A SERMON IN STONE.
Now Sergeant Jakes was not allowed to chastise any boys on Sunday. This
made the day hang very heavy on his hands; and as misfortunes never come
single, the sacred day robbed him of another fine resource. For Mr.
Penniloe would not permit even Muggridge, the pious, the sage, and the
prim, to receive any visitors--superciliously called by the front-door
people "followers"--upon that blessed day of rest, when surely the
sweeter side of human nature is fostered and inspirited, from
reading-desk and lectern, from gallery and from pulpit.
However even clergymen are inconsistent, as their own wives acknowledge
confidentially; and Mr. Penniloe's lectures upon Solomon's Song--a
treatise then greatly admired, as a noble allegory, by High
Churchmen--were not enforced at home by any warmth of practice. Thus
stood the law; and of all offences upon the Sergeant's Hecatologue,
mutiny was the most heinous; therefore he could not mutiny.
But surely if Mr. Penniloe could have received, or conceived, a germ of
the faintest suspicion concerning this faithful soldier's alternatives
on the afternoon of the Sabbath--as Churchmen still entitled it--he
would have thrown open every door of kitchen, back-kitchen, scullery,
and even pantry to him, that his foot might be kept from so offending.
Ay, and more than his foot, his breast, and arm--the only arm he had,
and therefore leaving no other blameless.
It is most depressing to record the lapse of such a lofty character, so
gallant, faithful, self-denying, true, austere, and simple--though some
of these merits may be refused him, when the truth comes out--as, alas,
it must. All that can be pleaded in his favour, is that ancient,
threadbare, paltry, and (as must even be acknowledged) dastardly
palliation--the woman tempted him, and he fell! Fell from his brisk and
jaunty mien, his noble indifference to the fair, and severity to their
little ones, his power of example to the rising age, and his pure-minded
loyalty to Thyatira, watered by rivers of tea, and fed by acres of bread
and butter. And the worst of it was, that he had sternly resolved, with
haughty sense of right and hearty scorn of a previous slip towards
backsliding, that none of this weakness should ever, even in a vision,
come anigh him any more. Yet see, how easily this rigid man was wound
round the finger of a female "teener"--as the Americans beautifully
express it!
He was sitting very sadly at his big black desk, one mild and melancholy
Sabbath eve, with the light of the dull day fading out, and failing to
make facets from the diamonds of the windows, and the heavy school-clock
ticking feebly, as if it wished time was over: while shadows, that would
have frightened any other unmarried man in the parish, came in from the
silent population of the old churchyard, as if it were the haze of
another world. A little cloud of smoke, to serve them up with their own
sauce, would have consoled the school-master; but he never allowed any
smoking in this temple of the Muses, and as the light waned he lit his
tallow candle, to finish the work that he had in hand.
This was a work of the highest criticism, to revise, correct, and
arrange in order of literary merit all the summaries of the morning
sermon prepared by the head-class in the school. Some of these
compositions were of extreme obscurity, and some conveyed very strange
doctrinal views. He was inclined to award the palm to the following fine
epitome, practical, terse, and unimpeachably orthodox--"The Sermon was,
sir, that all men ort to be good, and never to do no wikked things
whennever they can help it." But while he yet paused, with long quill in
hand, the heavy oak door from the inner yard was opened very gently, and
a slender form attired in black appeared at the end of the long and
gloomy room.
Firm of nerve as he was, the master quailed a little at this unexpected
sight; and therefore it became a very sweet relief, when the vision
brightened into a living and a friendly damsel, and more than that a
very charming one. All firm resolutions like shadows vanished; instead
of a stern and distant air and a very rigid attitude, a smile of delight
and a bow of admiration betrayed the condition of his bosom.
That fair and artless Tamar knew exactly how to place herself to the
very best advantage. She stood on the further side of the candle, so
that its low uncertain light hovered on the soft curve of her cheeks,
and came back in a flow of steady lustre from her large brown eyes. She
blushed an unbidden tear away, and timidly allowed those eyes to rest
upon the man of learning. No longer was she the gay coquette, coying
with frolic challenge, but the gentle, pensive, submissive maiden,
appealing to a loftier mind. The Sergeant's tender heart was touched, up
sprang his inborn chivalry; and he swept away with his strong right hand
the efforts of juvenile piety, and the lessons of Holy Writ.
"Sergeant Schoolmaster, no chair for me;" Tamar began in a humble voice,
as he offered his own official seat. "I have but a moment to spare, and
I fear you will be so angry with me, for intruding upon you like this.
But I am so--oh so unhappy!"
"What is it, my dear? Who has dared to vex you? Tell me his name, and
although it is Sunday--ah just let me come across him!"
"Nobody, nobody, Sergeant Schoolmaster;" here she pulled out a
handkerchief, which a woman would have pronounced, at a glance, the
property of her mistress. "Oh how shall I dare to tell you who it is?"
"I insist upon knowing," said the Sergeant boldly, taking the upper
hand, because the maiden looked so humble; "I insist upon knowing who it
is, this very moment."
"Then if I must tell, if you won't let me off," she answered with a
sweet glance, and a sweeter smile; "it is nobody else but Sergeant Jakes
himself."
"Me!" exclaimed the veteran; "whatever have I done? You know that I
would be the last in the world to vex you."
"Oh it is because you are so fierce. And that of course is, because you
are so brave."
"But my dear, my pretty dear, how could I ever be fierce to you?"
"Yes, you are going to cane my brother Billy, in the morning."
This was true beyond all cavil--deeply and beautifully true. The
Sergeant stared, and frowned a little. Justice must allow no dalliance.
"And oh, he has got such chilblains, sir! Two of them broke only
yesterday, and will be at their worst in the morning. And he didn't mean
it, sir, oh he never meant it, when he called you an 'Old beast'!"
"The discipline of the school must be maintained." Mr. Jakes stroked his
beard, which was one of the only pair then grown in the parish, (the
other being Dr. Gronow's) for the growth of a beard in those days argued
a radical and cantankerous spirit, unless it were that of a military
man. Without his beard Mr. Jakes would not have inspired half the
needful awe; and he stroked it now with dignity, though the heart
beneath it was inditing of an _infra dig._ idea. "Unhappily he did it,
Miss, in the presence of the other boys. It cannot be looked over."
"Oh what can I do, Sergeant? What can I do? I'll do anything you tell
me, if you'll only let him off."
The Schoolmaster gave a glance at all the windows. They were well above
the level of the ground outside. No one could peep in, without standing
on a barrel, or getting another boy to give him a leg up.
"Tamar, do you mean what you say?" he enquired, with a glance of mingled
tenderness and ferocity--the tenderness for her, the ferocity for her
brother.
"If you have any doubt, you have only got to try me. There can't be any
harm in that much, can there?" She looked at him, with a sly twinkle in
her eyes, as much as to say--"Well now, come, don't be so bashful."
Upon that temptation, this long-tried veteran fell from his loyalty and
high position. He approached to the too fascinating damsel, took her
pretty hand, and whispered something through her lovely curls. Alas, the
final word of his conditions of abject surrender was one which rhymed
with "this," or "Miss," or--that which it should have been requited
with--a hiss. Oh Muggridge, Muggridge, where were you? Just stirring a
cup of unbefriended tea, and meditating on this man's integrity!
"Oh you are too bad, too bad, Sergeant!" exclaimed the young girl
starting back, with both hands lifted, and a most becoming blush. "I
never did--I never could have thought that you had any mind for such
trifles. Why, what would all the people say, if I were only to mention
it?"
"Nobody would believe you;" replied Mr. Jakes, to quench that idea,
while he trembled at it; adding thereby to his iniquities.
"Well perhaps they wouldn't. No I don't believe they would. But
everybody likes a bit of fun sometimes. But we won't say another word
about it."
"Won't we though? I have got a new cane, Tamar--the finest I ever yet
handled for spring. The rarest thing to go round chilblains. Bargain, or
no bargain, now?"
"Bargain!" she cried; "but I couldn't do it now. It must be in a more
quieter place. Besides you might cheat me, and cane him after all. Oh it
is too bad, too bad to think of. Perhaps I might try, next Sunday."
"But where shall I see you next Sunday, my dear? 'Never put off; it
gives time for to scoff.' Give me one now, and I'll stick to it."
"No, Sergeant Jakes. I don't like to tell you, and my father would be so
angry. But I don't see what right he has to put me in there. And oh, it
is so lonely! And I am looking out for ghosts, and never have a happy
mouthful. That old woman will have something to answer for. But it's no
good to ask me, Sergeant; because--because ever so many would be after
me, if they only got a hint of it."
This of course was meant to stop him; but somehow it had quite the
opposite effect; and at last he got out of the innocent girl the whole
tale of her Sunday seclusion. The very best handmaid--as everybody
knows--will go through the longest and bitterest bout of soaking,
shivering, freezing, starving, dragging under wheels, and being blown up
to the sky, rather than forego her "Sunday out." Miss Tamar Haddon was
entitled always to this Sabbath travail; and such was her courage that
have it she would, though it blew great guns, and rained cats and dogs.
Now, her father, as may have been said before, was Walter Haddon of the
_Ivy-bush_, as respectable a man as ever lived, and very fond of his
children. This made him anxious for their welfare; and welfare meaning
even then--though not so much as now it does--fair wealth, and farewell
poverty, Mr. Haddon did his best to please his wealthy aunt, a childless
widow who lived at Perlycombe. For this old lady had promised to leave
her money among his children, if they should fail to offend her. In that
matter it was a hundredfold easier to succeed, than it was to fail; for
her temper was diabolical. Poor Tamar, being of flippant tongue, had
already succeeded fatally; and the first question Mrs. Pods always
asked, before she got out of her pony-carriage, was worded thus--"Is
that minx Tamar in the house?"
Whatever the weather might be, this lady always drove up with her lame
pony to the door of the _Ivy-bush_, at half-past one of a Sunday,
expecting to find a good hot dinner, and hot rum and water afterwards.
For all this refreshment she never paid a penny, but presented the
children with promises of the fine things they might look forward to.
And thus, like too many other rich people, she kept all her capital to
herself, and contrived to get posthumous interest upon it, on the faith
of contingent remainders.
Now Tamar's mother was dead; and her father knowing well that all the
young sparks of the village were but as the spoils of her bows and
bonnets, had contrived a very clever plan for keeping her clear of that
bitter Mrs. Pods, without casting her into the way of yokel youths, and
spry young bachelors of low degree. At the back of his hostelry stood
the old Abbey, covered with great festoons of ivy, from which the Inn
probably took its name; and the only entrance to the ruins was by the
arched gateway at the end of his yard, other approaches having been
walled up; and the key of the tall iron gate was kept at this Inn for
the benefit of visitors.
The walls of the ancient building could scarcely be seen anywhere for
the ivy; and the cloisters and roofless rooms inside were overgrown with
grass and briars. But one large chamber, at the end of a passage, still
retained its vaulted ceiling, and stone pavement scarred with age.
Perhaps it had been the refectory, for at one side was a deep fireplace,
where many a hearty log had roared; at present its chief business was
to refresh Miss Tamar Haddon. A few sticks kindled in the old fireplace,
and a bench from the kitchen of the Inn, made it a tolerable
keeping-room, at least in the hours of daylight; though at night the
bold Sergeant himself might have lacked the courage for sound slumber
there.
To this place was the fair Tamar banished, for the sake of the moneybags
of Mrs. Pods, from half-past one till three o'clock, on her Sunday
visits to the _Ivy-bush_. Hither the fair maid brought her dinner,
steaming in a basin hot, and her father's account-book of rough
jottings, which it was her business to verify and interpret; for, as is
the duty of each newer generation, she had attained to higher standard
of ennobling scholarship.
In a few words now she gave the loving Sergeant a sketch of this
time-serving policy, and her exile from the paternal dinner-table, which
aroused his gallant wrath; and then she told him how she had discovered
entrance unknown to her father, at a spot where a thicket of sycamores,
at the back of the ruins, concealed a loop-hole not very difficult to
scale. She could make her escape by that way, if she chose, after her
father had locked her in, if it were not for spoiling her Sunday frock.
And if her father went on so, for the sake of pleasing that ugly old
frump, she was blest if she would not try that plan, and sit on the
river bank far below, as soon as the Spring dried up the rubbish. But if
the Sergeant thought it worth his while, to come and afford her a little
good advice, perhaps he might discover her Sunday hat waving among the
ivy.
This enamoured veteran accepted tryst, with a stout heart, but frail
conscience. The latter would haply have prevailed, if only the wind had
the gift of carrying words which the human being does not utter, but
thinks and forms internally. For the sly maid to herself said this,
while she hastened to call her big brother Watty, to see her safe back
to Walderscourt.
"What a poor old noodle! As if I cared twopence, how much he whacks
Billy! Does he think I would ever let him come anigh me, if it wasn't to
turn him inside out? Now if it were Low Jarks, his young brother, that
would be quite another pair of shoes."
On the following Sunday it was remarked, by even the less observant
boys, that their venerated Master was not wearing his usual pair of
black Sunday breeches, with purple worsted stockings showing a wiry and
muscular pair of legs. Strange to say, instead of those, he had his
second best small-clothes on, with dark brown gaiters to the knee, and a
pair of thick laced shoes, instead of Sunday pumps with silk rosettes.
So wholly unversed in craft, as yet, was this good hero of a hundred
fights. Thyatira also marked this change, with some alarm and wonder;
but little dreamed she in her simple faith of any rival Delilah.
Mr. Penniloe's sermon, that Sunday morning, was of a deeply moving kind.
He felt that much was expected of him, after his visit to London; where
he must have seen the King and Queen, and they might even have set eyes
on him. He put his long-sight glasses on, so that he could see anybody
that required preaching at; and although he was never a cushion-thumper,
he smote home to many a too comfortable bosom. Then he gave them the
soft end of the rod to suck, as a conscientious preacher always does,
after smiting hip and thigh, with a weapon too indigenous. In a word, it
was an admirable sermon, and one even more to be loved than admired,
inasmuch as it tended to spread good-will among men, as a river that has
its source in heaven.
Sergeant Jakes, with his stiff stock on, might be preached at for ever,
without fetching a blink. He sat bolt upright, and every now and then
flapped the stump of his left arm against his sound heart, not with any
eagerness to drive the lesson home, but in proof of cordial approbation
of hits, that must tell upon his dear friends round about. One cut
especially was meant for Farmer John; and he was angry with that
thick-skinned man, for staring at another man, as if it were for him.
And then there was a passage, that was certain to come home to his own
brother Robert, who began to slaughter largely, and was taking quite
money enough to be of interest to the pulpit. But everybody present
seemed to Jakes to be applying everything to everybody else--a
disinterested process of the noblest turn of thought.
However those who have much faith--and who can fail to have some?--in
the exhortations of good men who practise their own preaching, would
have been confirmed in their belief by this man's later conduct.
Although the body of the church had been reopened for some weeks now,
with the tower-arch finished and the south wall rebuilt, yet there were
many parts still incomplete, especially the chancel where the fine
stone screen was being erected as a reredos; and this still remained in
the builder's hands, with a canvas partition hiding it.
When the congregation had dispersed, Mr. Jakes slipped in behind that
partition, and stood by a piece of sculpture which he always had
admired. In a recess of the northern wall, was a kneeling figure in pure
white marble of a beautiful maiden claimed by death on the very eve of
her wedding-day. She slept in the Waldron vaults below; while here the
calm sweet face, portrayed in substance more durable than ours, spoke
through everlasting silence of tenderness, purity, and the more exalted
love.
The Sergeant stood with his hard eyes fixed upon that tranquil
countenance. It had struck him more than once that Tamar's face was
something like it; and he had come to see whether that were so. He found
that he had been partly right, but in more important matters wrong. In
profile, general outline, and the rounding of the cheeks, there was a
manifest resemblance. But in the expression and quality of the faces,
what a difference! Here all was pure, refined and noble, gentle, placid,
spiritual. There all was tempting, flashing, tricksome, shallow,
earthly, sensuous.
He did not think those evil things, for he was not a physiognomist; but
still he felt the good ones; and his mind being in the better
tone--through commune with the preacher's face, which does more than the
words sometimes, when all the heart is in it--the wonted look of
firmness, and of defiance of the Devil, returned to his own shrewd
countenance. The gables of his eyebrows, which had expanded and grown
shaky, came back to their proper span and set; he nodded sternly, as if
in pursuit of himself with a weapon of chastisement; and his mouth
closed as hard as a wrench-hammer does, with the last turn of the screw
upon it. Then he sneered at himself, and sighed as he passed the empty
grave of his Colonel--what would that grand old warrior have thought of
this desertion to the enemy?
But ashamed as he was of his weak surrender and treachery to his
colours, his pride and plighted word compelled him to complete his
enterprise. The Abbey stood near the churchyard wall, but on that side
there was no entrance; and to get at the opposite face of the buildings,
a roundabout way must be taken; and Jakes resolved now that he would
not skulk by the lower path from the corner, but walk boldly across the
meadow from the lane that led to Perlycombe. This was a back way with no
house upon it, and according to every one's belief here must have lurked
that horse and cart, on the night of that awful outrage.
Even to a one-handed man there was no great difficulty in entering one
of the desolate courts, by the loophole from the thicket; and there he
met the fair recluse in a manner rather disappointing to her. Not that
she cared at all to pursue her light flirtation with him, but that her
vanity was shocked, when he failed to demand his sweet reward. And he
called her "Miss Haddon," and treated her with a respect she did not
appreciate. But she led him to her lonely bower, and roused up the fire
for him, for the weather was becoming more severe, and she rallied him
on his clemency, which had almost amounted to weakness, ever since he
allowed her brother Billy to escape.
"Fair is fair, Miss;" the Master answered pensively. "As soon as you
begin to let one off, you are bound to miss the rest of them."
"Who have they got to thank for that? I am afraid they will never know,"
she said with one of her most bewitching smiles, as she came and sat
beside him. "Poor little chaps! How can I thank you for giving them such
a nice time, Sergeant?"
The veteran wavered for a moment, as that comely face came nigh, and the
glossy hair she had contrived to loosen fell almost on his shoulders.
She had dressed herself in a killing manner, while a lover's knot of
mauve-coloured ribbon relieved the dulness of her frock, and enhanced
the whiteness of her slender neck. But for all that, the Sergeant was
not to be killed, and his mind was prepared for the crisis. He glanced
around first, not for fear of anybody, but as if he desired witnesses;
and then he arose from the bench, and looked at this seductive maiden,
with eyes that had a steady sparkle, hard to be discomfited by any storm
of flashes.
"Tamar," he said, "let us come to the point. I have been a fool; and you
know it. You are very young; but somehow you know it. Now have you
meant, from first to last, that you would ever think of marrying me?"
It never should have been put like that. Why you must never say a word,
nor use your eyes except for reading, nor even look in your
looking-glass, if things are taken in that way.
"Oh Sergeant, how you frighten me! I suppose I am never to smile again.
Who ever dreamed of marrying?"
"Well, I did;" he answered with a twinkle of his eyes, and squaring of
his shoulders. "I am not too old for everybody; but I am much too old
for you. Do you think I would have come here else? But it is high time
to stop this fun."
"I don't call it fun at all;" said Tamar, fetching a little sob of
fright. "What makes you look so cross at me?"
"I did not mean to look cross, my dear." The Sergeant's tender heart was
touched. "I should be a brute, if I looked cross. It is the way the Lord
has made my eyes. Perhaps they would never do for married life."
"That's the way all of them look," said Tamar; "unless they get
everything they want. But you didn't look like that, last Sunday."
"No. But I ought. Now settle this. Would you ever think of marrying me?"
"No. Not on no account. You may be sure of that. Not even if you was
dipped in diamonds." The spirit of the girl was up, and her true
vulgarity came out.
"According to my opinion of you, that would make all the difference;"
said the Sergeant, also firing up. "And now, Miss Haddon, let us say
'Good-bye.'"
"Let me come to myself, dear Sergeant Jakes. I never meant to be rude to
you. But they do court me so different. Sit down for a minute. It is so
lonely, and I have heard such frightful things. Father won't be coming
for half an hour yet. And after the way you went on, I am so nervous.
How my heart goes pit a pat! You brave men cannot understand such
things."
At this moving appeal, Mr. Jakes returned, and endeavoured to allay her
terrors.
"It is all about those dreadful men," she said; "I cannot sleep at night
for thinking of them. You know all about them. If you could only tell me
what you are doing to catch them. They say that you have found out where
they went, and are going to put them in jail next week. Is it true?
People do tell such stories. But you found it all out by yourself, and
you know all the rights of it."
With a little more coaxing, and trembling, and gasping, she contrived
to get out of him all that he knew, concerning the matter to the present
time. Crang had identified the impressions as the footmarks of the
disabled horse; and a search of the cave by torchlight showed that it
must have been occupied lately. A large button with a raised rim, such
as are used on sailors' overalls, had been found near the entrance, and
inside were prints of an enormous boot, too big for any man in
Perlycross. Also the search had been carried further, and the tracks of
a horse and a narrow-wheeled cart could be made out here and there,
until a rough flinty lane was come to, leading over the moors to the
Honiton road. All these things were known to Dr. Fox, and most of them
to Mr. Penniloe, who had just returned from London, and the matter was
now in skilful hands. But everything must be kept very quiet, or the
chance of pursuing the clue might be lost.
Tamar vowed solemnly that she would never tell a word; and away went the
Sergeant, well pleased with himself, as the bells began to ring for the
afternoon service.