{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_5975/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_5975","id":"gutenberg_5975","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5975","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Novels","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christian fiction","Wingfold, Thomas (Fictitious character) -- Fiction"],"text":"Charles Franks, Charles Aldarondo and the Online Distributed Proofreading\nTeam.\n\n\n\nTHOMAS WINGFOLD, CURATE.\n\nBy George MacDonald, LL.D.\n\nIN THREE VOLUMES.\n\nVOL III.\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nAFTER THE SERMON.\n\n\n\n\n\nAs the sermon drew to a close, and the mist of his emotion began to\ndisperse, individual faces of his audience again dawned out on the\npreacher's ken. Mr. Drew's head was down. As I have always said,\ncertain things he had been taught in his youth, and had practised in\nhis manhood, certain mean ways counted honest enough in the trade,\nhad become to him, regarded from the ideal point of the divine in\nmerchandize--such a merchandize, namely, as the share the son of man\nmight have taken in buying and selling, had his reputed father been\na shop-keeper instead of a carpenter--absolutely hateful, and the\nmemory of them intolerable. Nor did it relieve him much to remind\nhimself of the fact, that he knew not to the full the nature of the\nadvantages he took, for he knew that he had known them such as\nshrunk from the light, not coming thereto to be made manifest. He\nwas now doing his best to banish them from his business, and yet\nthey were a painful presence to his spirit--so grievous to be borne,\nthat the prospect held out by the preacher of an absolute and final\ndeliverance from them by the indwelling presence of the God of all\nliving men and true merchants, was a blessedness unspeakable. Small\nwas the suspicion in the Abbey Church of Olaston that morning, that\nthe well-known successful man of business was weeping. Who could\nonce have imagined another reason for the laying of that round,\ngood-humoured, contented face down on the book-board, than pure\ndrowsiness from lack of work-day interest! Yet there was a human\nsoul crying out after its birthright. Oh, to be clean as a\nmountain-river! clean as the air above the clouds, or on the middle\nseas! as the throbbing aether that fills the gulf betwixt star and\nstar!--nay, as the thought of the Son of Man himself, who, to make\nall things new and clean, stood up against the old battery of\nsin-sprung suffering, withstanding and enduring and stilling the\nrecoil of the awful force wherewith his Father had launched the\nworlds, and given birth to human souls with wills that might become\nfree as his own!\n\nWhile Wingfold had been speaking in general terms, with the race in\nhis mind's, and the congregation in his body's eye, he had yet\nthought more of one soul, with its one crime and its intolerable\nburden, than all the rest: Leopold was ever present to him, and\nwhile he strove to avoid absorption in a personal interest however\njustifiable, it was of necessity that the thought of the most\nburdened sinner he knew should colour the whole of his utterance. At\ntimes indeed he felt as if he were speaking to him immediately--and\nto him only; at others, although then he saw her no more than him,\nthat he was comforting the sister individually, in holding out to\nher brother the mighty hope of a restored purity. And when once more\nhis mind could receive the messages brought home by his eyes, he saw\nupon Helen's face the red sunset of a rapt listening. True it was\nalready fading away, but the eyes had wept, the glow yet hung about\ncheek and forehead, and the firm mouth had forgotten itself into a\ntremulous form, which the stillness of absorption had there for the\nmoment fixed.\n\nBut even already, although he could not yet read it upon her\ncountenance, a snake had begun to lift its head from the chaotic\nswamp which runs a creek at least into every soul, the rudimentary\ndesolation, a remnant of the time when the world was without form\nand void. And the snake said: \"Why, then, did he not speak like that\nto my Leopold? Why did he not comfort him with such a good hope,\nwell-becoming a priest of the gentle Jesus? Or, if he fancied he\nmust speak of confession, why did he not speak of it in plain honest\nterms, instead of suggesting the idea of it so that the poor boy\nimagined it came from his own spirit, and must therefore be obeyed\nas the will of God?\"\n\nSo said the snake, and by the time Helen had walked home with her\naunt, the glow had sunk from her soul, and a gray wintry mist had\nsettled down upon her spirit. And she said to herself that if this\nlast hope in George should fail her, she would not allow the matter\nto trouble her any farther; she was a free woman, and as Leopold had\nchosen other counsellors, had thus declared her unworthy of\nconfidence, and, after all that she had suffered and done for love\nof him, had turned away from her, she would put money in her purse,\nset out for France or Italy, and leave him to the fate, whatever it\nmight be, which his new advisers and his own obstinacy might bring\nupon him. Was the innocent bound to share the shame of the guilty?\nHad she not done enough? Would even her father require more of her\nthan she had already done and endured?\n\nWhen, therefore, she went into Leopold's room, and his eyes sought\nher from the couch, she took no notice that he had got up and\ndressed while she was at church; and he knew that a cloud had come\nbetween them, and that after all she had borne and done for him, he\nand his sister were now farther apart, for the time at least, than\nwhen oceans lay betwixt their birth and their meeting; and he found\nhimself looking back with vague longing even to the terrible old\nhouse of Glaston, and the sharing of their agony therein. His eyes\nfollowed her as she walked across to the dressing-room, and the\ntears rose and filled them, but he said nothing. And the sister who,\nall the time of the sermon, had been filled with wave upon wave of\nwishing--that Poldie could hear this, could hear that, could have\nsuch a thought to comfort him, such a lovely word to drive the\nhorror from his soul, now cast on him a chilly glance, and said\nnever a word of the things to which she had listened with such\nheavings of the spirit-ocean; for she felt, with an instinct more\nrighteous than her will, that they would but strengthen him in his\ndetermination to do whatever the teacher of them might approve. As\nshe repassed him to go to the drawing-room, she did indeed say a\nword of kindness; but it was in a forced tone, and was only about\nhis dinner! His eyes over-flowed, but he shut his lips so tight that\nhis mouth grew grim with determination, and no more tears came.\n\nTo the friend who joined her at the church-door, and, in George\nBascombe's absence, walked with them along Pine Street, Mrs.\nRamshorn remarked that the curate was certainly a most dangerous\nman--particularly for young people to hear--he so confounded all the\nlandmarks of right and wrong, representing the honest man as no\nbetter than the thief, and the murderer as no worse than anybody\nelse--teaching people in fact that the best thing they could do was\nto commit some terrible crime, in order thereby to attain to a\nbetter innocence than without it could ever be theirs. How far she\nmistook, or how far she knew or suspected that she spoke falsely, I\nwill not pretend to know. But although she spoke as she did, there\nwas something, either in the curate or in the sermon, that had\nquieted her a little, and she was less contemptuous in her\ncondemnation of him than usual.\n\nHappily both for himself and others, the curate was not one of those\nwho cripple the truth and blind their own souls by\n\n        some craven scruple\n    Of thinking too precisely on the event--\n    A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom,\n    And ever three parts coward;\n\nand hence, in proportion as he roused the honest, he gave occasion\nto the dishonest to cavil and condemn. Imagine St. Paul having a\nprevision of how he would be misunderstood, AND HEEDING IT!--what\nwould then have become of all those his most magnificent outbursts?\nAnd would any amount of apostolic carefulness have protected him? I\nsuspect it would only have given rise to more vulgar misunderstandings\nand misrepresentations still. To explain to him who loves not, is\nbut to give him the more plentiful material for misinterpretation.\nLet a man have truth in the inward parts, and out of the abundance\nof his heart let his mouth speak. If then he should have ground to\nfear honest misunderstanding, let him preach again to enforce the\ntruth for which he is jealous, and if it should seem to any that the\ntwo utterances need reconciling, let those who would have them consistent\nreconcile them for themselves.\n\nThe reason of George Bascombe's absence from church that morning\nwas, that, after an early breakfast, he had mounted Helen's mare,\nand set out to call on Mr. Hooker before he should have gone to\nchurch. Helen expected him back to dinner, and was anxiously looking\nfor him. So also was Leopold, but the hopes of the two were\ndifferent.\n\nAt length the mare's hoofs echoed through all Sunday Glaston, and\npresently George rode up. The groom took his horse in the street,\nand he came into the drawing-room. Helen hastened to meet him.\n\n\"Well, George?\" she said, anxiously.\n\n\"Oh, it's all right!--will be at least, I am sure. I will tell you\nall about it in the garden after dinner.--Aunt has the good sense\nnever to interrupt us there,\" he added. \"I'll just run and show\nmyself to Leopold: he must not suspect that I am of your party and\nplaying him false. Not that it is false, you know! for two negatives\nmake a positive, and to fool a mad-man is to give him fair play.\"\n\nThe words jarred sorely on Helen's ear.\n\nBascombe hurried to Leopold, and informed him that he had seen Mr.\nHooker, and that all was arranged for taking him over to his place\non Tuesday morning, if by that time he should be able for the\njourney.\n\n\"Why not to-morrow?\" said Leopold. \"I am quite able.\"\n\n\"Oh! I told him you were not very strong. And he wanted a run after\nthe hounds to-morrow. So we judged it better put off till Tuesday.\"\n\nLeopold gave a sigh, and said no more.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nBASCOMBE AND THE MAGISTRATE.\n\n\n\n\n\nAfter dinner, the cousins went to the summer-house, and there George\ngave Helen his report, revealing his plan and hope for Leopold.\n\n\"Such fancies must be humoured, you know, Helen. There is nothing to\nbe gained by opposing them,\" he said.\n\nHelen looked at him with keen eyes, and he returned the gaze. The\nconfidence betwixt them was not perfect: each was doubtful as to the\nthought of the other, and neither asked what it was.\n\n\"A fine old cock is Mr. Hooker!\" said Greorge; \"a jolly,\ngood-natured, brick-faced squire; a tory of course, and a sound\nchurch-man; as simple as a baby, and took everything I told him\nwithout a hint of doubt or objection;--just the sort of man I\nexpected to find him! When I mentioned my name, &c., he found he had\nknown my father, and that gave me a good start. Then I lauded his\navenue, and apologized for troubling him so early and on Sunday too,\nbut said it was a pure work of mercy in which I begged his\nassistance--as a magistrate, I added, lest he should fancy I had\ncome after a subscription. It was a very delicate case, I said, in\nwhich were concerned the children of a man of whom he had, I\nbelieved, at one time known something--General Lingard. 'To be\nsure!' he cried; 'knew him very well; a fine fellow--but hasty,\nsir--hasty in his temper!' I said I had never known him myself, but\none of his children was my cousin; the other was the child of his\nsecond wife, a Hindoo lady unfortunately, and it was about him I\npresumed to trouble him. Then I plunged into the matter at once,\ntelling him that Leopold had had violent brain-fever, brought on by\na horrible drug, the use of which, if use I dare call it, he had\nlearnt in India; and that, although he had recovered from the fever,\nit was very doubtful if ever he would recover from the consequences\nof it, for that he had become the prey of a fixed idea, the hard\ndeposit from a heated imagination. 'And pray what is the idea?'he\nasked. 'Neither more nor less,' I answered, 'than that he is a\nmurderer!'--'God bless me!' he cried, somewhat to my alarm, for I\nhad been making all this preamble to prejudice the old gentleman in\nthe right direction, lest afterwards Leopold's plausibility might be\ntoo much for him. So I echoed the spirit of his exclamation,\ndeclaring it was one of the saddest things I had ever known, that a\nfellow of such sweet and gentle nature, one utterly incapable of\nunkindness, not to say violence, should be so possessed by misery\nand remorse for a phantom-deed, no more his than if he had dreamed\nit, a thing he not only did not do, but never could have done. I had\nnot yet however told him, I said, what was perhaps the saddest point\nin the whole sad story--namely, that the attack had been brought on\nby the news of the actual murder of a lady to whom he had been\npassionately attached; the horror of it had unhinged his reason,\nthen turned and fastened upon his imagination; so that he was now\nconvinced beyond the reach of argument or even the clearest proof,\nthat it was his own hand that drove the knife to her heart. Then I\nrecalled to his memory the case as reported, adding that the fact of\nthe murderer's prolonged evasion of justice, appeared, by some\ncurious legerdemain of his excited fancy, if not to have suggested--\nof that I was doubtful--yet to have ripened his conviction of guilt.\nNow nothing would serve him but he must give himself up,\nconfess--no, that was not a true word in his case!--accuse himself\nof the crime, and meet his fate on the gallows,--'in the hope,\nobserve, my dear sir,' I said, 'of finding her in the other world,\nand there making it up with her!'--'God bless me!' he cried again,\nin a tone of absolute horror. And every now and then, while I spoke,\nhe would ejaculate something; and still as he listened his eyes grew\nmore and more bloodshot with interest and compassion. 'Ah, I see!'\nhe said then; 'you want to send him to a madhouse?--Don't do it,' he\ncontinued, in a tone of expostulation, almost entreaty. 'Poor boy!\nHe may get over it. Let his friends look to him. He has a sister,\nyou say?' I quickly reassured him, telling him such was no one's\ndesire, and saying I would come to the point in a moment, only there\nwas one thing more which had interested me greatly, as revealing how\na brain in such a condition will befool itself, all but generating\ntwo individualities.--There I am afraid I put my foot in it, but he\nwas far too simple to see it was cloven--ha! ha! and I hastened to\nremark that, as a magistrate, he must have numberless opportunities\nof noting similar phenomena. He waved his hand in deprecation, and I\nhastened to remark that, up to a certain point, whatever hint the\nnewspapers had given, Leopold had expanded and connected with every\nother, but that at one part of the story I had found him entirely at\nfault: he could not tell what he did, where he went, or how he had\nfelt, first after the deed was done. He confessed all after that was\na blank until he found himself in bed. But when I told him something\nhe had not seen--which his worship might remember--the testimony\nnamely of the coast-guardsmen--about the fishing-boat with the two\nmen in it--I had here to refresh his memory as to the whole of that\ncircumstance--and did so by handing him the newspaper containing\nit--that was what I made you give me the paper for--I have lost the\nthread of my sentence, but never mind. I told him then something I\nhave not told you yet, Helen, namely, that when I happened to allude\nto that portion of the story, Leopold started up with flashing eyes,\nand exclaimed, 'Now I remember! It all comes back to me as clear as\nday. I remember running down the hill, and jumping into the boat\njust as they shoved off. I was exhausted, and fell down in the\nstern. When I came to myself, the two men were forward: I saw their\nlegs beneath the sails. I thought they would be sure to give me up,\nand at once I slipped overboard. The water revived me, but when I\nreached the shore, I fell down again, and lay there I don't know how\nlong. Indeed I don't remember anything more except very confusedly.'\nThat is what Leopold said, and what I now told Mr. Hooker. Then at\nlast I opened my mind to him as to wherein I ventured to ask his\nassistance; and my petition was, that he would allow me to bring\nLeopold, and would let him go through the form of giving himself up\nto justice. Especially I begged that he would listen to all he had\nto say, and give no sign that he doubted his story. 'And then, sir,'\nI concluded, 'I would leave it to you to do what we cannot--reconcile\nhim to going home instead of to prison.'\n\n\"He sat with his head on his hand for a while, as if pondering some\nweighty question of law. Then he said suddenly: 'It is now almost\nchurch-time. I will think the matter over. You may rely upon me.\nWill you take a seat in my pew and dine with us after?' I excused\nmyself on the ground that I must return at once to poor Leopold, who\nwas anxiously looking for me. And you must forgive me, Helen, and\nnot fancy me misusing Fanny, if I did yield to the temptation of a\nlittle longer ride. I have scarcely more than walked her, with a\ncanter now and then when we had the chance of a bit of turf.\"\n\nHelen assured him with grateful eyes that she knew Fanny was as safe\nwith him as with herself; and she felt such a gush of gratitude\nfollow the revival of hope, that she was nearer being in love with\nher cousin to ever before. Her gratitude inwardly delighted George,\nand he thought the light in her blue eyes lovelier than ever; but\nalthough strougly tempted, he judged it better to delay a formal\nconfession until circumstances should be more comfortable.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE CONFESSION.\n\n\n\n\n\nAll that and the following day Leopold was in spirits for him\nwonderful. On Monday night there came a considerable reaction; he\nwas dejected, worn, and weary. Twelve o'clock the next day was the\nhour appointed for their visit to Mr. Hooker, and at eleven he was\ndressed and ready--restless, agitated, and very pale, but not a whit\nless determined than at first. A drive was the pretext for borrowing\nMrs. Ramshorn's carriage.\n\n\"Why is Mr. Wingfold not coming?\" asked Lingard, anxiously, when it\nbegan to move.\n\n\"I fancy we shall be quite as comfortable without him, Poldie,\" said\nHelen. \"Did you expect him?\"\n\n\"He promised to go with me. But he hasn't called since the time was\nfixed.\"--Here Helen looked out of the window.--\"I can't think why it\nis. I can do my duty without him though,\" continued Leopold, \"and\nperhaps it is just as well.--Do you know, George, since I made up my\nmind, I have seen her but once, and that was last night, and only in\na dream.\"\n\n\"A state of irresolution is one peculiarly open to unhealthy\nimpressions,\" said George, good-naturedly disposing of his long legs\nso that they should be out of the way.\n\nLeopold turned from him to his sister.\n\n\"The strange thing, Helen,\" he said, \"was that I did not feel the\nleast afraid of her, or even abashed before her. 'I see you,' I\nsaid. 'Be at peace. I am coming; and you shall do to me what you\nwill.' And then--what do you think?--O my God! she smiled one of her\nown old smiles, only sad too, very sad, and vanished. I woke, and\nshe seemed only to have just left the room, for there was a stir in\nthe darkness.--Do you believe in ghosts, George?\"\n\nLeopold was not one of George's initiated, I need hardly say.\n\n\"No,\" answered Bascombe.\n\n\"I don't wonder. I can't blame you, for neither did I once. But just\nwait till you have made one, George!\"\n\n\"God forbid!\" exclaimed Bascombe, a second time forgetting himself.\n\n\"Amen!\" said Leopold: \"for after that there's no help but be one\nyourself, you know.\"\n\n\"If he would only talk like that to old Hooker!\" thought George. \"It\nwould go a long way to forestall any possible misconception of the\ncase.\"\n\n\"I can't think why Mr. Wingfold did not come yesterday,\" resumed\nLeopold. \"I made sure he would.\"\n\n\"Now, Poldie, you mustn't talk,\" said Helen, \"or you'll be exhausted\nbefore we get to Mr. Hooker's.\"\n\n\"She did not wish the non-appearance of the curate on Monday to be\nclosely inquired into. His company at the magistrate's was by all\npossible means to be avoided. George had easily persuaded Helen,\nmore easily than he expected, to wait their return in the carriage,\nand the two men were shown into the library, where the magistrate\npresently joined them. He would have shaken hands with Leopold as\nwell as George, but the conscious felon drew back.\n\n\"No, sir; excuse me,\" he said. \"Hear what I have to tell you first;\nand if after that you will shake hands with me, it will be a\nkindness indeed. But you will not! you will not!\"\n\nWorthy Mr. Hooker was overwhelmed with pity at sight of the worn\nsallow face with the great eyes, in which he found every appearance\nconfirmatory of the tale wherewith Bascombe had filled and\nprejudiced every fibre of his judgment. He listened in the kindest\nway while the poor boy forced the words of his confession from his\nthroat. But Leopold never dreamed of attributing his emotion to any\nother cause than compassion for one who had been betrayed into such\na crime. It was against his will, for he seemed now bent, even to\nunreason, on fighting every weakness, that he was prevailed upon to\ntake a little wine. Having ended, he sat silent, in the posture of\none whose wrists are already clasped by the double bracelet of\nsteel.\n\nNow Mr. Hooker had thought the thing out in church on the Sunday;\nand after a hard run at the tail of a strong fox over a rough\ncountry on the Monday, and a good sleep well into the morning of the\nTuesday, could see no better way. His device was simple enough.\n\n\"My dear young gentleman,\" he said, \"I am very sorry for you, but I\nmust do my duty.\"\n\n\"That, sir, is what I came to you for,\" answered Leopold, humbly.\n\n\"Then you must consider yourself my prisoner. The moment you, are\ngone, I shall make notes of your deposition, and proceed to arrange\nfor the necessary formalities. As a mere matter of form, I shall\ntake your own bail in a thousand pounds to surrender when called\nupon.\"\n\n\"But I am not of age, and haven't got a thousand pounds,\" said\nLeopold.\n\n\"Perhaps Mr. Hooker will accept my recognizance in the amount?\" said\nBascombe.\n\n\"Certainly,\" answered Mr. Hooker, and wrote something, which\nBascombe signed.\n\n\"You are very good, George,\" said Leopold. \"But you know I can't run\naway if I would,\" he added with a pitiful attempt at a smile.\n\n\"I hope you will soon be better,\" said the magistrate kindly.\n\n\"Why such a wish, sir?\" returned Leopold, almost reproachfully, and\nthe good man stood abashed before him.\n\nHe thought of it afterwards, and was puzzled to know how it was.\n\n\"You must hold yourself in readiness,\" he said, recovering himself\nwith an effort, \"to give yourself up at any moment. And, rememher, I\nshall call upon you when I please, every week, perhaps, or oftener,\nto see that you are safe. Your aunt is an old friend of mine, and\nthere will be no need of explanations. This turns out to be no\ncommon case, and after hearing the whole, I do not hesitate to offer\nyou my hand.\"\n\nLeopold was overcome by his kindness, and withdrew speechless, but\ngreatly relieved.\n\nSeveral times during the course of his narrative, its apparent\ntruthfulness and its circumstantiality went nigh to stagger Mr.\nHooker; but a glance at Bascombe's face, with its half-amused smile,\ninstantly set him right again, and he thought with dismay how near\nhe had been to letting himself be fooled by a madman.\n\nAgain in the carriage, Leopold laid his head on Helen's shoulder,\nand looked up in her face with such a smile as she had never seen on\nhis before. Certainly there was something in confession--if only\nenthusiasts like Mr. Wingfold would not spoil all by pushing things\nto extremes and turning good into bad!\n\nLeopold was yet such a child, had so little occupied himself with\nthings about him, and had been so entirely taken up with his\npassion, and the poetry of existence unlawfully forced, that if his\nknowledge of the circumstances of Emmeline's murder had depended on\nthe newspapers, he would have remained in utter ignorance concerning\nthem. From the same causes he was so entirely unacquainted with the\nmodes of criminal procedure, that the conduct of the magistrate\nnever struck him as strange, not to say illegal. And so strongly did\nhe feel the good man's kindness and sympathy, that his comfort from\nmaking a clean breast of it was even greater than he expected.\nBefore they reached home he was fast asleep. When laid on his couch,\nhe almost fell asleep again, and Helen saw him smile as he slept.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nTHE MASK.\n\n\n\n\n\nBut although such was George Bascombe's judgment of Leopold, and\nsuch his conduct of his affair, he could not prevent the recurrent\nintrusion of the flickering doubt which had showed itself when first\nhe listened to the story. Amid all the wildness of the tale there\nwas yet a certain air, not merely of truthfulness in the\nnarrator--that was not to be questioned--but of verisimilitude in\nthe narration, which had its effect, although it gave rise to no\nconscious exercise of discriminating or ponderating faculty.\nLeopold's air of conviction also, although of course that might well\naccompany the merest invention rooted in madness, yet had its force,\npersistently as George pooh-poohed it--which he did the more\nstrenuously from the intense, even morbid abhorrence of his nature\nto being taken in, and having to confess himself of unstable\nintellectual equilibrium. Possibly this was not the only kind of\nthing in which the sensitiveness of a vanity he would himself have\ndisowned, had rendered him unfit for perceiving the truth. Nor do I\nknow how much there may be to choose between the two shames--that of\naccepting what is untrue, and that of refusing what is true.\n\nThe second time he listened to Leopold's continuous narrative, the\ndoubt returned with more clearness and less flicker: there was such\na thing as being over-wise: might he not be taking himself in with\nhis own incredulity? Ought he not to apply some test? And did\nLeopold's story offer any means of doing so?--One thing, he then\nfound, had been dimly haunting his thoughts ever since he heard it:\nLeopold affirmed that he had thrown his cloak and mask down an old\npit-shaft, close by the place of murder: if there was such a shaft,\ncould it be searched?--Recurring doubt at length so wrought upon his\nmind, that he resolved to make his holiday excursion to that\nneighbourhood, and there endeavour to gain what assurance of any\nsort might be to be had. What end beyond his own possible\nsatisfaction the inquiry was to answer he did not ask himself. The\nrestless spirit of the detective, so often conjoined with\nindifference to what is in its own nature true, was at work in\nhim--but that was not all: he must know the very facts, if possible,\nof whatever concerned Helen. I shall not follow his proceedings\nclosely: it is with their reaction upon Leopold that I have to do.\n\nThe house where the terrible thing took place was not far from a\nlittle moorland village. There Bascombe found a small inn, where he\ntook up his quarters, pretending to be a geologist out for a\nholiday. He soon came upon the disused shaft.\n\nThe inn was a good deal frequented in the evenings by the colliers\nof the district--a rough race, but not beyond the influences of such\nan address, mingled of self-assertion and good fellowship, as\nBascombe brought to bear upon them, for he had soon perceived that\namongst them he might find the assistance he wanted. In the course\nof conversation, therefore, he mentioned the shaft, on which he\npretended to have come in his rambles. Remarking on the danger of\nsuch places, he learned that this one served for ventilation, and\nwas still accessible below from other workings. Thereafter he begged\npermission to go down one of the pits, on pretext of examining the\ncoal-strata, and having secured for his guide one of the most\nintelligent of those whose acquaintance he had made at the inn,\npersuaded him, partly by expressions of incredulity because of the\ndistance between, to guide him to the bottom of the shaft whose\naccessibility he maintained. That they were going in the right\ndirection, he had the testimony of the little compass he carried at\nhis watch-chain, and at length he saw a faint gleam before him. When\nat last he raised his head, wearily bent beneath the low roofs of\nthe passages, and looked upwards, there was a star looking down at\nhim out of the sky of day! But George never wasted time in staring\nat what was above his head, and so began instantly to search about\nas if examining the indications of the strata. Was it possible?\nCould it be? There was a piece of black something that was not coal,\nand seemed textile! It was a half-mask, for there were the\neye-holes in it! He caught it up and hurried it into his bag--not so\nquickly but that the haste set his guide speculating. And Bascombe\nsaw that the action was noted. The man afterwards offered to carry\nhis bag, but he would not allow him.\n\nThe next morning he left the place and returned to London, taking\nGlaston, by a detour, on his way. A few questions to Leopold drew\nfrom him a description of the mask he had worn, entirely\ncorresponding with the one George had found; and at length he was\nsatisfied that there was truth more than a little in Leopold's\nconfession. It was not his business, however, he now said to\nhimself, to set magistrates right. True, he had set Mr. Hooker wrong\nin the first place, but he had done it in good faith, and how could\nhe turn traitor to Helen and her brother? Besides, he was sure the\nmagistrate himself would be anything but obliged to him for opening\nhis eyes! At the same time Leopold's fanatic eagerness after\nconfession might drive the matter further, and if so, it might\nbecome awkward for him. He might be looked to for the defence, and\nwere he not certain that his guide had marked his concealment of\nwhat he had picked up, he might have ventured to undertake it, for\ncertainly it would have been a rare chance for a display of the\nforensic talent he believed himself to possess; but as it was, the\nmoment he was called to the bar--which would be within a\nfortnight--he would go abroad, say to Paris, and there, for twelve\nmonths or so, await events.\n\nWhen he disclosed to Helen his evil success in the coalpit, it was\nbut the merest film of a hope it destroyed, for she KNEW that her\nbrother was guilty. George and she now felt that they were linked by\nthe possession of a common, secret.\n\nBut the cloak had been found a short time before, and was in the\npossession of Emmeline's mother. That mother was a woman of strong\npassions and determined character. The first shock of the\ncatastrophe over, her grief was almost supplanted by a rage for\nvengeance, in the compassing of which no doubt she vaguely imagined\nshe would be doing something to right her daughter. Hence the\nprotracted concealment of the murderer was bitterness to her soul,\nand she vowed herself to discovery and revenge as the one business\nof her life. In this her husband, a good deal broken by the fearful\nevent, but still more by misfortunes of another kind which had begun\nto threaten him, offered her no assistance, and indeed felt neither\nher passion urge him, nor her perseverance hold him to the pursuit.\n\nIn the neighbourhood her mind was well known, and not a few found\ntheir advantage in supplying her passion with the fuel of hope. Any\nhint of evidence, however small, the remotest suggestion even\ntowards discovery, they would carry at once to her, for she was an\nopen-handed woman, and in such case would give with a profusion\nthat, but for the feeling concerned, would have been absurd, and did\nexpose her to the greed of every lying mendicant within reach of\nher. Not unnaturally, therefore, it had occurred to a certain\ncollier to make his way to the bottom of the shaft, on the\nchance--hardly of finding, but of being enabled to invent something\nworth reporting; and there, to the very fooling of his barren\nexpectation, he had found the cloak.\n\nThe mother had been over to Holland, where she had instituted\nunavailing inquiries in the villages along the coast and among the\nislands, and had been home but a few days when the cloak was carried\nto her. In her mind it immediately associated itself with the\ncostumes of the horrible ball, and at once she sought the list of\nher guests thereat. It was before her at the very moment when the\nman, who had been Bascombe's guide, sent in to request an interview,\nthe result of which was to turn her attention for the time in\nanother direction.--Who might the visitor to the mine have been?\n\nLittle was to be gathered in the neighbourhood beyond the facts that\nthe letters G. B. were on his carpet-bag, and that a scrap of torn\nenvelope bore what seemed the letters mple. She despatched the poor\nindications to an inquiry-office in London.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nFURTHER DECISION.\n\n\n\n\n\nThe day after his confession to Mr. Hooker, a considerable re-action\ntook place in Lingard. He did not propose to leave his bed, and lay\nexhausted. He said he had caught cold. He coughed a little; wondered\nwhy Mr. Wingfold did not come to see him, dozed a good deal, and\noften woke with a start. Mrs. Ramshorn thought Helen ought to make\nhim get up: nothing, she said, could be worse for him than lying in\nbed; but Helen thought, even if her aunt were right, he must be\nhumoured. The following day Mr. Hooker called, inquired after him,\nand went up to his room to see him. There he said all he could think\nof to make him comfortable; repeated that certain preliminaries had\nto be gone through before the commencement of the prosecution; said\nthat while these went on, it was better he should be in his sister's\ncare than in prison, where, if he went at once, he most probably\nwould die before the trial came on; that in the meantime he was\nresponsible for him; that, although he had done quite right in\ngiving himself up, he must not let what was done and could no more\nbe helped, prey too much upon his mind, lest it should render him\nunable to give his evidence with proper clearness, and he should be\njudged insane and sent to Broadmoor, which would be frightful. He\nended by saying that he had had great provocation, and that he was\ncertain the judge would consider it in passing sentence, only he\nmust satisfy the jury there had been no premeditation.\n\n\"I will not utter a word to excuse myself, Mr. Hooker,\" replied\nLeopold.\n\nThe worthy magistrate smiled sadly, and went away, if possible, more\nconvinced of the poor lad's insanity.\n\nThe visit helped Leopold over that day, but when the next also\npassed, and neither did Wingfold appear, nor any explanation of his\nabsence reach him, he made up his mind to act again for himself.\n\nThe cause of the curate's apparent neglect, though ill to find, was\nnot far to seek.\n\nOn the Monday, he had, upon some pretext or other, been turned away;\non the Tuesday, he had been told that Mr. Lingard had gone for a\ndrive; on the Wednesday, that he was much too tired to be seen; and\nthereupon had at length judged it better to leave things to right\nthemselves. If Leopold did not want to see him, it would be of no\nuse by persistence to force his way to him; while on the other hand,\nif he did want to see him, he felt convinced the poor fellow would\nmanage to have his own way somehow.\n\nThe next morning after he had thus resolved, Leopold declared\nhimself better, and got up and dressed. He then lay on the sofa and\nwaited as quietly as he could until Helen went out--Mr, Faber\ninsisting she should do so every day. It was no madness, but a\nburning desire for life, coupled with an utter carelessness of that\nwhich is commonly called life, that now ruled his behaviour. He tied\nhis slippers on his feet, put on his smoking-cap, crept unseen from\nthe house, and took the direction, of the Abbey. The influence of\nthe air--by his weakness rendered intoxicating, the strange look of\neverything around him, the nervous excitement of every human\napproach, kept him up until he reached the churchyard, across which\nhe was crawling, to find the curate's lodging, when suddenly his\nbrain seemed to go swimming away into regions beyond the senses. He\nattempted to seat himself on a grave-stone, but lost consciousness,\nand fell at full length between that and the next one.\n\nWhen Helen returned, she was horrified to find that he had\ngone--when, or whither nobody knew: no one had missed him. Her first\nfear was the river, but her conscience enlightened her, and her\nshame could not prevent her from seeking him at the curate's. In her\nhaste she passed him where he lay.\n\nShown into the curate's study, she gave a hurried glance around, and\nher anxiety became terror again.\n\n\"Oh! Mr. Wingfold,\" she cried, \"where is Leopold?\"\n\n\"I have not seen him,\" replied the curate, turning pale.\n\n\"Then he has thrown himself in the river!\" cried Helen, and sank on\na chair.\n\nThe curate caught up his hat.\n\n\"You wait here,\" he said. \"I will go and look for him.\"\n\nBut Helen rose, and, without another word, they set off together,\nand again entered the churchyard. As they hurried across it, the\ncurate caught sight of something on the ground, and, springing\nforward, found Leopold.\n\n\"He is dead!\" cried Helen, in an agony, when she saw him stop and\nstoop.\n\nHe looked dead indeed; but what appalled her the most reassured\nWingfold a little: blood had flowed freely from a cut on his\neyebrow.\n\nThe curate lifted him, no hard task, out of the damp shadow, and\nlaid him on the stone, which was warm in the sun, with his head on\nHelen's lap, then ran to order the carriage, and hastened back with\nbrandy. They got a little into his mouth, but he could not swallow\nit. Still it seemed to do him good, for presently he gave a deep\nsigh; and just then they heard the carriage stop at the gate.\nWingfold took him up, carried him to it, got in with him in his\narms, and held him on his knees until he reached the manor house,\nwhen he carried him upstairs and laid him on the sofa. When they had\nbrought him round a little, he undressed him and put him to bed.\n\n\"Do not leave me,\" murmured Leopold, just as Helen entered the room,\nand she heard it.\n\nWingfold looked to her for the answer he was to make. Her bearing\nwas much altered: she was both ashamed and humbled.\n\n\"Yes, Leopold,\" she said, \"Mr. Wingfold will, I am sure, stay with\nyou as long as he can.\"\n\n\"Indeed I will,\" assented the curate. \"But I must run for Mr. Faber\nfirst.\"\n\n\"How did I come here?\" asked Leopold, opening his eyes large upon\nHelen after swallowing a spoonful of the broth she held to his lips.\n\nBut, before she could answer him, he turned sick, and by the time\nthe doctor came was very feverish. Faber gave the necessary\ndirections, and Wingfold walked back with him to get his\nprescription made up.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nTHE CURATE AND THE DOCTOR.\n\n\n\n\n\n\"There is something strange about that young man's illness,\" said\nFaber, as soon as they had left the house. \"I fancy you know more\nthan you can tell, and if so, then I have committed no indiscretion\nin saying as much.\"\n\n\"Perhaps it might be an indiscretion to acknowledge as much\nhowever,\" said the curate with a smile.\n\n\"You are right. I have not been long in the place,\" returned Faber,\n\"and you had no opportunity of testing me. But I am indifferent\nhonest as well as you, though I don't go you in everything.\"\n\n\"People would have me believe you don't go with me in anything.\"\n\n\"They say as much--do they?\" returned Faber with some annoyance. \"I\nthought I had been careful not to trespass on your preserves.\"\n\n\"As for preserves, I don't know of any,\" answered the curate. \"There\nis no true bird in the grounds that won't manage somehow to escape\nthe snare of the fowler.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said the doctor, \"I know nothing about God and all that kind\nof thing, but, though I don't think I'm a coward exactly either, I\nknow I should like to have your pluck.\"\n\n\"I haven't got any pluck,\" said the curate.\n\n\"Tell that to the marines,\" said Faber. \"I daren't go and say what I\nthink or don't think, even in the bedroom of my least orthodox\npatient--at least, if I do, I instantly repent it--while you go on\nsaying what you really believe Sunday after Sunday!--How you can\nbelieve it, I don't know, and it's no business of mine.\"\n\n\"Oh yes, it is!\" returned Wingfold. \"But as to the pluck, it may be\na man's duty to say in the pulpit what he would be just as wrong to\nsay by a sick-bed.\"\n\n\"That has nothing to do with the pluck! That's all I care about.\"\n\n\"It has everything to do with what you take for pluck. My pluck is\nonly Don Worm.\"\n\n\"I don't know what you mean by that.\"\n\n\"It's Benedick's name, in Much Ado about Nothing, for the\nconscience. MY pluck is nothing but my conscience.\"\n\n\"It's a damned fine thing to have anyhow, whatever name you put upon\nit!\" said Faber.\n\n\"Excuse me if I find your epithet more amusing than apt,\" said\nWingfold, laughing.\n\n\"You are quite right,\" said Faber. \"I apologize.\"\n\n\"As to the pluck again,\" Wingfold resumed, \"--if you think of this\none fact--that my whole desire is to believe in God, and that the\nonly thing I can be sure of sometimes is that, if there be a God,\nnone but an honest man will ever find him, you will not then say\nthere is much pluck in my speaking the truth?\"\n\n\"I don't see that that makes it a hair easier, in the face of such a\nset of gaping noodles as--\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon:--there is more lack of conscience than of brains\nin the Abbey of a Sunday, I fear.\"\n\n\"Well, all I have to say is, I can't for the life of me see what you\nwant to believe in a God for! It seems to me the world would go\nrather better without any such fancy. Look here now: there is young\nSpenser--out there at Harwood--a patient of mine. His wife died\nyesterday--one of the loveliest young creatures you ever saw. The\npoor fellow is as bad about it as fellow can be. Well, he's one of\nyour sort, and said to me the other day, just as you would have him,\n'It's the will of God,' he said, 'and we must hold our peace.'--'Don't\ntalk to me about God,' I said, for I couldn't stand it. 'Do you mean\nto tell me that, if there was a God, he would have taken such a lovely\ncreature as that away from her husband and her helpless infant, at the\nage of two and twenty? I scorn to believe it.'\"\n\n\"What did he say to that?\"\n\n\"He turned as white as death, and said never a word.\"\n\n\"Ah, you forgot that you were taking from him his only hope of\nseeing her again!\"\n\n\"I certainly did not think of that,\" said Faber.\n\n\"Even then,\" resumed Wingfold, \"I should not say you were wrong, if\nyou were prepared to add that you had searched every possible region\nof existence, and had found no God; or that you had tried every\ntheory man had invented, or even that you were able to invent\nyourself, and had found none of them consistent with the being of a\nGod. I do not say that then you would be right in your judgment, for\nanother man, of equal weight, might have had a different experience.\nI only say, I would not then blame you. But you must allow it a very\nserious thing to assert as a conviction, without such grounds as the\nassertor has pretty fully satisfied himself concerning, what COULD\nonly drive the sting of death ten times deeper.\"\n\nThe doctor was silent.\n\n\"I doubt not you spoke in a burst of indignation; but it seems to me\nthe indignation of a man unaccustomed to ponder the things\nconcerning which he expresses such a positive conviction.\"\n\n\"You are wrong there,\" returned Faber; \"for I was brought up in the\nstraitest sect of the Pharisees, and know what I am saying.\"\n\n\"The straitest sect of the Pharisees can hardly be the school in\nwhich to gather any such idea of a God as one could wish to be a\nreality.\"\n\n\"They profess to know.\"\n\n\"Is that any argument of weight, they and their opinions being what\nthey are?--If there be a God, do you imagine he would choose any\nstrait sect under the sun to be his interpreters?\"\n\n\"But the question is not of the idea of a God, but of the existence\nof any, seeing, if he exists, he must be such as the human heart\ncould never accept as God, inasmuch as he at least permits, if not\nhimself enacts cruelty. My argument to poor Spenser remains--however\nunwise or indeed cruel it may have been.\"\n\n\"I grant it a certain amount of force--as much exactly as had gone\nto satisfy the children whom I heard the other day agreeing that Dr.\nFaber was a very cruel man, for he pulled out nurse's tooth, and\ngave poor little baby such a nasty, nasty powder!\"\n\n\"Is that a fair parallel? I must look at it.\"\n\n\"I think it is. What you do is often unpleasant, sometimes most\npainful, but it does not follow that you are a cruel man, and a\nhurter instead of a healer of men.\"\n\n\"I think there is a fault in the analogy,\" said Faber. \"For here am\nI nothing but a slave to laws already existing, and compelled to\nwork according to them. It is not my fault therefore that the\nremedies I have to use are unpleasant. But if there be a God, he has\nthe matter in his own hands.\"\n\n\"There is weight and justice in your argument, which may well make\nthe analogy appear at first sight false. But is there no theory\npossible that should make it perfect?\"\n\n\"I do not see how there should be any. For, if you say God is under\nany such compulsion as I am under, then surely the house is divided\nagainst itself, and God is not God any more.\"\n\n\"For my part,\" said the curate, \"I think I COULD believe in a God\nwho did but his imperfect best: in one all power, and not all\ngoodness, I could not believe. But suppose that the design of God\ninvolved the perfecting of men as the CHILDREN OF GOD--'I said ye\nare gods,'--that he would have them partakers of his own blessedness\nin kind--be as himself;--suppose his grand idea could not be\ncontented with creatures perfect ONLY by his gift, so far as that\nshould reach, and having no willing causal share in the perfection,\nthat is, partaking not at all of God's individuality and free-will\nand choice of good; then suppose that suffering were the only way\nthrough which the individual could be set, in separate and\nself-individuality, so far apart from God, that it might WILL, and\nso become a partaker of his singleness and freedom;--and suppose\nthat this suffering must be and had been initiated by God's taking\nhis share, and that the infinitely greater share;--suppose next,\nthat God saw the germ of a pure affection, say in your friend and\nhis wife, but saw also that it was a germ so imperfect and weak that\nit could not encounter the coming frosts and winds of the world\nwithout loss and decay, while, if they were parted now for a few\nyears, it would grow and strengthen and expand, to the certainty of\nan infinitely higher and deeper and keener love through the endless\nages to follow--so that by suffering should come, in place of\ncontented decline, abortion, and death, a troubled birth of joyous\nresult in health and immortality;--suppose all this, and what then?\"\n\nFaber was silent a moment, then answered,\n\n\"Your theory has but one fault: it is too good to be true.\"\n\n\"My theory leaves plenty of difficulty, but has no such fault as\nthat. Why, what sort of a God would content you, Mr. Faber? The one\nidea is too bad, the other too good to be true. Must you expand and\npare until you get one exactly to the measure of yourself ere you\ncan accept it as thinkable or possible? Why, a less God than that\nwould not rest your soul a week. The only possibility of believing\nin a God seems to me to lie in finding an idea of a God large\nenough, grand enough, pure enough, lovely enough to be fit to\nbelieve in.\"\n\n\"And have you found such--may I ask?\"\n\n\"I think I am finding such.\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"In the man of the New Testament. I have thought a little more about\nthese things, I fancy, than you have, Mr. Faber. I may come to be\nsure of something; I don't see how a man can ever be sure of\nNOTHING.\"\n\n\"Don't suppose me quite dumbfoundered, though I can't answer you off\nhand,\" said Mr. Faber, as they reached his door.--\"Come in with me,\nand I will make up the medicine myself; it will save time. There are\na thousand difficulties,\" he resumed in the surgery, \"some of them\nspringing from peculiar points that come before one of my\nprofession, which I doubt if you would be able to meet so readily.\nBut about this poor fellow, Lingard. You know Glaston gossip says he\nis out of his mind.\"\n\n\"If I were you, Mr. Faber, I would not take pains to contradict it.\nHe is not out of his mind, but has such trouble in it as might well\ndrive him out.--Don't you even hint at that, though.\"\n\n\"I understand,\" said Faber.\n\n\"If doctor and minister did understand each other and work\ntogether,\" said Wingfold, \"I fancy a good deal more might be done.\"\n\n\"I don't doubt it.--What sort of fellow is that cousin of\ntheirs--Bascombe is his name, I believe?\"\n\n\"A man to suit you, I should think,\" said the curate; \"a man with a\nmost tremendous power of believing in nothing.\"\n\n\"Come, come!\" returned the doctor, \"you don't know half enough about\nme to tell what sort of man I should like or dislike.\"\n\n\"Well, all I will say more of Bascombe is, that if he were not\nconceited he would be honest; and if he were as honest as he\nbelieves himself, he would not be so ready to judge every one\ndishonest who does not agree with him.\"\n\n\"I hope we may have another talk soon,\" said the doctor, searching\nfor a cork. \"Some day I will tell you a few things that may stagger\nyou.\"\n\n\"Likely enough: I am only learning to walk yet,\" said Wingfold.\n\"But a man may stagger and not fall, and I am ready to hear anything\nyou choose to tell me.\"\n\nFaber handed him the bottle, and he took his leave.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nHELEN AND THE CURATE.\n\n\n\n\n\nBefore the morning Leopold lay wound in the net of a low fever,\nalmost as ill as ever, but with this difference, that his mind was\nfar less troubled, and that even his most restless dreams no longer\nscared him awake to a still nearer assurance of misery. And yet,\nmany a time, as she watched by his side, it was excruciatingly plain\nto Helen that the stuff of which his dreams were made was the last\nprocess to the final execution of the law. She thought she could\nfollow it all in his movements and the expressions of his\ncountenance. At a certain point, the cold dew always appeared on his\nforehead, after which invariably came a smile, and he would be quiet\nuntil near morning, when the same signs again appeared. Sometimes he\nwould murmur prayers, and sometimes it seemed to Helen that he must\nfancy himself talking face to face with Jesus, for the look of\nblessed and trustful awe upon his countenance was amazing in its\nbeauty.\n\nFor Helen herself, she was prey to a host of changeful emotions. At\none time she accused herself bitterly of having been the cause of\nthe return of his illness; the next a gush of gladness would swell\nher heart at the thought that now she had him at least safer for a\nwhile, and that he might die and so escape the whole crowd of\nhorrible possibilities. For George's manipulation of the magistrate\ncould but delay the disclosure of the truth; even should no\ndiscovery be made, Leopold must at length suspect a trick, and that\nwould at once drive him to fresh action.\n\nBut amongst the rest, a feeling which had but lately begun to\nindicate its far-off presence now threatened to bring with it a\ndeeper and more permanent sorrow: it became more and more plain to\nher that she had taken the evil part against the one she loved best\nin the world; that she had been as a Satan to him; had driven him\nback, stood almost bodily in the way to turn him from the path of\npeace. Whether the path he had sought to follow was the only one or\nnot, it was the only one he knew; and that it was at least A true\none, was proved by the fact that he had already found in it the\nbeginnings of the peace he sought; while she, for the avoidance of\nshame and pity, for the sake of the family, as she had said to\nherself, had pursued a course which if successful, would at best\nhave resulted in shutting him up, as in a madhouse, with his own\ninborn horrors, with vain remorse, and equally vain longing. Her\nconscience, now that her mind was quieter, from the greater distance\nto which the threatening peril had again withdrawn, had taken the\nopportunity of speaking louder. And she listened--but still with\none question ever presented: Why might he not appropriate the\nconsolations of the gospel without committing the suicide of\nsurrender? She could not see that confession was the very door of\nrefuge and safety, towards which he must press.\n\nGeorge's absence was now again a relief, and while she feared and\nshrank from the severity of Wingfold, she could not help a certain\nindiscribable sense of safety in his presence--at least so long as\nLeopold was too ill to talk.\n\nFor the curate, he became more and more interested in the woman who\ncould love so strongly, and yet not entirely, who suffered and must\nstill suffer so much, and who a faith even no greater than his own\nmight render comparatively blessed. The desire to help her grew and\ngrew in him, but he could see no way of reaching her. And then he\nbegan to discover one peculiar advantage belonging to the little\nopen chamber of the pulpit--open not only or specially to heaven\nabove, but to so many of the secret chambers of the souls of the\ncongregation. For what a man dares not, could not if he dared, and\ndared not if he could, say to another, even at the time and in the\nplace fittest of all, he can say thence, open-faced before the whole\ncongregation; and the person in need thereof may hear it without\numbrage, or the choking husk of individual application, irritating\nto the rejection of what truth may lie in it for him. Would that our\npulpits were all in the power of such men as by suffering know the\nhuman, and by obedience the divine heart! Then would the office of\ninstruction be no more mainly occupied by the press, but the faces\nof true men would everywhere be windows for the light of the Spirit\nto enter other men's souls, and the voice of their words would\nfollow with the forms of what truth they saw, and the power of the\nLord would speed from heart to heart. Then would men soon understand\nthat not the form of even soundest words availeth anything, but a\nnew creature.\n\nWhen Wingfold was in the pulpit, then, he could speak as from the\nsecret to the secret; but elsewhere he felt, in regard to Helen,\nlike a transport-ship filled with troops, which must go sailing\naround the shores of an invaded ally, in frustrate search for a\nlanding. Oh, to help that woman, that the light of life might go up\nin her heart, and her cheek bloom again with the rose of peace! But\nnot a word could he speak in her presence, for he heard everything\nbe would have said as he thought it would sound to her, and\ntherefore he had no utterance. Is it an infirmity of certain kinds\nof men, or a wise provision for their protection, that the brightest\nforms the truth takes in their private cogitations seem to lose half\ntheir lustre and all their grace when uttered in the presence of an\nunreceptive nature, and they hear, as it were, their own voice\nreflected in a poor, dull, inharmonious echo, and are disgusted?\n\nBut, on the other hand, ever in the pauses of the rushing, ever in\nthe watery gleams of life that broke through the clouds and drifts\nof the fever, Leopold sought his friend, and, finding him, shone\ninto a brief radiance, or, missing him, gloomed back into the land\nof visions. The tenderness of the curate's service, the heart that\nshowed itself in everything he did, even in the turn and expression\nof the ministering hand, was a kind of revelation to Helen. For\nwhile his intellect was hanging about the door, asking questions,\nand uneasily shifting hither and thither in its unloved\nperplexities, the spirit of the master had gone by it unseen, and\nentered into the chamber of his heart.\n\nAfter preaching the sermon last recorded, there came a reaction of\ndoubt and depression on the mind of the curate, greater than usual.\nHad he not gone farther than his right? Had he not implied more\nconviction than was his? Words could not go beyond his satisfaction\nwith what he found in the gospel, or the hopes for the range of his\nconscious life springing therefrom; but was he not now making people\nsuppose him more certain of the FACT of these things than he was? He\nwas driven to console himself with the reflection that so long as he\nhad had no such intention, even if he had been so carried away by\nthe delight of his heart as to give such an impression, it mattered\nlittle: what was it to other people what he believed or how he\nbelieved? If he had not been untrue to himself, no harm would\nfollow. Was a man never to talk from the highest in him to the\nforgetting of the lower? Was a man never to be carried beyond\nhimself and the regions of his knowledge? If so, then farewell\npoetry and prophecy--yea, all grand discovery!--for things must be\nforeseen ere they can be realized--apprehended ere they be\ncomprehended. This much he could say for himself, and no more, that\nhe was ready to lay down his life for the mere CHANCE, if he might\nso use the word, of these things being true; nor did he argue any\ndevotion in that, seeing life without them would be to him a waste\nof unreality. He could bear witness to no facts--but to the truth,\nto the loveliness and harmony and righteousness and safety that he\nsaw in the idea of the Son of Man--as he read it in the story. He\ndared not say what, in a time of persecution, torture might work\nupon him, but he felt right hopeful that, even were he base enough\nto deny him, any cock might crow him back to repentance. At the same\ntime he saw plain enough that even if he gave his body to be burned,\nit were no sufficing assurance of his Christianity: nothing could\nsatisfy him of that less than the conscious presence of the perfect\ncharity. Without that he was still outside the kingdom, wandering in\na dream around its walls.\n\nDifficulties went on presenting themselves; at times he would be\noverwhelmed in the tossing waves of contradiction and impossibility;\nbut still his head would come up into the air and he would get a\nbreath before he went down again. And with every fresh conflict,\nevery fresh gleam of doubtful victory, the essential idea of the\nmaster looked more and more lovely. And he began to see the working\nof his doubts on the growth of his heart and soul--both widening\nand realizing his faith, and preventing it from becoming faith in an\nidea of God instead of in the living God--the God beyond as well as\nin the heart that thought and willed and imagined.\n\nHe had much time for reflection as he sat silent by the bedside of\nLeopold. Sometimes Helen would be sitting near, though generally\nwhen he arrived she went out for her walk, but never anything came\nto him he could utter to her. And she was one of those who learn\nlittle from other people. A change must pass upon her ere she could\nbe rightly receptive. Some vapour or other that clouded her being\nmust be driven to the winds first.\n\nMrs. Ramshorn had become at least reconciled to the frequent\npresence of the curate, partly from the testimony of Helen, partly\nfrom the witness of her own eyes to the quality of his ministrations.\nShe was by no means one of the loveliest among women, yet she had a\nheart, and could appreciate some kinds of goodness which the arrogance\nof her relation to the church did not interfere to hide--for nothing\nis so deadening to the divine as an habitual dealing with the outsides\nof holy things--and she became half-friendly and quite courteous when\nshe met the curate on the stair, and would now and then, when she\nthought of it, bring him a glass of wine as he sat by the bedside.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nAN EXAMINATION.\n\n\n\n\n\nThe acquaintance between the draper and the gate-keeper rapidly\nripened into friendship. Very generally, as soon as he had shut his\nshop, Drew would walk to the park-gate to see Polwarth; and three\ntimes a week at least, the curate made one of the party. Much was\nthen talked, more was thought, and I venture to say, more yet was\nunderstood.\n\nOne evening the curate went earlier than usual, and had tea with the\nPolwarths.\n\n\"Do you remember,\" he asked of his host, \"once putting to me the\nquestion what our Lord came into this world for?\"\n\n\"I do,\" answered Polwarth.\n\n\"And you remember I answered you wrong: I said it was to save the\nworld.\"\n\n\"I do. But remember, I said _primarily_, for of course he did come\nto save the world.\"\n\n\"Yes, just so you put it. Well, I think I can answer the question\ncorrectly now, and in learning the true answer I have learned much.\nDid he not come first of all to do the will of his Father? Was not\nhis Father first with him always and in everything--his fellow-men\nnext--for they were his Father's?\"\n\n\"I need not say it--you know that you are right. Jesus is tenfold a\nreal person to you--is he not--since you discovered that truth?\"\n\n\"I think so; I hope so. It does seem as if a grand simple reality\nhad begun to dawn upon me out of the fog--the form as of a man pure\nand simple, _because_ the eternal son of the Father.\"\n\n\"And now, may I not ask--are you able to accept the miracles, things\nin themselves so improbable?\"\n\n\"If we suppose the question settled as to whether the man was what\nhe said, then all that remains is to ask whether the works reported\nof him are consistent with what you can see of the character of the\nman.\"\n\n\"And to you they seem--?\"\n\n\"Some consistent, others not. Concerning the latter I look for more\nlight.\"\n\n\"Meantime let me ask you a question about them. What was the main\nobject of miracles?\"\n\n\"One thing at least I have learned, Mr. Polwarth and that is, not to\nanswer any question of yours in a hurry,\" said Wingfold. \"I will, if\nyou please, take this one home with me, and hold the light to it.\"\n\n\"Do,\" said Polwarth, \"and you will find it return you the light\nthreefold.--One word more, ere Mr. Drew comes: do you still think of\ngiving up your curacy?\"\n\n\"I have almost forgotten I ever thought of such a thing. Whatever\nenergies I may or may not have, I know one thing for certain, that I\ncould not devote them to anything else I should think entirely worth\ndoing. Indeed nothing else seems interesting enough--nothing to\nrepay the labour, but the telling of my fellow-men about the one man\nwho is the truth, and to know whom is the life. Even if there be no\nhereafter, I would live my time believing in a grand thing that\nought to be true if it is not. No facts can take the place of\ntruths, and if these be not truths, then is the loftiest part of our\nnature a waste. Let me hold by the better than the actual, and fall\ninto nothingness off the same precipice with Jesus and John and Paul\nand a thousand more, who were lovely in their lives, and with their\ndeath make even the nothingness into which they have passed like the\ngarden of the Lord. I will go further, Polwarth, and say, I would\nrather die for evermore believing as Jesus believed, than live for\nevermore believing as those that deny him. If there be no God, I\nfeel assured that existence is and could be but a chaos of\ncontradictions, whence can emerge nothing worthy to be called a\ntruth, nothing worth living for.--No, I will not give up my curacy.\nI will teach that which IS good, even if there should be no God to\nmake a fact of it, and I will spend my life on it, in the growing\nhope, which MAY become assurance, that there is indeed a perfect\nGod, worthy of being the Father of Jesus Christ, and that it was\nBECAUSE they are true, that these things were lovely to me and to so\nmany men and women, of whom some have died for them, and some would\nbe yet ready to die.\"\n\n\"I thank my God to hear you say so. Nor will you stand still there,\"\nsaid Polwarth. \"But here comes Mr. Drew!\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nIMMORTALITY.\n\n\n\n\n\n\"How goes business?\" said Polwarth, when the new-comer had seated\nhimself.\n\n\"That is hardly a question I look for from you, sir,\" returned the\ndraper, smiling all over his round face, which looked more than ever\nlike a moon of superior intelligence. \"For me, I am glad to leave it\nbehind me in the shop.\"\n\n\"True business can never be left in any shop. It is a care, white or\nblack, that sits behind every horseman.\"\n\n\"That is fact; and with me it has just taken a new shape,\" said\nDrew, \"for I have come with quite a fresh difficulty. Since I saw\nyou last, Mr. Polwarth, a strange and very uncomfortable doubt has\nrushed in upon me, and I find myself altogether unfit to tackle it.\nI have no weapons--not a single argument of the least weight. I\nwonder if it be a law of nature that no sooner shall a man get into\na muddle with one thing, than a thousand other muddles shall come\npouring in upon him, as if Muddle itself were going to swallow him\nup! Here am I just beginning to get a little start in honester ways,\nwhen up comes the ugly head of the said doubt, swelling itself more\nand more to look like a fact--namely, that after this world there is\nnothing for us--nothing at all to be had anyhow--that as we came so\nwe go--into life, out of life--that, having been nothing before, we\nshall be nothing after! The flowers come back in the spring, and the\ncorn in the autumn, but they ain't the same flowers or the same\ncorn. They're just as different as the new generations of men.\"\n\n\"There's no pretence that we come back either. We only think we\ndon't go into the ground, but away somewhere else.\"\n\n\"You can't prove that.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"And you don't know anything about it!\"\n\n\"Not much--but enough, I think.\"\n\n\"Why, even those that profess to believe it, scoff at the idea of an\napparition--a ghost!\"\n\n\"That's the fault of the ghosts, I suspect--or their reporters. I\ndon't care about them myself. I prefer the tale of one who, they\nsay, rose again, and brought his body with him.\"\n\n\"Yes; but he was only one!\"\n\n\"Except two or three whom, they say, he brought to life.\"\n\n\"Still there are but three or four.\"\n\n\"To tell you the truth, I do not care much to argue the point with\nyou.--It is by no means a matter of the FIRST importance whether we\nlive for ever or not.\"\n\n\"Mr. Polwarth!\" exclaimed the draper in such astonishment mingled\nwith horror, as proved he was not in immediate danger of becoming an\nadvocate of the doctrine of extinction.\n\nThe gate-keeper smiled what, but for a peculiar expression of\nundefinable good in it, might have been called a knowing smile.\n\n\"Suppose a thing were in itself not worth having,\" he said, \"would\nit be any great enhancement of it as a gift to add the assurance\nthat the possession of it was eternal! Most people think it a fine\nthing to have a bit of land to call their own and leave to their\nchildren; but suppose a stinking and undrainable swamp, full of foul\nsprings--what consolation would it be to the proprietor of that to\nknow, while the world lasted, not a human being would once dispute\nits possession with any fortunate descendant holding it?\"\n\nThe draper only stared, but his stare was a thorough one. The curate\nsat waiting, with both amusement and interest, for what would\nfollow: he saw the direction in which the little man was driving.\n\n\"You astonish me!\" said Mr. Drew, recovering his mental breath. \"How\ncan you compare God's gift to such a horrible thing! Where should we\nbe without life?\"\n\nRachel burst out laughing, and the curate could not help joining\nher.\n\n\"Mr. Drew,\" said Polwarth, half merrily, \"are you going to help me\ndrag my chain out of its weary length, or are you too much shocked\nat the doubtful condition of its links to touch them? I promise you\nthe last shall be of bright gold.\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon,\" said the draper; \"I might have known you didn't\nmean it.\"\n\n\"On the contrary, I mean everything I say and that literally.\nPerhaps I don't mean everything you fancy I mean.--Tell me then,\nwould life be worth having on any and every possible condition?\"\n\n\"Certainly not.\"\n\n\"You know some, I dare say, who would be glad to be rid of life such\nas it is, and such as they suppose it must continue?\"\n\n\"I don't.\"\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"I have already understood that everybody clung to life.\"\n\n\"Most people do; everybody certainly does not: Job, for instance.\"\n\n\"They say that is but a poem.\"\n\n\"BUT a poem! EVEN a poem--a representation true not of this or that\nindividual, but of the race! There ARE such persons as would gladly\nbe rid of life, and in their condition all would feel the same.\nSomewhat similar is the state of those who profess unbelief in the\nexistence of God: none of them expect, and few of them seem to wish\nto live for ever!--At least, so I am told.\"\n\n\"That is no wonder,\" said the draper; \"--if they don't believe in\nGod, I mean.\"\n\n\"Then there I have you! There you allow life to be not worth having,\nif on certain evil conditions.\"\n\n\"I admit it, then.\"\n\n\"And I repeat that to prove life endless is a matter of the FIRST\nimportance. And I will go a little farther.--Does it follow that\nlife is worth having because a man would like to have it for ever?\"\n\n\"I should say so; who should be a better judge than the man\nhimself?\"\n\n\"Let us look at it a moment. Suppose--we will take a strong\ncase--suppose a man whose whole delight is in cruelty, and who has\nsuch plentiful opportunity of indulging the passion that he finds it\nwell with him--such a man would of course desire such a life to\nendure for ever: is such a life worth having? were it well that man\nshould be immortally cruel?\"\n\n\"Not for others.\"\n\n\"Still less, I say, for himself.\"\n\n\"In the judgment of others, doubtless; but to himself he would be\nhappy.\"\n\n\"Call his horrible satisfaction happiness then, and leave aside the\nfact that in its own nature it is a horror, and not a bliss: a time\nmust come, when, in the exercise of his delight, he shall have\ndestroyed all life besides, and made himself alone with himself in\nan empty world: will he then find life worth having?\"\n\n\"Then he ought to live for punishment.\"\n\n\"With that we have nothing to do now, but there you have given me an\nanswer to my question, whether a man's judgment that his life is\nworth having, proves immortality a thing to be desired.\"\n\n\"I have. I understand now.\"\n\n\"It follows that there is something of prior importance to the\npossession of immortality:--what is that something?\"\n\n\"I suppose that the immortality itself should be worth possessing.\"\n\n\"Yes; that the life should be such that it were well it should be\nendless.--And what then if it be not such?\"\n\n\"The question then would be whether it could not be made such.\"\n\n\"You are right.--And wherein consists the essential inherent\nworthiness of a life as life?--The only perfect idea of life is--a\nunit, self-existent, and creative. That is God, the only one. But to\nthis idea, in its kind, must every life, to be complete as life,\ncorrespond; and the human correspondence to self-existence is, that\nthe man should round and complete himself by taking into himself\nthat origin; by going back and in his own will adopting his origin,\nrooting therein afresh in the exercise of his own freedom and in all\nthe energy of his own self-roused will; in other words--that the man\nsay \"I will be after the will of the creating _I_;\" that he see and\nsay with his whole being that to will the will of God in himself and\nfor himself and concerning himself, is the highest possible\ncondition of a man. Then has he completed his cycle by turning back\nupon his history, laying hold of his cause, and willing his own\nbeing in the will of the only I AM. This is the rounding,\nre-creating, unifying of the man. This is religion, and all that\ngathers not with this, scatters abroad.\"\n\n\"And then,\" said Drew, with some eagerness, \"lawfully comes the\nquestion, 'Shall I, or shall I not live for ever?'\"\n\n\"Pardon me; I think not,\" returned the little prophet. \"I think\nrather we have done with it for ever. The man with life so in\nhimself, will not dream of asking whether he shall live. It is only\nin the twilight of a half-life, holding in it at once much wherefore\nit should desire its own continuance, and much that renders it\nunworthy of continuance, that the doubtful desire of immortality can\narise.--Do you remember\"--here Polwarth turned to Wingfold--\"my\nmentioning to you once a certain manuscript of strange interest--to\nme at least and Rachel--which a brother of mine left behind him?\"\n\n\"I remember it perfectly,\" answered the curate.\"\n\n\"It seems so to mingle with all I ever think on this question, that\nI should much like, if you gentlemen would allow me, to read some\nextracts from it.\"\n\nNothing could have been heartier than the assurance of both the men\nthat they could but be delighted to listen to anything he chose to\ngive them.\n\n\"I must first tell you, however,\" said Polwarth, \"merely to protect\nyou from certain disturbing speculations, otherwise sure to present\nthemselves, that my poor brother was mad, and that what I now read\nportions of seemed to him no play of the imagination, but a record\nof absolute fact. Some parts are stranger and less intelligible than\nothers, but through it all there is abundance of intellectual\nmovement, and what seems to me a wonderful keenness to perceive the\nmovements and arrest the indications of an imagined consciousness.\"\n\nAs he spoke, the little man was opening a cabinet in which he kept\nhis precious things. He brought from it a good-sized quarto volume,\nneatly bound in morocco, with gilt edges, which he seemed to handle\nnot merely with respect but with tenderness.\n\nThe heading of the next chapter is my own, and does not belong to\nthe manuscript.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nPASSAGES FROM THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE WANDERING JEW.\n\n\n\n\n\n\"'I have at length been ill, very ill, once more, and for many\nreasons foreign to the weightiest, which I had forgotten, I had\nhoped that I was going to die. But therein I am as usual deceived\nand disappointed. That I have been out of my mind I know, by having\nreturned to the real knowledge of what I am. The conscious present\nhas again fallen together and made a whole with the past, and that\nwhole is my personal identity.\n\n\"'How I broke loose from the bonds of a madness, which, after so\nmany and heavy years of uninterrupted sanity, had at length laid\nhold upon me, I will now relate.\n\n\"'I had, as I have said, been very ill--with some sort of fever that\nhad found fit rooting in a brain overwearied, from not having been\noriginally constructed to last so long. Whether it came not of an\nindwelling demon, or a legion of demons, I cannot tell--God knows.\nSurely I was as one possessed. I was mad, whether for years, or but\nfor moments--who can tell? I cannot. Verily it seems for many years;\nbut, knowing well the truth concerning the relations of time in him\nthat dreameth and waketh from his dream, I place no confidence in\nthe testimony of the impressions left upon my seeming memory. I can\nhowever trust it sufficiently as to the character of the illusions\nthat then possessed me. I imagined myself an Englishman called\nPolwarth, of an ancient Cornish family. Indeed, I had in my\nimagination, as Polwarth, gone through the history, every day of it,\nwith its sunrise and sunset, of more than half a lifetime. I had a\nbrother who was deformed and a dwarf, and a daughter who was like\nhim; and the only thing, throughout the madness, that approached a\nconsciousness of my real being and history, was the impression that\nthese things had come upon me because of a certain grievous wrong I\nhad at one time committed, which wrong, however, I had quite\nforgotten--and could ill have imagined in its native hideousness.\n\n\"'But one morning, just as I woke, after a restless night filled\nwith dreams, I was aware of a half-embodied shadow in my mind--\nwhether thought or memory or imagination, I could not tell: and the\nstrange thing was, that it darkly radiated from it the conviction\nthat I must hold and identify it, or be for ever lost to myself.\nTherefore, with all the might of my will to retain the shadow, and\nall the energy of my recollection to recall that of which it was the\nvague shadow, I concentrated the whole power of my spiritual man\nupon the phantom thought, to fix and retain it.\n\n\"'Everyone knows what it is to hunt such a formless fact. Evanescent\nas a rainbow, its whole appearance, from the first, is that of a\nthing in the act of vanishing. It is a thing that was known, but,\nfrom the moment consciousness turned its lantern upon it, began to\nbecome invisible. For a time, during the close pursuit that follows,\nit seems only to be turning corner after corner to evade the mind's\neye, but behind every corner it leaves a portion of itself; until at\nlength, although when finally cannot be told, it is gone so utterly\nthat the mind remains aghast in the perplexity of the doubt whether\never there was a thought there at all.\n\n\"'Throughout my delusion of an English existence, I had been\ntormented in my wakings with such thought-phantoms, and ever had I\nfollowed them, as an idle man may follow a flitting marsh-fire.\nIndeed, I had grown so much interested in the phenomenon and its\npossible indications that I had invented various theories to account\nfor them, some of which seemed to myself original and ingenious,\nwhile the common idea that they are vague reminiscences of a former\nstate of being, I had again and again examined, and as often\nentirely rejected, as in no way tenable or verisimilar.\n\n\"'But upon the morning to which I have referred, I succeeded, for\nthe first time, in fixing, capturing, identifying the haunting,\nfluttering thing. That moment the bonds of my madness were broken.\nMy past returned upon me. I had but to think in any direction, and\nevery occurrence, with time and place and all its circumstance, rose\nagain before me. The awful fact of my own being once more stood\nbare--awful always--tenfold more awful after such a period of\nblissful oblivion thereof: I was, I had been, I am now, as I write,\nthe man so mysterious in crime, so unlike all other men in his\npunishment, known by various names in various lands--here in England\nas the Wandering Jew. Ahasuerus was himself again, alas!--himself\nand no other. Wife, daughter, brother vanished, and returned only in\ndreams. I was and remain the wanderer, the undying, the repentant,\nthe unforgiven. O heart! O weary feet! O eyes that have seen and\nnever more shall see, until they see once and are blinded for ever!\nBack upon my soul rushes the memory of my deed, like a storm of hail\nmingled with fire, flashing through every old dry channel, that it\nthrobs and writhes anew, scorched at once and torn with the\npoisonous burning.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nTHE WANDERING JEW.\n\n\n\n\n\n\"'It was a fair summer-morning in holy Jerusalem, and I sat and\nwrought at my trade, for I sewed a pair of sandals for the feet of\nthe high priest Caiaphas. And I wrought diligently, for it behoved\nme to cease an hour ere set of sun, for it was the day of\npreparation for the eating of the Passover.\n\n\"'Now all that night there had been a going to and fro in the city,\nfor the chief priests and their followers had at length laid hands\nupon him that was called Jesus, whom some believed to be the\nMessiah, and others, with my fool-self amongst them, an\narch-impostor and blasphemer. For I was of the house of Caiaphas,\nand heartily did desire that the man my lord declared a deceiver of\nthe people, should meet with the just reward of his doings. Thus I\nsat and worked, and thought and rejoiced; and the morning passed and\nthe noon came.\n\n\"'It was a day of sultry summer, and the street burned beneath the\nsun, and I sat in the shadow and looked out upon the glare; and ever\nI wrought at the sandals of my lord, with many fine stitches, in\ncunning workmanship. All had been for some time very still, when\nsuddenly I thought I heard a far-off tumult. And soon came the idle\nchildren, who ever run first that they be not swallowed up of the\ncrowd; and they ran and looked behind as they ran. And after them\ncame the crowd, crying and shouting, and swaying hither and thither;\nand in the midst of it arose the one arm of a cross, beneath the\nweight of which that same Jesus bent so low that I saw him not.\nTruly, said I, he hath not seldom borne heavier burdens in the\nworkshop of his father the Galilean, but now his sins and his\nidleness have found him, and taken from him his vigour; for he that\ndespiseth the law shall perish, while they that wait upon the Lord\nshall renew their strength. For I was wroth with the man who taught\nthe people to despise the great ones that administered the law, and\ngive honour to the small ones who only kept it. Besides, he had\ndriven my father's brother from the court of the Gentiles with a\nwhip, which truly hurt him not outwardly, but stung him to the soul;\nand yet that very temple which he pretended thus to honour, he had\nthreatened to destroy and build again in three days! Such were the\nthoughts of my heart; and when I learned from the boys that it was\nin truth Jesus of Nazareth who passed on his way to Calvary to be\ncrucified, my heart leaped within me at the thought that the law had\nat length overtaken the malefactor. I laid down the sandal and my\nawl, and rose and went forth and stood in the front of my shop. And\nJesus drew nigh, and as he passed, lo, the end of the cross dragged\nupon the street. And one in the crowd came behind, and lifted it up\nand pushed therewith, so that Jesus staggered and had nigh fallen.\nThen would be fain have rested the arm of the cross on the stone by\nwhich I was wont to go up into my shop from the street. But I cried\nout, and drove him thence, saying scornfully, \"Go on Jesus; go on.\nTruly thou restest not on stone of mine!\" Then turned he his eyes\nupon me, and said, \"I go indeed, but thou goest not;\" and therewith\nhe rose again under the weight of the cross, and staggered on,\n\n\"'And I followed in the crowd to Calvary.'\"\n\nHere the reader paused and said,\n\n\"I can give you but a few passages now. You see it is a large\nmanuscript. I will therefore choose some of those that bear upon the\nsubject of which we have been talking. A detailed account of the\ncrucifixion follows here, which I could not bring myself to read\naloud. The eclipse is in it, and the earthquake, and the white faces\nof the risen dead gleaming through the darkness about the cross. It\nends thus:\n\n\"'And all the time, I stood not far from the foot of the cross, nor\ndared go nearer, for around it were his mother and they that were\nwith her, and my heart was sore for her also. And I would have\nwithdrawn my foot from the place where I stood, and gone home to\nweep, but something, I know not what, held me there as it were\nrooted to the ground. At length the end was drawing near. He opened\nhis mouth and spake to his mother and the disciple who stood by her,\nbut truly I know not what he said, for as his eyes turned from them,\nthey looked upon me, and my heart died within me. He said nought,\nbut his eyes had that in them that would have slain me with sorrow,\nhad not death, although I knew it not, already shrunk from my\npresence, daring no more come nigh such a malefactor.--Oh Death, how\ngladly would I build thee a temple, set thee in a lofty place, and\nworship thee with the sacrifice of vultures on a fire of dead men's\nbones, wouldst thou but hear my cry!--But I rave again in my folly!\nGod forgive me. All the days of my appointed time will I wait until\nmy change come.--With that look--a well of everlasting tears in my\nthrobbing brain--my feet were unrooted, and I fled.'\"\n\nHere the reader paused again, and turned over many leaves.\n\n\"'And ever as I passed at night through the lands, when I came to a\ncross by the wayside, thereon would I climb, and, winding my arms\nabout its arms and my feet about its stem, would there hang in the\ndarkness or the moon, in rain or hail, in wind or snow or frost,\nuntil my sinews gave way, and my body dropped, and I knew no more\nuntil I found myself lying at its foot in the morning. For, ever in\nsuch case, I lay without sense until again the sun shone upon me.\n\n\"'... And if ever the memory of that look passed from me, then,\nstraightway I began to long for death, and so longed until the\nmemory and the power of the look came again, and with the sorrow in\nmy soul came the patience to live. And truly, although I speak of\nforgetting and remembering, such motions of my spirit in me were not\nas those of another man; in me they are not measured by the scale of\nmen's lives; they are not of years, but of centuries; for the\nseconds of my life are ticked by a clock whose pendulum swings\nthrough an arc of motionless stars.\n\n\"'... Once I had a vision of Death. Methinks it must have been a\nprecursive vapour of the madness that afterwards infolded me, for I\nknow well that there is not one called Death, that he is but a word\nneedful to the weakness of human thought and the poverty of human\nspeech; that he is a no-being, and but a change from that which\nis.--I had a vision of Death, I say. And it was on this wise:\n\n\"'I was walking over a wide plain of sand, like Egypt, so that ever\nand anon I looked around me to see if nowhere, from the base of the\nhorizon, the pyramids cut their triangle out of the blue night of\nheaven; but I saw none. The stars came down and sparkled on the dry\nsands, and all was waste, and wide desolation. The air also was\nstill as the air of a walled-up tomb, where there are but dry bones,\nand not even the wind of an evil vapour that rises from decay. And\nthrough the dead air came ever the low moaning of a distant sea,\ntowards which my feet did bear me. I had been journeying thus for\nyears, and in their lapse it had grown but a little louder.--Suddenly\nI was aware that I was not alone. A dim figure strode beside me,\nvague, but certain of presence. And I feared him not, seeing that\nwhich men fear the most was itself that which by me was the most\ndesired. So I stood and turned and would have spoken. But the shade\nthat seemed not a shadow, went on and regarded me not. Then I also\nturned again towards the moaning of the sea and went on. And lo!\nthe shade which had gone before until it seemed but as a vapour\namong the stars, was again by my side walking. And I said, and stood\nnot, but walked on: Thou shade that art not a shadow, seeing there\nshineth no sun or moon, and the stars are many, and the one slayeth\nthe shadow of the other, what art thou, and wherefore goest thou by\nmy side? Think not to make me afraid, for I fear nothing in the\nuniverse but that which I love the best.--I spake of the eyes of the\nLord Jesus.--Then the shade that seemed no shadow answered me and\nspake and said: Little knowest thou what I am, seeing the very thing\nthou sayest I am not, that I am, and nought else, and there is no\nother but me. I am Shadow, the shadow, the only shadow--none such as\nthose from which the light hideth in terror, yet like them, for life\nhideth from me and turneth away, yet if life were not, neither were\nI, for I am nothing; and yet again, as soon as anything is, there am\nI, and needed no maker, but came of myself, for I am Death.--Ha!\nDeath! I cried, and would have cast myself before him with outstretched\narms of worshipful entreaty; but lo, there was a shadow upon the belt\nof Orion, and no shadow by my side! and I sighed, and walked on towards\nthe ever moaning sea. Then again the shadow was by my side. And again\nI spake and said: Thou thing of flitting and return, I despise thee,\nfor thou wilt not abide the conflict. And I would have cast myself upon\nhim and wrestled with him there, for defeat and not for victory. But I\ncould not lay hold upon him. Thou art a powerless nothing, I cried; I\nwill not even defy thee.--Thou wouldst provoke me, said the shadow; but\nit availeth not. I cannot be provoked. Truly, I am but a shadow, yet\nknow I my own worth, for I am the Shadow of the Almighty, and where\nhe is, there am I--Thou art nothing, I said.--Nay, nay, I am not\nNothing. Thou, nor any man--God only knoweth what that word\nmeaneth. I am but the shadow of Nothing, and when THOU sayest\nNOTHING, thou meanest only me; but what God meaneth when he sayeth\nNOTHING--the nothing without him, that nothing which is no shadow\nbut the very substance of Unbeing--no created soul can know.--Then\nart thou not Death? I asked.--I am what thou thinkest of when thou\nsayest Death, he answered, but I am not Death.--Alas, then! why\ncomest thou to me in the desert places, for I did think thou wast\nDeath indeed, and couldst take me unto thee so that I should be no\nmore.--That is what death cannot do for thee, said the shadow; none\nbut he that created thee can cause that thou shouldst be no more.\nThou art until he will that thou be not. I have heard it said\namongst the wise that, hard as it is to create, it is harder still\nto uncreate. Truly I cannot tell. But wouldst thou be uncreated by\nthe hand of Death? Wouldst thou have thy no-being the gift of a\nshadow?--Then I thought of the eyes of the Lord Jesus, and the look\nhe cast upon me, and I said, No: I would not be carried away of\nDeath. I would be fulfilled of Life, and stand before God for ever.\nThen once again the belt of Orion grew dim, and I saw the shadow no\nmore. And yet did I long for Death, for I thought he might bring me\nto those eyes, and the pardon that lay in them.\n\n\"'But again, as the years went on, and each brought less hope than\nthat before it, I forgot the look the Lord had cast upon me, and in\nthe weariness of the life that was mortal and yet would not cease,\nin the longing after the natural end of that which against nature\nendured, I began to long even for the end of being itself. And in a\ncity of the Germans, I found certain men of my own nation who said\nunto me: Fear not, Ahasuerus; there is no life beyond the grave.\nLive on until thy end come, and cease thy complaints. Who is there\namong us who would not gladly take upon him thy judgment, and live\nuntil he was weary of living?--Yea, but to live after thou art\nweary? I said. But they heeded me not, answering me and saying:\nSearch thou the Scriptures, even the Book of the Law, and see if\nthou find there one leaf of this gourd of a faith that hath sprung\nup in a night. Verily, this immortality is but a flash in the brain\nof men that would rise above their fate. Sayeth Moses, or sayeth\nJob, or sayeth David or Daniel a word of the matter? And I listened\nunto them, and became of their mind. But therewithal the longing\nafter death returned with tenfold force and I rose up and girt my\ngarment about me, and went forth once more to search for him whom I\nnow took for the porter of the gate of eternal silence and unfelt\nrepose. And I said unto myself as I walked: What in the old days was\nsweeter when I was weary with my labour at making of shoes, than to\nfind myself dropping into the death of sleep! how much sweeter then\nmust it not be to sink into the sleepiest of sleeps, the\nfather-sleep, the mother-bosomed death of nothingness and unawaking\nrest! Then shall all this endless whir of the wheels of thought and\ndesire be over; then welcome the night whose darkness doth not\nseethe, and which no morning shall ever stir!\n\n\"'And wherever armies were drawing nigh, each to the other, and the\nday of battle was near, thither I flew in hot haste, that I might be\nfirst upon the field, and ready to welcome hottest peril. I fought\nnot, for I would not slay those that counted it not the good thing\nto be slain, as I counted it. But had the armies been of men that\nloved death like me, how had I raged among them then, even as the\nangel Azrael to give them their sore-desired rest! for I loved and\nhated not my kind, and would diligently have mown them down out of\nthe stinging air of life into the soft balm of the sepulchre. But\nwhat they sought not, and I therefore would not give, that searched\nI after the more eagerly for myself. And my sight grew so keen that,\nwhen yet no bigger than a mote in the sunbeam, I could always descry\nthe vulture-scout, hanging aloft over the field of destiny. Then\nwould I hasten on and on, until a swoop would have brought him\nstraight on my head.\n\n\"'And with that a troop of horsemen, horses and men mad with living\nfear, came with a level rush towards the spot where I sat, faint\nwith woe. And I sprang up, and bounded to meet them, throwing my\narms aloft and shouting, as one who would turn a herd. And like a\nwave of the rising tide before a swift wind, a wave that sweeps on\nand breaks not, they came hard-buffeting over my head. Ah! that was\na torrent indeed!--a thunderous succession of solid billows, alive,\nhurled along by the hurricane-fear in the heart of them! For one\nmoment only I felt and knew what I lay beneath, and then for a time\nthere was nothing.--I woke in silence, and thought I was dying, that\nI had all but passed across the invisible line between, and in a\nmoment there would be for evermore nothing and nothing. Then\nfollowed again an empty space as it seemed. And now I am dead and\ngone, I said, and shall wander no more. And with that came the agony\nof hell, for, lo, still _I_ THOUGHT! And I said to myself, Alas! O\nGod! for, notwithstanding I no more see or hear or taste or smell or\ntouch, and my body hath dropped from me, still am I Ahasuerus, the\nWanderer, and must go on and on and on, blind and deaf, through the\nunutterable wastes that know not the senses of man--nevermore to\nfind rest! Alas! death is not death, seeing he slayeth but the\nleathern bottle, and spilleth not the wine of life upon the earth.\nAlas! alas! for I cannot die! And with that a finger twitched, and I\nshouted aloud for joy: I was yet in the body! And I sprang to my\nfeet jubilant, and, lame and bruised and broken-armed, tottered away\nafter Death, who yet might hold the secret of eternal repose. I was\nalive, but yet there was hope, for Death was yet before me! I was\nalive, but I had not died, and who could tell but I might yet find\nthe lovely night that hath neither clouds nor stars! I had not\npassed into the land of the dead and found myself yet living! The\nwise men of my nation in the city of the Almains might yet be wise!\nAnd for an hour I rejoiced, and was glad greatly.'\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nTHE WANDERING JEW.\n\n\n\n\n\n\"It was midnight, and sultry as hell. All day not a breath had\nstirred. The country through which I passed was level as the sea\nthat had once flowed above it. My heart had almost ceased to beat,\nand I was weary as the man who is too weary to sleep outright, and\nlabours in his dreams. I slumbered and yet walked on. My blood\nflowed scarce faster than the sluggish water in the many canals I\ncrossed on my weary way. And ever I thought to meet the shadow that\nwas and was not death. But this was no dream. Just on the stroke of\nmidnight, I came to the gate of a large city, and the watchers let\nme pass. Through many an ancient and lofty street I wandered, like a\nghost in a dream, knowing no one, and caring not for myself, and at\nlength reached an open space where stood a great church, the cross\nupon whose spire seemed bejewelled with the stars upon which it\ndwelt. And in my soul I said, O Lord Jesus! and went up to the base\nof the tower, and found the door thereof open to my hand. Then with\nmy staff I ascended the winding stairs, until I reached the open\nsky. And the stairs went still winding, on and on, up towards the\nstars. And with my staff I ascended, and arose into the sky, until I\nstood at the foot of the cross of stone.\n\n\"'Ay me! how the centuries without haste, without rest, had glided\nalong since I stood by the cross of dishonour and pain! And God had\nnot grown weary of his life yet, but I had grown so weary in my very\nbones that weariness was my element, and I had ceased almost to note\nit. And now, high-uplifted in honour and worship over every populous\ncity, stood the cross among the stars! I scrambled up the pinnacles,\nand up on the carven stem of the cross, for my sinews were as steel,\nand my muscles had dried and hardened until they were as those of\nthe tiger or the great serpent. So I climbed, and lifted up myself\nuntil I reached the great arms of the cross, and over them I flung\nmy arms, as was my wont, and entwined the stem with my legs, and\nthere hung, three hundred feet above the roofs of the houses. And as\nI hung the moon rose and cast the shadow of me Ahasuerus upon the\ncross, up against the Pleiades. And as if dull Nature were offended\nthereat, nor understood the offering of my poor sacrifice, the\nclouds began to gather, like the vultures--no one could have told\nwhence. From all sides around they rose, and the moon was blotted\nout, and they gathered and rose until they met right over the cross.\nAnd when they closed, then the lightning brake forth, and the\nthunder with it, and it flashed and thundered above and around and\nbeneath me, so that I could not tell which voice belonged to which\narrow, for all were mingled in one great confusion and uproar. And\nthe people in the houses below heard the sound of the thunder, and\nthey looked from their windows, and they saw the storm raving and\nflashing about the spire, which stood the heart of the agony, and\nthey saw something hang there, even upon its cross, in the form of a\nman, and they came from their houses, and the whole space beneath\nwas filled with people, who stood gazing up at the marvel. A\nMIRACLE! A MIRACLE! they cried; and truly it was no miracle--it was\nonly me Ahasuerus, the wanderer taking thought concerning his crime\nagainst the crucified. Then came a great light all about me, such\nlight for shining as I had never before beheld, and indeed I saw it\nnot all with my eyes, but the greater part with my soul, which\nsurely is the light of the eyes themselves. And I said to myself,\nDoubtless the Lord is at hand, and he cometh to me as late to the\nblessed Saul of Tarsus, who was NOT the chief of sinners, but\nI--Ahasuerus, the accursed. And the thunder burst like the bursting\nof a world in the furnace of the sun; and whether it was that the\nlightning struck me, or that I dropped, as was my custom, outwearied\nfrom the cross, I know not, but thereafter I lay at its foot among\nthe pinnacles, and when the people looked again, the miracle was\nover, and they returned to their houses and slept. And the next day,\nwhen I sought the comfort of the bath, I found upon my side the\nfigure of a cross, and the form of a man hanging thereupon as I had\nhung, depainted in a dark colour as of lead plain upon the flesh of\nmy side over my heart. Here was a miracle indeed! but verily I knew\nnot whether therefrom to gather comfort or despair.\n\n\"'And it was night as I went into a village among the mountains,\nthrough the desert places of which I had all that day been\nwandering. And never before had my condition seemed to me so\nhopeless. There was not one left upon the earth who had ever seen me\nknowing me, and although there went a tale of such a man as I, yet\nfaith had so far vanished from the earth that for a thing to be\nmarvellous, however just, was sufficient reason wherefore no man, to\nbe counted wise, should believe the same. For the last fifty years I\nhad found not one that would receive my testimony. For when I told\nthem the truth concerning myself, saying as I now say, and knowing\nthe thing for true--that I was Ahasuerus whom the Word had banished\nfrom his home in the regions governed of Death, shutting against him\nthe door of the tomb that he should not go in, every man said I was\nmad, and would hold with me no manner of communication, more than if\nI had been possessed with a legion of swine-loving demons. Therefore\nwas I cold at heart, and lonely to the very root of my being. And\nthus it was with me that midnight as I entered the village among the\nmountains.--Now all therein slept, so even that not a dog barked at\nthe sound of my footsteps. But suddenly, and my soul yet quivers\nwith dismay at the remembrance, a yell of horror tore its way from\nthe throat of every sleeper at once, and shot into every cranny of\nthe many-folded mountains, that my soul knocked shaking against the\nsides of my body, and I also shrieked aloud with the keen terror of\nthe cry. For surely there was no sleeper there, man, woman, or\nchild, who yelled not aloud in an agony of fear. And I knew that it\ncould only be because of the unseen presence in their street of the\noutcast, the homeless, the loveless, the wanderer for ever, who had\nrefused a stone to his maker whereon to rest his cross. Truly I know\nnot whence else could have come that cry. And I looked to see that\nall the inhabitants of the village should rush out upon me, and go\nfor to slay the unslayable in their agony. But the cry passed, and\nafter the cry came again the stillness. And for very dread lest yet\nanother such cry should enter my ears, and turn my heart to a jelly,\nI did hasten my steps to leave the dwellings of the children of the\nworld, and pass out upon the pathless hills again. But as I turned\nand would have departed, the door of a house opened over against\nwhere I stood; and as it opened, lo! a sharp gust of wind from the\nmountains swept along the street, and out into the wind came running\na girl, clothed only in the garment of the night. And the wind blew\nupon her, and by the light of the moon I saw that her hands and her\nfeet were rough and brown, as of one that knew labour and hardship,\nbut yet her body was dainty and fair, and moulded in loveliness. Her\nhair blew around her like a rain cloud, so that it almost blinded\nher, and truly she had much ado to clear it from her face, as a\nhalf-drowned man would clear from his face the waters whence he\nhath been lifted; and like two stars of light from amidst the cloud\ngazed forth the eyes of the girl. And she looked upon me with the\ncourage of a child, and she said unto me, Stranger, knowest thou\nwherefore was that cry? Was it thou who did so cry in our street in\nthe night? And I answered her and said, Verily not I, maiden, but I\ntoo heard the cry, and it shook my soul within me.--What seemed it\nunto thee like, she asked, for truly I slept, and know only the\nterror thereof and not the sound? And I said, It seemed unto me that\nevery soul in the village cried out at once in some dream of\nhorror.--I cried not out, she said; for I slept and dreamed, and my\ndream was such that I know verily I cried not out. And the maiden\nwas lovely in her innocence. And I said: And was thy dream such,\nmaiden, that thou wouldst not refuse but wouldst tell it to an old\nman like me? And with that the wind came down from the mountain like\na torrent of wolves, and it laid hold upon me and swept me from the\nvillage, and I fled before it, and could not stay my steps until I\ngot me into the covert of a hollow rock.\n\n\"'And scarce had I turned in thither when, lo! thither came the maiden\nalso, flying in my footsteps, and driven of the self-same mighty\nwind. And I turned in pity and said, Fear not, my child. Here is but\nan old man with a sore and withered heart, and he will not harm\nthee.--I fear thee not, she answered, else would I not have\nfollowed thee.--Thou didst not follow me of thine own inclining, I\nsaid, but the wind that came from the mountains and swept me before\nit, did bear thee after me.--Truly I know of no wind, she said, but\nthe wind of my own following of thee. Wherefore didst thou flee from\nme?--Nay! but wherefore didst thou follow me, maiden?--That I might\ntell thee my dream to the which thou didst desire to hearken. For,\nlo! as I slept I dreamed that a man came unto me and said, Behold, I\nam the unresting and undying one, and my burden is greater than I\ncan bear, for Death who befriendeth all is my enemy, and will not\nlook upon me in peace. And with that came the cry, and I awoke, and\nran out to see whence came the cry, and found thee alone in the\nstreet. And as God liveth, such as was the man in my dream, such art\nthou in my waking sight.--Not the less must I ask thee again, I\nsaid, wherefore didst thou follow me?--That I may comfort thee, she\nanswered.--And how thinkest thou to comfort one whom God hath\nforsaken?--That cannot be, she said, seeing that in a vision of the\nnight he sent thee unto me, and so now hath sent me unto thee.\nTherefore will I go with thee, and minister unto thee.--Bethink thee\nwell what thou doest, I said; and before thou art fully resolved,\nsit thee down by me in this cave, that I may tell thee my tale. And\nstraightway she sat down, and I told her all. And ere I had finished\nthe sun had risen.--Then art thou now alone, said the maiden, and\nhast no one to love thee?--No one, I answered, man, woman, or\nchild.--Then will I go with thee, for I know neither father nor\nmother, and no one hath power over me, for I keep goats on the\nmountains for wages, and if thou wilt but give me bread to eat I\nwill serve thee. And a great love arose in my heart to the maiden.\nAnd I left her in the cave, and went to the nearest city, and\nreturned thence with garments and victuals. And I loved the maiden\ngreatly. And although my age was then marvellous being over and\nabove a thousand and seven hundred years, yet found she my person\nneither pitiful nor uncomely, for I was still in body even such as\nwhen the Lord Jesus spake the word of my doom. And the damsel loved\nme, and was mine. And she was as the apple of mine eye. And the\nworld was no more unto me as a desert, but it blossomed as the rose\nof Sharon. And although I knew every city upon it, and every highway\nand navigable sea, yet did all become to me fresh and new because of\nthe joy which the damsel had in beholding its kingdoms and the\nglories thereof.\n\n\"'And it came to pass that my heart grew proud within me, and I said\nto myself that I was all-superior to other men, for Death could not\ntouch me; that I was a marvel upon the face of the world; and in\nthis yet more above all men that had ever lived, that at such an age\nas mine I could yet gain the love, yea, the absolute devotion, of\nsuch an one as my wife, who never wearied of my company and\nconversation. So I took to me even the free grace of love as my\nmerit unto pride, and laid it not to the great gift of God and the\ntenderness of the heart of my beloved. Like Satan in Heaven I was\nuplifted in the strength and worthiness and honour of my demon-self,\nand my pride went not forth in thanks, for I gloried not in my God,\nbut in Ahasuerus. Then the thought smote me like an arrow of\nlightning: She will die, and thou shalt live--live--live--and as he\nhath delayed, so will he yet delay his coming. And as Satan from the\nseventh heaven, I fell prone.\n\n\"'Then my spirit began again to revive within me, and I said, Lo! I\nhave yet many years of her love ere she dieth, and when she is gone,\nI shall yet have the memory of my beloved to be with me, and cheer\nme, and bear me up, for I may never again despise that which she\nhath loved as she hath loved me. And yet again a thought smote me,\nand it was as an arrow of the lightning, and its barb was the truth:\nBut she will grow old, it said, and will wither before thy face, and\nbe as the waning moon in the heavens. And my heart cried out in an\nagony. But my will sought to comfort my heart, and said, Cry not\nout, for, in spite of old age as in spite of death, I will love her\nstill. Then something began to writhe within me, and to hiss out\nwords that gathered themselves unto this purpose: But she will grow\nunlovely, and wrinkled, and dark of hue, and the shape of her body\nwill vanish, and her form be unformed, and her eyes will grow small\nand dim, and creep back into her head, and her hair will fall from\nher, and she shall be as the unsightly figure of Death with a skin\ndrawn over his unseemly bones; and the damsel of thy love, with the\nround limbs and the flying hair, and the clear eyes out of which\nlooketh a soul clear as they, will be nowhere--nowhere, for\nevermore, for thou wilt not be able to believe that she it is who\nstandeth before thee: how will it be with thee then? And what mercy\nis his who hath sent thee a growing loss in the company of this\nwoman? Thereupon I rose in the strength of my agony and went forth.\nAnd I said nothing unto my wife, but strode to the foot of the great\nmountain, whose entrails were all aglow, and on whose sides grew the\npalm and the tree-bread and the nut of milk. And I climbed the\nmountain, nor once looked behind me, but climbed to the top. And\nthere for one moment I stood in the stock-dullness of despair. And\nbeneath me was the great fiery gulf, outstretched like a red lake\nskinned over with black ice, through the cracks wherein shone the\nblinding fire. Every moment here and there a great liquid bubbling\nwould break through the crust, and make a wallowing heap upon the\nflat, then sink again, leaving an open red well-pool of fire whence\nthe rays shot up like flame, although flame there was none. It lay\nlike the back of some huge animal upheaved out of hell, which was\nwounded and bled fire.--Now, in the last year of my long sojourn,\nlife had again, because of the woman that loved me, become precious\nunto me, and more than once had I laughed as I caught myself\nstarting back from some danger in a crowded street, for the thing\nwas new to me, so utterly had the care of my life fallen into disuse\nwith me. But now again in my misery I thought no more of danger, but\nwent stalking and sliding down the sindery slope of the huge\nfire-cup, and out upon the lake of molten earth--molten as when\nfirst it shot from the womb of the sun, of whose ardour, through all\nthe millions of years, it had not yet cooled. And as once St. Peter\non the stormy water to find the Lord of Life, so walked I on the\nstill lake of fire, caring neither for life nor death. For my heart\nwas withered to the roots by the thought of the decay of her whom I\nhad loved; for would not then her very presence every hour be\ncausing me to forget the beauty that had once made me glad?--I had\nwalked some ten furlongs, and passed the middle of the lake, when\nsuddenly I bethought me that she would marvel whither I had gone,\nand set out to seek me, and something might befall her, and I should\nlose my rose ere its leaves had begun to drop. And I turned and\nstrode again in haste across the floor of black heat, broken and\nseamed with red light. And lo! as I neared the midst of the lake, a\nform came towards me, walking in the very footsteps I had left\nbehind me, nor had I to look again to know the gracious motion of my\nbeloved. And the black ice broke at her foot, and the fire shone up\non her face, and it was lovely as an angel of God, and the glow of\nher love outshone the glow of the nether fire. And I called not to\nstay her foot, for I judged that the sooner she was with me, the\nsooner would she be in safety, for I knew how to walk thereon better\nthan she. And my heart sang a song within me in praise of the love\nof woman, but I thought only of the love of my woman to me, whom the\nfires of hell could not hold back from him who was worthy of her\nlove; and my heart sent the song up to my lips; but, as the first\nword arose, sure itself a red bubble from the pit of glowing hell,\nthe black crust burst up between us, and a great hillock of\nseething, slow-spouting, slow-falling, mad red fire arose. For a\nmoment or two the molten mound bubbled and wallowed, then sank--and\nI saw not my wife. Headlong I plunged into the fiery pool at my\nfeet, and the clinging torture hurt me not, and I caught her in my\narms, and rose to the surface, and crept forth, and shook the fire\nfrom mine eyes, and lo! I held to my bosom but as the fragment of a\ncinder of the furnace. And I laughed aloud in my madness, and the\ndevils below heard me, and laughed yet again. O Age! O Decay! I\ncried, see how I triumph over thee: what canst thou do to this? And\nI flung the cinder from me into the pool, and plunged again into the\ngrinning fire. But it cast me out seven times, and the seventh time\nI turned from it, and rushed out of the valley of burning, and threw\nmyself on the mountain-side in the moonlight, and awoke mad.\n\n\"'And what I had then said in despair, I said yet again in\nthankfulness. O Age! O Decay! I cried, what canst thou now do to\ndestroy the image of her which I bear nested in my heart of hearts?\nThat at least is safe, I thank God. And from that hour I never more\nbelieved that I should die when at length my body dropped from me.\nIf the thought came, it came as a fear, and not as a thing\nconcerning which a man may say I would or I would not. For a mighty\nhope had arisen within me that yet I should stand forgiven in the\neyes of him that was crucified, and that in token of his forgiveness\nhe would grant me to look again, but in peace, upon the face of her\nthat had loved me. O mighty Love, who can tell to what heights of\nperfection thou mayest yet rise in the bosom of the meanest who\nfolloweth the Crucified!'\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nREMARKS.\n\n\n\n\n\nPolwarth closed the manuscript, and for a time no one spoke.\n\n\"The man who wrote that book,\" said Wingfold, \"could not have been\nall out of his right mind.\"\n\n\"I must confess to you,\" returned Polwarth, \"that I have chosen some\nof the more striking passages--only some of them however. One thing\nis pretty clear--that, granted the imagined conditions, within that\ncircle the writer is sane enough--as sane at least as the Wandering\nJew himself could well have been.\"\n\n\"Could you trust me with the manuscript, Mr. Polwarth?\" said the\ncurate.\n\n\"Willingly,\" said Polwarth, handing it to him.\n\n\"And I may carry it home with me?\"\n\n\"Certainly.\"\n\n\"I shall take right good care of it. Are there any further memorials\nof struggle with unbelief?\"\n\n\"Yes, there are some; for mood and not conviction must, in such a\nmind, often rule the hour. Sometimes he can believe; sometimes he\ncannot: he is a great man indeed who can always rise above his own\nmoods! There is one passage I specially remember in which after his\nown fashion he treats of the existence of a God. You will know the\none I mean when you come to it.\"\n\n\"It is indeed a treasure!\" said the curate, taking the book and\nregarding it with prizing eyes. In his heart he was thinking of\nLeopold and Helen. And while he thus regarded the book, he was\nhimself regarded of the gray luminous eyes of Rachel. What shone\nfrom those eyes may have been her delight at hearing him so speak of\nthe book, for the hand that wrote it was that of her father; but\nthere was a lingering in her gaze, not unmixed with questioning, and\na certain indescribable liquidity in its light, reminding one of the\nstars as seen through a clear air from which the dew settles thick,\nthat might have made a mother anxious. Alas for many a woman whose\noutward form is ungainly--she has a full round heart under the\ntwisted ribs!\n\nWhy then should I say alas? Were it better that the heart were like\nthe shape? or are such as Rachel forgotten before the God of the\nsparrows? No, surely; but he who most distinctly believes that from\nbefore the face of God every sorrow shall vanish, that they that sow\nin tears shall reap in joy, that death is but a mist that for a\nseason swathes the spirit, and that, ever as the self-seeking\nvanishes from love, it groweth more full of delight--even he who\nwith all his heart believes this, may be mournful over the aching of\nanother heart while yet it lasts; and he who looks for his own death\nas his resurrection, may yet be sorrowful at every pale sunset that\nreminds him of the departure of the beloved before him.\n\nThe curate rose and took his departure, but the light of the gaze\nthat had rested upon him lingered yet on the countenance of Rachel,\nand a sad half-smile hung over the motions of the baby-like fingers\nthat knitted so busily.\n\nThe draper followed the curate, and Polwarth went up to his own\nroom: he never could keep off his knees for long together. And as\nsoon as she was alone, Rachel's hands dropped on her lap, her eyes\nclosed, and her lips moved with solemn sweet motions. If there was a\nhearing ear open to that little house, oh surely those two were\nblessed! If not, then kind death was yet for a certainty drawing\nnigh--only, what if in deep hell there should be yet a deeper hell?\nAnd until slow Death arrive, what loving heart can bear the load\nthat stupid Chance or still more stupid Fate has heaped upon it? Yet\nhad I rather be crushed beneath the weight of mine, and die with my\nfriends in the moaning of eternal farewells, than live like George\nBascombe to carry lightly his little bag of content. A cursed\nconfusion indeed is the universe, if it be no creation, but the\nhelpless unhelpable thing such men would have us believe it--the\nhotbed mother of the children of an iron Necessity. Can any\ndamnation be worse than this damning into an existence from which\nthere is no refuge but a doubtful death?\n\nDrew overtook Wingfold, and they walked together into Glaston.\n\n\"Wasn't that splendid?\" said the draper.\n\n\"Hath not God chosen the weak things of the world to confound the\nmighty?\" returned the curate. \"Even through the play of a mad-man's\nimagination, the spirit of a sound mind may speak. Did you not find\nin it some stuff that would shape into answers to your questions?\n\n\"I ought to have done so, I dare say,\" answered the draper, \"but to\ntell the truth, I was so taken up with the wild story, and the style\nof the thing, and the little man's way of reading it, that I never\nthought of what I was full of when I came.\"\n\nThey parted at the shop, and the curate went on.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\nSTRUGGLES.\n\n\n\n\n\nHe stopped at the Manor House, for it was only beginning to be late,\nto inquire after Leopold. Helen received him with her usual\ncoldness--a manner which was in part assumed for self-protection,\nfor in his presence she always felt rebuked, and which had the\neffect of a veil between them to hide from her much of the curate's\ncharacter that might otherwise have been intelligible to her.\nLeopold, she said, was a little better, but Wingfold walked home\nthinking what a happy thing it would be if God were to take him\naway.\n\nHis interest in Helen deepened and deepened. He could not help\nadmiring her strength of character even when he saw it spent for\nworse than nought; and her devotion to her brother was lovely,\nnotwithstanding the stains of selfishness that spotted it. Her moral\nstandard was indeed far from lofty, and as to her spiritual nature,\nthat as yet appeared nowhere. And yet the growth in her was\nmarvellous when he thought of what she had seemed before this\ntrouble came. One evening as he left Leopold, he heard her singing,\nand stood on the stair to listen. And to listen was to marvel. For\nher voice, instead of being hard and dry, as when he heard it\nbefore, was, without any loss of elasticity, now liquid and\nmellifluous, and full of feeling. Its tones were borne along like\nthe leaves on the wild west wind of Shelley's sonnet. And the\nlonging of the curate to help her from that moment took a fresh\ndeparture, and grew and grew. But as the hours and days and weeks\npassed, and the longing found no outlet, it turned to an almost\nhopeless brooding upon the face and the form, yea the heart and soul\nof the woman he so fain would help, until ere long he loved her with\nthe passion of a man mingled with the compassion of a prophet. He\nsaw that something had to be done IN her--perhaps that some saving\nshock in the guise of ruin had to visit her; that some door had to\nbe burst open, some roof blown away, some rock blasted, that light\nand air might have free course through her soul's house, without\nwhich that soul could never grow stately like the house it\ninhabited. Whatever might be destined to effect this, for the chance\nof rendering poorest and most servile aid, he would watch and did\nwatch, in silence and self-restraint, lest he should be betrayed\ninto any presumptuous word that might breathe frost instead of balm\nupon the buds of her delaying Spring. If he might but be allowed to\nminister when at length the sleeping soul should stir! If its waking\nglance--ah! if it might fall on him! As often as the thought\nintruded, his heart would give one delirious bound, then couch\nashamed of its presumption. He would not, he dared not look in that\ndirection. He accused himself of mingling earthly motives and\nfeelings with the unselfish and true, and scorned himself because of\nit. And was not Bascombe already the favoured friend of her heart?\n\nYet how could it be of her heart? for what concern had hearts in a\ncommon unbelief? None; but there were the hearts--the man and the\nwoman--notwithstanding, who might yet well be drawn together by the\nunknown divine which they also shared; and that Helen, whose foot\nseemed now to approach and now to shun the line betwixt the kingdom\nof this world and the kingdom of heaven, should retire with such a\nguide into the deserts of denial and chosen godlessness, was to\nWingfold a thought of torture almost unendurable. The thought of its\npossibility, nay, probability--for were not such unfitnesses\ncontinually becoming facts?--threatened sometimes to upset the\nwhole fabric of his faith, although reared in spite of theology,\nadverse philosophy, and the most honest and bewildering doubt. That\nsuch a thing should be possible seemed at those times to bear more\nagainst the existence of a God than all the other grounds of\nquestion together. Then a shudder would go to the very deeps of his\nheart, and he would lay himself silent before the presence for a\ntime; or make haste into the solitudes--not where the sun shone and\nthe water ran, but where the light was dim and the wind low in the\npine woods. There, where the sombre green vaults were upheld by a\nhundred slender columns, and the far-receding aisles seemed to lead\nto the ancestral home of shadows, there, his own soul a shadow of\ngrief and fear among the shades of the gloomy temple, he bowed his\nheart before the Eternal, gathered together all the might of his\nbeing, and groaned forth in deepest effort of a will that struggled\nto be: \"Thy will be done, and not mine.\" Then would his spirit again\nwalk erect, and carry its burden as a cross and not as a gravestone.\n\nSometimes he was sorely perplexed to think how the weakness, as he\ncalled it, had begun, and how it had grown upon him. He could not\nsay it was his doing, and what had he ever been aware of in it\nagainst which he ought to have striven? Came not the whole thing of\nhis nature, a nature that was not of his design, and was beyond him\nand his control--a nature that either sprung from a God, or grew out\nof an unconscious Fate? If from the latter, how was such as he to\nencounter and reduce to a constrained and self-rejecting reason a\nSelf unreasonable, being an issue of the Unreasoning, which Self was\nyet greater than he, its vagaries the source of his intensest\nconsciousness and brightest glimpses of the ideal and all-desirable.\nIf on the other hand it was born of a God, then let that God look to\nit, for, sure, that which belonged to his nature could not be evil\nor of small account in the eyes of him who made him in his own\nimage. But alas! that image had, no matter how, been so defaced,\nthat the will of the man might even now be setting itself up against\nthe will of the God! Did his love then spring from the God-will or\nthe man-will? Must there not be some God-way of the thing, all\nright and nothing wrong?--But he could not compass it, and the\nmarvel to himself was that all the time he was able to go on\npreaching, and that with some sense of honesty and joy in his work.\n\nIn this trouble more than ever Wingfold felt that if there was no\nGod, his soul was but a thing of rags and patches out in the\nmasterless pitiless storm and hail of a chaotic universe. Often\nwould he rush into the dark, as it were, crying for God, and ever he\nwould emerge therefrom with some tincture of the light, enough to\nkeep him alive and send him to his work. And there, in her own seat,\nSunday after Sunday, sat the woman whom he had seen ten times, and\nthat for no hasty moments, during the week, by the bedside of her\nbrother, yet to whom only now, in the open secrecy of the pulpit,\ndid he dare utter the words of might he would so fain have poured\ndirect into her suffering heart. And there, Sunday after Sunday, the\nface he loved bore witness to the trouble of the heart he loved yet\nmore: that heart was not yet redeemed! oh, might it be granted him\nto set some little wind a blowing for its revival and hope! As often\nas he stood up to preach, his heart swelled with the message he\nbore--a message of no private interpretation, but for the healing of\nthe nations, yet a message for her, and for the healing of every\nindividual heart that would hear and take, and he spoke with the\nfreedom and dignity of a prophet. But when he saw her afterwards, he\nscarcely dared let his eyes rest a moment on her face, would only\npluck the flower of a glance flying, or steal it at such moments\nwhen he thought she would not see. She caught his glance however far\noftener than he knew, and was sometimes aware of it without seeing\nit at all. And there was that in the curate's behaviour, in his\nabsolute avoidance of self-assertion, or the least possible\nintrusion upon her mental privacy--in the wrapping of his garments\naround him as it were, that his presence might offend as little as\nmight be, while at the same time he was full of simple direct\nministration to her brother, without one side-glance that sought\napproval of her, which the nobility of the woman could not fail to\nnote, and seek to understand.\n\nIt was altogether a time of great struggle with Wingfold. He seemed\nto be assailed in every direction, and to feel the strong house of\nlife giving way in every part, and yet he held on--lived, which he\nthought was all, and, without knowing it, grew. Perhaps it may be\nthis period that the following verses which I found among his papers\nbelong: he could not himself tell me.--\n\n    Out of my door I run to do the thing\n    That calls upon me. Straight the wind of words\n    Whoops from mine ears the sounds of them that sing\n    About their work--My God! my Father-King.\n\n    I turn in haste to see thy blessed door,\n    But lo! a cloud of flies and bats and birds,\n    And stalking vapours, and vague monster herds,\n    Have risen and lighted, rushed and swollen between.\n\n    Ah me! the house of peace is there no more.\n    Was it a dream then? Walls, fireside, and floor,\n    And sweet obedience, loving, calm, and free,\n    Are vanished--gone as they had never been.\n\n    I labour groaning. Comes a sudden sheen!--\n    And I am kneeling at my Father's knee,\n    Sighing with joy, and hoping utterly.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV.\n\nTHE LAWN.\n\n\n\n\n\nLeopold had begun to cough, and the fever continued. Every afternoon\ncame the red flush to his cheek, and the hard glitter into his eye.\nHis talk was then excited, and mostly about his coming trial. To\nHelen it was terribly painful, and she confessed to herself that but\nfor Wingfold she must have given way. Leopold insisted on seeing Mr.\nHooker every time he called, and every time expressed the hope that\nhe would not allow pity for his weak state to prevent him from\napplying the severe remedy of the law to his moral condition. But in\ntruth it began to look doubtful whether disease would not run a race\nwith law for his life, even if the latter should at once proceed to\njustify a claim. From the first Faber doubted if he would ever\nrecover from the consequences of that exposure in the churchyard,\nand it soon became evident that his lungs were more than affected.\nHis cough increased, and he began to lose what little flesh he had.\n\nOne day Faber expressed his conviction to Wingfold that he was\nfighting the disease at the great disadvantage of having an unknown\nenemy to contend with.\n\n\"The fellow is unhappy,\" he said, \"and if that lasts another month,\nI shall throw up the sponge. He has a good deal of vitality, but it\nis yielding, and by that time he will be in a galloping\nconsumption.\"\n\n\"You must do your best for him,\" said Wingfold, but in his heart he\nwished, with an honest affection, that he might not succeed.\n\nLeopold, however, seemed to have no idea of his condition, and the\ncurate wondered what he would think or do were he to learn that he\nwas dying. Would he insist on completing his confession, and urging\non a trial? He had himself told him all that had passed with the\nmagistrate, and how things now were as he understood them, but it\nwas plain that he had begun to be uneasy about the affair, and was\ndoubtful at times whether all was as it seemed. The curate was not\ndeceived. He had been present during a visit from Mr. Hooker, and\nnothing could be plainer than the impression out of which the good\nman spoke. Nor could he fail to suspect the cunning kindness of\nGeorge Bascombe in the affair. But he did not judge that he had now\nthe least call to interfere. The poor boy had done as much as lay\neither in or out of him in the direction of duty, and was daily\nbecoming more and more unfit either to originate or carry out a\nfurther course of action. If he was in himself capable of anything\nmore, he was, in his present state of weakness, utterly unable to\ncope with the will of those around him.\n\nFaber would have had him leave the country for some southern\nclimate, but he would not hear of it, and Helen, knowing to what\nextremities it might drive him, would not insist. Nor, indeed, was\nhe now in a condition to be moved. Also the weather had grown\ncolder, and he was sensitive to atmospheric changes as any creature\nof the elements.\n\nBut after a fortnight, when it was now the middle of the autumn, it\ngrew quite warm again, and he revived and made such progress that he\nwas able to be carried into the garden every day. There he sat in a\nchair on the lawn, with his feet on a sheepskin, and a fur cloak\nabout him. And for all the pain at his heart, for all the misery in\nwhich no one could share, for all the pangs of a helpless jealousy,\nchecked only by a gnawing remorse, both of which took refuge in the\nthought of following through the spheres until he found her, cast\nhimself at her feet, spoke the truth, and became, if he might, her\nslave for ever, failing which he could but turn and go wandering\nthrough the spheres, seeking rest and finding none, save indeed\nthere were some salvation even for him in the bosom of his God--I\nsay that, somehow, with all this on the brain and in the heart of\nhim, the sunshine was yet pleasant to his eyes, while it stung him\nto the soul; the soft breathing of the wind was pleasant to his\ncheek, while he cursed himself for the pleasure it gave him; the few\nflowers that were left looked up at him mournfully and he let them\nlook, nor turned his eyes away, but let the tears gather and flow.\nThe first agonies of the encounter of life and death were over, and\nlife was slowly wasting away. Oh what might not a little joy do for\nhim! But where was the joy to be found that could irradiate such a\ndarkness even for one fair memorial moment?\n\nOne hot noon Wingfold lay beside him on the grass. Neither had\nspoken for some time: the curate more and more shrunk from speech to\nwhich his heart was not directly moved. As to what might be in\nseason or out of season, he never would pretend to judge, he said,\nbut even Balaam's ass knew when he had a call to speak. He plucked a\npale red pimpernel and handed it up over his head to Leopold. The\nyouth looked at it for a moment, and burst into tears. The curate\nrose hastily.\n\n\"It is so heartless of me.\" said Leopold, \"to take pleasure in such\na childish innocence as this!\"\n\n\"It merely shows,\" said the curate, laying his hand gently on his\nshoulder, \"that even in these lowly lovelinesses, there is a\nsomething that has its root deeper than your pain; that, all about\nus, in earth and air, wherever eye or ear can reach, there is a\npower ever breathing itself forth in signs, now in a daisy, now in a\nwindwaft, a cloud, a sunset; a power that holds constant and\nsweetest relation with the dark and silent world within us; that the\nsame God who is in us, and upon whose tree we are the buds, if not\nyet the flowers, also is all about us--inside, the Spirit; outside,\nthe Word. And the two are ever trying to meet in us; and when they\nmeet, then the sign without, and the longing within, become one in\nlight, and the man no more walketh in darkness, but knoweth whither\nhe goeth.\"\n\nAs he ended thus, the curate bent over and looked at Leopold. But\nthe poor boy had not listened to a word he said. Something in his\ntone had soothed him, but the moment he ceased, the vein of his\ngrief burst out bleeding afresh. He clasped his thin hands together,\nand looked up in an agony of hopeless appeal to the blue sky, now\ngrown paler as in fear of the coming cold, though still the air was\nwarm and sweet, and cried,\n\n\"Oh! if God would only be good and unmake me, and let darkness cover\nthe place where once was me! That would be like a good God! All I\nshould be sorry for then would be, that there was not enough of me\nleft for a dim flitting Will-o'-the-wisp of praise, ever singing my\nthankfulness to him that I was no more.--Yet even then my deed would\nremain, for I dare not ask that she should die outright also--that\nwould be to heap wrong upon wrong. What an awful thing being is! Not\neven my annihilation could make up for my crime, or rid it out of\nthe universe.\"\n\n\"True, Leopold!\" said the curate. \"Nothing but the burning love of\nGod can rid sin out of anywhere. But are you not forgetting him who\nsurely knew what he undertook when he would save the world? No more\nthan you could have set that sun flaming overhead, with its\nmillion-miled billows and its limitless tempests of fire, can you\ntell what the love of God is, or what it can do for you, if only by\nenlarging your love with the inrush of itself. Few have such a cry\nto raise to the Father as you, such a claim of sin and helplessness\nto heave up before him, such a joy even to offer to the great\nShepherd who cannot rest while one sheep strays from his flock, one\nprodigal haunts the dens of evil and waste. Cry to him, Leopold, my\ndear boy. Cry to him again and yet again, for he himself said that\nmen ought always to pray and not faint, for God did hear and would\nanswer although he might seem long about it. I think we shall find\none day that nobody, not the poet of widest sweep and most daring\nimagination, not the prophet who soars the highest in his ardour to\njustify the ways of God to men, not the child when he is most fully\npossessed of the angel that in heaven always beholds the face of the\nFather of Jesus, has come or could have come within sight of the\nmajesty of his bestowing upon his children. For did he not, if the\nstory be true, allow torture itself to invade the very soul's\ncitadel of his best beloved, as he went to seek the poor ape of a\nprodigal, stupidly grinning amongst his harlots?\"\n\nLeopold did not answer, and the shadow lay deep on his face for a\nwhile; but at length it began to thin, and at last a feeble\nquivering smile broke through the cloud, and he wept soft tears of\nrefreshing.\n\nIt was not that the youth had turned again from the hope of rest in\nthe Son of Man; but that, as everyone knows who knows anything of\nthe human spirit, there must be in its history days and seasons,\nmornings and nights, yea deepest midnights. It has its alternating\nsummer and winter, its storm and shine, its soft dews and its\ntempests of lashing hail, its cold moons and prophetic stars, its\npale twilights of saddest memory, and its golden gleams of brightest\nhope. All these mingled and displaced each other in Leopold's ruined\nworld, where chaos had come again, but over whose waters a mightier\nbreath was now moving.\n\nAnd now after much thought, the curate saw that he could not hope to\ntransplant into the bosom of the lad the flowers of truth that\ngladdened his own garden: he must sow the seed from which they had\nsprung, and that seed was the knowledge of the true Jesus. It was\nnow the more possible to help him in this way, that the wild beast\nof his despair had taken its claws from his bosom, had withdrawn a\npace or two, and couched watching. And Wingfold soon found that\nnothing calmed and brightened him like talk about Jesus. He had\ntried verse first--seeking out the best within his reach wherein\nloving souls have uttered their devotion to the man of men; but here\nalso the flowers would not be transplanted. How it came about he\nhardly knew, but he had soon drifted into rather than chosen another\nway, which way proved a right one: he would begin thinking aloud on\nsome part of the gospel story, generally that which was most in his\nmind at the time--talking with himself, as it were, all about it. He\nbegan this one morning as he lay on the grass beside him, and that\nwas the position in which he found he could best thus soliloquize.\nNow and then but not often Leopold would interrupt him, and perhaps\nturn the monologue into dialogue, but even then Wingfold would\nhardly ever look at him: he would not disturb him with more of his\npresence than he could help, or allow the truth to be flavoured with\nmore of his individuality than was unavoidable. For every\nindividuality, he argued, has a peculiar flavour to every other, and\nonly Jesus is the pure simple humanity that every one can love, out\nand out, at once. In these mental meanderings, he avoided nothing,\ntook notice of every difficulty, whether able to discuss it fully or\nnot, broke out in words of delight when his spirit was moved, nor\nhid his disappointment when he failed in getting at what might seem\ngood enough to be the heart of the thing. It was like hatching a\nsermon in the sun instead of in the oven. Occasionally, when, having\nceased, he looked up to know how his pupil fared, he found him fast\nasleep--sometimes with a smile, sometimes with a tear on his face.\nThe sight would satisfy him well. Calm upon such a tormented sea\nmust be the gift of God; and the curate would then sometimes fall\nasleep himself--to start awake at the first far-off sound of Helen's\ndress as it swept a running fire of fairy fog-signals from the half-\nopened buds of the daisies, and the long heads of the rib-grass,\nwhen he would rise and saunter a few paces aside, and she would bend\nover her brother, to see if he were warm and comfortable. By this\ntime all the old tenderness of her ministration had returned, nor\ndid she seem any longer jealous of Wingfold's.\n\nOne day she came behind them as they talked. The grass had been mown\nthat morning, and also she happened to be dressed in her riding-\nhabit and had gathered up the skirt over her arm, so that on this\noccasion she made no sound of sweet approach. Wingfold had been\nuttering one of his rambling monologues--in which was much without\nform, but nothing void.\n\n\"I don't know quite,\" he had been saying, \"what to think about that\nstory of the woman they brought to Jesus in the temple--I mean how\nit got into that nook of the gospel of St. John, where it has no\nright place.--They didn't bring her for healing or for the rebuke of\nher demon, but for condemnation, only they came to the wrong man for\nthat. They dared not carry out the law of stoning, as they would\nhave liked, I suppose, even if Jesus had condemned her, but perhaps\nthey hoped rather to entrap him who was the friend of sinners into\nsaying something against the law.--But what I want is, to know how\nit got there,--just there, I mean, betwixt the seventh and eighth\nchapters of St. John's Gospel. There is no doubt of its being an\ninterpolation--that the twelfth verse, I think it is, ought to join\non to the fifty-second. The Alexandrian manuscript is the only one\nof the three oldest that has it, and it is the latest of the three.\nI did think once, but hastily, that it was our Lord's text for\nsaying I AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD, but it follows quite as well on\nhis offer of living water. One can easily see how the place would\nappear a very suitable one to any presumptuous scribe who wished to\nsettle the question of where it should stand.--I wonder if St. John\ntold the lovely tale as something he had forgotten, after he had\nfinished dictating all the rest. Or was it well known to all the\nevangelists, only no one of them was yet partaker enough of the\nspirit of him who was the friend of sinners, to dare put it on\nwritten record, thinking it hardly a safe story to expose to the\nquarrying of men's conclusions? But it doesn't matter much: the tale\nmust be a true one. Only--to think of just this one story, of\ntenderest righteousness, floating about like a holy waif through the\nworld of letters!--a sweet gray dove of promise that can find no\nrest for the sole of his foot! Just this one story of all stories a\nkind of outcast! and yet as a wanderer, oh, how welcome! Some\nmanuscripts, I understand, have granted it a sort of outhouse-shelter\nat the end of the gospel of St. Luke. But it all matters nothing, so\nlong as we can believe it; and true it must be, it is so like him\nall through. And if it does go wandering as a stray through the\ngospels, without place of its own, what matters it so long as it\ncan find hearts enough to nestle in, and bring forth its young of\ncomfort!--Perhaps the woman herself told it, and, as with the woman\nof Samaria, some would and some would not believe her.--Oh! the eyes\nthat met upon her! The fiery hail of scorn from those of the Pharisees--the\nlight of eternal sunshine from those of Jesus!--I was reading the\nother day, in one of the old Miracle Plays, how each that looked on\nwhile Jesus wrote with his finger on the ground, imagined he was\nwriting down his individual sins, and was in terror lest his neighbour\nshould come to know them.--And wasn't he gentle even with those to\nwhom he was sharper than a two-edged sword! and oh how gentle to her\nhe would cover from their rudeness and wrong! LET THE SINLESS THROW!\nAnd the sinners went out, and she followed--to sin no more. No reproaches,\nyou see! No stirring up of the fiery snakes! Only don't do it again.--I\ndon't think she did it again:--do you?\"\n\nIt was just here that Helen came and stood behind Leopold's chair.\nThe curate lay on the grass, and neither saw her.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI.\n\nHOW JESUS SPOKE TO WOMEN.\n\n\n\n\n\n\"But why wasn't he as gentle with good women?\" said Leopold.\n\n\"Wasn't he?\" said the curate in some surprise.\n\n\"He said What have I to do with thee to his own mother?\"\n\n\"A Greek scholar should go to the Greek,\" said the curate. \"Our\nEnglish is not perfect. You see she wanted to make him show off, and\nhe thought how little she knew what he came to the world for. Her\nthoughts were so unlike his that he said, What have we in common! It\nwas a moan of the God-head over the distance of its creature.\nPerhaps he thought: How then will you stand the shock when at length\nit comes? But he looked at her as her own son ought to look at every\nblessed mother, and she read in his eyes no rebuke, for instantly,\nsure of her desire, she told them to do whatever he said.\"\n\n\"I hope that's the right way of it,\" said Leopold, \"for I want to\ntrust him out and out. But what do you make of the story of the poor\nwoman that came about her daughter? Wasn't he rough to her? It\nalways seemed to me such a cruel thing to talk of throwing the meat\nof the children to the dogs!\"\n\n\"We cannot judge of the word until we know the spirit that gave\nbirth to it. Let me ask you a question: What would you take for the\ngreatest proof of downright friendship a man could show you?\"\n\n\"That is too hard a question to answer all at once.\"\n\n\"Well, I may be wrong, but the deepest outcome of friendship seems\nto me, on the part of the superior at least, the permission, or\nbetter still, the call, to share in his sufferings. And in saying\nthat hard word to the poor Gentile, our Lord honoured her thus\nmightily. He assumed for the moment the part of the Jew towards the\nGentile, that he might, for the sake of all the world of Gentiles\nand Jews, lay bare to his Jewish followers the manner of spirit they\nwere of, and let them see what a lovely humanity they despised in\ntheir pride of election. He took her to suffer with him for the\nsalvation of the world. The cloud overshadowed them both, but what\nwords immediately thereafter made a glory in her heart! He spoke to\nher as if her very faith had reached an arm into the heavens, and\nbrought therefrom the thing she sought.--But I confess,\" the curate\nwent on, \"those two passages have both troubled me. So I presume\nwill everything that is God's, until it becomes a strength and a\nlight by revealing its true nature to the heart that has grown\ncapable of understanding it. The first sign of the coming capacity\nand the coming joy, is the anxiety and the question.--There is\nanother passage, which, although it does not trouble me so much, I\ncannot yet get a right perception of. When Mary Magdalene took the\nMaster of Death for the gardener--the gardener of the garden of the\ntombs! no great mistake, was it?--it is a lovely thing, that\nmistaking of Jesus for the gardener!--how the holy and the lowly,\nyea the holy and the common meet on all sides! Just listen to their\nmorning talk--the morning of the eternal open world to Jesus, while\nthe shadows of this narrow life still clustered around Mary:--I can\ngive it you exactly, for I was reading it this very day.\n\n\"'Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?'\n\n\"'Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid\nhim, and I will take him away.'\n\n\"'Mary.'\n\n\"'Master!'\n\n\"'Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my\nbrethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your\nFather; and to my God and your God.'\n\n\"Why did he say, DO NOT TOUCH ME? It could not be that there was any\ndefilement to one in the new body of the resurrection, from contact\nwith one still in the old garments of humanity. But could it be that\nthere was danger to her in the contact? Was there something in the\nnew house from Heaven hurtful to the old tabernacle? I can hardly\nbelieve it. Perhaps it might be. But we must look at the reason the\nMaster gives--only of all words hard to understand, the little\nconjunctions are sometimes the hardest. What can that FOR mean?\n'Touch me not, FOR I am not yet ascended to my Father.' Does it\nmean, 'I must first present myself to my Father; I must first have\nHis hand laid on this body new-risen from the grave; I must go home\nfirst?' The child must kiss his mother first, then his sisters and\nbrothers: was it so with Jesus? Was he so glad in his father, that\nhe must carry even the human body he had rescued eternal from the\ngrave, home to show him first? There are many difficulties about the\ninterpretation, and even if true, it would still shock every heart\nwhose devotion was less than absolutely child-like. Was not God WITH\nhim, as close to him as even God could come to his eternal son--in\nhim--ONE with him, all the time? How could he get nearer to him by\ngoing to Heaven? What head-quarters, what court of place and\ncircumstance should the Eternal, Immortal, Invisible hold? And yet\nif from him flow time and space, although he cannot be subject to\nthem; if his son could incarnate himself--cast the living,\nresponsive, elastic, flowing, evanishing circumstance of a human\ngarment around him; if, as Novalis says, God can become whatever he\ncan create, then may there not be some central home of God, holding\nrelation even to time and space and sense? But I am bewildered about\nit.--Jesus stood then in the meeting point of both worlds, or rather\nin the skirts of the great world that infolds the less. I am talking\nlike a baby, for my words cannot compass or even represent my\nthoughts. This world looks to us the natural and simple one, and so\nit is--absolutely fitted to our need and education. But there is\nthat in us which is not at home in this world, which I believe holds\nsecret relations with every star, or perhaps rather, with that in\nthe heart of God whence issued every star, diverse in kind and\ncharacter as in colour and place and motion and light. To that in\nus, this world is so far strange and unnatural and unfitting, and we\nneed a yet homelier home. Yea, no home at last will do, but the home\nof God's heart. Jesus, I say, was now looking, on one side, into the\nregion of a deeper life, where his people, those that knew their own\nwhen they saw him, would one day find themselves tenfold at home;\nwhile, on the other hand, he was looking into the region of their\npresent life, which custom and faithlessness make them afraid to\nleave. But we need not fear what the new conditions of life will\nbring, either for body or heart, for they will be nearer and sweeter\nto our deeper being, as Jesus is nearer and dearer than any man\nbecause he is more human than any. He is all that we can love or\nlook for, and at the root of that very loving and looking.--'In my\nFather's house are many mansions,' he said. Matter, time, space, are\nall God's, and whatever may become of our philosophies, whatever he\ndoes with or in respect of time, place, and what we call matter, his\ndoing must be true in philosophy as well as fact. But I am\nwandering.\"\n\nThe curate was wandering, but the liberty of wandering was essential\nto his talking with the kind of freedom and truth he wanted to\nmediate betwixt his pupil and the lovely things he saw.\n\n\"I wonder where the penitent thief was all the time,\" said Leopold.\n\n\"Yes, that also is a difficulty. There again come in the bothering\ntime and space, bothering in their relation to heavenly things, I\nmean. On the Friday, the penitent thief, as you call him, was to be\nwith Jesus in Paradise; and now it was Sunday, and Jesus said he had\nnot yet been up to see his Father. Some would say, I am too literal,\ntoo curious; what can Friday and Sunday have to do with Paradise?\nBut words MEAN in both worlds, for they are not two but one--surely\nat least when Jesus thinks and speaks of them; and there can be no\nwrong in feeling ever so blindly and dully after WHAT they mean.\nSuch humble questioning can do no harm, even if, in face of the\nfacts, the questions be as far off and SILLY--in the old sweet\nmeaning of the word--as those of any infant concerning a world he\nhas not proved.--But about Mary Magdalene: He must have said the\nword TOUCH ME NOT. That could not have crept in. It is too hard for\nan interpolation, I think; and if no interpolation, it must mean\nsome deep-good thing we don't understand. One thing we can make sure\nof: it was nothing that should hurt her; for see what follows. But\nfor that, when he said TOUCH ME NOT, FOR I AM NOT YET ASCENDED TO MY\nFATHER, she might have thought--'Ah! thou hast thy Father to go to,\nand thou wilt leave us for him.'--BUT, he went on, GO TO MY BRETHREN\nAND SAY UNTO THEM: I ASCEND UNTO MY FATHER, AND YOUR FATHER; AND MY\nGOD AND YOUR GOD. What more could she want? Think: the Father of\nJesus, with whom, in all his knowledge and all his suffering, the\ngrand heart was perfectly, exultingly satisfied,--that Father he\ncalls our Father too. He shares with his brethren--of his best, his\ndeepest, his heartiest, most secret delight, and makes it their and\nhis most open joy: he shares his eternal Father with us, his perfect\nGod with his brethren. And whatever his not having yet ascended to\nhim may mean, we see, with marvel and joy, that what delayed\nhim--even though, for some reason perfect in tenderness as in truth,\nhe would not be touched--was love to Mary Magdalene and his mother\nand his brethren. He could not go to the Father without comforting\nthem first. And certainly whatever she took the TOUCH ME NOT to mean\nor point at, it was nothing that hurt her.--It just strikes me--is\nit possible he said it in order to turn the overwhelming passion of\nher joy, which after such a restoration would have clung more than\never to the visible presence, and would be ready to suffer the pains\nof death yet again when he parted from her--might it be to turn that\ntorrent into the wider and ever widening channel of joy in his\neverlasting presence to the innermost being, his communion, heart to\nheart, with every child of his Father? In our poor weakness and\nnarrowness and self-love, even of Jesus the bodily may block out the\nspiritual nearness, which, however in most moods we may be unable to\nrealise the fact, is and remains a thing unutterably lovelier and\nbetter and dearer--enhancing tenfold what vision of a bodily\npresence may at some time be granted us. But how any woman can help\ncasting herself heart and soul at the feet of such a lowly grandeur,\nsuch a tender majesty, such a self-dissolving perfection--I cannot\nimagine. The truth must be that those who kneel not have not seen.\nYou do not once read of a woman being against him--except indeed it\nwas his own mother, when she thought he was going all astray and\nforgetting his high mission. The divine love in him towards his\nFather in heaven and his brethren of men, was ever melting down his\nconscious individuality in sweetest showers upon individual hearts;\nhe came down like rain upon the mown grass, like showers that water\nthe earth. No woman, no man surely ever saw him as he was and did\nnot worship!\"\n\nHelen turned and glided back into the house, and neither knew she\nhad been there.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII.\n\nDELIVERANCE.\n\n\n\n\n\nAll that could be done for Leopold by tenderest sisterly care under\nthe supervision of Mr. Faber, who believed in medicine less than in\ngood nursing, was well supplemented by the brotherly ministrations\nof Wingfold, who gave all the time he could honestly spare from his\nordinary work to soothe and enlighten the suffering youth. But it\nbecame clearer every week that nothing would avail to entice the\ntorn roots of his being to clasp again the soil of the world: he was\nwithering away out of it. Ere long symptoms appeared which no one\ncould well mistake, and Lingard himself knew that he was dying.\nWingfold had dreaded that his discovery of the fact might reveal\nthat he had imagined some atonement in the public confession he\ndesired to make, and that, when he found it denied him, he would\nfall into despair. But he was with him at the moment, and his\nbearing left no ground for anxiety. A gleam of gladness from below\nthe horizon of his spirit, shot up, like the aurora of a heavenly\nmorning, over the sky of his countenance. He glanced at his friend,\nsmiled, and said,\n\n\"It has killed me too, and that is a comfort.\"\n\nThe curate only looked his reply.\n\n\"They say,\" resumed Leopold, after a while, \"that God takes the will\nfor the deed:--do you think so?\"\n\n\"Certainly, if it be a true, genuine will.\"\n\n\"I am sure I meant to give myself up,\" said Leopold. \"I had not the\nslightest idea they were fooling me. I know it now, but what can I\ndo? I am so weak, I should only die on the way.\"\n\nHe tried to rise, but fell back in the chair.\n\n\"Oh!\" he sighed, \"isn't it good of God to let me die! Who knows what\nhe may do for me on the other side! Who can tell what the bounty of\na God like Jesus may be!\"\n\nA vision arose before the mind's eye of the curate:--Emmeline\nkneeling for Leopold's forgiveness; but he wisely held his peace.\nThe comforter of the sinner must come from the forgiveness of God,\nnot from the favourable judgment of man mitigating the harshness of\nhis judgment of himself. Wingfold's business was to start him well\nin the world whither he was going. He must fill his scrip with the\nonly wealth that would not dissolve in the waters of the river--that\nwas, the knowledge of Jesus.\n\nIt shot a terrible pang to the heart of Helen, herself, for all her\nsuffering, so full of life, when she learned that her darling must\ndie. Yet was there no small consolation mingled with the shock. Fear\nvanished, and love returned with grief in twofold strength. She flew\nto him, and she who had been so self-contained, so composed, so\nunsubmissive to any sway of feeling, broke into such a storm of\npassionate affection that the vexilla mortis answered from his\nbosom, flaunting themselves in crimson before her eyes. In vain, for\nLeopold's sake, the curate had sought to quiet her: she had resented\nhis interference; but this result of her impetuosity speedily\nbrought her to her senses, and set her to subdue herself.\n\nThe same evening Leopold insisted on dictating to the curate his\nconfession, which done, he signed it, making him and Helen attest\nthe signature. This document Wingfold took charge of, promising to\nmake the right use of it, whatever he should on reflection conclude\nthat to be; after which Leopold's mind seemed at ease.\n\nHis sufferings from cough and weakness and fever now augmented with\ngreater rapidity, but it was plain from the kind of light in his\neye, and the far look which was not yet retrospective, that hope and\nexpectation were high in him. He had his times of gloom, when the\ndragon of the past crept out of its cave, and tore him afresh; but\nthe prospect of coming deliverance strengthened him.\n\n\"Do you really think,\" he said once to the curate, \"that I shall\never see Emmeline again?\"\n\n\"Truly I hope so,\" answered his friend, \"and could argue upon the\npoint. But I think the best way, when doubt comes as to anything you\nwould like to be true, is just to hide yourself in God, as the child\nwould hide from the dark in the folds of his mother's mantle.\"\n\n\"But aunt would say, if she knew, that, dying as she did, Emmeline\ncould not be saved.\"\n\n\"Some people may have to be a good deal astonished as to what can\nand cannot be,\" returned the curate. \"But never mind what people\nsay: make your appeal to the saviour of men about whatever troubles\nyou. Cry to the faithful creator, his Father. To be a faithful\ncreator needs a might of truth and loving-kindness of which our\nnarrow hearts can ill conceive. Ask much of God, my boy, and be very\nhumble and very hoping.\"\n\nAfter all such utterances, Leopold would look his thanks, and hold\nhis peace.\n\n\"I wish it was over,\" he said once.\n\n\"So do I,\" returned the curate. \"But be of good courage, I think\nnothing will be given you to bear that you will not be able to\nbear.\"\n\n\"I can bear a great deal more than I have had yet. I don't think I\nshall ever complain. That would be to take myself out of his hands,\nand I have no hope anywhere else.--Are you any surer about him, sir,\nthan you used to be?\"\n\n\"At least I hope in him far more,\" answered Wingfold.\n\n\"Is that enough?\"\n\n\"No. I want more.\"\n\n\"I wish I could come back and tell you that I am alive and all is\ntrue.\"\n\n\"I would rather have the natural way of it, and get the good of not\nknowing first.\"\n\n\"But if I could tell you I had found God, then that would make you\nsure.\"\n\nWingfold could not help a smile:--as if any assurance from such a\nsimple soul could reach the questions that tossed his troubled\nspirit!\n\n\"I think I shall find all I want in Jesus Christ,\" he said.\n\n\"But you can't see him, you know.\"\n\n\"Perhaps I can do better. And at all events I can wait,\" said the\ncurate. \"Even if he would let me, I would not see him one moment\nbefore he thought it best. I would not be out of a doubt or\ndifficulty an hour sooner than he would take me.\"\n\nLeopold gazed at him and said no more.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII.\n\nTHE MEADOW.\n\n\n\n\n\nAs the disease advanced, his desire for fresh air and freedom grew\nto a great longing. One hot day, whose ardours, too strong for the\nleaves whose springs had begun to dry up, were burning them \"yellow\nand black and pale and hectic red,\" the fancy seized him to get out\nof the garden with its clipt box-trees and cypresses, into the\nmeadow beyond. There a red cow was switching her tail as she\ngathered her milk from the world, and looking as if all were well.\nHe liked the look of the cow, and the open meadow, and wanted to\nshare it with her, he said. Helen, with the anxiety of a careful\nnurse, feared it might hurt him.\n\n\"What DOES it matter?\" he returned. \"Is life so sweet that every\nmoment more of it is a precious boon? After I'm gone a few days, you\nwon't know a week from an hour of me. What a weight it will be off\nyou! I envy you all the relief of it. It will be to you just what it\nwould be to me to get into that meadow.\"\n\nHelen made haste to let him have his will. They prepared a sort of\nlitter, and the curate and the coachman carried him. Hearing what\nthey were about, Mrs. Ramshorn hurried into the garden to protest,\nbut protested in vain, and joined the little procession, walking\nwith Helen, like a second mourner, after the bier. They crossed the\nlawn, and through a double row of small cypresses went winding down\nto the underground passage, as if to the tomb itself. They had not\nthought of opening the door first, and the place was dark and\nsepulchral. Helen hastened to set it wide.\n\n\"Lay me down for a moment,\" said Leopold. \"--Here I lie in my tomb!\nHow soft and brown the light is! I should not mind lying here,\nhalf-asleep, half-awake, for centuries, if only I had the hope of a\nright good waking at last.\"\n\nA flood of fair light flashed in sweet torrent into the place--and\nthere, framed in the doorway, but far across the green field, stood\nthe red cow, switching her tail.\n\n\"And here comes my resurrection!\" cried Leopold. \"I have not had\nlong to wait for it--have I?\"\n\nHe smiled a pained content as he spoke, and they bore him out into\nthe sun and air. They set him down in the middle of the field in a\nlow chair--not far from a small clump of trees, through which the\nfootpath led to the stile whereon the curate was seated when he\nfirst saw the Polwarths. Mrs. Ramshorn found the fancy of the sick\nman pleasant for the hale, and sent for her knitting. Helen sat down\nempty-handed on the wool at her brother's feet, and Wingfold, taking\na book from his pocket, withdrew to the trees.\n\nHe had not read long, sitting within sight and call of the group,\nwhen Helen came to him.\n\n\"He seems inclined to go to sleep,\" she said. \"Perhaps if you would\nread something, it would send him off.\"\n\n\"I will with pleasure,\" he said, and returning with her, sat down on\nthe grass.\n\n\"May I read you a few verses I came upon the other day, Leopold?\" he\nasked.\n\n\"Please do,\" answered the invalid, rather sleepily.\n\nI will not pledge myself that the verses belonged to the book\nWingfold held before him, but here they are. He read them slowly,\nand as evenly and softly and rhythmically as he could.\n\n    They come to thee, the halt, the maimed, the blind,\n        The devil-torn, the sick, the sore;\n    Thy heart their well of life they find,\n        Thine ear their open door.\n\n    Ah! who can tell the joy in Palestine--\n        What smiles and tears of rescued throngs!\n    Their lees of life were turned to wine,\n        Their prayers to shouts and songs!\n\n    The story dear our wise men fable call,\n        Give paltry facts the mighty range;\n    To me it seems just what should fall,\n        And nothing very strange.\n\n    But were I deaf and lame and blind and sore,\n        I scarce would care for cure to ask;\n    Another prayer should haunt thy door--\n        Set thee a harder task.\n\n    If thou art Christ, see here this heart of mine,\n        Torn, empty, moaning, and unblest!\n    Had ever heart more need of thine,\n        If thine indeed hath rest?\n\n    Thy word, thy hand right soon did scare the bane\n        That in their bodies death did breed:\n    If thou canst cure my deeper pain,\n        Then thou art Lord indeed.\n\nLeopold smiled sleepily as Wingfold read, and ere the reading was\nover, slept.\n\n\"What can the little object want here?\" said Mrs. Ramshorn.\n\nWingfold looked up, and seeing who it was approaching them, said,\n\n\"Oh! that is Mr. Polwarth, who keeps the park gate.\"\n\n\"Nobody can well mistake him,\" returned Mrs. Ramshorn. \"Everybody\nknows the creature.\"\n\n\"Few people know him really,\" said Wingfold.\n\n\"I HAVE heard that he is an oddity in mind as well as in body,\" said\nMrs. Ramshorn.\n\n\"He is a friend of mine,\" rejoined the curate. \"I will go and meet\nhim. He wants to know how Leopold is.\"\n\n\"Pray keep your seat, Mr. Wingfold. I don't in the least mind him,\"\nsaid Mrs. Ramshorn. \"Any FRIEND of yours, as you are kind enough to\ncall him, will be welcome. Clergymen come to know--indeed it is\ntheir duty to be acquainted with all sorts of people. The late dean\nof Halystone would stop and speak to a pauper.\"\n\nThe curate did however go and meet Polwarth, and returning with him\npresented him to Mrs. Ramshorn, who received him with perfect\ncondescension, and a most gracious bow. Helen bent her head also,\nvery differently, but it would be hard to say how. The little man\nturned from them, and for a moment stood looking on the face of the\nsleeping youth: he had not seen him since Helen ordered him to leave\nthe house. Even now she looked angry at his presumption in staring\nat her brother. But Polwarth did not see her look. A great\ntenderness came over his face, and his lips moved softly. \"The Lord\nof thy life keep it for thee, my son!\" he murmured, gazed a moment\nlonger, then rejoined Wingfold.\n\nThey walked aside a few paces.\n\n\"Pray be seated,\" said Mrs. Ramshorn, without looking up from her\nknitting--the seat she offered being the wide meadow.\n\nBut they had already done so, and presently were deep in a gentle\ntalk, of which at length certain words that had been foolhardy\nenough to wander within her range, attracted the notice of Mrs.\nRamshorn, and she began to listen. But she could not hear\ndistinctly.\n\n\"There should be one bishop at least,\" the little man was saying,\n\"or I don't know but he ought to be the arch-arch-bishop,--a poor\nman, if possible,--one like the country parson Chaucer sets up in\ncontrast with the regular clergy,--whose main business should be to\ntravel about from university to university, from college to college,\nfrom school to school, warning off all young men who did not know\nwithin themselves that it was neither for position, nor income, nor\nstudy, nor influence, that they sought to minister in the temple,\nfrom entering the church. As from holy ground, he would warn them\noff.\"\n\nMrs. Ramshorn fancied, from certain obscure associations in her own\nmind, that he was speaking of dissenting ministers and persons of\nlow origin, who might wish to enter the church for the sake of\nBETTERING THEMSELVES, and holding as she did, that no church\npreferment should be obtained except by persons of good family and\nposition, qualified to keep up the dignity of the profession, she\nwas not a little gratified to hear, as she supposed, the same\nsentiments from the mouth of such an illiterate person as, taking no\nnote of his somewhat remarkable utterance, she imagined Polwarth to\nbe. Therefore she proceeded to patronize him yet a little farther.\n\n\"I quite agree with you,\" she said graciously. \"None but such as you\ndescribe should presume to set foot within the sacred precincts of\nthe profession.\"\n\nPolwarth did not much relish Mrs. Ramshorn's style, and was\nconsiderably surprised at receiving such a hearty approval of a\nproposed reformation in clerical things, reaching even to the\narchiepiscopal, which he had put half-humorously, and yet in\nthorough earnest, for the ear of Wingfold only. He was little enough\ndesirous of pursuing the conversation with Mrs. Ramshorn: Charity\nherself does not require of a man to cast his precious things at the\nfeet of my lady Disdain; but he must reply.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, \"the great evil in the church has always been the\npresence in it of persons unsuited for the work there required of\nthem. One very simple sifting rule would be, that no one should be\nadmitted to holy orders who had not first proved himself capable of\nmaking a better living in some other calling.\"\n\n\"I cannot go with you so far as that--so few careers are opened to\ngentlemen,\" rejoined Mrs. Ramshorn. \"Besides--take the bar, for\ninstance: the forensic style a man must there acquire would hardly\nbecome the pulpit. But it would not be a bad rule that everyone, for\nadmission to holy orders, should be possessed of property sufficient\nat least to live upon. With that for a foundation, his living would\nbegin at once to tell, and he would immediately occupy the superior\nposition every clergyman ought to have.\"\n\n\"What I was thinking of,\" said Polwarth, \"was mainly the experience\nin life he would gather by having to make his own living; that,\nbehind the counter or the plough, or in the workshop, he would come\nto know men and their struggles and their thoughts--\"\n\n\"Good heavens!\" exclaimed Mrs. Ramshorn. \"But I must be under some\nmisapprehension! It is not possible you can be speaking of the\nCHURCH--of the clerical PROFESSION. The moment that is brought\nwithin the reach of such people as you describe, that moment the\nchurch sinks to the level of the catholic priesthood.\"\n\n\"Say rather, to the level of Jeremy Taylor,\" returned Polwarth, \"who\nwas the son of a barber; or of Tillotson, who was the son of a\nclothier, or something of the sort, and certainly a fierce\ndissenter. His enemies said the archbishop himself was never\nbaptized. By-the-way, he was not ordained till he was thirty--and\nthat bears on what I was just saying to Mr. Wingfold, that I would\nhave no one ordained till after forty, by which time he would know\nwhether he had any real call or only a temptation to the church,\nfrom the base hope of an easy living.\"\n\nBy this time Mrs. Ramshorn had had more than enough of it. The man\nwas a leveller, a chartist, a positivist--a despiser of dignities!\n\n\"Mr.--, Mr.--, I don't know your name--you will oblige me by\nuttering no more such vile slanders in my company. You are talking\nabout what you don't in the least understand. The man who does not\nrespect the religion of his native country is capable of--of--of\nANYTHING.--I am astonished, Mr. Wingfold, at your allowing a member\nof your congregation to speak with so little regard for the feelings\nof the clergy.--You forget, sir, when you attribute what you call\nbase motives to the cloth--you forget who said the labourer was\nworthy of his hire.\"\n\n\"I hope not, madam. I only venture to suggest that, though the\nlabourer is worthy of his hire, not every man is worthy of the\nlabour.\"\n\nWingfold was highly amused at the turn things had taken. Polwarth\nlooked annoyed at having allowed himself to be beguiled into such an\nutterly useless beating of the air.\n\n\"My friend HAS some rather peculiar notions, Mrs. Ramshorn,\" said\nthe curate;\" but you must admit it was your approval that encouraged\nhim to go on.\"\n\n\"It is quite as well to know what people think,\" answered Mrs.\nRamshorn, pretending she had drawn him out from suspicion. \"My\nhusband used to say that very few of the clergy had any notion of\nthe envy and opposition of the lower orders, both to them\npersonally, and to the doctrines they taught. To low human nature\nthe truth has always been unpalatable.\"\n\nWhat precisely she meant by THE TRUTH it would be hard to say, but\nif the visual embodiment of it was not a departed dean, it was at\nleast always associated in her mind with a cathedral choir, and a\nportly person in silk stockings.\n\nHere happily Leopold woke, and his eyes fell upon the gate-keeper.\n\n\"Ah, Mr. Polwarth! I am so glad to see you!\" he said.\" I am getting\non, you see. It will be over soon.\"\n\n\"I see,\" replied Polwarth, going up to him, and taking his offered\nhand in both his. \"I could almost envy you for having got so near\nthe end of your troubles.\"\n\n\"Are you sure it will be the end of them, sir?\"\n\n\"Of some of them at least, I hope, and those the worst. I cannot be\nsure of anything but that all things work together for good to them\nthat love God.\"\n\n\"I don't know yet whether I do love God.\"\n\n\"Not the father of Jesus Christ?\"\n\n\"If God is really just like him, I don't see how any man could help\nloving him. But, do you know? I am terrified sometimes at the\nthought of seeing MY father. He was such a severe man! I am afraid\nhe will scorn me.\"\n\n\"Never--if he has got into heavenly ways. And you have your mother\nthere too, have you not?\"\n\n\"Oh! yes; I didn't think of that. I don't remember much of her.\"\n\n\"Anyhow, you have God there, and you must rest in him. He will not\nforget you, for that would be ceasing to be God. If God were to\nforget for one moment, the universe would grow black--vanish--rush\nout again from the realm of law and order into chaos and night.\"\n\n\"But I have been wicked.\"\n\n\"The more need you have, if possible, of your Father in heaven.\"\n\nHere Mrs. Ramshorn beckoned the attendance of the curate where she\nsat a few yards off on the other side of Leopold. She was a little\nashamed of having condescended to lose her temper, and when the\ncurate went up to her, said, with an attempt at gaiety:\n\n\"Is your odd little friend, as you call him, all--?\"\n\nAnd she tapped her lace-cap carefully with her finger.\n\n\"Rather more so than most people,\" answered Wingfold. \"He is a very\nremarkable man.\"\n\n\"He speaks as if he had seen better days--though where he can have\ngathered such detestable revolutionary notions, I can't think.\"\n\n\"He is a man of education, as you see,\" said the curate.\n\n\"You don't mean he has been to Oxford or Cambridge?\"\n\n\"No. His education has been of a much higher sort than is generally\nfound there. He knows ten times as much as most university men.\"\n\n\"Ah! yes; but that goes for nothing: he hasn't the standing. And if\nhe had been to Oxford, he never could have imbibed such notions.\nBesides--his manners! To speak of the clergy as he did in the\nhearing of one whose whole history is bound up with the church!\"\n\nShe meant herself, not Wingfold.\n\n\"But of course,\" she went on, \"there must be something VERY wrong\nwith him to know so much as you say, and occupy such a menial\nposition! Nothing but a gate-keeper, and talk like that about\nbishops and what not! People that are crooked in body are always\ncrooked in mind too. I dare say now he has quite a coterie of\nfriends and followers amongst the lower orders in Glaston. He's just\nthe sort of man to lead the working classes astray. No doubt he is a\nvery interesting study for a young man like you, but you must take\ncare; you may be misunderstood. A young clergyman CAN'T be too\ncautious--if he has any hope of rising in his profession.--A\ngate-keeper, indeed!\"\n\n\"Wasn't it something like that David wanted to be?\" said the curate.\n\n\"Mr. Wingfold, I never allow any such foolish jests in my hearing.\nIt was a DOOR-keeper the Psalmist said--and to the house of God, not\na nobleman's park.\"\n\n\"A verger, I suppose,\" thought Wingfold.--\"Seriously, Mrs.\nRamshorn, that poor little atom of a creature is the wisest man I\nknow,\" he said.\n\n\"Likely enough, in YOUR judgment, Mr. Wingfold,\" said the dean's\nwidow, and drew herself up.\n\nThe curate accepted his dismissal, and joined the little man by\nLeopold's chair.\n\n\"I wish you two could be with me when I am dying,\" said Leopold.\n\n\"If you will let your sister know your wish, you may easily have\nit,\" said the curate.\n\n\"It will be just like saying good-bye at the pier-head, and pushing\noff alone--you can't get more than one into the boat--out, out,\nalone, into the infinite ocean of--nobody knows what or where,\" said\nLeopold.\n\n\"Except those that are there already, and they will be waiting to\nreceive you,\" said Polwarth. \"You may well hope, if you have friends\nto see you off, you will have friends to welcome you too. But I\nthink it's not so much like setting off from the pier-head, as\ngetting down the side of the ocean-ship, to laud at the pier-head,\nwhere your friends are all standing looking out for you.\"\n\n\"Well! I don't know,\" said Leopold, with a sigh of weariness. \"I'm\nthankful sometimes that I've grown stupid. I suppose it's with\ndying. I didn't use to feel so. Sometimes I seem not to know or care\nanything about anything. I only want to stop coughing and aching and\ngo to sleep.\"\n\n\"Jesus was glad to give up his spirit into his Father's hands. He\nwas very tired before he got away.\"\n\n\"Thank you. Thank you. I have him. He is somewhere. You can't\nmention his name but it brings me something to live and hope for. If\nhe is there, all will be well. And if I do get too tired to care for\nanything, he won't mind; he will only let me go to sleep, and wake\nme up again by-and-by when I am rested.\"\n\nHe closed his eyes.\n\n\"I want to go to bed,\" he said.\n\nThey carried him into the house.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX.\n\nRACHEL AND LEOPOLD.\n\n\n\n\n\nEvery day after this, so long as the weather continued warm, it was\nLeopold's desire to be carried out to the meadow. Once at his\nearnest petition, instead of setting him down in the usual place,\nthey went on with him into the park, but he soon wished to be taken\nback to the meadow. He did not like the trees to come between him\nand his bed: they made him feel like a rabbit that was too far from\nits hole, he said; and he was never tempted to try it again.\n\nRegularly too every day, about one o'clock, the gnome-like form of\nthe gate-keeper would issue from the little door in the park-fence,\nand come marching across the grass towards Leopold's chair, which\nwas set near the small clump of trees already mentioned. The curate\nwas almost always there, not talking much to the invalid, but\nletting him know every now and then by some little attention or\nword, or merely by showing himself, that he was near. Sometimes he\nwould take refuge from the heat, which the Indian never felt too\ngreat, amongst the trees, and there would generally be thinking out\nwhat he wanted to say to his people the next Sunday.\n\nOne thing he found strange, and could not satisfy himself\nconcerning, namely, that although his mind was so much occupied with\nHelen that he often seemed unable to think consecutively upon any\nsubject, he could always foresee his sermon best when, seated behind\none of the trees, he could by moving his head see her at work beside\nLeopold's chair. But the thing that did carry him through became\nplain enough to him afterwards: his faith in God was all the time\ngrowing--and that through what seemed at the time only a succession\nof interruptions. Nothing is so ruinous to progress in which effort\nis needful, as satisfaction with apparent achievement; that ever\nsounds a halt; but Wingfold's experience was that no sooner did he\nset his foot on the lowest hillock of self-congratulation than some\nfresh difficulty came that threw him prostrate; and he rose again\nonly in the strength of the necessity for deepening and broadening\nhis foundations that he might build yet higher, trust yet farther:\nthat was the only way not to lose everything. He was gradually\nlearning that his faith must be an absolute one, claiming from God\neverything the love of a perfect Father could give, or the needs he\nhad created in his child could desire; that he must not look to\nhimself first for help, or imagine that the divine was only the\nsupplement to the weakness and failure of the human; that the\nhighest effort of the human was to lay hold of the divine. He\nlearned that he could keep no simplest law in its loveliness until\nhe was possessed of the same spirit whence that law sprung; that he\ncould not love Helen aright, simply, perfectly, unselfishly, except\nthrough the presence of the originating Love; that the one thing\nwherein he might imitate the free creative will of God was to will\nthe presence and power of that will which gave birth to his. It was\nthe vital growth of this faith, even when he was too much troubled\nto recognize the fact, that made him strong in the midst of\nweakness; when the son of man in him cried out, Let this cup pass,\nthe son of God in him could yet cry, Let thy will be done. He could\n\"inhabit trembling,\" and yet be brave.\n\nMrs. Ramshorn generally came to the meadow to see how the invalid\nwas after he was settled, but she seldom staid: she was not fond of\nnursing, neither was there any need of her assistance; and as Helen\nnever dreamed now of opposing the smallest wish of her brother,\nthere was no longer any obstruction to the visits of Polwarth, which\nwere eagerly looked for by Leopold.\n\nOne day the little man did not appear, but soon after his usual time\nthe still more gnome-like form of his little niece came scrambling\nrather than walking over the meadow. Gently and modestly, almost\nshyly, she came up to Helen, made her a courtesy like a village\nschool-girl, and said, while she glanced at Leopold now and then\nwith an ocean of tenderness in her large, clear woman-eyes:\n\n\"My uncle is sorry, Miss Lingard, that he cannot come to see your\nbrother to-day, but he is laid up with an attack of asthma. He\nwished Mr. Lingard to know that he was thinking of him:--shall I\ntell you just what he said?\"\n\nHelen bent her neck: she did not feel much interest in the matter.\nBut Leopold said,\n\n\"Every word of such a good man is precious: tell me, please.\"\n\nRachel turned to him with the flush of a white rose on her face.\n\n\"I asked him, sir--'Shall I tell him you are praying for him?' and\nhe said, 'No. I am not exactly praying for him, but I am thinking of\nGod and him together.'\"\n\nThe tears rose in Leopold's eyes. Rachel lifted her baby-hand, and\nstroked the dusky, long-fingured one that lay upon the arm of the\nchair.\n\n\"Dear Mr. Lingard,\" she said,--Helen stopped in the middle of an\nembroidery stitch, and gave her a look as if she were about to ask\nfor her testimonials--\"I could well wish, if it pleased God, that I\nwere as near home as you.\"\n\nLeopold took her hand in his.\n\n\"Do you suffer then?\" he said.\n\n\"Just look at me,\" she answered with a smile that was very pitiful,\nthough she did not mean it for such, \"--shut up all my life in this\nepitome of deformity! But I ain't grumbling: that would be a fine\nthing! My house is not so small but God can get into it. Only you\ncan't think how tired I often am of it.\"\n\n\"Mr. Wingfold was telling me yesterday that some people fancy St.\nPaul was little and misshapen, and that that was his thorn in the\nflesh.\"\n\n\"I don't think that can be true, or he would never have compared his\nbody to a tabernacle, for, oh dear! it won't stretch an inch to give\na body room. I don't think either, if that had been the case, he\nwould have said he didn't want it taken off, but another put over\nit. I do want mine taken off me, and a downright good new one put on\ninstead--something not quite so far off your sister's there, Mr.\nLingard. But I'm ashamed of talking like this. It came of wanting to\ntell you I can't be sorry you are going when I should so dearly like\nto go myself.\"\n\n\"And I would gladly stay a while, and that in a house no bigger than\nyours, if I had a conscience of the same sort in my back-parlour,\"\nsaid Leopold smiling. \"But when I am gone the world will be the\ncleaner for it.--Do you know about God the same way your uncle does,\nMiss Polwarth?\"\n\n\"I hope I do--a little. I doubt if anybody knows as much as he\ndoes,\" she returned, very seriously. \"But God knows about us all the\nsame, and he don't limit his goodness to us by our knowledge of him.\nIt's so wonderful that he can be all to everybody! That is his\nGodness, you know. We can't be all to any one person. Do what we\nwill, we can't let anybody see into us even. We are all in bits and\nspots. But I fancy it's a sign that we come of God that we don't\nlike it. How gladly I would help you, Mr. Lingard, and I can do\nnothing for you.--I'm afraid your beautiful sister thinks me very\nforward. But she don't know what it is to lie awake all night\nsometimes, think-thinking about my beautiful brothers and sisters\nthat I can't get near to do anything for.\"\n\n\"What an odd creature!\" thought Helen, to whom her talk conveyed\nnext to nothing. \"--But I daresay they are both out of their minds.\nPoor things! they must have a hard time of it with one thing and\nanother!\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon again for talking so much,\" concluded Rachel,\nand, with a courtesy first to the one then to the other, walked\naway. Her gait was no square march like her uncle's, but a sort of\nsidelong propulsion, rendered more laborious by the thick grass of\nthe meadow.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX.\n\nTHE BLOOD-HOUND.\n\n\n\n\n\nI need not follow the steps by which the inquiry-office became able\nso far to enlighten the mother of Emmeline concerning the person and\nhabits of the visitor to the deserted shaft, that she had now come\nto Glaston in pursuit of yet farther discovery concerning him. She\nhad no plan in her mind, and as yet merely intended going to church\nand everywhere else where people congregated, in the hope of\nsomething turning up to direct inquiry. Not a suspicion of Leopold\nhad ever crossed her. She did not even know that he had a sister in\nGlaston, for Emmeline's friends had not all been intimate with her\nparents.\n\nOn the morning after her arrival, she went out early to take a walk,\nand brood over her cherished vengeance; and finding her way into the\npark, wandered about in it for some time. Leaving it at length by\nanother gate, and inquiring the way to Glaston, she was directed to\na footpath which would lead her thither across the fields. Following\nthis, she came to a stile, and being rather weary with her long\nwalk, sat down on it.\n\nThe day was a grand autumnal one. But nature had no charms for her.\nIndeed had she not been close shut in the gloomy chamber of her own\nthoughts, she would not thus have walked abroad alone; for nature\nwas to her a dull, featureless void; while her past was scarcely of\nthe sort to invite retrospection, and her future was clouded.\n\nIt so fell that just then Leopold was asleep in his chair,--every\nmorning he slept a little soon after being carried out,--and that\nchair was in its usual place in the meadow, with the clump of trees\nbetween it and the stile. Wingfold was seated in the shade of the\ntrees, but Helen, happening to want something for her work, went to\nhim and committed her brother to his care until she should return,\nwhereupon he took her place. Almost the same moment however, he\nspied Polwarth coming from the little door in the fence, and went to\nmeet him. When he turned, he saw, to his surprise, a lady standing\nbeside the sleeping youth, and gazing at him with a strange\nintentness. Polwarth had seen her come from the clump of trees, and\nsupposed her a friend. The curate walked hastily back, fearing he\nmight wake and be startled at sight of the stranger. So intent was\nthe gazing lady that he was within a few yards of her before she\nheard him. She started, gave one glance at the curate, and hurried\naway towards the town. There was an agitation in her movements which\nWingfold did not like; a suspicion crossed his mind, and he resolved\nto follow her. In his turn he made over his charge to Polwarth, and\nset off after the lady.\n\nThe moment the eyes of Emmeline's mother fell upon the countenance\nof Leopold, whom, notwithstanding the change that suffering had\ncaused, she recognized at once, partly by the peculiarity of his\ncomplexion, the suspicion, almost conviction, awoke in her that here\nwas the murderer of her daughter. That he looked so ill seemed only\nto confirm the likelihood. Her first idea was to wake him and see\nthe effect of her sudden presence. Finding he was attended, however,\nshe hurried away to inquire in the town and discover all she could\nabout him.\n\nA few moments after Polwarth had taken charge of him, and while he\nstood looking on him tenderly, the youth woke with a start.\n\n\"Where is Helen?\" he said.\n\n\"I have not seen her. Ah, here she comes!\"\n\n\"Did you find me alone then?\"\n\n\"Mr. Wingfold was with you. He gave you up to me, because he had to\ngo into the town.\"\n\nHe looked inquiringly at his sister as she came up, and she looked\nin the same way at Polwarth.\n\n\"I feel as if I had been lying all alone in this wide field,\" said\nLeopold, \"and as if Emmeline had been by me, though I didn't see\nher.\"\n\nPolwarth looked after the two retiring forms, which were now almost\nat the end of the meadow, and about to issue on the high road.\n\nHelen followed his look with hers. A sense of danger seized her. She\ntrembled, and kept behind Leopold's chair.\n\n\"Have you been coughing much to-day?\" asked the gate-keeper.\n\n\"Yes, a good deal--before I came out. But it does not seem to do\nmuch good.\"\n\n\"What good would you have it do?\"\n\n\"I mean, it doesn't do much to get it over. Oh, Mr. Polwarth, I am\nso tired!\"\n\n\"Poor fellow! I suppose it looks to you as if it would never be\nover. But all the millions of the dead have got through it before\nyou. I don't know that that makes much difference to the one who is\ngoing through it. And yet it is a sort of company. Only, the Lord of\nLife is with you, and that is real company, even in dying, when no\none else can be with you.\"\n\n\"If I could only feel he was with me!\"\n\n\"You may feel his presence without knowing what it is.\"\n\n\"I hope it isn't wrong to wish it over, Mr. Polwarth?\"\n\n\"I don't think it is wrong to wish anything you can talk to him\nabout and submit to his will. St. Paul says, 'In everything let your\nrequests be made known unto God.'\"\n\n\"I sometimes feel as if I would not ask him for anything, but just\nlet him give me what he likes.\"\n\n\"We must not want to be better than is required of us, for that is\nat once to grow worse.\"\n\n\"I don't quite understand you.\"\n\n\"Not to ask may seem to you a more submissive way, but I don't think\nit is so childlike. It seems to me far better to say, 'O Lord, I\nshould like this or that, but I would rather not have it if thou\ndost not like it also.' Such prayer brings us into conscious and\nimmediate relations with God. Remember, our thoughts are then,\npassing to him, sent by our will into his mind. Our Lord taught us\nto pray always and not get tired of it. God, however poor creatures\nwe may be, would have us talk to him, for then he can speak to us\nbetter than when we turn no face to him.\"\n\n\"I wonder what I shall do the first thing when I find myself\nout--out, I mean, in the air, you know.\"\n\n\"It does seem strange we should know so little of what is in some\nsense so near us! that such a thin veil should be so impenetrable! I\nfancy the first thing I should do would be to pray.\"\n\n\"Then you think we shall pray there--wherever it is?\"\n\n\"It seems to me as if I should go up in prayer the moment I got out\nof this dungeon of a body. I am wrong to call it a dungeon, for it\nlies open to God's fair world, and the loveliness of the earth comes\ninto me through eyes and ears just as well as into you. Still it is\na pleasant thought that it will drop off me some day. But for\nprayer--I think all will pray there more than here--in their hearts\nand souls I mean.\"\n\n\"Then where would be the harm if you were to pray for me after I am\ngone?\"\n\n\"Nowhere that I know. It were indeed a strange thing if I might pray\nfor you up to the moment when you ceased to breathe, and therewith\nan iron gate close between us, and I could not even reach you\nthrough the ear of the Father of us both! It is a faithless\ndoctrine, for it supposes either that those parted from us can do\nwithout prayer, the thing Jesus himself could not do without, seeing\nit was his highest joy, or that God has so parted those who are in\nhim from these who are in him, that there is no longer any relation,\neven with God, common to them. The thing to me takes the form of an\nabsurdity.\"\n\n\"Ah, then, pray for me when I am dying, and don't be careful to stop\nwhen you think I am gone, Mr. Polwarth.\"\n\n\"I will remember,\" said the little man.\n\nAnd now Helen had recovered herself, and came and took her usual\nseat by her brother's side. She cast an anxious glance now and then\ninto Polwarth's face, but dared not ask him anything.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI.\n\nTHE BLOOD-HOUND TRAVERSED.\n\n\n\n\n\nEmmeline's mother had not gone far before she became aware that she\nwas followed. It was a turning of the tables which she did not\nrelish. As would not have been unnatural, even had she been at peace\nwith all the world, a certain feeling of undefined terror came upon\nher and threatened to overmaster her. It was the more oppressive\nthat she did not choose to turn and face her pursuer, feeling that\nto do so would be to confess consciousness of cause. The fate of her\ndaughter, seldom absent from her thoughts, now rose before her in\nassociation with herself, and was gradually swelling uneasiness into\nterror: who could tell but this man pressing on her heels in the\nsolitary meadow, and not the poor youth who lay dying there in the\nchair, and who might indeed be only another of his victims, was the\nmurderer of Emmeline! Unconsciously she accelerated her pace until\nit was almost a run, but did not thereby widen by a single yard the\ndistance between her and the curate.\n\nWhen she came out on the high road, she gave a glance in each\ndirection, and, avoiding the country, made for the houses. A short\nlane led her into Pine street. There she felt safe, the more that it\nwas market-day and a good many people about, and slackened her pace,\nfeeling confident that her pursuer, whoever he was, would now turn\naside. But she was disappointed, for, casting a glance over her\nshoulder, she saw that he still kept the same distance behind her.\nShe saw also, in that single look, that he was well-known, for\nseveral were saluting him at once. What could it mean? It must be\nthe G. B. of the Temple! Should she stop and challenge his pursuit?\nThe obstacle to this was a certain sinking at the heart accounted\nfor by an old memory. She must elude him instead. But she did not\nknow a single person in the place, or one house where she could seek\nrefuge. There was an hotel before her! But, unattended, heated,\ndisordered, to all appearance disreputable, what account could she\ngive of herself? That she had been followed by some one everybody\nknew, and to whom everybody would listen! Feebly debating thus with\nherself, she hurried along the pavement of Pine Street, with the\nAbbey church before her.\n\nThe footsteps behind her grew louder and quicker: the man had made\nup his mind and was coming up with her! He might be mad, or ready to\nrun all risks! Probably he knew his life at stake through her\nperseverance and determination!\n\nOn came the footsteps, for the curate had indeed made up his mind to\nspeak to her, and either remove or certify his apprehensions. Nearer\nyet and nearer they came. Her courage and strength were giving way\ntogether, and she should be at his mercy. She darted into a shop,\nsank on a chair by the counter, and begged for a glass of water. A\nyoung woman ran to fetch it, while Mr. Drew went upstairs for a\nglass of wine. Returning with it he came from behind the counter,\nand approached the lady where she sat leaning her head upon it.\n\nMeantime the curate also had entered the shop, and placed himself\nwhere he might, unseen by her, await her departure, for he could not\nspeak to her there. He had her full in sight when Mr. Drew went up\nto her.\n\n\"Do me the favour, madam,\" he said--but said no more. For at the\nsound of his voice, the lady gave a violent start, and raising her\nhead looked at him. The wine-glass dropped from his hand. She gave a\nhalf-choked cry, and sped from the shop.\n\nThe curate was on the spring after her when he was arrested by the\nlook of the draper: he stood fixed where she had left him, white and\ntrembling as if he had seen a ghost. He went up to him, and said in\na whisper:\n\n\"Who is she?\"\n\n\"Mrs. Drew,\" answered the draper, and the curate was after her like\na greyhound.\n\nA little crowd of the shop-people gathered in consternation about\ntheir master.\n\n\"Pick up those pieces of glass, and call Jacob to wipe the floor,\"\nhe said--then walked to the door, and stood staring after the curate\nas he all but ran to overtake the swiftly gliding figure.\n\nThe woman, ignorant that her pursuer was again upon her track, and\nhardly any longer knowing what she did, hurried blindly towards the\nchurchyard. Presently the curate relaxed his speed, hoping she would\nenter it, when he would have her in a fit place for the interview\nupon which he was, if possible, more determined than ever, now that\nhe had gained, so unexpectedly, such an absolute hold of her. \"She\nmust be Emmeline's mother,\" he said to himself, \"--fit mother for\nsuch a daughter.\" The moment he caught sight of the visage lifted\nfrom its regard of the sleeping youth, he had suspected the fact. He\nhad not had time to analyze its expression, but there was something\ndreadful in it. A bold question would determine the suspicion.\n\nShe entered the churchyard, saw the Abbey door open, and hastened to\nit. She was in a state of bewilderment and terror that would have\ncrazed a weaker woman. In the porch she cast a glance behind her:\nthere again was her pursuer! She sprang into the church. A woman was\ndusting a pew not far from the door.\n\n\"Who is that coming?\" she asked, in a tone and with a mien that\nappalled Mrs. Jenkins. She had but to stretch her neck a little to\nsee through the porch.\n\n\"Why, it be only the parson, ma'am!\" she answered.\n\n\"Then I shall hide myself, over there, and you must tell him I went\nout by that other door. Here's a sovereign for you.\"\n\n\"I thank you, ma'am,\" said Mrs. Jenkins, looking wistfully at the\nsovereign, which was a great sum of money to a sexton's wife with\nchildren, then instantly going on with her dusting; \"but it ain't no\nuse tryin' of tricks with our parson. HE ain't one of your Mollies.\nA man as don't play no tricks with hisself, as I heerd a gentleman\nsay, it ain't no use tryin' no tricks with HIM.\"\n\nAlmost while she spoke, the curate entered. The suppliant drew\nherself up, and endeavoured to look both dignified and injured.\n\n\"Would you oblige me by walking this way for a moment?\" he said,\ncoming straight to her.\n\nWithout a word she followed him, a long way up the church, to the\nstone screen which divided the chancel from the nave. There, in\nsight of Mrs. Jenkins, but so far off that she could not hear a word\nsaid, he asked her to take a seat on the steps that led up to the\ndoor in the centre of the screen. Again she obeyed, and Wingfold sat\ndown near her.\n\n\"Are you Emmeline's mother?\" he said.\n\nThe gasp, the expression of eye and cheek, the whole startled\nresponse of the woman, revealed that he had struck the truth. But\nshe made no answer.\n\n\"You had better be open with me,\" he said, \"for I mean to be very\nopen with you.\"\n\nShe stared at him, but either could not, or would not speak.\nProbably it was caution: she must hear more.\n\nThe curate was already excited, and I fear now got a little angry,\nfor the woman was not pleasant to his eyes.\n\n\"I want to tell you,\" he said, \"that the poor youth whom your\ndaughter's behaviour made a murderer of,--\"\n\nShe gave a cry, and turned like ashes. The curate was ashamed of\nhimself.\n\n\"It seems cruel,\" he said, \"but it is the truth. I say he is now\ndying--will be gone after her in a few weeks. The same blow killed\nboth, only one has taken longer to die. No end can be served by\nbringing him to justice. Indeed if he were arrested, he would but\ndie on the way to prison. I have followed you to persuade you, if I\ncan, to leave him to his fate and not urge it on. If ever man was\nsorry, or suffered for his crime,--\"\n\n\"And pray what is that to me, sir?\" cried the avenging mother, who,\nfinding herself entreated, straightway became arrogant. \"Will it\ngive me back my child? The villain took her precious life without\ngiving her a moment to prepare for eternity, and you ask me--her\nmother--to let him go free! I will not. I have vowed vengeance, and\nI will have it.\"\n\n\"Allow me to say that if you die in that spirit, you will be far\nworse prepared for eternity than I trust your poor daughter was.\"\n\n\"What is that to you? If I choose to run the risk, it is my\nbusiness. I tell you it shall not be my fault if the wretch is not\nbrought to the gallows.\"\n\n\"But he cannot live to reach it. The necessary preliminaries would\nwaste all that is left of his life. I only ask of you to let him die\nin what peace is possible to him. We must forgive our enemies, you\nknow. But indeed he is no enemy of yours.\"\n\n\"No enemy of mine! The man who murdered my child no enemy of mine! I\nam his enemy then, and that he shall find. If I cannot bring him to\nthe gallows, I can at least make every man and woman in the country\npoint the finger of scorn and hatred at him. I can bring him and all\nhis to disgrace and ruin. Their pride indeed! They were far too\ngrand to visit me, but not to send a murderer into my family. I am\nin my rights, and I will have justice. We shall see if they are too\ngrand to have a nephew hung! My poor lovely innocent! I will have\njustice on the foul villain. Cringing shall not turn me.\"\n\nHer lips were white, and her teeth set. She rose with the slow\nmovement of one whose intent, if it had blossomed in passion, was\nyet rooted in determination, and turned to leave the church.\n\n\"It might hamper your proceedings a little,\" said Wingfold, \"if in\nthe meantime a charge of bigamy were brought against yourself, MRS.\nDREW!\"\n\nHer back was towards the curate, and for a moment she stood like\nanother pillar of salt. Then she began to tremble, and laid hold of\nthe carved top of a bench. But her strength failed her completely;\nshe sank on her knees and fell on the floor with a deep moan.\n\nThe curate called Mrs. Jenkins and sent her for water. With some\ndifficulty they brought her to herself.\n\nShe rose, shuddered, drew her shawl about her, and said to the\nwoman,\n\n\"I am sorry to give so much trouble. When does the next train start\nfor London?\"\n\n\"Within an hour,\" answered the curate. \"I will see you safe to it.\"\n\n\"Excuse me; I prefer going alone.\"\n\n\"That I cannot permit.\"\n\n\"I must go to my lodgings first.\"\n\n\"I will go with you.\"\n\nShe cast on him a look of questioning hate, yielded, and laid two\nfingers on his offered arm.\n\nThey walked out of the church together and to the cottage where, for\nprivacy, she had lodged. There he left her for half an hour, and,\nyielding to her own necessities and not his entreaties, she took\nsome refreshment. In the glowing sullenness of foiled revenge, the\nsmoke of which was crossed every now and then by a flash of hate,\nshe sat until he returned.\n\n\"Before I go with you to the train,\" said the curate,\nre-entering, \"you must give me your word to leave young Lingard\nunmolested. I know my friend Mr. Drew has no desire to trouble you,\nbut I am equally confident that he will do whatever I ask him. If\nyou will not promise me, from the moment you get into the train you\nshall be watched.--Do you promise?\"\n\nShe was silent, with cold gleaming eyes, for a time, then said,\n\n\"How am I to know that this is not a trick to save his life?\"\n\n\"You saw him; you could see he is dying. I tell you I do not think\nhe can live a month. His disease is making rapid progress. He must\ngo with the first of the cold weather.\"\n\nShe could not help believing him.\n\n\"I promise,\" she said. \"But you are cruel to compel a mother to\nforgive the villain that stabbed her daughter to the heart.\"\n\n\"If the poor lad were not dying, I should see that he gave himself\nup, as indeed he set out to do some weeks ago, but was frustrated by\nhis friends. He is dying for love of her. I believe I say so with\ntruth. Pity and love and remorse and horror of his deed have brought\nhim to the state you saw him in. To be honest with you, he might\nhave got better enough to be tortured for a while in a madhouse, for\nno jury would have brought him in anything but insane at the time,\nwith the evidence that would have been adduced; but in his anxiety\nto see me one day--for his friends at that time did not favour my\nvisits, because I encouraged him to surrender--he got out of the\nhouse alone to come to me, but fainted in the churchyard, and lay on\nthe damp earth for the better part of an hour, I fancy, before we\nfound him. Still, had it not been for the state of his mind, he\nmight have got over that too.--As you hope to be forgiven, you must\nforgive him.\"\n\nHe held out his hand to her. She was a little softened, and gave him\nhers.\n\n\"Allow me one word more,\" said the curate, \"and then we shall go:\nOur crimes are friends that will hunt us either to the bosom of God,\nor the pit of hell.\"\n\nShe looked down, but her look was still sullen and proud.\n\nThe curate rose, took up her bag, went with her to the station, got\nher ticket, and saw her off.\n\nThen he hastened back to Drew, and told him the whole story.\n\n\"Poor woman!\" said her husband. \"--But God only knows how much _I_\nam to blame for all this. If I had behaved better to her she might\nnever have left me, and your poor young friend would now be well and\nhappy.\"\n\n\"Perhaps consuming his soul to a cinder with that odious drug,\" said\nWingfold. \"'Tis true, as Edgar in King Lear says:\n\n    The gods are just,\n    and of our pleasant vices\n    Make instruments to plague us;\n\nbut he takes our sins on himself, and while he drives them out of us\nwith a whip of scorpions he will yet make them work his ends. He\ndefeats our sins, makes them prisoners, forces them into the service\nof good, chains them like galley-slaves to the rowing-benches of the\ngospel-ship, or sets them like ugly gurgoyles or corbels or brackets\nin the walls of his temples.--No, that last figure I retract. I\ndon't like it. It implies their continuance.\"\n\n\"Poor woman!\" said Mr. Drew again, who for once had been inattentive\nto the curate. \"Well! she is sorely punished too.\"\n\n\"She will be worse punished yet,\" said the curate, \"if I can read\nthe signs of character. SHE is not repentant yet--though I did spy\nin her just once a touch of softening.\"\n\n\"It is an awful retribution,\" said the draper, \"and I may yet have\nto bear my share--God help me!\"\n\n\"I suspect it is the weight of her own crime that makes her so\nfierce to avenge her daughter. I doubt if anything makes one so\nunforgiving as guilt unrepented of.\"\n\n\"Well, I must try to find out where she is, and keep an eye upon\nher.\"\n\n\"That will be easy enough. But why?\"\n\n\"Because, if, as you think, there is more evil in store for her, I\nmay yet have it in my power to do her some service.--I wonder if Mr.\nPolwarth would call that DIVINE SERVICE,\" he added, with one of his\nsunny smiles.\n\n\"Indeed he would,\" answered the curate.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII.\n\nTHE BEDSIDE.\n\n\n\n\n\nGeorge Bascombe, when he went to Paris, had no thought of deserting\nHelen. But he had good ground for fearing that it might be ruinous\nboth to Lingard and himself to undertake his defence. From Paris he\nwrote often to Helen, and she replied--not so often, yet often\nenough to satisfy him; and as soon as she was convinced that Leopold\ncould not recover, she let him know, whereupon he instantly began\nhis preparations for returning.\n\nBefore he came, the weather had changed once more. It was now cold,\nand the cold had begun at once to tell upon the invalid. There are\nsome natures to which cold, moral, spiritual, or physical, is\nlethal, and Lingard's was of the class. When the dying leaves began\nto shiver in the breath of the coming winter, the very brightness of\nthe sun to look gleamy, and nature to put on the unfriendly aspect\nof a world not made for living in but for shutting out--when all\nthings took the turn of reminding man that his life lay not in them,\nLeopold began to shrink and withdraw. He could not face the ghastly\npersistence of the winter, which would come, let all the souls of\nthe summer-nations shrink and protest as they might; let them creep\nshivering to Hades; he would have his day.\n\nHis sufferings were now considerable, but he never complained.\nRestless and fevered and sick at heart, it was yet more from the\nnecessity of a lovely nature than from any virtue of will that he\nwas so easy to nurse, accepting so readily all ministrations. Never\nexacting and never refusing, he was always gently grateful, giving a\nsort of impression that he could have been far more thankful had he\nnot known the object of the kindnesses so unworthy. Next to\nWingfold's and his sister's, the face he always welcomed most was\nthat of the gate-keeper--indeed I ought hardly to say NEXT to\ntheirs; for if the curate was to him as a brother, Polwarth was like\na father in Christ. He came every day, and every day, almost till\nthat of his departure, Leopold had something to ask him about or\nsomething to tell him.\n\n\"I am getting so stupid, Mr. Polwarth!\" he said once. \"It troubles\nme much. I don't seem to care for anything now. I don't want to hear\nthe New Testament: I would rather hear a child's story--something\nthat did not want thinking about. If I am not coughing, I am\ncontent. I could lie for hours and hours and never think more than\nwhat goes creeping through my mind no faster than a canal in\nHolland. When I am coughing,--I don't think about anything then\neither--only long for the fit to be over and let me back again into\nSleepy Hollow. All my past life seems to be gone from me. I don't\ncare about it. Even my crime looks like something done ages ago. I\nknow it is mine, and I would rather it were not mine, but it is as\nif a great cloud had come and swept away the world in which it took\nplace. I am afraid sometimes that I am beginning not to care even\nabout that. I say to myself, I shall be sorry again by and by, but I\ncan't think about it now. I feel as if I had handed it over to God\nto lay down where I should find it again when I was able to think\nand be sorry.\"\n\nThis was a long utterance for him to make, but he had spoken slowly,\nand with frequent pauses. Polwarth did not speak once, feeling that\na dying man must be allowed to ease his mind after his own fashion,\nand take as much time to it as he pleased. Helen and Wingfold both\nwould have told him he must not tire himself, but that Polwarth\nnever did. The dying should not have their utterances checked, or\nthe feeling of not having finished forced upon them. They will\nalways have plenty of the feeling without that.\n\nA fit of coughing compelled him to break off, and when it was over,\nhe lay panting and weary, but with his large eyes questioning the\nface of Polwarth. Then the little man spoke.\n\n\"He must give us every sort of opportunity for trusting him,\" he\nsaid. \"The one he now gives you, is this dulness that has come over\nyou. Trust him through it, submitting to it and yet trusting against\nit, and you get the good of it. In your present state perhaps you\ncannot even try to bring about by force of will any better state of\nfeeling or higher intellectual condition; but you can say to God\nsomething like this: \"See, Lord, I am dull and stupid, and care for\nnothing: take thou care of everything for me, heart and mind and\nall. I leave all to thee. Wilt thou not at length draw me out of\nthis my frozen wintery state? Let me not shrink from fresh life and\nthought and duty, or be unready to come out of the shell of my\nsickness when thou sendest for me. I wait thy will. I wait even the\nlight that I feel now as if I dared not encounter for weariness of\nbody and faintness of spirit.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" cried Leopold, \"there you have touched it! How can you know so\nwell what I feel?\"\n\n\"Because I have often had to fight hard to keep death to his own\nprovince, and not let him cross over into my spirit.\"\n\n\"Alas! I am not fighting at all; I am only letting things go.\"\n\n\"You are fighting more than you know, I suspect, for you are\nenduring, and that patiently. Suppose Jesus were to knock at the\ndoor now, and it was locked; suppose you knew it was he, and there\nwas no one in the room to open it for him; suppose you were as weak\nas you are now, and seemed to care as little about him or anything\nelse: what would you do?\"\n\nLeopold looked half amazed, as if wondering what his friend could be\ndriving at with such a question.\n\n\"What else could I do but get up and open it?\" he said.\n\n\"Would you not be tempted to lie still and wait till some one came.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Would you not say in your heart, 'The Lord knows I am very weak,\nand I should catch cold, and the exertion would make me cough\ndreadfully, and he won't mind if I lie still?'\"\n\n\"That I wouldn't! What should I care what came to me? What would it\nmatter so long as I got one look at him! Besides, if he didn't want\nme to get up, he wouldn't knock.\"\n\n\"But suppose you knew that the moment you turned the key you would\ndrop down, and when the Lord came in you would not see him.\"\n\n\"I can't think where you want to take me, Mr. Polwarth!\" said the\nyouth. \"Even if I knew I should drop dead the moment I got out on\nthe floor, what would it matter! I should get to him the sooner\nthen, and tell him why I didn't open the door. Can you suppose for a\nmoment I should let any care for this miserable body of mine come\nbetween my eyes and the face of my Lord?\"\n\n\"You see then that you do care about him a little, though a minute\nago you didn't think it! There are many feelings in us that are not\nable to get up stairs the moment we call them. Be as dull and stupid\nas it pleases God to let you be, and trouble neither yourself nor\nhim about that, only ask him to be with you all the same.\"\n\nThe little man dropped on his knees by the bedside, and said,\n\n\"O Lord Jesus, be near when it seems to us, as it seemed to thee\nonce, that our Father has forsaken us, and gathered back to himself\nall the gifts he once gave us. Even thou who wast mighty in death,\ndidst need the presence of thy Father to make thee able to endure:\nforget not us the work of thy hands, yea, the labour of thy heart\nand spirit. O remember that we are his offspring, neither\naccountable for our own being, nor able to comfort or strengthen\nourselves. If thou wert to leave us alone, we should cry out upon\nthee as on the mother who threw her babes to the wolves--and there\nare no wolves able to terrify thee. Ah Lord! we know thou leavest us\nnot, only in our weakness we would comfort our hearts with the music\nof the words of faith. Thou canst not do other than care for us,\nLord Christ, for whether we be glad or sorry, slow of heart or full\nof faith, all the same are we the children of thy Father. He sent us\nhere, and never asked us if we would; therefore thou must be with\nus, and give us repentance and humility and love and faith, that we\nmay indeed be the children of thy Father who is in heaven. Amen.\"\n\nWhile Polwarth was yet praying, the door had opened gently behind\nhim, and Helen, not knowing that he was there, had entered with\nBascombe. He neither heard their entrance, nor saw the face of\ndisgust that George made behind his back. What was in Bascombe's\ndeepest soul who shall tell? Of that region he himself knew nothing.\nIt was a silent, holy place into which he had never yet entered--\ntherefore lonely and deserted as the top of Sinai after the cloud\nhad departed. No--I will not say that: who knows what is where man\ncannot or will not look? If George had sought there, perhaps he\nmight have found traces of a presence not yet altogether vanished.\nIn what he called and imagined his deeepest soul, however, all he\nwas now conscious of was a perfect loathing of the monstrous\nsuperstition so fitly embodied before him. The prayer of the\nkneeling absurdity was to him an audacious mockery of the\ninfrangible laws of Nature: this hulk of misshapen pottery actually\npresuming to believe that an invisible individual heard what he said\nbecause he crooked his hinges to say it! It did not occur to George\nthat the infrangible laws of Nature she had herself from the very\nfirst so agonizingly broken to the poor dwarf, she had been to him\nsuch a cruel step-mother, that he was in evil case indeed if he\ncould find no father to give him fair play and a chance of the\nendurable. Was he so much to blame if he felt the annihilation\noffered by such theorists as George, not altogether a satisfactory\ncounterpoise either to its existence or its loss? If, even, he were\nto fancy in his trouble that the old fable of an elder brother,\nsomething more humble than grand handsome George Bascombe and more\nready to help his little brothers and sisters, might be true, seeing\nthat an old story is not necessarily a false one, and were to try\nafter the hints it gave, surely in his condition such folly, however\nabsurd to a man of George Bascombe's endowments, might of the more\ngifted ephemeros be pardoned if not pitied. Nor will I assert that\nhe was altogether unaware of any admixture of the sad with the\nludicrous when he saw the amorphous agglomerate of human shreds and\npatches kneeling by the bedside of the dying murderer, to pray some\ncomfort into his passing soul. But his \"gorge rose at the nonsense\nand stuff of it,\" while through Helen ran a cold shudder of disgust\nat the familiarity and irreverence of the little spiritual prig.\n\nHow many of the judgments we are told not to judge and yet do judge,\nmust make the angels of the judging and the judged turn and look at\neach other and smile a sad smile, ere they set themselves to forget\nthat which so sorely needs to be forgotten.\n\nPolwarth rose from his knees unaware of a hostile presence.\n\n\"Leopold,\" he said, taking his hand, \"I would gladly, if I might,\nwalk with you through the shadow. But the heart of all hearts will\nbe with you. Rest in your tent a little while, which is indeed the\nhollow of the Father's hand turned over you, with your strong\nbrother watching the door. Your imagination cannot go beyond the\ntruth of him who is the Father of lights, or of him who is the Elder\nBrother of men.\"\n\nLeopold answered only with his eyes. Polwarth turned to go, and saw\nthe on-lookers. They stood between him and the door, but parted and\nmade room for him to pass. Neither spoke. He made a bow first to one\nand then to the other, looking up in the face of each, unabashed by\nsmile or scorn or blush of annoyance, but George took no notice,\nwalking straight to the bed the moment the way was clear. Helen's\nconscience, however, or heart, smote her, and, returning his bow,\nshe opened the door for her brother's friend. He thanked her, and\nwent his way.\n\n\"Poor dear fellow!\" said George kindly, and stroked the thin hand\nlaid in his: \"can I do anything for you?\"\n\n\"Nothing but be good to Helen when I am gone, and tell her now and\nthen that I'm not dead, but living in the hope of seeing her again\none day before long. She might forget sometimes--not me, but that,\nyou know.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, I'll see to it,\" answered George, in the evil tone of one\nwho faithfully promises a child an impossibility. Of course there\nwas no more harm in lying to a man who was just on the verge of\nbeing a man no more, and becoming only an unpleasant mass of\nchemicals, which a whole ant-heap of little laws would presently be\ncarrying outside the gates of the organic, than there had been in\nlying to him when he supposed him a madman. Neither could anyone\nblame him for inconsistency; for had he not always said in the\ngoodness of his heart, that he would never disturb the faith of old\npeople drawing nigh their end, because such no more possessed the\nneedful elasticity of brain to accommodate themselves to the\nsubversion of previous modes of feeling and thought, unavoidable to\nthe adoption of his precious revelation. Precious he did believe it,\nnever having himself one of those visions of infinite hope, which,\nwere his theory once proved as true as he imagined it, must then\nindeed vanish for ever.\n\n\"Do you suffer much?\" asked George.\n\n\"Yes--a good deal.\"\n\n\"Pain?\"\n\n\"Not so much;--sometimes. The weakness is the worst. But it doesn't\nmatter: God is with me.\"\n\n\"What good does that do you?\" asked George, forgetting himself, half\nin contempt, half in a curiosity which he would have called, and\nwhich perhaps was, scientific.\n\nBut Leopold took it in good faith, and answered,\n\n\"It sets it all right, and makes me able to be patient.\"\n\nGeorge laid down the hand he held, and turned sadly to Helen, but\nsaid nothing.\n\nThe next moment Wingfold entered. Helen kissed the dying hand, and\nleft the room with George.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII.\n\nTHE GARDEN.\n\n\n\n\n\nTenderly he led her into the garden, and down the walks now bare of\nbordering flowers. To Helen it looked like a graveyard; the dry\nbushes were the memorials of the buried flowers, and the cypress and\nbox trees rose like the larger monuments of shapely stone. The day\nwas a cold leaden one, that would have rained if it could, to get\nrid of the deadness at its heart, but no tears came. To the\nsummer-house they went, under the cedar, and sat down. Neither spoke\nfor some time.\n\n\"Poor Leopold!\" said George at length, and took Helen's hand.\n\nShe burst into tears, and again for some time neither spoke.\n\n\"George, I can't bear it!\" she said at length.\n\n\"It is very sad,\" answered George. \"But he had a happy life, I don't\ndoubt, up to--to--\"\n\n\"What does that matter now? It is all a horrible farce.--To begin so\nfair and lovely, and end so stormy and cold and miserable!\"\n\nGeorge did not like to say what he thought, namely, that it was\nLeopold's own doing. He did not see that therein lay the deepest\ndepth of the misery--the thing that of all things needed help: all\nelse might be borne; the less that COULD be borne the better.\n\n\"It IS horrible,\" he said. \"But what can be done? What's done is\ndone, and nobody can help it.\"\n\n\"There should be somebody to help it,\" said Helen.\n\n\"Ah! Should be!\" said George. \"--Well, it's a comfort it will soon\nbe over!\"\n\n\"Is it?\" returned Helen almost sharply. \"--But he's not your\nbrother, and you don't know what it is to lose him! Oh, how desolate\nthe world will be without my darling!\"\n\nAnd again her tears found way.\n\n\"All that I can do to make up for the loss, dearest Helen,\" said\nGeorge,--\n\n\"Oh George!\" she cried, starting to her feet, \"is there NO hope? I\ndon't mean of his getting better--that we do know the likelihoods\nof--but is there no hope of SOME TIME seeing him again? We know so\nlittle about all of it! MIGHT there not be some way?\"\n\nBut George was too honest in himself, and too true to his\nprinciples, to pretend anything to Helen. Hers was an altogether\ndifferent case from Leopold's. Here was a young woman full of health\nand life and hope, with all her joys before her! Many suns must set\nbefore her sun would go down, many pale moons look lovely in her\neyes, ere came those that would mock her with withered memories--a\nwhole hortus siccus of passion-flowers. Why should he lie to HER of\na hope beyond the grave? Let the pleasures of the world be the\ndearer to her for the knowledge that they must so soon depart; let\nlove be the sweeter for the mournful thought that it is a thing of\nthe summer, and that when the winter comes it shall be no more! But\nperhaps George forgot one point. I will allow that the insects of a\nday, dying in a moment of delightful fruition, are blessed; but when\nthe delicate Psyche, with her jewel-feathered wings, is beat about\nby a wind full of rain until she lies draggled in the dirt; when\nthere are no more flowers, or if there be, the joy of her hovering\nis over, and yet death comes but slowly; when the mourners are going\nabout the streets ere ever the silver cord is loosed; when the past\nlooks a mockery and the future a blank;--then perhaps, even to the\ncorrelatives of the most triumphant natural selection, it may not\nmerely seem as if something were wrong somewhere, but even as if\nthere ought to be somebody to set wrong right. If Psyche should be\nso subdued to circumstance as to accept without question her\nsupposed fate, then doubly woe for Psyche!\n\nBut if George could not lie, it was not necessary for him to speak\nthe truth: silence was enough. A moment of it was all Helen could\nendure. She rose hastily, left the wintered summer-house, and walked\nback to the sick-chamber. George followed a few paces behind, so far\nquenched that he did not overtake her to walk by her side, feeling\nhe had no aid to offer her. Doubtless he could have told her of help\nat hand, but it was help that must come, that could neither be given\nnor taken, would not come the sooner for any prayer, and indeed\nwould not begin to exist until the worst should be over: the nearest\nGeorge came to belief in a saving power, was to console himself with\nthe thought that TIME would do everything for Helen.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV.\n\nTHE DEPARTURE.\n\n\n\n\n\nAs Leopold slowly departed, he seemed to his sister to draw along\nwith him all that was precious in her life. She felt herself grow\ndull and indifferent. It was to no purpose that she upbraided\nherself with heartlessness; seemingly heartless her bosom remained.\nIt was not that her mind was occupied with anything else than her\nbrother, or drew comfort from another source; her feelings appeared\nto be dying with him who had drawn them forth more than any other.\nThe battle was ending without even the poor pomp and circumstance of\ntorn banners and wailful music.\n\nLeopold said very little during the last few days. His fits, of\ncoughing were more frequent, and in the pauses he had neither\nstrength nor desire to speak. When Helen came to his bedside, he\nwould put out his hand to her, and she would sit down by him and\nhold it warm in hers. The hand of his sister was the point of the\nplanet from which, like his mount of ascension, the spirit of the\nyouth took its departure;--when he let that go, he was gone. But he\ndied asleep, as so many do; and fancied, I presume, that he was\nwaking into his old life, when he woke into his new one.\n\nWingfold stood on the other side of the bed, with Polwarth by him,\nfor so had the departing wished it, and although he made no sign, I\ncannot but think he reaped some content therefrom. While yet he\nlingered, one of Helen's listless, straying glances was arrested by\nthe countenance of the gate-keeper. It was so still and so rapt that\nshe thought he must be seeing within the veil, and regarding what\nthings were awaiting her brother on the reverse of the two-sided\nwonder. But it was not so. Polwarth saw no more than she did: he was\nONLY standing in the presence of him who is not the God of the\ndead but of the living. Whatever lay in that Will was the life of\nwhatever came of that Will, that is, of every creature, and no to\nthat Will, to the face of the Father, he lifted, in his prayerful\nthought, the heart and mind and body of the youth now passing\nthrough the birth of death. \"I know not,\" he would have said, had he\nbeen questioned concerning his spiritual attitude, \"how my prayer\nshould for another work anything with the perfect Giver, but at\nleast I will not leave my friend behind when I go into the presence\nof his Father and my Father. And I believe there is something in it\nI cannot yet see.\"\n\nWingfold's anxiety was all for Helen. He could do no more for\nLeopold, nor did he need more from man. As to many of the things\nthat puzzled them most, he was on his way to know more; he would\nsoon be in the heart of what seemed likely to remain a long secret\nto him. But there was his sister, about to be left behind him\nwithout his hopes; for her were dreary days at hand; and the curate\nprayed the God of comfort and consolation to visit her.\n\nMrs. Ramshorn would now and then look in at the noiseless door of\nthe chamber of death, but she rightly felt her presence was not\ndesired, and though ready to help, did not enter. Neither did\nGeorge--not from heartlessness, but that he judged it better to\nleave the priests of falsehood undisturbed in the exercise of their\nmiserable office. What did it matter how many comforting lies were\ntold to a dying man? What COULD it matter? There was small danger of\ntheir foolish prayers and superstitious ceremonies evoking a deity\nfrom the well-ordered, self-evolved sphericity of interacting law,\nwhere not a pin-hole of failure afforded space out of which he might\ncreep. No more could they deprive the poor lad of the bliss of\nreturning into the absolute nothingness whence he had crept--to\ncommit a horrible crime against immortal society, and creep back\nagain, with a heart full of love and remorse and self-abhorrence,\ninto the black abyss. Therefore, why should he not let them tell\ntheir lies and utter their silly incantations? Aloof and unharmed he\nstood, safe on the shore, all ready to reach the rescuing hand to\nHelen, the moment she should turn her eyes to him, for the help she\nknew he had to give her. Certainly, for her sake, he would rather\nshe were not left unprotected to such subtle and insinuating\ninfluences; but with the power of his mind upon her good sense, he\nhad no fear of the result. Not that he expected her to submit at\nonce to the wholesome regimen and plain diet he must prescribe her:\nthe soft hand of Time must first draw together the edges of her\nheart's wound.\n\nBut the deadness of Helen's feelings, the heartlessness because of\nwhich she cried out against herself, seemed, in a vague way, by\nherself unacknowledged yet felt, if not caused by, yet associated\nwith some subtle radiation from the being of George Bascombe. That\nvery morning when he came into the breakfast-room so quietly that\nshe had not heard him, and, looking up, saw him unexpectedly, he\nseemed for a moment, she could not tell why, the dull fountain of\nall the miserable feeling--not of loss, but of no loss, which\npressed her heart flat in her bosom. The next moment she accused\nherself of the grossest injustice, attributing it to the sickness of\nsoul which the shadow of death had wrought in her; for was not\nGeorge the only true friend she had ever had? If she lost him she\nmust be lonely indeed!--The feeling lingered notwithstanding, and\nwhen she thought it dispelled, began to gather again immediately.\n\nAt the same time she shrunk from Wingfold as hard and unsympathetic.\nTrue he had been most kind, even tender, to her brother, but to him\nhe had taken a fancy, having found in him one whom he could work\nupon and fashion to his own liking: poor Poldie had never been one\nof the strongest of men. But to her, whom he could not model after\nhis own ideas, who required a reason for the thing anyone would have\nher believe--to her he had shown the rough side of his nature, going\nfarther than any gentleman ought, even if he was a clergyman, in\ncriticizing her conduct. He might well take example of her cousin\nGeorge! What a different sort of artillery HE had brought to bear\nupon the outstanding fortress of her convictions!\n\nSo would she say within herself, again and again, in different\nforms, not knowing how little of conviction there was in the\nconclusions she seemed to come to--how much of old habit and\ngratitude on the one hand, and pride and resentment upon the\nother.-And there still was that feeling! she could not drive it\naway. It was like trying to disperse a fog with a fan.\n\nThe outside weather, although she was far past heeding that, was in\nharmony with her soul's weather. A dull dark-grey fog hung from the\nsky, and without much obscuring the earth altogether hid the sun.\nThe air was very cold. There was neither joy nor hope anywhere. The\nbushes were leafless and budless, the summer gone, the spring not\nworth hoping for, because it also would go: spring after spring\ncame--for nothing but to go again! Things were so empty and wretched\nthat pain and grief, almost fear itself, would have been welcome.\nThe world around her, yes, all her life, all herself, was but the\ncold dead body of a summer-world. And Leopold was going to be buried\nwith the summer. His smiles had all gone with the flowers. The weeds\nof his troubles were going also, for they would die with him. But he\nwould not know it and be glad, any more than she, who was left\ncaring for neither summer nor winter, joy nor sorrow, love nor hate,\nthe past nor the future.\n\nMany such thoughts wandered hazily through her mind as she now sat\nholding the hand of him who was fast sleeping away from her into\ndeath. Her eyes were fixed on the window through which he had\nentered that terrible night, but she saw nothing beyond it.\n\n\"He is gone\" said Polwarth in a voice that sounded unknown to the\nears of Helen, and as he spoke he kneeled.\n\nShe started up with a cry, and looked in her brother's face. She had\nnever seen anyone die, and yet she saw that he was dead.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV.\n\nTHE SUNSET.\n\n\n\n\n\nHow the terrible time, terrible for its very dulness and\ninsensibility, passed until it brought the funeral, Helen could not\nhave told. It seemed to her, as she looked back upon it, a bare\nblank, yet was the blank full of a waste weariness of heart. The\ndays were all one, outside and inside. Her heart was but a lonely\nnarrow bay to the sea of cold immovable fog that filled the world.\nNo one tried to help, no one indeed knew her trouble. Everyone took\nit for grief at the loss of her brother, while to herself it was the\noppression of a life that had not even the interest of pain. The\ncurate had of course called to inquire after her, but had not been\ninvited to enter. George had been everywhere with help, but had no\nword to speak.\n\nThe day of the funeral came, in thin fog and dull cold. The few\nfriends gathered. The body was borne to the Abbey. The curate\nreceived it at the gate in the name of the church--which takes our\nchildren in its arms, and our bodies into its garden--save indeed\nwhere her gardener is some foolish priest who knows not the heart of\nhis mother, and will pick and choose among her dead;--the lovely\nwords of the last-first of the apostles, were read; and earth was\ngiven back to earth, to mingle with the rest of the stuff the great\nworkman works withal. Cold was Helen's heart, cold her body, cold\nher very being. The earth, the air, the mist, the very light was\ncold. The past was cold, the future yet colder. She would have\ngrudged Leopold his lonely rest in the grave, but that she had not\nfeeling enough even for that. Her life seemed withering away from\nher, like an autumn flower in the frosts of winter; and she, as if\nshe had been but a flower, did not seem to care. What was life\nworth, when it had not strength to desire even its own continuance?\nHeartless she returned from the grave, careless of George's mute\nattentions, not even scornful of her aunt's shallow wail over the\nuncertainty of life and all things human,--so indifferent to the\nwhole misery that she walked straight up to the room, hers once\nmore, from which the body had just been carried, and which, for so\nmany many weary weeks, had been the centre of loving pain, sometimes\nagony. Once more she was at peace--but what a peace!\n\nShe took off her cloak and bonnet, laid them on the bed, went to the\nwindow, sat down, and gazed, hardly seeing, out on the cold garden\nwith its sodden earth, its leafless shrubs, and perennial trees of\ndarkness and mourning. The meadow lay beyond, and there she did see\nthe red cow busily feeding, and was half-angry with her. Beyond the\nmeadow stood the trees, with the park behind them. And yet further\nbehind lay the hollow with the awful house in its bosom, its dismal\nhaunted lake and its ruined garden. But nothing moved her. She could\nhave walked over every room in that house without a single quaver of\nthe praecordia. Poldie was dead, but was it not well? Even if he had\nnot been in trouble, what should his death matter? She would die\nsoon herself and for ever: what did that or anything else matter?\nMight she but keep this dulness of spirit, and never more wake to\nweep foolish tears over an existence the whole upstanding\nbroad-based fact of which was not worth one drop in the rivers of\nweeping that had been flowing ever since the joyless birth of this\nunconceived, ill-fated, unfathered world! To the hour of death\nbelonged jubilation and not mourning; the hour of birth was the hour\nof sorrow. Back to the darkness! was the cry of a life whose very\nbeing was an injury, only there was no one to have done the injury.\n\nThus she sat until she was summoned to dinner--early for the sake of\nthe friends whose home lay at a distance. She ate and drank and took\nher share in the talk as matter of course, believing all at the\ntable would judge her a heartless creature, and careless of what\nthey might think or say. But they judged her more kindly and more\ntruly than she judged herself. They saw through her eyes the deeps\nwhose upward ducts were choked with the frost of an unknown despair.\n\nNo sooner was she at liberty than again she sought her room, not\nconsciously from love to her brother who had died there, but because\nthe deadness of her heart chose a fitting loneliness: and again she\nseated herself at the window.\n\nThe dreary day was drawing to a close, and the night, drearier it\ncould not be, was at hand. The gray had grown darker, and she sat\nlike one waiting for the night like a monster coming to claim its\nown and swallow her up.\n\nSomething--was it an invasion of reviving light? caused her to lift\nher eyes. Away, sideways from her window, in the west, the mist had\ncleared a little--somewhere about the sun. Thinner and thinner it\ngrew. No sun came forth: he was already down; but a canopy of faint\namber grew visible, stretched above his tomb. It was the stuff of\nwhich sad smiles are made, not a thing that belonged to gladness.\nBut only he who has lost his sorrow without regaining his joy, can\ntell how near sorrow lieth to joy. Who that has known the dull paths\nof listless no-feeling, would not have his sorrow back with all its\nattendant agonies?\n\nThe pale amber spread, dilute with light, and beneath it lay the\ngray of the fog, and above it the dark blue of cloud--not of sky.\nThe soul of it was so still, so resigned, so sad, so forsaken, that\nshe who had thought her heart gone from her, suddenly felt its wells\nwere filling, and soon they overflowed. She wept. At what? A colour\nin the sky! Was there then a God that knew sadness--and was that a\nbanner of grief he hung forth to comfort the sorrowful with\nsympathy? Or was it but a godless colour which the heart varnished\nwith its own grief? Or if the human heart came from nothing and was\nsad, why might not the aspects of nature come from nothing and be\nsad too--wrought in harmony with the unutterable woe of humanity?\nThen either is man the constructive centre of the world, and its\nmeanings are but his own face looking back upon him from the mirror\nof his own projected atmosphere, and comfort there is none; or he is\nnot the centre of the world, which yet carries in its forms and\ncolours the aspects of his mind; and then, horror of horrors! is man\nthe one conscious point and object of a vast derision--insentient\nnature grinning at sentient man! rose or saffron, his sky but mocks\nand makes mows at him; while he himself is the worst mockery of all,\nbeing at once that which mocks and that which not only is mocked but\nwrithes in agony under the mockery. Such as Bascombe reply that they\nfind it not so. I answer--For the best of reasons, that it is not\nso.\n\nHelen's doubts did not stay her weeping, as doubt generally does;\nfor the sky with its sweet sadness was before her, and deep in her\nheart a lake of tears, which, now that it had begun to flow, would\nnot be stayed. She knew not why she wept, knew not that it was the\nsympathy of that pale amber of sad resignation which brought her\nrelief: but she wept and wept, until her heart began to stir, and\nher tears came cooler and freer.\n\n\"Oh Poldie! my own Poldie!\" she cried at length, and fell upon her\nknees--not-to worship the sky--not to pray to Poldie, or even for\nPoldie--not indeed to pray at all, so far as she knew; yet I doubt\nif it was merely and only from the impulse of the old childish habit\nof saying prayers.\n\nBut in a moment she grew restless. There was no Poldie! She rose and\nwalked about the room. And he came back to her soul, her desolate\nbrother, clothed, alas! in the rags and tatters of all the unkind\nand unjust thoughts she had ever had concerning him, and wearing on\nhis face the reflection of her worse deeds. She had stood between\nhim and the only poor remnant of peace, consolation, and hope that\nit was possible he should have; and it was through the friends whom\nshe had treated with such distance and uncordiality that he did\nreceive it. Then out rushed from the chamber of her memory the\nvision of the small dark nervous wild-looking Indian boy who gazed\nat her but for one questioning moment, then shot into her arms and\nnestled in her bosom. How had she justified that faith? She had\nreceived, and sheltered, and shielded him, doubtless, and would have\ndone so with her life, yet, when it came to the test, she had loved\nherself better than him, and would have doomed him to agony rather\nthan herself to disgrace. Oh Poldie! Poldie! But he could not hear!\nNever, for evermore, should she utter to him word of sorrow or\nrepentance! never beg his forgiveness, or let him know that now she\nknew better, and had risen above such weakness and selfishness!\n\nShe stopped, and looked sadly from the window. The sky was cloudless\noverhead, and the amber pall was fainter and clearer over the tomb\nof the sun. She turned hastily to the bed where lay her cloak and\nbonnet, put them on with trembling hands, and went out by that same\nwindow into the garden. She could not help a shudder as she stood in\nthe dark passage unlocking the door in the sunk fence, but the next\nminute she was crossing the meadow through the cold frosty twilight\nair, now clear of its fog, and seeming somehow to comfort, uplift,\nand strengthen her. The red cow was still feeding there. She stopped\nand talked to her a little. She seemed one of Poldie's friends, and\nPoldie had come back to her heart if he might never more to her\narms, and she was now on her way to one of his best friends, whom,\nas more worthy, he had loved even better than her, and whom she had\nnot honoured as they deserved or as he must have desired. To get\nnear them, would be to get nearer to Poldie. At least she would be\nwith those whom he had loved, and who, she did not doubt, still\nloved him, believing him still alive. She could not go to the\ncurate, but she could go to the Polwarths; no one would blame her\nfor that-except indeed George. But even George should not come\nbetween her and what mere show of communion with Poldie was left\nher! She would keep her freedom--would rather break with George than\nlose an atom of her liberty! She would be no clay for his hands to\nmould after his pleasure!\n\nShe opened the door in the fence and entered the park, seeming to\nrecover strength with every step she took towards Poldie's friends.\n\nIt was almost dark when she stood at the lodge-door and knocked.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI.\n\nAN HONEST SPY.\n\n\n\n\n\nNo one answered Helen's knock. She repeated it, and still no answer\ncame. Her heart might have failed her, but that she heard voices:\nwhat if they were talking about Leopold? At length, after knocking\nfour or five times, she heard the step as of a child coming down a\nstair; but it passed the door. Clearly no one had heard her. She\nknocked yet again, and immediately it was opened by Rachel. The\npleasured surprise that shone up in her face when she saw who it was\nthat stood without, was lovely to see, and Helen, on whose miserable\nisolation it came like a sunrise of humanity, took no counsel with\npride, but, in simple gratitude for the voiceless yet eloquent\nwelcome, bent down and kissed her. The little arms were flung about\nher neck, and the kiss returned with such a gentle warmth and\nrestrained sweetness as would have satisfied the most fastidious in\nthe matter of salute--to which class, however, Helen did not belong,\nfor she seldom kissed anyone. Then Rachel took her by the hand, and\nled her into the kitchen, placed a chair for her near the fire, and\nsaid,\n\n\"I AM sorry there is no fire in the parlour. The gentlemen are in my\nuncle's room. Oh, Miss Lingard, I do wish you could have heard how\nthey have been talking!\"\n\n\"Have they been saying anything about my brother?\" asked Helen.\n\n\"It's all about him,\" she replied.\n\n\"May I ask who the gentlemen are?\" said Helen doubtfully.\n\n\"Mr. Wingfold and Mr. Drew. They are often here.\"\n\n\"Is it--do you mean Mr. Drew, the draper?\"\n\n\"Yes. He is one of Mr. Wingfold's best pupils. He brought him to my\nuncle, and he has come often ever since.\"\n\n\"I never heard that--Mr. Wingfold--took pupils.--I am afraid I do\nnot quite understand you.\n\n\"I would have said DISCIPLES,\" returned Rachel smiling; \"but that\nhas grown to feel such a sacred word--as if it belonged only to the\nMaster, that I didn't like to use it. It would say best what I mean\nthough; for there are people in Glaston that are actually mending\ntheir ways because of Mr. Wingfold's teaching, and Mr. Drew was the\nfirst of them. It is long since such a thing was heard of in the\nAbbey. It never was in my time.\"\n\nHelen sighed. She wished it had remained possible for her also to\nbecome one of Mr. Wingfold's pupils, but how could she now when she\nhad learned that what he had to teach was at best but a lovely\nphantasm, sprung of the seething together of the conscience and\nimagination. George could give account of the whole matter: religion\ninvariably excited the imagination and weakened the conscience;--witness\nthe innumerable tales concerning Jesus invented in the first of the\nChristian centuries, and about this and that saint in those that\nfollowed! Helen's experience in Leopold's case had certainly been\ndifferent, but the other fact remained. Alas, she could not be a pupil\nof Mr. Wingfold! She could no longer deceive herself with such comfort.\nAnd yet!--COME UNTO ME, AND _I_ WILL GIVE YOU REST.\n\n\"I do wish I could hear them,\" she said.\n\n\"And why not?\" returned Rachel. \"There is not one of them would not\nbe glad to see you. I know that.\"\n\n\"I am afraid I should hinder their talk. Would they speak just as\nfreely as if I were not there? Not that I know why they shouldn't,\"\nshe added; \"only the presence of any stranger--\"\n\n\"You are no stranger to Mr. Wingfold or my uncle,\" said Rachel, \"and\nI daresay you know Mr. Drew?\"\n\n\"To tell you the truth, Miss Polwarth, I have not behaved as I\nshould either to your uncle or Mr. Wingfold. I know it now that my\nbrother is gone. They were so good to him! I feel now as if I had\nbeen possessed with an evil spirit. I could not bear them to be more\nto him than I was. Oh, how I should like to hear what they are\nsaying! I feel as if I should get a glimpse of Leopold--almost, if I\nmight. But I couldn't face them all together. I could not go into\nthe room.\"\n\nRachel was silent for a moment, thinking. Then she said:\n\n\"I'll tell you what then: there's no occasion. Between my uncle's\nroom and mine there's a little closet, where you shall sit and hear\nevery word. Nothing will divide you from them but a few thin old\nboards.\"\n\n\"That would hardly be honourable though--would it?\"\n\n\"I will answer for it. I shall tell my uncle afterwards. There may\nbe cases where the motive makes the right or the wrong. It's not as\nif you were listening to find out secrets. I shall be in the room,\nand that will be a connecting link, you know: they never turn me\nout. Come now. We don't know what we may be losing.\"\n\nThe desire to hear Leopold's best friends talk about him was strong\nin Helen, but her heart misgave her: was it not unbecoming? She\nwould be in terror of discovery all the time. In the middle of the\nstair, she drew Rachel back and whispered,\n\n\"I dare not do it.\"\n\n\"Come on,\" said Rachel. \"Hear what I shall say to them first. After\nthat you shall do as you please.\"\n\nEvidently, so quick was her response, her thoughts had been going in\nthe same direction as Helen's.\n\n\"Thank you for trusting me,\" she added, as Helen again followed her.\n\nArrived at the top, the one stood trembling, while the other went\ninto the room.\n\n\"Uncle,\" said Rachel, \"I have a friend in the house who is very\nanxious to hear you and our friends speak your minds to each other,\nbut for reasons does not wish to appear: will you allow my friend to\nlisten without being seen?\"\n\n\"Is it your wish, Rachel, or are you only conveying the request of\nanother?\" asked her uncle.\n\n\"It is my wish,\" answered Rachel. \"I really desire it--if you do not\nmind.\"\n\nShe looked from one to another as she spoke. The curate and the\ndraper indicated a full acquiescence.\n\n\"Do you know quite what you are about, Rachel?\" asked Polwarth.\n\n\"Perfectly, uncle,\" she answered. \"There is no reason why you should\nnot talk as freely as if you were talking only to me. I will put my\nfriend in the closet, and you need never think that anyone is in the\nhouse but ourselves.\"\n\n\"Then I have no more to say,\" returned her uncle with a smile. \"Your\nFRIEND, whoever he or she may be, is heartily welcome.\"\n\nRachel rejoined Helen, who had already drawn nearer to the door of\nthe closet, and now seated herself right willingly in its shelter,\namidst an atmosphere odorous of apples and herbs. Already the talk\nwas going on just as before. At first each of the talkers did now\nand then remember there was a listener unseen but found, when the\nconversation came to a close, that he had for a long time forgotten\nit.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII.\n\nWHAT HELEN HEARD,\n\n\n\n\n\nAlthough satisfied that, after what Rachel had said to the men,\nthere could be no impropriety in her making use of the privilege\ngranted her, Helen felt oddly uncomfortable at first. But soon the\nfancy came, that she was listening at the door of the other world to\ncatch news of her Leopold, and that made her forget herself and put\nher at peace. For some time, however, the conversation was\nabsolutely unintelligible to her. She understood the words and\nphrases, and even some of the sentences, but as she had no clue to\ntheir drift, the effort to understand was like attempting to realize\nthe span of a rainbow from a foot or two of it appearing now and\nthen in different parts and vanishing again at once. It was chiefly\nPolwarth, often Wingfold, and now and then Drew that spoke, Rachel\ncontributing only an occasional word. At length broke something of a\ndawn over the seeming chaos. The words from which the light that\nfirst reached Helen flowed, were the draper's.\n\n\"I can't think, for all that,\" he said, \"why, if there be life\nbeyond the grave, and most sincerely I trust there is--I don't see\nwhy we should know so little about it. Confess now, Mr.\nPolwarth!--Mr. Wingfold!\" he said appealingly, \"--does it not seem\nstrange that, if our dearest friends go on living somewhere else,\nthey should, the moment they cease to breathe, pass away from us\nutterly--so utterly that from that moment neither hint nor trace nor\nsign of their existence ever reaches us? Nature, the Bible, God\nhimself says nothing about how they exist or where they are, or why\nthey are so silent--cruelly silent if it be in their power to\nspeak,--therefore, they cannot; and here we are left not only with\naching hearts but wavering faith, not knowing whither to turn to\nescape the stare of the awful blank, that seems in the very\nintensity of its silence to shout in our ears that we are but dust\nand return to the dust!\"\n\nThe gate-keeper and curate interchanged a pleased look of surprise\nat the draper's eloquence, but Polwarth instantly took up his\nanswer.\n\n\"I grant you it would be strange indeed if there were no good reason\nfor it,\" he said.\n\n\"Then do you say,\" asked Wingfold. \"that until we see, discover, or\ndevise some good reason for the darkness that overhangs it, we are\nat liberty to remain in doubt as to whether there be any life within\nthe cloud?\"\n\n\"I would say so,\" answered Polwarth, \"were it not that we have the\nstory of Jesus, which, if we accept it, is surely enough to satisfy\nus both as to the thing itself, and as to the existence of a good\nreason, whether we have found one or not, for the mystery that\novershadows it.\"\n\n\"Still I presume we are not forbidden to seek such a reason,\" said\nthe curate.\n\nThe draper was glancing from the one to the other with evident\nanxiety.\n\n\"Certainly not,\" returned the gate-keeper. \"For what else is our\nimagination given us but the discovery of good reasons that are, or\nthe invention of good reasons that may perhaps be?\"\n\n\"Can you then imagine any good reason,\" said Drew, \"why we should be\nkept in such absolute ignorance of everything that befalls the\nparted spirit from the moment it quits its house with us?\"\n\n\"I think I know one,\" answered Polwarth. \"I have sometimes fancied\nit might be because no true idea of their condition could possibly\nbe grasped by those who remain in the tabernacle of the body; that\nto know their state it is necessary that we also should be clothed\nin our new bodies, which are to the old as a house to a tent. I\ndoubt if we have any words in which the new facts could be imparted\nto our knowledge, the facts themselves being beyond the reach of any\nsenses whereof we are now in actual possession. I expect to find my\nnew body provided with new, I mean OTHER senses beyond what I now\npossess: many more may be required to bring us into relation with\nall the facts in himself which God may have shadowed forth in\nproperties, as we say, of what we call matter. The spaces all around\nus, even to those betwixt star and star, may be the home of the\nmultitudes of the heavenly host, yet seemingly empty to all who have\nbut our provision of senses. But I do not care to dwell upon that\nkind of speculation. It belongs to a lower region, upon which I\ngrudge to expend interest while the far loftier one invites me,\nwhere, if I gather not the special barley of which I am in search, I\nam sure to come upon the finest of wheat.--Well, then, for my\nreason: There are a thousand individual events in the course of\nevery man's life, by which God takes a hold of him--a thousand\nbreaches by which he would and does enter, little as the man may\nknow it; but there is one universal and unchanging grasp he keeps\nupon the race, yet not as the race, for the grasp is upon every\nsolitary single individual that has a part in it: that grasp\nis--death in its mystery. To whom can the man who is about to die in\nabsolute loneliness and go he cannot tell whither, flee for refuge\nfrom the doubts and fears that assail him, but to the Father of his\nbeing?\"\n\n\"But,\" said Drew, \"I cannot see what harm would come of letting us\nknow a little--as much at least as might serve to assure us that\nthere was more of SOMETHING on the other side.\"\n\n\"Just this,\" returned Polwarth, \"that, their fears allayed, their\nhopes encouraged from any lower quarter, men would, as usual, turn\naway from the fountain to the cistern of life, from the ever fresh\noriginal creative Love to that drawn off and shut in. That there are\nthousands who would forget God if they could but be assured of such\na tolerable state of things beyond the grave as even this wherein we\nnow live, is plainly to be anticipated from the fact that the doubts\nof so many in respect of religion concentrate themselves now-a-days\nupon the question whether there is any life beyond the grave; a\nquestion which, although no doubt nearly associated with\nreligion,--as what question worth asking is not?--does not\nimmediately belong to religion at all. Satisfy such people, if you\ncan, that they shall live, and what have they gained? A little\ncomfort perhaps--but a comfort not from the highest source, and\npossibly gained too soon for their well-being. Does it bring them\nany nearer to God than they were before? Is he filling one cranny\nmore of their hearts in consequence? Their assurance of immortality\nhas not come from a knowledge of him, and without him it is worse\nthan worthless. Little indeed has been gained, and that with the\nloss of much. The word applies here which our Lord in his parable\nputs into the mouth of Abraham: If they hear not Moses and the\nprophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the\ndead. He does not say they would not believe in a future state\nthough one rose from the dead--although most likely they would soon\npersuade themselves that the apparition after all was only an\nillusion--[Footnote: See Lynch's admirable sermon on this subject.]\nbut that they would not be persuaded to repent, though one rose from\nthe dead; and without that, what great matter whether they believed\nin a future state or not? It would only be the worse for them if\nthey did. No, Mr. Drew! I repeat, it is not a belief in immortality\nthat will deliver a man from the woes of humanity, but faith in the\nGod of life, the father of lights, the God of all consolation and\ncomfort. Believing in him, a man can leave his friends, and their\nand his own immortality, with everything else--even his and their\nlove and perfection, with utter confidence in his hands. Until we\nhave the life in us, we shall never be at peace. The living God\ndwelling in the heart he has made, and glorifying it by inmost\nspeech with himself--that is life, assurance, and safety. Nothing\nless is or can be such.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII.\n\nWHAT HELEN HEARD MORE\n\n\n\n\n\n\"A word you dropped the other day,\" said the curate, \"set me\nthinking of the note-worthy fact that belief in God and belief in\nimmortality cease together. But I do not see the logic of it. If we\nare here without God, why may we not go on there without God? I\nmarvel that I have heard of no one taking up and advocating the\nview. What a grand discovery it would be for some people--that not\nonly was there no God to interfere with them, and insist on their\nbecoming something worth being, but that they were immortal\nnotwithstanding! that death was only the passage of another birth\ninto a condition of enlarged capacity for such bliss as they enjoyed\nhere, but more exalted in degree, perhaps in kind, and altogether\npreferable.\"\n\n\"I know one to whom the thought would not have been a new one,\" said\nPolwarth. \"Have you not come upon a passage in my brother's\nmanuscript involving the very idea?\"\n\n\"Not yet. I read very slowly and pick up all the crumbs. I wish we\nhad had the book here. I should have so much liked to hear you read\nfrom it again.\"\n\nThe gate-keeper rose and went to his cabinet.\n\n\"The wish is easily gratified,\" he said. \"I made a copy of\nit,--partly for security, partly that I might thoroughly enter into\nmy brother's thoughts.\"\n\n\"I wonder almost you lend the original then,\" said Wingfold.\n\n\"I certainly could not lend the copy to any man I could not trust\nwith the original,\" answered Polwarth. \"But I never lent either\nbefore.\"--He was turning over the leaves as he spoke.--\"The\npassage,\" he went on, \"besides for its own worth, is precious to me\nas showing how, through all his madness, his thoughts haunted the\ngates of wisdom.--Ah! here it is!\n\n\"'About this time I had another strange vision, whether in the body\nor out of the body, I cannot tell. I thought, as oftener than once\nbefore, that at length I was dying. And it seemed to me that I did\ndie, and awake to the consciousness of a blessed freedom from the\ncoarser and more ponderous outer dress I had hitherto worn, being\nnow clad only in what had been up to this time an inner garment, and\nwas a far more closely fitting one. The first delight of which I was\naware was coolness--a coolness that hurt me not--the coolness as of\na dewy summer eve, in which a soft friendly wind is blowing; and the\ncoolness was that of perfect well-being, of the health that cometh\nafter fever, when a sound sleep hath divided it away and built a\nrampart between; the coolness of undoubted truth, and of love that\nhas surmounted passion and is tenfold love.'\n\n\"He goes on to give further and fuller account of his\nsensations,--ventures even on the anticipated futility of an attempt\nto convey a notion of one of his new senses. I leave all that for\nyour own reading, Mr. Wingfold.\n\n\"'But where was I? That I could not tell. I am here was all I could\nsay; but then what more could I ever have said?--Gradually my sight\ncame to me, or the light of the country arose, I could not tell\nwhich, and behold, I was in the midst of a paradise, gorgeous yet\ngracious, to describe which I find no words in the halting tongues\nof earth, and I know something of them all, most of them well. If I\nsay a purple sea was breaking in light on an emerald shore, the\nmoment the words are written, I see them coarse and crude as a boy's\nfirst attempt at landscape; yet are there no better wherewith to\ntell what first filled my eyes with heavenly delight.\n\n\"'The inhabitants were many, but nowhere were they crowded. There\nwas room in abundance, and wild places seemed to be held sacred for\nsolitude.'\n\n\"I am only picking up a sentence here and there, as I hasten to the\nparticular point,\" said Polwarth, looking down the page.\n\n\"'But the flowers! and the birds! and above all the beauty of the\npeople! And they dwelt in harmony. Yet on their foreheads lay as it\nseemed a faint mist, or as it were the first of a cloud of coming\ndisquiet.\n\n\"'And I prayed him, Tell me, sir, whither shall I go to find God and\nsay unto him, Lo, here I am! And he answered and said to me, Sir, I\nbut dimly know what thou meanest. Say further. And I stood for an\nhour, even as one astonied. Then said I, All my long life on the\nworld whence I came, I did look to find God when death should take\nme. But lo, now--And with that my heart smote me, for in my former\nlife I had oftentimes fallen into unbelief and denied God: was this\nnow my punishment--that I should never find him? And my heart grew\ncold in my body, and the blood curdled therein. Then the man\nanswered and said, It is true that in generations past, for so I\nread in our ancient books, men did believe in one above them and in\nthem, who had wrought them to that they were, and was working them\nto better still; but whether it be that we have now gained that\nbetter, and there is nothing higher unto which we may look,\ntherefore no need of the high one, I know not, but truly we have\nlong ceased so to believe, and have learned that, as things are, so\nthey have been, and so they shall be. Then fell as it were a cold\nstone into the core of my heart, and I questioned him no farther,\nfor I bore death in my heart, even as a woman carrieth her unborn\nchild. No God! I cried, and sped away into a solitude and shrieked\naloud, No God! Nay, but ere I believe it, I will search through all\ncreation, and cry aloud as I go. I will search until I find him, and\nif I find him not,--. With that my soul would have fainted in me,\nhad I not spread forth my wings and rushed aloft to find him.\n\n\"'For the more lovely anything I saw, the more gracious in colour or\nform, or the more marvellous in the law of its working, ever a fresh\npang shot to my heart: if that which I had heard should prove true,\nthen was there no Love such as seemed to me to dwell therein, the\nsoul of its beauty, and all the excellence thereof was but a\ndelusion of my own heart, greedy after a phantom perfection. No God!\nno Love! no loveliness, save a ghastly semblance thereof! and the\nmore ghastly that it was so like loveliness, and yet was not to be\nloved upon peril of prostitution of spirit. Then in truth was heaven\na fable, and hell an all-embracing fact! for my very being knew in\nitself that if it would dwell in peace, the very atmosphere in which\nit lived and moved and breathed must be love, living love, a one\ndivine presence, truth to itself, and love to me, and to all them\nthat needed love, down to the poorest that can but need it, and\nknoweth it not when it cometh. I knew that if love was not all in\nall, in fact as well as in imagination, my life was but a dreary\nhollow made in the shape of a life, and therefore for ever hungry\nand never to be satisfied. And again I spread wings--no longer as it\nseemed of hope, but wings of despair, yet mighty, and flew. And I\nlearned thereafter that despair is but the hidden side of hope.'\n\n\"Here follow pages of his wanderings in quest of God. He tells how\nand where he inquired and sought, searching into the near and minute\nas earnestly as into the far and vast, watching at the very pores of\nbeing, and sitting in the gates of the mighty halls of assembly--but\nall in vain. No God was to be found.\n\n\"'And it seemed to me,' he says at last, 'that, as I had been the\nwanderer of earth, so was I now doomed to be the wanderer of heaven.\nOn earth I wandered to find death, and men called me the everlasting\nJew; in heaven I wandered to find God, and what name would they give\nme now?\n\n\"'At last my heart sank within me wholly, and I folded my wings, and\nthrough years I also sank and sank, and alighted at length upon the\nplace appointed for my habitation--that namely wherein I found\nmyself first after death. And alighting there, I fell down weary and\nslept.\n\n\"'And when I awoke I turned upon my side in the despair of a life\nthat was neither in my own power nor in that of one who was the\nFather of me, which life therefore was an evil thing and a tyrant\nunto me. And lo! there by my side I beheld a lily of the field such\nas grew on the wayside in the old times betwixt Jerusalem and\nBethany. Never since my death had I seen such, and my heart awoke\nwithin me, and I wept bitter tears that nothing should be true,\nnothing be that which it had seemed in the times of old. And as I\nwept I heard a sound as of the falling of many tears, and I looked,\nand lo a shower as from a watering-pot falling upon the lily! And I\nlooked yet again, and I saw the watering-pot, and the hand that held\nit; and he whose hand held the pot stood by me and looked at me as\nhe watered the lily. He was a man like the men of the world where\nsuch lilies grow, and was poorly dressed, and seemed like a\ngardener. And I looked up in his face, and lo--the eyes of the Lord\nJesus! and my heart swelled until it filled my whole body and my\nhead, and I gave a great cry, and for joy that turned into agony I\ncould not rise, neither could I speak, but I crept on my hands and\nmy knees to his feet, and there I fell down upon my face, and with\nmy hands I lifted one of his feet and did place it upon my head, and\nthen I found voice to cry, O master! and therewith the life departed\nfrom me. And when I came to myself the master sat under the tree,\nand I lay by his side, and he had lifted my head upon his knees. And\nbehold, the world was jubilant around me, for Love was Love and Lord\nof all. The sea roared, and the fulness thereof was love; and the\npurple and the gold and the blue and the green came straight from\nthe hidden red heart of the Lord Jesus. And I closed my eyes for\nvery bliss; nor had I yet bethought me of the time when first those\neyes looked upon me, for I seemed to have known them since first I\nbegan to be. But now when for very bliss I closed my eyes, my sin\ncame back to me, and I remembered. And I rose up, and kneeled down\nbefore him, and said, O Lord, I am Ahasuerus the Jew, the man who\nwould not let thee rest thy cross upon the stone before my workshop,\nbut drave thee from it.--Say no more of that, answered my Lord, for\ntruly I have myself rested in thy heart, cross and all, until the\nthing thou diddest in thy ignorance is better than forgotten, for it\nis remembered in love. Only see thou also make right excuse for my\nbrethren who, like thee then, know not now what they do. Come and I\nwill bring thee to the woman who died for thee in the burning fire.\nAnd I said, O Lord, leave me not, for although I would now in my\nturn right gladly die for her, yet would I not look upon that woman\nagain if the love of her would make me love thee one hair the less--\nthou knowest. And the Lord smiled upon me and said, Fear not,\nAhasuerus; my love infolds and is the nest of all love. I fear not;\nfear thou not either. And I arose and followed him. And every tree\nand flower, yea every stone and cloud, with the whole earth and sea\nand air, were full of God, even the living God--so that now I could\nhave died of pure content. And I followed my Lord.'\"\n\nThe gate-keeper was silent, and so were they all. At length Rachel\nrose softly, wiping the tears from her eyes, and left the room. But\nshe found no one in the closet. Helen was already hastening across\nthe park, weeping as she went.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIX.\n\nTHE CURATE'S RESOLVE.\n\n\n\n\n\nThe next day was Sunday.\n\nTwelve months had not yet elapsed since the small events with which\nmy narrative opened. The change which had passed, not merely upon\nthe opinions, but in the heart and mind and very being of the\ncurate, had not then begun to appear even to himself, although its\nroots were not only deep in him but deep beyond him, even in the\nsource of him; and now he was in a state of mind, a state of being,\nrather, of whose nature at that time he had not, and could not have\nhad, the faintest fore-feeling, the most shadowy conception. It had\nbeen a season of great trouble, but the gain had been infinitely\ngreater; for now were the bonds of the finite broken, he had burst\nthe shell of the mortal, and was of those over whom the second death\nhath no power. The agony of the second birth was past, and he was a\nchild again--only a child, he knew, but a child of the kingdom; and\nthe world, and all that God cared about in it, was his, as no\nmiser's gold could ever belong to its hoarder, while the created\nuniverse, yea and the uncreated also whence it sprang, lay open to\nhim in the boundless free-giving of the original Thought. \"All\nthings are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's:\" he\nunderstood the words even as he who said them understood them, and\nas the wise of this world never will understand them until first\nthey become fools that they may be wise.\n\nAt the same time a great sorrow threatened him from the no less\nmysterious region of his relations to humanity; but if that region\nand its most inexplicable cares were beyond the rule of the Life\nthat dwelt in him, then was that Life no true God, and the whole\nthing was false; for he loved Helen with a love that was no\ninvention or creation of his own, and if not his, then whose?\nCertainly not of one who, when it threatened to overwhelm him, was\nunable to uphold him under it! This thing also belonged to the God\nof his being. A poor God must he be for men or women who did not\ncare about the awful things involved in the relation between them!\nTherefore even in his worst anxieties about Helen,--I do not mean in\nhis worst seasons of despair at the thought of never gaining her\nlove--he had never yet indeed consciously regarded the winning of\nher as a possibility--but at those times when he most plainly saw\nher the submissive disciple of George Bascombe, and the two seemed\nto his fancy to be straying away together \"into a wide field, full\nof dark mountains;\" when he saw her, so capable of the noblest,\nsubmitting her mind to the entrance of the poorest, meanest,\nshabbiest theories of life, and taking for her guide one who could\nlead her to no conscious well-being, or make provision for\nsustainment when the time of suffering and anxiety should come, or\nthe time of health and strength be over when yet she must live on;\nwhen he saw her adopting a system of things whose influence would\nshrivel up instead of developing her faculties, crush her\nimagination with such a mountain-weight as was never piled above\nTitan, and dwarf the whole divine woman within her to the size and\ncondition of an Aztec--even then was he able to reason with himself:\n\"She belongs to God, not to me; and God loves her better than ever I\ncould love her. If she should set out with her blind guide, it will\nbe but a first day's journey she will go--through marshy places and\ndry sands, across the far breadth of which, lo! the blue mountains\nthat shelter the high vales of sweetness and peace.\" And with this\nhe not only tried to comfort himself, but succeeded--I do not say to\ncontentment, but to quiet. Contentment, which, whatever its\nimmediate shape, to be contentment at all, must be the will of God,\nlay beyond. Alas that men cannot believe there is such a thing as\n\"that good and acceptable and perfect will of God!\" To those that do\nbelieve it, it is the rejoicing of a conscious deliverance.\n\nAnd now this Sunday, Wingfold entered the pulpit prepared at last to\nutter his resolve. Happily nothing had been done to introduce the\nconfusing element of another will. The bishop had heard nothing of\nthe matter, and if anything had reached the rector, he had not\nspoken. Not one of the congregation, not even Mrs. Ramshorn, had\nhinted to him that he ought to resign. It had been left altogether\nwith himself. And now he would tell them the decision to which the\nthought he had taken had conducted him. I will give a portion of his\nsermon--enough to show us how he showed the congregation the state\nof his mind in reference to the grand question, and the position he\ntook in relation to his hearers.\n\n\"It is time, my hearers,\" he said, \"because it is now possible, to\nbring to a close that uncertainty with regard to the continuance of\nour relation to each other, which I was, in the spring-time of the\nyear, compelled by mental circumstance to occasion. I then forced\nmyself, for very dread of the honesty of an all-knowing God, to\nbreak through every convention of the church and the pulpit, and\nspeak to you of my most private affairs. I told you that I was sure\nof not one of those things concerning which it is taken for granted\nthat a clergyman must be satisfied; but that I would not at once\nyield my office, lest in that act I should seem to declare unbelief\nof many a thing which even then I desired to find true. In leaving\nme undisturbed either by complaint, expostulation, or proffered\ninstruction, you, my hearers, have granted me the leisure of which I\nstood in need. Meantime I have endeavoured to show you the best I\nsaw, while yet I dared not say I was sure of anything. I have thus\nkept you, those at least who cared to follow my path, acquainted\nwith my mental history. And now I come to tell you the practical\nresult at which I have arrived.\n\n\"But when I say that I will not forsake my curacy, still less my\nright and duty to teach whatever I seem to know, I must not therein\nconvey the impression that I have attained that conviction and\nassurance the discovery of the absence of which was the cause of the\nwhole uncertain proceeding. All I now say is, that in the story of\nJesus I have beheld such grandeur--to me apparently altogether\nbeyond the reach of human invention, such a radiation of divine\nloveliness and truth, such hope for man, soaring miles above every\npossible pitfall of Fate; and have at the same time, from the\nendeavour to obey the word recorded as his, experienced such a\nconscious enlargement of mental faculty, such a deepening of moral\nstrength, such an enhancement of ideal, such an increase of faith,\nhope, and charity towards all men, that I now declare with the\nconsent of my whole man--I cast in my lot with the servants of the\nCrucified; I am content even to share their delusion, if delusion it\nbe, for it is the truth of the God of men to me; I will stand or\nfall with the story of my Lord; I will take my chance--I speak not\nin irreverence but in honesty--my chance of failure or success in\nregard to whatever may follow in this life or the life to come, if\nthere be a life to come--on the words and will of the Lord Jesus\nChrist, whom if, impressed as I am with the truth of his nature, the\nabsolute devotion of his life, and the essential might of his being,\nI yet obey not, I shall not only deserve to perish, but in that very\nrefusal draw ruin upon my head. Before God I say it--I would rather\nbe crucified with that man, so it might be as a disciple and not as\na thief that creeps, intrudes, or climbs into the fold, than I would\nreign with him over such a kingdom of grandeur as would have\nsatisfied the imagination and love-ambition of his mother. On such\ngrounds as these I hope I am justified in declaring myself a\ndisciple of the Son of Man, and in devoting my life and the renewed\nenergy and enlarged, yea infinite hope which he has given me, to his\nbrothers and sisters of my race, that if possible I may gain some to\nbe partakers of the blessedness of my hope. Henceforth I am, not IN\nHOLY ORDERS, I reject the phrase, but UNDER holy orders, even the\norders of Christ Jesus, which is the law of liberty, the law whose\nobedience alone can set a man free from in-burrowing slavery.\n\n\"And if any man yet say that, because of my lack of absolute\nassurance, I have no right to the sacred post,--Let him, I answer,\nwho has been assailed by such doubts as mine, and from the citadel\nof his faith sees no more one lingering shadow of a foe--let him\ncast at me the first stone! Vain challenge! for such a one will\nnever cast a stone at man or woman. But let not him whose belief is\nbut the absence of doubt, who has never loved enough that which he\nthinks he believes to have felt a single fear lest it should not be\ntrue--let not that man, I say, cast at me pebble from the brook, or\ncloven rock from the mount of the law, for either will fall hurtless\nat my feet. Friends, I have for the last time spoken of myself in\nthis place. Ye have borne with me in my trials, and I thank you.\nThose who have not only borne but suffered, and do now rejoice with\nme, I thank tenfold. I have done--\n\n\"Save for one word to the Christians of this congregation:\n\n\"The waves of infidelity are coming in with a strong wind and a\nflowing tide. Who is to blame? God it cannot be, and for\nunbelievers, they are as they were. It is the Christians who are to\nblame. I do not mean those who are called Christians, but those who\ncall and count themselves Christians. I tell you, and I speak to\neach one of whom it is true, that you hold and present such a\nwithered, starved, miserable, death's-head idea of Christianity;\nthat you are yourselves such poverty-stricken believers, if\nbelievers you are at all; that the notion you present to the world\nas your ideal, is so commonplace, so false to the grand, gracious,\nmighty-hearted Jesus--that YOU are the cause why the truth hangs its\nhead in patience, and rides not forth on the white horse, conquering\nand to conquer. You dull its lustre in the eyes of men; you deform\nits fair proportions; you represent not that which it is, but that\nwhich it is not, yet call yourselves by its name; you are not the\nsalt of the earth, but a salt that has lost its savour, for ye seek\nall things else first, and to that seeking the kingdom of God and\nhis righteousness shall never be added. Until you repent and believe\nafresh, believe in a nobler Christ, namely the Christ revealed by\nhimself, and not the muffled form of something vaguely human and\ncertainly not all divine, which the false interpretations of men\nhave substituted for him, you will be, as, I repeat, you are, the\nmain reason why faith is so scanty in the earth, and the enemy comes\nin like a flood. For the sake of the progress of the truth, and that\ninto nobler minds than yours, it were better you joined the ranks of\nthe enemy, and declared what I fear with many of you is the fact,\nthat you believe not at all. But whether in some sense you believe\nor not, the fact remains, that, while you are not of those\nChristians who obey the word of the master, DOING the things he says\nto them, you are of those Christians, if you WILL be called by the\nname, to whom he will say, I never knew you: go forth into the outer\ndarkness. Then at least will the church be rid of you, and the\nhonest doubter will have room to breathe the divine air of the\npresence of Jesus.\n\n\"But oh what unspeakable bliss of heart and soul and mind and sense\nremains for him who like St. Paul is crucified with Christ, who\nlives no more from his own self, but is inspired and informed and\npossessed with the same faith towards the Father in which Jesus\nlived and wrought the will of the Father! If the words attributed to\nJesus are indeed the words of him whom Jesus declared himself, then\ntruly is the fate of mankind a glorious one,--and that, first and\nlast, because men have a God supremely grand, all-perfect in\nGod-head; for that is, and that alone can be, the absolute bliss of\nthe created.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXX.\n\nHELEN AWAKE.\n\n\n\n\n\nThat Sunday-dinner was a very quiet meal. An old friend of Mrs.\nRamshorn, a lady-ecclesiastic like herself, dined with them; what\nthe two may have said to each other in secret conclave, I cannot\ntell, but not a word of remark upon Mr. Wingfold or his sermon was\nheard at table.\n\nAs she was leaving the room, Bascombe whispered Helen to put on\nsomething and come to him in the garden. Helen glanced at the window\nas if doubtful. It was cold, but the sun was shining; the weather\nhad nothing to do with it; she had but taken a moment to think. She\npressed her lips together--and consented. George saw she would\nrather not go, but he set it down to a sisterly unwillingness to\nenjoy herself when her brother could no longer behold the sun, and\nsuch mere sentiment must not be encouraged.\n\nWhen the cypresses and box-trees had come betwixt them and the\nhouse, he offered his arm, but Helen preferred being free. She did\nnot refuse to go into the summer-house with him; but she took her\nplace on the opposite side of the little table. George however spied\nno hint of approaching doom.\n\n\"I am sorry to have to alter my opinion of that curate,\" he said as\nhe seated himself. \"There was so much in him that I took to promise\nwell. But old habit, the necessities of existence, and the fear of\nsociety have been too much for him--as they will always be for most\nmen. He has succumbed at last, and I am sorry! I did think he was\ngoing to turn out an honest man!\"\n\n\"And you have come to the certain conclusion that he is not an\nhonest man, George?\"\n\n\"Assuredly.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because he goes on to teach what he confesses he is not sure\nabout.\"\n\n\"He professes to be sure that it is better than anything he is sure\nabout.--You teach me there is no God: are you absolutely certain\nthere is not?\"\n\n\"Yes; absolutely certain.\"\n\n\"On what grounds?\"\n\n\"On grounds I have set forth to you twenty times, Helen, dear,\"\nanswered George a little impatiently. \"I am not inclined to talk\nabout them now.--I can no more believe in a god than in a dragon.\"\n\n\"And yet a dragon was believable to the poets that made our old\nballads; and now geology reveals that some-such creatures did at one\ntime actually exist.\"\n\n\"Ah! you turn the tables on me there, Helen! I confess my parallel a\nfalse one.\"\n\n\"A truer one than you think, perhaps,\" said Helen. \"That a thing\nshould seem absurd to one man, or to a thousand men, will not make\nit absurd in its own nature; and men as good and as clever as you,\nGeorge, have in all ages believed in a God. Only their notion of God\nmay have been different from yours. Perhaps their notion was a\nbelievable one, while yours is not.\"\n\n\"By Jove, Helen! you've got on with your logic. I feel quite\nflattered! So far as I am aware you have had no tutor in that branch\nbut myself! You'll soon be too much for your master, by Jove!\"\n\nLike the pied piper, Helen smiled a little smile. But she said\nseriously,\n\n\"Well, George, all I have to suggest is--What if, after all your\ninability to believe it, things should at last prove, even to your--\nsatisfaction, shall I say?--that there IS a God?\"\n\n\"Don't trouble yourself a bit about it, Helen,\" returned George,\nwhose mind was full of something else, to introduce which he was\nanxiously, and heedlessly, clearing the way: \"I am prepared to take\nmy chance, and all I care about is whether you will take your chance\nwith me. Helen, I love you with my whole soul.\"\n\n\"Oh! you have a soul, then, George? I thought you hadn't!\"\n\n\"It IS a foolish form of speech, no doubt,\" returned Bascombe, a\nlittle disconcerted, as was natural. \"--But to be serious, Helen, I\ndo love you.\"\n\n\"How long will you love me if I tell you I don't love you?\"\n\n\"Really, Helen, I don't see how to answer such a question. I don't\nunderstand you at all to-day! Have I offended you? I am very sorry\nif I have, but I am quite in the dark as to when or where or how.\"\n\n\"Tell me then,\" said Helen, heedless of his evident annoyance and\ndiscomfort, \"how long will you love me if I love you in return?\"\n\n\"For ever and ever.\"\n\n\"Another form of speech?\"\n\n\"You know what I mean well enough. I shall love you as long as I\nlive.\"\n\n\"George, I never could love a man who believed I was going to die\nfor ever.\"\n\n\"But, Helen,\" pleaded Bascombe, \"if it can't be helped, you know!\"\n\n\"But you are content it should be so. You believe it willingly. You\nscoff at any hint of a possible immortality.\"\n\n\"Well, but, Helen, what difference can it make between you and me?\"\nreturned George, whom the danger of losing her had rendered for the\nmoment indifferent even to his most cherished theory. \"If there\nshould be anything afterwards, of course I should go on loving you\nto the very extreme of the possible.\"\n\n\"While now you don't love me enough to wish I may live and not die!\nLeaving that out of view however, it makes all the difference to the\nlove I should have to expect of you. It may be only a whim--I can\nprove nothing any more than you--but I have a--whim then--to be\nloved as an immortal woman, the child of a living God, and not as a\nhelpless bastard of Nature!--I beg your pardon--I forget my\nmanners.\"\n\nThat a lady should utter such a word!--and that lady, Helen!--George\nwas shocked. Coming on the rest, it absolutely bewildered him. He\nsat silent perforce. Helen saw it, and yielded to a moment's\nannoyance with herself, but presently resumed:\n\n\"I have given you the advantage, George, and wronged myself. But I\ndon't care MUCH. I shall only take the better courage to speak my\nmind.--You come asking me to love you, and my brother lying\nmouldering in the earth--all there is of him, you tell me! If you\nbelieved he was alive still, and I should find him again some day,\nthere would be no reason why you should not speak of love even now;\nfor where does anyone need love more than at the brink of the grave?\nBut to come talking of love to me, with the same voice that has but\njust been teaching me that the grave is the end of all, and my\nbrother gone down into it for ever--I tell you, cousin--I must say\nit--it seems to me hardly decent. For me at least--I will NOT be\nloved with the love that can calmly accept such a fate. And I will\nnever love any man, believing that, if I outlive him, my love must\nthereafter be but a homeless torrent, falling ever into a bottomless\nabyss. Why should I make of my heart a roaring furnace of regrets\nand self-accusations? The memory of my brother is for me enough. Let\nme keep what freedom is possible to me; let me rather live the life\nof a cold-blooded animal, and die in the ice that gathers about me.\nBut before I sit down to await such an end, I shall know whether I\nam indeed compelled to believe as you do that there is no God, that\nDeath is my lord and master, that he will take me as he has taken my\nbrother and yet I shall never see him more. No, cousin George, I\nneed a God; and if there be none how did I come to need one? Yes, I\nknow you think you can explain it all, but the way you account for\nit is just as miserable as what you would put in its place. I am not\ncomplete in myself like you. I am not able to live without a God. I\nwill seek him until I find him, or drop into the abyss where all\nquestion and answer ceases. Then in the end I shall be no worse than\nyou would have me at the beginning--no, it will be nothing so bad,\nfor then I shall not know my misery as you would have me know it\nnow. If we are creatures of nothing, in spite of all the outcry of\nour souls against that fate, what mighty matter is it if, thus\nutterly befooled of Nature, we should also a little fool ourselves,\nby believing in a lovely hope that looks like a promise, and seems\nas if it ought to be true? How can a devotion to the facts of her\nexistence be required of one whose nature has been proved to her a\nlie?--You speak from the facts of your nature, George; I speak from\nthe facts of mine.\"\n\nHelen had come awake at last! It would have suited George better had\nshe remained a half-quickened statue, responsive only to himself,\nher not over-potent Pygmalion. He sat speechless--with his eyes\nfixed on her.\n\n\"You need no God,\" she went on, \"therefore you seek none. If you\nneed none, you are right to seek none, I dare say. But I need a\nGod--oh, I cannot tell how I need him, if he be to be found! and by\nthe same reasoning I will give my life to the search for him. To the\nlast I will go on seeking him, for if once I give in, and confess\nthere is no God, I shall go mad--mad, and perhaps kill somebody\nlike poor Poldie. George, I have said my say. I would not have come\ninto the garden but to say it. Good-bye.\"\n\nAs she spoke she rose and held out her hand to him. But in the\ntumult of more emotions than I can well name--amongst the rest\nindignation, dismay, disappointment, pride, and chagrin, he lost\nhimself while searching in vain for words, paid no heed to her\nmovement, and lifted no hand to take that she offered.\n\nWith head erect she walked from the summer-house.\n\n\"The love of a lifetime!--a sweet invitation!\" she said to herself,\nas with the slow step of restrained wrath she went up the garden.\n\nGeorge sat for some minutes as she had left him. Then he broke the\nsilence in his own ears and said,\n\n\"Well, I'm damned!\"\n\nAnd so he was--for the time--and a very good thing too, for he\nrequired it.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXI.\n\nTHOU DIDST NOT LEAVE.\n\n\n\n\n\nThe next day the curate found himself so ill at ease, from the\nreaction after excitement of various kinds, that he determined to\ngive himself a holiday. His notion of a holiday was a very simple\none: a day in a deep wood, if such could be had, with a volume fit\nfor alternate reading and pocketing as he might feel inclined. Of\nlate no volume had been his companion in any wanderings but his New\nTestament.\n\nThere was a remnant of real old-fashioned forest on the Lythe, some\ndistance up: thither he went by the road, the shortest way, to\nreturn by the winding course of the stream. It was a beautiful day\nof St. Martin's summer. In the forest, if the leaves were gone,\nthere was the more light, and sun and shadow played many a lovely\ngame. But he saw them as though he saw them not, for fear and hope\nstruggled in his heart, and for a long time prayer itself could not\natone them. At length a calm fell, and he set out to return home,\ndown the bank of the river.\n\nMany-hued and many-shaped had been the thoughts, not that came to\nhim from the forest, but that he had carried thither with him:\nthrough all and each of them, ever and again had come dawning the\nface of Helen, as he had seen it in church the day before, where she\nsat between her aunt and her cousin, so unlike either. For, to their\nannoyance, she had insisted on going to church, and to hers, they\nhad refused to let her go alone. And in her face the curate had seen\nsomething he had never seen there until then,--a wistful look, as if\nnow she would be glad to pick up any suitable crumb to carry home\nwith her. In that dawn of coming childhood, though he dared not yet\naltogether believe it such, the hard contemptuous expression of\nBascombe's countenance, and the severe disapproval in Mrs.\nRamshorn's, were entirely lost upon him.\n\nAll the way down the river, the sweet change haunted him. When he\ngot into the park, and reached that hollow betwixt the steep ferny\nslopes where he sat on the day with which my narrative opens, he\nseated himself again on the same stone, and reviewed the past twelve\nmonths. This was much such a day as that, only the hour was\ndifferent: it was the setting sun that now shone upon the ferns, and\ncast shadows from them big enough for oaks. What a change had passed\nupon him! That day the New Testament had been the book of the\nchurch--this day it was a fountain of living waters to the man\nThomas Wingfold. He had not opened his Horace for six months. Great\ntrouble he had had; both that and its results were precious. Now a\nnew trouble had come, but that also was a form of life: he would\nrather love and suffer and love still, a thousand times rather, than\nreturn to the poverty of not knowing Helen Lingard; yet a thousand\ntimes rather would he forget Helen Lingard than lose from his heart\none word of the Master, whose love was the root and only pledge and\nsecurity of love, the only power that could glorify it--could\ncleanse it from the mingled selfishness that wrought for its final\ndecay and death.\n\nThe sun was down ere he left the park, and the twilight was rapidly\nfollowing the sun as he drew near to the Abbey on his way home.\nSuddenly, more like an odour than a sound, he heard the organ, he\nthought. Never yet had he heard it on a week-day: the organist was\nnot of those who haunt their instrument. Often of late had the\ncurate gazed on that organ as upon a rock filled with sweet waters,\nbefore which he stood a Moses without his rod; sometimes the solemn\ninstrument appeared to him a dumb Jeremiah that sat there from\nSunday to Sunday, all the week long, with his head bowed upon his\nhands, and not a Jebusite to listen to him: if only his fingers had\nbeen taught the craft, he thought, how his soul would pour itself\nout through the song-tubes of that tabernacle of sweetness and\nprayer, and on the blast of its utterance ascend to the throne of\nthe most high! Who could it be that was now peopling the silence of\nthe vast church with melodious sounds, worshipping creatures of the\nelements? If the winds and the flames of fire are his augels, how\nmuch more the grandly consorting tones of the heavenly organ! He\nwould go and see what power informed the vaporous music.\n\nHe entered the church by one of the towers, in which a stair led\nskyward, passing the neighbourhood of the organ, and having a door\nto its loft. As he ascended, came a pause in the music;--and then,\nlike the breaking up of a summer cloud in the heavenliest of\nrain-showers, began the prelude to the solo in the Messiah, THOU\nDIDST NOT LEAVE HIS SOUL IN HELL. Up still the curate crept softly.\nAll at once a rich full contralto voice--surely he had heard it\nbefore--came floating out on the torrent, every tone bearing a word\nof sorrowful triumph in its bosom.\n\nHe reached the door. Very gently he opened it, and peeped in. But\nthe back of the organ was towards him, and he could see nothing. He\nstepped upon the tiles of the little apse. One stride cleared the\nend of the organ, and he saw the face of the singer: it WAS Helen\nLingard!\n\nShe started. The music folded its wings and dropped--like a lark\ninto its nest. But Helen recovered herself at once, rose from her\nministration at the music-altar, and approached the curate.\n\n\"Have I taken too great a liberty?\" she said, in a gentle, steady\nvoice.\n\n\"No, surely,\" he answered. \"I am sorry I startled you. I wish you\nwould wake such sounds oftener.\"\n\n\"He didn't leave my brother's soul in hell, did he, Mr. Wingfold?\"\nshe said abruptly, and her eyes shone through the dusk.\n\n\"If ever a soul was taken out of hell, it was Leopold's,\" returned\nthe curate. \"And it lifts mine out of it too,\" he added, \"to hear\nyou say so.\"\n\n\"I behaved very badly to you. I confess my fault. Will you forgive\nme?\" she said.\n\n\"I love you too much to be able to forgive you:\" that was the word\nin the curate's heart, but a different found its way to his lips.\n\n\"My heart is open to you, Miss Lingard,\" he said: \"take what\nforgiveness you think you need. For what I can tell, it may be my\npart to ask forgiveness, not to grant it. If I have been harder to\nyou than there was need, I pray you to forgive me. Perhaps I did not\nenter enough into your difficulties.\"\n\n\"You never said one word more than was right, or harder than I\ndeserved. Alas! I can no more--in this world at least--ask Leopold\nto forgive me, but I can ask you and Mr. Polwarth, who were as the\nangels of God to him, to pardon me for him and for yourselves too. I\nwas obstinate and proud and selfish.--Oh, Mr. Wingfold, can you, do\nyou really believe that Leopold is somewhere? Is he alive this\nmoment? Shall I ever--ever--I don't mind if it's a thousand years\nfirst--but shall I EVER see him again?\"\n\n\"I do think so. I think the story must be true that tells us Jesus\ntook to himself again the body he left on the cross, and brought it\nwith him out of its grave.\"\n\n\"Will you take me for a pupil--a disciple--and teach me to\nbelieve--or hope, if you like that word better--as you do?\" said\nHelen humbly.\n\nHow the heart of the curate beat--like the drum of a praising\norchestra!\n\n\"Dear Miss Lingard,\" he answered, very solemnly, \"I can teach you\nnothing; I can but show you where I found what has changed my life\nfrom a bleak November to a sunny June--with its thunder-storms no\ndoubt--but still June beside November. Perhaps I could help you a\nlittle if you were really set out to find Jesus, but you must\nyourself set out. It is you who must find him. Words of mine, as the\nvoice of one crying in the wilderness, may let you know that one is\nnear who thinks he sees him, but it is you who must search, and you\nwho must find. If you do search, you will find, with or without help\nof mine.--But it is getting dark.--You have the key of the north\ndoor, I suppose?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Then will you lock the door, and take the key to Mrs. Jenkins. I\nwill stay here a while, and then follow you home, if you will allow\nwe, where we can have a little talk together. Ah, what an anthem the\nsilent organ will play for me!\"\n\nHelen turned and went down into the church, and thence home.\n\nThe curate remained with the organ. It was silent, and so were his\nlips, but his heart--the music was not latent there, for his praise\nand thanksgiving ascended, without voice or instrument, essential\nharmony, to the ear that hears thought, and the heart that vibrates\nto every chord of feeling in the hearts it has created. Ah! what is\nit we send up thither, where our thoughts are either a dissonance or\na sweetness and a grace? Alone in the dusky church, the curate's\nascended like a song of the angels, for his heart was all a\nthanksgiving--not for any perfected gift, but for many a lovely\nhope. He knelt down by the organ and worshipped the God and Father\nof the Lord Jesus Christ--that God and no other was the God of his\nexpectation. When he rose from his knees, the church was dark, but\nthrough the windows of the clerestory many stars were shining.\n\nTHE END.","title":"Thomas Wingfold, Curate V3","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":55540}