THORSBY’S FALL AND CONVERSION.
The early married days of Letty Woodburn seemed perfect in their
felicity. Often she used to drive over in the handsome open carriage
which Thorsby kept chiefly for her use, and whenever she came it
was with all the flush of happy life and gaiety about her. She
seemed to like her town life, and the new circle of friends that her
marriage had introduced her to, yet she always appeared to inhale
a fresh draught of joy as she sat in the old rooms, rambled round
the old garden, and saw the accustomed objects and people about her
as formerly. “Oh!” she would say, “how charming are these dear old
scenes—how glad am I that I can so readily come back to them!” She
and Thorsby generally spent their Sundays there, and he was ever in
the best of spirits, and even Betty Trapps had somewhat relented
towards him—It was observed that he scarcely ever had a jibe at
Methodists, evidently out of care not to hurt Betty’s feelings,
though, as he expressed it, he often trod on her corns by laughing at
her friends, Sylvanus Crook and David Qualm. He had bought somewhere,
and brought one day, a highly coloured engraving, all bright
blue, red, and yellow, of Shon-ap-Morgan-ap-Shenkin-ap-Gwillim, a
shentleman of Wales—as the inscription under it expressed it—going
to take possession of his father’s estate, riding on a goat. This
he said he was going to present to Howell Crusoe, the village
schoolmaster, as a pleasing memento of his native country. All the
Woodburn family begged of him not to do it, saying it would hurt
the worthy schoolmaster’s feelings, and Betty Trapps said she saw
that Mr. Thorsby had some of th’ owd aggravating spirit in him. But
Thorsby would take it to Crusoe: and to the astonishment of all the
Woodburns the schoolmaster accepted it, and hung it up in his house,
as a pleasant joke of Mister Thorsby’s. He seemed to think it an
honour to have so much notice from him. He presented Thorsby with the
little book, already mentioned, that he had printed in Castleborough,
of all things and subjects—on etiquette! It was meant for the help
of country schoolmasters like himself in forming the manners of
village children. It was founded on his practice, and certainly was a
curiosity in its way. Copies of it, I believe, are yet to be procured
in the midland counties. Thorsby was convulsed with laughter at its
rules, and read them with infinite gusto, not only at the Grange, but
among his friends in Castleborough.
Besides the fun Thorsby found in Howell Crusoe’s “Book of
Etiquette,” he often brought amusing anecdotes from Fair Manor,
where he and Letty frequently took tea. Sylvanus, he said, told him
seriously that he was very much concerned to find an utter want of
conscience in dogs. They are called, he said, very faithful and
affectionate animals, but it was, he added, a lamentable fact, that,
like too many of their masters, they had no conscience whatever; they
were really nothing but time-servers. This he discovered by watching
a number of puppies that he had been training. He had tutored them
to avoid going on the garden beds, and they knew their duty so well,
that as long as any one was in sight they never set a foot on the
beds. Yet somehow he observed that there were prints of their feet
all over the newly-dug ground. How could this be? He resolved to
watch. He walked about the garden with these young dogs, now half
grown. Not one ever offered to wander from the walks, but no sooner
did he enter his house, and look cautiously out of the window, than
he saw them all deliberately walk on to the beds and behave very
badly there. A very slight rap at the window, and they all ran off,
and looked very much taken in. Yet, time after time, as he tried the
experiment, he found them still ready to run on the beds whenever
they thought nobody saw them. “They know their duty,” said Sylvanus,
“as well as I do—but the fact is, they have no conscience.”
Sylvanus, Thorsby said, sincerely believed that spirits appeared
sometimes, and the reason he gave for it was, that it is said in the
Scriptures that the souls of the righteous shall see the fruits of
their labours and be satisfied, and from the same rule, he expected,
he said, that the wicked would be sent back to see the fruits of
_their_ labours, their avarice, their spending their lives in folly,
their abuses of their power; and that this was part of their
torment. He thought it must be a very racking thing for miserly men
to see their heirs wasting their gold in folly and sin.
He related with great glee the dilemma into which such a grave
Friend and acute man of business as Mr. Heritage had fallen. A lady
of the Society, a woman of fortune, living some miles out of town,
had come under the dealings of the meeting for her infringements
of its practices, in dressing gaily, and having much free and easy
intercourse with the aristocratic families around her. As she
did not reform after repeated official visits and admonitions,
even committing the enormity of going to the theatre, she was
formally disowned—that is, excommunicated. In drawing up the minute
of disownment, the Friends had unadvisedly worded the cause of
disownment as for “disorderly walking.” This imputation on a lady,
Mrs. Jerram noticeably resented, and as Mr. Heritage was the clerk
of the meeting, she commenced an action against him at law for
defamation. The trial, which took place in Castleborough, went in
her favour, and brought her heavy damages. The damages, of course,
were borne by the Society, but Mr. Heritage was so much annoyed at
being thus made so prominent in the case against a lady, and his own
cousin, too, that he resigned the office of clerk, lest he might fall
into other such snares. Mrs. Jerram begged her cousin Heritage not to
think for a moment that she bore the least ill-will to him personally
on account of this offensive document; she excused him on account of
his only discharging his official duty. To show her perfect freedom
from resentment, but not, perhaps, without a little triumph on the
occasion, she often drove over to Fair Manor, and made herself as
agreeable as possible. “But,” said Sylvanus, “thou canst imagine that
these visits were not quite so agreeable to my master. People don’t
like, the best of them, to be publicly beaten, and ridiculed, as
they are in such cases.”
“Well,” said Thorsby, “but you Friends should be more regenerate and
forgiving than all that.”
“True,” replied Sylvanus, “it would be better, but it is difficult to
purge the old Adam quite out of us. I fear that there may be a little
of the old Adam in myself, but I try to keep him down, and I trust he
will not be permitted to obtain undue influence. I earnestly desire
to be led and guided right.”
“Ah, don’t trust too much to that leading and guiding you talk so
much about,” said Thorsby; “for two of your friends came to my house
awhile ago, saying they were moved to come and speak to me as a
wild young man, and these were no other than your William Fairfax
and David Qualm; and, would you believe it? in going out they took
a wrong door, and Fairfax fell down my low kitchen stairs and hurt
himself confoundedly. Mind, Sylvanus, that you are better led and
guided than that.”
“Thou likes a jest, friend Thorsby; but I was going to tell thee the
clever way my master got rid of Mary Jerram’s visits.”
“Ah, by all means,” said Thorsby.
“Well, thou sees,” continued Sylvanus, “Mary Jerram drove up one day,
ordered her horses to be taken out, and laid herself out for a long
day of it. She stayed all morning; she stayed dinner. The master came
home, and, notwithstanding, she stayed tea. She sat and talked, and
talked, and particularly directed her discourse to master. At length,
as it was getting late, master said to her, ‘Mary, although thou hast
left Friends, I suppose thou still remembers something of Scripture.’
“‘To be sure,’ replied Mary Jerram. ‘Remember Scripture! What do you
mean? I am not so disorderly in my walk as to forget that.’
“‘Then,’ said master, ‘thou knowest that the Scriptures say, “If
thine enemy hunger, give him meat, if he thirst give him drink;” but
I don’t think it says anything about lodgings.’
“Thou shouldst have seen the effect of that,” said Sylvanus, highly
delighted. “Since then Mary Jerram has not found her way to Fair Manor
again.”
Thorsby was never without some jocose talk of this kind at his visits
to the Grange. But time rolled on, and there were rumours that the
charge of being a wild young man, which the Friends had made against
him, was not entirely without foundation. His old jovial companions
had drawn him again too much into their society and convivialities.
Letty made no complaints on this head, though as time went on her
own family thought they saw occasionally a more careful expression
on her countenance. Nothing, however, could exceed the affectionate
terms on which they seemed to be; nothing could betoken more love
and admiration than Thorsby’s manner to his wife. There appeared
no reserve, no concealment between them, and the Woodburns thought
there could be no serious cause of complaint betwixt two so obviously
happy. But time still rolled on, and in due course a little son was
born. With what pride Letty on her next visit to the Grange showed
the newest Woodburn to the grandfather,—mother and sister and George
had already taken their view of the miniature youth in Castleborough.
With what pride she told her father that she was charmed with the
opportunity of giving the name of Leonard—Leonard Woodburn Thorsby—to
a fresh claimant of the honours and virtues of the house! Thorsby
was himself no less proud of the young aspirant to manhood. It was,
according to him, the finest, the largest, the cleverest child of
its age that he had ever seen; but, in fact, before he had never
paid much attention to very young children, but seemed to think them
something very like fat caterpillars, with apple-dumpling faces.
But was it the joy and pride of his heart that often sent him out
in an evening amongst his jolly companions, and sent him home late,
sometimes not very good-tempered? True it was that though Thorsby was
one of the best of husbands, tender, kind, anxious, solicitous that
his wife should have everything to make her happy, yet his ways of
making himself happy caused, by degrees, serious inroads into Letty’s
happiness. Often he not only came home late, but in a condition that
he called prime and gay as a lord, but which created very serious
fears in his wife’s mind. When he was in a less lordlike mood she
continued to intreat him to stay with her and read to her at her
needlework, or to go and see some of his more domestic friends. What
must become of her, she asked, if he contracted an unconquerable
habit of taking too much wine?
“Too much wine!” he would reply. “What are you talking about, my dear
child? Too much wine! Why, I tell you, we are all as sober as judges.
It is not wine, it is only a little hilarity that we like at the
club. When a man has been fagging all day in the counting-house, why,
dear me, one must have a little talk and laughter to brighten one up.
But never do you fear. I know what I am about. I am not going to make
an ass of myself.”
Letty thought that he used to find her society refreshing and
enlivening once. “And so I do now,” he would say; “but one cannot
always be tied to one’s wife’s apron-strings. But I know what it
is, Letty: it is these old fogies and Quakers that you have got
acquainted with; they make you think all mirth is a sin, and they go
about saying I am a wild young man. That’s it, Letty dear, that’s
it. Now I am not going to be a wild young man; in fact, I think I
am getting rather old and serious; but I’ll ‘wild-young-man’ those
frouzy Quakers—mark me, if I don’t.”
With these ideas rankling in his mind, Thorsby one day riding from
Woodburn where his wife was staying a few days, saw coming on the
road towards him Mr. Jasper Heritage, a tall man, on his tall horse,
and little squabby David Qualm on his stout and squably Welsh pony.
Thorsby well knew that all Welsh ponies are, more or less, skittish,
and that Taffy, Qualm’s pony, was excessively so. As the two Friends
drew near, therefore, Thorsby took off his hat as if in compliment
to them. The moment he lifted it from his head Mr. Heritage shouted,
“Keep on thy hat, Henry Thorsby! keep on thy hat!” But Thorsby not
only did not put it on again, but he gave it a great flourish as
if in extreme politeness; and, it was the work of a moment,—David
Qualm’s pony started sideways to the farther side of the road, and
left him lying on his back in the middle of it.
Thorsby, who was now afraid, seeing the heavy little man lying
motionless, that he might have done more mischief than he intended,
sprang from his horse, and ran to lift up the man of silence. But
as he nearly reached him, David found the use of his limbs and his
tongue, and raising himself on one elbow, his three-cornered hat and
brown wig having deserted him; with bare head and wild staring eyes,
he swung his one arm furiously, and cried like a maniac,—“Avaunt! son
of Belial! Avaunt! Touch me not, man of sin!”
Mr. Heritage, who had also descended from his horse, gently pushed
Thorsby away, saying, “Let alone! Take thyself away, Henry Thorsby.
This is what I could not have expected of thee.”
Thorsby would still have assisted to lift up and wipe the dust from
David Qualm, but Mr. Heritage would not let him, but carefully raised
his old friend and relative, and began to beat the dust from his
coat. Thorsby muttered some sort of an apology—something about his
not meaning any harm—but David cast a lion’s glance at him, and said,
“Thou liest, man! Thou liest! Thou meant it, and nothing less.”
Thorsby, who did not think David was much hurt, mounted and rode
rapidly off. When he was out of hearing, he gave vent to an
uproarious laughter, and said, “A wild young man, indeed! Not so
wild but he can keep his seat better than some people.” He was so
elated with his exploit that he that evening told the story with much
humour and some embellishment at the club, to the exquisite delight
of his friends, and the next day it was all over the town. Amongst
the lighter and more giddy of the population it was thought a very
clever paying-off of the censorious Friend; amongst the older and
more thinking people it was regarded in a very different light, and
such a dangerous trick played off on a very quiet and inoffensive
man, by no means told in favour of Thorsby. The serious manner in
which Mr. Heritage spoke of it amongst his friends made a deep
impression, and it was regarded as a very impolitic act in Thorsby,
who, though his wife stood so well with the wealthy banker, might, in
times of commercial depression, find it much to his inconvenience to
have sunk in his esteem.
Many things were spoken out on this occasion which had evidently lain
for some time in people’s minds. Wonder was expressed at the growing
dissipation of Thorsby. Of his notoriously riotous and bacchanalian
evenings with some of the richest but most immoral young men of the
place. Some people wondered that his wife did not appear to see it;
more uttered words of pity for her. Others said “What a fool that
man is, with such a wife, with a splendid business, with a circle of
acquaintances of the very first class in the town and neighbourhood,
and to be running such a course. But it was only the course his
father ran, and which made it a short one for him.”
The news flew to Woodburn. Sukey Priddo told it that evening on the
way from the class-meeting to Betty Trapps, and Betty told it right
out to Letty. As she waited on the family at supper, she said, “Well,
Mr. Thorsby is a fine playful boy yet, is not he?”
“Is what?” said Letty, eagerly.
“A fine, frocksome boy,” said Betty.
“What do you mean, Betty?” added Letty, alarmed.
“I mean only that he has whisked his hat over his head, and made Mr.
Qualm’s pony send _him_ over his head.”
“Are you dreaming?” said Mr. Woodburn, somewhat angrily.
“No, sir, I am not dreaming, what I say I say; and there lies poor
Mr. Qualm in bed, all shaked to a mummy, and the doctor’s bled him
and said it is a bad case.”
All called on Betty to explain how it took place, and Letty was
greatly agitated.
“Oh!” said George, “I see how it is. Harry has taken off his hat to
the Friends as they passed, and that scamp of a pony has shied. But
he cannot have hurt the old man; falling from that little brute is
only like falling from a chair.”
“What does a sober man like that ride such a skittish thing for?”
asked Mr. Woodburn.
“Because,” said George, “I was going to say, he is an old fool; but
the fact is people always do ride animals like themselves.”
“What! Do you think a man like a horse?” exclaimed Ann.
“To a certain degree,” said George, “a little podgy man like David
Qualm is sure to select a little podgy horse, a tall slim fellow
fancies only a tall slim horse, and so on. It is the same with
sticks; men always carry sticks very like themselves, slender or
stout, clean or knotty and gnarled: and dogs too, have always a
certain resemblance to their masters. And wives—people wonder that
husbands and wives are often so alike. It is because men see a
likeness to themselves in a woman, and that delights them. They fall
in love with their own dear selves in falling in love with a woman.
But enough; you can discuss this bit of philosophy while I run up and
see how poor old David really is.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you, George!” said Letty, as George took down
his hat and disappeared. In a very short time he returned, and said—
“I’ve seen Qualm. He has not much amiss with him, but he is very
angry with Harry, who, however, only seems to have taken off his hat
to compliment the gentlemen as they passed. True, David says they
cried out to him to keep his hat on, but the fact was, the hat was
off when they cried out. You might as well tell a man not to shoot
when he has already pulled the trigger.”
“I don’t see, then,” said Letty, “that Harry was really to blame; it
was only his courtesy.”
“Of course not,” said George; and Letty, much relieved, went off with
the other ladies to bed.
When she was gone, George said to his father, “I would not make
Letty anxious, or she would be tormenting herself all night, but I
don’t at all like this doing of Thorsby’s. It was clearly a designed
thing of his, from what I hear. I know he has a pique against David
Qualm; and, in fact, I am very anxious about Thorsby. I hear in
Castleborough continually of his wild goings-on with that scapegrace
set of young fellows that I hoped he had long ago cut.”
“I have heard the same,” said Mr. Woodburn, “and have spoken more
than once to Thorsby on the subject, and he has always promised to
reform; but my opinion is that he is just as weak as a bulrush. He
can’t help himself. It is a very serious affair.”
“Well,” said George, “there always was an excitable nature in
Thorsby. He has very quick feelings for good, and if not for evil, at
least for pleasure, and what he calls jollity. I had hoped that Letty
would have been able to keep him more at home, but he always says he
must have a little innocent larking, he should go daft without it.”
“He will go daft with it,” said Mr. Woodburn, “if he does not mind.”
Leonard Woodburn had had other causes of annoyance of late to try
his temper, of which anon, and he felt very keenly the conduct of
Thorsby towards his daughter.
“I have long thought,” he said “that Letty is far from happy. I see
a gravity about her, a shade over her countenance sometimes, that I
never saw before her marriage.”
“Yes, but remember, dear father, that she is now a wife and a mother;
we cannot expect people to remain always the lightsome beings of
their boy or girlhood.”
“I expect nothing of the sort,” said Mr. Woodburn, rather tartly;
“but I did expect that this fellow would not be such a fool. It
is a confounded bad job, George, and makes me very cross and very
miserable. Good-night.” And Mr. Woodburn withdrew to bed.
It was soon found that great censure was cast on Thorsby for his
conduct in this affair, and the knowledge of it seemed to anger him,
and to drive him into further excesses. For the first time he turned
almost savagely on Letty, when, on her return home, she expressed
regret at what had happened.
“An old fool,” he said; “he should ride a safe horse, and not such a
will-o’-the-wisp as that Welsh pony, and then no harm could happen to
him.”
“But you knew, dear Harry, what the pony was,” said Letty. “I wish
you had not done it. But as it is done, do, pray, call on Mr. Qualm
and apologize to him: a soft word, you know, turneth away wrath. And
call on Mr. Heritage and express your regret. We were on such good
terms with them all, and they are such worthy people.”
“Do you think me such a sneak, Letty?” said Thorsby, taking up his
hat to go out to business. “Don’t you believe it.”
Letty knew a great deal more of Thorsby’s life than had yet reached
Woodburn, but she had buried it and the sorrow of it in her heart,
and would not breathe a syllable of it except to God, which she did
with most fervent prayers and scalding tears. Many a report had come
to her from a most faithful quarter, and that was Thomas Barnsdale,
the manager of Thorsby’s business, a man who regarded the concern
and the reputation of his employer as his own. He was a Methodist
in religion, and a great reader of books of general literature of a
solid kind. He had grown up from a boy in the concern, and was ever
at his post, and ever regardless of his own labour to conduct it
to advantage. The unsteady life of Thorsby was all brought to his
knowledge, and he had not hesitated to speak seriously to him and
repeatedly, even at the risk of dismissal. He asked him earnestly
to recollect the shortened life and injured name and fortunes of
his father; and to act as he ought to do with such favour as God
had showered on him in such a wife, and in such friends all round.
Thorsby had taken these sermons, as he called them, not amiss,
but he had not altered. Every day Mr. Barnsdale heard of some wild
exploit of Thorsby and his comrades—practical jokes of the most
daring and expensive kind. One of these they had carried on at the
expense of a young surgeon of the town, whose vanity they had excited
by a letter written to him as from a lady of fortune at Bristol, who
had seen him at Castleborough, and fallen deeply in love with him. A
long correspondence had been kept up between the young man and the
imagined lady, the letters purporting to be from her having been
duly posted, and the young surgeon’s received by an accomplice at
Bristol. At length the _dénouément_ was to take place. The lady was
to meet him at Cheltenham; relays of horses were engaged for him at
the lady’s cost all the way from Castleborough to Cheltenham, where
he was to proceed in a private carriage, and there the marriage was
to take place by special licence. All was found by the young man
arranged as stated, and away he posted free-cost to Cheltenham, only
to find at the appointed rendezvous a letter from the improvised
lady, saying she had changed her mind.
This could not have been carried out except at an expense which none
but very foolish and very mischievous fellows would have incurred,
but the delight which it occasioned them, and the hints which they
from time to time gave to the hoaxed inamorato, that they knew of the
affair, seemed ample satisfaction to their perverted minds.
Time rolled on. Thorsby was looked very coldly on at Woodburn
Grange, at Fair Manor, and by many leading and right-thinking people
in Castleborough. Thomas Barnsdale felt it his duty to make Letty
acquainted with the downward course of her husband, that it might
not come in a more sudden and unexpected manner upon her. He could
now counsel with her, and work with her in attempts to check this
career, and it was a comfort to Letty to have such a faithful and
reliable friend to open her distressed mind to.
Providence at length sent one of those _contretemps_ which, if
properly weighed, lead to retracement. Thorsby, attending the hunt,
was thrown from his horse, and the shock that he received, owing
probably to the state of his system from intemperance, produced
pleurisy, and brought him to the brink of death. The physicians
looked very gloomily on the case, and Thorsby, with that quick
sensitiveness of feeling natural to him, fell into the greatest
condition of terror and despair. He made the most touching and
agonised confessions to his wife of his unworthiness of her, of his
folly and wickedness. Poor Letty only too freely forgave him, and
cheered him with hopes of life yet, or of forgiveness by an ever good
God, if he was taken away. Thorsby begged that she would send for
Mrs. Heritage that she might pray for him, and that through her he
might send his avowal of deep contrition to Mr. Heritage and David
Qualm. Letty at once sent the carriage for Mrs. Heritage, and that
ever-ready minister of love was speedily at his bed-side.
The repeated conversations and prayers of this good woman produced
in Thorsby a sense of remorse and kind of burning desire to live
and enact a new and nobler life, which were very edifying. In a
few days the doctors pronounced the crisis past, and Thorsby, in a
calmer state, was insatiable of the readings in the New Testament
which Letty afforded him. He recovered; but the effect of this
serious danger and alarm remained. A new phase of character now
revealed itself in him. He continued extremely burdened in spirit,
and zealously religious. He abandoned his club associates, and
accompanied his wife and Thomas Barnsdale to the meetings. But he
could not satisfy himself with merely attending religious services,
he felt himself compelled to stand forth and testify to the mercy of
God in thus again raising him up. Town and neighbourhood were one day
astonished beyond measure by seeing large placards posted all over
Castleborough and the neighbouring villages that Mr. Henry Thorsby
was going to preach at the Methodist Tabernacle.
We may imagine the laughter, the jibes and scoffs which ran amongst
his old associates and the profaner portion of the population
at this announcement. Thorsby turned preacher! Saul amongst the
prophets! Balaam’s ass about to open its mouth; were but a few of the
witticisms afloat. All his old associates were resolved to go and
hear Saint Harry’s conventicle whinings, which they prophesied would
last as many nights as days. At Woodburn, the state of mind on the
hearing of this news it would be difficult to analyse. Astonishment
was great, but not the uppermost feeling. As Church-people, there was
a touch of shame, of disgust, of mortification at Thorsby exhibiting
himself as an amateur preacher of dissent. Something of all these,
and something more. Would it last? David Qualm, when he heard of
it, and who, by the by, was all right again, and still riding that
ticklish pony, said, “Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel.” After
that great effort of oracular speech, he closed his mouth again and
was silent for a week.
But David Qualm’s utterance had an uneasy echo in the minds of many,
and the inmates of Woodburn Grange were amongst them. Letty, however,
said, “Anything, anything, rather than that old life of his,” and her
family, therefore, waited for what time should bring forth. On the
Sunday named, there was a general stream of life flowing towards
the tabernacle. Every possible atom of space in it was crowded. Many
of the leading people of the place were seen amongst the expectant
concourse. Letty herself was not there. The trial to her nerves was
too severe.
The regular minister opened the service by prayer and a hymn, and
then Thorsby ascended the pulpit, opened his Bible, and took his text
from the Psalms—“Thou hast brought me up from the gates of hell.” The
silence was profound. He then began by reference to his past life and
his late illness. There was no nervousness, no hesitation about him,
as in one unaccustomed to such a public display. He said, doubtless
much wit and many pleasant sarcasms had been and would be expended
over the change which had taken place in him. He would only say, let
those thus disposed only come into the crisis through which he had
passed, and they would then hear what he had to say. Now he boldly
came forth to return thanks to God for his mercy to him, and devote
his life to the service of Christ, the friend of sinners. He then
drew a picture of his past condition; of the valley of the shadow
of death, of the terrors of Almighty judgment through which he had
passed, and appealed to his hearers to follow his example, and think
nothing of scorn, or ridicule, or persecution for the advocacy of the
most momentous interests of the human race. As he proceeded he warmed
into a tone of eloquence which surprised every one; and before he had
done, few were the eyes that were not drowned in tears.
As the vast congregation streamed away from the chapel, many of the
old members of it said they had heard many wonderful sermons in that
chapel from great preachers, but nothing like that. Many said they
had no idea that Thorsby had so much in him; and all admitted that at
all events he had discovered a new and amazing talent in himself,
and would, if he held on, be truly a burning and a shining light.
The ascent of such a brilliant meteor into the religious horizon
of Methodism produced immediately numerous calls to visit other
towns—Sheffield, Manchester, Leeds, &c. &c.,—and everywhere the same
enthusiasm was excited by Thorsby’s addresses. He might have gone
from town to town on a triumphal round of religious service; much
time he was, in a measure, obliged to devote to such engagements,
and well was it for him that he had a man like Thomas Barnsdale to
attend to his business affairs. For some months Thorsby continued to
astonish and electrify the public by his impassioned discourses. Fair
Manor expressed a quiet hope that it would continue. Woodburn Grange
was in a condition of mind fit subject for metaphysical plumblines
to explore, half astonished and half acquiescent in the strange
phenomenon. Letty, with tears and smiles, when there, continued to
say, “Anything, anything, so that Harry continues as steady and kind
as now.”
Betty Trapps alone expressed no enthusiasm, and avowed no faith in
this grand metamorphosis. She had heard Mr. Thorsby, she said, at
Hillmartin Chapel. It was very fine what he said, but then she knew
that he awlis could talk finely, even when he made so many “skits”
on the Methodists. For her part she looked on this as a judgment on
him for his fleering at good people so often. She and Sukey Priddo
had seen something that satisfied them.
“What have you seen, Betty?” asked Mrs. Woodburn. Betty didn’t seem
in a hurry to answer; but when urged by all the family she said,
“Well, if you must know, we saw the shadder of th’ Owd Youth,”—a
familiar name for the Devil in the midland counties,—“behind him in
the pulpit as he were preaching. That was enough for us.”
“Nonsense,” said Ann, “it was merely some particular placing of the
lights that cast an odd shadow. How absurd, Betty, about the Old
Youth.”
“As you please, Miss,” said Betty; “I’ve my own notions; but I
niver, in all my born days, expected to see Mr. Thorsby preaching in
Hillmartin chapel, nor to hear Mr. Nockels the local preacher saying
niver was such preaching. No, truly! William Penn’s ‘No Cross, no
Crown,’ was not such stuff as they got every day at Hillmartin.”
“‘No Cross, no Crown,’” said Ann. “What makes you think it was ‘No
Cross, No Crown?’”
“Sukey Priddo,” said Betty, “knows ‘No Cross, no Crown’ well enough.
Mr. Heritage made her a present of it, and she’s read it through five
times.”
With Betty Trapps’s opinion of Thorsby’s spiritual appearances, we
may close this chapter, and leave the reader to think of it a little.