The first sharpness of the edge worn off, Arthur Channing partially
recovered his cheerfulness. The French have a proverb, which is familiar
to us all: “_Ce n’est que le premier pas qui coute_.” There is a great
deal of truth in it, as experience teaches us, and as Arthur found. “Of
what use my dependence upon God,” Arthur also reasoned with himself
ten times a day, “if it does not serve to bear me up in this, my first
trouble? As well have been brought up next door to a heathen. Let me
do the best I can under it, and go my way as if it had not happened,
trusting all to God.”
A good resolution, and one that none could have made, and kept, unless
he had learnt that trust, which is the surest beacon-light we can
possess in the world. Hour after hour, day after day, did that trust
grow in Arthur Channing’s heart. He felt a sure conviction that God
would bring his innocence to light in His own good time: and that
time he was content to wait for. Not at the expense of Hamish. In his
brotherly love for Hamish, which this transaction had been unable
to dispel, he would have shielded his reputation at any sacrifice to
himself. He had grown to excuse Hamish, far more than he could ever have
excused himself, had he been guilty of it. He constantly hoped that
the sin might never be brought home to Hamish, even by the remotest
suspicion. He hoped that he would never fall again. Hamish was now so
kind to Arthur--gentle in manner, thoughtfully considerate, anxious
to spare him. He had taken to profess his full belief in Arthur’s
innocence; not as loudly perhaps, but quite as urgently, as did Roland
Yorke. “He would _prove_ my innocence, and take the guilt to himself,
but that it would bring ruin to my father,” fondly soliloquised Arthur.
Arthur Channing’s most earnest desire, for the present, was to obtain
some employment. His weekly salary at Mr. Galloway’s had been very
trifling; but still it was so much loss. He had gone to Mr. Galloway’s
not so much to be of help to that gentleman, who really did not require
a third clerk, as to get his hand into the routine of the office,
preparatory to being articled. Hence his weekly pay had been almost a
nominal sum. Small though it was, he was anxious to replace it; and
he sought to hear of something in the town. As yet, without success.
Persons were not willing to engage one on whom a doubt rested; and a
very great doubt, in the opinion of the town, did rest upon Arthur. The
manner in which the case had terminated--by Mr. Galloway’s refusing to
swear he put the bank-note into the envelope, when it was known that Mr.
Galloway _had_ put it in, and that Mr. Galloway himself knew that he had
done so--told more against Arthur than the actual charge had done. It
was not, you see, establishing Arthur’s innocence; on the contrary,
it rather tended to imply his guilt. “If I go on with this, he will be
convicted, therefore I will withdraw it for his father’s sake,” was the
motive the town imputed to Mr. Galloway. His summary dismissal, also,
from the office, was urged against him. Altogether, Arthur did not
stand well with Helstonleigh; and fresh employment did not readily show
itself. This was of little moment, comparatively speaking, while his
post in the Cathedral was not endangered. But that was to come.
On the day before the departure of Mr. and Mrs. Channing, Arthur was
seated at the organ at afternoon service, playing the anthem, when Mr.
Williams came up. Arthur saw him with surprise. It was not the day for
practising the choristers; therefore, what could he want? A feeling of
dread that it might mean ill to him, came over Arthur.
A feeling all too surely borne out. “Channing,” Mr. Williams began,
scarcely giving himself time to wait until service was over and the
congregation were leaving, “the dean has been talking to me about this
bother. What is to be done?”
The life-blood at his heart seemed to stand still, and then go on again.
His place there was about to be taken from him; he knew it. Must he
become an idle, useless burden upon them at home?
“He met me this morning in High Street, and stopped me,” continued Mr.
Williams. “He considers that if you were guilty of the theft, you ought
not to be allowed to retain your place here. I told him you were not
guilty--that I felt thoroughly convinced of it; but he listened coldly.
The dean is a stern man, and I have always said it.”
“He is a good man, and only stern in the cause of injustice,” replied
Arthur, who was himself too just to allow blame to rest where it was not
due, even though it were to defend himself. “Did he give orders for my
dismissal?”
“He has not done so yet. I said, that when a man was wrongly accused,
it ought not to be a plea for all the world’s trampling him down.
He answered pretty warmly, that of course it ought not; but that, if
appearances might be trusted, you were not wrongly accused.”
Arthur sat, scoring some music with his pencil. Never had he felt that
appearances were against him more plainly than he felt it then.
“I thought I would step down and tell you this, Channing,” Mr. Williams
observed. “I shall not dismiss you, you may be sure of that; but, if
the dean puts forth his veto, I cannot help myself. He is master of the
Cathedral, not I. I cannot think what possesses the people to doubt you!
They never would, if they had ten grains of sense.”
The organist concluded his words as he hurried down the stairs--he was
always much pressed for time. Arthur, a cold weight lying at his heart,
put the music together, and departed.
He traversed the nave, crossed the body, and descended the steps to the
cloisters. As he was passing the Chapter House, the doors opened, and
Dr. Gardner came out, in his surplice and trencher. He closed the doors
after him, but not before Arthur had seen the dean seated alone at
the table--a large folio before him. Both of them had just left the
Cathedral.
Arthur raised his hat to the canon, who acknowledged it, but--Arthur
thought--very coldly. To a sore mind, fancy is ever active. A thought
flashed over Arthur that he would go, there and then, and speak to the
dean.
Acting upon the moment’s impulse, without premeditation as to what he
should say, he turned back and laid his hand upon the door handle. A
passing tremor, as to the result, arose within him; but he had learned
where help in need is ever to be obtained, and an earnestly breathed
word went up then. The dean looked round, saw that it was Arthur
Channing, rose from his seat, and awaited his approach.
“Will you pardon my intruding upon you here, Mr. Dean?” he began, in his
gentle, courteous manner; and with the urgency of the occasion, all his
energy seemed to come to him. Timidity and tremor vanished, and he stood
before the dean, a true gentleman and a fearless one. The dean still
wore his surplice, and his trencher lay on the table near him. Arthur
placed his own hat by its side. “Mr. Williams has just informed me that
you cast a doubt as to the propriety of my still taking the organ,” he
added.
“True,” said the dean. “It is not fitting that one, upon whom so heavy
an imputation lies, should be allowed to continue his duty in this
Cathedral.”
“But, sir--if that imputation be a mistaken one?”
“How are we to know that it is a mistaken one?” demanded the dean.
Arthur paused. “Sir, will you take my word for it? I am incapable of
telling a lie. I have come to you to defend my own cause; and yet I can
only do it by my bare word of assertion. You are not a stranger to the
circumstances of my family, Mr. Dean; and I honestly avow that if this
post is taken from me, it will be felt as a serious loss. I have lost
what little I had from Mr. Galloway; I trust I shall not lose this.”
“You know, Channing, that I should be the last to do an unjust thing;
you also may be aware that I respect your family very much,” was the
dean’s reply. “But this crime which has been laid to your charge is a
heavy one. If you were guilty of it, it cannot be overlooked.”
“I was not guilty of it,” Arthur impressively said, his tone full of
emotion. “Mr. Dean! believe me. When I shall come to answer to my Maker
for my actions upon earth, I cannot then speak with more earnest truth
than I now speak to you. I am entirely innocent of the charge. I did
not touch the money; I did not know that the money was lost, until Mr.
Galloway announced it to me some days afterwards.”
The dean gazed at Arthur as he stood before him; at his tall form--noble
even in its youthfulness--his fine, ingenuous countenance, his earnest
eye; it was impossible to associate such with the brand of guilt,
and the dean’s suspicious doubts melted away. If ever uprightness was
depicted unmistakably in a human countenance, it shone out then from
Arthur Channing’s.
“But there appears, then, to be some mystery attaching to the loss, to
the proceedings altogether,” debated the dean.
“No doubt there may be; no doubt there is,” was the reply of Arthur.
“Sir,” he impulsively added, “will you stand my friend, so far as to
grant me a favour?”
The dean wondered what was coming.
“Although I have thus asserted my innocence to you; and it is the solemn
truth; there are reasons why I do not wish to speak out so unequivocally
to others. Will you kindly regard this interview as a confidential
one--not speaking of its purport even to Mr. Galloway?”
“But why?” asked the dean.
“I cannot explain. I can only throw myself upon your kindness, Mr. Dean,
to grant the request. Indeed,” he added, his face flushing, “my motive
is an urgent one.”
“The interview was not of my seeking, so you may have your favour,” said
the dean, kindly. “But I cannot see why you should not publicly assert
it, if, as you say, you are innocent.”
“Indeed, I am innocent,” repeated Arthur. “Should one ray of light ever
be thrown upon the affair, you will see, Mr. Dean, that I have spoken
truth.”
“I will accept it as truth,” said the dean. “You may continue to take
the organ.”
“I knew God would be with me in the interview!” thought Arthur, as he
thanked the dean and left the Chapter House.
He did not go home immediately. He had a commission to execute in the
town, and went to do it. It took him about an hour, which brought it to
five o’clock. In returning through the Boundaries he encountered Roland
Yorke, just released from that bane of his life, the office, for the
day. Arthur told him how near he had been to losing the Cathedral.
“By Jove!” uttered Roland, flying into one of his indignant fits. “A
nice dean he is! He’d deserve to lose his own place, if he had done it.”
“Well, the danger is over for the present. I say, Yorke, does Galloway
talk much about it?”
“Not he,” answered Roland. “He’s as sullen and crabbed as any old bear.
I often say to Jenkins that he is in a temper with himself for having
sent you away, and I don’t care if he hears me. There’s an awful amount
to do since you went. I and Jenkins are worked to death. And there’ll be
the busiest time of all the year coming on soon, with the autumn rents
and leases. I shan’t stop long in it, I know!”
Smiling at Roland’s account of being “worked to death,” for he knew how
much the assertion was worth, Arthur continued his way. Roland continued
his, and, on entering his own house, met Constance Channing leaving it.
He exchanged a few words of chatter with her, though it struck him that
she looked unusually sad, and then found his way to the presence of his
mother.
“What an uncommonly pretty girl that Constance Channing is!” quoth he,
in his free, unceremonious fashion. “I wonder she condescends to come
here to teach the girls!”
“I think I shall dismiss her, Roland,” said Lady Augusta.
“I expect she’ll dismiss herself, ma’am, without waiting for you to do
it, now William Yorke has found bread and cheese, and a house to live
in,” returned Roland, throwing himself at full length on a sofa.
“Then you expect wrong,” answered Lady Augusta. “If Miss Channing
leaves, it will be by my dismissal. And I am not sure but I shall do
it,” she added, nodding her head.
“What for?” asked Roland, lazily.
“It is not pleasant to retain, as instructress to my children, one whose
brother is a thief.”
Roland tumbled off the sofa, and rose up with a great cry--a cry of
passionate anger, of aroused indignation. “What?” he thundered.
“Good gracious! are you going mad?” uttered my lady. “What is Arthur
Channing to you, that you should take up his cause in this startling way
upon every possible occasion?”
“He is this to me--that he has nobody else to stand up for him,”
stuttered Roland, so excited as to impede his utterance. “We were both
in the same office, and the shameful charge might have been cast upon
me, as it was cast upon him. It was mere chance. Channing is as innocent
of it as you, mother; he is as innocent as that precious dean, who
has been wondering whether he shall dismiss him from the Cathedral. A
charitable lot you all are!”
“I’m sure I don’t want to be uncharitable,” cried Lady Augusta, whose
heart was kind enough in the main. “And I am sure the dean never was
uncharitable in his life: he is too good and enlightened a man to be
uncharitable. Half the town says he must be guilty, and what is one to
think? Then you would not recommend me to let it make any difference to
Miss Channing’s coming here?”
“No!” burst forth Roland, in a tone that might have brought down the
roof, had it been made of glass. “I’d scorn such wicked injustice.”
“If I were you, I’d ‘scorn’ to put myself into these fiery tempers, upon
other people’s business,” cried my lady.
“It is my business,” retorted Roland. “Better go into tempers than be
hard and unjust. What would William Yorke say at your speaking so of
Miss Channing?”
Lady Augusta smiled. “It was hearing what William Yorke had done that
almost decided me. He has broken off his engagement with Miss Channing.
And he has done well, Roland. It is not meet that he should take his
wife from a disgraced family. I have been telling him so ever since it
happened.”
Roland stood before her, as if unable to digest the news: his mouth
open, his eyes staring. “It is not true!” he shrieked.
“Indeed, it is perfectly true. I gathered a suspicion of it from William
Yorke’s manner to-day, and I put the question plainly to Miss Channing
herself. ‘Had they parted in consequence of this business of Arthur’s?’
She acknowledged that it was so.”
Roland turned white with honest anger. He dashed his hair from his brow,
and with an ugly word, he dashed down the stairs four at a time, and
flung out of the house; probably with the intention of having a little
personal explosion with the Reverend William Yorke.