It is much to be deplored that our sacred buildings are generally closedexcept at the stated periods of public resort. It is still more to beregretted that when with difficulty entered, there is so much in theirarrangements to offend the taste and outrage the feelings. In the tumultof life, a few minutes occasionally passed in the solemn shadow of somelofty and ancient aisle, exercise very often a salutary influence: theypurify the heart and elevate the mind; dispel many haunting fancies, andprevent many an act which otherwise might be repented. The church wouldin this light still afford us a sanctuary; not against the power of thelaw but against the violence of our own will; not against the passionsof man but against our own.
The Abbey of Westminster rises amid the strife of factions. Around itsconsecrated precinct some of the boldest and some of the worst deedshave been achieved or perpetrated: sacrilege, rapine, murder, andtreason. Here robbery has been practised on the greatest scale knownin modern ages: here ten thousand manors belonging to the order of theTemplars, without any proof, scarcely with a pretext, were forfeitedin one day and divided among the monarch and his chief nobles; herethe great estate of the church, which, whatever its articles of faith,belonged and still belongs to the people, was seized at various times,under various pretences, by an assembly that continually changed thereligion of their country and their own by a parliamentary majority,but which never refunded the booty. Here too was brought forth thatmonstrous conception which even patrician Rome in its most ruthlessperiod never equalled--the mortgaging of the industry of the countryto enrich and to protect property; an act which is now bringing itsretributive consequences in a degraded and alienated population. Heretoo have the innocent been impeached and hunted to death; and a virtuousand able monarch martyred, because, among other benefits projected forhis people, he was of opinion that it was more for their advantage thatthe economic service of the state should be supplied by direct taxationlevied by an individual known to all, than by indirect taxation,raised by an irresponsible and fluctuating assembly. But thanksto parliamentary patriotism, the people of England were saved fromship-money, which money the wealthy paid, and only got in its steadthe customs and excise, which the poor mainly supply. Rightly wasKing Charles surnamed the Martyr; for he was the holocaust of directtaxation. Never yet did man lay down his heroic life for so great acause: the cause of the Church and the cause of the Poor.
Even now in the quiet times in which we live, when public robbery is outof fashion and takes the milder title of a commission of inquiry, andwhen there is no treason except voting against a Minister, who, thoughhe may have changed all the policy which you have been elected tosupport, expects your vote and confidence all the same; even in thisage of mean passions and petty risks, it is something to step aside fromPalace Yard and instead of listening to a dull debate, where the factsare only a repetition of the blue books you have already read, and thefancy an ingenious appeal to the recrimination of Hansard, to enter theold abbey and listen to an anthem!
This was a favourite habit of Egremont, and though the mean disciplineand sordid arrangements of the ecclesiastical body to which theguardianship of the beautiful edifice is intrusted, have certainly doneall that could injure and impair the holy genius of the place, it stillwas a habit often full of charm and consolation.
There is not perhaps another metropolitan population in the world thatwould tolerate such conduct as is pursued to "that great lubber, thepublic" by the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, and submit in silence tobe shut out from the only building in the two cities which is worthy ofthe name of a cathedral. But the British public will bear anything; theyare so busy in speculating in railroad shares.
When Egremont had entered on his first visit to the Abbey by the southtransept, and beheld the boards and the spikes with which he seemedto be environed as if the Abbey were in a state of siege; iron gatesshutting him out from the solemn nave and the shadowy aisles; scarcelya glimpse to be caught of a single window; while on a dirty form, somenoisy vergers sate like ticket-porters or babbled like tapsters at theirease,--the visions of abbatial perfection in which he had early andoften indulged among the ruins of Marney rose on his outraged sense,and he was then about hastily to retire from the scene he had so longpurposed to visit, when suddenly the organ burst forth, a celestialsymphony floated in the lofty roof, and voices of plaintive melodyblended with the swelling sounds. He was fixed to the spot.
Perhaps it was some similar feeling that influenced another individualon the day after the visit of the deputation to Egremont. The sun,though in his summer heaven he had still a long course, had passed hismeridian by many hours, the service was performing in the choir, anda few persons entering by the door into that part of the Abbey Churchwhich is so well known by the name of Poet's Corner, proceeded throughthe unseemly stockade which the chapter have erected, and took theirseats. One only, a female, declined to pass, notwithstanding theofficious admonitions of the vergers that she had better move on, butapproaching the iron grating that shut her out from the body of thechurch, looked wistfully down the long dim perspective of the beautifulsouthern aisle. And thus motionless she remained in contemplation, orit might be prayer, while the solemn peals of the organ and the sweetvoices of the choir enjoyed that holy liberty for which she sighed, andseemed to wander at their will in every sacred recess and consecratedcorner.
The sounds--those mystical and thrilling sounds that at once elevatethe soul and touch the heart--ceased, the chaunting of the servicerecommenced; the motionless form moved; and as she moved Egremont cameforth from the choir, and his eye was at once caught by the symmetry ofher shape and the picturesque position which she gracefully occupied;still gazing through that grate, while the light pouring through thewestern window, suffused the body of the church with a soft radiance,just touching the head of the unknown with a kind of halo. Egremontapproached the transept door with a lingering pace, so that thestranger, who he observed was preparing to leave the church, mightovertake him. As he reached the door, anxious to assure himself that hewas not mistaken, he turned round and his eye at once caught the faceof Sybil. He started, he trembled; she was not two yards distant, sheevidently recognised him; he held open the swinging postern of the Abbeythat she might pass, which she did and then stopped on the outside, andsaid "Mr Franklin!"
It was therefore clear that her father had not thought fit, or hadnot yet had an opportunity, to communicate to Sybil the interview ofyesterday. Egremont was still Mr Franklin. This was perplexing. Egremontwould like to have been saved the pain and awkwardness of the avowal,yet it must be made, though not with unnecessary crudeness. And soat present he only expressed his delight, the unexpected delight heexperienced at their meeting. And then he walked on by her side.
"Indeed," said Sybil, "I can easily imagine you must have beensurprised at seeing me in this great city. But many things, strange andunforeseen, have happened to us since you were at Mowedale. You know, ofcourse you with your pursuits must know, that the People have at lengthresolved to summon their own parliament in Westminster. The people ofMowbray had to send up two delegates to the Convention, and they chosemy father for one of them. For so great is their confidence in him noneother would content them."
"He must have made a great sacrifice in coming?" said Egremont.
"Oh! what are sacrifices in such a cause!" said Sybil. "Yes; he madegreat sacrifices," she continued earnestly; "great sacrifices, and I amproud of them. Our home, which was a happy home, is gone; he has quittedthe Traffords to whom we were knit by many, many ties," and her voicefaltered--"and for whom, I know well he would have perilled his life.And now we are parted," said Sybil, with a sigh, "perhaps for ever. Theyoffered to receive me under their roof," she continued, with emotion."Had I needed shelter there was another roof which has long awaited me:but I could not leave my father at such a moment. He appealed to me: andI am here. All I desire, all I live for, is to soothe and support himin his great struggle; and I should die content if the People were onlyfree, and a Gerard had freed the
m."
Egremont mused: he must disclose all, yet how embarrassing to enterinto such explanations in a public thoroughfare! Should he bid her aftera-while farewell, and then make his confession in writing? Should he atonce accompany her home, and there offer his perplexing explanations? Orshould he acknowledge his interview of yesterday with Gerard, and thenleave the rest to the natural consequences of that acknowledgment whenSybil met her father! Thus pondering, Egremont and Sybil, quitting thecourt of the Abbey, entered Abingdon Street.
"Let me walk home with you," said Egremont, as Sybil seemed to intimateher intention here to separate.
"My father is not there," said Sybil; "but I will not fail to tell himthat I have met his old companion."
"Would he had been as frank!" thought Egremont. And must he quit her inthis way. Never! "You must indeed let me attend you!" he said aloud.
"It is not far," said Sybil. "We live almost in the Precinct--in anold house with some kind old people, the brother of one of the nuns ofMowbray. The nearest way to it is straight along this street, but thatis too bustling for me. I have discovered," she added with a smile, "amore tranquil path." And guided by her they turned up College Street.
"And how long have you been in London?"
"A fortnight. 'Tis a great prison. How strange it is that, in a vastcity like this, one can scarcely walk alone?"
"You want Harold," said Egremont. "How is that most faithful offriends?"
"Poor Harold! To part with him too was a pang."
"I fear your hours must be heavy," said Egremont.
"Oh! no," said Sybil, "there is so much at stake; so much to hearthe moment my father returns. I take so much interest too in theirdiscussions; and sometimes I go to hear him speak. None of them cancompare with him. It seems to me that it would be impossible to resistour claims if our rulers only heard them from his lips."
Egremont smiled. "Your Convention is in its bloom, or rather its bud,"he said; "all is fresh and pure now; but a little while and it will findthe fate of all popular assemblies. You will have factions."
"But why?" said Sybil. "They are the real representatives of the people,and all that the people want is justice; that Labour should be as muchrespected by law and society as Property."
While they thus conversed they passed through several clean, stillstreets, that had rather the appearance of streets in a very quietcountry town than of abodes in the greatest city in the world, andin the vicinity of palaces and parliaments. Rarely was a shop to beremarked among the neat little tenements, many of them built of curiousold brick, and all of them raised without any regard to symmetry orproportion. Not the sound of a single wheel was heard; sometimes not asingle individual was visible or stirring. Making a circuitouscourse through this tranquil and orderly district, they at last foundthemselves in an open place in the centre of which rose a church ofvast proportions, and built of hewn stone in that stately, not to sayponderous, style which Vanburgh introduced. The area round it, which wassufficiently ample, was formed by buildings, generally of a very meancharacter: the long back premises of a carpenter, the straggling yardof a hackney-man: sometimes a small, narrow isolated private residence,like a waterspout in which a rat might reside: sometimes a group ofhouses of more pretension. In the extreme corner of this area, whichwas dignified by the name of Smith's Square, instead of taking a moreappropriate title from the church of St John which it encircled, was alarge old house, that had been masked at the beginning of the centurywith a modern front of pale-coloured bricks, but which still stood inits courtyard surrounded by its iron railings, withdrawn as it were fromthe vulgar gaze like an individual who had known higher fortunes, andblending with his humility something of the reserve which is prompted bythe memory of vanished greatness.
"This is my home," said Sybil. "It is a still place and suits us well."
Near the house was a narrow passage which was a thoroughfare into themost populous quarter of the neighbourhood. As Egremont was opening thegate of the courtyard, Gerard ascended the steps of this passage andapproached them.
Book 4 Chapter 7