But the living out was difficult.
Meg awoke at the farm. After the strange and wonderful journey by the
side of the preacher; after the days of wandering over hill and dale,
with exhausted body, but with mind so fixed on the vision beautiful,
that she would not have been surprised at any moment had the clouds
parted, and the second coming of the Lord blazed forth; after that
curious "intoxication" of the soul that such natures as hers seem liable
to,--she "came to herself" in the old house among those northern
marshes, and tried, a little desperately, to meet the demands of a lot
she had not been born to.
The loneliness was all on her side; for to the Thorpes the advent of
Barnabas' wife was, perhaps, on the whole a not unwelcome piece of
excitement.
In the winter the road across the marshes was all but impassable for
months together. Often from November till February the little stronghold
which the first Thorpe had wrested, and his successors kept, from the
devils of desolation, was left to its own resources.
The family characteristics had probably been fostered by the
circumstances of their life; they were sufficient to themselves.
There were Thorpes; there were--but some way behind them--their fellow
country, or rather county-men; and then there was the rest of the world.
Weak-knee'd outsiders, with bad constitutions and "queer ways" and
indifferent morals. The preacher's wife was not even north country; she
was, in fact, almost a "foreigner".
Poor little "outsider," thrust down in their midst to take root in a
strange soil, if she could; or to shrivel and droop with
starvation!--which would she do?
"The best thing for the lass 'ud be to pack her in cotton wool, and send
her back to her own kind," Tom Thorpe had declared. But the boats were
burnt, and the going back was impossible!
On the whole, of all her new relatives, Tom alarmed Meg most; but
"Cousin Tremnell" was the member of the family she liked least.
The prim little woman, with plaintive voice and sharp curiosity, with
uneasy pretensions to "gentility" and small affectations, seemed more
hopelessly out of touch with her than were her husband's rougher
kinsmen. Cousin Tremnell asked questions with the eagerness of a born
gossip, who had been starving for dearth of any subject more personal
than "crops" and "horses"; and Meg shrank from her inquiries as if they
were so many small stabs.
"It is not becoming for you to be sitting in the kitchen, ma'am," she
had said on the morning after Meg's arrival, and had forthwith conducted
her into the best parlour, which was the one ugly room in the house,
with its carpet beflowered with magenta roses; its gauze-swathed frames,
and bunches of worsted convolvuli under shades.
Mrs. Tremnell brought out her work, and settled herself down to see what
she could "get out" of this extraordinary cousin-in-law, towards whom
her feelings were at present rather mixed. It was something to have a
connection who had been one of the Deanes of Kent; but what a degenerate
Deane she must be! Mrs. Russelthorpe herself could not have had a
keener sense of Meg's degradation.
"How could she ever have done such a thing?" Mrs. Tremnell kept
repeating to herself, with little mental gasps and notes of
interrogation; and the burden of her thoughts was embarrassingly
apparent, even though something in the stranger's manner, a shy dignity
that Mrs. Tremnell durst not quite outrage, prevented her from asking
the question point blank.
"It must seem very strange to you here, ma'am," she said tentatively.
"Of course, it can't be what you were accustomed to. _I_ find my
cousin's ways rough myself--not meaning no comparison to what _your_
sensations must be. I understand you was brought up in a different
station altogether."
"I have been in many rougher places than this," said Meg; "and the past
is quite dead."
Mrs. Tremnell's eyes fairly twinkled with eagerness. The preacher's wife
was "very peculiar-looking," she said to herself, glancing at Meg's
short curls and shabby dress; but there was no doubt that she was a
lady, and the lady's "past" possessed a wonderful fascination.
"Is your honoured father still alive?" she ventured; and the colour
rushed to Meg's cheeks.
"Oh yes--I--I hope so!" the girl cried. But the idea that he might be
dead and buried, for all she knew or would ever know about him, suddenly
made her heart contract with a sharp spasm of fear.
She made a hasty effort to draw "Cousin Tremnell" away from the subject;
and, asking questions in her turn, elicited a stream of information
about the Thorpes in general, and Barnabas Thorpe in particular, a
stream which was only checked by occasional little flights back to "the
Deanes," whose very name seemed to attract Cousin Tremnell as honey
attracts a bee.
It was curious to hear Barnabas spoken of familiarly; curious how the
man's individuality was becoming stronger and the prophet's fainter to
his wife's unwilling eyes.
"The Thorpes are all as sure as sure of everything," said Cousin
Tremnell. "_I_ take after my father's side myself, and he was a
gentle-spoken man, and quite different; it was my mother was a Thorpe.
And my dear husband was south country. I never saw much of Cousin Thorpe
till after I was left a widow. Then, when my daughter was growing up,
Barnabas used to be a deal over at L----, where we lived; but Tom and
Lydia could never abide each other. I shouldn't have believed that I
could ever come and live here then, nor that Tom Thorpe would ask me to;
but blood is thicker than water, and I must allow that Tom's always
kind, if one's in trouble. I was ill this spring, and I was sitting by
myself, for I hadn't cared to have folks about since--since she left me,
when Tom Thorpe walked in quite unexpected. I had got that weak and
nervous--for living alone never suited me--that I fairly screamed when
he opened the door. 'Now, you come along back with me, cousin,' says he;
'for I can't leave you here to think of your own funeral all the day.'
And I hadn't the heart to say no, though I am half sorry now I didn't. I
was that lonesome, you see; and a man does give one a feeling of
support, especially if the man's Tom or Barnabas. Barnabas was the one I
liked best as a lad, and, to be sure, I thought he would never
forget--but there! it's nearly sixteen years ago now, since he was
courting my poor Lydia."
Her voice dropped to a reverently lowered tone when she spoke of her
daughter. The shadow of her grief momentarily dignified her pinched and
rather fretful face; and Meg, who had been listening listlessly, looked
up with awakened interest.
"Did she like him?" asked the preacher's wife shyly. Her quick fancy
pictured the pretty girl, whom Barnabas had loved when a boy; and her
sympathy was moved at once by the mother's sorrow.
Mrs. Tremnell, however, seemed half offended at the question.
"Oh, as for that, Lydia had plenty to admire her without Barnabas," she
said.
And Meg could not guess how the little woman's sore heart was hurt,
because the preacher's was healed; no one but her mother mourned for her
pretty Lydia now.
"When he was a boy he would run the twelve miles from here to the town
to get a talk with her; for all he was sure of a thrashing from Tom for
playing truant when he got back," she went on. "But that's long past,
and forgotten; and, perhaps, I shouldn't even have alluded to it to
_you_, ma'am."
"Why not to me?" asked the girl; and then coloured, and laughed
nervously when Cousin Tremnell's meaning dawned on her.
"To be sure, he is another man altogether since his conversion, and I
hear the miracles he does is wonderful; though I do hope you'll persuade
him to lay by and take money for his cures, now that he has got a wife
and may have children," continued the plaintive voice, which was touched
with asperity now. "He might make a very good thing of it, and people
would think a deal more of him if they had to pay. Indeed, with your
connection with the aristocracy, which is far beyond what he might have
expected, I don't see why he shouldn't start a regular business. It was
a sister of yours that married Lord Doran, was it not, ma'am?"
"Oh, _won't_ you understand?" cried Meg, with sudden energy. "That is
all done with--I--I--don't think about it."
"I beg your pardon, I am sure, ma'am; I was not aware that I had said
anything amiss," said Cousin Tremnell huffily. And to herself she
remarked that Barnabas had gone far to fare badly.
Meg went for a solitary walk in the marshes after that, and tried to
sort and adjust her ideas and to "lay" decently several ghosts Cousin
Tremnell had brought out of their graves. They had never, perhaps, been
so entirely buried as she had fancied.
The incidents of that first day at the farm always remained in her
memory, standing out from the many rather monotonous days that followed;
not that they were remarkable in themselves, but because first
impressions are cut sharp and clear as with a new die.
She came in after the mid-day meal had begun. The two or three farm
labourers who ate in the same room, though at the other end of the long
wooden table, turned round to stare at her with a stolid and deliberate
stare. Tom Thorpe remarked that she was late, and they had "nigh done,"
though more by way of something to say than as a rebuke; and then, in
the middle of the meal, "Foolish Timothy" lounged in, and effectually
robbed her of her appetite.
The idiot shambled up to the table, and sat down beside her unasked, but
unrebuked; and Meg could not repress a shudder of disgust.
The man's coarse loose mouth, and cunning shifty eyes, with their
furtive sidelong glances, were unspeakably repulsive to her; and
Timothy, unfortunately, saw the shiver, and hated her on the spot with
the malicious, easily roused hate of a low nature. He was one of those
ill-conditioned fools who have just cunning enough to pretend to be
rather more idiotic than they are, when it suits their convenience; he
lived on the kindness of the countryside, and lived well, occasionally
repaying hospitality by buffoonery of a somewhat profane kind; but, at
the Thorpes, he was generally on his good behaviour.
"What's wrong wi' ye?" Tom suddenly asked his sister-in-law. "Isn't the
food to your liking, or aren't you hungry?"
"Yes, thank you, quite--I mean it's very nice," stammered Meg; but some
fascination made her look at the creature by her side, who was
contorting his face into sudden, hideous grimaces whenever he could
catch her eyes unobserved by his host.
"What's the good o' telling lies?" said Tom. "It's plain ye can't eat
that; and we all know ye've not been used to fare like us. Here,
Timothy, make yourself useful, and fetch an egg from the barn; happen
she'll relish it better."
"Oh no, please don't!" cried Meg, who felt that she could not for the
life of her taste anything that Timothy had touched. "The pie is very
good, but I have had plenty."
Tom frowned impatiently. "My good girl, _that_ you've not," he said. "I
am not going to force food down your throat if you don't want it; but
why you persist in saying you like it when you can't swallow half a
mouthful, goodness knows. Lord bless us! I am proud of our cooking, as
Cousin Tremnell 'ull tell you; but I don't make a meal off the people
who don't agree wi' me. Hands off, Timothy! Where are your manners?" For
Timothy had surreptitiously stretched out a long-nailed, dirty hand
towards the food in Meg's plate. She jumped up with a start at the touch
of the idiot, and with a hastily murmured excuse fled from the kitchen.
Tom Thorpe gave vent to a long, low whistle.
"It's a pretty business," he remarked; "an' the hottest water Barnabas
has ever got into. What had he to do wi' a fine lady, as can't even sit
down to table by us?"
"I must say the way she has been trapesing about the country half the
morning isn't much like a lady," said Cousin Tremnell.
"Well, I've done. Ye may tell her I've gone out. So she can come and
pick up a few more crumbs in peace," he said good-naturedly. "An', I
say, cousin, ye might tell her I am not such an ogre as I look, eh? The
fact is, I've got so used to myself living here alone wi' dad, that I
don't think how I scare other people, unless a stranger comes to show
me."
But Cousin Tremnell was still huffy, and didn't see that she had any
call to "run after Mrs. Thorpe".
It was not a remarkably good beginning; and the preacher's wife felt
much ashamed when she had recovered from her sudden horror.
She took herself to task for her disgust, as if it had been a crime, but
could not prevail upon herself to return to the kitchen. Tom's deformity
did not cause her the least repulsion; it was as it were accidental, and
the man himself inspired her with respect; but Timothy seemed to her
like some horrible brute, whose very likeness to humanity made him the
more repulsive.
She sat down on the wide sill of the staircase window, and tried to
forget the troublesome details of this rough-edged life, the while her
eyes rested on the reed beds bowing in the wind, and the low grey sky,
where a buzzard hung poised.
Thus seated, she clenched her hands; and, presently, began to sing very
softly to herself, to the tune of an old Roundhead battle hymn. The
inspiration of hard fighting was in it, and it did her good.
In the middle of a bar, she became aware that some one was listening;
and, turning round, saw Mr. Thorpe standing on the stair above her.
The old man looked worn and tired; but smiled, and spoke to her with a
rather melancholy gentleness that won her heart.
"Ye've a very sweet voice, lassie," he said. "Are ye for driving the old
enemy away with it? Ye were singing as if ye were leading a forlorn
hope. Ye had better not stop till ye've routed him."
The girl looked wonderingly for a moment; and then her heart went out to
him with instinctive womanly sympathy. "I can sing as long as ever you
please," she said; and she sang on with gathering courage, till the dusk
began to creep over the landscape, and the shadows broadened on the
stairs, and her voice failed from weariness.
She slid down from her place, warmed and cheered by a sense of
comradeship, and stood beside him as he thanked her. The preacher's wife
became wonderfully clever, as time went on, in foreseeing and warding
off the black fits of depression that laid hold on the man; but, on that
first evening, he had helped her, as a stronger and more cheerful spirit
never could have.
"I am ashamed to go back to the kitchen," she said shyly; "I was so
silly at dinner-time."
"An' so ye are Barnabas' wife!" he answered irrelevantly. "Well, well,
it's no wonder ye feel a bit strange; but ye have driven the devil back.
Come along wi' me, lass." And they went down together.
The preacher came home in the evening; he had been out all day. His eyes
turned at once to the chimney corner, where Meg was sitting with her
head bent down, fondling a kitten on the hearth.
"How is dad?" he asked of Tom, who hopped into the room with a
tablecloth, which was entirely for their guest's benefit, under his arm.
"All right," said Tom. "Thanks to your wife, she's witched away the
blues this time, and I thought we were in for a spell of 'em. I'll
forgive ye for having the bad taste not to like me, if ye can cheer up
dad;" turning round on Meg. "But what are we to call ye? Ye can't allus
be 'Barnabas' wife!'"
"My name is Margaret," said Meg slowly. "I suppose that is what you had
better call me."
"Oh, not if you don't like it," cried Tom, who perceived with wonderful
quickness the "unwilling" inflection in her voice. "I'd not call any
woman by her name against her will. Ye needn't think it. Will 'ee sit
down to supper with us, Barnabas' wife, or would ye liefer stay at a
safe distance till we've quite done, eh?"
"Doan't ye heed him; he talks a deal o' nonsense by times," said
Barnabas. And Meg was rather thankful for once to have his broad
shoulders between herself and Tom's over sharp-sighted eyes.
And so the first day at the farm came to an end, and in the course of
the many that followed the stranger settled down among the Thorpes, even
if she didn't take root, and still remained more or less strange.
She grew fond of Mr. Thorpe, who pitied the "little lady" from his
heart. She was uneasily conscious of Tom's shrewd observation, which was
uncomfortably keen to live with; and she saw very little of the man who
had been her daily companion for the last three months.
The preacher seldom came in till late, and then exchanged few words with
her. There had been nothing like a quarrel between them, and Meg had the
most absolute trust in him; nevertheless, she breathed more freely when
he was not present, sitting on the bench in the kitchen netting or
carving silently, and looking at her every now and then with a look that
haunted her.
She had been some weeks at the farm, when, one day, something occurred
to break the surface calm that seemed to have settled on them, and
frightened her with a glimpse of the Thorpe temper that Mrs. Tremnell
had talked about, and of something else as well, which she was unwilling
enough to reckon with.
Barnabas Thorpe had been away for several days, and was striking home
across the flats. He quickened his pace on nearing the farm. The dull
ache of anxiety he constantly felt when absent, had changed to a sharper
excitement that made his pulses beat fast, when suddenly the faint echo
of a scream caught his ear, and with a shout that rang out over the
snow-covered marsh, he ran at full speed towards the farm.
Tom, seeing him in the distance, and wondering at the headlong rush,
followed him as fast as his lame foot would allow, and arrived five
minutes after him panting and curious.
By that time the preacher was standing in the middle of the kitchen with
the fingers of his left hand twisted in "Foolish Timothy's" collar, and
his right arm raised in the act of striking. Timothy was howling like a
wild beast, and livid with mingled rage and fright and pain; the weight
of Barnabas Thorpe's arm was not light, and he did all things with a
superabundant amount of energy. Barnabas' wife was standing in a corner
with a face as white as the snow outside.
"I say," said Tom, "whatever Tim's been doing, I think ye'd better put
off the rest o' that thrashin' till your wife's out o' the way."
Meg found her voice at the same instant. "Oh do let him go--I only want
him to go!" she cried. And the preacher let his arm drop at the sound of
her voice.
"All right, I won't hit him again. You needn't look at me like that.
He's not half so much hurt as he deserves," he said. And then, half
twisting the idiot round with a turn of his strong wrist, he spoke
between his teeth.
"If I gave you your deservings," he said, "I'd thrash you till you
hadn't a whole bone left. I can't do that now; not that it wouldn't do
you good, but it's against my calling. You'll get off a deal too easy;
but if ever I catch you frightening my wife or any other woman again,
I'll take it it 'ull be my duty to pay ye with interest; and I swear you
shall have enough to last your life. Off wi' ye! and don't let's see
your face under this roof again."
With that, he loosened his grasp; and Timothy, choking, made for the
door. Before passing through it, he turned and shook his fist at
Barnabas.
"I'll be even with you and your fine wife yet!" he cried. "Curse you
both! Bad luck is on your scent, Barnabas! She always follows them as
lays hands on me; and you've tempted her before. You've taken to wife a
maid as wasn't born for the likes of you or yours, and every drop of
blood in her body shrinks from you. She's pining after her own people
already, and she'll go back to them and leave you to whistle for her.
She's theirs, not yours! and if ye try to hold her she'll hate you. You
can force man to obey you, but you can't make a woman cleave to you.
She'll leave you, I say, and there'll be worse to follow. I'll live to
see you brought low, and----"
"Clear out!" said Tom. "Or ye'll sartainly live to see yourself 'brought
low' in half a second." And Timothy fled; but the brothers looked at
each other with foreboding in their faces. Neither of them was above
superstition.
"It is terrible unlucky," said Tom, "to lay a hand on such as him. I
wish ye hadn't, lad!"
"He may think himself fortunate. I'd not ha' dealt so gently by him
once," said the preacher grimly. "But," with a sudden change of tone,
"I've scared my poor lass nigh as much as that varmin did!"
He turned to Meg, who was still standing with a blanched face in the
corner. "How came it ye were alone wi' him?" he asked.
"Mrs. Tremnell and your father have gone into town to-day," said Meg,
trying rather vainly to steady her voice. "Tom thought I was with them,
but my head ached, and I stayed behind. I didn't come down to dinner
because Timothy was there; but, after dinner, I heard him go out with
Tom, and thought it was quite safe. He crept back when I was alone in
the kitchen." She shuddered, and Barnabas clenched his hand
unconsciously.
"Do you mean to say ye had ever reason to be scared of him before?" he
asked thickly.
"It was chiefly my silliness before," said Meg. "He only made faces at
me and tried to pinch me one day when Tom's back was turned; but, of
course, I knew he hadn't all his wits, and I didn't like to make a fuss.
Oh, Barnabas, _please_ don't go on talking about it; let's forget."
"I am sorry, lad," said Tom, who was watching his brother curiously.
"Aren't you wishin' you were unconverted an' free to wring his neck?
But," with a swift wheel round, "doan't ye think ye really were a little
fool not to ha' told me, Barnabas' wife? Ye might ha' known, by this
time, tha' I'd not ha' let that scamp bother you."
"I thought you would say I was behaving like a fine lady, and fancying
myself different from the rest of you," said Meg.
And Tom laughed loudly. "There wouldn't be much fancy needed," said he.
The episode seemed, by the very fact of its having stirred their
emotions, to have brought the woman's aliency into stronger relief. She
looked longingly at the door, and made a step towards it, when Barnabas
interposed.
"I'll leave ye in peace in a moment, Margaret," he said; "but afore I
go, will 'ee promise me one thing? Will ye tell Tom next time if aught
troubles ye while I am away? or I'll have no rest for thinking some'ut
may be wrong with 'ee."
He spoke insistently, and Meg hesitated for an appreciable second; then
shook her head, the colour coming back to her cheek with a rush: she had
already promised this man more than she could perform.
"I would rather not promise," she said. "I might not want to. If you say
I must, I will, because you have a right, I suppose; but I would rather
not."
Tom grunted impatiently; Barnabas picked up the stick he had broken
across Timothy's shoulders and turned away.
"Do as ye choose; it'll be a bad day for us both when I take to saying
ye must do a thing because I've a right," he answered.
The moment the door had closed upon his brother Tom swore.
"Do 'ee want him made o' ice?" he said. "Why didn't ye give him a word
or a kiss, lass? Barnabas has no end of patience with ye. If ye were my
wife----"
"What would you do?" said Meg, looking up with a sudden flash in her
grey eyes. "Beat me? I have seen husbands do that; it generally answers,
I suppose, if they go on long enough."
"Hullo! we've struck a bit o' fire this time. Thank the Lord for that!"
said Tom. "But ye've a nice opinion of us, haven't ye? Well, there's no
knowing what atrocities I mightn't ha' gone in for, if a merciful
Providence hadn't made it clear impossible for me to marry."
Nevertheless, when Meg came down the next day looking whiter and shyer
than usual, he held out his hand to her with a kindly twinkle in his
eyes. "Ye'd much better be friends wi' me, Barnabas' wife," he said.
"Happen ye'll improve our manners in time."
"I oughtn't to have been angry," said Meg quickly; for she was at least
as susceptible to kindness as to unkindness. "I was all wrong, and one
ought to obey one's husband."
"Oh! ye do plenty o' _that_," cried Tom. "Lord love ye, my dear, if ye
obeyed him a bit less, an' liked him a bit more, Barnabas 'ud not
quarrel wi' the change, and he might bide at home a spell."
Which last suggestion made Meg feel sick at heart, with a half
self-reproachful, wholly miserable sensation, that fairly frightened her
at times.
She went with the preacher that afternoon to a tiny hamlet, some miles
off. She had not accompanied him of late, and it was strange to find
herself alone with him again.
The marshes were still snow-covered in parts; the last vestige of green
was frozen away, the ground lay stretched in drab and grey; save where,
here and there, a salt-water pool showed black against the snow.
The preacher was on his way to baptise a child that had been born in one
of a cluster of wooden huts, that were planted like brown mushrooms
under the scant shelter of a group of alders.
His feet and Margaret's made a track all the way from the farm; and the
girl kept glancing back at the double row of footprints, as though they
had a fascination for her.
It struck Meg that the baptism was regarded as a sort of lucky charm, or
incantation; but, when Barnabas stood outside the huts to preach, there
was no doubt that, as usual, he carried his hearers with him.
Meg stood a little apart and watched him with new eyes.
She had thought of the message, not of the messenger, when she had first
fallen under the spell of his enthusiasm. She tried now--and she found
it strangely difficult--to keep possession of her soul; to stand aloof
mentally, as well as actually, and to look on.
The man's reddish hair and beard and sunburnt face made a spot of colour
in the leaden grey landscape; his vigorous personality was in strong
contrast to the impersonal solemnity of the marsh. And his religion was
personal too; it was the passionate uncalculating loyalty of one who has
seen his God in the Man of Sorrows, and cannot rest for following those
blood-stained footsteps that have drawn so many after them, and have
left so deep a print in the world's history.
The half-dozen men and women who surrounded Barnabas were of as low a
type as Margaret had ever seen; a wizened, stunted race, dwarfed by
marsh fever and unhealthy living. But more than one of them were moved
to tears, at the words they heard. How much did they really understand
of his discourse? and how much was due to the curiously overpowering
and personal influence that Barnabas possessed? This power "from the
Lord,"--was it indeed from the Lord? or would he have wielded it,
whether "converted" or not, purely by reason of his undoubting decision,
and splendid physical strength? What had turned his life into this
channel? and what--her eyes turned again to the double line across the
snow--O God, what was to come of it all, in the many years before them?
It was bitterly cold, and the grey mists clung around them on their walk
home.
Born and bred in the marshes, the preacher knew his way blindfolded, but
the pathless expanse had something awe-inspiring in it. Meg reflected
aloud that strangers might be drowned in a salt pool, and be never heard
of more, if left guideless.
"The wild ducks would scream over one, and there would be the end of
everything!" she remarked.
"Dunnot say it, lass! Ye'll not be wandering alone here when I'm not by,
will 'ee?" cried the preacher, with a ring of pain in his voice; and her
reassurances seemed barely to satisfy him. Timothy had filled him with
forebodings, though he had also brought matters to a climax.
It was partly to turn the subject that Meg asked him one of the
questions that had filled her mind during his preaching.
The preacher reddened, so that, under all the sunburn, she could see the
flush mount to his forehead.
"There are things it goes against a man to talk about," he said. "My
Master knows where He found me." But, after a few minutes, he added
wistfully: "But an' ye care to hear, Margaret, I'd tell ye anything".
The story came out rather jerkily then, while they struggled against the
wind. Meg, seeing the effort the telling caused, was sorry she had
asked; was touched, too, with a painful feeling of compunction at the
eagerness of his desire to more than meet hers.
Every now and then his speech was blown away from her; and once, when
she lifted her face to listen, he paused a moment and said, with rather
a sad smile: "But ye'll not understand it all, Margaret, any more than
the snowflakes would". The snow was resting on her black hood at the
time.
"When I was a boy, dad couldn't bear the sight o' me," he continued,
stating the fact with an outspoken simplicity that was characteristic.
"It made him a bit sour to see me straight and hale, when Tom, as was
worth a dozen o' me, was bent like a crooked stick. That was why I took
to going over to Cousin Tremnell's whenever I could.
"Tom was keen on my getting schooling, though, and sent me over the
marshes an' back every day, till I was too big a lad for any man to
send. I wasn't fond o' learning, nor ain't now. It seems to me people
stuff their minds too much wi' other men's thoughts. God's truth can't
shine through the tangle, and they doan't give their own souls the room
to stretch in. I cut the books and ran away to sea, when I was sixteen,
wi' a cargo of oranges.
"It were after I came back fro' my first voyage that I fell in love wi'
Cousin Tremnell's girl."
"I know," said Meg softly. "Cousin Tremnell told me."
There was a long pause; then: "She ran away to another man," he said
shortly. "An' I followed, being wistful to kill him, an' mad wi' the
longing for her. He had come fro' London, I knew; so I went there an'
walked about the streets looking for her all the day long; an' times I
would strangle her an' I met her, an' times I would kiss her; but either
way, he shouldna hold her ever again, nor should any other maid be th'
worse for him. I hankered so after the open flats when I was hemmed in
by that cursed town, that I used to wake mysel' o' nights fighting wi'
the wall o' my room thinking an' I could knock it down I'd see God's
world again the other side. I made my knuckles bleed, but the others
thought it war drink, an' didn't interfere.
"It was like a nightmare, a horrible hell! But I'll go back there yet;
there are souls to save there too; an' the Master is there: ay, even i'
the lowest depth. It's a fearfu' place, Margaret; the very air o' London
is foul wi' their iniquity; I was sick wi' the taste an' smell o' it.
Well, I traced her at last, and found her dead; I saw her coffin.
"They buried her in a great waste o' graves; I disremember what they
call it. I hid among the stones, being possessed like the man i' the
Bible, and scared lest they should take me away; and after they shut the
gates I crept out an' sat by the side of her.
"The soft slush o' mud hardened to ice in the night; but I was hot, not
cold, an' I wondered whether she couldna feel me through all the
new-turned-up earth. It seemed as if she must. I bided all through the
darkness, for she were always scared o' being alone at dusk; an' when
the day broke, I saw the Lord. He came in the early morning, walking
over the mounds.
"At first I didna know Him. He was dim like a shadow, through the orange
fog; but He called me by name, 'Barnabas, Barnabas!' and my soul leaped
up; an' He came nearer an' stood by her grave, an' touched me; and the
devil went out o' me; and I got up to follow Him, and to call all who I
met to follow Him, who is the very God, till the day when I see Him
again."
The preacher's breath came quickly while he told the story. It was real
to him, as the ground he trod on; no one could listen to it and doubt
that.
But, after a moment, he recovered himself and looked at her with a
kindly smile.
"No one knows this but Him and you," he said. "Nor ever will! I told ye,
because ye asked me, my lass; but doan't ye look sad; it war sixteen
years ago, an' it war worth the pain."
The tears stood in his companion's eyes; she was both touched and
puzzled.
"But it wasna to tell ye _that_ that I wanted ye to come wi' me to-day,"
he went on, after a pause. "I've summat else to say to 'ee, Margaret."
He looked away from her over the marshes, and his voice took the tone of
dogged resolution that Meg was beginning to recognise.
"I'm going to leave you here and tramp to Lupcombe, an' happen I shall
be away some months. They've got the black fever there, and I doubt
they'll have a pretty bad bout. There was three houses struck last week,
an' the game's only just beginning. I've fought wi' that fever once
before, an' happen I'll be some help. The doctor was the very first
down, an' the scare's terrible. I'm going to start this evening when
I've seen ye home. I canna bear ye to be out o' earshot since that
rascal----Margaret," and his voice changed, "it's just all I can do to
leave ye!"
"Shall I come with you?" said Meg in a low voice. "I'm not afraid of any
fever. Would you like me to come?"
"Are ye glad or sorry I'm going?" said the man suddenly. He put his
hands on her shoulders and looked for a moment into her face.
"No," he said; "ye shan't come. God forgi'e me! but that 'ud be more nor
I could stand. Look now, I want to give ye what I've saved. Here! I wish
it was more, my girl; but anyhow, ye'll be beholden to no one wi' that;
it 'ull more nor pay dad for your keep. Hold out your hands, lass," and
he held the money out to her.
"Oh, Barnabas, it's all wrong!" cried the girl sadly. "I wouldn't take
it if I could help it."
"Ye needn't grudge me the working for 'ee," he said; "I think I'd go mad
if I couldn't do that much. I'll try and save more next year. I never
have before, not thinking as I was one to marry, or to hanker after any
woman." He stood still, they were just in sight of the farm, and held
out his hand as if that were the natural ending of his statement.
"At least, I'll not fash ye," he said. "I canna bide here unless ye'll
like me better. The best thing I can do for 'ee now is to leave ye; but
take care o' yourself, since I'm no' to take care for 'ee; take double
care, my lass."
"You need not be afraid," said Meg. "Nothing is in the least likely to
happen to me. It is those whose lives are worth the most who run the
risks; _I_ shall probably live to a ripe old age."
The perplexed self-reproach that had weighed heavily on her all the way
home prompted the speech. She hardly knew herself how sad it was, until
she saw him wince, as if she had hurt him.
"Are ye so unhappy?" he said; "an' I'd give my soul for yours! My little
lass, what shall I do? If there's aught i' this world 'll make ye
happier, I'll do it somehow. I'd be glad if the fever took me, if that
'ud be easiest for ye; but it's easy saying I'd die for ye, when it's
the living is the puzzle. Ay, I know I am scaring ye even now; I love ye
a deal more nor ye want me to, but ye are a woman after all. Margaret,
Margaret, have ye _no_ heart for me?"
Meg covered her face with her hands; the appeal moved her, though not to
love.
"Don't, don't!" she cried. "It's my fault that it's not in me to
care--like that. I can't help it, Barnabas; but it's all wrong from the
beginning to end; and it's my fault."
Barnabas drew himself up with a quick gesture.
"Shame on me!" he said. "I hadn't meant to ha' said that. Ye must forget
it, lass. Ay, it's time I went. See now, I'm going. But doan't 'ee cry
so; gi'e me one look; for I canna leave ye like this. I'm sore ashamed
to ha' made ye cry."
Meg lifted her head and looked at him, ashamed too, though with a smile
through her tears.
"It was something in your voice that made me so silly," she said. "But I
am not going to be unhappy, and I wasn't crying for myself."
"Good-bye," said the preacher steadily. "But I want no pity, my lass.
I'll not have ye waste tears for me. We've not come to the end yet."
With that he turned away, and set his face in the other direction. He
was glad there was a stiff bit of work before him; after facing the
problem of life, it was somewhat of a relief to turn to a grapple with
death.