Whatever the feelings of John Walden were concerning the incidents
that had led him to more or less give himself away, as the saying
goes, into Maryllia's hands, he remained happily unconscious of the
fact that Lord Roxmouth had overheard his interview with her in the
picture-gallery--and being a man who never brooded over his own
particular small vexations and annoyances, he had determined, as far
as might be possible, to put the whole incident behind him, as it
were, and try to forget it. Of course he knew he never could forget
it,--he knew that the sweet look in Maryllia's eyes--the little
appealing touch of her hand on his arm, would be perchance the most
vivid impressions of his life till that life should be ended. But it
was useless to dwell with heart-aching persistence on her
fascination, or on what he now called his own utter foolishness, and
he was glad that he had arranged to visit his old friend Bishop
Brent, as this enabled him to go away at once for three or four
days. And it was possible, so he argued with himself, that this
three or four days' break of the magnetic charm that had, against
his own wish and will, enslaved his thoughts and senses, would
restore him to that state of self-poise and philosophic tranquillity
in which he had for so many years found an almost, if not quite,
perfect happiness. Bracing himself fully up to the determination
that he would, at all hazards, make an effort to recover his lost
peace, he made rapid preparations for his departure from St. Rest,
and going the round of his parish, he let all whom it might concern
know, that for the first time in a long ten years, he was about to
take two or three days' holiday. The announcement was received by
some with good-natured surprise--by others with incredulity--but by
most, with the usual comfortable resignation to circumstances which
is such a prevailing characteristic of the rustic mind.
"It'll do ye good, Passon, that it will!" said Mrs. Frost, in her
high acidulated voice, which by dint of constant scolding and
screaming after her young family had become almost raspish--"For
you're looking that white about the gills that it upsets my mind to
see it. I sez to Adam onny t'other day, 'You'll be diggin' a grave
for Passon presently--see if you don't--for he's runnin' downhill as
fast as a loaded barrow with naught ahint it.' That's what I said,
Passon--an' its Gospel true!"
Walden smiled.
"You're quite right, Mrs. Frost,"--he said, patiently--"I am
certainly going downhill, as you say--but I must try to put a little
check on the wheels! There's one thing to be said about it, if Adam
digs my grave, as it is likely he will, I know he will do it better
than any other sexton in the county! I shall sleep in it well, and
securely!"
Mrs. Frost felt a certain sense of pride in this remark.
"You may say that, Passon--you may say that and not be fur wrong,"--
she said, complacently--"Adam don't do much, but what he doos is
well done, an' there's no mistake about it. If I 'adn't a known 'im
to be a 'andy man in his trade he wouldn't 'a had me to wife, I do
assure you!"
Walden smiled and passed on. To Mr. Netlips, the grocer, he confided
a few orders for the household supplies during his absence, which
that worthy and sapient personage accepted with due attention.
"It is a demonstrable dispensation, Mr. Walden, sir,"--he said,
"that you should be preparing yourself for locomotion at the moment
when the house-party at the Manor is also severed indistinguishably.
There is no one there now, so my imparted information relates, with
the exception of her ladyship Wicketts, a Miss Fosby and a hired
musician from the cells of the professional caterer, named Gigg."
Walden's eyes twinkled. He was always very indulgent to Mr. Netlips,
and rather encouraged him than otherwise in his own special flow of
language.
"Really!" he said--"And so they are all gone! I'm afraid it will
make a difference to your trade, Mr. Netlips! How about your Petrol
storage?"
Mr. Netlips smiled, with a comfortable air of self-conscious wisdom.
"It has been absorbed--quite absorbed," he said, complacently--"The
board of announcement was prospective, not penetrative. Orders were
consumed in rotation, and his lordship Charlemont was the last
applicant on the formula."
"I see!" said Walden--"So you are no loser by the transaction. I'm
glad to hear it! Good-day! I only intend to be away a short time.
You will scarcely miss me,--as I shall occupy my usual post on
Sunday."
"Your forethought, Mr. Walden, sir, is of a most high
complication,"--rejoined Mr. Netlips with a gracious bend of his fat
neck--"And it is not to be regretted by the profane that you should
rotate with the world, provided you are seen in strict adhesion to
the pulpit on the acceptable seventh day. Otherwise, it is but
natural that you should preamble for health's sake. You have been
looking poorly, Mr. Walden sir, of late; I trust you will
beneficially profit by change."
Walden thanked him, and went his way. His spirits were gradually
rising--he was relieved to hear that Maryllia's house-party had
broken up and dispersed, and he cogitated within himself as to
whether he should go and say good-bye to her before leaving the
village, or just let things remain as they were. He was a little
uncertain as to which was the wisest course to adopt,--and while he
was yet thinking about it he passed the cottage of old Josey
Letherbarrow, and saw the old man sitting at his door peacefully
smoking, while at his feet, Ipsie Frost was curled up comfortably
like a kitten, busying herself in tying garlands of ivy and
honeysuckle round the tops of his big coarsely-laced boots. Pausing,
John leaned on the gate and looked at the two with a smile.
"Ullo, Passon!" said Ipsie, turning her blue eyes up at him with a
confidential air--"Tum an' tie up my Zozey-Posey! Zozey-Posey's bin
naughty,--he's dot to be tied up so he tan't move!"
"And when he's good again, what then?" said Walden--"Will you untie
him?"
Ipsie stared roundly and meditatively.
"Dunno!"--she said--"'Specks I will! But oh, my Zozey-Posey IS so
bad!" and she screwed her little flaxen head round with an
expression of the most comical distress--"See my wip?" And she held
up a long stem of golden-rod in flower,--"Zozey dot to be wipped--
poor Zozey! But he's dot to be tied up fust!"
Josey heard all this nonsense babble with delighted interest, and
surveyed the tops of his decorated boots with much admiration.
"Ain't she a little caution!" he said--"She do mind me somehow of
th' owld Squire's gel! Ay, she do!--Miss Maryllia was just as peart
and dauntsome when she was her age. Did I ever tell ye, Passon,
'bout Miss Maryllia's legs an' the wopses' nest?"
John started violently. What was the old man talking about? He felt
that he must immediately put a stop to any chance of indecorous
garrulity.
"No, you never told me anything about it, Josey,"--he said,
hastily,--"an I've no time just now to stay and listen. I'm off on a
visit for two or three days--you won't see me again till Sunday."
Josey drew his pipe slowly out of his mouth.
"Goin' away, Passon, are ye?" he said in quavering accents of
surprise--"Ain't that a bit strange like?"
"Why yes, I suppose it is,"--said John, half laughing--"I never do
go away I know--but---"
"Look 'ere Passon! Speak frank an' fair!--there baint nothin'
drivin' ye away, be there?"
The hot colour sprang to Walden's brows.
"Why no, Josey!--of course not! How can you think of such a thing?"
Josey stooped and patted Ipsie's flaxen tangle of curls softly. Then
he straightened himself and looked fully into John's face.
"Well I dunno how 'tis, Passon,"--he said, slowly--"When the body
gets old an' feels the fallin' o' the dark shadder, the soul begins
to feel young, an' sees all at once the light a-comin' which makes
all things clear. See this little child playin' wi' me?--well, she
don't think o' me as an old worn man, but as somethin' young like
herself--an' for why? Because she sees the soul o' me,--the eyes o'
the children see souls more'n bodies, if ye leave 'em alone an'
don't worrit 'em wi' worldly talk. An' it's MY soul wot sees more'n
my body--an' that's why I sez to ye, Passon, that if so be you've
any trouble don't run away from it! Stay an' fight it out--it's the
onny way!--fight it out!"
Walden was for a moment taken aback. Then he answered steadily.
"You're right, Josey! If I had any trouble I should stay and as you
say, fight it out;--but I've none, Josey!--none in the world! I am
as happy as I can be,--far happier than I deserve,--and I'm only
going away to see my old friend Bishop Brent--you remember--the
Bishop who consecrated the church seven years ago?"--Josey nodded
comprehensively, "He lives, as you know, quite a hundred miles from
here--but I shall be in my usual place on Sunday."
"Please God, you will!" said Josey, devoutly--"And please God, so
shall I. But there's never no knowin' what may 'appen in a day or
two days---"
Here Ipsie gave vent to a yell of delight. She had been groping
among the flowers in the cottage border, and now held up a deep red
rose, darkly glowing at its centre.
"Wed wose!" she announced, screamingly--"Wed--all wed! For Passon!
Passon, tiss it!"
John still leaning on the gate, reached down and took the flower,
kissing it as he was told, with lips that trembled on the velvet
leaves. It was one of the 'old French damask' roses--and its rich
scent, so soft and full of inexplicable fine delicacy, affected him
strangely.
"'Ave ye heard as 'ow Miss Maryllia's goin' to marry that fine
gen'leman wot's at Badsworth?" pursued Josey, presently, beginning
to chuckle as he asked the question--"Roxmouth, they calls him;--
Lord, Lord, what clicketin' talk, like all the grass-'oppers out for
a fairin'! She ain't goin' to marry no Roxmouths, bless 'er 'art!--
she's goin' to stick to the old 'ome an' people, and never leave 'em
no more! _I_ knows her mind! She tells old Josey wot she don't tell
nobody else, you bet she do!"
John Walden tried not to look interested.
"Miss Vancourt will no doubt marry some day,"--he said, somewhat
lamely.
"Av coorse she will!"--returned Josey--"When Mr. Right comes along,
she'll know 'im fast enough! Them blue eyes ain't goin' to be
deceived, _I_ tell ye! But she ain't goin' to be no Duchess as they
sez,--it's my 'pinion plain Missis is good 'nough for the Squire's
gel, if so be a lovin' an' true Mister was to ax 'er and say--'Will
'ee be my purty little wife, an' warm my cold 'art all the days o'
my life?'--an' there'd be no wantin' dukes nor lords round when
there's real love drivin' a man an' woman into each other's arms!
Lord--Lord, don't I know it! Seems but t'other day I was a fine man
o' thirty odd, an' walkin' under the hawthorns all white wi' bloom,
an' my wife that was to be strollin' shy like at my side--we was
kind o' skeered o' one another, courtin' without knowin' we was
courtin' ezackly, an' she 'ad a little blue print gown on an' a
white linen sunbonnet--I kin see 'er as clear an' plain as I see
you, Passon!--an' she looks up an' she sez--'Ain't it a lovely day,
Joe?' An' I sez--'Yes, it's lovely, an' you're lovely too!' An' my
'art gave a great dump agin my breast, an' 'fore I knowed it I 'ad
'er in my arms a-kissin' 'er for all I was worth! Ay, that was so--
an' I never regretted them kisses under the may-trees, I tell ye!
An' that's what'll 'appen to Squire's gel--some good man 'ull walk
by 'er side one o' these days, an' won't know wot he's a-doin' of
nor she neither, an' love 'ull just come down an' settle in their
'arts like a broodin' dove o' the 'Oly Spirit, not speakin'
blasPHEmous, Passon, I do assure ye! For if Love ain't a 'Oly
Spirit, then there ain't no Lord God in the 'Love one another!' I
sez 'tis a 'Oly Spirit wot draws fond 'arts together an' makes 'em
beat true--and the 'Oly Spirit 'ull fall on Squire's gel in its own
time an' bring a blessin' with it. That's wot I sez,--are ye goin',
Passon?"
"Yes--I'm going," said John in an uncertain voice, while Ipsie
stared up at him in sudden enquiring wonder, perhaps because he
looked so pale, and because the hand in which he held the rose she
had given him trembled slightly--"I've a number of things to do,
Josey--otherwise I should love to stop and hear you talk--you know I
should!" and he smiled kindly--"For you are quite right, Josey! You
have faith in the beautiful and the true, and so have I! I believe--
yes--I believe that everything--even a great sorrow--is for the
best. We cannot see,--we do not know--but we should trust the Divine
mind of God enough to feel that all is, all must be well!"
"That's so, Passon!" said Josey, with grave heartiness--"Stick to
that, an' we're all right. God bless ye! I'll see ye Sunday if I
ain't gone to glory!"
Walden pulled open the garden gate to shake hands with the old man,
and to kiss Ipsie who, as he lifted her up in his arms, caressed his
cheeks with her two dumpy hands.
"Has 'oo seen my lady-love?" she asked, in a crooning whisper--"My
bootiful white lady-love?"
Walden looked at Josey perplexedly.
"She means Miss Maryllia,"--said the old man--"That's the name she's
given 'er--lady-love--the thinkin' little imp she is! Where's lady-
love? Why she's in 'er own house--she don't want any little tags o'
babbies runnin' round 'er--your lady-love's got somethin' else to
do."
"She AIN'T!" said Ipsie, with dramatic emphasis--"She tums an' sees
me often--'oo don't know nuffin' 'bout it! HAS 'oo seen 'er?" she
asked Walden again, taking hold of one end of his moustache very
tenderly.
He patted the little chubby arm.
"I saw her the other night,"--he said, a sudden rush of words coming
to his lips in answer to the child's query--"Yes, Ipsie,--I saw her!
She was all in white, as a lady-love should be--only there were
little flushes of pink on her dress like the sunset on a cloud--and
she had diamonds in her hair,"--Here Ipsie sighed a profound sigh of
comfortable ecstasy--"and she looked very sweet and beautiful--and--
and"--Here he suddenly paused. Josey Letherbarrow was looking at him
with sudden interest. "And that's all, Ipsie!"
"Didn't she say nuffin' 'bout me?" asked the small autocrat.
Walden set her gently down on the ground.
"Not then, Ipsie,"--he said--"She was very busy. But I am sure she
thought of you!"
Ipsie looked quite contented.
"'Ess,--my lady-love finks a lot, oh, a lot of me!" she said,
seriously--"Allus finkin' of me!"
John smiled, and again shook old Josey's hand.
"Good-bye till Sunday!" he said.
"Good-bye, Passon!" rejoined Josey, cheerily--"Good luck t'ye! God
bless ye!"
And the old man watched John's tall, slim athletic figure as long as
his failing sight could follow it, murmuring to himself--
"Who'd a thought it!--who'd 'a thought it! Yet mebbe I'm wrong--an'
mebbe I'm right!--for the look o' love never lightens a man's eyes
like that but once in his life--all the rest o' the sparkles is only
imitations o' the real fire. The real fire burns once, an' only
once--an' it's fierce an' hot when it kindles up in a man after the
days o' his youth are gone! An' if the real fire worn't in Passon's
eyes when he talked o' the lady-love, than I'm an old idgit wot
never felt my heart go dunt again my side in courtin' time!"
Walden meanwhile went on his round of visits, and presently,--the
circle of his poorer parishioners being completed,-he decided to
call on Julian Adderley at his 'cottage in the wood' and tell him
also of his intended absence. He had taken rather a liking to this
eccentric off-shoot of an eccentric literary set,--he had found that
despite some slight surface affectations, Julian had very straight
principles, and loyal ideas of friendship, and that he was not
without a certain poetic talent which, if he studied hard and to
serious purpose, might develop into something of more or less
worthiness. Some lines that he had recently written and read aloud
to Walden, had a haunting ring which clung to the memory:
Art thou afraid to live, my Heart?
Look round and see
What life at its best,
With its strange unrest,
Can mean for thee!
Ceaseless sorrow and toil,
Waits for each son of the soil;
And the highest work seems ever unpaid
By God and man,
In the mystic plan;--
Think of it! Art thou afraid?
Art thou afraid to love, my Heart?
Look well and see
If any sweet thing,
That can sigh or sing,
Hath need of thee!
Of Love cometh wild desire,
Hungry and fierce as fire,
In the souls of man and maid,--
But the fulness thereof
Is the end of love,--
Think of it! Art thou afraid?
Art thou afraid of Death, my Heart?
Look down and see
What the corpse on the bed,
So lately dead,
Can teach to thee!
Is it the close of the strife,
Or a new beginning of Life?
The secret is not betrayed;--
But Darkness makes clear
That Light must be near!
Think of it! Art thou afraid?
"'Darkness makes clear, that Light must be near,'--I am sure that is
true!"--murmured John, as he swung along at a quick pace through a
green lane leading out of the village into the wider country, where
two or three quaint little houses with thatched roofs were nestled
among the fields, looking like dropped acorns in the green,--"It
must be true,--there are so many old saws and sayings of the same
kind, like 'The darkest hour's before the dawn.' But why should I
seek to console myself with a kind of Tupper 'proverbial
philosophy'? I have no black hour threatening me,--I have nothing in
the world to complain of or grumble at except my own undisciplined
nature, which even at my age shows me it can 'kick against the pricks'
and make a fool of me!"
Here turning a corner of the road which was overshaded by a huge
chestnut-tree, he suddenly came face to face with the Reverend
Putwood Leveson, who, squatted on the hank by the roadside, with his
grand-pianoforte legs well exposed to view in tight brown
knickerbockers and grey worsted stockings, was bending perspiringly
over his recumbent bicycle, mending something which had, as usual,
gone wrong.
"Hullo, Walden!" he said, looking up and nodding casually--"Haven't
seen you for an age! What have you been doing with yourself? Always
up at the Manor, I suppose! Great attraction at the Manor!--he-he-
he!"
A certain quick irritation, like that produced by the teasing buzz
of some venomous insect, affected Walden's nerves. He looked at the
porcine proportions of his brother minister with an involuntary
sense of physical repulsion. Then he answered stiffly--
"I don't understand you. I have not been visiting at the Manor at
all. I dined there the night before last for the first and only
time."
Leveson winked one purple puffy eyelid. Then he began his 'He-he-he'
again to himself, while he breathed hard and sweated profusely over
the rubber tyre of his machine.
"Is that so?" he sniggered--"Well, that's all the better for you!--
you do well to keep away! Men of our cloth ought not to be seen
there really."
And scrambling to his feet with elephantine ease, he brushed the
dust from his knickers, and wiped his brows with an uncleanly
handkerchief which looked as if it had been used for drying oil off
the bicycle as well as off the man.
"We ought not to be seen there,"--he repeated, disregarding Walden's
steady coldness of eye--"I myself made a great mistake when I wrote
to the woman. I ought not to have done so. But of course I did not
know--I thought it was all right." And the reverend gentleman
assumed an air of mammoth-like innocence--"I am so mediaeval, you
know!--I never suspect anything or anybody! I wrote to her in quite
a friendly way, suggesting that I should arrange her family papers
for her--I thought she might as well employ me as anyone else--and
she never answered my letter--never answered a word!"
"Well, of course not!" said Walden, composedly, though his blood
began to tingle hotly through his veins with rising indignation--
"Why should she? Her family papers are all in order, and no doubt
she considered your application both ignorant and impertinent."
Leveson's gross countenance flushed a deeper crimson.
"Ignorant and impertinent!" he echoed--"Come, I like that! Why she
ought to have considered herself uncommonly lucky to receive so much
as a civil letter from a respectable man,--such a woman as she is!--
'Maryllia Van'--he-he-he-he!"
Walden took a quick step towards him.
"What do you mean?" he demanded--"What right have you to speak of
her in such a manner?"
Leveson recoiled, startled by the intense pallor of Walden's face,
and the threatening light in his eyes.
"What right?" he stammered--"Why--why what do yon mean by flaring up
in such a temper, eh? What does it matter to you?"
"It matters this much,--that I will not allow Miss Vaneourt to be
insulted by you or anyone else!" retorted Walden, hotly--"You have
never spoken to her,--you know nothing about her,--so hold your
tongue!"
The Reverend 'Putty's' round eyes protruded with amazement.
"Hold--my--tongue!" he repeated, in a kind of stupefaction--"Are you
gone mad, Walden? Do you know who you are talking to?"
John gave a short laugh. His hands clenched involuntarily.
"Oh, I know well enough!" he said--"I am talking to a man who has no
more regard for a woman's name than a cat has for the mouse it
kills! I am talking to a man who is an ordained Christian minister,
who has less Christianity than a dog, which at least is faithful to
its master!"
Leveson uttered a kind of inarticulate sound something between a
gasp and a grunt. Then he fell back on his old snigger.
"He-he, he-he-he!" he bleated--"You must be crazy, Walden!--or else
you've been drinking! I've a perfect right to speak of the Abbot's
Manor woman IF I like and as I like! All men have a right to do the
same--she's been pretty well handed round as common property for a
long time! Why, she's perfectly notorious!--everybody knows that!"
"You lie!"
And Walden sprang at him, one powerful clenched fist uplifted.
Leveson staggered back in terror,--and so for a moment they
stood, staring upon one another. They did not hear a stealthy rustle
among the branches of the chestnut-tree near which they stood, nor
see a long lithe shadow creep towards them for the dense low-hanging
foliage. Face to face, eye to eye, they remained for a moment's
space as though ready to close and wrestle,--then suddenly Walden's
arm dropped to his side.
"My God!" he muttered--"I nearly struck you!"
Leveson drew a long breath of relief, and sneaked backward on his
heels.
"You--you're a nice kind of 'ordained Christian minister' aren't
you?" he spluttered--"With all your humbug and cant you're no better
than a vulgar bully! A vulgar bully!--that's what you are! I'll
report you to the Bishop--see if I don't!--brow-beating me, and
putting me in bodily fear, all about a woman too! Great Scott!--a
fine scandal you'll make in the Church one of these days if you're
not watched pretty closely and pulled up pretty sharply--and pulled
up you shall be, take my word for it! We've had about enough of your
high-and-mighty airs--it's time you learned to know your place---"
The words had scarcely left his mouth when a pair of long muscular
arms seized him by the shoulders, shook him briefly and
emphatically, and turning him easily over, deposited him flat in the
dust.
"It is time--yea verily!--it is full time you learned to know your
place!" said Julian Adderley, calmly standing with legs-astride
across his fat recumbent body--"And there it is--and there you are!
My dear Walden, how are you? Excuse my shaking hands with you--
having defiled myself, as the Orientals say, by touching unclean
meat, I must wash first!"
For a moment Walden had been so taken aback by the suddenness of
Leveson's unexpected overthrow that he could scarcely realise what
had happened,--but presently when the Reverend 'Putty's' cobby legs
began to sprawl uneasily on the ground, and the Eeverend 'Putty'
himself gave vent to sundry blasphemous oaths and curses, he grasped
the full humour of the situation. A broad smile lit up his face.
"That was a master-stroke, Adderley!" he said, and the smile
deepened into sudden laughter--"But how in the world did you come
here?"
"I was here all the time,"--said Adderley, still standing across
Leveson's prostrate form--"Returning to the habits of primaeval
monkey as I often do, I was seated in the boughs of that venerable
chestnut-tree-and I heard all the argument. I enjoyed it. I was
hoping to see the Church militant belabour the Church recusant. It
would have been so new--so fresh! But as the sacred blow failed, the
secular one was bound to fall. Don't get up, my excellent sir!--
don't, I beseech of you!" This to Leveson, who was trying by means
of the most awkward contortions to rise to a sitting posture--"You
will find it difficult--among other misfortunes your knickers will
burst, and there is no tailor close at hand. Spare yourself,--and
us!"
"Oh give him a hand, Adderley!" said Walden, good-naturedly. "Help
him up! He's had his beating!"
"He hasn't,"--declared Julian, with a lachrymose air of intense
regret--"I wish he had! He is less hurt than if he had fallen off
his bicycle. He is in no pain;--would that he were!"
Here Leveson managed to partially lift himself on one side.
"Assault!" he stuttered--"Assault--common assault---"
"AND battery,"--said Julian--"You can summons me, my dear sir--if
you feel so inclined! I shall be happy to explain the whole incident
in court--and also to pay the five pounds penalty. I only wish I
could have got more for my money. There's such a lot of you!--such a
lot!" he repeated, musingly, "And I've only sailed round such a
small portion of your vast fleshy continent!"
Walden controlled his laughter, and stooping, offered to assist
Leveson to get up, but the indignant 'Putty' refused all aid, and
setting his own two hands firmly against the ground, tried again to
rise.
"Remove your legs, sir!" he shouted to Julian, who still stood
across him in apparent abstraction--"How dare you--how dare you pin
me down in this fashion?--how dare---"
Here his voice died away choked by rage.
"You are witty without knowing it, my fat friend!" said Julian
languidly--"Legs, in slang parlance, are sometimes known as 'pins,'-
-therefore, when you say I 'pin' you down, you use an expression
which is, like the 'mobled queen' in Hamlet, good. Be unpinned, good
priest--and remember that you must be prepared to say your prayers
backwards, next time you slander a woman!"
He relaxed his position, and Leveson with an effort scrambled to his
feet, covered with dust. Picking up his cap from the gutter where it
had fallen, he got his bicycle and prepared to mount it. He
presented a most unlovely spectacle--his face, swollen and crimson
with fury, seemed twice its usual size,--his little piggy eyes
rolled in his head like those of a man threatened with apoplexy--and
the oily perspiration stood upon his brow and trickled from his
carroty hair in great drops.
"You shall pay for this!" he said in low vindictive tones, shaking
his fist at both Walden and Adderley--"There are one or two old
scores to be wiped off in this village, and mine will help to
increase the account! Your fine lady at the Manor isn't going to
have everything her own way, I can tell you--nor you either, you--
you--you upstart!"
With this last epithet hurled out at Walden, who, shrugging his
shoulders, received it with ineffable contempt, he got on his
machine and worked his round legs and round wheels together
furiously away. When his bulky form had disappeared, the two men he
had left behind glanced at one another, and moved by the same
risible emotion burst out laughing,--and once their laughter began,
they gave it full vent, Walden's mellow 'Ha-ha-ha!' ringing out on
the still air with all the zest and heartiness of a boy's mirth.
"Upon my word, Adderley, you are a capital 'thrower'?" he said,
clapping Julian on the shoulder. "I never was more surprised in my
life than to see that monstrous 'ton of man' heave over suddenly and
sprawl in the dust! It was an artistic feat, most artistically
executed!"
"It was--it was,--I think so myself!"--agreed Julian--"I am proud of
my own skill! That pious porpoise will not forget me in a hurry. You
see, my dear Walden, you merely threatened punishment,--you did not
inflict it,--I suppose out of some scruple of Church conscience,
which is quite a different conscience to the lay examples,--and it
was necessary to act promptly. The air of St. Rest is remarkably
free from miasma, but Leveson was discharging microbes from his
tongue and person generally that would have been dangerous to life
in another minute." He laughed again. "Were you coming my way?"
"Yes, I was," replied Walden, as they began to walk along the road
together--"I am going away on a visit, and I meant to call and say
good-bye to you."
Julian glanced at him curiously.
"Going away? For long?"
"Oh no! Only for two or three days. I want to see my Bishop."
"On a point of conscience?"
John smiled, but coloured a little too.
"No--not exactly! We are very old friends, Brent and I--but we have
not met for seven years,--not since my church was consecrated. It
will be pleasant to us to have a chat about old times---"
"And new times--don't leave THEM out," said Julian--"They are quite
as interesting. The present is as pleasing as the past, don't you
think so?"
Walden hesitated. A touch of sorrow and lingering regret clouded his
eyes.
"No--I cannot say that I do!" he answered, at last, with a sigh--"In
the past I was young, with all the world before me,--in the present
I am old, with all the world behind me!"
"Does it matter?" and Adderley lifted his eyelids with a languid
expression--"For instance let us suppose that in the past you have
lost something and that in the present you gain something, does it
not equalise the position?"
"The gain is very little in my case!"--said John, yet even as he
spoke he felt a pang of shame at his own thanklessness. Had he not
secured a peaceful home, a round of work that he loved, and
happiness far beyond his merits, and had not God blessed him with
health and a quiet mind? Yes--till quite lately he had had a quiet
mind--but now---
"You perhaps do not realise how much the gain is, or how far it
extends,"--pursued Adderley, thoughtfully--"Youth and age appear to
me to have perfectly equal delights and drawbacks. Take me, for
example,--I am young, but I am in haste to be older, and when I am
old I am sure I shall never want to be young again. It is too
unsettled a condition!"
Walden smiled, but made no answer. They walked on in comparative
silence till they reached Adderley's cottage--a humble but
charmingly artistic tenement, with a thatched roof and a small
garden in front which was little more than a tangle of roses.
"I am taking this house--this mansion--on," said Julian, pausing at
the gate--"I shall stop here all winter. The surroundings suit me.
Inspiration visits me in the flowering of the honeysuckle, and
encircles me in the whispering of the wind among the roses. When the
leaves drop and the roses fade, I shall hear a different chord on
the harp of song. When the sleet and snow begin to fall, I shall
listen to the dripping of the tears of Nature with as much sympathy
as I now bask in her smiles. I have been writing verses to the name
of Maryllia--they are not finished--but they will come by degrees--
yes!--I am sure they will come! This is how they begin,"--and
leaning on the low gate of his cottage entrance he recited softly,
with half-closed eyes:
In the flowering-time of year
When the heavens were crystal clear,
And the skylark's singing sweet
Close against the sun did beat,--
All the sylphs of all the streams,
All the fairies born in dreams,
All the elves with wings of flame,
Trooping forth from Cloudland came
To the wooing of Maryllia!
Walden murmured something inarticulate, but Adderley waved him into
silence, and continued:
Woodland sprites of ferns and trees,
Ariels of the wandering breeze,
Kelpies from the hidden caves
Coral-bordered 'neath the waves,
Sylphs, that in the rose's heart,
Laugh when leaves are blown apart,--
All the Faun and Dryad crew
From their mystic forests flew
To the wooing of Maryllia!
"Very fanciful!" said John, with a forced smile--"I suppose you can
go on like that interminably?"
"I can, and I will,"--said Julian--"So long as the fit possesses me.
But not now. You are in a hurry, and you wish to say good-bye. You
imply the P.P.C. in your aspect. So be it! I shall see you on Sunday
in the pulpit as usual?"
"Yes."
"Badsworth Hall will probably attend your ministrations, so I am
told,"--continued Julian--"Lord Roxmouth wants to hear you preach,--
and Sir Morton himself proposes to 'sit under' you."
"Sorry for it!" said Walden abruptly--"He should attend his own
'cure'--Mr. Leveson."
They laughed.
"Of course you don't credit that story about Miss Vancourt's
marriage with Lord Roxmouth?" queried Adderley, suddenly.
"I am slow to believe anything I hear,"--replied John--"But--is it
quite without foundation?"
Adderley looked him straight in the eyes.
"Quite! Very quite! Most quite! My dear Walden, you are pale! A
change, even a brief one, will do you good. Go and see your Bishop
by all means. And tell him how nearly, how very nearly you gave
prestige to the calling of a Churchman by knocking down a rascal!"
They parted then; and by sundown Walden was in the train speeding
away from St. Rest at the rate of fifty miles an hour to one of the
great manufacturing cities where human beings swarm together more
thickly than bees in a hive, and overcrowd and jostle each other's
lives out in the desperate struggle for mere bread. Bainton and
Nebbie were left sole masters of the rectory and its garden, and
both man and dog were depressed in spirits, and more or less
restless and discontented.
"'Tain't what it used to be by no manner o' means,"--muttered
Bainton, looking with a dejected air round the orchard, where the
wall fruit was hanging in green clusters of promise--"Passon don't
seem to care, an' when HE don't care then I don't care! Why, it
seems onny t'other day 'twas May morning, an' he was carryin' Ipsie
Frost on his shoulder, an' leadin' all the children wi' the Maypole
into the big meadow, an' all was as right as right could be,--yet
'ere we're onny just in August an' everything's topsy-turvy like.
Lord, Lord!--'ow trifles do make up a sum o' life to be sure, as the
copybooks sez--for arter all, what's 'appened? Naught in any wise
partikler. Miss Vancourt 'as come 'ome to her own,--an' she's 'ad a
few friends from Lunnon stayin' with 'er. That's simple enough, as
simple as plantains growin' in a lawn. Then Miss Vancourt's 'usband
that is to be, comes down an' stays with old Blusterdash Pippitt at
the 'All, in order to be near 'is sweet'art. There ain't nothin' out
of the common in that. It's all as plain as piecrust. An' Passon
ain't done nothin' either but jest his dooty as he allus doos it,--
he ain't been up to the Manor more'n once,--he ain't been at the
'All,--an' Miss Vancourt she ain't been 'ere neither since the day
he broke his best lilac for her. So it can't be she what's done
mischief--nor him, nor any on 'em. So I sez to myself, what is it?
What's come over the old place? What's come over Passon? Neither
place nor man's the same somehow, yet blest if I know where the
change comes in. It's like one of the ways o' the Lord, past findin'
out!"
He might have thought there was something still more to wonder at if
he could have looked into Josey Letterbarrow's cottage that evening
and seen Maryllia there, sitting on a low stool at the old man's
knee and patting his wrinkled hand tenderly, while she talked to him
in a soft undertone and he listened with grave intentness and
sagacity, though, also with something of sorrow.
"An' so ye think it's the onny way, my beauty!" he queried,
anxiously--"There ain't no other corner round it?"
"I'm afraid not, dear Josey!" she answered, with a sigh--"And I'm
telling you all about it, because you knew my father, and because
you saw me when I was a little child. You would not like me to marry
a man whom I hate,--a man who is bad right through, and who only
wants my aunt's money, which he would get if I consented to be his
wife. I am sure, Josey, you don't think money is the best thing in
life, do you?--I know you agree with me that love is better?"
Josey looked down upon her where she sat with an almost devout
tenderness.
"Love's the onny thing in the world worth 'avin' an' keeping my
beauty!" he said--"An' love's wot you desarves, an' wot you're sure
to get. I wouldn't see Squire's gel married for money, no, not if it
was a reglar gold mine!--I'd rather see 'er in 'er daisy grave fust!
An' I don't want to see 'er with a lord nor a duke,--I'll be content
to see 'er with a good man if the Lord will grant me that 'fore I
die! An' you do as you feels to be right, an' all things 'ull work
together for good to them as loves the Lord! That's Passon's
teachin' an' rare good teachin' it be!"
At this Maryllia rose rather hurriedly and put on her hat, tying its
chiffon strings slowly under her chin.
"Good-bye, Josey dear!"--she said--"It won't be for very long. But
you must keep my secret--you mustn't say a word, not even"--here she
paused and laughed a little forcedly--"not even to the Parson you're
so fond of!"
Josey looked at her sideways, with a quaintly meditative expression.
"Passon be gone away hisself,"--he said, a little smile creeping
among the kindly wrinkles of his brown weather-beaten face--"He
baint comin' back till Sunday."
"Gone away?" Maryllia was quite unconscious of the vibration of pain
in her voice as she asked the question, as she was equally of the
startled sorrow in her pretty eyes.
"Ah, my beauty, gone away,"--repeated Josey, with a curious sort of
placid satisfaction--"Passon, he be lookin' downhearted like, an' a
change o' scene 'ull do 'im good mebbe, an' bring 'im back all the
better for it. He came an' said good-bye to me this marnin'."
Maryllia stood for a moment irresolute. Why had he gone away? Her
brows met in a little puckered line of puzzled wonder.
"He be gone to see the Bishop,"--pursued Josey, watching her
tenderly with his old dim eyes,--it was like reading a love-story to
see the faint colour flushing those soft round cheeks of hers, and
the tremulous quiver of that sweet sensitive mouth--"Church
business, likely. But never you mind, my beauty!--he'll be 'ere to
preach, please the Lord, on Sunday."
"Oh, I don't mind," said Maryllia, quickly recovering herself--"Only
I shan't be here, you see--and--and I had intended to explain
something to him--however, it doesn't matter! I can write all I
wanted to say. Good-bye, Josey! Give my love to Ipsie!"
"Good-bye, my beauty!" returned Josey, with emphatic earnestness--
"An' God bless ye an' make all the rough places smooth for ye!
You'll find us all 'ere, lovin' an' true, whenever ye comes,
mornin', noon or night--the village ain't the world, but you've got
round it, my dearie--you've got round it!"
And in the deep midnight when the church chimes rang the hour, and
the moon poured a pearly shower of luminance over the hushed
woodland and silently winding river, Josey lay broad awake,
resignedly conscious of his extreme age, and thinking soberly of the
beginning and end of life,--the dawn and fruition of love,--the
wonderful, beautiful, complex labyrinth of experience through which
every human soul is guided from one mystic turn to another of
mingled joy and sorrow by that supreme Wisdom, Whom, though we
cannot see, we trust,--and feeling the near close of his own long
life-journey, he folded his withered hands and prayed aloud:
"For all Thy childern, O Lord God, that 'ave gone by the last
milestone on the road an' are growin' footsore an' weary, let there
be Thy peace which passeth all understandin'!--but for Squire's gel
with the little lonely heart of 'er beatin' like the wings of a bird
that wants a nest, let there be Love!"