_ABNER’S PATIENT_
Eustace went back to London about ten days after the election at
Pentreath. Parliament was to meet in June, and there was much of
importance to be discussed beforehand. He and Sir Roland travelled in
company, and the Duke’s farewell was warmer and more cordial by many
degrees than it had been on the occasion of his last departure. As for
Bride, there had been something so sweet and subtly tender in their
relations during the past few days, that the parting with her was
wonderfully hard. Eustace lay awake the whole of his last night at the
castle, thinking of her, and wondering how he could bear to say adieu;
and when they met in the morning, her eyes were heavy and her face was
sorrowful, as though she too had kept vigil and dreaded the coming day.
In point of fact, Bride had kept vigil in a very literal fashion, for
she had been kneeling in prayer for Eustace very many hours of that
summer’s night--praying that he might be delivered from any and all of
those perils which might happen to the body whilst travelling through
an excited country; but above all, praying that he might be kept safe
in those assaults of evil that might assail and hurt the soul--that he
might be strong to resist temptation, that he might be the champion
always for good, yet discriminate and discern the moment when evil
crept in, and where party spirit took the place of the true desire
after the best welfare of the nation. She understood far better than
she had done a year ago the difficulties of that strife, and where once
she would have stood aloof with a sense of pained disappointment and
disapproval, she would now, as it were, stretch forward a helping hand,
and strive to show the firm path amid all the quagmires of strife and
emulation. As she clasped hands with Eustace for the last time, and
their eyes met, some strange electric current seemed to pass between
them, and, as though in answer to spoken words, he said, in a low moved
tone--
“I will be true--I will be faithful--I will strive to fight the good
fight, and you will be my best helper.”
She did not answer with her lips, but her eyes made amends for that.
Suddenly Eustace came one step nearer, put both his hands upon her
shoulders, and bent his head and kissed her on the lips. For a single
second she started, as though the touch of his hands had alarmed her,
but the next moment she looked straight into his eyes, and yielded her
lips to his for that last salute.
“God be with you, Eustace,” she whispered; and as the young man rode
away he felt he understood for the first time in his life the true
meaning and application of the simple and oft-used phrase, “Good-bye.”
Bride stood where he had left her, in the middle of that anteroom where
their parting had been exchanged. Her face was slightly flushed; there
was a strange gleam of vivid light in her eyes; the sweet mouth was
tremulous with emotions strongly stirred. The Duke, who had witnessed
the parting between them, looked at her with a veiled inquiry in his
eyes. Bride, coming back to everyday life, saw that look and answered
it.
“It is not what you think, papa,” she said very softly, “yet I think
Eustace and I belong to one another now. I do not know how else to
say it. It seems as though there was something linking us together
stronger than ourselves.”
A slight smile lighted the old man’s face.
“I am glad to hear that, my child,” he said gently. “I am far better
pleased with Eustace this time than I was before. He has greatly grown
in wisdom and moderation--greatly improved. I believe he will turn out
one of those men whom the world needs. He is after all a Marchmont,
and the Marchmonts have generally the gift of government in some
form or another. A young and ardent temperament may be led astray at
the outset; but the experience of life gives ballast; and there seem
to have been many influences at work upon Eustace, moderating his
impetuosity, and showing him the reverse side of the shield.”
“I think he is learning a great deal,” answered Bride softly; “I am
glad you feel the same about him.”
She could not settle to her ordinary avocations that day. There was a
subtle sense of exhilaration and happiness in her pulses which made
active exercise needful to her. She had her pony saddled, and started
to ride along the cliffs to St. Erme. She wanted to be alone for
awhile to think and muse upon the sudden sense of new happiness that
had come into her life. She had visits to pay at St. Erme’s which had
been waiting for a day of leisure. Eustace had filled much of her time
of late, but now she must learn to do without him. She rode quietly
onward, with the sunshine about her, and the soft breeze fanning her
cheek and lighting her eyes. There came over her, almost for the first
time in her life, a sense of the beauty and joyousness of it, even in
this fallen world of sorrow and sin. Before she had thought, almost
exclusively at such times as these, when alone with nature and at peace
with herself and all the world, of the brightness and glory of the
Kingdom. Her heart had had little here to feed itself upon, and she had
dwelt in the thought of the glory which shall be revealed. But to-day
she felt as though she was experiencing a strange foretaste of that
glory and happiness in this inexpressible sense of sweetness and love.
An atmosphere of joy seemed to enwrap and envelop her. She scarcely
understood herself or her heart; but she was happy with a happiness
that was almost startling, and in her head some words seemed to set
themselves to the joyous hymn that nature was singing all the while.
“I will be faithful--I will be true!” ... “God be with you!”
Her absorption of mind did not hinder her from paying her visits and
entering with full sympathy and tenderness into the trials and troubles
of those she had come to see. The sight of her was always very welcome
to the simple people who had known her from childhood, and who regarded
her something as an angel visitor, as they had regarded her mother
before her.
Her visits paid, she was about to turn homewards, when, as she was
passing the gate of the rectory, she encountered Mr. St. Aubyn riding
forth on his sturdy cob. They exchanged greetings gladly.
“I am on my way to St. Bride,” he said, smiling. “Shall we go in
company? or are you coming to pay a visit to my wife?”
“I think I will ride back with you,” said Bride, “and see Mrs. St.
Aubyn another day. It will be too hot to be out with comfort if I
linger longer. Are you coming to the castle?”
“My errand is to your gardener’s cottage. My good friend Mr. Tremodart
has asked me to visit young Tresithny in his terrible affliction. He
seems to close his heart and his lips against all the world. My kind
friend at the parsonage thought I might have more success in dealing
with him; but I fear me the time has not yet come when the words of man
will avail aught.”
Bride’s face was very sorrowful.
“It seems so sad,” she said softly, “so very, very sad. Oh, I am
grieved for Abner. He looks aged and bowed like an old man, yet his
faith never fails. He is a lesson to us all. ‘The child of many
prayers,’ he calls Saul, and he will not give up hope. But it must be
terrible for him to have to sit by and hear the poor young man shouting
out all sorts of horrible imprecations and blasphemies in his delirium
and pain. No one can tell whether he quite knows what he is saying; but
his words are terrible to hear. Widow Curnow has come to help to nurse
him, and I hear almost more from her than from Abner. I hoped he would
have been able to see my cousin Eustace before he went to London; but
he has never been enough himself, and all excitement has to be avoided.
I believe Eustace has the most influence upon him of any person in the
world. He has won his affection, and I fear poor Saul knows more of
hatred than of love towards the world at large.”
“He has had a very sad life,” said the clergyman sorrowfully, “a life
of spiritual revolt against the very conditions of his existence, as
well as a mental and physical revolt against the wrongs of a world
which can never be set truly right, save by the advent of One to whom
in their blindness these would-be reformers never look for guidance,
still less join in the cry for Him to appear and take the reins of
government Himself. It is sorrowful to think of--that the very men most
forward in the struggle to do justice to their fellow-men, are often
the most careless about giving God His dues. They will render to Cæsar
the things that are Cæsar’s, but will they render to God the things
that are God’s? How often, as one hears them speak or reads the words
they are speaking to the nation, does one say in one’s heart, ‘Lord,
open their eyes so that they may see!’ for philanthropy alone will
never raise or purify the world; it must be joined with a living faith
in a living God, and the first love and service of our hearts must
belong to God; the second, given to our neighbours.”
Bride looked with a sudden questioning wistfulness into the clergyman’s
face.
“Mr. St. Aubyn, do you not think that a man who loves mankind with a
true and unselfish love must somewhere in the depths of his heart have
a love for God also, even though he may not know it? Is not love in its
essence Divine? and can there be a true and pure love that does not in
some sort own allegiance to God?”
Mr. St. Aubyn’s face was serious and thoughtful.
“Pure and true love is indeed Divine in its essence; but there is a
carnal and earthly love too, which is but a travesty of God-given love,
and burns to its own destruction. I think man often confuses these two
loves, and sometimes calls the lower one the higher. Perhaps no eye but
God’s can really distinguish altogether the gold and the dross, but we
can sometimes judge the tree by its fruit. How often do we see evil
fruit springing from a tree which we have thought to be good! We are
deceived sometimes, but our Heavenly Father never!”
“Yes! I think I know what you mean. I have seen something of that, as
in poor Saul’s case. The fruit is a sorrowful crop, and yet he means
nobly and well, I am sure. But there is no love of God in his heart;
and yet I sometimes wonder whether perhaps the love for man does not
come first with some: ‘If he loves not his brother whom he hath seen,
how shall he love God whom he hath not seen?’ There are words very like
that somewhere.”
“True, God’s love is so beautiful and infinite, and His patience with
His erring children so inexhaustible, that He will do everything in
His power to lead their hearts to Him. We are taught and entreated
throughout the Bible to seek _first_ the kingdom of heaven; to give the
whole of our strength, and mind, and heart, and soul to God in loving
submission; to be living members of His Body first, and then members
one of another; but as though He would make provision for the weakness
and frailty of the flesh, and the infirmity and lack of faith in
human nature, we find here and there just such loving touches as show
us that our Father will lead us to Himself by every possible means;
that love for our brethren shall be a stepping-stone, if used aright,
towards that higher and holier love; though perhaps the truer meaning
of the words is to teach us that no love for God can be really pure and
sincere if it does not carry with it love for our brethren too. The
greater must embrace the less; and a man cannot truly love God who is
in bitterness with the brethren.”
They rode along in silence for a time then, each thinking deeply. Mr.
St. Aubyn was the first to speak.
“Mr. Marchmont has left you then?”
“Yes, he started for London this morning.”
“I knew it was to be soon. He came to say good-bye a few days ago. I
was greatly pleased by the talk we had on that occasion.”
Bride looked up quickly.
“I did not know Eustace had been to see you.”
“Yes, he came and sat above two hours with me. We had a most
interesting conversation. I almost wish you had been there to hear.”
Bride was silent. She would not ask the nature of the conversation. She
knew that Mr. St. Aubyn would tell her all that he felt at liberty to
reveal.
Presently he spoke again, a slight smile playing on his lips.
“Long ago, as you know, we had a talk, part of which you overheard,
in which Mr. Marchmont betrayed how deeply the philosophy of the
destructive rationalists had eaten into his soul. I told him then
that he would never be able to rest where he was; that even the
philosophers and students who had been so glad to destroy were already
finding rest impossible, and were beginning a constructive form of
rationalism, in which scope was allowed for an objective as well as a
subjective Divinity, and a semblance of Christian faith creeping back,
because men invariably find at last that they cannot do without it,
although they too often content themselves with half-truths, or very
small fragments of the whole truth. Well, he did not agree with me
then; but it is wonderful what this year has done for his spiritual
life. It is like talking to another man. It was wonderfully inspiring
to mark the work of the Spirit in that heart. But I dare say you have
found that out for yourself.”
There were tears of joy in Bride’s eyes. She did not turn her head as
she answered--
“I have hoped so--I have thought so; but I have been afraid to ask or
to hope too much.”
“Ah! you need never fear that. Are we not bidden to ‘hope and believe
all things’? Is anything too hard for the Lord?”
“Indeed, I think not,” answered Bride softly.
“It made me think of our talk once about forgiveness and the Father’s
love,” continued Mr. St. Aubyn musingly. “It is such a beautiful
mystery--that yearning love over all these myriads of disobedient
children. And yet never an individual instance of spiritual grace comes
before us, but we realise how true it is that the Father has gone forth
to meet the erring son whilst he is still a great way off, and is
leading him so tenderly home, sometimes almost before the wanderer has
realised it himself.”
Bride made no reply: her heart was too full; and so in happy communion
of spirit the pair rode down the hill, and through the gate of the
castle grounds.
“You will come and see my father when you have been to see Saul?” said
Bride. “He would be sorry for you to go without paying him a visit.”
Mr. St. Aubyn promised, and Bride rode on to the castle, and had
changed her riding gear for a cool white dress before the clergyman
appeared. His face was grave, and he looked troubled and compassionate.
“I have seen him,” he said, in reply to Bride’s look of inquiry, “I
have seen him, and I found him stronger in body than I anticipated
after all I have heard of the injuries he received. The doctor was
leaving as I rode to the door, and said he was making a wonderful
recovery. But I fear that the recovery is only one of the body. The
soul and spirit are terribly darkened. It seems almost as though the
powers of evil had so taken possession there that there was no room for
the entry of God’s light. I could not even speak the words I would have
done. I saw that to do so would be only to provoke more blasphemies.
May God in His mercy do something to soften that hard heart, for only
He can do it!”
It was the same tale all the way through where poor Saul was
concerned. Impenitent, rebellious, cursing his own fate and crippled
condition, and cursing yet more bitterly those he held responsible
for the accident--the tyrants who set soldiers upon poor and harmless
people, to trample them to death beneath their iron heel for no other
offence than claiming the rights of human beings and citizens of the
commonwealth. He refused all visits save those from such men of his own
fashion of thinking as came to condole with him, and to fan the flame
of his bitterness and wrath. Abner soon ceased to try and reason with
him. He wrestled ceaselessly in prayer for him, as indeed did many of
his neighbours, who were wont to meet together at intervals for the
reading the Scripture, and that prayer for the speedy coming of the
Lord, which had become one of the leading features of the faith of the
little community of St. Bride. It was indeed all that could be done
for the unhappy young man; and so soon as he was able to get about on
crutches, he announced his intention of going back to Mother Clat’s,
and resuming his old life with the fishermen.
There was indeed one very good reason why he should do this. In a boat
his lameness would matter comparatively little. He could manage sheet
and tiller whilst he sat quietly in the stern; and although there would
be moments when he would feel somewhat keenly the loss of his foot and
his crippled condition, yet this would be not nearly the same hindrance
to him on the water as it would be on land.
A collection had been made for him in the town by a number of those
who regarded him as a victim and a martyr. This amounted to a sum
sufficient to enable him to purchase a little cutter of his own, that
happened to be going cheap at a neighbouring seaport town. Saul’s
mates having heard of it, went to look at it, and finally negotiated
the purchase, which made him the proud possessor of this fast-sailing
cutter, which was significantly said to be far faster and more
responsive to wind and tide than any of the Customs boats in these
parts.
And now a new life began for Saul. He had always done some smuggling
along the coast with his friends the fishermen; but now it became a
regular trade with him. Fishing was the merest excuse for the more
serious occupation of his life; and as his health and strength returned
with this free life on the sea, so did his ferocious hatred to all
restraints of law and order grow and increase in him. He delighted in
his illicit traffic far more because he was a breaker of the law than
because it brought him large gains. He began to be a notable man along
the coast; appearing now at this place, now at the other; landing his
goods with a skill and daring that made him the idol of the fisher-folk
all around, and the terror of the custom-house officers, who tried in
vain to catch him, and began to think he must bear a charmed life, so
absolutely impossible did they find it to get sight of him.
As for the gentry round, there was a very mixed feeling in their minds
with regard to the defaulter and his occupation. They had nearly all of
them cellars of excellent brandy and wine that had never paid duty, and
were by no means desirous of seeing the illicit traffic too rigidly put
down. They winked at it, if they did not actually encourage it; and it
was well known that half of them would always buy smuggled goods and
ask no question, in spite of all that the indignant officers could urge
to the contrary.
The country was soon in a state of pleasurable excitement with the
news that the Reform Bill had successfully passed the Commons, and
had only to go through the Upper House to become law. The ignorant
people considered the triumph already assured, and began to wonder why
something wonderful did not immediately happen to change the current
of their lives and issue in a new prosperity and affluence. But others
shook their heads, and said the Lords would be certain to throw it
out, whilst some argued that they would not dare, when the mind of the
country had been so emphatically declared.
The Duke was very doubtful as to the result.
“The Duke of Wellington will fight it tooth and nail,” he said to those
who asked his opinion, “and I think he will carry the House with him.
My kinsman, young Marchmont, tells me that if the Lords refuse to pass
it, they will urge the King to make such a number of new Whig peers as
shall suffice to carry it in the teeth of all opposition. His Majesty
is very averse to such a step, though anxious for the passage of the
bill. It remains to be seen what will happen. But I do not think the
Iron Duke will give way.”
All this talk sufficed to keep the country alive and excited through
the early autumn months. Eustace wrote regularly, sometimes to the
Duke, sometimes to Bride; and she wrote to him according to promise,
telling him the news of the place, her own particular history, and the
doings of Saul. Eustace himself wrote to Saul from time to time, and
received answers from the wild young man always breathing a spirit of
personal loyalty and devotion; but nothing which passed induced him
for one moment to give up his wild life. His boat was always speeding
between the shores of England and France. He was seldom at home, and
when in the cottage on the beach, seldom to be spoken with by any of
those who would gladly have tried to approach him for his own good.
Bride once or twice encountered him, and spoke gently to him; but
though he stood before her silently and with an outward aspect of
respect, he would scarcely give her back a word, and only appeared to
listen to her with any willingness when she told him of Eustace.
He sometimes went into Pentreath, and addressed meetings there, in
response to invitations from old associates; but his personal interest
in the place and in politics seemed to have flagged just now. The
passing of the measure upon which his heart had been set took away from
him his sense of grievance, and robbed that side of his character of
its main element. He shared the half-ignorant expectations of the lower
classes, that as soon as the Reform Bill became law some great change
in the condition of the people would result immediately from it; and he
supposed this change was already going on in other places, and would
soon reach the West-Country. If that was so, his task was over for the
present, until some new agitation was set on foot. Meantime the free
and lawless life he was leading was all-sufficient for him. He was the
hero of St. Bride’s Bay, the most successful man all along the coast,
and was not only making money fast, but was enjoying his life as he had
perhaps never enjoyed it before.
But the old class hatred which had long burned within him was still
smouldering as fiercely as before, and only wanted a breath of wind to
fan it to a raging flame.
Nor was this breath long wanting; for in November came the news that
the Lords had thrown out the bill, that for the moment it was dead,
could not pass into law, that the battle would have to be fought all
over again (as most people thought), and that the Lords had shown
themselves once and for all the fierce and inveterate enemies of the
rights and liberties of the people.
A great wave of anger and revolt swept all through England when this
thing became known. Perhaps never had she been so near to revolution
as that dark November, when the people, eagerly awaiting the advent of
some wonderful and semi-miraculous change in their condition, received
the news that the measure which was to ensure this had been trampled
under foot, and cast ignominiously to the four winds of heaven by
the peers of the realm. A cry of execration and hatred ran through
the country. Riots and incendiary fires broke out wherever the news
penetrated. At Pentreath there was a hot demonstration of popular
fury; and Saul had never so raged against his physical infirmity as
when he found himself forced to remain at home, eating his heart out
in silence, whilst the other men of his persuasion marched with the
rioters, and committed acts of lawlessness which gratified their bitter
hatred, without, as it happened, doing very much permanent harm in the
place.
But the passion that can vent itself is less dangerous than that
which is locked up without an outlet, and seethes and smoulders till
something suddenly causes a violent explosion. Could Saul have gone
with his comrades, perhaps more immediate mischief might have been
done, since his was always the most daring spirit; but possibly the
blackest chapter of his life might not have been written, and he might
have been saved from the depth of iniquity into which he speedily fell.
There is an anger so terrible in its intensity that it works like
madness in the brain; and this anger is generally the fiercest when
it exists between class and class, and results in reality less from
inherent ill-will between the two parties concerned, than from a
constitutional and insurmountable difficulty in mutual understanding.
This hatred (which has been at the bottom of many of the world’s
tragedies) was now burning with such a white heat of silent fury in
Saul’s breast that there began to creep into his sombre eyes a light
like that of madness. He would sit up late into the night brooding over
the dying embers of the fire, and thinking thoughts that hardly bore
putting into words. The wild weather had for the present put a stop to
his cruises. He felt the change from the mild autumn days, and often
had pain in the maimed member which had suffered from the surgeon’s
knife. He was not able to get out much in the cold and wet, and this
constant brooding and fierce silent thought were almost enough to turn
any man’s brain.
“Revenge! revenge! revenge!” such was the burden of his thoughts; and
as he sat pondering over his wild yearnings after vengeance, there
would steal into his mind, like whispers from the evil one, memories
of what desperate men in past days had done to bring about ruin
and disaster. Great ships, containing the wealth of the proud and
prosperous, had been shattered on these cruel rocks, and high-born men
and women had found a grave in the dark cruel waters, a grave less
cruel and dark than the one which engulfed hundreds and thousands
of their helpless brothers and sisters through their own greed and
selfishness. Would it not be a righteous retribution to lure some such
vessel with its living freight upon those cruel “Bull’s Horns”? He
knew his comrades would aid and abet such a notion, if he propounded
it, for the sake of the plunder and the gain it would bring. But for
him the plunder was nothing; he would not touch the gold. But he should
feel he had struck a vengeful blow against the rich and the mighty of
the land, and then perchance the fever-thirst of his soul would be
quenched, and he could rest again.
And thus, brooding and planning and meditating, the dark days slipped
by one by one, and the light of madness and unquenchable hatred burned
ever brighter and brighter in Saul’s eyes.
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