"Take up your burden instead, my son, and bear it by God's grace. He
does not refuse that, even when the burden is heaped and bound by our
own hands. Unlike men, His compassion faileth never. He has maybe
emptied thine heart, Aubrey, that He may fill it with Himself."
Aubrey made no reply, but Mr Marshall did not think that a bad sign.
"Well, come now," said he, rising from the bank, and in a more cheerful
tone. "Let us go to Shoe Lane, and see if Agnes hath any supper for us.
The prodigal son was not more welcome to his old father than you shall
be to my poor lodging, for so long a time as may stand with your safety
and conveniency. My Lady Oxford, you say, was to give my Lady Lettice
to know how things went with you? but methinks it shall do none ill if I
likewise visit her this evening. `Two heads are better than one,' and
though 'tis said `o'er many cooks spoil the broth,' yet three may be
better than two."
The feeling of humiliation which grew and deepened in Aubrey's mind, was
one of the best things which could have come to him. Vanity and
self-sufficiency had always been his chief failings; and he was now
finding, to his surprise, that while his chosen friends surrounded him
with difficulties, the people whom he had slighted and despised came
forward to help him out of them. He had looked down on no one more than
on Mr Marshall, and Agnes had received a share of his contempt, partly
because of her father's calling and comparative poverty, partly because
she was not pretty, and partly because she showed no power of repartee
or spirit in conversation. In Aubrey's eyes she had been "a dull,
humdrum thing," only fit to cook and sew, and utterly beneath the notice
of any one so elevated and _spirituel_ as himself.
During the last few hours, Aubrey's estimate of things in general had
sustained some rude shocks, and his hitherto unfaltering faith in his
own infallibility was considerably shaken. It suffered an additional
blow when Mr Marshall led him into his quiet parlour, and he saw Agnes
seated at her work, the supper-table spread, and a cheerful fire blazing
upon a clean hearth. An expression of slight surprise came into her
eyes as she rose to greet Aubrey.
"You see, daughter, I have brought home a guest," said her father. "He
will tarry with us a little season."
Then, stepping across the room, he opened a closed door, and showed
Aubrey another chamber, the size of the first, across which a red
curtain was drawn.
"This is my chamber, and shall be also yours," said he: "I pray you use
it freely. At this end is my study, and beyond the curtain my
bedchamber. I somewhat fear my library may scarce be to your liking,"
he added, an amused smile playing round his lips; "but if you can find
therein anything to please you, I shall be glad.--Now, daughter, what
have we here? We so rarely have guests to supper, I fear Mr Louvaine
may find our fare somewhat meagre: though `better is a dinner of herbs
where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.'"
"It is a dinner of herbs, Father," said Agnes, echoing the smile; "for
'tis a bit of gammon of bacon and spinach, with eggs in poach."
"How say you, my friend?" asked Mr Marshall of Aubrey. "Can you make
your supper of so simple a dish?"
"Indeed I can, Sir, and thankfully," was the answer.
Agnes Marshall, though very quiet, was observant, and she perceived in a
moment that something was wrong with the magnificent youth who had
scarcely deigned to look at her when they had met on previous occasions.
She saw also that his manner had greatly changed, and very much for the
better. He spoke to her now on terms of equality, and actually
addressed her father in a tone of respect. Something must have
happened.
Aubrey, naturally the less observant of the two, was looking on just now
with quickened senses; and discovered, also to his surprise, that the
simple supper was served with as much dainty neatness as at Lord
Oxford's table; that Mr Marshall could talk intelligently and
interestingly on other than religious subjects; that Agnes really was
not dull, but quite able to respond to her father's remarks; that her
eyes were clear and bright, her complexion not at all bad, and her smile
decidedly pleasant: and lastly, that both his hosts, though take a thus
unawares, were exceedingly kind to him, and ready to put themselves to
any trouble or inconvenience in order to accommodate him. He had
learned more, when he lay down to sleep that night, in twelve hours than
in any previous twelve months of his life, since his infancy. The
lessons were of higher value, and they were not likely to be lost.
When supper was over, Mr Marshall repaired to the White Bear, and
Aubrey was left to Agnes as entertainer. She was sewing a long seam,
and her needle went in and out with unfailing regularity. For a few
minutes he watched her in silence, discovering a sunny gleam on her hair
that he had never before noticed. Then he suddenly spoke out one of his
thoughts.
"Don't you find that exceeding wearisome?"
Agnes looked up with amused surprise.
"Truly," she said, "I never thought about it."
"I am sure I could not work at it ten minutes," replied Aubrey.
Agnes laughed--a low, soft, musical laugh, which struck pleasantly on
the ear.
"My father would be ill off for shirts if I could not," she answered.
"You see, Mr Louvaine, things have to be done. 'Tis to no good purpose
to be impatient with them. It doth but weary more the worker, and
furthers not the work a whit."
"Would you not like to lead a different life?--such a life as other
young maids do--amid flowers, and sunshine, and jewels, and dancing, and
laughter, and all manner of jollity?"
He was curious to hear what she would say to the question.
Agnes answered by a rather wondering smile. Then her eyes went out of
the window, to the steeple of Saint Andrew's, and the blue sky beyond
it.
"I might well enjoy some of them," she said slowly, as if the different
ideas were passing in review before her. "I love sunshine, and flowers.
But there is one thing I love far better."
"And that is--?"
A light "that never was from sun nor moon" flooded the grave grey eyes
of Agnes Marshall. Her voice was very low and subdued as she answered.
"That is, to do the will of God. There is nothing upon earth that I
desire in comparison of Him."
"Is not that a gloomsome, dismal sort of thing?"
There was Divine compassion, mingled with human amusement, in the smile
which was on Agnes's lips as she looked up at him.
"Have you tried it, Mr Louvaine?"
Aubrey shook his head. "I have tried a good many things, but not
Puritan piety. It ever seemed to me a most weary and dreary matter,--an
eternal `Thou shalt not' carved o'er the gate of every garden of delight
that I would fain enter. They may be angels that stand there, but they
bear flaming swords."
He spoke lightly, yet there was an accent in his voice which revealed to
Agnes a deep unfilled void in his heart.
"Don't try piety," she said quietly. "Try Jesus Christ instead. There
are no flaming swords in the way to Him, and the truest and deepest
satisfaction cannot be reached without Him."
"Have you found it thus, Mrs Agnes?"
"I have, Mr Louvaine."
"But, then,--you see,--you have not tried other fashions of pleasure,
maybe," said Aubrey, slowly.
"Have you?" said Agnes.
"Ay--a good many."
"And did you find them satisfying? I say not, pleasant at the moment,
but satisfying?"
"Well, that is a large word," said Aubrey.
"It is a large word," was the reply, "yet Christ can fill it: and none
can do it but He. Know you any thing or creature else that can?"
"I cannot say, for I have not needed it."
"That is, you have not been down yet into deep places, methinks, where
the floods have overflowed you. I have not visited many, in truth; yet
have I been in one or two where I should have lost my footing, had not
my Lord held me up."
A very sorrowful look came into the gentle eyes. Agnes was thinking of
the faithless Jonas Derwent, who had cast her off in the day of her
calamity. Aubrey made no answer. He was beginning to find out that
life was not, as he had always imagined it, a field of flowers, but a
very sore and real battlefield, wherein to lose the victory meant to
lose his very self, and to win it meant to reign for ever and ever.
And then Mr Marshall's voice said on the other side of the door,--"This
is the way,"--and another voice, dearly welcome to Aubrey, responded as
Aunt Edith came into the room--
"Mine own dear boy! God be thanked that we see thee safe from harm!"
And again, for the twentieth time, Aubrey felt as he kissed her that he
had not deserved it.