A REMONSTRANCE.
Next morning was Sunday; and Judith, having got through her few domestic
duties at an early hour, and being dressed in an especially pretty
costume in honor of the holy day, thought she need no longer remain
within-doors, but would walk along to the church-yard, where she
expected to find Prudence. The latter very often went thither on a
Sunday morning, partly for quiet reverie and recalling of this one and
the other of her departed but not forgotten friends whose names were
carven on the tombstones, and partly--if this may be forgiven her--to
see how the generous mother earth had responded to her week-day labors
in the planting and tending of the graves. But when Judith, idly and
carelessly as was her wont, reached the church-yard, she found the wide,
silent space quite empty; so she concluded that Prudence had probably
been detained by a visit to some one fallen sick; and she thought she
might as well wait for her; and with that view--or perhaps out of mere
thoughtlessness--she went along to the river-side, and sat down on the
low wall there, having before her the slowly moving yellow stream and
the fair, far-stretching landscape beyond.
There had been some rain during the night; the roads she had come along
were miry; and here the grass in the church-yard was dripping with the
wet; but there was a kind of suffused rich light abroad that bespoke the
gradual breaking through of the sun; and there was a warmth in the moist
atmosphere that seemed to call forth all kinds of sweet odors from the
surrounding plants and flowers. Not that she needed these, for she had
fixed in her bosom a little nosegay of yellow-leaved mint, that was
quite sufficient to sweeten the scarcely moving air. And as she sat
there in the silence it seemed to her as if all the world were
awake--and had been awake for hours--but that all the human beings were
gone out of it. The rooks were cawing in the elms above her; the bees
hummed as they flew by into the open light over the stream; and far away
she could hear the lowing of the cattle on the farms; but there was no
sound of any human voice, nor any glimpse of any human creature in the
wide landscape. And she grew to wonder what it would be like if she were
left alone in the world, all the people gone from it, her own relatives
and friends no longer here and around her, but away in the strange
region where Hamnet was, and perhaps, on such a morning as this,
regarding her not without pity, and even, it might be, with some touch
of half-recalled affection. Which of them all should she regret the
most? Which of them all would this solitary creature--left alone in
Stratford, in an empty town--most crave for, and feel the want of? Well,
she went over these friends and neighbors and companions and would-be
lovers; and she tried to imagine what, in such circumstances, she might
think of this one and that; and which of them she would most desire to
have back on the earth and living with her. But right well she knew in
her heart that all this balancing and choosing was but a pretence. There
was but the one; the one whose briefest approval was a kind of heaven to
her, and the object of her secret and constant desire; the one who
turned aside her affection with a jest; who brought her silks and scents
from London as if her mind were set on no other things than these. And
she was beginning to wonder whether, in those imagined circumstances, he
might come to think differently of her and to understand her somewhat;
and indeed she was already picturing to herself the life they might
lead--these two, father and daughter, together in the empty and silent
but sun-lit and sufficiently cheerful town--when her idle reverie was
interrupted. There was a sound of talking behind her; doubtless the
first of the people were now coming to church; for the doors were
already open.
She looked round, and saw that this was Master Walter Blaise who had
just come through the little swinging gate, and that he was accompanied
by two little girls, one at each side of him, and holding his hand.
Instantly she turned her head away, pretending not to have seen him.
"Bless the man!" she said to herself, "what does he here of a Sunday
morning? Why is so diligent a pastor not in charge of his own flock?"
But she felt secure enough. Not only was he accompanied by the two
children, but there was this other safeguard that he would not dare to
profane the holy day by attempting anything in the way of wooing. And it
must be said that the young parson had had but few opportunities for
that, the other members of the household eagerly seeking his society
when he came to New Place, and Judith sharp to watch her chances of
escape.
The next moment she was startled by hearing a quick footstep behind her.
She did not move.
"Give you good-morrow, Judith," said he, presenting himself, and
regarding her with his keen and confident gray eyes. "I would crave a
word with you; and I trust it may be a word in season, and acceptable to
you."
He spoke with an air of cool authority, which she resented. There was
nothing of the clownish bashfulness of young Jelleyman about him; nor
yet of the half-timid, half-sulky jealousy of Tom Quiney; but a kind of
mastery, as if his office gave him the right to speak, and commanded
that she should hear. And she did not think this fair, and she
distinctly wished to be alone; so that her face had but little welcome
in it, and none of the shining radiance of kindness that Willy Hart so
worshipped.
"I know you like not hearing of serious things, Judith," said he (while
she wondered whither he had sent the two little girls: perhaps into the
church?), "but I were no true friend to you, as I desire to be, if I
feared to displease you when there is need."
"What have I done, then? In what have I offended? I know we are all
miserable sinners, if that be what you mean," said she, coldly.
"I would not have you take it that way, Judith," said he; and there
really was much friendliness in his voice. "I meant to speak kindly to
you. Nay, I have tried to understand you; and perchance I do in a
measure. You are in the enjoyment of such health and spirits as fall to
the lot of few; you are well content with your life and the passing
moment; you do not like to be disturbed, or to think of the future. But
the future will come, nevertheless, and it may be with altered
circumstances; your light-heartedness may cease, sorrow and sickness may
fall upon you, and then you may wish you had learned earlier to seek for
help and consolation where these alone are to be found. It were well
that you should think of such things now, surely; you cannot live always
as you live now--I had almost said a godless life, but I do not wish to
offend; in truth, I would rather lead you in all kindliness to what I
know is the true pathway to the happiness and peace of the soul. I
would speak to you, Judith, if in no other way, as a brother in Christ;
I were no true friend to you else; nay, I have the command of the Master
whom I serve to speak and fear not."
She did not answer, but she was better content now. So long as he only
preached at her, he was within his province, and within his right.
"And bethink you, Judith," said he, with a touch of reproach in his
voice, "how and why it is you enjoy such health and cheerfulness of
spirits; surely through the Lord in His loving-kindness answering the
prayers of your pious mother. Your life, one might say, was vouchsafed
in answer to her supplications; and do you owe nothing of duty and
gratitude to God, and to God's Church, and to God's people? Why should
you hold aloof from them? Why should you favor worldly things, and walk
apart from the congregation, and live as if to-morrow were always to be
as to-day, and as if there were to be no end to life, no calling to
account as to how we have spent our time here upon earth? Dear Judith, I
speak not unkindly; I wish not to offend; but often my heart is grieved
for you; and I would have you think how trifling our present life is in
view of the great eternity whither we are all journeying; and I would
ask you, for your soul's sake, and for your peace of mind here and
hereafter, to join with us, and come closer with us, and partake of our
exercises. Indeed you will find a truer happiness. Do you not owe it to
us? Have you no gratitude for the answering of your mother's prayers?"
"Doubtless, doubtless," said she (though she would rather have been
listening in silence to the singing of the birds, that were all
rejoicing now, for the sun had at length cleared away the morning
vapors, and the woods and the meadows and the far uplands were all
shining in the brilliant new light). "I go to church as the others do,
and there we give thanks for all the mercies that have been granted."
"And is it enough, think you?" said he--and as he stood, while she sat,
she did not care to meet those clear, keen, authoritative eyes that were
bent on her. "Does your conscience tell you that you give sufficient
thanks for what God in His great mercy has vouchsafed to you?
Lip-service every seventh day!--a form of words gone through before you
take your afternoon walk! Why, if a neighbor were kind to you, you
would show him as much gratitude as that; and this is all you offer to
the Lord of heaven and earth for having in His compassion listened to
your mother's prayers, and bestowed on you life and health and a
cheerful mind?"
"What would you have me do? I cannot profess to be a saint while at
heart I am none," said she, somewhat sullenly.
It was an unlucky question. Moreover, at this moment the bells in the
tower sent forth their first throbbing peals into the startled air; and
these doubtless recalled him to the passing of time, and the fact that
presently the people would be coming into the church-yard.
"I will speak plainly to you, Judith; I take no shame to mention such a
matter on the Lord's day; perchance the very holiness of the hour and of
the spot where I have chanced to meet you will the better incline your
heart. You know what I have wished; what your family wish; and indeed
you cannot be so blind as not to have seen. It is true, I am but a
humble laborer in the Lord's vineyard; but I magnify my office; it is an
honorable work; the saving of souls, the calling to repentance, the
carrying of the Gospel to the poor and stricken ones of the earth--I say
that is an honorable calling, and one that blesses them that partake in
it, and gives a peace of mind far beyond what the worldlings dream of.
And if I have wished that you might be able and willing--through God's
merciful inclining of your heart--to aid me in this work, to become my
helpmeet, was it only of my own domestic state I was thinking? Surely
not. I have seen you from day to day--careless and content with the
trifles and idle things of this vain and profitless world; but I have
looked forward to what might befall in the future, and I have desired
with all my heart--yea, and with prayers to God for the same--that you
should be taught to seek the true haven in time of need. Do you
understand me, Judith?"
He spoke with little tenderness, and certainly with no show of
lover-like anxiety; but he was in earnest; and she had a terrible
conviction pressing upon her that her wit might not be able to save her.
The others she could easily elude when she was in the mind; this one
spoke close and clear; she was afraid to look up and face his keen,
acquisitive eyes.
"And if I do understand you, good Master Blaise," said she desperately;
"if I do understand you--as I confess I have gathered something of this
before--but--but surely--one such as I--such as you say I am--might she
not become pious--and seek to have her soul saved--without also having
to marry a parson?--if such be your meaning, good Master Blaise."
It was she who was in distress and in embarrassment; not he.
"You are not situated as many others are," said he. "You owe your life,
as one may say, to the prayers of God's people; I but put before you one
way in which you could repay the debt--by laboring in the Lord's
vineyard, and giving the health and cheerfulness that have been bestowed
on you to the comfort of those less fortunate----"
"I? Such a one as I? Nay, nay, you have shown me how all unfit I were
for that," she exclaimed, glad of this one loophole.
"I will not commend you, Judith, to your face," said he, calmly, "nor
praise such worldly gifts as others, it may be, overvalue; but in truth
I may say you have a way of winning people toward you; your presence is
welcome to the sick; your cheerfulness gladdens the troubled in heart;
and you have youth and strength and an intelligence beyond that of many.
Are all these to be thrown away?--to wither and perish as the years go
by? Nay, I seek not to urge my suit to you by idle words of wooing, as
they call it, or by allurements of flattery; these are the foolish
devices of the ballad-mongers and the players, and are well fitted, I
doubt not, for the purposes of the master of these, the father of lies
himself; rather would I speak to you words of sober truth and reason; I
would show you how you can make yourself useful in the garden of the
Lord, and so offer some thanksgiving for the bounties bestowed on you.
Pray consider it, Judith; I ask not for yea or nay at this moment; I
would have your heart meditate over it in your own privacy, when you can
bethink you of what has happened to you and what may happen to you in
the future. Life has been glad for you so far; but trouble might come;
your relatives are older than you; you might be left so that you would
be thankful to have one beside you whose arm you could lean on in time
of distress. Think over it, Judith, and may God incline your heart to
what is right and best for you."
But at this moment the first of the early comers began to make their
appearance--strolling along toward the church-yard, and chatting to each
other as they came--and all at once it occurred to her that if he and
she separated thus, he might consider that she had given some silent
acquiescence to his reasons and arguments; and this possibility alarmed
her.
"Good Master Blaise," said she, hurriedly, "pray mistake me not. Surely,
if you are choosing a helpmeet for such high and holy reasons, it were
well that you looked further afield. I am all unworthy for such a
place--indeed I know it; there is not a maid in Stratford that would not
better become it; nay, for my own part, I know several that I could
point out to you, though your own judgment were best in such a matter. I
pray you think no more of me in regard to such a position; God help me,
I should make a parson's wife such as all the neighbors would stare at;
indeed I know there be many you could choose from--if their heart were
set in that direction--that are far better than I."
And with this protest she would fain have got away; and she was all
anxiety to catch a glimpse of Prudence, whose appearance would afford
her a fair excuse. How delightful would be the silence of the great
building and the security of the oaken pew! with what a peace of mind
would she regard the soft-colored beams of light streaming into the
chancel, and listen to the solemn organ music, and wait for the
silver-clear tones of Susan's voice! But good Master Walter would have
another word with her ere allowing her to depart.
"In truth you misjudge yourself, Judith," said he, with a firm
assurance, as if he could read her heart far better than she herself. "I
know more of the duties pertaining to such a station than you; I can
foresee that you would fulfil them worthily, and in a manner pleasing to
the Lord. Your parents, too: will you not consider their wishes before
saying a final nay?"
"My parents?" she said, and she looked up with a quick surprise. "My
mother, it may be----"
"And if your father were to approve also?"
For an instant her heart felt like lead; but before this sudden fright
had had time to tell its tale in her eyes she had reassured herself.
This was not possible.
"Has my father expressed any such wish?" said she; but well she knew
what the reply would be.
"No, he has not, Judith," he said, distinctly; "for I have not spoken to
him. But if I were to obtain his approval, would that influence you?"
She did not answer.
"I should not despair of gaining that," said he, with a calm confidence
that caused her to lift her eyes and regard him for a second, with a
kind of wonder, as it were, for she knew not what this assurance meant.
"Your father," he continued, "must naturally desire to see your future
made secure, Judith. Think what would happen to you all if an accident
befell him on his journeyings to London. There would be no man to
protect you and your mother. Dr. Hall has his own household and its
charges, and two women left by themselves would surely feel the want of
guidance and help. If I put these worldly considerations before you, it
is with no wish that you should forget the higher duty you owe to God
and his Church, and the care you should have of your own soul. Do I
speak for myself alone? I think not. I trust it is not merely selfish
hopes that have bidden me appeal to you. And you will reflect, Judith;
you will commune with yourself before saying the final yea or nay; and
if your father should approve----"
"Good Master Blaise," said she, interrupting him--and she rose and
glanced toward the straggling groups now approaching the church--"I
cannot forbid you to speak to my father, if it is your wish to do that;
but I would have him understand that it is through no desire of mine;
and--and, in truth, he must know that I am all unfit to take the charge
you would put upon me. I pray you hold it in kindness that I say
so:--and there, now," she quickly added, "is little Willie Hart, that I
have a message for, lest he escape me when we come out again."
He could not further detain her; but he accompanied her as she walked
along the path toward the little swinging gate, for she could see that
her small cousin, though he had caught sight of her, was shyly uncertain
as to whether he should come to her, and she wished to have his hand as
far as the church door. And then--alas! that such things should
befall--at the very same moment a number of the young men and maidens
also entered the church-yard; and foremost among them was Tom Quiney.
One rapid glance that he directed toward her and the parson was all that
passed; but instantly in her heart of hearts she knew the suspicion that
he had formed. An assignation?--and on a Sunday morning, too! Nay, her
guess was quickly confirmed. He did not stay to pay her even the
ordinary courtesy of a greeting. He went on with the others; he was
walking with two of the girls; his laughter and talk were louder than
any. Indeed, this unseemly mirth was continued to within a yard or two
of the church door--perhaps it was meant for her to hear?
Little Willie Hart, as he and his cousin Judith went hand in hand
through the porch, happened to look up at her.
"Judith," said he, "why are you crying?"
"I am not!" she said, angrily. And with her hand she dashed aside those
quick tears of vexation.
The boy did not pay close heed to what now went on within the hushed
building. He was wondering over what had occurred--for these mysteries
were beyond his years. But at least he knew that his cousin Judith was
no longer angry with him; for she had taken him into the pew with her,
and her arm, that was interlinked with his, was soft and warm and gentle
to the touch; and once or twice, when the service bade them to stand up,
she had put her hand kindly on his hair. And not only that, but she had
at the outset taken from her bosom the little nosegay of mint and given
it to him; and the perfume of it (for it was Judith's gift, and she had
worn it near her heart, and she had given it him with a velvet touch of
her fingers) seemed to him a strange and sweet and mystical
thing--something almost as strange and sweet and inexplicable as the
beauty and shining tenderness of her eyes.