‘LOVE IN ONE HAND HIS BOW DID TAKE.’
It was summer time still, the tangled hedges fragrant with
honeysuckle and the fields purple with clover, when Joshua Haggard
entered the little village of Penmoyle again, after a year’s absence,
on foot and alone. He had been to the extremity of the peninsula to
see Nicholas Wild, and to exult in the progress of that young man’s
ministrations and the growth of his influence; and now, upon his
homeward way, he turned aside from the straight road to Truro, to
take his rest in the fat pastures of Penmoyle.
He had arranged things better this time than on the last occasion,
and had planned his holiday so as to spend a Sunday at Penmoyle and
to preach to the little flock there. As on his former visit, it was a
Saturday afternoon when he entered the village, and about the same
hour. How peaceful, how unalterable everything looked, a beautiful
placidity pervading all the scene--a quiet profound as that almost
awful stillness of smooth mountain lakes locked in a circle of silent
hills. And yet death found out Penmoyle now and then; and people’s
joints were racked with rheumatism; and fever, like a furious Malay,
ran amuck among the simple villagers; and bad sons grew up to be the
torment of neglectful fathers; and village innocence went astray; and
all the evils that rend society at large were repeated in little in
this narrow world of Penmoyle. But, smiling under a cloudless sky at
the close of June, one might think the place a little bit of heaven
that had broken off and fallen upon earth. Round it far and wide lay
the wild hills of earth, pierced here and there with the shafts of
deserted mines; but this green oasis must be a fragment of Paradise.
Joshua contemplated the place with a curious delight. It was not half
so picturesque as Combhaven, but its inland beauty, its fertile frame
of meadow and flowering hedgerow, moved him to deepest admiration.
‘How pretty the village is!’ he said to himself. ‘I never used to
think it so beautiful.’
There was the little chestnut-grove, where the street widened into
a village-green, just opposite the homely old inn. And there, at
the corner of the green, stood the Miss Weblings’ neat abode, the
brazen knocker shining, the brazen birdcage gleaming in the afternoon
sun, all the windows shut--it being a principle with the spinsters
to exclude dust at some sacrifice of fresh air--the muslin curtains
drawn back in neat loops, the flower-pots as red as of old.
But there was something that distracted Joshua’s eye from flower-pots
and bird-cages, and that was a girlish figure standing by the gate, a
girlish face looking dreamily down the empty village street.
It was Cynthia, indulging in a few minutes’ idle contemplation of
the external world after her day’s work was done and that afternoon
toilet which was known throughout Penmoyle as ‘cleaning oneself’ had
been carefully performed. There was not much to look at, certainly,
in the High-street of Penmoyle, not much excuse for dawdling or
frivolous curiosity, but still Cynthia looked. There was a lumbering
old wain loaded high with fragrant hay standing in front of the inn,
while its custodian drank deep of a stinging cider in the bar; there
were the innkeeper’s poultry picking up a free living in the highway;
there was the landlady’s pet jackdaw discoursing hoarsely to the
empty air from his wicker cage in front of the parlour-window with
its scarlet curtain, which looked so cheerful on dark winter nights;
there were the children playing Tommy Touchwood under the chestnuts,
and making as much noise as if a second Herod had just issued his
edict for the extermination of another fourteen thousand innocents.
And here came the tall figure of Joshua, in his black coat and
breeches, and well-fitting gray stockings, and neat buckled shoes,
walking slowly up the street.
Cynthia gave a start at sight of him, and flung the gate open and ran
to meet him, blushing, impetuous, her blue eyes full of joy.
‘I knew that you would come,’ she said.
Had she grown lovelier in the year that was gone, or had she always
been thus supremely lovely? Joshua asked himself wonderingly. It
seemed to him that he had never beheld anything so beautiful as that
innocent face lifted up to him in tenderest regard, those frank
eyes, that rosy smiling mouth, a complexion as of blush-roses--the
old half-forgotten blush-roses that grew in the gardens of long ago,
ivory-white petals deepening to a soft carnation at the heart of the
flower.
‘I knew you would come,’ repeated Cynthia. ‘Miss Priscilla said you
would write first to say that you were coming; but I thought you
would come just like this, when no one expected you, walking quietly
up the street some Saturday afternoon. I thought it would be on a
Saturday; and I have watched for you every Saturday since the roses
began to flower. You said you would come in the summer. Are you going
back to Truro for the night coach?’
‘No, Cynthia; I am going to stay till Monday, if my friends will have
me.’
‘How glad I am!’ she cried, clasping her hands. ‘And you will read to
us again in the best parlour?’
‘Yes, Cynthia. I hope you have been good.’
‘I have learned to read the Bible.’
‘That’s good news. And have you been industrious and obedient?’
‘I don’t quite know; but I think the ladies are pleased with me. Miss
Priscilla has given me her flowery gown, and Miss Webling has given
me a buckle; and they let me sit with them of evenings when there’s
no company.’
‘Then I think you must have been good. Worthy people like the Miss
Weblings would treat you according to your deserts.’
‘They have been very kind, and I am very happy.’
‘And you have never wished yourself back among those show-folks?’
‘Never, never. I was fond of the pony; but he was the only thing I
really cared for. If I were quite sure nobody would ill-use him I
should never give a thought to my old life; but I do think about him
sometimes, poor fellow.’
‘You have never heard or seen anything of your people?’
‘I have never seen them. Some of the school-children saw them last
September on the Truro road--I know it was them by the pony--but they
never came nearer than that. I have dreamed about them many a time,
and woke crying, thinking I was with them again.’
‘You shall never be with them again, Cynthia. Why, if they were
to come this way now they would hardly know you, you have grown
so--sedate-looking.’
She was neatly clad in one of those lavender prints he had selected.
She wore a muslin handkerchief across her shoulders, a muslin cap
on her fair soft hair, which was simply dressed after own fashion,
in which she had reproduced unawares the style of a Greek statue.
Her rounded white arms were bare, the hands reddened a little with
labour, but neither large nor ill-shaped.
‘I shall hear what your mistresses have to say of you,’ said Joshua,
as he moved towards the doll’s-house door; ‘and if they give a good
account of your conduct I shall be better pleased than I can say.’
He had little fear of their report. Such innocent gladness as made
radiant Cynthia’s face never went along with evil-doing. The girl
ushered him into the best parlour, and then ran up-stairs to rouse
her mistresses, who were taking a gentle siesta on their comfortable
tent-bed--a bedstead whose posts had been decapitated to accommodate
them to the lowly ceiling of the Miss Weblings’ chamber.
The spinsters reposed side by side upon the coverlet, the _County
Chronicle_ spread under their feet to guard the spotless counterpane,
their hair repapered, lest the corkscrew curls should relax from
their wiry stiffness in the temporary dissolution of slumber. On
hearing of Mr. Haggard’s arrival the simultaneous movement of the
sisters was to rush to the small square looking-glass, and take
their hair out of papers; the next, to smooth out their ample muslin
collars--assisted in this operation by Cynthia--and to adjust the
velvet bands upon their foreheads. Then they washed their hands with
sisterly familiarity in the same basin, not forgetting to expectorate
genteelly in the water lest it should lead to unsisterly tiffs, and
anon descended the corkscrew staircase.
In the parlour the greetings of last summer were gone through
again with exact reproduction. The ‘seedy’ cake and the cowslip
wine were brought out of the panelled cupboard, and Mr. Haggard
was asked solemnly if he had dined. This time he was able to reply
conscientiously, that he had eaten a hearty dinner of pork and greens
at a roadside inn; for people used to dine upon pork and greens in
those days, and were not ashamed to own it.
‘I am going to spend Sunday at Penmoyle,’ said Joshua; ‘there are
friends I was not lucky enough to see last year; so I have given
myself a holiday to-morrow.’
‘That’s good news,’ cried Deborah; ‘and you’ll stay here of course?
Our spare room is always kept aired, though we don’t often have a
visitor, unless it’s when old uncle Weston comes from Penzance.’
Small as the cottage was it boasted its spare bedchamber, over the
best parlour--a room glorified by a good deal of fine art in the
shape of various samplers executed in crewels by the Miss Weblings’
prize pupils.
‘I shall be very pleased to stay here,’ replied Joshua, ‘if you’re
sure I sha’n’t be putting you out.’
‘Putting us out!’ exclaimed the impulsive Priscilla; ‘dear Mr.
Haggard, when we value your acquaintance as one of our most blessed
privileges!’
‘And as for linen,’ said the more practical Deborah, ‘we’ve the stock
of house-linen our dear mother left us--every bit of the yarn her
own spinning--the sheets and tablecloths we top-sewed when we were
children.’
‘And now tell me how you have got on with Cynthia,’ said Joshua,
trying to feel as if the question were not one that touched him
nearly--trying to approach the subject with the same equable spirit
in which he would have discussed the welfare of any member of his
little flock at Combhaven. ‘Has she been docile and useful? Do you
think you shall make her a good servant?’
‘Mr. Haggard,’ said Deborah, so solemnly that Joshua thought
something bad was coming--he felt himself breathing quicker, as in a
moment of fear--‘Mr. Haggard, that girl is a treasure.’
‘Thank God for that!’ exclaimed Joshua, with infinite relief.
‘It’s not many people would pick up such a pearl by the wayside; but
it’s natural that angels should come unawares to such a good man as
you.’
‘Never mind me,’ interjected Joshua eagerly. ‘Tell me about Cynthia.’
‘I don’t think there’s a better girl in the West of England, or one
that’s quicker and neater with her hands. Of course sister and I
have taken pains with her. I’m not going to deny that, or that we
took all the more pains with her out of regard for you. But she has
been so quick to learn, with her hands especially. I don’t pretend
to say that she has a powerful mind--not like sister Priscilla’s,
for instance.’ (Priscilla screwed her lips together and tried not to
look proud.) ‘Not a mind to grasp long division or the genealogies of
the tribes of Israel, or the wars with the Philistines.’ (Priscilla
shook her head gravely, as if it held as much scriptural knowledge
as Dr. Smith’s _Dictionary of the Bible_.) ‘But for handiness and
willingness and neatness and goodness of heart, there’s no one to
surpass her. She nursed me beautifully for three weeks, when I had a
bad attack of my quinsy last winter; and if you’d seen how prettily
she ornamented this parlour with holly and greenstuff at Christmas
time, you’d have been quite struck.’
‘I am more pleased than I can tell you,’ said Joshua; and the
unwonted glow upon his dark cheek told that the pleasure was very
real.
‘Of course you’d naturally be anxious. It was an awful risk. I’m
sure I used to wake in the middle of the night often, when she was
first with us, and tremble for the silver teapot. She might have cut
both our throats and gone off with the plate, if she’d been badly
inclined.’
Both sisters shuddered at this appalling possibility.
‘And she has learned to read, she tells me,’ said Joshua.
‘Bee-autifully!’ exclaimed Priscilla. ‘We never had a pupil, young
or old, that learnt so quick. She said she wanted to learn, to
please her kind friend who took her out of bondage--meaning you, Mr.
Haggard. Many an evening has that poor child sat puzzling over her
book, when she first began--and even the letters were some of them
strange to her--and wouldn’t leave off when we told her.’
‘I am proud to think that I was not mistaken when I read truth and
innocence in her countenance,’ said Joshua.
‘And there’s something so genteel about her,’ pursued Priscilla. ‘She
never presumes upon one’s kindness, or forgets her station. I’m sure
the way we’ve let her sit with us of an evening would have turned
some girls’ heads; but she has always kept her place and respected
ours.’
‘It does my heart good to hear this account of her,’ said Joshua.
‘And now I’ll go down the village and look in upon my old friends.
Mr. Martin still lives next the chapel, I suppose?’
‘Yes, dear old gentleman; and though he’s getting feeble and is not
the preacher he used to be, people come from six miles off to hear
him, and the chapel’s so crowded that on warm Sundays sister and I
are obliged to take peppermint lozenges to keep off the faintness.
There’s many a heart will be stirred if you preach to-morrow, Mr.
Haggard.’
‘Don’t forget that we tea at five,’ said Deborah.
‘No, I shall be back by five,’ replied Joshua slowly.
He had very little inclination to leave that best parlour of the
Miss Weblings, although he had come to Penmoyle to see all his old
friends. It was not to be supposed that he would waste two days
of his earnest working life--a life in which leisure was almost
unknown--upon an inquiry about the progress of that waif and stray he
had picked up by the wayside. A letter would have served to make that
inquiry. No, he had come to Penmoyle to see those brother Christians
to whom he had preached justification by faith, a Saviour’s infinite
atonement of all human sin, years ago; he had come to talk with those
in whose hearts he had been the first to kindle religious fervour.
He left the Miss Weblings’ parlour with some sense of effort,
notwithstanding; a kind of apathy as to those old friends of his
seemed to have stolen upon him since his arrival at Penmoyle. He
desired nothing so much as to sit in that neatly-ordered room and
hear Cynthia read, or hear her mistresses praise her. But the call
of duty was paramount, so he took up his hat and went.
Mr. Martin was a little old man with white hair, who remembered John
Wesley, and had imbibed his enthusiasm from that fountain of simple
and spiritual earnestness. He was a good old man, and much beloved by
his humble followers; and though he preached in a somewhat cracked
and quavering treble, and spun the same thin thread of doctrine
through many sermons to attenuation, and generally chose his text
from some obscure passage in the minor Prophets, he was listened to
with devout attention, and admired as an oracle. He was great at
tea-meetings and love-feasts, and repeated his little elderly jokes
and told the same anecdotes about the Wesleys year after year. He had
some pretensions to the literary faculty, and had written an account
of the last hours and death-bed conversations of an interesting
member of his flock, a girl whose piety had been the delight
of an admiring circle, and who had been cut off untimely by ‘a
consumption.’ This little volume of fifty pages was more popular at
Penmoyle than any of that pernicious literature which an unbelieving
race accepted at the hands of such arch-offenders as Byron, Moore,
Godwin, Monk Lewis, and Shelley--names which had been breathed as
by some wandering blast from Pandemonium in the awe-struck ears
of Penmoyle. An inhabitant of this remote settlement, on entering
the literary circles of the metropolis, would have been astonished
to find that Mr. Martin’s biography of Miss Elizabeth Lucas was
not considered a classic, nor as familiar to the reading public as
_Rasselas_ or the _Vicar of Wakefield_.
On the female mind in Penmoyle the book had exercised as strong an
influence as had the _Confessions of Rousseau_ or the _Sorrows of
Werther_ on the world in general; and a young woman of Mr. Martin’s
flock would have considered that, next to marrying a rich farmer and
driving one’s own chaise-cart, the happiest destiny would be to die
early and discourse wisely on one’s death-bed, like Elizabeth Lucas.
Mr. Martin wore his literary laurels meekly, but, in his heart of
hearts, was prouder of having written that little book than of
all his long and blameless life and its good influence upon his
fellow-men. He amused his leisure hours by mild coquetting with the
Muses, and composed sacred verses of the feeblest strain, which he
screwed out of his seething brain with infinite labour, and had
some idea of publishing by subscription, could he but get the lines
more of a length, and resolve his own doubts as to certain rhymes
which necessity had constrained him to use, although his ear had not
approved them.
This simple-minded pastor lived in a four-roomed cottage next his
chapel--a cottage neatly furnished, and beautified not a little by
various offerings from the Methodists of the district. An ancient
widow, whose family and belongings were lost in the darkness of
prehistoric Penmoyle, ministered to the good man’s modest wants,
and kept his habitation spotless, labouring at her mission with
activity and industry which would have done credit to those younger
servants who were known at Penmoyle as ‘bits of girls.’ This faithful
housekeeper, neatly clad in a black gown, widow’s cap, and muslin
kerchief, opened the door to Joshua’s knock. She had worn a widow’s
cap for the last forty years, and would have doubted her own
identity had she seen herself in a glass with any other head-covering.
‘Lor sakes,’ she exclaimed, with a low curtsy, ‘if it ain’t Mr.
Haggard!’
As the cottage door opened straight into the parlour, Mr. Martin,
writing with laborious slowness at his table, heard the ejaculation,
and rose hastily to welcome his guest, with a formal cordiality full
of a certain old-fashioned dignity, as of one who had been accustomed
all his life to be respected and to confer a favour by his kindness.
‘And what has brought my good friend this way?’ he asked. ‘Glad am
I to see him once more beside my hearth. Go, get a mutton-chop or a
steak, Martha, and cook it nicely for Mr. Haggard. I have a cask of
cider from the same orchard as that you used to drink twenty years
ago.’
‘You needn’t trouble about the chop, Mrs. Hope. I have dined, my dear
sir; but I shall be pleased to drink your health in a glass of that
excellent cider before I leave you. I am thankful to see you looking
hale and hearty.’
‘Ay,’ replied the old man, with a tremulous cheeriness, ‘Providence
has been very good to me. Except for a little stiffness in my joints
in winter time, and a slight uncertainty in my hearing, which I can
hardly call deafness, I might easily forget that I am getting old. I
can still enjoy the manifold beauties of God’s earth, and my books;’
glancing with pride at his neatly-arranged library, guarded by the
glass doors of an old-fashioned bookcase. ‘I can still employ my
leisure hours in poetic musings, which, although perchance beneath
the regard of finite man, are, I venture to hope, acceptable to an
infinite God. Ah, my dearest friend, it is a strange and fearful
blessing for the aged to be spared when Time’s sickle mows down the
youthful.’
Here the pastor’s eye glittered with a tear of regret for his
beloved pupil Elizabeth Lucas, and Joshua made haste to change the
conversation. He had heard that story of Elizabeth Lucas’s lingering
illness and pious discourses a good many times from the gentle old
pastor’s lips, and rather dreaded a repetition thereof. The pious
platitudes were milk for babes rather than meat for strong men; and
although Joshua had a firm belief in the Christian graces of the
departed Elizabeth, he was not quite clear as to her share in these
holy dialogues; just as in reading the _Phædo_ some students may
entertain a doubt as to which is Plato and which is Socrates.
Having fortunately escaped this conversational quicksand, in which
he saw himself on the point of being ingulfed, Mr. Haggard and his
elder friend talked pleasantly of each other’s ministrations, and
the welfare and progress of their particular sect, which, although
taking its origin from the great evangelical movement begun by
Wesley, was but a minor division of the dissenting Church. Mr. Martin
talked of his crowded chapel; his night-school for farm-labourers;
his afternoon class for young women in domestic service, which young
persons of a superior social standing were invited to attend, could
they so far subjugate their pride as to sit side by side with the
hard-handed daughters of toil.
‘That is a bright little creature over yonder,’ said Mr. Martin, with
a nod in the direction of the Miss Weblings’ domicile; ‘she has come
to my class-meetings regularly, and has made wonderful progress. I
never met with a clearer mind. I do not say that it is deep, or that
she is a being of lofty aspirations, like my sainted Elizabeth--’
‘I am delighted to hear you speak so kindly of her,’ exclaimed
Joshua. ‘You have heard, I daresay--’
‘How you rescued her from the children of Belial? Yes, my good
friend, she has told me of your kindness with tears. She has a
grateful and a tender heart; she has a pleasant voice too, and
sings our hymns sweetly. It was but last Sabbath that I was moved
by hearing her sing the “Land of Canaan.” There were tones which
reminded me of that heavenly-minded girl, whose last hours--’
‘And my poor little waif and stray has made spiritual progress?’
‘Undoubtedly. I don’t think you could ask her a question about the
Israelites in the desert, or the building of Solomon’s temple, that
she would fail to answer correctly. And now, my good friend, tell me
how long you are going to stay among us, and if you will give us one
of your powerful discourses to-morrow. We are collecting funds for a
new chapel, our present humble building being sorely inadequate. A
sermon from you would insure a good collection.’
Joshua declared his willingness to assist so worthy a cause; and
after half an hour’s cheerful conversation, left his old friend to
resume his gentle flirtation with the Nine, and went on to visit
other acquaintances of the past.
Five o’clock found Mr. Haggard at the little green door, where
Cynthia stood watching for him on the threshold, just as she had
watched by the gate that afternoon.
‘The tea’s mashed,’ she said brightly, ‘and the ladies told me to
watch for you.’
She darted back to the kitchen before he had time to reply, having
the baking of certain rock-cakes, seedy and curranty, esteemed a
delicacy in Penmoyle, on her mind. Mr. Haggard looked after her
curiously, wondering at the difference between this light and airy
form, just vanishing from his sight at the end of the passage, and
the rotund and robust Sally who ministered to his wants at home.
Yet both were of the same clay he reminded himself, and the one as
precious in the sight of her Maker as the other.
The sisters Webling, glorified by additional embellishment in the way
of ear-droppers and brooches and buckles--but not in their Sunday
gowns, _those_ Mr. Haggard would see to-morrow--received the minister
amidst the stately elegance of the best parlour. There was the silver
teapot he knew so well, with its horn handle and little perforated
basket dangling at the spout; there were the willow-pattern cups and
saucers, and crisp home-baked bread, and slices of ham garnished with
parsley, and three new-laid eggs in glass egg-cups, and a plate of
strawberries--quite a collation.
‘I hope you have brought us a good appetite, dear Mr. Haggard,’ said
Priscilla.
‘Indeed, Miss Priscilla, I am not accustomed to such luxuries. Our
tea at home is a very plain meal. I was brought up to live plainly,
and have brought up my children in the same way. But I have no doubt
I shall do justice to your plenteous table.’
Cynthia came in with the rock-cakes, and retired as soon as she had
set them on the table, dropping her modest curtsy as she went out at
the door.
Somehow, in spite of the strong tea, the new-laid eggs, the excellent
ham which the hospitable sisters pressed upon him, in spite of that
exalted appreciation of his own merits which breathed in every
sentence spoken by these spinsters, the tea-drinking, protracted
for an hour or more, seemed rather a weary business to Joshua. He
found his thoughts wandering backward to the little red-floored
kitchen, luminous in the rosy sunset, and the gracious figure of
girlhood by the open casement. He found himself reflecting what a
blessed thing it was to have rescued this wild weed, neglected by
the roadside, and to find her blossoming so fair a flower, instead
of listening, as he ought in common courtesy to have listened, to
Deborah’s account of one of her old scholars who had gone to America,
and was on the high-road to a fortune, and who had avouched in a
letter to his mother--a letter written on the other side of the broad
Atlantic--that he should never have come to any good if the Miss
Weblings had not taught him his multiplication-table.
‘He was a dull boy,’ said Deborah; ‘many’s the time I’ve had to put
the dunce’s cap on him and stand him up on a form, though it went
against me. And the trouble I had over his pot-hooks--there, it was
really trying. But it’s nice to think that he should remember and be
grateful, so far away. It speaks well for human nature, you know,’
concluded Miss Webling in a patronising tone, as if she belonged to a
different species.
After tea came the usual request for a chapter and Mr. Haggard’s
exposition thereof; and Cynthia, having removed the tea-things,
took her seat below the salt, that is to say, on the chair nearest
the door; while the spinsters, each seated in her particular chair,
straightened their long backs and folded their mittened hands and
assumed exactly the same expression of countenance.
This time Joshua took the story of the traveller coming down to
Jerusalem who fell among thieves. Perhaps some faint resemblance
between that sacred record and his own rescue of the girl yonder
may have influenced his selection, but he hardly owned as much to
himself. His simple yet eloquent commentary touched the girl deeply.
Every word of those gospels was now familiar to her. She had read the
New Testament with fervid interest. The sacred story, new to her
girlish mind, had been verily a revelation, and she had accepted this
new creed--the first ever offered to her understanding--with faith
and affection that knew no limit. It seemed all intensely real to her
ardent nature. Her imagination pictured every scene, filled up every
detail: she could see the divine face shining upon her, the little
children gathered round the gracious Teacher; the blind, the sick,
the lame, the leper, the outcast, seeking comfort and healing from
that inexhaustible fountain of mercy. She saw all these things in
holy waking dreams--saw them as really as some hysterical nun in her
ecstatic trance.
But for Joshua Haggard she would never have known this blessed
history, never have belonged to those happy and elected souls chosen
to share the Master’s rest when earth’s brief pilgrimage was over.
But for him she would have lived her wretched life among the lost
ones, doomed to perdition after death, shut out for ever from the
glorious light which shone upon that happy section of humanity
selected for salvation. That without Joshua’s mediation she might
have come into the Christian fold, that some other friendly hand
might have opened the door to her, was an idea that never occurred
to her mind, more inclined to enthusiasm than to logic. She accepted
Joshua as her spiritual sponsor, the benefactor who had given her the
heritage of salvation, and her gratitude was measureless as her value
of the blessings she had so nearly lost.
There were tears in her eyes as he dwelt on the story of the
Samaritan.
‘You did much more than that for me,’ she said softly when he had
finished. ‘It was not my body you saved, but my soul. When I stopped
to rest on the common that day, I did not know that I had a soul, or
that heaven was any more than the blue sky where the birds sing.’
‘It’s wonderful to think of,’ exclaimed Priscilla, proud of her
pupil; ‘and now she can say off the books of the Bible as quick as
anything, without missing one. Let the minister hear you, Cynthia.’
The girl obeyed, and rattled over the titles of the holy books in a
string, as she had been taught by Priscilla.
‘Now let’s have the counties of England and Wales, my dear.’
Cynthia repeated an ancient rhymed list of the shires, which sounded
like an incantation. Her preceptress listened approvingly, with her
head on one side, in a critical attitude, proud of her work.
‘I should like to hear you read a chapter in the Gospel, Cynthia,’
said Mr. Haggard.
Whereupon the girl turned over the leaves of her Testament
thoughtfully, and then read the story of the raising of Lazarus. She
read beautifully, with feeling and understanding in every tone. Tears
of gladness filled Joshua’s eyes as he listened. This was the richest
reward he had ever reaped for his good works.
When she had read her chapter, Cynthia withdrew modestly to her more
correct sphere in the kitchen, and resumed her plain sewing by the
last rays of summer daylight, while the Miss Weblings entertained
Joshua for the rest of the evening.
At half-past nine, quite a late hour for that feminine household,
Joshua was invited to say an evening prayer; and Cynthia again
appeared at the tinkling of a small handbell which Priscilla held
outside the door; and after the prayer, which was long and fervent,
like all Joshua’s prayers, and personal also, glancing at his blessed
work in this lowly handmaiden’s conversion from the paths of darkness
and error, Cynthia was ordered to sing a hymn.
She stood before them with hands meekly folded, and in a voice clear
as a bird’s, a bright and silvery soprano, sang one of the favourite
hymns of that particular sect--simple not unmelodious verses telling
of the happy land beyond death’s awful river--verses set to a tune
that had a lively lilt in it, and was hardly so suggestive of
devotion as one of Mozart’s sacred numbers.
After the hymn Joshua was pressed to refresh himself once more with
cowslip wine and seedy-cake; and on refusing those luxuries, he was
escorted, with a newly set candle and as much ceremony as a corkscrew
or belfry staircase will admit, to his lavender-scented chamber,
where the dimity draperies were starched to such a degree that they
stood alone.
The midsummer moon looked in at him through the diamond panes of his
casement as he laid himself down, a little tired after a twenty-mile
walk and the various emotions of the day. What was this strange
feeling, too sweet for pain, too thrilling for happiness, which
swelled his breast? What this unknown rapture which moved him to
tears?
‘Thank God!’ he ejaculated involuntarily, yet scarcely knew what new
blessing that was which moved him to such thankfulness. He dared not
question his own thoughts. He was like one awakened out of a trance
who finds himself in a land where all things are strange. He sank
to sleep with that vague mysterious happiness in mind and heart,
fell asleep and dreamed that he had passed into that happier land on
the farther side of the dark river, and that the first to give him
greeting there was Cynthia with a face like an angel’s.
END OF VOL. I.
LONDON:
ROBSON AND SONS, PRINTERS, PANCRAS ROAD, N.W.
Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
silently corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences
within the three volumes of this work and consultation of external
sources. Some hyphens in words have been silently removed and
some silently added when a predominant preference was found in
the original work. Except for those changes noted below, original
spellings in the text and inconsistent or archaic usage have been
retained.
Page 13: “of their nestes” replaced by “of their nests”.
Page 46: “the Ptolomies” replaced by “the Ptolemies”.
Page 81: “the Hunter eat” replaced by “the Hunter ate”.
Page 152: “that he not” replaced by “that he had not”.
Page 211: “made herself a” replaced by “made herself as”.
Page 241: “for your well-fare” replaced by “for your welfare”.
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
public domain.