THE PENITENT HUSBAND.
The following morning, Rowland again took Mrs Jenkins to her lodging and
left her there. It was with very great difficulty that he persuaded Mrs
Jenkins to remain behind, and only under a promise to prevail upon Howel
to see her immediately after his interview with him.
As he expected, he found Howel almost as cold and impassive as on the
previous day. But he fancied that this was an assumed manner, and that
he could trace workings of more natural feelings underneath. He was at
least civil to him, and instead of receiving him as before, said,--
'I thought you would never come; but I suppose prosperous people are
never in a great hurry to visit the unfortunate. Ha! ha! Certainly my
reception-rooms are not very inviting.'
'I came as soon as I could gain admittance. I wish you would believe,
Howel, that I am very anxious to be of any use to you that I can. You
know that you refused to see me before.'
'And it is no great compliment now; this confounded place will kill me.
I have been haunted by spectres all the night, five thousand times worse
than a voyage to Australia. That will be amusing, ha! ha! But to have my
father in one corner, and--and Netta in the other,--and that cursed
money rolling about everywhere, just as it did--well, never mind that!
but hanging outright would have been better. Don't preach; it is no
good; I am far beyond that, and I know you have your sermon ready; but
your presence is some relief after such a night. I tell you what it is,
Rowland, if you are a better and a happier man than I, it is because you
had honest parents; it is no merit of yours, and no fault of mine.'
'Howel, I claim no merit; but we are all responsible for our own
actions, God forgive those who set a bad example: they will have to
answer for it.'
'Pshaw! Do you think I meant that? I mean that if my father hadn't
heaped up all that gold--bah! the word makes me sick,--and denied me a
sixpence whilst he lived; and if I hadn't seen my mother rob him
whenever she could, and learnt from her to do the same, I shouldn't be
here now! No, I should be a plodding shopkeeper, or at least a country
lawyer, or doctor, and should have been living in a house with three
steps to it, and a portico, by this time, with--don't suppose I regret
such a house--but Netta! oh, God! Netta!'
Howel beat his forehead with his hand, and pointed to the corner of his
cell.
'There she is! there she has been all the night. Pale as when I laid her
on her bed that miserable day!'
'Howel! you loved Netta, I see, and believe it now,' said Rowland.
'You do! And why not before? Ah! I see. Because I have never done
anything to prove it. But I did not know how I loved her until I knew
how she loved me.'
'Would you prove it now, if you could?'
'Would I? Why do you mock me by such a question?'
'Because she, being dead, yet speaks. Her last wishes, thoughts, words,
writing, were for you.'
'Do I not know it? Have I not read? All night have her words not haunted
me?'
'And her prayers, Howel? Shall they be forgotten? And that Book in which
she wrote last, will you not read it?'
'I don't know. I tried last night, and I could not. I have never read
the book since I wrote Greek at school.'
'Netta begged you to read it.'
'What is that to you, Rowland Prothero? Who put you over me as judge and
counsellor?'
'Netta. As spiritual counsellor, at least; and in her name, since you
will not let me appeal to you in a Higher name, I command you to listen
to me.'
Rowland saw that he had gained an advantage by appealing to Netta, and
that Howel checked the irony that was on his tongue, out of reverence
for her name. At once he spoke as an ambassador in that Higher name he
had feared to use before.
Rowland had had ten years' experience of men as bad and worse than
Howel, and had learnt how to speak to them, and to seize the mood of the
listener. He knew Howel well; and he, therefore, used the strong and
powerful language of the Bible, as the priests, prophets, and apostles
used it--as the word of God to man. Not diluted by their own
reflections, but in its bare and grand simplicity. He had not made the
Bible his study in vain. He knew how to bring it to the heart of men
with a power that none 'could gainsay or resist,' Even Howel, sceptic,
scoffer as he was, listened in spite of himself.
Rowland was a humbler man than he had been, when he used, years before,
to argue with Howel, and endeavour to convert him to the truth. He was
equally right in his views then, but he gave them forth more
dogmatically, and allowed self to peep in; now self was wholly swallowed
up in the Word itself; and so Howel gave heed as to God, and not to man.
He laid bare Howel's heart to himself, for the first time that it had
ever been so exposed, and then showed him the denunciations of the law
against sin. He did not spare him. He knew that the only way to save
such a man was by bringing him to know himself first, and then to ''
preach repentance and remission of sin.'
In his energy and longing to rescue him from destruction, he stood
before him as one sent to tear up his unbelief by the roots not to dally
with it.
'Flee from the wrath to come,' might have been the text of his
discourse, as it was that of the Baptist.
When he paused, as if for breath, Howel exclaimed,--
'Enough! enough! Stop! I can hear no more; you have opened to me the
gates of hell wide enough.'
'And now I would open those of heaven. Let us pray.'
Rowland's eyes flashed such a fire as Howel had never seen in them
before; his voice and words had a command that he had never heard.
Perforce he obeyed. And there, in that narrow cell, actuated by fear,
rather than remorse, astonishment rather than contrition, bowed by a
will yet stronger than his own, Howel fell on his knees beside his
cousin, and listened to a prayer for pardon and help, that might have
melted the heart of a Nero.
At first he heard as in a dream, then his ears were opened, then his
heart. And at last Rowland's spirit breathed within him the blessed
words, 'Behold he prayeth.'
It is not for us to look into the heart of the criminal, and decide how
God works in it. Even Rowland could not tell the ultimate effect of his
preaching and prayers. All he knew that from that day Howel welcomed him
to his cell as the one hope of his life. He was awakened to a sense of
his condition, and Rowland thanked God, and took courage.
As the meetings and partings of parent and child--however wicked they
both may be--in the cell of a felon, simply harrow the feelings of the
reader, I will pass over those of Howel and his mother. Some
recrimination, and much grief on the one side--some remorse, and much
misery on the other. Rowland did what he could for both until the last
parting was over. And then he left the mother to the care of Mrs Jones
to accompany the son on board the ship that was to convey him to his
convict home.
We are not to suppose that the 'Ethiopian's skin' was changed because it
was pierced. Howel continued outwardly proud, scornful, and hard to the
last; but Rowland witnessed the struggle that went on within to maintain
that bearing, and knew that some good might arise even out of the
spendthrift and the forger.
'You will take care of Minette amongst you, for her mother's sake,' he
said to Rowland.
'And for yours, and her own,' was the reply.
'Tell her not to hate her father. You who never told her mother of my--I
suppose I must use the word--crime, will be as gentle as you can in
letting the child know who and what her father is. I thank you all, more
for keeping _her_ in ignorance till death, than for all the rest.'
'And for _her_ sake, Howel, you will read that book, and pray to be kept
from temptation.'
'What temptation shall I have? I shall be more inclined to pray to be
thrown into temptation.'
'Oh, Howel!'
'Well! This convict ship and the ocean, and chains and hard labour at
the end, don't seem very inviting. I know it has been my own fault and
my father's, but that doesn't make it better; however, I will try. And
if ever I get back to Old England again a reformed character, will you
lend me a helping hand, or turn your back upon me?'
'Give you the hand of friendship and brotherhood.'
'Thank you; and don't let them quite desert my mother. Bad as she is, I
am worse, and I have ruined her; a worse thing that than getting a
little money out of those turf-dupes and idiots, though hers was
ill-gotten wealth.'
'We will take care of your mother amongst us as well as we can. My
mother never forsakes an old friend.'
'Give my love to her; she was kind to me and to my child. All the rest
have deserted me, and wished me hanged. But I have to thank you, who
always despised me, for being here now, and for your anxiety about me.
Rowland, you are a better fellow than I thought you, and you have helped
to rid me of some of those spectres that haunted me night and day. You
must go! I know it. Alone! alone! with this crew! Is this Heaven's law
or man's? and I was not made for this. I shall destroy myself--I must--I
will. Good-bye! oh Rowland! cousin! brother! remember me, for God's sake
and for hers!'
The hands of the minister of the Gospel and the felon were clasped for
a few seconds, as if they could never unlink, and then, with a heavy
groan, Howel sank down upon some timber that was near him, and covered
his face with his hands. Thick tears filled Rowland's eyes as he stooped
over his wretched cousin, and again whispered, 'God bless you, cousin
Howel, God bless you.'
And so they parted.