It takes two to speak truth--one to speak and another to hear.
--_Thoreau._
It was mid-day when Margaret woke; the day after her fruitless
expedition to her father, after the terrible night which had left its
traces on both her soul and body.
She had slept for twelve hours and woke refreshed, but still aching from
the effects of cold and exposure. She felt as if she had been beaten
violently, and she dressed herself with some difficulty.
Mrs. Tremnell had brought a cup of tea to her room, and tried to
persuade her to stay there. Meg accepted the attention with gratified
but rather surprised thanks.
"I must get up," she said, "for I did all sorts of dreadful things
yesterday. I have lamed Tom's mare, and I have lost Barnabas' savings,
and I ought to tell them at once; I can do a thing if I must, but I
can't _wait_ with anything hanging over my head, I never could" (which
was remarkably true).
"Barnabas is too glad to have you back to care about what you've lost,"
said Mrs. Tremnell. "He's so set on you as never was." She looked at Meg
with a rather wistful expression on her face. She had suffered many
qualms of conscience about "Barnabas' wife" in the night. "You must be
fond of your father, Margaret," she said; "and yet parents aren't of
much account generally. My Lyddy never thought much of me--but there!
she was so pretty and clever, it seemed natural she should not."
Margaret didn't look pretty that morning. She couldn't have compared
with Lydia! The black rings round her eyes were most unbecoming, and she
was tired and sad; yet Mrs. Tremnell felt drawn towards her as she never
had felt before.
"Ah!" said Meg sadly, "I daresay she _did_ think of you after all,
Cousin Tremnell. One generally thinks too late!"
She went downstairs then, with some dread of all the questions and all
the explanations before her, but with her mind made up. She had passed a
crisis during the night. She and despair had met at close quarters; and
such a conflict makes its indelible mark. No one can "go down into hell"
and be just the same afterwards. Either he must have found God "there
also,"--a finding which deepens and strengthens;--or have succumbed
utterly, which, I suppose, retards that discovery to which in the end we
humbly believe "all souls come".
The preacher's wife felt anything but victorious that morning; but she
would never run away from consequences again.
She met her father-in-law on the stairs. He had been "more than a bit
scared," he said, when he had found that they knew nothing about her at
the parson's.
"Did you go all that long way?" cried Meg. "I am very sorry!"
"_You_ went all that long way too, eh? Was your father better?" he
asked.
"I might not see him," said Meg. And Mr. Thorpe refrained from further
questions, but put his big hand on her head, with a fatherly kindness
that was grateful to her.
"Well, well; it's a hard world!" said he. "But I am glad to see ye safe;
as glad as if ye were my own daughter."
And Meg never guessed how indignant he was with her "own father" at that
moment.
Tom was bustling in and out of the kitchen, and Meg sat down on the long
bench that was always pushed up to the table for meals, and began
playing with the salt, which had been left out.
She wished that Molly had been Mr. Thorpe's property!
Tom cast quick glances at her while he went to and fro. Meg knew that he
saw that she was nervous, and this made her worse.
He came up to the table at last, and put his hand on the salt jar. That
bit of earthenware, out of which each person helped himself with the end
of a fork, was associated in Meg's mind with Tom for ever afterwards.
"Well," he said, "it seems to gi'e ye some soart o' consolation! If I
put it on th' top o' th' cupboard, which is where Cousin Tremnell says
it ought to be kept between meals, p'r'aps ye'll never get out what ye
are trying to say, eh?" And Meg drew a breath of relief.
This was the old Tom whom she had got accustomed to,--not the Tom of
last week, who had been unnaturally grave, and exceedingly chary of
words.
"I have such a fearful thing to confess that I don't know where to
begin."
"Begin at the end," said he. "The end o' th' matter was that ye left
Molly dead lame at the 'Pig and Whistle's' stable, warn't it? It was the
best ye could do under th' carcumstances. I'm glad ye didn't try to
drive her home again anyhow."
"Oh, you've heard about it!" cried Meg.
"Long John told tales! Ye doan't do credit to my driving lessons; ye
tried to do wi'out me too soon, ma'am!"
"I am dreadfully sorry I lamed Molly."
"Eh? Well, it's done now--an' I'd sooner by a long sight see ye glad
than sorry. Besides, I doan't suppose ye'd ha' taken her if ye had known
she'd come to grief. _What?_" with a sudden burst of laughter, "ye
_would_ have? 'Pon my soul, Barnabas' wife, ye do go in for th' whole
sheep while you're about it!"
Tom's laugh was infectious, and brought a smile even to Meg's lips.
"It is very good of you not to be angry. Long John said you'd never get
over it, Tom."
"Long John thanked his stars it warn't him, I fancy," said Tom, laughing
again; and then he grew graver. "Come now, he's been telling you tales
too, hasn't he? A pretty little story about me? Ay--I guessed as much.
An' you weren't quite sartain that I wouldn't throw the poker at your
head or swear at 'ee just now! Ye doan't allus understan' our ways, no
more nor we do yours, lass; but, if ye'd believe it, ye ha'n't much need
to be scar' to' us. Lord bless us, if ye only knew the times I've _not_
said summat as has been on th' tip o' my tongue cos ye've been by, an' I
doan't much enjoy seein' ye miserable an' shocked. Come now--ha'we made
it up?"
He leaned across the table, and held out his hand to Barnabas' wife.
Meg, who was at least as easily touched by kindness as by unkindness,
looked up eagerly.
"Oh, Tom--I missed you when you weren't friends with me; I should _like_
to make it up," she said, a little colour coming into her cheeks.
Tom shook his head with an odd, half-rueful smile.
"Ye are a white witch, lass! I didn't mean to believe 'ee against my own
eyes, but I suppose I do. I'll never think aught bad of 'ee again. Will
'ee forgi'e me now?"
And Meg melted at once, accepting his apology with warmth.
"But you had better not say you'll never think anything bad of me again,
for you don't know," said she.
A vision of that salt pool rose before her, and she shuddered.
Tom whistled. "I say--it's not on Molly's account ye are so down as
this, lass?"
He walked to the window, and stood with his back to Barnabas' wife.
"Any fool can make a mull," he said; "but I've fancied ye might get atop
o' _your_ mistakes; some go down under 'em, but not the best soart. I
doan't know, as ye say--an' it's Barnabas ye'd better tell, not me--an'
it's oncommon easy to preach. I've not allus found it easy to practise,
seein' I was 'started wi' a mistake in the making o' me; but I'm sure o'
one thing--Barnabas ain't wantin' in understanding; gi'e him a bit o' a
chance, an', happen, he'll help ye better nor ye suppose. An' doan't 'ee
think too small beer o' yoursel' either," added Tom. "Ye've got a pretty
good share o' pluck, my dear, if ye'd only believe it!"
But when Barnabas' wife had taken his advice and gone in search of the
preacher, Tom watched her across the yard, with his queer face screwed
into a rather doubtful expression.
"Lord! I hope he'll say the right thing now; I'd like to gi'e him a
hint," he said.
The preacher was in the hayloft, hammering at something, with his back
to the entrance. He turned round sharply, hammer in hand, when he heard
Margaret's step on the ladder.
"I told Cousin Tremnell to keep ye abed, ye were so terribly done last
night," he said. "Why didn't ye stay there?"
"I wanted to speak to you; at least, there is something I ought to
say----" Meg had got thus far when he interrupted.
"Doan't 'ee for any sake stand afore me looking scared, lass! as if I
was a judge and ye were at th' bar; for I can't bear it."
He pulled down a heap of hay while he was speaking, and Meg sat down,
burying her face in it. Her heart was beating fast, and her head
throbbing; but, after all, it was, perhaps, the man who was most to be
pitied. There were few things he would have owned to "not being able to
bear".
"I've some'ut to say to ye too. Will ye listen to me first, Margaret?"
He spoke low, with an effort to be quiet and cool for her sake; and then
went on, without waiting for an answer: "After ye were gone yesterday, I
came to look for ye; I wanted to say as I took shame to mysel' for
holding ye back when your father was ill, an' I would have taken ye to
Lupcombe; but I was too late. I _do_ take shame for that; I hadn't ought
to ha' tried to stop ye. I am the most bound of all men to be fair to
'ee, an' I wasn't."
"Oh, Barnabas!" said Meg, looking up with tears in her eyes; this was
not what she had expected. "Would you have let me go to him if I had
asked you again? I wish I had, then; I thought it would be no good; that
you never changed your mind."
"I've heard foalk say that we're all a bit obstinate," said the
preacher; "an', where a man's had a clear leading fro' th' Lord, he
can't, to my mind, heed other men's talk too little; but I wasna
followin' the Lord yesterday, but the devil; an' I was sorry for it
when I came to my senses."
"You had a right to object, if you chose."
"Do you suppose I think I've a right to ill-treat ye? I'm sorry for us
both, if ye do," he answered gravely, and then his voice softened. "Oh,
Margaret! I was sore afeart all th' night. When I was lookin' for 'ee in
the 'marshes,' it came over me that there was some evil comin' nigh to
'ee; I've had the feelin' all the week, but last night it were terrible
close: I stayed an' shouted to 'ee; I felt as if I must save 'ee fro'
summat; an', my little lass, I didn't know how to thank God enough when
I saw ye, though ye were half scared o' me."
Meg buried her face lower in the hay. "You are thankful for small
mercies," she said, in rather a choked voice. "It's not worth your while
to care like that, Barnabas."
"The things a man 'ull die for take a grip on him fro' th' outside; an'
he doesna reckon, is it worth 'so much' or 'so much'?" said the
preacher. "Ye are more nor all th' world to me now, whatever happens;
an' it wasna I that set out to love ye, my maid; but the love for ye
that just took a hold o' me."
"Whatever happens?" said Meg. She looked at him with a curious wonder.
"If I had done something very bad, or if----"
"Ye need make no 'ifs,'" he cried. "It's not hell--no, nor yet heaven,
that 'ull take ye out o' my heart now!" And Meg's eyes fell before his;
she had her answer!
She could not hinder this strong love. Barnabas would never count costs
either in the things that pertained to God, or in the things that
pertained to man.
"Well, lass," he began again, after a minute's silence, "I found this
this morning" (holding out her note).
"So ye thought we'd take a satisfaction in makin' th' rest o' your life
miserable? Did ye get to your father?"
"He wouldn't see me," said Meg; and there was a ring of pain in her
voice, that went to the man's heart. "Father could not forgive me,
though I asked him. He said, 'Tell her that as we sow, we must reap;'
and it is very true--truer than anything else in this world, only I did
so want to see him--oh, I _do_ so want to!"
The preacher walked up and down the loft with quick strides. "I hope,"
he began; and then swallowed the rest of that sentence. He hoped in his
righteous indignation--possibly also in his jealousy--that Mr. Deane
might receive a like answer when in need of forgiveness for himself; but
he did refrain from saying that to Meg.
"There was a king's daughter who forgot her own people an' her father's
house; but there's only one thing as makes a woman do that, I fancy," he
said at last; "an' ye've not got it. See now, lass, I'm asking ye for
naught but th' right to help ye if I can. Let's get to th' bottom o'
things together; doan't 'ee think ye might gi'e me that much?"
He spoke gently; but there was always an intensity about the preacher
that made Meg, whose more complex nature was swayed by many different
emotions, feel rather as if she were being coerced into self-revelations
against her will.
"What is the use? There are some things better not talked of. It is
sometimes a sin even--even to regret," she whispered. Her great grey
eyes had a beseeching wistfulness in them. "It's all been unfair to
you," she cried, the conviction that had been growing on her finding
voice. "But I meant, when I came back, to put all that belonged to the
old life quite aside--never to speak of father any more. If you give me
time, I'll do it. Only don't make me tell you too many truths,
Barnabas; they may be better let alone."
"I'd be loth to _make_ any one do aught," said the preacher. "It's what
I'd never do."
"What he would never do!" And how many times had she not seen his strong
personal influence making people go his way?--making the drunkard throw
away gin untasted, making crowds fall on their knees as if moved by one
spirit; yet he spoke in all good faith: such compulsion was not his
doing, but "the Lord's," in the preacher's eyes.
She leaned back against the hay, and watched him pacing up and down the
loft. Her thoughts flew back to a day that had almost been forgotten in
the events that followed it,--the day he had testified in the
drawing-room at Ravenshill.
It had been very like Barnabas to do that--very characteristic both of
his strength and his limitations. Well! she, at least, had learned much
since then; among other things, perhaps, that the most earnest of
preachers is a man first,--and last.
"Ye shall never feel forced to aught, an' I can help it; we'll go on as
we did before, if you choose. Only it's not true that any truth is
better not 'faced,'" he said finally; and there was a steady
self-restraint and patience in his tone that woke Meg's confidence.
The preacher's judgment was not infallible; and she knew that now: his
opinions were mixed with strong class and personal prejudices, his very
goodness was dashed with fanaticism;--and yet, for all that, he was true
to the very core. She had meant to play her part better; but to this
man, of all men, she could not offer pretences. Since this was all he
asked, he should have it. They would face their mistake together; even
that mistake which she had thought it sin against both God and him to
own as one.
"Ask what you like then," she said. She could no more give half a
confidence than he could give half a heart. "But, as to helping--every
one must do his own reaping, unless he is mean enough to try to escape
it. I used to fancy that, being father's daughter, I could never do a
mean thing, though I've done plenty of rash ones; but one learns." And
the reflection of the night's learning deepened the tragedy in her eyes.
"One learns that one might be tempted to anything."
What had she been tempted to? The preacher's breath came more quickly
with the quickness of the thoughts that flashed through his brain.
She was young and had love to give, and a heart that some one else might
have touched, though _he_ could not. If that was the temptation, the
nethermost hell was too good for the man who had tempted her. But _she_
was blameless, anyhow; he knew that,--knew it with an absolute certainty
he longed to declare.
He would have defended her against herself, reading self-accusation in
her tone. God helping him, no hot jealousy should scare or scorch her
this time.
"Margaret," he said slowly, "what was the temptation?"
"I told you," she cried. "It was to _escape_. Oh, Barnabas, we made a
great mistake. We have both seen it, I suppose, and repented; but what
difference does that make? One may water one's sowing with tears--they
don't prevent the harvest! As we sow, we must reap. Even father said so.
Granny Dale said worse things than that----" She stopped abruptly.
"Well?"
"I couldn't tell you all," said Meg, her face flushing. "She said that
men got tired of their fancies, and that, though you were better than
most, you wouldn't stand my ways any more some day. Don't look _so_,
Barnabas; I didn't believe it! I knew you were too good; but some of it
was true. She said you fed and clothed me and got nothing for it; and
that was true. She said I was a fine lady. I have tried not to be, but
it is so difficult to alter the way one has been made. And she told me
horrible stories of--of what her husband did to her when she was young.
I couldn't repeat those--they were too terrible." And Meg shuddered.
"But, when one hears of such things, it makes the whole world dark, and
God seems too far away to care."
"Do 'ee think so?" said Barnabas. "But it's just the knowledge o' such
cruelties and horrors and black wickedness that drives a man to be a
preacher, lass. They burn at th' bottom o' one's thoughts, an' one has
no rest till one has given one's life to th' fighting o' them."
"I know, I know," said Meg. "Oh yes, you have taught me that; one has no
rest for thinking of them! But, if one fights and fails? Barnabas, you
will not understand this, because you never despair, and you don't know
what it is to be beaten, and you are never afraid; but I was. Ah, look
the other way, I know it was cowardly, but it tempted me so; and I
wanted to get free of--of everything; of trying and failing, of loving
people who can't bear to see one, of being a weight on strangers; of the
hopeless tangle. The longing came over me quite suddenly, I had not
thought I was so wicked. I knew, all at once, that I was horribly afraid
of living, and death pulled me so hard, as if there were something
stronger than me in the water; and then you called' Margaret,
Margaret!' and I pulled myself back. I was ashamed of being such a
coward. It was as bad as a soldier who deserts, except that I didn't
quite--though even that I did not was more your doing than mine."
"Neither yours nor mine," said the preacher; "but the Lord's!"
He leaned his arms on the half-door of the loft, and looked away over
the flat country, glistening with water, sweet and fresh after the
baptism of rain. Had he, in leading the woman he loved from the evil of
the world, brought her to this?--this horror of despair and loneliness,
that temptation which she had only just escaped, whose shadow he had
surely felt!
He thanked God she was safe, but with an intensity of realisation of her
peril that went through him like the sharpness of steel.
"I'm sore to think that the devil had power to tempt ye. I'm sore to
think ye met him, wi' me not by, Margaret. How shall I comfort ye? What
shall I say?" cried the man.
If she had loved him he could have comforted so easily; if he had not
loved her, he would have had no doubt what to say. He made an effort to
put that human love aside, and turned to her at last, his blue eyes very
bright. "Doan't believe him who was a liar fro' th' beginning," he said.
"The good must allus be th' strongest, lass, i' th' end. It's against
lies an' black shadows that we fight. With us is the power an' th'
glory. You an' I, Margaret, will win through our failures and our sins,
and count them dead at our feet one day!"
Meg shook her head. "I know you think so," she said; "I am not so
sure--I don't think I am sure of anything,--if even father----" the
sentence did not bear finishing. Alas! though human love first teaches
the divine, the failure of "the brother whom we have seen" shakes our
belief in a Divinity we have not seen, as nothing else can. Then a smile
touched her lips.
"But I daresay _you_ will see all your sins and failures dead at your
feet," she said. "I think you would win through anything; it is the very
sure people who do; and you will be quite triumphant and happy one day!"
"But I'd have no content," said Barnabas, "nor wish to have, without ye
had it too. No, not in heaven--it 'ud be hell an' I lost ye, Margaret!"
"Hush!" cried Meg, amazed. "Do you think it is right to say that?"
"Ay, I do; most right," he said, with the strong conviction in his voice
that Meg always felt overpowered argument. "Shall I think better than my
Master? Was He content in heaven? An' He had been, He'd not ha' drawn
_us_ after Him, lass. I'm not feared o' loving ye too much," he went on
rather sadly. "Happen, if I love ye enough, I'll learn in time not to
scare ye; an' then th' next old wife ye meet won't leave ye fit to drown
yourself wi' her tales o' men's wickedness! So ye think we made a great
mistake, eh? an' ha' both repented? For me, I ha' _not_ repented. It wur
a clear teaching, an' naught's a mistake that's right. An' it seems so
afterwards, that's part o' th' witcheries o' th' devil. Still, ye think
so?" drawing his light-coloured eyebrows together in perplexity, but
with a patient attempt to follow her thought that touched Meg.
"You were doing what you believed right," she said. "I was very
miserable and Aunt Russelthorpe hated me, and I her, and father was
away, and it was easier to go--anywhere--than to stay. I did really
believe it was 'a call' too; it wasn't only discontent. I must have been
wrong, though, or it would have turned out right," Meg said, with a
simplicity that was always part of her character. "But, when I look
back, I can't disentangle my motives nor even remember exactly what I
felt then; I was so different, and knew so little----"
"I'd let it be," said Barnabas. "There doesna seem much doubt to me."
He paused a moment. There was never "much doubt" to him about anything.
It was hardly possible to this man, who was essentially a man of action,
of unhesitating zeal, to comprehend self-torturing uncertainty.
Then his love for her gave him the sympathy which he could never have
reached intellectually.
"But, happen, I doan't rightly understand," he said gently. "Well, He
understan's, whose strength is stronger nor our sins, an' His wisdom nor
our mistakes. Say it wur a sin an' a mistake, lass!--tho', mind, it's
not I who'll ever think so--even then, He can bring ye past it. Failure
isn't for us who are on His side. Things hide themsel's an' take queer
shapes i' th' smoke o' th' battle; but in th' end the shadows 'ull roll
away, an' the day be His an' ours!" cried Barnabas.
Meg, looking at him, knew how he _saw_ that battlefield, where the Man
of Sorrows stood alone triumphant.
Well, the preacher's arguments might not always convince now; but yet,
so long as she lived, his unswerving devotion would wake an answering
chord in her. It is, after all, what a man is that impresses us; and the
reflection of the Eternal goodness in our neighbour's soul refreshes
ours, be the neighbour broad or narrow, of our creed or of his own!
"I am glad I have told you," she said.
Barnabas put his hands on her shoulders and looked down at her, in his
face an anxiety he could not repress.
"Ye ha' told me all?"
"No. There is something else; I have lost the money you gave me,
and----"
He interrupted impatiently. "Eh? that's no matter, and it was yours to
do as you would with; I'd not ha' saved it for mysel'. There's naught
else? I've thought times--happen, when someone came along wi' just all
the ways I'm wanting in--book-larned, perhaps, and clever--so I've
heard--and a gentleman. Doan't fancy that I'm not sartain ye would never
listen to a word ye shouldn't fro' any--I am sure o' that--but meaning
no blame to 'ee, Margaret--only seein' ye are still young, an'--an'----"
He stammered in his eagerness, and Meg felt that his hands were shaking.
It was extraordinary and amazing to her that Barnabas should care like
that.
"I am not breaking my heart for anybody," she said rather indignantly;
"for Mr. Sauls least of all. Every one is rather silly about him, I
think--even Tom."
"An' what about Tom?" asked the preacher; and Meg, in some dismay, found
herself let in for even greater revelations than she had intended.
Barnabas was more indignant on her behalf than she expected or wished.
He listened to the rather confused story in silence, except that he
interrupted once to ask: "Why didn't ye tell me? Didn't ye know I'd ha'
come fro' anywhere to take your part?"
"It's all past now, and Tom and I have made it up; and it does not
matter any more," Meg wound up. She was anxious to forget that sore
subject, which had been such a perplexity to her.
"There would have been no use in telling you when I couldn't prove that
I was speaking the truth. You see, I could not explain about the
letter; I can't understand, even now, what it was that Cousin Tremnell
picked up, but I have thought since that, perhaps----"
"_I_ doan't want explaining to. Ye needn't fash yoursel'!" cried
Barnabas. There was something more like reproach in his tone than
anything she had heard before. Her explanation died.
"Maybe I'm jealous! happen I've made ye miserable in ways I doan't know,
though I'd gi'e my blood for ye; but, if I had your word on one hand,
an' all the proofs the devil could bring on th' other, I'd believe ye,
Margaret; ay, an' without a doubt. So ye thought I'd need proofs afore
I'd be sartain ye weren't lying? I thank God I doan't! It takes less
than the eighteen months sin' we were married to find out whether a
person speaks truth or no. Why, I'd swear blindfold to yours; Ye may
mind that!"
"I thought it was only women who believed like that," said Meg. "But you
would be right--and quite safe--and I will mind it."
His confidence did her good; he was never likely to repent it.
"Ye might ha' known wi'out telling," said Barnabas with a sigh; and the
sigh brought back her self-reproach.
"Indeed," she cried wistfully, "I do trust and like you, Barnabas. I
would try to show it more, only----"
"No!" said the man; "Doan't _try_." Then, seeing her surprised face: "Ye
just doan't understan'; but on th' day ye love me, my lass, there'll be
no need o' trying, nor yet o' my askin'. I ha' not pressed ye, Margaret,
an' I'll never do that; but I'll _know_ it, whether I'm i' this world or
the next."