She went to find him, told him what had happened to the young man, and,
feeling her way, proposed that he should go to his grandfather's for
a few days. Arthur started. Send him where he and Barbara would be
constantly meeting! Must he for ever imagine them walking up and down
that field, among the dandelions and daisies! He had discovered, he
believed, all that was between them, but was not therewith satisfied:
she had found out, he said to himself, that the fellow was an infidel,
did not believe in God, or a resurrection--was so low that he did not
care to live for ever, and she was trying to convert him. Arthur would
rather he remained unconverted than that _she_ should be the means of
converting him. Nor indeed would he be much injured by having the growth
of such a faith as Arthur's prevented in him: Arthur prided himself in
showing due respect to _the Deity_ by allowing that he existed. But the
fellow was too clever by half, he said, and would be much too much for
her. Any theory wild enough would be attractive to her, who never cared
a pin-head what the rest of the world believed! She had indeed a strong
tendency to pantheism, for she expected the animals to rise again--a
most unpleasant notion! Doubtless it was she that sought his company; a
fellow like that _could_ not presume to seek hers! He was only laughing
at her all the time! What could an animal like him care about the
animals: he had not even a dog to love! He would _not_ have him go to
his grandfather's! he would a thousand times rather give up the library!
There should be no more bookbinding at Mortgrange! He would send the
books to London to him! It would be degrading to allow personal feeling
to affect his behaviour to such a fellow; he should have the work all
the same, but not at Mortgrange!
So he answered his mother that he was rather tired of him, and thought
they had had enough of him; the work seemed likely to be spun out _ad
infinitum_, and this was a good opportunity for getting rid of him. He
was sorry, for it was the best way for the books, but he could send them
to him in London, and have them done there! The man, he understood, had
been making himself disagreeable too, and he did not want to quarrel
with him! He was a radical, and thought himself as good as anybody: it
was much best to let him go. He had at first liked him, and had perhaps
shown it more than was good for the fellow, so that he had come to
presume upon it, setting it down to some merit in himself. Happily
he had retained the right of putting an end to the engagement when he
pleased!
This was far better than lady Ann had expected. Arthur went at once to
Richard, and speaking, as he thought, unconcernedly, told him they found
it inconvenient to have the library used as a workshop any longer, and
must make a change.
Richard was glad to hear it, thinking he meant to give him another room,
and said he could work just as well anywhere else: he wanted only a dry
room with a fire-place! Arthur told him he had arranged for what would
be more agreeable to both parties, namely, that he should do the work at
home. It would cost more, but he was prepared for that. He might go
as soon as he pleased, and they would arrange by letter how the books
should be sent--so many at a time!
Richard spied something more under his dismissal than the affair
with Miss Vixen; but he was too proud to ask for an explanation:
Mr. Lestrange was in the right of their compact. He felt aggrieved
notwithstanding, and was sorry to go away from the library. He would
never again have the chance of restoring such a library! He did not once
think of it from the point of gain: he could always make his living!
It was to him a genuine pleasure to cause any worthy volume look as it
ought to look; and to make a whole straggling library of books
wasted and worn, put on the complexion, uniform, and discipline of
a well-conditioned company of the host of heaven, was at least an
honourable task! For what are books, I venture to say, but an army-corps
of the lord of hosts, at whose command are troops of all natures, after
the various regions of his indwelling! Even the letter is something,
for the dry bones of books are every hour coming alive to the reader in
whose spirit is blowing the better spirit. Richard himself was one of
such, though he did not yet know there was a better spirit. Then again,
there were not a few of the books with which individually he was sorry
to part. He had also had fine opportunity for study, of which he was
making good use, and the loss of it troubled him. He had read some
books he would hardly otherwise have been able to read, and had largely
extended his acquaintance with titles.
He was sorry too not to see more of Mr. Wingfold. He was a clergyman,
it was true, but not the least like any other clergyman he had seen!
Richard had indeed known nothing of any other clergyman out of the
pulpit; and I fear most clergymen are less human, therefore less divine,
in the pulpit than out of it! Many who out of the pulpit appear men, are
in it little better than hawkers of old garments, the worse for their
new patches. Of the forces in action for the renovation of the world,
the sale of such old clothes is one of the least potent. They do,
however, serve a little, I think, even as the rags of a Neapolitan for
the olives of Italy, as a sort of manure for the young olives of the
garden of God.
But his far worst sorrow was leaving Miss Wylder. That was a pain, a
keen pain in his heart. For, that a woman is miles above him, as a star
is above a marsh-light, is no reason why a man should not love her. Nay,
is it not the best of reasons for loving her? The higher in soul, and
the lowlier in position he is, the more imperative and unavoidable is it
that he should love her; and the absence of any thought in the direction
of marriage leaves but the wider room for the love infinite. In a
man capable of loving in such fashion, there are no bounds to the
possibilities, no limit to the growth of love. Richard thought his
soul was full, but a live soul can never be full; it is always growing
larger, and is always being filled.
“Like one that hath been stunned,” he went about his preparations for
departure.
“You will go by the first train in the morning,” said Arthur, happening
to meet him in the stable-yard, whither Richard had gone to look if Miss
Brown was in her usual stall. “I have told Robert to take you and your
tools to the station in the spring-cart.”
“Thank you, sir,” returned Richard; “I shall not require the cart.
I leave the house to-night, and shall send for my things to-morrow
morning. I have them almost ready now.”
“You cannot go to London to-night!”
“I am aware of that, sir.”
“Then where are you going? I wish to know.”
“That is my business, sir.”
“You have no cause to show temper,” said Arthur coldly.
“I should not have shown it, sir, had you not presumed to give me orders
after dismissing me,” answered Richard.
“I have not dismissed you; I mean to employ you still, only in London
instead of here,” said Arthur.
“That is a matter for fresh arrangement with my father,” rejoined
Richard, and left him.
Arthur felt a shadow cross him--almost like fear: he had but driven
Richard to his grandfather's, and had made an enemy of him! Nor could
he feel satisfied with himself; he could not get rid of the thought
that what he had done was not quite the thing for a gentleman to do.
His trouble was not that he had wronged Richard, but that he had wronged
himself, had not acted like his ideal of himself. He did not think
of what was right, but of what befitted a gentleman. Such a man is in
danger of doing many things unbefitting a gentleman. For the measure of
a gentleman is not a man's ideal of himself.
His uneasiness grew as day after day went by, and Barbara did not appear
at Mortgrange. He was not aware that Richard saw no more of her than
himself. He knew that he was at his grandfather's; he had himself seen
him at work at the anvil; but he did not know that the hope in which he
lingered there was vain.
Richard waited a week, but no Barbara came to the smithy. He could not
endure the thought of going away without seeing her once more. He must
once thank her for what she had done for him! He must let her know why
he had left Mortgrange.
He would go and say good-bye to the clergyman: from him he might hear
something of her!
Wingfold caught sight of him approaching the house, and himself opened
the door to him. Taking him to his study, he made him sit down, and
offered him a pipe.
“Thank you, sir; I don't smoke,” said Richard.
“Then don't learn. You are better without it,” answered Wingfold, and
put down his own pipe.
“I came,” said Richard, “to thank you for your kindness to me, and to
ask about Miss Wylder. Not having seen her for a long time, I was afraid
she might be ill. I am going away.”
There was a tremor in Richard's voice, of which he was not himself
aware. Wingfold noted it, pitied the youth because of the fuel he had
stored for suffering, and admired him for his straightforwardness.
“I am sorry to say you are not likely to see Miss Wylder,” he answered.
“Her mother is ill.”
“I hardly thought to see her, sir. Is her mother very ill?”
“Yes, very ill,” answered Wingfold.
“With anything infectious?”
“No. Her complaint is as little infectious as complaint could be; it is
just exhaustion--absolute prostration, mental and nervous. She is too
weak to think, and can't even feed herself. I fear her daughter will be
worn out waiting on her. She devotes herself to her mother with a spirit
and energy I never but once knew equalled. She never seems tired, never
out of spirits. I heard a lady say she couldn't have much feeling to
look cheerful when her mother was in such a state; but the lady was
stupid. She would wait on her own mother almost as devotedly as Miss
Wylder, but with such a lugubrious countenance that her patient might
well seek refuge from it in the grave. But it is no wonder she should
be in good spirits: it is the first time in her life, she says, that
she has been allowed to be of any use to her mother! Then she is not
suffering pain, and that makes a great difference. But more than all,
her mother has grown so tender to her, and so grateful, following her
constantly about the room with her eyes, that the girl says she feels in
a paradise of which her mother is the tutelar divinity, raying out bliss
as she lies in bed! Also her father is kinder to her mother. Little
signs of tenderness pass between them--a thing she has never known
before! How could she be other than happy!--But what is this you tell me
about going away? The library cannot be finished!”
Wingfold had dilated on the worth of Miss Wylder, and let Richard know
of her happiness, out of genuine sympathy. He knew that, next to the
worship of God, the true _worship_ of a fellow-creature, in the old
meaning of the word, is the most potent thing for deliverance.
“No, sir,” answered Richard; “the library is left in mid ocean of decay.
I don't know why they have dismissed me. The only thing clear is, that
they want to be rid of me. What I have done I can't think. There is a
little girl of the family--”
Here he told how Vixen had from the first behaved to him, and what
things had happened in consequence, the last more particularly.
“But,” he concluded, “I do not think it can be that. I _should_ like to
know what it is.”
“Then wait,” said Wingfold. “If we only wait long enough, every reason
will come out. You know I believe we are not going to stop, but are
meant to go on and on for ever; and I believe the business of eternity
is to bring grand hidden things out into the light; and with them will
come of necessity many other things as well, even some, I daresay, that
we count trifles.--But I am sorry you're going.”
“I don't see why you should be, sir!” answered Richard, his look taking
from the words their seeming rudeness.
“Because I like you, and feel sure we should understand each other if
only we had time,” replied the parson. “It's a grand thing to come
upon one who knows what you mean. It's so much of heaven before you
get there.--If you think I'm talking shop, I can't help it--and I don't
care, so long as you believe I mean it. I would not have you think it
the Reverend Thomas and not Thomas himself that was saying it.”
“I should never say you talked shop, sir; and I don't think you would
say I was talking shop if I expatiated on the beauties of a Grolier
binding! You would see I was not talking from love of gain, but love of
beauty!”
“Thank you. You are a fair man, and that is even more than an honest
man! I don't speak from love of religion; I don't know that I do love
religion.”
“I don't understand you now, sir.”
“Look here: I am very fond of a well-bound book; I should like all my
new books bound in levant morocco; but I don't _care_ about it; I could
do well enough without any binding at all.”
“Of course you could, sir! and so could I, or any man that cared for the
books themselves.”
“Very well! I don't care about religion much, but I could not live
without my Father in heaven. I don't believe anybody can live without
him.”
“I see,” said Richard.
He thought he saw, but he did not see, and could not help smiling in his
heart as he said to himself, “_I_ have lived a good many years without
him!”
Wingfold saw the shadow of the smile, and blamed himself for having
spoken too soon.
“When do you go?” he asked.
“I think I shall go to-morrow. I am at my grandfather's.”
“If I can be of use to you, let me know.”
“I will, sir; and I thank you heartily. There's nothing a man is so
grateful for as friendliness.”
“The obligation is mutual,” said Wingfold.