CHAPTER VI
WHIT MONDAY
Light shadows--hardly seen as such-- Crept softly o'er the summer land In mute caresses, like the touch Of some familiar hand.
"I want to give your work-people a treat," said Tremaine to Elisabeth,in the early summer.
"That is very nice of you; but this goes without saying, as you arealways planning and doing something nice. I shall be very glad for ourpeople to have a little pleasure, as at present the annual tea-meetingat East Lane Chapel seems to be their one and only dissipation; andalthough tea-meetings may be very well in their way, they hardly seem tofulfil one's ideal of human joy."
"Ah! you have touched upon a point to which I was coming," said Alanearnestly; "it is wonderful how often our minds jump together! Not onlyam I anxious to give the Osierfield people something more enjoyable thana tea-meeting--I also wish to eliminate the tea-meeting spirit fromtheir idea of enjoyment."
"How do you mean?" It was noteworthy that while Elisabeth was alwaysready to teach Christopher, she was equally willing to learn from Alan.
"I mean that I want to show people that pleasure and religion havenothing to do with each other. It always seems to me such a mistake thatthe pleasures of the poor--the innocent pleasures, of course--aregenerally inseparable from religious institutions. If they attend atea-party, they open it with prayer; if they are taken for a countrydrive, they sing hymns by the way."
"Oh! but I think they do this because they like it, and not because theyare made to do it," said Elisabeth eagerly.
"Not a bit of it; they do it because they are accustomed to do it, andthey feel that it is expected of them. Religion is as much a part oftheir dissipation as evening dress is of ours, and just as much a purelyconventional part; and I want to teach them to dissociate the two ideasin their own minds."
"I doubt if you will succeed, Mr. Tremaine."
"Yes, I shall; I invariably succeed. I have never failed in anythingyet, and I never mean to fail. And I do so want to make the poor peopleenjoy themselves thoroughly. Of course, it is a good thing to have one'spills always hidden in jam; but it must be a miserable thing to belongto a section of society where one's jam is invariably full of pills."
Elisabeth smiled, but did not speak; Alan was the one person of heracquaintance to whom she would rather listen than talk.
"It is a morbid and unhealthy habit," he went on, "to introduce religioninto everything, in the way that English people are so fond of doing. Itdecreases their pleasures by casting its shadow over purely human andnatural joys; and it increases their sorrow and want by teaching them tolean upon some hypothetical Power, instead of trying to do the bestthat they can for themselves. Also it enervates their reasoningfaculties; for nothing is so detrimental to one's intellectual strengthas the habit of believing things which one knows to be impossible."
"Then don't you believe in religion of any kind?"
"Most certainly I do--in many religions. I believe in the religion ofart and of science and of humanity, and countless more; in fact, theonly religion I do not believe in is Christianity, because that spoilsall the rest by condemning art as fleshly, science as untrue, andhumanity as sinful. I want to bring the old Pantheism to life again, andto teach our people to worship beauty as the Greeks worshipped it ofold; and I want you to help me."
Elisabeth gasped as Elisha might have gasped when Elijah's mantle fellupon him. She was as yet too young to beware of false prophets. "Ishould love to make people happy," she said; "there seems to be so muchhappiness in the world and so few that find it."
"The Greeks found it; therefore, why should not the English? I mean toteach them to find it, and I shall begin with your work-people on WhitMonday."
"What shall you do?" asked the girl, with intense interest.
"It is no good taking away old lamps until you are prepared to offer newones in their place; therefore I shall not take away the consolations(so called) of religion until I have shown the people a more excellentway. I shall first show them nature, and then art--nature to arousetheir highest instincts, and art to express the same; and I amconvinced that after they have once been brought face to face with thebeautiful thus embodied, the old faiths will lose the power to movethem."
When Whit Monday came round, the throbbing heart of the Osierfieldstopped beating, as it was obliged to stop on a bank-holiday; and theworkmen, with their wives and sweethearts, were taken by Alan Tremainein large brakes to Pembruge Castle, which the owner had kindly thrownopen to them, at Alan's request, for the occasion.
It was a long drive and a wonderfully beautiful one, for the year was atits best. All the trees had put on their new summer dresses, and never apair of them were of the same shade. The hedges were covered with awreath of white May-blossom, and seemed like interminable drifts of thatsnow in summer which is as good news from a far country; and the roadswere bordered by the feathery hemlock, which covered the face of theland as with a bridal veil.
"Isn't the world a beautiful place?" said Elisabeth, with a sigh ofcontent, to Alan, who was driving her in his mail-phaeton. "I do hopeall the people will see and understand how beautiful it is."
"They can not help seeing and understanding; beauty such as this is itsown interpreter. Surely such a glimpse of nature as we are now enjoyingdoes people more good than a hundred prayer-meetings in a stuffychapel."
"Beauty slides into one's soul on a day like this, just as something--Iforget what--slid into the soul of the Ancient Mariner; doesn't it?"
"Of course it does; and you will find that these people--now that theyare brought face to face with it--will be just as ready to worshipabstract beauty as ever the Greeks were. The fault has not been with thepoor for not having worshipped beauty, but with the rich for not havingshown them sufficient beauty to worship. The rich have tried to chokethem off with religion instead, because it came cheaper and was lesstroublesome to produce."
"Then do you think that the love of beauty will elevate these peoplemore and make them happier than Christianity has done?"
"Most assuredly I do. Had our climate been sunnier and the fight forexistence less bitter, I believe that Christianity would have died outin England years ago; but the worship of sorrow will always have itsattractions for the sorrowful; and the doctrine of renunciation willnever be without its charm for those unfortunate ones to whom povertyand disease have stood sponsors, and have renounced all life's goodthings in their name before ever they saw the light. Man makes his godin his own image; and thus it comes to pass that while the strong andjoyous Greek adored Zeus on Olympus, the anaemic and neurotic Englishmanworships Christ on Calvary. Do you tell me that if people were happythey would bow down before a stricken and crucified God? Not they. And Iwant to make them so happy that they shall cease to have any desire fora suffering Deity."
"Well, you have made them happy enough for to-day, at any rate," saidElisabeth, as she looked up at him with gratitude and admiration. "I sawthem all when they were starting, and there wasn't one face among themthat hadn't joy written on every feature in capital letters."
"Then in that case they won't be troubling their minds to-day abouttheir religion; they will save it for the gloomy days, as we savenarcotics for times of pain. You may depend upon that."
"I'm not so sure: their religion is more of a reality to them than youthink," Elisabeth replied.
While Alan was thus, enjoying himself in his own fashion, his guestswere enjoying themselves in theirs; and as they drove through summer'sfairyland, they, too, talked by the way.
"Eh! but the May-blossom's a pretty sight," exclaimed Caleb Bateson, asthe big wagonettes rolled along the country roads. "I never saw it finerthan it is this year--not in all the years I've lived in Mershire; andMershire's the land for May-blossom."
"It do look pretty," agreed his wife. "I only wish Lucy Ellen was hereto see it; she was always a one for the May-blossom. Why, when she wasever such a little girl she'd come home carrying branches of it biggerthan herself, till sh
e looked like nothing but a walking May-pole."
"Poor thing!" said Mrs. Hankey, who happened to be driving in the samevehicle as the Batesons, "she'll be feeling sad and homesick to see itall again, I'll be bound."
Lucy Ellen's mother laughed contentedly. "Folks haven't time to feelhomesick when they've got a husband to look after; he soon takes theplace of May-blossom, bless you!"
"You're in luck to see all your children married and settled before theLord has been pleased to take you," remarked Mrs. Hankey, with envy inher voice.
"Well, I'm glad for the two lads to have somebody to look after them,I'm bound to say; I feel now as they've some one to air their shirtswhen I'm not there, for you never can trust a man to look afterhimself--never. Men have no sense to know what is good for 'em and whatis bad for 'em, poor things! But Lucy Ellen is a different thing. Ofcourse I'm pleased for her to have a home of her own, and such nicefurniture as she's got, too, and in such a good circuit; but when yourdaughter is married you don't see her as often as you want to, and it isno good pretending as you do."
"That's true," agreed Caleb Bateson, with a big sigh; "and I never ceaseto miss my little lass."
"She ain't no little lass now, Mr. Bateson," argued Mrs. Hankey; "LucyEllen must be forty, if she's a day."
"So she be, Mrs. Hankey--so she be; but she is my little lass to me, allthe same, and always will be. The children never grow up to them asloves 'em. They are always our children, just as we are always theLord's children; and we never leave off a-screening and a-sheltering o'them, any more than He ever leaves off a-screening and a-sheltering ofus."
"I'm glad to hear as Lucy Ellen has married into a good circuit. Unlessthe Lord build the house we know how they labour in vain that build it;and the Lord can't do much unless He has a good minister to help Him. Idon't deny as He _may_ work through local preachers; but I like aregular superintendent myself, with one or more ministers under him."
"Oh! Lucy Ellen lives in one of the best circuits in the Connexion,"said Mrs. Bateson proudly; "they have an ex-president as superintendent,and three ministers under him, and a supernumerary as well. They neverhear the same preached more than once a month; it's something grand!"
"Eh! it's a fine place is Craychester," added Caleb; "they heldConference there two years ago."
"It must be a grand thing to live in a place where they holdConference," remarked Mrs. Hankey.
"It is indeed," agreed Mrs. Bateson; "Lucy Ellen said it seemed for allthe world like heaven, to see so many ministers about, all in theirblack coats and white neckcloths. And then such preaching as they heard!It isn't often young folks enjoy such privileges, and so I told her."
"When all's said and done, there's nothing like a good sermon for givingfolks real pleasure. Nothing in this world comes up to it, and I doubtif there'll be anything much better in the next," said Caleb; "I don'tsee as how there can be."
His friends all agreed with him, and continued, for the rest of thedrive, to discuss the respective merits of various discourses they hadbeen privileged to hear.
It was a glorious day. The sky was blue, with just enough white cloudsflitting about to show how blue the blue part really was; and thevarying shadows kept passing, like the caress of some unseen yetever-protecting Hand, over the green nearnesses and the violet distancesof a country whose foundations seemed to be of emerald and amethyst, andits walls and gateways of pearl. The large company from the Osierfielddrove across the breezy common at the foot of Sedgehill Ridge, and thenplunged into a network of lanes which led them, by sweet and mysteriousways, to the great highway from the Midlands to the coast of the westernsea. On they went, past the little hamlet where the Danes and the Saxonsfought a great fight more than a thousand years ago, and which is stillcalled by a strange Saxon name, meaning "the burying-place of theslain"; and the little hamlet smiled in the summer sunshine, as if withkindly memories of those old warriors whose warfare had beenaccomplished so many centuries ago, and who lie together, beneath thewhite blossom, in the arms of the great peacemaker called Death, waitingfor the resurrection morning which that blossom is sent to foretell. On,between man's walls of gray stone, till they came to God's walls of redsandstone; and then up a steep hill to another common, where thesweet-scented gorse made a golden pavement, and where there suddenlyburst upon their sight a view so wide and so wonderful that those wholook upon it with the seeing eye and the understanding heart catchglimpses of the King in His beauty through the fairness of the land thatis very far off. On past the mossy stone, like an overgrown andilliterate milestone, which marks the boundary between Mershire andSalopshire; and then through a typical English village, noteworthybecause the rites of Mayday, with May-queen and May-pole to boot, arestill celebrated there exactly as they were celebrated some threehundred years ago. At last they came to a picturesque wall and gateway,built of the red stone which belongs to that part of the country, andwhich has a trick of growing so much redder at evening-time that itlooks as if the cold stone were blushing with pleasure at being kissedGood-night by the sun; and then through a wood sloping on the left sidedown to a little stream, which was so busy talking to itself about itsown concerns that it had not time to leap and sparkle for the amusementof passers-by; until they drew up in front of a quaint old castle, builtof the same stone as the outer walls and gateway.
The family were away from home, so the whole of the castle was at thedisposal of Alan and his party, and they had permission to go whereverthey liked. The state-rooms were in front of the building and led outof each other, so that when all the doors were open any one could seeright from one end of the castle to the other. Dinner was to be servedin the large saloon at the back, built over what was once the courtyard;and while his servants were laying the tables with the cold viands whichthey had brought with them, Alan took his guests through the state-roomsto see the pictures, and endeavoured to carry out his plan of educatingthem by pointing out to them some of the finer works of art.
"This," he said, stopping in front of a portrait, "is a picture of LadyMary Wortley-Montagu, who was born here, painted by one of the firstportrait-painters of her day. I want you to look at her hands, and tonotice how exquisitely they are painted. Also I wish to call yourattention to the expression of her face. You know that it is the duty ofart to interpret nature--that is to say, to show to ordinary peoplethose hidden beauties and underlying meanings of common things whichthey would never be able to find out for themselves; and I think that inthe expression on this woman's face the artist has shown forth, in amost wonderful way, the dissatisfaction and bitterness of her heart. Asyou look at her face you seem to see right into her soul, and tounderstand how she was foredoomed by nature and temperament to ask toomuch of life and to receive too little."
"Well, to be sure!" remarked Mrs. Bateson, in an undertone, to her lordand master; "she is a bit like our superintendent's wife, only not sostout. And what a gown she has got on! I should say that satin is worthfive-and-six a yard if it is worth a penny. And I call it a sin and ashame to have a dirty green parrot sitting on your shoulder when you'rewearing satin like that. If she'd had any sense she'd have fed theanimals before she put her best gown on."
"I never could abide parrots," joined in Mrs. Hankey; "they smell so."
"And as for her looking dissatisfied and all that," continued Mrs.Bateson, "I for one can't see it. But if she did, it was all a pack ofrubbish. What had she to grumble at, I should like to know, with a satingown on at five-and-six a yard?"
By this time Alan had moved on to another picture. "This represents anunhappy marriage," he explained. "At first sight you see nothing but twowell-dressed people sitting at table; but as you look into the pictureyou perceive the misery in the woman's face and the cruelty in theman's, and you realize all that they mean."
"Well, I see nothing more at second sight," whispered Mrs. Hankey;"except that the tablecloth might have been cleaner. There's another ofyour grumbling fine ladies! Now for sure she'd nothing to grumble at,sitting so grand at ta
ble with a glass of sherry-wine to drink."
"The husband looks a cantankerous chap," remarked Caleb.
"Poor thing! it's his liver," said Mrs. Bateson, taking up the cudgelsas usual on behalf of the bilious and oppressed. "You can see from hiscomplexion that he is out of order, and that all that rich dinner willdo him no good. It was his wife's duty to see that he had somethingplain to eat, with none of them sauces and fal-lals, instead of playingthe fine lady and making troubles out of nothing. I've no patience withher!"
"Still, he do look as if he'd a temper," persisted Mr. Bateson.
"And if he do, Caleb, what of that? If a man in his own house hasn't theright to show a bit of temper, I should like to know who has? I've nopatience with the women that will get married and have a man of theirown; and then cry their eyes out because the man isn't an old woman. Ifthey want meekness and obedience, let 'em remain single and keep lapdogsand canaries; and leave the husbands for those as can manage 'em andenjoy 'em, for there ain't enough to go round as it is." And Mrs.Bateson waxed quite indignant.
Here Tremaine took up his parable. "This weird figure, clothed in skins,and feeding upon nothing more satisfying than locusts and wild honey, isa type of all those who are set apart for the difficult andunsatisfactory lot of heralds and forerunners. They see the good timecoming, and make ready the way for it, knowing all the while that itsfuller light and wider freedom are not for them; they lead their fellowsto the very borders of the promised land, conscious that their owngraves are already dug in the wilderness. No great social or politicalmovement has ever been carried on without their aid; and they have neverreaped the benefits of those reforms which they lived and died tocompass. Perhaps there are no sadder sights on the page of history thanthose solitary figures, of all nations and all times, who have foretoldthe coming of the dawn and yet died before it was yet day."'
"Did you ever?" exclaimed Mrs. Bateson _sotto voce_; "a grown man likethat, and not to know John the Baptist when he sees him! Forerunners andheralds indeed! Why, it's John the Baptist as large as life, and thoseas don't recognise him ought to be ashamed of theirselves."
"Lucy Ellen would have known who it was when she was three years old,"said Caleb proudly.
"And so she ought; I'd have slapped her if she hadn't, and richly she'dhave deserved it."
"It's a comfort as Mr. Tremaine's mother is in her grave," remarked Mrs.Hankey, not a whit behind the others as regards shocked sensibilities;"this would have been a sad day for her if she had been alive."
"And it would!" agreed Mrs. Bateson warmly. "I know if one of mychildren hadn't known John the Baptist by sight, I should have been thatashamed I should never have held up my head again in this world--never!"
Mr. Bateson endeavoured to take a charitable view of the situation. "Iexpect as the poor lad's schooling was neglected through having lost hisparents; and there's some things as you never seem to master at allexcept you master 'em when you're young--the Books of the Bible beingone of them."
"My lads could say the Books of the Bible through, without stopping totake breath, when they were six, and Lucy Ellen when she was five and ahalf."
"Well, then, Kezia, you should be all the more ready to take pity onthem poor orphans as haven't had the advantages as our children havehad."
"So I am, Caleb; and if it had been one of the minor prophets Ishouldn't have said a word--I can't always tell Jonah myself unlessthere's a whale somewhere at the back; but John the Baptist----!"
When the inspection of the pictures had been accomplished, the companysat down to dinner in the large saloon; and Alan was slightlydisconcerted when they opened the proceedings by singing, at the top oftheir voices, "Be present at our table, Lord." Elisabeth, on seeing theexpression of his face, sorely wanted to laugh; but she stifled thisdesire, as she had learned by experience that humour was not one ofAlan's strong points. Now Christopher could generally see when a thingwas funny, even when the joke was at his own expense; but Alan took lifemore seriously, which--as Elisabeth assured herself--showed what a muchmore earnest man than Christopher he was, in spite of his less orthodoxopinions. So she made up her mind that she would not catch Christopher'seye on the present occasion, as she usually did when anything amusedher, because it was cruel to laugh at the frustration of poor Alan'shigh-flown plans; and then naturally she looked straight at the spotwhere Chris was presiding over a table, and returned his smile ofperfect comprehension. It was one of Elisabeth's peculiarities that sheinvariably did the thing which she had definitely made up her mind notto do.
After dinner the party broke up and wandered about, in smalldetachments, over the park and through the woods and by the mere, untilit was tea-time. Alan spent most of his afternoon in explaining toElisabeth the more excellent ways whereby the poor may be enabled toshare the pleasures of the rich; and Christopher spent most of his incarrying Johnnie Stubbs to the mere and taking him for a row, and sohelping the crippled youth to forget for a short time that he was not asother men are, and that it was out of pity that he, who never worked,had been permitted to take the holiday which he could not earn.
After tea Alan and Elisabeth were standing on the steps leading from thesaloon to the garden.
"What a magnificent fellow that is!" exclaimed Alan, pointing to thehuge figure of Caleb Bateson, who was talking to Jemima Stubbs on thefar side of the lawn. Caleb certainly justified this admiration, for hewas a fine specimen of a Mershire puddler--and there is no finer race ofmen to be found anywhere than the puddlers of Mershire.
Elisabeth's eyes twinkled. "That is one of your anaemic and neuroticChristians," she remarked demurely.
Displeasure settled on Alan's brow; he greatly objected to Elisabeth'shabit of making fun of things, and had tried his best to cure her of it.To a great extent he had succeeded (for the time being); but even yetthe cloven foot of Elisabeth's levity now and then showed itself, muchto his regret.
"Exceptions do not disprove rules," he replied coldly. "Moreover,Bateson is probably religious rather from the force of convention thanof conviction." Tremaine never failed to enjoy his own roundedsentences, and this one pleased him so much that it almost succeeded indispelling the cloud which Elisabeth's ill-timed gibe had created.
"He is a class-leader and a local preacher," she added.
"Those terms convey no meaning to my mind."
"Don't they? Well, they mean that Caleb not only loyally supports thegovernment of Providence, but is prepared to take office under it,"Elisabeth explained.
Alan never quarrelled with people; he always reproved them. "You make agreat mistake--and an extremely feminine one--Miss Farringdon, ininvariably deducting general rules from individual instances. Believeme, this is a most illogical form of reasoning, and leads to erroneous,and sometimes dangerous, conclusions."
Elisabeth tossed her head; she did not like to be reproved, even by AlanTremaine. "My conclusions are nearly always correct, anyhow," sheretorted; "and if you get to the right place, I don't see that itmatters how you go there. I never bother my head about the 'rollingstock' or the 'permanent way' of my intuitions; I know they'll bring meto the right conclusion, and I leave them to work out their Bradshaw forthemselves."
In the meantime Jemima Stubbs was pouring out a recital of hergrievances into the ever-sympathetic ear of Caleb Bateson.
"You don't seem to be enjoying yourself, my lass," he had said in hischeery voice, laying a big hand in tender caress upon the girl's narrowshoulders.
"And how should I, Mr. Bateson, not having a beau nor nobody to talkto?" she replied in her quavering treble. "What with havin' first motherto nurse when I was a little gell, and then havin' Johnnie to lookafter, I've never had time to make myself look pretty and to get a beau,like other gells. And now I'm too old for that sort of thing, and yetI've never had my chance, as you may say."
"Poor lass! It's a hard life as you've had, and no mistake."
"That it is, Mr. Bateson. Men wants gells as look pretty and make 'emlaugh; they don't care for th
e dull, dowdy ones, such as me; and yet howcan a gell be light-hearted and gay, I should like to know, when it'swork, work, work, all the day, and nurse, nurse, nurse, all the night?Yet the men don't make no allowance for that--not they. They just see asa gell is plain and stupid, and then they has nothing more to do withher, and she can go to Jericho for all they cares."
"You've had a hard time of it, my lass," repeated Bateson, in his full,deep voice.
"Right you are, Mr. Bateson; and it's made my hair gray, and my face allwrinkles, and my hands a sight o' roughness and ugliness, till I'm aregular old woman and a fright at that. And I'm but thirty-five now,though no one 'ud believe it to look at me."
"Thirty-five, are you? B'ain't you more than that, Jemima, for surelyyou look more?"
"I know I does, but I ain't; and lots o' women--them as has had easytimes and their way made smooth for them--look little more than gellswhen they are thirty-five; and the men run after 'em as fast as if theywas only twenty. But I'm an old woman, I am, and I've never had time tobe a young one, and I've never had a beau nor nothing."
"It seems now, Jemima, as if the Lord was dealing a bit hard with you;but never you fret yourself; He'll explain it all and make it all up toyou in His own good time."
"I only hope He may, Mr. Bateson."
"My lass, do you remember how Saint Paul said, 'From henceforth let noman trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus'? Nowit seems to me that all the gray hairs and the wrinkles and theroughness that come to us when we are working for others and doing ourduty, are nothing more nor less than the marks of the Lord Jesus."
"That's a comfortin' view of the matter, I don't deny."
"There are lots o' men in this world, Jemima, and still more women, whogrow old before their time working for other people; and I take it thatwhen folks talk o' their wrinkles, the Lord says, 'My Name shall be intheir foreheads'; and when folks talk o' their gray hairs, He says,'They shall walk with Me in white: for they are worthy.' And why do wemark the things that belong to us? Why, so as we can know 'em again andcan claim 'em as our own afore the whole world. And that's just why theLord marks us: so as all the world shall know as we are His, and so asno man shall ever pluck us out of His Hand."
Jemima looked gratefully up at the kindly prophet who was trying tocomfort her. "Law! Mr. Bateson, that's a consolin' way of looking atthings, and I only hope as you're right. But all the same, I'd haveliked to have had a beau of my own just for onst, like other gells. Idessay it's very wicked o' me to feel like this, and it's enough to makethe Lord angry with me; but it don't seem to me as there's anything inreligion that quite makes up for never havin' had a beau o' your own."
"The Lord won't be angry with you, my lass; don't you fear. He madewomen and He understands 'em, and He ain't the one to blame 'em forbeing as He Himself made 'em. Remember the Book says, 'as one whom hismother comforteth'; and I hold that means as He understands women andtheir troubles better than the kindest father ever could. And He won'tlet His children give up things for His sake without paying them backsome thirty, some sixty, and some an hundred fold; and don't you everget thinking that He will."
"As Jemima says, yours is a comfortable doctrine, Bateson, but I amafraid you have no real foundation for your consoling belief," exclaimedAlan Tremaine, coming up and interrupting the conversation.
"Eh! but I have, sir, saving your presence; I know in Whom I havebelieved; and what a man has once known for certain, he can never notknow again as long as he lives."
"But Christianity is a myth, a fable. You may imagine and pretend thatit is true, but you can not know that it is."
"But I do know, sir, begging your pardon, as well as I know you arestanding here and the sun is shining over yonder."
Alan smiled rather scornfully: how credulous were the lower classes, hethought in his pride of intellectual superiority. "I do not understandhow you can know a thing that has never been proved," he said.
The giant turned and looked on his fragile frame with eyes full of agreat pity. "You do not understand, you say, sir that's just it; and Iam too foolish and ignorant to be able to explain things rightly to agentleman like you; but the Lord will explain it to you when He thinksfit. You are young yet, sir, and the way stretches long before you, andthe mysteries of God are hidden from your eyes. But when you have lovedand cherished a woman as your own flesh, and when you have had littlechildren clinging round your knees, you'll understand rightly enoughthen without needing any man to teach you."
"My good man, do you suppose a wife and children would teach me morethan the collected wisdom of the ages?"
"A sight more, Mr. Tremaine--a sight more. Folks don't learn the bestthings from books, sir. Why, when the Lord Himself wrote the law ontables of stone, they got broken; but when He writes it on the fleshlytables of our hearts, it lives forever. And His Handwriting is the lovewe bear for our fellow-creatures, and--through them--for Him; at least,so it seems to me."
"That is pure imagination and sentiment, Bateson. Very pretty andpoetic, no doubt; but it won't hold water."
Caleb smiled indulgently. "Wait till you've got a little lass of yourown, like my Lucy Ellen, sir. Not that you'll ever have one quite asgood as her, bless her! for her equal never has been seen in this world,and never will. But when you've got a little lass of your own, and knowas you'd be tortured to death quite cheerful-like just to save her aminute's pain, you'll laugh at all the nonsense that's written in books,and feel you know a sight better than all of 'em put together."
"I don't quite see why."
"Well, you see, sir, it's like this. When the dove came back to the arkwith the olive leaf in her mouth, Noah didn't begin sayin' how wonderfulit was for a leaf to have grown out of nothing all of a sudden, as somefolks are so fond of saying. Not he; he'd too much sense. He says to hissons, 'Look here: a leaf here means a tree somewhere, and the sooner wemake for that tree the better!' And so it is with us. When we feel thatall at onst there's somebody that matters more to us than ourselves, weknow that this wonderful feelin' hasn't sprung out of the selfishnessthat filled our hearts before, but is just a leaf off a great Treewhich is a shadow and resting-place for the whole world."
Tremaine looked thoughtful; Caleb's childlike faith and extensivevocabulary were alike puzzles to him. He did not understand that inhomes--however simple--where the Bible is studied until it becomes ashousehold words, the children are accustomed to a "well of Englishundefiled"; and so, unconsciously, mould their style upon and borrowtheir expressions from the Book which, even when taken only from aliterary standpoint, is the finest Book ever read by man.
After a minute's silence he said: "I have been wondering whether itreally is any pleasure to the poor to see the homes of the rich, orwhether it only makes them dissatisfied. Now, what do you think,Bateson?"
"Well, sir, if it makes 'em dissatisfied it didn't ought to."
"Perhaps not. Still, I have a good deal of sympathy with socialismmyself; and I know I should feel it very hard if I were poor, whileother men, not a whit better and probably worse than myself, were rich."
"And so it would be hard, sir, if this was the end of everything, and itwas all haphazard, as it were; so hard that no sensible man could see itwithout going clean off his head altogether. But when you rightlyunderstand as it's all the Master's doing, and that He knows what He'sabout a sight better than we could teach Him, it makes a wonderfuldifference. Whether we're rich or poor, happy or sorrowful, is Hisbusiness and He can attend to that; but whether we serve Him rightly inthe place where He has put us, is our business, and it'll take us allour time to look after it without trying to do His work as well."
Tremaine merely smiled, and Bateson went on--
"You see, sir, there's work in the world of all kinds for all sorts; andwhether they be lords and ladies, or just poor folks like we, they'vegot to do the work that the Lord has set them to do, and not to gohankering after each other's. Why, Mr. Tremaine, if at our place thepuddlers wanted to do the work of the
shinglers, and the shinglerswanted to do the work of the rollers, and the rollers wanted to do thework of the masters, the Osierfield wouldn't be for long the biggestironworks in Mershire. Not it! You have to use your common sense inreligion as in everything else."
"You think that religion is the only thing to make people contented andhappy? So do I; but I don't think that the religion to do thiseffectually is Christianity."
"No more do I, sir; that's where you make a mistake, begging yourpardon; you go confusing principles with persons. It isn't my love formy wife that lights the fire and cooks the dinner and makes my littlehome like heaven to me--it's my wife herself; it wasn't my children'sfaith in their daddy that fed 'em and clothed 'em when they were toolittle to work for themselves--it was me myself; and it isn't thereligion of Christ that keeps us straight in this world and makes usready for the next--it is Christ Himself."
Thus the rich man and the poor man talked together, moving alongparallel lines, neither understanding, and each looking down upon theother--Alan with the scornful pity of the scholar who has delved in thedust of dreary negatives which generations of doubters have graduallyheaped up; and Caleb with the pitiful scorn of one who has been into thesanctuary of God, and so learned to understand the end of these men.
Late that night, when all the merrymakers had gone to their homes,Tremaine sat smoking in the moonlight on the terrace of the Moat House.
"It is strange," he said to himself, "what a hold the Christian myth hastaken upon the minds of the English people, and especially of theworking classes. I can see how its pathos might appeal to those whosehealth was spoiled and whose physique was stunted by poverty and misery;but it puzzles me to find a magnificent giant such as Bateson, a man toostrong to have nerves and too healthy to have delusions, as thoroughlyimbued with its traditions as any one. I fail to understand the secretof its power."
At that very moment Caleb was closing the day, as was his custom, withfamily prayer, and his prayer ran thus--
"We beseech Thee, O Lord, look kindly upon the stranger who has this dayshown such favour unto Thy servants; pay back all that he has given ussevenfold into his bosom. He is very young, Lord, and very ignorant andvery foolish; his eyes are holden so that he can not see the operationsof Thy Hands; but he is not very far from Thy Kingdom. Lead him,Heavenly Father, in the way that he should go; open his eyes that he maybehold the hidden things of Thy Law; look upon him and love him, as Thoudidst aforetime another young man who had great possessions. Lord, tellhim that this earth is only Thy footstool; show him that the beauty hesees all around him is the hem of Thy garment; and teach him that thewisdom of this world is but foolishness with Thee. And this we beg, OLord, for Christ's sake. Amen."
Thus Caleb prayed, and Alan could not hear him, and could not haveunderstood him even if he had heard.
But there was One who heard, and understood.
The Farringdons Page 6
