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.