A "REVIVAL."
Things had gone hard with the preacher since Greta and he went
hand-in-hand, like a couple of guilty children, across the moor to
Gorsthwaite. It was out of the question that Greta should return that
night, whatever the result of her absence might be when it came to
her father's ears. Gabriel, too, was induced to spend the night at
Gorsthwaite; so tired out was he with trouble and the quick succession
of trying scenes. But the preacher was tough in the fibre, and the
night's rest well-nigh cured his body, while it gave his mind fresh
vigour to understand his own Titanic worthlessness. Had he been able
to fly from Greta--lest he should contaminate her--it is probable that
his first instinct on awakening would have been towards showing a
clean pair of heels, under the delusion that he was doing the lassie
a service; but luckily his duty ran with his pleasure for once, for
it was clear, even to his perceptions, that the miller would hear
of Greta's leaving home the night before, and that a sufficient
explanation must be forthcoming.
So Gabriel took the girl home about eleven of the next morning, and,
finding Miller Rotherson just returned from his journey, gave the
kindly old man a full and faithful account of the whole affair. The
miller rubbed his chin when Gabriel had finished, and looked at him
quizzically.
"So you want to marry my daughter? Well, I don't know about that.
It seems to me you're far too hot-headed to be comfortable as a
son-in-law. For all that, I can't rightly see that you show up so badly
in the matter. You fought because--but we won't go into that. At any
rate, if it weren't for you, I should have neither daughter nor mill at
this moment. But to marry her--it's asking a deal; well, we must think
about it."
And soon after that it was known through the length and breadth of Ling
Crag village and Marshcotes parish that Gabriel Hirst and the miller's
daughter were "bahn to be wed." Betty Binns named Greta "a forrard
young hussie, about as fit to be a godly man's wife as skim-milk is fit
to butter your bread;" and the rest of the village thought as much--for
was not poor Greta "a furriner"?
And this was the beginning of a hard time for the preacher. He had
trafficked too little in happiness to accept it quietly when it came.
He felt an earnest need for some set-off in the shape of misery, and
he had that fight with Griff ready to his conscience. The more he
pondered over it, the greater seemed his offence. True, Griff looked
at him nowadays with a kindlier eye than ever before; true, the sin
had brought him his heart's desire (next after God, he added, but the
parenthesis carried little conviction even to himself). But was the sin
any the less in that it had borne good fruit? If he held that, he was
no better than a papist, an idolater--and that was almost the hardest
rap Gabriel could give himself.
In the middle of his troublous time, there came a strange preacher to
the Ling Crag chapel, to conduct the anniversary services there. He was
known throughout the country, the Rev. Abel Bell, as a powerful mover
of men's hearts, and the Ling Crag folk expected great things of him.
Nor were they disappointed; the stranger, at the end of half a dozen
sentences, had put himself out of reach of the captious criticism to
which the villagers were wont to treat their superiors in godliness;
before they had recovered from this unwonted sense of inability to
carp, they were snared into enthusiasm. There was a meeting of the
class-leaders after morning service, and they unanimously decided
to ask the new preacher to stay for a few days and conduct a series
of "Revival" services. Gabriel Hirst was ripe for any wildness when
Wednesday came. The three Sunday services, with the evening calls to
the unconverted on Monday and Tuesday, had already wrought him to a
high pitch of nervous tension; contact with Greta and that growing
sense of his unworthiness combined to bring him up to fever heat.
The "Revival" enthusiasm spreads like a contagion when once it is set
going. From Ling Crag and Marshcotes and the scattered farms for miles
around, the people came. On Wednesday evening there was not a seat to
be had; the pews were full, the long wooden benches were full, and
there was scarce standing room for those at the back of the chapel.
Near the front sat Griff Lomax, who had not witnessed a "Revival" for
years, and who felt a purely irreligious and unbiassed interest in
proceedings which were calculated to draw the naked hearts out of his
usually taciturn neighbours.
The Rev. Abel Bell mounted into the pulpit, and talked with homely
vigour. No simile was too wild, no illustration too commonplace, so
long as he held captive the imagination of his hearers. Divinity,
he held, had once walked in rough mortal garb, and in rough mortal
metaphor only could the Divine truth be understood by men. The subtle
fire ran in and out among the congregation. Hearts that were wont to
keep within the limits of their own hardened shells leaped out to one
another; as they had been strong in restraint, so they were strong in
abandonment now that the fitting time had come. Each man looked at his
neighbour, and yearned over him, and prayed that salvation might reach
all present. The minister grew frenzied.
"The Devil is trembling!" he shouted, with a voice that seemed to be
tearing at the lining of his throat. "Heaven and Hell are fighting for
the souls of men. The Devil is trembling--Heaven is winning. Into the
fight, brothers; give the Devil a oner! ('Praise the Lord!' 'Glory!'
'Hallelujah!') Into the thick of it, friends, and smite with the arm
of God! ('Hallelujah!')" He pointed with his hand to the chapel door.
"See him there--see the Devil scuttering out with his tail between his
legs! Angels are rejoicing; the battle is won. The gates of Heaven
stand open--one and all, come in." ("Praise the Lord!" "Glory!"
"Hallelujah!" reiterated the congregation.)
His voice fell to a pleading quietness, but mounted and mounted till it
rang like a trumpet-call.
"Heaven, my brothers and sisters--if you knew what was meant by Heaven,
there's none here to-night but would search for Jesus till he found
Him. We are blinded by folly and sin, but we've got eyes that can see
the sky, which is the window of Heaven. When the earth wants warming,
out comes the sun, and laughs over moors and woods and fields. When
the earth gapes with thirst, then God Almighty sends the blessed
rain-clouds--packed up ready, carriage paid, free of charge. ('Glory!
Glory!') This night we must gather the sinners in to the Lord--gather
them in ('Hallelujah!'). There's a table spread in the courts of
Heaven, and all that are saved can sit down to it. Ask for what you
will, and you've only to pass up your plates--and all the while the
golden harps will be playing, and the cymbals clashing, and God will
be there at the top of the table, ready to smile on one and all and
send them down whatever they ask for. Why will the sinners stay on the
wrong side of the Golden Gates? It's cold out there, and it's wet, with
a keen east wind that cuts you to the bone. Will you come in to the
Lord, friends, out of the cold, out of the wet? Think what it means! if
once you let the Gates be shut on you, from the cold you'll be hurried
away to the Burning Lake, and you'll burn there for ever and ever.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Unstop the ears of the hardened, Lord; conquer
their deafness; gather them into Thy bosom. Glory, glory!"
When the sermon was finished, the minister and the class-leaders went
in and out among the congregation, exhorting them to effort, aiding
them in the desperate struggle to "find Jesus." Groans and cries went
up on every hand. The agony of doubt was bitterly real, the swift flash
of belief a true and priceless blessing. Griff was the only one present
who looked on the proceedings from a dispassionate, outside standpoint.
There had been a little--just a little--pitying contempt at the bottom
of his interest in the Revival; but now that he was in the thick of it,
now that the cries of "Hallelujah!" "Found pardon!" "Glory, glory!"
came thick and fast, drowning the anxious calls for aid, now that the
uncouthness of his neighbours was lost in their strenuous sincerity,
Griff knew that he had been minded to scoff at what was above and
beyond cheap raillery; the thrill of contact with this seething
enthusiasm shot through his nerves and gripped him with awed amazement.
A rude bench was carried to the foot of the communion-table. Those who
had found salvation rose, one by one, and went to the bench and knelt
with their arms on it, to wrestle with the remnants of their unbelief.
Class-leaders and minister went busily to and fro, like bees at
heather-time, arguing, pleading, praying with those whose hearts would
not be softened unto grace. Surely, if man's whole prayerful effort,
man's utmost power of will, could bring a Presence from the Unknown
Without, then God was in this little moorside chapel.
But Gabriel Hirst was not forward with exhortation, as of old. He stood
in a shadowed corner, his arms folded on his breast, his eyes wild with
a battle of terror and determination. Griff, glancing up with an uneasy
consciousness that some one was looking through and through him, met
the preacher's eyes. In a flash it came to him what Gabriel was finding
heart to do; he made a movement as if to cross to him, but stopped.
What could he say or do to keep back this confession of a deed that was
finished with long ago? He could do nothing, save watch the preacher
move forward to the front, and listen to his stumbling words of
introduction. Then Gabriel, finding his manhood, faltered no more, but
walked steadily up the pulpit steps. His voice was low and firm; only
the piteous working of his face betrayed his torment. He told how, upon
a certain day, the seed of a thorn-tree was dropped in the cleft of a
quarry-face; he described the breaking of the seed-shell, the growth of
the sapling; he brought before the eyes of those present the picture of
a merciful God watering the tree, tending it with jealous watchfulness.
Then he talked of another seed, the seed of jealousy and hate. Years
were needed to measure the growth of God's handiwork; but the evil in
man increased by days, by hours, by minutes.
Then, on a sudden, his voice went deeper. He leaned over the pulpit and
looked across the sea of anxious faces to the place where Griff was
sitting.
"Stand up, Griff Lomax, and come to the front, and tell them all what a
man did to you on the brink of Whins Quarry."
But Griff made no movement, and the preacher told his own story.
"The seed of jealousy was set in this man, and it grew in the space of
a single day, till he was ripe for blows--nay, for worse. He waited for
his friend at the edge of the quarry-face, and murder was in his heart."
"Glory, glory!" shouted a woman at the rear of the chapel. She was in
the throes of her own personal need for salvation, and her shout of joy
came with a weird irrelevancy.
"The man was myself," went on Gabriel, "and the friend that I waited
for was Griff Lomax, whom I had loved as my own brother--ay, as David
yearned over Jonathan I had loved the lad. But the seed of hate was
planted, and grew apace. He came along by the path at the quarry-side,
and I closed with him. The devil had gripped my heart; I forgot that
the edge was close behind us; I cared for nothing in heaven or hell but
vengeance. The devil strengthened my arms. I lifted the lad and threw
him over my shoulder."
"Hallelujah! Found Jesus, found Jesus!" yelled a weather-beaten
quarryman, seated under the pulpit.
Gabriel paused and dashed his hand across his forehead; the sweat ran
off in a stream and dripped to the pulpit ledge. A hoarse murmur went
from lip to lip of the listening crowd.
"I heard the rumbling of stones as he went over the brink, and then a
splash in the pool at the bottom."
Every eye turned to Griff, sitting with a rigid face, like one returned
from the dead. A superstitious awe gained on the folk; they were ripe
to credit a miracle in their present exalted state.
"I ran down the hill and fell, and lay in a swoon for a while," went
on the preacher. "When I went to the pool, there was no body there, and
I pictured him lying in the mud at the bottom--lying, and waiting till
the trump of the Judgment Day called him to tell what he knew."
Griff hardened his face yet further. He found it a strain not to wince
under those keen eye-shafts, focussed on him from every quarter of
the chapel, like needles about a magnet. The preacher, regarding him
steadfastly, rose to a splendid height of egoism.
"But God had been watching over this moment, watching over the feet of
Gabriel Hirst, the least and most sinful of His servants. Before I came
into the world, He had set the seed of a thorn-tree in the side of the
quarry; the tree grew, till its branches were strong to support the
fall of a man. The brother I loved, the brother I had all but killed
in my hate, fell safe into the bush, as God in His mercy had ordained.
The sin of will is mine, black as ever, but the sin of the deed has
been lightened. Lift up your hearts, ye children of God, and thank your
Father for His mercies, and take heed by my own fall how you let the
devil creep into your hearts."
His voice was weakening, his grip of the ledge in front of him grew
less firm. But he had something yet to say.
"Griff Lomax, I have laboured to bring you into the straight way of
faith. The Lord has delivered you; turn to the Lord and believe in Him."
The Rev. Abel Bell struck up the Doxology, obeying instinct rather than
the prompting of reason. The little chapelful of people joined in with
one voice, till the walls seemed to rock with the clashing waves of
sound.
But Gabriel Hirst had fainted on the floor of the pulpit.
Quietly Griff moved down the aisle, and took his friend in his arms.
He carried him into the vestry, and was sprinkling water over his face
before the congregation was fairly alive to what had happened.
When the Doxology had been sung--and sung again--there began a great
harvesting of souls. Few of those present could withstand the swift
excitement of such a confession as they had lately listened to. Never
before had the Rev. Abel Bell witnessed so goodly a gathering in to the
Lord.
When the fervour had subsided a little, and the time was at hand for
an adjournment to the class-room, there to enroll the converted, Griff
moved up to the pulpit and mounted the stair. He gave them a level
narrative of what had happened at Whins Quarry, and he so over-rated
Gabriel's cause for hate that his after-action showed excusable; he
went further, moving warily step by step, till he had proved that any
man, with manhood in him, must have acted as the preacher had done. And
then, as he turned to go--
"Gabriel Hirst has bidden me thank God for my escape," he said. "I do
thank God, from my whole heart fervently. Neighbours, we are going to
forget what has passed to-night, remembering only that we have a man
among us--a man to the tips of his fingers. And his name is Gabriel
Hirst."