The next day was Sunday, and when the party assembled at breakfast, at
half-past nine, it appeared that Mrs. Courtly had already been to early
communion at the neighboring church.
"The carriage will be here at eleven for any one who wants to go to
morning service. I am going to evensong instead, and shall take Mr.
Laffan for a drive this morning. What will you do, Miss Ballinger?"
Grace said she wished to go to church, whereupon Miss Planter declared
she meant to go also, adding,
"I hear Samuel Sparks is near here, and will probably preach."
"Yes," said Mrs. Courtly. "That is the reason I am not going."
"Is he not a very great preacher?" asked Grace.
"Yes, but I do not consider him orthodox. He is too broad in his views
to suit me."
Grace had been under a vague impression that all American religion was
"broad"; she had no idea that a section of the community cherished a
rigid ritualism.
"Samuel Sparks is a lovely man," said Mrs. Planter, shaking her head
gently, "but perhaps a little _too_--"
Her criticism was left to shift for itself as best it might in the
minds of her hearers. All the men had heard the famous preacher except
Sir Mordaunt, and he was not a very regular church-goer. However, on
this occasion, he declared that his curiosity was fired, he would
accompany the ladies. Mrs. Courtly smiled blandly across the silver urn
at him.
"Mrs. Van Winkle will no longer be able to compare you to Guy
Livingstone. I am glad you go to church. _You_, I know, Quintin, are
past praying for--"
"Quite." He cut her short, decisively.
"In England it is thought good form for men to go to church. They did
so when we stayed in country-houses there all the time," said Mrs.
Planter.
"All the time?" repeated Sir Mordaunt, interrogatively, with a look of
amused wonder.
"Mamma means every Sunday," explained her daughter; then added,
laughing, "All, except a few old heathens, politicians, and
philosophers, and people who buried themselves in the library."
"I am not a politician, but I hope I am a philosopher," said Ferrars,
with a tolerant smile.
"I am neither one nor the other," sighed Burton, with an appealing look
at Mrs. Courtly. "But when the music is bad, my soul is in revolt; it
makes me so cross, I go away worse than I came. And the music in your
church here is very bad--you know it is, Mrs. Courtly."
So the three drove off to church together. Nothing in the service
invited comment (the music being no worse than the Ballingers were
used to in their own country church), until Mr. Sparks began to read
the first lesson. He had not opened his lips till then. Apparently
there was a storage of sound waiting to escape, and it rushed forth
with a volubility truly astounding. Ballinger looked at his sister
with elevated brows. It was clear that the minister expected the
congregation to be conversant with the text of Holy Writ; otherwise it
was impossible to follow him. He read also a portion of the Communion
service in a manner that seemed to Grace little short of irreverent.
But all this was as nothing compared to the rapidity of his utterance
when he reached the pulpit. His sermon was a splendid piece of oratory,
charged with noble thought, clad in language that seemed, like
lightning, to strike and tear the ground. Then, as the thunder rolled
along, the scorn of self-seeking and of sloth, the denunciation of envy
and uncharitableness, fell like hail, smiting the consciences of some
who heard. But the electric rapidity with which the words poured down
was such that, as flash succeeded flash, many of the congregation were
blinded, groping their way feebly, and clutching at his meaning here
and there. It required long usage (and to some of those assembled he
was almost a stranger) or a sharp, retentive vision, not to be dazzled
as the lightning struck peak after peak, and the wind swept by, and the
great storm drove on, relentless, without pause or hesitation.
Miss Planter only removed her beautiful eyes from the preacher to
glance surreptitiously from time to time at her companions, and judge
of the effect produced on them. Grace listened, eager and absorbed; her
brother gnawed his moustache, and looked ill at ease. When, at last,
the torrent of words stopped, and the congregation slid out of church,
in various mental conditions, the American girl's curiosity found its
vent.
"Well?" she asked, addressing Mordaunt. "What do you say? Is he not
just wonderful?"
"Wonderful! I believe you. I never heard a chap pour out so many words
to the minute before. It's perfectly awful, going on like this, for
more than half an hour without stopping!"
"How I wished I could write shorthand!" exclaimed his sister. "It is
too sad to think it is all gone beyond recall. I never heard anything
so splendid, so stirring!"
"I am awfully glad you think so," said Miss Planter, who clung fondly
to the English slang she had acquired. "I hoped that you, Sir Mordaunt,
would have felt a little moved. Samuel Sparks always _does_ move me so!"
"Move me! Why, I felt as if I were being hurled down a precipice, and
were clutching wildly at twigs, roots, anything, to save myself. But it
was no use; as fast as I caught hold of anything it slipped from me,
and I felt just as if I'd come an awful cropper, bruised and stunned,
when he stopped."
The conversation was renewed at luncheon, when Mrs. Courtly expressed a
desire to know how her English guests had been impressed by the famous
preacher. Her feelings as a patriotic American and a stanch churchwoman
were divided. Miss Ballinger satisfied one sentiment, Sir Mordaunt the
other.
"As far as I could make out," he said, "it was more of a lecture than a
sermon. But then I made out very little."
"Whatever it was, it was exceedingly fine," said his sister, with
decision. "I have come to the conclusion that Americans are much more
eloquent than Englishmen. We have no orator in either House to compare
with Mr. Sparks."
"A preacher has every other sort of orator at a disadvantage," said
Ferrars, grimly. "He can say what he likes, he can scourge you, without
fear of reprisal."
"Yes," said Mrs. Courtly, "and there must have been many present,
who--like myself--object not only to Mr. Sparks's manner, but to his
doctrine. His ability is undoubted, of course."
"How is it, Mrs. Courtly, that he comes to be preaching in a
ritualistic church?" asked Grace.
"In former years the division was very great. Doctrine was
paramount--before eloquence, or anything. Latterly there has been a
growing tendency to let pastors of different views change pulpits. It
is a practice I do not care about, but I suppose it has its advantages."
"If people _will_ be preached at," said Ferrars, "it is better that the
subject should be looked at from different points of view, with more
freedom and liberty than from the narrow plane of one parsonic mind."
"Oh, my! Mr. Ferrars," exclaimed Mrs. Planter, "why should ministers
have narrower minds than any one else?"
"I did not say they had. All minds looking at one subject from one
point of view become narrow. I know mine has," he muttered. Then, with
a satirical smile, "And yours. Like a good mother, it is concentrated
on your daughter, and I am sure you only take one view of her future.
You can't take an all-round survey of the position."
Mrs. Planter bristled; she did not know how to receive this odd speech.
As she said afterwards to Mrs. Courtly, "it was so very--"
But her amiable hostess threw herself into the breach. With a smile
at the girl, who was coloring, "There can be but one view of Clare's
future," she said, quickly. "She has already most of the good things of
this world. She will find the best, and be clever enough to know when
she has found it."
It was a clear, still afternoon, though very cold. The recent snow had
left the roads ankle-deep in slush, which there had been neither frost
nor wind, the previous day, to dry. Now it was freezing, but not hard
enough to affect the mud to any depth. The road on which all the party
set out to walk was certainly very bad; it would have been difficult to
match it in any country district in England; but then, they did not
walk on the road. The system, unknown in England, of laying down planks
on the wayside for pedestrians, secured them a dry foot-path. But only
two could walk abreast. Mr. Burton had timidly endeavored to place
himself beside Grace; Ferrars's dominant perseverance, however, secured
that privilege.
"You behaved very ill last night, Mr. Ferrars," began Miss Ballinger,
with her characteristic fearlessness; "and again to-day at luncheon.
You sulked, because you were not allowed to talk, and because I wanted
to listen to the music; and to-day you attacked poor Mrs. Planter in a
most unjustifiable way."
"I am not aware that I attacked her. I said her thoughts were
concentrated on her daughter's future--"
"You know very well what you meant; and _she_ knew. Cynics like you are
always crying out against the follies and weaknesses of the world, and
you have just as many yourselves. It is Hudibras over again--what you
are 'inclined to' and what you 'have no mind to.'"
"I dare say you are right," he returned, with unusual gentleness; "but
if you knew how the world has treated me, you would be more lenient in
your judgment, you would understand how I have come to be misanthropic
and bitter. Perhaps some day you may know."
She felt sorry for him; she liked the man, with all his faults; perhaps
she was not superior to the womanly love of influence over one whom
few attracted. But her clear sense prevented her being blinded by the
sophism of his defence, and she said, impulsively,
"You expect leniency, but you show none. And, then, you are like a
spoiled child, sulking, as you did last night, or running away, as you
did more than once in New York, because somebody came into the room you
did not like! I think suffering ought to make men stronger, not weaker,
Mr. Ferrars."
"You are severe, but you don't understand--you can't." He beat the
long, yellow grass, that sprang up beside the planks, with the
blackthorn in his hand. "If I were under your influence always," he
added, in a low voice, "I should become more tolerant, I believe. I
should look at things from a different point of view."
"Oh! If I were your sister," laughed Miss Ballinger, "I should lecture
you. I should keep you in better order. As it is, I can't think,
judging by your conduct, that my presence has a very beneficial effect."
"Perhaps not at the time; it marks the contrast more strongly." He
paused a moment; how could he explain his feelings without startling
her? And yet he felt some explanation of this enigmatical sentence was
needed. "You see," he continued, "I have avoided society for years. I
suppose I have become brutalized. I have lost the habit of concealing
what I think, or doing what bores me. When I see you with such people
as the Hurlstones, or Mrs. Van Winkle, or these Planters, my contempt
of the world is increased. I want to talk to you or to go right away.
If I enter into general conversation, I am sure to say something which
will offend them."
"So little self-restraint? That comes from having shut yourself away
from people, and having had your own way too long. All the men I have
heard you speak so slightingly of, because they devote their whole time
and energies to amassing big fortunes, lead really healthier lives than
you do. They rub up against all manner of people; they give and take."
"They take more than they give," he said, with a sneer; "and because
they rub up against all manner of people, they become callous. Is it
well to become callous? to grow indifferent--almost blind to evil? to
pass through life shrugging one's shoulders? Well, perhaps it is. And
yet, I've had enough to make me callous. But one can't alter one's
nature."
"That is the defence of every one who gives in," she returned. "And
it is horribly weak--quite unworthy of a man, _I_ think. I am a great
hero-worshipper, and all my heroes fight something--either their own
passions, or something else they are resolved to conquer. And, as to
growing callous, I don't see that any one need become so because he
mixes with his fellow-creatures, even the very worst. We have a Great
Example of that; and all the devoted workers among the poor of big
cities do not lose their sense of right and wrong because they are
pitiful and forbearing."
Here Mrs. Courtly, who was in front, turned round. They had reached the
village, or rather small agglomeration of houses of the lower middle
class--as they would be called in England--which were clustered around
the church. The bell was ringing; one or two elderly women, a young
girl, a pale-faced man carrying some books, were hurrying along. Mrs.
Courtly said,
"Here I leave you; and I give Mr. Laffan into your charge, Miss
Ballinger. What! Quintin, are you coming with me to church? Well,
wonders will never cease. Good-by, all of you, till tea-time."
And so the bright, genial little lady, with her unwonted escort, left
the rest of the party to find their own way home.
Quintin Ferrars had not entered a church for years. What prompted him
to leave Grace, and accompany his friend? Was it the girl's words?
Was it Mr. Laffan's joining her? Was it some inexplicable working of
conscience?