“You never can wash your hands clean in dirty water,” said Temperance to
Nathan, “no more’n you can wash a floor with a dirty mop. Throw dirt and
the wind’ll carry it back in your own eyes. You can’t splash mud without
gettin’ spattered yourself.” Thereupon Temperance rattled her dishes
violently with an energy almost offensive. Her remarks were in the nature
of a parable intended to impress upon her admirer her superiority to, and
contempt for, ill-natured gossip.
Nathan bowed his head to the blast, waited till the noisy agitation
in the dishpan had subsided a little, and then continued to disburden
himself of the news he had gathered during the two days which had elapsed
since he had seen Temperance.
“Mrs. Snyder has been took again, I saw Sam and he says she’s real
miserable.”
“You don’t say!” said Temperance, fairly interested now. “She has a sight
of sickness.”
“Well, she was took down three days ago,” said Nathan, repeating
himself. Having no details to give, he uttered this remark with emphasis,
as of one giving forth a brand new idea.
“It’s just a year ago this very month since she was took down before,”
went on Miss Tribbey, uttering her reflection aloud as she was wont to
do when she had only the cat for auditor. “I remember particularly well
because I was making currant jell at the time, and Mame Settle was here
and she was helping dish it out, and she burned her hand, and she said
she was goin’ to set up with Mrs. Snyder that night, and she said she
wouldn’t get drowsy with that hand keepin’ her company. Yes, ’twas this
very month.”
Temperance having successfully proved her proposition in regard to the
date of Mrs. Snyder’s former illness, returned with renewed vim to her
dishes.
“It’s curious how disease comes back,” said Nathan reflectively. “There’s
my grandfather, he died two years before the church was opened, and he
had quinsy regular every spring, and Aunt Maria had her erysipelas in
March every year regular as sugar making, and old Joseph Muir had his
strokes always in July. I can mind that well, his funeral came just in
hayin’, for it rained terrible when we was comin’ back from the buryin’
and someone said, ‘Lucky is the corpse that the rain rains on,’ and old
Ab. Ranger said he guessed luck didn’t cut much figger with a corpse
anyhow, and for his part he’d a sight ruther had his hay dry in the barn
as wet in the field. It seemed kind of unfeelin’.”
Nathan rose to throw out the dish water for Temperance, a gallantry he
always permitted himself when he spent the evening with her. So anxious
was he not to miss this pleasure that he usually made a number of false
starts, drawing upon himself a kindly rebuke for fidgeting “like a hen
with its head off.” Nevertheless Temperance secretly counted upon this
bit of attention as much as Nathan did. He was returning with the empty
pan when suddenly he stopped.
“Gee!” he said, a strong word giving evidence of excitement. “I clean
forgot to tell you the news. Len Simpson’s dead.” Temperance sat down
heavily in a chair.
“My soul!” she said. Nathan continued with oratorical importance, feeling
that for once he had made a hit.
“Yes, we was puttin’ up petitions in Mrs. Didymus’s hen house to-day.
She’s gone cracked on fancy chickings and keepin’ the breeds separate
and sich nonsense, and we was petitionin’ it off and the bound girl said
Mister Didymus had been called over to Simpson’s terrible suddent, and he
stayed to dinner, and he writ a telegraph and sent it off by young Len to
Brixton. He died in Boston, and I don’t know if the telegraph was to send
home The Body or not. But anyhow, Mister Didymus was terrible affected.”
“And so he ought to be, remembering all things,” said Temperance. “Poor
Len—well, when he was keepin’ company with Martha Didymus I thought he
was the only young fellar I ever saw that could hold a candle to Lanty.
Well, well, and Martha’s been dead and gone these three years. Pore Mart,
died of heart-break, I always said, and so Len’s dead in Bosting! What
was he doin’ there?”
“They say,” said Nathan, telling the tidings shamefacedly, as became
their import. “They say he was play actin’.”
“Oh, pore Len,” said Temperance. “To fall to that! And I’ve heard many a
one say that there never was a man far or near could draw as straight a
furrow as Len nor build a better stack. Play actin’!”
Just then Mr. Lansing came out to the kitchen.
“It’s most time to start,” he said. “We’ll take the democrat—comin’ to
help hook up, Nat?”
Nathan followed him to the stables.
Temperance went to get ready for the prayer-meeting for rain.
The two girls and Sidney were sitting on the grass in the sweet,
old-fashioned garden, where verbenas elbowed sweet clover, and sweet peas
climbed over and weighed down the homely Provence roses, where mignonette
grew self-sown in the sandy paths and marigolds lifted saucy faces
to the sun unbidden; where in one corner grew marjoram and thyme and
peppergrass, lemon balm, spearmint and rue. The far-away parents of these
plants had shed their seed in old grange gardens in England. The Lansings
had long ago left their country for conscience sake, bravely making the
bitter choice between Faith and Fatherland.
The three young people, waiting in the delicious drowsiness of the summer
twilight, were environed in an atmosphere of suppressed but electrical
emotion.
Sidney Martin felt within him all the eagerness of first love. Every
faculty of his delicate, emotional temperament was tense with the delight
of the Vision given to his eyes. How could he ever dream that the moths
of the mind would fray its fabric or the sharp teeth of disillusion tear
it? And indeed for him it remained for ever splendid with the golden
broideries of his loving imagination. Vashti dreamed—even as the mighty
sibyls of old brooded over their dreams, conscious of their beauty, and
filled with the desire to see them accomplished—finding her visions
trebly precious because they were her very own, the offspring of her own
heart, the begetting of her own brain, the desire of her own will.
She knew that Lanty did not love her passionately, but to this strange
woman there was an added charm in the thought that she must do battle
for the love she craved. Her whole soul rose to the combat, which she
might have gained had she not made a fatal error in overlooking the real
issue, which was not to make Lanty love her, but to make him cease loving
Mabella.
Mabella’s face, in the soft dusk, wore an exalted expression of purity
and tremulous happiness. There were soft shadows beneath her eyes, and
her hands trembled as she plucked a flower to fragments. Her hidden
happiness had so winged her spirit that her slight body was sorely tired
by its eagerness. She started at each sound, and smiled at nothing.
Sweet Mabella Lansing did not dream that these eyes of hers had already
betrayed her precious secret, but they had been read by a kindly heart.
Sidney Martin thought he never in his life had seen anything so sweet
as this girl’s face, lit by the first illumination of love’s torch. An
epicure in the senses, he realized keenly the delicacy of this phase of
young life—like the velvet sheen upon a flower freshly unfolded, like the
bloom upon the grape, like the down upon a butterfly’s wing, lovely, but
destroyed by a touch. Beneath this evanescent charm he knew there was
deep, true feeling, but he sighed to think that the world might mar its
unconsciousness.
Sidney Martin had no place in his musings for God, yet in the face of
Mabella Lansing he saw a purity, a love, a look of young delight so holy,
that almost he was persuaded to think of a Divinity beyond that of human
nature. But he said to himself, “After all how sweet a thing human nature
is; how cruel to seek to believe in that ancient smirch, called original
sin. Has sin part or place in this girl, or in Vashti, Queen Vashti, with
the marvellous eyes and the splendid calm presence? Vashti, who looks at
life so calmly, so benignly——” and so on, for begin where he would, his
thoughts reverted to Vashti. She was first and last with him for ever.
The Alpha and Omega of his life.
But these things were all inarticulate, and in the old scented garden the
three talked of other things. The girls were telling Sidney the story of
the Lansing Legacy.
Long, long before, when the Lansings were by far the most numerous family
in the country side, when a Lansing preached in the church, when a
Lansing taught in the little school, where Lansing children outnumbered
all the others put together, the _doyen_ of the family was a quaint old
man—Abel Lansing. He was very old, a living link between the generations,
and spoke, as one having authority, of the days of old. Although a
bachelor, he was yet patriarchal in his rule over the wide family
connection, and they brought him their disputes to be adjusted, and came
to him to be consoled in their griefs. When they were prosperous, he
preserved their humility by reminding them of the case of Jeshurun, “who
waxed fat and kicked,” and the dire results of that conduct; when they
complained of poverty or hardship, he told them they should be thankful
for the mercies vouchsafed to them, contrasting their lot with that of
their fathers, who threshed their scanty crops with a flail upon the ice,
in lieu of a threshing floor, carried guns as well as bibles in church,
and ate their hearts out yearning for the far-off hedges of England when
they had not yet grown to love their sombre hills of refuge.
He was very eloquent, evidently both with God and man. It was his prayer,
so tradition said, which brought the great black frost to an end, and it
was a prayer of his, addressed to human ears, which stayed the hand of
vengeance, when uplifted against captive Indians. How excusable vengeance
would have been in this case, and how well mercy was repaid, is known to
all who have read of the troublous times of old.
In fullness of years, old Abel Lansing died, and dying, left all he had
to the poor of the parish, save and excepting a hoard of broad Spanish
pieces. How he had come by these dollars no one knew. The commonly
accepted idea was that they had been brought from England by the first
Lansing, and kept sacredly in case of some great need. Be that as it may,
there they were, stored in the drawer of the old oak coffer which had
been made in England by hands long dead.
And Abel Lansing’s will directed that to each Lansing there should be
given one piece, and in the quaint phraseology of the times, Abel had set
down the conditions of his gift. The recipients were bidden to guard the
coin zealously and never to part with it save _in extremis_—to buy bread,
save life or defend the Faith.
And strangely enough, when the money was portioned out, it was found that
for each broad silver piece there was a Lansing, and for each Lansing a
broad silver piece. No more and no less. And the country folk, hardly
yet divorced from belief in the black art, with the unholy smoke of the
burned witches still stinging their eyes, looked at each other curiously
when they spoke of the circumstances.
Oh, what an eloquent human history might be written out, if the tale
of each of these coins was known! What an encyclopædia of human joys
and sorrows! For no Lansing lightly parted with his Spanish dollar,
upon the possession of which the luck of the Lansings depended. They
were exchanged as gages of love between Lansing lovers. They were given
Lansing babies to “bite on,” when they began cutting their teeth. They
had been laid upon dead eyes. They had been saved from burning houses
at the peril of life. And dead hands had been unclosed to show one held
clasped even in the death pang.
Vashti drew hers from her pocket, and showed it to Sidney.
Mabella took hers from a little leather bag which hung about her neck.
When Mabella’s mother had died in want and penury, she had given her
three year old baby the piece and told her to hold it fast and show it
to Uncle when he came, for at last the brother had consented to see his
sister. He was late in yielding his stubborn will, but when once he was
on the road a fury of haste possessed him to see the sister from whom he
had parted in anger. But his haste perhaps defeated itself, and perhaps
Fate, which is always ironic, wished to add another ingredient to the
bitter cup old Lansing had been at such pains to prepare for his own
lips. His harness broke, his horse fell lame by the way, the clouds came
down, and the mists rose from the earth and befogged him, and when he
finally arrived at the bleak little house it was to find his sister dead,
and a yellow-haired baby, who tottered still in her walk, but yet had
baby wisdom enough to give him the shining silver piece and say “from
Mudder.” Lansing looked at the baby, and at the coin in his hand, and
passed through the open door where an inert head as yellow as the baby’s
lay upon the pillow. He had come tardily with forgiveness; he had arrived
to find his sister dead, and to be offered the symbol of the Lansing luck
by an orphan child.
Well—that was but one of the Lansing dollars.
Of all old Abel Lansing’s hoard there remained but four pieces—of all
that family which had possessed almost tribal dignity there were only
four left.
“Are you ready?” shouted old Lansing.
The three young people went round to where the democrat wagon stood with
its two big bays. Nathan and Temperance stood beside the horse block; as
they appeared Temperance climbed nimbly into the back seat, and Nathan,
adorned as usual with his muffler, placed himself in front; the two girls
joined Temperance, and Sidney mounted beside Mr. Lansing and Nathan. So
they set out, leaving the old house solitary in the deepening night.
As they drove along the country road the burnt odours of the dried up
herbage came to them, giving even in the dark a hint of the need for rain.
“Has Nathan told you the news?” asked Temperance of Mr. Lansing. “Len
Simpson’s dead.”
“Oh, Temperance!” said Mabella.
“Where—when?” said Vashti.
Temperance was silent, and Nathan, in the manner of those who have
greatness thrust upon them, recommenced his parable.
“Oh, poor Len!” said Mabella, wiping her eyes.
“It’s very sad for his people,” said Vashti. “First to be disgraced by
him, and then to hear of his death like this—well—he was a bad lot.”
“Oh, Vashti,” said Mabella, passionately, “how can you? And him just
dead. His mother’ll be heartbroken.”
“I did not say anything but what everybody knows,” said Vashti, coldly.
“He drank, didn’t he? And he broke Mart Didymus’s heart? I thought you
were fond of her? It’s true he’s dead, but we’ve all got to die; he
should have remembered while he was living that he had to die some day.
I don’t believe in making saints of people after they’re dead. Let them
live well and they’ll die well, and people will speak well of them.”
“That depends,” said Temperance with a snort. “Some people ain’t given to
speak well of their neighbours living or dead.”
“And some people,” said Vashti coolly, “speak too much, and too often
always.”
“Hold your peace,” said her father sternly. “Did you say The Body was
being brought home?” he asked Nathan.
“Yes, or leastways, that’s the idea, but no one knows for certain.”
“Lanty will take it terribly hard,” said the old man musingly. “He and
Len Simpson ran together always till Len went off, and Lanty never took
up with anyone else like he did with Len.”
Sidney had been a little chilled by Vashti’s attitude towards the death
of this young fellow. But with the persistent delusion of the idealist he
did not call it hardness of heart, but “a lofty rectitude of judgment”;
himself incapable of pronouncing a hard word against a human being, he
yet did not perceive what manner of woman this was. He thought only what
severe and lofty standards she must have, how inexorable her acceptance
of self-wrought consequences was, and he said to himself that he must
purify himself as by fire, ere he dared approach the altar of her lips.
Old Mr. Lansing mused aloud upon Len, and his family, and his death.
“Well,” he said, “poor Len was always his own worst enemy. Did you hear
if he was reconciled before he died?”
“Reconciled,” ah surely, surely that is the word; not converted, nor
regenerated, nor saved, but reconciled—reconciled to the great purposes
of Nature, to the great intention of the Maker; so infinitely good beside
our petty hopes of personal salvation. Reconciled to that mighty law
which “sweetly and strongly ordereth all things.” Reconciled to give our
earthly bodies back to mother earth, our spirits back to the Universal
Bosom; to render the Eternal Purpose stronger by the atom of our personal
will.
The church to which they were going, and which was even now in sight, was
a large frame building, whose grey, weather-beaten walls were clouded by
darker stains of moisture and moss. Virginia creeper garlanded the porch
wherein the worshippers put off their coats, their smiles and, so far
as might be, the old Adam, before entering the church proper. Tall elms
overshadowed the roof, their lowest branches scraping eerily across the
shingles with every breath of wind, a sound which, in a mind properly
attuned to spiritual things, might easily typify the tooth and nail
methods of the Devil in his assault upon holy things. Indeed the weird
sighings and scrapings of these trees had had their share in hastening
sinners to the anxious seat, and in precipitating those already there to
deeper depths of penitential fear.
Behind the church, in decent array, the modest tomb-stones of God’s acre
were marshalled. What a nucleus of human emotion is such a church—with
its living within and its dead without, like children clustered about
the skirts of their mother. Surely, surely, it is, at least, a beautiful
thing, this “sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrection”—the hope
which had sustained so many weary old hearts in this congregation, when
one after another their loved ones went from them to be cradled in Mother
Earth!
Well—Religion they say has grown too scant a robe for human reason.
Through its rents is seen the glorious nakedness of science; yet surely
the strongest of us must feel a tender reverence for the faith typified
by such a church as this. The home of simple faith, where simple folk
found peace.
In sect this Church was one of those independent bodies of which there
are so many in America, which having retained the severe rectitude
of the Puritans are yet leavened with evangelical tenderness, and
vivified by evangelical zeal. It approximated perhaps more closely to
the Congregational Body than any other, and was self-governing and
self-sustaining. As the Chicago people date everything from “The Fire”
so Dole people dated all their reminiscences from the “Opening” of the
“Church,” which meant the dedication of the present church, which, in old
Mr. Lansing’s boyhood, had replaced the humbler log building of earlier
days. The minister was chosen for life, and was by far the most important
personage of the community. No one disputed his pre-eminence, and public
opinion was moulded by his mind. The ministers tilled their gardens,
lived simply as their fellows, and beyond a black coat on Sunday,
wore no insignia of office; yet that office wrapped them in a mantle
of distinction. There was no laughing at holy things in Dole. No Dole
children heard the minister and his sermons criticized. The shadow of the
great Unseen rested above the humble church and hallowed it.
Mr. Didymus was an old, old man, and his white-headed wife was bowed and
frail. The death of their only daughter, Martha, had been a bitter blow.
Outwardly they strove to manifest the resignation of God’s anointed. At
night when they sat alone they held each other’s hands, and wept over the
bits of needlework the girl had left.
Deacon Simpson was a stern and upright man. No one recognised more
clearly than he, that his son Len was no fit mate for brown-haired
Martha Didymus. And yet, he loved his boy.
The two young people accepted the judgment upon them. Len’s sullen
acceptance of the inevitable was broken by fits of hot-headed rebellion
against the decorum of the community, which evidently regarded this
bitter dispensation as his just due, yet he never gave up hope until pale
Martha Didymus told him to go his way. Then indeed he departed upon his
solitary road, and an evil one it seemed to village eyes.
Poor Martha! Duty may excite one to an excess of courage, but it cannot
sustain. She “peaked and pined,” and the end of it for her was that she
was overtaken by sleep before her time, and went to take her place in the
silent congregation.
“Ask Mr. Didymus about Len,” said Vashti to her father, catching his
sleeve, and detaining him for a moment, as he was about to lead the
horses into the sheds.
“Yes—if I have a chance,” said her father, and he raised his voice to
speak to young Ranger.
“Well, Ab, what hev’ you been doin’ to-day?”
“Hoeing,” said the shock-headed young chap laconically.
“Well,” said Mr. Lansing approvingly, “it’s about all one can do for the
roots in weather like this, and a good thing it is too. You know the old
sayin’, ‘You can draw more water with a hoe than with a bucket.’ That’s
true, ’specially when the wells are all dry.”
The two moved away together and Vashti turned to the others. Temperance
had left to talk to Sue Winder, one of her great cronies. Lanty had
joined Mabella and Sidney.
“I’m glad to see you here, Lanty.”
The full diapason of Vashti’s voice made the little phrase beautiful. It
seemed to Sidney she was like some heavenly hostess bidding wanderers
welcome to holy places.
“You have heard of poor Len?”
“Yes, ill news flies fast,” he said. His brows were knit by honest pain;
and regret, which manlike he strove to hide, made his eyes sombre.
“Are they bringing him home?”
“Yes, Mr. Simpson left for Boston by the six o’clock train from Brixton.”
Despite himself Lanty’s lips quivered. Mabella ventured in the dusk to
touch his hand comfortingly. Her intuitional tenderness was revealed
in the simple gesture. He looked at her, unveiling the sadness of his
soul to her eyes, and in her answering look he saw comprehension and
consolation. As if by one impulse their eyes sought the corner where the
slender white obelisk marked the grave of Martha; and having singled it
out, where it stood like an ominous finger-post on love’s road, they once
again steadfastly regarded each other, each one saying in the heart,
“Till death.” And another thought came to each. They mourned for Len, but
_she_ rejoiced. Perhaps it was unorthodox, but these two, in the first
tenderness of their unspoken love, felt sure that Len did not enter the
dark unwelcomed.
Night was coming swiftly on—a “black-browed night” indeed. The faces of
the four young people shone out palely from the environing gloom.
It was a solitary moment. Sidney sighed involuntarily. He felt a little
lonely. Regretting almost that he could claim no personal share in the
grief for Len. Vashti heard his sigh and looked at him. By a capricious
impulse she willed to make him hers—to make him admire her. She
smiled—and let her smile die slowly. As a fitful flame glows for a moment
making a barren hearth bright ere it gathers itself into the embers
again, so this gentle smile changed all the scene to Sidney’s eyes. His
heart was already captive, but it was now weighted with a heavier shackle.
Vashti Lansing saw clearly the effect of her smile, and a mad impulse
came upon her to laugh aloud in triumph. Every now and then she felt
within her the throes of an evil dominant will. Such a will as, planted
in the breast of sovereigns, makes millions weep. The harsh bell began to
jingle. It was time to enter.
“Come to our pew, Lanty,” whispered Mabella, softly.
“Yes, dear,” he answered, and both blushed; and thus they entered the
church.
Vashti walked slowly up the aisle, looking neither to the right hand
nor to the left, but seeing all. How white and calm she was, Sidney
thought—but often lava lies beneath the snow.
The deacons entered; tall, spare men, stern-faced and unsympathetic they
seemed, yet in their hearts they thought of the one of their number who
was journeying through the night to where his son lay dead. White haired
Mr. Didymus rose in his place and stretched out his tremulous hands above
his congregation.
“Let us pray,” he said, and after a solemn pause addressed himself to the
unseen.
The greater part of the congregation knelt, the deacons stood erect, as
did Lanty and Sidney, although a thought crossed the mind of each of the
young men that it would have been sweet to kneel beside the woman he
loved.
As Sidney looked about him a great pity for these people filled his
heart; the kneeling figures appealed to him poignantly; from his point
of view they were less like children gathered about a father, than serfs
bending beneath a yoke, which was none the less heavy because it was the
creation of their own imagination. The shoulders of the kneeling figures
had involuntarily fallen into the pose of their daily toil; there was the
droop of the ploughman over his plough; of the tiller over the hoe; of
the carpenter over his plane. It was as if, even in prayer, they wrought
at a hard furrow. And the women’s shoulders! What woeful eloquence in
these bent forms bowed beneath the dual burden of motherhood and toil.
What patient endurance was manifest beneath the uncouth lines of their
alpaca and calico dresses!
From the shoulders his gaze fastened upon the pairs of hands clasped upon
the pew backs. Such toil-worn hands. It seemed to him the fingers were
great in proportion to the palm, as if they wrought always, and received
never. Surely he was growing morbid? And then all the latent pathos in
the scene gathered in his heart. All the dumb half unconscious endurance
about him pleaded to be made articulate; and as one with unbelieving
heart may join in a litany with fervent lips, so Sidney strove to second
each petition of the long prayer.
Old Mr. Didymus had long been a spiritual ambassador and he was not
unskilled in diplomacy. His prayer was a skilful and not inartistic
mingling of adoration, petition, compliment and thanks, adroitly
expressed in the words of the Sovereign he addressed, or in phrases
filched from His inspired ones. And mid their burning sands, and under
their blazing skies, these Eastern followers had not failed to appreciate
the blessings of rain.
“O, Thou who in the wilderness did rain down the corn of heaven, that
Thy children might eat and be filled; Thou who brought streams out of the
rock and caused waters to run down like rivers that their thirst might be
quenched, and that they might be preserved alive—Thou of whom it was said
of old: ‘Thou visitest the earth and waterest it; Thou greatly enrichest
it with the river of God, which is full of water; Thou waterest the
ridges thereof abundantly; Thou settlest the furrows thereof; Thou makest
it soft with showers; Thou blessest the springing thereof; Thou crownest
the year with Thy goodness’—Hear us! We beseech Thee! Thou causest it
to rain on the earth where no man is—on the wilderness wherein is no
man—cause it also to rain upon us. Thou causest it to rain alike upon the
just and the unjust, let us not hang midway between Thine anger and Thy
love. Remember Thy promise to pour water upon him that is thirsty, and
floods upon the dry ground. Thou, O God! didst once send ‘a plentiful
rain whereby Thou didst confirm Thine inheritance when it was weary’;
deny us not a like consolation, we faint beneath the hot frown of Thine
anger. Let Thy shadow comfort us! As the thirsty hart panteth for the
waterbrooks, we long for Thy blessing. Before man was upon the earth Thou
caused a mist to rise up from the earth and watered the whole face of the
earth; continue Thy mercy to us, who, sharing Adam’s fall are yet heirs
to the Redemption. Slay not us in Thine anger, O Lord! Behold, we are
athirst! Give Thou us to drink. Are there any vanities of the Gentiles
that can cause rain? Or can the Heaven give showers? Art not Thou He—O
Lord our God? Therefore we will wait upon Thee, for Thou hast made all
these things. When Elijah strove against the sorcerers of Baal didst Thou
not hear him? Like unto him we are cast down before Thee. O grant us our
prayer! Show to us also the little cloud like a man’s hand that comforted
the land of Ahab. Grant that we, too, by faith shall hear ‘the sound of
abundance of rain!’”
He paused. There was a moment of tense silence.
“And Thine shall be the glory, Amen,” he faltered forth brokenly. He
had no further words; the advocate had pleaded for his cause. He waited
the voice of the judge. There followed a longer pause fraught with the
emotion of a great need.
Sidney’s heart ached for these people; a thousand inarticulate pleas
entered the wide gate of his sympathies and demanded utterance at his
lips. A sultry breath entered the open window fraught with the odour
of parched earth and burnt-up grass. The old priest and his three
grey-haired elders, standing amid the kneeling people, seemed to him like
brave standards ready to prop up a falling faith till its ruin crushed
them, willing sacrifices for the people; they were mute, but their very
presence standing thus was eloquent. Surely the God of their Fathers
would remember the children of these men who had indeed “given up all and
followed Him” out to the western wilderness? Long ago he had led forth
His people out of Egypt. They had murmured against Him yet He had not
left them to perish in their sins; was the hand that had given water from
the rock and corn from Heaven empty now?
Long ago the great progressive miracle of Nature’s processes was
inaugurated; were the wheels of God’s machinery clogged?
A shrill, trembling treble voice rose brokenly. For a few ineloquent
phrases it continued, and then died away in sobs expressive of mortal
need. It was Tom Shinar’s wife; their farm was to be sold at mortgage
sale in the autumn. Mary Shinar had gone herself to plead with the lawyer
in Brixton through whom the mortgage had been placed. Mary sat on the
edge of a chair in an agony of nervousness whilst the perky clerk went in
to state her business, and the lawyer came out of his comfortable office
and told her they could stay on the farm “till the crop was off the
ground,” he did not know the terrible irony of his mercy.
In the light of ordinary day Tom Shinar and his wife bore themselves as
bravely as possible. Their neighbours asked them questions as to next
year’s crops to force them to betray what was a secret only by courtesy.
All the community knew the facts of the case, and when Tom, forced into
a corner by questions, said “he ’lowed he’d be movin’ in fall,” every
man knew what he meant. When Mary, in a like position, said she “reckoned
they wouldn’t have to bank up the cellar that winter, ’cos Tom was
thinking of changing,” the women said to each other afterwards: “They’re
to be sold out in October—Mr. Ellis is takin’ the farm.”
A mortgage sale is an ordinary enough event, and the prospect of one not
so unique as to require dwelling on, but the sight of Mary Shinar’s face
as she let it fall between her hands after her abortive prayer, decided
the fate of Sidney Martin. The sound of a woman’s trembling tones was
the touch which sent Sidney over the brink of the pit Fate had prepared
for him. The last echo of her shrill voice died away—a sob filled the
room of the wonted Amen. The sob did not die till it filled Sidney Martin
with fatal inspiration; again he agonized in one of his childish visions
when the Pain of the world, exaggerated by his morbid mother’s teachings,
seemed to environ him with the tortures of hell. His supra-sensitive
personal atmosphere was surcharged with electrical currents of pain and
need and want, defeated effort, dead hope, fruitless battling, and these
discharging themselves in his bursting heart, filled it with exquisite
agony. His spirit battled against his imagination and rushed to his lips.
He began to speak. No one in that congregation could ever recall one
word or phrase of Sidney Martin’s prayer for rain. As the “poor, poor
dumb mouths” of Cæsar’s wounds lent Antony eloquence, so each line and
careworn furrow upon the countenances of those about him sped the speech
of Sidney Martin.
The women sobbed aloud, the men felt their heavy souls lifted up.
Lanty, whose ardent nature made him peculiarly susceptible to the
charm of eloquence, fell upon his knees involuntarily. Mabella felt a
pleader powerful enough to win their cause was here amid the stricken
congregation, and Vashti felt once again a wildly exultant throb of her
own power which had won such a man.
Yet—what manner of prayer was this? Herein were no phrasings from Holy
Writ; no humble appeals to a pitying Christ, a personal God.
Sidney Martin, standing amid this congregation of orthodox souls,
was pouring forth what was neither more nor less than a pantheistic
invocation to the Spirits of Nature, bidding them be beneficent;
addressing them with Shelleyan adoration, and with as strong a sense
of their existence as ever inspired Shelley’s immortal verse. And thus
within these walls wherein was preached naught but “Christ and Him
crucified,” Sidney Martin addressed himself to “Nature—all sufficing
Power,” and did it, moved by no irreverence, stimulated by the same
needs which had wrung forth the few pleading words from pious Mary
Shinar. And whilst he, in bitterness of spirit, realized afterwards the
_grotesquerie_ of his action, yet those who were his hearers that night,
and for many times afterwards, never saw the great gulf fixed between his
adorations and their beliefs. And is it not a hopeful and solemn thing to
find the Faith in a living Christ so closely allied to honest reverence
for nature? To find Nature so close akin to God that their worshippers
may interchange their petitions? It is very significant that—significant
as all things are of the immutable and sacred Brotherhood of Man.
Christian, Deist, Buddhist, Atheist, by whatsoever name we choose to call
ourselves, we are all bound together by the thongs of human needs and
aspirations.
How vain to seek to deny that kinship. How futile to strive to blot out
the family resemblance betwixt our prayers and theirs!
For _malgré_ himself man prays always. His mere existence is a prayer
against the darkness and the chaos of the void.
Sidney’s voice rose thrillingly through the tense silence. He had that
God-like gift—natural eloquence, and under its spell his hearers forgot
in part their woes, and began to take heart of hope whilst he plead
with Mother Nature not to be a step-dame to her sons, and besought the
“beloved Brotherhood,” earth, air and ocean, to withdraw no portion of
their wonted bounty.
As his eloquence carried his listeners beyond their fears, it bore
himself beyond their ken, till suddenly alight upon the highest pinnacle
of thought, he paused to look beyond—hoping to behold
“Yet purer peaks, touched with unearthlier fire,
In sudden prospect virginally new,
But on the lone last height he sighs, ’tis cold,
And clouds shut out the view.”
Sidney saw but a misty void peopled with the spectral shapes of his
doubts, which gibbered nebulously through the veil at him. Speech died
upon his lips. His voice, arrested midway in a phrase, seemed still to
ring in the listening ears. It was as if one paused in an impassioned
plea, to hear the answer rendered ere the plea was finished.
And the answer came.
A long sighing flaw of wind swept about the church, cool and sweet, and
ere it died away rain was falling.
“Amen,” said every pair of lips in the church save the pale, quivering
lips of Sidney Martin. The coincident arrival of the longed-for blessing
added the finishing touch to his nervousness. He rose from the pew
into which he had sunk for a moment and swiftly passed down the aisle,
hearing, ere he reached the door, the first lines of the hymn of
Hallelujah, which went up from the grateful hearts behind him. His whole
being revolted against his recent action.
The rain beat down violently; the parched earth seemed to sigh audibly
with delight, and within the church all the voices vibrant with justified
faith seemed to mock at his depression. He could not explain his action
to himself. What explanation then was possible to these simple folk?
Could he say to them—to Vashti—(he named her name in his thoughts,
determined not to spare himself). Could he say to Vashti, “I do not
believe in your God—nor in the man Christ Jesus, nor in prayer. Yet
I stood in the church and asked a blessing. I defiled your fane with
unbelieving feet. I do not know why I did it”? It was weak that,
certainly! He imagined the scorn in her clear eyes; now eyes in which
scorn is so readily imaginable are not the best eyes—but he did not think
that. What was he to do? He had been weak. He must now be strong in his
weakness.
The church door opened, one and all emerged upon the long verandah-like
porch, and gathered round him, shaking hands with him.
“The Spirit indeed filled you this night, Brother,” said white-haired Mr.
Didymus.
“Yes—you wrestled powerfully,” said Mr. Lansing.
“It done me good that prayer of your’n,” said Tom Shinar, and the words
meant much.
“We have much to thank you for,” said Vashti’s sweet tones, and for the
first time he looked up, and when he met her approving eyes, the garments
of his shame clung tighter to him.
Mabella gave him her hand a moment and looked at him shyly.
Lanty stood a little aloof. He was a good young chap with honest impulses
and a wholesome life, but he never felt quite at ease with parsons. Lanty
placed them on too high a pedestal, and after having placed them there
found it strained his neck to let his gaze dwell on them. He had a very
humble estimate of his own capacity for religion. He was reverent enough,
but he had been known to smile at the peculiarities of pious people, and
had once or twice been heard making derogatory comparison betwixt precept
and practice as illustrated in the lives of certain potable church
members.
“Well,” said Temperance energetically to Sue Winder. “Well! I’m sure I
never so much as ’spicioned he had the gift of tongues! After them white
pants!! He talked real knowin’ about the fields and sich, but to home he
don’t seem to know a mangel-wurzel from a beet, nor beets from carrits.”
“There’s no tellin’,” said Sue, who was somewhat of a mystic in her way.
“P’raps ’twas The Power give him knowledge and reason.”
“Well—I don’t know,” said Temperance, “but if he stands with that
eavetrough a-runnin’ onto him much longer it’ll give him rheumatics.”
“Temp’rins is powerful worldly,” said Sue regretfully to Mary Shinar as
Temperance left her side to warn Sidney. Her experienced eyes saw his
deathly pallor; she deflected her course towards Mr. Lansing where he
stood among the worthies of the congregation giving a rapid _resumé_ of
Sidney’s history so far as he knew it.
Temperance was a privileged person. She broke in upon the conclave with
scant excuse.
“Mr. Martin is fair dead beat,” she said without preface. “He’s got a
look on his face for sickness. He’d better be took home. Nat, will you
fetch round the demicrit?”
Nat departed. Temperance strode over to Sidney.
“If you’d come in out of the rain you wouldn’t get wet,” she said, as if
she was speaking to a child; “we’re goin’ home direckly, and there’s no
good running after rheumatics; they’ll catch on to you soon enough and
stick in your bones worse nor burrs in your hair.”
Sidney moved to the back of the porch and leaned wearily against the
church.
“It seems to me he’ll get middlin’ wet driving home anyhow,” said Mr.
Lansing.
“Do you think I came to a prayer-meeting for rain without umbrellas?”
snorted Temperance. “Them and the waterproofs is under the seats.”
There was silence.
A demonstration of faith so profound was not easily gotten over.
Graceless Lanty sniggered aloud.
The listeners felt themselves scandalized.
“Well, I _declare_!” said Mrs. Ranger, openly shocked.
“Did you bring your umbrell and your storm hood?” asked Temperance.
“No,” snapped Mrs. Ranger, remembering her new crape.
“That’s a pity,” said Temperance coolly, “seeing you’ve got your new
bunnit on—when you knew what we came here for.”
In the parlance of the village, Temperance and Mrs. Ranger “loved each
other like rats and poison.”
Nat arrived with the democrat—jubilant over “his Temp’rins’” foresight.
“That’s what I call Faith,” he said, handing out the coverings.
“I’m glad he told us,” whispered Lanty to Mabella “if he hadn’t—I’d have
thought ’twas your waterproofs.”
And Mabella, though she was a pious little soul, could not help smiling
rosily out of the waterproof hood at her lover’s wit, and what with the
smile, and the ends of her yellow hair poking out of the dark hood, and
her soft chin tilted up to permit of fastening a stubborn button, Lanty
had much to do to abstain from sealing her his then and there before all
the congregation.
All was at length arranged, and Temperance went off with her party dry
beneath the umbrellas. The rest of the congregation took their drenching
in good part. They were not going to complain of rain in one while!