OUR fathers believed in special answers to prayer. They were not
stumbled by the objection about the inflexibility of the laws of
nature, because they had the idea that when the Creator of the world
promised to answer human prayers, He probably understood the laws
of nature as well as they did; at any rate, the laws of nature were
His affairs and not theirs. They were men very apt, as the Duke of
Wellington said, to ‘look to their marching-orders;’ which, being
found to read, ‘be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer
and supplication let your requests be made known unto God,’ they did
it. ‘They looked unto Him, and were likened, and their faces were not
ashamed.’ One reads in the memoirs of Dr. Hopkins how Newport Gardner,
one of his African catechumens, a negro of singular genius and ability,
being desirous of his freedom, that he might be a missionary to Africa,
and having long worked without being able to raise the amount required,
was counselled by Dr. Hopkins that it might be a shorter way to seek
his freedom from the Lord by a day of solemn fasting and prayer. The
historical fact is, that on the evening of a day so consecrated his
master returned from church, called Newport to him, and presented him
with his freedom. Is it not possible that He who made the world may
have established laws for prayer, as invariable as those for the sowing
of seed and raising of grain? Is it not as legitimate a subject of
inquiry when petitions are not answered, _which_ of these laws has been
neglected?
But be that as it may, certain it is, that a train of events were
set in operation this day which went directly towards answering
Mary’s morning supplication for guidance. Candace, who on this
particular morning had contrived to place herself where she could
see Mary and James in the singers’ seat, had certain thoughts ‘borne
in’ on her mind, which bore fruit afterwards in a solemn and select
conversation held with Miss Prissy at the end of the horse-shed by
the meeting-house, during the intermission between the morning and
afternoon sermons.
Candace sat on a fragment of a granite boulder which lay there, her
black face relieved against a clump of yellow mulleins, then in
majestic altitude. On her lap was spread a check pocket-handkerchief,
containing rich slices of cheese and a store of her favourite brown
dough-nuts.
‘Now, Miss Prissy,’ she said, ‘der’s _reason_ in all things; and a good
deal _more_ in some things dan der is in others. Dere’s a good deal
more reason in two young, handsome folks coming together dan der is
in——’
Candace finished the sentence by an emphatic flourish of her dough-nut.
‘Now as long as everybody thought Massa Jim was dead, dere wa’n’t
nothin’ in de world else _to be_ done _but_ for Miss Mary to marry
the Doctor. But, good Lord! I heard him a-talkin’ to Mrs. Marvyn last
night; it kinder most broke my heart. Why dem two poor creeturs—dey’s
just as onhappy’s dey can be; and she’s got too much feelin’ for the
Doctor to say a word, and _I_ say _he orter be told on’t_; dat’s what I
say,’ said Candace, giving a decisive bite to her dough-nut.
‘I say so too,’ said Miss Prissy: ‘why I never had such feelings in my
life as I did yesterday when that young man came down to our house; he
was just as pale as a cloth. I tried to say a word to Mrs. Scudder, but
she snapped me up so; she’s an awful decided woman when her mind’s made
up. I was telling Cerinthy Ann Twitchel, she come round me this noon,
that it didn’t exactly seem to me right that things should go on as
they’re gone to; and says I, “Cerinthy Ann, I don’t know anything what
to do.” And says she, “If I was you, Miss Prissy, I know what I’d do;
I’d tell the Doctor.” Says she, “Nobody ever takes offence at anything
_you_ do, Miss Prissy.” To be sure,’ added Miss Prissy, ‘I _have_
talked to people about a good many things that it’s rather strange I
should, ’cause I ain’t one somehow that can let things go that seem to
want doing. I always told folks that I should spoil a novel before it
got half-way through the first volume, by blirting out some of those
things that they let go trailing on till everybody gets so mixed up
they don’t know what they’re doing.’
‘Well, now, honey,’ said Candace, authoritatively, ‘ef you’ve got any
notion o’ that kind, I think it must a come from de good Lord; and I
’vise ye to be ’tendin’ to it right away. You just go ’long and tell de
Doctor yo’self all you knows, and den let’s see what’ll come on’t. I
tell you I b’lieves it’ll be one o’ the best day’s works _you_ ever did
in your life.’
‘Well,’ said Miss Prissy, ‘I guess to-night before I go to bed I’ll
make a dive at him. When a thing’s once out it’s out, and can’t be got
in again, even if people don’t like it, and that’s a mercy anyhow. It
really makes me feel most wicked to think of it, for the Doctor is the
blessedest man.’
‘That’s what he _is_,’ said Candace. ‘But den de blessedest men in the
world ought fur to know de truth, that’s what _I_ think.’
‘Yes, true enough,’ said Miss Prissy, ‘I’ll tell him anyway.’
Miss Prissy was as good as her word, for that evening when the Doctor
had retired to his study, she took her light in her hand, and walking
softly as a cat, tapped rather timidly at the study door, which the
Doctor opening, said benignantly—
‘Ah! Miss Prissy!’
‘If you please, sir,’ said Miss Prissy, ‘I’d like a little
conversation.’
The Doctor was well enough used to such requests from the female
members of his church, which generally were the prelude to some
disclosures of internal difficulties or spiritual experiences. He
therefore graciously motioned her to a chair.
‘I thought I must come in,’ she began, busily twirling a bit of her
Sunday gown. ‘I thought—that is I felt it my duty—I thought—perhaps—I
ought to tell you—that perhaps you ought to know—’
The Doctor looked civilly concerned. He did not know but Miss Prissy’s
wits were taking leave of her. He replied, however, with his usual
honest stateliness,
‘I trust, dear madam, that you will feel at perfect freedom to open to
me any exercises of mind that you may have.’
‘It isn’t about myself,’ said Prissy. ‘If you please, it’s about _you_,
sir, and Mary.’
The Doctor _now_ looked awake in right earnest, and very much
astonished besides; and he looked eagerly at Miss Prissy to have her go
on.
‘I don’t know how you would view such a matter,’ said Miss Prissy; ‘but
the fact is, that James Marvyn and Mary always did love each other ever
since they were children.’
Still the Doctor was unawakened to the real meaning of the words, and
he answered, simply,—
‘I should be far from wishing to interfere with so very natural and
innocent a sentiment, which I make no doubt is all quite as it should
be.’
‘No! but,’ said Miss Prissy, ‘you don’t understand what I mean. I mean
that James Marvyn wanted to marry Mary, and that she was—well! she
wasn’t engaged to him—but—’
‘MADAM!!’ said the Doctor, in a voice that frightened Miss Prissy out
of her chair, while a blaze like sheet-lightning shot from his eyes and
his face flushed crimson.
‘Mercy on us! Doctor, I hope you’ll excuse me, but there, the fact is
out! I’ve said it out; the fact is they wa’n’t engaged, but that Mary
loved him ever since he was a boy, as she never will and never can love
any man again in this world, is what I’m just as sure of as that I’m
standing here; and I’ve felt you ought to know it, ’cause I’m quite
sure that if he’d been alive, she’d never given the promise she has—the
promise that she means to keep if her heart breaks and his too; there
wouldn’t anybody tell you, and I thought I must tell you, ’cause I
thought you’d know what was right to do about it.’
During all this latter speech the Doctor was standing with his back
to Miss Prissy and his face to the window, just as he did some time
before when Mrs. Scudder came to tell him of Mary’s consent. He made
a gesture backward, without speaking, that she should leave the
apartment; and Miss Prissy left with a guilty kind of feeling, as if
she had been plunging a knife in her pastor; and rushing distractedly
across the entry into Mary’s little bedroom, she bolted the door, threw
herself on the bed, and began to cry.
‘Well! I’ve done it,’ she said to herself. ‘He’s a very strong, hearty
man,’ she soliloquized, ‘so I hope it won’t put him in a consumption.
Men do go in a consumption about such things sometimes. I remember
Abner Seaforth did—but then he was always narrow-chested, and had the
liver complaint, or something. I don’t know what Mrs. Scudder _will_
say, but I’ve done it. Poor man! such a good man too! I declare I feel
just like Herod taking off John the Baptist’s head. Well! well! it’s
done, and can’t be helped.’
Just at this moment Miss Prissy heard a gentle tap at the door, and
started as if it had been a ghost—not being able to rid herself of the
impression that somehow she had committed a great crime, for which
retribution was knocking at the door.
It was Mary, who said, in her sweetest and most natural tones, ‘Miss
Prissy, the Doctor would like to see you.’ Mary was much astonished at
the frightened, discomposed manner with which Miss Prissy received this
announcement, and said, ‘I’m afraid I’ve waked you up out of sleep. I
don’t think there’s the least hurry.’
Miss Prissy didn’t either; but she reflected afterwards that she might
as well get through with it at once, and therefore, smoothing her
tumbled cap-border, she went to the Doctor’s study. This time he was
quite composed, and received her with a mournful gravity, and requested
her to be seated.
‘I beg, madam,’ he said, ‘you will excuse the abruptness of my manner
in our late interview. I was so little prepared for the communication
you had to make that I was perhaps unsuitably discomposed. Will you
allow me to ask whether you were requested by any of the parties to
communicate to me what you did?’
‘No, sir,’ said Miss Prissy.
‘Have any of the parties ever communicated with you on the subject at
all?’ said the Doctor.
‘No, sir,’ said Miss Prissy.
‘That is all,’ said the Doctor. ‘I will not detain you. I am very much
obliged to you, madam.’
He rose and opened the door for her to pass out, and Miss Prissy,
overawed by the stately gravity of his manner, went out in silence.