Up to thirty-two years of age David Hyam, of the village of Framley, in
Staffordshire, was not a man of surprises. With enough of this world’s
goods to give him comfort of body and suave gravity of manner, the
figure he cut was becoming to his Quaker origin and profession. No one
suspected the dynamic possibilities of his nature till a momentous day
in August, in the middle Victorian period, when news from Bristol came
that an uncle in chocolate had died and left him the third of a large
fortune, without condition or proviso.
This was of a Friday, and on the Saturday following David did his first
startling act--he offered marriage to Hope Marlowe, the only Quaker girl
in Framley who had ever dared to discard the poke bonnet even for a day,
and who had been publicly reproved for laughing in meeting--for Mistress
Hope had a curious, albeit demure and suggestive, sense of humour;
she was, in truth, a kind of sacred minuet in grey. Hope had promptly
accepted David, at the same time taunting him softly with the fact that
he had recklessly declared he would never marry, even saying profanely
that upon his word and honour he never would! She repeated to him what
his own mother once replied to his audacious worldly protests:
“If thee say thee will never, never, never do a thing, thee will some
day surely do it.”
Then, seeing that David was a bit chagrined, Hope slipped one hand
into his, drew him back within the door, lifted the shovel hat off his
forehead, and whispered with a coquetry unworthy a Quaker maid:
“But thee did not say, friend David, thee would never, never, never
smite thy friend on both cheeks after she had flouted thee.”
Having smitten her on both cheeks, after the manner of foolish men,
David gravely got him to his home and to a sound sleep that night.
Next morning, the remembrance of the pleasant smiting roused him to an
outwardly sedate and inwardly vainglorious courage. Going with steady
steps to the Friends’ meeting-house at the appointed time, the Spirit
moved him, after a decorous pause, to announce his intended marriage
to the prettiest Quaker in Framley, even the maid who had shocked the
community’s sense of decorum and had been written down a rebel--though
these things he did not say.
From the recesses of her poke bonnet Hope watched the effect of David’s
words upon the meeting; but when the elders turned and looked at her,
as became her judges before the Lord, her eyes dropped; also her heart
thumped so hard she could hear it; and in the silence that followed it
seemed to beat time to the words like the pendulum of a clock: “Fear
not-Love on! Fear not--Love on!” But the heart beat faster still, the
eyes came up quickly, and the face flushed a deep, excited red when
David, rising again, said that, with the consent of the community--a
consent which his voice subtly insisted upon--he would take a long
journey into the Holy Land, into Syria, travelling to Baalbec and
Damascus, and even beyond as far as the desolate city of Palmyra; and
then, afterwards, into Egypt, where Joseph and the sons of Israel were
captive aforetime. He would fain visit the Red Sea, and likewise confer
with the Coptic Christians in Egypt, “of whom thee and me have read to
our comfort,” he added piously, looking at friend Fairley, the oldest
and heretofore the richest man in the community.
Friend Fairley rejoiced now that he had in by-gone days lent David books
to read; but he rejoiced secretly, for though his old bookman’s heart
warmed at the thought that he should in good time hear, from one who
had seen with his own eyes, of the wonders of the East, it became him
to assume a ponderous placidity--for Framley had always been doubtful of
his bookishness and its influence on such as David. They said it boded
no good; there were those even who called Fairley “a new light,” that
schism in a sect.
These God-fearing, dull folk were present now, and, disapproving of
David’s choice in marriage, disapproved far more of its consequence; for
so they considered the projected journey into the tumultuous world
and the garish Orient. In the end, however, an austere approval was
promised, should the solemn commission of men and women appointed to
confer with and examine the candidates find in their favour--as in this
case they would certainly do; for thirty thousand pounds bulked potently
even in this community of unworldly folk, though smacking somewhat of
the world, the flesh and the devil.
If David, however, would stand to the shovel hat, and if Hope would be
faithful for ever to the poke bonnet and grey cloth, all might yet be
well. At the same time, they considered that friend David’s mind was
distracted by the things of this world, and they reasoned with the Lord
in prayer upon the point in David’s presence.
In worldly but religiously controlled dudgeon David left the
meeting-house, and inside the door of Hope’s cottage said to his own
mother and to hers some bitter and un-Quaker-like things against the
stupid world--for to him as yet the world was Framley, though he would
soon mend that.
When he had done speaking against “the mad wits that would not see,”
Hope laid her cool fingers on his arm and said, with a demure humour:
“All the world’s mad but thee and me, David--and thee’s a bit mad!”
So pleased was David’s mother with this speech that then and there she
was reconciled to Hope’s rebellious instincts, and saw safety for her
son in the hands of the quaint, clear-minded daughter of her old friend
and kinswoman, Mercy Marlowe.