worship save the chapel of the Luke Gospelers. What might be the nature of
the service before her she did not know, nor did she care. But the girl
kept her promise and drove in the market-cart to Sancreed with her uncle
and cousin when Sunday came. The little church lay bowered in its grove of
sycamores, and, around it, a golden-green concourse of quivering shadows
cooled those who had walked or driven from Drift--an outlying portion of
the parish--approached through lanes innocent of all shade. Mr. Chirgwin
put up the horse and presently joined his nieces in church. Then Joan saw
him under interesting and novel conditions. He wore glasses with gold rims;
he covered his bald head with a little velvet cap; at the appointed time he
took a wooden plate and carried it round for money. Mary found the old
man's places for him and sang in a way that fairly astounded Joan. The
enormous satisfaction brought to herself by these vocal efforts was
apparent. Her soul appeared mightily lifted up. She amused chance visitors
to the church, but the regular congregation liked to hear Mary; and Joan,
seeing the comfort her cousin sucked from singing, wished she had heart to
join. That, however, she wholly lacked. Moreover, the words were strange to
her.
The quiet service, brightened by music, dragged its slow length murmuringly
along. The sermon, delivered by a visitor, was not of a sort to hold Joan,
and, indeed, could hardly be expected to attract many in such a
congregation. The preacher had lately been reading old Cornish history,
and, overcome by the startling fact that the far west of England--Cornwall
and Devon--were Christian long before Augustine saw Kent, dwelt upon the
matter after a very instructive fashion in ears unlikely to benefit from
such knowledge. That the Cornu-British bishops preached Christ while yet
Sussex, Wessex, Hampshire, Berks and other districts worshiped Woden,
Freya, the Queen of Heaven, the Thunder God, and other deities whose altars
were set up after the Conquest, did not interest Joan for one or Mr.
Chirgwin for another. But the girl woke up at the mention of Irish and
Welsh and Breton saints. Pleasant to hear was the utterance of names which
she had loved once but of late almost forgotten. They came back now, and,
the service having turned her heart to softness, she welcomed them gladly
as friends returned from afar. For the rest, the Litany it was which roused
Joan to deepest interest and opened her mind to new impressions. Here was a
prayer, gigantic in length, universal, all-embracing, catholic beyond the
compass of anything her thoughts had heretofore conceived. From the Queen
upon her throne to Joan herself, from the bishops, the princes and the
Lords of the Council to Uncle Chirgwin and his fruits of the earth, that
astounding petition ranged with equal vigor and earnestness. Nothing was
too high, nothing was too low for it; all the world was named, and the
people cried for a hearing or for mercy between each supplication and each
prayer. The overwhelming majesty of such praying impressed Joan much; as,
indeed, it impresses all who come adult thereto and do not associate it
with their childhood, with weary hours dragging interminably out, with
sleepy buzz of voices, with sore knees or a breaking back, with yearnings
stifled, with devices for passing time, with the longed-for sunshine
stealing inch by inch eastward on the church walls.
"A power o' larnin' in a small headpiece," commented Uncle Chirgwin as he
drove home with the girls sitting side by side on his left. "A braave
ch'ice o' words an' a easy knowledge o' the saints as weern't picked up in
a day. Tis well to hear a furriner now an' again. They do widen the grasp
of a man's mind, looking 'pon things from a changed point o' view. Not as
us could be 'spected to be Latiners, yet I seem 'tis very well to listen to
it as chance offers. 'Tis something to knaw 'twas Latin, an' that did I,
though I doubt some o' the good neighbors couldn' tell it for what 'twas,
by no means."
Joan said little about the service, but she praised the Litany from her own
peculiar attitude toward it.
"That be fine prayin'," she said, "with nobody forgot, an' all in black
print so's wance said 'tedn' lost."
After dinner, when Mary had gone to see a friend and the farm people were
dawdling abroad till evening milking-time, Joan made her uncle read the
service through again. This he did comfortably between the whiffs of his
pipe, and Joan answered the responses, cooing them in her sweet voice as
softly as the red and blue pigeons crooned on the roof outside. Drift was
asleep under a hot blaze of afternoon sunshine. Sometimes a child's keen
voice in the road cut the drowsy silence and came to Joan's ears where she
sat, in the best parlor with Uncle Thomas; sometimes slow wheels rumbled up
the hill toward Buryan. Other sounds there were none. The old people slept
within their cottages after the extra baked meats of Sunday's dinner; many
of the young paired and walked where pathways ran over meadows and through
yellowing wheat; while others, more gregarious and unattached, had tramped
away to Penzance to join the parade by the sea and meet their friends from
the shops.
Anon nailed boots stamped up the little pathway to Drift farmhouse, and Tom
Tregenza appeared. To-day he entered fearlessly, for he came upon an errand
from his father. He kissed Joan and shook hands with Uncle Thomas. Then he
said:
"'Tis a letter as I've brought for Joan--a furriner."
The girl's heart beat hard, and the blood rushing from her cheeks left them
white. But the letter only came from Joe Noy, and it is certain that Mr.
Tregenza would have forwarded no other. Excitement died, and was painfully
renewed, in a fresh direction, when Joan realized from whom the missive
came and thought about its writer. He had long been a stranger to her mind,
and now he seemed suddenly to re-enter it--like a stranger.
"I can stay for a bit of tea so long as I be back by chapel-time,"
explained Tom.
"An' so you shall, my son. Run 'e out o' doors an' amoose yourself where
you mind to; awnly don't ope the lil linhay in the Brook Croft, 'cause auld
bull's fastened up theer an' his temper's gettin' more'n more out o' hand."
So Tom departed, and Uncle Chirgwin read Joan's letter aloud to her. It
came from Santa Rosalia, and contained not much news but plenty of love and
some religious sentiments bred from the writer's foreign environment. Joe
Noy would be back in England again before the end of the year.
Joan was reduced to tears by this communication. She refused to be
comforted, and, indeed, the position was beyond Uncle Chirgwin's power to
brighten. The letter had come at a bad moment, and that calm and repose
which almost appeared to be softening Joan's sorrows now spread speedy
wings and departed, leaving her wholly forlorn. Curtains were falling
behind her, but curtains were also rising in front. She had looked forward
vaguely, and now the position was suddenly defined by the arrival of Joe's
letter, with all its future phases clear-cut, cold and terrible.
"My baaby's comin' just then. An' that's what'll fall 'pon his ear fust
thing. Oh, if us could awnly tell en afore he comes so he might knaw 'tis
all chaanged! 'Twould be easier for en, lovin' me that keen. He'd grawed to
be a shadder of a man in my mind; but now I sees en real flaish'n blood;
an' maybe--maybe he'll seek me out an' kill me for what's done."
"I do creem to hear 'e, gal! No, no, Joe Noy's a God fearin' sawl."
"If he'd forgive me fust, I'd so soon he killed me as not. Sam Martin
killed Widow Garth's gal 'cause she were ontrue to en; an' a many said
'twas wrong to hang en to Bodmin. Death's my deserts, same as Ann Garth;
an' she got it; an' I doan't care how soon I do. None wants me no more, nor
what I'm breedin' neither. I'd die now, an' smilin', if 'tweern't for
arterwards."
"Cuss the letter!" said Uncle Chirgwin, getting red in the face. "Cuss it,
I says, for gwaine an' turnin' up just this day! A fortnight later you
could 'a' looked on it wi' quiet mind an' knawed wheer to turn; to-day's
it's just bin an' undone what was done. Not but what 'tis as butivul a
letter as ever comed off the sea; but if theer'd awnly been time to
'stablish 'e 'fore it comed! Now you've turned your back 'pon the Household
o' Faith just as arms was being stretched out that lovin'."
"Faith won't undo what I've done, nor yet make my wickedness fall lighter
for Joe. Yes, 'twas wicked, wicked, wicked. I knaw it now."
Mary and Tom came in from different directions about this time. The latter
had regaled himself with a peep at "auld bull," heard the terrific snorting
of his nostrils and observed how he bellowed mightily at durance on such an
afternoon. Tea being finished, the boy started homeward with a basket of
fresh eggs and butter, a pound of cream and some early apples of a sort
used for cider, but yet equal to the making of a pie.
"As for the butter, 'tis Joan's churnin'," said Mary, "but you'd best not
to tell your faither that, else, so like's not, he'll pitch it into the
sea. If us could send en a pound o' charity, I doubt he'd be better for't."
"Faither's a holy man, whatever else he be," said Tom stoutly. "He doan't
want for no good qualities like, 'cause what he doan't knaw 'bout God edn'
worth knawin'."
Mary laughed. It was a feat she seldom performed, and the sound of her
amusement lacked joy.
"Well, us won't argue 'bout en. You'm right to say that. Be the basket too
heavy for 'e?"
"No! not likely. Have 'e ever seed my forearm, Polly?"
"Never. I will another time. Best be gwaine, else you'll be late for
chapel."
So Tom marched off, and Mary, returning to the house, heard of Joan's
letter.
The old gusts of misery, sorrow, indignation, rose in her heart again then,
but faintly, like the dying flutter of winds that have blown themselves
out. She tried to find a way of bringing comfort to her cousin, but failed.
Joan had retired and refused consolation.
The glory of splendid summer hours passed away; the long twilight sank to
darkness; the opal lights in the west at last died under the silver of the
moon. And then, like a child weary with crying, Joan slept, while Mary,
creeping a third time to see and speak with her, departed silently. But she
did not sleep; and her wakefulness was fortunate, for long after eleven
o'clock came a noisy summons at the outer door. Looking from her room which
faced the front of the house, the woman saw Tom with his full basket
standing clearly defined below. The world of the weald and woods shimmered
silvery in dew and moonlight. Infinite silence reigned. Then the boy's
small, indignant voice broke it.
"You'll have to let me in, I reckon. Blamed if I doan't think you was right
'bout faither arter all."
The reason for Tom's return may be briefly told. He had taken his basket
home and got it safely under cover to his mother. Then, after chapel, Gray
Michael went into the village, and Thomasin had an opportunity to ask some
of those questions she was burning to put.
"An' how be Joan?" she began.
"Wisht an' drawed thin 'bout the faace seemin'ly. An' Joe's letter just
made her cry fit to bust her eyes, 'stead o' cheerin' of her like."
"Poor lass. I dedn' expect nothin' differ'nt. I've most a mind to go up
Drift an' see her--for a reason I've thot upon. Did Joan say anythin' 'bout
a last will an' testament to 'e?"
"No, nothin' 'bout anything worth namin'. But Polly had a deal to say. Her
wished her could send faither a pound o' charity 'stead o' butter."
"She dared!"
At that moment Mr. Tregenza returned to supper, and soon afterward his son
went to bed. The lad had not been asleep half an hour before Gray Michael
came across the basket from Drift. Two minutes later Tom heard the thunder
of his father's voice.
"Tom! you come down here an' be sharp about it!"
The boy tumbled out of bed instantly, and went down to the kitchen in his
nightshirt and trousers. Michael Tregenza was standing by the table. Upon
it appeared the basket from Drift, stored with cream, butter, eggs and
apples. Thomasin sat in the low chair by the fire with her apron over her
face, and that was always a bad sign, as Tom knew.
"What day be this, bwoy?" began Michael.
"The Lard's, faither."
"Ay: the Lard's awn day, though you've forgot it seemin'ly."
"No I abbun, faither."
"Doan't 'e answer me 'cept I tells you to. Where did these things come
from?"
"Drift, faither. Uncle Chirgwin bid me bring 'em with his respects."
"Did you tell en 'twas breakin' the commandments?"
"No, faither."
"Why didn't 'e? You knawed it yourself."
"Iss, faither; but uncle's a ancient man, an' I guessed he knawed so well
as me, an' I reckoned 'twould be sauce for such as me to say anything to a
auld, gray body like him."
"Sinners is all colors an' ages. Another time doan't you do what's wrong,
whether 'tis auld or young as tempts 'e to't. You'm a Luke Gosp'ler, an' it
edn' being a shinin' light 'tall to go wrong just because wan as did ought
to knaw wiser an' doan't, tells 'e to. Now you can lace on your boots, as
soon as you'm minded to, an' traapse up Drift with that theer basket an'
all in it. 'Twon't harm godless folks to wake 'em an' faace 'em with their
wrongdoing. An' I lay you'll remember another time."
Tom, knowing that words would be utterly wasted, went back to his attic,
dressed, and started. He had the satisfaction of eating apples in the
moonlight and of posing as a bitterly wronged boy at Drift when Mary came
down, lighted a candle, and let him into the house.
Uncle Chirgwin also appeared, and said some hard things in a sleepy voice,
while Tom drank cider and ate a big slice of bread and bacon.
"A terrible Old Testament man, your faither, sure 'nough," said Uncle
Chirgwin. "Be you gwaine to stop the night 'long o' us or no?"
"Not me! I got to be in the bwoat 'fore half-past five to-morrer marnin'."
"This marnin' 'tis," said Mary, "or will be in a few minutes. An' you can
tell your faither what I said 'bout charity, if you like. I sez it again,
an' it won't hurt en to knaw."
"But it might hurt me to tell. The less said soonest mended wi' faither."
Tom departed, the lighter for his basket. He flung a stone at a hare,
listened to the jarring of a night-hawk, and finally returned home about
one o'clock. Both his parents were awaiting him, and the boy saw that his
mother had been enduring some trouble on his behalf.
"Mind, my son, hencefarrard that the Sabbath is the Lard thy God's. You may
have done others a good turn besides yourself this night."
"What did they say, Tom?" asked his mother.
"They wasn't best pleased. They said a hard sayin' I'd better not to say
agin," answered the boy, heavy with sleep.
"Let it be. Us doan't want to hear it. Get you to bed. An', mind, the bwoat
at the steps by half-past five to-morrer."
"Ay, ay, faither."
Then Tom vanished, his parents went to their rest, and the cottage on the
cliff slept within the music of the sea, its thatch all silver-bright under
a summer moon.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A BARGAIN FOR MRS. TREGENZA
To the superficial eye dead hopes leave ugly traces; viewed more
inquiringly the cryptic significance of them appears; and that is often
beautiful. Joan's soul looked out of her blue eyes now. Seen thoughtfully
her beauty was refined and exalted to an exquisite perfection; but the
unintelligent observer had simply pronounced her pale and thin. The event
which first promised to destroy the new-spun gossamers of a religious faith
and break them even on the day of their creation, in reality acted
otherwise. For Joan, Joe's letter was like a window opening upon a hopeless
dawn; and her helplessness before this spectacle of the future threw the
girl upon religion--not as a sure rock in the storm of her life, but as a
straw to the hand of the drowning. The world had nothing else left in it
for her. She, to whom sunshine and happiness were the breath of life, she
who had envied butterflies their joyous being, now stood before a future
all uphill and gray, lonely and loveless. As yet but the dawn of affection
for the unborn child lightened her mind. Thought upon that subject went
hand in hand with fear of pain. And now, in her dark hours, Joan happily
did not turn to feed upon her own heart, but fled from it. For distraction
she read the four Gospels feverishly day by day, and she prayed long to the
Lord of them by night.
Mary helped her in an earnest, cheerless fashion, and before her cousin's
solicitude, Joan's eyes opened to another thought: the old friendship
between Mary and Joe Noy. It had wakened once, on her first arrival at
Drift, then slept again till now. She was troubled to see the other woman's
indifference, and she formed plans to bring these two together again. The
act of getting away from herself and thinking for others brought some
comfort to her heart and seemed to rise indirectly out of her reading.
The Christianity of Drift was old-fashioned, and reflected the Founder. No
distractions rose between Joan and the story. She took it at first hand,
escaping thus from those petty follies and fooleries which blight and fog
the real issues today. She sucked her new faith pure. A noble rule of
conduct lay before her; she dimly discerned something of its force; and
unselfishness appeared in her, proving that she had read aright. As for the
dogma, she opened her arms to that very readily because it was beautiful
and promised so much. Faith's votaries never turn critical eyes upon the
foundations of her gorgeous fabric; their sight is fixed aloft on the
rainbow towers and pinnacles, upon the golden fanes. And yet this man-born
structure of theology, with aisles and pillars fretting and crumbling under
the hand of reason, needs such eternal propping, restoring and repairing,
that priestly tinkers, masons, hod-carriers are solely occupied with it.
They grapple and fight for the poor shadows of dogma by which they live,
and, so engaged, the spirit and substance of religion is by them altogether
lost. None of the Christian churches will ever be overcrowded with men who
possess brain-power worthy the name. Mediocrity and ignorance may starve,
but talent and any new nostrum to strangle reason and keep the rot from the
fabric will always open their coffers.
Joan truly found the dogma more grateful and comforting than anything else
within her experience, and the apparition of a flesh and blood God, who had
saved her with His own life's blood before she was born, appeared too
beautiful and sufficing to be less than true. Her eyes, shut so long,
seemed opening at last. With errors that really signify nothing, she drew
to herself great truths that matter much and are vital to all elevated
conduct. She thought of other people and looked at them as one wakened from
sleep. And, similarly, she looked at Nature. Even her vanished lover had
not taught her all. There were truths below the formulae of his worship;
there were secrets deeper than his intellectual plummet had ever sounded.
Without understanding it, Joan yet knew that a change had come to pass in
material things. Sunshine on the deep sea hid more matters for wonder than
John Barron had taught or known. Once only as yet had she caught a glimpse
of Nature's beating heart; and that was upon the occasion of her visit to
St. Madron's chapel. She was lifted up then for a magic hour; but the lurid
end of that day looked clearer afterward than ever the dewy dawn of it.
Nature had smiled mutely and dumbly at her sufferings for long months since
then. But now added knowledge certainly grew, and from a matrix mightier
than the love of Nature or of man, was Joan's new life born. It embraced a
new sight, new senses, ambitions, fears and hopes.
Joan went to church at every opportunity. Faith seemed so easy, and soon so
necessary. Secret prayer became a real thing to be approached with joy. To
own to sins was as satisfactory as casting down a heavy burden at a
journey's end; to confess them to God was to know that they were forgiven.
There were not many clouds in her religious sky. As Mary's religion was
bounded by her own capabilities and set forth against a background of
gloom, which never absolutely vanished save in moments of rare exaltation,
so Joan's newfound faith took upon itself an aspect of sunshine. Her clouds
were made beautiful by the new light; they did not darken it. Mary's gray
Cornish mind kept sentiment out of sight. She lived with clear eyes always
focusing reality as it appeared to her. Heaven was indeed a pleasanter
eternal fact than hell; yet the place of torment existed on Bible
authority; and it was idle to suppose it existed for nothing. Grasping
eternity as a truth, she occupied herself in strenuous preparation; which
preparation took the form of good works and personal self-denial. Joan
belonged to an order of emotional creatures widely different. She loved the
beautiful for its own sake, kept her face to the sun when it shone,
shivered and shut up like a scarlet pimpernel if bad weather was abroad.
And now a chastened sunshine, daily growing stronger, shot through the
present clouds, painted beauty on their fringes, and lighted the darkness
of their recesses so that even the secrets of suffering were fitfully
revealed. Joan grasped at new thoughts, the outcome of her new road.
Nature presently seemed of a nobler face, and certain immemorial
achievements of man also flashed out in the side-light of the new
convictions; as objects, themselves inconsiderable, will suddenly develop
unsuspected splendors from change of standpoint in the beholder. The magic
of that Christianity, which Joan now received directly from her Bible,
wrought and embroidered a new significance into many things. And it worked
upon none as upon the old crosses, some perfect still, some ruined as to
arm or shaft, some quite worn out and gnawed by time from their original
semblance. These dotted her native land. Them she had always loved, but now
they appeared marvelously transfigured, and the soul hid in their granite
beamed through it. Supposing the true menhirs to be but ruined crosses
also, Joan shed on them no scantier affection than upon the less venerable
Brito-Celtic records of Christianity. Bid so to do, and prompted also by
her inclination, the girl was wont to take walks of some length for her
health's sake; and these had an object now. As her dead mother's legends
came back to her memory and knit Nature to her new Saviour, so the
weather-beaten stones brought Him likewise nearer, marked the goal of
precious daily pilgrimages, and filled a sad young life with friends.
Returning from a visit to Tremathick cross, where it stands upon a little
mound on the St. Just road, Joan heard a thin and well-known voice before
she saw the speaker. It was Mrs. Tregenza, who had walked over to drink tea
and satisfy herself on sundry points respecting her stepdaughter.
"Oh, my Guy Faux, Polly!" she said upon arriving, "I'm in a reg'lar take to
be here, though I knaws Michael's t'other side the islands an' won't fetch
home 'fore marnin'. I've comed 'cause I couldn't keep from it no more.
How's her doin', poor tibby lamb, wi' all them piles o' money tu. Not that
money did ought to make a differ'nce, but it do, an' that's the truth, an'
it edn' no good makin' as though it doan't. What a world, to be sure! An'
that letter from Noy? I knaw you was fond of en likewise in your time. The
sadness of it! Just think o' that mariner comin' home 'pon top o' this
mishap."
Mary winced and answered coldly that the world was full of mishaps and of
sadness.
"The man must face sorrer same as what us all have got to, Mrs. Tregenza.
Some gets more, some gets less, as the sparks fly up'ard. Joe Noy's got
religion tu."
Mary spoke the last words with some bitterness, which she noted too late
and set against herself for a sin.
"Oh, my dear sawl," said Mrs. Tregenza, looking round nervously, as though
she feared the shadow of her husband might be listening. "Luke Gosp'ling's
a mighty uncomfortable business, though I lay Tregenza'd most kill me if he
heard the word. 'Tedn' stomachable to all, an' I doubts whether 'twill be a
chain strong enough to hold Joe Noy, when he comes back to find this coil.
'Tis a kicklish business an' I wish 'twas awver. Joe's a fiery feller when
he reckons he's wronged; an' there ban't no balm to this hurt in Gosp'ling,
take it as you will. I tell you, in your ear awnly, that Luke Gosp'lers
graw ferocious like along o' the wickedness o' the airth. Take Michael, as
walks wi' the Lard, same as Moses done; an' the more he do, the ferociouser
he do get. Religion! He stinks o' religion worse than ever Newlyn stinks o'
feesh; he goes in fear o' God to his marrow; an' yet 'tis uncomfortable,
now an' then, to live wi' such a righteous member. Theer's a sourness along
of it. Luke Gosp'ling doan't soften the heart of en."
"It should," said Mary.