OUR PARISH.
The harvest was over, and it had been a good one. The usual festivities
were held, and were more really joyous than such occasions frequently
are. Already in many parts of the country the true leaders of the people
were looking forward to the winter, not only in preparation, but with
resolution, and were manfully determined that, if they could not prevent
the usual sin, they would prevent some of the attendant misery of the
days of cold and gloom. Arthur Knight was doing the work of two or three
men. His brain was busy in regard to his own people; but whenever and
wherever it was possible he was preaching his Gospel of Christian unity
for the world’s good. By the seaside, in the mission hall, in
drawing-rooms, in chapels by the dozen he was entreating, in words made
eloquent by feeling, that the Church would no longer mourn over the
evils of the world, but would set itself by one great united effort to
remedy them. And, happily, Knight was only one; there were a dozen other
men saying and writing the same thing.
And it was little Darentdale that led the way. By the aid of quiet
visits and persuasive talk a number of persons had been led to acquiesce
in the plan of making this special harvest festival the occasion for a
new start, which made almost every heart in the village glad, for most
working men and women had the surprise of a rise of wages—“for no
earthly reason,” the people said, but for a very heavenly reason, as all
knew who were in the secret. This was what everybody could appreciate,
and did. The additional money was no great sum; in many cases it was
only a shilling a week, and with it was expressed, as delicately as
possible, a hope that it would not find its way into the publican’s
hands; nor did it, for the event made the men desire their families to
share it. The beauty of the increase lay in the fact that it had been
voluntarily and freely given, without any threat of a strike, and even
without the asking. That was the wonder of it!
Nor was this all. There were a few loafers in the parish, and every one
of these received on the same day an offer of regular work at good
wages. There were several who had lost their characters, and each of
these had another chance given him. The lads and girls who had left the
Sunday-school received an invitation to tea at some ladies’ or
gentlemen’s home the next Sunday. Work was found for all who could work,
and even for poor old people who could do very little, so that they
might still feel themselves independent, and not fear the workhouse. In
connection with each of the churches a room was to be fitted up for the
purpose of “a girls’ parlour,” or a “boys’ reading-room.” An invitation
to an “At Home,” with music and coffee, was signed by Margaret and Tom,
and sent to every man who was known to frequent the public-house; while
those who were steady, and especially those of the people who were
members of Christian churches, were urged to “Come themselves and bring
their mates with them.”
So Darentdale led the way. It was all arranged quietly and without
ostentation, and this is what was accomplished—there was no poor person
in the parish to whom no friendship and help was offered. It was the
gladdest day the place had ever known; for there is no joy so great as
that of “offering willingly” that which we have to men for Christ’s
sake. “It _is_ more blessed to give than to receive.” “There _is_ that
scattereth and yet increaseth.” There was no man who took the extra
money (which was not given as a favour, but yielded as if it were a
right—as, indeed, in most cases it was) who did not resolve that he
would put in a better week’s work for the better week’s wage; but it was
no shrewd anticipation of this which gave to such men as Whitwell,
Dallington, and others the exuberance of that never-to-be-forgotten-day.
It would mean more work and self-denial for themselves, they knew; but
they faced most joyously all that was involved in the effort which they
were making.
Of course there were a few people who shut themselves out of the feast,
and sneered at the music and dancing, all the more angrily because they
knew that they were not sharers in some strange joy which they could not
understand. Mrs. Hunter and her stepson were among the number. William
smoked more cigars in that one day than he had ever consumed in the same
space of time before, for his nerves needed soothing.
“It is more than a sane fellow can comprehend—madness, I call it,” he
said, between the whiffs; “throwing money away on the lower orders. I
told John so this morning; and what do you think he said?”
“I cannot tell, indeed; something about universal brotherhood or other
nonsense of the same kind,” said John’s mother.
“He said there were no lower orders!”
“Indeed?”
“Yes; he said there must always be masters and men—persons who
represented property and persons who represented labour: those who
worked with the head and those who worked with the hands; but no
Christian man had a right to selfishly keep his riches to himself; and
that in this country, with all the money that is going, no one ought to
know the meaning of the word ‘poverty’; and that it was adding insult to
injury to speak of lower orders.”
“And what did you say?”
“‘Bosh!’ and he said ‘Perhaps,’ and then I said ‘Rot!’ and he laughed.
And I told him he was going dead against the Bible, and casting pearls
before swine; and that, instead of thanking him, they would turn again
and rend him. And he said he was not doing it in the hope of getting
thanks, and was paid as he went on, whatever that might mean; and I
called him a fool.”
“You did?”
“Yes, I did; but I thought it better not to let him hear me.”
“He will bring ruin upon us all with these stupid, new-fangled notions.”
“He says they are not new-fangled, but as old as the Gospel and the
Sermon on the Mount.”
“I cannot understand it. Somebody has got hold of him. I suppose
Margaret Miller and Arthur Knight have between them turned his brain.”
“A set of hypocrites, pretending to be so much better than their
neighbours! I have no patience with them. But it won’t last.”
“No; it won’t last.”
There were four or five other houses in Darentdale where those who stood
aloof from the new movement tried to comfort themselves also, as well as
they could, by declaring that it would not last, and no good would come
of it.
Margaret Miller and Tom Whitwell had a royal time, assisted by the other
young ladies of the village. “Margaret, can you find out what they do at
‘the public,’” asked Tom, “because I am going to compete with the
publican for the favour of the men of our parish?”
“There is, first of all, the drink.”
“Yes; but my sisters are clever in the matter of eating and drinking.
They have coached me up in a few facts, the most important of which is
that the way to a man’s soul, as well as his heart, lies through his
stomach. We have acted accordingly, and I really think that our viands
are appetising enough to insure any man’s reform.”
“And the men like to be amused, you know; they cannot get on without
that.”
“Well, Margaret, you must sing your sweetest, and I will talk to them.
They liked to be talked to, don’t they? especially about politics.”
“Most of all, I think a man likes to spend his evenings in an armchair
in a warm, well-lighted room, with a pipe in his mouth, something to
drink at his elbow, and a newspaper in his hand.”
“If they could but do without the pipe! But I suppose that would be too
great a sacrifice. And it is no use to try to ‘wind them up too high for
mortal man beneath the sky’; we must take them as they are. Old Benham
once said to me, ‘I ham as I ham, and I can’t be no hammer!’ There is a
profound truth in that remark, don’t you think so, Margaret? But I am
glad we have made up our minds to do something for our brothers and
sisters. The inequalities of life have often made me bitter.”
“And how must poor women have felt who have struggled to bring up
respectably a family of children on the money that it has cost us for
dress!”
The “At Home” was a great success. Two better persons to manage it could
not have been found than Margaret and Tom. They had the rare gift of
always being natural. Many a philanthropic endeavour fails because the
ladies and gentlemen, though striving to do their best, and longing to
be useful, cannot feel perfectly at home among the poor, and make them
feel the same. The latter often mistake the stiffness, which is more the
result of nervousness than anything else, for patronage and
condescension, and they are very quick to resent anything of that kind.
It was greatly because Margaret and Tom were already respected and
beloved that their invitation was so almost universally accepted. They
had some fun, both with the men and the women.
“Christmas comes early this year, Miss Tom, don’t it?” one asked, with a
wink at the men who sat opposite to him.
“Does it, Nelson? I think it is about the same time as usual. My
almanack declares it to be on the 25th of December, as it was last year,
if you remember rightly.”
“Oh! I thought tea-fights and such things only comed at Christmas.
What’s all this mean, miss? Are religious people more religious than
usual, or what?”
“It only means that they are more friendly than usual.”
“They want to get us, don’t they?” The man’s eyes were twinkling; but
Tom answered quite seriously, “Yes, Nelson, they want very much indeed
to get you.”
“And they are willing to bid for us in tea-fights, and coffee, and even
fires and newspapers?”
“Yes; and anything else that they can think of.”
“Ah! that’s just what I says to my mate. I says, ‘It’s like the
’lections used to be.’ I’ve had many a glass of whisky for a vote; and I
ain’t much of a hand at politics, so I voted honest for the man as
treated me most liberal; and so I will now. I ain’t much of a hand at
sermons and prayers neither, but I wouldn’t mind obliging either church
or chapel for once in a way, if they’re after bidding for us; but, of
course, Miss Tom, I values myself at the highest price, as is only
natural.”
“Quite natural, Nelson. But you are mistaken this time. The churches and
chapels are not bidding against each other; the people who”—Tom
hesitated—“who are good, you know, are joining together to try and make
things a little better and more happy for those who are not as well off
as themselves. That is all it means.”
“And ain’t we agoing to be persuaded to go neither to church nor to
chapel?”
“No; though we should all be glad if you went somewhere—we don’t care
where. You would have a welcome in either case, of course.”
“Well, that beats all!” said Nelson. “And is this ’ere room to be
lighted up comfortably every night for us?”
“Yes, it is; and we shall be glad if you will all come every night and
enjoy it.”
“What’s this stuff I’m a-drinking, Miss Tom?”
“Beer.”
“What sort o’ beer?”
“Very nice beer, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it’s A 1, and I’ve had four glasses; but it ain’t reg’lar beer,
cause, however much you drinks, you don’t get any forrader with it. It
won’t make you drunk, will it, now?”
“You surely do not want it to make you drunk, do you?”
“Well—no—not as I knows on,” said Nelson, slowly; and the men around him
laughed.
“I used to go to church when I were a boy,” said another man, Benham;
“but if I go anywhere now, I goes to the Methodists when they has the
open-air service. It don’t agree with my health to be shut up in a close
church or chapel.”
“I suppose you find a bar-room better ventilated?” said Tom; and this
time the laugh was against Benham.
“I used to go to church when I were a boy,” echoed another man. “My
father were one of the singers, and he left all through a quarrel about
a anthem. He wanted ‘All people that on earth do dwell’; but another man
wanted ‘I will arise’; my father wouldn’t give way, nor the other man
neither. Father says, ‘It shall be “All people that on earth do dwell,”’
and the t’other says, ‘Cuss “All people that on earth do dwell”’; and my
father put on his hat, and walked out of the church forthwith, and he
never entered it again till he were carried there; and that is the
truth, and I do not deceive you.”
The last words were spoken so solemnly that Tom had to beat a retreat.
But the evening passed pleasantly enough, and Margaret’s singing was
greatly appreciated.
The next night the attendance was less, for some of the men spent the
evening at the public-houses, talking the matter over; but our friends
were not discouraged. They resolved to keep on—and wait. They were
trying to feel their way, and by a wise judiciousness overcome the
suspicion and opposition which they would probably encounter.
But from that seed-sowing harvest day could be dated a most beneficent
change in Darentdale. The homes of the people put on a more comfortable
appearance, and the spiritless women, feeling that something was
expected of them in return for the sympathy and help which they
received, began to be more sprightly, and to take some pride in making
their rooms not only clean but pretty. By the end of the year but few
had grown weary in well-doing, and in many hearts that had been hopeless
before new hopes were springing up.
No one more approved this effort for the people than Mr. Harris. He
contributed nothing to the cakes and tea, but he had done a kindness on
his own account that was very acceptable, for he had presented every
poor person with an armchair! And this he did as a sort of
thank-offering for the pleasure it was to him to know that a good man
cared for his Margaret.
But a few days after the harvest festival Margaret’s mind was
considerably disturbed by an anonymous letter. It ran thus:—“A friend
sends you this word of warning. Why do you try to tempt a gentleman from
his duty and fealty to another? Already you and yours have wrongful
possession of a house and money that by right belong to him. Will you
rob him also of his good name, and cast a blight over his life? If you
care for him you will not do this; unless, indeed, you are false and
fast. Two hearts will break if he be drawn into your meshes; for who and
what are you, and _who were your parents?_ Has he come back to his
native land to be beguiled by one who will but try to drag him down to
her own level? His friends are determined to prevent this sacrifice; so
you will but cause him and them the more trouble by your guile. A stigma
attaches to you, which God forbid that he should share.”
To the last sentence Margaret breathed a fervent Amen. But it will be
readily imagined that this letter caused her a very bad half-hour. Had
she really an enemy—she who was used to seeing nothing but kindness in
every face? And, if so, what was the enemy’s name? She could not tell.
But the pain had a greater sting in it when the thought suggested itself
that perhaps this letter was not the work of an enemy, but of a friend.
For, after all, there was some truth in it. Who and what was she, and
who were her people? She really could not answer the question, for she
did not know. And that was the reason why she had hesitated to accept
John Dallington.
“The time has surely come for me to know,” she said. “I have had vague
fears, but they must be either dispelled or confirmed now. It is not
fair to me or any one else that I should be left in any uncertainty.”
Mr. Harris had a cosy little room opening out of the shop, and here he
usually sat during eight hours of every day in case a customer should
come and require books, papers, or stationery. “I am for the eight-hour
movement,” he used to say, with a significant smile at Margaret. “Eight
hours are long enough for any man to work.”
And she always agreed with him. “Especially when it is such arduous work
as yours, Graf, requiring such close attention to detail, so exhausting
for the brain and the arms, as indeed all work is in these days of
fierce competition. How much did you take over the counter
yesterday—fourpence halfpenny?”
“Oh, I had a good day! I sold a copy of Browning’s poems, and the
purchaser appeared much pleased with it.” The purchaser in almost every
case would be himself, for few Darentdalers bought books or read them,
and those who did sent to London or ordered them through a bookseller in
Scourby. But Margaret and her grandfather had much quiet fun over the
shop, and were decidedly its best customers.
Margaret loved the old man, and was as tender as a daughter could be
toward him; and how much he cared for her all the years of her life had
told. It was, nevertheless, difficult for her to broach the subject that
was uppermost in her mind.
“Has there been a great rush of customers to-day, Graf?”
“Well, I have been quite busy enough for the greater part of the day.
Newspapers have sold well; they are very interesting, for Parliament was
last night discussing the question of adopting that new gun—a noiseless,
smokeless weapon which can kill at the distance of a mile and fire three
hundred shots in succession. Other nations are adopting it, and
Christian England must not be behind. One good thing about it is that
any number of armies could be annihilated in a day; so if the battles
are fierce they will not be long.”
“Dreadful! Surely they will never fight again now that killing is so
easy and so certain?”
“I don’t know; I hope not. I think not, if England would lead the way,
as she ought, and would be always for peace.”
“I am feeling very warlike this evening, Graf.”
“Are you, Margaret? You are young to suffer from nervous irritability.
Do you feel as if you want to bang something?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Go up the house and down the house and bang all the doors. No? You want
something human? I am quite at your service, my dear—bang me! I am
substantial enough for anything.”
“Graf, you are generally young and frivolous when I want you to be staid
and serious. Something has happened to me, and I need help and advice.”
“Really and truly, my child?”
“Yes; very really and truly, indeed. I have had an anonymous letter.”
“Don’t read it, Margaret. I have had many such in my time, denouncing me
as a sceptic and an atheist, and consigning me to the lowest regions.
They don’t hurt you much when you are used to them. Put your letter in
the fire unread, and forget all about it.”
“But I have read it, grandfather; I could not help that, and I want you
to read it, too.”
“I think it would be better not.”
“Please, because I wish it.”
The old man read it through twice, and then looked at Margaret, with a
curious smile. “You need not mind this in the least,” he said. “I
suppose you know who wrote it?”
“I have not the slightest idea.”
“No? It was Mrs. Hunter, John Dallington’s mother.”
“Mrs. Hunter! Oh! surely not? What can make you think that?”
“I do not think it; I am sure of it. There has been an attempt to
disguise the writing, but it is certainly Mrs. Hunter’s. Now, my dear,
never tell any one that you have had it as long as you live. Burn it,
and forget all about it. That is the only thing to do.”
“Graf, you must be mistaken; it could not be Mrs. Hunter.”
“Very well, my dear. Settle it so, and welcome. But I do not believe
there is any one else in Darentdale who would have done it, unless her
stepson did it, and I am sure he did not. Never mind who wrote it,
Margaret, nor what is in it. Somebody is afraid that Dallington has
fallen in love with you. It is a proof of his great good sense and
intelligence that the suspicion is correct.”
“Grandfather,” said Margaret, in grave tones and with trembling lips,
“you have seen what this letter says. Please tell me, who am I?”
Mr. Harris began to look troubled, but he answered, “You are Margaret
Miller. I can tell you no more than that.”
“Oh, but you must!” said the girl, pleadingly. “It is not kind to me; it
is not right to withhold anything from me that touches me so closely.”
“Margaret, I can tell you one fact. You are fit to mate with John
Dallington or any other man. Your parents were good people, and occupied
a high position. They were married in Spain, and I was present at their
wedding.”
“Which of them was your child, grandfather?”
Harris hesitated, but Margaret was urgent.
“The time has surely come for you to be open with me,” she said. “Dear
old Graf, I cannot bear to trouble you; I hate myself for doing it. If
you think I ought not to ask you, I will try to be silent; but it is
hard to have a stigma resting upon me.”
“Child,” he said, angrily, “there is no stigma of any kind attaching to
you! Have I not told you so already?”
“Graf, do not be angry with me. Which of my parents was your child?”
Margaret repeated.
“Neither,” said Harris, and he looked white and pained; “but if you had
been my own child I could not have cared more for you, and you could not
have given me more joy through all these years. Your parents both died
of cholera in Spain—one two days after the other. There were perils that
beset their only child; and from these you were rescued by Mr.
Dallington, who was under an obligation to your father, and who, in
order to pay it, adopted you; and whose will provided for you by leaving
this house and all that is in it to you after me.”
“And is my name Margaret Miller, really?”
“Yes, that is your name.”
“But there is a secret somewhere?”
“There is; but the secret belongs to the dead. No person living is
affected by it; and it will die with me, for I swore not to reveal it;
nor will I, neither at the bidding of hate, nor of love. You know
enough, Margaret. Be content.”
Margaret bowed her head. “Thank you for telling me so much,” she said;
“and for the years of love and kindness which have made my life so happy
that I have scarcely missed my father and mother.”
“I have but done my duty and kept my promise. And you see that you owe
me nothing, Margaret, not even the obedience and love of a
granddaughter.”
“Dear Graf, I owe you everything—all the gratitude, goodwill, and
affection of which I am capable. And I will never forget it. We will be
just as happy together now as we have always been, and forget the
anonymous letter. I am sure that there is not a grain of truth in the
insinuation that we are enjoying money that ought to belong to others.”
“You know quite well, Margaret, that a man has a right to leave his
property to whomsoever he pleases. Mr. Dallington was an eccentric man;
but he was only right and just when he took care that you should want
for nothing. It was his duty to do this—mark what I am saying,
Margaret—_his duty_. He would have been culpable if he had not done it.
But he did it in a curious, unusual way. Some day I will tell you where
you will find, on these premises, enough hard cash to maintain you in
the comfort you have been used to, and, at the rate at which it is spent
now, until you are eighty years old. Now, Madge, my child, you know all
that I can tell you; and it is nobody’s business but ours. I want to
talk to you on another subject. We have all our troubles, my dear”—the
old man sighed as he said it—“and they are not very big ones either, for
they give us more worry than pain. But a very little worry is large
enough to spoil a life if we will let it. You will not let this thing
overshadow your life—if I know you, I am sure you will not—for you are a
believer in the Christ——”
“And so are you, Graf,” interpolated Margaret.
“And it seems plain to me, though, as everybody knows, I am a sceptic
and an unbeliever, that He meant all His followers to live the same kind
of life as He lived. Therefore, my child, you will put yourself on one
side in this matter. Such petty things as anonymous letters are beneath
you now; you must be invulnerable to the little stings which would force
your thoughts upon yourself. Be a large-minded, large-hearted Christian,
or none at all, Margaret. Christianity is not a creed; it is a life.
Don’t you think so?”
“I do, indeed, thanks to your teaching.”
“Oh, no! I am a very irreligious person; but I do not want you to be.”
Margaret was right in saying that she owed everything to this old man,
whom so many denounced. “He is perishing in his sins,” a man had said of
him once, because, when he had been invited to a special service, he had
replied with a laugh that he would rather have one to himself by the
river. But Margaret, whom none ever heard say an unkind thing of
another, whose very presence raised the tone of a garden party, who was
the champion of the absent, whose loving nature made itself felt
everywhere, had formed her opinions and habits after those of her
guardian, and was much the better for it.
“Graf,” said Margaret, “a young woman has no right to come between a
mother and a son, has she? If Mrs. Hunter regards me in this way I am
sure Mr. Dallington must be unhappy about it.”
“I advise you not to mention this letter to him. He gave me to
understand that he was not in a position to marry immediately; and while
you are waiting things may right themselves. In any case, he is of age,
and has a right to choose his own wife. I am glad he has chosen my
child. He took me by surprise, though, because I thought he would marry
Miss Tom Whitwell—for I have fancied many times since his return that
she cared for him. But everything is as it should be. Hear what Browning
says, ‘God’s in His heaven, all’s right with the world.’”
But the talk and the letter caused Margaret a sleepless night, though it
was not so much the letter as the suggestion about her friend, Tom
Whitwell. Can it be true? she asked herself many times; and she was half
afraid it was, now that she thought things through. But she did not keep
the trouble to herself; and her cry, “Show me the right, and give me
strength to do it!” was certain of an answer.