CHAPTER VI.
"And my business is important. William Wright is the name, and you'd better say that I come from Lincoln direct."
The answer came back that Mr. Wesley would see Mr. Wright in his study; and thither accordingly Mr. Wright lurched, after pulling out a red handkerchief and dusting his boots on the front doorstep. At his entrance Johnny Whitelamb rose, gathered up some papers and retired. The Rector looked up from his writing-table, at the same moment pushing back and shutting the drawer upon Hetty's manuscript, which he had again been studying.
"Good morning, Mr. Wright. You have come about your bill, I suspect: the amount of which, if I remember—"
"Twelve-seventeen-six."
The Rector sighed. "It is extremely awkward for me to pay you just now. Still, no doubt you find it no less awkward to wait: and since you have come all the way from Lincoln to collect it—"
"Steady a bit," Mr. Wright interrupted; "I never said that. I said
I'd come direct from Lincoln."
Mr. Wesley looked puzzled. "Pardon me, is not that the same thing?"
"No, it ain't. I'd be glad enough of my little bit of money to be sure: but there's more things than money in this world, Mr. Wesley."
"So I have sometimes endeavoured to teach."
"There's more things than money," repeated Mr. Wright, not to be denied: for it struck him as a really fine utterance, with a touch of the epigrammatic too, of which he had not believed himself capable. In the stir of his feelings he was conscious of an unfamiliar loftiness, and conscious also that it did him credit. He paused and added, "There's darters, for instance."
"Daughters?" Mr. Wesley opened his eyes wide.
"Darters." Mr. Wright nodded his head slowly and took a step nearer to the table. "Has Missy come back?" he asked in a hoarse whisper.
"If you mean my daughter Mehetabel—yes, she has returned."
"I saw her in Lincoln only yesterday morning. She didn't see me; but having (as you might say) my suspicions, I follered her: and I saw enough to make a man feel sore—leastways when he takes an interest in a young lady as I do in Miss Hetty. For, saving your presence, sir, you've a good-looking bunch, but she's the pick. 'Tis a bad business—a very bad business, Mr. Wesley. What, may I ask, are you going to do about it?"
"You certainly may not ask, Mr. Wright." The danger-signal twinkled for a moment under the Rector's brows; but he repressed it and turned towards a cupboard in the wall, where in a drawer lay fifteen pounds, ten of which he had designed to send to Oxford. "Twelve pounds seventeen shillings and sixpence, I think you said?"
"Never mind the bill, sir, for a moment. And about Miss Hetty I'll ask ye no questions if you forbid it: but something I came to say, and it'll have to be said. First of all I want to be clear with you that I had no hand in this affair. On the contrary, I saw it coming and warned her against the fellow."
"I have not the least need of your assurance. I did not even know you were acquainted—"
"No, you don't need it; but I need to give it. Very well: now comes my point. Here's a young lady beautiful as roses, and that accomplished, and that thoroughbred she makes an honest tradesman feel like dirt to look upon her. Oh, you needn't to stare, sir! William Wright knows breeding when he sees it, in man or beast; and as for feeling like dirt, why there's a sort of pleasure in it, if you understand me."
"I do not."
"No: I don't suppose you do. You're not the sort of man to feel like dirt before anyone—not before King George on his throne. But you may take my word for it there's a kind of man that likes it: when he looks at a woman, I mean. 'Take care, my lady,' I said; 'you're delicate and proud now, and as dainty as a bit of china. But once you fall off the shelf—well, down you go, and 'tis all over but the broom and the dust-heap. There you'll lie, with no man to look at you; worse than the coarsest pint-pot a man will drink out of.' You understand me now, Mr. Wesley?"
"I do, sir, to my sorrow, but—"
"But that's just where you're wrong—you don't!" Mr. Wright cried triumphantly, and pursued with an earnestness which held Mr. Wesley still in his chair. "I'll swear to you, sir, that if I could have stopped this, I would: ay, though it killed my only chance. But I couldn't. The thing's done. And I tell you, sir"—his face was flushed now, and his voice shaking—"broken as she is, I do worship Miss Hetty beyond any woman in the world. I do worship her as if she had tumbled slap out of heaven. I—I—there you have it, any way: so if you'll leave talking about the little account between us—"
Mr. Wesley stood up, drew out his keys, opened the cupboard and began counting the sum out upon the table.
"You misunderstand me, sir: indeed you do!" Mr. Wright protested.
"Maybe," answered the Rector grimly. "But I happen to be consulting my own choice. Twelve pounds seventeen and sixpence, I think you said? You had best sit down and write out a receipt."
"But why interrupt a man, sir, when he's thinking of higher things, and with his hand 'most too shaky to hold a pen?"
The Rector walked to the window and stood waiting while the receipt was made out: then took the paper, went to the cupboard and filed it, locked the door and resumed his seat.
"Now, sir, let me understand your further business. You desire, I gather, to marry my daughter Mehetabel?"
Mr. Wright gasped and swallowed something in his throat. Put into words, his audacity frightened him. "That's so, sir," he managed to answer.
"Knowing her late conduct?"
"If I didn't," Mr. Wright answered frankly, "I shouldn't ha' been fool enough to come."
"You are a convinced Christian?"
"I go to church off and on, if that's what you mean, sir."
"'Tis not in the least what I mean, Mr. Wright."
"There's no reason why I shouldn't go oftener."
"There is every reason why you should. You are able to maintain my daughter?"
"I pay my way, sir; though hard enough it is for an honest tradesman in these times." Insensibly he dropped into the tone of one pressing for payment. The Rector regarded him with brows drawn down and the angry light half-veiled, but awake in his eyes now and growing. Mr. Wright, looking up, read danger and misread it as threatening him. "Indeed, sir," he broke out, courageously enough, "I feel for you: I do, indeed. It seems strange enough to me to be standing here and asking you for such a thing. But when a man feels as I do t'ards Miss Hetty he don't know himself: he'll go and do that for which he'd call another man a fool. Kick me to doors if you want to: I can't help it. All I tell you is, I worship her from the top of her pretty head to her shoe-strings; and if she were wife of mine she should neither wash nor scrub, cook nor mend; but a room I would make for her, and chairs and cushions she should have to sit on, and books to read, and pens and paper to write down her pretty thoughts; and not a word of the past, but me looking up to her and proud all the days of my life, and studying to make her comfortable, like the lady she is!"
During this remarkable speech Mr. Wesley sat without a smile. At the end of it, he lifted a small handbell from the writing-table and rang it twice.
Mr. Wright made sure that this was a signal for his dismissal. He mopped his face. "Well, it can't be helped. I've been a fool, no doubt: but you've had it straight from me, as between man and man."
He picked up his hat and was turning to go, when the door opened and
Mrs. Wesley appeared.
"My dear," said the Rector, "the name of this honest man is Wright— Mr. William Wright, a plumber, of Lincoln. To my surprise he has just done me the honour of offering to marry Mehetabel."
Mrs. Wesley turned from the bowing Mr. Wright and fastened on her husband a look incredulous but scared.
"I need scarcely say he is aware of—of the event which makes his offer an extremely generous one."
The signal in the Rector's eyes was blazing now. His wife rested her hand on a chair-back to gain strength against she knew not what. Mr. Wright smiled, vaguely apologetic; and the smile made him look exceedingly foolish; but she saw that the man was in earnest.
"I think," pursued Mr. Wesley, aware of her terror, aware of the pain he took from his own words, but now for the moment fiercely enjoying both—"I think," he pursued slowly, "there can be no question of our answer. I must, of course, make inquiry into your circumstances, and assure myself that I am not bestowing Mehetabel on an evil-liver. Worthless as she is, I owe her this precaution, which you must pardon. I will be prompt, sir. In two days, if you return, you shall have my decision; and if my inquiries have satisfied me—as I make no doubt they will—my wife and I can only accept your offer and express our high sense of your condescension."
Mr. Wright gazed, open-mouthed, from husband to wife. He saw that
Mrs. Wesley was trembling, but her eyes held no answer for him.
He was trembling too.
"You mean that I'm to come along?" he managed to stammer.
"I do, sir. On the day after to-morrow you may come for my answer.
Meanwhile—"
Mr. Wright never knew what words the Rector choked down. They would have surprised him considerably. As it was, reading his dismissal in a slight motion of Mrs. Wesley's hand, he made his escape; but had to pull himself up on the front doorstep to take his bearings and assure himself that he stood on his feet.
CHAPTER VII.
"She graced my humble roof and blest my life,
Blest me by a far greater name than wife;
Yet still I bore an undisputed sway,
Nor was't her task, but pleasure, to obey;
Scarce thought, much less could act, what I denied.
In our low house there was no room for pride:" etc.
The Rev. Samuel Wesley's Verses of his Wife.
"It is an unhappiness almost peculiar to our family that your
father and I seldom think alike. . . ."
"I am, I believe, got on the right side of fifty, infirm and weak; yet, old as I am, since I have taken my husband 'for better, for worse,' I'll take my residence with him: where he lives, I will live: and where he dies, will I die: and there will I be buried. God do so unto me and more also, if aught but death part him and me." Mrs. Wesley's Letters.
Mrs. Wesley guessed well enough what manner of words her husband had choked down. She stood and watched his face, waiting for him to lift his eyes. But he refused obstinately to lift them, and went on rearranging with aimless fingers the pens and papers on his writing-table. At length she plucked up her courage. "Husband," she said, "let us take counsel together. We are in a plight that wrath will not cure: but, be angry as you will, we cannot give Hetty to this man."
It needed but this. He fixed his eyes on hers now, and the light in them first quivered, then grew steady as a beam. "Did you hear me give my promise?" he demanded.
"You had no right to promise it."
"I do not break promises. And I take others at their word. Has she, or has she not, vowed herself ready to marry the first honest man who will take her; ay, and to thank him?"
"She was beside herself. We cannot take advantage of such a vow."
"You are stripping her of the last rag of honour. I prefer to credit her with courage at least: to believe that she hands me the knife and says, 'cut out this sore.' But wittingly or no she has handed it to me, and by heaven, ma'am, I will use it!"
"It will kill her."
"There are worse things than death."
"But if—if the other should seek her and offer atonement—"
Mr. Wesley pacing the room with his hands beneath his coat-tails, halted suddenly and flung up both arms, as a man lifts a stone to dash it down.
"What! Accept a favour from him! Have you lived with me these years and know me so little? And can you fear God and think to save your daughter out of hell by giving her back her sin, to rut in it?"
Mrs. Wesley shook her head helplessly. "Let her be punished, then, in God's natural way! Vengeance is His, dear: ah, do not take it out of His hands in your anger, I beseech you!"
"God for my sins made me her father, and gave me authority to punish." He halted again and cried suddenly, "Do you think this is not hurting me!"
"Pause then, for it is His warning. Who is this man? What do you know of him? To think of him and Hetty together makes my flesh creep!"
"Would you rather, then, see her—" But at sound of a sobbing cry from her, he checked the terrible question. "You are trying to unnerve me. 'Who is he?' you ask. That is just what I am going to find out." At the door he turned. "We have other children to think of, pray you remember. I will harbour no wantons in my house."
CHAPTER VIII.
At first Hetty walked swiftly across the fields, not daring to look back. "Is it he?" she kept asking herself, and as often cried out against the hope. She had no right to pray as she was praying: it was suing God to make Himself an accomplice in sin. She ought to hate the man, yet—God forgive her!—she loved him still. Was it possible to love and despise together? If he should come. . . . She caught herself picturing their meeting. He would follow across the fields in search of her. She would hear his footstep. Yet she would not turn at once—he should not see how her heart leapt. He would overtake her, call her by name. . . . She must not be proud: just proud enough to let him see how deep the wrong had been. But she would be humble too. . . .
She heard no footsteps. No voice called her. Unable to endure it longer, she came to a standstill and looked back. Between her and the parsonage buildings the wide fields were empty. She could see the corner of the woodstack. No one stood there. Away to the left two figures diminished by distance followed a footpath arm-in-arm— John Lambert and Nancy.
A great blackness fell on her. She had no pride now; she turned and went slowly back, not to the parsonage, but aslant by the bank of a dyke leading to the highroad along which, a few hours ago, she had returned so wearily. She must watch and discover what man it was who had come with John Lambert.
Before she reached the low bridge by the road, she heard a tune whistled and a man's footfall approaching—not his. She supposed it to be one of the labourers, and in a sudden terror hid herself behind an ash-bole on the brink.
The man went by, still whistling cheerfully. She peered around the tree and watched him as he retreated—a broad-shouldered man, swinging a cudgel. A hundred yards or less beyond her tree he halted, with his back to her, in the middle of the road, and stayed his whistling while he made two or three ludicrous cuts with his cudgel at the empty air. This pantomime over, he resumed his way.
She recognised him by so much of his back as showed over the dwarf hedge. It was William Wright.
Was it he, then, who had come with John Lambert? Hetty sat down by the tree, and, with her eyes on the slow water in the dyke, began to think.
To be sure, this man might have come to Wroote merely for his money. Yet (as she firmly believed) it was he who had written the letter which in effect had led to her running away. He might have used the debt to-day as a pretext. His motive, she felt certain, was curiosity to learn what his letter had brought about.
She bore him no grudge. He had fired the train—oh, no doubt! But she was clear-sighted now, saw that the true fault after all was hers, and would waste no time in accusing others. Very soon she dismissed him from her mind. In all the blank hopelessness of her fall from hope she put aside self-pity, and tasked herself to face the worst. To Emilia and Nancy she had spoken lightly, as if scarcely alive to her dreadful position, still less alive to her sin. They had misunderstood her: but in truth she had spoken so on the instinct of self-defence. Real defence she had none.
She knew she had none. And let it be said here that she saw no comfortable hope in religion. She had listened to a plenty of doctrine from her early childhood: but somehow the mysteries of God had seldom occupied her thoughts, never as bearing directly on the questions of daily life. If asked, for example, "did she believe in the Trinity?" or "did she believe in justification by faith?" she would have answered "yes," without hesitating for a moment. But in fact these high teachings lay outside her private religion, which amounted to this—"God is all-seeing and omnipotent. To please Him I must be good; and being good gives me pleasure in turn, for I feel that His eye is upon me and He approves. He is terribly stern: but all-merciful too. If, having done wrong, I go to Him contritely, and repent, He will give me a chance to amend my ways, and if I honestly strive to amend them, He will forgive." In short—and perhaps because the word "Father" helped to mislead—she had made for herself an image of God by exalting and magnifying all that she saw best in her parents. And this view of Him her parents had confirmed insensibly, in a thousand trifles, by laying constant daily stress upon good conduct, and by dictating it and judging her lapses with an air of calm authority, which took for granted that what pleased them was exactly what would please God.
So now, having done that which her mother and father could not forgive, at first she hardly dared to hope that God could by any means forgive it. In the warm sunlight of loving she had seen for a while that her father and mother were not always wise; nay, long beforehand in her discontent she had been groping towards this discovery. But now that the sunshine had proved a cruel cheat, she ran back in dismay upon the old guide-posts, and they pointed to a hell indeed.
She had been wicked. She craved to be good. She remembered Mary Magdalene, whom Christ had forgiven, and caught at a hope for herself. But why had Christ forgiven Mary? Because she had been sorry, and turned and walked the rest of her life in goodness? Because He had foreseen her long atonement? So Hetty believed. For her, too, then the way back to forgiveness lay through conduct— always through conduct; and for her the road stretched long, for not until death could she reach assurance. Of a way to forgiveness through faith (though she must have heard of it a hundred times) she scarcely thought; still less of a way through faith to instant assurance. To those who have not travelled by that road its end— though promised on the honour of God and proclaimed incessantly by those who have travelled and found it—seems merely incredible. Hardly can man or woman, taught from infancy to suspect false guides, trust these reports of a country where to believe and to have are one.
Hetty sat by the tree and saw the road beyond her, that it was steep and full of suffering. But for this she did not refuse it: she desired it rather. She saw also, that along it was no well of forgiveness to refresh her; the thirst must endure till she reached the end and went down in darkness to the river. This, too, she must endure, God in mercy helping her. What daunted her was conscience whispering that she had as yet no right to that mercy, no right even to tread the road. For though her sin was abhorrent, in her heart she loved her fellow-sinner yet. A sound of hoofs aroused her. Still screened by her tree, she saw her father trot by on the filly. In spite of the warm settled weather he carried his cloak before him strapped across the holsters. His ride, therefore, would be a long one; to Gainsborough at least—or to Lincoln?
She lifted her head and sat erect in a sharp terror. Was her father going to seek him? She had not thought of this as possible. And if so—
Leaping up she ran into the open and gazed after him, as though the sight of his bobbing figure could resolve her crowding surmises. For a minute and more she stood, gazing so; and then, turning, was aware of her mother coming slowly towards her across the wide field.
A number of shallow ditches, dry at this season, crossed the fields in parallels; and at each of these Mrs. Wesley picked up her skirts. "How young she is!" was Hetty's thought as she came nearer, and it rose—purely from habit—above her own misery. Hetty was one of those women who admire other women ungrudgingly. She knew herself to be beautiful, yet in her eyes her mother had always the mien of a goddess.
For her mother's character, too, she had the deepest, tenderest respect. But it was the respect of a critic rather than of a child, and touched with humorous wonder. She knew her firmness of judgment, her self-control, her courage in poverty, the secret ardent piety illuminating her commonest daily actions; she knew how perfectly designed that character was for masculine needs, how strong for guidance the will even in yielding—but alas! how feeble to help a daughter!
"Your father is riding to Lincoln," said Mrs. Wesley as she drew near. Hetty scanned her closely, but read no encouragement in her face. She fell back on the tone she had used with Emilia and Nancy; knowing, however, that this time it would not be misunderstood. "I saw that he had taken his cloak with him," she answered. "Be frank with me, mother. You would be frank, you know, with Jacky or Charles, if they were in trouble; whereas now you are not looking me in the face, and your own is white."
Mrs. Wesley did not answer, but walked with Hetty back to the tree and, at a sign, seated herself on the bank beside her, with her eyes on the road.
"I have been sitting here for quite a long time," began Hetty, after a pause, and went on lightly. "Before father passed a tradesman went by—a man called Wright." She paused again as Mrs. Wesley's hands made an involuntary movement in her lap. "He has a bill against father; he called with it on the evening you came back from London. Is father riding after him to pay it?"
"What do you know of that man?" Mrs. Wesley muttered, with her head turned aside and her hands working.
"Very little; yet enough to suspect more than you guess," said Hetty calmly.
But her mother showed her now a face she had not looked to see.
"You know, then?—but no, you cannot!"
It was Hetty's turn to show a face of alarm. "What is it, dear? I thought—indeed I know—he had a notion about me—how I was behaving—and wrote a letter to father. But that cannot matter now. Is there anything worse? I understood he had merely an account against father; an ordinary bill. It is something worse—oh, tell me! Father is riding after him! I see it in your face. What is this trouble which I have added to?"
"The debt is paid, I believe," answered Mrs. Wesley; but she shook as she said it.
"Yet father is riding after him. What is the matter? Let me see your eyes!"
But her mother would not. In the long silence, looking at her, slowly—very slowly—Hetty understood. After understanding there followed another long silence, until Hetty drew herself up against the bole of the tree and shivered.
"Come back to the house, mother. You had best take my arm."
CHAPTER IX.
Mr. Wesley slept that night at Lincoln, and rode back the next afternoon, reaching Wroote a little before nightfall. After stabling the filly he went straight to his study. Thither, a few minutes later, Mrs. Wesley carried his supper on a tray. He kissed her, but she saw at once from his manner that he would not talk, that he wished to be alone.
Hetty and Molly sat upstairs in the dusk of the garret, speaking little. Molly had exhausted her strength for the while and argued no more, but leaned back in her chair with a hand laid on Hetty's forehead, who—crouching on the floor against her knee—drew down the nerveless fingers, fondled them one by one against her cheek, and kissed them, thinking her own thoughts.
Downstairs a gloom, a breathless terror almost, brooded over the circle by the kitchen hearth. They knew of Hetty's probable fate— the sentence to be pronounced to-morrow; they had whispered it one to another, and while they condemned her it awed them.
Soon after nine Johnny Whitelamb came in from the fields where for two hours he had been walking fiercely but quite aimlessly. Great drops of sweat stood out on his temples, over which his hair fell lank and clammy. His shoes and stockings were dusted over with fine earth. He did not speak, but lit his candle and went off to his bed-cupboard under the stairs.
Before ten o'clock the rest of the family crept away to bed. Mr. Wesley sat on in his study. This was the night of the week on which he composed his Sunday morning's sermon. He wrote at it steadily until midnight.
Next morning, about an hour after breakfast, Mrs. Wesley heard the hand-bell rung in the study—the sound for which (it seemed to her) she had been listening in affright for two long days. She went at once. In the passage she met Johnny Whitelamb coming out.
"I am to fetch Miss Hetty," he whispered with a world of dreadful meaning.
But for once Johnny was not strictly obedient. Instead of seeking Hetty he went first across the farmyard and through a small gate whence a path took him to a duck-pond at an angle of the kitchen garden, and just outside its hedge. A pace or two from the brink stood a grindstone in a wooden frame; and here, on the grindstone handle, sat Molly watching the ducks.
"He has sent for her," announced Johnny, and glanced towards the kitchen-garden. "Is she there?"
Molly rose with a set face. She did not answer his question.
"You must give me ten minutes," she said. "Ten minutes; on no account must you bring her sooner."
She limped off towards the house.
So it happened that as Mr. and Mrs. Wesley stood and faced each other across the writing-table they heard a gentle knock, and, turning with a start, saw the door open and Molly walk boldly into the room.
"We are busy," said the Rector sharply, recovering himself. "I did not send for you."
"I know it," Molly answered; "but I am come first to explain."
"If you are here to speak for your sister, I wish to hear no explanations."
"I know it," Molly answered again; "but I need to give them; and, please you, father, you will listen to me."
Mr. Wesley gasped. Of all his daughters this deformed one had rendered him the most absolute obedience; of her alone he could say that, apart from her bodily weakness, she had never given him a moment's distress. In a family where high courage was the rule her timidity was a by-word; she would turn pale at the least word of anger. But she was brave now, as a dove to defend her brood.
"You are using a secret"—her voice trembled, but almost at once grew steady again—"a secret between me and Hetty which I had no right to betray. If I told it to mother, it was because she seemed to doubt of Hetty's despair; because I believed, if only she knew, she would come to Hetty and help her—the more eagerly the worse the need. Mother will tell you that was my only reason. I was very foolish. Mother would not help: or perhaps she could not. She went straight to you with the tale—this poor pitiful tale of an oath taken in passion by the unhappiest girl on earth. Yes, and the dearest, and the noblest! . . . But why do I tell you this? You are her father and her mother, and it is nothing to you; you prefer to be her judges. Only I say that you have no right to my secret. Give it back to me! You shall not use it to do this wickedness!"
"Molly!" The last word fairly took Mrs. Wesley's breath away; she glanced at the Rector; but the explosion she expected hung fire, although he was breathing hard.
Molly, too, was panting, but she went on recklessly. "Yes; a wickedness! She swore it, but she did not mean it. Even had she meant it, she was not responsible. . . . No, mother, you need not look at me so. I have been thinking, and father shall hear the truth for once. Had he been kind—had he even been just—Hetty had never run away. Oh, sir, you are a good man! but you are seldom kind, and you are rarely just. You plan what seems best to you—best for Sam and Jacky and Charles—best for us too, maybe. But of us, apart from your wishes, you never think at all. Oh, yes again, you are good; but your temper makes life a torture—"
"Silence!" Mr. Wesley thundered out suddenly.
But the thunder did not affect Molly one whit.
"You may do what you will to me, sir; but you have heard the truth. You are a tyrant to those you love: and now in your tyranny you are going to do what even in your tyranny you have never done before—a downright wickedness. Thwarted abroad, you have drunk of power at home till you have come to persuade yourself that our souls are yours. They are not. You may condemn Hetty to misery as you have driven—yes, driven—her to sin: but her soul is not yours and this secret of hers is mine not yours!"
But here standing beside the table she began to sway, then to sob and laugh unnaturally. Mrs. Wesley, instantly composed at sight of a physical breakdown, stepped to her and caught her by both wrists, but not before she had pointed a finger point-blank at her father's gray face.
"But—but—he is ridiculous!" she gasped between her short outcries.
"Look at him! A ridiculous little man!"
Her mother took her by both shoulders and forced her from the room, almost carried her upstairs, dashed cold water over her face and left her to sob out her hysterics on her bed. It had been a weak, undignified exit: but those last words, which she never remembered to have uttered, her father never forgot. In all the rest of her short life Molly never had a sign from him that he remembered her outbreak. Also he never again spoke a harsh word to her.
While her mother bent over her, waiting for the attack to subside, a knock sounded below stairs. Molly heard it, raised herself on the bed for a moment, staring wildly, then sank back helpless, and her moaning began afresh.
Mrs. Wesley turned her face away quickly; and with that her gaze, passing out through the garret window, fell on a figure crossing the yard towards the house.
It was Hetty, moving to the sacrifice. And below, on the other side of the house, the man was knocking to claim her.
For a moment Mrs. Wesley felt as one in a closing trap. It was she, not Hetty, upon whom these iron teeth of fate were meeting; and Hetty, the true victim, had become part of the machine of punishment. The illusion passed almost as quickly as it had come, and with a glance at the figure on the bed she hurried downstairs, in time to meet Hetty at the back door.
As she opened it she heard William Wright's footstep in the passage behind, and his shuffling halt outside the study door, while Jane, the servant, rapped for admittance.
Hetty, too, heard it, and bent her head.
"We had best go in at once," Mrs. Wesley suggested, desperately anxious now to come to the worst and get it over.
Hetty bent her head again and followed without a word. The two men were standing—the Rector by his writing-table, Mr. Wright a little inside the door. He drew aside to let the two ladies pass and waited, fumbling with his hat and stick and eyeing the pattern of the carpet. There was no boldness about him. It seemed he dared not look at Hetty.
"Ah!" Mr. Wesley cleared his throat. "There is no reason, Mr. Wright, why we should protract a business which (as you may guess) must needs be extremely painful to some of us here. I have made inquiries about you and find that, though not well-to-do, you bear the reputation of an honest man, even a kind one. It appears that at great cost to yourself you have made provision for an aged father, going (I am told) well beyond the strict limits of a son's duty. Filial obedience—" The Rector's eyes here fell upon Hetty and he checked himself. "But I will not enlarge upon that. You ask to marry my daughter. She is in no position to decline your offer, but must rather accept it and with thanks, in humility. As her father I commend her to your love and forbearance."
There was silence for a while. Mr. Wright lifted his head: and now his culprit's look had vanished and in its place was one of genuine earnestness.
"I thank ye, sir," he said; "but, if 'tis no liberty, I'd like to hear what Miss Hetty says." Hetty, too, lifted her eyes and for the first time since entering rested them on the man who was to be her husband. Mrs. Wesley saw how they blenched and how she compelled them to steadiness; and turned her own away.
"Sir," said Hetty, "you have heard my father. Although he has not chosen to tell you, I am bound; and must answer under my bond unless he release me."
"For your salvation, as I most firmly believe, I refuse to release you," said the Rector.
"Then, sir," she continued, still with her eyes on William Wright, "under my bond I will answer you. If, as I think, those who marry without love sin against God and themselves, my father is driving out sin by sin. I cannot love you: but what I do under force I will do with an honest wish to please. I thank you for stooping to one whom her parents cast out. I shall remember my unworthiness all the more because you have overlooked it. You are all strange to me. Just now I shrink from you. But you at least see something left in me to value. Noble or base your feeling may be: it is something which these two, my parents who begat me, have not. I will try to think it noble—to thank you for it all my days—to be a good wife."
She held out her hand. As Mr. Wright extended his, coarse and not too clean, she touched it with her finger-tips and faced her father, waiting his word of dismissal.
But the Rector was looking at his wife. For a moment he hesitated; then, stepping forward, drew her arm within his, and the pair left the room together.
CHAPTER X.
William Wright stared at the door as it closed upon them. Hetty did not stir. To reach it she must pass him. She stood by the writing-table, her profile turned to him, her body bent with a great shame; suffering anguish, yet with an indignant pride holding it down and driving it inward as she repressed her bosom's rise and fall. Even a callous man must have pitied her; and William Wright, though a vulgar man, was by no means a callous one.
"Miss Hetty—" he managed to say, and was not ashamed that his voice shook.
She did not seem to hear.
"Miss Hetty—" His voice was louder and he saw that she heard. "There's a deal I'd like to say, but the things that come uppermost are all foolish. F'r instance, what I most want to say is that I'm desperate sorry for you. And—and here's another thing, though 'tis even foolisher. When I came to speak to your father, day before yestiddy, the first thing he did was to pay me down every penny he owed me—not that I was thinking of it for one moment—"
She had turned her head away at first, yet not as if refusing to listen: but now from a sudden stiffening of her shoulders, he saw that he was offending.
"Nay, now," he persisted, "but you must hear me finish. I want you to know what I did with it. I went home with it jingling in my pocket, and called out my father and spread it on the counter before him. 'Look at it,' I said, and his eyes fairly glistened. 'And now,' I said, 'hear me tell you that neither you nor I touches a penny of it.' I took him up the hill to the cathedral and crammed it into a box there. For the touch of it burned my fingers till I got rid of it, same as it burned your father's. The old man fairly capered to see me and cried out that I must be mad. 'Think so?' said I, 'then there's worse to come.' I led him home again, went to my drawerful of savings, and counted out the like sum to a penny. 'That's towards a chair for her,' said I; 'and that's towards a sofy; and there's for this, and there's for that. If she will condescend to the likes of me, like a queen she shall be treated while I have fingers to work.' That's what I said, Miss Hetty: and that's what I want to tell you, foolish as you'll think it, and rough belike."
She turned suddenly upon him with swimming eyes.
"'Condescend'?" she echoed.
He nodded. "That's so: and like dirt you may treat me. You did once, you know. I'd like it to go on."
She spread her hands vaguely. "Why will you be kind to me? When— when—"
"When you'd far liefer have every excuse to hate the sight of me. Oh, I understand! Well, I'd even give you that, if it pleased you, and I could."
She looked at him now, long and earnestly. Her next question was a strange one and had little connection with her thoughts.
"Did you sign that letter?"
"What letter?"
"The one you sent to father."
He fingered his jaw in a puzzled way. "I never sent any letter to your father. Writing's none so easy to me, though sorry I am to say it."
"Then it must have been—" Light broke on her, but she paused and suppressed Patty's name.
"I like you," she went on, "because you speak honestly with me."
"Come, that's better."
"No: I want you to understand. It's because your honesty makes me able to be honest with you." She drew herself up to the height of her superb beauty and touched her breast. "You see me?" she asked in a low, hurried voice. "I am yours. My father has said it, and I repeat it, adding this: I make no bargain, except that you will be honest. I am to be your wife: use me as you will. All that life with you calls to be undergone, I will undergo: as his drudge to the hind in the fields I offer myself. Nothing less than that shall satisfy me, since through it—can you not see?—I must save myself. But oh, sir! since something in me makes you prize me above other women, even as I am, let that compel you to be open with me always! When, as it will, a thought makes you turn from me—though but for a moment—do not hide it. I would drink all the cup. I must atone— let me atone!"
She walked straight up to him in her urgency, but suddenly dropped her arms. He stared at her, bewildered.
"I shall have no such thoughts, Miss Hetty."
CHAPTER XI.
Beyond the kitchen-garden a raised causeway led into the Bawtry road, between an old drain of the Tome River and a narrower ditch running down to the parsonage duck-pond. The ditch as a rule was dry, or almost dry, being fed through a sluice in the embankment from time to time when the waters of the duck-pond needed replenishing.
Half an hour later, as William Wright—who had business at Bawtry— left the yard by the small gate and came stepping briskly by the pond, Johnny Whitelamb pushed through the hedge at the end of the kitchen-garden, attempted a flying leap across the ditch and scrambled—with one leg plastered in mud to the knee—up to the causeway, where he stood waving his arms like a windmill and uttering sounds as rapid as they were incoherent.
The plumber, catching sight of this agitated figure on the path ahead, stood still for a moment. He understood neither the noises nor the uncouth gestures, but made sure that some accident had happened.
"Here, what's wrong?" he demanded, moving on and coming to a halt again in front of Johnny.
But still Johnny gurgled and choked. "You—you mustn't come here!"
"Eh, why not? What's doing?"
"You mustn't come here. You sha'n't—it's worse than murder!
P-promise me you won't come here again!"
Mr. Wright began to understand, and his eye twinkled. "Who's to prevent it, now?"
"I will, if you w-won't listen to reason. You are killing her, between you: you don't know w-what wickedness you're doing. She's—she's an angel."
"Bravo, my lad! So she is, every inch of her." The plumber held out his hand.
Johnny drew his away indignantly and began to choke again.
"She's not for you. It'll all come right if you stay away.
P-promise me you'll stay away!
"There I don't agree with you."
"C-can you fight?"
"A bit. Here, keep on your coat, boy, and don't be a fool.
Hands off, you young dolt!"
There was barely room on the causeway for two to pass. As Mr. Wright thrust by, Johnny snatched furiously at his arm and with just enough force to slew him round. Letting go, he struck for his face.
The plumber had no wish to hurt the lad. Being a quick man with his fists, he parried the blow easily enough.
"No more of this!" he shouted, and as Johnny leapt again, hurled him off with a backward sweep of his wrist.
He must have put more weight into it than he intended. Johnny, flung to the very edge of the causeway, floundered twice to recover his balance; his feet slipped on the mud, and with hands clutching the air he soused into the water at Mr. Wright's feet.
"Hallo!" called out a cheerful voice. "Whar you two up to?"
Dick Ellison was coming down the causeway towards the house, somewhat advanced in liquor, though it wanted an hour of noon. Wright, who knew him only by sight, did not observe this at once. "Come and help," he answered, dropping on his knees by the brink and offering Johnny a hand.
Johnny declined it. He was a strong swimmer, and in a couple of strokes regained the bank and scrambled to firm ground again, dripping from head to heel and looking excessively foolish.
"Wha's matter?" demanded Mr. Ellison again.
"Nothing he need be ashamed of," answered Mr. Wright. "Here, shake hands, my boy!"
But Johnny dropped his head and walked away, hiding tears of rage and shame.
"Sulky young pig," commented Mr. Ellison, staring blearily after him. A thought appeared to strike him.—"Blesh me, you're the new son-'law!"
"Yes, sir: Miss Hetty has just honoured me with her consent."
"Consent? I'll lay she had to! Sukey—tha's my wife—told me you were in the wind. I said the old man's wrong—all right, patching it up—Shtill—" He paused and corrected himself painfully. "Still, duty to c'nsult family; 'stead of which, he takes law in's own hands. Now list'n this, Mr.—"
"Wright."
"Qui-so." He pulled himself together again. "Quite so. Now I say, it's hard on the jade. You say, 'Nothing of the sort: she's made her bed and must lie on it.'"
"No, I don't."
"I—er—beg your pardon? You must allow me finish my argument. I say, 'Look here, I'm a gentleman: feelings of a gentleman'— You're not a gentleman, eh?"
"Not a bit like one," the plumber agreed cheerfully.
"Tha's what I thought. Allow me to say so, I respect you for it—for speaking out, I mean. Now what I say is, wench kicks over the traces—serve her right wharrever happens: but there's family to consider—"
Here Mr. Wright interrupted firmly. "Bless your heart, Mr. Ellison,
I quite see. I've made a mistake this morning."
"No offence, you understand."
"No offence at all. It turns out I've given the wrong man a ducking."
"Eh?"
"It can easily be set right. Some day when you're sober. Good morning!"
William Wright went his way whistling. Dick Ellison stared along the causeway after him.
"Low brute!" he said musingly. "If she's to marry a fellow like that, Sukey shan't visit her. I'm sorry for the girl too."
Beyond the hedge, in a corner of the kitchen-garden, Johnny Whitelamb lay in his wet clothes with his face buried in a heap of mown grass. He had failed, and shamefully, after preparing himself for the interview by pacing (it seemed to him, for hours) the box-bordered walks which Molly had planted with lilies and hollyhocks, pinks and sweet-williams and mignonette. It was high June now, and the garden breaking into glory. He had tasted all its mingled odours this morning while he followed the paths in search of Hetty; and when at length he had found her under the great filbert-tree, they seemed to float about her and hedge her as with the aura of a goddess. He had delivered his message, trembling: had watched her go with firm step to the sacrifice. And then—poor boy—wild adoration had filled him with all the courage of all the knights in Christendom. He alone would champion her against the dragon. . . . And the dragon had flung him into the ditch like a rat! He hid his face in the sweet-smelling hillock.
For years after, the scent of a garden in June, or of new-mown hay, caused him misery, recalling this the most abject hour of his life.
CHAPTER XII.
Six weeks later Mr. Wesley married William Wright and Hetty in the bare little church of Wroote. Her sisters (among them Patty, newly returned from Kelstein) sat at home: their father had forbidden them to attend. A fortnight before they had stood as bridesmaids at Nancy's wedding with John Lambert, and all but Molly had contrived to be mirthful and forget for a day the shadow on the household and the miserable woman upstairs. Hetty had no bridesmaids, no ringing of bells. The church would have been empty, but for a steady downpour which soaked the new-mown hay, and turned the fields into swamps, driving the labourers and their wives, who else had been too busy, to take recreation in a ceremony of scandal. For of course the whole story had been whispered abroad. It was to keep them away that the Rector had chosen a date in the very middle of the hay-harvest, and they knew it and enjoyed his discomfiture. He, on his part, when the morning broke with black and low-lying clouds, had been tempted to read the service in the parlour at home; but his old obstinacy had asserted itself. Hetty's feelings he did not consider.
The congregation pitied Hetty. She, with Molly to help, had been the parish alms-giver, here and at Epworth; and though the alms had been small, kind words had gone with the giving. Of gratitude—active gratitude—they were by race incapable: also they were shrewd enough to detect the Wesley habit of condescending to be kind. She belonged to another world than theirs: she was a lady, blood and bone. But they were proud of her beauty, and talked of it, and forgave her for the sake of it.
They hated the Rector; yet with so much of fear as kept them huddled to-day at the west end under the dark gallery. A space of empty pews divided them from Mrs. Wesley, standing solitary behind her daughter at the chancel step.
"O God, who hast consecrated the state of Matrimony to such an excellent mystery that in it is signified and represented the spiritual marriage and unity betwixt Christ and his Church: look mercifully upon these thy servants. . . ."
A squall of rain burst upon the south windows, darkening the nave. Mrs. Wesley started, and involuntarily her hands went up towards her ears. Then she remembered, dropped them and stood listening with her arms rigid.
Under a penthouse in the parsonage yard, Molly and Johnny Whitelamb watched the downpour, and the cocks and hens dismally ruffling under shelter of the eaves.
"She was the best of us all, the bravest and the cleverest."
"She was like no one in the world," said Johnny.
"And the most loyal. She loved me best, and I have done nothing for her."
"You did what you could, Miss Molly."
"If I were a man—Oh, Johnny, of what use are my brothers to me?"
Johnny was silent.
"The others were jealous of her. She could no more help excelling them in wit and spirits than she could in looks. None of them understood her, but I only—and you, I think, a little."
"It was an honour to know her and serve her. I shall never forget her, Miss Molly."
"We will never forget her—we two. When the others are not listening we will talk about her together and say, She did this or that; or, Just so she looked; or, At such a time she was happy. We will recollect her sayings and remind each other. Oh, Hetty! dear, dear Hetty!"
Johnny was fairly blubbering. "But she will visit us sometimes.
Lincoln is no great distance."
Molly shook her head disconsolately. "I do not think she will come. Father will refuse to see her. For my part, after the wickedness he has committed this day—"
"Hush, Miss Molly!"
"Is it not wrong he is doing? Is it not a wicked wrong? Answer me, John Whitelamb, if we two are ever to speak of her again." She glanced at his face and read how terribly old fidelity and new distrust were tearing him between them. "Ah, I understand!" she said, and laid a hand on his coat-sleeve.
The service over and the names signed in the vestry, Mr. Wesley marched out to the porch for a view of the weather. Half a score of gossips were gathered there among the sodden graves awaiting the bridal party. They gave back a little, nudging and plucking one another by the arm. For all the notice he took of them they might have been tombstones.
The rain had ceased to fall, and though leaden clouds rolled up from the south-west, threatening more, a pale gleam, almost of sunshine, rested on the dreary landscape. The Rector nodded his head and strode briskly down the muddy path. The newly married pair followed at a respectful distance, Mrs. Wesley close behind. Hetty showed no sign of emotion. She had given her responses clearly and audibly before the altar, and she bore herself as bravely now.
As they entered the house the Rector turned and held out his hand to the bridegroom. "You will not find us hospitable, I fear. But there are some refreshments laid in the parlour: and my wife will see that you are served while I order the gig. Your wife will have time to say farewell to her sisters if she chooses. As I may not see her again, I commit her to your kindness and God's forgiveness."
"At least you will bless her, husband!" entreated Mrs. Wesley.
But he turned away.
Twenty minutes later bridegroom and bride drove southward towards
Lincoln, under a lashing shower and with the wind in their faces.
CHAPTER XIII.
A few words will tie together the following letters or extracts from letters. John was ordained on September 19th. A few weeks later he preached his first sermon at South Leigh, a village near Witney and but a few miles out of Oxford. He and Charles visited Wroote that Christmas, and on January 11th he preached a funeral sermon at Epworth for John Griffith, a hopeful young man, the son of one of his father's parishioners, taking for his theme 2 Samuel xii. 23, "But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me "—a text obvious enough. He returned for the beginning of the Oxford Lent Term, having had no sight of Hetty. His chances of a fellowship at Lincoln College had long been debated, and on March 17th he was elected. Meanwhile Charles had passed out of Westminster with a studentship to support him at Christ Church, the college his brother was leaving.
The first letter—from Patty—bears no date, but was written from
Wroote about the time of John's ordination.
From Martha (Patty) Wesley to her brother John
Dear Brother,—I believe it is above half a year since I wrote to you, and yet, though it is so long since, you never were so good as to write to me again; and you have written several times since to my sisters, but have perfectly neglected your loving sister Martha, as if you had not known there was such a person in the world; at which I pretended to be so angry that I resolved I would never write to you more. Yet my anger soon gave way to my love, as it always does whenever I chance to be angry with you. But you only confirm me in the truth of an observation I have since made; which is, that if ever I love any person very well, and desire to be loved by them in return—as, to be sure, whoever loves desires to be loved—I always meet with unkind returns. I shall be exceedingly glad if you get the Fellowship you stand for; which if you do, I shall hope that one of the family besides my brother Sam will be provided for. I believe you very well deserve to be happy, and I sincerely wish you may be so both in this life and the next.
For my own particular I have long looked upon myself to be what the world calls ruined—that is, I believe there will never be any provision made for me, but when my father dies I shall have my choice of three things—starving, going to a common service, or marrying meanly as my sisters have done: none of which I like, nor do I think it possible for a woman to be happy with a man that is not a gentleman, for he whose mind is virtuous is alone of noble kind. Yet what can a woman expect but misery? My brother Ellison wants all but riches; my brother Lambert, I hope, has a little religion; poor brother Wright has abundance of good-nature, and, I hope, is religious; and yet sister Hetty is, I fear, entirely ruined, though it is not her husband's fault.
If you would be so good as to let me hear from you, you would
add much to my satisfaction. But nothing can make me more than
I am already, dear brother, your sincere friend and loving
sister
Martha Wesley.
P.S.—I hope you will be so kind as to pardon the many faults in my letter. You must not expect I can write like sister Emily or sister Hetty. I hope, too, that when I have the pleasure of seeing you at Wroote you will set me some more copies, that I may not write so miserably.
From Samuel Wesley to his son John
Wroote, March 21, 1726.
Dear Mr. Fellow-Elect of Lincoln,—I have done more than I could
for you. On your waiting on Dr. Morley with this he will pay
you 12 pounds. You are inexpressibly obliged to that generous
man. We are all as well as can be expected. Your loving
father,
Samuel Wesley.
From the same to the same
Wroote, April I, 1726.
Dear son John,—I had both yours since the election. The last
12 pounds pinched me so hard that I am forced to beg time of
your brother Sam till after harvest to pay him the 10 pounds
that you say he lent you. Nor shall I have so much as that
(perhaps not 5 pounds) to keep my family till after harvest; and
I do not expect that I shall be able to do anything for Charles
when he goes to the University. What will be my own fate before
the summer is over God only knows. Sed passi graviora.
Wherever I am, my Jack is Fellow of Lincoln. All at present
from your loving father,
Samuel Wesley.
From John Wesley to his brother Samuel
Lincoln College, Oxon.,
April 4, 1726.
Dear Brother,—My father very unexpectedly, a week ago, sent me a bill on Dr. Morley for 12 pounds, which he had paid to the Rector's use at Gainsborough; so that now all my debts are paid, and I have still above 10 pounds remaining. If I could have leave to stay in the country till my college allowance commences, this money would abundantly suffice me till then.
I never knew a college besides ours whereof the members were so
perfectly well satisfied with one another, and so inoffensive to
the other part of the University. All the Fellows I have yet
seen are both well-natured and well-bred; men admirably disposed
as well to preserve peace and good neighbourhood among
themselves as to preserve it wherever else they have any
acquaintance. I am, etc.
John Wesley.
The next, addressed also to Sam, shows him making provision for
Charles's entrance at Christ Church:
My mother's reason for my cutting off my hair is because she fancies it prejudices my health. As to my looks, it would doubtless mend my complexion to have it off, by letting me get a little more colour, and perhaps it might contribute to my making a more genteel appearance. But these, till ill health is added to them, I cannot persuade myself to be sufficient grounds for losing two or three pounds a year. I am ill enough able to spare them.
Mr. Sherman says there are garrets, somewhere in Peckwater, to be let for fifty shillings a year; that there are some honest fellows in college who would be willing to chum in one of them; and that, could my brother but find one of these garrets, and get acquainted with one of these honest fellows, he might possibly prevail on him to join in taking it; and then if he could but prevail upon some one else to give him 7 pounds a year for his own room, he would gain almost 6 pounds a year clear, if his rent were well paid. He appealed to me whether the proposal was not exceedingly reasonable? But as I could not give him such an answer as he desired, I did not choose to give him any at all.
Leisure and I have taken leave of one another. I propose to be
busy as long as I live, if my health is so long indulged me.
In health and sickness I hope I shall ever continue with the
same sincerity, your loving brother,
John Wesley.
From Samuel Wesley to his son John
April 17, 1726. Dear Son,—I hope Sander will be with you on Wednesday morn, with the horses, books, bags, and this. I got your mother to write the inclosed (for you see I can hardly scrawl), because it was possible it might come to hand on Tuesday; but my head was so full of cares that I forgot on Saturday last to put it into the post-house. I shall be very glad to see you, though but for a day, but much more for a quarter of a year. I think you will make what haste you can. I design to be at the "Crown," in Bawtry, on Saturday night. God bless and send you a prosperous journey to your affectionate father, Samuel Wesley.
The day after receiving this John and Charles set out and rode down to Lincolnshire together.
CHAPTER XIV.
"For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."
John Wesley laid his Bible down beside him on the rustic seat under the filbert-tree, and leaned back against the trunk with half-closed eyes. By and by he frowned, and the frown, instead of passing, grew deeper. His sermons, as a rule, arranged themselves neatly and rapidly, when once the text was chosen: but to-day his thoughts ran by fits and starts, and confusedly—a thing he abhorred.
In truth they kept harking back to the text, "For if ye forgive men their trespasses. . . ." He had chosen it with many searchings of heart, for he knew that if he preached this sermon it would exasperate his father. Had he any right, knowing this, to preach it from his father's pulpit? After balancing the pro's and contra's, he decided that this was a scruple which his Christian duty outweighed. He was not used to look back upon a decision once taken: he had no thought now of changing his mind, but the prospect of a breach with his father unsettled him.
While he pondered, stabbing the turf with his heel, Molly came limping along the garden-path. Her face was white and drawn. She had been writing for two hours at her father's dictation, and came now for rest to the seat which she and Hetty had in former days made their favourite resort.
Seeing it occupied, she paused in the outer shade of the great branches.
"You are thinking out your sermon?" she asked, smiling.
He nodded. "You seem tired," he remarked, eyeing her; but he did not rise or pick up his Bible to make room for her.
"A little," she confessed; "and my ears are hot. But Charles very good-naturedly left his De Oratore—on which I heard him say he was engaged—to relieve me. Johnny Whitelamb had to finish colouring a map."
"I don't think Charles needs much persuasion just now to leave his studies."
"He will not require them if he is to be an Irish squire."
"You count upon his choosing that?" John's frown grew deeper.
"Not if you dissuade him, Jack."
"I have not even discussed it with him. Once or twice on our way down he seemed to be feeling his way to a confidence and at the last moment to fight shy. No doubt he knows my opinion well enough. 'What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?' But why should my opinion have so much weight with him?"
For a moment Molly considered her brother's cold and handsome young face. She put out a hand, plucked a twig from a low drooping bough, and peeling the gummy rind, quoted softly:
"'Why do you cross me in this exigent?'
'I do not cross you; but I will do so.'"
"If I remember," mused John, "that is what Shakespeare makes Octavius say to Mark Antony before Pharsalia."
She nodded. "Do you know that you always put me in mind of Octavius. You are so good-looking, and have the same bloodless way of following your own path as if you carried all our fates. Sometimes I think you do carry them."
"I thank you." He made her a mock bow.
"And I still think it was kind of Charles to come to my rescue; for I was tired." She glanced at the seat and he picked up his book. "No; you are composing a sermon and I will not interrupt you. But you must know that father expected you to help him this morning, and was put out at hearing that you had walked off."
"He and I have not agreed of late, and are likely to agree still less if I preach this sermon—as I shall."
"What is the subject?"
"I have not thought of a title yet; but you may call it 'Universal
Charity,' or (better perhaps) 'The Charity due to wicked persons.'"
"You mean Hetty?" She limped close to him. "Hetty may have done wickedly, but she is not a wicked person, as you might have discovered had you let Universal Charity alone and practised it in particular, for once, by going to visit her. It is now close on four months that you and Charles have been home, and from here to Lincoln is no such great distance."
"You are a sturdy champion," he answered, eyeing her up and down.
"As a matter of fact you are right, though you assert it rashly.
How are you sure that I have not visited Hetty, seeing that three
times I have been absent from home and for some days together?"
Molly winced. "The worse reproach to all of us, that her only champion was the weakling whom you all scorn! You do not understand weakness, Jack. As for my knowing that you had not visited her, Johnny Whitelamb took his holiday a fortnight ago and trudged to Lincoln to see her. She is living behind a dingy little shop with her husband, and his horrible old father, who drinks whatever he can filch from the till. They wink at it so long as he does not go too far; but William is trying to find him lodgings at Louth, which was his old home, and hopes to sell up the business and move to London with Hetty, to try his fortune. Uncle Matthew has written to her, and will help them to move, I believe. And there was a baby coming, but mercifully something went wrong, poor mite! All this news she sent by Johnny, who reports that she is brave and cheerful and as beautiful as ever—more beautiful than ever, he said—but she talked long of you and Charles, and is said to have seen neither of you."