold; but my +experience makes me doubtful. I suspect prodigies." + +Now Polwarth was not in the habit of airing his religious experiences; +but all Glaston could see that the minister was in trouble, and he +caught at the first opportunity he had of showing his sympathy with him, +offering him a share of the comfort he had just been receiving himself. +He smiled at its apparent rejection, and closed the gate softly, saying +to himself that the good man would think of it yet, he was sure. + +Dorothy took little interest in Polwarth, little therefore in her +father's judgment of him. But, better even than Wingfold himself, that +poor physical failure of a man could have helped her from under every +gravestone that was now crushing the life out of her--not so much from +superiority of intellect, certainly not from superiority of learning, +but mainly because he was alive all through, because the life eternal +pervaded every atom of his life, every thought, every action. Door nor +window of his being had a lock to it! All of them were always on the +swing to the wind that bloweth where it listeth. Upon occasions when +most would seek refuge from the dark sky and gusty weather of trouble, +by hiding from the messengers of Satan in the deepest cellar of their +hearts, there to sit grumbling, Polwarth always went out into the open +air. If the wind was rough, there was none the less life in it: the +breath of God, it was rough to blow the faults from him, genial to put +fresh energy in him; if the rain fell, it was the water of cleansing and +growth. Misfortune he would not know by that name: there was no _mis_ +but in himself, and that the messenger of Satan was there to buffet. So +long as God was, all was right. No wonder the minister then was +incapable of measuring the gate-keeper! But Polwarth was right about +him--as he went home he pondered the passage to which he had referred +him, wondering whether he was to regard the fortune sent him as a +messenger of Satan given to buffet him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +THE SURGERY DOOR. + + +That Juliet loved Faber as she had at one time resolved never to love +man, she no longer attempted to conceal from herself; but she was far +from being prepared to confess the discovery to him. His atheism she +satisfactorily justified herself in being more ready to pity than to +blame. There were difficulties! There were more than difficulties! Not a +few of them she did not herself see how to get over! If her father had +been alive, then indeed!--children must not break their parents' hearts. +But if, as _appeared_ the most likely thing, that father, tenderly as +she had loved him, was gone from her forever, if life was but a flash +across from birth to the grave, why should not those who loved make the +best of it for each other during that one moment "brief as the lightning +in the collied night"? They must try to be the more to one another, and +the time was so short. All that Faber had ever pleaded was now +blossoming at once in her thought. She had not a doubt that he loved +her--as would have been enough once at all events. A man of men he +was!--noble, unselfish, independent, a ruler of himself, a benefactor of +his race! What right had those _believers_ to speak of him as they did? +In any personal question he was far their superior. That they +undervalued him, came all of their narrow prejudices! He was not of +their kind, therefore he must be below them! But there were first that +should be last, and last first! + +She felt herself no whit worthy of him. She believed herself not for a +moment comparable to him! But his infinite chivalry, gentleness, +compassion, would be her refuge! Such a man would bear with her +weaknesses, love her love, and forgive her sins! If he took her God from +her, he must take His place, and be a God-like man to her! Then, if +there should be any further truth discoverable, why indeed, as himself +said, should they not discover it together? Could they be as likely to +discover it apart, and distracted with longing? She must think about it +a little longer, though. She could not make up her mind the one way, and +would not the other. She would wait and see. She dared not yet. +Something might turn up to decide her. If she could but see into his +heart for a moment! + +All this later time, she had been going to church every Sunday, and +listening to sermons in which the curate poured out the energy of a +faith growing stronger day by day; but not a word he said had as yet +laid hold of one root-fiber of her being. She judged, she accepted, she +admired, she refused, she condemned, but she never _did_. To many souls +hell itself seems a less frightful alternative than the agony of +resolve, of turning, of being born again; but Juliet had never got so +far as that: she had never yet looked the thing required of her in the +face. She came herself to wonder that she had made any stand at all +against the arguments of Faber. But how is it that any one who has been +educated in Christianity, yet does not become the disciple of Jesus +Christ, avoids becoming an atheist? To such the whole thing must look so +unlike what it really is! Does he prefer to keep half believing the +revelation, in order to attribute to it elements altogether unlovely, +and so justify himself in refusing it? Were it not better to reject it +altogether if it be not fit to be believed in? If he be unable to do +that, if he dare not proclaim an intellectual unbelief, if some +reverence for father or mother, some inward drawing toward the good +thing, some desire to keep an open door of escape, prevent, what a +hideous folly is the moral disregard! "The thing is true, but I don't +mind it!" What is this acknowledged heedlessness, this apologetic +arrogance? Is it a timid mockery, or the putting forth of a finger in +the very face of the Life of the world? I know well how foolish words +like these must seem to such as Faber, but for such they are not +written; they are written for the men and women who close the lids of +but half-blinded eyes, and think they do God service by not denying +that there is not a sun in the heavens. There may be some denying Christ +who shall fare better than they, when He comes to judge the world with a +judgment which even those whom He sends from Him shall confess to be +absolutely fair--a judgment whose very righteousness may be a +consolation to some upon whom it falls heavily. + +That night Juliet hardly knew what she had said to Faber, and longed to +see him again. She slept little, and in the morning was weary and +exhausted. But he had set her the grand example of placing work before +every thing else, and she would do as he taught her. So, in the name of +her lover, and in spite of her headache, she rose to her day's duty. +Love delights to put on the livery of the loved. + +After breakfast, as was their custom, Dorothy walked with her to the +place where she gave her first lesson. The nearest way led past the +house of the doctor; but hitherto, as often as she could frame fitting +reason, generally on the ground that they were too early, and must make +a little longer walk of it, Juliet had contrived to avoid turning the +corner of Mr. Drew's shop. This day, however, she sought no excuse, and +they went the natural road. She wanted to pass his house--to get a +glimpse of him if she might. + +As they approached it, they were startled by a sudden noise of strife. +The next instant the door of the surgery, which was a small building +connected with the house by a passage, flew open, and a young man was +shot out. He half jumped, half fell down the six or eight steps, turned +at once, and ran up again. He had rather a refined look, notwithstanding +the annoyance and resentment that discomposed his features. The mat had +caught the door and he was just in time to prevent it from being shut in +his face. + +"I will _not_ submit to such treatment, Mr. Faber," cried the youth. "It +is not the part of a gentleman to forget that another is one." + +"To the devil with your _gentleman!_" they heard the doctor shout in a +rage, from behind the half-closed door. "The less said about the +gentleman the better, when the man is nowhere!" + +"Mr. Faber, I will allow no man to insult me," said the youth, and made +a fierce attempt to push the door open. + +"You are a wretch below insult," returned the doctor; and the next +moment the youth staggered again down the steps, this time to fall, in +awkward and ignominious fashion, half on the pavement, half in the road. + +Then out on the top of the steps came Paul Faber, white with wrath, too +full of indignation to see person or thing except the object of it. + +"You damned rascal!" he cried. "If you set foot on my premises again, it +will be at the risk of your contemptible life." + +"Come, come, Mr. Faber! this won't do," returned the youth, defiantly, +as he gathered himself up. "I don't want to make a row, but-- + +"_You_ don't want to make a row, you puppy! Then _I_ do. You don't come +into my house again. I'll have your traps turned out to +you.--Jenkins!--You had better leave the town as fast as you can, too, +for this won't be a secret." + +"You'll allow me to call on Mr. Crispin first?" + +"Do. Tell him the truth, and see whether he'll take the thing up! If I +were God, I'd damn you!" + +"Big words from you, Faber!" said the youth with a sneer, struggling +hard to keep the advantage he had in temper. "Every body knows you don't +believe there is any God." + +"Then there ought to be, so long as such as you 'ain't got your deserts. +_You_ set up for a doctor! I would sooner lose all the practice I ever +made than send _you_ to visit woman or child, you heartless miscreant!" + +The epithet the doctor really used here was stronger and more +contemptuous, but it is better to take the liberty of substituting this. + +"What have I done then to let loose all this Billingsgate?" cried the +young man indignantly. "I have done nothing the most distinguished in +the profession haven't done twenty times over." + +"I don't care a damn. What's the profession to humanity! For a wonder +the public is in the right on this question, and I side with the public. +The profession may go to--Turkey!"--Probably Turkey was not the place he +had intended to specify, but at the moment he caught sight of Juliet and +her companion.--"There!" he concluded, pointing to the door behind him, +"you go in and put your things up--_and be off_." + +Without another word, the young man ascended the steps, and entered the +house. + +Juliet stood staring, motionless and white. Again and again Dorothy +would have turned back, but Juliet grasped her by the arm, stood as if +frozen to the spot, and would not let her move. She _must_ know what it +meant. And all the time a little crowd had been gathering, as it well +might, even in a town no bigger than Glaston, at such uproar in its +usually so quiet streets. At first it was all women, who showed their +interest by a fixed regard of each speaker in the quarrel in turn, and a +confused staring from one to the other of themselves. No handle was yet +visible by which to lay hold of the affair. But the moment the young man +re-entered the surgery, and just as Faber was turning to go after him, +out, like a bolt, shot from the open door a long-legged, gaunt mongrel +dog, in such a pitiful state as I will not horrify my readers by +attempting to describe. It is enough to say that the knife had been used +upon him with a ghastly freedom. In an agony of soundless terror the +poor animal, who could never recover the usage he had had, and seemed +likely to tear from himself a part of his body at every bound, rushed +through the spectators, who scattered horror-stricken from his path. Ah, +what a wild waste look the creature had!--as if his spirit within him +were wan with dismay at the lawless invasion of his humble house of +life. A cry, almost a shriek, rose from the little crowd, to which a few +men had now added themselves. The doctor came dashing down the steps in +pursuit of him. The same instant, having just escaped collision with the +dog, up came Mr. Drew. His round face flamed like the sun in a fog with +anger and pity and indignation. He rushed straight at the doctor, and +would have collared him. Faber flung him from him without a word, and +ran on. The draper reeled, but recovered himself, and was starting to +follow, when Juliet, hurrying up, with white face and flashing eyes, +laid her hand on his arm, and said, in a voice of whose authoritative +tone she was herself unconscious, + +"Stop, Mr. Drew." + +The draper obeyed, but stood speechless with anger, not yet doubting it +was the doctor who had so misused the dog. + +"I have been here from the first," she went on. "Mr. Faber is as angry +as you are.--Please, Dorothy, will you come?--It is that assistant of +his, Mr. Drew! He hasn't been with him more than three days." + +With Dorothy beside her, Juliet now told him, loud enough for all to +hear, what they had heard and seen. "I must go and beg his pardon," said +the draper. "I had no right to come to such a hasty conclusion. I hope +he will not find it hard to forgive me." + +"You did no more than he would have done in your place," replied Juliet. +"--But," she added, "where is the God of that poor animal, Mr. Drew?" + +"I expect He's taken him by this time," answered the draper. "But I must +go and find the doctor." + +So saying, he turned and left them. The ladies went also, and the crowd +dispersed. But already rumors, as evil as discordant, were abroad in +Glaston to the prejudice of Faber, and at the door of his godlessness +was from all sides laid the charge of cruelty. + +How difficult it is to make prevalent the right notion of any thing! But +only a little reflection is required to explain the fact. The cause is, +that so few people give themselves the smallest trouble to understand +what is told them. The first thing suggested by the words spoken is +taken instead of the fact itself, and to that as a ground-plan all that +follows is fitted. People listen so badly, even when not sleepily, that +the wonder is any thing of consequence should ever be even approximately +understood. How appalling it would be to one anxious to convey a +meaning, to see the shapes his words assumed in the mind of his +listening friend! For, in place of falling upon the table of his +perception, kept steady by will and judgment, he would see them tumble +upon the sounding-board of his imagination, ever vibrating, and there be +danced like sand into all manner of shapes, according to the tune played +by the capricious instrument. Thus, in Glaston, the strangest stories of +barbarity and cruelty were now attributed to a man entirely incapable of +them. He was not one of the foul seekers after knowledge, and if he had +had a presentiment of the natural tendency of his opinions, he would +have trembled at the vision, and set himself to discover whether there +might not be truth in another way of things. + +As he went about in the afternoon amongst his sick and needy, the curate +heard several of these ill reports. Some communicated them to ease their +own horror, others in the notion of pleasing the believer by revolting +news of the unbeliever. In one house he was told that the poor young man +whom Dr. Faber had enticed to be his assistant, had behaved in the most +gentlemanly fashion, had thrown up his situation, consenting to the loss +of his salary, rather than connive at the horrors of cruelty in which +the doctor claimed his help. Great moan was made over the pity that +such a nice man should be given to such abominations; but where was the +wonder, some said, seeing he was the enemy of God, that he should be the +enemy of the beasts God had made? Much truth, and many wise reflections +were uttered, only they were not "as level as the cannon to his blank," +for they were pointed at the wrong man. + +There was one thing in which Wingfold differed from most of his +parishioners: he could hear with his judgment, and make his imagination +lie still. At the same time, in order to arrive the more certainly at +the truth, in any matter presented to him, he would, in general, listen +to the end of what any body had to say. So doing he let eagerness +exhaust itself, and did not by opposition in the first heat of +narration, excite partisan interest, or wake malevolent caution. If the +communication was worthy, he thus got all the worth of it; if it was +evil, he saw to the bottom of it, and discovered, if such were there, +the filthy reptile in the mud beneath, which was setting the whole ugly +pool in commotion. By this deliberateness he also gave the greater +weight to what answer he saw fit to give at last--sometimes with the +result of considerable confusion of face to the narrator. In the present +instance, he contented himself with the strongest assurance that the +whole story was a mistake so far as it applied to Mr. Faber, who had, in +fact, dismissed his assistant for the very crime of which they accused +himself. The next afternoon, he walked the whole length of Pine street +with the doctor, conversing all the way. + +Nor did he fail to turn the thing to advantage. He had for some time +been awaiting a fit opportunity for instructing his people upon a point +which he thought greatly neglected: here was the opportunity, and he +made haste to avail himself of it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +THE GROANS OF THE INARTICULATE. + + +The rest of the week was rainy, but Sunday rose a day of perfect summer. +As the curate went up the pulpit-stair, he felt as if the pulse of all +creation were beating in unison with his own; for to-day he was the +speaker for the speechless, the interpreter of groans to the creation of +God. + +He read, _Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them +shall not fall on the ground without your Father_, and said: + +"My friends, doth God care for sparrows? Or saith He it altogether for +our sakes, and not at all for the sparrows? No, truly; for indeed it +would be nothing to us if it were not every thing to the sparrows. The +word can not reach our door except through the sparrow's nest. For see! +what comfort would it be to us to be told we were of more value than +ever so many sparrows, if their value was nothing--if God only knew and +did not care for them? The saying would but import that we were of more +value than just nothing. Oh, how skillful is unbelief to take all the +color and all the sweetness and all the power out of the words of The +Word Himself! How many Christians are there not who take the passage to +mean that not a sparrow can fall to the ground without the _knowledge_ +of its Creator! A mighty thing that for the sparrow! If such a Christian +seemed to the sparrow the lawful interpreter of the sparrow's Creator, +he would make an infidel of the sparrow. What Christ-like heart, what +heart of loving man, could be content to take all the comfort to itself, +and leave none for the sparrows? Not that of our mighty brother Paul. In +his ears sounded, in his heart echoed, the cries of all the creation of +God. Their groanings that could not be uttered, roused the response of +his great compassion. When Christ was born in the heart of Paul, the +whole creation of God was born with him; nothing that could feel could +he help loving; in the trouble of the creatures' troubles, sprang to +life in his heart the hope, that all that could groan should yet +rejoice, that on the lowest servant in the house should yet descend the +fringe of the robe that was cast about the redeemed body of the Son. +_He_ was no pettifogging priest standing up for the rights of the +superior! An exclusive is a self-excluded Christian. They that shut the +door will find themselves on the wrong side of the door they have shut. +They that push with the horn and stamp with the hoof, can not be +admitted to the fold. St. Paul would acknowledge no distinctions. He saw +every wall--of seclusion, of exclusion, of partition, broken down. Jew +and Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond and free--all must come in to his +heart. Mankind was not enough to fill that divine space, enlarged to +infinitude by the presence of the Christ: angels, principalities, and +powers, must share in its conscious splendor. Not yet filled, yet +unsatisfied with beings to love, Paul spread forth his arms to the whole +groaning and troubled race of animals. Whatever could send forth a sigh +of discomfort, or heave a helpless limb in pain, he took to the bosom of +his hope and affection--yea, of his love and faith: on them, too, he saw +the cup of Christ's heart overflow. For Paul had heard, if not from His +own, yet from the lips of them that heard Him speak, the words, _Are not +five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten +before God?_ What if the little half-farthing things bear their share, +and always have borne, in that which is behind of the sufferings of +Christ? In any case, not one of them, not one so young that it topples +from the edge of its nest, unable to fly, is forgotten by the Father of +men. It shall not have a lonely deathbed, for the Father of Jesus will +be with it. It _must_ be true. It is indeed a daring word, but less +would not be enough for the hearts of men, for the glory of God, for the +need of the sparrow. I do not close my eyes to one of a thousand +seemingly contradictory facts. I misdoubt my reading of the small-print +notes, and appeal to the text, yea, beyond the text, even to the God of +the sparrows Himself. + +"I count it as belonging to the smallness of our faith, to the poorness +of our religion, to the rudimentary condition of our nature, that our +sympathy with God's creatures is so small. Whatever the narrowness of +our poverty-stricken, threadbare theories concerning them, whatever the +inhospitality and exclusiveness of our mean pride toward them, we can +not escape admitting that to them pain is pain, and comfort is comfort; +that they hunger and thirst; that sleep restores and death delivers +them: surely these are ground enough to the true heart wherefore it +should love and cherish them--the heart at least that believes with St. +Paul, that they need and have the salvation of Christ as well as we. +Right grievously, though blindly, do they groan after it. + +"The ignorance and pride which is forever sinking us toward them, are +the very elements in us which mislead us in our judgment concerning +them, causing us to imagine them not upon a lower merely, but upon an +altogether different footing in creation from our own. The same things +we call by one name in us, and by another in them. How jealous have not +men been as to allowing them any share worthy the name of reason! But +you may see a greater difference in this respect between the lowest and +the highest at a common school, than you will between them and us. A +pony that has taught itself without hands to pump water for its thirst, +an elephant that puts forth its mighty lip to lift the moving wheel of +the heavy wagon over the body of its fallen driver, has rather more to +plead on the score of intellect than many a schoolboy. Not a few of them +shed tears. A bishop, one of the foremost of our scholars, assured me +that once he saw a certain animal laugh while playing off a practical +joke on another of a different kind from himself. I do not mention the +kind of animal, because it would give occasion for a silly articulate +joke, far inferior to his practical one. I go further, and say, that I +more than suspect a rudimentary conscience in every animal. I care not +how remotely rudimentary. There must be in the moral world absolute and +right potent germinal facts which lie infinitudes beyond the reach of +any moral microscope, as in the natural world beyond the most powerful +of lenses. Yet surely in this respect also, one may see betwixt boys at +the same school greater differences than there are betwixt the highest +of the animals and the lowest of the humans. If you plead for time for +the boy to develop his poor rudimentary mollusk of a conscience, take it +and heartily welcome--but grant it the animals also. With some of them +it may need millions of years for any thing I know. Certainly in many +human beings it never comes plainly into our ken all the time they walk +the earth. Who shall say how far the vision of the apostle reached? but +surely the hope in which he says God Himself subjected the creature to +vanity, must have been an infinite hope: I will hope infinitely. That +the Bible gives any ground for the general fancy that at death an animal +ceases to exist, is but the merest dullest assumption. Neither is there +a single scientific argument, so far as I know, against the continued +existence of the animals, which would not tell equally against human +immortality. My hope is, that in some way, concerning which I do not now +choose to speculate, there may be progress, growth, for them also. While +I believe for myself, I _must_ hope for them. This much at least seems +clear--and I could press the argument further: if not one of them is +forgotten before God--and one of them yet passes out of being--then is +God the God of the dead and not of the living! But we praise Thee, we +bless Thee, we worship Thee, we glorify Thee, we give thanks to Thee for +Thy great glory, O Lord God, heavenly King, God the Father almighty! Thy +universe is life, life and not death. Even the death which awoke in the +bosom of Sin, Thy Son, opposing Himself to its hate, and letting it +spend its fury upon Him, hath abolished. I know nothing, therefore care +little, as to whether or not it may have pleased God to bring man up to +the hill of humanity through the swamps and thickets of lower animal +nature, but I do care that I should not now any more approach that +level, whether once rightly my own or not. For what is honor in the +animals, would be dishonor in me. Not the less may such be the +punishment, perhaps redemption, in store for some men and women. For +aught I know, or see unworthy in the thought, the self-sufficing +exquisite, for instance, may one day find himself chattering amongst +fellow apes in some monkey-village of Africa or Burmah. Nor is the +supposition absurd, though at first sight it may well so appear. Let us +remember that we carry in us the characteristics of each and every +animal. There is not one fiercest passion, one movement of affection, +one trait of animal economy, one quality either for praise or blame, +existing in them that does not exist in us. The relationship can not be +so very distant. And if theirs be so freely in us, why deny them so much +we call ours? Hear how one of the ablest doctors of the English church, +John Donne, Dean of St. Paul's in the reign of James the first, +writes:-- + + Man is a lump where all beasts kneaded be; + Wisdom makes him an ark where all agree; + The fool, in whom these beasts do live at jar, + Is sport to others, and a theater; + Nor scapes he so, but is himself their prey; + All which was man in him, is eat away; + And now his beasts on one another feed, + Yet couple in anger, and new monsters breed. + How happy's he which hath due place assigned + To his beasts, and disaforested his mind! + Impaled himself to keep them out, not in; + Can sow, and dares trust corn where they have been; + Can use his horse, goat, wolf, and every beast, + And is not ass himself to all the rest! + Else man not only is the herd of swine, + But he's those devils, too, which did incline + Them to an headlong rage, and made them worse; + For man can add weight to heaven's heaviest curse. + +"It astonishes me, friends, that we are not more terrified at +ourselves. Except the living Father have brought order, harmony, a +world, out of His chaos, a man is but a cage of unclean beasts, with no +one to rule them, however fine a gentleman he may think himself. Even in +this fair, well-ordered England of ours, at Kirkdale, in Yorkshire, was +discovered, some fifty years ago, a great cavern that had once been a +nest of gigantic hyenas, evidenced by their own broken bones, and the +crushed bones of tigers, elephants, bears, and many other creatures. See +to what a lovely peace the Creating Hand has even now brought our +England, far as she is yet from being a province in the kingdom of +Heaven; but see also in her former condition a type of the horror to +which our souls may festering sink, if we shut out His free spirit, and +have it no more moving upon the face of our waters. And when I say a +type, let us be assured there is no type worth the name which is not +poor to express the glory or the horror it represents. + +"To return to the animals: they are a care to God! they occupy part of +His thoughts; we have duties toward them, owe them friendliness, +tenderness. That God should see us use them as we do is a terrible +fact--a severe difficulty to faith. For to such a pass has the worship +of Knowledge--an idol vile even as Mammon himself, and more +cruel--arrived, that its priests, men kind as other men to their own +children, kind to the animals of their household, kind even to some of +the wild animals, men who will scatter crumbs to the robins in winter, +and set water for the sparrows on their house-top in summer, will yet, +in the worship of this their idol, in their greed after the hidden +things of the life of the flesh, without scruple, confessedly without +compunction, will, I say, dead to the natural motions of the divine +element in them, the inherited pity of God, subject innocent, helpless, +appealing, dumb souls to such tortures whose bare description would +justly set me forth to the blame of cruelty toward those who sat +listening to the same. Have these living, moving, seeing, hearing, +feeling creatures, who could not be but by the will and the presence of +Another any more than ourselves--have they no rights in this their +compelled existence? Does the most earnest worship of an idol excuse +robbery with violence extreme to obtain the sacrifices he loves? Does +the value of the thing that may be found there justify me in breaking +into the house of another's life? Does his ignorance of the existence of +that which I seek alter the case? Can it be right to water the tree of +knowledge with blood, and stir its boughs with the gusts of bitter +agony, that we may force its flowers into blossom before their time? +Sweetly human must be the delights of knowledge so gained! grand in +themselves, and ennobling in their tendencies! Will it justify the same +as a noble, a laudable, a worshipful endeavor to cover it with the +reason or pretext--God knows which--of such love for my own human kind +as strengthens me to the most ruthless torture of their poorer +relations, whose little treasure I would tear from them that it may +teach me how to add to their wealth? May my God give me grace to prefer +a hundred deaths to a life gained by the suffering of one simplest +creature. He holds his life as I hold mine by finding himself there +where I find myself. Shall I quiet my heart with the throbs of another +heart? soothe my nerves with the agonized tension of a system? live a +few days longer by a century of shrieking deaths? It were a hellish +wrong, a selfish, hateful, violent injustice. An evil life it were that +I gained or held by such foul means! How could I even attempt to justify +the injury, save on the plea that I am already better and more valuable +than he; that I am the stronger; that the possession of all the +pleasures of human intelligence gives me the right to turn the poor +innocent joys of his senses into pains before which, threatening my own +person, my very soul would grow gray with fear? Or let me grant what +many professional men deny utterly, that some knowledge of what is +called practical value to the race has been thus attained--what can be +its results at best but the adding of a cubit to the life? Grant that it +gave us an immortal earthly existence, one so happy that the most +sensual would never wish for death: what would it be by such means to +live forever? God in Heaven! who, what is the man who would dare live a +life wrung from the agonies of tortured innocents? Against the will of +my Maker, live by means that are an abhorrence to His soul! Such a life +must be all in the flesh! the spirit could have little share therein. +Could it be even a life of the flesh that came of treason committed +against essential animality? It could be but an abnormal monstrous +existence, that sprang, toadstool-like, from the blood-marsh of +cruelty--a life neither spiritual nor fleshey, but devilish. + +"It is true we are above the creatures--but not to keep them down; they +are for our use and service, but neither to be trodden under the foot of +pride, nor misused as ministers, at their worst cost of suffering, to +our inordinate desires of ease. After no such fashion did God give them +to be our helpers in living. To be tortured that we might gather ease! +none but a devil could have made them for that! When I see a man who +professes to believe not only in a God, but such a God as holds His +court in the person of Jesus Christ, assail with miserable cruelty the +scanty, lovely, timorous lives of the helpless about him, it sets my +soul aflame with such indignant wrath, with such a sense of horrible +incongruity and wrong to every harmony of Nature, human and divine, that +I have to make haste and rush to the feet of the Master, lest I should +scorn and hate where He has told me to love. Such a wretch, not content +that Christ should have died to save men, will tear Christ's living +things into palpitating shreds, that he may discover from them how +better to save the same men. Is this to be in the world as He was in the +world! Picture to yourselves one of these Christian inquirers erect +before his class of students: knife in hand, he is demonstrating to them +from the live animal, so fixed and screwed and wired that he cannot find +for his agony even the poor relief of a yelp, how this or that writhing +nerve or twitching muscle operates in the business of a life which his +demonstration has turned from the gift of love into a poisoned curse; +picture to yourself such a one so busied, suddenly raising his eyes and +seeing the eyes that see him! the eyes of Him who, when He hung upon the +cross, knew that He suffered for the whole creation of His Father, to +lift it out of darkness into light, out of wallowing chaos into order +and peace! Those eyes watching him, that pierced hand soothing his +victim, would not the knife fall from his hand in the divine paralysis +that shoots from the heart and conscience? Ah me! to have those eyes +upon me in any wrong-doing! One thing only could be worse--_not_ to have +them upon me--to be left with my devils. + +"You all know the immediate cause of the turning of our thoughts in this +direction--the sad case of cruelty that so unexpectedly rushed to light +in Glaston. So shocked was the man in whose house it took place that, as +he drove from his door the unhappy youth who was guilty of the crime, +this testimony, in the righteous indignation of his soul, believing, as +you are aware, in no God and Father of all, broke from him with +curses--'There ought to be a God to punish such cruelty.'--'Begone,' he +said. 'Never would I commit woman or child into the hands of a willful +author of suffering.' + +"We are to rule over the animals; the opposite of rule is torture, the +final culmination of anarchy. We slay them, and if with reason, then +with right. Therein we do them no wrong. Yourselves will bear me witness +however and always in this place, I have protested that death is no +evil, save as the element of injustice may be mingled therein. The sting +of death is sin. Death, righteously inflicted, I repeat, is the reverse +of an injury. + +"What if there is too much lavishment of human affection upon objects +less than human! it hurts less than if there were none. I confess that +it moves with strange discomfort one who has looked upon swarms of +motherless children, to see in a childless house a ruined dog, overfed, +and snarling with discomfort even on the blessed throne of childhood, +the lap of a woman. But even that is better than that the woman should +love no creature at all--infinitely better! It may be she loves as she +can. Her heart may not yet be equal to the love of a child, may be able +only to cherish a creature whose oppositions are merely amusing, and +whose presence, as doubtless it seems to her, gives rise to no +responsibilities. Let her love her dog--even although her foolish +treatment of him should delay the poor animal in its slow trot towards +canine perfection: she may come to love him better; she may herself +through him advance to the love and the saving of a child--who can tell? +But do not mistake me; there are women with hearts so divinely +insatiable in loving, that in the mere gaps of their untiring +ministration of humanity, they will fondle any living thing capable of +receiving the overflow of their affection. Let such love as they will; +they can hardly err. It is not of such that I have spoken. + +"Again, to how many a lonely woman is not life made endurable, even +pleasant, by the possession and the love of a devoted dog! The man who +would focus the burning glass of science upon the animal, may well mock +at such a mission, and speak words contemptuous of the yellow old maid +with her yellow ribbons and her yellow dog. Nor would it change his +countenance or soften his heart to be assured that that withered husk of +womanhood was lovely once, and the heart in it is loving still; that she +was reduced to all but misery by the self-indulgence of a brother, to +whom the desolation of a sister was but a pebble to pave the way to his +pleasures; that there is no one left her now to love, or to be grateful +for her love, but the creature which he regards merely as a box of +nature's secrets, worthy only of being rudely ransacked for what it may +contain, and thrown aside when shattered in the search. A box he is +indeed, in which lies inclosed a shining secret!--a truth too radiant +for the eyes of such a man as he; the love of a living God is in him and +his fellows, ranging the world in broken incarnation, ministering to +forlorn humanity in dumb yet divine service. Who knows, in their great +silence, how germane with ours may not be their share in the groanings +that can not be uttered! + +"Friends, there must be a hell. If we leave scripture and human belief +aside, science reveals to us that nature has her catastrophes--that +there is just so much of the failed cycle, of the unrecovered, the +unbalanced, the incompleted, the fallen-short, in her motions, that the +result must be collision, shattering resumption, the rage of unspeakable +fire. Our world and all the worlds of the system, are, I suppose, doomed +to fall back at length into their parent furnace. Then will come one end +and another beginning. There is many an end and many a beginning. At one +of those ends, and that not the furthest, must surely lie a hell, in +which, of all sins, the sin of cruelty, under whatever pretext +committed, will receive its meed from Him with whom there is no respect +of persons, but who giveth to every man according to his works. Nor will +it avail him to plead that in life he never believed in such +retribution; for a cruelty that would have been restrained by a fear of +hell was none the less hellworthy. + +"But I will not follow this track. The general conviction of humanity +will be found right against any conclusions calling themselves +scientific, that go beyond the scope or the reach of science. Neither +will I presume to suggest the operation of any _lex talionis_ in respect +of cruelty. I know little concerning the salvation by fire of which St. +Paul writes in his first epistle to the Corinthians; but I say this, +that if the difficulty of curing cruelty be commensurate with the horror +of its nature, then verily for the cruel must the furnace of wrath be +seven times heated. Ah! for them, poor injured ones, the wrong passes +away! Friendly, lovely death, the midwife of Heaven, comes to their +relief, and their pain sinks in precious peace. But what is to be done +for our brother's soul, bespattered with the gore of innocence? Shall +the cries and moans of the torture he inflicted haunt him like an evil +smell? Shall the phantoms of exquisite and sickening pains float +lambent about the fingers, and pass and repass through the heart and +brain, that sent their realities quivering and burning into the souls of +the speechless ones? It has been said somewhere that the hell for the +cruel man would be to have the faces of all the creatures he had wronged +come staring round him, with sad, weary eyes. But must not the divine +nature, the pitiful heart of the universe, have already begun to +reassert itself in him, before that would hurt him? Upon such a man the +justice in my heart desires this retribution--to desire more would be to +be more vile than he; to desire less would not be to love my +brother:--that the soul capable of such deeds shall be compelled to know +the nature of its deeds in the light of the absolute Truth--that the +eternal fact shall flame out from the divine region of its own +conscience until it writhe in the shame of being itself, loathe as +absolute horror the deeds which it would now justify, and long for +deliverance from that which it has made of itself. The moment the +discipline begins to blossom, the moment the man begins to thirst after +confession and reparation, then is he once more my brother; then from an +object of disgust in spite of pity, he becomes a being for all tender, +honest hearts in the universe of God to love, cherish, revere. + +"Meantime, you who behold with aching hearts the wrongs done to the +lower brethren that ought to be cherished as those to whom less has been +given, having done all, stand comforted in the thought that not one of +them suffers without the loving, caring, sustaining presence of the +great Father of the universe, the Father of men, the God and Father of +Jesus Christ, the God of the sparrows and the ravens and the oxen--yea, +of the lilies of the field." + +As might be expected, Mrs. Ramshorn was indignant. What right had he to +desecrate a pulpit of the Church of England by misusing it for the +publication of his foolish fancies about creatures that had not reason! +Of course nobody would think of being cruel to them, poor things! But +there was that silly man talking about them as if they were better +Christians than any of them! He was intruding into things he had not +seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind. + +The last portion of these remarks she made in the hearing of her niece, +who carried it home for the amusement of her husband. He said he could +laugh with a good conscience, for the reading of the passage, according +to the oldest manuscripts we have, was not "the things he hath not +seen," but "the things he hath seen," and he thought it meant--haunting +the visible, the sensuous, the fleshly, so, for, the satisfaction of an +earthly imagination, in love with embodiment for its own sake, +worshiping angels, and not keeping hold of the invisible, the real, the +true--the mind, namely, and spirit of the living Christ, the Head. + +"Poor auntie," replied Helen, "would hold herself quite above the +manuscripts. With her it is the merest sectarianism and radicalism to +meddle with the text as appointed to be read in churches. What was good +enough for the dean, must be far more than good enough for an +unbeneficed curate!" + +But the rector, who loved dogs and horses, was delighted with the +sermon. + +Faber's whole carriage and conduct in regard to the painful matter was +such as to add to Juliet's confidence in him. Somehow she grew more at +ease in his company, and no longer took pains to avoid him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +COW-LANE-CHAPEL. + + +By degrees Mr. Drake's mind grew quiet, and accommodated itself to the +condition of the new atmosphere in which at first it was so hard for him +to draw spiritual breath. He found himself again able to pray, and while +he bowed his head lower before God, he lifted up his heart higher toward +him. His uncle's bequest presenting no appropriative difficulties, he at +once set himself to be a faithful and wise steward of the grace of God, +to which holy activity the return of his peace was mainly owing. Now and +then the fear would return that God had sent him the money in +displeasure, that He had handed him over all his principal, and refused +to be his banker any more; and the light-winged, haunting dread took +from him a little even of the blameless pleasure that naturally +belonged to the paying of his debts. Also he now became plainly aware of +a sore fact which he had all his life dimly suspected--namely, that +there was in his nature a spot of the leprosy of avarice, the desire to +accumulate. Hence he grew almost afraid of his money, and his anxiety to +spend it freely and right, to keep it flowing lest it should pile up its +waves and drown his heart, went on steadily increasing. That he could +hoard now if he pleased gave him just the opportunity of burning the +very possibility out of his soul. It is those who are unaware of their +proclivities, and never pray against them, that must be led into +temptation, lest they should forever continue capable of evil. When a +man could do a thing, then first can he abstain from doing it. Now, with +his experience of both poverty and riches, the minister knew that he +must make them both follow like hounds at his heel. If he were not to +love money, if, even in the free use of it, he were to regard it with +honor, fear its loss, forget that it came from God, and must return to +God through holy channels, he must sink into a purely contemptible +slave. Where would be the room for any further repentance? He would have +had every chance, and failed in every trial the most opposed! He must be +lord of his wealth; Mammon must be the slave, not Walter Drake. Mammon +must be more than his brownie, more than his Robin Goodfellow; he must +be the subject Djin of a holy spell--holier than Solomon's wisdom, more +potent than the stamp of his seal. At present he almost feared him as a +Caliban to whom he might not be able to play Prospero, an Ufreet +half-escaped from his jar, a demon he had raised, for whom he must find +work, or be torn by him into fragments. The slave must have drudgery, +and the master must take heed that he never send him alone to do love's +dear service. + +"I am sixty," he said, to himself, "and I have learned to begin to +learn." Behind him his public life looked a mere tale that is told; his +faith in the things he had taught had been little better than that which +hangs about an ancient legend. He had been in a measure truthful; he had +endeavored to act upon what he taught; but alas! the accidents of faith +had so often been uppermost with him, instead of its eternal fundamental +truths! How unlike the affairs of the kingdom did all that +church-business look to him now!--the rich men ruling--the poor men +grumbling! In the whole assembly including himself, could he honestly +say he knew more than one man that sought the kingdom of Heaven +_first_? And yet he had been tolerably content, until they began to turn +against himself!--What better could they have done than get rid of him? +The whole history of their relation appeared now as a mess of untruth +shot through with threads of light. Now, now, he would strive to enter +in at the strait gate: the question was not of pushing others in. He +would mortify the spirit of worldly judgments and ambitions: he would be +humble as the servant of Christ. + +Dorothy's heart was relieved a little. She could read her father's +feelings better than most wives those of their husbands, and she knew he +was happier. But she was not herself happier. She would gladly have +parted with all the money for a word from any quarter that could have +assured her there was a God in Heaven who _loved_. But the teaching of +the curate had begun to tell upon her. She had begun to have a faint +perception that if the story of Jesus Christ was true, there might be a +Father to be loved, and being might be a bliss. The poorest glimmer of +His loveliness gives a dawn to our belief in a God; and a small amount +indeed of a genuine knowledge of Him will serve to neutralize the most +confident declaration that science is against the idea of a God--an +utterance absolutely false. Scientific men may be unbelievers, but it is +not from the teaching of science. Science teaches that a man must not +say he knows what he does not know; not that what a man does not know he +may say does not exist. I will grant, however, and willingly, that true +science is against Faber's idea of other people's idea of a God. I will +grant also that the tendency of one who exclusively studies science is +certainly to deny what no one has proved, and he is uninterested in +proving; but that is the fault of the man and his lack of science, not +of the science he has. If people understood better the arrogance of +which they are themselves guilty, they would be less ready to imagine +that a strong assertion necessarily implies knowledge. Nothing can be +known except what is true. A negative may be _fact_, but can not be +_known_ except by the knowledge of its opposite. I believe also that +nothing can be really _believed_, except it be true. But people think +they believe many things which they do not and can not in the real +sense. + +When, however, Dorothy came to concern herself about the will of God, in +trying to help her father to do the best with their money, she began to +reap a little genuine comfort, for then she found things begin to +explain themselves a little. The more a man occupies himself in doing +the works of the Father--the sort of thing the Father does, the easier +will he find it to believe that such a Father is at work in the world. + +In the curate Mr. Drake had found not only a man he could trust, but one +to whom, young as he was, he could look up; and it was a trait in the +minister nothing short of noble, that he did look up to the +curate--perhaps without knowing it. He had by this time all but lost +sight of the fact, once so monstrous, so unchristian in his eyes, that +he was the paid agent of a government-church; the sight of the man's own +house, built on a rock in which was a well of the water of life, had +made him nearly forget it. In his turn he could give the curate much; +the latter soon discovered that he knew a great deal more about Old +Testament criticism, church-history, and theology--understanding by the +last the records of what men had believed and argued about God--than he +did. They often disagreed and not seldom disputed; but while each held +the will and law of Christ as the very foundation of the world, and +obedience to Him as the way to possess it after its idea, how could they +fail to know that they were brothers? They were gentle with each other +for the love of Him whom in eager obedience they called Lord. + +The moment his property was his availably, the minister betook himself +to the curate. + +"Now," he said--he too had the gift of going pretty straight, though not +quite so straight as the curate--"Now, Mr. Wingfold, tell me plainly +what you think the first thing I ought to do with this money toward +making it a true gift of God. I mean, what can I do with it for somebody +else--some person or persons to whom money in my hands, not in theirs, +may become a small saviour?" + +"You want, in respect of your money," rejoined the curate, "to be in the +world as Christ was in the world, setting right what is wrong in ways +possible to you, and not counteracting His? You want to do the gospel as +well as preach it?" + +"That is what I mean--or rather what I wish to mean. You have said +it.--What do you count the first thing I should try to set right?" + +"I should say _injustice_. My very soul revolts against the talk about +kindness to the poor, when such a great part of their misery comes from +the injustice and greed of the rich." + +"I well understand," returned Mr. Drake, "that a man's first business is +to be just to his neighbor, but I do not so clearly see when he is to +interfere to make others just. Our Lord would not settle the division of +the inheritance between the two brothers." + +"No, but he gave them a lesson concerning avarice, and left that to +work. I don't suppose any body is unjust for love of injustice. I don't +understand the pure devilish very well--though I have glimpses into it. +Your way must be different from our Lord's in form, that it may be the +same in spirit: you have to work with money; His father had given Him +none. In His mission He was not to use all means--only the best. But +even He did not attack individuals to _make_ them do right; and if you +employ your money in doing justice to the oppressed and afflicted, to +those shorn of the commonest rights of humanity, it will be the most +powerful influence of all to wake the sleeping justice in the dull +hearts of other men. It is the business of any body who can, to set +right what any body has set wrong. I will give you a special instance, +which has been in my mind all the time. Last spring--and it was the same +the spring before, my first in Glaston--the floods brought misery upon +every family in what they call the Pottery here. How some of them get +through any wet season I can not think; but Faber will tell you what a +multitude of sore throats, cases of croup, scarlet-fever, and +diphtheria, he has to attend in those houses every spring and autumn. +They are crowded with laborers and their families, who, since the +railway came, have no choice but live there, and pay a much heavier rent +in proportion to their accommodation than you or I do--in proportion to +the value of the property, immensely heavier. Is it not hard? Men are +their brothers' keepers indeed--but it is in chains of wretchedness they +keep them. Then again--I am told that the owner of these cottages, who +draws a large yearly sum from them, and to the entreaties of his tenants +for really needful repairs, gives nothing but promises, is one of the +most influential attendants of a chapel you know, where, Sunday after +Sunday, the gospel is preached. If this be true, here again is a sad +wrong: what can those people think of religion so represented?" + +"I am a sinful man," exclaimed the pastor. "That Barwood is one of the +deacons. He is the owner of the chapel as well as the cottages. I ought +to have spoken to him years ago.--But," he cried, starting to his feet, +"the property is for sale! I saw it in the paper this very morning! +Thank God!"--He caught up his hat.--"I shall have no choice but buy the +chapel too," he added, with a queer, humorous smile; "--it is part of +the property.--Come with me, my dear sir. We must see to it directly. +You will speak: I would rather not appear in the affair until the +property is my own; but I will buy those houses, please God, and make +them such as His poor sons and daughters may live in without fear or +shame." + +The curate was not one to give a cold bath to enthusiasm. They went out +together, got all needful information, and within a month the +title-deeds were in Mr. Drake's possession. + +When the rumor reached the members of his late congregation that he had +come in for a large property, many called to congratulate him, and such +congratulations are pretty sure to be sincere. But he was both annoyed +and amused when--it was in the morning during business hours--Dorothy +came and told him, not without some show of disgust, that a deputation +from the church in Cow-lane was below. + +"We've taken the liberty of calling, in the name of the church, to +congratulate you, Mr. Drake," said their leader, rising with the rest as +the minister entered the dining-room. + +"Thank you," returned the minister quietly. + +"I fancy," said the other, who was Barwood himself, with a smile such as +heralds the facetious, "you will hardly condescend to receive our little +gratuity now?" + +"I shall not require it, gentlemen." + +"Of course we should never have offered you such a small sum, if we +hadn't known you were independent of us." + +"Why then did you offer it at all?" asked the minister. + +"As a token of our regard." + +"The regard could not be very lively that made no inquiry as to our +circumstances. My daughter had twenty pounds a year; I had nothing. We +were in no small peril of simple starvation." + +"Bless my soul! we hadn't an idea of such a thing, sir! Why didn't you +tell us?" + +Mr. Drake smiled, and made no other reply. + +"Well, sir," resumed Barwood, after a very brief pause, for he was a +man of magnificent assurance, "as it's all turned out so well, you'll +let bygones be bygones, and give us a hand?" + +"I am obliged to you for calling," said Mr. Drake, "--especially to you, +Mr. Barwood, because it gives me an opportunity of confessing a fault of +omission on my part toward you." + +Here the pastor was wrong. Not having done his duty when he ought, he +should have said nothing now it was needless for the wronged, and likely +only to irritate the wrong-doer. + +"Don't mention it, pray," said Mr. Barwood. "This is a time to forget +every thing." + +"I ought to have pointed out to you, Mr. Barwood," pursued the minister, +"both for your own sake and that of those poor families, your tenants, +that your property in this lower part of the town was quite unfit for +the habitation of human beings." + +"Don't let your conscience trouble you on the score of that neglect," +answered the deacon, his face flushing with anger, while he tried to +force a smile: "I shouldn't have paid the least attention to it if you +had. My firm opinion has always been that a minister's duty is to preach +the gospel, not meddle in the private affairs of the members of his +church; and if you knew all, Mr. Drake, you would not have gone out of +your way to make the remark. But that's neither here nor there, for it's +not the business as we've come upon.--Mr. Drake, it's a clear thing to +every one as looks into it, that the cause will never prosper so long as +that's the chapel we've got. We did think as perhaps a younger man might +do something to counteract church-influences; but there don't seem any +sign of betterment yet. In fact, thinks looks worse. No, sir! it's the +chapel as is the stumbling-block. What has religion got to do with +what's ugly and dirty! A place that any lady or gentleman, let he or she +be so much of a Christian, might turn up the nose and refrain the foot +from! No! I say; what we want is a new place of worship. Cow-lane is +behind the age--and _that_ musty! uw!" + +"With the words of truth left sticking on the walls?" suggested Mr. +Drake. + +"Ha! ha! ha!--Good that!" exclaimed several. + +But the pastor's face looked stern, and the voices dropped into rebuked +silence. + +"At least you'll allow, sir," persisted Barwood, "that the house of God +ought to be as good as the houses of his people. It stands to reason. +Depend upon it, He won't give us no success till we give Him a decent +house. What! are we to dwell in houses of cedar, and the ark of the Lord +in a tent? That's what it comes to, sir!" + +The pastor's spiritual gorge rose at this paganism in Jew clothing. + +"You think God loves newness and finery better than the old walls where +generations have worshiped?" he said. + +"I make no doubt of it, sir," answered Barwood. "What's generations to +him! He wants the people drawn to His house; and what there is in +Cow-lane to draw is more than I know." + +"I understand you wish to sell the chapel," said Mr. Drake. "Is it not +rather imprudent to bring down the value of your property before you +have got rid of it?" + +Barwood smiled a superior smile. He considered the bargain safe, and +thought the purchaser a man who was certain to pull the chapel down. + +"I know who the intending purchaser is," said Mr. Drake, "and----" + +Barwood's countenance changed: he bethought himself that the conveyance +was not completed, and half started from his chair. + +"You would never go to do such an unneighborly act," he cried, "as----" + +"--As conspire to bring down the value of a property the moment it had +passed out of my hands?--I would not, Mr. Barwood; and this very day the +intending purchaser shall know of your project." + +Barwood locked his teeth together, and grinned with rage. He jumped from +his seat, knocked it over in getting his hat from under it, and rushed +out of the house. Mr. Drake smiled, and looking calmly round on the rest +of the deacons, held his peace. It was a very awkward moment for them. +At length one of them, a small tradesman, ventured to speak. He dared +make no allusion to the catastrophe that had occurred. It would take +much reflection to get hold of the true weight and bearing of what they +had just heard and seen, for Barwood was a mighty man among them. + +"What we were thinking, sir," he said, "--and you will please to +remember, Mr. Drake, that I was always on your side, and it's better to +come to the point; there's a strong party of us in the church, sir, +that would like to have you back, and we was thinking if you would +condescend to help us, now as you're so well able to, sir, toward a new +chapel, now as you have the means, as well as the will, to do God +service, sir, what with the chapel-building society, and every man-jack +of us setting our shoulder to the wheel, and we should all do our very +best, we should get a nice, new, I won't say showy, but +attractive--that's the word, attractive place--not gaudy, you know, I +never would give in to that, but ornamental too--and in a word, +attractive--that's it--a place to which the people would be drawn by the +look of it outside, and kep' by the look of it inside--a place as would +make the people of Glaston say, 'Come, and let us go up to the house of +the Lord,'--if, with your help, sir, we had such a place, then perhaps +you would condescend to take the reins again, sir, and we should then +pay Mr. Rudd as your assistant, leaving the whole management in your +hands--to preach when you pleased, and leave it alone when you +didn't.--There, sir! I think that's much the whole thing in a +nut-shell." + +"And now will you tell me what result you would look for under such an +arrangement?" + +"We should look for the blessing of a little success; it's a many years +since we was favored with any." + +"And by success you mean----?" + +"A large attendance of regular hearers in the morning--not a seat to +let!--and the people of Glaston crowding to hear the word in the +evening, and going away because they can't get a foot inside the place! +That's the success _I_ should like to see." + +"What! would you have all Glaston such as yourselves!" exclaimed the +pastor indignantly. "Gentlemen, this is the crowning humiliation of my +life! Yet I am glad of it, because I deserve it, and it will help to +make and keep me humble. I see in you the wood and hay and stubble with +which, alas! I have been building all these years! I have been preaching +dissent instead of Christ, and there you are!--dissenters indeed--but +can I--can I call you Christians? Assuredly do I believe the form of +your church that ordained by the apostles, but woe is me for the +material whereof it is built! Were I to aid your plans with a single +penny in the hope of withdrawing one inhabitant of Glaston from the +preaching of Mr. Wingfold, a man who speaks the truth and fears nobody, +as I, alas! have feared you, because of your dullness of heart and +slowness of understanding, I should be doing the body of Christ a +grievous wrong. I have been as one beating the air in talking to you +against episcopacy when I ought to have been preaching against +dishonesty; eulogizing congregationalism, when I ought to have been +training you in the three abiding graces, and chiefly in the greatest of +them, charity. I have taken to pieces and put together for you the plan +of salvation, when I ought to have spoken only of Him who is the way and +the life. I have been losing my life, and helping you to lose yours. But +go to the abbey church, and there a man will stir you up to lay hold +upon God, will teach you to know Christ, each man for himself and not +for another. Shut up your chapel, put off your scheme for a new one, go +to the abbey church, and be filled with the finest of the wheat. Then +should this man depart, and one of the common episcopal train, whose God +is the church, and whose neighbor is the order of the priesthood, come +to take his place, and preach against dissent as I have so foolishly +preached against the church--then, and not until then, will the time be +to gather together your savings and build yourselves a house to pray in. +Then, if I am alive, as I hope I shall not be, come, and I will aid your +purpose liberally. Do not mistake me; I believe as strongly as ever I +did that the constitution of the Church of England is all wrong; that +the arrogance and assumption of her priesthood is essentially opposed to +the very idea of the kingdom of Heaven; that the Athanasian creed is +unintelligible, and where intelligible, cruel; but where I find my Lord +preached as only one who understands Him can preach Him, and as I never +could preach Him, and never heard Him preached before, even faults great +as those shall be to me as merest accidents. Gentlemen, every thing is +pure loss--chapels and creeds and churches--all is loss that comes +between us and Christ--individually, masterfully. And of unchristian +things one of the most unchristian is to dispute and separate in the +name of Him whose one object was, and whose one victory will be +unity.--Gentlemen, if you should ever ask me to preach to you, I will do +so with pleasure." + +They rose as one man, bade him an embarrassed good morning, and walked +from the room, some with their heads thrown back, other hanging them +forward in worshipful shame. The former spread the rumor that the old +minister had gone crazy, the latter began to go now and then to church. + +I may here mention, as I shall have no other opportunity, that a new +chapel was not built; that the young pastor soon left the old one; that +the deacons declared themselves unable to pay the rent; that Mr. Drake +took the place into his own hands, and preached there every Sunday +evening, but went always in the morning to hear Mr. Wingfold. There was +kindly human work of many sorts done by them in concert, and each felt +the other a true support. When the pastor and the parson chanced to meet +in some lowly cottage, it was never with embarrassment or apology, as if +they served two masters, but always with hearty and glad greeting, and +they always went away together. I doubt if wickedness does half as much +harm as sectarianism, whether it be the sectarianism of the church or of +dissent, the sectarianism whose virtue is condescension, or the +sectarianism whose vice is pride. Division has done more to hide Christ +from the view of men, than all the infidelity that has ever been spoken. +It is the half-Christian clergy of every denomination that are the main +cause of the so-called failure of the Church of Christ. Thank God, it +has not failed so miserably as to succeed in the estimation or to the +satisfaction of any party in it. + +But it was not merely in relation to forms of church government that the +heart of the pastor now in his old age began to widen. It is foolish to +say that after a certain age a man can not alter. That some men can +not--or will not, (God only can draw the line between those two _nots_) +I allow; but the cause is not age, and it is not universal. The man who +does not care and ceases to grow, becomes torpid, stiffens, is in a +sense dead; but he who has been growing all the time need never stop; +and where growth is, there is always capability of change: growth itself +is a succession of slow, melodious, ascending changes. + +The very next Sunday after the visit of their deputation to him, the +church in Cow-lane asked their old minister to preach to them. Dorothy, +as a matter of course, went with her father, although, dearly as she +loved him, she would have much preferred hearing what the curate had to +say. The pastor's text was, _Ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, +and have omitted the weightier matters of the law--judgment, mercy, and +faith_. In his sermon he enforced certain of the dogmas of a theology +which once expressed more truth "than falsehood, but now at least +_conveys_ more falsehood than truth, because of the changed conditions +of those who teach and those who hear it; for, even where his faith had +been vital enough to burst the verbally rigid, formal, and indeed +spiritually vulgar theology he had been taught, his intellect had not +been strong enough to cast off the husks. His expressions, assertions, +and arguments, tying up a bundle of mighty truth with cords taken from +the lumber-room and the ash-pit, grazed severely the tenderer nature of +his daughter. When they reached the house, and she found herself alone +with her father in his study, she broke suddenly into passionate +complaint--not that he should so represent God, seeing, for what she +knew, He might indeed be such, but that, so representing God, he should +expect men to love Him. It was not often that her sea, however troubled +in its depths, rose into such visible storm. She threw herself upon the +floor with a loud cry, and lay sobbing and weeping. Her father was +terribly startled, and stood for a moment as if stunned; then a faint +slow light began to break in upon him, and he stood silent, sad, and +thoughtful. He knew that he loved God, yet in what he said concerning +Him, in the impression he gave of Him, there was that which prevented +the best daughter in the world from loving her Father in Heaven! He +began to see that he had never really thought about these things; he had +been taught them but had never turned them over in the light, never +perceived the fact, that, however much truth might be there, there also +was what at least looked like a fearful lie against God. For a moment he +gazed with keen compassion on his daughter as she lay, actually writhing +in her agony, then kneeled beside her, and laying his hand upon her, +said gently: + +"Well, my dear, if those things are not true, my saying them will not +make them so." + +She sprung to her feet, threw her arms about his neck, kissed him, and +left the room. The minister remained upon his knees. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +THE DOCTOR'S HOUSE. + + +The holidays came, and Juliet took advantage of them to escape from what +had begun to be a bondage to her--the daily intercourse with people who +disapproved of the man she loved. In her thoughts even she took no +intellectual position against them with regard to what she called +doctrine, and Faber superstition. Her father had believed as they did; +she clung to his memory; perhaps she believed as he did; she could not +tell. There was time yet wherein to make up her mind. She had certainly +believed so once, she said to herself, and she might so believe again. +She would have been at first highly offended, but the next moment a +little pleased at being told that in reality she had never believed one +whit more than Faber, that she was at present indeed incapable of +believing. Probably she would have replied, "Then wherein am I to +blame?" But although a woman who sits with her child in her arms in the +midst of her burning house, half asleep, and half stifled and dazed with +the fierce smoke, may not be to blame, certainly the moment she is able +to excuse herself she is bound to make for the door. So long as men do +not feel that they are in a bad condition and in danger of worse, the +message of deliverance will sound to them as a threat. Yea, the offer of +absolute well-being upon the only possible conditions of the well-being +itself, must, if heard at all, rouse in them a discomfort whose cause +they attribute to the message, not to themselves; and immediately they +will endeavor to justify themselves in disregarding it. There are those +doing all they can to strengthen themselves in unbelief, who, if the +Lord were to appear plainly before their eyes, would tell Him they could +not help it, for He had not until then given them ground enough for +faith, and when He left them, would go on just as before, except that +they would speculate and pride themselves on the vision. If men say, "We +want no such deliverance," then the Maker of them must either destroy +them as vile things for whose existence He is to Himself accountable, or +compel them to change. If they say, "We choose to be destroyed," He, as +their Maker, has a choice in the matter too. Is He not free to say, "You +can not even slay yourselves, and I choose that you shall know the +death of living without Me; you shall learn to choose to live indeed. I +choose that you shall know what _I know_ to be good"? And however much +any individual consciousness may rebel, surely the individual +consciousness which called that other into being, and is the Father of +that being, fit to be such because of Himself He is such, has a right to +object that by rebellion His creature should destroy the very power by +which it rebels, and from a being capable of a divine freedom by +partaking of the divine nature, should make of itself the merest slave +incapable of will of any sort! Is it a wrong to compel His creature to +soar aloft into the ether of its origin, and find its deepest, its only +true self? It is God's knowing choice of life against man's ignorant +choice of death. + +But Juliet knew nothing of such a region of strife in the human soul. +She had no suspicion what an awful swamp lay around the prison of her +self-content--no, self-discontent--in which she lay chained. To her the +one good and desirable thing was the love and company of Paul Faber. He +was her saviour, she said to herself, and the woman who could not love +and trust and lean upon such a heart of devotion and unselfishness as +his, was unworthy of the smallest of his thoughts. He was nobility, +generosity, justice itself! If she sought to lay her faults bare to him, +he would but fold her to his bosom to shut them out from her own vision! +He would but lay his hand on the lips of confession, and silence them as +unbelievers in his perfect affection! He was better than the God the +Wingfolds and Drakes believed in, with whom humiliation was a condition +of acceptance! + +She told the Drakes that, for the air of Owlkirk, she was going to +occupy her old quarters with Mrs. Puckridge during the holidays. They +were not much surprised, for they had remarked a change in her manner, +and it was not long unexplained: for, walking from the Old House +together one evening rather late, they met her with the doctor in a +little frequented part of the park. When she left them, they knew she +would not return; and her tears betrayed that she knew it also. + +Meantime the negotiation for the purchase of the Old House of Glaston +was advancing with slow legal sinuosity. Mr. Drake had offered the full +value of the property, and the tender seemed to be regarded not +unfavorably. But his heart and mind were far more occupied with the +humbler property he had already secured in the town: that was now to be +fortified against the incursions of the river, with its attendant fevers +and agues. A survey of the ground had satisfied him that a wall at a +certain point would divert a great portion of the water, and this wall +he proceeded at once to build. He hoped in the end to inclose the ground +altogether, or at least to defend it at every assailable point, but +there were many other changes imperative, with difficulties such that +they could not all be coped with at once. The worst of the cottages must +be pulled down, and as they were all even over-full, he must contrive to +build first. Nor until that was done, could he effect much toward +rendering the best of them fit for human habitation. + +Some of the householders in the lower part of the adjoining street shook +their heads when they saw what the bricklayers were about. They had +reason to fear they were turning the water more upon them; and it seemed +a wrong that the wretched cottages which had from time immemorial been +accustomed to the water, should be now protected from it at the cost of +respectable houses! It did not occur to them that it might be time for +Lady Fortune to give her wheel a few inches of a turn. To common minds, +custom is always right so long as it is on their side. + +In the meantime the chapel in the park at Nestley had been advancing, +for the rector, who was by nature no dawdler where he was interested, +had been pushing it on; and at length on a certain Sunday evening in the +autumn, the people of the neighborhood having been invited to attend, +the rector read prayers in it, and the curate preached a sermon. At the +close of the service the congregation was informed that prayers would be +read there every Sunday evening, and that was all. Mrs. Bevis, honest +soul, the green-mantled pool of whose being might well desire a wind, if +only from a pair of bellows, to disturb its repose, for not a fish moved +to that end in its sunless deeps--I say deeps, for such there must have +been, although neither she nor her friends were acquainted with any +thing there but shallows--was the only one inclined to grumble at the +total absence of ceremonial pomp: she did want her husband to have the +credit of the great deed. + +About the same time it was that Juliet again sought the cottage at +Owlkirk, with the full consciousness that she went there to meet her +fate. Faber came to see her every day, and both Ruber and Niger began +to grow skinny. But I have already said enough to show the nature and +course of the stream, and am not bound to linger longer over its noise +among the pebbles. Some things are interesting rather for their results +than their process, and of such I confess it is to me the love-making of +these two.--"What! were they not human?" Yes: but with a truncated +humanity--even shorn of its flower-buds, and full only of variegated +leaves. It shall suffice therefore to say that, in a will-less sort of a +way, Juliet let the matter drift; that, although she withheld explicit +consent, she yet at length allowed Faber to speak as if she had given +it; that they had long ceased to talk about God or no God, about life +and death, about truth and superstition, and spoke only of love, and the +days at hand, and how they would spend them; that they poured out their +hearts in praising and worshiping each other; and that, at last, Juliet +found herself as firmly engaged to be Paul's wife, as if she had granted +every one of the promises he had sought to draw from her, but which she +had avoided giving in the weak fancy that thus she was holding herself +free. It was perfectly understood in all the neighborhood that the +doctor and Miss Meredith were engaged. Both Helen and Dorothy felt a +little hurt at her keeping an absolute silence toward them concerning +what the country seemed to know; but when they spoke of it to her, she +pointedly denied any engagement, and indeed although helplessly drifting +toward marriage, had not yet given absolute consent even in her own +mind. She dared not even then regard it as inevitable. Her two friends +came to the conclusion that she could not find the courage to face +disapproval, and perhaps feared expostulation. + +"She may well be ashamed of such an unequal yoking!" said Helen to her +husband. + +"There is no unequal yoking in it that I see," he returned. "In the +matter of faith, what is there to choose between them? I see nothing. +They may carry the yoke straight enough. If there _be_ one of them +further from the truth than the other, it must be the one who says, _I +go sir_, and goes not. Between _don't believe_ and _don't care, I_ don't +care to choose. Let them marry and God bless them. It will be good for +them--for one thing if for no other--it is sure to bring trouble to +both." + +"Indeed, Mr. Wingfold!" returned Helen playfully. + +"So that is how you regard marriage!--Sure to bring trouble!" + +She laid her head on his shoulder. + +"Trouble to every one, my Helen, like the gospel itself; more trouble to +you than to me, but none to either that will not serve to bring us +closer to each other," he answered. "But about those two--well, I am +both doubtful and hopeful. At all events I can not wish them not to +marry. I think it will be for both of them a step nearer to the truth. +The trouble will, perhaps, drive them to find God. That any one who had +seen and loved our Lord, should consent to marry one, whatever that one +was besides, who did not at least revere and try to obey Him, seems to +me impossible. But again I say there is no such matter involved between +them.--Shall I confess to you, that, with all her frankness, all her +charming ways, all the fullness of the gaze with which her black eyes +look into yours, there is something about Juliet that puzzles me? At +times I have thought she must be in some trouble, out of which she was +on the point of asking me to help her; at others I have fancied she was +trying to be agreeable against her inclination, and did not more than +half approve of me. Sometimes, I confess, the shadow of a doubt crosses +me: is she altogether a true woman? But that vanishes the moment she +smiles. I wish she could have been open with me. I could have helped +her, I am pretty sure. As it is, I have not got one step nearer the real +woman than when first I saw her at the rector's." + +"I know," said Helen. "But don't you think it may be that she has never +yet come to know any thing about herself--to perceive either fact or +mystery of her own nature? If she is a stranger to herself, she cannot +reveal herself--at least of her own will--to those about her. She is +just what I was, Thomas, before I knew you--a dull, sleepy-hearted thing +that sat on her dignity. Be sure she has not an idea of the divine truth +you have taught me to see underlying creation itself--namely, that every +thing possessed owes its very value as possession to the power which +that possession gives of parting with it." + +"You are a pupil worth having, Helen!--even if I had had to mourn all my +days that you would not love me." + +"And now you have said your mind about Juliet," Helen went on, "allow me +to say that I trust her more than I do Faber. I do not for a moment +imagine him consciously dishonest, but he makes too much show of his +honesty for me. I can not help feeling that he is selfish--and can a +selfish man be honest?" + +"Not thoroughly. I know that only too well, for I at all events am +selfish, Helen." + +"I don't see it; but if you are, you know it, and hate it, and strive +against it. I do not think he knows it, even when he says that every +body is selfish. Only, what better way to get rid of it than to love and +marry?" + +"Or to confirm it," said Wingfold thoughtfully. + +"I shouldn't wonder a bit if they're married already!" said Helen. + +She was not far from wrong, although not quite right. Already Faber had +more than hinted at a hurried marriage, as private as could be +compassed. It was impossible of course, to be married at church. That +would be to cast mockery on the marriage itself, as well as on what +Faber called his _beliefs_. The objection was entirely on Faber's side, +but Juliet did not hint at the least difference of feeling in the +matter. She let every thing take its way now. + +At length having, in a neighboring town, arranged all the necessary +preliminaries, Faber got one of the other doctors in Glaston to attend +to his practice for three weeks, and went to take a holiday. Juliet left +Owlkirk the same day. They met, were lawfully married, and at the close +of the three weeks, returned together to the doctor's house. + +The sort of thing did not please Glaston society, and although Faber was +too popular as a doctor to lose position by it, Glaston was slow in +acknowledging that it knew there was a lady at the head of his house. +Mrs. Wingfold and Miss Drake, however, set their neighbors a good +example, and by degrees there came about a dribbling sort of +recognition. Their social superiors stood the longest aloof--chiefly +because the lady had been a governess, and yet had behaved so like one +of themselves; they thought it well to give her a lesson. Most of them, +however, not willing to offend the leading doctor in the place, yielded +and called. Two elderly spinsters and Mrs. Ramshorn did not. The latter +declared she did not believe they were married. Most agreed they were +the handsomest couple ever seen in that quarter, and looked all right. + +Juliet returned the calls made upon her, at the proper retaliatory +intervals, and gradually her mode of existence fell into routine. The +doctor went out every day, and was out most of the day, while she sat at +home and worked or read. She had to amuse herself, and sometimes found +life duller than when she had to earn her bread--when, as she went from +place to place, she might at any turn meet Paul upon Ruber or Niger. +Already the weary weed of the commonplace had begun to show itself in +the marriage garden--a weed which, like all weeds, requires only neglect +for perfect development, when it will drive the lazy Eve who has never +made her life worth _living_, to ask whether life be worth _having_. She +was not a great reader. No book had ever yet been to her a well-spring +of life; and such books as she liked best it was perhaps just as well +that she could not easily procure in Glaston; for, always ready to +appreciate the noble, she had not moral discernment sufficient to +protect her from the influence of such books as paint poor action in +noble color. For a time also she was stinted in her natural nourishment: +her husband had ordered a grand piano from London for her, but it had +not yet arrived; and the first touch she laid on the tall +spinster-looking one that had stood in the drawing-room for fifty years, +with red silk wrinkles radiating from a gilt center, had made her +shriek. If only Paul would buy a yellow gig, like his friend Dr. May of +Broughill, and take her with him on his rounds! Or if she had a friend +or two to go and see when he was out!--friends like what Helen or even +Dorothy might have been: she was not going to be hand-in-glove with any +body that didn't like her Paul! She missed church too--not the prayers, +much; but she did like hearing what she counted a good sermon, that is, +a lively one. Her husband wanted her to take up some science, but if he +had considered that, with all her gift in music, she expressed an utter +indifference to thorough bass, he would hardly have been so foolish. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +THE PONY-CARRIAGE. + + +One Saturday morning the doctor was called to a place a good many miles +distant, and Juliet was left with the prospect of being longer alone +than usual. She felt it almost sultry although so late in the season, +and could not rest in the house. She pretended to herself she had some +shopping to do in Pine Street, but it was rather a longing for air and +motion that sent her out. Also, certain thoughts which she did not like, +had of late been coming more frequently, and she found it easier to +avoid them in the street. They were not such as troubled her from being +hard to think out. Properly speaking, she _thought_ less now than ever. +She often said nice things, but they were mostly the mere gracious +movements of a nature sweet, playful, trusting, fond of all beautiful +things, and quick to see artistic relation where her perception reached. + +As she turned the corner of Mr. Drew's shop, the house-door opened, and +a lady came out. It was Mr. Drew's lodger. Juliet knew nothing about +her, and was not aware that she had ever seen her; but the lady started +as if she recognized her. To that kind of thing Juliet was accustomed, +for her style of beauty was any thing but common. The lady's regard +however was so fixed that it drew hers, and as their eyes met, Juliet +felt something, almost a physical pain, shoot through her heart. She +could not understand it, but presently began to suspect, and by degrees +became quite certain that she had seen her before, though she could not +tell where. The effect the sight of her had had, indicated some painful +association, which she must recall before she could be at rest. She +turned in the other direction, and walked straight from the town, that +she might think without eyes upon her. + +Scene after scene of her life came back as she searched to find some +circumstance associated with that face. Once and again she seemed on the +point of laying hold of something, when the face itself vanished and she +had that to recall, and the search to resume from the beginning. In the +process many painful memories arose, some, connected with her mother, +unhappy in themselves, others, connected with her father, grown unhappy +from her marriage; for thereby she had built a wall between her thoughts +and her memories of him; and, if there should be a life beyond this, had +hollowed a gulf between them forever. + +Gradually her thoughts took another direction.--Could it be that already +the glamour had begun to disperse, the roses of love to wither, the +magic to lose its force, the common look of things to return? Paul was +as kind, as courteous, as considerate as ever, and yet there was a +difference. Her heart did not grow wild, her blood did not rush to her +face, when she heard the sound of his horse's hoofs in the street, +though she knew them instantly. Sadder and sadder grew her thoughts as +she walked along, careless whither. + +Had she begun to cease loving? No. She loved better than she knew, but +she must love infinitely better yet. The first glow was gone--already: +she had thought it would not go, and was miserable. She recalled that +even her honeymoon had a little disappointed her. I would not be +mistaken as implying that any of these her reflections had their origin +in what was _peculiar_ in the character, outlook, or speculation of +herself or her husband. The passion of love is but the vestibule--the +pylon--to the temple of love. A garden lies between the pylon and the +adytum. They that will enter the sanctuary must walk through the garden. +But some start to see the roses already withering, sit down and weep and +watch their decay, until at length the aged flowers hang drooping all +around them, and lo! their hearts are withered also, and when they rise +they turn their backs on the holy of holies, and their feet toward the +gate. + +Juliet was proud of her Paul, and loved him as much as she was yet +capable of loving. But she had thought they were enough for each other, +and already, although she was far from acknowledging it to herself, she +had, in the twilight of her thinking, begun to doubt it. Nor can she be +blamed for the doubt. Never man and woman yet succeeded in being all in +all to each other. + +It were presumption to say that a lonely God would be enough for +Himself, seeing that we can know nothing of God but as He is our Father. +What if the Creator Himself is sufficient to Himself in virtue of His +self-existent _creatorship_? Let my reader think it out. The lower we go +in the scale of creation, the more independent is the individual. The +richer and more perfect each of a married pair is in the other relations +of life, the more is each to the other. For us, the children of eternal +love, the very air our spirits breathe, and without which they can not +live, is the eternal life; for us, the brothers and sisters of a +countless family, the very space in which our souls can exist, is the +love of each and every soul of our kind. + +Such were not Juliet's thoughts. To her such would have seemed as unreal +as unintelligible. To her they would have looked just what some of my +readers will pronounce them, not in the least knowing what they are. She +was suddenly roused from her painful reverie by the pulling up of +Helen's ponies, with much clatter and wriggling recoil, close beside +her, making more fuss with their toy-carriage than the mightiest of +tractive steeds with the chariot of pomp. + +"Jump in, Juliet," cried their driver, addressing her with the greater +_abandon_ that she was resolved no stiffness on her part should deposit +a grain to the silting up of the channel of former affection. She was +one of the few who understand that no being can afford to let the +smallest love-germ die. + +Juliet hesitated. She was not a little bewildered with the sudden recall +from the moony plains of memory, and the demand for immediate action. +She answered uncertainly, trying to think what was involved. + +"I know your husband is not waiting you at home," pursued Helen. "I saw +him on Ruber, three fields off, riding away from Glaston. Jump in, dear. +You can make up that mind of yours in the carriage as well as upon the +road. I will set you down wherever you please. My husband is out too, so +the slaves can take their pleasure." + +Juliet could not resist, had little inclination to do so, yielded +without another word, and took her place beside Helen, a little shy of +being alone with her, yet glad of her company. Away went the ponies, and +as soon as she had got them settled to their work, Helen turned her face +toward Juliet. + +"I _am_ so glad to see you!" she said. + +Juliet's heart spoke too loud for her throat. It was a relief to her +that Helen had to keep her eyes on her charge, the quickness of whose +every motion rendered watchfulness right needful. + +"Have you returned Mrs. Bevis's call yet!" asked Helen. + +"No," murmured Juliet. "I haven't been able yet." + +"Well, here is a good chance. Sit where you are, and you will be at +Nestley in half an hour, and I shall be the more welcome. You are a +great favorite there!" + +"How kind you are!" said Juliet, the tears beginning to rise. "Indeed, +Mrs. Wingfold,----" + +"You _used_ to call me Helen!" said that lady, pulling up her ponies +with sudden energy, as they shied at a bit of paper on the road, and +nearly had themselves and all they drew in the ditch. + +"May I call you so still?" + +"Surely! What else?" + +"You are too good to me!" said Juliet, and wept outright. + +"My dear Juliet," returned Helen, "I will be quite plain with you, and +that will put things straight in a moment. Your friends understand +perfectly why you have avoided them of late, and are quite sure it is +from no unkindness to any of them. But neither must you imagine we think +hardly of you for marrying Mr. Faber. We detest his opinions so much +that we feel sure if you saw a little further into them, neither of you +would hold them." + +"But I don't--that is, I--" + +"You don't know whether you hold them or not: I understand quite well. +My husband says in your case it does not matter much; for if you had +ever really believed in Jesus Christ, you could not have done it. At all +events now the thing is done, there is no question about it left. Dear +Juliet, think of us as your friends still, who will always be glad to +see you, and ready to help you where we can." + +Juliet was weeping for genuine gladness now. But even as she wept, by +one of those strange movements of our being which those who have been +quickest to question them wonder at the most, it flashed upon her where +she had seen the lady that came from Mr. Drew's house, and her heart +sunk within her, for the place was associated with that portion of her +history which of all she would most gladly hide from herself. During the +rest of the drive she was so silent, that Helen at last gave up trying +to talk to her. Then first she observed how the clouds had risen on all +sides and were meeting above, and that the air was more still and sultry +than ever. + +Just as they got within Nestley-gate, a flash of lightning, scarcely +followed by a loud thunder-clap, shot from overhead. The ponies plunged, +reared, swayed asunder from the pole, nearly fell, and recovered +themselves only to dart off in wild terror. Juliet screamed. + +"Don't be frightened, child," said Helen. "There is no danger here. The +road is straight and there is nothing on it. I shall soon pull them up. +Only don't cry out: that will be as little to their taste as the +lightning." + +Juliet caught at the reins. + +"For God's sake, don't do that!" cried Helen, balking her clutch. "You +will kill us both." + +Juliet sunk back in her seat. The ponies went at full speed along the +road. The danger was small, for the park was upon both sides, level +with the drive, in which there was a slight ascent. Helen was perfectly +quiet, and went on gradually tightening her pull upon the reins. Before +they reached the house, she had entirely regained her command of them. +When she drew up to the door, they stood quite steady, but panting as if +their little sides would fly asunder. By this time Helen was red as a +rose; her eyes were flashing, and a smile was playing about her mouth; +but Juliet was like a lily on which the rain has been falling all night: +her very lips were bloodless. When Helen turned and saw her, she was far +more frightened than the ponies could make her. + +"Why, Juliet, my dear!" she said, "I had no thought you were so +terrified! What would your husband say to me for frightening you so! But +you are safe now." + +A servant came to take the ponies. Helen got out first, and gave her +hand to Juliet. + +"Don't think me a coward, Helen," she said. "It was the thunder. I never +could bear thunder." + +"I should be far more of a coward than you are, Juliet," answered Helen, +"if I believed, or even feared, that just a false step of little Zephyr +there, or one plunge more from Zoe, might wipe out the world, and I +should never more see the face of my husband." + +She spoke eagerly, lovingly, believingly. Juliet shivered, stopped, and +laid hold of the baluster rail. Things had been too much for her that +day. She looked so ill that Helen was again alarmed, but she soon came +to herself a little, and they went on to Mrs. Bevis's room. She received +them most kindly, made Mrs. Faber lie on the sofa, covered her over, for +she was still trembling, and got her a glass of wine. But she could not +drink it, and lay sobbing in vain endeavor to control herself. + +Meantime the clouds gathered thicker and thicker: the thunder-peal that +frightened the ponies had been but the herald of the storm, and now it +came on in earnest. The rain rushed suddenly on the earth, and as soon +as she heard it, Juliet ceased to sob. At every flash, however, although +she lay with her eyes shut, and her face pressed into the pillow, she +shivered and moaned.--"Why should one," thought Helen, "who is merely +and only the child of Nature, find herself so little at home with her?" +Presently Mr. Bevis came running in from the stable, drenched in +crossing to the house. As he passed to his room, he opened the door of +his wife's, and looked in. + +"I am glad to see you safely housed, ladies," he said. "You must make +up your minds to stay where you are. It will not clear before the moon +rises, and that will be about midnight. I will send John to tell your +husbands that you are not cowering under a hedge, and will not be home +to-night." + +He was a good weather-prophet. The rain went on. In the evening the two +husbands appeared, dripping. They had come on horseback together, and +would ride home again after dinner. The doctor would have to be out the +greater part of the Sunday, and would gladly leave his wife in such good +quarters; the curate would walk out to his preaching in the evening, and +drive home with Helen after it, taking Juliet, if she should be able to +accompany them. + +After dinner, when the ladies had left them, between the two clergymen +and the doctor arose the conversation of which I will now give the +substance, leaving the commencement, and taking it up at an advanced +point. + +"Now tell me," said Faber, in the tone of one satisfied he must be +allowed in the right, "which is the nobler--to serve your neighbor in +the hope of a future, believing in a God who will reward you, or to +serve him in the dark, obeying your conscience, with no other hope than +that those who come after you will be the better for you?" + +"I allow most heartily," answered Wingfold, "and with all admiration, +that it is indeed grand in one hopeless for himself to live well for the +sake of generations to come, which he will never see, and which will +never hear of him. But I will not allow that there is any thing grand in +being hopeless for one's self, or in serving the Unseen rather than +those about you, seeing it is easier to work for those who can not +oppose you, than to endure the contradiction of sinners. But I know you +agree with me that the best way to assist posterity is to be true to +your contemporaries, so there I need say no more--except that the +hopeless man can do the least for his fellows, being unable to give them +any thing that should render them other than hopeless themselves; and +if, for the grandeur of it, a man were to cast away his purse in order +to have the praise of parting with the two mites left in his pocket, you +would simply say the man was a fool. This much seems to me clear, that, +if there be no God, it may be nobler to be able to live without one; +but, if there be a God, it must be nobler not to be able to live +without Him. The moment, however, that nobility becomes the object in +any action, that moment the nobleness of the action vanishes. The man +who serves his fellow that he may himself be noble, misses the mark. He +alone who follows the truth, not he who follows nobility, shall attain +the noble. A man's nobility will, in the end, prove just commensurate +with his humanity--with the love he bears his neighbor--not the amount +of work he may have done for him. A man might throw a lordly gift to his +fellow, like a bone to a dog, and damn himself in the deed. You may +insult a dog by the way you give him his bone." + +"I dispute nothing of all that," said Faber--while good Mr. Bevis sat +listening hard, not quite able to follow the discussion; "but I know you +will admit that to do right from respect to any reward whatever, hardly +amounts to doing right at all." + +"I doubt if any man ever did or could do a thing worthy of passing as in +itself good, for the sake of a reward," rejoined Wingfold. "Certainly, +to do good for something else than good, is not good at all. But perhaps +a reward may so influence a low nature as to bring it a little into +contact with what is good, whence the better part of it may make some +acquaintance with good. Also, the desire of the approbation of the +Perfect, might nobly help a man who was finding his duty hard, for it +would humble as well as strengthen him, and is but another form of the +love of the good. The praise of God will always humble a man, I think." + +"There you are out of my depth," said Faber. "I know nothing about +that." + +"I go on then to say," continued the curate, "that a man may well be +strengthened and encouraged by the hope of being made a better and truer +man, and capable of greater self-forgetfulness and devotion. There is +nothing low in having respect to such a reward as that, is there?" + +"It seems to me better," persisted the doctor, "to do right for the sake +of duty, than for the sake of any goodness even that will come thereby +to yourself." + +"Assuredly, if self in the goodness, and not the goodness itself be the +object," assented Wingfold. "When a duty lies before one, self ought to +have no part in the gaze we fix upon it; but when thought reverts upon +himself, who would avoid the wish to be a better man? The man who will +not do a thing for duty, will never get so far as to derive any help +from the hope of goodness. But duty itself is only a stage toward +something better. It is but the impulse, God-given I believe, toward a +far more vital contact with the truth. We shall one day forget all about +duty, and do every thing from the love of the loveliness of it, the +satisfaction of the rightness of it. What would you say to a man who +ministered to the wants of his wife and family only from duty? Of course +you wish heartily that the man who neglects them would do it from any +cause, even were it fear of the whip; but the strongest and most +operative sense of duty would not satisfy you in such a relation. There +are depths within depths of righteousness. Duty is the only path to +freedom, but that freedom is the love that is beyond and prevents duty." + +"But," said Faber, "I have heard you say that to take from you your +belief in a God would be to render you incapable of action. Now, the +man--I don't mean myself, but the sort of a man for whom I stand +up--does act, does his duty, without the strength of that belief: is he +not then the stronger?--Let us drop the word _noble_." + +"In the case supposed, he would be the stronger--for a time at least," +replied the curate. "But you must remember that to take from me the joy +and glory of my life, namely the belief that I am the child of God, an +heir of the Infinite, with the hope of being made perfectly righteous, +loving like God Himself, would be something more than merely reducing me +to the level of a man who had never loved God, or seen in the +possibility of Him any thing to draw him. I should have lost the mighty +dream of the universe; he would be what and where he chose to be, and +might well be the more capable. Were I to be convinced there is no God, +and to recover by the mere force of animal life from the prostration +into which the conviction cast me, I should, I hope, try to do what duty +was left me, for I too should be filled, for a time at least, with an +endless pity for my fellows; but all would be so dreary, that I should +be almost paralyzed for serving them, and should long for death to do +them and myself the only good service. The thought of the generations +doomed to be born into a sunless present, would almost make me join any +conspiracy to put a stop to the race. I should agree with Hamlet that +the whole thing had better come to an end. Would it necessarily indicate +a lower nature, or condition, or habit of thought, that, having +cherished such hopes, I should, when I lost them, be more troubled than +one who never had had them?" + +"Still," said Faber, "I ask you to allow that a nature which can do +without help is greater than a nature which can not." + +"If the thing done were the same, I should allow it," answered the +curate; "but the things done will prove altogether different. And +another thing to be noted is, that, while the need of help might +indicate a lower nature, the capacity for receiving it must indicate a +higher. The mere fact of being able to live and act in more meager +spiritual circumstances, in itself proves nothing: it is not the highest +nature that has the fewest needs. The highest nature is the one that has +the most necessities, but the fewest of its own making. He is not the +greatest man who is the most independent, but he who thirsts most after +a conscious harmony with every element and portion of the mighty whole; +demands from every region thereof its influences to perfect his +individuality; regards that individuality as his kingdom, his treasure, +not to hold but to give; sees in his Self the one thing he can devote, +the one precious means of freedom by its sacrifice, and that in no +contempt or scorn, but in love to God and his children, the multitudes +of his kind. By dying ever thus, ever thus losing his soul, he lives +like God, and God knows him, and he knows God. This is too good to be +grasped, but not too good to be true. The highest is that which needs +the highest, the largest that which needs the most; the finest and +strongest that which to live must breath essential life, self-willed +life, God Himself. It follows that it is not the largest or the +strongest nature that will feel a loss the least. An ant will not gather +a grain of corn the less that his mother is dead, while a boy will turn +from his books and his play and his dinner because his bird is dead: is +the ant, therefore, the stronger nature?" + +"Is it not weak to be miserable?" said the doctor. + +"Yes--without good cause," answered the curate. "But you do not know +what it would be to me to lose my faith in my God. My misery would be a +misery to which no assurance of immortality or of happiness could bring +any thing but tenfold misery--the conviction that I should never be good +myself, never have any thing to love absolutely, never be able to make +amends for the wrongs I had done. Call such a feeling selfish if you +will: I can not help it. I can not count one fit for existence to whom +such things would be no grief. The worthy existence must hunger after +good. The largest nature must have the mightiest hunger. Who calls a +man selfish because he is hungry? He is selfish if he broods on the +pleasures of eating, and would not go without his dinner for the sake of +another; but if he had no hunger, where would be the room for his +self-denial? Besides, in spiritual things, the only way to give them to +your neighbors is to hunger after them yourself. There each man is a +mouth to the body of the whole creation. It can not be selfishness to +hunger and thirst after righteousness, which righteousness is just your +duty to your God and your neighbor. If there be any selfishness in it, +the very answer to your prayer will destroy it." + +"There you are again out of my region," said Faber. "But answer me one +thing: is it not weak to desire happiness?" + +"Yes; if the happiness is poor and low," rejoined Wingfold. "But the man +who would choose even the grandeur of duty before the bliss of the +truth, must be a lover of himself. Such a man must be traveling the road +to death. If there be a God, truth must be joy. If there be not, truth +may be misery.--But, honestly, I know not one advanced Christian who +tries to obey for the hope of Heaven or the fear of hell. Such ideas +have long vanished from such a man. He loves God; he loves truth; he +loves his fellow, and knows he must love him more. You judge of +Christianity either by those who are not true representatives of it, and +are indeed, less of Christians than yourself; or by others who, being +intellectually inferior, perhaps even stupid, belie Christ with their +dull theories concerning Him. Yet the latter may have in them a noble +seed, urging them up heights to you at present unconceived and +inconceivable; while, in the meantime, some of them serve their +generation well, and do as much for those that are to come after as you +do yourself." + +"There is always weight as well as force in what you urge, Wingfold," +returned Faber. "Still it looks to me just a cunningly devised fable--I +will not say of the priests, but of the human mind deceiving itself with +its own hopes and desires." + +"It may well look such to those who are outside of it, and it must at +length appear such to all who, feeling in it any claim upon them, yet do +not put it to the test of their obedience." + +"Well, you have had your turn, and now we are having ours--you of the +legends, we of the facts." + +"No," said Wingfold, "we have not had our turn, and you have been +having yours for a far longer time than we. But if, as you profess, you +are _doing_ the truth you see, it belongs to my belief that you will +come to see the truth you do not see. Christianity is not a failure; for +to it mainly is the fact owing that here is a class of men which, +believing in no God, yet believes in duty toward men. Look here: if +Christianity be the outcome of human aspiration, the natural growth of +the human soil, is it not strange it should be such an utter failure as +it seems to you? and as such a natural growth, it must be a failure, for +if it were a success, must not you be the very one to see it? If it is +false, it is worthless, or an evil: where then is your law of +development, if the highest result of that development is an evil to the +nature and the race?" + +"I do not grant it the highest result," said Faber. "It is a failure--a +false blossom, with a truer to follow." + +"To produce a superior architecture, poetry, music?" + +"Perhaps not. But a better science." + +"Are the architecture and poetry and music parts of the failure?" + +"Yes--but they are not altogether a failure, for they lay some truth at +the root of them all. Now we shall see what will come of turning away +from every thing we do not _know_." + +"That is not exactly what you mean, for that would be never to know any +thing more. But the highest you have in view is immeasurably below what +Christianity has always demanded of its followers." + +"But has never got from them, and never will. Look at the wars, the +hatreds, to which your _gospel_ has given rise! Look at Calvin and poor +Servetus! Look at the strifes and divisions of our own day! Look at the +religious newspapers!" + +"All granted. It is a chaos, the motions of whose organization must be +strife. The spirit of life is at war with the spasmatical body of death. +If Christianity be not still in the process of development, it is the +saddest of all failures." + +"The fact is, Wingfold, your prophet would have been King of the race if +He had not believed in a God." + +"I dare not speak the answer that rises to my lips," said Wingfold. "But +there is more truth in what you say than you think, and more of +essential lie also. My answer is, that the faith of Jesus in His God and +Father is, even now, saving me, setting me free from my one horror, +selfishness; making my life an unspeakable boon to me, letting me know +its roots in the eternal and perfect; giving me such love to my fellow, +that I trust at last to love him as Christ has loved me. But I do not +expect you to understand me. He in whom I believe said that a man must +be born again to enter into the kingdom of Heaven." + +The doctor laughed. + +"You then _are_ one of the double-born, Wingfold?" he said. + +"I believe, I think, I hope so," replied the curate, very gravely. + +"And you, Mr. Bevis?" + +"I don't know. I wish. I doubt," answered the rector, with equal +solemnity. + +"Oh, never fear!" said Faber, with a quiet smile, and rising, left the +clergymen together. + +But what a morning it was that came up after the storm! All night the +lightning had been flashing itself into peace, and gliding further and +further away. Bellowing and growling the thunder had crept with it; but +long after it could no more be heard, the lightning kept gleaming up, as +if from a sea of flame behind the horizon. The sun brought a glorious +day, and looked larger and mightier than before. To Helen, as she gazed +eastward from her window, he seemed ascending his lofty pulpit to preach +the story of the day named after him--the story of the Sun-day; the +rising again in splendor of the darkened and buried Sun of the universe, +with whom all the worlds and all their hearts and suns arose. A light +steam was floating up from the grass, and the raindrops were sparkling +everywhere. The day had arisen from the bosom of the night; peace and +graciousness from the bosom of the storm; she herself from the grave of +her sleep, over which had lain the turf of the darkness; and all was +fresh life and new hope. And through it all, reviving afresh with every +sign of Nature's universal law of birth, was the consciousness that her +life, her own self, was rising from the dead, was being new-born also. +She had not far to look back to the time when all was dull and dead in +her being: when the earthquake came, and the storm, and the fire; and +after them the still small voice, breathing rebuke, and hope, and +strength. Her whole world was now radiant with expectation. It was +through her husband the change had come to her, but he was not the rock +on which she built. For his sake she could go to hell--yea, cease to +exist; but there was One whom she loved more than him--the one One whose +love was the self-willed cause of all love, who from that love had sent +forth her husband and herself to love one another; whose heart was the +nest of their birth, the cradle of their growth, the rest of their +being. Yea, more than her husband she loved Him, her elder Brother, by +whom the Father had done it all, the Man who lived and died and rose +again so many hundred years ago. In Him, the perfect One, she hoped for +a perfect love to her husband, a perfect nature in herself. She knew how +Faber would have mocked at such a love, the very existence of whose +object she could not prove, how mocked at the notion that His life even +now was influencing hers. She knew how he would say it was merely love +and marriage that had wrought the change; but while she recognized them +as forces altogether divine, she knew that not only was the Son of Man +behind them, but that it was her obedience to Him and her confidence in +Him that had wrought the red heart of the change in her. She knew that +she would rather break with her husband altogether, than to do one +action contrary to the known mind and will of that Man. Faber would call +her faith a mighty, perhaps a lovely illusion: her life was an active +waiting for the revelation of its object in splendor before the +universe. The world seemed to her a grand march of resurrections--out of +every sorrow springing the joy at its heart, without which it could not +have been a sorrow; out of the troubles, and evils, and sufferings, and +cruelties that clouded its history, ever arising the human race, the +sons of God, redeemed in Him who had been made subject to death that He +might conquer Death for them and for his Father--a succession of mighty +facts, whose meanings only God can evolve, only the obedient heart +behold. + +On such a morning, so full of resurrection, Helen was only a little +troubled not to be one of her husband's congregation: she would take her +New Testament, and spend the sunny day in the open air. In the evening +he was coming, and would preach in the little chapel. If only Juliet +might hear him too! But she would not ask her to go. + +Juliet was better, for fatigue had compelled sleep. The morning had +brought her little hope, however, no sense of resurrection. A certain +dead thing had begun to move in its coffin; she was utterly alone with +it, and it made the world feel a tomb around her. Not all resurrections +are the resurrection of life, though in the end they will be found, even +to the lowest birth of the power of the enemy, to have contributed +thereto. She did not get up to breakfast; Helen persuaded her to rest, +and herself carried it to her. But she rose soon after, and declared +herself quite well. + +The rector drove to Glaston in his dog-cart to read prayers. Helen went +out into the park with her New Testament and George Herbert. Poor Juliet +was left with Mrs. Bevis, who happily could not be duller than usual, +although it was Sunday. By the time the rector returned, bringing his +curate with him, she was bored almost beyond endurance. She had not yet +such a love of wisdom as to be able to bear with folly. The foolish and +weak are the most easily disgusted with folly and weakness which is not +of their own sort, and are the last to make allowances for them. To +spend also the evening with the softly smiling old woman, who would not +go across the grass after such a rain the night before, was a thing not +to be contemplated. Juliet borrowed a pair of galoshes, and insisted on +going to the chapel. In vain the rector and his wife dissuaded her. +Neither Helen nor her husband said a word. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +A CONSCIENCE. + + +The chapel in the park at Nestley, having as yet received no color, and +having no organ or choir, was a cold, uninteresting little place. It was +neat, but had small beauty, and no history. Yet even already had begun +to gather in the hearts of two or three of the congregation a feeling of +quiet sacredness about it: some soft airs of the spirit-wind had been +wandering through their souls as they sat there and listened. And a +gentle awe, from old associations with lay worship, stole like a soft +twilight over Juliet as she entered. Even the antral dusk of an old +reverence may help to form the fitting mood through which shall slide +unhindered the still small voice that makes appeal to what of God is yet +awake in the soul. There were present about a score of villagers, and +the party from the house. + +Clad in no vestments of office, but holding in his hand the New +Testament, which was always held either there or in his pocket, Wingfold +rose to speak. He read: + +"_Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. For +there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that +shall not be know_." + +Then at once he began to show them, in the simplest interpretation, that +the hypocrite was one who pretended to be what he was not; who tried or +consented to look other and better than he was. That a man, from +unwillingness to look at the truth concerning himself, might be but +half-consciously assenting to the false appearance, would, he said, +nowise serve to save him from whatever of doom was involved in this +utterance of our Lord concerning the crime. These words of explanation +and caution premised, he began at the practical beginning, and spoke a +few forceful things on the necessity of absolute truth as to fact in +every communication between man and man, telling them that, so far as he +could understand His words recorded, our Lord's objection to swearing +lay chiefly in this, that it encouraged untruthfulness, tending to make +a man's yea less than yea, his nay other than nay. He said that many +people who told lies every day, would be shocked when they discovered +that they were liars; and that their lying must be discovered, for the +Lord said so. Every untruthfulness was a passing hypocrisy, and if they +would not come to be hypocrites out and out, they must begin to avoid it +by speaking every man the truth to his neighbor. If they did not begin +at once to speak the truth, they must grow worse and worse liars. The +Lord called hypocrisy _leaven_, because of its irresistible, perhaps as +well its unseen, growth and spread; he called it the leaven _of the +Pharisees_, because it was the all-pervading quality of their being, and +from them was working moral dissolution in the nation, eating like a +canker into it, by infecting with like hypocrisy all who looked up to +them. + +"Is it not a strange drift, this of men," said the curate, "to hide what +is, under the veil of what is not? to seek refuge in lies, as if that +which is not, could be an armor of adamant? to run from the daylight for +safety, deeper into the cave? In the cave house the creatures of the +night--the tigers and hyenas, the serpent and the old dragon of the +dark; in the light are true men and women, and the clear-eyed angels. +But the reason is only too plain; it is, alas! that they are themselves +of the darkness and not of the light. They do not fear their own. They +are more comfortable with the beasts of darkness than with the angels of +light. They dread the peering of holy eyes into their hearts; they feel +themselves naked and fear to be ashamed, therefore cast the garment of +hypocrisy about them. They have that in them so strange to the light +that they feel it must be hidden from the eye of day, as a thing +_hideous_, that is, a thing to be hidden. But the hypocrisy is worse +than all it would hide. That they have to hide again, as a more hideous +thing still. + +"God hides nothing. His very work from the beginning is _revelation_--a +casting aside of veil after veil, a showing unto men of truth after +truth. On and on, from fact to fact divine He advances, until at length +in His Son Jesus, He unveils His very face. Then begins a fresh +unveiling, for the very work of the Father is the work the Son Himself +has to do--to reveal. His life was the unveiling of Himself, and the +unveiling of the Son is still going on, and is that for the sake of +which the world exists. When He is unveiled, that is, when we know the +Son, we shall know the Father also. The whole of creation, its growth, +its history, the gathering total of human existence, is an unveiling of +the Father. He is the life, the eternal life, the _Only_. I see it--ah! +believe me--I see it as I can not say it. From month to month it grows +upon me. The lovely home-light, the One essence of peaceful being, is +God Himself. + +"He loves light and not darkness, therefore shines, therefore reveals. +True, there are infinite gulfs in Him, into which our small vision can +not pierce, but they are gulfs of light, and the truths there are +invisible only through excess of their own clarity. There is a darkness +that comes of effulgence, and the most veiling of all veils is the +light. That for which the eye exists is light, but _through_ light no +human eye can pierce.--I find myself beyond my depth. I am ever beyond +my depth, afloat in an infinite sea; but the depth of the sea knows me, +for the ocean of my being is God.--What I would say is this, that the +light is not blinding because God would hide, but because the truth is +too glorious for our vision. The effulgence of Himself God veiled that +He might unveil it--in his Son. Inter-universal spaces, aeons, +eternities--what word of vastness you can find or choose--take +unfathomable darkness itself, if you will, to express the infinitude of +God, that original splendor existing only to the consciousness of God +Himself--I say He hides it not, but is revealing it ever, forever, at +all cost of labor, yea of pain to Himself. His whole creation is a +sacrificing of Himself to the being and well-being of His little ones, +that, being wrought out at last into partakers of His divine nature, +that nature may be revealed in them to their divinest bliss. He brings +hidden things out of the light of His own being into the light of ours. + +"But see how different _we_ are--until we learn of Him! See the tendency +of man to conceal his treasures, to claim even truth as his own by +discovery, to hide it and be proud of it, gloating over that which he +thinks he has in himself, instead of groaning after the infinite of God! +We would be forever heaping together possessions, dragging things into +the cave of our finitude, our individual self, not perceiving that the +things which pass that dreariest of doors, whatever they may have been, +are thenceforth but 'straws, small sticks, and dust of the floor.' When +a man would have a truth in thither as if it were of private +interpretation, he drags in only the bag which the truth, remaining +outside, has burst and left. + +"Nowhere are such children of darkness born as in the caves of +hypocrisy; nowhere else can a man revel with such misshapen hybrids of +religion and sin. But, as one day will be found, I believe, a strength +of physical light before which even solid gold or blackest marble +becomes transparent, so is there a spiritual light before which all +veils of falsehood shall shrivel up and perish and cease to hide; so +that, in individual character, in the facts of being, in the densest of +Pharisaical hypocrisy, there is nothing covered that shall not be +revealed, nothing hid that shall not be known. + +"If then, brother or sister, thou hast that which would be hidden, make +haste and drag the thing from its covert into the presence of thy God, +thy Light, thy Saviour, that, if it be in itself good, it may be +cleansed; if evil, it may be stung through and through with the burning +arrows of truth, and perish in glad relief. For the one bliss of an evil +thing is to perish and pass; the evil thing, and that alone, is the +natural food of Death--nothing else will agree with the monster. If we +have such foul things, I say, within the circumference of our known +selves, we must confess the charnel-fact to ourselves and to God; and if +there be any one else who has a claim to know it, to that one also must +we confess, casting out the vile thing that we may be clean. Let us make +haste to open the doors of our lips and the windows of our humility, to +let out the demon of darkness, and in the angels of light--so abjuring +the evil. Be sure that concealment is utterly, absolutely hopeless. If +we do not thus ourselves open our house, the day will come when a +roaring blast of His wind, or the flame of His keen lightning, will +destroy every defense of darkness, and set us shivering before the +universe in our naked vileness; for there is nothing covered that shall +not be revealed, neither hid that shall not be known. Ah! well for man +that he can not hide! What vaults of uncleanness, what sinks of dreadful +horrors, would not the souls of some of us grow! But for every one of +them, as for the universe, comes the day of cleansing. Happy they who +hasten it! who open wide the doors, take the broom in the hand, and +begin to sweep! The dust may rise in clouds; the offense may be great; +the sweeper may pant and choke, and weep, yea, grow faint and sick with +self-disgust; but the end will be a clean house, and the light and wind +of Heaven shining and blowing clear and fresh and sweet through all its +chambers. Better so, than have a hurricane from God burst in doors and +windows, and sweep from his temple with the besom of destruction every +thing that loveth and maketh a lie. Brothers, sisters, let us be clean. +The light and the air around us are God's vast purifying furnace; out +into it let us cast all hypocrisy. Let us be open-hearted, and speak +every man the truth to his neighbor. Amen." + +The faces of the little congregation had been staring all the time at +the speaker's, as the flowers of a little garden stare at the sun. Like +a white lily that had begun to fade, that of Juliet had drawn the eyes +of the curate, as the whitest spot always will. But it had drawn his +heart also. Had her troubles already begun, poor girl? he thought. Had +the sweet book of marriage already begun to give out its bitterness? + +It was not just so. Marriage was good to her still. Not yet, though but +a thing of this world, as she and her husband were agreed, had it begun +to grow stale and wearisome. She was troubled. It was with no reaction +against the opinions to which she had practically yielded; but not the +less had the serpent of the truth bitten her, for it can bite through +the gauze of whatever opinions or theories. Conscious, persistent wrong +may harden and thicken the gauze to a quilted armor, but even through +that the sound of its teeth may wake up Don Worm, the conscience, and +then is the baser nature between the fell incensed points of mighty +opposites. It avails a man little to say he does not believe this or +that, if the while he can not rest because of some word spoken. True +speech, as well as true scripture, is given by inspiration of God; it +goes forth on the wind of the Spirit, with the ministry of fire. The sun +will shine, and the wind will blow, the floods will beat, and the fire +will burn, until the yielding soul, re-born into childhood, spreads +forth its hands and rushes to the Father. + +It was dark, and Juliet took the offered arm of the rector and walked +with him toward the house. Both were silent, for both had been touched. +The rector was busy tumbling over the contents now of this now of that +old chest and cabinet in the lumber-room of his memory, seeking for +things to get rid of by holy confession ere the hour of proclamation +should arrive. He was finding little yet beyond boyish escapades, and +faults and sins which he had abjured ages ago and almost forgotten. His +great sin, of which he had already repented, and was studying more and +more to repent--that of undertaking holy service for the sake of the +loaves and the fishes--then, in natural sequence, only taking the loaves +and the fishes, and doing no service in return, did not come under the +name of hypocrisy, being indeed a crime patent to the universe, even +when hidden from himself. When at length the heavy lids of his honest +sleepy-eyed nature arose, and he saw the truth of his condition, his +dull, sturdy soul had gathered itself like an old wrestler to the +struggle, and hardly knew what was required of it, or what it had to +overthrow, till it stood panting over its adversary. + +Juliet also was occupied--with no such search as the rector's, hardly +even with what could be called thought, but with something that must +either soon cause the keenest thought, or at length a spiritual +callosity: somewhere in her was a motion, a something turned and +twisted, ceased and began again, boring like an auger; or was it a +creature that tried to sleep, but ever and anon started awake, and with +fretful claws pulled at its nest in the fibers of her heart? + +The curate and his wife talked softly all the way back to the house. + +"Do you really think," said Helen, "that every fault one has ever +committed will one day be trumpeted out to the universe?" + +"That were hardly worth the while of the universe," answered her +husband. "Such an age-long howling of evil stupidities would be enough +to turn its brain with ennui and disgust. Nevertheless, the hypocrite +will certainly know himself discovered and shamed, and unable any longer +to hide himself from his neighbor. His past deeds also will be made +plain to all who, for further ends of rectification, require to know +them. Shame will then, I trust, be the first approach of his +redemption." + +Juliet, for she was close behind them, heard his words and shuddered. + +"You are feeling it cold, Mrs. Faber," said the rector, and, with the +fatherly familiarity of an old man, drew her cloak better around her. + +"It is not cold," she faltered; "but somehow the night-air always makes +me shiver." + +The rector pulled a muffler from his coat-pocket, and laid it like a +scarf on her shoulders. + +"How kind you are!" she murmured. "I don't deserve it." + +"Who deserves any thing?" said the rector. "I less, I am sure, than any +one I know. Only, if you will believe my curate, you have but to ask, +and have what you need." + +"I wasn't the first to say that, sir," Wingfold struck in, turning his +head over his shoulder. + +"I know that, my boy," answered Mr. Bevis; "but you were the first to +make me want to find its true.--I say, Mrs. Faber, what if it should +turn out after all, that there was a grand treasure hid in your field +and mine, that we never got the good of because we didn't believe it was +there and dig for it? What if this scatter-brained curate of mine should +be right when he talks so strangely about our living in the midst of +calling voices, cleansing fires, baptizing dews, and _won't_ hearken, +won't be clean, won't give up our sleep and our dreams for the very +bliss for which we cry out in them!" + +The old man had stopped, taken off his hat, and turned toward her. He +spoke with such a strange solemnity of voice that it could hardly have +been believed his by those who knew him as a judge of horses and not as +a reader of prayers. The other pair had stopped also. + +"I should call it very hard," returned Juliet, "to come so near it and +yet miss it." + +"Especially to be driven so near it against one's will, and yet succeed +in getting past without touching it," said the curate, with a flavor of +asperity. His wife gently pinched his arm, and he was ashamed. + +When they reached home, Juliet went straight to bed--or at least to her +room for the night. + +"I say, Wingfold," remarked the rector, as they sat alone after supper, +"that sermon of yours was above your congregation." + +"I am afraid you are right, sir. I am sorry. But if you had seen their +faces as I did, perhaps you would have modified the conclusion." + +"I am very glad I heard it, though," said the rector. + +They had more talk, and when Wingfold went up stairs, he found Helen +asleep. Annoyed with himself for having spoken harshly to Mrs. Faber, +and more than usually harassed by a sense of failure in his sermon, he +threw himself into a chair, and sat brooding and praying till the light +began to appear. Out of the reeds shaken all night in the wind, rose +with the morning this bird:-- + + THE SMOKE. + + Lord, I have laid my heart upon Thy altar, + But can not get the wood to burn; + It hardly flares ere it begins to falter, + And to the dark return. + + Old sap, or night-fallen dew, has damped the fuel; + In vain my breath would flame provoke; + Yet see--at every poor attempt's renewal + To Thee ascends the smoke. + + 'Tis all I have--smoke, failure, foiled endeavor, + Coldness, and doubt, and palsied lack; + Such as I have I send Thee;--perfect Giver, + Send Thou Thy lightning back. + +In the morning, as soon as breakfast was over, Helen's ponies were +brought to the door, she and Juliet got into the carriage, Wingfold +jumped up behind, and they returned to Glaston. Little was said on the +way, and Juliet seemed strangely depressed. They left her at her own +door. + +"What did that look mean?" said Wingfold to his wife, the moment they +were round the corner of Mr. Drew's shop. + +"You saw it then?" returned Helen. "I did not think you had been so +quick." + +"I saw what I could not help taking for relief," said the curate, "when +the maid told her that her husband was not at home." + +They said no more till they reached the rectory, where Helen followed +her husband to his study. + +"He can't have turned tyrant already!" she said, resuming the subject of +Juliet's look. "But she's afraid of him." + +"It did look like it," rejoined her husband. "Oh, Helen, what a hideous +thing fear of her husband must be for a woman, who has to spend not her +days only in his presence, but her nights by his side! I do wonder so +many women dare to be married. They would need all to have clean +consciences." + +"Or no end of faith in their husbands," said Helen. "If ever I come to +be afraid of you, it will be because I have done something very wrong +indeed." + +"Don't be too sure of that, Helen," returned Wingfold. "There are very +decent husbands as husbands go, who are yet unjust, exacting, selfish. +The most devoted of wives are sometimes afraid of the men they yet +consider the very models of husbands. It is a brutal shame that a woman +should feel afraid, or even uneasy, instead of safe, beside her +husband." + +"You are always on the side of the women, Thomas," said his wife; "and I +love you for it somehow--I can't tell why." + +"You make a mistake to begin with, my dear: you don't love me because I +am on the side of the women, but because I am on the side of the +wronged. If the man happened to be the injured party, and I took the +side of the woman, you would be down on me like an avalanche." + +"I dare say. But there is something more in it. I don't think I am +altogether mistaken. You don't talk like most men. They have such an +ugly way of asserting superiority, and sneering at women! That you never +do, and as a woman I am grateful for it." + +The same afternoon Dorothy Drake paid a visit to Mrs. Faber, and was +hardly seated before the feeling that something was wrong arose in her. +Plainly Juliet was suffering--from some cause she wished to conceal. +Several times she seemed to turn faint, hurriedly fanned herself, and +drew a deep breath. Once she rose hastily and went to the window, as if +struggling with some oppression, and returned looking very pale. + +Dorothy was frightened. + +"What is the matter, dear?" she said. + +"Nothing," answered Juliet, trying to smile. "Perhaps I took a little +cold last night," she added with a shiver. + +"Have you told your husband?" asked Dorothy. + +"I haven't seen him since Saturday," she answered quietly, but a pallor +almost deathly overspread her face. + +"I hope he will soon be home," said Dorothy. "Mind you tell him how you +feel the instant he comes in." + +Juliet answered with a smile, but that smile Dorothy never forgot. It +haunted her all the way home. When she entered her chamber, her eyes +fell upon the petal of a monthly rose, which had dropped from the little +tree in her window, and lay streaked and crumpled on the black earth of +the flower-pot: by one of those queer mental vagaries in which the +imagination and the logical faculty seem to combine to make sport of the +reason--"How is it that smile has got here before me?" she said to +herself. + +She sat down and thought. Could it be that Juliet had, like herself, +begun to find there could be no peace without the knowledge of an +absolute peace? If it were so, and she would but let her know it, then, +sisters at least in sorrow and search, they would together seek the +Father of their spirits, if haply they might find Him; together they +would cry to Him--and often: it might be He would hear them, and reveal +Himself. Her heart was sore all day, thinking of that sad face. Juliet, +whether she knew it or not, was, like herself, in trouble because she +had no God. + +The conclusion shows that Dorothy was far from hopeless. That she could +believe the lack of a God was the cause unknown to herself of her +friend's depression, implies an assurance of the human need of a God, +and a hope there might be One to be found. For herself, if she could but +find Him, she felt there would be nothing but bliss evermore. Dorothy +then was more hopeful than she herself knew. I doubt if absolute +hopelessness is ever born save at the word, _Depart from me_. Hope +springs with us from God Himself, and, however down-beaten, however sick +and nigh unto death, will evermore lift its head and rise again. + +She could say nothing to her father. She loved him--oh, how dearly! and +trusted him; where she could trust him at all!--oh, how perfectly! but +she had no confidence in his understanding of herself. The main cause +whence arose his insufficiency and her lack of trust was, that all his +faith in God was as yet scarcely more independent of thought-forms, +word-shapes, dogma and creed, than that of the Catholic or Calvinist. +How few are there whose faith is simple and mighty in the Father of +Jesus Christ, waiting to believe all that He will reveal to them! How +many of those who talk of faith as the one needful thing, will accept as +sufficient to the razing of the walls of partition between you and them, +your heartiest declaration that you believe _in Him_ with the whole +might of your nature, lay your soul bare to the revelation of His +spirit, and stir up your will to obey Him?--And then comes _your_ +temptation--to exclude, namely, from your love and sympathy the weak and +boisterous brethren who, after the fashion possible to them, believe in +your Lord, because they exclude you, and put as little confidence in +your truth as in your insight. If you do know more of Christ than they, +upon you lies the heavier obligation to be true to them, as was St. Paul +to the Judaizing Christians, whom these so much resemble, who were his +chief hindrance in the work his Master had given him to do. In Christ we +must forget Paul and Apollos and Cephas, pope and bishop and pastor and +presbyter, creed and interpretation and theory. Care-less of their +opinions, we must be careful of themselves--careful that we have salt in +ourselves, and that the salt lose not its savor, that the old man, dead +through Christ, shall not, vampire-like, creep from his grave and suck +the blood of the saints, by whatever name they be called, or however +little they may yet have entered into the freedom of the gospel that God +is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. + +How was Dorothy to get nearer to Juliet, find out her trouble, and +comfort her? + +"Alas!" she said to herself, "what a thing is marriage in separating +friends!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +THE OLD HOUSE OF GLASTON. + + +The same evening Dorothy and her father walked to the Old House. Already +the place looked much changed. The very day the deeds were signed, Mr. +Drake, who was not the man to postpone action a moment after the time +for it was come, had set men at work upon the substantial repairs. The +house was originally so well built that these were not so heavy as might +have been expected, and when completed they made little show of change. +The garden, however, looked quite another thing, for it had lifted +itself up from the wilderness in which it was suffocated, reviving like +a repentant soul reborn. Under its owner's keen watch, its ancient plan +had been rigidly regarded, its ancient features carefully retained. The +old bushes were well trimmed, but as yet nothing live, except weeds, had +been uprooted. The hedges and borders, of yew and holly and box, tall +and broad, looked very bare and broken and patchy; but now that the +shears had, after so long a season of neglect, removed the gathered +shade, the naked stems and branches would again send out the young +shoots of the spring, a new birth would begin everywhere, and the old +garden would dawn anew. For all his lack of sympathy with the older +forms of religious economy in the country, a thing, alas! too easy to +account for, the minister yet loved the past and felt its mystery. He +said once in a sermon--and it gave offense to more than one of his +deacons, for they scented in it _Germanism_,--"The love of the past, the +desire of the future, and the enjoyment of the present, make an +eternity, in which time is absorbed, its lapse lapses, and man partakes +of the immortality of his Maker. In each present personal being, we have +the whole past of our generation inclosed, to be re-developed with +endless difference in each individuality. Hence perhaps it comes that, +every now and then, into our consciousnesses float strange odors of +feeling, strange tones as of bygone affections, strange glimmers as of +forgotten truths, strange mental sensations of indescribable sort and +texture. Friends, I should be a terror to myself, did I not believe that +wherever my dim consciousness may come to itself, God is there." + +Dorothy would have hastened the lighter repairs inside the house as +well, so as to get into it as soon as possible; but her father very +wisely argued that it would be a pity to get the house in good +condition, and then, as soon as they went into it, and began to find how +it could be altered better to suit their tastes and necessities, have to +destroy a great part of what had just been done. His plan, therefore, +was to leave the house for the winter, now it was weather-tight, and +with the first of the summer partly occupy it as it was, find out its +faults and capabilities, and have it gradually repaired and altered to +their minds and requirements. There would in this way be plenty of time +to talk about every thing, even to the merest suggestion of fancy, and +discover what they would really like. + +But ever since the place had been theirs, Dorothy had been in the habit +of going almost daily to the house, with her book and her work, sitting +now in this, now in that empty room, undisturbed by the noises of the +workmen, chiefly outside: the foreman was a member of her father's +church, a devout man, and she knew every one of his people. She had +taken a strange fancy to those empty rooms: perhaps she felt them like +her own heart, waiting for something to come and fill them with life. +Nor was there any thing to prevent her, though the work was over for a +time, from indulging herself in going there still, as often as she +pleased, and she would remain there for hours, sometimes nearly the +whole day. In her present condition of mind and heart, she desired and +needed solitude: she was one of those who when troubled rush from their +fellows, and, urged by the human instinct after the divine, seek refuge +in loneliness--the cave on Horeb, the top of Mount Sinai, the closet +with shut door--any lonely place where, unseen, and dreading no eye, the +heart may call aloud to the God hidden behind the veil of the things +that do appear. + +How different, yet how fit to merge in a mutual sympathy, were the +thoughts of the two, as they wandered about the place that evening! +Dorothy was thinking her commonest thought--how happy she could be if +only she knew there was a Will central to the universe, willing all that +came to her--good or seeming-bad--a Will whom she might love and thank +for _all_ things. He would be to her no God whom she could thank only +when He sent her what was pleasant. She must be able to thank Him for +every thing, or she could thank Him for nothing. + +Her father was saying to himself he could not have believed the lifting +from his soul of such a gravestone of debt, would have made so little +difference to his happiness. He fancied honest Jones, the butcher, had +more mere pleasure from the silver snuff-box he had given him, than he +had himself from his fortune. Relieved he certainly was, but the relief +was not happiness. His debt had been the stone that blocked up the gate +of Paradise: the stone was rolled away, but the gate was not therefore +open. He seemed for the first time beginning to understand what he had +so often said, and in public too, and had thought he understood, that +God Himself, and not any or all of His gifts, is the life of a man. He +had got rid of the dread imagination that God had given him the money in +anger, as He had given the Israelites the quails, nor did he find that +the possession formed any barrier between him and God: his danger, now +seemed that of forgetting the love of the Giver in his anxiety to spend +the gift according to His will. + +"You and I ought to be very happy, my love," he said, as now they were +walking home. + +He had often said so before, and Dorothy had held her peace; but now, +with her eyes on the ground, she rejoined, in a low, rather broken +voice, + +"Why, papa?" + +"Because we are lifted above the anxiety that was crushing us into the +very mud," he answered, with surprise at her question. + +"It never troubled me so much as all that," she answered. "It is a great +relief to see you free from it, father; but otherwise, I can not say +that it has made much difference to me." + +"My dear Dorothy," said the minister, "it is time we should understand +each other. Your state of mind has for a long time troubled me; but +while debt lay so heavy upon me, I could give my attention to nothing +else. Why should there be any thing but perfect confidence between a +father and daughter who belong to each other alone in all the world? +Tell me what it is that so plainly oppresses you. What prevents you from +opening your heart to me? You can not doubt my love." + +"Never for one moment, father," she answered, almost eagerly, pressing +to her heart the arm on which she leaned. "I know I am safe with you +because I am yours, and yet somehow I can not get so close to you as I +would. Something comes between us, and prevents me." + +"What is it, my child? I will do all and every thing I can to remove +it." + +"You, dear father! I don't believe ever child had such a father." + +"Oh yes, my dear! many have had better fathers, but none better than I +hope one day by the grace of God to be to you. I am a poor creature, +Dorothy, but I love you as my own soul. You are the blessing of my days, +and my thoughts brood over you in the night: it would be in utter +content, if I only saw you happy. If your face were acquainted with +smiles, my heart would be acquainted with gladness." + +For a time neither said any thing more. The silent tears were streaming +from Dorothy's eyes. At length she spoke. + +"I wonder if I could tell you what it is without hurting you, father!" +she said. + +"I can hear any thing from you, my child," he answered. "Then I will +try. But I do not think I shall ever quite know my father on earth, or +be quite able to open my heart to him, until I have found my Father in +Heaven." + +"Ah, my child! is it so with you? Do you fear you have not yet given +yourself to the Saviour? Give yourself now. His arms are ever open to +receive you." + +"That is hardly the point, father.--Will you let me ask you any question +I please?" + +"Assuredly, my child." He always spoke, though quite unconsciously, with +a little of the _ex-cathedral_ tone. + +"Then tell me, father, are you just as sure of God as you are of me +standing here before you?" + +She had stopped and turned, and stood looking him full in the face with +wide, troubled eyes. + +Mr. Drake was silent. Hateful is the professional, contemptible is the +love of display, but in his case they floated only as vapors in the air +of a genuine soul. He was a true man, and as he could not say _yes_, +neither would he hide his _no_ in a multitude of words--at least to his +own daughter: he was not so sure of God as he was of that daughter, with +those eyes looking straight into his! Could it be that he never had +believed in God at all? The thought went through him with a great pang. +It was as if the moon grew dark above him, and the earth withered under +his feet. He stood before his child like one whose hypocrisy had been +proclaimed from the housetop. + +"Are you vexed with me, father?" said Dorothy sadly. + +"No, my child," answered the minister, in a voice of unnatural +composure. "But you stand before me there like, the very thought started +out of my soul, alive and visible, to question its own origin." + +"Ah, father!" cried Dorothy, "let us question our origin." + +The minister never even heard the words. + +"That very doubt, embodied there in my child, has, I now know, been +haunting me, dogging me behind, ever since I began to teach others," he +said, as if talking in his sleep. "Now it looks me in the face. Am I +myself to be a castaway?--Dorothy, I am _not_ sure of God--not as I am +sure of you, my darling." + +He stood silent. His ear expected a low-voiced, sorrowful reply. He +started at the tone of gladness in which Dorothy cried-- + +"Then, father, there is henceforth no cloud between us, for we are in +the same cloud together! It does not divide us, it only brings us closer +to each other. Help me, father: I am trying hard to find God. At the +same time, I confess I would rather not find Him, than find Him such as +I have sometimes heard you represent Him." + +"It may well be," returned her father--the _ex-cathedral_, the +professional tone had vanished utterly for the time, and he spoke with +the voice of an humble, true man--"it may well be that I have done Him +wrong; for since now at my age I am compelled to allow that I am not +sure of Him, what more likely than that I may have been cherishing wrong +ideas concerning Him, and so not looking in the right direction for +finding Him?" + +"Where did you get your notions of God, father--those, I mean, that you +took with you to the pulpit?" + +A year ago even, if he had been asked the same question, he would at +once have answered, "From the Word of God;" but now he hesitated, and +minutes passed before he began a reply. For he saw now that it was not +from the Bible _he_ had gathered them, whence soever they had come at +first. He pondered and searched--and found that the real answer eluded +him, hiding itself in a time beyond his earliest memory. It seemed +plain, therefore, that the source whence first he began to draw those +notions, right or wrong, must be the talk and behavior of the house in +which he was born, the words and carriage of his father and mother and +their friends. Next source to that came the sermons he heard on Sundays, +and the books given him to read. The Bible was one of those books, but +from the first he read it through the notions with which his mind was +already vaguely filled, and with the comments of his superiors around +him. Then followed the books recommended at college, this author and +that, and the lectures he heard there upon the attributes of God and the +plan of salvation. The spirit of commerce in the midst of which he had +been bred, did not occur to him as one of the sources. + +But he had perceived enough. He opened his mouth and bravely answered +her question as well as he could, not giving the Bible as the source +from which he had taken any one of the notions of God he had been in the +habit of presenting. + +"But mind," he added, "I do not allow that therefore my ideas must be +incorrect. If they be second-hand, they may yet be true. I do admit that +where they have continued only second-hand, they can have been of little +value to me." + +"What you allow, then, father," said Dorothy, "is that you have yourself +taken none of your ideas direct from the fountain-head?" + +"I am afraid I must confess it, my child--with this modification, that I +have thought many of them over a good deal, and altered some of them not +a little to make them fit the molds of truth in my mind." + +"I am so glad, father!" said Dorothy. "I was positively certain, from +what I knew of you--which is more than any one else in this world, I do +believe--that some of the things you said concerning God never could +have risen in your own mind." + +"They might be in the Bible for all that," said the minister, very +anxious to be and speak the right thing. "A man's heart is not to be +trusted for correct notions of God." + +"Nor yet for correct interpretation of the Bible, I should think," said +Dorothy. + +"True, my child," answered her father with a sigh, "--except as it be +already a Godlike heart. The Lord says a bramble-bush can not bring +forth grapes." + +"The notions you gathered of God from other people, must have come out +of their hearts, father?" + +"Out of somebody's heart?" + +"Just so," answered Dorothy. + +"Go on, my child," said her father. "Let me understand clearly your +drift." + +"I have heard Mr. Wingfold say," returned Dorothy, "that however men may +have been driven to form their ideas of God before Christ came, no man +can, with thorough honesty, take the name of a Christian, whose ideas of +the Father of men are gathered from any other field than the life, +thought, words, deeds, of the only Son of that Father. He says it is not +from the Bible as a book that we are to draw our ideas of God, but from +the living Man into whose presence that book brings us, Who is alive +now, and gives His spirit that they who read about Him may understand +what kind of being He is, and why He did as He did, and know Him, in +some possible measure, as He knows Himself.--I can only repeat the +lesson like a child." + +"I suspect," returned the minister, "that I have been greatly astray. +But after this, we will seek our Father together, in our Brother, Jesus +Christ." + +It was the initiation of a daily lesson together in the New Testament, +which, while it drew their hearts closer to each other, drew them, with +growing delight, nearer and nearer to the ideal of humanity, Jesus +Christ, in whom shines the glory of its Father. + +A man may look another in the face for a hundred years and not know him. +Men _have_ looked Jesus Christ in the face, and not known either Him or +his Father. It was needful that He should appear, to begin the knowing +of Him, but speedily was His visible presence taken away, that it might +not become, as assuredly it would have become, a veil to hide from men +the Father of their spirits. Do you long for the assurance of some +sensible sign? Do you ask why no intellectual proof is to be had? I tell +you that such would but delay, perhaps altogether impair for you, that +better, that best, that only vision, into which at last your world must +blossom--such a contact, namely, with the heart of God Himself, such a +perception of His being, and His absolute oneness with you, the child of +His thought, the individuality softly parted from His spirit, yet living +still and only by His presence and love, as, by its own radiance, will +sweep doubt away forever. Being then in the light and knowing it, the +lack of intellectual proof concerning that which is too high for it, +will trouble you no more than would your inability to silence a +metaphysician who declared that you had no real existence. It is for the +sake of such vision as God would give that you are denied such vision as +you would have. The Father of our spirits is not content that we should +know Him as we now know each other. There is a better, closer, nearer +than any human way of knowing, and to that He is guiding us across all +the swamps of our unteachableness, the seas of our faithlessness, the +desert of our ignorance. It is so very hard that we should have to wait +for that which we can not yet receive? Shall we complain of the shadows +cast upon our souls by the hand and the napkin polishing their mirrors +to the receiving of the more excellent glory! Have patience, children of +the Father. Pray always and do not faint. The mists and the storms and +the cold will pass--the sun and the sky are for evermore. There were no +volcanoes and no typhoons but for the warm heart of the earth, the soft +garment of the air, and the lordly sun over all. The most loving of you +can not imagine how one day the love of the Father will make you love +even your own. + +Much trustful talk passed between father and daughter as they walked +home: they were now nearer to each other than ever in their lives +before. + +"You don't mind my coming out here alone, papa?" said Dorothy, as, after +a little chat with the gate-keeper, they left the park. "I have of late +found it so good to be alone! I think I am beginning to learn to think." + +"Do in every thing just as you please, my child," said her father. "I +can have no objection to what you see good. Only don't be so late as to +make me anxious." + +"I like coming early," said Dorothy. "These lovely mornings make me feel +as if the struggles of life were over, and only a quiet old age were +left." + +The father looked anxiously at his daughter. Was she going to leave him? +It smote him to the heart that he had done so little to make her life a +blessed one. How hard no small portion of it had been! How worn and pale +she looked! Why did she not show fresh and bright like other young +women--Mrs. Faber for instance? He had not guided her steps into the way +of peace! At all events he had not led her home to the house of wisdom +and rest! Too good reason why--he had not himself yet found that home! +Henceforth, for her sake as well as his own, he would besiege the +heavenly grace with prayer. + +The opening of his heart in confessional response to his daughter, +proved one of those fresh starts in the spiritual life, of which a man +needs so many as he climbs to the heavenly gates. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + +PAUL FABER'S DRESSING-ROOM. + + +Faber did not reach home till a few minutes before the dinner hour. He +rode into the stable-yard, entered the house by the surgery, and went +straight to his dressing-room; for the roads were villianous, and +Ruber's large feet had made a wonderful sight of his master, who +respected his wife's carpet. At the same time he hoped, as it was so +near dinner-time, to find her in her chamber. She had, however, already +made her toilet, and was waiting his return in the drawing-room. Her +heart made a false motion and stung her when she heard his steps pass +the door and go up stairs, for generally he came to greet her the moment +he entered the house.--Had he seen any body!--Had he heard any thing? It +was ten dreadful minutes before he came down, but he entered cheerily, +with the gathered warmth of two days of pent-up affection. She did her +best to meet him as if nothing had happened. For indeed what had +happened--except her going to church? If nothing had taken place since +she saw him--since she knew him--why such perturbation? Was marriage a +slavery of the very soul, in which a wife was bound to confess every +thing to her husband, even to her most secret thoughts and feelings? Or +was a husband lord not only over the present and future of his wife, but +over her past also? Was she bound to disclose every thing that lay in +that past? If Paul made no claim upon her beyond the grave, could he +claim back upon the dead past before he knew her, a period over which +she had now no more control than over that when she would be but a +portion of the material all? + +But whatever might be Paul's theories of marriage or claims upon his +wife, it was enough for her miserable unrest that she was what is called +a living soul, with a history, and what has come to be called a +conscience--a something, that is, as most people regard it, which has +the power, and uses it, of making uncomfortable. + +The existence of such questions as I have indicated reveals that already +between her and him there showed space, separation, non-contact: Juliet +was too bewildered with misery to tell whether it was a cleft of a +hair's breadth, or a gulf across which no cry could reach; this moment +it seemed the one, the next the other. The knowledge which caused it had +troubled her while he sought her love, had troubled her on to the very +eve of her surrender. The deeper her love grew the more fiercely she +wrestled with the evil fact. A low moral development and the purest +resolve of an honest nature afforded her many pleas, and at length she +believed she had finally put it down. She had argued that, from the +opinions themselves of Faber, the thing could not consistently fail to +be as no thing to him. Even were she mistaken in this conclusion, it +would be to wrong his large nature, his generous love, his unselfish +regard, his tender pitifulness, to fail of putting her silent trust in +him. Besides, had she not read in the newspapers the utterance of a +certain worshipful judge on the bench that no man had any thing to do +with his wife's ante-nuptial history? The contract then was certainly +not retrospective. What in her remained unsatisfied after all her +arguments, reasons, and appeals to common sense and consequences, she +strove to strangle, and thought, hoped, she had succeeded. She willed +her will, made up her mind, yielded to Paul's solicitations, and put the +whole painful thing away from her. + +The step taken, the marriage over, nothing could any more affect either +fact. Only, unfortunately for the satisfaction and repose she had +desired and expected, her love to her husband had gone on growing after +they were married. True she sometimes fancied it otherwise, but while +the petals of the rose were falling, its capsule was filling; and +notwithstanding the opposite tendency of the deoxygenated atmosphere in +which their thoughts moved, she had begun already to long after an +absolute union with him. But this growth of her love, and aspiration +after its perfection, although at first they covered what was gone by +with a deepening mist of apparent oblivion, were all the time bringing +it closer to her consciousness--out of the far into the near. And now +suddenly that shape she knew of, lying in the bottom of the darkest pool +of the stagnant Past, had been stung into life by a wind of words that +swept through Nestley chapel, had stretched up a hideous neck and +threatening head from the deep, and was staring at her with sodden eyes: +henceforth she knew that the hideous Fact had its appointed place +between her and her beautiful Paul, the demon of the gulfy cleft that +parted them. + +The moment she spoke in reply to his greeting her husband also felt +something dividing them, but had no presentiment of its being any thing +of import. + +"You are over-tired, my love," he said, and taking her hand, felt her +pulse. It was feeble and frequent. + +"What have they been doing to you, my darling?" he asked. "Those little +demons of ponies running away again?" + +"No," she answered, scarce audibly. + +"Something has gone wrong with you," he persisted. "Have you caught +cold? None of the old symptoms, I hope?" + +"None, Paul. There is nothing the matter," she answered, laying her head +lightly, as if afraid of the liberty she took, upon his shoulder. His +arm went round her waist. + +"What is it, then, my wife?" he said tenderly. + +"Which would you rather have, Paul--have me die, or do something +wicked?" + +"Juliet, this will never do!" he returned quietly but almost severely. +"You have been again giving the reins to a morbid imagination. Weakness +and folly only can come of that. It is nothing better than hysteria." + +"No, but tell me, dear Paul," she persisted pleadingly. "Answer my +question. Do, please." + +"There is no such question to be answered," he returned. "You are not +going to die, and I am yet more certain you are not going to do any +thing wicked. Are you now?" + +"No, Paul. Indeed I am not. But----" + +"I have it!" he exclaimed. "You went to church at Nestley last night! +Confound them all with their humbug! You have been letting their +infernal nonsense get a hold of you again! It has quite upset you--that, +and going much too long without your dinner. What _can_ be keeping it?" +He left her hurriedly and rang the bell. "You must speak to the cook, my +love. She is getting out of the good habits I had so much trouble to +teach her. But no--no! you shall not be troubled with _my_ servants. I +will speak to her myself. After dinner I will read you some of my +favorite passages in Montaigne. No, you shall read to me: your French +is so much better than mine." + +Dinner was announced and nothing more was said. Paul ate well, Juliet +scarcely at all, but she managed to hide from him the offense. They rose +together and returned to the drawing-room. + +The moment Faber shut the door Juliet turned in the middle of the room, +and as he came up to her said, in a voice much unlike her own: + +"Paul, if I _were_ to do any thing very bad, as bad as could be, would +you forgive me?" + +"Come, my love," expostulated Faber, speaking more gently than before, +for he had had his dinner, "surely you are not going to spoil our +evening with any more such nonsense!" + +"Answer me, Paul, or I shall think you do not love me," she said, and +the tone of her entreaty verged upon demand. "Would you forgive me if I +had done something _very_ bad?" + +"Of course I should," he answered, with almost irritated haste, "--that +is, if I could ever bring myself to allow any thing you did was wrong. +Only, you would witch me out of opinion and judgment and every thing +else with two words from your dear lips." + +"Should I, Paul?" she said; and lifting her face from his shoulder, she +looked up in his from the depths of two dark fountains full of tears. +Never does the soul so nearly identify itself with matter as when +revealing itself through the eyes; never does matter so nearly lose +itself in spiritual absorption, as when two eyes like Juliet's are +possessed and glorified by the rush of the soul through their portals. +Faber kissed eyes and lips and neck in a glow of delight. She was the +vision of a most blessed dream, and she was his, all and altogether his! +He never thought then how his own uncreed and the prayer-book were of +the same mind that Death would one day part them. There is that in every +high and simple feeling that stamps it with eternity. For my own part I +believe that, if life has not long before twinned any twain, Death can +do nothing to divide them. The nature of each and every pure feeling, +even in the man who may sin away the very memory of it, is immortal; and +who knows from under what a depth of ashes the love of the saving God +may yet revive it! + +The next moment the doctor was summoned. When he returned, Juliet was in +bed, and pretended to be asleep. + +In the morning she appeared at the breakfast table so pale, so worn, so +troubled, that her husband was quite anxious about her. All she would +confess to was, that she had not slept well, and had a headache. +Attributing her condition to a nervous attack, he gave her some +medicine, took her to the drawing-room, and prescribed the new piano, +which he had already found the best of all sedatives for her. She +loathed the very thought of it--could no more have touched it than if +the ivory keys had been white hot steel. She watched him from the window +while he mounted his horse, but the moment the last red gleam of Ruber +vanished, she flung her arms above her head, and with a stifled cry +threw herself on a couch, stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth, and +in fierce dumb agony, tore it to shreds with hands and teeth. Presently +she rose, opened the door almost furtively, and stole softly down the +stair, looking this way and that, like one intent on some evil deed. At +the bottom she pushed a green baize-covered door, peeped into a passage, +then crept on tiptoe toward the surgery. Arrived there she darted to a +spot she knew, and stretched a trembling hand toward a bottle full of a +dark-colored liquid. As instantly she drew it back, and stood listening +with bated breath and terrified look. It _was_ a footstep approaching +the outer door of the surgery! She turned and fled from it, still +noiseless, and never stopped till she was in her own room. There she +shut and locked the door, fell on her knees by the bedside, and pressed +her face into the coverlid. She had no thought of praying. She wanted to +hide, only to hide. Neither was it from old habit she fell upon her +knees, for she had never been given to kneeling. I can not but think, +nevertheless, that there was a dumb germ of prayer at the heart of the +action--that falling upon her knees, and that hiding of her face. The +same moment something took place within her to which she could have +given no name, which she could have represented in no words, a something +which came she knew not whence, was she knew not what, and went she knew +not whither, of which indeed she would never have become aware except +for what followed, but which yet so wrought, that she rose from her +knees saying to herself, with clenched teeth and burning eyes, "I _will_ +tell him." + +As if she had known the moment of her death near, she began mechanically +to set every thing in order in the room, and as she came to herself she +was saying, "Let him kill me. I wish he would. I am quite willing to +die by his hand. He will be kind, and do it gently. He knows so many +ways!" + +It was a terrible day. She did not go out of her room again. Her mood +changed a hundred times. The resolve to confess alternated with wild +mockery and laughter, but still returned. She would struggle to persuade +herself that her whole condition was one of foolish exaggeration, of +senseless excitement about nothing--the merest delirium of feminine +fastidiousness; and the next instant would turn cold with horror at a +fresh glimpse of the mere fact. What could the wretched matter be to him +now--or to her? Who was the worse, or had ever been the worse but +herself? And what did it amount to? What claim had any one, what claim +could even a God, if such a being there were, have upon the past which +had gone from her, was no more in any possible sense within her reach +than if it had never been? Was it not as if it had never been? Was the +woman to be hurled--to hurl herself into misery for the fault of the +girl? It was all nonsense--a trifle at worst--a disagreeable trifle, no +doubt, but still a trifle! Only would to God she had died rather--even +although then she would never have known Paul!--Tut! she would never +have thought of it again but for that horrid woman that lived over the +draper's shop! All would have been well if she had but kept from +thinking about it! Nobody would have been a hair the worse then!--But, +poor Paul!--to be married to such a woman as she! + +If she were to be so foolish as let him know, how would it strike Paul? +What would he think of it? Ought she not to be sure of that before she +committed herself--before she uttered the irrevocable words? Would he +call it a trifle, or would he be ready to kill her? True, he had no +right, he _could_ have no right to know; but how horrible that there +should be any thought of right between them! still worse, any thing +whatever between them that he had no right to know! worst of all, that +she did not belong to him so utterly that he must have a right to know +_every_ thing about her! She _would_ tell him all! She would! she would! +she had no choice! she must!--But she need not tell him now. She was not +strong enough to utter the necessary words. But that made the thing very +dreadful! If she could not speak the words, how bad it must really +be!--Impossible to tell her Paul! That was pure absurdity.--Ah, but she +_could_ not! She would be certain to faint--or fall dead at his feet. +That would be well!--Yes! that would do! She would take a wine-glass +full of laudanum just before she told him; then, if he was kind, she +would confess the opium, and he could save her if he pleased; if he was +hard, she would say nothing, and die at his feet. She had hoped to die +in his arms--all that was left of eternity. But her life was his, he had +saved it with his own--oh horror! that it should have been to disgrace +him!--and it should not last a moment longer than it was a pleasure to +him. + +Worn out with thought and agony, she often fell asleep--only to start +awake in fresh misery, and go over and over the same torturing round. +Long before her husband appeared, she was in a burning fever. When he +came, he put her at once to bed, and tended her with a solicitude as +anxious as it was gentle. He soothed her to sleep, and then went and had +some dinner. + +On his return, finding, as he had expected, that she still slept, he sat +down by her bedside, and watched. Her slumber was broken with now and +then a deep sigh, now and then a moan. Alas, that we should do the +things that make for moan!--but at least I understand why we are left to +do them: it is because we can. A dull fire was burning in her soul, and +over it stood the caldron of her history, and it bubbled in sighs and +moans. + +Faber was ready enough to attribute every thing human to a physical +origin, but as he sat there pondering her condition, recalling her +emotion and strange speech of the night before, and watching the state +she was now in, an uneasiness began to gather--undefined, but other than +concerned her health. Something must be wrong somewhere. He kept +constantly assuring himself that at worst it could be but some mere +moleheap, of which her lovelily sensitive organization, under the +influence of a foolish preachment, made a mountain. Still, it was a huge +disorder to come from a trifle! At the same time who knew better than he +upon what a merest trifle nervous excitement will fix the attention! or +how to the mental eye such a speck will grow and grow until it absorb +the universe! Only a certain other disquieting thought, having come +once, would keep returning--that, thoroughly as he believed himself +acquainted with her mind, he had very little knowledge of her history. +He did not know a single friend of hers, had never met a person who knew +any thing of her family, or had even an acquaintance with her earlier +than his own. The thing he most dreaded was, that the shadow of some old +affection had returned upon her soul, and that, in her excessive +delicacy, she heaped blame upon herself that she had not absolutely +forgotten it. He flung from him in scorn every slightest suggestion of +blame. _His_ Juliet! his glorious Juliet! Bah!--But he must get her to +say what the matter was--for her own sake; he must help her to reveal +her trouble, whatever it might be--else how was he to do his best to +remove it! She should find he knew how to be generous! + +Thus thinking, he sat patient by her side, watching until the sun of her +consciousness should rise and scatter the clouds of sleep. Hour after +hour he sat, and still she slept, outwearied with the rack of emotion. +Morning had begun to peer gray through the window-curtains, when she +woke with a cry. + +She had been dreaming. In the little chapel in Nestley Park, she sat +listening to the curate's denouncement of hypocrisy, when suddenly the +scene changed: the pulpit had grown to a mighty cloud, upon which stood +an archangel with a trumpet in his hand. He cried that the hour of the +great doom had come for all who bore within them the knowledge of any +evil thing neither bemoaned before God nor confessed to man. Then he +lifted the great silver trumpet with a gleam to his lips, and every +fiber of her flesh quivered in expectation of the tearing blast that was +to follow; when instead, soft as a breath of spring from a bank of +primroses, came the words, uttered in the gentlest of sorrowful voices, +and the voice seemed that of her unbelieving Paul: "I will arise and go +to my Father." It was no wonder, therefore, that she woke with a cry. It +was one of indescribable emotion. When she saw his face bending over her +in anxious love, she threw her arms round his neck, burst into a storm +of weeping, and sobbed. + +"Oh Paul! husband! forgive me. I have sinned against you terribly--the +worst sin a woman can commit. Oh Paul! Paul! make me clean, or I am +lost." + +"Juliet, you are raving," he said, bewildered, a little angry, and at +her condition not a little alarmed. For the confession, it was +preposterous: they had not been many weeks married! "Calm yourself, or +you will give me a lunatic for a wife!" he said. Then changing his tone, +for his heart rebuked him, when he saw the ashy despair that spread over +her face and eyes, "Be still, my precious," he went on. "All is well. +You have been dreaming, and are not yet quite awake. It is the morphia +you had last night! Don't look so frightened. It is only your husband. +No one else is near you." + +With the tenderest smile he sought to reassure her, and would have +gently released himself from the agonized clasp of her arms about his +neck, that he might get her something. But she tightened her hold. + +"Don't leave me, Paul," she cried. "I was dreaming, but I am wide awake +now, and know only too well what I have done." + +"Dreams are nothing. The will is not in them," he said. But the thought +of his sweet wife even dreaming a thing to be repented of in such +dismay, tore his heart. For he was one of the many--not all of the +purest--who cherish an ideal of woman which, although indeed +poverty-stricken and crude, is to their minds of snowy favor, to their +judgment of loftiest excellence. I trust in God that many a woman, +despite the mud of doleful circumstance, yea, even the defilement that +comes first from within, has risen to a radiance of essential innocence +ineffably beyond that whose form stood white in Faber's imagination. For +I see and understand a little how God, giving righteousness, makes pure +of sin, and that verily--by no theological quibble of imputation, by no +play with words, by no shutting of the eyes, no oblivion, willful or +irresistible, but by very fact of cleansing, so that the consciousness +of the sinner becomes glistering as the raiment of the Lord on the mount +of His transfiguration. I do not expect the Pharisee who calls the +sinner evil names, and drags her up to judgment, to comprehend this; +but, woman, cry to thy Father in Heaven, for He can make thee white, +even to the contentment of that womanhood which thou hast thyself +outraged. + +Faber unconsciously prided himself on the severity of his requirements +of woman, and saw his own image reflected in the polish of his ideal; +and now a fear whose presence he would not acknowledge began to gnaw at +his heart, a vague suggestion's horrid image, to which he would yield no +space, to flit about his brain. + +"Would to God it were a dream, Paul!" answered the stricken wife. + +"You foolish child!" returned the nigh trembling husband, "how can you +expect me to believe, married but yesterday, you have already got tired +of me!" + +"Tired of you, Paul! I should desire no other eternal paradise than to +lie thus under your eyes forever." + +"Then for my sake, my darling wife, send away this extravagance, this +folly, this absurd fancy that has got such a hold of you. It will turn +to something serious if you do not resist it. There can be no truth in +it, and I am certain that one with any strength of character can do much +at least to prevent the deeper rooting of a fixed idea." But as he spoke +thus to her, in his own soul he was as one fighting the demons off with +a fan. "Tell me what the mighty matter is," he went on, "that I may +swear to you I love you the more for the worst weakness you have to +confess." + +"Ah, my love!" returned Juliet, "how like you are now to the Paul I have +dreamed of so often! But you will not be able to forgive me. I have read +somewhere that men never forgive--that their honor is before their wives +with them. Paul! if you should not be able to forgive me, you must help +me to die, and not be cruel to me." + +"Juliet, I will not listen to any more such foolish words. Either tell +me plainly what you mean, that I may convince you what a goose you are, +or be quiet and go to sleep again." + +"_Can_ it be that after all it does not signify so much?" she said +aloud, but only to herself, meditating in the light of a little +glow-worm of hope. "Oh if it could be so! And what is it really so much? +I have not murdered any body!--I _will_ tell you, Paul!" + +She drew his head closer down, laid her lips to his ear, gave a great +gasp, and whispered two or three words. He started up, sundering at once +the bonds of her clasped hands, cast one brief stare at her, turned, +walked, with a great quick stride to his dressing-room, entered, and +closed the door. + +As if with one rush of a fell wind, they were ages, deserts, empty +star-spaces apart! She was outside the universe, in the cold frenzy of +infinite loneliness. The wolves of despair were howling in her. But Paul +was in the next room! There was only the door between them! She sprung +from her bed and ran to a closet. The next moment she appeared in her +husband's dressing-room. + +Paul sat sunk together in his chair, his head hanging forward, his teeth +set, his whole shape, in limb and feature, carrying the show of +profound, of irrecoverable injury. He started to his feet when she +entered. She did not once lift her eyes to his face, but sunk on her +knees before him, hurriedly slipped her night-gown from her shoulders to +her waist, and over her head, bent toward the floor, held up to him a +riding-whip. + +They were baleful stars that looked down on that naked world beneath +them. + +To me scarce any thing is so utterly pathetic as the back. That of an +animal even is full of sad suggestion. But the human back!--It is the +other, the dark side of the human moon; the blind side of the being, +defenseless, and exposed to every thing; the ignorant side, turned +toward the abyss of its unknown origin; the unfeatured side, eyeless and +dumb and helpless--the enduring animal of the marvelous commonwealth, to +be given to the smiter, and to bend beneath the burden--lovely in its +patience and the tender forms of its strength. + +An evil word, resented by the lowest of our sisters, rushed to the man's +lips, but died there in a strangled murmur. + +"Paul!" said Juliet, in a voice from whose tone it seemed as if her soul +had sunk away, and was crying out of a hollow place of the earth, "take +it--take it. Strike me." + +He made no reply--stood utterly motionless, his teeth clenched so hard +that he could not have spoken without grinding them. She waited as +motionless, her face bowed to the floor, the whip held up over her head. + +"Paul!" she said again, "you saved my life once: save my soul now. Whip +me and take me again." + +He answered with only a strange unnatural laugh through his teeth. + +"Whip me and let me die then," she said. + +He spoke no word. She spoke again. Despair gave her both insight and +utterance--despair and great love, and the truth of God that underlies +even despair. + +"You pressed me to marry you," she said: "what was I to do? How could I +tell you? And I loved you so! I persuaded myself I was safe with +you--you were so generous. You would protect me from every thing, even +my own past. In your name I sent it away, and would not think of it +again. I said to myself you would not wish me to tell you the evil that +had befallen me. I persuaded myself you loved me enough even for that. I +held my peace trusting you. Oh my husband! my Paul! my heart is crushed. +The dreadful thing has come back. I thought it was gone from me, and +now it will not leave me any more. I am a horror to myself. There is no +one to punish and forgive me but you. Forgive me, my husband. You are +the God to whom I pray. If you pardon me I shall be content even with +myself. I shall seek no other pardon; your favor is all I care for. If +you take me for clean, I _am_ clean for all the world. You can make me +clean--you only. Do it, Paul; do it, husband. Make me clean that I may +look women in the face. Do, Paul, take the whip and strike me. I long +for my deserts at your hand. Do comfort me. I am waiting the sting of +it, Paul, to know that you have forgiven me. If I should cry out, it +will be for gladness.--Oh, my husband,"--here her voice rose to an agony +of entreaty--"I was but a girl--hardly more than a child in knowledge--I +did not know what I was doing. He was much older than I was, and I +trusted him!--O my God! I hardly know what I knew and what I did not +know: it was only when it was too late that I woke and understood. I +hate myself. I scorn myself. But am I to be wretched forever because of +that one fault, Paul? Will you not be my saviour and forgive me my sin? +Oh, do not drive me mad. I am only clinging to my reason. Whip me and I +shall be well. Take me again, Paul. I will not, if you like, even fancy +myself your wife any more. I will be your slave. You shall do with me +whatever you will. I will obey you to the very letter. Oh beat me and +let me go." + +She sunk prone on the floor, and clasped and kissed his feet. + +He took the whip from her hand. + +Of course a man can not strike a woman! He may tread her in the mire; he +may clasp her and then scorn her; he may kiss her close, and then dash +her from him into a dung-heap, but he must not strike her--that would be +unmanly! Oh! grace itself is the rage of the pitiful Othello to the +forbearance of many a self-contained, cold-blooded, self-careful slave, +that thinks himself a gentleman! Had not Faber been even then full of +his own precious self, had he yielded to her prayer or to his own wrath, +how many hours of agony would have been saved them both!--"What! would +you have had him really strike her?" I would have had him do _any thing_ +rather than choose himself and reject his wife: make of it what you +will. Had he struck once, had he seen the purple streak rise in the +snow, that instant his pride-frozen heart would have melted into a +torrent of grief; he would have flung himself on the floor beside her, +and in an agony of pity over her and horror at his own sacrilege, would +have clasped her to his bosom, and baptized her in the tears of remorse +and repentance; from that moment they would have been married indeed. + +When she felt him take the whip, the poor lady's heart gave a great +heave of hope; then her flesh quivered with fear. She closed her teeth +hard, to welcome the blow without a cry. Would he give her many stripes? +Then the last should be welcome as the first. Would it spoil her skin? +What matter if it was his own hand that did it! + +A brief delay--long to her! then the hiss, as it seemed, of the coming +blow! But instead of the pang she awaited, the sharp ring of breaking +glass followed: he had thrown the whip through the window into the +garden. The same moment he dragged his feet rudely from her embrace, and +left the room. The devil and the gentleman had conquered. He had spared +her, not in love, but in scorn. She gave one great cry of utter loss, +and lay senseless. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + +THE BOTTOMLESS POOL. + + +She came to herself in the gray dawn. She was cold as ice--cold to the +very heart, but she did not feel the cold: there was nothing in her to +compare it against; her very being was frozen. The man who had given her +life had thrown her from him. He cared less for her than for the +tortured dog. She was an outcast, defiled and miserable. Alas! alas! +this was what came of speaking the truth--of making confession! The +cruel scripture had wrought its own fulfillment, made a mock of her, and +ruined her husband's peace. She knew poor Paul would never be himself +again! She had carried the snake so long harmless in her bosom only to +let it at last creep from her lips into her husband's ear, sting the +vital core of her universe, and blast it forever! How foolish she had +been!--What was left her to do? What would her husband have her to do? +Oh misery! he cared no more what she did or did not do. She was +alone--utterly alone! But she need not live. + +Dimly, vaguely, the vapor of such thoughts as these passed through her +despairing soul, as she lifted herself from the floor and tottered back +to her room. Yet even then, in the very midst of her freezing misery, +there was, although she had not yet begun to recognize it, a nascent +comfort in that she had spoken and confessed. She would not really have +taken back her confession. And although the torture was greater, yet was +it more endurable than that she had been suffering before. She had told +him who had a right to know.--But, alas! what a deception was that dream +of the trumpet and the voice! A poor trick to entrap a helpless sinner! + +Slowly, with benumbed fingers and trembling hands, she dressed herself: +that bed she would lie in no more, for she had wronged her husband. +Whether before or after he was her husband, mattered nothing. To have +ever called him husband was the wrong. She had seemed that she was not, +else he would never have loved or sought her; she had outraged his +dignity, defiled him; he had cast her off, and she could not, would not +blame him. Happily for her endurance of her misery, she did not turn +upon her idol and cast him from his pedestal; she did not fix her gaze +upon his failure instead of her own; she did not espy the contemptible +in his conduct, and revolt from her allegiance. + +But was such a man then altogether the ideal of a woman's soul? Was he a +fit champion of humanity who would aid only within the limits of his +pride? who, when a despairing creature cried in soul-agony for help, +thought first and only of his own honor? The notion men call their honor +is the shadow of righteousness, the shape that is where the light is +not, the devil that dresses as nearly in angel-fashion as he can, but is +none the less for that a sneak and a coward. + +She put on her cloak and bonnet: the house was his, not hers. He and she +had never been one: she must go and meet her fate. There was one power, +at least, the key to the great door of liberty, which the weakest as +well as the strongest possessed: she could die. Ah, how welcome would +Death be now! Did he ever know or heed the right time to come, without +being sent for--without being compelled? In the meantime her only +anxiety was to get out of the house: away from Paul she would understand +more precisely what she had to do. With the feeling of his angry +presence, she could not think. Yet how she loved him--strong in his +virtue and indignation! She had not yet begun to pity herself, or to +allow to her heart that he was hard upon her. + +She was leaving the room when a glitter on her hand caught her eye: the +old diamond disk, which he had bought of her in her trouble, and +restored to her on her wedding-day, was answering the herald of the +sunrise. She drew it off: he must have it again. With it she drew off +also her wedding-ring. Together she laid them on the dressing table, +turned again, and with noiseless foot and desert heart went through the +house, opened the door, and stole into the street. A thin mist was +waiting for her. A lean cat, gray as the mist, stood on the steps of the +door opposite. No other living thing was to be seen. The air was chill. +The autumn rains were at hand. But her heart was the only desolation. + +Already she knew where she was going. In the street she turned to the +left. + +Shortly before, she had gone with Dorothy, for the first time, to see +the Old House, and there had had rather a narrow escape. Walking down +the garden they came to the pond or small lake, so well known to the +children of Glaston as bottomless. Two stone steps led from the end of +the principal walk down to the water, which was, at the time, nearly +level with the top of the second. On the upper step Juliet was standing, +not without fear, gazing into the gulf, which was yet far deeper than +she imagined, when, without the smallest preindication, the lower step +suddenly sank. Juliet sprung back to the walk, but turned instantly to +look again. She saw the stone sinking, and her eyes opened wider and +wider, as it swelled and thinned to a great, dull, wavering mass, grew +dimmer and dimmer, then melted away and vanished utterly. With "stricken +look," and fright-filled eyes, she turned to Dorothy, who was a little +behind her, and said, + +"How will you be able to sleep at night? I should be always fancying +myself sliding down into it through the darkness." + +To this place of terror she was now on the road. When consciousness +returned to her as she lay on the floor of her husband's dressing-room, +it brought with it first the awful pool and the sinking stone. She +seemed to stand watching it sink, lazily settling with a swing this way +and a sway that, into the bosom of the earth, down and down, and still +down. Nor did the vision leave her as she came more to herself. Even +when her mental eyes were at length quite open to the far more frightful +verities of her condition, half of her consciousness was still watching +the ever sinking stone; until at last she seemed to understand that it +was showing her a door out of her misery, one easy to open. + +She went the same way into the park that Dorothy had then taken +her--through a little door of privilege which she had shown her how to +open, and not by the lodge. The light was growing fast, but the sun was +not yet up. With feeble steps but feverous haste she hurried over the +grass. Her feet were wet through her thin shoes. Her dress was fringed +with dew. But there was no need for taking care of herself now; she felt +herself already beyond the reach of sickness. The still pond would soon +wash off the dew. + +Suddenly, with a tremor of waking hope, came the thought that, when she +was gone from his sight, the heart of her husband would perhaps turn +again toward her a little. For would he not then be avenged? would not +his justice be satisfied? She had been well drilled in the theological +lie, that punishment is the satisfaction of justice. + +"Oh, now I thank you, Paul!" she said, as she hastened along. "You +taught me the darkness, and made me brave to seek its refuge. Think of +me sometimes, Paul. I will come back to you if I can--but no, there is +no coming back, no greeting more, no shadows even to mingle their loves, +for in a dream there is but one that dreams. I shall be the one that +does not dream. There is nothing where I am going--not even the +darkness--nothing but nothing. Ah, would I were in it now! Let me make +haste. All will be one, for all will be none when I am there. Make you +haste too, and come into the darkness, Paul. It is soothing and soft and +cool. It will wash away the sin of the girl and leave you a----nothing." + +While she was hurrying toward the awful pool, her husband sat in his +study, sunk in a cold fury of conscious disgrace--not because of his +cruelty, not because he had cast a woman into hell--but because his +honor, his self-satisfaction in his own fate, was thrown to the worms. +Did he fail thus in consequence of having rejected the common belief? +No; something far above the _common_ belief it must be, that would have +enabled him to act otherwise. But had he _known_ the Man of the gospel, +he could not have left her. He would have taken her to his sorrowful +bosom, wept with her, forgotten himself in pitiful grief over the spot +upon her whiteness; he would have washed her clean with love and +husband-power. He would have welcomed his shame as his hold of her +burden, whereby to lift it, with all its misery and loss, from her heart +forever. Had Faber done so as he was, he would have come close up to the +gate of the kingdom of Heaven, for he would have been like-minded with +Him who sought not His own. His honor, forsooth! Pride is a mighty +honor! His pride was great indeed, but it was not grand! Nothing +reflected, nothing whose object is self, has in it the poorest element +of grandeur. Our selves are ours that we may lay them on the altar of +love. Lying there, bound and bleeding and burning if need be, they are +grand indeed--for they are in their noble place, and rejoicing in their +fate. But this man was miserable, because, the possessor of a priceless +jewel, he had found it was not such as would pass for flawless in the +judgment of men--judges themselves unjust, whose very hearts were full +of bribes. He sat there an injured husband, a wronged, woman-cheated, +mocked man--he in whose eyes even a smutch on her face would have +lowered a woman--who would not have listened to an angel with a broken +wing-feather! + +Let me not be supposed to make a little of Juliet's loss! What that +amounted to, let Juliet feel!--let any woman say, who loves a man, and +would be what that man thinks her! But I read, and think I understand, +the words of the perfect Purity: "Neither do I condemn thee: go and sin +no more." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + +A HEART. + + +If people were both observant and memorious, they would cease, I fancy, +to be astonished at coincidences. Rightly regarded, the universe is but +one coincidence--only where will has to be developed, there is need for +human play, and room for that must be provided in its spaces. The works +of God being from the beginning, and all his beginnings invisible either +from greatness or smallness or nearness or remoteness, numberless +coincidences may pass in every man's history, before he becomes capable +of knowing either the need or the good of them, or even of noting them. + +The same morning there was another awake and up early. When Juliet was +about half-way across the park, hurrying to the water, Dorothy was +opening the door of the empty house, seeking solitude that she might +find the one Dweller therein. She went straight to one of the upper +rooms looking out upon the garden, and kneeling prayed to her Unknown +God. As she kneeled, the first rays of the sunrise visited her face. +That face was in itself such an embodied prayer, that had any one seen +it, he might, when the beams fell upon it, have imagined he saw prayer +and answer meet. It was another sunrise Dorothy was looking for, but she +started and smiled when the warm rays touched her; they too came from +the home of answers. As the daisy mimics the sun, so is the central fire +of our system but a flower that blossoms in the eternal effulgence of +the unapproachable light. + +The God to whom we pray is nearer to us than the very prayer itself ere +it leaves the heart; hence His answers may well come to us through the +channel of our own thoughts. But the world too being itself one of His +thoughts, He may also well make the least likely of His creatures an +angel of His own will to us. Even the blind, if God be with him, that +is, if he knows he is blind and does not think he sees, may become a +leader of the blind up to the narrow gate. It is the blind who says _I +see_, that leads his fellow into the ditch. + +The window near which Dorothy kneeled, and toward which in the instinct +for light she had turned her face, looked straight down the garden, at +the foot of which the greater part of the circumference of the pond was +visible. But Dorothy, busy with her prayers, or rather with a weight of +hunger and thirst, from which like a burst of lightning skyward from the +overcharged earth, a prayer would now and then break and rush +heavenward, saw nothing of the outer world: between her and a sister +soul in mortal agony, hung the curtains of her eyelids. But there were +no shutters to her ears, and in at their portals all of a sudden darted +a great and bitter cry, as from a heart in the gripe of a fierce terror. +She had been so absorbed, and it so startled and shook her, that she +never could feel certain whether the cry she heard was of this world or +not. Half-asleep one hears such a cry, and can not tell whether it +entered his consciousness by the ear, or through some hidden channel of +the soul. Assured that waking ears heard nothing, he remains, it may be, +in equal doubt, whether it came from the other side of life or was the +mere cry of a dream. Before Dorothy was aware of a movement of her will, +she was on her feet, and staring from the window. Something was lying on +the grass beyond the garden wall, close to the pond: it looked like a +woman. She darted from the house, out of the garden, and down the other +side of the wall. When she came nearer she saw it was indeed a woman, +evidently insensible. She was bare-headed. Her bonnet was floating in +the pond; the wind had blown it almost to the middle of it. Her face was +turned toward the water. One hand was in it. The bank overhung the pond, +and with a single movement more she would probably have been beyond help +from Dorothy. She caught her by the arm, and dragged her from the brink, +before ever she looked in her face. Then to her amazement she saw it was +Juliet. She opened her eyes, and it was as if a lost soul looked out of +them upon Dorothy--a being to whom the world was nothing, so occupied +was it with some torment, which alone measured its existence--far away, +although it hung attached to the world by a single hook of brain and +nerve. + +"Juliet, my darling!" said Dorothy, her voice trembling with the love +which only souls that know trouble can feel for the troubled, "come with +me. I will take care of you." + +At the sound of her voice, Juliet shuddered. Then a better light came +into her eyes, and feebly she endeavored to get up. With Dorothy's help +she succeeded, but stood as if ready to sink again to the earth. She +drew her cloak about her, turned and stared at the water, turned again +and stared at Dorothy, at last threw herself into her arms, and sobbed +and wailed. For a few moments Dorothy held her in a close embrace. Then +she sought to lead her to the house, and Juliet yielded at once. She +took her into one of the lower rooms, and got her some water--it was all +she could get for her, and made her sit down on the window-seat. It +seemed a measureless time before she made the least attempt to speak; +and again and again when she began to try, she failed. She opened her +mouth, but no sounds would come. At length, interrupted with choking +gasps, low cries of despair, and long intervals of sobbing, she said +something like this: + +"I was going to drown myself. When I came in sight of the water, I fell +down in a half kind of faint. All the time I lay, I felt as if some one +was dragging me nearer and nearer to the pool. Then something came and +drew me back--and it was you, Dorothy. But you ought to have left me. I +am a wretch. There is no room for me in this world any more." She +stopped a moment, then fixing wide eyes on Dorothy's, said, "Oh Dorothy, +dear! there are awful things in the world! as awful as any you ever read +in a book!" + +"I know that, dear. But oh! I am sorry if any of them have come your +way. Tell me what is the matter. I _will_ help you if I can." + +"I dare not; I dare not! I should go raving mad if I said a word about +it." + +"Then don't tell me, my dear. Come with me up stairs; there is a warmer +room there--full of sunshine; you are nearly dead with cold. I came here +this morning, Juliet, to be alone and pray to God; and see what He has +sent me! You, dear! Come up stairs. Why, you are quite wet! You will get +your death of cold!" + +"Then it would be all right. I would rather not kill myself if I could +die without. But it must be somehow." + +"We'll talk about it afterward. Come now." + +With Dorothy's arm round her waist, Juliet climbed trembling to the +warmer room. On a rickety wooden chair, Dorothy made her sit in the +sunshine, while she went and gathered chips and shavings and bits of +wood left by the workmen. With these she soon kindled a fire in the +rusty grate. Then she took off Juliet's shoes and stockings, and put her +own upon her. She made no resistance, only her eyes followed Dorothy's +bare feet going to and fro, as if she felt something was wrong, and had +not strength to inquire into it. + +But Dorothy's heart rebuked her for its own lightness. It had not been +so light for many a day. It seemed as if God was letting her know that +He was there. She spread her cloak on a sunny spot of the floor, made +Juliet lie down upon it, put a bundle of shavings under her head, +covered her with her own cloak, which she had dried at the fire, and was +leaving the room. + +"Where are you going, Dorothy?" cried Juliet, seeming all at once to +wake up. + +"I am going to fetch your husband, dear," answered Dorothy. + +She gave a great cry, rose to her knees, and clasped Dorothy round +hers. + +"No, no, no!" she screamed. "You shall not. If you do, I swear I will +run straight to the pond." + +Notwithstanding the wildness of her voice and look, there was an evident +determination in both. + +"I will do nothing you don't like, dear," said Dorothy. "I thought that +was the best thing I could do for you." + +"No! no! no! any thing but that!" + +"Then of course I won't. But I must go and get you something to eat." + +"I could not swallow a mouthful; it would choke me. And where would be +the good of it, when life is over!" + +"Don't talk like that, dear. Life can't be over till it is taken from +us." + +"Ah, you would see it just as I do, if you knew all!" + +"Tell me all, then." + +"Where is the use, when there is no help?" + +"No help!" echoed Dorothy.--The words she had so often uttered in her +own heart, coming from the lips of another, carried in them an +incredible contradiction.--Could God make or the world breed the +irreparable?--"Juliet," she went on, after a little pause, "I have often +said the same myself, but--" + +"You!" interrupted Juliet; "you who always professed to believe!" + +Dorothy's ear could not distinguish whether the tone was of indignation +or of bitterness. + +"You never heard me, Juliet," she answered, "profess any thing. If my +surroundings did so for me, I could not help that. I never dared say I +believed any thing. But I hope--and, perhaps," she went on with a smile, +"seeing Hope is own sister to Faith, she may bring me to know her too +some day. Paul says----" + +Dorothy had been brought up a dissenter, and never said _St._ this one +or that, any more than the Christians of the New Testament. + +At the sound of the name, Juliet burst into tears, the first she shed, +for the word _Paul_, like the head of the javelin torn from the wound, +brought the whole fountain after it. She cast herself down again, and +lay and wept. Dorothy kneeled beside her, and laid a hand on her +shoulder. It was the only way she could reach her at all. + +"You see," she said at last, for the weeping went on and on, "there is +nothing will do you any good but your husband." + +"No, no; he has cast me from him forever!" she cried, in a strange wail +that rose to a shriek. + +"The wretch!" exclaimed Dorothy, clenching a fist whose little bones +looked fierce through the whitened skin. + +"No," returned Juliet, suddenly calmed, in a voice almost severe; "it is +I who am the wretch, to give you a moment in which to blame him. He has +done nothing but what is right." + +"I don't believe it." + +"I deserved it." + +"I am sure you did not. I would believe a thousand things against him +before I would believe one against you, my poor white queen!" cried +Dorothy, kissing her hand. + +She snatched it away, and covered her face with both hands. + +"I should only need to tell you one thing to convince you," she sobbed +from behind them. + +"Then tell it me, that I may not be unjust to him." + +"I can not." + +"I won't take your word against yourself," returned Dorothy +determinedly. "You will have to tell me, or leave me to think the worst +of him." She was moved by no vulgar curiosity: how is one to help +without knowing? "Tell me, my dear," she went on after a little; "tell +me all about it, and in the name of the God in whom I hope to believe, I +promise to give myself to your service." + +Thus adjured, Juliet found herself compelled. But with what +heart-tearing groans and sobs, with what intervals of dumbness, in which +the truth seemed unutterable for despair and shame, followed by what +hurrying of wild confession, as if she would cast it from her, the sad +tale found its way into Dorothy's aching heart, I will not attempt to +describe. It is enough that at last it was told, and that it had entered +at the wide-open, eternal doors of sympathy. If Juliet had lost a +husband, she had gained a friend, and that was something--indeed no +little thing--for in her kind the friend was more complete than the +husband. She was truer, more entire--in friendship nearly perfect. When +a final burst of tears had ended the story of loss and despair, a +silence fell. + +"Oh, those men! those men!" said Dorothy, in a low voice of bitterness, +as if she knew them and their ways well, though never had kiss of man +save her father lighted on her cheek. "--My poor darling!" she said +after another pause, "--and he cast you from him!--I suppose a woman's +heart," she went on after a third pause, "can never make up for the loss +of a man's, but here is mine for you to go into the very middle of, and +lie down there." + +Juliet had, as she told her story, risen to her knees. Dorothy was on +hers too, and as she spoke she opened wide her arms, and clasped the +despised wife to her bosom. None but the arms of her husband, Juliet +believed, could make her alive with forgiveness, yet she felt a strange +comfort in that embrace. It wrought upon her as if she had heard a +far-off whisper of the words: _Thy sins be forgiven thee_. And no +wonder: there was the bosom of one of the Lord's clean ones for her to +rest upon! It was her first lesson in the mighty truth that sin of all +things is mortal, and purity alone can live for evermore. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + +TWO MORE MINDS. + + +Nothing makes a man strong like a call upon him for help--a fact which +points at a unity more delicate and close and profound than heart has +yet perceived. It is but "a modern instance" how a mother, if she be but +a hen, becomes bold as a tigress for her periled offspring. A stranger +will fight for the stranger who puts his trust in him. The most foolish +of men will search his musty brain to find wise saws for his boy. An +anxious man, going to his friend to borrow, may return having lent him +instead. The man who has found nothing yet in the world save food for +the hard, sharp, clear intellect, will yet cast an eye around the +universe to see if perchance there may not be a God somewhere for the +hungering heart of his friend. The poor, but lovely, the doubting, yet +living faith of Dorothy arose, stretched out its crippled wings, and +began to arrange and straighten their disordered feathers. It is a fair +sight, any creature, be it but a fly, dressing its wings! Dorothy's were +feeble, ruffled, their pen-feathers bent and a little crushed; but +Juliet's were full of mud, paralyzed with disuse, and grievously singed +in the smoldering fire of her secret. A butterfly that has burned its +wings is not very unlike a caterpillar again. + +"Look here, Juliet," said Dorothy: "there must be some way out of it, or +there is no saving God in the universe.--Now don't begin to say there +isn't, because, you see, it is your only chance. It would be a pity to +make a fool of yourself by being over-wise, to lose every thing by +taking it for granted there is no God. If after all there should be one, +it would be the saddest thing to perish for want of Him. I won't say I +am as miserable as you, for I haven't a husband to trample on my heart; +but I am miserable enough, and want dreadfully to be saved. I don't call +this life worth living. Nothing is right, nothing goes well--there is no +harmony in me. I don't call it life at all. I want music and light in +me. I want a God to save me out of this wretchedness. I want health." + +"I thought you were never ill, Dorothy," murmured Juliet listlessly. + +"Is it possible you do not know what I mean?" returned Dorothy. "Do you +never feel wretched and sick in your very soul?--disgusted with +yourself, and longing to be lifted up out of yourself into a region of +higher conditions altogether?" + +That kind of thing Juliet had been learning to attribute to the state of +her health--had partly learned: it is hard to learn any thing false +_thoroughly_, for it _can not_ so be learned. It is true that it is +often, perhaps it is generally, in troubled health, that such thoughts +come first; but in nature there are facts of color that the cloudy day +reveals. So sure am I that many things which illness has led me to see +are true, that I would endlessly rather never be well than lose sight of +them. "So would any madman say of his fixed idea." I will keep my +madness, then, for therein most do I desire the noble: and to desire +what I desire, if it be but to desire, is better than to have all you +offer us in the name of truth. Through such desire and the hope of its +attainment, all greatest things have been wrought in the earth: I too +have my unbelief as well as you--I can not believe that a lie on the +belief of which has depended our highest development. You may say you +have a higher to bring in. But that higher you have become capable of by +the precedent lie. Yet you vaunt truth! You would sink us low indeed, +making out falsehood our best nourishment--at some period of our +history at least. If, however, what I call true and high, you call false +and low--my assertion that you have never seen that of which I so speak +will not help--then is there nothing left us but to part, each go his +own road, and wait the end--which according to my expectation will show +the truth, according to yours, being nothing, will show nothing. + +"I can not help thinking, if we could only get up there," Dorothy went +on,--"I mean into a life of which I can at least dream--if I could but +get my head and heart into the kingdom of Heaven, I should find that +every thing else would come right. I believe it is God Himself I +want--nothing will do but Himself in me. Mr. Wingfold says that we find +things all wrong about us, that they keep going against our will and our +liking, just to drive things right inside us, or at least to drive us +where we can get them put right; and that, as soon as their work is +done, the waves will lie down at our feet, or if not, we shall at least +walk over their crests." + +"It sounds very nice, and would comfort any body that wasn't in +trouble," said Juliet; "but you wouldn't care one bit for it all any +more than I do, if you had pain and love like mine pulling at your +heart." + +"I have seen a mother make sad faces enough over the baby at her +breast," said Dorothy. "Love and pain seem so strangely one in this +world, the wonder is how they will ever get parted. What God must feel +like, with this world hanging on to Him with all its pains and cries--!" + +"It's His own fault," said Juliet bitterly. "Why did He make us--or why +did He not make us good? I'm sure I don't know where was the use of +making me!" + +"Perhaps not much yet," replied Dorothy, "but then He hasn't made you, +He hasn't done with you yet. He is making you now, and you don't like +it." + +"No, I don't--if you call this making. Why does He do it? He could have +avoided all this trouble by leaving us alone." + +"I put something like the same question once to Mr. Wingfold," said +Dorothy, "and he told me it was impossible to show any one the truths of +the kingdom of Heaven; he must learn them for himself. 'I can do little +more,' he said, 'than give you my testimony that it seems to me all +right. If God has not made you good, He has made you with the feeling +that you ought to be good, and at least a half-conviction that to Him +you have to go for help to become good. When you are good, then you will +know why He did not make you good at first, and will be perfectly +satisfied with the reason, because you will find it good and just and +right--so good that it was altogether beyond the understanding of one +who was not good. I don't think,' he said, 'you will ever get a +thoroughly satisfactory answer to any question till you go to Himself +for it--and then it may take years to make you fit to receive, that is +to understand the answer.' Oh Juliet! sometimes I have felt in my heart +as if--I am afraid to say it, even to you,--" + +"_I_ shan't be shocked at any thing; I am long past that," sighed +Juliet. + +"It is not of you I am afraid," said Dorothy. "It is a kind of awe of +the universe I feel. But God is the universe; His is the only ear that +will hear me; and He knows my thoughts already. Juliet, I feel sometimes +as if I _must_ be good for God's sake; as if I was sorry for Him, +because He has such a troublesome nursery of children, that will not or +can not understand Him, and will not do what He tells them, and He all +the time doing the very best for them He can." + +"It may be all very true, or all great nonsense, Dorothy, dear; I don't +care a bit about it. All I care for is--I don't know what I care for--I +don't care for any thing any more--there is nothing left to care for. I +love my husband with a heart like to break--oh, how I wish it would! He +hates and despises me and I dare not wish that he wouldn't. If he were +to forgive me quite, I should yet feel that he ought to despise me, and +that would be all the same as if he did, and there is no help. Oh, how +horrid I look to him! I _can't_ bear it. I fancied it was all gone; but +there it is, and there it must be forever. I don't care about a God. If +there were a God, what would He be to me without my Paul?" + +"I think, Juliet, you will yet come to say, 'What would my Paul be to me +without my God?' I suspect we have no more idea than that lonely fly on +the window there, what it would be _to have a God_." + +"I don't care. I would rather go to hell with my Paul than go to Heaven +without him," moaned Juliet. + +"But what if God should be the only where to find your Paul?" said +Dorothy. "What if the gulf that parts you is just the gulf of a God not +believed in--a universe which neither of you can cross to meet the +other--just because you do not believe it is there at all?" + +Juliet made no answer--Dorothy could not tell whether from feeling or +from indifference. The fact was, the words conveyed no more meaning to +Juliet than they will to some of my readers. Why do I write them then? +Because there are some who will understand them at once, and others who +will grow to understand them. Dorothy was astonished to find herself +saying them. The demands of her new office of comforter gave shape to +many half-formed thoughts, substance to many shadowy perceptions, +something like music to not a few dim feelings moving within her; but +what she said hardly seemed her own at all. + +Had it not been for Wingfold's help, Dorothy might not have learned +these things in this world; but had it not been for Juliet, they would +have taken years more to blossom in her being, and so become her own. +Her faint hope seemed now to break forth suddenly into power. Whether or +not she was saying such things as were within the scope of Juliet's +apprehension, was a matter of comparatively little moment. As she lay +there in misery, rocking herself from side to side on the floor, she +would have taken hold of nothing. But love is the first comforter, and +where love and truth speak, the love will be felt where the truth is +never perceived. Love indeed is the highest in all truth; and the +pressure of a hand, a kiss, the caress of a child, will do more to save +sometimes than the wisest argument, even rightly understood. Love alone +is wisdom, love alone is power; and where love seems to fail it is where +self has stepped between and dulled the potency of its rays. + +Dorothy thought of another line of expostulation. + +"Juliet," she said, "suppose you were to drown yourself and your husband +were to repent?" + +"That is the only hope left me. You see yourself I have no choice." + +"You have no pity, it seems; for what then would become of him? What if +he should come to himself in bitter sorrow, in wild longing for your +forgiveness, but you had taken your forgiveness with you, where he had +no hope of ever finding it? Do you want to punish him? to make him as +miserable as yourself? to add immeasurably to the wrong you have done +him, by going where no word, no message, no letter can pass, no cry can +cross? No, Juliet--death can set nothing right. But if there be a God, +then nothing can go wrong but He can set it right, and set it right +better than it was before." + +"He could not make it better than it was." + +"What!--is that your ideal of love--a love that fails in the first +trial? If He could not better that, then indeed He were no God worth the +name." + +"Why then did He make us such--make such a world as is always going +wrong?" + +"Mr. Wingfold says it is always going righter the same time it is going +wrong. I grant He would have had no right to make a world that might go +further wrong than He could set right at His own cost. But if at His own +cost He turn its ills into goods? its ugliness into favor? Ah, if it +should be so, Juliet! It _may_ be so. I do not know. I have not found +Him yet. Help me to find Him. Let us seek Him together. If you find Him +you can not lose your husband. If Love is Lord of the world, love must +yet be Lord in his heart. It will wake, if not sooner, yet when the +bitterness has worn itself out, as Mr. Wingfold says all evil must, +because its heart is death and not life." + +"I don't care a straw for life. If I could but find my husband, I would +gladly die forever in his arms. It is not true that the soul longs for +immortality. I don't. I long only for love--for forgiveness--for my +husband." + +"But would you die so long as there was the poorest chance of regaining +your place in his heart?" + +"No. Give me the feeblest chance of that, and I will live. I could live +forever on the mere hope of it." + +"I can't give you any hope, but I have hope of it in my own heart." + +Juliet rose on her elbow. + +"But I am disgraced!" she said, almost indignantly. "It would be +disgrace to him to take me again! I remember one of the officers' +wives----. No, no! he hates and despises me. Besides I could never look +one of his friends in the face again. Every body will say I ran away +with some one--or that he sent me away because I was wicked. You all had +a prejudice against me from the very first." + +"Yes, in a way," confessed Dorothy. "It always seemed as if we did not +know you and could not get at you, as if you avoided us--with your +heart, I mean;--as if you had resolved we should not know you--as if you +had something you were afraid we should discover." + +"Ah, there it was, you see!" cried Juliet. "And now the hidden thing is +revealed! That was it: I never could get rid of the secret that was +gnawing at my life. Even when I was hardly aware of it, it was there. +Oh, if I had only been ugly, then Paul would never have thought of me!" + +She threw herself down again and buried her face. + +"Hide me; hide me," she went on, lifting to Dorothy her hands clasped in +an agony, while her face continued turned from her. "Let me stay here. +Let me die in peace. Nobody would ever think I was here." + +"That is just what has been coming and going in my mind," answered +Dorothy. "It is a strange old place: you might be here for months and +nobody know." + +"Oh! wouldn't you mind it? I shouldn't live long. I couldn't, you know!" + +"I will be your very sister, if you will let me," replied Dorothy; "only +then you must do what I tell you--and begin at once by promising not to +leave the house till I come back to you." + +As she spoke she rose. + +"But some one will come," said Juliet, half-rising, as if she would run +after her. + +"No one will. But if any one should--come here, I will show you a place +where nobody would find you." + +She helped her to rise, and led her from the room to a door in a rather +dark passage. This she opened, and, striking a light, showed an ordinary +closet, with pegs for hanging garments upon. The sides of it were +paneled, and in one of them, not readily distinguishable, was another +door. It opened into a room lighted only by a little window high up in a +wall, through whose dusty, cobwebbed panes, crept a modicum of +second-hand light from a stair. + +"There!" said Dorothy. "If you should hear any sound before I come back, +run in here. See what a bolt there is to the door. Mind you shut both. +You can close that shutter over the window too if you like--only nobody +can look in at it without getting a ladder, and there isn't one about +the place. I don't believe any one knows of this room but myself." + +Juliet was too miserable to be frightened at the look of it--which was +wretched enough. She promised not to leave the house, and Dorothy went. +Many times before she returned had Juliet fled from the sounds of +imagined approach, and taken refuge in the musty dusk of the room +withdrawn. When at last Dorothy came, she found her in it trembling. + +She came, bringing a basket with every thing needful for breakfast. She +had not told her father any thing: he was too simple, she said to +herself, to keep a secret with comfort; and she would risk any thing +rather than discovery while yet she did not clearly know what ought to +be done. Her version of the excellent French proverb--_Dans le doute, +abstiens-toi_--was, _When you are not sure, wait_--which goes a little +further, inasmuch as it indicates expectation, and may imply faith. With +difficulty she prevailed upon her to take some tea, and a little bread +and butter, feeding her like a child, and trying to comfort her with +hope. Juliet sat on the floor, leaning against the wall, the very +picture of despair, white like alabaster, rather than marble--with a +bluish whiteness. Her look was of one utterly lost. + +"We'll let the fire out now," said Dorothy; "for the sun is shining in +warm, and there had better be no smoke. The wood is rather scarce too. I +will get you some more, and here are matches: you can light it again +when you please." + +She then made her a bed on the floor with a quantity of wood shavings, +and some shawls she had brought, and when she had lain down upon it, +kneeled beside her, and covering her face with her hands, tried to pray. +But it seemed as if all the misery of humanity was laid upon her, and +God would not speak: not a sound would come from her throat, till she +burst into tears and sobs. It struck a strange chord in the soul of the +wife to hear the maiden weeping over her. But it was no private trouble, +it was the great need common to all men that opened the fountain of her +tears. It was hunger after the light that slays the darkness, after a +comfort to confront every woe, a life to lift above death, an antidote +to all wrong. It was one of the groanings of the spirit that can not be +uttered in words articulate, or even formed into thoughts defined. But +Juliet was filled only with the thought of herself and her husband, and +the tears of her friend but bedewed the leaves of her bitterness, did +not reach the dry roots of her misery. + +Dorothy's spirit revived when she found herself once more alone in the +park on her way home the second time. She must be of better courage, she +said to herself. Struggling in the Slough of Despond, she had come upon +one worse mired than she, for whose sake she must search yet more +vigorously after the hidden stepping-stones--the peaks whose bases are +the center of the world. + +"God help me!" she said ever and anon as she went, and every time she +said it, she quickened her pace and ran. + +It was just breakfast-time when she reached the house. Her father was +coming down the stair. + +"Would you mind, father," she said as they sat, "if I were to make a +room at the Old House a little comfortable?" + +"I mind nothing you please to do, Dorothy," he answered. "But you must +not become a recluse. In your search for God, you must not forsake your +neighbor." + +"If only I could find my neighbor!" she returned, with a rather sad +smile. "I shall never be able even to look for him, I think, till I have +found One nearer first." + +"You have surely found your neighbor when you have found his wounds, and +your hand is on the oil-flask," said her father, who knew her +indefatigable in her ministrations. + +"I don't feel it so," she answered. "When I am doing things for people, +my arms seem to be miles long." + +As soon as her father left the table, she got her basket again, filled +it from the larder and store-room, laid a book or two on the top, and +telling Lisbeth she was going to the Old House for the rest of the day, +set out on her third journey thither. To her delight she found Juliet +fast asleep. She sat down, rather tired, and began to reflect. Her great +fear was that Juliet would fall ill, and then what was to be done? How +was she to take the responsibility of nursing her? But she remembered +how the Lord had said she was to take no thought for the morrow; and +therewith she began to understand the word. She saw that one can not +_do_ any thing in to-morrow, and that all care which can not be put into +the work of to-day, is taken out of it. One thing seemed clear--that, so +long as it was Juliet's desire to remain concealed from her husband, she +had no right to act against that desire. Whether Juliet was right or +wrong, a sense of security was for the present absolutely necessary to +quiet her mind. It seemed therefore, the first thing she had to do was +to make that concealed room habitable for her. It was dreadful to think +of her being there alone at night, but her trouble was too great to +leave much room for fear--and anyhow there was no choice. So while +Juliet slept, she set about cleaning it, and hard work she found it. +Great also was the labor afterward, when, piece by piece, at night or in +the early morning, she carried thither every thing necessary to make +abode in it clean and warm and soft. + +The labor of love is its own reward, but Dorothy received much more. +For, in the fresh impulse and freedom born of this service, she soon +found, not only that she thought better and more clearly on the points +that troubled her, but that, thus spending herself, she grew more able +to believe there must be One whose glory is perfect ministration. Also, +her anxious concentration of thought upon the usurping thoughts of +others, with its tendency to diseased action in the logical powers, was +thereby checked, much to her relief. She was not finding an atom of what +is called proof; but when the longing heart finds itself able to hope +that the perfect is the fact, that the truth is alive, that the lovely +is rooted in eternal purpose, it can go on without such proof as belongs +to a lower stratum of things, and can not be had in these. When we rise +into the mountain air, we require no other testimony than that of our +lungs that we are in a healthful atmosphere. We do not find it necessary +to submit it to a quantitative analysis; we are content that we breathe +with joy, that we grow in strength, become lighter-hearted and +better-tempered. Truth is a very different thing from fact; it is the +loving contact of the soul with spiritual fact, vital and potent. It +does its work in the soul independently of all faculty or qualification +there for setting it forth or defending it. Truth in the inward parts is +a power, not an opinion. It were as poor a matter as any held by those +who deny it, if it had not its vitality in itself, if it depended upon +any buttressing of other and lower material. + +How should it be otherwise? If God be so near as the very idea of Him +necessitates, what other availing proof of His existence can there be, +than such _awareness_ as must come of the developing relation between +Him and us? The most satisfying of intellectual proofs, if such were to +be had, would be of no value. God would be no nearer to us for them all. +They would bring about no blossoming of the mighty fact. While He was in +our very souls, there would yet lie between Him and us a gulf of misery, +of no-knowledge. + +Peace is for those who _do_ the truth, not those who opine it. The true +man troubled by intellectual doubt, is so troubled unto further health +and growth. Let him be alive and hopeful, above all obedient, and he +will be able to wait for the deeper content which must follow with +completer insight. Men may say such a man but deceives himself, that +there is nothing of the kind he pleases himself with imagining; but this +is at least worth reflecting upon--that while the man who aspires fears +he may be deceiving himself, it is the man who does not aspire who +asserts that he is. One day the former may be sure, and the latter may +cease to deny, and begin to doubt. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. + +THE DOCTOR'S STUDY. + + +Paul Faber's condition, as he sat through the rest of that night in his +study, was about as near absolute misery as a man's could well be, in +this life, I imagine. The woman he had been watching through the first +part of it as his essential bliss, he had left in a swoon, lying naked +on the floor, and would not and did not go near her again. How could he? +Had he not been duped, sold, married to----?--That way madness lay! His +pride was bitterly wounded. Would it had been mortally! but pride seems +in some natures to thrive upon wounds, as in others does love. Faber's +pride grew and grew as he sat and brooded, or, rather, was brooded upon. + +He, Paul Faber, who knew his own worth, his truth, his love, his +devotion--he, with his grand ideas of woman and purity and unity, +conscious of deserving a woman's best regards--he, whose love (to speak +truly his unworded, undefined impression of himself) any woman might be +proud to call hers--he to be thus deceived! to have taken to his bosom +one who had before taken another to hers, and thought it yet good enough +for him! It would not bear thinking! Indignation and bitterest sense of +wrong almost crazed him. For evermore he must be a hypocrite, going +about with the knowledge of that concerning himself which he would not +have known by others! This was how the woman, whom he had brought back +from death with the life of his own heart, had served him! Years ago she +had sacrificed her bloom to some sneaking wretch who flattered a God +with prayers, then enticed and bewitched and married _him_! + +In all this thinking there was no thought but for himself--not one for +the woman whose agony had been patent even to his wrath-blinded eyes. In +what is the wretchedness of our condition more evident than in this, +that the sense of wrong always makes us unjust? It is a most humbling +thought. God help us. He forgot how she had avoided him, resisted him, +refused to confess the love which his goodness, his importunities, his +besieging love had compelled in her heart. It was true she ought either +to have refused him absolutely and left him, or confessed and left the +matter with him; but he ought to have remembered for another, if ever he +had known it for himself, the hardness of some duties; and what duty +could be more torturing to a delicate-minded woman than either of +those--to leave the man she loved in passionate pain, sore-wounded with +a sense of undeserved cruelty, or to give him the strength to send her +from him by confessing to his face what she could not recall in the +solitude of her own chamber but the agony would break out wet on her +forehead! We do our brother, our sister, grievous wrong, every time +that, in our selfish justice, we forget the excuse that mitigates the +blame. That God never does, for it would be to disregard the truth. As +He will never admit a false excuse, so will He never neglect a true one. +It may be He makes excuses which the sinner dares not think of; while +the most specious of false ones shrivel into ashes before Him. A man is +bound to think of all just excuse for his offender, for less than the +righteousness of God will not serve his turn. + +I would not have my reader set Faber down as heartless, His life showed +the contrary. But his pride was roused to such furious self-assertion, +that his heart lay beaten down under the sweep of its cyclone. Its turn +was only delayed. The heart is always there, and rage is not. The heart +is a constant, even when most intermittent force. It can bide its time. +Nor indeed did it now lie quite still; for the thought of that white, +self-offered sacrifice, let him rave as he would against the +stage-trickery of the scene, haunted him so, that once and again he had +to rouse an evil will to restrain him from rushing to clasp her to his +bosom. + +Then there was the question: why now had she told him all--if indeed she +had made a clean breast of it? Was it from love to him, or reviving +honesty in herself? From neither, he said. Superstition alone was at the +root of it. She had been to church, and the preaching of that honest +idiotic enthusiast, Wingfold, had terrified her.--Alas! what refuge in +her terror had she found with her husband? + +Before morning he had made up his mind as to the course he would pursue. +He would not publish his own shame, but neither would he leave the +smallest doubt in her mind as to what he thought of her, or what he felt +toward her. All should be utterly changed between them. He would behave +to her with extreme, with marked politeness; he would pay her every +attention woman could claim, but her friend, her husband, he would be no +more. His thoughts of vengeance took many turns, some of them childish. +He would always call her _Mrs. Faber_. Never, except they had friends, +would he sit in the same room with her. To avoid scandal, he would dine +with her, if he could not help being at home, but when he rose from the +table, it would be to go to his study. If he happened at any time to be +in the room with her when she rose to retire, he would light her candle, +carry it up stairs for her, open the door, make her a polite bow, and +leave her. Never once would he cross the threshold of her bedroom. She +should have plenty of money; the purse of an adventuress was a greedy +one, but he would do his best to fill it, nor once reproach her with +extravagance--of which fault, let me remark, she had never yet shown a +sign. He would refuse her nothing she asked of him--except it were in +any way himself. As soon as his old aunt died, he would get her a +brougham, but never would he sit in it by her side. Such, he thought, +would be the vengeance of a gentleman. Thus he fumed and raved and +trifled, in an agony of selfish suffering--a proud, injured man; and all +the time the object of his vengeful indignation was lying insensible on +the spot where she had prayed to him, her loving heart motionless within +a bosom of ice. + +In the morning he went to his dressing-room, had his bath, and went down +to breakfast, half-desiring his wife's appearance, that he might begin +his course of vindictive torture. He could not eat, and was just rising +to go out, when the door opened, and the parlor-maid, who served also as +Juliet's attendant, appeared. + +"I can't find mis'ess nowhere, sir," she said. Faber understood at once +that she had left him, and a terror, neither vague nor ill-founded, +possessed itself of him. He sprung from his seat, and darted up the +stair to her room. Little more than a glance was necessary to assure him +that she had gone deliberately, intending it should be forever. The +diamond ring lay on her dressing-table, spending itself in flashing back +the single ray of the sun that seemed to have stolen between the +curtains to find it; her wedding ring lay beside it, and the sparkle of +the diamonds stung his heart like a demoniacal laughter over it, the +more horrible that it was so silent and so lovely: it was but three days +since, in his wife's presence, he had been justifying suicide with every +argument he could bring to bear. It was true he had insisted on a proper +regard to circumstances, and especially on giving due consideration to +the question, whether the act would hurt others more than it would +relieve the person contemplating it; but, after the way he had treated +her, there could be no doubt how Juliet, if she thought of it at all, +was compelled to answer it. He rushed to the stable, saddled Ruber, and +galloped wildly away. At the end of the street he remembered that he had +not a single idea to guide him. She was lying dead somewhere, but +whether to turn east or west or north or south to find her, he had not +the slightest notion. His condition was horrible. For a moment or two he +was ready to blow his brains out: that, if the orthodox were right, was +his only chance for over-taking her. What a laughing-stock he would then +be to them all! The strangest, wildest, maddest thoughts came and went +as of themselves, and when at last he found himself seated on Ruber in +the middle of the street, an hour seemed to have passed. It was but a +few moments, and the thought that roused him was: could she have betaken +herself to her old lodging at Owlkirk? It was not likely; it was +possible: he would ride and see. + +"They will say I murdered her," he said to himself as he rode--so little +did he expect ever to see her again. "I don't care. They may prove it if +they can, and hang me. I shall make no defense. It will be but a fit end +to the farce of life." + +He laughed aloud, struck his spurs in Ruber's flanks, and rode wildly. +He was desperate. He knew neither what he felt nor what he desired. If +he had found her alive, he would, I do not doubt, have behaved to her +cruelly. His life had fallen in a heap about him; he was ruined, and +she had done it, he said, he thought, he believed. He was not aware how +much of his misery was occasioned by a shrinking dread of the judgments +of people he despised. Had he known it, he would have been yet more +miserable, for he would have scorned himself for it. There is so much in +us that is beyond our reach! + +Before arriving at Owlkirk, he made up his mind that, if she were not +there, he would ride to the town of Broughill--not in the hope of any +news of her, but because there dwelt the only professional friend he had +in the neighborhood--one who sympathized with his view of things, and +would not close his heart against him because he did not believe that +this horrid, ugly, disjointed thing of a world had been made by a God of +love. Generally, he had been in the habit of dwelling on the loveliness +of its developments, and the beauty of the gradual adaptation of life to +circumstance; but now it was plainer to him than ever, that, if made at +all, it was made by an evil being; "--for," he said, and said truly, "a +conscious being without a heart must be an evil being." This was the +righteous judgment of a man who could, by one tender, consoling word, +have made the sun rise upon a glorious world of conscious womanhood, but +would not say that word, and left that world lying in the tortured chaos +of a slow disintegration. This conscious being with a heart, this Paul +Faber, who saw that a God of love was the only God supposable, set his +own pride so far above love, that his one idea was, to satisfy the +justice of his outraged dignity by the torture of the sinner!--even +while all the time dimly aware of rebuke in his soul. If she should have +destroyed herself, he said once and again as he rode, was it more than a +just sacrifice to his wronged honor? As such he would accept it. If she +had, it was best--best for her, and best for him! What so much did it +matter! She was very lovely!--true--but what was the quintessence of +dust to him? Where either was there any great loss? He and she would +soon be wrapped up in the primal darkness, the mother and grave of all +things, together!--no, not together; not even in the dark of nothingness +could they two any more lie together! Hot tears forced their way into +his eyes, whence they rolled down, the lava of the soul, scorching his +cheeks. He struck his spurs into Ruber fiercely, and rode madly on. + +At length he neared the outskirts of Broughill. He had ridden at a +fearful pace across country, leaving all to his horse, who had carried +him wisely as well as bravely. But Ruber, although he had years of good +work left in him, was not in his first strength, and was getting +exhausted with his wild morning. For, all the way, his master, +apparently unconscious of every thing else, had been immediately aware +of the slightest slackening of muscle under him, the least faltering of +the onward pace, and, in the temper of the savage, which wakes the +moment the man of civilization is hard put to it, the moment he flagged, +still drove the cruel spurs into his flanks, when the grand, unresenting +creature would rush forward at straining speed--not, I venture to think, +so much in obedience to the pain, as in obedience to the will of his +master, fresh recognized through the pain. + +Close to the high road, where they were now approaching it through the +fields, a rail-fence had just been put up, inclosing a piece of ground +which the owner wished to let for building. That the fact might be +known, he was about to erect a post with a great board announcing it. +For this post a man had dug the hole, and then gone to his dinner. The +inclosure lay between Faber and the road, in the direct line he was +taking. On went Ruber blindly--more blindly than his master knew, for, +with the prolonged running, he had partially lost his sight, so that he +was close to the fence before he saw it. But he rose boldly, and cleared +it--to light, alas! on the other side with a foreleg in the hole. Down +he came with a terrible crash, pitched his master into the road upon his +head, and lay groaning with a broken leg. Faber neither spoke nor moved, +but lay as he fell. A poor woman ran to his assistance, and finding she +could do nothing for him, hurried to the town for help. His friend, who +was the first surgeon in the place, flew to the spot, and had him +carried to his house. It was a severe case of concussion of the brain. + +Poor old Ruber was speedily helped to a world better than this for +horses, I trust. + +Meantime Glaston was in commotion. The servants had spread the frightful +news that their mistress had vanished, and their master ridden off like +a madman. "But he won't find her alive, poor lady! I don't think," was +the general close of their communication, accompanied by a would-be +wise and really sympathetic shake of the head. In this conclusion most +agreed, for there was a general impression of something strange about +her, partly occasioned by the mysterious way in which Mrs. Puckridge had +spoken concerning her illness and the marvelous thing the doctor had +done to save her life. People now supposed that she had gone suddenly +mad, or, rather, that the latent madness so plain to read in those +splendid eyes of hers had been suddenly developed, and that under its +influence she had rushed away, and probably drowned herself. Nor were +there wanting, among the discontented women of Glaston, some who +regarded the event--vaguely to their own consciousness, I gladly +admit--as _almost a judgment_ upon Faber for marrying a woman of whom +nobody knew any thing. + +Hundreds went out to look for the body down the river. Many hurried to +an old quarry, half full of water, on the road to Broughill, and peered +horror-stricken over the edge, but said nothing. The boys of Glaston +were mainly of a mind that the pond at the Old House was of all places +the most likely to attract a suicide, for with the fascination of its +horrors they were themselves acquainted. Thither therefore they sped; +and soon Glaston received its expected second shock in the tidings that +a lady's bonnet had been found floating in the frightful pool: while in +the wet mass the boys brought back with them, some of her acquaintance +recognized with certainty a bonnet they had seen Mrs. Faber wear. There +was no room left for doubt; the body of the poor lady was lying at the +bottom of the pool! A multitude rushed at once to the spot, although +they knew it was impossible to drag the pool, so deep was it, and for +its depth so small. Neither would she ever come to the surface, they +said, for the pikes and eels would soon leave nothing but the skeleton. +So Glaston took the whole matter for ended, and began to settle down +again to its own affairs, condoling greatly with the poor gentleman, +such a favorite! who, so young, and after such a brief experience of +marriage, had lost, in such a sad way, a wife so handsome, so amiable, +so clever. But some said a doctor ought to have known better than marry +such a person, however handsome, and they hoped it would be a lesson to +him. On the whole, so sorry for him was Glaston, that, if the doctor +could then have gone about it invisible, he would have found he had more +friends and fewer enemies than he had supposed. + +For the first two or three days no one was surprised that he did not +make his appearance. They thought he was upon some false trail. But when +four days had elapsed and no news was heard of him, for his friend knew +nothing of what had happened, had written to Mrs. Faber, and the letter +lay unopened, some began to hint that he must have had a hand in his +wife's disappearance, and to breathe a presentiment that he would never +more be seen in Glaston. On the morning of the fifth day, however, his +accident was known, and that he was lying insensible at the house of his +friend, Dr. May; whereupon, although here and there might be heard the +expression of a pretty strong conviction as to the character of the +visitation, the sympathy both felt and uttered was larger than before. +The other medical men immediately divided his practice amongst them, to +keep it together against his possible return, though few believed he +would ever again look on scenes darkened by the memory of bliss so +suddenly blasted. + +For weeks his recovery was doubtful, during which time, even if they had +dared, it would have been useless to attempt acquainting him with what +all believed the certainty of his loss. But when at length he woke to a +memory of the past, and began to desire information, his friend was +compelled to answer his questions. He closed his lips, bowed his head on +his breast, gave a great sigh, and held his peace. Every one saw that he +was terribly stricken. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII. + +THE MIND OF JULIET. + + +There was one, however, who, I must confess, was not a little relieved +at the news of what had befallen Faber. For, although far from desiring +his death, which indeed would have ruined some of her warmest hopes for +Juliet, Dorothy greatly dreaded meeting him. She was a poor dissembler, +hated even the shadow of a lie, and here was a fact, which, if truth +could conceal it, must not be known. Her dread had been, that, the first +time she saw Faber, it would be beyond her power to look innocent, that +her knowledge would be legible in her face; and much she hoped their +first encounter might be in the presence of Helen or some other ignorant +friend, behind whose innocent front she might shelter her conscious +secrecy. To truth such a silence must feel like a culpable deception, +and I do not think such a painful position can ever arise except from +wrong somewhere. Dorothy could not tell a lie. She could not try to tell +one; and if she had tried, she would have been instantly discovered +through the enmity of her very being to the lie she told; from her lips +it would have been as transparent as the truth. It is no wonder +therefore that she felt relieved when first she heard of the durance in +which Faber was lying. But she felt equal to the withholding from Juliet +of the knowledge of her husband's condition for the present. She judged +that, seeing she had saved her friend's life, she had some right to +think and choose for the preservation of that life. + +Meantime she must beware of security, and cultivate caution; and so +successful was she, that weeks passed, and not a single doubt associated +Dorothy with knowledge where others desired to know. Not even her father +had a suspicion in the direction of the fact. She knew he would one day +approve both of what she did, and of her silence concerning it. To tell +him, thoroughly as he was to be trusted, would be to increase the risk; +and besides, she had no right to reveal a woman's secret to a man. + +It was a great satisfaction, however, notwithstanding her dread of +meeting him, to hear that Faber had at length returned to Glaston; for +if he had gone away, how could they have ever known what to do? For one +thing, if he were beyond their knowledge, he might any day, in full +confidence, go and marry again. + +Her father not unfrequently accompanied her to the Old House, but Juliet +and she had arranged such signals, and settled such understandings, that +the simple man saw nothing, heard nothing, forefelt nothing. Now and +then a little pang would quaver through Dorothy's bosom, when she caught +sight of him peering down into the terrible dusk of the pool, or heard +him utter some sympathetic hope for the future of poor Faber; but she +comforted herself with the thought of how glad he would be when she was +able to tell him all, and how he would laugh over the story of their +precautions against himself. + +Her chief anxiety was for Juliet's health, even more for the sake of +avoiding discovery, than for its own. When the nights were warm she +would sometimes take her out in the park, and every day, one time or +another, would make her walk in the garden while she kept watch on the +top of the steep slope. Her father would sometimes remark to a friend +how Dorothy's love of solitude seemed to grow upon her; but the remark +suggested nothing, and slowly Juliet was being forgotten at Glaston. + +It seemed to Dorothy strange that she did not fall ill. For the first +few days she was restless and miserable as human being could be. She had +but one change of mood: either she would talk feverously, or sit in the +gloomiest silence, now and then varied with a fit of abandoned weeping. +Every time Dorothy came from Glaston, she would overwhelm her with +questions--which at first Dorothy could easily meet, for she spoke +absolute fact when she said she knew nothing concerning her husband. +When at length the cause of his absence was understood, she told her he +was with his friend, Dr. May, at Broughill. Knowing the universal belief +that she had committed suicide, nothing could seem more natural. But +when, day after day, she heard the same thing for weeks, she began to +fear he would never be able to resume his practice, at least at Glaston, +and wept bitterly at the thought of the evil she had brought upon him +who had given her life, and love to boot. For her heart was a genuine +one, and dwelt far more on the wrong her too eager love had done him, +than on the hardness with which he had resented it. Nay, she admired him +for the fierceness of his resentment, witnessing, in her eyes, to the +purity of the man whom his neighbors regarded as wicked. + +After the first day, she paid even less heed to any thing of a religious +kind with which Dorothy, in the strength of her own desire after a +perfect stay, sought to rouse or console her. When Dorothy ventured on +such ground, which grew more and more seldom, she would sit listless, +heedless, with a far-away look. Sometimes when Dorothy fancied she had +been listening a little, her next words would show that her thoughts had +been only with her husband. When the subsiding of the deluge of her +agony, allowed words to carry meaning to her, any hint at supernal +consolation made her angry, and she rejected every thing Dorothy said, +almost with indignation. To seem even to accept such comfort, she would +have regarded as traitorous to her husband. Not the devotion of the +friend who gave up to her all of her life she could call her own, +sufficed to make her listen even with a poor patience. So absorbed was +she in her trouble, that she had no feeling of what poor Dorothy had +done for her. How can I blame her, poor lady! If existence was not a +thing to be enjoyed, as for her it certainly was not at present, how was +she to be thankful for what seemed its preservation? There was much +latent love to Dorothy in her heart; I may go further and say there was +much latent love to God in her heart, only the latter was very latent as +yet. When her heart was a little freer from grief and the agony of loss, +she would love Dorothy; but God must wait with his own patience--wait +long for the child of His love to learn that her very sorrow came of His +dearest affection. Who wants such affection as that? says the unloving. +No one, I answer; but every one who comes to know it, glorifies it as +the only love that ever could satisfy his being. + +Dorothy, who had within her the chill of her own doubt, soon yielded to +Juliet's coldness, and ceased to say anything that could be called +religious. She saw that it was not the time to speak; she must content +herself with being. Nor had it ever been any thing very definite she +could say. She had seldom gone beyond the expression of her own hope, +and the desire that her friend would look up. She could say that all the +men she knew, from books or in life, of the most delicate honesty, the +most genuine repentance, the most rigid self-denial, the loftiest +aspiration, were Christian men; but she could neither say her knowledge +of history or of life was large, nor that, of the men she knew who +professed to believe, the greater part were honest, or much ashamed, or +rigid against themselves, or lofty toward God. She saw that her part was +not instruction, but ministration, and that in obedience to Jesus in +whom she hoped to believe. What matter that poor Juliet denied Him? If +God commended His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners +Christ died for us,' He would be pleased with the cup of cold water +given to one that was not a disciple. Dorothy dared not say she was a +disciple herself; she dared only say that right gladly would she become +one, if she could. If only the lovely, the good, the tender, the pure, +the grand, the adorable, were also the absolutely true!--true not in the +human idea only, but in absolute fact, in divine existence! If the story +of Jesus was true, then joy to the universe, for all was well! She +waited, and hoped, and prayed and ministered. + +There is a great power in quiet, for God is in it. Not seldom He seems +to lay His hand on one of His children, as a mother lays hers on the +restless one in the crib, to still him. Then the child sleeps, but the +man begins to live up from the lower depths of his nature. So the +winter comes to still the plant whose life had been rushing to blossom +and fruit. When the hand of God is laid upon a man, vain moan, and +struggle and complaint, it may be indignant outcry follows; but when, +outwearied at last, he yields, if it be in dull submission to the +inexorable, and is still, then the God at the heart of him, the God that +is there or the man could not be, begins to grow. This point Juliet had +not yet reached, and her trouble went on. She saw no light, no possible +outlet. Her cries, her longings, her agonies, could not reach even the +ears, could never reach the heart of the man who had cast her off. He +believed her dead, might go and marry another, and what would be left +her then? Nothing but the death from which she now restrained herself, +lest, as Dorothy had taught her, she should deny him the fruits of a +softening heart and returning love. The moment she heard that he sought +another, she would seek Death and assuredly find him. One letter she +would write to leave behind her, and then go. He should see and +understand that the woman he despised for the fault of the girl, was yet +capable of the noblest act of a wife: she would die that he might +live--that it might be well with her husband. Having entertained, +comprehended and settled this idea in her mind, she became quieter. +After this, Dorothy might have spoken without stirring up so angry an +opposition. But it was quite as well she did not know it, and did not +speak. + +I have said that Dorothy wondered she did not fall ill. There was a hope +in Juliet's mind of which she had not spoken, but upon which, though +vaguely, she built further hope, and which may have had part in her +physical endurance: the sight of his baby might move the heart of her +husband to pardon her! + +But the time, even with the preoccupation of misery, grew very dreary. +She had never had any resources in herself except her music, and even if +here she had had any opportunity of drawing upon that, what is music but +a mockery to a breaking heart? Was music ever born of torture, of +misery? It is only when the cloud of sorrow is sinking in the sun-rays, +that the song-larks awake and ascend. A glory of some sort must fringe +the skirts of any sadness, the light of the sorrowing soul itself must +be shed upon it, and the cloud must be far enough removed to show the +reflected light, before it will yield any of the stuff of which songs +are made. And this light that gathers in song, what is it but hope +behind the sorrow--hope so little recognized as such, that it is often +called despair? It is reviving and not decay that sings even the saddest +of songs. + +Juliet had had little consciousness of her own being as an object of +reflection. Joy and sorrow came and went; she had never brooded. Never +until now, had she known any very deep love. Even that she bore her +father had not ripened into the grand love of the woman-child. She +forgot quickly; she hoped easily; she had had some courage, and +naturally much activity; she faced necessity by instinct, and took +almost no thought for the morrow--but this after the fashion of the +birds, not after the fashion required of those who can consider the +birds; it is one thing to take no thought, for want of thought, and +another to take no thought, from sufficing thought, whose flower is +confidence. The one way is the lovely way of God in the birds--the +other, His lovelier way in his men and women. She had in her the making +of a noble woman--only that is true of every woman; and it was no truer +of her than of every other woman, that, without religion, she could +never be, in any worthy sense, a woman at all. I know how narrow and +absurd this will sound to many of my readers, but such simply do not +know what religion means, and think I do not know what a woman means. +Hitherto her past had always turned to a dream as it glided away from +her; but now, in the pauses of her prime agony, the tide rose from the +infinite sea to which her river ran, and all her past was borne back +upon her, even to her far-gone childish quarrels with her silly mother, +and the neglect and disobedience she had too often been guilty of toward +her father. And the center of her memories was the hot coal of that one +secret; around that they all burned and hissed. Now for the first time +her past _was_, and she cowered and fled from it, a slave to her own +history, to her own deeds, to her own concealment. Alas, like many +another terror-stricken child, to whom the infinite bosom of tenderness +and love stretches out arms of shelter and healing and life, she turned +to the bosom of death, and imagined there a shelter of oblivious +darkness! For life is a thing so deep, so high, so pure, so far above +the reach of common thought, that, although shadowed out in all the +harmonic glories of color, and speech, and song, and scent, and motion, +and shine, yea, even of eyes and loving hands, to common minds--and the +more merely intellectual, the commoner are they--it seems but a +phantasm. To unchildlike minds, the region of love and worship, to +which lead the climbing stairs of duty, is but a nephelocockygia; they +acknowledge the stairs, however, thank God, and if they will but climb, +a hand will be held out to them. Now, to pray to a God, the very thought +of whose possible existence might seem enough to turn the coal of a dead +life into a diamond of eternal radiance, is with many such enough to +stamp a man a fool. It will surprise me nothing in the new world to hear +such men, finding they are not dead after all, begin at once to argue +that they were quite right in refusing to act upon any bare +possibility--forgetting that the questioning of possibilities has been +the source of all scientific knowledge. They may say that to them there +seemed no possibility; upon which will come the question--whence arose +their incapacity for seeing it? In the meantime, that the same condition +which constitutes the bliss of a child, should also be the essential +bliss of a man, is incomprehensible to him in whom the child is dead, or +so fast asleep that nothing but a trumpet of terror can awake him. That +the rules of the nursery--I mean the nursery where the true mother is +the present genius, not the hell at the top of a London house--that the +rules of the nursery over which broods a wise mother with outspread +wings of tenderness, should be the laws also of cosmic order, of a +world's well-being, of national greatness, and of all personal dignity, +may well be an old-wives'-fable to the man who dabbles at saving the +world by science, education, hygiene and other economics. There is a +knowledge that will do it, but of that he knows so little, that he will +not allow it to be a knowledge at all. Into what would he save the +world? His paradise would prove a ten times more miserable condition +than that out of which he thought to rescue it. + +But any thing that gives objectivity to trouble, that lifts the cloud so +far that, if but for a moment, it shows itself a cloud, instead of being +felt an enveloping, penetrating, palsying mist--setting it where the +mind can in its turn prey upon it, can play with it, paint it, may come +to sing of it, is a great help toward what health may yet be possible +for the troubled soul. With a woman's instinct, Dorothy borrowed from +the curate a volume of a certain more attractive edition of Shakespeare +than she herself possessed, and left it in Juliet's way, so arranged +that it should open at the tragedy of Othello. She thought that, if she +could be drawn into sympathy with suffering like, but different and +apart from her own, it would take her a little out of herself, and +might lighten the pressure of her load. Now Juliet had never read a play +of Shakespeare in her life, and knew Othello only after the vulgar +interpretation, as the type, that is, of jealousy; but when, in a pause +of the vague reverie of feeling which she called thought, a touch of +ennui supervening upon suffering, she began to read the play, the +condition of her own heart afforded her the insight necessary for +descrying more truly the Othello of Shakespeare's mind. She wept for +Desdemona's innocence and hard fate; but she pitied more the far harder +fate of Othello, and found the death of both a consolation for the +trouble their troubles had stirred up in her. + +The curate was in the habit of scribbling on his books, and at the end +of the play, which left a large blank on the page, had written a few +verses: as she sat dreaming over the tragedy, Juliet almost +unconsciously took them in. They were these: + + In the hot hell o' + Jealousy shines Othello-- + Love in despair, + An angel in flames! + While pure Desdemona + Waits him alone, a + Ghost in the air, + White with his blames. + +Becoming suddenly aware of their import, she burst out weeping afresh, +but with a very different weeping--Ah, if it might be so! Soon then had +the repentant Othello, rushing after his wife, explained all, and +received easiest pardon: he had but killed her. Her Paul would not even +do that for her! He did not love her enough for that. If she had but +thrown herself indeed into the lake, then perhaps--who could tell!--she +might now be nearer to him than she should ever be in this world. + +All the time, Dorothy was much and vainly exercised as to what might +become possible for the bringing of them together again. But it was not +as if any misunderstanding had arisen between them: such a difficulty +might any moment be removed by an explanation. The thing that divided +them was the original misunderstanding, which lies, deep and black as +the pit, between every soul and the soul next it, where self and not God +is the final thought. The gulf is forever crossed by "bright shoots of +everlastingness," the lightnings of involuntary affection; but nothing +less than the willed love of an infinite devotion will serve to close +it; any moment it may be lighted up from beneath, and the horrible +distance between them be laid bare. Into this gulf it was that, with +absolute gift of himself, the Lord, doing like his Father, cast Himself; +and by such devotion alone can His disciples become fellow-workers with +Him, help to slay the evil self in the world, and rouse the holy self to +like sacrifice, that the true, the eternal life of men, may arise +jubilant and crowned. Then is the old man of claims and rights and +disputes and fears, re-born a child whose are all things and who claims +and fears nothing. + +In ignorance of Faber's mood, whether he mourned over his harshness, or +justified himself in resentment, Dorothy could but wait, and turned +herself again to think what could be done for the consolation of her +friend. + +Could she, knowing her prayer might be one which God would not grant, +urge her to pray! For herself, she knew, if there was a God, what she +desired must be in accordance with His will; but if Juliet cried to him +to give her back her husband, and He did not, would not the silent +refusal, the deaf ear of Heaven, send back the cry in settled despair +upon her spirit? With her own fear Dorothy feared for her friend. She +had not yet come to see that, in whatever trouble a man may find +himself, the natural thing being to make his request known, his brother +may heartily tell him to pray. Why, what can a man do but pray? He is +here--helpless; and his Origin, the breather of his soul, his God, may +be somewhere. And what else should he pray about but the thing that +troubles him? Not surely the thing that does not trouble him? What is +the trouble there for, but to make him cry? It is the pull of God at his +being. Let a man only pray. Prayer is the sound to which not merely is +the ear of the Father open, but for which that ear is listening. Let him +pray for the thing he thinks he needs: for what else, I repeat, can he +pray? Let a man cry for that in whose loss life is growing black: the +heart of the Father is open. Only let the man know that, even for his +prayer, the Father will not give him a stone. But let the man pray, and +let God see to it how to answer him. If in his childishness and +ignorance he should ask for a serpent, he will not give him a serpent. +But it may yet be the Father will find some way of giving him his +heart's desire. God only knows how rich God is in power of gift. See +what He has done to make Himself able to give to His own heart's desire. +The giving of His Son was as the knife with which He would divide +Himself amongst His children. He knows, He only, the heart, the needs, +the deep desires, the hungry eternity, of each of them all. Therefore +let every man ask of God, Who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth +not--and see at least what will come of it. + +But he will speak like one of the foolish if he say thus: "Let God hear +me, and give me my desire, and I will trust in Him." That would be to +tempt the Lord his God. If a father gives his children their will +instead of his, they may well turn on him again and say: "Was it then +the part of a father to give me a scorpion because, not knowing what it +was, I asked for it? I besought him for a fancied joy, and lo! it is a +sorrow for evermore!" + +But it may be that sometimes God indeed does so, and to such a possible +complaint has this reply in Himself: "I gave thee what thou wouldst, +because not otherwise could I teach the stiff-necked his folly. Hadst +thou been patient, I would have made the thing a joy ere I gave it thee; +I would have changed the scorpion into a golden beetle, set with rubies +and sapphires. Have thou patience now." + +One thing is clear, that poor Juliet, like most women, and more men, +would never have begun to learn any thing worth learning, if she had not +been brought into genuine, downright trouble. Indeed I am not sure but +some of those who seem so good as to require no trouble, are just those +who have already been most severely tried. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX. + +ANOTHER MIND. + + +But while the two ladies were free of all suspicion of danger, and +indeed were quite safe, they were not alone in the knowledge of their +secret. There was one who, for some time, had been on the track of it, +and had long ago traced it with certainty to its covert: indeed he had +all but seen into it from the first. But, although to his intimate +friends known as a great and indeed wonderful talker, he was generally +regarded as a somewhat silent man, and in truth possessed to perfection +the gift of holding his tongue. Except that his outward insignificance +was so great as to pass the extreme, he was not one to attract +attention; but those who knew Wingfold well, heard him speak of Mr. +Polwarth, the gate-keeper, oftener than of any other; and from what she +heard him say, Dorothy had come to have a great reverence for the man, +although she knew him very little. + +In returning from Nestley with Juliet by her side, Helen had taken the +road through Osterfield Park. When they reached Polwarth's gate, she +had, as a matter of course, pulled up, that they might have a talk with +the keeper. He had, on the few occasions on which he caught a passing +glimpse of Miss Meredith, been struck with a something in her that to +him seemed to take from her beauty--that look of strangeness, namely, +which every one felt, and which I imagine to have come of the +consciousness of her secret, holding her back from blending with the +human wave; and now, therefore, while the carriage stood, he glanced +often at her countenance. + +From long observation, much silence and gentle pondering; from constant +illness, and frequent recurrence of great suffering; from loving +acceptance of the same, and hence an overflowing sympathy with every +form of humanity, even that more dimly revealed in the lower animals, +and especially suffering humanity; from deep acquaintance with the +motions of his own spirit, and the fullest conviction that one man is as +another; from the entire confidence of all who knew him, and the results +of his efforts to help them; above all, from persistently dwelling in +the secret place of the Most High, and thus entering into the hidden +things of life from the center whence the issues of them diverged--from +all these had been developed in him, through wisest use, an insight into +the natures of men, a power of reading the countenance, an apprehension +of what was moving in the mind, a contact, almost for the moment a +junction with the goings on of their spirits, which at times revealed to +him not only character, and prevailing purpose or drift of nature, but +even the main points of a past moral history. Sometimes indeed he would +recoil with terror from what seemed the threatened dawn in him of a +mysterious power, probably latent in every soul, of reading the future +of a person brought within certain points of spiritual range. What +startled him, however, may have been simply an involuntary conclusion, +instantaneously drawn, from the plain convergence of all the forces in +and upon the individual toward a point of final deliverance or of near +catastrophe: when "the mortal instruments" are steadily working for +evil, the only hope of deliverance lies in catastrophe. + +When Polwarth had thus an opportunity of reading Juliet's countenance, +it was not wearing its usual expression: the ferment set at work in her +mind by the curate's sermon had intensified the strangeness of it, even +to something almost of definement; and it so arrested him that after the +ponies had darted away like birds, he stood for a whole minute in the +spot and posture in which they had left him. + +"I never saw Polwarth look _distrait_ before," said the curate, and was +about to ask Juliet whether she had not been bewitching him, when the +far-away, miserable look of her checked him, and he dropped back into +his seat in silence. + +But Polwarth had had no sudden insight into Juliet's condition; all he +had seen was, that she was strangely troubled--and that with no single +feeling; that there was an undecided contest in her spirit; that +something was required of her which she had not yet resolved to yield. +Almost the moment she vanished from his sight, it dawned upon him that +she had a secret. As one knows by the signs of the heavens that the +matter of a storm is in them and must break out, so Polwarth had read in +Juliet's sky the inward throes of a pent convulsion. + +He knew something of the doctor, for he had met him again and again +where he himself was trying to serve; but they had never had +conversation together. Faber had not an idea of what was in the creature +who represented to him one of Nature's failures at man-making; while +Polwarth, from what he heard and saw of the doctor, knew him better than +he knew himself; and although the moment when he could serve him had not +begun to appear, looked for such a moment to come. There was so much +good in the man, that his heart longed to give him something worth +having. How Faber would have laughed at the notion! But Polwarth felt +confident that one day the friendly doctor would be led out of the +miserable desert where he cropped thistles and sage and fancied himself +a hero. And now in the drawn look of his wife's face, in the broken +lights of her eye, in the absorption and the start, he thought he +perceived the quarter whence unwelcome deliverance might be on its way, +and resolved to keep attention awake for what might appear. In his +inmost being he knew that the mission of man is to help his neighbors. +But in as much as he was ready to help, he recoiled from meddling. To +meddle is to destroy the holy chance. Meddlesomeness is the very +opposite of helpfulness, for it consists in forcing your self into +another self, instead of opening your self as a refuge to the other. +They are opposite extremes, and, like all extremes, touch. It is not +correct that extremes meet; they lean back to back. To Polwarth, a human +self was a shrine to be approached with reverence, even when he bore +deliverance in his hand. Anywhere, everywhere, in the seventh heaven or +the seventh hell, he could worship God with the outstretched arms of +love, the bended knees of joyous adoration, but in helping his fellow, +he not only worshiped but served God--ministered, that is, to the wants +of God--doing it unto Him in the least of His. He knew that, as the +Father unresting works for the weal of men, so every son, following the +Master-Son, must work also. Through weakness and suffering he had +learned it. But he never doubted that his work as much as his bread +would be given him, never rushed out wildly snatching at something to do +for God, never helped a lazy man to break stones, never preached to +foxes. It was what the Father gave him to do that he cared to do, and +that only. It was the man next him that he helped--the neighbor in need +of the help he had. He did not trouble himself greatly about the +happiness of men, but when the time and the opportunity arrived in which +to aid the struggling birth of the eternal bliss, the whole strength of +his being responded to the call. And now, having felt a thread vibrate, +like a sacred spider he sat in the center of his web of love, and waited +and watched. + +In proportion as the love is pure, and only in proportion to that, can +such be a pure and real calling. The least speck of self will defile +it--a little more may ruin its most hopeful effort. + +Two days after, he heard, from some of the boys hurrying to the pond, +that Mrs. Faber was missing. He followed them, and from a spot beyond +the house, looking down upon the lake, watched their proceedings. He +saw them find her bonnet--a result which left him room to doubt. Almost +the next moment a wavering film of blue smoke rising from the Old House +caught his eye. It did not surprise him, for he knew Dorothy Drake was +in the habit of going there--knew also by her face for what she went: +accustomed to seek solitude himself, he knew the relations of it. Very +little had passed between them. Sometimes two persons are like two drops +running alongside of each other down a window-pane: one marvels how it +is they can so long escape running together. Persons fit to be bosom +friends will meet and part for years, and never say much beyond +good-morning and good-night. + +But he bethought him that he had not before known her light a fire, and +the day certainly was not a cold one. Again, how was it that with the +cries of the boys in her ears, searching for a sight of the body in her +very garden, she had never come from the house, or even looked from a +window? Then it came to his mind what a place for concealment the Old +House was: he knew every corner of it; and thus he arrived at what was +almost the conviction that Mrs. Faber was there. When a day or two had +passed, he was satisfied that, for some reason or other, she was there +for refuge. The reason must be a good one, else Dorothy would not be +aiding--and it must of course have to do with her husband. + +He next noted how, for some time, Dorothy never went through his gate, +although he saw reason to believe she went to the Old House every day. +After a while, however, she went through it every day. They always +exchanged a few words as she passed, and he saw plainly enough that she +carried a secret. By and by he began to see the hover of words unuttered +about her mouth; she wished to speak about something but could not quite +make up her mind to it. He would sometimes meet her look with the +corresponding look of "Well, what is it?" but thereupon she would +invariably seem to change her mind, would bid him good morning, and pass +on. + + + + +CHAPTER XL. + +A DESOLATION. + + +When Faber at length returned to Glaston, his friends were shocked at +his appearance. Either the hand of the Lord, or the hand of crushing +chance, had been heavy upon him. A pale, haggard, worn, enfeebled man, +with an eye of suffering, and a look that shrunk from question, he +repaired to his desolate house. In the regard of his fellow-townsmen he +was as Job appeared to the eyes of his friends; and some of them, who +knew no more of religion than the sound of its name, pitied him that he +had not the comfort of it. All Glaston was tender to him. He walked +feebly, seldom showed the ghost of a smile, and then only from kindness, +never from pleasure. His face was now almost as white as that of his +lost Juliet. His brother doctors behaved with brotherly truth. They had +attended to all his patients, poor as well as rich, and now insisted +that he should resume his labors gradually, while they fulfilled his +lack. So at first he visited only his patients in the town, for he was +unable to ride; and his grand old horse, Ruber, in whom he trusted, and +whom he would have ventured sooner to mount than Niger, was gone! For +weeks he looked like a man of fifty; and although by degrees the +restorative influences of work began to tell upon him, he never +recovered the look of his years. Nobody tried to comfort him. Few dared, +for very reverence, speak to the man who carried in him such an awful +sorrow. Who would be so heartless as counsel him to forget it? and what +other counsel was there for one who refused like him? Who could have +brought himself to say to him--"There is loveliness yet left, and within +thy reach: take the good, etc.; forget the nothing that has been, in the +something that may yet for awhile avoid being nothing too; comfort thy +heart with a fresh love: the time will come to forget both, in the +everlasting tomb of the ancient darkness"? Few men would consent to be +comforted in accordance with their professed theories of life; and more +than most would Faber, at this period of his suffering, have scorned +such truth for comfort. As it was, men gave him a squeeze of the hand, +and women a tearful look; but from their sympathy he derived no +faintest pleasure, for he knew he deserved nothing that came from heart +of tenderness. Not that he had begun to condemn himself for his hardness +to the woman who, whatever her fault, yet honored him by confessing it, +or to bemoan her hard fate to whom a man had not been a hiding-place +from the wind, a covert from the tempest of life, a shadow-shelter from +the scorching of her own sin. As he recovered from the double shock, +and, his strength slowly returning, his work increased, bringing him +again into the run of common life, his sense of desolation increased. As +his head ached less, his heart ached the more, nor did the help he +ministered to his fellows any longer return in comfort to himself. +Hitherto his regard of annihilation had been as of something so distant, +that its approach was relatively by degrees infinitesimal, but as the +days went on, he began to derive a gray consolation from the thought +that he must at length cease to exist. He would not hasten the end; he +would be brave, and see the play out. Only it was all so dull! If a +woman looked kindly at him, if for a moment it gave him pleasure, the +next it was as an arrow in his heart. What a white splendor was vanished +from his life! Where were those great liquid orbs of radiating +darkness?--where was that smile with its flash of whiteness?--that form +so lithe, yet so stately, so perfect in modulation?--where were those +hands and feet that spoke without words, and took their own way with his +heart?--those arms--? His being shook to its center. One word of +tenderness and forgiveness, and all would have been his own still!--But +on what terms?--Of dishonor and falsehood, he said, and grew hard again. +He was sorry for Juliet, but she and not he was to blame. She had ruined +his life, as well as lost her own, and his was the harder case, for he +had to live on, and she had taken with her all the good the earth had +for him. She had been the sole object of his worship; he had +acknowledged no other divinity; she was the loveliness of all things; +but she had dropped from her pedestal, and gone down in the sea that +flows waveless and windless and silent around the worlds. Alas for life! +But he would bear on till its winter came. The years would be as tedious +as hell; but nothing that ends can be other than brief. Not willingly +even yet would he fail of what work was his. The world was bad enough; +he would not leave it worse than he had found it. He would work life +out, that he might die in peace. Fame truly there was none for him, but +his work would not be lost. The wretched race of men would suffer a +little the less that he had lived. Poor comfort, if more of health but +ministered to the potency of such anguish as now burrowed in him like a +mole of fire! + +There had been a time when, in the young pathos of things, he would shut +his eyes that the sunset might not wound him so sore; now, as he rode +homeward into the fronting sunset, he felt nothing, cared for nothing, +only ached with a dull aching through body and soul. He was still kind +to his fellows, but the glow of the kindness had vanished, and truest +thanks hardly waked the slightest thrill. + +He very seldom saw Wingfold now, and less than ever was inclined toward +his doctrine; for had it not been through him this misery had come upon +him? Had he not, with the confidence of all the sciences, uttered the +merest dreams as eternal truths? How could poor Juliet help supposing he +knew the things he asserted, and taking them for facts? The human heart +was the one unreasonable thing, sighing ever after that which is not! +Sprung from nothing, it yet desired a creator!--at least some hearts did +so: his did not; he knew better! + +There was of course no reason in this. Was the thing not a fact which +she had confessed? was he not a worshiper of fact? did he not even +dignify it with the name of truth? and could he wish his wife had kept +the miserable fact to herself, leaving him to his fools'-paradise of +ignorance? Why then should he feel resentment against the man whose +teaching had only compelled her to confess it?--But the thing was out of +the realm of science and its logic. + +Sometimes he grew fierce, and determined to face every possible agony, +endure all, and dominate his misery; but ever and anon it returned with +its own disabling sickness, bringing the sense of the unendurable. Of +his own motion he saw nobody except in his practice. He studied hard, +even to weariness and faintness, contrived strange experiments, and +caught, he believed, curious peeps into the house of life. Upon them he +founded theories as wild as they were daring, and hob-nobbed with death +and corruption. But life is at the will of the Maker, and misery can not +kill it. By degrees a little composure returned, and the old keen look +began to revive. But there were wrinkles on the forehead that had +hitherto been smooth as ivory; furrows, the dry water-courses of sorrow, +appeared on his cheeks, and a few silvery threads glinted in his hair. +His step was heavy, and his voice had lost its ring--the cheer was out +of it. He no more obtruded his opinions, for, as I have said, he shrunk +from all interchange, but he held to them as firmly as ever. He was not +to be driven from the truth by suffering! But there was a certain +strange movement in his spirit of which he took no note--a feeling of +resentment, as if against a God that yet did not exist, for making upon +him the experiment whether he might not, by oppression, be driven to +believe in Him. + +When Dorothy knew of his return, and his ways began to show that he +intended living just as before his marriage, the time seemed come for +telling Juliet of the accident and his recovery from the effects of it. +She went into violent hysterics, and the moment she could speak, blamed +Dorothy bitterly for not having told her before. + +"It is all your lying religion!" she said. + +"Your behavior, Juliet," answered Dorothy, putting on the matron, and +speaking with authority, "shows plainly how right I was. You were not to +be trusted, and I knew it. Had I told you, you would have rushed to him, +and been anything but welcome. He would not even have known you; and you +would have been two on the doctor's hands. You would have made +everything public, and when your husband came to himself, would probably +have been the death of him after all." + +"He may have begun to think more kindly of me by that time," said +Juliet, humbled a little. + +"We must not act on _may-haves_," answered Dorothy. + +"You say he looks wretched now," suggested Juliet. + +"And well he may, after concussion of the brain, not to mention what +preceded it," said Dorothy. + +She had come to see that Juliet required very plain speaking. She had so +long practiced the art of deceiving herself that she was skillful at it. +Indeed, but for the fault she had committed, she would all her life long +have been given to petting and pitying, justifying and approving of +herself. One can not help sometimes feeling that the only chance for +certain persons is to commit some fault sufficient to shame them out of +the self-satisfaction in which they burrow. A fault, if only it be great +and plain enough to exceed their powers of self-justification, may then +be, of God's mercy, not indeed an angel of light to draw them, but +verily a goblin of darkness to terrify them out of themselves. For the +powers of darkness are His servants also, though incapable of knowing +it: He who is first and last can, even of those that love the lie, make +slaves of the truth. And they who will not be sons shall be slaves, let +them rant and wear crowns as they please in the slaves' quarters. + +"You must not expect him to get over such a shock all at once," said +Dorothy. "--It may be," she continued, "that you were wrong in running +away from him. I do not pretend to judge between you, but, perhaps, +after the injury you had done him, you ought to have left it with him to +say what you were to do next. By taking it in your own hands, you may +have only added to the wrong." + +"And who helped me?" returned Juliet, in a tone of deep reproach. + +"Helped you to run from him, Juliet!--Really, if you were in the habit +of behaving to your husband as you do to me--!" She checked herself, and +resumed calmly--"You forget the facts of the case, my dear. So far from +helping you to run from him, I stopped you from running so far that +neither could he find you, nor you return to him again. But now we must +make the best of it by waiting. We must find out whether he wants you +again, or your absence is a relief to him. If I had been a man, I should +have been just as wild as he." + +She had seen in Juliet some signs that self-abhorrence was wanting, and +self-pity reviving, and she would connive at no unreality in her +treatment of herself. She was one thing when bowed to the earth in +misery and shame, and quite another if thinking herself hardly used on +all sides. + +It was a strange position for a young woman to be in--that of watcher +over the marriage relations of two persons, to neither of whom she could +be a friend otherwise than _ab extra_. Ere long she began almost to +despair. Day after day she heard or saw that Faber continued sunk in +himself, and how things were going there she could not tell. Was he +thinking about the wife he had lost, or brooding over the wrong she had +done him? There was the question--and who was to answer it? At the same +time she was all but certain, that, things being as they were, any +reconciliation that might be effected would owe itself merely to the +raising, as it were of the dead, and the root of bitterness would soon +trouble them afresh. If but one of them had begun the task of +self-conquest, there would be hope for both. But of such a change there +was in Juliet as yet no sign. + +Dorothy then understood her position--it was wonderful with what +clearness, but solitary necessity is a hot sun to ripen. What was she to +do? To what quarter--could she to any quarter look for help? Naturally +she thought first of Mr. Wingfold. But she did not feel at all sure that +he would consent to receive a communication upon any other understanding +than that he was to act in the matter as he might see best; and would it +be right to acquaint him with the secret of another when possibly he +might feel bound to reveal it? Besides, if he kept it hid, the result +might be blame to him; and blame, she reasoned, although a small matter +in regard to one like herself, might in respect of a man in the curate's +position involve serious consequences. While she thus reflected, it came +into her mind with what enthusiasm she had heard him speak of Mr. +Polwarth, attributing to him the beginnings of all enlightenment he had +himself ever received. Without this testimony, she would not have once +thought of him. Indeed she had been more than a little doubtful of him, +for she had never felt attracted to him, and from her knowledge of the +unhealthy religious atmosphere of the chapel, had got unreasonably +suspicious of cant. She had not had experience enough to distinguish +with any certainty the speech that comes from the head and that which +comes out of the fullness of the heart. A man must talk out of that +which is in him; his well must give out the water of its own spring; but +what seems a well maybe only a cistern, and the water by no means living +water. What she had once or twice heard him say, had rather repelled +than drawn her; but Dorothy had faith, and Mr. Wingfold had spoken. +Might she tell him? Ought she not to seek his help? Would he keep the +secret? Could he help if he would? Was he indeed as wise as they said? + +In the meantime, little as she thought it, Polwarth had been awaiting a +communication from her; but when he found that the question whose +presence was so visible in her whole bearing, neither died nor bore +fruit, he began to think whether he might not help her to speak. The +next time, therefore, that he opened the gate to her, he held in his +hand a little bud he had just broken from a monthly rose. It was a hard +little button, upon which the green leaves of its calyx clung as if +choking it. + +"What is the matter with this bud, do you think, Miss Drake?" he asked. + +"That you have plucked it," she answered sharply, throwing a suspicious +glance in his face. + +"No; that can not be it," he answered with a quiet smile of +intelligence. "It has been just as you see it for the last three days. I +only plucked it the moment I saw you coming." + +"Then the frost has caught it." + +"The frost _has_ caught it," he answered; "but I am not quite sure +whether the cause of its death was not rather its own life than the +frost." + +"I don't see what you mean by that, Mr. Polwarth," said Dorothy, +doubtfully, and with a feeling of discomfort. + +"I admit it sounds paradoxical," returned the little man. "What I mean +is, that the struggle of the life in it to unfold itself, rather than +any thing else, was the cause of its death." + +"But the frost was the cause of its not being able to unfold itself," +said Dorothy. + +"That I admit," said Polwarth; "and perhaps a weaker life in the flower +would have yielded sooner. I may have carried too far an analogy I was +seeking to establish between it and the human heart, in which repression +is so much more dangerous than mere oppression. Many a heart has +withered like my poor little bud, because it did not know its friend +when it saw him." + +Dorothy was frightened. He knew something! Or did he only suspect? +Perhaps he was merely guessing at her religious troubles, wanting to +help her. She must answer carefully. + +"I have no doubt you are right, Mr. Polwarth," she said; "but there are +some things it is not wise, and other things it would not be right to +speak about." + +"Quite true," he answered. "I did not think it wise to say any thing +sooner, but now I venture to ask how the poor lady does?" + +"What lady?" returned Dorothy, dreadfully startled, and turning white. + +"Mrs. Faber," answered Polwarth, with the utmost calmness. "Is she not +still at the Old House?" + +"Is it known, then?" faltered Dorothy. + +"To nobody but myself, so far as I am aware," replied the gatekeeper. + +"And how long have you known it?" + +"From the very day of her disappearance, I may say." + +"Why didn't you let me know sooner?" said Dorothy, feeling aggrieved, +though she would have found it hard to show wherein lay the injury. + +"For more reasons than one," answered Polwarth; "but one will be enough: +you did not trust me. It was well therefore to let you understand I +could keep a secret. I let you know now only because I see you are +troubled about her. I fear you have not got her to take any comfort, +poor lady!" + +Dorothy stood silent, gazing down with big, frightened eyes at the +strange creature who looked steadfastly up at her from under what seemed +a huge hat--for his head was as large as that of a tall man. He seemed +to be reading her very thoughts. + +"I can trust you, Miss Drake," he resumed. "If I did not, I should have +at once acquainted the authorities with my suspicions; for, you will +observe, you are hiding from a community a fact which it has a right to +know. But I have faith enough in you to believe that you are only +waiting a fit time, and have good reasons for what you do. If I can give +you any help, I am at your service." + +He took off his big hat, and turned away into the house. + +Dorothy stood fixed for a moment or two longer, then walked slowly away, +with her eyes on the ground. Before she reached the Old House, she had +made up her mind to tell Polwarth as much as she could without betraying +Juliet's secret, and to ask him to talk to her, for which she would +contrive an opportunity. + +For some time she had been growing more anxious every day. No sign of +change showed in any quarter; no way opened through the difficulties +that surrounded them, while these were greatly added to by the +likelihood appearing that another life was on its way into them. What +was to be done? How was she in her ignorance so to guard the hopeless +wife that motherhood might do something to console her? She had two +lives upon her hands, and did indeed want counsel. The man who knew +their secret already--the minor prophet, she had heard the curate call +him--might at least help her to the next step she must take. + +Juliet's mental condition was not at all encouraging. She was often +ailing and peevish, behaving as if she owed Dorothy grudge instead of +gratitude. And indeed to herself Dorothy would remark that if nothing +more came out of it than seemed likely now, Juliet would be under no +very ponderous obligation to her. She found it more and more difficult +to interest her in any thing. After Othello she did not read another +play. Nothing pleased her but to talk about her husband. If Dorothy had +seen him, Juliet had endless questions to put to her about him; and when +she had answered as many of them as she could, she would put them all +over again afresh. On one occasion when Dorothy could not say she +believed he was, when she saw him, thinking about his wife, Juliet went +into hysterics. She was growing so unmanageable that if Dorothy had not +partially opened her mind to Polwarth, she must at last have been +compelled to give her up. The charge was wearing her out; her strength +was giving way, and her temper growing so irritable that she was ashamed +of herself--and all without any good to Juliet. Twice she hinted at +letting her husband know where she was, but Juliet, although, on both +occasions, she had a moment before been talking as if Dorothy alone +prevented her from returning to him, fell on her knees in wild distress, +and entreated her to bear with her. At the smallest approach of the idea +toward actuality, the recollection rushed scorching back--of how she had +implored him, how she had humbled herself soul and body before him, how +he had turned from her with loathing, would not put forth a hand to lift +her from destruction and to restore her to peace, had left her naked on +the floor, nor once returned "to ask the spotted princess how she +fares"--and she shrunk with agony from any real thought of again +supplicating his mercy. + +Presently another difficulty began to show in the near distance: Mr. +Drake, having made up his mind as to the alterations he would have +effected, had begun to think there was no occasion to put off till the +spring, and talked of commencing work in the house at no distant day. +Dorothy therefore proposed to Juliet that, as it was impossible to +conceal her there much longer, she should go to some distant part of the +country, where she would contrive to follow her. But the thought of +moving further from her husband, whose nearness, though she dared not +seek him, seemed her only safety, was frightful to Juliet. The wasting +anxiety she caused Dorothy did not occur to her. Sorrow is not selfish, +but many persons are in sorrow entirely selfish. It makes them so +important in their own eyes, that they seem to have a claim upon all +that people can do for them. + +To the extent therefore, of what she might herself have known without +Juliet's confession, Dorothy, driven to her wits' end, resolved to open +the matter to the gatekeeper; and accordingly, one evening on her way +home, called at the lodge, and told Polwarth where and in what condition +she had found Mrs. Faber, and what she had done with her; that she did +not think it the part of a friend to advise her return to her husband at +present; that she would not herself hear of returning; that she had no +comfort, and her life was a burden to her; and that she could not +possibly keep her concealed much longer, and did not know what next to +do. + +Polwarth answered only that he must make the acquaintance of Mrs. Faber. +If that could be effected, he believed he should be able to help them +out of their difficulties. Between them, therefore, they must arrange a +plan for his meeting her. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI. + +THE OLD GARDEN. + + +The next morning, Juliet, walking listlessly up and down the garden, +turned the corner of a yew hedge, and came suddenly upon a figure that +might well have appeared one of the kobolds of German legend. He was +digging slowly but steadily, crooning a strange song--so low that, until +she saw him she did not hear him. + +She started back in dismay. The kobold neither raised his head nor +showed other sign than the ceasing of his song that he was aware of her +presence. Slowly and steadily he went on with his work. He was trenching +the ground deep, still throwing the earth from the bottom to the top. +Juliet, concluding he was deaf, and the ceasing of his song accidental, +turned softly, and would have retreated. But Polwarth, so far from being +deaf, heard better than most people. His senses, indeed, had been +sharpened by his infirmities--all but those of taste and smell, which +were fitful, now dull and now exquisitely keen. At the first movement +breaking the stillness into which consternation had cast her, he spoke. + +"Can you guess what I am doing, Mrs. Faber?" he said, throwing up a +spadeful and a glance together, like a man who could spare no time from +his work. + +Juliet's heart got in the way, and she could not answer him. She felt +much as a ghost, wandering through a house, might feel, if suddenly +addressed by the name she had borne in the old days, while yet she was +clothed in the garments of the flesh. Could it be that this man led such +a retired life that, although living so near Glaston, and seeing so many +at his gate, he had yet never heard that she had passed from the ken of +the living? Or could it be that Dorothy had betrayed her? She stood +quaking. The situation was strange. Before her was a man who did not +seem to know that what he knew concerning her was a secret from all the +world besides! And with that she had a sudden insight into the +consequence of the fact of her existence coming to her husband's +knowledge: would it not add to his contempt and scorn to know that she +was not even dead? Would he not at once conclude that she had been +contriving to work on his feelings, that she had been speculating on his +repentance, counting upon and awaiting such a return of his old +fondness, as would make him forget all her faults, and prepare him to +receive her again with delight?--But she must answer the creature! Ill +could she afford to offend him! But what was she to say? She had utterly +forgotten what he had said to her. She stood staring at him, unable to +speak. It was but for a few moments, but they were long as minutes. And +as she gazed, it seemed as if the strange being in the trench had dug +his way up from the lower parts of the earth, bringing her secret with +him, and come to ask her questions. What an earthy yet unearthly look he +had! Almost for the moment she believed the ancient rumors of other +races than those of mankind, that shared the earth with them, but led +such differently conditioned lives, that, in the course of ages, only a +scanty few of the unblending natures crossed each other's path, to stand +astare in mutual astonishment. + +Polwarth went on digging, nor once looked up. After a little while he +resumed, in the most natural way, speaking as if he had known her well: + +"Mr. Drake and I were talking, some weeks ago, about a certain curious +little old-fashioned flower in my garden at the back of the lodge. He +asked me if I could spare him a root of it. I told him I could spare him +any thing he would like to have, but that I would gladly give him every +flower in my garden, roots and all, if he would but let me dig three +yards square in his garden at the Old House, and have all that came up +of itself for a year." + +He paused again. Juliet neither spoke nor moved. He dug rather feebly +for a gnome, with panting, asthmatic breath. + +"Perhaps you are not aware, ma'am," he began again, and ceasing his +labor stood up leaning on the spade, which was nearly as high as +himself, "that many of the seeds which fall upon the ground do not grow, +yet, strange to tell, retain the power of growth. I suspect myself, but +have not had opportunity of testing the conjecture, that such fall in +their pods, or shells, and that before these are sufficiently decayed to +allow the sun and moisture and air to reach them, they have got covered +up in the soil too deep for those same influences. They say fishes a +long time bedded in ice will come to life again: I can not tell about +that, but it is well enough known that if you dig deep in any old +garden, such as this, ancient, perhaps forgotten flowers, will appear. +The fashion has changed, they have been neglected or uprooted, but all +the time their life is hid below. And the older they are, the nearer +perhaps to their primary idea!" + +By this time she was far more composed, though not yet had she made up +her mind what to say, or how to treat the dilemma in which she found +herself. + +After a brief pause therefore, he resumed again: + +"I don't fancy," he said, with a low, asthmatic laugh, "that we shall +have many forgotten weeds come up. They all, I suspect, keep pretty well +in the sun. But just think how the fierce digging of the crisis to which +the great Husbandman every now and then leads a nation, brings back to +the surface its old forgotten flowers. What virtues, for instance, the +Revolution brought to light as even yet in the nature of the corrupted +nobility of France!" + +"What a peculiar goblin it is!" thought Juliet, beginning to forget +herself a little in watching and listening to the strange creature. She +had often seen him before, but had always turned from him with a kind of +sympathetic shame: of course the poor creature could not bear to be +looked at; he must know himself improper! + +"I have sometimes wondered," Polwarth yet again resumed, "whether the +troubles without end that some people seem born to--I do not mean those +they bring upon themselves--may not be as subsoil plows, tearing deep +into the family mold, that the seeds of the lost virtues of their race +may in them be once more brought within reach of sun and air and dew. It +would be a pleasant, hopeful thought if one might hold it. Would it not, +ma'am?" + +"It would indeed," answered Juliet with a sigh, which rose from an +undefined feeling that if some hidden virtue would come up in her, it +would be welcome. How many people would like to be good, if only they +might be good without taking trouble about it! They do not like goodness +well enough to hunger and thirst after it, or to sell all that they have +that they may buy it; they will not batter at the gate of the kingdom of +Heaven; but they look with pleasure on this or that aerial castle of +righteousness, and think it would be rather nice to live in it! They do +not know that it is goodness all the time their very being is pining +after, and that they are starving their nature of its necessary food. +Then Polwarth's idea turned itself round in Juliet's mind, and grew +clearer, but assumed reference to weeds only, and not flowers. She +thought how that fault of hers had, like the seed of a poison-plant, +been buried for years, unknown to one alive, and forgotten almost by +herself--so diligently forgotten indeed, that it seemed to have +gradually slipped away over the horizon of her existence; and now here +it was at the surface again in all its horror and old reality! nor that +merely, for already it had blossomed and borne its rightful fruit of +dismay--an evil pod, filled with a sickening juice, and swarming with +gray flies.--But she must speak, and, if possible, prevent the odd +creature from going and publishing in Glaston that he had seen Mrs. +Faber, and she was at the Old House. + +"How did you know I was here?" she asked abruptly. + +"How do you know that I knew, ma'am?" returned Polwarth, in a tone which +took from the words all appearance of rudeness. + +"You were not in the least surprised to see me," she answered. + +"A man," returned the dwarf, "who keeps his eyes open may almost cease +to be surprised at any thing. In my time I have seen so much that is +wonderful--in fact every thing seems to me so wonderful that I hardly +expect to be surprised any more." + +He said this, desiring to provoke conversation. But Juliet took the +answer for an evasive one, and it strengthened her suspicion of Dorothy. +She was getting tired of her! Then there was only one thing left!--The +minor prophet had betaken himself again to his work, delving deeper, and +throwing slow spadeful after spadeful to the surface. + +"Miss Drake told you I was here!" said Juliet. + +"No, indeed, Mrs. Faber. No one told me," answered Polwarth. "I learned +it for myself. I could hardly help finding it out." + +"Then--then--does every body know it?" she faltered, her heart sinking +within her at the thought. + +"Indeed, ma'am, so far as I know, not a single person is aware you are +alive except Miss Drake and myself. I have not even told my niece who +lives with me, and who can keep a secret as well as myself." + +Juliet breathed a great sigh of relief. + +"Will you tell me why you have kept it so secret?" she asked. + +"Because it was your secret, ma'am, not mine." + +"But you were under no obligation to keep my secret." + +"How do you justify such a frightful statement as that, ma'am?" + +"Why, what could it matter to you?" + +"Every thing." + +"I do not understand. You have no interest in me. You could have no +inducement." + +"On the contrary, I had the strongest inducement: I saw that an +opportunity might come of serving you." + +"But that is just the unintelligible thing to me. There is no reason why +you should wish to serve me!" said Juliet, thinking to get at the bottom +of some design. + +"There you mistake, ma'am. I am under the most absolute and imperative +obligation to serve you--the greatest under which any being can find +himself." + +"What a ridiculous, crooked little monster!" said Juliet to herself. But +she began the same moment to think whether she might not turn the +creature's devotion to good account. She might at all events insure his +silence. + +"Would you be kind enough to explain yourself?" she said, now also +interested in the continuance of the conversation. + +"I would at once," replied Polwarth, "had I sufficient ground for hoping +you would understand my explanation." + +"I do not know that I am particularly stupid," she returned, with a wan +smile. + +"I have heard to the contrary," said Polwarth. "Yet I can not help +greatly doubting whether you will understand what I am now going to tell +you. For I will tell you--on the chance: I have no secrets--that is, of +my own.--I am one of those, Mrs. Faber," he went on after a moment's +pause, but his voice neither became more solemn in tone, nor did he +cease his digging, although it got slower, "who, against the +_non-evidence_ of their senses, believe there is a Master of men, the +one Master, a right perfect Man, who demands of them, and lets them know +in themselves the rectitude of the demand that they also shall be right +and true men, that is, true brothers to their brothers and sisters of +mankind. It is recorded too, and I believe it, that this Master said +that any service rendered to one of His people was rendered to Himself. +Therefore, for love of His will, even if I had no sympathy with you, +Mrs. Faber, I should feel bound to help you. As you can not believe me +interested in yourself, I must tell you that to betray your secret for +the satisfaction of a love of gossip, would be to sin against my highest +joy, against my own hope, against the heart of God, from which your +being and mine draws the life of its every moment." + +Juliet's heart seemed to turn sick at the thought of such a creature +claiming brotherhood with her. That it gave ground for such a claim, +seemed for the moment an irresistible argument against the existence of +a God. + +In her countenance Polwarth read at once that he had blundered, and a +sad, noble, humble smile irradiated his. It had its effect on Juliet. +She would be generous and forgive his presumption: she knew dwarfs were +always conceited--that wise Nature had provided them with high thoughts +wherewith to add the missing cubit to their stature. What repulsive +things Christianity taught! Her very flesh recoiled from the poor ape! + +"I trust you are satisfied, ma'am," the kobold added, after a moment's +vain expectation of a word from Juliet, "that your secret is safe with +me." + +"I am," answered Juliet, with a condescending motion of her stately +neck, saying to herself in feeling if not in conscious thought,--"After +all he is hardly human! I may accept his devotion as I would that of a +dog!" + +The moment she had thus far yielded, she began to long to speak of her +husband. Perhaps he can tell her something of him! At least he could +talk about him. She would have been eager to look on his reflection, had +it been possible, in the mind of a dog that loved him. She would turn +the conversation in a direction that might find him. + +"But I do not see," she went on, "how you, Mr. Polwarth--I think that is +your name--how you can, consistently with your principles,--" + +"Excuse me, ma'am: I can not even, by silence, seem to admit that you +know any thing whatever of my principles." + +"Oh!" she returned, with a smile of generous confession, "I was brought +up to believe as you do." + +"That but satisfies me that for the present you are incapable of knowing +any thing of my principles." + +"I do not wonder at your thinking so," she returned, with the +condescension of superior education, as she supposed, and yet with the +first motion of an unconscious respect for the odd little monster.--He, +with wheezing chest, went on throwing up the deep, damp, fresh earth, to +him smelling of marvelous things. Ruth would have ached all over to see +him working so hard!--"Still," Juliet went on, "supposing your judgment +of me correct, that only makes it the stranger you should imagine that +in serving such a one, you are pleasing Him you call your Master. He +says whosoever denies Him before men He will deny before the angels of +God." + +"What my Lord says He will do, He will do, as He meant it when He said +it: what He tells me to do, I try to understand and do. Now He has told +me of all things not to say that good comes of evil. He condemned that +in the Pharisees as the greatest of crimes. When, therefore, I see a man +like your husband, helping his neighbors near and far, being kind, +indeed loving, and good-hearted to all men,"--Here a great sigh, checked +and broken into many little ones, came in a tremulous chain from the +bosom of the wife--"I am bound to say that man is not scattering his +Master abroad. He is indeed opposing Him in words: he speaks against the +Son of Man; but that the Son of Man Himself says shall be forgiven him. +If I mistake in this, to my own Master I stand or fall." + +"How can He be his Master if he does not acknowledge Him?" + +"Because the very tongue with which he denies Him is yet His. I am the +master of the flowers that will now grow by my labor, though not one of +them will know me--how much more must He be the Master of the men He +has called into being, though they do not acknowledge Him! If the story +of the gospel be a true one, as with my heart and soul and all that is +in me I believe it is, then Jesus of Nazareth is Lord and Master of Mr. +Faber, and for him not to acknowledge it is to fall from the summit of +his being. To deny one's Master, is to be a slave." + +"You are very polite!" said Mrs. Faber, and turned away. She recalled +her imaginary danger, however, and turning again, said, "But though I +differ from you in opinion, Mr. Polwarth, I quite recognize you as no +common man, and put you upon your honor with regard to my secret." + +"Had you entrusted me with your secret, ma'am, the phrase would have had +more significance. But, obeying my Master, I do not require to think of +my own honor. Those who do not acknowledge their Master, can not afford +to forget it. But if they do not learn to obey Him, they will find by +the time they have got through what they call life, they have left +themselves little honor to boast of." + +"He has guessed my real secret!" thought poor Juliet, and turning away +in confusion, without a word of farewell, went straight into the house. +But before Dorothy, who had been on the watch at the top of the slope, +came in, she had begun to hope that the words of the forward, +disagreeable, conceited dwarf had in them nothing beyond a general +remark. + +When Dorothy entered, she instantly accused her of treachery. Dorothy, +repressing her indignation, begged she would go with her to Polwarth. +But when they reached the spot, the gnome had vanished. + +He had been digging only for the sake of the flowers buried in Juliet, +and had gone home to lie down. His bodily strength was exhausted, but +will and faith and purpose never forsook the soul cramped up in that +distorted frame. When greatly suffering, he would yet suffer with his +will--not merely resigning himself to the will of God, but desiring the +suffering that God willed. When the wearied soul could no longer keep +the summit of the task, when not strength merely, but the consciousness +of faith and duty failed him, he would cast faith and strength and duty, +all his being, into the gulf of the Father's will, and simply suffer, no +longer trying to feel any thing--waiting only until the Life should send +him light. + +Dorothy turned to Juliet. + +"You might have asked Mr. Polwarth, Juliet, whether I had betrayed +you," she said. + +"Now I think of it, he did say you had not told him. But how was I to +take the word of a creature like that?" + +"Juliet," said Dorothy, very angry, "I begin to doubt if you were worth +taking the trouble for!" + +She turned from her, and walked toward the house. Juliet rushed after +her and caught her in her arms. + +"Forgive me, Dorothy," she cried. "I am not in my right senses, I do +believe. What _is_ to be done now this--man knows it?" + +"Things are no worse than they were," said Dorothy, as quickly appeased +as angered. "On the contrary, I believe we have the only one to help us +who is able to do it. Why, Juliet, why what am I to do with you when my +father sends the carpenters and bricklayers to the house? They will be +into every corner! He talks of commencing next week, and I am at my +wits' end." + +"Oh! don't forsake me, Dorothy, after all you have done for me," cried +Juliet. "If you turn me out, there never was creature in the world so +forlorn as I shall be--absolutely helpless, Dorothy!" + +"I will do all I can for you, my poor Juliet; but if Mr. Polwarth do not +think of some way, I don't know what will become of us. You don't know +what you are guilty of in despising him. Mr. Wingfold speaks of him as +far the first man in Glaston." + +Certainly Mr. Wingfold, Mr. Drew, and some others of the best men in the +place, did think him, of those they knew, the greatest in the kingdom of +Heaven. Glaston was altogether of a different opinion. Which was the +right opinion, must be left to the measuring rod that shall finally be +applied to the statures of men. + +The history of the kingdom of Heaven--need I say I mean a very different +thing from what is called _church-history?_--is the only history that +will ever be able to show itself a history--that can ever come to be +thoroughly written, or to be read with a clear understanding; for it +alone will prove able to explain itself, while in doing so it will +explain all other attempted histories as well. Many of those who will +then be found first in the eternal record, may have been of little +regard in the eyes of even their religious contemporaries, may have been +absolutely unknown to generations that came after, and were yet the men +of life and potency, working as light, as salt, as leaven, in the +world. When the real worth of things is, over all, the measure of their +estimation, then is the kingdom of our God and His Christ. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII. + +THE POTTERY. + + +It had been a very dry autumn, and the periodical rains had been long +delayed, so that the minister had been able to do much for the houses he +had bought, called the Pottery. There had been but just rain enough to +reveal the advantage of the wall he had built to compel the water to +keep the wider street. Thoroughly dry and healthy it was impossible to +make them, at least in the time; but it is one thing to have the water +all about the place you stand on, and another to be up to the knees in +it. Not at that point only, however, but at every spot where the water +could enter freely, he had done what he could provisionally for the +defense of his poor colony--for alas! how much among the well-to-do, in +town or city, are the poor like colonists only!--and he had great hopes +of the result. Stone and brick and cement he had used freely, and one or +two of the people about began to have a glimmering idea of the use of +money after a gospel fashion--that is, for thorough work where and +_because_ it was needed. The curate was full of admiration and sympathy. +But the whole thing gave great dissatisfaction to others not a few. For, +as the currents of inundation would be somewhat altered in direction and +increased in force by his obstructions, it became necessary for several +others also to add to the defenses of their property, and this of course +was felt to be a grievance. Their personal inconveniences were like the +shilling that hides the moon, and, in the resentment they occasioned, +blinded their hearts to the seriousness of the evils from which their +merely temporary annoyance was the deliverance of their neighbors. A +fancy of prescriptive right in their own comforts outweighed all the +long and heavy sufferings of the others. Why should not their neighbors +continue miserable, when they had been miserable all their lives +hitherto? Those who, on the contrary, had been comfortable all their +lives, and liked it so much, ought to continue comfortable--even at +their expense. Why not let well alone? Or if people would be so +unreasonable as to want to be comfortable too, when nobody cared a straw +about them, let them make themselves comfortable without annoying those +superior beings who had been comfortable all the time!--Persons who, +consciously or unconsciously, reason thus, would do well to read with a +little attention the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, wherein it +seems recognized that a man's having been used to a thing may be just +the reason, not for the continuance, but for the alteration of his +condition. In the present case the person who most found himself +aggrieved, was the dishonest butcher. A piece of brick wall which the +minister had built in contact with the wall of his yard, would +indubitably cause such a rise in the water at the descent into the area +of his cellar, that, in order to its protection in a moderate flood--in +a great one the cellar was always filled--the addition to its defense of +two or three more rows of bricks would be required, carrying a +correspondent diminution of air and light. It is one of the punishments +overtaking those who wrong their neighbors, that not only do they feel +more keenly than others any injury done to themselves, but they take +many things for injuries that do not belong to the category. It was but +a matter of a few shillings at the most, but the man who did not scruple +to charge the less careful of his customers for undelivered ounces, +gathering to pounds and pounds of meat, resented bitterly the necessity +of the outlay. He knew, or ought to have known, that he had but to +acquaint the minister with the fact, to have the thing set right at +once; but the minister had found him out, and he therefore much +preferred the possession of his grievance to its removal. To his friends +he regretted that a minister of the gospel should be so corrupted by the +mammon of unrighteousness as to use it against members of his own +church: that, he said, was not the way to make friends with it. But on +the pretense of a Christian spirit, he avoided showing Mr. Drake any +sign of his resentment; for the face of his neighbors shames a man whose +heart condemns him but shames him not. He restricted himself to +grumbling, and brooded to counterplot the mischiefs of the minister. +What right had he to injure him for the sake of the poor? Was it not +written in the Bible: Thou shall not favor the poor man in his cause? +Was it not written also: For every man shall bear his own burden? That +was common sense! He did his share in supporting the poor that were +church-members, but was he to suffer for improvements on Drake's +property for the sake of a pack of roughs! Let him be charitable at his +own cost! etc., etc. Self is prolific in argument. + +It suited Mr. Drake well, notwithstanding his church republican +theories, against which, in the abstract, I could ill object, seeing the +whole current of Bible teaching is toward the God-inspired ideal +commonwealth--it suited a man like Mr. Drake well, I say, to be an +autocrat, and was a most happy thing for his tenants, for certainly no +other system of government than a wise autocracy will serve in regard to +the dwellings of the poor. And already, I repeat, he had effected not a +little. Several new cottages had been built, and one incorrigible old +one pulled down. But it had dawned upon him that, however desirable it +might be on a dry hill-side, on such a foundation as this a cottage was +the worst form of human dwelling that could be built. For when the whole +soil was in time of rain like a full sponge, every room upon it was +little better than a hollow in a cloud, and the right thing must be to +reduce contact with the soil as much as possible. One high house, +therefore, with many stories, and stone feet to stand upon, must be the +proper kind of building for such a situation. He must lift the first +house from the water, and set as many more houses as convenient upon it. + +He had therefore already so far prepared for the building of such a +house as should lift a good many families far above all deluge; that is, +he had dug the foundation, and deep, to get at the more solid ground. In +this he had been precipitate, as not unfrequently in his life; for while +he was yet meditating whether he should not lay the foundation +altogether solid, of the unporous stone of the neighborhood, the rains +began, and there was the great hole, to stand all the winter full of +water, in the middle of the cottages! + +The weather cleared again, but after a St. Martin's summer unusually +prolonged, the rain came down in terrible earnest. Day after day, the +clouds condensed, grew water, and poured like a squeezed sponge. A wet +November indeed it was--wet overhead--wet underfoot--wet all round! and +the rivers rose rapidly. + +When the Lythe rose beyond a certain point, it overflowed into a hollow, +hardly a valley, and thereby a portion of it descended almost straight +to Glaston. Hence it came that in a flood the town was invaded both by +the rise of the river from below, and by this current from above, on its +way to rejoin the main body of it, and the streets were soon turned into +canals. The currents of the slowly swelling river and of its temporary +branch then met in Pine street, and formed not a very rapid, but a heavy +run at ebb tide; for Glaston, though at some distance from the mouth of +the river, measuring by its course, was not far from the sea, which was +visible across the green flats, a silvery line on the horizon. Landward, +beyond the flats, high ground rose on all sides, and hence it was that +the floods came down so deep upon Glaston. + +On a certain Saturday it rained all the morning heavily, but toward the +afternoon cleared a little, so that many hoped the climax had been +reached, while the more experienced looked for worse. After sunset the +clouds gathered thicker than before, and the rain of the day was as +nothing to the torrent descending with a steady clash all night. When +the slow, dull morning came Glaston stood in the middle of a brown lake, +into which water was rushing from the sky in straight, continuous lines. +The prospect was discomposing. Some, too confident in the apparent +change, had omitted needful precautions, in most parts none were now +possible, and in many more none would have been of use. Most cellars +were full, and the water was rising on the ground-floors. It was a very +different affair from a flood in a mountainous country, but serious +enough, though without immediate danger to life. Many a person that +morning stepped out of bed up to the knee in muddy water. + +With the first of the dawn the curate stood peering from the window of +his dressing-room, through the water that coursed down the pane, to +discover the state of the country; for the window looked inland from the +skirt of the town. All was gray mist, brown water, and sheeting rain. +The only things clear were that not a soul would be at church that +morning, and that, though he could do nothing to divide them the bread +needful for their souls, he might do something for some of their bodies. +It was a happy thing it was Sunday, for, having laid in their stock of +bread the day before, people were not so dependent on the bakers, half +whose ovens must now be full of water. But most of the kitchens must be +flooded, he reasoned, the fire-wood soaking, and the coal in some +cellars inaccessible. The very lucifer-matches in many houses would be +as useless as the tinderbox of a shipwrecked sailor. And if the rain +were to cease at once the water would yet keep rising for many hours. He +turned from the window, took his bath in homoeopathic preparation, and +then went to wake his wife. + +She was one of those blessed women who always open their eyes smiling. +She owed very little of her power of sympathy to personal suffering; the +perfection of her health might have made one who was too anxious for her +spiritual growth even a little regretful. Her husband therefore had +seldom to think of sparing her when any thing had to be done. She could +lose a night's sleep without the smallest injury, and stand fatigue +better than most men; and in the requirements of the present necessity +there would be mingled a large element of adventure, almost of frolic, +full of delight to a vigorous organization. + +"What a good time of it the angels of wind and flame must have!" said +the curate to himself as he went to wake her. "What a delight to be +embodied as a wind, or a flame, or a rushing sea!--Come, Helen, my help! +Glaston wants you," he said softly in her ear. + +She started up. + +"What is it, Thomas?" she said, holding her eyes wider open than was +needful, to show him she was capable. + +"Nothing to frighten you, darling," he answered, "but plenty to be done. +The river is out, and the people are all asleep. Most of them will have +to wait for their breakfast, I fear. We shall have no prayers this +morning." + +"But plenty of divine service," rejoined Helen, with a smile for what +her aunt called one of his whims, as she got up and seized some of her +garments. + +"Take time for your bath, dear," said her husband. + +"There will be time for that afterward," she replied. "What shall I do +first?" + +"Wake the servants, and tell them to light the kitchen fire, and make +all the tea and coffee they can. But tell them to make it good. We shall +get more of every thing as soon as it is light. I'll go and bring the +boat. I had it drawn up and moored in the ruins ready to float +yesterday. I wish I hadn't put on my shirt though: I shall have to swim +for it, I fear." + +"I shall have one aired before you come back," said Helen. + +"Aired!" returned her husband: "you had better say watered. In five +minutes neither of us will have a dry stitch on. I'll take it off again, +and be content with my blue jersey." + +He hurried out into the rain. Happily there was no wind. + +Helen waked the servants. Before they appeared she had the fire lighted, +and as many utensils as it would accommodate set upon it with water. +When Wingfold returned, he found her in the midst of her household, +busily preparing every kind of eatable and drinkable they could lay +hands upon. + +He had brought his boat to the church yard and moored it between two +headstones: they would have their breakfast first, for there was no +saying when they might get any lunch, and food is work. Besides, there +was little to be gained by rousing people out of their good sleep: there +was no danger yet. + +"It is a great comfort," said the curate, as he drank his coffee, "to +see how Drake goes in heart and soul for his tenants. He is pompous--a +little, and something of a fine gentleman, but what is that beside his +great truth! That work of his is the simplest act of Christianity of a +public kind I have ever seen!" + +"But is there not a great change on him since he had his money?" said +Helen. "He seems to me so much humbler in his carriage and simpler in +his manners than before." + +"It is quite true," replied her husband. "It is mortifying to think," he +went on after a little pause, "how many of our clergy, from mere +beggarly pride, holding their rank superior--as better accredited +servants of the Carpenter of Nazareth, I suppose--would look down on +that man as a hedge-parson. The world they court looked down upon +themselves from a yet greater height once, and may come to do so again. +Perhaps the sooner the better, for then they will know which to choose. +Now they serve Mammon and think they serve God." + +"It is not quite so bad as that, surely!" said Helen. + +"If it is not worldly pride, what is it? I do not think it is spiritual +pride. Few get on far enough to be much in danger of that worst of all +vices. It must then be church-pride, and that is the worst form of +worldly pride, for it is a carrying into the kingdom of Heaven of the +habits and judgments of the kingdom of Satan. I am wrong! such things +can not be imported into the kingdom of Heaven: they can only be +imported into the Church, which is bad enough. Helen, the churchman's +pride is a thing to turn a saint sick with disgust, so utterly is it at +discord with the lovely human harmony he imagines himself the minister +of. He is the Pharisee, it may be the good Pharisee, of the kingdom of +Heaven; but if the proud churchman be in the kingdom at all, it must be +as one of the least in it. I don't believe one in ten who is guilty of +this pride is aware of the sin of it. Only the other evening I heard a +worthy canon say, it may have been more in joke than appeared, that he +would have all dissenters burned. Now the canon would not hang one of +them--but he does look down on them all with contempt. Such miserable +paltry weaknesses and wickednesses, for in a servant of the Kingdom the +feeling which suggests such a speech is wicked, are the moth holes in +the garments of the Church, the teredo in its piles, the dry rot in its +floors, the scaling and crumbling of its buttresses. They do more to +ruin what such men call the Church, even in outward respects, than any +of the rude attacks of those whom they thus despise. He who, in the name +of Christ, pushes his neighbor from him, is a schismatic, and that of +the worst and only dangerous type! But we had better be going. It's of +no use telling you to take your waterproof; you'd only be giving it to +the first poor woman we picked up." + +"I may as well have the good of it till then," said Helen, and ran to +fetch it, while the curate went to bring his boat to the house. + +When he opened the door, there was no longer a spot of earth or of sky +to be seen--only water, and the gray sponge filling the upper air, +through which coursed multitudinous perpendicular runnels of water. Clad +in a pair of old trowsers and a jersey, he went wading, and where the +ground dipped, swimming, to the western gate of the churchyard. In a few +minutes he was at the kitchen window, holding the boat in a long +painter, for the water, although quite up to the rectory walls, was not +yet deep enough there to float the boat with any body in it. The +servants handed him out the great cans they used at school-teas, full of +hot coffee, and baskets of bread, and he placed them in the boat, +covering them with a tarpaulin. Then Helen appeared at the door, in her +waterproof, with a great fur-cloak--to throw over him, she said, when +she took the oars, for she meant to have her share of the fun: it was so +seldom there was any going on a Sunday!--How she would have shocked her +aunt, and better women than she! + +"To-day," said the curate, "we shall praise God with the _mirth_ of the +good old hundredth psalm, and not with the _fear_ of the more modern +version." + +As he spoke he bent to his oars, and through a narrow lane the boat soon +shot into Pine-street--now a wide canal, banked with houses dreary and +dead, save where, from an upper window, peeped out here and there a +sleepy, dismayed countenance. In silence, except for the sounds of the +oars, and the dull rush of water everywhere, they slipped along. + +"This _is_ fun!" said Helen, where she sat and steered. + +"Very quiet fun as yet," answered the curate. "But it will get faster by +and by." + +As often as he saw any one at a window, he called out that tea and +coffee would be wanted for many a poor creature's breakfast. But here +they were all big houses, and he rowed swiftly past them, for his +business lay, not where there were servants and well-stocked larders, +but where there were mothers and children and old people, and little but +water besides. Nor had they left Pine street by many houses before they +came where help was right welcome. Down the first turning a miserable +cottage stood three feet deep in the water. Out jumped the curate with +the painter in his hand, and opened the door. + +On the bed, over the edge of which the water was lapping, sat a sickly +young woman in her night-dress, holding her baby to her bosom. She +stared for a moment with big eyes, then looked down, and said nothing; +but a rose-tinge mounted from her heart to her pale cheek. + +"Good morning, Martha!" said the curate cheerily. "Rather damp--ain't +it? Where's your husband?" + +"Away looking for work, sir," answered Martha, in a hopeless tone. + +"Then he won't miss you. Come along. Give me the baby." + +"I can't come like this, sir. I ain't got no clothes on." + +"Take them with you. You can't put them on: they're all wet. Mrs. +Wingfold is in the boat: she'll see to every thing you want. The door's +hardly wide enough to let the boat through, or I'd pull it close up to +the bed for you to get in." + +She hesitated. + +"Come along," he repeated. "I won't look at you. Or wait--I'll take the +baby, and come back for you. Then you won't get so wet." + +He took the baby from her arms, and turned to the door. + +"It ain't you as I mind, sir," said Martha, getting into the water at +once and following him, "--no more'n my own people; but all the town'll +be at the windows by this time." + +"Never mind; we'll see to you," he returned. + +In half a minute more, with the help of the windowsill, she was in the +boat, the fur-cloak wrapped about her and the baby, drinking the first +cup of the hot coffee. + +"We must take her home at once," said the curate. + +"You said we should have fun!" said Helen, the tears rushing into her +eyes. + +She had left the tiller, and, while the mother drank her coffee, was +patting the baby under the cloak. But she had to betake herself to the +tiller again, for the curate was not rowing straight. + +When they reached the rectory, the servants might all have been +grandmothers from the way they received the woman and her child. + +"Give them a warm bath together," said Helen, "as quickly as +possible.--And stay, let me out, Thomas--I must go and get Martha some +clothes. I shan't be a minute." + +The next time they returned, Wingfold, looking into the kitchen, could +hardly believe the sweet face he saw by the fire, so refined in its +comforted sadness, could be that of Martha. He thought whether the fine +linen, clean and white, may not help the righteousness even of the +saints a little. + +Their next take was a boat-load of children and an old grandmother. Most +of the houses had a higher story, and they took only those who had no +refuge. Many more, however, drank of their coffee and ate of their +bread. The whole of the morning they spent thus, calling, on their +passages, wherever they thought they could get help or find +accommodation. By noon a score of boats were out rendering similar +assistance. The water was higher than it had been for many years, and +was still rising. Faber had laid hands upon an old tub of a +salmon-coble, and was the first out after the curate. But there was no +fun in the poor doctor's boat. Once the curate's and his met in the +middle of Pine street--both as full of people as they could carry. +Wingfold and Helen greeted Faber frankly and kindly. He returned their +greeting with solemn courtesy, rowing heavily past. + +By lunch-time, Helen had her house almost full, and did not want to go +again: there was so much to be done! But her husband persuaded her to +give him one hour more: the servants were doing so well! he said. She +yielded. He rowed her to the church, taking up the sexton and his boy on +their way. There the crypts and vaults were full of water. Old +wood-carvings and bits of ancient coffins were floating about in them. +But the floor of the church was above the water: he landed Helen dry in +the porch, and led her to the organ-loft. Now the organ was one of great +power; seldom indeed, large as the church was, did they venture its full +force: he requested her to pull out every stop, and send the voice of +the church, in full blast, into every corner of Glaston. He would come +back for her in half an hour and take her home. He desired the sexton to +leave all the doors open, and remember that the instrument would want +every breath of wind he and his boy could raise. + +He had just laid hold of his oars, when out of the porch rushed a roar +of harmony that seemed to seize his boat and blow it away upon its +mission like a feather--for in the delight of the music the curate never +felt the arms that urged it swiftly along. After him it came pursuing, +and wafted him mightily on. Over the brown waters it went rolling, a +grand billow of innumerable involving and involved waves. He thought of +the spirit of God that moved on the face of the primeval waters, and out +of a chaos wrought a cosmos. "Would," he said to himself, "that ever +from the church door went forth such a spirit of harmony and healing of +peace and life! But the church's foes are they of her own household, who +with the axes and hammers of pride and exclusiveness and vulgar +priestliness, break the carved work of her numberless chapels, yea, +build doorless screens from floor to roof, dividing nave and choir and +chancel and transepts and aisles into sections numberless, and, with the +evil dust they raise, darken for ages the windows of her clerestory!" + +The curate was thinking of no party, but of individual spirit. Of the +priestliness I have encountered, I can not determine whether the worse +belonged to the Church of England or a certain body of Dissenters. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII. + +THE GATE-LODGE. + + +Mr Bevis had his horses put to, then taken away again, and an old hunter +saddled. But half-way from home he came to a burst bridge, and had to +return, much to the relief of his wife, who, when she had him in the +house again, could enjoy the rain, she said: it was so cosey and +comfortable to feel you could not go out, or any body call. I presume +she therein seemed to take a bond of fate, and doubly assure the +every-day dullness of her existence. Well, she was a good creature, and +doubtless a corner would be found for her up above, where a little more +work would probably be required of her. + +Polwarth and his niece Ruth rose late, for neither had slept well. When +they had breakfasted, they read together from the Bible: first the uncle +read the passage he had last got light upon--he was always getting light +upon passages, and then the niece the passage she had last been +gladdened by; after which they sat and chatted a long time by the +kitchen fire. + +"I am afraid your asthma was bad last night, uncle dear," said Ruth. "I +heard your breathing every time I woke." + +"It was, rather," answered the little man, "but I took my revenge, and +had a good crow over it." + +"I know what you mean, uncle: do let me hear the crow." + +He rose, and slowly climbing the stair to his chamber, returned with a +half sheet of paper in his hand, resumed his seat, and read the +following lines, which he had written in pencil when the light came: + + Satan, avaunt! + Nay, take thine hour; + Thou canst not daunt, + Thou hast no power; + Be welcome to thy nest, + Though it be in my breast. + + Burrow amain; + Dig like a mole; + Fill every vein + With half-burned coal; + Puff the keen dust about, + And all to choke me out. + + Fill music's ways + With creaking cries, + That no loud praise + May climb the skies; + And on my laboring chest + Lay mountains of unrest. + + My slumber steep + In dreams of haste, + That only sleep, + No rest I taste-- + With stiflings, rimes of rote, + And fingers on the throat. + + Satan, thy might + I do defy; + Live core of night, + I patient lie: + A wind comes up the gray + Will blow thee clean away. + + Christ's angel, Death, + All radiant white, + With one cold breath + Will scare thee quite, + And give my lungs an air + As fresh as answered prayer. + + So, Satan, do + Thy worst with me, + Until the True + Shall set me free, + And end what He began, + By making me a man. + +"It is not much of poetry, Ruth!" he said, raising his eyes from the +paper; "--no song of thrush or blackbird! I am ashamed that I called it +a cock-crow--for that is one of the finest things in the world--a +clarion defiance to darkness and sin--far too good a name for my poor +jingle--except, indeed, you call it a Cochin-china-cock-crow--from out a +very wheezy chest!" + +"'My strength is made perfect in weakness,'" said Ruth solemnly, +heedless of the depreciation. To her the verses were as full of meaning +as if she had made them herself. + +"I think I like the older reading better--that is, without the _My_," +said Polwarth: "'Strength is made perfect in weakness.' Somehow--I can +not explain the feeling--to hear a grand aphorism, spoken in widest +application, as a fact of more than humanity, of all creation, from the +mouth of the human God, the living Wisdom, seems to bring me close to +the very heart of the universe. Strength--strength itself--all over--is +made perfect in weakness;--a law of being, you see, Ruth! not a law of +Christian growth only, but a law of growth, even all the growth leading +up to the Christian, which growth is the highest kind of creation. The +Master's own strength was thus perfected, and so must be that of His +brothers and sisters. Ah, what a strength must be his!--how patient in +endurance--how gentle in exercise--how mighty in devotion--how fine in +its issues,-perfected by such suffering! Ah, my child, you suffer sorely +sometimes--I know it well! but shall we not let patience have her +perfect work, that we may--one day, Ruth, one day, my child--be perfect +and entire, wanting nothing?" + +Led by the climax of his tone, Ruth slipped from her stool on her knees. +Polwarth kneeled beside her, and said: + +"O Father of life, we praise Thee that one day Thou wilt take Thy poor +crooked creatures, and give them bodies like Christ's, perfect as His, +and full of Thy light. Help us to grow faster--as fast as Thou canst +help us to grow. Help us to keep our eyes on the opening of Thy hand, +that we may know the manna when it comes. O Lord, we rejoice that we are +Thy making, though Thy handiwork is not very clear in our outer man as +yet. We bless Thee that we feel Thy hand making us. What if it be in +pain! Evermore we hear the voice of the potter above the hum and grind +of his wheel. Father, Thou only knowest how we love Thee. Fashion the +clay to Thy beautiful will. To the eyes of men we are vessels of +dishonor, but we know Thou dost not despise us, for Thou hast made us, +and Thou dwellest with us. Thou hast made us love Thee, and hope in +Thee, and in Thy love we will be brave and endure. All in good time, O +Lord. Amen." + +While they thus prayed, kneeling on the stone floor of the little +kitchen, dark under the universal canopy of cloud, the rain went on +clashing and murmuring all around, rushing from the eaves, and +exploding with sharp hisses in the fire, and in the mingled noise they +had neither heard a low tap, several times repeated, nor the soft +opening of the door that followed. When they rose from their knees, it +was therefore with astonishment they saw a woman standing motionless in +the doorway, without cloak or bonnet, her dank garments clinging to her +form and dripping with rain. + +When Juliet woke that morning, she cared little that the sky was dull +and the earth dark. A selfish sorrow, a selfish love even, makes us +stupid, and Juliet had been growing more and more stupid. Many people, +it seems to me, through sorrow endured perforce and without a gracious +submission, slowly sink in the scale of existence. Such are some of +those middle-aged women, who might be the very strength of social +well-being, but have no aspiration, and hope only downward--after rich +husbands for their daughters, it may be--a new bonnet or an old +coronet--the devil knows what. + +Bad as the weather had been the day before, Dorothy had yet contrived to +visit her, and see that she was provided with every necessary; and +Juliet never doubted she would come that day also. She thought of +Dorothy's ministrations as we so often do of God's--as of things that +come of themselves, for which there is no occasion to be thankful. + +When she had finished the other little house-work required for her +comfort, a labor in which she found some little respite from the +gnawings of memory and the blankness of anticipation, she ended by +making up a good fire, though without a thought of Dorothy's being wet +when she arrived, and sitting down by the window, stared out at the +pools, spreading wider and wider on the gravel walks beneath her. She +sat till she grew chilly, then rose and dropped into an easy chair by +the fire, and fell fast asleep. + +She slept a long time, and woke in a terror, seeming to have waked +herself with a cry. The fire was out, and the hearth cold. She shivered +and drew her shawl about her. Then suddenly she remembered the frightful +dream she had had. + +She dreamed that she had just fled from her husband and gained the park, +when, the moment she entered it, something seized her from behind, and +bore her swiftly, as in the arms of a man--only she seemed to hear the +rush of wings behind her--the way she had been going. She struggled in +terror, but in vain; the power bore her swiftly on, and she knew +whither. Her very being recoiled from the horrible depth of the +motionless pool, in which, as she now seemed to know, lived one of the +loathsome creatures of the semi-chaotic era of the world, which had +survived its kind as well as its coevals, and was ages older than the +human race. The pool appeared--but not as she had known it, for it +boiled and heaved, bubbled and rose. From its lowest depths it was moved +to meet and receive her! Coil upon coil it lifted itself into the air, +towering like a waterspout, then stretched out a long, writhing, +shivering neck to take her from the invisible arms that bore her to her +doom. The neck shot out a head, and the head shot out the tongue of a +water-snake. She shrieked and woke, bathed in terror. + +With the memory of the dream not a little of its horror returned; she +rose to shake it off, and went to the window. What did she see there? +The fearsome pool had entered the garden, had come half-way to the +house, and was plainly rising every moment. More or less the pool had +haunted her ever since she came; she had seldom dared go nearer it than +half-way down the garden. But for the dulling influence of her misery, +it would have been an unendurable horror to her, now it was coming to +fetch her as she had seen it in her warning dream! Her brain reeled; for +a moment she gazed paralyzed with horror, then turned from the window, +and, with almost the conviction that the fiend of her vision was +pursuing her, fled from the house, and across the park, through the +sheets of rain, to the gate-lodge, nor stopped until, all unaware of +having once thought of him in her terror, she stood at the door of +Polwarth's cottage. + +Ruth was darting toward her with outstretched hands, when her uncle +stopped her. + +"Ruth, my child," he said, "run and light a fire in the parlor. I will +welcome our visitor." + +She turned instantly, and left the room. Then Polwarth went up to +Juliet, who stood trembling, unable to utter a word, and said, with +perfect old-fashioned courtesy, "You are heartily welcome, ma'am. I sent +Ruth away that I might first assure you that you are as safe with her as +with me. Sit here a moment, ma'am. You are so wet, I dare not place you +nearer to the fire.--Ruth!" + +She came instantly. + +"Ruth," he repeated, "this lady is Mrs. Faber. She is come to visit us +for a while. Nobody must know of it.--You need not be at all uneasy, +Mrs. Faber. Not a soul will come near us to-day. But I will lock the +door, to secure time, if any one should.--You will get Mrs. Faber's room +ready at once, Ruth. I will come and help you. But a spoonful of brandy +in hot water first, please.--Let me move your chair a little, ma'am--out +of the draught." + +Juliet in silence did every thing she was told, received the prescribed +antidote from Ruth, and was left alone in the kitchen. + +But the moment she was freed from one dread, she was seized by another; +suspicion took the place of terror; and as soon as she heard the toiling +of the goblins up the creaking staircase, she crept to the foot of it +after them, and with no more compunction than a princess in a +fairy-tale, set herself to listen. It was not difficult, for the little +inclosed staircase carried every word to the bottom of it. + +"I _thought_ she wasn't dead!" she heard Ruth exclaim joyfully; and the +words and tone set her wondering. + +"I saw you did not seem greatly astonished at the sight of her; but what +made you think such an unlikely thing?" rejoined her uncle. + +"I saw you did not believe she was dead. That was enough for me." + +"You are a witch, Ruth! I never said a word one way or the other." + +"Which showed that you were thinking, and made me think. You had +something in your mind which you did not choose to tell me yet." + +"Ah, child!" rejoined her uncle, in a solemn tone, "how difficult it is +to hide any thing! I don't think God wants any thing hidden. The light +is His region, His kingdom, His palace-home. It can only be evil, +outside or in, that makes us turn from the fullest light of the +universe. Truly one must be born again to enter into the kingdom!" + +Juliet heard every word, heard and was bewildered. The place in which +she had sought refuge was plainly little better than a kobold-cave, yet +merely from listening to the talk of the kobolds without half +understanding it, she had begun already to feel a sense of safety +stealing over her, such as she had never been for an instant aware of in +the Old House, even with Dorothy beside her. + +They went on talking, and she went on listening. They were so much her +inferiors there could be no impropriety in doing so! + +"The poor lady," she heard the man-goblin say, "has had some difference +with her husband; but whether she wants to hide from him or from the +whole world or from both, she only can tell. Our business is to take +care of her, and do for her what God may lay to our hand. What she +desires to hide, is sacred to us. We have no secrets of our own, Ruth, +and have the more room for those of other people who are unhappy enough +to have any. Let God reveal what He pleases: there are many who have no +right to know what they most desire to know. She needs nursing, poor +thing! We will pray to God for her." + +"But how shall we make her comfortable in such a poor little house?" +returned Ruth. "It is the dearest place in the world to me--but how will +she feel in it?" + +"We will keep her warm and clean," answered her uncle, "and that is all +an angel would require." + +"An angel!--yes," answered Ruth: "for angels don't eat; or, at least, if +they do, for I doubt if you will grant that they don't, I am certain +that they are not so hard to please as some people down here. The poor, +dear lady is delicate--you know she has always been--and I am not much +of a cook." + +"You are a very good cook, my dear. Perhaps you do not know a great many +dishes, but you are a dainty cook of those you do know. Few people can +have more need than we to be careful what they eat,--we have got such a +pair of troublesome cranky little bodies; and if you can suit them, I +feel sure you will be able to suit any invalid that is not fastidious by +nature rather than necessity." + +"I will do my best," said Ruth cheerily, comforted by her uncle's +confidence. "The worst is that, for her own sake, I must not get a girl +to help me." + +"The lady will help you with her own room," said Polwarth. "I have a +shrewd notion that it is only the _fine_ ladies, those that are so +little of ladies that they make so much of being ladies, who mind doing +things with their own hands. Now you must go and make her some tea, +while she gets in bed. She is sure to like tea best." + +Juliet retreated noiselessly, and when the woman-gnome entered the +kitchen, there sat the disconsolate lady where she had left her, still +like the outcast princess of a fairy-tale: she had walked in at the +door, and they had immediately begun to arrange for her stay, and the +strangest thing to Juliet was that she hardly felt it strange. It was +only as if she had come a day sooner than she was expected--which +indeed was very much the case, for Polwarth had been looking forward to +the possibility, and latterly to the likelihood of her becoming their +guest. + +"Your room is ready now," said Ruth, approaching her timidly, and +looking up at her with her woman's childlike face on the body of a +child. "Will you come?" + +Juliet rose and followed her to the garret-room with the dormer window, +in which Ruth slept. + +"Will you please get into bed as fast as you can," she said, "and when +you knock on the floor I will come and take away your clothes and get +them dried. Please to wrap this new blanket round you, lest the cold +sheets should give you a chill. They are well aired, though. I will +bring you a hot bottle, and some tea. Dinner will be ready soon." + +So saying she left the chamber softly. The creak of the door as she +closed it, and the white curtains of the bed and window, reminded Juliet +of a certain room she once occupied at the house of an old nurse, where +she had been happier than ever since in all her life, until her brief +bliss with Faber: she burst into tears, and weeping undressed and got +into bed. There the dryness and the warmth and the sense of safety +soothed her speedily; and with the comfort crept in the happy thought +that here she lay on the very edge of the high road to Glaston, and that +nothing could be more probable than that she would soon see her husband +ride past. With that one hope she could sit at a window watching for +centuries! "O Paul! Paul! my Paul!" she moaned. "If I could but be made +clean again for you! I would willingly be burned at the stake, if the +fire would only make me clean, for the chance of seeing you again in the +other world!" But as the comfort into her brain, so the peace of her new +surroundings stole into her heart. The fancy grew upon her that she was +in a fairy-tale, in which she must take every thing as it came, for she +could not alter the text. Fear vanished; neither staring eyes nor +creeping pool could find her in the guardianship of the benevolent +goblins. She fell fast asleep; and the large, clear, gray eyes of the +little woman gnome came and looked at her as she slept, and their gaze +did not rouse her. Softly she went, and came again; but, although dinner +was then ready, Ruth knew better than to wake her. She knew that sleep +is the chief nourisher in life's feast, and would not withdraw the +sacred dish. Her uncle said sleep was God's contrivance for giving man +the help he could not get into him while he was awake. So the loving +gnomes had their dinner together, putting aside the best portions of it +against the waking of the beautiful lady lying fast asleep above. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV. + +THE CORNER OF THE BUTCHER'S SHOP. + + +All that same Sunday morning, the minister and Dorothy had of course +plenty of work to their hand, for their more immediate neighbors were +all of the poor. Their own house, although situated on the very bank of +the river, was in no worse plight than most of the houses in the town, +for it stood upon an artificial elevation; and before long, while it had +its lower parts full of water like the rest, its upper rooms were filled +with people from the lanes around. But Mr. Drake's heart was in the +Pottery, for he was anxious as to the sufficiency of his measures. Many +of the neighbors, driven from their homes, had betaken themselves to his +inclosure, and when he went, he found the salmon-fishers still carrying +families thither. He set out at once to get what bread he could from the +baker's, a quantity of meat from the butcher, cheese, coffee, and tins +of biscuits and preserved meat from the grocers: all within his bounds +were either his own people or his guests, and he must do what he could +to feed them. For the first time he felt rich, and heartily glad and +grateful that he was. He could please God, his neighbor, and himself all +at once, getting no end of good out of the slave of which the +unrighteous make a god. + +He took Dorothy with him, for he would have felt helpless on such an +expedition without her judgment; and, as Lisbeth's hands were more than +full, they agreed it was better to take Amanda. Dorothy was far from +comfortable at having to leave Juliet alone all day, but the possibility +of her being compelled to omit her customary visit had been contemplated +between them, and she could not fail to understand it on this the first +occasion. Anyhow, better could not be, for the duty at home was far the +more pressing. That day she showed an energy which astonished even her +father. Nor did she fail of her reward. She received insights into +humanity which grew to real knowledge. I was going to say that, next to +an insight into the heart of God, an insight into the heart of a human +being is the most precious of things; but when I think of it--what is +the latter but the former? I will say this at least, that no one reads +the human heart well, to whom the reading reveals nothing of the heart +of the Father. The wire-gauze of sobering trouble over the flaming +flower of humanity, enabled Dorothy to see right down into its +fire-heart, and distinguish there the loveliest hues and shades. Where +the struggle for own life is in abeyance, and the struggle for other +life active, there the heart that God thought out and means to perfect, +the pure love-heart of His humans, reveals itself truly, and is gracious +to behold. For then the will of the individual sides divinely with his +divine impulse, and his heart is unified in good. When the will of the +man sides perfectly with the holy impulses in him, then all is well; for +then his mind is one with the mind of his Maker; God and man are one. + +Amanda shrieked with delight when she was carried to the boat, and went +on shrieking as she floated over flower-beds and box-borders, caught now +and then in bushes and overhanging branches. But the great fierce +current, ridging the middle of the brown lake as it followed the tide +out to the ocean, frightened her a little. The features of the flat +country were all but obliterated; trees only and houses and corn-stacks +stood out of the water, while in the direction of the sea where were +only meadows, all indication of land had vanished; one wide, brown level +was everywhere, with a great rushing serpent of water in the middle of +it. Amanda clapped her little hands in ecstasy. Never was there such a +child for exuberance of joy! her aunt thought. Or, if there were others +as glad, where were any who let the light of their gladness so shine +before men, invading, conquering them as she did with the rush of her +joy! Dorothy held fast to the skirt of her frock, fearing every instant +the explosive creature would jump overboard in elemental sympathy. But, +poled carefully along by Mr. Drake, they reached in safety a certain old +shed, and getting in at the door of the loft where a cow-keeper stored +his hay and straw, through that descended into the heart of the Pottery, +which its owner was delighted to find--not indeed dry under foot with +such a rain falling, but free from lateral invasion. + +His satisfaction, however, was of short duration. Dorothy went into one +of the nearer dwellings, and he was crossing an open space with Amanda, +to get help from a certain cottage in unloading the boat and +distributing its cargo, when he caught sight of a bubbling pool in the +middle of it. Alas! it was from a drain, whose covering had burst with +the pressure from within. He shouted for help. Out hurried men, women +and children on all sides. For a few moments he was entirely occupied in +giving orders, and let Amanda's hand go: every body knew her, and there +seemed no worse mischief within reach for her than dabbling in the +pools, to which she was still devoted. + +Two or three spades were soon plying busily, to make the breach a little +wider, while men ran to bring clay and stones from one of the condemned +cottages. Suddenly arose a great cry, and the crowd scattered in all +directions. The wall of defense at the corner of the butcher's shop had +given away, and a torrent was galloping across the Pottery, straight for +the spot where the water was rising from the drain. Amanda, gazing in +wonder at the fight of the people about her, stood right in its course, +but took no heed of it, or never saw it coming. It caught her, swept her +away, and tumbled with her, foaming and roaring, into the deep +foundation of which I have spoken. Her father had just missed her, and +was looking a little anxiously round, when a shriek of horror and fear +burst from the people, and they rushed to the hole. Without a word +spoken he knew Amanda was in it. He darted through them, scattering men +and women in all directions, but pulling off his coat as he ran. + +Though getting old, he was far from feeble, and had been a strong +swimmer in his youth. But he plunged heedlessly, and the torrent, still +falling some little height, caught him, and carried him almost to the +bottom. When he came to the top, he looked in vain for any sign of the +child. The crowd stood breathless on the brink. No one had seen her, +though all eyes were staring into the tumult. He dived, swam about +beneath, groping in the frightful opacity, but still in vain. Then down +through the water came a shout, and he shot to the surface--to see only +something white vanish. But the recoil of the torrent from below caught +her, and just as he was diving again, brought her up almost within +arm's-length of him. He darted to her, clasped her, and gained the +brink. He could not have got out, though the cavity was now brimful, but +ready hands had him in safety in a moment. Fifty arms were stretched to +take the child, but not even to Dorothy would he yield her. Ready to +fall at every step, he blundered through the water, which now spread +over the whole place, and followed by Dorothy in mute agony, was making +for the shed behind which lay his boat, when one of the salmon fishers, +who had brought his coble in at the gap, crossed them, and took them up. +Mr. Drake dropped into the bottom of the boat, with the child pressed to +his bosom. He could not speak. + +"To Doctor Faber's! For the child's life!" said Dorothy, and the fisher +rowed like a madman. + +Faber had just come in. He undressed the child with his own hands, +rubbed her dry, and did every thing to initiate respiration. For a long +time all seemed useless, but he persisted beyond the utmost verge of +hope. Mr. Drake and Dorothy stood in mute dismay. Neither was quite a +_child_ of God yet, and in the old man a rebellious spirit murmured: it +was hard that he should have evil for good! that his endeavors for his +people should be the loss of his child! + +Faber was on the point of ceasing his efforts in utter despair, when he +thought he felt a slight motion of the diaphragm, and renewed them +eagerly. She began to breathe. Suddenly she opened her eyes, looked at +him for a moment, then with a smile closed them again. To the watchers +heaven itself seemed to open in that smile. But Faber dropped the tiny +form, started a pace backward from the bed, and stood staring aghast. +The next moment he threw the blankets over the child, turned away, and +almost staggered from the room. In his surgery he poured himself out a +glass of brandy, swallowed it neat, sat down and held his head in his +hands. An instant after, he was by the child's side again, feeling her +pulse, and rubbing her limbs under the blankets. + +The minister's hands had turned blue, and he had begun to shiver, but a +smile of sweetest delight was on his face. + +"God bless me!" cried the doctor, "you've got no coat on! and you are +drenched! I never saw any thing but the child!" + +"He plunged into the horrible hole after her," said Dorothy. "How +wicked of me to forget him for any child under the sun! He got her out +all by himself, Mr. Faber!--Come home, father dear.--I will come back +and see to Amanda as soon as I have got him to bed." + +"Yes, Dorothy; let us go," said the minister, and put his hand on her +shoulder. His teeth chattered and his hand shook. + +The doctor rang the bell violently. + +"Neither of you shall leave this house to-night.--Take a hot bath to the +spare bedroom, and remove the sheets," he said to the housekeeper, who +had answered the summons. "My dear sir," he went on, turning again to +the minister, "you must get into the blankets at once. How careless of +me! The child's life will be dear at the cost of yours." + +"You have brought back the soul of the child to me, Mr. Faber," said the +minister, trembling, "and I can never thank you enough." + +"There won't be much to thank me for, if you have to go instead.--Miss +Drake, while I give your father his bath, you must go with Mrs. Roberts, +and put on dry clothes. Then you will be able to nurse him." + +As soon as Dorothy, whose garments Juliet had been wearing so long, was +dressed in some of hers, she went to her father's room. He was already +in bed, but it was long before they could get him warm. Then he grew +burning hot, and all night was talking in troubled dreams. Once Dorothy +heard him say, as if he had been talking to God face to face: "O my God, +if I had but once seen Thee, I do not think I could ever have mistrusted +Thee. But I could never be quite sure." + +The morning brought lucidity. How many dawns a morning brings! His first +words were "How goes it with the child?" Having heard that she had had a +good night, and was almost well, he turned over, and fell fast asleep. +Then Dorothy, who had been by his bed all night, resumed her own +garments, and went to the door. + + + + +CHAPTER XLV. + +HERE AND THERE. + + +The rain had ceased, and the flood was greatly diminished. It was +possible, she judged, to reach the Old House, and after a hasty +breakfast, she set out, leaving her father to Mrs. Roberts's care. The +flood left her no choice but go by the high road to Polwarth's gate, and +then she had often to wade through mud and water. The moment she saw the +gatekeeper, she knew somehow by his face that Juliet was in the lodge. +When she entered, she saw that already her new circumstances were +working upon her for peace. The spiritual atmosphere, so entirely human, +the sense that she was not and would not be alone, the strange talk +which they held openly before her, the food they coaxed her to eat, the +whole surrounding of thoughts and things as they should be, was +operating far more potently than could be measured by her understanding +of their effects, or even consciousness of their influences. She still +looked down upon the dwarfs, condescended to them, had a vague feeling +that she honored them by accepting their ministration--for which, one +day, she would requite them handsomely. Not the less had she all the +time a feeling that she was in the society of ministering spirits of +God, good and safe and true. From the Old House to the cottage was from +the Inferno to the Purgatorio, across whose borders faint wafts from +Paradise now and then strayed wandering. Without knowing it, she had +begun already to love the queer little woman, with the wretched body, +the fine head, and gentle, suffering face; while the indescribable awe, +into which her aversion to the kobold, with his pigeon-chest, his +wheezing breath, his great head, and his big, still face, which to such +eyes as the curate's seemed to be looking into both worlds at once, had +passed over, bore no unimportant part in that portion of her discipline +here commenced. One of the loftiest spirits of the middle earth, it was +long before she had quite ceased to regard him as a power of the nether +world, partly human, and at once something less and something more. Yet +even already she was beginning to feel at home with them! True, the +world in which they really lived was above her spiritual vision, as +beyond her intellectual comprehension, yet not the less was the air +around them the essential air of homeness; for the truths in which their +spirits lived and breathed, were the same which lie at the root of every +feeling of home-safety in the world, which make the bliss of the child +in his mother's bed, the bliss of young beasts in their nests, of birds +under their mother's wing. The love which inclosed her was far too great +for her--as the heaven of the mother's face is beyond the understanding +of the new-born child over whom she bends; but that mother's face is +nevertheless the child's joy and peace. She did not yet recognize it as +love, saw only the ministration; but it was what she sorely needed: she +said the sort of thing suited her, and at once began to fall in with it. +What it cost her entertainers, with organization as delicate as uncouth, +in the mere matter of bodily labor, she had not an idea--imagined indeed +that she gave them no trouble at all, because, having overheard the +conversation between them upon her arrival, she did herself a part of +the work required for her comfort in her own room. She never saw the +poor quarters to which Ruth for her sake had banished herself--never +perceived the fact that there was nothing good enough wherewith to repay +them except worshipful gratitude, love, admiration, and +submission--feelings she could not even have imagined possible in regard +to such inferiors. + +And now Dorothy had not a little to say to Juliet about her husband. In +telling what had taken place, however, she had to hear many more +questions than she was able to answer. + +"Does he really believe me dead, Dorothy?" was one of them. + +"I do not believe there is one person in Glaston who knows what he +thinks," answered Dorothy. "I have not heard of his once opening his +mouth on the subject. He is just as silent now as he used to be ready to +talk." + +"My poor Paul!" murmured Juliet, and hid her face and wept. + +Indeed not a soul in Glaston or elsewhere knew a single thought he had. +Certain mysterious advertisements in the county paper were imagined by +some to be his and to refer to his wife. Some, as the body had never +been seen, did begin to doubt whether she was dead. Some, on the other +hand, hinted that her husband had himself made away with her--for, they +argued, what could be easier to a doctor, and why, else, did he make no +search for the body? To Dorothy this supposed fact seemed to indicate a +belief that she was not dead--perhaps a hope that she would sooner +betray herself if he manifested no anxiety to find her. But she said +nothing of this to Juliet. + +Her news of him was the more acceptable to the famished heart of the +wife, that, from his great kindness to them all, and especially from the +perseverance which had restored to them their little Amanda, Dorothy's +heart had so warmed toward him, that she could not help speaking of him +in a tone far more agreeable to Juliet than hitherto she had been able +to use. His pale, worn look, and the tokens of trouble throughout his +demeanor, all more evident upon nearer approach, had also wrought upon +her; and she so described his care, anxiety, and tenderness over Amanda, +that Juliet became jealous of the child, as she would have been of any +dog she saw him caress. When all was told, and she was weary of asking +questions to which there were no answers, she fell back in her chair +with a sigh: alas, she was no nearer to him for the hearing of her ears! +While she lived she was open to his scorn, and deserved it the more that +she had _seemed_ to die! She must die; for then at last a little love +would revive in his heart, ere he died too and followed her nowhither. +Only first she must leave him his child to plead for her:--she used +sometimes to catch herself praying that the infant might be like her. + +"Look at my jacket!" said Dorothy. It was one of Juliet's, and she hoped +to make her smile. + +"Did Paul see you with my clothes on?" she said angrily. + +Dorothy started with the pang of hurt that shot through her. But the +compassionate smile on the face of Polwarth, who had just entered, and +had heard the last article of the conversation, at once set her right. +For not only was he capable of immediate sympathy with emotion, but of +revealing at once that he understood its cause. Ruth, who had come into +the room behind him, second only to her uncle in the insight of love, +followed his look by asking Dorothy if she might go to the Old House, as +soon as the weather permitted, to fetch some clothes for Mrs. Faber, who +had brought nothing with her but what she wore; whereupon Dorothy, +partly for leisure to fight her temper, said she would go herself, and +went. But when she returned, she gave the bag to Ruth at the door, and +went away without seeing Juliet again. She was getting tired of her +selfishness, she said to herself. Dorothy was not herself yet perfect in +love--which beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, +endureth all things. + +Faber too had been up all night--by the bedside of the little Amanda. +She scarcely needed such close attendance, for she slept soundly, and +was hardly at all feverish. Four or five times in the course of the +night, he turned down the bed-clothes to examine her body, as if he +feared some injury not hitherto apparent. Of such there was no sign. + +In his youth he had occupied himself much with comparative anatomy and +physiology. His predilection for these studies had greatly sharpened his +observation, and he noted many things that escaped the eyes of better +than ordinary observers. Amongst other kinds of things to which he kept +his eyes open, he was very quick at noting instances of the strange +persistency with which Nature perpetuates minute peculiarities, carrying +them on from generation to generation. Occupied with Amanda, a certain +imperfection in one of the curves of the outer ear attracted his +attention. It is as rare to see a perfect ear as to see a perfect form, +and the varieties of unfinished curves are many; but this imperfection +was very peculiar. At the same time it was so slight, that not even the +eye of a lover, none save that of a man of science, alive to minutest +indications, would probably have seen it. The sight of it startled Faber +not a little; it was the second instance of the peculiarity that had +come to his knowledge. It gave him a new idea to go upon, and when the +child suddenly opened her eyes, he saw another face looking at him out +of hers. The idea then haunted him; and whether it was that it +assimilated facts to itself, or that the signs were present, further +search afforded what was to him confirmation of the initiatory +suspicion. + +Notwithstanding the state of feebleness in which he found Mr. Drake the +next morning, he pressed him with question upon question, amounting to a +thorough cross-examination concerning Amanda's history, undeterred by +the fact that, whether itself merely bored, or its nature annoyed him, +his patient plainly disrelished his catechising. It was a subject which, +as his love to the child increased, had grown less and less agreeable to +Mr. Drake: she was to him so entirely his own that he had not the least +desire to find out any thing about her, to learn a single fact or hear a +single conjecture to remind him that she was not in every sense as well +as the best, his own daughter. He was therefore not a little annoyed at +the persistency of the doctor's questioning, but, being a courteous man, +and under endless obligation to him for the very child's sake as well as +his own, he combated disinclination, and with success, acquainting the +doctor with every point he knew concerning Amanda. Then first the doctor +grew capable of giving his attention to the minister himself; whose son +if he had been, he could hardly have shown him greater devotion. A whole +week passed before he would allow him to go home. Dorothy waited upon +him, and Amanda ran about the house. The doctor and she had been friends +from the first, and now, when he was at home, there was never any doubt +where Amanda was to be found. + +The same day on which the Drakes left him, Faber started by the +night-train for London, and was absent three days. + +Amanda was now perfectly well, but Mr. Drake continued poorly. Dorothy +was anxious to get him away from the river-side, and proposed putting +the workmen into the Old House at once. To this he readily consented, +but would not listen to her suggestion that in the meantime he should go +to some watering-place. He would be quite well in a day or two, and +there was no rest for him, he said, until the work so sadly bungled was +properly done. He did not believe his plans were defective, and could +not help doubting whether they had been faithfully carried out. But the +builder, a man of honest repute, protested also that he could not +account for the yielding of the wall, except he had had the mishap to +build over some deep drain, or old well, which was not likely, so close +to the river. He offered to put it up again at his own expense, when +perhaps they might discover the cause of the catastrophe. + +Sundry opinions and more than one rumor were current among the +neighbors. At last they were mostly divided into two parties, the one +professing the conviction that the butcher, who was known to have some +grudge at the minister, had, under the testudo-shelter of his +slaughter-house, undermined the wall; the other indignantly asserting +that the absurdity had no foundation except in the evil thoughts of +churchmen toward dissenters, being in fact a wicked slander. When the +suggestion reached the minister's ears, he, knowing the butcher, and +believing the builder, was inclined to institute investigations; but as +such a course was not likely to lead the butcher to repentance, he +resolved instead to consult with him how his premises might be included +in the defense. The butcher chuckled with conscious success, and for +some months always chuckled when sharpening his knife; but by and by the +coals of fire began to scorch, and went on scorching--the more that Mr. +Drake very soon became his landlord, and voluntarily gave him several +advantages. But he gave strict orders that there should be no dealings +with him. It was one thing, he said, to be good to the sinner, and +another to pass by his fault without confession, treating it like a mere +personal affair which might be forgotten. Before the butcher died, there +was not a man who knew him who did not believe he had undermined the +wall. He left a will assigning all his property to trustees, for the +building of a new chapel, but when his affairs came to be looked into, +there was hardly enough to pay his debts. + +The minister was now subject to a sort of ague, to which he paid far too +little heed. When Dorothy was not immediately looking after him, he +would slip out in any weather to see how things were going on in the +Pottery. It was no wonder, therefore, that his health did not improve. +But he could not be induced to regard his condition as at all serious. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI. + +THE MINISTER'S STUDY. + + +Helen was in the way of now and then writing music to any song that +specially took her fancy--not with foolish hankering after publication, +but for the pleasure of brooding in melody upon the words, and singing +them to her husband. One day he brought her a few stanzas, by an unknown +poet, which, he said, seemed to have in them a slightly new element. +They pleased her more than him, and began at once to sing themselves. No +sooner was her husband out of the room than she sat down to her piano +with them. Before the evening, she had written to them an air with a +simple accompaniment. When she now sung the verses to him, he told her, +to her immense delight, that he understood and liked them far better. +The next morning, having carried out one or two little suggestions he +had made, she was singing them by herself in the drawing-room, when +Faber, to whom she had sent because one of her servants was ill, +entered. He made a sign begging her to continue, and she finished the +song. + +"Will you let me see the words," he said. + +She handed them to him. He read them, laid down the manuscript, and, +requesting to be taken to his patient, turned to the door. Perhaps he +thought she had laid a music-snare for him. + +The verses were these: + + A YEAR SONG. + + Sighing above, + Rustling below, + Through the woods + The winds go. + Beneath, dead crowds; + Above, life bare; + And the besom winds + Sweep the air. + _Heart, leave thy woe; + Let the dead things go._ + + Through the brown leaves + Gold stars push; + A mist of green + Veils the bush. + Here a twitter, + There a croak! + They are coming-- + The spring-folk! + _Heart, be not dumb; + Let the live things come._ + + Through the beach + The winds go, + With a long speech, + Loud and slow. + The grass is fine, + And soft to lie in; + The sun doth shine + The blue sky in. + _Heart, be alive; + Let the new things thrive._ + + Round again! + Here now-- + A rimy fruit + On a bare bough! + There the winter + And the snow; + And a sighing ever + To fall and go! + _Heart, thy hour shall be; + Thy dead will comfort thee._ + +Faber was still folded in the atmosphere of the song when, from the +curate's door, he arrived at the minister's, resolved to make that +morning a certain disclosure--one he would gladly have avoided, but felt +bound in honor to make. The minister grew pale as he listened, but held +his peace. Not until the point came at which he found himself personally +concerned, did he utter a syllable. + +I will in my own words give the substance of the doctor's communication, +stating the facts a little more fairly to him than his pride would allow +him to put them in his narrative. + +Paul Faber was a student of St. Bartholomew's, and during some time held +there the office of assistant house-surgeon. Soon after his appointment, +he being then three and twenty, a young woman was taken into one of the +wards, in whom he gradually grew much interested. Her complaint caused +her much suffering, but was more tedious than dangerous. + +Attracted by her sweet looks, but more by her patience, and the +gratitude with which she received the attention shown her, he began to +talk to her a little, especially during a slight operation that had to +be not unfrequently performed. Then he came to giving her books to read, +and was often charmed with the truth and simplicity of the remarks she +would make. She had been earning her living as a clerk, had no friends +in London, and therefore no place to betake herself to in her illness +but the hospital. The day she left it, in the simplicity of her heart, +and with much timidity, she gave him a chain she had made for him of her +hair. On the ground of supplementary attention, partly desirable, partly +a pretext, but unassociated with any evil intent, he visited her after +in her lodging. The joy of her face, the light of her eyes when he +appeared, was enchanting to him. She pleased every gentle element of his +nature; her worship flattered him, her confidence bewitched him. His +feelings toward her were such that he never doubted he was her friend. +He did her no end of kindness; taught her much; gave her good advice as +to her behavior, and the dangers she was in; would have protected her +from every enemy, real and imaginary, while all the time, undesignedly, +he was depriving her of the very nerve of self-defense. He still gave +her books--and good books--Carlyle even, and Tennyson; read poetry with +her, and taught her to read aloud; went to her chapel with her sometimes +of a Sunday evening--for he was then, so he said, and so he imagined, a +thorough believer in revelation. He took her to the theater, to +pictures, to concerts, taking every care of her health, her manners, her +principles. But one enemy he forgot to guard her against: how is a man +to protect even the woman he loves from the hidden god of his +idolatry--his own grand contemptible self? + +It is needless to set the foot of narration upon every step of the +slow-descending stair. With all his tender feelings and generous love of +his kind, Paul Faber had not yet learned the simplest lesson of +humanity--that he who would not be a murderer, must be his brother's +keeper--still more his sister's, protecting every woman first of all +from himself--from every untruth in him, chiefly from every unhallowed +approach of his lower nature, from every thing that calls itself love +and is but its black shadow, its demon ever murmuring _I love_, that it +may devour. The priceless reward of such honesty is the power to love +better; but let no man insult his nature by imagining himself noble for +so carrying himself. As soon let him think himself noble that he is no +swindler. Doubtless Faber said to himself as well as to her, and said it +yet oftener when the recoil of his selfishness struck upon the door of +his conscience and roused Don Worm, that he would be true to her +forever. But what did he mean by the words? Did he know? Had they any +sense of which he would not have been ashamed even before the girl +herself? Would such truth as he contemplated make of him her +hiding-place from the wind, her covert from the tempest? He never even +thought whether to marry her or not, never vowed even in his heart not +to marry another. All he could have said was, that at the time he had no +intention of marrying another, and that he had the intention of keeping +her for himself indefinitely, which may be all the notion some people +have of _eternally_. But things went well with them, and they seemed to +themselves, notwithstanding the tears shed by one of them in secret, +only the better for the relation between them. + +At length a child was born. The heart of a woman is indeed infinite, but +time, her presence, her thoughts, her hands are finite: she could not +_seem_ so much a lover as before, because she must be a mother now: God +only can think of two things at once. In his enduring selfishness, Faber +felt the child come between them, and reproached her neglect, as he +called it. She answered him gently and reasonably; but now his bonds +began to weary him. She saw it, and in the misery of the waste vision +opening before her eyes, her temper, till now sweet as devoted, began to +change. And yet, while she loved her child the more passionately that +she loved her forebodingly, almost with the love of a woman already +forsaken, she was nearly mad sometimes with her own heart, that she +could not give herself so utterly as before to her idol. + +It took but one interview after he had confessed it to himself, to +reveal the fact to her that she had grown a burden to him. He came a +little seldomer, and by degrees which seemed to her terribly rapid, more +and more seldom. He had never recognized duty in his relation to her. I +do not mean that he had not done the effects of duty toward her; love +had as yet prevented the necessity of appeal to the stern daughter of +God. But what love with which our humanity is acquainted can keep +healthy without calling in the aid of Duty? Perfect Love is the mother +of all duties and all virtues, and needs not be admonished of her +children; but not until Love is perfected, may she, casting out Fear, +forget also Duty. And hence are the conditions of such a relation +altogether incongruous. For the moment the man, not yet debased, admits +a thought of duty, he is aware that far more is demanded of him than, +even for the sake of purest right, he has either the courage or the +conscience to yield. But even now Faber had not the most distant +intention of forsaking her; only why should he let her burden him, and +make his life miserable? There were other pleasures besides the company +of the most childishly devoted of women: why should he not take them? +Why should he give all his leisure to one who gave more than the half of +it to her baby? + +He had money of his own, and, never extravagant upon himself, was more +liberal to the poor girl than ever she desired. But there was nothing +mercenary in her. She was far more incapable of turpitude than he, for +she was of a higher nature, and loved much where he loved only a little. +She was nobler, sweetly prouder than he. She had sacrificed all to him +for love--could accept nothing from him without the love which alone is +the soul of any gift, alone makes it rich. She would not, could not see +him unhappy. In her fine generosity, struggling to be strong, she said +to herself, that, after all, she would leave him richer than she was +before--richer than he was now. He would not want the child he had given +her; she would, and she could, live for her, upon the memory of two +years of such love as, comforting herself in sad womanly pride, she +flattered herself woman had seldom enjoyed. She would not throw the past +from her because the weather of time had changed; she would not mar +every fair memory with the inky sponge of her present loss. She would +turn her back upon her sun ere he set quite, and carry with her into the +darkness the last gorgeous glow of his departure. While she had his +child, should she never see him again, there remained a bond between +them--a bond that could never be broken. He and she met in that child's +life--her being was the eternal fact of their unity. + +Both she and he had to learn that there was yet a closer bond between +them, necessary indeed to the fact that a child _could_ be born of them, +namely, that they two had issued from the one perfect Heart of love. And +every heart of perplexed man, although, too much for itself, it can not +conceive how the thing should be, has to learn that there, in that heart +whence it came, lies for it restoration, consolation, content. Herein, O +God, lies a task for Thy perfection, for the might of Thy +imagination--which needs but Thy will (and Thy suffering?) to be +creation! + +One evening when he paid her a visit after the absence of a week, he +found her charmingly dressed, and merry, but in a strange fashion which +he could not understand. The baby, she said, was down stairs with the +landlady, and she free for her Paul. She read to him, she sang to him, +she bewitched him afresh with the graces he had helped to develop in +her. He said to himself when he left her that surely never was there a +more gracious creature--and she was utterly his own! It was the last +flicker of the dying light--the gorgeous sunset she had resolved to +carry with her in her memory forever. When he sought her again the next +evening, he found her landlady in tears. She had vanished, taking with +her nothing but her child, and her child's garments. The gown she had +worn the night before hung in her bedroom--every thing but what she must +then be wearing was left behind. The woman wept, spoke of her with +genuine affection, and said she had paid every thing. To his questioning +she answered that they had gone away in a cab: she had called it, but +knew neither the man nor his number. Persuading himself she had but gone +to see some friend, he settled himself in her rooms to await her return, +but a week rightly served to consume his hope. The iron entered into his +soul, and for a time tortured him. He wept--but consoled himself that he +wept, for it proved to himself that he was not heartless. He comforted +himself further in the thought that she knew where to find him and that +when trouble came upon her, she would remember how good he had been to +her, and what a return she had made for it. Because he would not give up +every thing to her, liberty and all, she had left him! And in revenge, +having so long neglected him for the child, she had for the last once +roused in her every power of enchantment, had brought her every charm +into play, that she might lastingly bewitch him with the old spell, and +the undying memory of their first bliss--then left him to his lonely +misery! She had done what she could for the ruin of a man of education, +a man of family, a man on the way to distinction!--a man of genius, he +said even, but he was such only as every man is: he was a man of latent +genius. + +But verily, though our sympathy goes all with a woman like her, such a +man, however little he deserves, and however much he would scorn it, is +far more an object of pity. She has her love, has not been false +thereto, and one day will through suffering find the path to the door of +rest. When she left him, her soul was endlessly richer than his. The +music, of which he said she knew nothing, in her soul moved a deep wave, +while it blew but a sparkling ripple on his; the poetry they read +together echoed in a far profounder depth of her being, and I do not +believe she came to loathe it as he did; and when she read of Him who +reasoned that the sins of a certain woman must have been forgiven her, +else how could she love so much, she may well have been able, from the +depth of such another loving heart, to believe utterly in Him--while we +know that her poor, shrunken lover came to think it manly, honest, +reasonable, meritorious to deny Him. + +Weeks, months, years passed, but she never sought him; and he so far +forgot her by ceasing to think of her, that at length, when a chance +bubble did rise from the drowned memory, it broke instantly and +vanished. As to the child, he had almost forgotten whether _it_ was a +boy or a girl. + +But since, in his new desolation, he discovered her, beyond a doubt, in +the little Amanda, old memories had been crowding back upon his heart, +and he had begun to perceive how Amanda's mother must have felt when she +saw his love decaying visibly before her, and to suspect that it was in +the self-immolation of love that she had left him. His own character had +been hitherto so uniformly pervaded with a refined selfishness as to +afford no standpoint of a different soil, whence by contrast to +recognize the true nature of the rest; but now it began to reveal itself +to his conscious judgment. And at last it struck him that twice he had +been left--by women whom he loved--at least by women who loved him. Two +women had trusted him utterly, and he had failed them both! Next +followed the thought stinging him to the heart, that the former was the +purer of the two; that the one on whom he had looked down because of her +lack of education, and her familiarity with humble things and simple +forms of life, knew nothing of what men count evil, while she in whom he +had worshiped refinement, intellect, culture, beauty, song--she who, in +love-teachableness had received his doctrine against all the prejudices +of her education, was--what she had confessed herself! + +But, against all reason and logic, the result of this comparison was, +that Juliet returned fresh to his imagination in all the first witchery +of her loveliness; and presently he found himself for the first time +making excuses for her; if she had deceived him she had deceived him +from love; whatever her past, she had been true to him, and was, from +the moment she loved him, incapable of wrong.--He had cast her from him, +and she had sought refuge in the arms of the only rival he ever would +have had to fear--the bare-ribbed Death! + +Naturally followed the reflection--what was he to demand purity of any +woman?--Had he not accepted--yes, tempted, enticed from the woman who +preceded her, the sacrifice of one of the wings of her soul on the altar +of his selfishness! then driven her from him, thus maimed and helpless, +to the mercy of the rude blasts of the world! She, not he ever, had been +the noble one, the bountiful giver, the victim of shameless ingratitude. +Flattering himself that misery would drive her back to him, he had not +made a single effort to find her, or mourned that he could never make up +to her for the wrongs he had done her. He had not even hoped for a +future in which he might humble himself before her! What room was there +here to talk of honor! If she had not sunk to the streets it was through +her own virtue, and none of his care! And now she was dead! and his +child, but for the charity of a despised superstition, would have been +left an outcast in the London streets, to wither into the old-faced +weakling of a London workhouse! + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII. + +THE BLOWING OF THE WIND. + + +Smaller and smaller Faber felt as he pursued his plain, courageous +confession of wrong to the man whose life was even now in peril for the +sake of his neglected child. When he concluded with the expression of +his conviction that Amanda was his daughter, then first the old minister +spoke. His love had made him guess what was coming, and he was on his +guard. + +"May I ask what is your object in making this statement to me, Mr. +Faber?" he said coldly. + +"I am conscious of none but to confess the truth, and perform any duty +that may be mine in consequence of the discovery," said the doctor. + +"Do you wish this truth published to the people of Glaston?" inquired +the minister, in the same icy tone. + +"I have no such desire: but I am of course prepared to confess Amanda my +child, and to make you what amends may be possible for the trouble and +expense she has occasioned you." + +"Trouble! Expense!" cried the minister fiercely. "Do you mean in your +cold-blooded heart, that, because you, who have no claim to the child +but that of self-indulgence--because you believe her yours, I who have +for years carried her in my bosom, am going to give her up to a man, +who, all these years, has made not one effort to discover his missing +child? In the sight of God, which of us is her father? But I forget; +that is a question you can not understand. Whether or not you are her +father, I do not care a straw. You have not _proved_ it; and I tell you +that, until the court of chancery orders me to deliver up my darling to +you, to be taught there is no living Father of men--and that by the +fittest of all men to enforce the lie--not until then will I yield a +hair of her head to you. God grant, if you were her father, her mother +had more part in her than you!--A thousand times rather I would we had +both perished in the roaring mud, than that I should have to give her up +to you." + +He struck his fist on the table, rose, and turned from him. Faber also +rose, quietly, silent and pale. He stood a moment, waiting. Mr. Drake +turned. Faber made him an obeisance, and left the room. + +The minister was too hard upon him. He would not have been so hard but +for his atheism; he would not have been so hard if he could have seen +into his soul. But Faber felt he deserved it. Ere he reached home, +however, he had begun to think it rather hard that, when a man confessed +a wrong, and desired to make what reparation he could, he should have +the very candor of his confession thus thrown in his teeth. Verily, even +toward the righteous among men, candor is a perilous duty. + +He entered the surgery. There he had been making some experiments with +peroxide of manganese, a solution of which stood in a bottle on the +table. A ray of brilliant sunlight was upon it, casting its shadow on a +piece of white paper, a glorious red. It caught his eyes. He could never +tell what it had to do with the current of his thoughts, but neither +could he afterward get rid of the feeling that it had had some influence +upon it. For as he looked at it, scarcely knowing he did, and thinking +still how hard the minister had been upon him, suddenly he found himself +in the minister's place, and before him Juliet making her sad +confession: how had he met that confession? The whole scene returned, +and for the first time struck him right on the heart, and then first he +began to be in reality humbled in his own eyes. What if, after all, he +was but a poor creature? What if, instead of having any thing to be +proud of, he was in reality one who, before any jury of men or women +called to judge him, must hide his head in shame? + +The thought once allowed to enter and remain long enough to be +questioned, never more went far from him. For a time he walked in the +midst of a dull cloud, first of dread, then of dismay--a cloud from +which came thunders, and lightnings, and rain. It passed, and a +doubtful dawn rose dim and scared upon his consciousness, a dawn in +which the sun did not appear, and on which followed a gray, solemn day. +A humbler regard of himself had taken the place of confidence and +satisfaction. An undefined hunger, far from understood by himself, but +having vaguely for its object clearance and atonement and personal +purity even, had begun to grow, and move within him. The thought stung +him with keen self-contempt, yet think he must and did, that a woman +might be spotted not a little, and yet be good enough for him in the +eyes of retributive justice. He saw plainly that his treatment of his +wife, knowing what he did of himself, was a far worse shame than any +fault of which a girl, such as Juliet was at the time, could have been +guilty. And with that, for all that he believed it utterly in vain, his +longing after the love he had lost, grew and grew, ever passing over +into sickening despair, and then springing afresh; he longed for Juliet +as she had prayed to him--as the only power that could make him clean; +it seemed somehow as if she could even help him in his repentance for +the wrong done to Amanda's mother. The pride of the Pharisee was gone, +the dignity of the husband had vanished, and his soul longed after the +love that covers a multitude of sins, as the air in which alone his +spirit could breathe and live and find room. I set it down briefly: the +change passed upon him by many degrees, with countless alternations of +mood and feeling, and without the smallest conscious change of opinion. + +The rest of the day after receiving Faber's communication, poor Mr. +Drake roamed about like one on the verge of insanity, struggling to +retain lawful dominion over his thoughts. At times he was lost in +apprehensive melancholy, at times roused to such fierce anger that he +had to restrain himself from audible malediction. The following day +Dorothy would have sent for Faber, for he had a worse attack of the +fever than ever before, but he declared that the man should never again +cross his threshold. Dorothy concluded there had been a fresh outbreak +between them of the old volcano. He grew worse and worse, and did not +object to her sending for Dr. Mather; but he did not do him much good. +He was in a very critical state, and Dorothy was miserable about him. +The fever was persistent, and the cough which he had had ever since the +day that brought his illness, grew worse. His friends would gladly have +prevailed upon him to seek a warmer climate, but he would not hear of +it. + +Upon one occasion, Dorothy, encouraged by the presence of Dr. Mather, +was entreating him afresh to go somewhere from home for a while. + +"No, no: what would become of my money?" he answered, with a smile which +Dorothy understood. The doctor imagined it the speech of a man whom +previous poverty and suddenly supervening wealth had made penurious. + +"Oh!" he remarked reassuringly, "you need not spend a penny more abroad +than you do at home. The difference in the living would, in some places, +quite make up for the expense of the journey." + +The minister looked bewildered for a moment, then seemed to find +himself, smiled again, and replied-- + +"You do not quite understand me: I have a great deal of money to spend, +and it ought to be spent here in England where it was made--God knows +how." + +"You may get help to spend it in England, without throwing your life +away with it," said the doctor, who could not help thinking of his own +large family. + +"Yes, I dare say I might--from many--but it was given _me_ to spend--in +destroying injustice, in doing to men as others ought to have done to +them. My preaching was such a poor affair that it is taken from me, and +a lower calling given me--to spend money. If I do not well with that, +then indeed I am a lost man. If I be not faithful in that which is +another's, who will give me that which is my own? If I can not further +the coming of Christ, I can at least make a road or two, exalt a valley +or two, to prepare His way before Him." + +Thereupon it was the doctor's turn to smile. All that was to him as if +spoken in a language unknown, except that he recognized the religious +tone in it. "The man is true to his profession," he said to himself, +"--as he ought to be of course; but catch me spending _my_ money that +way, if I had but a hold of it!" + +His father died soon after, and he got a hold of the money he called +_his_, whereupon he parted with his practice, and by idleness and +self-indulgence, knowing all the time what he was about, brought on an +infirmity which no skill could cure, and is now a grumbling invalid, at +one or another of the German spas. I mention it partly because many +preferred this man to Faber on the ground that he went to church every +Sunday, and always shook his head at the other's atheism. + +Faber wrote a kind, respectful letter, somewhat injured in tone, to the +minister, saying he was much concerned to hear that he was not so well, +and expressing his apprehension that he himself had been in some measure +the cause of his relapse. He begged leave to assure him that he +perfectly recognized the absolute superiority of Mr. Drake's claim to +the child. He had never dreamed of asserting any right in her, except so +much as was implied in the acknowledgment of his duty to restore the +expense which his wrong and neglect had caused her true father; beyond +that he well knew he could make no return save in gratitude; but if he +might, for the very partial easing of his conscience, be permitted to +supply the means of the child's education, he was ready to sign an +agreement that all else connected with it should be left entirely to Mr. +Drake. He begged to be allowed to see her sometimes, for, long ere a +suspicion had crossed his mind that she was his, the child was already +dear to him. He was certain that her mother would have much preferred +Mr. Drake's influence to his own, and for her sake also, he would be +careful to disturb nothing. But he hoped Mr. Drake would remember that, +however unworthy, he was still her father. + +The minister was touched by the letter, moved also in the hope that an +arrow from the quiver of truth had found in the doctor a vulnerable +spot. He answered that he should be welcome to see the child when he +would; and that she should go to him when he pleased. He must promise, +however, as the honest man every body knew him to be, not to teach her +there was no God, or lead her to despise the instructions she received +at home. + +The word _honest_ was to Faber like a blow. He had come to the painful +conclusion that he was neither honest man nor gentleman. Doubtless he +would have knocked any one down who told him so, but then who had the +right to take with him the liberties of a conscience? Pure love only, I +suspect, can do that without wrong. He would not try less to be honest +in the time to come, but he had never been, and could no more ever feel +honest. It did not matter much. What was there worth any effort? All was +flat and miserable--a hideous long life! What did it matter what he was, +so long as he hurt nobody any more! He was tired of it all. + +It added greatly to his despondency that he found he could no longer +trust his temper. That the cause might be purely physical was no +consolation to him. He had been accustomed to depend on his +imperturbability, and now he could scarcely recall the feeling of the +mental condition. He did not suspect how much the change was owing to +his new-gained insight into his character, and the haunting +dissatisfaction it caused. + +To the minister he replied that he had been learning a good deal of +late, and among other things that the casting away of superstition did +not necessarily do much for the development of the moral nature; in +consequence of which discovery, he did not feel bound as before to +propagate the negative portions of his creed. If its denials were true, +he no longer believed them powerful for good; and merely as facts he did +not see that a man was required to disseminate them. Even here, however, +his opinion must go for little, seeing he had ceased to care much for +any thing, true or false. Life was no longer of any value to him, except +indeed he could be of service to Amanda. Mr. Drake might be assured she +was the last person on whom he would wish to bring to bear any of the +opinions so objectionable in his eyes. He would make him the most +comprehensive promise to that effect. Would Mr. Drake allow him to say +one thing more?--He was heartily ashamed of his past history; and if +there was one thing to make him wish there were a God--of which he saw +no chance--it was that he might beg of Him the power to make up for the +wrongs he had done, even if it should require an eternity of atonement. +Until he could hope for that, he must sincerely hold that his was the +better belief, as well as the likelier--namely, that the wronger and the +wronged went into darkness, friendly with oblivion, joy and sorrow alike +forgotten, there to bid adieu both to reproach and self-contempt. For +himself he had no desire after prolonged existence. Why should he desire +to live a day, not to say forever--worth nothing to himself, or to any +one? If there were a God, he would rather entreat Him, and that he would +do humbly enough, to unmake him again. Certainly, if there were a God, +He had not done over well by His creatures, making them so ignorant and +feeble that they could not fail to fall. Would Mr. Drake have made his +Amanda so? + +When Wingfold read the letter of which I have thus given the +substance--it was not until a long time after, in Polwarth's room--he +folded it softly together and said: + +"When he wrote that letter, Paul Faber was already becoming not merely a +man to love, but a man to revere." After a pause he added, "But what a +world it would be, filled with contented men, all capable of doing the +things for which they would despise themselves." + +It was some time before the minister was able to answer the letter +except by sending Amanda at once to the doctor with a message of kind +regards and thanks. But his inability to reply was quite as much from +the letter's giving him so much to think of first, as from his weakness +and fever. For he saw that to preach, as it was commonly understood, the +doctrine of the forgiveness of sins to such a man, would be useless: he +would rather believe in a God who would punish them, than in One who +would pass them by. To be told he was forgiven, would but rouse in him +contemptuous indignation. "What is that to me?" he would return. "I +remain what I am." Then grew up in the mind of the minister the +following plant of thought: "Things divine can only be shadowed in the +human; what is in man must be understood of God with the divine +difference--not only of degree, but of kind, involved in the fact that +He makes me, I can make nothing, and if I could, should yet be no less a +creature of Him the Creator; therefore, as the heavens are higher than +the earth, so His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and what we +call His forgiveness may be, must be something altogether transcending +the conception of man--overwhelming to such need as even that of Paul +Faber, whose soul has begun to hunger after righteousness, and whose +hunger must be a hunger that will not easily be satisfied." For a poor +nature will for a time be satisfied with a middling God; but as the +nature grows richer, the ideal of the God desired grows greater. The +true man can be satisfied only with a God of magnificence, never with a +God such as in his childhood and youth had been presented to Faber as +the God of the Bible. That God only whom Christ reveals to the humble +seeker, can ever satisfy human soul. + +Then it came into the minister's mind, thinking over Faber's religion +toward his fellows, and his lack toward God, how when the young man +asked Jesus what commandments he must keep up that he might inherit +eternal life, Jesus did not say a word concerning those of the first +table--not a word, that is, about his duty toward God; He spoke only of +his duty toward man. Then it struck him that our Lord gave him no sketch +or summary or part of a religious system--only told him what he asked, +the practical steps by which he might begin to climb toward eternal +life. One thing he lacked--namely, God Himself, but as to how God would +meet him, Jesus says nothing, but Himself meets him on those steps with +the offer of God. He treats the duties of the second table as a stair to +the first--a stair which, probably by its crumbling away in failure +beneath his feet as he ascended, would lift him to such a vision and +such a horror of final frustration, as would make him stretch forth his +hands, like the sinking Peter, to the living God, the life eternal which +he blindly sought, without whose closest presence he could never do the +simplest duty aright, even of those he had been doing from his youth up. +His measure of success, and his sense of utter failure, would together +lift him _toward_ the One Good. + +Thus, looking out upon truth from the cave of his brother's need, and +seeing the direction in which the shadow of his atheism fell, the +minister learned in what direction the clouded light lay, and turning +his gaze thitherward, learned much. It is only the aged who have dropped +thinking that become stupid. Such can learn no more, until first their +young nurse Death has taken off their clothes, and put the old babies to +bed. Of such was not Walter Drake. Certain of his formerly petted +doctrines he now threw away as worse than rubbish; others he dropped +with indifference; of some it was as if the angels picked his pockets +without his knowing it, or ever missing them; and still he found, +whatever so-called doctrine he parted with, that the one glowing truth +which had lain at the heart of it, buried, mired, obscured, not only +remained with him, but shone out fresh, restored to itself by the loss +of the clay-lump of worldly figures and phrases, in which the human +intellect had inclosed it. His faith was elevated, and so confirmed. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII. + +THE BORDER-LAND. + + +Mr. Drew, the draper, was, of all his friends, the one who most +frequently visited his old pastor. He had been the first, although a +deacon of the church, in part to forsake his ministry, and join the +worship of, as he honestly believed, a less scriptural community, +because in the abbey church he heard better news of God and His Kingdom: +to him rightly the gospel was every thing, and this church or that, save +for its sake, less than nothing and vanity. It had hurt Mr. Drake not a +little at first, but he found Drew in consequence only the more warmly +his personal friend, and since learning to know Wingfold, had heartily +justified his defection; and now that he was laid up, he missed +something any day that passed without a visit from the draper. One +evening Drew found him very poorly, though neither the doctor nor +Dorothy could prevail upon him to go to bed. He could not rest, but kept +walking about, his eye feverish, his pulse fluttering. He welcomed his +friend even more warmly than usual, and made him sit by the fire, while +he paced the room, turning and turning, like a caged animal that fain +would be king of infinite space. + +"I am sorry to see you so uncomfortable," said Mr. Drew. + +"On the contrary, I feel uncommonly well," replied the pastor. "I always +measure my health by my power of thinking; and to-night my thoughts are +like birds--or like bees rather, that keep flying in delight from one +lovely blossom to another. Only the fear keeps intruding that an hour +may be at hand, when my soul will be dark, and it will seem as if the +Lord had forsaken me." + +"But does not _our daily bread_ mean our spiritual as well as our bodily +bread?" said the draper. "Is it not just as wrong in respect of the one +as of the other to distrust God for to-morrow when you have enough for +to-day? Is He a God of times and seasons, of this and that, or is He the +All in all?" + +"You are right, old friend," said the minister, and ceasing his walk, he +sat down by the fire opposite him. "I am faithless still.--O Father in +Heaven, give us this day our daily bread.--I suspect, Drew, that I have +had as yet no more than the shadow of an idea how immediately I--we live +upon the Father.--I will tell you something. I had been thinking what it +would be if God were now to try me with heavenly poverty, as for a short +time he tried me with earthly poverty--that is, if he were to stint me +of life itself--not give me enough of Himself to live upon--enough to +make existence feel a good. The fancy grew to a fear, laid hold upon me, +and made me miserable. Suppose, for instance, I said to myself, I were +no more to have any larger visitation of thoughts and hopes and +aspirations than old Mrs. Bloxam, who sits from morning to night with +the same stocking on her needles, and absolutely the same expression, of +as near nothing as may be upon human countenance, nor changes whoever +speaks to her!" + +"She says the Lord is with her," suggested the draper. + +"Well!" rejoined the minister, in a slow, cogitative tone. + +"And plainly life is to her worth having," added the draper. "Clearly +she has as much of life as is necessary to her present stage." + +"You are right. I have been saying just the same things to myself; and, +I trust, when the Lord comes, He will not find me without faith. But +just suppose life _were_ to grow altogether uninteresting! Suppose +certain moods--such as you, with all your good spirits and blessed +temper, must surely sometimes have experienced--suppose they were to +become fixed, and life to seem utterly dull, God nowhere, and your own +dreary self, and nothing but that self, everywhere!" + +"Let me read you a chapter of St. John," said the draper. + +"Presently I will. But I am not in the right mood just this moment. Let +me tell you first how I came by my present mood. Don't mistake me: I am +not possessed by the idea--I am only trying to understand its nature, +and set a trap fit to catch it, if it should creep into my inner +premises, and from an idea swell to a seeming fact.--Well, I had a +strange kind of a vision last night--no, not a vision--yes, a kind of +vision--anyhow a very strange experience. I don't know whether the +draught the doctor gave me--I wish I had poor Faber back--this fellow is +fitter to doctor oxen and mules than men!--I don't know whether the +draught had any thing to do with it--I thought I tasted something sleepy +in it--anyhow, thought is thought, and truth is truth, whatever drug, no +less than whatever joy or sorrow, may have been midwife to it. The +first I remember of the mental experience, whatever it may have to be +called, is, that I was coming awake--returning to myself after some +period wherein consciousness had been quiescent. Of place, or time, or +circumstance, I knew nothing. I was only growing aware of being. I +speculated upon nothing. I did not even say to myself, 'I was dead, and +now I am coming alive.' I only felt. And I had but one feeling--and that +feeling was love--the outgoing of a longing heart toward--I could not +tell what;--toward--I can not describe the feeling--toward the only +existence there was, and that was every thing;--toward pure being, not +as an abstraction, but as the one actual fact, whence the world, men, +and me--a something I knew only by being myself an existence. It was +more me than myself; yet it was not me, or I could not have loved it. I +never thought me myself by myself; my very existence was the +consciousness of this absolute existence in and through and around me: +it made my heart burn, and the burning of my heart was my life--and the +burning was the presence of the Absolute. If you can imagine a growing +fruit, all blind and deaf, yet loving the tree it could neither look +upon nor hear, knowing it only through the unbroken arrival of its life +therefrom--that is something like what I felt. I suspect the _form_ of +the feeling was supplied by a shadowy memory of the time before I was +born, while yet my life grew upon the life of my mother. + +"By degrees came a change. What seemed the fire in me, burned and burned +until it began to grow light; in which light I began to remember things +I had read and known about Jesus Christ and His Father and my Father. +And with those memories the love grew and grew, till I could hardly bear +the glory of God and His Christ, it made me love so intensely. Then the +light seemed to begin to pass out beyond me somehow, and therewith I +remembered the words of the Lord, 'Let your light so shine before men,' +only I was not letting it shine, for while I loved like that, I could no +more keep it from shining than I could the sun. The next thing was, that +I began to think of one I had loved, then of another and another and +another--then of all together whom ever I had loved, one after another, +then all together. And the light that went out from me was as a nimbus +infolding every one in the speechlessness of my love. But lo! then, the +light staid not there, but, leaving them not, went on beyond them, +reaching and infolding every one of those also, whom, after the manner +of men, I had on earth merely known and not loved. And therewith I knew +that, for all the rest of the creation of God, I needed but the hearing +of the ears or the seeing of the eyes to love each and every one, in his +and her degree; whereupon such a perfection of bliss awoke in me, that +it seemed as if the fire of the divine sacrifice had at length seized +upon my soul, and I was dying of absolute glory--which is love and love +only. I had all things, yea the All. I was full and unutterably, +immeasurably content. Yet still the light went flowing out and out from +me, and love was life and life was light and light was love. On and on +it flowed, until at last it grew eyes to me, and I could see. Lo! before +me was the multitude of the brothers and sisters whom I +loved--individually--a many, many--not a mass;--I loved every individual +with that special, peculiar kind of love which alone belonged to that +one, and to that one alone. The sight dazzled the eyes which love itself +had opened. I said to myself, 'Ah, how radiant, how lovely, how divine +they are! and they are mine, every one--the many, for I love them!' + +"Then suddenly came a whisper--not to my ear--I heard it far away, but +whether in some distant cave of thought, away beyond the flaming walls +of the universe, or in some forgotten dungeon-corner of my own heart, I +could not tell. 'O man,' it said, 'what a being, what a life is thine! +See all these souls, these fires of life, regarding and loving thee! It +is in the glory of thy love their faces shine. Their hearts receive it, +and send it back in joy. Seest thou not all their eyes fixed upon thine? +Seest thou not the light come and go upon their faces, as the pulses of +thy heart flow and ebb? See, now they flash, and now they fade! Blessed +art thou, O man, as none else in the universe of God is blessed!' + +"It was, or seemed, only a voice. But therewith, horrible to tell, the +glow of another fire arose in me--an orange and red fire, and it went +out from me, and withered all the faces, and the next moment there was +darkness--all was black as night. But my being was still awake--only if +then there was bliss, now was there the absolute blackness of darkness, +the positive negation of bliss, the recoil of self to devour itself, and +forever. The consciousness of being was intense, but in all the universe +was there nothing to enter that being, and make it other than an +absolute loneliness. It was, and forever, a loveless, careless, +hopeless monotony of self-knowing--a hell with but one demon, and no +fire to make it cry: my self was the hell, my known self the demon of +it--a hell of which I could not find the walls, cold and dark and empty, +and I longed for a flame that I might know there was a God. Somehow I +only remembered God as a word, however; I knew nothing of my whence or +whither. One time there might have been a God, but there was none now: +if there ever was one, He must be dead. Certainly there was no God to +love--for if there was a God, how could the creature whose very essence +was to him an evil, love the Creator of him? I had the word _love_, and +I could reason about it in my mind, but I could not call up the memory +of what the feeling of it was like. The blackness grew and grew. I hated +life fiercely. I hated the very possibility of a God who had created me +a blot, a blackness. With that I felt blackness begin to go out from me, +as the light had gone before--not that I remembered the light; I had +forgotten all about it, and remembered it only after I awoke. Then came +the words of the Lord to me: 'If therefore the light that is in thee be +darkness, how great is that darkness!' And I knew what was coming: oh, +horror! in a moment more I should see the faces of those I had once +loved, dark with the blackness that went out from my very existence; +then I should hate them, and my being would then be a hell to which the +hell I now was would be a heaven! There was just grace enough left in me +for the hideousness of the terror to wake me. I was cold as if I had +been dipped in a well. But oh, how I thanked God that I was what I am, +and might yet hope after what I may be!" + +The minister's face was pale as the horse that grew gray when Death +mounted him; and his eyes shone with a feverous brilliancy. The draper +breathed a deep breath, and rubbed his white forehead. The minister rose +and began again to pace the room. Drew would have taken his departure, +but feared leaving him in such a state. He bethought himself of +something that might help to calm him, and took out his pocket-book. The +minister's dream had moved him deeply, but he restrained himself all he +could from manifesting his emotion. + +"Your vision," he said, "reminds me of some verses of Mr. Wingfold's, of +which Mrs. Wingfold very kindly let me take a copy. I have them here in +my pocket-book; may I read them to you?" + +The minister gave rather a listless consent, but that was enough for +Mr. Drew's object, and he read the following poem. + + SHALL THE DEAD PRAISE THEE? + + I can not praise Thee. By his instrument + The organ-master sits, nor moves a hand; + For see the organ pipes o'erthrown and bent, + Twisted and broke, like corn-stalks tempest-fanned! + + I well could praise Thee for a flower, a dove; + But not for life that is not life in me; + Not for a being that is less than love-- + A barren shoal half-lifted from a sea, + + And for the land whence no wind bloweth ships, + And all my living dead ones thither blown-- + Rather I'd kiss no more their precious lips, + Than carry them a heart so poor and prone. + + Yet I do bless Thee Thou art what Thou art, + That Thou dost know Thyself what Thou dost know-- + A perfect, simple, tender, rhythmic heart, + Beating Thy blood to all in bounteous flow. + + And I can bless Thee too for every smart, + For every disappointment, ache, and fear; + For every hook Thou fixest in my heart, + For every burning cord that draws me near. + + But prayer these wake, not song. Thyself I crave. + Come Thou, or all Thy gifts away I fling. + Thou silent, I am but an empty grave; + Think to me, Father, and I am a king. + + Then, like the wind-stirred bones, my pipes shall quake, + The air burst, as from burning house the blaze; + And swift contending harmonies shall shake + Thy windows with a storm of jubilant praise. + + Thee praised, I haste me humble to my own-- + Then love not shame shall bow me at their feet, + Then first and only to my stature grown, + Fulfilled of love, a servant all-complete. + +At first the minister seemed scarcely to listen, as he sat with closed +eyes and knitted brows, but gradually the wrinkles disappeared like +ripples, an expression of repose supervened, and when the draper lifted +his eyes at the close of his reading, there was a smile of quiet +satisfaction on the now aged-looking countenance. As he did not open his +eyes, Drew crept softly from the room, saying to Dorothy as he left the +house, that she _must_ get him to bed as soon as possible. She went to +him, and now found no difficulty in persuading him. But something, she +could not tell what, in his appearance, alarmed her, and she sent for +the doctor. He was not at home, and had expected to be out all night. +She sat by his bedside for hours, but at last, as he was quietly asleep, +ventured to lay herself on a couch in the room. There she too fell fast +asleep, and slept till morning, undisturbed. + +When she went to his bedside, she found him breathing softly, and +thought him still asleep. But he opened his eyes, looked at her for a +moment fixedly, and then said: + +"Dorothy, child of my heart! things may be very different from what we +have been taught, or what we may of ourselves desire; but every +difference will be the step of an ascending stair--each nearer and +nearer to the divine perfection which alone can satisfy the children of +a God, alone supply the poorest of their cravings." + +She stooped and kissed his hand, then hastened to get him some food. + +When she returned, he was gone up the stair of her future, leaving +behind him, like a last message that all was well, the loveliest smile +frozen upon a face of peace. The past had laid hold upon his body; he +was free in the Eternal. Dorothy was left standing at the top of the +stair of the present. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX. + +EMPTY HOUSES. + + +The desolation that seized on Dorothy seemed at first overwhelming. +There was no refuge for her. The child's tears, questions, and outbreaks +of merriment were but a trouble to her. Even Wingfold and Helen could do +little for her. Sorrow was her sole companion, her sole _comfort_ for a +time against the dreariness of life. Then came something better. As her +father's form receded from her, his spirit drew nigh. I mean no phantom +out of Hades--no consciousness of local presence: such things may be--I +think _sometimes_ they are; but I would rather know my friend better +through his death, than only be aware of his presence about me; that +will one day follow--how much the more precious that the absence will +have doubled its revelations, its nearness! To Dorothy her father's +character, especially as developed in his later struggles after +righteousness--the root-righteousness of God, opened itself up day by +day. She saw him combating his faults, dejected by his failures, +encouraged by his successes; and he grew to her the dearer for his +faults, as she perceived more plainly how little he had sided, how hard +he had fought with them. The very imperfections he repudiated gathered +him honor in the eyes of her love, sowed seeds of perennial tenderness +in her heart. She saw how, in those last days, he had been overcoming +the world with accelerated victory, and growing more and more of the +real father that no man can be until he has attained to the sonship. The +marvel is that our children are so tender and so trusting to the slow +developing father in us. The truth and faith which the great Father has +put in the heart of the child, makes him the nursing father of the +fatherhood in his father; and thus in part it is, that the children of +men will come at last to know the great Father. The family, with all its +powers for the development of society, is a family because it is born +and rooted in, and grows out of the very bosom of God. Gabriel told +Zacharias that his son John, to make ready a people prepared for the +Lord, should turn the hearts of the fathers to the children. + +Few griefs can be so paralyzing as, for a time, that of a true daughter +upon the departure, which at first she feels as the loss, of a true +parent; but through the rifts of such heartbreaks the light of love +shines clearer, and where love is, there is eternity: one day He who is +the Householder of the universe, will begin to bring out of its treasury +all the good old things, as well as the better new ones. How true must +be the bliss up to which the intense realities of such sorrows are +needful to force the way for the faithless heart and feeble will! Lord, +like Thy people of old, we need yet the background of the thunder-cloud +against which to behold Thee; but one day the only darkness around Thy +dwelling will be the too much of Thy brightness. For Thou art the +perfection which every heart sighs toward, no mind can attain unto. If +Thou wast One whom created mind could embrace, Thou wouldst be too small +for those whom Thou hast made in Thine own image, the infinite creatures +that seek their God, a Being to love and know infinitely. For the +created to know perfectly would be to be damned forever in the nutshell +of the finite. He who is His own cause, alone can understand perfectly +and remain infinite, for that which is known and that which knows are in +Him the same infinitude. + +Faber came to see Dorothy--solemn, sad, kind. He made no attempt at +condolence, did not speak a word of comfort; but he talked of the old +man, revealing for him a deep respect; and her heart was touched, and +turned itself toward him. Some change, she thought, must have passed +upon him. Her father had told her nothing of his relation to Amanda. It +would have to be done some day, but he shrunk from it. She could not +help suspecting there was more between Faber and him than she had at +first imagined; but there was in her a healthy contentment with +ignorance, and she asked no questions. Neither did Faber make any +attempt to find out whether she knew what had passed; even about Amanda +and any possible change in her future he was listless. He had never been +a man of plans, and had no room for any now under the rubbish of a +collapsed life. His days were gloomy and his nights troubled. He dreamed +constantly either of Amanda's mother, or of Juliet--sometimes of both +together, and of endless perplexity between them. Sometimes he woke +weeping. He did not now despise his tears, for they flowed neither from +suffering nor self-pity, but from love and sorrow and repentance. A +question of the possibility of his wife's being yet alive would +occasionally occur to him, but he always cast the thought from him as a +folly in which he dared not indulge lest it should grow upon him and +unman him altogether. Better she were dead than suffering what his +cruelty might have driven her to: he had weakened her self-respect by +insult, and then driven her out helpless. + +People said he took the loss of his wife coolly; but the fact was that, +in every quiet way, he had been doing all man could do to obtain what +information concerning her there might possibly be to be had. Naturally +he would have his proceedings as little as possible in the public mouth; +and to employ the police or the newspapers in such a quest was too +horrible. But he had made inquiries in all directions. He had put a +question or two to Polwarth, but at that time he _knew_ nothing of her, +and did not feel bound to disclose his suspicions. Not knowing to what +it might not expose her, he would not betray the refuge of a woman with +a woman. Faber learned what every body had learned, and for a time was +haunted by the horrible expectation of further news from the lake. Every +knock at the door made him start and turn pale. But the body had not +floated, and would not now. + +We have seen that, in the light thrown upon her fault from the revived +memory of his own, a reaction had set in: the tide of it grew fiercer as +it ran. He had deposed her idol--the God who she believed could pardon, +and the bare belief in whom certainly could comfort her; he had taken +the place with her of that imaginary, yet, for some, necessary being; +but when, in the agony of repentant shame, she looked to him for the +pardon he alone could give her, he had turned from her with loathing, +contempt, and insult! He was the one in the whole-earth, who, by saying +to her _Let it be forgotten_, could have lifted her into life and hope! +She had trusted in him, and he, an idol indeed, had crumbled in the +clinging arms of her faith! Had she not confessed to him what else he +would never have known, humbling herself in a very ecstasy of +repentance? Was it not an honor to any husband to have been so trusted +by his wife? And had he not from very scorn refused to strike her! Was +she not a woman still? a being before whom a man, when he can no longer +worship, must weep? Could _any_ fault, ten times worse than she had +committed, make her that she was no woman? that he, merely as a man, +owed her nothing? Her fault was grievous; it stung him to the soul: what +then was it not to her? Not now for his own shame merely, or the most, +did he lament it, but for the pity of it, that the lovely creature +should not be clean, had not deserved his adoration; that she was not +the ideal woman; that a glory had vanished from the earth; that she he +had loved was not in herself worthy. What then must be her sadness! And +this was his--the man's--response to her agony, this his balm for her +woe, his chivalry, his manhood--to dash her from him, and do his potent +part to fix forever upon her the stain which he bemoaned! Stained? Why +then did he not open his arms wide and take her, poor sad stain and all, +to the bosom of a love which, by the very agony of its own grief and +its pity over hers, would have burned her clean? What did it matter for +him? What was he? What was his honor? Had he had any, what fitter use +for honor than to sacrifice it for the redemption of a wife? That would +be to honor honor. But he had none. There was not a stone on the face of +the earth that would consent to be thrown at her by him! + +Ah men! men! gentlemen! was there ever such a poor sneaking scarecrow of +an idol as that gaping straw-stuffed inanity you worship, and call +_honor_? It is not Honor; it is but _your_ honor. It is neither gold, +nor silver, nor honest copper, but a vile, worthless pinchbeck. It may +be, however, for I have not the honor to belong to any of your clubs, +that you no longer insult the word by using it at all. It may be you +have deposed it, and enthroned another word of less significance to you +still. But what the recognized slang of the day may be is +nothing--therefore unnecessary to what I have to say--which is, that the +man is a wretched ape who will utter a word about a woman's virtue, when +in himself, soul and body, there is not a clean spot; when his body +nothing but the furnace of the grave, his soul nothing but the eternal +fire can purify. For him is many a harlot far too good: she is yet +capable of devotion; she would, like her sisters of old, recognize the +Holy if she saw Him, while he would pass by his Maker with a rude stare, +or the dullness of the brute which he has so assiduously cultivated in +him. + +By degrees Faber grew thoroughly disgusted with himself, then heartily +ashamed. Were it possible for me to give every finest shade and +gradation of the change he underwent, there would be still an +unrepresented mystery which I had not compassed. But were my analysis +correct as fact itself, and my showing of it as exact as words could +make it, never a man on whom some such change had not at least begun to +pass, would find in it any revelation. He ceased altogether to vaunt his +denials, not that now he had discarded them, but simply because he no +longer delighted in them. They were not interesting to him any more. He +grew yet paler and thinner. He ate little and slept ill--and the waking +hours of the night were hours of torture. He was out of health, and he +knew it, but that did not comfort him. It was wrong and its misery that +had made him ill, not illness that had made him miserable. Was he a +weakling, a fool not to let the past be the past? "Things without all +remedy should be without regard: what's done is done." But not every +strong man who has buried his murdered in his own garden, and set up no +stone over them, can forget where they lie. It needs something that is +not strength to be capable of that. The dead alone can bury their dead +so; and there is a bemoaning that may help to raise the dead. But +sometimes such dead come alive unbemoaned. Oblivion is not a tomb strong +enough to keep them down. The time may come when a man will find his +past but a cenotaph, and its dead all walking and making his present +night hideous. And when such dead walk so, it is a poor chance they do +not turn out vampires. + +When she had buried her dead out of her sight, Dorothy sought solitude +and the things unseen more than ever. The Wingfolds were like swallows +about her, never folding their wings of ministry, but not haunting her +with bodily visitation. She never refused to see them, but they +understood: the hour was not yet when their presence would be a comfort +to her. The only comfort the heart can take must come--not from, but +through itself. Day after day she would go into the park, avoiding the +lodge, and there brood on the memories of her father and his late words. +And ere long she began to feel nearer to him than she had ever felt +while he was with her. For, where the outward sign has been understood, +the withdrawing of it will bring the inward fact yet nearer. When our +Lord said the spirit of Himself would come to them after He was gone, He +but promised the working of one of the laws of His Father's kingdom: it +was about to operate in loftiest grade. + +Most people find the first of a bereavement more tolerable than what +follows. They find in its fever a support. When the wound in the earth +is closed, and the wave of life has again rushed over it, when things +have returned to their wonted, now desiccated show, then the very Sahara +of desolation opens around them, and for a time existence seems almost +insupportable. With Dorothy it was different. Alive in herself, she was +hungering and thirsting after life, therefore death could not have +dominion over her. + +To her surprise she found also--she could not tell how the illumination +had come--she wondered even how it should ever have been absent--that, +since her father's death, many of her difficulties had vanished. Some of +them, remembering there had been such, she could hardly recall +sufficiently to recognize them. She had been lifted into a region above +that wherein moved the questions which had then disturbed her peace. +From a point of clear vision, she saw the things themselves so +different, that those questions were no longer relevant. The things +themselves misconceived, naturally no satisfaction can be got from +meditation upon them, or from answers sought to the questions they +suggest. If it be objected that she had no better ground for believing +than before, I answer that, if a man should be drawing life from the +heart of God, it could matter little though he were unable to give a +satisfactory account of the mode of its derivation. That the man lives +is enough. That another denies the existence of any such life save in +the man's self-fooled imagination, is nothing to the man who lives it. +His business is not to raise the dead, but to live--not to convince the +blind that there is such a faculty as sight, but to make good use of his +eyes. He may not have an answer to any one objection raised by the +adopted children of Science--their adopted mother raises none--to that +which he believes; but there is no more need that should trouble +him, than that a child should doubt his bliss at his mother's breast, +because he can not give the chemical composition of the milk he draws: +that in the thing which is the root of the bliss, is rather beyond +chemistry. Is a man not blessed in his honesty, being unable to reason +of the first grounds of property? If there be truth, that truth must be +itself--must exercise its own blessing nature upon the soul which +receives it in loyal understanding--that is, in obedience. A man may +accept no end of things as facts which are not facts, and his mistakes +will not hurt him. He may be unable to receive many facts as facts, and +neither they nor his refusal of them will hurt him. He may not a whit +the less be living in and by the truth. He may be quite unable to answer +the doubts of another, but if, in the progress of his life, those doubts +should present themselves to his own soul, then will he be able to meet +them: he is in the region where all true answers are gathered. He may be +unable to receive this or that embodiment or form of truth, not having +yet grown to its level; but it is no matter so long as when he sees a +truth he does it: to see and not do would at once place him in eternal +danger. Hence a man of ordinary intellect and little imagination, may +yet be so radiant in nobility as, to the true poet-heart, to be right +worshipful. There is in the man who does the truth the radiance of life +essential, eternal--a glory infinitely beyond any that can belong to the +intellect, beyond any that can ever come within its scope to be judged, +proven, or denied by it. Through experiences doubtful even to the soul +in which they pass, the life may yet be flowing in. To know God is to be +in the secret place of all knowledge; and to trust Him changes the +atmosphere surrounding mystery and seeming contradiction, from one of +pain and fear to one of hope: the unknown may be some lovely truth in +store for us, which yet we are not good enough to apprehend. A man may +dream all night that he is awake, and when he does wake, be none the +less sure that he is awake in that he thought so all the night when he +was not; but he will find himself no more able to prove it than he would +have been then, only able to talk better about it. The differing +consciousnesses of the two conditions can not be _produced_ in evidence, +or embodied in forms of the understanding. But my main point is this, +that not to be intellectually certain of a truth, does not prevent the +heart that loves and obeys that truth from getting its truth-good, from +drawing life from its holy _factness_, present in the love of it. + +As yet Dorothy had no plans, except to carry out those of her father, +and, mainly for Juliet's sake, to remove to the old house as soon as +ever the work there was completed. But the repairs and alterations were +of some extent, and took months. Nor was she desirous of shortening +Juliet's sojourn with the Polwarths: the longer that lasted with safety, +the better for Juliet, and herself too, she thought. + +On Christmas eve, the curate gave his wife a little poem. Helen showed +it to Dorothy, and Dorothy to Juliet. By this time she had had some +genuine teaching--far more than she recognized as such, and the +spiritual song was not altogether without influence upon her. Here it +is: + + THAT HOLY THING. + + They all were looking for a king + To slay their foes, and lift them high: + Thou cam'st a little baby thing + That made a woman cry. + + O Son of Man, to right my lot + Naught but Thy presence can avail; + Yet on the road Thy wheels are not, + Nor on the sea Thy sail. + + My how or when Thou wilt not heed, + But come down Thine own secret stair, + That Thou mayst answer all my need, + Yea, every by-gone prayer. + + + + +CHAPTER L. + +FALLOW FIELDS. + + +The spring was bursting in bud and leaf before the workmen were out of +the Old House. The very next day, Dorothy commenced her removal. Every +stick of the old furniture she carried with her; every book of her +father's she placed on the shelves of the library he had designed. But +she took care not to seem neglectful of Juliet, never failing to carry +her the report of her husband as often as she saw him. It was to Juliet +like an odor from Paradise making her weep, when Dorothy said that he +looked sad--"so different from his old self!" + +One day Dorothy ventured, hardly to hint, but to approach a hint of +mediation. Juliet rose indignant: no one, were he an angel from Heaven, +should interfere between her husband and her! If they could not come +together without that, there should be a mediator, but not such as +Dorothy meant! + +"No, Dorothy!" she resumed, after a rather prolonged silence; "the very +word _mediation_ would imply a gulf between us that could not be passed. +But I have one petition to make to you, Dorothy. You _will_ be with me +in my trouble--won't you?" + +"Certainly, Juliet--please God, I will." + +"Then promise me, if I can't get through--if I am going to die, that you +will bring him to me. I _must_ see my Paul once again before the +darkness." + +"Wouldn't that be rather unkind--rather selfish?" returned Dorothy. + +She had been growing more and more pitiful of Paul. + +Juliet burst into tears, called Dorothy cruel, said she meant to kill +her. How was she to face it but in the hope of death? and how was she to +face death but in the hope of seeing Paul once again for the last time? +She was certain she was going to die; she knew it! and if Dorothy would +not promise, she was not going to wait for such a death! + +"But there will be a doctor," said Dorothy, "and how am I----" + +Juliet interrupted her--not with tears but words of indignation: Did +Dorothy dare imagine she would allow any man but her Paul to come near +her? Did she? Could she? What did she think of her? But of course she +was prejudiced against her! It was too cruel! + +The moment she could get in a word, Dorothy begged her to say what she +wished. + +"You do not imagine, Juliet," she said, "that I could take such a +responsibility on myself!" + +"I have thought it all over," answered Juliet. "There are women properly +qualified, and you must find one. When she says I am dying,--when she +gets frightened, you will send for my husband? Promise me." + +"Juliet, I will," answered Dorothy, and Juliet was satisfied. + +But notwithstanding her behavior's continuing so much the same, a +change, undivined by herself as well as unsuspected by her friend, had +begun to pass upon Juliet. Every change must begin further back than the +observation of man can reach--in regions, probably, of which we have no +knowledge. To the eyes of his own wife, a man may seem in the gall of +bitterness and the bond of iniquity, when "larger, other eyes than ours" +may be watching with delight the germ of righteousness swell within the +inclosing husk of evil. Sooner might the man of science detect the first +moment of actinic impact, and the simultaneously following change in the +hitherto slumbering acorn, than the watcher of humanity make himself +aware of the first movement of repentance. The influences now for some +time operative upon her, were the more powerful that she neither +suspected nor could avoid them. She had a vague notion that she was kind +to her host and hostess; that she was patronizing them; that her friend +Dorothy, with whom she would afterwards arrange the matter, filled their +hands for her use; that, in fact, they derived benefit from her +presence;--and surely they did, although not as she supposed. The only +benefits they reaped were invaluable ones--such as spring from love and +righteousness and neighborhood. She little thought how she interfered +with the simple pleasures and comforts of the two; how many a visit of +friends, whose talk was a holy revelry of thought and utterance, +Polwarth warded, to avoid the least danger of her discovery; how often +fear for her shook the delicate frame of Ruth; how often her host left +some book unbought, that he might procure instead some thing to tempt +her to eat; how often her hostess turned faint in cooking for her. The +crooked creatures pitied, as well they might, the lovely lady; they +believed that Christ was in her; that the deepest in her was the nature +He had made--His own, and not that which she had gathered to +herself--and thought her own. For the sake of the Christ hidden in her, +her own deepest, best, purest self; that she might be lifted from the +dust-heap of the life she had for herself ruined, into the clear air of +a pure will and the Divine Presence, they counted their best labor most +fitly spent. It is the human we love in each other--and the human is the +Christ. What we do not love is the devilish--no more the human than the +morrow's wormy mass was the manna of God. To be for the Christ in a man, +is the highest love you can give him; for in the unfolding alone of that +Christ can the individuality, the genuine peculiarity of the man, the +man himself, be perfected--the flower of his nature be developed, in its +own distinct loveliness, beauty, splendor, and brought to its idea. + +The main channel through which the influences of the gnomes reached the +princess, was their absolute simplicity. They spoke and acted what was +in them. Through this open utterance, their daily, common righteousness +revealed itself--their gentleness, their love of all things living, +their care of each other, their acceptance as the will of God concerning +them of whatever came, their general satisfaction with things as they +were--though it must in regard to some of them have been in the hope +that they would soon pass away, for one of the things Juliet least could +fail to observe was their suffering patience. They always spoke as if +they felt where their words were going--as if they were hearing them +arrive--as if the mind they addressed were a bright silver table on +which they must not set down even the cup of the water of life roughly: +it must make no scratch, no jar, no sound beyond a faint sweet +salutation. Pain had taught them not sensitiveness but delicacy. A +hundred are sensitive for one that is delicate. Sensitiveness is a +miserable, a cheap thing in itself, but invaluable if it be used for the +nurture of delicacy. They refused to receive offense, their care was to +give none. The burning spot in the center of that distorted spine, which +ought to have lifted Ruth up to a lovely woman, but had failed and sunk, +and ever after ached bitterly as if with defeat, had made her pitiful +over the pains of humanity: she could bear it, for there was something +in her deeper than pain; but alas for those who were not thus upheld! +Her agony drove her to pray for the whole human race, exposed to like +passion with her. The asthmatic choking which so often made Polwarth's +nights a long misery, taught him sympathy with all prisoners and +captives, chiefly with those bound in the bonds of an evil conscience: +to such he held himself specially devoted. They thought little of +bearing pain: to know they had caused it would have been torture. Each, +graciously uncomplaining, was tender over the ailing of the other. + +Juliet had not been long with them before she found the garments she had +in her fancy made for them, did not fit them, and she had to devise, +afresh. They were not gnomes, kobolds, goblins, or dwarfs, but a prince +and princess of sweet nobility, who had loved each other in beauty and +strength, and knew that they were each crushed in the shell of a cruel +and mendacious enchantment. How they served each other! The uncle would +just as readily help the niece with her saucepans, as the niece would +help the uncle to find a passage in Shakespeare or a stanza in George +Herbert. And to hear them talk! + +For some time Juliet did not understand them, and did not try. She had +not an idea what they were talking about. Then she began to imagine they +must be weak in the brain--a thing not unlikely with such spines as +theirs--and had silly secrets with each other, like children, which they +enjoyed talking about chiefly because none could understand but +themselves. Then she came to fancy it was herself and her affairs they +were talking about, deliberating upon--in some mental if not lingual +gibberish of their own. By and by it began to disclose itself to her, +that the wretched creatures, to mask their misery from themselves, were +actually playing at the kingdom of Heaven, speaking and judging and +concluding of things of this world by quite other laws, other scales, +other weights and measures than those in use in it. Every thing was +turned topsy-turvy in this their game of make-believe. Their religion +was their chief end and interest, and their work their play, as lightly +followed as diligently. What she counted their fancies, they seemed to +count their business; their fancies ran over upon their labor, and made +every day look and feel like a harvest-home, or the eve of a +long-desired journey, for which every preparation but the last and +lightest was over. Things in which she saw no significance made them +look very grave, and what she would have counted of some importance to +such as they, drew a mere smile from them. She saw all with bewildered +eyes, much as his neighbors looked upon the strange carriage of Lazarus, +as represented by Robert Browning in the wonderful letter of the Arab +physician. But after she had begun to take note of their sufferings, and +come to mark their calm, their peace, their lighted eyes, their ready +smiles, the patience of their very moans, she began to doubt whether +somehow they might not be touched to finer issues than she. It was not, +however, until after having, with no little reluctance and recoil, +ministered to them upon an occasion in which both were disabled for some +hours, that she began to _feel_ they had a hold upon something unseen, +the firmness of which hold made it hard to believe it closed upon an +unreality. If there was nothing there, then these dwarfs, in the +exercise of their foolish, diseased, distorted fancies, came nearer to +the act of creation than any grandest of poets; for these their +inventions did more than rectify for them the wrongs of their existence, +not only making of their chaos a habitable cosmos, but of themselves +heroic dwellers in the same. Within the charmed circle of this their +well-being, their unceasing ministrations to her wants, their +thoughtfulness about her likings and dislikings, their sweetness of +address, and wistful watching to discover the desire they might satisfy +or the solace they could bring, seemed every moment enticing her. They +soothed the aching of her wounds, mollified with ointment the stinging +rents in her wronged humanity. + +At first, when she found they had no set prayers in the house, she +concluded that, for all the talk of the old gnome in the garden, they +were not very religious. But by and by she began to discover that no one +could tell when they might not be praying. At the most unexpected times +she would hear her host's voice somewhere uttering tones of glad +beseeching, of out-poured adoration. One day, when she had a bad +headache, the little man came into her room, and, without a word to her, +kneeled by her bedside, and said, "Father, who through Thy Son knowest +pain, and Who dost even now in Thyself feel the pain of this Thy child, +help her to endure until Thou shall say it is enough, and send it from +her. Let it not overmaster her patience; let it not be too much for her. +What good it shall work in her, Thou, Lord, needest not that we should +instruct Thee." Therewith he rose, and left the room. + +For some weeks after, she was jealous of latent design to bring their +religion to bear upon her; but perceiving not a single direct approach, +not the most covert hint of attack, she became gradually convinced that +they had no such intent. Polwarth was an absolute serpent of holy +wisdom, and knew that upon certain conditions of the human being the +only powerful influences of religion are the all but insensible ones. A +man's religion, he said, ought never to be held too near his neighbor. +It was like violets: hidden in the banks, they fill the air with their +scent; but if a bunch of them is held to the nose, they stop away their +own sweetness. + +Not unfrequently she heard one of them reading to the other, and by and +by, came to join them occasionally. Sometimes it would be a passage of +the New Testament, sometimes of Shakespeare, or of this or that old +English book, of which, in her so-called education, Juliet had never +even heard, but of which the gatekeeper knew every landmark. He would +often stop the reading to talk, explaining and illustrating what the +writer meant, in a way that filled Juliet with wonder. "Strange!" she +would say to herself; "I never thought of that!" She did not suspect +that it would have been strange indeed if she had thought of it. + +In her soul began to spring a respect for her host and hostess, such as +she had never felt toward God or man. When, despite of many revulsions +it was a little established, it naturally went beyond them in the +direction of that which they revered. The momentary hush that preceded +the name of our Lord, and the smile that so often came with it; the +halo, as it were, which in their feeling surrounded Him; the confidence +of closest understanding, the radiant humility with which they +approached His idea; the way in which they brought the commonest +question side by side with the ideal of Him in their minds, considering +the one in the light of the other, and answering it thereby; the way in +which they took all He said and did on the fundamental understanding +that His relation to God was perfect, but His relation to men as yet an +imperfect, endeavoring relation, because of their distance from His +Father; these, with many another outcome of their genuine belief, began +at length to make her feel, not merely as if there had been, but as if +there really were such a person as Jesus Christ. The idea of Him ruled +potent in the lives of the two, filling heart and brain and hands and +feet: how could she help a certain awe before it, such as she had never +felt! + +Suddenly one day the suspicion awoke in her mind, that the reason why +they asked her no questions, put out no feelers after discovery +concerning her, must be that Dorothy had told them every thing: if it +was, never again would she utter word good or bad to one whose very +kindness, she said to herself, was betrayal! The first moment therefore +she saw Polwarth alone, unable to be still an instant with her doubt +unsolved, she asked him, "with sick assay," but point-blank, whether he +knew why she was in hiding from her husband. + +"I do not know, ma'am," he answered. + +"Miss Drake told you nothing?" pursued Juliet. + +"Nothing more than I knew already: that she could not deny when I put it +to her." + +"But how did you know any thing?" she almost cried out, in a sudden rush +of terror as to what the public knowledge of her might after all be. + +"If you will remember, ma'am," Polwarth replied, "I told you, the first +time I had the pleasure of speaking to you, that it was by observing and +reasoning upon what I observed, that I knew you were alive and at the +Old House. But it may be some satisfaction to you to see how the thing +took shape in my mind." + +Thereupon he set the whole process plainly before her. + +Fresh wonder, mingled with no little fear, laid hold upon Juliet. She +felt not merely as if he could look into her, but as if he had only to +look into himself to discover all her secrets. + +"I should not have imagined you a person to trouble himself to that +extent with other people's affairs," she said, turning away. + +"So far as my service can reach, the things of others are also mine," +replied Polwarth, very gently. + +"But you could not have had the smallest idea of serving me when you +made all those observations concerning me." + +"I had long desired to serve your husband, ma'am. Never from curiosity +would I have asked a single question about you or your affairs. But what +came to me I was at liberty to understand if I could, and use for lawful +ends if I might." + +Juliet was silent. She dared hardly think, lest the gnome should see her +very thoughts in their own darkness. Yet she yielded to one more urgent +question that kept pushing to get out. She tried to say the words +without thinking of the thing, lest he should thereby learn it. + +"I suppose then you have your own theory as to my reasons for seeking +shelter with Miss Drake for a while?" she said--and the moment she said +it, felt as if some demon had betrayed her, and used her organs to utter +the words. + +"If I have, ma'am," answered Polwarth, "it is for myself alone. I know +the sacredness of married life too well to speculate irreverently on its +affairs. I believe that many an awful crisis of human history is there +passed--such, I presume, as God only sees and understands. The more +carefully such are kept from the common eye and the common judgment, the +better, I think." + +If Juliet left him with yet a little added fear, it was also with +growing confidence, and some comfort, which the feeble presence of an +infant humility served to enlarge. + +Polwarth had not given much thought to the question of the cause of +their separation. That was not of his business. What he could not well +avoid seeing was, that it could hardly have taken place since their +marriage. He had at once, as a matter of course, concluded that it lay +with the husband, but from what he had since learned of Juliet's +character, he knew she had not the strength either of moral opinion or +of will to separate, for any reason past and gone, from the husband she +loved so passionately; and there he stopped, refusing to think further. +For he found himself on the verge of thinking what, in his boundless +respect for women, he shrank with deepest repugnance from entertaining +even as a transient flash of conjecture. + +One trifle I will here mention, as admitting laterally a single ray of +light upon Polwarth's character. Juliet had come to feel some desire to +be useful in the house beyond her own room, and descrying not only dust, +but what she judged disorder in her _landlord's_ little library--for +such she chose to consider him--which, to her astonishment in such a +mere cottage, consisted of many more books than her husband's, and ten +times as many readable ones, she offered to dust and rearrange them +properly: Polwarth instantly accepted her offer, with thanks--which were +solely for the kindness of the intent, he could not possibly be grateful +for the intended result--and left his books at her mercy. I do not know +another man who, loving his books like Polwarth, would have done so. +Every book had its own place. He could--I speak advisedly--have laid his +hand on any book of at least three hundred of them, in the dark. While +he used them with perfect freedom, and cared comparatively little about +their covers, he handled them with a delicacy that looked almost like +respect. He had seen ladies handle books, he said, laughing, to +Wingfold, in a fashion that would have made him afraid to trust them +with a child. It was a year after Juliet left the house before he got +them by degrees muddled into order again; for it was only as he used +them that he would alter their places, putting each, when he had done +with it for the moment, as near where it had been before as he could; +thus, in time, out of a neat chaos, restoring a useful work-a-day world. + +Dorothy's thoughts were in the meantime much occupied for Juliet. Now +that she was so sadly free, she could do more for her. She must occupy +her old quarters as soon as possible after the workmen had finished. She +thought at first of giving out that a friend in poor health was coming +to visit her, but she soon saw that would either involve lying or lead +to suspicion, and perhaps discovery, and resolved to keep her presence +in the house concealed from the outer world as before. But what was she +to do with respect to Lisbeth? Could she trust her with the secret? She +certainly could not trust Amanda. She would ask Helen to take the latter +for a while, and do her best to secure the silence of the former. + +She so represented the matter to Lisbeth as to rouse her heart in regard +to it even more than her wonder. But her injunctions to secrecy were so +earnest, that the old woman was offended. She was no slip of a girl, she +said, who did not know how to hold her tongue. She had had secrets to +keep before now, she said; and in proof of her perfect trustworthiness, +was proceeding to tell some of them, when she read her folly in +Dorothy's fixed regard, and ceased. + +"Lisbeth," said her mistress, "you have been a friend for sixteen years, +and I love you; but if I find that you have given the smallest hint even +that there is a secret in the house, I solemnly vow you shall not be +another night in it yourself, and I shall ever after think of you as a +wretched creature who periled the life of a poor, unhappy lady rather +than take the trouble to rule her own tongue." + +Lisbeth trembled, and did hold her tongue, in spite of the temptation to +feel herself for just one instant the most important person in Glaston. + +As the time went on, Juliet became more fretful, and more confiding. +She was never cross with Ruth--why, she could not have told; and when +she had been cross to Dorothy, she was sorry for it. She never said she +was sorry, but she tried to make up for it. Her husband had not taught +her the virtue, both for relief and purification, that lies in the +_acknowledgment_ of wrong. To take up blame that is our own, is to +wither the very root of it. + +Juliet was pleased at the near prospect of the change, for she had +naturally dreaded being ill in the limited accommodation of the lodge. +She formally thanked the two crushed and rumpled little angels, begged +them to visit her often, and proceeded to make her very small +preparations with a fitful cheerfulness. Something might come of the +change, she flattered herself. She had always indulged a vague fancy +that Dorothy was devising help for her; and it was in part the +disappointment of nothing having yet justified the expectation, that had +spoiled her behavior to her. But for a long time Dorothy had been +talking of Paul in a different tone, and that very morning had spoken of +him even with some admiration: it might be a prelude to something! Most +likely Dorothy knew more than she chose to say! She dared ask no +question for the dread of finding herself mistaken. She preferred the +ignorance that left room for hope. But she did not like all Dorothy said +in his praise; for her tone, if not her words, seemed to imply some kind +of change in him. He might have his faults, she said to herself, like +other men, but she had not yet discovered them; and any change would, in +her eyes, be for the worse. Would she ever see her own old Paul again? + +One day as Faber was riding at a good round trot along one of the back +streets of Glaston, approaching his own house, he saw Amanda, who still +took every opportunity of darting out at an open door, running to him +with outstretched arms, right in the face of Niger, just as if she +expected the horse to stop and take her up. Unable to trust him so well +as his dear old Ruber, he dismounted, and taking her in his arms, led +Niger to his stable. He learned from her that she was staying with the +Wingfolds, and took her home, after which his visits to the rectory were +frequent. + +The Wingfolds could not fail to remark the tenderness with which he +regarded the child. Indeed it soon became clear that it was for her sake +he came to them. The change that had begun in him, the loss of his +self-regard following on the loss of Juliet, had left a great gap in his +conscious being: into that gap had instantly begun to shoot the +all-clothing greenery of natural affection. His devotion to her did not +at first cause them any wonderment. Every body loved the little Amanda, +they saw in him only another of the child's conquests, and rejoiced in +the good the love might do him. Even when they saw him looking fixedly +at her with eyes over clear, they set it down to the frustrated +affection of the lonely, wifeless, childless man. But by degrees they +did come to wonder a little: his love seemed to grow almost a passion. +Strange thoughts began to move in their minds, looking from the one to +the other of this love and the late tragedy. + +"I wish," said the curate one morning, as they sat at breakfast, "if +only for Faber's sake, that something definite was known about poor +Juliet. There are rumors in the town, roving like poisonous fogs. Some +profess to believe he has murdered her, getting rid of her body utterly, +then spreading the report that she had run away. Others say she is mad, +and he has her in the house, but stupefied with drugs to keep her quiet. +Drew told me he had even heard it darkly hinted that he was making +experiments upon her, to discover the nature of life. It is dreadful to +think what a man is exposed to from evil imaginations groping after +theory. I dare hardly think what might happen should these fancies get +rooted among the people. Many of them are capable of brutality. For my +part, I don't believe the poor woman is dead yet." + +Helen replied she did not believe that, in her sound mind, Juliet would +have had the resolution to kill herself; but who could tell what state +of mind she was in at the time? There was always something mysterious +about her--something that seemed to want explanation. + +Between them it was concluded that, the next time Faber came, Wingfold +should be plain with him. He therefore told him that if he could cast +any light on his wife's disappearance, it was most desirable he should +do so; for reports were abroad greatly to his disadvantage. Faber +answered, with a sickly smile of something like contempt, that they had +had a quarrel the night before, for which he was to blame; that he had +left her, and the next morning she was gone, leaving every thing, even +to her wedding-ring, behind her, except the clothes she wore; that he +had done all he could to find her, but had been utterly foiled. More he +could not say. + +The next afternoon, he sought an interview with the curate in his +study, and told him every thing he had told Mr. Drake. The story seemed +to explain a good deal more than it did, leaving the curate with the +conviction that the disclosure of this former relation had caused the +quarrel between him and his wife, and more doubtful than ever as to +Juliet's having committed suicide. + + + + +CHAPTER LI. + +THE NEW OLD HOUSE. + + +It was a lovely moon-lighted midnight when they set out, the four of +them, to walk from the gate across the park to the Old House. Like +shadows they flitted over the green sward, all silent as shadows. +Scarcely a word was spoken as they went, and the stray syllable now and +then, was uttered softly as in the presence of the dead. Suddenly but +gently opened in Juliet's mind a sense of the wonder of life. The moon, +having labored through a heap of cloud into a lake of blue, seemed to +watch her with curious interest as she toiled over the level sward. The +air now and then made a soundless sigh about her head, like a waft of +wings invisible. The heavenly distances seemed to have come down and +closed her softly in. All at once, as if waked from an eternity of +unconsciousness, she found herself, by no will of her own, with no power +to say nay, present to herself--a target for sorrow to shoot at, a tree +for the joy-birds to light upon and depart--a woman, scorned of the man +she loved, bearing within her another life, which by no will of its own, +and with no power to say nay, must soon become aware of its own joys and +sorrows, and have no cause to bless her for her share in its being. Was +there no one to answer for it? Surely there must be a heart-life +somewhere in the universe, to whose will the un-self-willed life could +refer for the justification of its existence, for its motive, for the +idea of it that should make it seem right to itself--to whom it could +cry to have its divergence from that idea rectified! Was she not now, +she thought, upon her silent way to her own deathbed, walking, walking, +the phantom of herself, in her own funeral? What if, when the +bitterness of death was past, and her child was waking in this world, +she should be waking in another, to a new life, inevitable as the +former--another, yet the same? We know not whence we came--why may we +not be going whither we know not? We did not know we were coming here, +why may we not be going there without knowing it--this much more +open-eyed, more aware that we know we do not know? That terrible +morning, she had come this way, rushing swiftly to her death: she was +caught and dragged back from Hades, to be there-after--now, driven +slowly toward it, like an ox to the slaughter! She could not avoid her +doom--she _must_ encounter that which lay before her. That she shrunk +from it with fainting terror was nothing; on she must go! What an iron +net, what a combination of all chains and manacles and fetters and +iron-masks and cages and prisons was this existence--at least to a +woman, on whom was laid the burden of the generations to follow! In the +lore of centuries was there no spell whereby to be rid of it? no dark +saying that taught how to make sure death should be death, and not a +fresh waking? That the future is unknown, assures only danger! New +circumstances have seldom to the old heart proved better than the new +piece of cloth to the old garment. + +Thus meditated Juliet. She was beginning to learn that, until we get to +the heart of life, its outsides will be forever fretting us; that among +the mere garments of life, we can never be at home. She was hard to +teach, but God's circumstance had found her. + +When they came near the brow of the hollow, Dorothy ran on before, to +see that all was safe. Lisbeth was of course the only one in the house. +The descent was to Juliet like the going down to the gates of Death. + +Polwarth, who had been walking behind with Ruth, stepped to her side the +moment Dorothy left her. Looking up in her face, with the moonlight full +upon his large features, he said, + +"I have been feeling all the way, ma'am, as if Another was walking +beside us--the same who said, 'I am with you always even to the end of +the world.' He could not have meant that only for the few that were so +soon to follow Him home; He must have meant it for those also who should +believe by their word. Becoming disciples, all promises the Master made +to His disciples are theirs." + +"It matters little for poor me," answered Juliet with a sigh. "You know +I do not believe in Him." + +"But I believe in Him," answered Polwarth, "and Ruth believes in Him, +and so does Miss Drake; and if He be with us, he can not be far from +you." + +With that he stepped back to Ruth's side, and said no more. + +Dorothy opened the door quickly, the moment their feet were on the +steps; they entered quickly, and she closed it behind them at once, +fearful of some eye in the night. How different was the house from that +which Juliet had left! The hall was lighted with a soft lamp, showing +dull, warm colors on walls and floor. The dining-room door stood open; a +wood-fire was roaring on the hearth, and candles were burning on a snowy +table spread for a meal. Dorothy had a chamber-candle in her hand. She +showed the Polwarths into the dining-room, then turning to Juliet, said, + +"I will take you to your room, dear." + +"I have prepared your old quarters for you," she said, as they went up +the stair. + +With the words there rushed upon Juliet such a memory of mingled +dreariness and terror, that she could not reply. + +"You know it will be safest," added Dorothy, and as she spoke, set the +candle on a table at the top of the stair. They went along the passage, +and she opened the door of the closet. All was dark. + +She opened the door in the closet, and Juliet started back with +amazement. It was the loveliest room! and--like a marvel in a +fairy-tale--the great round moon was shining gloriously, first through +the upper branches of a large yew, and then through an oriel window, +filled with lozenges of soft greenish glass, through which fell a lovely +picture on the floor in light and shadow and something that was neither +or both. Juliet turned in delight, threw her arms round Dorothy, and +kissed her. + +"I thought I was going into a dungeon," she said, "and it is a room for +a princess!" + +"I sometimes almost believe, Juliet," returned Dorothy, "that God will +give us a great surprise one day." + +Juliet was tired, and did not want to hear about God. If Dorothy had +done all this, she thought, for the sake of reading her a good lesson, +it spoiled it all. She did not understand the love that gives beyond the +gift, that mantles over the cup and spills the wine into the spaces of +eternal hope. The room was so delicious that she begged to be excused +from going down to supper. Dorothy suggested it would not be gracious to +her friends. Much as she respected, and indeed loved them, Juliet +resented the word _friends_, but yielded. + +The little two would themselves rather have gone home--it was so +late--but staid, fearing to disappoint Dorothy. If they did run a risk +by doing so, it was for a good reason--therefore of no great +consequence. + +"How your good father will delight to watch you here sometimes, Miss +Drake," said Polwarth, "if those who are gone are permitted to see, +walking themselves unseen." + +Juliet shuddered. Dorothy's father not two months gone and the dreadful +little man to talk to her like that! + +"Do you then think," said Dorothy, "that the dead only seem to have gone +from us?" and her eyes looked like store-houses of holy questions. + +"I know so little," he answered, "that I dare hardly say I _think_ any +thing. But if, as our Lord implies, there be no such thing as that which +the change appears to us--nothing like that we are thinking of when we +call it _death_--may it not be that, obstinate as is the appearance of +separation, there is, notwithstanding, none of it?--I don't care, mind: +His will _is_, and that is every thing. But there can be no harm, where +I do not know His will, in venturing a _may be_. I am sure He likes His +little ones to tell their fancies in the dimmits about the nursery fire. +Our souls yearning after light of any sort must be a pleasure to him to +watch.--But on the other hand, to resume the subject, it may be that, as +it is good for us to miss them in the body that we may the better find +them in the spirit, so it may be good for them also to miss our bodies +that they may find our spirits." + +"But," suggested Ruth, "they had that kind of discipline while yet on +earth, in the death of those who went before them; and so another sort +might be better for them now. Might it not be more of a discipline for +them to see, in those left behind, how they themselves, from lack of +faith, went groping about in the dark, while crowds all about them knew +perfectly what they could not bring themselves to believe?" + +"It might, Ruth, it might; nor do I think any thing to the contrary. Or +it might be given to some and not to others, just as it was good for +them. It may be that some can see some, or can see them sometimes, and +watch their ways in partial glimpses of revelation. Who knows who may be +about the house when all its mortals are dead for the night, and the +last of the fires are burning unheeded! There are so many hours of both +day and night--in most houses--in which those in and those out of the +body need never cross each others' paths! And there are tales, legends, +reports, many mere fiction doubtless, but some possibly of a different +character, which represent this and that doer of evil as compelled, +either by the law of his or her own troubled being, or by some law +external thereto, ever, or at fixed intervals, to haunt the moldering +scenes of their past, and ever dream horribly afresh the deeds done in +the body. These, however, tend to no proof of what we have been speaking +about, for such 'extravagant and erring spirit' does not haunt the +living from love, but the dead from suffering. In this life, however, +few of us come really near to each other in the genuine simplicity of +love, and that may be the reason why the credible stories of love +meeting love across the strange difference are so few. It is a wonderful +touch, I always think, in the play of Hamlet, that, while the prince +gazes on the spirit of his father, noting every expression and +gesture--even his dress, as he passes through his late wife's chamber, +Gertrude, less unfaithful as widow than as wife, not only sees nothing, +but by no sigh or hint, no sense in the air, no beat of her own heart, +no creep even of her own flesh, divines his presence--is not only +certain that she sees nothing, but that she sees all there is. She is +the dead, not her husband. To the dead all are dead. The eternal life +makes manifest both life and death." + +"Please, Mr. Polwarth," said Juliet, "remember it is the middle of the +night. No doubt it is just the suitable time, but I would rather not +make one in an orgy of horrors. We have all to be alone presently." + +She hated to hear about death, and the grandest of words, Eternal Life, +which to most means nothing but prolonged existence, meant to her just +death. If she had stolen a magic spell for avoiding it, she could not +have shrunk more from any reference to the one thing commonest and most +inevitable. Often as she tried to imagine the reflection of her own +death in the mind of her Paul, the mere mention of the ugly thing seemed +to her ill-mannered, almost indecent. + +"The Lord is awake all night," said Polwarth, rising, "and therefore +the night is holy as the day.--Ruth, we should be rather frightened to +walk home under that awful sky, if we thought the Lord was not with us." + +"The night is fine enough," said Juliet. + +"Yes," said Ruth, replying to her uncle, not to Juliet; "but even if He +were asleep--you remember how He slept once, and yet reproached His +disciples with their fear and doubt." + +"I do; but in the little faith with which He reproached them, He +referred, not to Himself, but to His Father. Whether He slept or waked +it was all one: the Son may sleep, for the Father never sleeps." + +They stood beside each other, taking their leave: what little objects +they were, opposite the two graceful ladies, who also stood beside each +other, pleasant to look upon. Sorrow and suffering, lack and weakness, +though plain to see upon them both, had not yet greatly dimmed their +beauty. The faces of the dwarfs, on the other hand, were marked and +lined with suffering; but the suffering was dominated by peace and +strength. There was no sorrow there, little lack, no weakness or fear, +and a great hope. They never spent any time in pitying themselves; the +trouble that alone ever clouded their sky, was the suffering of others. +Even for this they had comfort--their constant ready help consoled both +the sufferer and themselves. + +"Will you come and see me, if you die first, uncle?" said Ruth, as they +walked home together in the moonlight. "You will think how lonely I am +without you." + +"If it be within the law of things, if I be at liberty, and the thing +seem good for you, my Ruth, you may be sure I will come to you. But of +one thing I am pretty certain, that such visions do not appear when +people are looking for them. You must not go staring into the dark +trying to see me. Do your work, pray your prayers, and be sure I love +you: if I am to come, I will come. It may be in the hot noon or in the +dark night: it may be with no sight and no sound, yet a knowledge of +presence; or I may be watching you, helping you perhaps and you never +know it until I come to fetch you at the last,--if I may. You have been +daughter and sister, and mother to me, my Ruth. You have been my one in +the world. God, I think sometimes, has planted about you and me, my +child, a cactus-hedge of ugliness, that we might be so near and so +lonely as to learn love as few have learned it in this world--love +without fear, or doubt, or pain, or anxiety--with constant satisfaction +in presence, and calm content in absence. Of the last, however, I can +not boast much, seeing we have not been parted a day for--how many years +is it, Ruth?--Ah, Ruth! a bliss beyond speech is waiting us in the +presence of the Master, where, seeing Him as He is, we shall grow like +Him and be no more either dwarfed or sickly. But you will have the same +face, Ruth, else I should be forever missing something." + +"But you do not think we shall be perfect all at once?" + +"No, not all at once; I can not believe that: God takes time to what He +does--the doing of it is itself good. It would be a sight for heavenly +eyes to see you, like a bent and broken and withered lily, straightening +and lengthening your stalk, and flushing into beauty.--But fancy what it +will be to see at length to the very heart of the person you love, and +love Him perfectly--and that _you_ can love _Him!_ Every love will then +be a separate heaven, and all the heavens will blend in one perfect +heaven--the love of God--the All in all." + +They were walking like children, hand in hand: Ruth pressed that of her +uncle, for she could not answer in words. + +Even to Dorothy their talk would have been vague, vague from the +intervening mist of her own atmosphere. To them it was vague only from +the wide stretch of its horizon, the distance of its zenith. There is +all difference between the vagueness belonging to an imperfect sight, +and the vagueness belonging to the distance of the outlook. But to walk +on up the hill of duty, is the only way out of the one into the other. I +think some only know they are laboring, hardly know they are climbing, +till they find themselves near the top. + + + + +CHAPTER LII. + +THE LEVEL OF THE LYTHE. + + +Dorothy's faith in Polwarth had in the meantime largely increased. She +had not only come to trust him thoroughly, but gained much strength from +the confidence. As soon as she had taken Juliet her breakfast the next +morning, she went to meet him in the park, for so they had arranged the +night before. + +She had before acquainted him with the promise Juliet had exacted from +her, that she would call her husband the moment she seemed in danger--a +possibility which Juliet regarded as a certainty; and had begged him to +think how they could contrive to have Faber within call. He had now a +plan to propose with this object in view, but began, apparently, at a +distance from it. + +"You know, Miss Drake," he said, "that I am well acquainted with every +yard of this ground. Had your honored father asked me whether the Old +House was desirable for a residence, I should have expressed +considerable doubt. But there is one thing which would greatly improve +it--would indeed, I hope, entirely remove my objection to it. Many years +ago I noted the state of the stone steps leading up to the door: they +were much and diversely out of the level; and the cause was evident with +the first great rain: the lake filled the whole garden--to the top of +the second step. Now this, if it take place only once a year, must of +course cause damp in the house. But I think there is more than that will +account for. I have been in the cellars repeatedly, both before and +since your father bought it; and always found them too damp. The cause +of it, I think, is, that the foundations are as low as the ordinary +level of the water in the pond, and the ground at that depth is of large +gravel: it seems to me that the water gets through to the house. I +should propose, therefore, that from the bank of the Lythe a tunnel be +commenced, rising at a gentle incline until it pierces the basin of the +lake. The ground is your own to the river, I believe?" + +"It is," answered Dorothy. "But I should be sorry to empty the lake +altogether." + +"My scheme," returned Polwarth, "includes a strong sluice, by which you +could keep the water at what height you pleased, and at any moment send +it into the river. The only danger would be of cutting through the +springs; and I fancy they are less likely to be on the side next the +river where the ground is softer, else they would probably have found +their way directly into it, instead of first hollowing out the pond." + +"Would it be a difficult thing to do?" asked Dorothy. + +"I think not," answered Polwarth. "But with your permission I will get a +friend of mine, an engineer, to look into it." + +"I leave it in your hands," said Dorothy.--"Do you think we will find +any thing at the bottom?" + +"Who can tell? But we do not know how near the bottom the tunnel may +bring us; there may be fathoms of mud below the level of the +river-bed.--One thing, thank God, we shall not find there!" + +The same week all was arranged with the engineer. By a certain day his +men were to be at work on the tunnel. + +For some time now, things had been going on much the same with all in +whom my narrative is interested. There come lulls in every process, +whether of growth or of tempest, whether of creation or destruction, and +those lulls, coming as they do in the midst of force, are precious in +their influence--because they are only lulls, and the forces are still +at work. All the time the volcano is quiet, something is going on below. +From the first moment of exhaustion, the next outbreak is preparing. To +be faint is to begin to gather, as well as to cease to expend. + +Faber had been growing better. He sat more erect on his horse; his eye +was keener, his voice more kindly, though hardly less sad, and his step +was firm. His love to the child, and her delight in his attentions, were +slowly leading him back to life. Every day, if but for a moment, he +contrived to see her, and the Wingfolds took care to remove every +obstacle from the way of their meeting. Little they thought why Dorothy +let them keep the child so long. As little did Dorothy know that what +she yielded for the sake of the wife, they desired for the sake of the +husband. + +At length one morning came a break: Faber received a note from the +gate-keeper, informing him that Miss Drake was having the pond at the +foot of her garden emptied into the Lythe by means of a tunnel, the +construction of which was already completed. They were now boring for a +small charge of gunpowder expected to liberate the water. The process of +emptying would probably be rapid, and he had taken the liberty of +informing Mr. Faber, thinking he might choose to be present. No one but +the persons employed would be allowed to enter the grounds. + +This news gave him a greater shock than he could have believed possible. +He thought he had "supped full of horrors!" At once he arranged with his +assistant for being absent the whole day; and rode out, followed by his +groom. At the gate Polwarth joined him, and walked beside him to the Old +House, where his groom, he said, could put up the horses. That done, he +accompanied him to the mouth of the tunnel, and there left him. + +Faber sat down on the stump of a felled tree, threw a big cloak, which +he had brought across the pommel of his saddle, over his knees, and +covered his face with his hands. Before him the river ran swiftly toward +the level country, making a noise of watery haste; also the wind was in +the woods, with the noises of branches and leaves, but the only sounds +he heard were the blows of the hammer on the boring-chisel, coming dull, +and as if from afar, out of the depths of the earth. What a strange, +awful significance they had to the heart of Faber! But the end was +delayed hour after hour, and there he still sat, now and then at a +louder noise than usual lifting up a white face, and staring toward the +mouth of the tunnel. At the explosion the water would probably rush in a +torrent from the pit, and in half an hour, perhaps, the pond would be +empty. But Polwarth had taken good care there should be no explosion +that day. Ever again came the blow of iron upon iron, and the boring had +begun afresh. + +Into her lovely chamber Dorothy had carried to Juliet the glad tidings +that her husband was within a few hundred yards of the house, and that +she might trust Mr. Polwarth to keep him there until all danger was +over. + +Juliet now manifested far more courage than she had given reason to +expect. It seemed as if her husband's nearness gave her strength to do +without his presence. + +At length the child, a lovely boy, lay asleep in Dorothy's arms. The +lovelier mother also slept. Polwarth was on his way to stop the work, +and let the doctor know that its completion must be postponed for a few +days, when he heard the voice of Lisbeth behind him, calling as she ran. +He turned and met her, then turned again and ran, as fast as his little +legs could carry him, to the doctor. + +"Mr. Faber," he cried, "there is a lady up there at the house, a friend +of Miss Drake's, taken suddenly ill. You are wanted as quickly as +possible." + +Faber answered not a word, but went with hasty strides up the bank, and +ran to the house. Polwarth followed as fast as he could, panting and +wheezing. Lisbeth received the doctor at the door. + +"Tell my man to saddle _my_ horse, and be at the back door immediately," +he said to her. + +Polwarth followed him up the stair to the landing, where Dorothy +received Faber, and led him to Juliet's room. The dwarf seated himself +on the top of the stair, almost within sight of the door. + + + + +CHAPTER LIII. + +MY LADY'S CHAMBER. + + +When Faber entered, a dim, rosy light from drawn window-curtains filled +the air; he could see little more than his way to the bed. Dorothy was +in terror lest the discovery he must presently make, should unnerve the +husband for what might be required of the doctor. But Juliet kept her +face turned aside, and a word from the nurse let him know at once what +was necessary. He turned to Dorothy, and said, + +"I must send my man home to fetch me something;" then to the nurse, and +said, "Go on as you are doing;" then once more to Dorothy, saying, "Come +with me, Miss Drake: I want writing things." + +He led the way from the room, and Dorothy followed. But scarcely were +they in the passage, when the little man rose and met them. Faber would +have pushed past him, annoyed, but Polwarth held out a little phial to +him. + +"Perhaps that is what you want, sir," he said. + +The doctor caught it hastily, almost angrily, from his hand, looked at +it, uncorked it, and put it to his nose. + +"Thank you," he said, "this is just what I wanted," and returned +instantly to the chamber. + +The little man resumed his patient seat on the side, breathing heavily. +Ten minutes of utter silence followed. Then Dorothy passed him with a +note in her hand, and hurried down the stair. The next instant Polwarth +heard the sound of Niger's hoofs tearing up the slope behind the house. + +"I have got some more medicines here, Miss Drake," he said, when she +reappeared on the stair. + +As he spoke he brought out phial after phial, as if his pockets widened +out below into the mysterious recesses of the earth to which as a gnome +he belonged. Dorothy, however, told him it was not a medicine the +doctor wanted now, but something else, she did not know what. Her face +was dreadfully white, but as calm as an icefield. She went back into the +room, and Polwarth sat down again. + +Not more than twenty minutes had passed when he heard again the soft +thunder of Niger's hoofs upon the sward; and in a minute more up came +Lisbeth, carrying a little morocco case, which she left at the door of +the room. + +Then an hour passed, during which he heard nothing. He sat motionless, +and his troubled lungs grew quiet. + +Suddenly he heard Dorothy's step behind him, and rose. + +"You had better come down stairs with me," she said, in a voice he +scarcely knew, and her face looked almost as if she had herself passed +through a terrible illness. + +"How is the poor lady?" he asked. + +"The immediate danger is over, the doctor says, but he seems in great +doubt. He has sent me away. Come with me: I want you to have a glass of +wine." + +"Has he recognized her?" + +"I do not know. I haven't seen any sign of it yet. But the room is +dark.--We can talk better below." + +"I am in want of nothing, my dear lady," said Polwarth. "I should much +prefer staying here--if you will permit me. There is no knowing when I +might be of service. I am far from unused to sick chambers." + +"Do as you please, Mr. Polwarth," said Dorothy, and going down the +stair, went into the garden. + +Once more Polwarth resumed his seat. + +There came the noise of a heavy fall, which shook him where he sat. He +started up, went to the door of the chamber, listened a moment, heard a +hurried step and the sweeping of garments, and making no more scruple, +opened it and looked in. + +All was silent, and the room was so dark he could see nothing. +Presently, however, he descried, in the middle of the floor, a prostrate +figure that could only be the doctor, for plainly it was the nurse on +her knees by him. He glanced toward the bed. There all was still. + +"She is gone!" he thought with himself; "and the poor fellow has +discovered who she was!" + +He went in. + +"Have you no brandy?" he said to the nurse. + +"On that table," she answered. + +"Lay his head down, and fetch it." + +Notwithstanding his appearance, the nurse obeyed: she knew the doctor +required brandy, but had lost her presence of mind. + +Polwarth took his hand. The pulse had vanished--and no wonder! Once +more, utterly careless of himself, had the healer drained his own +life-spring to supply that of his patient--knowing as little now what +that patient was to him as he knew then what she was going to be. A +thrill had indeed shot to his heart at the touch of her hand, scarcely +alive as it was, when first he felt her pulse; what he saw of her +averted face through the folded shadows of pillows and curtains both of +window and bed, woke wild suggestions; as he bared her arm, he almost +gave a cry: it was fortunate that there was not light enough to show the +scar of his own lancet; but, always at any critical moment +self-possessed to coldness, he schooled himself now with sternest +severity. He insisted to himself that he was in mortal danger of being +fooled by his imagination--that a certain indelible imprint on his brain +had begun to phosphoresce. If he did not banish the fancies crowding to +overwhelm him, his patient's life, and probably his own reason as well, +would be the penalty. Therefore, with will obstinately strained, he kept +his eyes turned from the face of the woman, drawn to it as they were +even by the terror of what his fancy might there show him, and held to +his duty in spite of growing agony. His brain, he said to himself, was +so fearfully excited, that he must not trust his senses: they would +reflect from within, instead of transmitting from without. And +victoriously did he rule, until, all the life he had in gift being +exhausted, his brain, deserted by his heart, gave way, and when he +turned from the bed, all but unconscious, he could only stagger a pace +or two, and fell like one dead. + +Polwarth got some brandy into his mouth with a teaspoon. In about a +minute, his heart began to beat. + +"I must open another vein," he murmured as if in a dream. + +When he had swallowed a third teaspoonful, he lifted his eyelids in a +dreary kind of way, saw Polwarth, and remembered that he had something +to attend to--a patient at the moment on his hands, probably--he could +not tell. + +"Tut! give me a wine-glass of the stuff," he said. + +Polwarth obeyed. The moment he swallowed it, he rose, rubbing his +forehead as if trying to remember, and mechanically turned toward the +bed. The nurse, afraid he might not yet know what he was about, stepped +between, saying softly, + +"She is asleep, sir, and breathing quietly." + +"Thank God!" he whispered with a sigh, and turning to a couch, laid +himself gently upon it. + +The nurse looked at Polwarth, as much as to say: "Who is to take the +command now?" + +"I shall be outside, nurse: call me if I can be useful to you," he +replied to the glance, and withdrew to his watch on the top of the +stair. + +After about a quarter of an hour, the nurse came out. + +"Do you want me?" said Polwarth, rising hastily. + +"No, sir," she answered. "The doctor says all immediate danger is over, +and he requires nobody with him. I am going to look after my baby. And +please, sir, nobody is to go in, for he says she must not be disturbed. +The slightest noise might spoil every thing: she must sleep now all she +can." + +"Very well," said Polwarth, and sat down again. + +The day went on; the sun went down; the shadows deepened; and not a +sound came from the room. Again and again Dorothy came and peeped up the +stair, but seeing the little man at his post, like Zacchaeus up the +sycamore, was satisfied, and withdrew. But at length Polwarth bethought +him that Ruth would be anxious, and rose reluctantly. The same instant +the door opened, and Faber appeared. He looked very pale and worn, +almost haggard. + +"Would you call Miss Drake?" he said. + +Polwarth went, and following Dorothy up the stair again, heard what +Faber said. + +"She is sleeping beautifully, but I dare not leave her. I must sit up +with her to-night. Send my man to tell my assistant that I shall not be +home. Could you let me have something to eat, and you take my place? And +there is Polwarth! _he_ has earned his dinner, if any one has. I do +believe we owe the poor lady's life to him." + +Dorothy ran to give the message and her own orders. Polwarth begged she +would tell the groom to say to Ruth as he passed that all was well; and +when the meal was ready, joined Faber. + +It was speedily over, for the doctor seemed anxious to be again with his +patient. Then Dorothy went to Polwarth. Both were full of the same +question: had Faber recognized his wife or not? Neither had come to a +certain conclusion. Dorothy thought he had, but that he was too hard and +proud to show it; Polwarth thought he had not, but had been powerfully +reminded of her. He had been talking strangely, he said, during their +dinner, and had drunk a good deal of wine in a hurried way. + +Polwarth's conclusion was correct: it was with an excitement almost +insane, and a pleasure the more sorrowful that he was aware of its +transientness, a pleasure now mingling, now alternating with utter +despair, that Faber returned to sit in the darkened chamber, watching +the woman who with such sweet torture reminded him of her whom he had +lost. What a strange, unfathomable thing is the pleasure given us by a +likeness! It is one of the mysteries of our humanity. Now she had seemed +more, now less like his Juliet; but all the time he could see her at +best only very partially. Ever since his fall, his sight had been weak, +especially in twilight, and even when, once or twice, he stood over her +as she slept, and strained his eyes to their utmost, he could not tell +what he saw. For, in the hope that, by the time it did come, its way +would have been prepared by a host of foregone thoughts, Dorothy had +schemed to delay as much as she could the discovery which she trusted in +her heart must come at last; and had therefore contrived, not by drawn +curtains merely, but by closed Venetian shutters as well, to darken the +room greatly. And now he had no light but a small lamp, with a shade. + +He had taken a book with him, but it was little he read that night. At +almost regular intervals he rose to see how his patient fared. She was +still floating in the twilight shallows of death, whether softly +drifting on the ebb-tide of sleep, out into the open sea, or, on its +flow, again up the river of life, he could not yet tell. Once the nurse +entered the room to see if any thing were wanted. Faber lifted his head, +and motioned her angrily away, making no ghost of a sound. The night +wore on, and still she slept. In his sleepless and bloodless brain +strangest thoughts and feelings went and came. The scents of old roses, +the stings of old sins, awoke and vanished, like the pulsing of +fire-flies. But even now he was the watcher of his own moods; and when +among the rest the thought would come: "What if this _should_ be my own +Juliet! Do not time and place agree with the possibility?" and for a +moment life seemed as if it would burst into the very madness of +delight, ever and again his common sense drove him to conclude that his +imagination was fooling him. He dared not yield to the intoxicating +idea. If he did, he would be like a man drinking poison, well knowing +that every sip, in itself a delight, brought him a step nearer to agony +and death! When she should wake, and he let the light fall upon her +face, he knew--so he said to himself--he _knew_ the likeness would +vanish in an appalling unlikeness, a mockery, a scoff of the whole night +and its lovely dream--in a face which, if beautiful as that of an angel, +not being Juliet's would be to him ugly, unnatural, a discord with the +music of his memory. Still the night was checkered with moments of +silvery bliss, in the indulgence of the mere, the known fancy of what it +would be if it _were_ she, vanishing ever in the reviving rebuke, that +he must nerve himself for the loss of that which the morning must +dispel. Yet, like one in a dream, who knows it is but a dream, and +scarce dares breathe lest he should break the mirrored ecstasy, he would +not carry the lamp to the bedside: no act of his should disperse the +airy flicker of the lovely doubt, not a movement, not a nearer glance, +until stern necessity should command. + +History knows well the tendency of things to repeat themselves. Similar +circumstances falling together must incline to the production of similar +consequent events. + +Toward morning Juliet awoke from her long sleep, but she had the vessel +of her brain too empty of the life of this world to recognize barely +that which was presented to her bodily vision. Over the march of two +worlds, that of her imagination, and that of fact, her soul hovered +fluttering, and blended the presentment of the two in the power of its +unity. + +The only thing she saw was the face of her husband, sadly lighted by the +dimmed lamp. It was some-distance away, near the middle of the room: it +seemed to her miles away, yet near enough to be addressed. It was a more +beautiful face now than ever before--than even then when first she took +it for the face of the Son of Man--more beautiful, and more like Him, +for it was more humane. Thin and pale with suffering, it was nowise +feeble, but the former self-sufficiency had vanished, and a still sorrow +had taken its place. + +He sat sunk in dim thought. A sound came that shook him as with an ague +fit. Even then he mastered his emotion, and sat still as a stone. Or was +it delight unmastered, and awe indefinable, that paralyzed him? He +dared not move lest he should break the spell. Were it fact, or were it +but yet further phantom play on his senses, it should unfold itself; not +with a sigh would he jar the unfolding, but, ear only, listen to the +end. In the utter stillness of the room, of the sleeping house, of the +dark, embracing night, he lay in famished wait for every word. + +"O Jesus," said the voice, as of one struggling with weariness, or one +who speaks her thoughts in a dream, imagining she reads from a book, a +gentle, tired voice--"O Jesus! after all, Thou art there! They told me +Thou wast dead, and gone nowhere! They said there never was such a One! +And there Thou art! O Jesus, what _am_ I to do? Art Thou going to do any +thing with me?--I wish I were a leper, or any thing that Thou wouldst +make clean! But how couldst Thou, for I never quite believed in Thee, +and never loved Thee before? And there was my Paul! oh, how I loved my +Paul! and _he_ wouldn't do it. I begged and begged him, for he was my +husband when I was alive--him to take me and make me clean, but he +wouldn't: he was too pure to pardon me. He let me lie in the dirt! It +was all right of him, but surely, Lord, Thou couldst afford to pity a +poor girl that hardly knew what she was doing. My heart is very sore, +and my whole body is ashamed, and I feel so stupid! Do help me if Thou +canst. I denied Thee, I know; but then I cared for nothing but my +husband; and the denial of a silly girl could not hurt Thee, if indeed +Thou art Lord of all worlds!--I know Thou wilt forgive me for that. But, +O Christ, please, if Thou canst any way do it, make me fit for Paul. +Tell him to beat me and forgive me.--O my Saviour, do not look at me so, +or I shall forget Paul himself, and die weeping for joy. Oh, my Lord! +Oh, my Paul!" + +For Paul had gently risen from his chair, and come one step +nearer--where he stood looking on her with such a smile as seldom has +been upon human face--a smile of unutterable sorrow, love, repentance, +hope. She gazed, speechless now, her spirit drinking in the vision of +that smile. It was like mountain air, like water, like wine, like +eternal life! It was forgiveness and peace from the Lord of all. And had +her brain been as clear as her heart, could she have taken it for less? +If the sinner forgave her, what did the Perfect? + +Paul dared not go nearer--partly from dread of the consequences of +increased emotion. Her lips began to move again, and her voice to +murmur, but he could distinguish only a word here and there. Slowly the +eyelids fell over the great dark eyes, the words dissolved into +syllables, the sounds ceased to be words at all, and vanished: her soul +had slipped away into some silent dream. + +Then at length he approached on tiptoe. For a few moments he stood and +gazed on the sleeping countenance--then dropped on his knees, and cried, + +"God, if Thou be anywhere, I thank Thee." + +Reader, who knowest better, do not mock him. Gently excuse him. His +brain was excited; there was a commotion in the particles of human +cauliflower; a rush of chemical changes and interchanges was going on; +the tide was setting for the vasty deep of marvel, which was nowhere but +within itself. And then he was in love with his wife, therefore open to +deceptions without end, for is not all love a longing after what never +was and never can be? + +He was beaten. But scorn him not for yielding. Think how he was beaten. +Could he help it that the life in him proved too much for the death with +which he had sided? Was it poltroonery to desert the cause of ruin for +that of growth? of essential slavery for ordered freedom? of +disintegration for vital and enlarging unity? He had "said to +corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my +sister;" but a Mightier than he, the Life that lighteth every man that +cometh into the world, had said, "O thou enemy, destruction shall have a +perpetual end;" and he could not stand against the life by which he +stood. When it comes to this, what can a man do? Remember he was a +created being--or, if you will not allow that, then something greatly +less. If not "loved into being" by a perfect Will, in his own image of +life and law, he had but a mother whom he never could see, because she +could never behold either herself or him: he was the offspring of the +dead, and must be pardoned if he gave a foolish cry after a parent worth +having. + +Wait, thou who countest such a cry a weak submission, until, having +refused to take thine hour with thee, thine hour overtakes thee: then +see if thou wilt stand out. Another's battle is easy. God only knows +with what earthquakes and thunders, that hour, on its way to find thee, +may level the mountains and valleys between. If thou wouldst be perfect +in the greatness of thy way, thou must learn to live in the fire of thy +own divine nature turned against thy conscious self: learn to smile +content in that, and thou wilt out-satan Satan in the putridity of +essential meanness, yea, self-satisfied in very virtue of thy shame, +thou wilt count it the throned apotheosis of inbred honor. But seeming +is not being--least of all self-seeming. Dishonor will yet be dishonor, +if all the fools in creation should be in love with it, and call it +glory. + +In an hour, Juliet woke again, vaguely remembering a heavenly dream, +whose odorous air yet lingered, and made her happy, she knew not why. +Then what a task would have been Faber's! For he must not go near her. +The balance of her life trembled on a knife-edge, and a touch might +incline it toward death. A sob might determine the doubt. + +But as soon as he saw sign that her sleep was beginning to break, he all +but extinguished the light, then having felt her pulse, listened to her +breathing, and satisfied himself generally of her condition, crept from +the room, and calling the nurse, told her to take his place. He would be +either in the next room, he said, or within call in the park. + +He threw himself on the bed, but could not rest: rose and had a bath; +listened at Juliet's door, and hearing no sound, went to the stable. +Niger greeted him with a neigh of pleasure. He made haste to saddle him, +his hands trembling so that he could hardly get the straps into the +girth buckles. + +"That's Niger!" said Juliet, hearing his whinny. "Is he come?" + +"Who, ma'am?" asked the nurse, a stranger to Glaston, of course. + +"The doctor--is he come?" + +"He's but just gone, ma'am. He's been sitting by you all night--would +let no one else come near you. Rather peculiar, in my opinion!" + +A soft flush, all the blood she could show, tinged her cheek. It was +Hope's own color--the reflection of a red rose from a white. + + + + +CHAPTER LIV. + +NOWHERE AND EVERYWHERE. + + +Faber sprung upon Niger's back, and galloped wildly through the park. +His soul was like a southern sea under a summer tornado. The slow dawn +was gathering under a smoky cloud with an edge of cold yellow; a thin +wind was abroad; rain had fallen in the night, and the grass was wet and +cool to Niger's hoofs; the earth sent up a savor, which like a soft warp +was crossed by a woof of sweet odors from leaf-buds and wild flowers, +and spangled here and there with a silver thread of bird song--for but +few of the beast-angels were awake yet. Through the fine consorting mass +of silence and odor, went the soft thunder of Niger's gallop over the +turf. His master's joy had overflowed into him: the creatures are not +all stupid that can not speak; some of them are _with us_ more than we +think. According to the grand old tale, God made his covenant with all +the beasts that came out of the ark as well as with Noah; for them also +he set his bow of hope in the cloud of fear; they are God's creatures, +God bless them! and if not exactly human, are, I think, something more +than _humanish_. Niger gave his soul with his legs to his master's mood +that morning. He was used to hard gallops with him across country, but +this was different; this was plainly a frolic, the first he had had +since he came into his service; and a frolic it should be! + +A deeper, loftier, lovelier morning was dawning in Faber's world unseen. +One dread burden was lifted from his being; his fierce pride, his +unmanly cruelty, his spotless selfishness, had not hunted a woman soul +quite into the moldy jaws of the grave; she was given back to him, to +tend, and heal, and love as he had never yet dreamed of loving! Endless +was the dawn that was breaking in him; unutterably sweet the joy. Life +was now to be lived--not endured. How he would nurse the lily he had +bruised and broken! From her own remorse he would shield her. He would +be to her a summer land--a refuge from the wind, a covert from the +tempest. He would be to her like that Saviour for whom, in her wandering +fancy, she had taken him: never more in vaguest thought would he turn +from her. If, in any evil mood, a thought unkind should dare glance back +at her past, he would clasp her the closer to his heart, the more to be +shielded that the shield itself was so poor. Once he laughed aloud as he +rode, to find himself actually wondering whether the story of the +resurrection _could_ be true; for what had the restoration of his Juliet +in common with the out-worn superstition? In any overwhelming joy, he +concluded, the heart leans to lovely marvel. + +But there is as much of the reasonable as of to us the marvelous in that +which alone has ever made credible proffer toward the filling of the +gulf whence issue all the groans of humanity. Let Him be tested by the +only test that can, on the supposition of His asserted nature, be +applied to Him--that of obedience to the words He has spoken--words that +commend themselves to every honest nature. Proof of other sort, if it +could be granted, would, leaving our natures where they were, only sink +us in condemnation. + +Why should I pursue the story further? and if not here, where better +should I stop? The true story has no end--no end. But endlessly dreary +would the story be, were there no Life living by its own will, no +perfect Will, one with an almighty heart, no Love in whom we live and +move and have our being. Offer me an eternity in all things else after +my own imagination, but without a perfect Father, and I say, no; let me +die, even as the unbelieving would have it. Not believing in the Father +of Jesus, they are _right_ in not desiring to live. Heartily do I +justify them therein. For all this talk and disputation about +immortality, wherein is regarded only the continuance of consciousness +beyond what we call death, it is to me, with whatever splendor of +intellectual coruscation it be accompanied, but little better than a +foolish babble, the crackling of thorns under a pot. Apart from Himself, +God forbid there should be any immortality. If it could be proved apart +from Him, then apart from Him it could be, and would be infinite +damnation. It is an impossibility, and were but an unmitigated evil. And +if it be impossible without Him, it can not be believed without Him: if +it could be proved without Him, the belief so gained would be an evil. +Only with the knowledge of the Father of Christ, did the endlessness of +being become a doctrine of bliss to men. If He be the first life, the +Author of his own, to speak after the language of men, and the origin +and source of all other life, it can be only by knowing Him that we can +know whether we shall live or die. Nay more, far more!--the knowledge +of Him by such innermost contact as is possible only between creator and +created, and possible only when the created has aspired to be one with +the will of the creator, such knowledge and such alone is life to the +created; it is the very life, that alone for the sake of which God +created us. If we are one with God in heart, in righteousness, in +desire, no death can touch us, for we are life, and the garment of +immortality, the endless length of days which is but the mere shadow of +the eternal, follows as a simple necessity: He is not the God of the +dead, or of the dying, but of the essentially alive. Without this inmost +knowledge of Him, this oneness with Him, we have no life in us, for _it +is life_, and that for the sake of which all this outward show of +things, and our troubled condition in the midst of them, exists. All +that is mighty, grand, harmonious, therefore in its own nature true, is. +If not, then dearly I thank the grim Death, that I shall die and not +live. Thus undeceived, my only terror would be that the unbelievers +might be but half right, and there might be a life, so-called, beyond +the grave without a God. + +My brother man, is the idea of a God too good or too foolish for thy +belief? or is it that thou art not great enough or humble enough to hold +it? In either case, I will believe it for thee and for me. Only be not +stiff-necked when the truth begins to draw thee: thou wilt find it hard +if she has to go behind and drive thee--hard to kick against the divine +goads, which, be thou ever so mulish, will be too much for thee at last. +Yea, the time will come when thou wilt goad thyself toward the divine. +But hear me this once more: the God, the Jesus, in whom I believe, are +not the God, the Jesus, in whom you fancy I believe: you know them not; +your idea of them is not mine. If you knew them you would believe in +them, for to know them is to believe in them. Say not, "Let Him teach +me, then," except you mean it in submissive desire; for He has been +teaching you all this time: if you have been doing His teaching, you are +on the way to learn more; if you hear and do not heed, where is the +wonder that the things I tell you sound in your ears as the muttering of +a dotard? They convey to you nothing, it may be: but that which makes of +them words--words--words, lies in you, not in me. Yours is the killing +power. They would bring you life, but the death in him that knoweth and +doeth not is strong; in your air they drop and die, winged things no +more. + +For days Faber took measures not to be seen by Juliet. But he was +constantly about the place, and when she woke from a sleep, they had +often to tell her that he had been by her side all the time she slept. +At night he was either in her room or in the next chamber. Dorothy used +to say to her that if she wanted her husband, she had only to go to +sleep. She was greatly tempted to pretend, but would not. + +At length Faber requested Dorothy to tell Juliet that the doctor said +she might send for her husband when she pleased. Much as he longed to +hear her voice, he would not come without her permission. + +He was by her side the next moment. But for minutes not a word was +spoken; a speechless embrace was all. + +It does not concern me to relate how by degrees they came to a close +understanding. Where love is, everything is easy, or, if not easy, yet +to be accomplished. Of course Faber made his return confession in full. +I will not say that Juliet had not her respondent pangs of retrospective +jealousy. Love, although an angel, has much to learn yet, and the demon +Jealousy may be one of the school masters of her coming perfection: God +only knows. There must be a divine way of casting out the demon; else +how would it be here-after? + +Unconfessed to each other, their falls would forever have been between +to part them; confessed, they drew them together in sorrow and humility +and mutual consoling. The little Amanda could not tell whether Juliet's +house or Dorothy's was her home: when at the one, she always talked of +the other as _home_. She called her father _papa_, and Juliet _mamma_; +Dorothy had been _auntie_ from the first. She always wrote her name, +_Amanda Duck Faber_. From all this the gossips of Glaston explained +everything satisfactorily: Juliet had left her husband on discovering +that he had a child of whose existence he had never told her; but +learning that the mother was dead, yielded at length, and was +reconciled. That was the nearest they ever came to the facts, and it was +not needful they should ever know more. The talkers of the world are not +on the jury of the court of the universe. There are many, doubtless, who +need the shame of a public exposure to make them recognize their own +doing for what it is; but of such Juliet had not been. Her husband knew +her fault--that was enough: he knew also his own immeasurably worse than +hers, but when they folded each other to the heart, they left their +faults outside--as God does, when He casts our sins behind His back, in +utter uncreation. + +I will say nothing definite as to the condition of mind at which Faber +had arrived when last Wingfold and he had a talk together. He was +growing, and that is all we can require of any man. He would not say he +was a believer in the supernal, but he believed more than he said, and +he never talked against belief. Also he went as often as he could to +church, which, little as it means in general, did not mean little when +the man was Paul Faber, and where the minister was Thomas Wingfold. + +It is time for the end. Here it is--in a little poem, which, on her next +birthday, the curate gave Dorothy: + + O wind of God, that blowest in the mind, + Blow, blow and wake the gentle spring in me; + Blow, swifter blow, a strong, warm summer wind, + Till all the flowers with eyes come out to see; + Blow till the fruit hangs red on every tree, + And our high-soaring song-larks meet thy dove-- + High the imperfect soars, descends the perfect Love. + + Blow not the less though winter cometh then; + Blow, wind of God, blow hither changes keen; + Let the spring creep into the ground again, + The flowers close all their eyes, not to be seen: + All lives in thee that ever once hath been: + Blow, fill my upper air with icy storms; + Breathe cold, O wind of God, and kill my canker-worms. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Paul Faber, Surgeon, by George MacDonald + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PAUL FABER, SURGEON *** + +***** This file should be named 12387.txt or 12387.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/3/8/12387/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + + https://www.gutenberg.org/etext06 + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/12387.zip b/old/12387.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0e703c7 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12387.zip |