BOOK II.
CHAPTER I.
The frozen canal ran straight towards the sunset, into a flooded country where only a line of pollard willows, with here and there an alder, marked the course of its left bank. But where Hetty waited the banks were higher, and the red ball on the horizon sent a level shaft down the lane between them.
She was alone. Indeed, the only living creature within sight was a red-breast, hunched into a ball and watching her from a wintry willow bough; the only moving object a windmill half a mile away across the level, turning its sails against the steel-gray sky—so listlessly, they seemed to be numbed.
She had strapped on a pair of skates—clumsy homemade things, and a birthday present from Johnny Whitelamb, who had fashioned them with pains, the Epworth blacksmith helping. Hetty skated excellently well—in days, be it understood, before the cutting of figures had been advanced to an art with rules and text-books. But as the poise and balanced impetus came natural to her, so in idle moments and casually she had struck out figures of her own, and she practised them now with the red-breast for spectator. She was happy—her bosom's lord sitting lightly on his throne—and all because of two letters she pulled from her pocket and re-read in the pauses of her skating.
The first was from her mother at Wroote, and told her that to-day or to-morrow her father would be arriving at Kelstein with her sister Patty. Hetty had been expecting this for some weeks. At Christmas (it was now mid-January) the Granthams had written praising her, and this had given Mr. Wesley the notion of proffering yet another of his daughters. Two days after receiving the letter he had ridden over to Kelstein with the proposal. Patty was the one chosen (Hetty could guess why), and poor Patty knew nothing of it at the time: but Mrs. Grantham had accepted almost effusively, and she was to come. In what capacity? Hetty wondered. She herself taught the children, and she could think of no other post in the household not absolutely menial. Was it selfish of her to be so glad? For one thing Patty had fewer whimsies than the rest of her sisters and, likely enough, would accept her lot as a matter of course. She seldom wept or grumbled: indeed Hetty, before now, had found her patience irritating. But to have Patty's company now seemed the most delightful thing in the world; to fling her arms around somebody who came from home!
The most delightful? Hetty turned to the second letter—and with that looked up swiftly as her ear caught the ringing sound of skates, and a young man descended, as it were, out of the sun's disc and came flying down the long alley on its ray. She put out both hands. He swooped around her in a long curve and caught them and kissed her as he came to a standstill, panting, with a flush on each handsome cheek.
"Hetty!"
No answer to this but a sound like a coo of rapture. He is, as we should think, a personable young fellow, frank, and taking to the eye, though his easy air of mastery provokes another look at Hetty, who is worth ten of him. But to her he is a young god above whom the stars dance. Splendid creature though she be, she must comply with her sex which commands her to be passive, to be loved. With his arm about her she shuts her eyes and drinks delicious weakness; with a sense of sinking through space supported by that arm—not wholly relying on him as yet, but holding her own strength in reserve, if he should fail her.
"I have raced."
She laughed. "I bargained for that. We have so little time!"
"How long?"
"Mrs. Grantham expects me back in an hour at latest. Father and Patty will be arriving before supper, and there are the children to be put to bed."
"Let us go up the canal, then. I have a surprise for you."
They took hands—both her hands in his, their arms held crosswise to their bodies—and struck out, stroke for stroke. By the third stroke they were swinging forward in perfect rhythm, each onrush held long and level on the outside edge and curving only as it slackened. The air began to sing by Hetty's temples; her skates kept a humming tune with her lover's. The back of his hand rested warm against her bosom.
"You skate divinely."
She scarcely heard. The world slipped past and behind her with the racing trees: she was a bird mated and flying into the sunset. Ah, here was bliss! Awhile ago she had been faint with love, as though a cord were being tightened around her heart: it had been hard for her to speak, hard even to draw breath. Now her lungs opened, the cord snapped and broke with a sob; and, as the sun's rim dipped, she flew faster, urgent to overtake and hold it there, to stay its red glint between the reed-beds, its bloom of brown and purple on the withered grasses. The wind of her skirt caught up the dead leaves freshly scattered on the ice and swept them along with her, whirling, like a train of birds. But, race as she would, the sun sank and the shadow of the world crept higher behind her shoulder. The last gleam died; and, lifting her eyes, Hetty saw over its grave, poised in a clear space of sky, the sickle moon.
She tried to disengage her hand, to point to it: but as his eyes sought hers with a question, she let it lie and nodded upwards instead. He saw and understood, and with their faces raised to it they held on their flight in silence: for lovers may wish with the new moon, but the first to speak will have wished in vain.
A tapping, as of someone hammering upon metal, sounded from a clump of willows ahead and upon their right. A woman's voice joined in scolding. This broke the spell; and with a laugh they disengaged hands, separated, and let their speed bear them on side by side till it slackened and they ran to a halt beside the trees.
A barge lay here, hopelessly frozen on its way up the canal. On its deck a woman, with arms akimbo, stood over a man seated and tinkering at a kettle. She nodded as they approached.
"Sorry to keep you waiting, sir—you and the lady."
Hetty looked at her lover.
"It's all right," he explained: "only a surprise of mine, which seems to have missed fire. I had planned a small picnic here and this good woman was to have had a dish of tea ready for you—"
"How was I to know that man of mine had been fool enough to fill the kettle before tramping off to the 'Ring of Bells'?" the good woman broke in. "Lord knows 'tisn' his way to be thoughtful, and when he tries it there's always a breakage. When I'd melted the ice, the thing began to leak like a sieve; and if this tinker fellow hadn't come along—by Providence, as you may call it—though I'd ha' been obliged to Providence for a quicker workman—"
Hetty was not listening. Her eyes had caught the tinker's, and the warm blood had run back from her face: for he was the man who had startled the sisters on the knoll, that harvest evening.
He nodded to her now with an impudent grin. "Good evening, missy! If I'd known the job was for Miss Wesley, I'd ha' put best speed into it: best work there is already."
"Hallo! Do you know this fellow?" her lover demanded.
"'Fellow'—and a moment back 'twas 'tinker'! Well, well, a man must look low and pick up what he can in these times, 'specially when his larger debtors be so backward—hey, miss? Why, to be sure I know Miss Wesley: a man don't forget a face like hers in a hurry. Glad to meet her, likewise, enjoyin' herself so free and easy. Shall I tell the old Rector, miss, next time I call, how well you was lookin', and in what company?"
Hetty saw her lover ruffling and laid a hand on his arm.
"Tuppence if you please, ma'am, and I'll be going. William Wright was never one to spoil sport: but some has luck in this world and some hasn't, and that's a fact." He grinned again as he pocketed the money.
"If you don't take your impudent face out of this, I'll smash it for you," spoke up the young man hotly.
The plumber's grin widened as, slinging his bag of tools over his shoulder, he stepped on to the frozen towpath. "Ah, you're a bruiser, I dare say: for I've seen you outside the booth at Lincoln Fair, hail-fellow with the boxing-men on the platform. And a buck you was too, with a girl on each arm; and might pass, that far from home, for one of the gentry, the way you stood treat. But you're not: and if missy ain't more particular in her bucks, she'd do better with a respectable tradesman like me. As for smashing of faces, two can play at that game, belike: but William Wright chooses his time."
He was lurching away with a guffaw; for the tow-path here ran within two furlongs of the high road, and a man upon skates cannot pursue across terra firma.
But he had reckoned without Hetty, who had seated herself on the edge of the barge and who now shook her feet free of Johnny Whitelamb's rough clamps, and, springing from the deck to the towpath, took him by the collar as he turned.
"Go!" she cried, and with her open palm dealt him a stinging slap across the cheek. "Go!"
The man put up his hand, fell back a moment with a dazed face, and then without a word ran for the highway, his bag of tools rattling behind him.
Never was route more ludicrously sudden. Even in her wrath Hetty looked at her lover and broke into a laugh.
"Let me skate up the canal and head him off," said he. "Half a mile will give me lead enough to slip out of these things and collar him on the highway."
"He is not worth it. Besides, he may not be going towards Kelstein: in this light we cannot see the road or what direction he takes. Let him be, dear," Hetty persuaded, as the old woman called out from her cabin that the kettle boiled. "Our time is too precious."
Then, while he yet fumed, she suddenly grew grave.
"Was it truth he was telling?"
"Truth?" he echoed.
"Yes: about Lincoln Fair?"
"Oh, the boxing-booth, you mean? Well, my dear, there was something in it, to be sure. You wouldn't have me be a milksop, would you?"
"No-o," she mused. "But I meant what he said about—about those women. Was that true?"
He was on the point of answering with a lie; but while he hesitated she helped him by adding, "I am not a child, dear. I am twenty-seven, and older than you. Please be honest with me, always."
He was young, but had an instinct for understanding women.
He revised the first lie and rejected it for a more cunning one.
"It was before I met you," he said humbly. "He made the worst of it,
of course, but I had rather you knew the truth. You are angry?"
Hetty sighed. "I am sorry. It seems to make our—our love— different somehow."
The bargewoman brought out their tea. She had heard nothing of the scrimmage on the bank, so swiftly had it happened and with so few words spoken.
"Halloa—is the tinker gone? And I'd cut off a crust for him. Well, I can eat it myself, I suppose; and after all he was low company for the likes of you, though any company comes well to folks that can't pick and choose." In the act of setting herself on the cabin top she sat up stiffly and listened.
"There's a horse upon the high road," she announced.
"A highwayman, perhaps, if all company's welcome to you."
"He won't come this way," said the woman placidly. "I loves to lie close to the road like this and see the wagons and coaches rolling by all day: for 'tis a dull life, always on the water. Now you wouldn't believe what a pleasure it gives me, to have you two here a-lovering, nor how many questions I'd put if you'd let me. When is it to be, my dear?"—addressing Hetty—"But you won't answer me, I know. You're wishing me farther, and go I will as soon as you've drunk your tay. Well, sir, I hope you'll take care of her: for the pretty she is, I could kiss her myself. May I?" she asked suddenly, taking Hetty's empty cup; and Hetty blushed and let her. "God send you children, you beauty!"
She paused with a cup in either hand, and in the act of squeezing herself backwards through the small cabin-door. "La, the red you've gone! I can see it with no help more than the bit of moon. 'Tis a terrible thing to be childless, and for that you can take my word." Wagging her head she vanished.
Left to themselves the two sat silent. The sound of the horse's hoofs died away down the road towards Kelstein. Had Hetty known, her father was the horseman, with Patty riding pillion behind him. Over the frozen floods came the note of a church clock, borne on the almost windless air.
"Five o'clock?" Hetty sprang up. "Time to be going, and past."
"You have not forgiven me," he murmured.
"Indeed, yes." She was, after all, a girl of robust good sense, and could smile bravely as she put an illusion by. "To be loved is marvellous and seems to make all marvels possible: but I was wrong to expect—this one. And if, since knowing me—"
"You have taught me all better things." He knelt on the ice at her feet and began to fasten her skates. "Let me still be your pupil and look up to you, as I am looking now."
"Ah!" she pressed her palms together, "but that is just what I need— to know that we are both better for loving. I want to be sure of that, for it makes me brave when I think of father. While he forbids us, I cannot help doubting at times: and then I look into myself and see that all the world is brighter, all the world is better since I knew you. O my love, if we trust our love, and help one another!—" Her rich voice thrilled and broke as she leaned forward and laid a hand on his forehead.
"See me at your feet," he whispered, looking up into eyes divinely dewy. "I am yours to teach: teach me, if you will, to be good."
They rose to their feet together—he but an inch or so the taller— and for a moment, as he took her in his arms, she held back, her palms against his shoulders, her eyes passionately seeking the truth in his. Then with a sob she kissed him and was gone.
For a moment she skated nervelessly, with hanging arms. But, watching, he saw her summon up her strength and shoot down the glimmering ice-way like a swallow let loose from his hand. So swift was her flight that, all unknowing, she overtook and passed the travellers jogging parallel with her on the high road; and had reached Kelstein and was putting her two small charges to bed, when her father's knock sounded below stairs.
Mr. and Mrs. Grantham, though pompous, were a kindly pair: and Mrs. Grantham, entering the library where Mr. Wesley and his daughter awaited her, and observing that the girl seemed frightened or depressed (she could not determine which), rang the bell at once and sent a maid upstairs for Hetty.
Hetty entered with cheeks still glowing and eyes sparkling; went at once to her father and kissed him, and running, threw her arms around Patty, who responded listlessly.
"She needs Kelstein air," explained Mr. Wesley. "I protest it seems to agree with you, Mehetabel."
"But tell me all the news, father," Hetty demanded, with an arm about her sister's waist and a glance at Mrs. Grantham, which asked pardon for her freedom.
"Your sister shall tell it, my dear," answered that good woman, "while I am persuading your father to sup with us. I have given them a room together," she explained to Mr. Wesley. "I thought it would be pleasanter for them."
"You are kindness itself, madam."
Hetty led the way upstairs. "It is all strange at first, dear: I know the feeling. But see how cosy we shall be." She threw the door open, and showed a room far more comfortably furnished than any at Wroote or Epworth. The housemaid, who adored Hetty, had even lit a fire in the grate. Two beds with white coverlets, coarse but exquisitely clean, stood side by side—"Though we won't use them both. I must have you in my arms, and drink in every word you have to tell me till you drop off to sleep in spite of me, and hold you even then. Oh, Patty, it is good to have you here!"
But Patty, having untied the strings of her hat, tossed it on to the edge of her bed and collapsed beside it.
"I wish I was dead!" she announced.
CHAPTER II.
John Romley was the cause of her exile. This young man had been a pupil of the Rector's, and studied divinity with him for a while before matriculating at Lincoln College, Oxford; where in due course he took his degree, and whence he returned, in deacon's orders, to take charge of the endowed school at Epworth and to help in the spiritual work of the parish. Mr. Wesley's experience of curates had been far from happy, but Romley promised to be the bright exception in a long list of failures. (It was he who discovered and introduced Johnny Whitelamb to the household.) He was sociable; had pleasant manners, a rotund figure not yet inclining to coarseness, a pink and white complexion, and a mellifluous tenor voice. To his voice, alas! he owed most of his misfortunes in life.
The Rector had no high opinion of his brains: but tolerated him, and at first looked on leniently enough when he began to pay his addresses to Patty. Indeed the courtship proceeded to the gentle envy of her sisters until one fatal night when Romley, in the rectory parlour at Wroote, attuned his voice to sing the Vicar of Bray. In his study Mr. Wesley heard it. He, of all men, was no Vicar of Bray, albeit he had abjured Dissent: but he felt his cloth insulted, and by this fribble of his own order. It was treason in short, and he bounced into the parlour as Mr. Romley carolled:
"When gracious Anne became our Queen,
The Church of England's glory,
Another face of things was seen,
And I became a Tory;
Occasional Conformists base—"
There was a scene, and it ended in Romley being shown the door and Patty forbidden to have speech with him. Actually she had not set eyes on him since that night: but the Rector unaccountably omitted to forbid their corresponding. Now Patty, the most literally minded of her sex, had a niggling obstinacy in pursuit of her ends. She would obey to a hair's breadth: but, nothing having been said about letters, letters passed. Piecing the truth together from her incoherent railings, Hetty learned that the Rector had happened upon a scrap of Romley's handwriting, had lost his temper furiously and given sentence of banishment.
Patty in love showed none of her sister's glorious fervour: but stared obtusely, even sulkily, when Hetty hinted at her own secret and, pressing her waist, spoke of love with fearless elation, yet as of a sacred thing.
"Oh, you're too poetical for me!" she interrupted.
This was depressing.
"And I wish I was in my grave," added Patty, looking like a martyr in a wet blanket.
Thinking to put spirit into her, Hetty became more explicit and proved that love might find out a way between Epworth and Kelstein— nay, even spoke of her own clandestine meeting that very afternoon. Her cheeks glowed. Nor for a minute did she observe that Patty, listless at the beginning of the tale, was staring at her with round eyes.
"You mean to tell me that you meet him!"
"Why, of course I do."
"But father forbade it!"
"To be sure he did."
"Then all I can say is"—Patty rose to her feet in the strength of her disapproval—"that I call it disgraceful, and I'm perfectly ashamed of you!"
"But, good Heavens! he forbade you to see Romley."
"But not to write."
"O-o!" Hetty mused with her pretty mouth shaped to the letter.
"And now, I suppose, he has forbidden that too?"
"Of course he has."
"And are you going to obey?"
"Of course I am."
It was Hetty's turn to stare wide-eyed. "You are going to give
Romley up?" she asked very slowly.
"Yes, yes, yes—and I wish I was in my grave!" Patty collapsed again dismally, but sat upright after a moment. "As for your behaviour, 'tis positively wicked, and I think father ought to be told of it!"
Hetty put out both hands; but instead of shaking her sister (as she was minded to do) she let the open palms fall gently upon her shoulders and looked her in the face.
"Then I advise you not to tell him, dear. For in the first place it would do no good."
"Do no good?"
"Well, then, it would make no difference."
"You mean to—run away—with him?" gasped Patty, her eyes involuntarily turning towards the window.
The glance set Hetty's laughter rippling. "Pat—Pat! don't be a goose. I shall not run away with him from this house. I promised mother."
"You—promised—mother!" Patty was reduced to stammering echoes.
"Dear me, yes. You must not suppose yourself the only one of her children she understands." Hetty, being human, could not forgo this little slap. "Now wash your face, like a good girl, and come down to supper: and afterwards you shall tell me all the news of home. There's one thing"—and she eyed Patty drolly—"I can trust you to be accurate."
"Do you mean to tell me that you can look father in the face—"
But here Patty broke off, at the sound of hoofs on the gravel below.
"There will be no need," said Hetty quietly, "if, as I think, he is mounting Bounce to ride home."
"Bounce? How did you know that Bounce brought us?"—for Bounce was
Mrs. Wesley's nag, and the Rector usually rode an old gray named
Mettle, but had taken of late to a filly of his own breeding.
"I ought to remember Bounce's shuffle," answered Hetty. "Nay, I should have recognised it on the road two miles back if—if I hadn't been—"
She came to a full stop, in some confusion. Nevertheless she was right; and the girls arrived downstairs to learn from Mrs. Grantham that their father had ridden off, declining her offer of supper and scoffing at her fears of highwaymen.
And the days went by. Hetty could not help telling herself that Patty was a disappointment. But she was saved from reflecting on it overmuch: for Mrs. Grantham (after forty years of comfort without one) had conceived a desire to be waited on and have her hair dressed by a maid, and between Mrs. Grantham's inability to discover precisely what she wanted done by Patty, and Patty's unhandiness in doing it, and Mrs. Grantham's anxiety to fill up Patty's time, and Patty's lack of inventiveness, the pair kept Hetty pretty constantly near her wit's end.
Concerning her lover she attempted no more confidences. But, alone, she pondered much on Patty's reproof, which set her arguing out the whole case afresh. For, absurd though its logic was, it had touched her conscience. Was it conscience (she asked herself) or but the old habit of trembling at her father's word, which kept her so uneasy in disobeying him?
She came to no new conclusion; for a sense of injustice gave a twist to her thinking from the start. All his daughters held Mr. Wesley in awe: they never dreamed, for instance, of comparing their lovers with him in respect of dignity or greatness. They assumed that their brothers inherited some portion of that greatness, but they required none in the men to whom they were ready to give their hands; nay, perhaps unconsciously rejoiced in the lack of it, having lived with it at home and found it uncomfortable.
They were proud of it, of course, and knew that they themselves had some touch of it, if but a lunar glow. They read the assurance in their mother's speech, in her looks; and, moving among the Epworth folk as neighbours, yet apart, they had acquired a high pride of family which derived nothing from vulgar chatter about titled, rich and far-off relatives; but, taking ancestry for granted, found sustenance enough in the daily life at the parsonage and the letters from Westminster and Oxford. Aware of some worth in themselves, they saw themselves pinched of food, exiled from many companions, shut out from social gatherings for want of pocket-money and decent attire, while amid all the muddle of his affairs their father could tramp for miles and pledge the last ounce of his credit to scrape a few pounds for John or Charles. They divined his purpose: but they felt the present injustice.
They never regarded him as just. And this was mainly his own fault, or at least the fault of his theory that women, especially daughters, were not to be reasoned with but commanded. Hetty, for example, had an infinite capacity for self-sacrifice. At an appeal from him she would have surrendered, not small vanities only, but desires more than trivial, for the brothers whom in her heart she loved to fondness. But the sacrifice was ever exacted, not left to her good-nature; the right word never spoken.
And now, under the same numbing deference, her mother had failed her at a moment when all her heart cried out in its need. Hetty loved her lover. Perhaps, if allowed to fare abroad, consort with other girls, and learn, with responsibility, to choose better, she had never chosen this man. She had chosen him now. Poor Hetty!
But that she did wrong to meet him secretly her conscience accused her. She had been trained religiously. Had she no religion, then, upon which to stay her sense of duty?
Where a mother has failed, even the Bible may fail. Hetty read her Bible: but just because its austerer teaching had been bound too harshly upon her at home, she turned by instinct to the gentler side which reveals Christ's loving-kindness, His pity, His indulgence. All generous natures lean towards this side, and to their honour, but at times also to their very great danger. For the austerity is meant for them who most need it. Also the austere rules are more definite, which makes them a surer guide for the soul desiring goodness, but passionately astray. It spurns them, demanding loving-kindness; and discovers too late that loving-kindness dictated them.
CHAPTER III.
Two mornings after Patty's arrival, Hetty sat in the schoolroom telling a Bible story to her pupils, George Grantham and small Rebecca; the one aged eight, the other barely five. They were by no means clever children; but they knew a good story when they heard one, and Hetty held them to the adventures of Joseph and his Brethren, although great masses of snow were sliding off the roof, and every now and then toppling down past the window with a rush— which every child knows to be fascinating. For the black frost had broken up at last in a twelve hours' downfall of snow, and this in turn had yielded to a soft southerly wind. The morning sunshine poured in through the school-room window and took all colour out of the sea-coal fire.
"One night Joseph dreamed a dream which he told next morning to his brothers. And his dream was that they were all in the harvest-field, binding sheaves: and when Joseph had bound his sheaf, it stood upright, but the other sheaves around slid and fell flat, as if they were bowing on their faces before it. When he told this, it made his brothers angry, because it seemed to mean that he would be a greater man than any of them."
"I don't wonder they were angry," broke in George, who was the Granthams' son and heir, and had a baby brother of whom he tried hard not to be jealous. "Joseph wasn't the oldest, was he?"
"No: he was the youngest of all, except Benjamin."
"And even if he dreamed it, he needn't have gone about bragging.
It was bad enough, his having that coat of many colours. I say, Miss
Wesley—you're not a boy, of course—but how would you feel if your
father made everything of one of your brothers?"
"I wonder if he dreamed it on a Friday?" piped Rebecca.
"Why, child?"
"Because Martha says"—Martha was the Granthams' cook—"that Friday's dream on Saturday told is bound to come true before you are old."
"We shall find out if it came true. Go on, Miss Wesley."
"But if it was Friday's dream," Rebecca persisted, "and he wanted it to come true, he couldn't help telling it."
"Couldn't help being a sneak, I suppose you mean!"
A sound outside the window cut short this argument. All glanced up: but it came this time from no avalanche of snow. Someone had planted a ladder against the house, and the top of the ladder was scraping against the window-sill.
"Too short by six feet," Hetty heard a voice say, and held her breath. The ladder was joggled a little and fixed again. Footsteps began to ascend it. A face and a pair of broad shoulders rose into sight over the sill. They belonged to William Wright.
"I—I think, dears, we had better find some other room."
Hetty had sprung up and felt herself shaking from head to foot. For the moment he was not looking in, but stood at the top of the ladder with his head thrown back, craning for a view of the water-trough under the eaves.
"About two feet to the right," he called to someone below. "No use shifting the ladder; 'twon't reach. Stay a minute, though—I don't believe 'tis a leak at all. Here—"
He felt the closed window with the palm of his hand, then peered through it into the room; and his eyes and Hetty's met.
"Well, I do declare! Good morning, miss: 'tis like fate, the way I keep running across you. Now would you be so kind as to lift the latch on your side and push the window gently? The frame opens outwards and I want to steady myself by it."
She obeyed, and was turning haughtily to follow the children when
George, who loitered in the doorway watching, called out:
"Is he coming into the room, Miss Wesley?"
She glanced over her shoulder and halted. The man clearly did not mean to enter, but had scrambled up to the sill, and balanced himself there gripping the window-frame and leaning outwards at an angle which made her giddy. The sill was narrow, too, and sloping. She caught her breath, not daring to move.
He seemed to hear her, for he answered jocularly: "'Tis to be hoped the hinges are strong—eh, missy?—or there's an end of William Wright."
"Do, please, be careful!"
"What's that to you? You hate me bad enough. Look here—send the child out of the room and give me a push: a little one'd do, and you'll never get a better chance."
Still she held her breath; and he went on, gazing upwards and apparently speaking to the eaves.
"Not worth it, I suppose you'll say?—Don't you make too sure. Now if I can get my fingers over the launder, here—" He worked his way to the right, to the very edge of the sill, and reached sideways and upwards, raising himself higher and higher on tip-toe. Hetty heard a warning grunted from below.
"No use," he announced. "I can't reach it by six inches."
"What are you trying to do?" Hetty asked in a low voice, with a hand over her heart.
"Why, there's a choke here—dead leaves or something—and the roof-water's running down the side of the house."
She glanced hurriedly about the room, stepped to the fireplace and picked up a poker—a small one with a crook at the end. "Will this help?" she asked, passing it out.
"Eh? the very thing!" He took it, and presently she heard it scraping on the pipe in search of the obstruction. "Cleared it, by Jingo! and that's famous." He lowered himself upon the flat of his broad soles. "You ought to ha' been a plumber's wife. My! if I had a headpiece like that to think for me—let alone to look at!"
"Give me back the poker, please."
"No tricks, now!" He handed it back, chuckled, and lowering himself back to the topmost rung of the ladder, stood in safety. "You're as white as a sheet. Was you scared I'd fall? Lord, I like to see you look like that! it a'most makes me want to do it again. Look here—"
"For pity's sake—"
Was the man mad? And how was it he held her listening to his intolerable talk? He was actually scrambling up to the sill again, but paused with his eyes on hers. "It hurts you? Very well, then, I won't: but I owe you something for that slap in the face, you know."
"You deserved it!" Hetty exclaimed, flushing as she recoiled from terror to unreasonable wrath, and at the same moment hating herself for arguing with him.
"Did I? Well, I bear ye no malice. Go slow, and overlook offences— that's William Wright's way, and I've no pride, so I gets it in the end. Now some men, after being treated like that, would have sat down and wrote a letter to your father about your goings-on. I thought of it. Says I, 'It don't take more than a line from me, and the fat's in the fire.' Mind, I don't say that I won't, but I ha'n't done it yet. And look here—I'm a journeyman, as you know, and on the tramp for jobs. I push on for Lincoln this afternoon; and what I say to you before leaving is this—you're a lady, every inch. Don't you go and make yourself too cheap with that fella. He's a pretty man enough, but there ain't no honesty in him."
He was gone. Hetty drew a long breath. Then, having waited while the ladder too was withdrawn, she fetched back the children and set them before their copy-books.
"Honesty is the best policy."—She saw Master George fairly started on this text, with his head on one side and his tongue working in the corner of his mouth; and drawing out paper and ink began to write a letter home.
"Dear Mother—," she wrote, glanced at George's copy-book, then at the window. Five minutes passed. She started and thrust pen and paper back into the drawer. Patty must write.
CHAPTER IV.
1. From the Rev. Samuel Wesley to his son John, at Christ Church, Oxford.
Wroote, January 5, 1725.
Dear Son,—Your brother will receive 5 pounds for you next Saturday, if Mr. S. is paid the 10 pounds he lent you; if not, I must go to H. But I promise you I shan't forget that you are my son, if you do not that I am:
Your affectionate father,
Samuel Wesley.
2. From the same to the same.
Wroote, January 26, 1725.
Dear Son,—I am so well pleased with your decent behaviour, or at least with your letters, that I hope I shall not have occasion to remember any more some things that are past; and since you have now for some time bit upon the bridle, I'll take care hereafter to put a little honey upon it as oft as I am able. But then it shall be of my own mero motu, as the last 5 pound was; for I will bear no rivals in my kingdom.
I did not forget you with Dr. Morley, but have moved that way as much as possible; though I must confess, hitherto, with no great prospect or hopes of success. As for what you mention of entering into Holy Orders, it is indeed a great work; and I am pleased to find you think it so, as well as that you do not admire a callow clergyman any more than I do.
And now the providence of God (I hope it was) has engaged me in such a work wherein you may be very assistant to me, I trust promote His glory and at the same time notably forward your own studies; for I have some time since designed an edition of the Holy Bible, in octavo, in the Hebrew, Chaldee, Septuagint and Vulgar Latin, and have made some progress in it: the whole scheme whereof I have not time at present to give you, of which scarce any soul yet knows except your brother Sam.
What I desire of you in this article is, firstly, that you would immediately fall to work, read diligently the Hebrew text in the Polyglot, and collate it exactly with the Vulgar Latin, which is in the second column, writing down all (even the least) variations or differences between them. To these I would have you add the Samaritan text in the last column but one, which is the very same with the Hebrew, except in some very few places, only differing in the Samaritan character (I think the true old Hebrew), the alphabet whereof you may learn in a day's time, either from the Prolegomena in Walton's Polyglot, or from his grammar. In a twelvemonth's time, sticking close to it in the forenoons, you will get twice through the Pentateuch; for I have done it four times the last year, and am going over it the fifth, collating the Hebrew and two Greek, the Alexandrian and the Vatican, with what I can get of Symmachus and Theodotian, etc. Nor shall you lose your reward for it, either in this or the other world.
In the afternoon read what you will, and be sure to walk an hour, if fair, in the fields. Get Thirlby's Chrysostom De Sacerdotio; master it—digest it. I like your verses on Psalm lxxxv., and would not have you bury your talent. All are well and send duties.
Work and write while you can. You see Time has shaken me by the hand, and Death is but a little behind him. My eyes and heart are now almost all I have left; and bless God for them. I am not for your going over-hastily into Orders. When I am for your taking them, you shall know it.
Your affectionate father,
Sam. Wesley.
3. From Mrs. Wesley to her son John.
February 25th, 1725.
Dear Jackey,—I was much pleased with your letter to your father about taking Orders, and like the proposal well; but it is an unhappiness almost peculiar to our family that your father and I seldom think alike. I approve the disposition of your mind and think the sooner you are a deacon the better, because it may be an inducement to greater application in the study of practical divinity, which I humbly conceive is the best study for candidates for Orders. Mr. Wesley differs from me, and would engage you (I believe) in critical learning; which, though accidentally of use, is in no wise preferable to the other. I dare advise nothing: God Almighty direct and bless you! I long to see you. We hear nothing of Hetty, which gives us some uneasiness. We have all writ, but can get no answer. I wish all be well. Adieu.
Susanna Wesley.
4. From the Rev. Samuel Wesley to his son John.
Wroote, March 13, 1724-5.
Dear Son,—I have both yours, and have changed my mind since my last. I now incline to your going this summer into Orders. But in the first place, if you love yourself or me, pray heartily. I will struggle hard but I will get money for your Orders, and something more. Mr. Downes has spoken to Mr. Morley about you, who says he will inquire of your character.
"Trust in the Lord, and do good, and verily thou shalt be fed."
This, with blessing, from your loving father,
Samuel Wesley.
5. From Emilia Wesley to her brother John.
Wroote, April 7th, 1725.
Dear Brother,—Yours of March 7th I received, and thank you for your care in despatching so speedily the business I desired you to do. It is the last of that kind I shall trouble you with. No more shall I write or receive letters to and from that person. But lest you should run into a mistake and think we have quarrelled, I assure you we are perfect friends; we think, wish and judge alike, but what avails it? We are both miserable. He has not differed with my mother, but she loves him not, because she esteems him the unlucky cause of a deep melancholy in a beloved child. For his own sake it is that I cease writing, because it is now his interest to forget me.
Whether you will be engaged before thirty or not, I cannot determine; but if my advice be worth listening to, never engage your affections before your worldly affairs are in such a position that you may marry very soon. The contrary practice has proved very pernicious in our family; and were I to live my time over again, and had the same experience as I have now, were it for the best man in England, I would not wait one year. I know you are a young man, encompassed with difficulties, that has passed through many hardships already, and probably must pass through many more before you are easy in the world; but, believe me, if ever you come to suffer the torment of a hopeless love, all other afflictions will seem small in comparison of it. And that you may not think I speak at random, take some account of my past life, more than ever I spoke to anyone.
After the fire, when I was seventeen years old, I was left alone with my mother, and lived easy for one year, having most necessaries, though few diversions, and never going abroad. Yet after working all day I read some pleasant book at night, and was contented enough; but after we were gotten into our house, and all the family were settled, in about a year's time I began to find out that we were ruined. Then came on London journeys, Convocations of blessed memory, that for seven years my father was at London, and we at home in intolerable want and affliction. Then I learnt what it was to seek money for bread, seldom having any without such hardships in getting it that much abated the pleasure of it. Thus we went on, growing worse and worse; all us children in scandalous want of necessaries for years together; vast income, but no comfort or credit with it. Then I went to London with design to get into some service, failed of that, and grew acquainted with Leybourne. Ever after that I lived in close correspondence with him. When anything grieved me, he was my comforter; and what though our affairs grew no better, yet I was tolerably easy, thinking his love sufficient recompense for the absence of all other worldly comforts. Then ill fate, in the shape of a near relation, laid the groundwork of my misery, and—joined with my mother's command and my own indiscretion-broke the correspondence between him and I [sic].
That dismal winter I shall ever remember; my mother was sick, confined even to her bed, my father in danger of arrests every day. I had a large family to keep, and a small sum to keep it on; and yet in all this care the loss of Leybourne was heaviest. For nearly half a year I never slept half a night, and now, provoked at all my relations, resolved never to marry. Wishing to be out of their sight, I began first to think of going into the world. A vacancy happening in Lincoln boarding school, I went thither; and though I had never so much as seen one before, I fell readily into that way of life; and I was so pleased to see myself in good clothes, with money in my pocket, and respected in a strange manner by everyone, that I seemed gotten into another world.
Here I lived five years and should have done longer, but the school broke up; and my father having got Wroote living, my mother was earnest for my return. I was told what pleasant company was at Bawtry, Doncaster, etc., and that this addition to my father, with God's ordinary blessing, would make him a rich man in a few years. I came home again, in an evil hour for me. I was well clothed, and, while I wanted nothing, was easy enough. But this winter, when my own necessaries began to decay and my money was most of it spent, I found what a condition I was in—every trifling want was either not supplied, or I had more trouble to procure it than it was worth.
I know not when we have had so good a year, both at Wroote and Epworth, as this year; but instead of saving anything to clothe my sister or myself, we are just where we were. A noble crop has almost all gone, beside Epworth living, to pay some part of those infinite debts my father has run into, which are so many (as I have lately found out) that were he to save 50 pounds a year he would not be clear in the world this seven years. One thing I warn you of: let not my giving you this account be any hindrance to your affairs. If you want assistance in any case, my father is as able to give it now as any time these last ten years; nor shall we be ever the poorer for it. We enjoy many comforts. We have plenty of good meat and drink, fuel, etc.; have no duns, nor any of that tormenting care to provide bread which we had at Epworth. In short, could I lay aside all thoughts of the future, and be content with three things, money, liberty, and clothes, I might live very comfortably. While my mother lives I am inclined to stay with her; she is so very good to me, and has so little comfort in the world beside, that I think it barbarous to abandon her. As soon as she is in heaven, or perhaps sooner if I am quite tired out, I have fully fixed on a state of life; a way indeed that my parents may disapprove, but that I do not regard. And now:
"Let Emma's hapless case be falsely told
By the rash young, or the ill-natured old."
You, that know my hard fortune, I hope will never hastily condemn me for anything I shall be driven to do by stress of fortune that is not directly sinful. As for Hetty, we have heard nothing of her these three months past. Mr. Grantham, I hear, has behaved himself very honourably towards her, but there are more gentlemen besides him in the world.
I have quite tired you now. Pray be faithful to me. Let me have one relation I can trust: never give any hint to anyone of aught I write to you: and continue to love,
Your unhappy but affectionate sister,
Emilia Wesley.
6. From the Rev. Samuel Wesley to his son John.
Wroote, May 10, 1725.
Dear Son,—Your brother Samuel, with his wife and child, are here. I did what I could that you might have been in Orders this Trinity; but I doubt your brother's journey hither has, for the present, disconcerted our plans, though you will have more time to prepare yourself for Ordination, which I pray God you may, as I am your loving father,
Samuel Wesley.
7. From Mrs. Wesley to her son John.
Wroote, June 8th, 1725.
Dear Son,—I have Kempis by me; but have not read him lately. I cannot recollect the passages you mention; but believing you do him justice, I do positively aver that he is extremely wrong in that impious, I was about to say blasphemous, suggestion that God, by an irreversible decree, has determined any man to be miserable, even in this world. His intentions, as Himself, are holy, just and good; and all the miseries incident to men here or thereafter spring from themselves.
Your brother has brought us a heavy reckoning for you and Charles. God be merciful to us all! Dear Jack, I earnestly beseech Almighty God to bless you. Adieu.
Susanna Wesley.
8. From the Rev. Samuel Wesley to his son John.
Bawtry, September 1st, 1725.
Dear Son,—I came hither to-day because I cannot be at rest till I make you easier. I could not possibly manufacture any money for you here sooner than next Saturday. On Monday I design to wait on Dr. Morley, and will try to prevail with your brother to return you 8 pounds with interest. I will assist you in the charges for Ordination, though I am just now struggling for life. This 8 pounds you may depend on the next week, or the week after.
S. Wesley.
9. From the same to the same.
Gainsborough, Sept. 7th, 1725.
Dear Son John,—With much ado, you see I am for once as good as my word. Carry Dr. Morley's note to the bursar. I hope to send you more, and, I believe, by the same hand. God fit you for your great work. Fast—watch—pray—endure—be happy; towards which you shall never want the ardent prayers of your affectionate father,
S. Wesley.
On Sunday, September 19th, 1725, John Wesley, being twenty-two years old, was ordained deacon by Dr. John Potter, Bishop of Oxford, in Christ Church Cathedral.
CHAPTER V.
Of the letters received from home by him during the struggle to raise money for his Ordination fees, the above are but extracts. Let us go back to the month of May, and to Kelstein.
"Patty dear," asked Hetty one morning, "have you heard lately of John
Romley?"
She was sitting up in bed with a letter in her hand. It had come yesterday; and Patty, brushing her hair before the glass, guessed from whom. She did not answer.
"He is at Lincoln; he has gone to try for the precentorship of the cathedral," Hetty announced.
"You know perfectly well that we do not correspond. I have too much principle."
"I know, dear," sighed Hetty, with her eyes fixed meditatively upon her sister's somewhat angular back. "I hope he is none the worse for it: for I have my reasons for wishing to think of him as a good man." Patty paused with brush in air, her eyes on Hetty's image in the glass; but Hetty went on inconsequently: "But surely you get word of him, now and then, in those letters from home which you hide from me? Patty, I am a stronger woman than you: and you may think yourself lucky I haven't put you through the door before this, laid violent hands on the whole budget, and read them through at my leisure. You invite it, too, by locking them up; which against a determined person would avail nothing and is therefore merely an insult, my dear."
"You know perfectly well why I do not show you my letters. They are all crying out for news of you—mother, and Emmy and Molly: even poor honest Nan breaks off writing about John Lambert and when the wedding is to be and what she is to wear, and begs to hear if there be anything wrong. And all I can answer is, that you are well, with a line or two about the children. They must think me a fool, and it has kept me miserable ever since I came. But more I will not say. At least—" She seemed about to correct herself, but came to an abrupt halt and began brushing vigorously. Hetty could not see the flush on her sallow face.
"Dear old Molly!" Hetty murmured the name of her favourite sister. "But I could not write without telling her and loading her poor conscience."
"Much you think of conscience, with a letter from him in your hand at this minute!"
"But I do think of conscience. And the best proof of it is, I am going home."
"Going home!" Patty faced about now, and with a scared face.
"Yes." Hetty put her feet out of bed and sat for a moment on the edge of it. "Mrs. Grantham paid me my wages yesterday, and now I have three pounds in my pocket. I am going home—to tell them."
"You mean to tell them!"
"Not a doubt of it. But why look as if you had seen a ghost?"
"And what do you suppose will happen?"
"Mother and Molly will cry, and Emmy will make an oration which I shall interrupt, and Kezzy will open her eyes at such a monster, and father will want to horsewhip me, but restrain himself and turn me from the door. Or perhaps he will lock me up—oh Patty, cannot you see that I'm weeping, not joking? But it has to be done, and I am going to be brave and do it."
"Very well, then. Now listen to me.—You cannot."
"Cannot? Why?"
"There's no room, to begin with—not a bed in the house. Sam and his wife are there, and the child, on a visit."
"Sam there! And you never told me.—Oh, Pat, Pat, and I might have missed him!" She sprang up from the bed and began her dressing in a fever of haste.
"But what will you do?"
"Go home and find Sam, of course."
"I don't see how Sam can help you. He did not help Emmy much: and his wife will be there, remember."
There was no love lost between Sam's sisters and Sam's wife—a practical little woman with a sharp tongue and a settled conviction that her husband's relatives were little better than lunatics. She understood the Rectory's strict rules of conduct as little as its feckless poverty (for so she called it). That a household which held its head so high should be content with a parlour furnished like a barn, sit down to meals scarcely better than the day-labourers' about them, and rest ignored by families of decent position in the neighbourhood, puzzled and irritated her. "Better he paid his debts and fed his children," was her answer when Sam put in a word for his father's spiritual ambitions. Her slight awe of the Wesleys' abilities—even she could not deny them brains—only drove her to entrench herself more strongly behind her practical wisdom; and she never abandoned her position (which had saved her in a thousand domestic arguments) that her sisters-in-law had been trained as savages in the wilds. She had a habit of addressing them as children: and her interference, some years before, between Emilia and young Leybourne, had been conducted by letter addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Wesley and without pretence of consulting Emilia's feelings.
Hetty pondered this for a moment, but without pausing in her dressing.
"Besides," urged Patty, "they may be gone by this time. Mother did not say how long the visit was to last; only that Sam had brought his bill for Jacky and Charles, and it is enormous. Father will be in the worst possible temper."
"Of all the wet blankets—" began Hetty, but was interrupted by the ringing of a bell in the corner above her bed. It summoned her to run and dress Rebecca, who slept in a small room opening out of Mrs. Grantham's.
Hetty departed in a whirl. Patty stood considering. "She never would! 'Tis a mercy sometimes she doesn't mean all she says."
But this time Hetty meant precisely what she said. Having dressed Rebecca, she suddenly faced upon Mrs. Grantham, who stood watching her as she turned back the bed-clothes to air, and folded the child's nightdress.
"With your leave, madam, I wish to go home to-day."
"Bless my soul!" ejaculated Mrs. Grantham. "You must be mad."
"I know how singular you must think it: and indeed I am very sorry to put you out. Yet I have a particular reason for asking."
"Quite impossible, Miss Wesley."
But, as Mr. Grantham had afterwards to tell her, a householder has no means in free England of coercing a grown woman determined to quit the shelter of his roof and within an hour. The poor lady was nonplussed. She had not dreamed that life's tranquil journey lay exposed to a surprise at once so simple and so disconcerting, and in her vexation she came near to hysterics.
"What to make of your sister, I know not," she cried, twenty minutes later, seating herself to have her hair dressed by Patty.
"Her temper was always a little uncertain," said Patty sagely. "I think father spoilt her by teaching her Greek and poetry and such things."
"Greek! You don't tell me that Greek makes a person want to walk out of a comfortable house at a moment's notice and leave my poor darlings on the stream!"
"Oh, no," agreed Patty. "You will not allow it, of course?"
"Perhaps you'll tell me how to prevent it? In all my life I don't remember being so much annoyed."
So Hetty had her way, packed a small bundle, and was ready at the gate for the passing of the carrier's van which would set her down within a mile of home. She had acted on an impulse, unreasoning, but not to be resisted. She felt the crisis of her life approaching and had urgent need, before it came on her, to make confession and cleanse her soul. She knew she was hurrying towards a tempest; but, whatever it might wreck, she panted for the clear sky beyond. In her fever the van seemed to crawl and the miles to drag themselves out interminably.
She was within a mile of her journey's end when a horseman met and passed the van at a jog-trot. Hetty glanced after him, wrenched open the door and sprang out upon the road with a cry—
"Father!"
Mr. Wesley heard her and turned his head; then reined up the filly and came slowly back. The van was at a standstill, the driver craning his head and staring aft in wholly ludicrous bewilderment.
"Dropped anything?" he asked, as Hetty ran to him. She thrust the fare into his hand without answering and faced around again to meet her father.
He came slowly, with set jaws. He offered no greeting.
"I was expecting this," he said. "Indeed, I was riding to Kelstein to fetch you home."
"But—but why?" she stammered.
"Why?" A short savage laugh broke from him, almost like a dog's bark; but he held his temper down. "Because I do not choose to have a decent household infected by a daughter of mine. Because, if sisters of yours must needs be exposed to the infection, it shall be where I am present to watch them and control you. I have received a letter—"
She stared at him dismayed, remembering the man Wright and his threat.
"And upon that you judge me, without a hearing?" She let her arms drop beside her.
"Will you deny it? Will you deny you have been in the habit of meeting—no, I see you will not. Apparently Mrs. Grantham has dismissed you."
"Sir, Mrs. Grantham has not dismissed me. I came away against her wish, because—"
"Well?" he waited, chewing his wrath.
It was idle now to say she had come meaning to confess. That chance had gone.
"I ask you to remember, sir, that I never promised not to meet him."
Since a fight it must be, she picked up all her courage for it.
"I had no right to promise it."
His mouth opened, but shut again like a trap. He had the self-control to postpone battle. "We will see about that," he said grimly. "Meanwhile, please you mount behind me and ride."
As they jogged towards Wroote, Hetty, holding on by her father's coat, seemed to feel in her finger-tips the wrath pent up and working in his small body. She was profoundly dejected; so profoundly that she almost forgot to be indignant with William Wright; but she had no thought of striking her colours. She built some hope upon Sam, too. Sam might not take her part openly, but he at least had always been kind to her.
"Does Sam know?" she took heart to ask as they came in sight of the parsonage.
"Sam?"
"Patty tells me he is here with his wife and little Philly."
"I am glad to say that Patty is mistaken. They took their departure yesterday."
CHAPTER VI.
"Oh, Hetty!" was all Molly could find to say, rushing into the back garret where Hetty stood alone, and clinging to her with a long kiss.
Hetty held the dear deformed body against her bosom for a while, then relaxing her arms, turned towards the small window in the eaves. "My dear," she answered with a wry smile, "it had to come, you see, and now we must go through with it."
"But who could have written that wicked letter? Mother will not tell us—even if she knows, which I doubt."
"I fancy I know. And you must not exaggerate, even in your love for me. I don't suppose the letter was wicked, though it may have been spiteful."
"It accused you of the most dreadful things."
"If it be dreadful to meet the man you love, and in secret, then I have been behaving dreadfully."
"O-oh!"
"And that is just what I came home to confess." She paused at the sight of Molly's face. "What! are you against me too? Then I must fight this out alone, it seems."
"Darling Hetty, you must not—ah, don't look so at me!"
But Hetty turned her back. "Please leave me."
"If you had only written—"
"That would take long to explain. I am tired, and it is not worth while; please leave me."
"But you do not understand. I had to come, although for the time father has forbidden us to speak with you—"
Hetty stepped to the door and held it open. "Then one of his daughters at any rate shall be dutiful," she said.
Molly flung her an imploring look and walked out, sobbing.
"Is Hetty not coming down to supper?" Emilia asked in the kitchen that evening. Mrs. Wesley with her daughters and Johnny Whitelamb supped there as a rule when not entertaining visitors. The Rector took his meals alone, in the parlour.
"Your father has locked her in. Until to-morrow he forbids her to have anything but bread and water," answered Mrs. Wesley.
"And she is twenty-seven years old," added Molly.
All looked at her; even Johnny Whitelamb looked, with a face as long as a fiddle. The comment was quiet, but the note of scorn in it could not be mistaken. Molly in revolt! Molly, of all persons! Molly sat trembling. She knew that among them all Johnny was her one ally—and a hopelessly distressed and ineffective one. He had turned his head quickly and leaned forward, blinking and spreading his hands—though the season was high summer—to the cold embers of the kitchen fire; his heart torn between adoration of Hetty and the old dog-like worship of his master.
"Molly dear, she has deceived him and us all," was Mrs. Wesley's reproof, unexpectedly gentle.
"For my part," put in Nancy comfortably, "I don't suppose she would care to come down. And 'tis cosy to be back in the kitchen again, after ten days of the parlour and Mrs. Sam. Emmy agrees, I know."
But Emmy with fine composure put aside this allusion to her pet foe.
"Molly and Johnny should make a match of it," she sneered.
"They might set up house on their belief in Hetty, and even take her
to lodge with them."
John Whitelamb sprang up as if stung; stood for a moment, still with his face averted upon the fire; then, while all stared at him, let drop the arm he had half-lifted towards the mantel-shelf and relapsed into his chair. He had not uttered a sound.
Mrs. Wesley had a reproof upon her tongue, and this time a sharp one. She was prevented, however, by Molly, who rose to her feet, tottered to the door as if wounded, and escaped from the kitchen.
Molly mounted the stairs with bowed head, dragging herself at each step by the handrail. Reaching the garrets, she paused by Hetty's door to listen. No light pierced the chinks; within was silence. She crept away to her room, undressed, and lay down, sobbing quietly.
Her sobs ceased, but she could not sleep. A full moon strained its rays through the tattered curtain, and as it climbed, she watched the panel of light on the wall opposite steal down past a text above the washstand, past the washstand itself, to the bare flooring. "God is love" said the text, and Molly had paid a pedlar twopence for it, years before, at Epworth fair—quite unaware that she was purchasing the Wesley family motto. She heard her mother and sisters below bid one another good night and mount to their rooms. An hour later her father went his round, locking up. Then came silence.