The vicar of Monkshaven was a kindly, peaceable old man, hating strife
and troubled waters above everything. He was a vehement Tory in theory,
as became his cloth in those days. He had two bugbears to fear—the French
and the Dissenters. It was difficult to say of which he had the worst
opinion and the most intense dread. Perhaps he hated the Dissenters most,
because they came nearer in contact with him than the French; besides,
the French had the excuse of being Papists, while the Dissenters might
have belonged to the Church of England if they had not been utterly
depraved. Yet in practice Dr. Wilson did not object to dine with Mr.
Fishburn, who was a personal friend and follower of Wesley; but then,
as the doctor would say, “Wesley was an Oxford man, and that makes him
a gentleman; and he was an ordained minister of the Church of England,
so that grace can never depart from him.” But I do not know what excuse
he would have alleged for sending broth and vegetables to old Ralph
Thompson, a rabid Independent, who had been given to abusing the church
and the vicar, from a Dissenting pulpit, as long as ever he could mount
the stairs. However, that inconsistency between Dr. Wilson’s theories and
practice was not generally known in Monkshaven, so we have nothing to do
with it.
Dr. Wilson had had a very difficult part to play, and a still more
difficult sermon to write, during this last week. The Darley who had been
killed was the son of the vicar’s gardener, and Dr. Wilson’s sympathies
as a man had been all on the bereaved father’s side. But then he had
received, as the oldest magistrate in the neighbourhood, a letter from
the captain of the _Aurora_, explanatory and exculpatory. Darley had
been resisting the orders of an officer in his Majesty’s service. What
would become of due subordination and loyalty, and the interests of the
service, and the chances of beating those confounded French, if such
conduct as Darley’s was to be encouraged? (Poor Darley! he was past all
evil effects of human encouragement now!)
So the vicar mumbled hastily over a sermon on the text, “In the midst
of life we are in death”; which might have done as well for a baby cut
off in a convulsion-fit as for the strong man shot down with all his
eager blood hot within him, by men as hot-blooded as himself. But once,
when the old doctor’s eye caught the upturned, straining gaze of the
father Darley, seeking with all his soul to find a grain of holy comfort
in the chaff of words, his conscience smote him. Had he nothing to say
that should calm anger and revenge with spiritual power? no breath of
the comforter to soothe repining into resignation? But again the discord
between the laws of man and the laws of Christ stood before him; and he
gave up the attempt to do more than he was doing, as beyond his power.
Though the hearers went away as full of anger as they had entered the
church, and some with a dull feeling of disappointment as to what they
had got there, yet no one felt anything but kindly towards the old vicar.
His simple, happy life led amongst them for forty years, and open to all
men in its daily course; his sweet-tempered, cordial ways; his practical
kindness, made him beloved by all; and neither he nor they thought much
or cared much for admiration of his talents. Respect for his office was
all the respect he thought of; and that was conceded to him from old
traditional and hereditary association. In looking back to the last
century, it appears curious to see how little our ancestors had the power
of putting two things together, and perceiving either the discord or
harmony thus produced. Is it because we are farther off from those times,
and have, consequently, a greater range of vision? Will our descendants
have a wonder about us, such as we have about the inconsistency of our
forefathers, or a surprise at our blindness that we do not perceive
that, holding such and such opinions, our course of action must be so
and so, or that the logical consequence of particular opinions must be
convictions which at present we hold in abhorrence? It seems puzzling to
look back on men such as our vicar, who almost held the doctrine that
the King could do no wrong, yet were ever ready to talk of the glorious
Revolution, and to abuse the Stuarts for having entertained the same
doctrine, and tried to put it in practice. But such discrepancies ran
through good men’s lives in those days. It is well for us that we live at
the present time, when everybody is logical and consistent. This little
discussion must be taken in place of Dr. Wilson’s sermon, of which no one
could remember more than the text half an hour after it was delivered.
Even the doctor himself had the recollection of the words he had uttered
swept out of his mind, as, having doffed his gown and donned his
surplice, he came out of the dusk of his vestry and went to the church
door, looking into the broad light which came upon the plain of the
churchyard on the cliffs; for the sun had not yet set, and the pale moon
was slowly rising through the silvery mist that obscured the distant
moors. There was a thick, dense crowd, all still and silent, looking away
from the church and the vicar, who awaited the bringing of the dead. They
were watching the slow black line winding up the long steps, resting
their heavy burden here and there, standing in silent groups at each
landing-place; now lost to sight as a piece of broken, overhanging ground
intervened, now emerging suddenly nearer; and overhead the great church
bell, with its medieval inscription, familiar to the vicar, if to no one
else who heard it:
“I to the grave do summon all,”
kept on its heavy booming monotone, with which no other sound from
land or sea, near or distant, intermingled, except the cackle of the
geese on some far-away farm on the moors, as they were coming home
to roost; and that one noise from so great a distance seemed only to
deepen the stillness. Then there was a little movement in the crowd; a
little pushing from side to side, to make a path for the corpse and its
bearers—an aggregate of the fragments of room.
With bent heads and spent strength, those who carried the coffin moved
on; behind came the poor old gardener, a brown-black funeral cloak thrown
over his homely dress, and supporting his wife with steps scarcely less
feeble than her own. He had come to church that afternoon with a promise
to her that he would return to lead her to the funeral of her firstborn;
for he felt, in his sore, perplexed heart, full of indignation and
dumb anger, as if he must go and hear something which should exorcise
the unwonted longing for revenge that disturbed his grief and made
him conscious of that great blank of consolation which faithlessness
produces. And for the time he was faithless. How came God to permit such
cruel injustice of man? Permitting it, He could not be good. Then what
was life and what was death, but woe and despair? The beautiful solemn
words of the ritual had done him good, and restored much of his faith.
Though he could not understand why such sorrow had befallen him any more
than before, he had come back to something of his childlike trust; he
kept saying to himself in a whisper, as he mounted the weary steps, “It
is the Lord’s doing”; and the repetition soothed him unspeakably. Behind
this old couple followed their children, grown men and women, come from
distant place or farmhouse service: the servants at the vicarage, and
many a neighbour, anxious to show their sympathy, and most of the sailors
from the crews of the vessels in port, joined in procession, and followed
the dead body into the church.
There was too great a crowd immediately within the door for Sylvia and
Molly to go in again, and they accordingly betook themselves to the
place where the deep grave was waiting, wide and hungry, to receive
its dead. There, leaning against the headstones all around, were many
standing—looking over the broad and placid sea, and turned to the soft
salt air which blew on their hot eyes and rigid faces; for no one spoke
of all that number. They were thinking of the violent death of him
over whom the solemn words were now being said in the gray old church,
scarcely out of their hearing, had not the sound been broken by the
measured lapping of the tide far beneath.
Suddenly every one looked round towards the path from the churchyard
steps. Two sailors were supporting a ghastly figure that, with feeble
motions, was drawing near the open grave.
“It’s t’ specksioneer as tried to save him! it’s him as was left for
dead!” the people murmured round.
“It’s Charley Kinraid, as I’m a sinner!” said Molly, starting forward to
greet her cousin.
But as he came on she saw that all his strength was needed for the mere
action of walking. The sailors, in their strong sympathy, had yielded
to his earnest entreaty, and carried him up the steps, in order that
he might see the last of his messmate. They placed him near the grave,
resting against a stone; and he was hardly there before the vicar came
forth, and the great crowd poured out of the church, following the body
to the grave.
Sylvia was so much wrapped up in the solemnity of the occasion that she
had no thought to spare at the first moment for the pale and haggard
figure opposite; much less was she aware of her cousin Philip, who now,
singling her out for the first time from among the crowd, pressed to her
side, with an intention of companionship and protection.
As the service went on, ill-checked sobs rose from behind the two girls,
who were among the foremost in the crowd, and by and by the cry and
the wail became general. Sylvia’s tears rained down her face, and her
distress became so evident that it attracted the attention of many in
that inner circle. Among others who noticed it, the specksioneer’s hollow
eyes were caught by the sight of the innocent blooming child-like face
opposite to him, and he wondered if she were a relation; yet, seeing that
she bore no badge of mourning, he rather concluded that she must have
been a sweetheart of the dead man’s.
And now all was over: the rattle of the gravel on the coffin; the last
long, lingering look of friends and lovers; the rosemary sprigs had been
cast down by all who were fortunate enough to have brought them—and oh!
how much Sylvia wished she had remembered this last act of respect—and
slowly the outer rim of the crowd began to slacken and disappear.