[Illustration]
[Illustration: DAVID IN AFRICA]
THE FOLLOWING OF THE STAR
_A ROMANCE_
BY
FLORENCE L. BARCLAY
AUTHOR OF
THE ROSARY, THE MISTRESS OF
SHENSTONE, ETC.
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1911
BY
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
17th Printing
BY FLORENCE L. BARCLAY
The Rosary
The Mistress of Shenstone
Through the Postern Gate
The Upas Tree
The Following of the Star
The Broken Halo
The Wall of Partition
My Heart's Right There
This edition is issued under arrangement with the publishers G. P.
PUTNAM'S SONS, NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
* * * * *
To
MY SON
IN THE MINISTRY
C. C. B.
CONTENTS
_GOLD_
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE STILL WATERS OF BRAMBLEDENE 3
II. THE LADY OF MYSTERY 20
III. DAVID STIRS THE STILL WATERS 31
IV. DIANA RIVERS, OF RIVERSCOURT 46
V. THE NOISELESS NAPIER 58
VI. DAVID MAKES FRIENDS WITH "CHAPPIE" 69
VII. THE TOUCH OF POWER 81
VIII. THE TEST OF THE TRUE HERALD 91
IX. UNCLE FALCON'S WILL 95
X. DIANA'S HIGH FENCE 129
XI. THE VOICE IN THE NIGHT 145
XII. SUSPENSE 164
XIII. DAVID'S DECISION 174
XIV. THE EVE OF EPIPHANY 190
XV. THE CODICIL 198
XVI. IN OLD SAINT BOTOLPH'S 211
XVII. DIANA'S READJUSTMENT 222
XVIII. DAVID'S NUNC DIMITTIS 229
XIX. DAVID STUDIES THE SCENERY 239
XX. WITH THE COMPLIMENTS OF THE COMPANY 252
XXI. "ALL ASHORE!" 260
XXII. DIANA WINS 266
XXIII. UNCLE FALCON WINS 275
_FRANKINCENSE_
XXIV. THE HIDDEN LEAVEN 289
XXV. THE PROPERTY OF THE CROWN 296
XXVI. A PILGRIMAGE 309
XXVII. A QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE 327
XXVIII. DAVID'S PRONOUNCEMENT 342
XXIX. WHAT DAVID WONDERED 348
XXX. RESURGAM 356
XXXI. "I CAN STAND ALONE" 367
XXXII. THE BLOW FALLS 371
XXXIII. REQUIESCAT IN PACE 376
_MYRRH_
XXXIV. IN THE HOSPITAL OF THE HOLY STAR 385
XXXV. THE LETTER COMES 398
XXXVI. DIANA LEARNS THE TRUTH 404
XXXVII. "GOOD-NIGHT, DAVID" 413
XXXVIII. THE BUNDLE OF MYRRH 420
XXXIX. HOME, BY ANOTHER WAY 424
GOLD
CHAPTER I
THE STILL WATERS OF BRAMBLEDENE
David Rivers closed his Bible suddenly, slipped it into the inner pocket
of his coat, and, leaning back in his armchair, relaxed the tension at
which he had been sitting while he mentally put his thoughts into terse
and forcible phraseology.
His evening sermon was ready. The final sentence had silently thrilled
into the quiet study, in the very words in which it would presently
resound through the half-empty little village church; and David felt as
did the young David of old, when he had paused at the brook and chosen
five smooth stones for his sling, on his way to meet the mighty champion
of the Philistines. David now felt ready to go forward and fight the
Goliath of apathy and inattention; the life-long habit of not listening
to the voice of the preacher, or giving any heed to the message he
brought.
The congregation, in this little Hampshire village church where, during
the last five weeks, David had acted as locum-tenens, consisted entirely
of well-to-do farmers and their families; of labourers, who lounged into
church from force of habit, or because, since the public-houses had been
closed by law during the hours of divine service, it was the only warmed
and lighted place to be found on a Sunday evening; of a few devout old
men and women, to whom weekly church-going, while on earth, appeared the
only possible preparation for an eternity of Sabbaths in the world to
come; and of a fair sprinkling of village lads and lassies, who took
more interest in themselves and in each other than in the divine worship
in which they were supposed to be taking part.
The two churchwardens, stout, florid, and well-to-do, occupied front
pews on either side of the centre; Mr. Churchwarden Jones, on the right;
Mr. Churchwarden Smith, on the left. Their official position lent them a
dignity which they enjoyed to the full, and which overflowed to _Mrs._
Jones and _Mrs._ Smith, seated in state beside them. When, on
"collection Sundays," the churchwardens advanced up the chancel together
during the final verse of the hymn, and handed the plates to the Rector,
their wives experienced a sensation of pride in them which "custom
could not stale." They were wont to describe at the Sunday midday dinner
or at supper, afterwards, the exact effect of this "procession" up the
church, an oft-told tale for which they could always be sure of at least
one interested auditor.
Mr. Churchwarden Jones bowed when he delivered the plate to the Rector.
Mr. Churchwarden Smith did not bow, but kept himself more erect than
usual; holding that anything in the nature of a bow, while in the House
of God, savoured of popery.
This provided the village with a fruitful subject for endless
discussion. The congregation was pretty equally divided. One half
approved the stately bow of Mr. Churchwarden Jones, and unconsciously
bowed themselves, while they disregarded their hymn-books and watched
him make it. The other half were for "Smith, and no popery," and also
sang of "mystic sweet communion, with those whose rest is won," without
giving any thought to the words, while occupied in gazing with approval
at Farmer Smith's broad back, and at the uncompromising stiffness of the
red neck, appearing above his starched Sunday collar.
Mrs. Smith secretly admired Mr. Jones's bow, and felt that her man was
missing his chances for a silly idea; but not for worlds would Mrs.
Smith have admitted this; no, not even to her especial crony, Miss Pike
the milliner, who had once been to Paris, and knew what was what.
The venerated Rector, father of his people, always bowed as he received
the plates from the two churchwardens. But then, that had nothing
whatever to do with the question, his _back_ being to the Table.
Besides, the Rector, who had christened, confirmed, married, and buried
them, during the last fifty years, could do no wrong. They would as soon
have thought of trying to understand his sermons, as of questioning his
soundness. "The Rector says," constituted a final judgment, from which
there was no appeal.
As he slowly and carefully mounted the pulpit stairs, one hand grasping
the rail, the other clasping a black silk sermon-case, the hearts of his
people went with him.
The hearts of his people were with him, as his silvery hair and benign
face appeared above the large red velvet cushion on the pulpit desk; and
the minds of his people were with him, until he had safely laid his
sermon upon the cushion, opened it, and gently flattened the manuscript
with both hands; then placed his pocket-handkerchief in the handy
receptacle specially intended to contain it, and a lozenge in a
prominent position on the desk. But, this well-known routine safely
accomplished, they sang a loud amen to the closing verse of "the hymn
before the sermon," and gave their minds a holiday, until, at the first
words of the ascription, they rose automatically with a loud and joyous
clatter to their feet, to emerge in a few moments into the fresh air and
sunshine.
A perplexing contretemps had once occurred. The Rector's gentle voice
had paused in its onward flow. It was not the usual lozenge-pause. Their
subconscious minds understood and expected that. But, as a matter of
fact, the Rector had, on this particular Sunday, required a second
lozenge towards the end of the sermon, and the sentence immediately
following this unexpected pause chanced to begin with the words: "And
now to enlarge further upon our seventh point." At the first three words
the whole congregation rose joyfully to their feet; then had to sit down
abashed, while the Rector hurriedly enlarged upon "our seventh point."
It was the only point which had as yet penetrated their intelligence.
In all subsequent sermons, the Rector carefully avoided, at the
beginning of his sentences, the words which had produced a general
rising. He would smile benignly to himself, in the seclusion of his
study, as he substituted, for fear of accidents, "Let us, my brethren,"
or "Therefore, belovèd."
It never struck the good man, content with his own scholarly presentment
of deep theological truths, that the accidental rising was an undoubted
evidence of non-attention on the part of his congregation. He continued
to mount the pulpit steps, as he had mounted them during the last fifty
years; attaining thereby an elevation from which he invariably preached
completely over the heads of his people.
In this they acquiesced without question. It was their obvious duty to
"sit under" a preacher, not to attempt to fathom his meaning; to sit
_through_ a sermon, not to endeavour to understand it. So they
slumbered, fidgeted, or thought of other things, according to their age
or inclination, until the ascription brought them to their feet, the
benediction bowed them to their knees, and the first strident blasts of
the organ sent them gaily trooping out of church and home to their
Sunday dinners, virtuous and content.
Into this atmosphere of pious apathy, strode David Rivers; back on
sick-leave from the wilds of Central Africa; aflame with zeal for his
Lord, certain of the inspiration of his message; accustomed to
congregations to whom every thought was news, and every word was life;
men, ready and eager to listen and to believe, and willing, when once
they had believed, to be buried alive, or tied to a stake, and burned by
slow fire, sooner than relinquish or deny the faith he had taught them.
But how came this young prophet of fire into the still waters of our
Hampshire village? The wilds of the desert, and the rapid rushings of
Jordan, are the only suitable setting for John the Baptists in all ages.
Nevertheless to Hampshire he came; and it happened thus.
Influenza, which is no respecter of persons, attacked the venerated
Rector.
In the first stress of need, neighbouring clergy came to the rescue. But
when six weeks of rest and change were ordered, as the only means of
insuring complete recovery, the Rector advertised for a locum-tenens,
offering terms which attracted David, just out of hospital, sailing for
Central Africa early in the New Year, and wondering how on earth he
should scrape together the funds needed for completing his outfit. He
applied immediately; and, within twenty-four hours, received a telegram
suggesting an interview, and asking him to spend the night at
Brambledene Rectory.
Here a curious friendship began, and was speedily cemented by mutual
attraction. The white-haired old man, overflowing with geniality,
punctilious in old-fashioned courtesy, reminded David Rivers of a
father, long dead and deeply mourned; while the young enthusiast, with
white, worn face, and deep-set shining eyes, struck a long-silent chord
in the heart of the easy-going old Rector, seeming to him an embodiment
of that which he himself might have been, had he chosen a harder,
rougher path, when standing at the cross-roads half a century before.
An ideal of his youth, long vanished, returned, and stood before him in
David Rivers. It was too late, now, to sigh after a departed ideal. But,
as a tribute to its memory, he doubled the remuneration he had offered,
left the keys in every bookcase in the library, and recommended David to
the most especial care of his faithful housekeeper, Sarah Dolman, with
instructions that, should the young man seem tired on Sunday evenings,
after the full day's work, the best old sherry might be produced and
offered.
And here let it be recorded, that David undoubtedly did look worn and
tired after the full day's work; but the best old sherry was declined
with thanks. The fact that your heart has remained among the wild tribes
of Central Africa has a way of making your body very abstemious, and
careless of all ordinary creature comforts.
Nevertheless, David enjoyed the Rector's large armchair, upholstered in
maroon leather, and delighted in the oak-panelled study, with its wealth
of valuable books and its atmosphere of scholarly calm and meditation.
* * * * *
This last Sunday of his ministry at Brambledene chanced to fall on
Christmas-eve. Also, for once, it was true Christmas weather.
As David walked to church that morning, every branch and twig, every ivy
leaf and holly berry, sparkled in the sunshine; the frosty lanes were
white and hard, and paved with countless glittering diamonds. An
indescribable exhilaration was in the air. Limbs felt light and supple;
movement was a pleasure. Church bells, near and far away, pealed
joyously. The Christmas spirit was already here.
"Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given," quoted David, as he
swung along the lanes. It was five years since he had had a Christmas
in England. Mentally he contrasted this keen frosty brightness, with
the mosquito-haunted swamps of the African jungle. This unaccustomed
sense of health and vigour brought, by force of contrast, a remembrance
of the deathly lassitude and weakness which accompany the malarial
fever. But, instantly true to the certainty of his high and holy
calling, his soul leapt up crying: "Unto _them_ a Child is born! Unto
_them_ a Son is given! And how shall they believe in Him of whom they
have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?"
* * * * *
The little church, on that morning, was bright with holly and heavy with
evergreens. The united efforts of the Smith and the Jones families had,
during the week, made hundreds of yards of wreathing. On Saturday, all
available young men came to help; Miss Pike, whose taste was so
excellent, to advise; the school-mistress, a noisy person with more
energy than tact, to argue with Miss Pike, and to side with Smiths and
Joneses alternately, when any controversial point was under discussion.
So a gay party carried the long evergreen wreaths from the parish-room
to the church, where already were collected baskets of holly and ivy,
yards of scarlet flannel and white cotton-wool; an abundance of tin
tacks and hammers; and last, but not least, the Christmas scrolls and
banners, which were annually produced from their place of dusty
concealment behind the organ; and of which Mrs. Smith remarked, each
year, that they were "every bit as good as new, if you put 'em up in a
fresh place."
During the whole of Saturday afternoon and evening the decorative
process had been carried on with so much energy, that when David came
out from the vestry, on Sunday morning, he found himself in a scene
which was decidedly what the old women from the alms-houses called
"Christmassy."
His surplice rasped against the holly-leaves, as he made his way into
the reading-desk. The homely face of the old gilt clock, on the gallery
facing him, was wreathed in yew and holly, and the wreath had slipped
slightly on one side, giving the sober old clock an unwontedly rakish
appearance, which belied its steady and measured "tick-tick." Also into
the bottom of this wreath, beneath which the whole congregation had to
pass in and out, Tom Brigg, the doctor's son, a handsome fellow and
noted wag, had surreptitiously inserted a piece of mistletoe. This
prank of Tom's, known to all the younger members of the congregation,
caused so much nudging and whispering and amused glancing at the
inebrious-looking clock, that David produced his own watch, wondering if
there were any mistake in the hour.
His sermon, on this Sunday morning, had seemed to him a failure.
His text confronted him in letters of gold on crimson flock:
"Emmanuel--God with us"; but not a mind seemed with him as he gave it
out, read it twice, slowly and clearly, and then proceeded to explain
that this wonderful name, Emmanuel, was never intended to be the world's
name for Christ, nor even His people's name for Him. However, at this
statement, Mrs. Smith raised her eyebrows and began turning over the
leaves of her Bible.
Encouraged by this unusual sign of attention, David Rivers leaned over
the pulpit and tried to drive into one mind, at least, a thought which
had been a discovery to himself the evening before, and was beginning to
mean much to him, as every Spirit-given new light on a well-known theme
always must mean to the earnest Bible student.
"The name Emmanuel," he said, "so freely used in our church decorations
at this season, occurs three times only in the Bible; twice in the Old
Testament, once in the New; and the New merely quotes the more important
of the two passages in the Old.
"We can dismiss at once the allusion in Isaiah viii., 8, which merely
speaks of Palestine as 'Thy land, O Immanuel,' and confine our attention
to the great prophecy of Isaiah vii., 14, quoted in Matthew i., 23:
'Behold a Virgin shall bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel.'
The Hebrew of this passage reads: 'Thou, O Virgin, shalt call His name
Immanuel'; and the Greek of Matthew i. bears the same meaning. I want
you to realise that this was His mother's name for the new-born King,
for the Babe of Bethlehem, for the little son in the village home at
Nazareth. His Presence there meant to that humble pondering heart:
'_God_ with us.'
"If you want to find _our_ name for Him," continued David, noting that
Mrs. Smith, ignoring his two references, still turned the pages of her
Bible, "look at the angel's message to Joseph in the 21st verse of
Matthew i.: 'Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His
people from their sins.' That name is mentioned nine hundred and six
times in the Bible. We cannot attempt to look them all out now,"--with
an appealing glance at Mrs. Smith's rustling pages--"but let us make
sure that we have appropriated to the full the gifts and blessings of
that name, 'which is above every name.' It was the watchword of the
early church. It is the secret of our peace and power. It will be our
password into heaven.
"But Emmanuel was His mother's name for Him. As she laid him in the
manger, round which the patient cattle snuffed in silent wonder at this
new use for the place where heretofore they munched their fodder, it was
'_God_ with us' in the stable.
"As, seated on the ass, she clasped the infant to her breast through the
long hours of that night ride into Egypt, she whispered: 'Emmanuel,
Emmanuel! God _with_ us, in our flight and peril.'
"In the carpenter's home at Nazareth, where, in the midst of the many
trials and vexations of a village life of poverty, He was ever patient,
gentle, understanding; subject to His parents, yet giving His mother
much cause for pondering, many things to treasure in her heart--often,
in adoring tenderness, she would whisper: 'Emmanuel, God with _us_.'"
David paused and looked earnestly down the church, longing for some
response to the thrill in his own soul.
"Ah," he said, slowly and impressively, "if only the boys in your
village could be _this_ to their mothers! If their loyal obedience,
their gentle, loving chivalry, their thoughtful tenderness, could make
it possible for their own mothers to say: 'I see the Christ-life in my
little boy. When he is at home, the love of God is here. Truly it is
Emmanuel, God with us.'"
* * * * *
"What did that young man mean," remarked Mrs. Smith at the dinner-table
at Appledore Farm, "by trying to take from us the name 'Emmanuel'? Seems
to me, if he stays here much longer we shall have no Bible left!"
Mr. Churchwarden Smith had been carving the Sunday beef for his numerous
family. He had only, that moment, fallen to, upon his own portion.
Otherwise Mrs. Smith would not have been allowed to complete her
sentence.
"I've no patience with these young chaps!" he burst out, as soon as
speech was possible. "Undermining the faith of their forefathers;
putting our good old English Bible into 'Ebrew and Greek, just to parade
their own learning, and confuse the minds of simple folk. 'Higher
criticism,' they call it! Jolly low-down impudence, say I!"
Mrs. Smith watchfully bided her time. Then: "And popish too," she added,
"to talk so much about the mother of our Lord."
"I don't think he mentioned _her_, my dear," said Mr. Churchwarden
Smith. "Pass the mustard, Johnny."
* * * * *
Yes, as he thought it over during his lonely luncheon, David felt more
and more convinced that his morning sermon had been a failure.
He did not know of a little curly-headed boy, whose young widowed mother
was at her wit's end as to how to control his wilfulness; but who ran
straight to his garret-room after service, and, kneeling beside his
frosty window, looked up to the wintry sky and said: "Please God, make
me a Manuel to my mother, like Jesus was to His, for Christ's sake,
Amen."
David did not know of this; nor that, ever after, that cottage home was
to be transformed, owing to the living power of his message.
So, down in the depths of discouragement, he dubbed his morning sermon a
failure.
Notwithstanding, he prepared the evening subject with equal care, a
spice of enjoyment added, owing to the fact that he would
possibly--probably--almost to a certainty--have in the evening
congregation a mind able to understand and appreciate each point; a mind
of a calibre equal to his own; a soul he was bent on winning.
As he closed his Bible, put it into his pocket, and relaxed over the
thought that his sermon was complete, he smiled into the glowing wood
fire, saying to himself, in glad anticipation: "My Lady of Mystery will
undoubtedly be there. Now I wonder if _she_ believes that there were
three Wise Men!"