Part 21 (1/2)

”Then I won't do it. Just tell me--what would our Lord have said to Peter or John if they had told Him that they had been to synagogue and had been asked to speak, but had declined because there were only the pew openers, the chapel cleaner, a washerwoman, and a greengrocer present?”

”I said it only for your sake, Graham; you needn't take me up so sharply.”

”And ra-a-ther irreverently--don't you think--excuse me, sir?”

said Mrs Marshal very softly. But the very softness had a kind of jellyfish sting in it.

”I think,” rejoined the schoolmaster, indirectly replying, ”we must be. careful to show our reverence in a manner pleasing to our Lord. Now I cannot discover that he cares for any reverences but the shaping of our ways after his; and if you will show me a single instance of respect of persons in our Lord, I will press my pet.i.tion no farther to be allowed to speak a word to your pew openers, washerwoman, and greengrocer.”

His entertainers were silent--the gentleman in the consciousness of deserved rebuke, the lady in offence.

Just then the latter bethought herself that their guest, belonging to the Scotch Church, was, if no Episcopalian, yet no dissenter, and that seemed to clear up to her the spirit of his disapproval.

”By all means, Mr Marshal,” she said, ”let your friend speak on the Wednesday evening. It would not be to his advantage to have it said that he occupied a dissenting pulpit. It will not be nearly such an exertion either; and if he is unaccustomed to speak to large congregations, he will find himself more comfortable with our usual week evening one.”

”I have never attempted to speak in public but once,” rejoined Mr Graham, ”and then I failed.”

”Ah! that accounts for it,” said his friend's wife and the simplicity of his confession, while it proved him a simpleton, mollified her.

Thus it came that he spent the days between Sunday and Thursday in their house, and so made the acquaintance of young Marshal.

When his mother perceived their growing intimacy, she warned her son that their visitor belonged to an unscriptural and worldly community, and that notwithstanding his apparent guilelessness-- deficiency indeed--he might yet use cunning arguments to draw him aside from the faith of his fathers. But the youth replied that, although in the firmness of his own position as a Congregationalist, he had tried to get the Scotchman into a conversation upon church government, he had failed; the man smiled queerly and said nothing.

But when a question of New Testament criticism arose, he came awake at once, and his little blue eyes gleamed like glowworms.

”Take care, Frederick,” said his mother. ”The Scriptures are not to be treated like common books and subjected to human criticism.”

”We must find out what they mean, I suppose, mother,” said the youth.

”You're to take just the plain meaning that he that runneth may read,” answered his mother.--”More than that no one has any business with. You've got to save your own soul first, and then the souls of your neighbours if they will let you; and for that reason you must cultivate, not a spirit of criticism, but the talents that attract people to the hearing of the Word. You have got a fine voice, and it will improve with judicious use. Your father is now on the outlook for a teacher of elocution to instruct you how to make the best of it, and speak with power on G.o.d's behalf”

When the afternoon of Wednesday began to draw towards the evening, there came on a mist, not a London fog, but a low wet cloud, which kept slowly condensing into rain; and as the hour of meeting drew nigh with the darkness, it grew worse. Mrs Marshal had forgotten all about the meeting and the schoolmaster: her husband was late, and she wanted her dinner. At twenty minutes past six, she came upon her guest in the hall, kneeling on the doormat, first on one knee, then on the other, turning up the feet of his trousers.

”Why, Mr Graham,” she said kindly, as he rose and proceeded to look for his cotton umbrella, easily discernible in the stand among the silk ones of the house, ”you're never going out on a night like this?”

”I am going to the prayer meeting, ma'am,” he said.

”Nonsense! You'll be wet to the skin before you get half way.”

”I promised, you may remember, ma'am, to talk a little to them.”

”You only said so to my husband. You may be very glad, seeing it has turned out so wet, that I would not allow him to have it announced from the pulpit. There is not the slightest occasion for your going.

Besides, you have not had your dinner.”

”That's not of the slightest consequence, ma'am. A bit of bread and cheese before I go to bed is all I need to sustain nature, and fit me for understanding my proposition in Euclid. I have been in the habit, for the last few years, of reading one every night before I go to bed.”

”We dissenters consider a chapter of the Bible the best thing to read before going to bed,” said the lady, with a sustained voice.

”I keep that for the noontide of my perceptions--for mental high water,” said the schoolmaster, ”Euclid is good enough after supper.

Not that I deny myself a small portion of the Word,” he added with a smile, as he proceeded to open the door--” when I feel very hungry for it.”

”There is no one expecting you,” persisted the lady, who could ill endure not to have her own way, even when she did not care for the matter concerned. ”Who will be the wiser or the worse if you stay at home?”