"The fall thou darest to despise
Maybe the slackened angel hand
Hath suffered it, that he may rise
And take a firmer, surer stand;
Or, trusting less to earthly things,
May henceforth learn to use his wings."
Adelaide Procter.
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When Winifred and Bessie had stopped at the post-office and taken their
letters, some little remarks passed between the postmaster and his wife,
who had gone out to the door and watched the two pretty, girlish figures
hurried away by their impatient little pony into the green tangle of
trees and hedges which a golden sunlight was brightening. It looked as
if it were a sort of enchanted land, into which no storms could follow
them; but Mrs Miller, who had a face which might have been intended to
protest against sunshine, shook her head solemnly and said, coming back
to the counter,--
"There's trouble enough in the world, to be sure, and it's hard when the
Thorpe letters, as have gone together these years, has got to part
company. But there's no saying where the love of money will lead a poor
human heart."
"I'm not so sure about that matter as you are, Maria," said her husband,
cheerfully sorting his letters. "Young Mr Miles is too pleasant-spoken
a young gentleman to do all the things they charge him with, in my
opinion; and it's always the way with you women, when once a bit of
mud's thrown, each of you wants to try her hand."
"It isn't to be expected you should know better," said Mrs Miller
gravely. "When you're converted, you'll understand more of the
depravity of the human heart. It's a bottomless pit," she concluded,
shaking her head.
"Um, um, um," said her husband irreverently. "Then I ain't one that's
always wanting to be poking into such places, and if I were you I'd come
out for a bit into the fresh air. But," he added, lowering his voice
and giving a quick sign towards an inner room, "since he's been here,
you're more than ever set against the old ways."
"No," said Mrs Miller calmly, "I am not altogether satisfied that he
preaches the pure gospel. It's rare to find one who does. But I am
thankful not to be blind to shortcomings, like some. And I'm sorry for
Mr Miles, but what could be expected from one who was so given over to
the world?"
Her voice had been carefully lowered in tone, but David Stephens heard
the first part of the conversation with vivid distinctness. Every word
sank into his consciousness, not as something new,--for the subject was
rarely absent from his thoughts,--but because they seemed to offer him a
new opportunity for arguing the case, and for proving to himself yet
again and again that he had done well in keeping silence about the
letter. A strange complication existed in his mind. The self-deception
which ensnared him was not that self-deception which conceals itself
under false colours, for when he formed his resolution it was with the
feeling that he was forever bidding farewell to his own peace of mind,--
the voluntary acceptance of a crushing burden. It is difficult to
conceive such a state, but there is no doubt that it existed in him,--
whether the result of a too self-reliant creed, or owing to a stronger
impulse of resistance than obedience, or to other of those secret
springs which move men's actions. In his struggle with Anthony Miles,
his opponent had become a very embodiment of all the powers that league
themselves against good, especially the good of other men's souls. He
had first heard him spoken of slightingly, without remembering the
answer to the reproach which he might have afforded; but directly it
flashed upon him he opened a pocket-book, in which were placed the few
and tiny atoms of paper which he had preserved with the intention of
examining, and had since forgotten. And then began the contest. Here
in his hands he held, as he acknowledged, the means of clearing Anthony
so as to re-establish him completely in the eyes of other men. But
Anthony, triumphant and successful, represented a great antagonistic
force to what David held to be his mission, and to forward which he
would have thankfully endured even to the point of martyrdom. Anthony,
on the contrary, with the suspicion of a dishonourable deed clinging to
him, lost half his power, would cease to influence, and might no longer
succeed in impressing his opinions upon Maddox, whose newly stirred
fears inclined him to turn to Stephens, while an old feeling of respect
yet bound him strongly to the Church, personified by the Vicar's family.
He was conscious of weighing a sin in himself against what seemed the
advantage of feeble, starving souls, and he shrank from the burden with
a cry of anguish, which--blame him as you will--had in it no creeping
taint of hypocrisy. Only at rare times could he accept the excuses
offered to his conscience,--that it was no crime of which Anthony was
accused, that his interference would prove useless,--the truth generally
stood out in keen cold outlines, and he would acknowledge to himself
that he had done an accursed thing. Yet he would have held it a worse
sin to have cast it from him. It was to save others. He might suffer;
he might have lost his own soul,--he acknowledged it,--but it was that
others might go in at the gate which he closed against himself. What
could Anthony's burden seem beside his own? The system in which his
religious thought had been moulded had developed in Davids character
both an extraordinary greatness and an extraordinary littleness; for
while he longed with an ardent and intense love to save the souls about
him, longed so that he would sacrifice his dearest hopes, his peace, his
very integrity,--he yet appeared to himself to be fighting
single-handed, to be alone in the tremendous struggle, sometimes as if
our God himself were regarding it passively without stretching forth his
hand to save. And this blank and awful solitude opened out before him,
as the path in which he must walk, with bleeding feet, and now with the
hateful companionship of a sin bound to him by a voluntary acceptance
forever.