Part 3 (1/2)
”A first, full, sudden Pentecost of love,”
it cannot be denied that Philip there and then knew that he loved Lucy Blyth, knew, moreover, that it was a love that would be all-absorbing, a love that time would not lessen, that trial would not weaken, that death would not destroy. No other idea could get in edgewise during that memorable walk. The radiant vision floated before his eyes, and thrilled him to the heart: the very trees seemed to whisper ”Lucy” as they trembled in the breeze, and Philip Fuller knew from that hour that he had ”found his fate.”
Difference of rank, social barriers, his father's exaggerated family pride, Nathan Blyth's st.u.r.dy independence, Lucy's possible denial, and kindred prosy considerations, did not occur to the smitten youth; or if they did they were wondrously minified by love's inverted telescope into microscopic proportions, and through them all he held the juvenilian creed that ”love can find out the way.” In his dreams that night, he re-enacted all the scene at Adam Olliver's garden gate; saw again the sweetest face in the world or out of it to his glamour-flooded eyes; heard again the question, ”Can this be little Lucy Blyth?” Men live rapidly in dreams, time flies like a flash.
Difficulties do not count in dreams, they are ignored, and so it was that Philip answered the question in a _veni-vidi-vici_ kind of spirit, and shouted in dreamland over the garden gate, ”Yes it can, and will be Lucy Fuller, by-and-bye!” Then, as John Bunyan says, he ”awoke, and behold it was a dream.” Ah! Master Philip, Jason did not win the golden fleece without sore travail and fight; Hercules did not win the golden apple of Hesperides without dire conflict with its dragon guard, and if you imagine that this dainty prize is going to fall into your lap for wis.h.i.+ng for, you will find it is indeed a dream from which a veritable thunderclap shall wake you. Will the lightning scathe you? Who may lift the curtain of the future? I would not if I could--better far, as honest Natty sings, to
Do your honest duty, boys, and never, never fear.
The next morning Master Philip left the breakfast-table to go out on a voyage of discovery. Bestriding a handsome bay horse, his father's latest gift, he rode down to Nestleton Forge, and arrived just in time to hear the final strophes of Blithe Natty's latest anvil song. That vivacious son of Vulcan was engaged in sharpening and tempering millers' chisels, and as the labour was not hard, and the blows required were light and rapid, Natty's song dovetailed with the accompaniment:--
Every cloud has a lining of light, Morning is certain to follow the night; Eve may be sombre, the shadows shall flee, Sunny and smiling the morrow shall be.
Cheerily, merrily, sing the refrain, Setting suns ever are rising again.
Hearts may be heavy and hope may be low, Pluck up your spirits and sing as you go.
Hope now, hope ever, though dark be the sky, Night brings the stars out to glitter on high.
Cheerily, merrily, sing the refrain, Setting suns ever are rising again.
Larks fold their wings when daylight is done, Spread them to-morrow again to the sun.
Gloomiest shadows shall lift by-and-bye, Smiles of contentment shall follow the sigh.
Cheerily, merrily, sing the refrain, Setting suns ever are rising again.
”Good morning, Mr. Blyth,” said Philip; ”I'm glad to have the chance of hearing your merry voice again. I've been intending to ride round ever since my return from college, but my father has managed to keep me pretty much by his side.”
”I'm heartily glad to see you, sir,” said Nathan, ”and mighty pleased to see that college honours and gay company have not led you to forget your poorer neighbours. You know the old proverb, 'When the sun's in the eyes people don't see midges.'”
”Why, as for that,” said Philip, with a laugh, ”I am not aware that the sun _is_ in my eyes. At any rate I can see you, and you are no midge by any means. 'Should auld acquaintance be forgot?' As for gay company, that is not at all in my line. By-the-bye, what's become of your little daughter? I hope I may have the pleasure of seeing her, too. I suppose she has grown altogether too womanly to accept a ride on Harlequin, the pony, even if I brought him. Is she at home?”
Now, I am quite sure that Nathan Blyth would much rather have preferred that Master Philip should not resume his acquaintance with Lucy. On the other hand, he had the most unbounded confidence in her, while he had no shadow of reason for suspecting Philip of any ulterior motive; hence he could scarcely avoid calling his daughter to speak with the young squire. That young lady soon appeared in graceful morning garb, and the impressible heart of the youthful lover was bound in chains for evermore. There was neither guile nor reserve in his greeting. The light that beamed in his eye and the tone that rung in his voice, could scarcely fail to betray to far less observant eyes and ears the unmeasured satisfaction with which he renewed his acquaintance with the charming girl. Lucy, however, seemed to have retired into herself; her words were few, constrained, and inconsequent, but the tell-tale blush was on her cheek, and there was a singular flutter at her heart, as she saw the ardent admiration which shone in the eyes of her quondam friend. It was with a profound sense of relief that she was able to plead the pressure of domestic duties as a reason for shortening the interview and retiring from the scene. After a brief conversation with Nathan on trivial matters, Philip mounted his horse and rode homewards, in that frame of mind so admirably depicted by Otway:--
”Where am I? Sure Paradise is round me; Sweets planted by the hand of heaven grow here, And every sense is full of thy perfection!
To hear thee speak might calm a madman's frenzy, Till by attention he forgot his sorrows; But to behold thy eyes, th' amazing beauties Would make him rage again with love, as I do; Thou Nature's whole perfection in one piece!
Sure, framing thee, Heaven took unusual care; As its own beauty, it designed thee fair, And formed thee by the best loved angel there.”
Such were the emotions Philip Fuller felt as he turned away from the Forge of Nathan Blyth. Rounding the corner in the direction of Waverdale Hall, he was suddenly confronted by the scowling face and suspicious eyes of Black Morris.
CHAPTER VII.
KESTERTON CIRCUIT AND THE ”ROUNDERS.”
”A good man there was of religioun, And he was a poor parsoun of a toune; But rich he was of holy thought and werk.
He was, also, a learned man, a clerk That Christe's gospel gladly wolde preche; His parischens devoutly wolde he teche.
Benign he was and wondrous diligent, And in adversite full patient.”
_Chaucer._
Methodism was introduced into Kesterton in the days of John Wesley himself, and in the plain, square, old-fas.h.i.+oned chapel, with its arched windows, brick walls, and hip roof, red tiled and high peaked, you might see the very pulpit in which the grand old apostle of the eighteenth century preached more than a hundred years ago. The chapel stood back from the main street, and to get at it you had to go through a narrow pa.s.sage, for the fathers of the Methodist Church, unlike their more self-a.s.sertive successors, seem to have courted a very modest retirement for the Bethels which they built for G.o.d.
Behind the chapel there is a small burial-ground, in which are the honoured graves of those to whom Kesterton Methodism owes its origin, and who did its work and bore its fortunes in its earlier struggles for existence. On the other side of an intervening wall, in the midst of a little garden, capable of much improvement in the matter of tidiness and cultivation, stands the ”preacher's house.” It is not by any means an imposing structure, and taxes to the utmost the contrivance of its itinerant tenants to find sleeping accommodation for the ”quiver full” of youngsters with which they are commonly favoured in an unusual degree. In the matter of furniture the less said the better; suffice it to say that it could not be regarded as extravagant in quality or burdensome in quant.i.ty. Indeed, it was open to serious imputations in both those directions; at least so thought the Rev. Theophilus Clayton, who had latterly become located there, and seemed likely to go through the maximum term of three years, to the high satisfaction of the people, and with a moderate measure of contentment to himself.