That afternoon Gildas is walking up and down the lime tree avenue in which the Manse is situated. Mr. Haven is leaning on her arm and enjoying his stroll in the sunshine, when a pleasant voice hails her father, and he turns to greet Mr. Buisson, the vicar from the village across the hills.
Mr. Buisson is tall and elderly, with waving iron-grey locks, and a kindly twinkle in his keen, brown eyes. He is "as bad as a Methodist," according to some of his acquaintances, for he receives Dissenters and eats with them, and has on several occasions preached and prayed at Nonconformist gatherings. He is a great favourite with old Mr. Haven, and a thorn in the side of his Bishop. Today he is not alone. He is walking in company with Bernard Pendrill, who reminds Mr. Haven that he needs no introduction, having been fortunate enough to pass Stony Lane on the morning of the minister's attack of faintness, and to have been enabled to convey him home.
"I have been glad to find your illness was but temporary, Mr. Haven," Pendrill says, looking with interest at the fine old face that has lost the stern, rugged power that once it knew, but kept the sweetness that always lay behind. "How well your father is looking again, Miss Haven."
But Gildas is deep in conversation with Mr. Buisson, who helps her in the Greek studies she loves. Of the curate she takes no notice for some time, and he talks with her father, lingering beneath the limes, and making a picture of which Gildas is fully conscious -- the white-haired, gentle-eyed veteran who leans both hands on his staff, having fought the fight and so nearly finished his course, and the earnest faced young soldier of the Church, who has so lately buckled on his armour, and who is ready for any conflict, peril, and sacrifice.
Presently, however, Mr. Buisson reminds her father of a discussion they had lately as to the right rendering of a much altered hymn, and the two become quite animated as they renew the subject. Gildas finds Pendrill at her side, making a polite remark as to the beauty of the evening, and her secret thoughts very soon find expression in words.
"I believe, Mr. Pendrill, we have to thank your Episcopal zeal for our musical entertainment on Wednesday evening."
"I beg your pardon," he says, pleasantly. "I do not quite catch your meaning."
"Oh I thought you might not be unaware of the very annoying interruption that occurred about half past seven, during Mr. Mountford's lecture at Rehoboth on Religious Freedom. All our people much resented the disturbance. A man brought a most noisy barrel organ into the chapel yard, and persistently played the 'Lost Chord,' until one of the deacons silenced him with considerable trouble."
"I know the man," says Pendrill. "He scarcely understands English. I suppose he didn't realize the annoyance he was causing. Last week, during evensong at the church, he was regaling us in the road outside with 'The Death of Nelson.'"
"Well," says Gildas, severely, "I consider it most ungentlemanly and most unchristian of anybody to pay him to disturb our lecture. My opinion is he was not there by chance. It was a mean attempt to spoil our meeting."
"An attempt with which I am not associated in your mind, I trust, Miss Haven?" says Pendrill, flushing, as he stoops to caress the dog.
"I make no accusations," says Gildas, "but Rehoboth Chapel has suffered a good deal at the hands of some in Meadthorpe. I hope their consciences will prevent any repetition of stratagems so mean."
Pendrill is silent. He turns away to the others, looking hurt and offended. He makes no attempt to deny her insinuation, and vouchsafes her no further remark, leaving her to her own reflections, which are somewhat uncomfortable.
Mr. Haven prolongs his stroll today, but the beauty of the sunset is lost on Gildas, who cannot help wondering whether she has been unjust in connecting the Rehoboth disturbance with the curate of Saint Simeon's. She is also rather irritated by the good impression Mr. Pendrill has evidently made on her father. Here the curate has for months been counteracting the chapel influences in Meadthorpe, yet, forgetting all that, Mr. Haven is telling her that Pendrill is acquainted with his well-loved Thomas à Kempis and Jeremy Taylor, and murmuring, "His voice is very like my son David's -- clear and pleasant, with an honest ring about it. I like the lad. He and John Mountford should be friends."
Jasper Ruthven passes that way presently on the road to his next pupil. He stops to notice Jones, and to brighten his hard, busy life with a glimpse of the face that makes it light.
"Jasper," says Gildas, "won't you sympathize with me? Mr. Buisson and that curate from Saint Simeon's have been chatting with Father just now, and he is quite charmed with that bigoted Mr. Pendrill! I'll soon be the only person in Meadthorpe whose opinion of that man is unprejudiced."
"Would you expect your father to be an unkindly critic of anybody?" says Jasper, smiling at the old gentleman. "As for Pendrill, his creed may be bigoted, but his religion is broader than his doctrine. Our little ones at home judge him more truly than you do, Gildas."
"Have you seen the last number of his Parish Magazine?" she continues. "I found it in one of the cottages. It would open your eyes as to his ideas of the priesthood! To circulate teaching like that in a parish hitherto 'Low Church' will give offence to many."
"Oh, but, Gildas," says Jasper, "Pendrill is no hypocrite, and I do believe in people being straightforward and outspoken. Personally, I'm tired of editorial entreaties such as 'be moderate -- tone that down -- no reader must be estranged or offended!' I wish for the time when we can all speak out as we honestly feel, ignoring the results. If Pendrill holds strong opinions, why blame him for expressing them? His outspoken candour reveals his real position, and we are equally at liberty to set forth our views -- a liberty Mr. Mountford, for one, will certainly use."
Chapter 11
"Quiet in the Nest''
ALL night long Jasper Ruthven has watched by his baby brother Noel, ill with croup. Chidgey takes care of little Noel by day, but when set free from his regular duties, Jasper takes his turn of nursing. This morning the child seems so weak that Jasper sets out as soon as possible, meaning to call at the Manse.
This illness has come on so suddenly that he knows the Havens are not aware of the fresh trouble in his home, and Gildas has nursed many little children among the Meadthorpe poor. He will ask her if she can lend a helping hand for a little while to Chidgey, who is fairly worn out just now; Jemmie and Jacky having bad colds, and Gordon a troublesome throat.
Milly dances after him to the garden gate, telling him she will soon get Noel to sleep with his lullaby hymn, and whispering that she and all of them are asking "Gentle Jesus" to make baby brother "quite better."
"So he's sure to get well. You won't fret, brother, will you? You'll teach your little boys, and not worry one bit about baby. You leave him to me," says Milly, and Jasper dismisses her with a kiss -- the sight of her boots, broken out at the side, haunting him as he crosses the common.
"Plenty of nourishment; cod-liver oil, as much cream as they can take."
These are Dr. Spencer's directions concerning the little ones with colds. As for baby Noel, nursing can do more for him than medical attention, but Jasper's sinking heart echoes the meaning of the doctor's look. Those little feet that have never walked on earth will presently be playing with the children in the streets of gold.
Jasper shakes his head in despair. If only the dreamed-of success had come -- the success poured out libation-like to others more fortunate, but, his heart is whispering, less inspired -- the thoughts that should centre in the lifework that is dearest, would not be agonizing now over the need of firewood, of warm clothing, of the countless needs of sickness, and the weekly bills it is harder and harder to meet.
Only yesterday he was told that little Gilbert at the Rectory is soon to go to school, so that is another pupil lost; and only this very morning, while after his night's vigil he broke his fast on bread and tea, a bulky package came back to him for the tenth time -- the best work he has ever done -- "not calculated to sell."
Stern faced, brave eyed still, he has locked it away for a while. He comes of a North
ern race that of old never cried surrender or fled the field. He is sure that the world will hear him yet. It may be late, but ere he dies, or after, it will hear the God-given prophet voice.
Yet these little children in need have no helper save himself.
"God forgive me," he cries within his heart, "that the powers which should be wholly consecrated to Himself have been used only for gain, in writing that which I could sell the soonest. He sees our need."
And then, as he speaks the Heavenly Father's name, there comes to the young man, robbed of youth's sunshine, that vague wondering dread -- if God exists, can He be a God of goodness? Since all things obey Him, if Scripture is true, since He could have eased little Noel's pain last night, and dewed that baby-life with gentle sleep -- what profit is there to cry to Him rather than to the silent, tearless, pitiless gods of the shadowed East?
At His word, at His will, fame and prosperity could have blossomed for him like a rose, but every day brings the wearying tale of failure and disappointment. Even Nature, sweet and calm as she seems this morning, suddenly seems to the poet-heart to appeal to him in agony. A cow bereft of her calf is calling pitifully afar off; the singing birds dread the hawk; the creeping insects, bright like jewels here and there, are the prey of the little choristers. Even the innocent looking sundew that gems the heath, and the gossamer-like threads that gleam on the yellow broom like silver, are death traps for inoffensive insect lives. Nature, like the human creation, is a mystery of suffering untold.
"And looking up to Heaven, He sighed."
Last Sunday, with his heated brain crying out for a breezy walk, Jasper crossed the moor to Bilsboro' Church, and heard Mr. Buisson preach. Those words from the seventh chapter of the Gospel of Matthew formed his text, and they echo back now to Japer's mind like a sweet hushed strain of music. Upon the heart, all human, all Divine, earth's troubles lay like a burden the Son of Man could scarce endure. Now the struggling is waging, and the powers of darkness may seem victorious, but His sighs, His tears make morning sure.
"Thou, sighing, didst lift up to Heaven Thine eyes, O Christ, once pilgrim through the thorny ways! That joy and sunlight evermore may rise on souls that Godward gaze."
At the Manse he hears that Gildas went out after an early breakfast to take a class at the Chapel day school for one of the teachers who is unwell. He finds he has time to go in and see Mr. Haven, and, man as he is, he longs inexpressibly for a kind, comforting word such as his old pastor has spoken to him many and many a time in the past. As it happens, he could scarcely have called on Mr. Haven at a worse time. Early as it is, Mr. Hornby, who was passing on business, has looked in to take his old minister's advice as to whether nothing can be done to prevent Mr. John Mountford from putting back with his hand a fugitive lock of hair that wanders to his forehead -- an unconscious habit which to the worthy deacon and some others suggests affectation.
Mr. Haven is endeavouring to give the subject the attention it merits, and greets Jasper's entrance with a look of pleasure and relief; but Mr. Hornby's troubled thoughts are now turned into another channel. He is the last person Jasper would wish to meet this morning, and he is willing to withdraw, murmuring something about "not wishing to interrupt."
"No, young man," says the deacon, gravely, "in your presence here with Mr. Haven and myself, I see the finger of Providence. I have long felt uncomfortable that no one has stood forth to warn you, Jasper Ruthven, of the seriousness of life and the certainty of its end. I have more than once appealed to our former pastor here to admonish you as a trifler, and a tempter to others to trifle, but he has been reluctant, and so have others in the chapel, to put the matter before you."
"What have I done now, Mr. Hornby?" asks Jasper, his naturally sweet temper irritated by anxiety and want of sleep. "I know you are always holding me up as a solemn warning to young members, but I'm not aware of any extra special iniquity of late."
"Lovers of fiction are always flippant," says the deacon, "but I will discharge the duty enjoined upon me by conscience, and then you must settle the matter between yourself and the Almighty. I had a great respect, my young brother, for your poor father, and I take a friendly interest in you. Rumour has it that you increase your worldly store by wasting pen and ink in the multiplication of what is purely imaginative. Now, a young fellow like you should be good for something in this world, Ruthven, and not be living in dreams and visions. You know my objection to fiction, as causing readers to waste precious time when they might be deriving edification and improvement. Apart from that, it must be a very low, untrue sort of life that dwells so much on the unreal, and that is the sort of life yours is becoming and will become, my young brother, unless, like our young friend Timotheus Mundey now, you set to work to earn your living sensibly, and turn aside from visions and dreams."
Jasper is silent. Mr. Hornby's conversation generally for a while produces in him the feeling that writing fiction is sinful, and he will never know a vision or dream again, but keep wholly and solely to the tangible and the real around him -- which, Heaven knows, is at this hour sad enough!
But the old minister has risen and is standing by the window, looking at the white clouds that fleck the sapphire sky like lilies floating on the breast of a still, blue lake. He seems to be talking to himself, but the colour rushes to Jasper's face as he listens, and feeling unable to bear any more just then, he turns to go away.
"Oh, poet! God's prophet, touched with the fire from His altar!" murmurs old Mr. Haven, and a lark in the garden makes music to his words. "The things which are not seen are eternal; everything is unreal, save that which eye hath not beheld. The visioned only shall endure; the life that, like God, creates, is highest of all. Tell His secrets, comfort thou His people, make streams of beauty in the vast desert of existence. Jasper, my dear lad, my son, has God not anointed you with His oil to do a work no one can do but you? What did He make your gift for, save to reach the invisible, save to be His seer? Only, dear lad, give Him nothing less than your highest. He claims the very life-bread of your being. The inspiration He breathed into you must not be cast to the world like a stone. Be patient, my poet-son. Count it unworthiness to bring forth less than your best,"
"Does he know?" thinks Jasper, miserably.
Whether the old man knows or not, it is a secret torment to Jasper that he has fallen below his highest, written for ready money, for generous pay, that which costs him little trouble, and that which, though innocent enough in itself, is far beneath the powers he feels within. Sensational adventure the world will take. The message that burns within him like a fire, no heart will hear.
"Be patient, my poet-son" says the old pastor, tenderly; but surely it cannot be God's will that the children in his home go short?
After such an interview, it is harder than ever for Jasper to make up his mind to something he yet feels must be done -- namely, to ask Mr. Hornby to wait for the settlement of his trade account until the next quarterly payment from the Rectory. Jasper pays his bills every week, but many extras have been necessarily procured from Mr. Hornby at this time of illness. Three weeks are now due. The parents of some private pupils are away, and their account, on which he has relied, is unpaid.
If there were anything that could be spared of his own or at the cottage, Jasper would sell it rather than call and ask Mr. Hornby for another fortnight's credit. But his payments have been regular, and he feels an explanation is due to his creditor.
All the morning, while taking his classes at the Grammar School, he dreads facing Mr. Hornby again, and his mind anxiously resolves ways and means, longing to pay up his account as usual, yet not seeing how to do it. The headmaster notices his pallor, and tells him kindly not to burn the midnight oil too late over his literary work. "It will not pay in the long run, Ruthven," says he, and the young author thinks he would be content to leave the future alone, if only the midnight work paid now!
Before proceeding to the Church Rectory he manages to get home for a few minutes, and finds lit
tle Noel much easier. Emery has been in, and Gildas is coming by-and-by. There is comfort yet for his sore heart, but still that dreaded interview is before him. After leaving Gilbert Haines he has lessons to give a couple of miles away. He must call at Mr. Hornby's on his way. He will nerve himself for the conversation and get it over.
As he passes the parish church his glance falls on the open door, and in his disturbed state of mind its quiet draws him in like a charm. Saint Simeon's is always open now. There is a framed card hung up asking for silence and reverence in the house of God, open for private prayer and meditation. In the porch hangs also a placard with these words from Jeremy Taylor:
"Neither days nor hours nor seasons did ever come amiss to faithful prayer. Short passes, quick ejections, holy breathings, prayers like little posies, may be sent forth without number on every occasion, and God will note them in His book."
An old man, a white haired stone breaker, has wandered in and is fast asleep in one of the seats. Two little children, hand in hand, are staring at the painted window where the blue robed Maid Mother stands beside the cradle. All is so hushed, so still, that the holy influences of the place bedew Jasper's troubled heart, and he breathes an upward cry for strength and help and courage, before he goes on his way and sinks his pride in the confession of poverty.
At last he walks into Mr. Hornby's shop and asks for the proprietor, prepared for a further chapter of admonishing, warning, and depreciatory remarks.
"I will accept all he can say," thinks Jasper. "I cannot even plead success as an excuse for my writing. I can bear any amount of words if he will let the children have their cocoa and arrowroot and things, and take my word for payment next month."
Mrs. Hornby, whom he would prefer to avoid on the present occasion, greets him with a friendly handshake, and asks him into the comfortable apartment in rear of the shop.
Mr. Hornby joins them presently, inclined to think that spiritual discomfort of some kind has brought the young member of Rehoboth to him for advice. It takes a long time somehow for Jasper Ruthven to make him understand that he is a little pressed for money, and apologizing for delay as to his customary payment, for some in Meadthorpe have got hold of the opinion, and cling to it, that Jasper is making quite a little hoard by his authorship. Still longer does Mr. Hornby take to realize that being a few days in arrear can so distress a customer.