AT GLANOG.
"For something that abode endued
With temple-like repose, an air
Of life's kind purposes pursued
With order'd freedom sweet and fair,
A tent pitched in a world not right
It seem'd, whose inmates, every one,
On tranquil faces, bore the light
Of duties beautifully done."
How did the days pass after that? In restless anxiety, with Eleanor; in
miserable uncertainty and remorse and sorrow. She counted the hours
till her despatch could be in Mr. Carlisle's hands; then she figured to
herself the pain it would cause him; then she doubted fearfully what
the immediate effect would be. It might be, to bring him down to Plassy
with the utmost speed of post-horses; and again Eleanor reckoned the
stages and estimated the speed at which Mr. Carlisle's postillions
could be made to travel, and the time when it would be possible for
this storm to burst upon Plassy. That day Eleanor begged the pony and
went out. She wandered for hours, among unnumbered, and almost
unheeded, beauties of mountain and vale; came home at a late hour, and
crept in by a back entrance. No stranger had come; the storm had not
burst yet; and Mrs. Caxton was moved to pity all the supper time and
hours of the evening, at the state of fear and constraint in which
Eleanor evidently dwelt.
"My dear, did you like this man?" she said when they were bidding each
other good night.
"Mr. Carlisle?--yes, very well; if only he had not wanted me to marry
him."
"But you fear him, Eleanor."
"Because, aunt Caxton, he always had a way of making me do just what he
wished."
"Are you so easily governed, Eleanor, by one whom you do not love? I
should not have thought it."
"I do not know how it was, aunty. I had begun wrong, in the first
place; I was in a false position;--and lately Mr. Carlisle has taken it
into his head, very unnecessarily, to be jealous; and I could not move
a step without subjecting myself to a false imputation."
"Good night, my dear," said her aunt. "If he comes, I will take all
imputations on myself."
But Mr. Carlisle did not come. Day passed after day; and the intense
fear Eleanor had at first felt changed to a somewhat quieter
anticipation; though she never came home from a ride without a good
deal of circumspection about getting into the house. At last, one day
when she was sitting with her aunt the messenger came from the post,
and one of those letters was handed to Eleanor that she knew so well;
with the proud seal and its crest. Particularly full and well made she
thought this seal was; though that was not so very uncommon, and
perhaps she was fanciful; but it was a magnificent seal, and the lines
of the outer handwriting were very bold and firm. Eleanor's cheeks lost
some colour as she opened the envelope, which she did without breaking
the bright black wax. Her own letter was all the enclosure.
The root of wrong even unconsciously planted, will bear its own proper
and bitter fruits; and Eleanor tasted them that day, and the next and
the next. She was free; she was secure from even an attempt to draw her
back into the bonds she had broken; when Mr. Carlisle's pride had taken
up the question there was no danger of his ever relenting or faltering;
and pride had thrown back her letter of withdrawal in her face. She was
free; but she knew she had given pain, and that more feeling was stung
in Mr. Carlisle's heart than his pride.
"He will get over it, my dear," said her aunt coolly. But Eleanor shed
many tears for a day or two, over the wrong she had done. Letters from
Ivy Lodge did not help her.
"Home is very disagreeable now," wrote her little sister Julia; "mamma
is crying half the day, and the other half she does not feel
comfortable--" (a gentle statement of the case.) "And papa is very much
vexed, and keeps out of doors the whole time and Alfred with him; and
Mr. Rhys is gone away, and I have got nobody. I shouldn't know what to
do, if Mr. Rhys had not taught me; but now I can pray. Dear Eleanor, do
you pray? I wish you were coming home again, but mamma says you are not
coming in a great while; and Mr. Rhys is never coming back. He said so."
Mrs. Powle's letter was in strict accordance with Julia's description
of matters; desperately angry and mortified. The only comfort was, that
in her mortification she desired Eleanor to keep away from home and out
of her sight; so Eleanor with a certain rest of heart in spite of all,
prepared herself for a long quiet sojourn with her aunt at the
cheese-farm of Plassy. Mrs. Caxton composedly assured her that all this
vexation would blow over; and Eleanor's own mind was soon fain to lay
off its care and content itself in a nest of peace. Mrs. Caxton's house
was that, to anybody worthy of enjoying it; and to Eleanor it had all
the joy not only of fitness but of novelty. But for a lingering care on
the subject of the other question that had occupied her, Eleanor would
in a little while have been happier than at any former time in her
life. How was it with that question, which had pressed so painfully
hard during weeks and months past? now that leisure and opportunity
were full and broad to take it up and attend to it. So they were; but
with the removal of difficulty came in some degree the relaxing of
effort; opportunity bred ease. It was so simple a thing to be good at
Plassy, that Eleanor's cry for it became less bitter. Mrs. Caxton's
presence, words, and prayers, kept the thought constant alive; yet with
more of soothing and hopeful than of exciting influence; and while
Eleanor constantly wished she were happy like her, she nevertheless did
not fail to be happy in her own way.
The aunt and niece were excellently suited to each other, and took
abundant delight in each other's company. Eleanor found that what had
been defective in her own education was in the way to be supplied and
made up to her singularly; here, of all places, on a cheese-farm! So it
was. To her accomplishments and materials of knowledge, she now found
suddenly superadded, the necessity and the practice of thinking. In
Mrs. Caxton's house it was impossible to help it. Judgment, conscience,
reason, and good sense, were constantly brought into play; upon things
already known and things until then not familiar. In the reading of
books, of which they did a good deal; in the daily discussion of the
newspaper; in the business of every hour, in the intercourse with every
neighbour, Eleanor found herself always stimulated and obliged to look
at things from a new point of view; to consider them with new lights;
to try them by a new standard. As a living creature, made and put here
to live for something, she felt herself now; as in a world where
everybody had like trusts to fulfil and was living mindful or forgetful
of his trust. How mindful Mrs. Caxton was of hers, Eleanor began every
day with increasing admiration to see more and more. To her servants,
to her neighbours, with her money and her time and her sympathies, for
little present interests and for world-wide and everlasting ones, Mrs.
Caxton was ever ready, active, watchful; hands full and head full and
heart full. That motive power of her one mind and will, Eleanor
gradually found, was the centre and spring of a vast machinery of good,
working so quietly and so beneficently as proved it had been in
operation a long, long time. It was a daily deep lesson to Eleanor,
going deeper and deeper every day. The roots were striking down that
would shoot up and bear fruit by and by.
Eleanor was a sweet companion to her aunt all those months. In her
fresh, young, rich nature, Mrs. Caxton had presently seen the signs of
strength, without which no character would have suited her; while
Eleanor's temper was of the finest; and her mind went to work
vigorously upon whatever was presented for its action. Mrs. Caxton
wisely took care to give it an abundance of work; and furthermore
employed Eleanor in busy offices of kindness and help to others; as an
assistant in some of her own plans and habits of good. Many a ride
Eleanor took on the Welsh pony, to see how some sick person was getting
on, or to carry supplies to another, or to give instruction to another,
or to oversee and direct the progress of matters on which yet another
was engaged. This was not new work to her; yet now it was done in the
presence at least, if not under the pressure, of a higher motive than
she had been accustomed to bring to it. It took in some degree another
character. Eleanor was never able to forget now that these people to
whom she was ministering had more of the immortal in them than of even
the earthly; she was never able to forget it of herself. And busy and
happy as the winter was, there often came over her those weary longings
for something which she had not yet; the something which made her
aunt's course daily so clear and calm and bright. What sort of
happiness would be Eleanor's when she got back to Ivy Lodge? She asked
herself that question sometimes. Her present happiness was superficial.
The spring meanwhile drew near, and signs of it began to be seen and
felt, and heard. And one evening Mrs. Caxton got out the plan of her
garden, and began to consider in detail its arrangements, with a view
to coming operations. It was pleasant to see Mrs. Caxton at this work,
and to hear her; she was in her element. Eleanor was much surprised to
find not only that her aunt was her own head gardener, but that she had
an exquisite knowledge of the business.
"This _sulphurea_ I think is dead," remarked Mrs. Caxton. "I must have
another. Eleanor--what is the matter?"
"Ma'am?"
"You are drawing a very long breath, my dear. Where did it come from?"
The reserve which Eleanor had all her life practised before other
people, had almost from the first given way before her aunt.
"From a thought of home, aunt Caxton. I shall not be so happy when I
get back there."
"The happiness that will not bear transportation, Eleanor, is a very
poor article. But they will not want you at home."
"I am afraid of it."
"Without reason. You will not go home this spring, my dear; trust me.
You are mine for a good long time yet."
Mrs. Caxton was wiser than Eleanor; as was soon proved. Mrs. Powle
wrote, desiring her daughter, whatever she did, not to come home then;
nor soon. People would think she was come home for her wedding; and
questions innumerable would be asked, the mortification of which would
be unbearable. Whereas, if Eleanor kept away, the dismal certainty
would by degrees become public, that there was to be no match at all
between Rythdale and the Lodge. "Stay away till it all blown over,
Eleanor," wrote her mother; "it is the least you can do for your
family." And the squire even sent a word of a letter, more kind, but to
the same effect. He wanted his bright daughter at home, he said; he
missed her; but in the circumstances, perhaps it would be best, if her
aunt would be so good as to keep her.
Eleanor carried these letters to Mrs. Caxton, with a tear in her eye,
and an humbled, pained face.
"I told you so," said her aunt. "How could people expect that Mr.
Carlisle's marriage would take place three months after the death of
his mother? that is what I do not understand."
"They arranged it so, and it was given out, I suppose. Everything gets
known. He was going abroad in the spring, or immediately after; and
meant not to go without me."
"Now you are my child, my dear, and shall help me with my roses," said
her aunt kissing her, and taking Eleanor in her arms. "Eleanor, is that
second question settled yet?"
"No, aunt Caxton."
"You have not chosen yet which master you will serve,--the world or the
Lord?"
"O yes, ma'am--I have decided that. I know which I want to be."
"But not which you will be."
"I mean that, ma'am."
"You are not a servant of the Lord now, Eleanor?"
"No, aunt Caxton--I don't see how. I am dark."
"Christ says, 'He that is not with me is against me.' A question that
is undecided, decides itself. Eleanor, decide this question to-night."
"To-night, ma'am?"
"Yes. I am going to send you to church."
"To church! There is no service to-night, aunt Caxton."
"Not at the church where you have been--in the village. There is a
little church in the valley beyond Mrs. Pynce's cottage. You are going
there."
"I do not remember any. Why, aunt Caxton, the valley is too narrow
there for anything but the road and the brook; the mountains leave no
room--hardly room for her house."
"You have never been any further. Do you not remember a sharp turn just
beyond that place?"
"Yes, I do."
"You will see the chapel when you get round the turn."
The place Mrs. Caxton alluded to, was a wild, secluded, most beautiful
valley, the bottom of which as Eleanor said was almost filled up with
the road, and the brook which rushed along its course to meet the
river; itself almost as large as another river. Where the people could
be found to go to a church in such a region, she could not imagine.
Heather clothed the hills; fairy cascades leaped down the rocks at
every turning, lovely as a dream; the whole scene was wild and lonely.
Hardly any human habitations or signs of human action broke the wild
reign of nature all the valley through. Eleanor was sure of a charming
ride at least, whether there was to be a congregation in the church at
the end of it or no; and she prepared herself accordingly. Mrs. Caxton
was detained at home; the car did not go; three or four of the
household, men and women, went on ponies as Eleanor did.
They set off very early, while the light was fair and beautiful yet,
for the ride was of some length. It was not on the way to the village;
it turned off from the fine high road to a less practised and more
uneven track. It was good for horses; and riding in front, a little
ahead of her companions, Eleanor had the luxury of being alone. Why had
Mrs. Caxton bade her "settle that question" to-night? How could she;
when her mind was in so much darkness and confusion on the subject? Yet
Eleanor hardly knew specifically what the hindrance was; only it was
certain that while she wished and intended to be a Christian, she was
no nearer the point, so far as she could see, than she had been months
ago. Nay, Eleanor confessed to herself that in the sweet quiet and
peace of her aunt's house, and in her own release from pressing
trouble, she had rather let all troublesome thoughts slip away from
her; so that, though not forgotten, the subject had been less painfully
on her mind than through the weeks that went before her coming to
Plassy. She had wished for leisure and quiet to attend to it and put
that pain to rest for ever; and in leisure and quiet she had suffered
pain to go to sleep in a natural way and left all the business of
dealing with it to be deferred till the time of its waking. How was all
this? Eleanor walked her pony slowly along, and thought. _Then_ she had
been freshly under the influence of Mr. Rhys and his preaching; the
very remembrance of which, now and here, stirred her like an alarum
bell. Ay, and more than that; it wakened the keen longing for that
beauty and strength of life which had so shewn her her own poverty.
Humbled and sad, Eleanor walked her pony on and on, while each little
crystal torrent that came with its sweet clear rush and sparkle down
the rocks, tinkled its own little silver bell note in her ears; a note
of purity and action. Eleanor had never heard it from them before; now
somehow each rushing streamlet, with its bright leap over obstacles and
its joyous dash onward in its course, sounded the same note. Nothing
could be more lovely than these cascades; every one different from the
others, as if to shew how many forms of beauty water could take.
Eleanor noticed and heard them every one and the call of every one, and
rode on in a pensive mood till Mrs. Pynce's cottage was passed and the
turn in the valley just beyond opened up a new scene for her.
How lovely! how various! The straitened dell spread out gradually from
this point into a comparatively broad valley, bordered with higher
hills as it widened in the distance. The light still shewed its
entrancing beauty; wooded, and spotted with houses and habitations of
all kinds; from the very humble to the very lordly, and from the
business factories of to-day, back to the ruined strongholds of the
time when war was business. Wide and delicious the view was, as much as
it was unexpected; and spring's softened colouring was all over it.
Eleanor made a pause of a few seconds as soon as all this burst upon
her; her next thought was to look for the church. And it was plain to
see; a small dark edifice, in excellent keeping with its situation;
because of its colour and its simple structure, which half merged it
among the rocks and the hills.
"That is the church, John?" Eleanor said to Mrs. Caxton's factotum.
"That is it, ma'am. There's been no minister there for a good piece of
the year back."
"And what place is this?"
"There's no _place_, to call it, ma'am. It's the valley of Glanog."
Eleanor jumped off her pony and went into the church. She had walked
her pony too much; it was late; the service had begun; and Eleanor was
taken with a sudden tremor at hearing the voice that was reading the
hymn. She had no need to look to see whose it was. She walked up the
aisle, seeking a vacant place to sit down, and exceedingly desirous to
find it, for she was conscious that she was right under the preacher's
eye and observation; but as one never does well what one does in
confusion, she overlooked one or two chances that offered, and did not
get a seat till she was far forward, in the place of fullest view for
both seeing and being seen. And there she sat down, asking herself what
should make her tremble so. Why had her aunt Caxton sent her that
evening, alone, to hear Mr. Rhys preach? And why not? what was there
about it? She was very glad, she knew, to hear him; but there would be
no more apathy or languor in her mind now on the subject of that
question her aunt had desired her to settle. No more. The very sound of
that speaker's voice woke her conscience to a sharp sense of what she
had been about all these months since she had heard it last. She bent
her head in her hand for a little while, in a rushing of thoughts--or
ideas--that prevented her senses from acting; then the words the people
were singing around her made their entrance into her ear; an entrance
opened by the sweet melody. The words were given very plain.
"No room for mirth or trifling here,
For worldly hope, or worldly fear,
If life so soon is gone;
If now the Judge is at the door,
And all mankind must stand before
Th' inexorable throne!
"No matter which my thoughts employ,
A moment's misery or joy;
But O! when both shall end,
Where shall I find my destined place?
Shall I my everlasting days
With fiends or angels spend?"
Eleanor sat cowering before that thought. "Now are we going to have a
terrible sermon?" was her inward question. She would not look up. The
preliminary services were all over, she found, and the preacher rose
and gave out his text.
"A glorious high throne from the beginning, is the place of our
sanctuary."
Eleanor could not keep her eyes lowered another second. The well-known
deliberate utterance, and a little unconscious indefinable ring of the
tones in which the words were spoken, brought her eyes to the speaker's
face; and they were never turned away again. "Do we need a
sanctuary?"--was the first question the preacher started; and very
quietly he went on to discuss that. Very quietly; his manner and his
voice were neither in the slightest degree excited; how it was, Eleanor
did not know, that as he went on a tide of feeling swept over the
assembly. She could see it in the evidences of tears, and she heard it
in a deep sough of the breath that went all over the house. The
preacher was reaching each one's secret consciousness, and stirring
into life that deep hidden want of every heart which every heart knew
differently. Some from sorrow; some from sin; some from weariness; some
from loneliness; some from the battle of life; some from the struggle
with their own hearts; all, from the wrath to come. Nay, Eleanor's own
heart was throbbing with the sense that he had reached it and touched
it, and knew its condition. How was it, that with those quiet words he
had bowed every spirit before him, her own among the number? It is
true, that in the very containedness of his tones and words there was
an evidence of suppressed power; it flashed out once in a while; and
wrought possibly with the more effect from the feeling that it was
contained and kept down. However it were, the minds of the assembly
were already at a high state of tension, when he passed to the other
part of his subject--the consideration of the sanctuary. It was no
discourse of regular heads and divisions; it is impossible to report,
except as to its effects. The preacher's head and heart were both full,
and words had no stint. But in this latter part of his subject, the
power which had been so contained was let loose, though still kept
within bounds. The eye fired now, and the voice quivered with its
charge, as he endeavoured to set before the minds of the people the
glorious vision which filled his own; to make known to others the
"riches of glory" in which his own soul rested and rejoiced. So
evidently, that his hearers half caught at what he would shew them, by
the catching of sympathy; and from different parts of the house now
there went up a suppressed cry, of want, or of exultation, as the case
might be, which it was very thrilling to hear. It was the sense of want
and pain in Eleanor's mind; not spoken indeed except by her
countenance; but that toned strongly with the notes of feeling that
were uttered around her. As from the bottom of a dark abyss into which
he had fallen, a person might look up to the bright sky, of which he
could see but a little, which yet would give him token of all the
firmamental light and beauty up there which he had not. From her
darkness Eleanor saw it; saw it in the preacher's face and words; yes,
and heard it in many a deep-breathed utterance of gladness or
thanksgiving at her side. She had never felt so dark in her life as
when she left the church. She rushed away as soon as the service was
over, lest any one should speak to her; however she had to wait some
time outside the door before John came out. The people all tarried
strangely.
"Beg pardon, ma'am," said John, "but we was waiting a bit to see the
minister."
Eleanor rode home fast, through fair moonlight without and great
obscurity within her own spirit. She avoided her aunt; she did not want
to speak of the meeting; she succeeded in having no talk about it that
I night.