The Vicar's departure caused a few lively gleams of astonishment among
the Thorpe people, especially as it was not a call to preach that had
taken him away; but no one would have dreamed of finding fault with him
if he had locked up the church, carried the keys with him, and condemned
the village to virtual excommunication until his return. Tom Lear and
his young woman meekly submitted to the postponement of their bridal.
George Tucker, who had wanted a certificate signed, said the parson was
away, and there was an end of it. There is often something pathetically
touching in this mute acceptance by the poor of the little hardships for
which we should impatiently seek remedies; but in this case it was Mr
Miles's true kindness of heart and courtesy of manner that made his
people treat with a forbearance at least as refined the inconveniences
to which his absent-mindedness and forgetfulness exposed them.
Then, as events strangely multiply themselves, the village awakened to
another agitation, for an old woman declared that an attempt to rob her
had been made in the night, and Mr Robert Mannering, summoned to the
cottage in his magisterial character, was seen by attentive watchers to
turn towards the Vicarage, and walk briskly up the drive towards the
door. There also he was observed to knock, two little urchins having
been sent to run down the Church Lane, and report whether or not he
entered the house.
The knock outside was answered by Sniff within by a series of short
sharp barks, which only increased in energy until the door being opened
by Faith disclosed a friend. A dog of weaker character would at once
have acknowledged his mistake by a sudden change of attitude, and a
hospitable greeting to the new-comer. Sniff knew better. With infinite
presence of mind, and without a moment's hesitation, he rushed past Mr
Mannering as if he had nothing in the world to do with the matter, and,
planting himself in the middle of the drive, barked long and loudly at
an imaginary enemy, after which he subsided into an amiable calm,
returned leisurely to the house, went up stairs, scratched open the
drawing-room, door, and advanced to Mr Mannering with the most friendly
of brown eyes.
"Then there was nothing really amiss?" Mrs Miles was saying.
"Nothing whatever. When does the Vicar return to put an end to these
panics?" said Mr Robert, patting Sniff.
"I'm sure I don't know," said Mrs Miles, shaking her head. "I do hope
he will write and tell us how he gets on with old Mr Tregennas. It
makes me quite uncomfortable to think of their being there, when I
remember how miserable William's poor aunt was."
Mr Mannering looked up quickly, checked himself, and said
hesitatingly,--
"He once lived in Yorkshire, I believe?"
"Yes, indeed," said Mrs Miles, "Yorkshire was just where he did live.
That was before he changed his name. Do you know about him? Do tell us
what you know."
"He had daughters, I think."
"One daughter,--Margaret. But there is quite a sad story about her, for
Mr Tregennas disapproved of her marriage, and never forgave her. He
must be so terribly unforgiving," concluded Mrs Miles, with a sigh.
"I heard," said Mr Mannering, still slowly, "that her father objected
to her choice, and that she and her husband went to Australia. But I
heard also,--I hope it is so,"--he went on with a little agitation,
"that Mrs Harford was a happy woman?"
"I don't know, I'm sure. Poor thing, she is dead now, and as for the
child, of course it is for Marmaduke's interests that Mr Tregennas
should hold out, but still--it does seem hard, doesn't it, Marion?"
"Mamma, what is the use of reviving that old story!" said Marion,
impatiently. "Mr Tregennas is not likely to change his mind."
"No, my dear, no, to be sure not; indeed, one could not wish it. Only
it does seem a little hard, for there was nothing against him that we
could ever hear, and it was only that she was too fond of him to give
him up. Don't you feel sorry for her, Mr Mannering?"
"Sorry! Good heavens, madam!" he said, jumping up with a sudden
impetuosity which startled Mrs Miles, and made him beg her pardon
hastily. "I knew Miss Hare in old days," he explained, "and, as you
say, it strikes one as something horrible that her father should never
have softened towards her. There is a child, isn't there?"
"Yes, a little girl; and how she may be brought up since the poor
mother's death, I am sure nobody knows. William's poor aunt did all in
her power to make Mr Tregennas think more kindly; but, dear me, she
used to say one might as well talk to a stone-wall, and then Mr Harford
was nearly as bad, so there was really no bringing them together."
"Things can't be forced," Marion put in again. "I dare say Mr Harford
is a great deal better off staying out there and keeping his daughter to
himself. His position is not half so trying as Marmaduke's, who is the
last person considered."
"My dear, don't say so. I am sure I have been quite uncomfortable about
him, poor boy, ever since he was here, and I do wish he had taken a
hamper of vegetables with him. Still, one may be sorry for two people
as well as one."
"Sixteen--seventeen--the child must be seventeen by this time," said Mr
Robert meditatively.
"Only think of your remembering so well!"
"Yes, only think!" repeated Mr Mannering, with his old cheery voice
returning as he rose to go. "Miss Marion, I give you warning that I
shall not be able to come to the Vicarage much more if you allow my poor
roses to fall into such a miserable condition. There's a Devoniensis at
the porch, which it goes to my heart to see. Good by, Mrs Miles; you
need not trouble your head about the robber, but if you or Marion will
go and sit with her for an hour, I can't conceive any greater enjoyment
to the poor old soul than to tell you the history from beginning to
end."
"I am glad he is gone," said Marion, feverishly, as the door shut him
out.
There were other little strings pulling to the same tune, and setting
hearts throbbing at the Vicarage just then, while the sweet summer days
blossomed and faded. David Stephens met Faith that very evening, as she
came back from her father's cottage. Perhaps there could not have been
a more favourable moment for him, for old Araunah, who was the most
inveterate of the family against the preacher, had been inveighing
loudly and angrily upon his granddaughter's infatuation, and her mother
had joined in a weak, irritating sort of way, which had raised Faith's
indignation on behalf of her lover.
"A poor crooked feller like that there David! It do vex me so to think
o't, Faith, that I can't give my mind to my meat, an' if I doan't kep
abowt an' do my niffles, I doan't know watt iver'll come to the house
nor fayther. If he wor a fine, hearty young man, now, there'd be
somethin' to say for 'ee."
"Handsome is as handsome does," said Faith, flushing. She was not very
much in love with David, but this disparagement created a natural desire
to set him a little higher than she might otherwise have done. "There
was crowds to hear him last Sunday, and the people so taken up with him,
they're ready to cut off their hands if he told them to."
"Likely enough," said old Araunah, with vast acorn. "You'll find more
fules than wise, my gal, wheriver you goes. For my peart, I doan't see
as this hyur ground grows much beside."
Faith had come away in the very thick of the battle, and as she suddenly
turned a corner upon David, the feeling of championship excited on his
behalf had not had time to cool. She showed him more plainly than usual
that she was glad to see him, and the perception of this brought an
immediate change in his pale face.
"You're looking tired, David," she said tenderly. "You've been tramping
about too much, as you're always doing. Why can't you take a little
rest? Nobody works so hard as you, I do believe; there's father at it
all day, but when he comes home, there he sits comfortable, and you're
only off to something else."
"Your father works for time, and I have to work against it, that's the
difference. If you saw those poor souls looking up at you with hungry
eyes you wouldn't know where to stop. Not but what the Devil is very
keen in his temptations. He sets it before me again and again that
there's more thrust on my hands by the Lord than one man can do, and
he's not content with that, without raising up difficulties and
hindrances on either side so as to make the work seem pretty nigh
impossible at times. But in spite of all, there's a great stirring of
hearts in those that hear."
"John Moore told me you'd more than ever last Sunday."
"Yes, there were plenty that had never been before, and perhaps they
were more moved than those that have had the Gospel put before them
longer. And many told me they should bring more the next time. It's
the truth at work."
"And your preaching, David," said Faith, a little jealously. "They say
they like to listen to you, because you never want for words, and that
you are the finest preacher the Wesleyans have ever had here."
"It isn't that," said David, with a grave earnestness in his voice. "It
never can be the instruments that do the work. I couldn't say ten words
if I believed they were my own words that I was speaking. There's
nothing in it, but that I tell them what the Gospel says to them,
without letting man's devices come in between us."
"I don't know," said Faith, shaking her head incredulously; "I think
it's the way you put it mostly that pleases them. There's old Mary
Potter wanting to hear you, but she can never get in all the way to
Underham. And grandfather's that angry when he hears them talk of a
chapel in Thorpe!"
David sighed, but it was at the first part of the girls speech rather
than the latter, which only acted upon him as a challenge to battle acts
upon a brave man. He loved Faith with an intensity which often pained
him, conscious as he was of a want of agreement between her nature and
his own, conscious also that her theological views were rather adopted
from an interest in himself, than from any firm persuasion on one side
or the other. The truth lay before him in one narrow groove, out of
which there was no turning a hair's-breadth to the left hand or right.
It followed necessarily that a conviction would force itself upon him,--
when he had the courage to face it,--that Faith had as yet no part or
share in the salvation which he preached as altogether a matter of
faith, and the further conviction which lurked behind the other, but
which he never yet had ventured boldly to drag into the light, would
have forced him to cast away his love, as the eye or hand which needed
to be destroyed. It does not require the same conclusions to be aware
that what to David Stephens was actually a matter of conscience there
was danger in temporising with. He told himself that the sin was at
least all his own, and suffered expediency to suggest the hope that
Faith would by and by become other than she was. The unacknowledged
scourge of anxiety which he felt made him the more zealous for the
building of a chapel in Thorpe: he had then the promise of becoming its
minister, and he was aware that the position held out charms to Faith,
who had some sort of idea that it would raise her almost to a level with
Mrs Miles herself. David told himself fiercely that once he had Faith
for his own, he should have removed her from the teaching which he held
to be utterly antagonistic to the truth, and that his prayers and his
love must win her to his side for eternity. He had fully believed
himself to have succeeded with old Maddox,--who, having lived a life of
indifference, was beginning to find it less easy now that death was in
view, and caught at any teaching which held out a promise of security,--
when Anthony Miles had overthrown his hopes. He did not, however, yet
despair, nor must it be imagined that it was the thought of Faith which
even chiefly incited him in his efforts. Had she been lost to him that
very day, his convictions were so earnest, his yearning to save souls so
strong, that he would have toiled as perseveringly as ever: but she was
the human spur which, almost unconsciously, gave a feverish anxiety to
his endeavours, and excited at all events a strong personal persuasion
that Anthony, in opposing him, was siding with the great enemy of all
good, against whom David daily wrestled and prayed.
"Your grandfather may think different one day, Faith, but if he doesn't,
we mustn't let the words of those that are dearest to us keep us back
from the plough." David said this with a throb of anguish in his own
heart, but he contrived to steady his voice, and it only gave it one of
those singular thrills which added not a little to the influence it had
upon his hearers. Faith was impressed with it just as her own thoughts
had strayed off to picturing herself as minister's wife, sitting in the
chapel arrayed in a silk gown, and she looked hurriedly in his face with
a sensation partly pride and partly discomfort. The plough was not in
her thoughts, but she acknowledged it to be David's duty to talk about
it, and her little head had an idea that by becoming his wife she might
both be good by proxy, and also share in the admiration which she heard
largely expressed of his talents as a preacher. On the whole, she had
seldom felt more kindly towards David than at this moment; while he,
poor fellow, took it as a hopeful sign of grace, that she did not urge
any of those arguments against his doctrines which she brought forward
when she fancied they interfered with his advancement. He held her hand
in his with a strong grasp as they parted, and the colour which rose in
her cheek under his gaze gave him a glad thrill of exultation. It
seemed to him as if he were borne on the top of an irresistible wave,
which was sweeping triumphant spoil from the very grasp of the enemy.
And now the soul dearer to him than his own was being drawn slowly but
surely towards him, while to come to him must, as he believed, lead it
onwards towards his God.