Volume I Part 6 (1/2)

'Duty,' was the reply; 'the fact is, I am rather tired of dissipation, and am thinking of settling down quietly.'

'I am glad to hear it,' said the newcomer, who was the wealthy inc.u.mbent of a neighbouring parish. 'But you had better tarry with me for the night, and have a carouse over some port that you can't get hold of every day. I have done duty, and am quite at your service. This is Sunday night, and I propose a quiet rubber. The vicarage is close by. I am a bachelor, you know.'

'Yes, we all know that. And a model priest and a pillar of the Church.'

'Now, drop that,' said the parson. 'It is my misfortune that I have to wear a black coat rather than a red one. You, lucky dog! can do as you like.'

'Well, uncle, we'll test your hospitality,' said the younger one of the hors.e.m.e.n, the elder accepting at the same time.

They had already reached the village, the main street of which consisted of a few houses and shops, with a lane which led to the village meeting-an old-fas.h.i.+oned building of red brick-towards which a crowd, at any rate, as much of a crowd as could be got together in the village, was making its way.

'What are all these people up to?'

'Going to meeting, I suppose,' said the parson.

'What, are meetings allowed on the estate?'

'Unfortunately, they are. My brother's grounds only come up to the village, and the people there do as they like. But it is getting late.

Let us have a trot.' Unfortunately, as the hors.e.m.e.n broke into a trot, they ran right into a group of poor people on their way to meeting.

Unfortunately, a poor old woman was caught by one of the horses and thrown down.

'Are you much hurt?' said a young man, running to her rescue.

'No, Mr. Wentworth,' said one of the group. 'Mother, I believe, is more frightened than hurt. We would have had her stop at home, but she said she must come and hear you preach. She said she was here when your father came to preach for the first time, and we could not keep her at home.'

'And who are the men on horseback?' who by this time were far away.

'Why, one of 'em, the young one, is Sir Watkin Strahan, with his uncle, the parson of the next parish.'

'Well, for a young man, he was by no means pleasant-looking. At any rate, he might have stopped to see if he had done any harm. But these rich men are all hard. Poor people have but one duty-to get out of their way, and to take their hats off to them when they meet!'

The expression of the young man was not to be taken literally. Farmer and peasant alike never took off the hat to anyone. The peasant simply made an obeisance and put up his hand to pull a lock of his front hair in proof of his deference to the ruling powers.

The crowd still cl.u.s.tered round the old woman, who was happily more frightened than hurt. She was one of a cla.s.s rarely to be met with in our villages now, but at one time very common. She was a 'meetinger.'

In some way she was a sufferer for the fact. When Christmas came there were coals and blankets at the Hall for such of the villagers as attended the parish church, but the 'meetingers' were left out in the cold; and yet they were the salt of the place-steady, orderly, industrious-content with their lot, however humble and hard. At the meeting they were all equals, brothers and sisters in Christ, believing that life was a scene of sorrow and difficulty, of darkness and poverty and death-believing also that that sorrow and pain would pa.s.s away, that that darkness would be turned into light, that the tear would be wiped from every eye, and the riches of heaven would be theirs in exchange for the poverty of earth, that death should be swallowed up in life. They studied one book, and that was the Bible. Their talk was in Scripture phrase, and it was not cant with them, but the utterance of a living faith. That faith exists no longer, but while it lasted it filled the peasant's heart with a joy that the world could neither give nor take away, and there was peace and content in the home. There was no day like the Sunday, no treat like that of singing the songs of Zion, or of listening to the Gospel, as they held the sermon to be. Nowadays our villagers prefer to smoke a pipe and read the newspaper, and to talk of their rights. Then they were of the same way of thinking as the citizens of a small German duchy, who, when the year of revolution came across Europe, and the Grand-Duke gave them a representative government, were much annoyed at the trouble thus imposed on them, when he, the Grand-Duke, was born and endowed to do all the ruling himself.

But the old lady was better, and to her we must return, as she made her way to meeting.

The person most annoyed was the young preacher. He was shocked at the autocratic insolence of the party.

'I shall know that young fellow on horseback,' he said to himself, 'if ever I meet him again, which is not very likely;' and the young man continued his walk to the meeting, where he was to preach.

When he got there the place was crowded. Tremblingly he entered the vestry, and more tremblingly he climbed the pulpit stairs. Everybody whom he knew was there. For a village, it was a highly respectable congregation, consisting of well-to-do shopkeepers and farmers with their families, who sat in genteel old square pews lined with baize, while the labourers, in clean smock-frocks, filled the body of the place. On the floor, just under the pulpit, was the table-pew, crowded with all the musical talent of the place. Loud and long and wonderful was their performance. There are no such village choirs now, nor such congregations. The landlords have put down Dissent in that part. It is well understood that when there is a farm to let no Dissenter need apply.

The old meeting-house yard was pleasant to the eye, with its grand trees guarding the gates. It was a warm night, and the doors were wide open, and from the pulpit the eye could range over trim cottage gardens all ablaze with sweet flowers, whose scent floated pleasantly along the summer air. From afar one could hear also the echoes of the distant sea.

There is a wonderful stillness and beauty in a country village on a Sunday night, that is if it be at a decent distance from town.

Even that dull red-brick meeting-house was rich in holy a.s.sociations. It recalled memories of martyrs and saints, of men of whom the world was not worthy, who had given up all for Christ.

But let us turn to the present. In the pulpit is the lad whom we already know. He has been at a London college. This was his first sermon, and so still was the place that even the Sunday-school children-always the most troublesome part of the audience, and very naturally so-were silent.

For a wonder, in no pew was a farmer asleep. The emotion of the dear old minister, as he sat in the family pew, was painful to witness. That lad up yonder was his only son, and had been set apart from his childhood for the service of the altar. Like another Timothy, from a child he had known the Scriptures. Like another Samuel, he had been early trained to wait upon the Lord. Had the prayers of pious parents been heard and answered? It seemed so. But who can tell what later years may do for the lad?