THE SQUIRE’S SOUL.
Two years passed, and a third winter. The church was now well on its
way to restoration. The roof had been repaired, the defective
timbers removed and sound ones inserted, the south wall strengthened
with three buttresses, the foundations on that side examined and
shored up. The old Squire did not halt here. Furniture arrived for
the interior; a handsome altar cloth, a small gilt cross, a dozen
hanging lamps, an oaken lectern, cushions, hymn-books, a big new
Bible with purple book-markers. He promised to take out the east
window--which was just a patchwork of common glass, like a cucumber
frame--and replace it with sound mullions and stained glass, in
memory of his only daughter, Honoria’s mother. She had run away from
Tredinnis House, and married a penniless captain; and Honoria’s
surname was Callastair, though nobody uttered it in the old man’s
hearing. Husband and wife had died in India, of cholera, within
three years of their marriage; and the old man had sent for the
child. Having relented so far, he went on to do it thoroughly, in
his own fashion. He neglected Honoria; but she might have anything
she wanted for the asking. It seemed, though, that she wanted very
little.
He allowed Mr. Raymond to choose the design for this window. He only
stipulated that the subject should be Jonah and the whale.
“There’s no story’ll compare with it for trying a man’s faith.”
When the window came, and was erected, he complained that it left out
most of the whale, of which the jaws and one wicked little red eye
were all that appeared. “It looks half-hearted. Why didn’t they
swim en all in? ’Tis neck or nothin’ wi’ that story; but they’ve
made it neck _and_ nothin’. An’ after colouring en violet too!”
In return, the Vicar had hunted up some county histories and heraldic
works in the library at Tredinnis, and was now busy re-emblazoning
with his own hand the devices carved on the Moyle pew.
Little by little, too, the congregation had grown. The people came
shyly at first. They mistrusted the Established Church. But they
treated the Vicar with politeness when he visited them. And seeing
him so awkward, and how with all his book-learning he listened to
their opinions and blushed when he offered any small service, they
grew to like him, being shy themselves. They pitied him too, knowing
the old Squire better than he did. So from Sunday to Sunday Taffy,
pulling at his rope in the belfry, counted the new-comers, and
Humility talked about them on the way home and at dinner. They were
fisher folk for the most part; the men in blue guernseys and corduroy
trousers, and some with curled black beards and rings in their ears;
the women, in gayer colours than you see in an up-country church; a
southern-seeming race, with southern-sounding names--Santo, Jose,
Hugo, Bennet, Cara. They belonged--so Mr. Raymond often told
himself--to the class which Christ called His Apostles. Sometimes,
scanning an olive-coloured face, he would be minded of the Sea of
Gennesareth; and, a minute later, the sight of the grey coast-line
with its whirled spray would chill the fancy.
The congregation always lingered outside the porch after service; and
then one would say to another: “Wall, there’s more in the man than
you’d think. See you up to the meetin’ this evenin’ I s’pose?
So long!”
But having come once, they came again. And the family at the
Parsonage were full of hope, though Taffy longed sometimes for a
play-fellow, and sometimes for he knew not what, and Humility bent
over her lace pillow and thought of green lanes and of Beer Village
and women at work by sunshiny doorways; and wondered if their faces
had changed.
“O, that I were where I would be!
Then would I be where I am not;
But where I am, there I must be,
And where I would be, I cannot.”
She never told a soul of her home thoughts. Her husband never
guessed them. But Taffy (without knowing why), whenever this verse
from his old playbook came into his head, connected it with his
mother.
But the old Squire was getting impatient. He took quite a feudal
view of the saving of his soul, and would have dragged the whole
parish to church by main force, had it been possible.
Late one afternoon, Taffy was lying in one of his favourite nooks in
the lee of the towans, when he heard voices and looked up. And there
sat the old gentleman gazing down on him from horseback, with Bill
Udy at his side. The Squire was in hunting dress.
“What be doin’ down there?” he asked. “Praying?”
“No, sir.”
“I wish you would. I wish you’d pray for me. I’ve heerd that a
child’ll do good sometimes when grown folk can’t. I doubt your
father isn’t goin’ to do the good I looked for from en. He don’t
believe in sudden conversion. Here, Bill, take the mare and lead her
home.”
He dismounted, and seated himself with a groan on the edge of the
sand-pit.
“Look here; I’ve got convictions of sin, but I can’t get no forrader.
What’s to be done?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Taffy stammered, with his eyes on the Squire’s
spurs.
“You can pray for me, I suppose?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, do it. Do it to-night. I’ve got convictions, boy; but my
heart’s like a stone. I’ve had a wisht day of it. If the weather
holds back, we’ll kill a May fox this year. But where’s the comfort?
All the time to-day ’twas ‘_Lippety-lop, no peace for the wicked!
Lippety-lop, no peace for the wicked!_’ I couldn’t stand it; I came
away. You’ll do it, won’t ’ee?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is your father at home? I’ll call an’ speak to en. He does me
good; but he can’t melt what I carry here.”
He tapped his breast and rising without another word strode off
across the sand-hills with his head down and his hands clasped
beneath his coat-tails, which flapped in the wind as he went.
Taffy ran and overtook Bill Udy and the mare.
“He’s in a wisht poor state, id’n a’?” said Bill Udy, who was parish
clerk. “Bless ’ee, tidn’ no manner of use. His father before en was
took in just the same way. Turned religious late in life. What
d’ee think he did? Got his men together one Sunday mornin’, marched
them up to Meetin’ house, up to Four Turnin’s; slipped his ridin’
crop through the haps o’ the door, an’ ‘Now my Billies,’ says he,
through the key-hole, ‘not a man or woman of ’ee leaves the place
till you’ve said that Amazin’ Creed. Come along,’ he says,
‘_Whosoever will be saved_ an’ the sooner ’tis over, the sooner
you gets home to dinner.’ A fine talk there was! Squire, he’s just
such another. Funny things he’ve a-done. Married a poor soul from
Roseland way--a Miss Trevanion--quite a bettermost lady. When Miss
Susannah was born--that’s Miss Honoria’s mother--she went to be
churched. What must he do, to show his annoyance that ’twasn’t a
boy, but drive a she-ass into church? Very stiff behaviour.
He drove the beast right fore an’ into the big pew. The Moyles, you
see, ’ve got a mule for their shield of arms. He’ve had his own way
too much; that’s of it.
“One day he dropped into church just before sarmon-time. There was a
rabbit squattin’ outside ’pon his father’s tombstone. Squire crep’
up an’ clapped his Sunday hat ’pon top of en. Took en into church.
One o’ the curate chaps was preachin’--a timorous little fellah.
By-’n’-by Squire slips out his rabbit. ‘Wirroo, boys! Coorse en,
coorse en--we’ll have en for dinner!’ Aw, a pretty dido! The curate
fellah ran out to door an’ the rabbit after en. Folks did say the
rabbit was the old Squire’s soul, an’ that he’d turned black inside
the young Squire’s hat. Very stiff behaviour.
“He’ve had his own way too much; that’s what it is. When he was
pricked for sheriff, he hired a ramshackle po’shay, painted a mule
’pon the panel, an’ stuffed the footmen’s stockings with bran till it
looked a case of dropsy. He was annoyed at bein’ put to the expense.
The judge lost his temper at bein’ met in such a way, an’ pitched
into en in open court, specially about the mule. He didn’t know
’twas the Squire’s shield of arms. Squire stood it for some time;
but at last he ups an’ says, ‘If you was an old woman of _mine_, I’d
dress ’ee different; an’ if you was an old woman of mine an’ kep’
scolding like that, I’d have ’ee in the duckin’-stool for your
sauce!’ He almost went to gaol for that. But they put it on the
ground the judge had insulted his shield of arms, an’ so he got off.
“Well, wish-’ee-well! Don’t you trouble about _he_. He’ve had his
own way too much, but he won’t get it this time.”
That night Taffy dreamt that he met Squire Moyle walking along the
shore; but the sand clogged him, and his spurs sank in it and his
riding-boots. When he was ankle deep he began to call out, “Pray for
me!” Then Taffy saw a black rabbit running on the firm sand to the
breakers; and the Squire cried “Pray for me! I must catch en!
’Tis my father’s soul running off!” and put his hand into his breast
and drew out a stone and flung it. But the stone, as soon as it
touched the sand, turned into another rabbit, and the pair ran off
together along the shore. The old man tried to follow, but the sand
held him; and the tide was rising....