"So Whitelamb is in the conspiracy? Since you have so much of his confidence, you might warn him to be careful. Doubts of our father's wisdom must unsettle him woefully. I do not ask to join the alliance, but it may please you to know that in my belief Hetty has been treated too fiercely for her deserts, and in my sermon I intend to hint at this pretty plainly."
Molly stared. "Dear Jack, it—it is good to have you on our side.
But what good can a sermon do?"
"Not much, I fear. Still a testimony is a testimony."
"But the folks will know you are speaking of her."
"I mean them to."
"But—but—" Molly cast about, bewildered.
"I am venturing something," John interrupted coldly, "by testifying against my father. It is not over-pleasant to stand up and admit that in our own family we have sinned against Christ's injunction to judge not."
"I should think not, indeed!"
"Then you might reasonably show a little more pleasure at finding me prepared, to that extent, to take your side."
Molly gasped. His misunderstanding seemed to her too colossal to be coped with. "It will be a public reproach to father," she managed to say.
"I fear he may consider it so; and that is just my difficulty."
"But what good can it do to Hetty?"
"I was not, in the first instance, thinking of Hetty, but rather using her case as an example which would be fresh in the minds of all in the building. Nevertheless, since you put the question, I will answer, that my argument should induce our mother and sisters, as well as the parish, to judge her more leniently."
"The parish!" murmured Molly. "I was not thinking of its judgment, And I doubt if Hetty does."
"You are right. The particular case—though unhappily we cannot help dwelling on it—is merely an illustration. We, who have duties under Christ to all souls in our care, must neglect no means of showing them the light, though it involve mortifying our own private feelings."
Molly, who had been plucking and twisting all this while the twig between her fingers, suddenly cast it on the ground and hobbled away.
John gazed after her, picked up the book and set it down again.
The sermon came easily now.
Having thought it out and arranged the headings in his mind, he returned to the house and wrote rapidly for two hours in his bedroom. He then collected his manuscript, folded it neatly, scribbled a note, and called down the passage to the servant, Jane, whom he heard bustling about the parlour and laying dinner. To her he gave the note and the sermon, to be carried to his father; picked up a crust of bread from the table; and a minute later left the house for a long walk.
Returning a little before supper-time, he found the manuscript on the table by his bedside. No note accompanied it; there were none of the usual pencil-marks and comments in the margin. The Rector had restored it without a word.
For a moment he was minded to go and seek an interview; but decided that, his resolution being fixed, an interview would but increase pain to no purpose. He washed and went down to the parlour, walking past the door of the study, in which his father supped alone.
Next morning being Saturday, Mr. Wesley walked over to Epworth, to a room above a chandler's shop, where he and John lodged in turn as they took Epworth duty on alternate Sundays. The Rectory there was closed for the time and untenanted, the Ellisons having returned some months before to their own enlarged and newly furnished house. There, to be sure, a lodging might have been had at no cost, and Sukey offered it as in duty bound. She knew very well, however, that neither her father nor John could stomach being a guest of Dick's. The invitation was declined, and she did not press it.
So on Sunday, August 28th, Mr. Wesley took the services at Epworth while John stayed at home and preached his sermon in Wroote church.
From the pulpit he looked straight down into the tall Rectory pew, and once or twice his eyes involuntarily sought its occupants. Once, indeed, he paused in his discourse. It was after the words— "We are totally mistaken if we persuade ourselves that Christ was lenient towards sin. He made no hesitation in driving the money-changers from His Father's temple even with a whip. But He discriminated between the sin and the sinner. The fig-tree He blasted was one which, bearing no fruit, yet made a false show of health: the Pharisees He denounced were men who covered rottenness with a pretence of religion; the sinners He consorted with had a saving knowledge of their vileness. Sin He knew to be human and bound up in our nature: all was pardonable save the refusal to acknowledge it and repent, which is the sin against the Holy Ghost testifying within us. If we confess our sins not only is He faithful and just to forgive them, but He promises more joy in Heaven over our repentance than over ninety-and-nine just persons which need no repentance. And why? Because, as David foretold, a broken spirit is God's peculiar sacrifice: 'a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.' Yet we in this parish have despised it. With sorrow I admit before you that in the household to which you should reasonably look for example and guidance, it has been despised. What then? Are we wiser than Christ, or more absolute?"
He paused. His mother sat stiff and upright with her eyes bent on the ground. Only Charles and Molly looked up—she with a spot of red on either cheek, he with his bright pugnacious look, his nostrils slightly distended scenting battle with delight. Emilia and Patty were frowning; Kezzy, who hated all family jars, fidgeted with her prayer-book.
The sermon ended and the benediction pronounced, he fetched from the vestry the white surplice in which he had read the prayers, and came back to the pew in which the family waited as usual for the rest of the congregation to leave the church. Mrs. Wesley took the surplice, as she invariably took her husband's, to carry it home and hang it in the wardrobe. They walked out. A fortnight before, his sisters had begun to discuss his sermon and rally him upon it as soon as they found themselves in the porch. To-day they were silent: and again at dinner, though John and his mother made an effort to talk of trivial matters, the girls scarcely spoke. Charles only seemed in good spirits and chattered away at ease, glancing at his brother from time to time with a droll twinkle in his eye.
Early next morning John set out for Epworth, having promised to relieve his father and visit the sick and poor there during the week. At Scawsit Bridge he met the Rector returning. The two shook hands and stood for a minute discussing some details of parish work: then each continued on his way. Not a word was said of the sermon.
CHAPTER XV.
John remained at Epworth until Thursday evening. Dark was falling when he set out to tramp back to Wroote, but the guns of a few late partridge-shooters yet echoed across the common. A little beyond Scawsit Bridge a figure came over the fields towards him, walking swiftly in the twilight—a woman. He drew aside to let her pass; but in that instant she stretched out both hands to him and he recognised her.
"Hetty!"
She dropped her arms. "Are you not going to kiss me, Jack? Do you, too, cast me off?"
"God forbid!" he said, and lifted his face; for she was the taller by two inches. With a sob of joy she put out both hands again and drew his lips to hers, a palm pressed on either cheek.
"But what are you doing here?" he asked.
"My husband has business at Haxey. We came from Lincoln this morning, and just before sunset I crept over for a look at the house, hoping for a glimpse of you and Charles. They will not have me inside, Jack: father will not see me, and has forbidden the others. But I saw Johnny Whitelamb. He told me that Charles was indoors, at work transcribing for father, and not easily fetched out; but that you were expected home from Epworth to-night. So I came to meet you. Was I running? I dare say. I was thirsty to see your face, dear, and hear your voice."
"We have all dealt hardly with you, Hetty."
"Ah, let that be! I must not pity myself, you understand? Indeed, dear, I was not thinking of myself. If only I could be invisible, and steal into the house at times and sit me down in a corner and watch their faces and listen! That would be enough, brother: I don't ask to join in that life again—only to stand apart and feed my eyes on it."
"You are not happy, then?"
"Happy?" She mused for a while. "My man is kind to me: kinder than I deserve. If God gives us a child—" She broke off, lowered her eyes and stammered, "You heard that I had—that one was born! Dead. He never breathed, the doctor told me. I ought to be glad, for his sake—and for William's—but I cannot be."
"It was God's goodness. Look at Sukey, now; how much of her time her children take up."
She drew back sharply and peered at him through the dusk.
"Now that time is restored to you," he went on, "you have nothing to do but to serve God without distraction, till you are sanctified in body, soul and spirit."
"Jacky, dear," she asked hoarsely, "have they taught you at Oxford to speak like that?"
He was offended, and showed it. "I have been speaking up for you; too warmly for my comfort. Father and mother, and indeed all but Molly, will have it that you talked lightly to them; that your penitence was feigned. I would not believe this, but that, as by marriage you redeemed your conduct, so now you must be striving to redeem your soul. If you deny this, I have been in error and must tell them so."
For a while she stood considering. "Brother," she said, "I will be plain with you. Since this marriage was forced upon me, I have tried—and, please God, I will go on trying—to redeem my conduct. But of my soul I scarcely think at all."
"Hetty, this is monstrous."
"I pray," she went on, "for help to be good. With tears I pray for it, and all day long I am trying to be good and do my duty. As for my soul, sometimes I wake and see the need to be anxious for it, and resolve to think of it anxiously: but when the morning comes, I have no time—the day is too full. And sometimes I grow rebellious and vow that it is no affair of mine: let them answer for it who took it in charge and drove me to tread this path. And sometimes I tell myself that once I had a soul, and it was sinful; but that God was merciful and destroyed it, with its record, when He destroyed my baby. The doctor swore to me that it never drew a separate breath; no, not one. Tell me, Jack! A child that has never breathed can know neither heaven nor hell—questions of baptism do not touch it— it goes out of darkness into darkness and is annihilated. Is that not so? So I assure myself, and sometimes I think that by the same stroke God wiped out the immortal part of me with its sins, that my body and brain go on living, but that the soul of your Hetty will never come up for judgment, for it has ceased to be."
"Monstrous!"
"You understand," she went on wearily, "that this is but one of my thoughts. My heart denies it whenever I long to creep back to Wroote and listen to the old voices and be a child once more. But I am showing you what is the truth—that upon one plea or another I put my soul aside and excuse myself from troubling about it."
"Sadder hearing there could not be. You have an imperishable soul, and owe it a care which should come before your duty even to your husband."
"Ah, Jack, you may be a very great man: but you do not understand women! I wonder if you ever will? For now you do not even begin to understand."
He would have answered in hot anger, but a noise on the path prevented him. Four sportsmen came wending homeward in the dusk, shouldering their guns and laughing boisterously. In the loudest of the guffaws he recognised the voice of Dick Ellison.
"Hallo!" The leader pulled himself up with a chuckle.
"Here's pretty goings-on—the little parson colloguing with a wench!
Dick, Dick, aren't you ashamed of your relatives?"
"Ashamed of them long ago," stuttered Dick, lurching forward. He had been making free with the flask all day. "Who is it?" he demanded.
"Come, my lass—no need to be shy with me! Let's have a look at your pretty face." The fellow plucked at Hetty's hood. John gripped his arm, was flung off with an indecent oath, and gripped him again.
"This lady, sir, is my sister."
"Eh?" Dick Ellison peered into Hetty's face. "So it is, by Jove! How d'ye do, Hetty?" He turned to his companion. "Well, you've made a nice mistake," he chuckled.
The man guffawed and slouched on. In two strides John was after him and had gripped him once more, this time by the collar.
"Not so fast, my friend!"
"Here, hands off! This gun's loaded. What the devil d'you want?"
"I want an apology," said John calmly. "Or rather, a couple of apologies." He faced the quartette: they could scarcely see his face, but his voice had a ring in it no less cheerful than firm. "So far as I can make out in this light, gentlemen, you are all drunk. You have made one of those foolish and disgusting mistakes to which men in liquor are liable: but I should suppose you can muster up sense enough between you to see that this man owes an apology."
"What if I refuse?"
"Why then, sir, I shall give myself the trouble to walk beside you until your sense of decency is happily restored. If that should not happen between this and your own door, I must leave you for the night and call upon you to-morrow."
"This is no tone to take among gentlemen."
"It is the tone you oblige me to take."
"Come away, Jack!" Hetty besought him in a whisper: but she knew that he would not.
"Surely," he said, "after so gross an offence you will lose no more time in begging my sister's pardon?"
"Look you now, master parson," growled the offender, "you are thin in the legs, but I am not too drunk to shoot snipe." With his gun he menaced John, who did not flinch.
But here Dick Ellison interposed. "Don't be a fool, Congdon! Put up your gun and say you're sorry, like a gentleman. Damme"—Dick in his cups was notoriously quarrelsome and capricious as to the grounds of quarrel—"she's my sister, too, for that matter. And Jack's my brother: and begad, he has the right of it. He's a pragmatical fellow, but as plucky as ginger, and I love him for it. Fight him, you'll have to fight me—understand? So up and say you're sorry, like a man."
"Oh, if you're going to take that line, I'm willing enough."
Mr. Congdon shuffled out an apology.
"That's right," Dick Ellison announced. "Now shake hands on it, like good fellows. Jack's as good a man as any of us for all his long coat."
"Excuse me," John interrupted coldly, "I have no wish to shake hands with any of you. I accept for my sister Mr. Congdon's assurance that he is ashamed of himself, and now you are at liberty to go your way."
"At liberty!" grumbled one: but, to Hetty's surprise, they went. Jack might not understand women: he could master men. For her part she thought he might have shaken hands and parted in good-fellowship. She listened to the sportsmen's unsteady retreat. At a little distance they broke into defiant laughter, but discomfiture was in the sound.
"Come," said John. She took his arm and they walked on together towards Wroote.
For a while neither spoke. Hetty was thinking of a story once told her by her mother: how that once the Rector, then a young man, had been sitting in Smith's Coffee House in the City and discussing the Athenian Gazette with his fellow-contributors, when an officer of the Guards, in a box at the far end of the room, kept interrupting them with the foulest swearing. Mr. Wesley called to the waiter to bring a glass of water. It was brought. "Carry this," he said aloud, "to that gentleman in the red coat, and desire him to rinse his mouth after his oaths." The officer rose up in a fury, with hand on sword, but the gentlemen in his box pulled him down. "Nay, colonel, you gave the first offence. You know it is an affront to swear before a clergyman." The officer was restrained. Mr. Wesley resumed his talk. And her mother went on to tell that, years after, when the Rector was in London attending Convocation, a gentleman stopped him one day as he crossed St. James's Park. "Do you know me, Mr. Wesley?" "Sir, I have not that pleasure." "Will you know me, then, if I remind you that once, in Smith's Coffee House, you taught me a lesson? Since that time, sir, I thank God I have feared an oath and everything that is offensive to the Divine Majesty. I rejoiced, just now, to catch sight of you, and could not refrain from expressing my gratitude."
And John inherited this gift of mastery. He could not understand women, nor could she ever understand him: but she felt that the arm she held was one of steel. To what end she and her sisters and her mother had been sacrificed she could not yet divine: but the encounter by the bridge had reawakened the Wesley pride in her, and she walked acquiescent in a fate beyond her ken. She knew, too, that he had dismissed the squabble from his mind and was thinking of her confession and her soul's danger. But here she would not help him.
"You have heard," she asked, "that we are leaving Lincoln?"
This was news to him.
"Yes; my husband thinks of opening a business in London: but first he must sell the shop and effects and pension off his father into lodgings at Louth. That is the old man's native home, and he wishes to end his days there. He is loth to leave the business; but truly he has brought it low, and we must move if William is to make his fortune."
"Moving to London will be a risk, and a heavy expense."
"Uncle Matthew is helping us, and it is settled that we move in the autumn. We go into lodgings at first, and shall live in the humblest way while we look about us for a good workshop and premises."
"Do you and your husband's father agree?"
"I at least try to please him. You would not call him a pleasant old man: and of course he charges this new adventure down to my influence, whereas it is entirely William's notion. I have had nothing to do with it beyond enlisting Uncle Matthew's help."
John glanced at her as though to read her face in the darkness.
"Was that also William's notion?" he asked.
But here again he betrayed his ignorance. True woman, though she may have ceased to love her husband, or may never have loved him, will cover his weakness. "We have our ambitions, Jack, although to you they seem petty enough. You must make William's acquaintance. He has a great opinion of you. I believe, indeed, he thinks more of you than of me. And if he wishes to leave Lincoln for London, it is partly for my sake, that I may be happier in a great city where my fault is not known."
"If, as it seems, he thinks of your earthly comfort but neglects your soul's health, I shall not easily be friends with him."
By this time they were close to the garden gate.
"Is that you, Jack?" Charles's voice hailed over the dark hedge of privet.
The pair came to a halt. Hetty's eyes were fastened imploringly on her brother. He did not see them. If he had, it would have made no difference. He pitied her, but in his belief her repentance was not thorough: he had no right to invite her past the gate.
"Good-bye," he whispered.
She understood. With a sob she bent her face and kissed him and was gone like a ghost back into the darkness.
Charles met him at the gate. "Hallo," said he, "surely I heard voices? With whom were you talking?"
"With Hetty."
"Hetty?" Charles let out a whistle. "But it is about her I wanted to speak, here, before you go indoors. I say—where is she? Cannot we call her back?"
"No: we have no right. To some extent I have changed my mind about her: or rather, she has forced me to change it. Her soul is hardened."
"By whose fault?"
"No matter by whose fault: she must learn her responsibility to God.
Father has been talking with you, I suppose."
"Yes: he is bitterly wroth—the more bitterly, I believe, because he loves you better than any of us. He says you have him at open defiance. 'Every day,' he cried out on me, 'you hear how he contradicts me, and takes your sister's part before my face. And now comes this sermon! He rebukes me in the face of my parish.' Mind you, I am not taking his part: if you stand firm, so will I. But I wanted to tell you this, that you may know how to meet him."
For a while the brothers paced the dark walls in silence. Under the falling dew the scent of honeysuckle lay heavy in the garden. Years later, in his country rides, a whiff from the hedgerow would arrest Charles as he pondered a hymn to the beat of his horse's hoofs, and would carry him back to this hour. John's senses were less acute, and all his thoughts for the moment turned inward.
"I have done wrong," he announced at length and walked hastily towards the house.
In the hall he met his father coming out. "Sir," he said, "I have behaved undutifully. I have neglected you and set myself to contradict you. I was seeking you to beg your forgiveness."
To his amazement the Rector put a hand on either shoulder, stooped and kissed him.
"It was a heavy sorrow to me, Jack. Now I see that you are good at bottom; and to-morrow, if you wish, you shall write for me. Nay, come into the study now, and see the work that is ready for you."
In the light of the study lamp John saw that his father's eyes were wet.
CHAPTER XVI.
Late in September, having been chosen to preach on St. Michael's Day in St. Michael's Church the sermon annually delivered by a Fellow of Lincoln, John travelled up to Oxford, whither Charles followed him a week or two later, to take up his residence in Christ Church, and be matriculated on the first day of the October term.
John had deferred his journey to the last moment, in order to stand godfather to Nancy's healthy firstborn. John Lambert—honest man and proud father—had honoured the event with a dinner, and very nearly wrecked his own domestic peace by sending out the invitations in his own hand and including Mr. and Mrs. Wright. For weeks after, Nancy shuddered to think what might have happened if Hetty and her father had come face to face at the ceremony or the feast. By good luck—or rather by using her common sense and divining the mistake—Hetty refused. Her husband, however, insisted on attending, and she let him go. With his presence the Rector could not decently quarrel.
"But look here," said he, "I am getting tired of the line the old man takes. It wasn't in our bond: he waited to spring it on me after the wedding. If I can overlook things, he should be able to, and I've a mind to tell him so." He urged her to come. But Hetty pleaded that she could not; it was now past the middle of September, and her baby would be born early in the new year. "Well, well," he grumbled, "but 'tis hard to have married a lady, and a beauty to boot, and never a chance to show her." The speech was gracious after his fashion, as well as honest: but she shivered inwardly. For as time wore on, she perceived this desire growing in him, to take her abroad and display her with pride. Failing this, he had once or twice brought his own cronies home, to sit and smoke with him while he watched their uneasy admiration and enjoyed the tribute. She blamed herself that she had not been more genial on those occasions; but in truth she dreaded them horribly. By sheer force of will she had managed hitherto, and with fair success, to view her husband as a good honest man, and overlook his defects of breeding. In her happiest moods she almost believed in the colours with which (poor soul, how eagerly!) she decked him. But she could not extend the illusion to his friends. "You shall show him off," she pleaded, meaning the unborn babe. "We will show him off together." But her face was white.
So William Wright had gone alone to the christening feast, and there John Wesley had met him for the first time, and talked with him, and afterwards walked home full of thought. For, in truth, Hetty's husband had drunk more of John Lambert's wine than agreed with him, and had asserted himself huskily, if not aggressively, under the cold eye of Mr. Wesley senior. John, as godfather, had been called upon for a speech, and his brother-in-law's "Hear, hear" had been so vociferous that while his kinsfolk stole glances at one another as who should say, "But what can one expect?" the Rector put out a hand with grim mock apprehension and felt the leaded window casements. "I'll mend all I break, and for nothing," shouted Mr. Wright heartily: and amid a scandalised silence Charles exploded in merry laughter, and saved the situation.
For a fortnight after his return to Oxford, college work absorbed all John's leisure: but he found time as a matter of course to meet Charles on his arrival at the Angel Inn, and took him straight off to Christ Church to present him to the Senior Censor. Next day he called to find his brother installed in Peckwater, on the topmost floor, but in rooms very much more cheerful than the garret suggested by Mr. Sherman. Charles, at any rate, was delighted with them and his sticks of furniture, and elated—as thousands of undergraduates have been before his day and since—at exchanging school for college and qualified liberty and the dignity of housekeeping on one's own account.
"Est aliquid quocunque loco, quocunque recessu," he quoted, and showed John with triumph the window seat which, lifted, disclosed a cupboard to contain his wine, if ever he should possess any.
"Are you proposing to become a wine-bibber in your enthusiasm?" asked
John.
Charles closed the lid, seated himself upon it, drew up his legs, and gazed out across the quadrangle. He had made a friend or two already among the freshmen, and this life seemed to him very good.
"My dear Jack, you would not have me be a saint all at once!"
John frowned. "You do not forget, I hope, in what hope you have been helped to Christ Church?"
Charles sat nursing his knees. A small frown puckered his forehead, but scarcely interfered with the good-tempered smile about his mouth.
"Others beside my father have helped or are willing to help.
See that letter?"—he nodded towards one lying open on the table—
"It is from Ireland. It has been lying in the porter's lodge for a
week, and my scout brought it up this morning."
John picked it up, smiling at his boyish air of importance. "Am I to read it?"
Charles nodded, and while his brother read, gazed out of window.
The smile still played about his mouth, but queerly.
"It is a handsome offer," said John slowly, and laid the letter down.
"Have you taken any decision?"
"Father leaves it to me, as you know," Charles answered and paused, musing. "I suppose, now, ninety-nine out of a hundred would jump at it."
"Assuredly."
"Somehow our family seems to be made up of odd hundredths. You, for example, do not wish me to accept."
"I have said nothing to influence your choice."
"No, my dear Jack, you have not. Yet I know what you think, fast enough."
John picked up the letter again and folded it carefully.
"An estate in Ireland; a safe seat in the Irish Parliament; and money. Jack, that money might help to make many happy. Think of our mother, often without enough to eat; think of father's debts. He knows I would pay them," said Charles.
"And yet he has not tried to influence your choice."
"He's a Trojan, Jack; an old warhorse. You have cause to love him, for he loves you so much above all of us—and you know it—that, had the choice been offered you, he'd have moved heaven and earth to prevent your accepting a fortune."
He swung round, dropping his feet to the floor, and eyed his brother quizzically.
"Upon my word," he went on, "this thing annoys me. I've a mind to—"
Here he dived a hand into his breeches pocket and fished out a
shilling. "We'll settle it here and now, and you shall be witness.
Heads for Dangan Castle and Parliament House; tails for poverty!"
He spun the coin and slapped it down on his knee. His hand still covered it.
—"Come Jack, stand up and be properly excited."
"Nay," said John; "would you jest with God's purpose for you?"
"I have seen you open the Bible at random and take your omen from the first words your eyes light on. Yet I never accused you of jesting with Holy Writ. Cannot God as easily determine the fall of a coin?"
He withdrew his hand, and drew a deep breath. "Tails!" he announced, and faced his brother, smiling. "I am in earnest," he said. "But if you prefer the other way—"
He stepped to the shelf, took down his Bible and opened it, not looking himself, but holding the page under his brother's eyes.
"Well, what does it say?" he asked.
"It says," John answered, "'Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand.'"
Charles closed the Bible and restored it to its shelf; then faced his brother again, still with his inscrutable smile.
BOOK IV.
CHAPTER I.
"I never knew you were such a needlewoman, Hetty. It has been nothing but stitch-stitch for these two hours—and the same yesterday, and the day before. See, the kettle's boiling. Lay down your sewing, that's a dear creature; make me a dish of tea; and while you're doing it, let me see your eyes and hear your voice."
Hetty dropped her hands on her lap and let them rest there for a moment, while she looked across at Charles with a smile.
"As for talking," she answered, "it seems to me you have been doing pretty well without my help."
Charles laughed. "Now you speak of it, I have been rattling on.
But there has been so much to say and so little time to say it in.
Has it occurred to you that we have seen more of each other in these
seven days than in all our lives before?"
Seven days ago, while staying with his brother Sam at Westminster, he had heard of her arrival in London and had tramped through the slushy streets at once to seek her out at her address in Crown Court, Dean Street, Soho. She had welcomed him in this dark little second-floor room—dwelling-room and bedroom combined—in which she was sitting alone; for her husband spent most of the day abroad on the business which had brought them to London, either superintending the alterations in the unfurnished premises he had hired in Frith Street for his shop and the lead-works by which he proposed to make his fortune, or in long discussions at Johnson's Court with Uncle Matthew, who was helping with money and advice. The lodgings in Crown Court were narrow enough and shut in by high walls. But Hetty had not inhabited them two hours before they looked clean and comfortable and even dainty. Her own presence lent an air of distinction to the meanest room.
Her face, her voice, her regal manners, her exquisitely tender smile, came upon Charles with the shock of discovery. These two had not seen one another for years. The date of this first call was December 22nd: then and there—with a shade of regret that in a few days he must leave London to pay Wroote a visit before his vacation closed— Charles resolved that she should not spend her Christmas uncheered. On Christmas Day he had carried her off with her husband to dine at Westminster with Mr. and Mrs. Sam Wesley. Mr. Wright had been on his best behaviour, Mrs. Sam unexpectedly gracious, and the meeting altogether a great success. Charles had walked home with the guests, and had called again the next afternoon. He could see that his visits gave Hetty the purest delight, and now that they must end, he, too, realised how pleasant they had been, and that he was going to miss them sorely.
"Only seven days?" he went on, musing. "I can hardly believe it; you have let me talk at such length—and I have been so happy."
Hetty clapped her hands together—an old girlish trick of hers. "It's I that have been happy! And not least in knowing that you will do us all credit." She knit her brows. "You are different from all the rest of us, Charles; I cannot explain how. But, sure, there's a Providence in it, that you, who are meant for different fortunes—"
"How different?"
"Why, you will take our kinsman's offer, of course. You will move in a society far above us—go into Parliament—become a great statesman—"
"My dear Hetty, what puts that into your head? I have refused."
"Refused!" She set down the kettle and gazed at him. "Is this
John's doing?" she asked slowly.
"Why should it be John's doing?" He was nettled, and showed it.
"I am old enough to make a choice for myself."
She paid no heed to this disclaimer. "They are perfectly ruthless," she went on.
"Who are ruthless?"
"Father and John. They would compass heaven and earth to make one proselyte; and the strange thing to me is that John at least does it in a cold mechanical way, almost as if his own mind stood outside of the process. Father is set on his inheriting Wroote and Epworth cures, John on saving his own soul; let them come to terms or fight it out between them. But how can it profit Epworth or John's soul that they should condemn you, as they have condemned mother and all of us, to hopeless poverty? What end have they in view? Or have they any? For what service, pray, are you held in reserve?" She paused. "Somehow I think they will not wholly succeed, even though they have done this thing between them. You will fall on your feet; your face is one the world will make friends with. You may serve their purpose, but something of you—your worldly happiness, belike—will slip and escape from the millstones which have ground the rest of us to powder."
She picked up the kettle again and turned her back upon him while she filled the tea-pot at the small table. For the first time in their talks she had spoken bitterly.
"Nevertheless, I assure you, I refused of my own free will."
"Is there such a thing as free will in our family? I never detected it. As babes we were yoked to the chariot to drag Jack's soul up to the doors of salvation. I only rebelled, and—Charles, I am sorry, but not all penitent."
He ignored these last words. "You are quoting from Molly, I think.
She and Jack seldom agree."
"Because, dear soul, she reads that Jack despises while he uses her. He looks upon her as the weak one in the team; he doubts she may break down on the road, and she, too, looks forward to it, though not with any fear."
"For some reason, father allows her to talk to him as no one else does—not even mother. Do you know that one day last summer father and I were discussing Jack and the chance of his ever settling at Epworth; for this is in the old man's thoughts now, almost day and night. We were in the study by the window, and Molly at the table making a fair copy of the morning's work on Job; we did not think she heard us. All of a sudden she looked up and quoted 'Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom and stretch her wings toward the south?' I supposed she was repeating it aloud from her manuscript, but father knew better and swung round upon her. 'Do you presume, then, to know whither or how far Jack will fly?' he demanded. She turned a queer look upon him, not flinching as I expected, and 'I shall see him,' she answered, using Balaam's words; 'I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh.' And with that she dropped her head and went on quietly with her writing. As for father, if you'll believe me, it simply dumbfounded him; he hadn't a word!"
"And I will tell you why. Once on a time that weak darling stood up for me to his face. She would not tell me what happened. But I believe that ever since father has been as nearly afraid of her as of anyone in the world. . . . And now I want a promise. You say you have been happy in these talks of ours; and heaven knows I have been happier than for many a long day. Well, I want you to tell Molly about me—alone, remember—for of them all she only tried to help me, and believes in me still."
"Why, of course I shall."
"And," Hetty smiled, "they have no poet among them now. You might send me some of your verses for a keepsake."
Charles grew suddenly red in the face. "Why—who told you?" he stammered.
"Oh, my dear," she laughed merrily, "one divines it! the more easily for having known the temptation."
He had set down his tea-cup and was standing up now, in his young confusion fingering the sewing she had laid aside.
"What is this you are doing?" he asked, with his eyes on the baby-linen; and though he uttered the first question that came into his head, and merely to cover his blushes, as he asked it the truth came to him, and he blushed more redly than ever.
Hetty blushed too. She saw that he had guessed at length, but she saw him also clothed in a shining innocence. She felt suddenly that, though she might love him better, there were privacies she could not discuss with Charles as with John. And for the moment Charles seemed to her the more distant and mysterious of the two.
What she answered was—"We shall be following you back to Lincolnshire in a few days. I am to stay at Louth, in the house where William has found lodgings for his father—who was born at Louth, you know, and has now determined to end his days there. William will not be with me at first; he has to wind up the business at Lincoln and looks for some unpleasantness, as he has made himself responsible for all the old man's debts. I may even find my way to Wroote before facing Louth."
"To Wroote?"
"As a moth to the old cruel flame, dear. They will not take me in: but I know where to find a bedroom. Women have curious fancies at times; and I feel as if I may die very likely, and I want to see their faces first."
She stepped to him and kissed him hurriedly, hearing her husband's step on the stairs. "Remember to speak with Molly!"
CHAPTER II.
EXTRACTED FROM THE WESLEY CORRESPONDENCE.
1. From Charles Wesley at Oxford to his brother John at Stanton in Gloucestershire.
January 20th, 1727. Poor Sister Hetty! 'twas but a week before I left London that I knew she was at it. Little of that time you may be sure, did I lose, being with her almost continually; I could almost envy myself the doat of pleasure I had crowded within that small space. In a little neat room she had hired, did the good-natured, ingenuous, contented creature watch, and I talk, over a few short days which we both wished had been longer. As yet she lives pretty well, having but herself and honest W. W. to keep, though I fancy there's another a-coming. Brother Sam and sister are very kind to her, and I hope will continue so, for I have cautioned her never to contradict my sister, whom she knows. I'd like to have forgot she begs you'd write to her, at Mrs. Wakeden's in Crown Court, Dean Street, near Soho Square.
2. From Mary Wesley (Molly) to her brother Charles at Oxford (same date).
You were very much mistaken in thinking I took ill your desiring my sister Emily to knit you another pair of gloves. What I meant was to my brother Jack, because he gave her charge to look to my well-doing of his: but I desire you no more to mention your obligation to me for the gloves, for by your being pleased with them I am fully paid.
Dear brother, I beg you not to let the present straits you labour under to narrow your mind, or render you morose or churlish, but rather resign yourself and all your affairs to Him who best knows what is fittest for you, and will never fail to provide for whoever sincerely trusts in Him. I think I may say I have lived in a state of affliction ever since I was born, being the ridicule of mankind and reproach of my family; and I dare not think God deals hardly with me, and though He has set His mark upon me, I still hope my punishment will not be greater than I am able to bear; nay, since God is no respecter of persons, I must and shall be happier in that life than if I had enjoyed all the advantages of this.
My unhappy sister was at Wroote the week after you left us, where she stayed two or three days, and returned again to Louth without seeing my father. Here I must stop, for when I think of her misfortunes, I may say with Edgar, "O fortune! . . ."
3. From Mary Wesley to her brother John. Sent at the same date and under the same cover.
Though I have not the good fortune to be one of your favourite sisters, yet I know you won't grudge the postage now and then, which, if it can't be afforded, I desire that you will let me know, that I may trouble you no further. I am sensible nothing I can say will add either to your pleasure or your profit; and that you are of the same mind is evidently shown by not writing when an opportunity offered. But why should I wonder at any indifference shown to such a despicable person as myself? I should be glad to find that miracle of nature, a friend which not all the disadvantages I labour under would hinder from taking the pains to cultivate and improve my mind; but since God has cut me off from the pleasurable parts of life, and rendered me incapable of attracting the love of my relations, I must use my utmost endeavour to secure an eternal happiness, and He who is no respecter of persons will require no more than He has given. You may now think that I am uncharitable in blaming my relations for want of affection, and I should readily agree with you had I not convincing reasons to the contrary; one of which is that I have always been the jest of the family—and it is not I alone who make this observation, for then it might very well be attributed to my suspicion—but here I will leave it and tell you some news.
Mary Owran was married to-day, and we only wanted your company to make us completely merry; for who can be sad where you are? Please get Miss Betsy to buy me some silk to knit you another pair of gloves, and I don't doubt you will doubly like the colour for the buyer's sake.
My sister Hetty's child is dead, and your godson grows a lovely boy, and will, I hope, talk to you when he sees you: which I should be glad to do now.
4. From Martha Wesley (Patty) to her brother John.
Feb. 7th, 1727.
I must confess you had a better opinion of me than I deserved: for jealousy did indeed suggest that you had very small kindness for me. When you sent the parcel to my sister Lambert, and wrote to her and sister Emme, and not to me, I was much worse grieved than before. Though I cannot possibly be so vain as to think that I do for my own personal merits deserve more love than my sisters, yet can you blame me if I sometimes wish I had been so happy as to have the first place in your heart?
Sister Emme is gone to Lincoln again, of which I'm very glad for her own sake; for she is weak and our misfortunes daily impair her health. Sister Kezzy, too, will have a fair chance of going. I believe if sister Molly stays long at home it will be because she can't get away. It is likely in a few years' time our family may be lessened—perhaps none left but your poor sister Martha, for whose welfare few are concerned.
My father has been at Louth to see sister Wright, who by good providence was brought to bed two days before he got thither; which perhaps might prevent his saying what he otherwise might have said to her; for none that deserves the name of man would say anything to grieve a woman in a condition where grief is often present death to them. I fancy you have heard before now that her child is dead.
Of these letters but a faint echo reached Hetty as she lay in her bed at Louth—a few words transcribed by Charles from the one (No. 2) received by him, and sent with his affectionate inquiries. He added that Molly had also written to Jack, but to what effect he knew not; only that Jack, after reading it in his presence, had 'pish'd' and pocketed it in a huff.
She lay in a darkened room, with her own hopes at their darkest—or rather, their blankest. She had journeyed to Wroote, and from her humble lodging there had written an honest letter to her father, begging only to see her mother or Molly, promising to hold no communication with them if he refused. He had refused, in a curt note of three lines. From Wroote she returned to Louth, to face her trouble alone; for the preliminaries of selling the Lincoln business had brought old Wright's creditors about her husband's ears like a swarm of wasps. Until then they had waited with fair patience: but no sooner did he make a perfectly honest move towards paying them off in a lump than the whole swarm took panic and he was forced to decamp to London to escape the sponging-house. There Uncle Matthew came to the rescue, satisfied immediate claims, and guaranteed the rest. But meanwhile Hetty's child—a boy, as she had prayed—was born, and died on the third day after birth.
She hardly dared to think of it—of the poor mite and the hopes she had built on him. As she had told Charles, she was sorry, but not penitent—at least not wholly penitent. Once she had been wholly penitent: but the tyrannous compulsion of her marriage had eased or deadened her sense of responsibility. Henceforth she had no duty but to make the best of it. So she told herself, and had conscientiously striven to make the best of it. She had even succeeded, up to a point; by shutting herself within doors and busily, incessantly, spinning a life of illusion. She was a penitent—a woman in a book— redeeming her past by good conduct. The worst of it was that her husband declined to help the cheat. He was proud of her, honest man! and had no fancy at all for the role assigned to him, of "all for love, and the world well lost." That she refused to be shown off he set down to sulkiness; and went off of an evening to taverns and returned fuddled. She studied, above all things, to make home bright for him, and ever met him with a smile: and this was good enough, yet not (as it slowly grew clear to her) precisely what he wanted. So she had been driven to build fresh hopes on the unborn babe. He would make all the difference: would win his father back, or at worst give her own life a new foundation for hope. Her son should be a gentleman: she would deny herself and toil and live for him.
And now God had resumed His gift, and her life was blank indeed. She might have another—and another might die. She had never supposed that this one could die, and its death gave her a dreadful feeling of insecurity—as if no child of hers could ever be reared. What then? The prospect of pardon by continued good conduct seemed to her shadowy indeed. Something more was needed. Yes, penitence was needed; real penitence: urgently, she felt the need of it and yet for the life of her could not desire it as she knew it ought to be desired.
She turned from the thought and let her mind dwell on the sentence or two quoted by Charles from Molly's letter. They were peevish sentences, and she did not doubt that the letter to John had been yet more peevish. Life had taught her what some never learn, that folks are not to be divided summarily into good and bad, right and wrong, pleasant and unpleasant. Men and women are not always refined or ennobled by unmerited suffering. They are soured often, sometimes coarsened. Hetty loved Molly far better than she loved John: but in a flash she saw that, not Molly only, but all her sisters who had suffered for John's advancement, would exact the price of their sacrifices in a consuming jealousy to be first in his favour. She saw it so clearly that she pitied him for what would worry him incessantly and be met by him with a patient conscientiousness. He would never understand—could never understand—on what these jealous sisters of his based their claims.
She saw it the more closely because she had no care of her own to stand first with him. She smiled and stretched out an arm along the pillow where the babe was not. Then suddenly she buried her face in it and wept, and being weak, passed from tears into sleep.
CHAPTER III.
Molly's protest against the tyranny of home had long since passed into a mere withholding of assent. She went about her daily task more dutifully than ever. She had always been the household drudge: but now she not only took over all the clerical work upon the Dissertationes in Librum Jobi (for the Rector's right hand was shaken by palsy and the drawings occupied more and more of Johnny Whitelamb's time); she devised new schemes for eking out the family income. She bred poultry. With Johnny's help—he was famous with the spade—she added half an acre to the kitchen garden and planted it. The summer of 1727 proved one of the rainiest within men's memory, and floods covered the face of the country almost to the Parsonage door. "I hope," wrote the Rector to John on June 6th, "I may be able to serve both my cures this summer, or if not, die pleasantly in my last dike." On June 21st he could "make shift to get from Wroote to Epworth by boat." Five days later he was twisted with rheumatism as a result of his Sunday journey to Epworth and back, "being lamed with having my breeches too full of water, partly with a downpour from a thunder-shower, and partly from the wash over the boat. Yet I thank God I was able to preach here in the afternoon. I wish the rain had not reached us on this side Lincoln, but we have it so continual that we have scarce one bank left, and I can't possibly have one quarter of oats in all the levels; but thanks be to God the field-barley and rye are good. We can neither go afoot nor horseback to Epworth, but only by boat as far as Scawsit Bridge and then walk over the common, though I hope it will soon be better."
That week the floods subsided, and on July 4th he wrote again: "My hide is tough, and I think no carrion can kill me. I walked sixteen miles yesterday; and this morning, I thank God, I was not a penny worse. The occasion of this booted walk was to hire a room for myself at Epworth, which I think I have done. You will find your mother much altered. I believe what would kill a cat has almost killed her. I have observed of late little convulsions in her very frequently, which I don't like."
This report frightened John, who wrote back urgently for further particulars. Mrs. Wesley had indeed fallen into a low state of health, occasioned partly (as Kezzy declared in a letter) by "want of clothes or convenient meat," partly by the miasma from the floods. Ague was the commonest of maladies in the Isle of Axholme, and even the labourers fortified themselves against it with opium.
"Dear son John," replied the Rector sardonically, "we received last post your compliments of condolence and congratulation to your mother on the supposition of her near approaching demise, to which your sister Patty will by no means subscribe; for she says she is not so good a philosopher as you are, and that she can't spare her mother yet, if it please God, without great inconveniency. And indeed, though she has now and then some very sick fits, yet I hope the sight of you would revive her. However, when you come you will see a new face of things, my family being now pretty well colonised, and all perfect harmony—much happier, in no small straits, than perhaps we ever were in our greatest affluence."
Molly, while she helped to cook the miserable meals which could not tempt her mother's appetite, or looked abroad upon the desolate floods, saw with absolute clearness that this apparent peace was but the peace of exhaustion. Yet it was true that—thanks to her—the pinch of poverty had relaxed. The larger debts were paid: for some months she had not opened the door to a dunning tradesman. The floods, as by a miracle, had spared her crops and she had a scheme for getting her surplus vegetables conveyed to Epworth market. Already she had opened up a trade in fowls with a travelling dealer. "Molly," wrote her father, "miraculously gets money even in Wroote, and has given the first fruit of her earning to her mother, lending her money, and presenting her with a new cloak of her own buying and making, for which God will bless her."
Her secret dissent did not escape the Rector's eye, so alert for every sign of defiance: but in his expanding sense of success he let it pass. There was another, however, who divined it and watched it anxiously day after dreary day, for it answered a trouble in his own breast.
Johnny Whitelamb was now almost a man grown: but what really separated him from the Johnny Whitelamb of two years ago was no increase in stature or in knowledge. That which grew within him, and still grew, defying all efforts to kill it, was—a doubt. It had been born in him—no bigger then than a grain of mustard-seed—on the day when he sought Hetty to send her to the house where William Wright waited for her answer. Until then the Rector had been to him a divine man, in wisdom and goodness very little lower than the angels. And now—
He fought it hard, at first in terror, at length in cold desperation. But still the doubt grew. And the worst was that Molly guessed his secret. He feared to meet her eye. It seemed to him that he and she were bound in some monstrous conspiracy. He spent hours in wrestling with it. At times he would rise from table on some stammered excuse, rush off to the fields and there, in a hidden corner, fall on his knees and pray, or even lie at full length, his face hidden in the grasses, his body writhing, his ungainly legs twisting and untwisting. And still the doubt grew.
Everything confirmed it. He saw the suffering by which mother and daughters were yoked. He noted the insufficient food, the thin clothing, the wan cheeks, the languid tread. He no longer took these for granted, but looked into their causes. And the Rector's blindness to them, or indifference, became a terror to him—a thing inhuman.
He began to think him mad. Worse, he began to hate him: he, Johnny Whitelamb, who had taken everything at his hands—food, clothing, knowledge, even his faith in God! He accused himself for a monster of ingratitude, whose sins invited the sky to fall and blot him out. And still he could not meet Molly's eyes; still, in spite of checks and set-backs, the doubt grew.
It was almost at its worst one morning in late August, when the Rector invited him to lay by his drawings and walk beside him as far as Froddingham, where he had business to transact. (It was to pay over 5 pounds, and meet a note given by him in the spring to keep Charles in pocket-money.) Had Johnny been in a more charitable mood, the accent in which the old man proffered the invitation would have struck him as pathetic. For the Rector it was indeed a rare confession of weakness. But three weeks before his purblind nag Mettle had stumbled, flung him, trailed him a few yards on the ground with one foot in the stirrup, and come to a standstill with one hoof planted blunderingly on his other foot. It had been a narrow escape, had caused him excruciating pain, and he limped still. To walk, even with a stick, was impossible. But the money must be paid at Froddingham and he would trust no messenger. So he mounted the mare, Bounce, and set forth at a foot-pace, with Johnny striding alongside and noting how the white palsied hand shook on the rein. Johnny noted it without pity: for the doubt was awake and clamorous. If ever he hated his benefactor, he hated him that morning.
The morning was gray, with a blusterous south-west wind of more than summer strength; and the floods had subsided, but the Trent, barely contained within its banks, was running down on a fierce ebb-tide. They reached Althorpe, and while waiting for the horse-boat to cross to Burringham, Johnny found time to wonder at the force of two or three gusts which broke on the lapping water and drove it like white smoke against the bows of a black keel, wind-bound and anchored in mid-channel about fifty yards down-stream.
It turned out that the ferryman, who worked the horse-boat with his eldest son, had himself walked over to Bottesford earlier in the morning: and Johnny felt some uneasiness at finding his place supplied by a boy scarcely fourteen. Mr. Wesley, however, seemed in no apprehension, but coaxed Bounce to embark and stood with her amidships, holding her bridle, as the boat was pushed off. Johnny took his seat, fronting the elder lad, who pulled the stern oar.
They started in a lull of the wind. Johnny's first thought of danger had never been definite, and he had forgotten it—was busy in fact with the doubt—when, half-way across, one of the white squalls swooped down on them and the youngster in the bows, instead of pulling for dear life, dropped his oar with a face of panic.
Johnny felt the jerk, heard the Rector's cry of warning, and in two seconds (he never knew how) had leapt over the stern oar, across the thwarts, past the kicking and terrified Bounce—with whom the Rector was struggling as she threatened to leap overboard—and reached the bows in time to snatch the oar as it slipped over the side. But it had snapped both the thole-pins short off in their sockets and was useless. The boat's nose fell off and they were swept down towards the anchored hulk below. Johnny could only wait for the crash, and he waited: and in those few instants—the doubt being still upon him—bethought him that likely enough the Rector could not swim, or would be disabled by his lameness. And . . . was he sorry? He had not answered this question when the crash came—the ferry-boat striking the very stem of the keel, her gunwale giving way to it with a slow grinding noise, then with a bursting crack as the splinters broke inwards. As it seemed to him, there were two distinct bumps, and between them the boat filled slowly and the mare slid away into the water. He heard voices shouting on board the keel. The water rose to his knees and he sank in it, almost on top of Mr. Wesley. At once he felt the whirl of the current, but not before he had gripped the Rector's collar. The other hand he flung up blindly. By Providence the keel was freighted with sea-coal and low in the water, and as the pair slid past, Johnny's fingers found and gripped the bulwark-coaming. So for a half-minute he hung—his body and the Rector's trailing out almost on the surface with the force of the water, his arm almost dislocated by the strain—until a couple of colliers came running to help and hauled them on board, the Rector first. They had gripped the small boy as the boat sank, and he stood in the bows scared and dripping, but otherwise nothing the worse. His brother, it appeared, could swim like a fish and was already a good hundred yards downstream, not fighting the current, but edging little by little for the home shore. And astern of him battled the mare.
The colliers had a light boat on deck, but with it even in calm water they could have done little to help the poor creature, and on such a stream it was quite useless. They stood watching and discussing her as she turned from time to time, either as the tide carried her or in vain, wild efforts to stem it: the latter, probably, for after some ten minutes (by which time her head had diminished to a black speck in the distance) she seemed to learn wisdom from the example of the swimmer ahead, resisted no longer, and was finally cast ashore and caught by him more than half a mile below.
Johnny, seated on the grimy deck, heard the colliers discussing her struggles, but took no concern in them. His eyes were all for the Rector, who, after the first fit of coughing, lay and panted against his knees, with gaze fastened on the steel-gray sky above.
He had saved his life. But had he really desired to? The action had been instinctive merely: and a moment before he had been speculating on the Rector's death, assenting, almost hoping! Had he translated that assent into deed—had he been given time to obey the wicked whisper in his heart—he would now be the blackest criminal under heaven. God had interposed to save him from this: but was he any the less a sinner in intent?
How had he come to harbour the thought? For now again it was to him unthinkable as of old—yet in his madness he had thought it. There abode the memory, never to be escaped. He looked down on the venerable face, the water-drops yet trickling from the brow, usually tinted with exposure to sun and wind but now pale as old ivory. The old adoration, the old devotion surged back into Johnny's heart, the tide rose to his eyes and overflowed. "My master!" he groaned, "my master!" and a tear fell upon Mr. Wesley's hand.
Whether or not this aroused him, the old man sat up at once and looked about him. He showed no emotion at all.
"Where is the mare?" he asked.
One of the keelmen pointed down-stream, and the little party stared after her in silence until she staggered up the bank.
"All saved?" asked Mr. Wesley again. "My friends, before you put me ashore, I will ask you to kneel with me and give thanks for God's mercy to me a sinner." The men stared at him and at one another, not a little embarrassed. But seeing the Rector and Johnny already on their knees in the grime, they pulled off their caps sheepishly and knelt: and after a moment the frightened youngster in the bows followed suit.
"Almighty God, who aforetime didst uphold Thy great apostle in shipwreck and bring him safe to land, and hast now again interposed an arm to succour two of this company and me, the unworthiest of Paul's successors; though our merits be as nothing in comparison with his, and as nothing the usefulness whereto Thou hast preserved us, we bless Thee that Thy mercy is high and absolute, respecting not persons; we thank Thee for giving back the imperfect lives Thou mightest in justice have brought to an end; and we entreat Thee for grace so to improve the gift as through it to receive more fitly the greater one of everlasting life, through Jesus Christ, our soul's Saviour. Amen.".
He knelt for a minute, praying silently; then arose, dusted his knees and professed himself ready to be rowed ashore. The keelmen slid their deck-boat overside, and presently all embarked and were tided back to shore, the boat taking ground about fifty yards above the bend where Bounce stood shivering, caked in mud to her withers.
The Rector thanked the keelmen in few words while Johnny ran to fetch the mare. They were pulling back when he returned with her. The elder lad invited Mr. Wesley to the ferryman's cottage, to sit and dry his clothes: but he declined.
Johnny helped him to remount. Scarcely a word passed on their homeward way beyond a comment or two on poor Bounce, who had strained her near shoulder in her plunging battle for life and was all but exhausted. At the Parsonage door they parted, still in silence, and Johnny led the mare off to stable. He did not know if Mr. Wesley had observed his emotion, and his own heart was too full of love and remorse for any words.
But an hour later word came to him by Kezzy that her father wished to speak with him in the study. He went at once, wondering, and found the Rector seated as usual before his manuscripts, but alone.
"My lad," he began kindly, "you saved my life to-day."
Johnny attempted to speak, but could not.
"I know what you would say. We owe one another something, eh? But this is a debt which I choose to acknowledge at once. None the less I wish you to understand that although your conduct to-day hastens my proposal, it has been in my head for some time. Whitelamb, would you like to go to Oxford?"
Johnny gasped. "Sir—sir!" he stammered.
Mr. Wesley smiled. "I will speak to Jack. I think it can be managed if he will take you for his pupil, as no doubt he will. You cannot well be poorer than I was on the day when I entered my name at Exeter College. There, go away and think it over! There's no hurry, you understand: if you are to go, I must first of all hammer some Greek into you—eh? What is it?"
For Johnny had cast himself on his knees, and was sobbing aloud.
At supper Molly, to whom her mother had whispered the news, announced it to her sisters, who knew only of the accident and Johnny's hand in the rescue.
"Yes," said she, "we are all proud of him, and shall be prouder before long, when he goes to Oxford!"
"Why to Oxford?" asked Patty, not comprehending, and sought her mother's eyes for the interpretation. Mrs. Wesley smiled.
"Why, to be a great man," Molly went on; "perhaps in time as great as Jack or Charles." Johnny, in his usual seat by the chimney-corner, detected the challenge in her tone, but did not look up.
"Is it true?" persisted Patty. He stared into the fire, blushing furiously.
"It is true." Mrs. Wesley rose, and stepping to him laid a hand on his straggling dark hair. "What is more, he has deserved it, not to-day only but by his goodness over many years. The Lord shall be his illumination," she said gravely, quoting the motto of the University which (amazing thought!) was to be his University. "May the light of His countenance rest upon you, dear son."
She had never called him by that title before. He caught her hand and for the moment, in the boldness of a great love, clasped it between his own. Now he could look across at Molly: and she nodded back at him, her eyes brimful—but behind her tears they gave him absolution and released him from the doubt.