CHAPTER XI
MASTER CALVIN
Isabel reached Northampton a day or two before Hubert came back to GreatKeynes. She travelled down with two combined parties going to Leicesterand Nottingham, sleeping at Leighton Buzzard on the way; and on theevening of the second day reached the house of her father's friend Dr.Carrington, that stood in the Market Square.
Her father's intention in sending her to this particular town andhousehold was to show her how Puritanism, when carried to its extreme,was as orderly and disciplined a system, and was able to control thelives of its adherents, as well as the Catholicism whose influence on hercharacter he found himself beginning to fear. But he wished also that sheshould be repelled to some extent by the merciless rigidity she wouldfind at Northampton, and thus, after an oscillation or two come to restin the quiet eclecticism of that middle position which he occupiedhimself.
The town indeed was at this time a miniature Geneva. There was somethingin the temper of its inhabitants that made it especially susceptible tothe wave of Puritanism that was sweeping over England. Lollardy hadflourished among them so far back as the reign of Richard II; when themayor, as folks told one another with pride, had plucked a mass-priest bythe vestment on the way to the altar in All Saints' Church, and had madehim give over his mummery till the preacher had finished his sermon.
Dr. Carrington, too, a clean-shaven, blue-eyed, grey-haired man,churchwarden of Saint Sepulchre's, was a representative of the straitestviews, and desperately in earnest. For him the world ranged itself intothe redeemed and the damned; these two companies were the pivots of lifefor him; and every subject of mind or desire was significant only so faras it bore relations to be immutable decrees of God. But his fierce andmerciless theological insistence was disguised by a real human tendernessand a marked courtesy of manner; and Isabel found him a kindly andthoughtful host.
Yet the mechanical strictness of the household, and the overpoweringsense of the weightiness of life that it conveyed, was a revelation toIsabel. Dr. Carrington at family prayers was a tremendous figure, as hekneeled upright at the head of the table in the sombre dining-room; andit seemed to Isabel in her place that the pitiless all-seeing Presencethat kept such terrifying silence as the Doctor cried on Jehovah, wasalmost a different God to that whom she knew in the morning parlour athome, to whom her father prayed with more familiarity but no lessromance, and who answered in the sunshine that lay on the carpet, and theshadows of boughs that moved across it, and the chirp of the birds underthe eaves. And all day long she thought she noticed the same difference;at Great Keynes life was made up of many parts, the love of family, thecountry doings, the worship of God, the garden, and the company of theHall ladies; and the Presence of God interpenetrated all like light orfragrance; but here life was lived under the glare of His eye, andabsorption in any detail apart from the consciousness of thatencompassing Presence had the nature of sin.
On the Saturday after her arrival, as she was walking by the Nen withKate Carrington, one of the two girls, she asked her about the crowd ofministers she had seen in the streets that morning.
"They have been to the Prophesyings," said Kate. "My father says thatthere is no exercise that sanctifies a godly young minister so quickly."
Kate went on to describe them further. The ministers assembled eachSaturday at nine o'clock, and one of their number gave a shortBible-reading or lecture. Then all present were invited to join in thediscussion; the less instructed would ask questions, the more experiencedwould answer, and debate would run high. Such a method Kate explained,who herself was a zealous and well instructed Calvinist, was the surestand swiftest road to truth, for every one held the open Scriptures in hishand, and interpreted and checked the speakers by the aid of thatinfallible guide.
"But if a man's judgment lead him wrong?" asked Isabel, who professedlyadmitted authority to have some place in matters of faith.
"All must hold the Apostles' Creed first of all," said Kate, "and mustset his name to a paper declaring the Pope to be antichrist, with othertruths upon it."
Isabel was puzzled; for it seemed now as if Private Judgment were notsupreme among its professors; but she did not care to question further.It began to dawn upon her presently, however, why the Queen was so fierceagainst Prophesyings; for she saw that they exercised that spirit ofexclusiveness, the property of Papist and Puritan alike; which, since itwas the antithesis of the tolerant comprehensiveness of the Church ofEngland, was also the enemy of the theological peace that Elizabeth wasseeking to impose upon the country; and that it was for that reason thatPapist and Puritan, sundered so far in theology, were united in sufferingfor conscience' sake.
On the Sunday morning Isabel went with Mrs. Carrington and the two girlsto the round Templars' Church of Saint Sepulchre, for the Morning Prayerat eight o'clock, and then on to St. Peter's for the sermon. It was thelatter function that was important in Puritan eyes; for the word preachedwas considered to have an almost sacramental force in the application oftruth and grace to the soul; and crowds of people, with downcast eyes andin sombre dress, were pouring down the narrow streets from all thechurches round, while the great bell beat out its summons from the Normantower. The church was filled from end to end as they came in, meeting Dr.Carrington at the door, and they all passed up together to the pewreserved for the churchwarden, close beneath the pulpit.
As Isabel looked round her, it came upon her very forcibly what she hadbegun to notice even at Great Keynes, that the religion preached theredid not fit the church in which it was set forth; and that, though greatefforts had been made to conform the building to the worship. There hadbeen no half measures at Northampton, for the Puritans had a loathing ofwhat they called a "mingle-mangle." Altars, footpaces, and piscinae hadbeen swept away and all marks of them removed, as well as the rood-loftand every image in the building; the stained windows had been replaced byplain glass painted white; the walls had been whitewashed from roof tofloor, and every suspicion of colour erased except where texts ofScripture ran rigidly across the open wall spaces: "We are not under theLaw, but under Grace," Isabel read opposite her, beneath the clerestorywindows. And, above all, the point to which all lines and eyes converged,was occupied no longer by the Table but by the tribunal of the Lord. Yetunderneath the disguise the old religion triumphed still. Beneath thegreat plain orderly scheme, without depth of shadows, dominated by thetowering place of Proclamation where the crimson-faced herald waited tobegin, the round arches and the elaborate mouldings, and the cool depthsbeyond the pillars, all declared that in the God for whom that temple wasbuilt, there was mystery as well as revelation, Love as well as Justice,condescension as well as Majesty, beauty as well as awfulness,invitations as well as eternal decrees.
Isabel looked up presently, as the people still streamed in, and watchedthe minister in his rustling Genevan gown, leaning with his elbows on theBible that rested open on the great tasselled velvet cushion before him.Everything about him was on the grand scale; his great hands were claspedand protruded over the edge of the Book; and his heavy dark face lookedmenacingly round on the crowded church; he had the air of a melancholygiant about to engage in some tragic pleasure. But Isabel's instinctivedislike began to pass into positive terror so soon as he began to preach.
When the last comers had found a place, and the talking had stopped, hepresently gave out his text, in a slow thunderous voice, that silencedthe last whispers:
"What shall we then say to these things? If God be on our side, who canbe against us?"
There were a few slow sentences, in a deep resonant voice, uttering eachsyllable deliberately like the explosion of a far-off gun, and in aminute or two he was in the thick of Calvin's smoky gospel. Doctrine,voice, and man were alike terrible and overpowering.
There lay the great scheme in a few minutes, seen by Isabel as thoughthrough the door of hell, illumined by the glare of the eternal embers.The huge merciless Will of God stood there before her, d
isclosed in allits awfulness, armed with thunders, moving on mighty wheels. Theforeknowledge of God closed the question henceforth, and, if proof wereneeded, made predestination plain. There was man's destiny, irrevocablyfixed, iron-bound, changeless and immovable as the laws of God's ownbeing. Yet over the rigid and awful Face of God, flickered a faint light,named mercy; and this mercy vindicated its existence by demanding thatsome souls should escape the final and endless doom that was the duereward of every soul conceived and born in enmity against God and underthe frown of His Justice.
Then, heralded too by wrath, the figure of Jesus began to glimmer throughthe thunderclouds; and Isabel lifted her eyes, to look in hope. But Hewas not as she had known him in His graciousness, and as He had revealedHimself to her in tender communion, and among the flowers and under theclear skies of Sussex. Here, in this echoing world of wrath He stood,pale and rigid, with lightning in His eyes, and the grim and crimsonCross behind him; and as powerless as His own Father Himself to save onepoor timid despairing hoping soul against whom the Eternal Decree hadgone forth. Jesus was stern and forbidding here, with the red glare ofwrath on His Face too, instead of the rosy crown of Love upon Hisforehead; His mouth was closed with compressed lips which surely wouldonly open to condemn; not that mouth, quivering and human, that hadsmiled and trembled and bent down from the Cross to kiss poor souls thatcould not hope, nor help themselves, that had smiled upon Isabel eversince she had known Him. It was appalling to this gentle maiden soul thathad bloomed and rejoiced so long in the shadow of His healing, to be tornout of her retreat and set thus under the consuming noonday of theJustice of this Sun of white-hot Righteousness.
For, as she listened, it was all so miserably convincing; her own littleessays of intellect and flights of hopeful imagination were caught up andwhirled away in the strong rush of this man's argument; her timidexpectancy that God was really Love, as she understood the word in thevision of her Saviour's Person,--this was dashed aside as a childishfancy; the vision of the Father of the Everlasting Arms receded into therealm of dreams; and instead there lowered overhead in this furioustempest of wrath a monstrous God with a stony Face and a stonier Heart,who was eternally either her torment or salvation; and Isabel thought,and trembled at the blasphemy, that if God were such as this, the onewould be no less agony than the other. Was this man bearing falsewitness, not only against his neighbour, but far more awfully, againsthis God? But it was too convincing; it was built up on an iron hammeredframework of a great man's intellect and made white hot with anothergreat man's burning eloquence. But it seemed to Isabel now and again asif a thunder-voiced virile devil were proclaiming the Gospel ofEverlasting shame. There he bent over the pulpit with flaming face andgreat compelling gestures that swayed the congregation, eliciting theemotions he desired, as the conductor's baton draws out the music (forthe man was a great orator), and he stormed and roared and seemed tomarshal the very powers of the world to come, compelling them by his nod,and interpreting them by his voice; and below him sat this poor child,tossed along on his eloquence, like a straw on a flood; and yet hatingand resenting it and struggling to detach herself and disbelieve everyword he spoke.
As the last sands were running out in his hour-glass, he came to harbourfrom this raging sea; and in a few deep resonant sentences, like thosewith which he began, he pictured the peace of the ransomed soul, thatknows itself safe in the arms of God; that rejoices, even in this world,in the Light of His Face and the ecstasy of His embrace; that dwells bywaters of comfort and lies down in the green pastures of the HeavenlyLove; while, round this little island of salvation in an ocean of terror,the thunders of wrath sound only as the noise of surge on a far-off reef.
The effect on Isabel was very great. It was far more startling than hervisit to London; there her quiet religion had received high sanction inthe mystery of S. Paul's. But here it was the plainest Calvinism preachedwith immense power. The preacher's last words of peace were no peace toher. If it was necessary to pass those bellowing breakers of wrath toreach the Happy Country, then she had never reached it yet; she had livedso far in an illusion; her life had been spent in a fool's paradise,where the light and warmth and flowers were but artificial after all; andshe knew that she had not the heart to set out again. Though sherecognised dimly the compelling power of this religion, and that it wasone which, if sincerely embraced, would make the smallest details of lifemomentous with eternal weight, yet she knew that her soul could neverrespond to it, and whether saved or damned that it could only cower inmiserable despair under a Deity that was so sovereign as this.
So her heart was low and her eyes sad as she followed Mrs. Carrington outof church. Was this then really the Revelation of the Love of God in thePerson of Jesus Christ? Had all that she knew as the Gospel melted downinto this fiery lump?
The rest of the day did not alter the impression made on her mind. Therewas little talk, or evidence of any human fellowship, in the Carringtonhousehold on the Lord's Day; there was a word or two of gravecommendation on the sermon during dinner; and in the afternoon there wasthe Evening Prayer to be attended in St. Sepulchre's followed by anexposition, and a public catechising on Calvin's questions and answers.Here the same awful doctrines reappeared, condensed with an icy reality,even more paralysing than the burning presentation of them in themorning's sermon. She was spared questions herself, as she was astranger; and sat to hear girls of her own age and older men and womenwho looked as soft-hearted as herself, utter definitions of the method ofsalvation and the being and character of God that compelled the assent ofher intellect, while they jarred with her spiritual experience asfiercely as brazen trumpets out of tune.
In the evening there followed further religious exercises in the darkdining-room, at the close of which Dr. Carrington read one of Mr.Calvin's Genevan discourses, from his tall chair at the head of thetable. She looked at him at first, and wondered in her heart whether thatman, with his clear gentle voice, and his pleasant old face crowned withiron-grey hair seen in the mellow candlelight, really believed in theterrible gospel of the morning; for she heard nothing of the academicdiscourse that he was reading now, and presently her eyes wandered awayout of the windows to the pale night sky. There still glimmered a faintstreak of light in the west across the Market Square; it seemed to her asa kind of mirror of her soul at this moment; the tender daylight hadfaded, though she could still discern the token of its presence far away,and as from behind the bars of a cage; but the night of God's wrath wasfast blotting out the last touch of radiance from her despairing soul.
Dr. Carrington looked at her with courteous anxiety, but with approvaltoo, as he held her hand for a moment as she said good-night to him.There were shadows of weariness and depression under her eyes, and thecorners of her mouth drooped a little; and the doctor's heart stirredwith hope that the Word of God had reached at last this lamb of His whohad been fed too long on milk, and sheltered from the sun; but who wasnow coming out, driven it might be, and unhappy, but still on its way tothe plain and wholesome pastures of the Word that lay in the glow of theunveiled glory of God.
Isabel in her dark room upstairs was miserable; she stood long at herwindow her face pressed against the glass, and looked at the sky, fromwhich the last streak of light had now died, and longed with all hermight for her own oak room at home, with her prie-dieu and the familiarthings about her; and the pines rustling outside in the sweet night-wind.It seemed to her as if an irresistible hand had plucked her out fromthose loved things and places, and that a penetrating eye were examiningevery corner of her soul. In one sense she believed herself nearer to Godthan ever before, but it was heartbreaking to find Him like this. Shewent to sleep with the same sense of a burdening Presence resting on herspirit.
The next morning Dr. Carrington saw her privately and explained to her anotice that she had not understood when it had been given out in churchthe day before. It was to the effect that the quarterly communion wouldbe administered on the following Sunday, having been transferred thatyear from
the Sunday after Michaelmas Day, and that she must hold herselfin readiness on the Wednesday afternoon to undergo the examination thatwas enforced in every household in Northampton, at the hands of theMinister and Churchwardens.
"But you need not fear it, Mistress Norris," he said kindly, seeing heralarm. "My daughter Kate will tell you all that is needful."
Kate too told her it would be little more than formal in her case.
"The minister will not ask you much," she said, "for you are a stranger,and my father will vouch for you. He will ask you of irresistible grace,and of the Sacrament." And she gave her a couple of books from which shemight summarise the answers; especially directing her attention toCalvin's Catechism, telling her that that was the book with which all theservants and apprentices were obliged to be familiar.
When Wednesday afternoon came, one by one the members of the householdwent before the inquisition that held its court in the dining-room; andlast of all Isabel's turn came. The three gentlemen who sat in the middleof the long side of the table, with their backs to the light, half roseand bowed to her as she entered; and requested her to sit opposite tothem. To her relief it was the Minister of St. Sepulchre's who was toexamine her--he who had read the service and discoursed on the Catechism,not the morning preacher. He was a man who seemed a little ill at easehimself; he had none of the superb confidence of the preacher; butappeared to be one to whose natural character this stern _role_ was notaltogether congenial. He asked a few very simple questions; as to whenshe had last taken the Sacrament; how she would interpret the words,"This is my Body"; and looked almost grateful when she answered quietlyand without heat. He asked her too three or four of the simpler questionswhich Kate had indicated to her; all of which she answered satisfactorily;and then desired to know whether she was in charity with all men; andwhether she looked to Jesus Christ alone as her one Saviour. Finally heturned to Dr. Carrington, and wished to know whether Mistress Norriswould come to the sacrament at five or nine o'clock, and Dr. Carringtonanswered that she would no doubt wish to come with his own wife anddaughters at nine o'clock; which was the hour for the folks who werebetter to do. And so the inquisition ended much to Isabel's relief.
But this was a very extraordinary experience to her; it gave her a firstglimpse into the rigid discipline that the extreme Puritans wished to seeenforced everywhere; and with it a sense of corporate responsibility thatshe had not appreciated before; the congregation meant something to hernow; she was no longer alone with her Lord individually, but understoodthat she was part of a body with various functions, and that the care ofher soul was not merely a personal matter for herself, but involved herminister and the officers of the Church as well. It astonished her tothink that this process was carried out on every individual who lived inthe town in preparation for the sacrament on the following Sunday.
Isabel, and indeed the whole household, spent the Friday and Saturday inrigid and severe preparation. No flesh food was eaten on either of thedays; and all the members of the family were supposed to spend severalhours in their own rooms in prayer and meditation. She did not find thisdifficult, as she was well practised in solitude and prayer, and shescarcely left her room all Saturday except for meals.
"O Lord," Isabel repeated each morning and evening at her bedside duringthis week, "the blind dulness of our corrupt nature will not suffer ussufficiently to weigh these thy most ample benefits, yet, nevertheless,at the commandment of Jesus Christ our Lord, we present ourselves to thisHis table, which He hath left to be used in remembrance of His deathuntil His coming again, to declare and witness before the world, that byHim alone we have received liberty and life; that by Him alone dost thouacknowledge us to be thy children and heirs; that by Him alone we haveentrance to the throne of thy grace; that by Him alone we are possessedin our spiritual kingdom, to eat and drink at His table, with whom wehave our conversation presently in heaven, and by whom our bodies shallbe raised up again from the dust, and shall be placed with Him in thatendless joy, which Thou, O Father of mercy, hast prepared for thineelect, before the foundation of the world was laid."
And so she prepared herself for that tryst with her Beloved in a foreignland where all was strange and unfamiliar about her: yet He was hourlydrawing nearer, and she cried to Him day by day in these words soredolent to her with associations of past communions, and of moments ofgreat spiritual elevation. The very use of the prayer this week was likea breeze of flowers to one in a wilderness.
On the Saturday night she ceremoniously washed her feet as her father hadtaught her; and lay down happier than she had been for days past, forto-morrow would bring the Lover of her soul.
On the Sunday all the household was astir early at their prayers, andabout half-past eight o'clock all, including the servants who had justreturned from the five o'clock service, assembled in the dining-room; thenoise of the feet of those returning from church had ceased on thepavement of the square outside, and all was quiet except for the solemnsound of the bells, as Dr. Carrington offered extempore prayer for allwho were fulfilling the Lord's ordinance on that day. And Isabel oncemore felt her heart yearn to a God who seemed Love after all.
St. Sepulchre's was nearly full when they arrived. The mahogany table hadbeen brought down from the eastern wall to beneath the cupola, and stoodthere with a large white cloth, descending almost to the ground on everyside; and a row of silver vessels, flat plates and tall new Communioncups and flagons, shone upon it. Isabel buried her face in her hands, andtried to withdraw into the solitude of her own soul; but the noise of thefeet coming and going, and the talking on all sides of her, were terriblydistracting. Presently four ministers entered and Isabel was startled tosee, as she raised her face at the sudden silence, that none of them worethe prescribed surplice; for she had not been accustomed to the views ofthe extreme Puritans to whom this was a remnant of Popery; an indifferentthing indeed in itself, as they so often maintained; but far fromindifferent when it was imposed by authority. One entered the pulpit; theother three took their places at the Holy Table; and after a metricalPsalm sung in the Genevan fashion, the service began. At the proper placethe minister in the pulpit delivered an hour's sermon of the type towhich Isabel was being now introduced for the first time; but bearingagain and again on the point that the sacrament was a confession to theworld of faith in Christ; it was in no sense a sacrificial act towardsGod, "as the Papists vainly taught"; this part of the sermon was spoiled,to Isabel's ears at least, by a flood of disagreeable words poured outagainst the popish doctrine; and the end of the sermon consisted of asearching exhortation to those who contemplated sin, who bore malice, whowere in any way holding aloof from God, "to cast themselves mightily uponthe love of the Redeemer, bewailing their sinful lives, and purposing toamend them." This act, wrought out in the silence of the soul even nowwould transfer the sinner from death unto life; and turn what threatenedto be poison into a "lively and healthful food." Then he turned to thosewho came prepared and repentant, hungering and thirsting after the Breadof Life and the Wine that the Lord had mingled; and congratulated them ontheir possession of grace, and on the rich access of sanctification thatwould be theirs by a faithful reception of this comfortable sacrament;and then in half a dozen concluding sentences he preached Christ, as"food to the hungry; a stream to the thirsty; a rest for the weary. It isHe alone, our dear Redeemer, who openeth the Kingdom of Heaven, to whichmay He vouchsafe to bring us for His Name's sake."
Isabel was astonished to see that the preacher did not descend from thepulpit after the sermon, but that as soon as he had announced that themayor would sit at the Town Hall with the ministers and churchwardens onthe following Thursday to inquire into the cases of all who had notpresented themselves for Communion, he turned and began to busy himselfwith the great Bible that lay on the cushion. The service went on, andthe conducting of it was shared among the three ministers standing, oneat the centre of the table which was placed endways, and the others atthe two ends. As the Prayer of Consecration was begun, Isabel hid
herface as she was accustomed to do, for she believed it to be the principalpart of the service, and waited for the silence that in her experiencegenerally followed the Amen. But a voice immediately began from thepulpit, and she looked up, startled and distracted.
"Then Jesus said unto them," pealed out the preacher's voice, "All yeshall be offended by me this night, for it is written, I will smite theshepherd and the sheep shall be scattered. But after I am risen, I willgo into Galilee before you."
Ah! why would not the man stop? Isabel did not want the past Saviour butthe present now; not a dead record but a living experience; above all,not the minister but the great High Priest Himself.
"He began to be troubled and in great heaviness, and said unto them, Mysoul is very heavy, even unto the death; tarry here and watch."
The three ministers had communicated by now; and there was a rustle andclatter of feet as the empty seats in front, hung with houselling cloths,began to be filled. The murmur of the three voices below as the ministerspassed along with the vessels were drowned by the tale of the Passionthat rang out overhead.
"Couldest thou not watch one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not intotemptation. The spirit indeed is ready, but the flesh is weak."
It was coming near to Isabel's turn; the Carringtons already werebeginning to move; and in a moment or two she rose and followed them out.The people were pressing up the aisles; and as she stood waiting her turnto pass into the white-hung seat, she could not help noticing thedisorder that prevailed; some knelt devoutly, some stood, some sat toreceive the sacred elements; and all the while louder and louder, abovethe rustling and the loud whispering of the ministers and the shufflingof feet, the tale rose and fell on the cadences of the preacher's voice.Now it was her turn; she was kneeling with palms outstretched and closedeyes. Ah! would he not be silent for one moment? Could not the realityspeak for itself, and its interpreter be still? Surely the King of Loveneeded no herald when Himself was here.
"And anon in the dawning, the high Priests held a Council with Elders andthe Scribes and the whole Council, and bound Jesus and led Him away." ...
And so it was over presently, and she was back again in her seat,distracted and miserable; trying to pray, forcing herself to attend nowto the reader, now to her Saviour with whom she believed herself inintimate union, and finding nothing but dryness and distractioneverywhere. How interminable it was! She opened her eyes, and what shesaw amazed and absorbed her for a few moments; some were sitting back andtalking; some looking cheerfully about them as if at a publicentertainment; one man especially overwhelmed her imagination; with agreat red face and neck like a butcher, animal and brutal, with a heavyhanging jowl and little narrow lack-lustre eyes--how bored and depressedhe was by this long obligatory ceremony! Then once more she closed hereyes in self-reproach at her distractions; here were her lips stillfragrant with the Wine of God, the pressure of her Beloved's arm stillabout her; and these were her thoughts, settling like flies, oneverything....
When she opened them again the last footsteps were passing down theaisle, the dripping Cups were being replaced by the ministers, andcovered with napkins, and the tale of Easter was in telling from thepulpit like the promise of a brighter day.
"And they said one to another, Who shall roll us away the stone from thedoor of the sepulchre? And when they looked, they saw that the stone wasrolled away (for it was a very great one)."
So read the minister and closed the book; and _Our Father_ began.
In the evening, when all was over, and the prayers said and theexpounding and catechising finished, in a kind of despair she slippedaway alone, and walked a little by herself in the deepening twilightbeside the river; and again she made effort after effort to catch someconsciousness of grace from this Sacrament Sunday, so rare and soprecious; but an oppression seemed to dwell in the very air. The lowrain-clouds hung over the city, leaden and chill, the path where shewalked was rank with the smell of dead leaves, and the trees and grassdripped with lifeless moisture. As she goaded and allured alternately herown fainting soul, it writhed and struggled but could not rise; there wasno pungency of bitterness in her self-reproach, no thrill of joy in heraspiration; for the hand of Calvin's God lay heavy on the delicatelanguid thing.
She walked back at last in despair over the wet cobblestones of the emptymarket square; but as she came near the house, she saw that the squarewas not quite empty. A horse stood blowing and steaming before Dr.Carrington's door, and her own maid and Kate were standing hatless in thedoorway looking up and down the street. Isabel's heart began to beat, andshe walked quicker. In a moment Kate saw her, and began to beckon andcall; and the maid ran to meet her.
"Mistress Isabel, Mistress Isabel," she cried, "make haste."
"What is it?" asked the girl, in sick foreboding.
"There is a man come from Great Keynes," began the maid, but Kate stoppedher.
"Come in, Mistress Isabel," she said, "my father is waiting for you."
Dr. Carrington met her at the dining-room door; and his face was tenderand full of emotion.
"What is it?" whispered the girl sharply. "Anthony?"
"Dear child," he said, "come in, and be brave."
There was a man standing in the room with cap and whip in hand, spurredand splashed from head to foot; Isabel recognised one of the grooms fromthe Hall.
"What is it?" she said again with a piteous sharpness.
Dr. Carrington laid his hands gently on her shoulders, and looked intoher eyes.
"It is news of your father," he said, "from Lady Maxwell."
He paused, and the steady gleam of his eyes strengthened and quieted her,then he went on deliberately, "The Lord hath given and the Lord hathtaken it."
He paused as if for an answer, but no answer came; Isabel was staringwhite-faced with parted lips into those strong blue eyes of his: and hefinished:
"Blessed be the name of the Lord."