Part 30 (1/2)

Since the night on which poor Morris Pugh had sought in vain for G.o.d's Providence upon the mountain-top, he had not left his room; for rheumatic fever--that curse of Wales--had laid hold of him.

The mental shock also militated against recovery. It would be almost impossible to overestimate what that shock had been, surcharged as he was by religious exaltation. He had been dashed from high heaven to earth, and at first he lay stunned, absolutely maimed. Then, as feeling returned to his numb mind, the desire to slip away and so avoid the necessity for thought was the despair of his mother, who had come from the lonely hill-farm, where she still was mistress, to be his devoted nurse. She was a woman of the true saintly type, full to the brim of sympathies and sentimentalities; as such, not one to be burdened with the reality of doubt.

By degrees, however, chaos became order. The fiat, ”Let there be light,” went forth, and Morris Pugh, enthusiast by nature, began to creep towards it. What although the so-called miracles in which he and many others had believed were unreal, that could not be said of the effects of the revival. They were everywhere manifest, abundantly real. Thousands. .h.i.therto spiritually blind were now with open eyes following the straight and narrow way. Oh! there was proof enough to show what Power was at work. As the Reverend Hwfa Williams had said (he found such small jests no inconsiderable aid in his rough and ready missioning), there was proof enough for every Thomas in Wales.

And there was more work to be done; so what mattered it whether he, Morris Pugh, the man to do it, rose or did not rise to the height of sublime folly which had been his once? There was work to be done and he must do it. So on the last day of the old year, after a week's change at Aberystwith, he returned, eager for the big revival meeting which was to see the New Year in. It was to be a great occasion, for Merv, Gwen, and Alicia Edwards were back for a Christmas holiday from their arduous labour abroad. Their presence in the little village must surely awaken the few sleepers that remained; these would be gathered in, their names added to the already long list of the elect. Even Myfanwy Jones who, as usual, had come down for a long week-end laden with bandboxes, might follow the example of her father and come into the ranks of the saved.

That would be great gain, for though Myfanwy, being well-to-do, might dress as she pleased, the influence of that dress was not benign on poorer girls. And there were so many points besides drunkenness and open immorality which the undoubted increase of faith did not seem to touch. David Morgan had sold his mare at Wrexham for five-and-twenty pounds. An open market truly, and it was a good-looking beast, for all that it had the staggers. Then the hole in the hedge, through which Evan Rees' sheep were in the habit of pus.h.i.+ng their way to graze on a water-meadow belonging to an absentee proprietor, was still unmended.

There were, in fact, many things which to Morris Pugh's sobered sight seemed ill advised, while some, such as the midnight meetings held by mere lads and la.s.sies, could not be defended.

All these things must be combated. But on this eve of a new step towards Eternity (that quaint Eternity which apparently has not yet begun for the religious) the work must be to rouse every dead soul to life.

The chapel was packed from floor to ceiling. Taken simply as a sight, it was marvellous to think of the sordid lives lived from year to year, begun, continued, and ended in the cult of the ultimate sixpence (by which alone the struggle for existence could be maintained) that many of those present were leading; here, before the Lord, they were at least seeking a higher sanction.

And yet----

Morris Pugh's whole heart and soul went out in one vivid prayer for true guidance.

Gwen, on the platform, was looking dreadfully ill. She was wasted to a skeleton, her fever-bright eyes seemed larger than ever, but they were steadier, and her voice was even sweeter, despite the hollow hacking cough which a.s.sailed her at all times, save when she was singing.

Those same eyes of hers had learned the trick of fastening themselves on one face; but so had the eyes of all these practised missioners, and even Abel Parry, who was taking Hwfa Williams' part as ba.s.s, looked out steadily, earnestly.

Myfanwy Jones felt the thrill of this, though she was conscious that much of her physical sense of strain arose from the presence of Mervyn Pugh.

How very handsome he was, and what a gentleman he looked after his three months of touring about the country!

In truth he had changed. He was finer, more complex; for it had been impossible to lead the old simple village life in the hotels and boarding-houses where he had lodged. He was different in every way, and in becoming different he had almost forgotten his past self. Even the mental emotion of his first a.s.sociation with Gwen in this work of salvation had pa.s.sed; he took it now as a matter of course. For the rest, seeing his way clear, and urged thereto by those who had heard him speak, he had almost made up his mind to the ministry.

Yet not quite so; and the sight of Myfanwy Jones robed in black samite, mystic, wonderful, in the very first row, roused recollections, almost regrets.

For there had been no harm in their holiday junketing at Blackborough; they had only enjoyed themselves immensely.

A sense of something electrical in the air disturbed him from recollections of a man in a music hall, who had ventured to comment on his companion's beauty, and he became conscious that Gwen and Alicia Edwards were both looking at him. There was a whole world of difference in the meaning of these looks, but Mervyn lumped them together as a control to his wandering thoughts.

He need not have felt that sudden sense of guilt so far as poor Gwen was concerned. Her limited mind had long since relegated the stormy past to the Devil. She shuddered at the thought of it, as she shuddered at the thought of Him.

But Mervyn was a soul which, mysteriously, she had saved.

In a measure this was true. All unknown to herself, she was largely responsible for the outburst of spiritual energy around her. There was that in her which, given freely as she gave it, without measure and without stint, was bound to force response. And to-night, wearied utterly, yet elated, singing against the doctor's orders, racked by a terrible pain when she drew her breath, she was at the flood-tide of her potentiality; and she knew it.

Beside this--the joy and rapture of the stigmatic--Alicia Edwards'

jealousy of Myfanwy was trivial indeed. But though much that was trivial lingered in the minds of many in the chapel, there was a deadly earnestness in most of the faces which looked up to the missioners, almost as they might have looked at a veritable transfiguration of their Lord.

The toilworn, the smug, the rugged, the sensuous, the clever, on all these lay a supreme desire, yet a supreme content. Briefly, they had what they wanted, yet they wanted something more. What?

An a.n.a.lysis of the minds of most would, no doubt, have yielded a large percentage of purely personal sense of salvation, but there was more than that in the whole atmosphere of the little chapel as Morris Pugh stood up to give his first address since his vigil upon the mountain.

What it was, who can say? Call it the Spirit of G.o.d, call it anything you please, all explanations resolve themselves into a still further away, ”What is it?”

Now, all those days and nights of mental and physical torture through which Morris Pugh had pa.s.sed, had left their unfailing mark on him.