THE DEVIL IN THE VICAR.
I wanted just to pass the gate, and look up the road towards Oldcastle
Hall. I thought to see nothing but the empty road between the leafless
trees, lying there like a dead stream that would not bear me on to the
“sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice” that lay beyond. But just as I
reached the gate, Miss Oldcastle came out of the lodge, where I learned
afterwards the woman that kept the gate was ill.
When she saw me she stopped, and I entered hurriedly, and addressed
her. But I could say nothing better than the merest commonplaces. For
her old manner, which I had almost forgotten, a certain coldness
shadowed with haughtiness, whose influence I had strongly felt when I
began to make her acquaintance, had returned. I cannot make my reader
understand how this could be blended with the sweetness in her face and
the gentleness of her manners; but there the opposites were, and I
could feel them both. There was likewise a certain drawing of herself
away from me, which checked the smallest advance on my part; so that—I
wonder at it now, but so it was—after a few words of very ordinary
conversation, I bade her good morning and went away, feeling like “a
man forbid”—as if I had done her some wrong, and she had chidden me for
it. What a stone lay in my breast! I could hardly breathe for it. What
could have caused her to change her manner towards me? I had made no
advance; I could not have offended her. Yet there she glided up the
road, and here stood I, outside the gate. That road was now a flowing
river that bore from me the treasure of the earth, while my boat was
spell-bound, and could not follow. I would run after her, fall at her
feet, and intreat to know wherein I had offended her. But there I stood
enchanted, and there she floated away between the trees; till at length
she turned the slow sweep, and I, breathing deep as she vanished from
my sight, turned likewise, and walked back the dreary way to the
village. And now I knew that I had never been miserable in my life
before. And I knew, too, that I had never loved her as I loved her now.
But, as I had for the last ten years of my life been striving to be a
right will, with a thousand failures and forgetfulnesses every one of
those years, while yet the desire grew stronger as hope recovered from
every failure, I would now try to do my work as if nothing had happened
to incapacitate me for it. So I went on to fulfil the plan with which I
had left home, including, as it did, a visit to Thomas Weir, whom I had
not seen in his own shop since he had ordered me out of it. This, as
far as I was concerned, was more accidental than intentional. I had,
indeed, abstained from going to him for a while, in order to give him
time TO COME ROUND; but then circumstances which I have recorded
intervened to prevent me; so that as yet no advance had been made on my
part any more than on his towards a reconciliation; which, however,
could have been such only on one side, for I had not been in the least
offended by the way he had behaved to me, and needed no reconciliation.
To tell the truth, I was pleased to find that my words had had force
enough with him to rouse his wrath. Anything rather than indifference!
That the heart of the honest man would in the end right me, I could not
doubt; in the meantime I would see whether a friendly call might not
improve the state of affairs. Till he yielded to the voice within him,
however, I could not expect that our relation to each other would be
quite restored. As long as he resisted his conscience, and knew that I
sided with his conscience, it was impossible he should regard me with
peaceful eyes, however much he might desire to be friendly with me.
I found him busy, as usual, for he was one of the most diligent men I
have ever known. But his face was gloomy, and I thought or fancied that
the old scorn had begun once more to usurp the expression of it. Young
Tom was not in the shop.
“It is a long time since I saw you, now, Thomas.”
“I can hardly wonder at that,” he returned, as if he were trying to do
me justice; but his eyes dropped, and he resumed his work, and said no
more. I thought it better to make no reference to the past even by
assuring him that it was not from resentment that I had been a
stranger.
“How is Tom?” I asked.
“Well enough,” he returned. Then, with a smile of peevishness not
unmingled with contempt, he added: “He’s getting too uppish for me. I
don’t think the Latin agrees with him.”
I could not help suspecting at once how the matter stood—namely, that
the father, unhappy in his conduct to his daughter, and unable to make
up his mind to do right with regard to her, had been behaving
captiously and unjustly to his son, and so had rendered himself more
miserable than ever.
“Perhaps he finds it too much for him without me,” I said, evasively;
“but I called to-day partly to inform him that I am quite ready now to
recommence our readings together; after which I hope you will find the
Latin agree with him better.”
“I wish you would let him alone, sir—I mean, take no more trouble about
him. You see I can’t do as you want me; I wasn’t made to go another
man’s way; and so it’s very hard—more than I can bear—to be under so
much obligation to you.”
“But you mistake me altogether, Thomas. It is for the lad’s own sake
that I want to go on reading with him. And you won’t interfere between
him and any use I can be of to him. I assure you, to have you go my way
instead of your own is the last thing I could wish, though I confess I
do wish very much that you would choose the right way for your own
way.”
He made me no answer, but maintained a sullen silence.
“Thomas,” I said at length, “I had thought you were breaking every bond
of Satan that withheld you from entering into the kingdom of heaven;
but I fear he has strengthened his bands and holds you now as much a
captive as ever. So it is not even your own way you are walking in, but
his.”
“It’s no use your trying to frighten me. I don’t believe in the devil.”
“It is God I want you to believe in. And I am not going to dispute with
you now about whether there is a devil or not. In a matter of life and
death we have no time for settling every disputed point.”
“Life or death! What do you mean?”
“I mean that whether you believe there is a devil or not, you KNOW
there is an evil power in your mind dragging you down. I am not
speaking in generals; I mean NOW, and you know as to what I mean it.
And if you yield to it, that evil power, whatever may be your theory
about it, will drag you down to death. It is a matter of life or death,
I repeat, not of theory about the devil.”
“Well, I always did say, that if you once give a priest an inch he’ll
take an ell; and I am sorry I forgot it for once.”
Having said this, he shut up his mouth in a manner that indicated
plainly enough he would not open it again for some time. This, more
than his speech, irritated me, and with a mere “good morning,” I walked
out of the shop.
No sooner was I in the open air than I knew that I too, I as well as
poor Thomas Weir, was under a spell; knew that I had gone to him before
I had recovered sufficiently from the mingled disappointment and
mortification of my interview with Miss Oldcastle; that while I spoke
to him I was not speaking with a whole heart; that I had been
discharging a duty as if I had been discharging a musket; that,
although I had spoken the truth, I had spoken it ungraciously and
selfishly.
I could not bear it. I turned instantly and went back into the shop.
“Thomas, my friend,” I said, holding out my hand, “I beg your pardon. I
was wrong. I spoke to you as I ought not. I was troubled in my own
mind, and that made me lose my temper and be rude to you, who are far
more troubled than I am. Forgive me!”
He did not take my hand at first, but stared at me as if, not
comprehending me, he supposed that I was backing up what I had said
last with more of the same sort. But by the time I had finished he saw
what I meant; his countenance altered and looked as if the evil spirit
were about to depart from him; he held out his hand, gave mine a great
grasp, dropped his head, went on with his work, and said never a word.
I went out of the shop once more, but in a greatly altered mood.
On the way home, I tried to find out how it was that I had that morning
failed so signally. I had little virtue in keeping my temper, because
it was naturally very even; therefore I had the more shame in losing
it. I had borne all my uneasiness about Miss Oldcastle without, as far
as I knew, transgressing in this fashion till this very morning. Were
great sorrows less hurtful to the temper than small disappointments?
Yes, surely. But Shakespeare represents Brutus, after hearing of the
sudden death of his wife, as losing his temper with Cassius to a degree
that bewildered the latter, who said he did not know that Brutus could
have been so angry. Is this consistent with the character of the
stately-minded Brutus, or with the dignity of sorrow? It is. For the
loss of his wife alone would have made him only less irritable; but the
whole weight of an army, with its distracting cares and conflicting
interests, pressed upon him; and the battle of an empire was to be
fought at daybreak, so that he could not be alone with his grief.
Between the silence of death in his mind, and the roar of life in his
brain, he became irritable.
Looking yet deeper into it, I found that till this morning I had
experienced no personal mortification with respect to Miss Oldcastle.
It was not the mere disappointment of having no more talk with her, for
the sight of her was a blessing I had not in the least expected, that
had worked upon me, but the fact that she had repelled or seemed to
repel me. And thus I found that self was at the root of the wrong I had
done to one over whose mental condition, especially while I was telling
him the unwelcome truth, I ought to have been as tender as a mother
over her wounded child. I could not say that it was wrong to feel
disappointed or even mortified; but something was wrong when one whose
especial business it was to serve his people in the name of Him who was
full of grace and truth, made them suffer because of his own inward
pain.
No sooner had I settled this in my mind than my trouble returned with a
sudden pang. Had I actually seen her that morning, and spoken to her,
and left her with a pain in my heart? What if that face of hers was
doomed ever to bring with it such a pain—to be ever to me no more than
a lovely vision radiating grief? If so, I would endure in silence and
as patiently as I could, trying to make up for the lack of brightness
in my own fate by causing more brightness in the fate of others. I
would at least keep on trying to do my work.
That moment I felt a little hand poke itself into mine. I looked down,
and there was Gerard Weir looking up in my face. I found myself in the
midst of the children coming out of school, for it was Saturday, and a
half-holiday. He smiled in my face, and I hope I smiled in his; and so,
hand in hand, we went on to the vicarage, where I gave him up to my
sister. But I cannot convey to my reader any notion of the quietness
that entered my heart with the grasp of that childish hand. I think it
was the faith of the boy in me that comforted me, but I could not help
thinking of the words of our Lord about receiving a child in His name,
and so receiving Him. By the time we reached the vicarage my heart was
very quiet. As the little child held by my hand, so I seemed to be
holding by God’s hand. And a sense of heart-security, as well as
soul-safety, awoke in me; and I said to myself,—Surely He will take
care of my heart as well as of my mind and my conscience. For one
blessed moment I seemed to be at the very centre of things, looking out
quietly upon my own troubled emotions as upon something outside of
me—apart from me, even as one from the firm rock may look abroad upon
the vexed sea. And I thought I then knew something of what the apostle
meant when he said, “Your life is hid with Christ in God.” I knew that
there was a deeper self than that which was thus troubled.
I had not had my usual ramble this morning, and was otherwise ill
prepared for the Sunday. So I went early into the church; but finding
that the sexton’s wife had not yet finished lighting the stove, I sat
down by my own fire in the vestry.
Suppose I am sitting there now while I say one word for our
congregations in winter. I was very particular in having the church
well warmed before Sunday. I think some parsons must neglect seeing
after this matter on principle, because warmth may make a weary
creature go to sleep here and there about the place: as if any healing
doctrine could enter the soul while it is on the rack of the frost. The
clergy should see—for it is their business—that their people have no
occasion to think of their bodies at all while they are in church. They
have enough ado to think of the truth. When our Lord was feeding even
their bodies, He made them all sit down on the grass. It is worth
noticing that there was much grass in the place—a rare thing I should
think in those countries—and therefore, perhaps, it was chosen by Him
for their comfort in feeding their souls and bodies both. If I may
judge from experiences of my own, one of the reasons why some churches
are of all places the least likely for anything good to be found in,
is, that they are as wretchedly cold to the body as they are to the
soul—too cold every way for anything to grow in them. Edelweiss,
“Noble-white”—as they call a plant growing under the snow on some of
the Alps—could not survive the winter in such churches. There is small
welcome in a cold house. And the clergyman, who is the steward, should
look to it. It is for him to give his Master’s friends a welcome to his
Master’s house—for the welcome of a servant is precious, and now-a-days
very rare.
And now Mrs Stone must have finished. I go into the old church which
looks as if it were quietly waiting for its people. No. She has not
done yet. Never mind.—How full of meaning the vaulted roof looks! as
if, having gathered a soul of its own out of the generations that have
worshipped here for so long, it had feeling enough to grow hungry for a
psalm before the end of the week.
Some such half-foolish fancy was now passing through my tranquillized
mind or rather heart—for the mind would have rejected it at once—when
to my—what shall I call it?—not amazement, for the delight was too
strong for amazement—the old organ woke up and began to think aloud. As
if it had been brooding over it all the week in the wonderful
convolutions of its wooden brain, it began to sigh out the Agnus Dei of
Mozart’s twelfth mass upon the air of the still church, which lay swept
and garnished for the Sunday.—How could it be? I know now; and I
guessed then; and my guess was right; and my reader must be content to
guess too. I took no step to verify my conjecture, for I felt that I
was upon my honour, but sat in one of the pews and listened, till the
old organ sobbed itself into silence. Then I heard the steps of the
sexton’s wife vanish from the church, heard her lock the door, and knew
that I was alone in the ancient pile, with the twilight growing thick
about me, and felt like Sir Galahad, when, after the “rolling
organ-harmony,” he heard “wings flutter, voices hover clear.” In a
moment the mood changed; and I was sorry, not that the dear organ was
dead for the night, but actually felt gently-mournful that the
wonderful old thing never had and never could have a conscious life of
its own. So strangely does the passion—which I had not invented,
reader, whoever thou art that thinkest love and a church do not well
harmonize—so strangely, I say, full to overflowing of its own vitality,
does it radiate life, that it would even of its own superabundance
quicken into blessed consciousness the inanimate objects around it,
thinking what they would feel had they a consciousness correspondent to
their form, were their faculties moved from within themselves instead
of from the will and operation of humanity.
I lingered on long in the dark church, as my reader knows I had done
often before. Nor did I move from the seat I had first taken till I
left the sacred building. And there I made my sermon for the next
morning. And herewith I impart it to my reader. But he need not be
afraid of another such as I have already given him, for I impart it
only in its original germ, its concentrated essence of sermon—these
four verses:
Had I the grace to win the grace
Of some old man complete in lore,
My face would worship at his face,
Like childhood seated on the floor.
Had I the grace to win the grace
Of childhood, loving shy, apart,
The child should find a nearer place,
And teach me resting on my heart.
Had I the grace to win the grace
Of maiden living all above,
My soul would trample down the base,
That she might have a man to love.
A grace I have no grace to win
Knocks now at my half-open door:
Ah, Lord of glory, come thou in,
Thy grace divine is all and more.
This was what I made for myself. I told my people that God had created
all our worships, reverences, tendernesses, loves. That they had come
out of His heart, and He had made them in us because they were in Him
first. That otherwise He would not have cared to make them. That all
that we could imagine of the wise, the lovely, the beautiful, was in
Him, only infinitely more of them than we could not merely imagine, but
understand, even if He did all He could to explain them to us, to make
us understand them. That in Him was all the wise teaching of the best
man ever known in the world and more; all the grace and gentleness and
truth of the best child and more; all the tenderness and devotion of
the truest type of womankind and more; for there is a love that passeth
the love of woman, not the love of Jonathan to David, though David said
so: but the love of God to the men and women whom He has made.
Therefore, we must be all God’s; and all our aspirations, all our
worships, all our honours, all our loves, must centre in Him, the Best.