"ANGEEL!"
"Like a sheep enthralled
'Mid thorns and brambles."
On the conclusion of this address, which was Ringfield's idea of a
"grace" and which was modelled on the Methodist formula customary on
such occasions, the people, whose appetites had been held over-long in
check, took their seats with expressions of relief and in some cases
with audible grunts and whispers of annoyance. The truth was,
Ringfield had exhibited a want of tact in expatiating in an eloquent
prayer on things better left alone, from the village point of view. It
was bad enough to occupy so much time when already it was darkening and
soon the lamps would have to be lighted; it was bad enough to pray in
public for the rector and his wife; it was entirely inexcusable to hint
at the presence of a sinner in their midst, at the very board now
covered with the home-made dainties cooked and sent in by the ladies of
Hawthorne. In itself perhaps the prayer, though trite and redundant
(Ringfield was not in his best vein, no longer single-minded), was
eloquent and pointed, and the reference to the snows and rivers of the
country extremely poetic and suggestive, yet it was not in accordance
with the best taste, although prompted by the best feeling. The rector
and his wife, ignoring their own sentiments, made haste to smooth away
the little difficulty that had thus unexpectedly arisen, and in a few
minutes all was in a pleasant clatter and babble with the pouring of
tea, cutting of huge three-decker cakes, and passing of large, solid
plates holding pyramids of equally large and solid sandwiches.
Ringfield, devoting himself to the English visitors and the person in
black silk, who was the widow of a deceased lumber king correctly
reputed to have left an enormous fortune, was by the nature of things
the last to perceive that he had wounded the delicate sensibilities of
the company, and therefore he made a good meal, unconscious of the
comments lower down his table and also around the rector.
"It's always the way with them Methodists," said one speaker in a
careful undertone, a venerable body of fifty or so, with four teeth
left in his head, bent, bald and wrinkled. "They pride themselves on
what they call 'extem-pore' speaking." He gave the word only three
syllables of course. "Why, it's mostly out of the Prayer Book anyway!
He said 'any other infirmity,' did you notice? And we say, 'any other
adversity,' don't we? Well, where's the difference?"
"The tairms are not precisely in the nature of synonyms," remarked the
schoolmaster, a Scotchman of sandy and freckled appearance, who was
cutting a sandwich into small pieces with his penknife and then
frugally conveying them to his mouth with the aid of the same useful
implement. "But in a sairtain sense ye can _call_ them synonyms."
"It's out of course and all irregular like to pray for the Queen and
the Royal Family on a day like this. 'Twould be best keep that for
Sundays where it belongs," said the wife of the ancient who had spoken
first.
"What can ye expect, ma'am, when they come to it without their notes?
Stands to reason, if any man's going to preach earnest, _earnest_, mind
you, he'll require some notes or heads jotted down, clear and easy to
be got at, before him." This was the opinion of another elderly man,
but of a fat and comfortable if blustering variety, who had come out
from the English provinces thirty years before as cook with a regiment,
and was now the Hawthorne butcher and general store-keeper, also
accounted a rich man.
"But that's not the point," he went on with husky and stertorous
fervour. "The point is not whether what he said was well said or ill
said; the point is, he should never have spoke them words at all.
Point? To almost point the finger at us sitting around this hospitable
board declaring we were all sinners! So we are, all of us. The Litany
says so, don't it? Don't it say, 'miserable sinners'?"
"It does, it does," murmured a sympathetic female engaged in feeding
two out of eleven kinds of cake to a child on her lap.
"And the rector leaves it there, where it ought to be left. In my
opinion, ma'am, it don't do no good to pray nor preach too direct.
It's casting a stone, that's what it is, it's casting a stone."
"Perhaps he was nervous, poor young man, at seeing so many people,"
said the young mother of the child who was crumbling the cake all over
its mouth and fingers and dress without swallowing any, having
previously been regaled with maple sugar and molasses candy outside,
and consequently not feeling very hungry. "Perhaps he has heard about
Angeel."
The latter was the common pronunciation of Angele, the name of the
little girl in the basket-chair who was engaged like the rest in eating
and drinking in company with her nurse not far from Mr. Abercorn.
At the word "Angeel" several warning coughs around her, winks, nudges
and a kick under the table, made the young woman so flurried that she
slapped the child for not eating properly, and the child immediately
beginning to cry, a diversion was created, but not before Ringfield had
overheard a few remarks touching his recent prayer, not exactly
flattering to his self-esteem. Soon the conversation lapsed as the
piles of cake, custard and pumpkin pies and jugs of tea were depleted;
and Mr. Abercorn, upon whom the quiet and gathering gloom had a
depressing effect, jumped up and asked for volunteers to assist in
lighting the lamps.
"We usually get through without artificial aid to our eyes and our
mouths, but that is when the picnic tea is held in October. We are at
least a fortnight late this year. We shall want the tall men for
this--Jacobs, Enderby, Anselme--you take these three lamps on the other
side while I find somebody to help me with mine."
"On the score of height, at least," said Ringfield pleasantly, leaving
his seat and striding down the centre of the barn, "I can offer my
services. Which are the ones to be lighted? These two and the one
just over our heads?"
"Very good of you, I'm sure," responded the rector briefly. "They are
quite steady on their brackets, I suppose, men? Now shut those doors;
we don't want any draught. Be careful with the matches, everybody!"
The others had got to work first, and along their side of the wall,
Anselme, Jacobs, and Enderby, the butcher, slowly lit their three
lamps, when, Ringfield, busy over a refractory wick and just in the act
of applying a match, in turning his head, saw directly beneath him the
basket-chair and its occupant as well as the young woman in charge of
it.
The shock of perceiving what was in reality more of a Thing than a
person, being an unfortunate child of about nine years of age,
otherwise well formed, but with a weak and hanging head enlarged very
much beyond its normal size and yet with a pair of shrewd eyes and a
smiling mouth, told upon his nerves. He started, leant too heavily on
the bracket, and in a second the lighted lamp, as yet without a
chimney, fell on the floor.
In another second the straw and decorations were all in a blaze, the
barn full of smoke and commotion; and he was conscious only of himself
and the rector wildly stamping, grovelling, and pushing with might and
main for what seemed hours of fear and suspense. The men tore the
great doors open; there were, happily, no corridors to tread, no stairs
to descend; the women and children first, and then their husbands and
fathers, rushed out, mostly uninjured, into the cool twilight air, and
when Ringfield came to himself he found that in some way he too was
outside the barn, holding on to the basket-chair, nearly hysterical
from the fright he had sustained, but still endeavouring to calm the
dreadful child and its nurse, both of whom were shrieking wildly.
"Angeel! Angeel!" cried the girl, and then in French: "Oh, what would
they say to me if anything happened to you! It doesn't matter about
me, only you, Angeel, only you!"
Ringfield looked around, dazed. The comfort, jollity, and abandon of
the picnic tea were things of the past. The barn had been saved and
the fire was out, but the groups of excited, tearful women and
coatless, dishevelled men, the rector with one hand badly burnt, Mrs.
Abercorn loudly deploring the loss of her hat and an antique
bracelet--all was forlorn, changed, miserable! And all this was his
fault, his doing, the result of his carelessness! He could scarcely
frame the words with which to deeply lament the unfortunate accident,
but his very genuine contrition softened the rector's heart even while
he felt some resentment at the sudden fatality which had spoiled the
day and in his own case was destined to leave a very unpleasant
remembrance.
"The question is," said Mr. Abercorn, talking to Enderby and the
schoolmaster, "whether we are to go on with the rest of the programme.
I'm the only one, happy to say, at all injured, and already the pain is
better. Plunge in, men, and get out all the burnt stuff and tidy the
tables. It might have been worse; thank God, none were hurt! And we
mustn't let Mr. Ringfield feel badly about it. The bracket was weak,
I'm sure it was weak, and he's a stranger among us. What are you
saying, Enderby? A judgment on him? Nonsense. I thought you had more
sense. Ask him to remain for the evening and everything shall go on as
we intended to have it."
But Ringfield did not care to stay. Everything was against him; for
the first time in his life he felt himself a failure,--in the way. How
had he come to be so careless? Well he knew, for the face of the
dreadful child, in spite of its deformity, evinced a strong, strong,
insistent resemblance to a face he knew. The dark hair and eyes, the
shape of the forehead, the way the hair grew on the forehead--where had
he seen it all reproduced not so very long ago? Miss Clairville's
expression, colouring, and animated play of gesture lived again in this
mysterious child.
About seven o'clock, just as Mrs. Abercorn's "nice little show" was
beginning, he took his way home. The path lay along the darkest road
he had ever seen; there was neither moon nor stars, and the blackness
of a country road bordered by dense forests can only be understood by
those who have travelled at such a time, and for the nine miles that he
plodded stupidly along--for he declined to wait to be driven--given up
to sombre and sinister thoughts, he was a most unhappy man.