Part 55 (1/2)
”I never saw so much gold in my life, if it were all taken together,”
he said. ”What beautiful stuff it is! But I don't want it, my dear.
It would but trouble me.” And as he spoke, he began to put it in the bag again. ”You will want it for your journey,” he said.
”I have plenty in my reticule,” she answered. ”That is a mere nothing to what I could have tomorrow morning for writing a cheque. I am afraid I am very rich. It is such a shame! But I can't well help it. You must teach me how to become poor.--Tell me true: how much money have you?”
She said this with such an earnest look of simple love that the schoolmaster made haste to rise, that he might conceal his growing emotion.
”Rise, my dear lady,” he said, as he rose himself, ”and I will show you.”
He gave her his hand, and she obeyed, but troubled and disappointed, and so stood looking after him, while he went to a drawer. Thence, searching in a corner of it, he brought a half sovereign, a few s.h.i.+llings, and some coppers, and held them out to her on his hand, with the smile of one who has proved his point.
”There!” he said; ”do you think Paul would have stopped preaching to make a tent so long as he had as much as that in his pocket? I shall have more on Sat.u.r.day, and I always carry a month's rent in my good old watch, for which I never had much use, and now have less than ever.”
Clementina had been struggling with herself; now she burst into tears.
”Why, what a misspending of precious sorrow!” exclaimed the schoolmaster. ”Do you think because a man has not a gold mine he must die of hunger? I once heard of a sparrow that never had a worm left for the morrow, and died a happy death notwithstanding.”
As he spoke he took her handkerchief from her hand and dried her tears with it. But he had enough ado to keep his own back.
”Because I won't take a bagful of gold from you when I don't want it,” he went on, ”do you think I should let myself starve without coming to you? I promise you I will let you know--come to you if I can, the moment I get too hungry to do my work well, and have no money left. Should I think it a disgrace to take money from you?
That would show a poverty of spirit such as I hope never to fall into. My sole reason for refusing it now is that I do not need it.”
But for all his loving words and a.s.surances Clementina could not stay her tears. She was not ready to weep, but now her eyes were as a fountain.
”See, then, for your tears are hard to bear, my daughter,” he said, ”I will take one of these golden ministers, and if it has flown from me ere you come, seeing that, like the raven, it will not return if once I let it go, I will ask you for another. It may be G.o.d's will that you should feed me for a time.”
”Like one of Elijah's ravens,” said Clementina, with an attempted laugh that was really a sob.
”Like a dove whose wings are covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold,” said the schoolmaster.
A moment of silence followed, broken only by Clementina's failures in quieting herself.
”To me,” he resumed, ”the sweetest fountain of money is the hand of love, but a man has no right to take it from that fountain except he is in want of it. I am not. True, I go somewhat bare, my lady; but what is that when my Lord would have it so?”
He opened again the bag, and slowly, reverentially indeed, drew from it one of the new sovereigns with which it was filled. He put it into a waistcoat pocket, and laid the bag on the table.
”But your clothes are shabby, sir,” said Clementina, looking at him with a sad little shake of the head.
”Are they?” he returned, and looked down at his lower garments, reddening and anxious. ”--I did not think they were more than a little rubbed, but they s.h.i.+ne somewhat,” he said. ”--They are indeed polished by use,” he went on, with a troubled little laugh; ”but they have no holes yet--at least none that are visible,” he corrected. ”If you tell me, my lady, if you honestly tell me that my garments”--and he looked at the sleeve of his coat, drawing back his head from it to see it better--”are unsightly, I will take of your money and buy me a new suit.”
Over his coat sleeve he regarded her, questioning.
”Everything about you is beautiful!” she burst out ”You want nothing but a body that lets the light through!”
She took the hand still raised in his survey of his sleeve, pressed it to her lips, and walked, with even more than her wonted state, slowly from the room. He took the bag of gold from the table, and followed her down the stair. Her chariot was waiting her at the door.
He handed her in, and laid the bag on the little seat in front.
”Will you tell him to drive home,” she said, with a firm voice, and a smile which if anyone care to understand, let him read Spenser's fortieth sonnet. And so they parted. The coachman took the queer shabby un-London-like man for a fortune teller his lady was in the habit of consulting, and paid homage to his power with the handle of his whip as he drove away. The schoolmaster returned to his room, not to his Plato, not even to Saul of Tarsus, but to the Lord himself.
CHAPTER LXI: THOUGHTS