Complete Works of E W Hornung

by E. W. Hornung

  “What I said to myself last Christmas, miss; and I’m the only man that say it to-day, in this here village full of old women and hypocrites; if you’ll excuse my blunt way o’ speaking to a young lady like you. ‘This here’s gone on long enough,’ thinks I; ‘an’ it’s the season of peace an’ good-will,’ I says to myself; ‘darned if I don’t step across the road to cheer up the poor old reverend, an’ Sir Wilton can turn me out of house an’ home if he find out an’ think proper.’ Don’t you mistake me, miss; I wasn’t thinking of Sir Wilton in what I said just now, and ought not to have said to a young lady like you. No, miss, Sir Wilton has his own quarrel with the reverend; and I had my quarrel, as far as that go; but, Gord love yer, a man of my experience can afford to forgive an’ forget, an’ be generous as well as just. There isn’t a juster man alive than me, Miss Gwynneth; and not a soul in this parish, or out of it, that can say I’m not generous too.”

  “I’m sure of it, Mr. Fuller. But did you go over to the rectory?”

  “There and then,” cried Fuller; “there — and — then. And I told him straight that I for one — but that’s no use to go over what I said and he said,” observed the saddler, hastily. “I can only tell you that in ten minutes we were chattun away as though nothun had ever come between us. And what do you suppose, miss? What do you suppose?”

  Gwynneth shook her head, unable to imagine what was coming, and anxious to hear.

  “He hadn’t seen a newspaper in all these years! Hadn’t so much as heard of that there Home Rule Bill of old Gladstone’s, and didn’t even know there’d been a war in the Sowd’n!” Gwynneth looked equally ignorant of this. “You know, miss? The Sowd’n, where General Gordon was betrayed and deserted by them varmin you’d stick up for. But we won’t quarrel no more about that: only to think of the poor old reverend knowun no more about it than the man in the moon until I told him! Why, I had to tell him one of the Royal Family was dead an’ buried; it would have been just the same if it had been the Queen herself, God bless her!”

  “So he has been absolutely shut off from the world,” Gwynneth murmured.

  “There you’ve hit it, miss! ‘Shut off from the world,’ there you’ve put it into better language than I did,” said the saddler, with his most complimentary air. “Gord love yer, miss, it used to be the reverend that passed his Standard on to me; but ever since last Christmas it’s been me that’s taken my East Anglian over to him; so the boot’s been on the other leg properly; and right glad I’ve been to do anything for him, and to take my pipe across now and then as though nothun had ever happened. Not that he fare to care much for that, neither; he’ve been so long alone, I do believe he’ve got to like his own society as well as any. Yes, miss, shut off from the world he have been and he is; but he won’t be shut off from the world much longer!”

  “Oh?”

  Gwynneth’s interest was re-awakened.

  “No,” said Fuller, with the air of mystery in which his class delights; “no, miss, he’s not one to be shut off longer than he can help. Hear that sound?”

  “I do indeed.”

  Latterly she had been listening to nothing else.

  “That’s a saw!”

  “Well?”

  “Do you know what he’s sawun?”

  “No.”

  “Planks for benches!”

  Gwynneth repeated the last word in a puzzled whisper; and so stood staring until the obvious explanation had become obvious to her. It remained inexplicable.

  “I don’t see the good of benches before the church is finished, Mr. Fuller.”

  “He mean to hold his services whether that’s finished or not. And I mean to attend ‘em,” the saddler said with an air.

  “But — I thought — —”

  “He was suspended for five year, and the bishop has given him leave to get to work directly the five year is up. That I happen to know.”

  “It must be nearly up now!”

  “That’s up next Sunday as ever is, and you’ll know it when you hear the bell ring. He’s got one of the old uns slung to a tree, for I helped him to sling it, and it’s the first help he’s had all this time. I wouldn’t mention it, miss, for the reverend doesn’t want a crowd; there’ll be quite enough come when they hear the bell, if it’s only to see what happens; but the whole neighbourhood ‘ll be there if that get about.”

  “And there’s really going to be service in the church — just as it is — without a roof — this very next Sunday!”

  It sounded incredible to Gwynneth, and yet it thrilled her as the incredible does not. The very drone of the saw was thrilling now.

  “There is, miss, and I mean to be there,” said the village Hampden, with inflated chest. “I can’t help it if that cost me Sir Wilton’s custom, the reverend and me are good friends again, and I mean to be there.”

  XXVI

  A VERY FEW WORDS

  It had been in the air all Saturday, but few believed the rumour until ten minutes to eleven next morning. At that hour and at that minute Long Stow was electrified by the measured ringing of a single bell — a bell hoarse with five years’ rest and rust — a bell no ear had heard since the night of the fire.

  Gwynneth was afield upon the upland, far beyond the church, a pitiful waverer between desire and indecision. Now she must go; and now she must not think of it. It was unnecessary, gratuitous, provocative, ostentatious, unmaidenly, immodest — and yet — both her duty and her desire. So the string of adjectives might be applied to her; they were no deterrent to a nature which hesitated often, but seldom was afraid. Gwynneth treated more respectfully the poignant query of her own consciousness: was she absolutely certain that she did not at all desire to show off like the saddler? She was not.

  She did desire to show off, if it was showing off to honour openly the man whom she admired and wished others to admire. She gloried in the man’s achievement, and possibly also in her own appreciation of it and him. That was her real point of contact with the saddler. But for Fuller there was the excuse of unconsciousness, and for Gwynneth there was not. So she read herself that Sunday morning, under an August sky without a fleck and a sun that drew the resin from those very pine-trees upon which the outcast had so often gazed. It was thereabouts that Gwynneth lingered, of self-analysis all compact. Then the hoarse bell began — came calling up to her from the clump of chestnuts and of elms — calling like a friend in pain . . .

  Gwynneth reached church by way of the strip of glebe behind it and the gate into this from the lane, thus escaping the throng already gathered at the other gate. She saw nothing but the rude benches as she entered in; the last of these was too near for her; she shrank to the far end of it, close against the wall, and the bell stopped as she sank upon her knees. The beating of her heart seemed to take its place. Then there came a light yet measured step. It passed very near, with a subdued and subtle rustle, that might yet have meant one other woman. But Gwynneth knew better, though she never looked.

  “I will arise, and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.”

  Already the girl could not see; all her being was involved in an effort to suppress a sob. It was suppressed. There were no tears in the voice that so moved Gwynneth. How serene it was, though sad! It began to soothe her, as she remembered that it had done when she was quite a little girl. She was a little girl again: these five years fled . . . But oh, why had he chosen that sentence of the scriptures? Gwynneth looked at her book (for now she could see) and found that some of the others would have been worse.

  At last she could raise her eyes; and there was Fuller in the very front; and not another soul.

  But Gwynneth cared for nothing any more except the gentle voice that it was her pride to follow in the general confession, kneeling indeed, yet kneeling bolt upright in her proud allegiance.

  A strange picture, the rude benches, the ragged walls; the east window still a chasm, the hot sun s
treaming through it down the aisle; and over all the blue cruciform of sky, broken only by the nodding plumes of the taller elms. And a congregation yet more strange — only Gwynneth and the saddler. But this did not continue. Gwynneth heard movements in the porch behind her, and presently a stumble on the part of one driven in by the press; but no voices; not a whisper; and ere-long he who had been forced in, tired of standing, came on tiptoe and occupied the end of Gwynneth’s bench.

  Now it was the second lesson. The rector was reading it in the same sweet voice, with all his old precision and knowledge of his mother tongue, and never a trip or an undue emphasis. No one would have believed that that voice had been all but silent for five whole years. And yet some change there was, something different in the reading, something even in the voice; the clerical monotone was abandoned, the reading was more human, natural, and sympathetic. The change was in keeping with others. The rector wore no vestments in the naked eye of heaven, but only his cassock, his surplice, and his Oxford hood. There were flowers upon the simple table behind him, such roses as still grew wild in his tangled garden, but no candle to melt double in the sun. The lectern he had done his best to burnish; but it was still a cripple from the fire. Above, the rector’s hair shone like silver, for the sun swept over it, but the lean dark face was all in shadow. Gwynneth only saw the fresh trim cut of the grizzled beard, and the walnut colour of the gnarled hand drooping over the book. That speaking hand!

  Now it was the first hymn — actually! So he dared to have hymns, and to sing them if necessary by himself! But it was not necessary, and not only Gwynneth joined in with all the little voice she possessed, but presently there were false notes from the other end of the bench, and the saddler was not silent. But Robert Carlton’s voice rang sweet and clear above the rest: —

  “Jesu, Lover of my soul, Let me to Thy Bosom fly, While the gathering waters roll, While the tempest still is high: Hide me, O my Saviour, hide, Till the storm of life is past: Safe into the haven guide, O receive my soul at last . . .”

  The hymn haunted Gwynneth upon her knees, taking her mind from the remaining prayers. It was a hymn that she had loved as a little child, and now it seemed so simple and so whole-hearted to one who longed always to be both. But it was the passionate humility of it that touched and filled the heart; and yet there had been neither tremor nor appeal in the voice that led; and the humility was only in accord with one of the simplest services ever held.

  The second hymn was another of Gwynneth’s favourites; she could not afterwards have said which, for in the middle Mr. Carlton knelt, and then came forward to the twisted lectern at the head of the aisle.

  It was not a sermon; it was only a very few words. Yet in Long Stow nothing else was talked of that day, nor for many a day to follow.

  The few words were these: —

  “The first verse of the nineteenth psalm:

  “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.

  “Though I have given you a text, my brethren, I do not intend this morning to preach any sermon. If you care to hear me again — if you choose to give me another trial — if you are willing to help me to start afresh — then come again next Sunday, only come in properly, and make the best of the poor benches which are all I have to offer you as yet. There will only be one weekly service at present. I believe that you could nearly all come to that — if you would! But I am afraid that many would have to stand.

  “I cannot tell you how grieved I am that your church is not ready for you; but I hope and believe, as I stand before you here, that it will be ready soon, much sooner than you suppose. Then one great wrong will be righted, though only one.

  “Meanwhile, so long as we are blessed with days like these — and I pray that many may be in store for us — meanwhile, could there be a fitter or a lovelier roof to the House of God than His own sky as we see it above us to-day? Though at present we can have no music worthy the name, have you not noticed, during all this our service, the constant song and twitter of those friends of man, as I know them to be, of whom Jesus said, ‘Not one of them is forgotten before God’? And for incense, what fragrance have we not, in our unfinished church, that is the House of God all the more because it is also His open air.

  “My brethren, you need be no farther from heaven, here in this place, unfinished as it is, than when the roof is up, and the windows are in, and proper seats, and when a new organ peals . . . and one whom you can respect stands where I am standing now . . .

  “My brethren — once my friends — will you never, never be my friends again?

  “Oh spare me a little that I may recover my strength: before I go hence, and be no more seen . . .

  “Dear friends, I have said far more than I ever meant to say. But it is your own fault; you have been so good to me; so many of you have come in; and you are listening to me — to me! If you never listen to me again, if you never come near me any more, I shall still thank you — thank you — to my dying hour!

  “But let no eye be dim for me. I do not deserve it. I do not want it. If you ever cared for me — any of you — be strong now and help me . . .

  “And remember — never, never forget — that a just God sits in yonder blue heaven above us — that He is not hard — that I told you . . . He is merciful . . . merciful . . . merciful . . .

  “O look above once more before we part, and see again how ‘The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.’

  “And now to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, be ascribed all honour, power, dominion, might, henceforth and for ever. Amen.”

  He had controlled himself by a superb effort. The end was as calm as the beginning; but the rather hard, almost defiant note, that might have marred the latter in ears less eager than Gwynneth’s and more sensitive than those of the people in the porch, that note had passed out of Robert Carlton’s voice for ever.

  And there no longer were any people in the porch; one by one they had all crept in to listen, some stealing to the rude seats, more standing behind, none remaining outside. Thus had they melted the heart they could not daunt, until all at once it was speaking to their hearts out of its own exceeding fulness, in a way undreamed of when the preacher delivered his text.

  And this was to be seen as he came down the aisle, white head erect, pale face averted, and so through the midst of his people — his once more — without catching the eye of one.

  XXVII

  AN ESCAPE

  Mr. Fuller had made a hasty exit; but he waylaid Gwynneth on the road. “Excuse me, miss,” he cried, and the girl felt bound to do so. Next moment she was trying to sort the mixed emotions in the saddler’s face, for a few steps had brought them to his house, and he had halted at the workshop window.

  “Well, miss, and what do you think of it?”

  “Oh, Mr. Fuller, please don’t ask me.”

  “I don’t mean the sermon, miss; I mean the flock of sheep that come and listened to the sermon,” said the saddler, with a bitterness that astonished Gwynneth.

  “But, surely, Mr. Fuller, you were glad they did come? I was so thankful!” declared the girl.

  “So was I, miss; so was I,” said the saddler, grimly; “but, Gord love yer, do you suppose they ever would have shown their noses if you an’ me hadn’t given ‘em the lead?”

  “Then we ought to be very proud, Mr. Fuller; at least you ought, since but for you I never should have known in time.”

  “But do you think a man of ‘em ‘ll admit it?” continued Fuller fiercely. “Not they — I know ‘em. They’ll take the credit, the moment there’s any credit to take — them that hasn’t given him a word or a look in all these years. But the reverend, he know — he know!”

  “I’m sure he does,” said Gwynneth, kindly; and left the forerunner to his ignoble jealousy, only hoping there was some foundation for it, and that a real reaction was already in the air.

  Even on her way home there were furthe
r signs. Jones the schoolmaster, an implacable enemy these five years, but an emotional man all his life, was still dabbing his eyes as he held unguarded converse with the phlegmatic owner of the mill on the lock, who had been his fellow churchwarden in the days before the fire.

  “I’ll be his churchwarden again,” declared the schoolmaster, “and Sir Wilton can say what he likes. We know who ruled the roast before, and we know — —”

  Gwynneth caught no more as she hurried on, her first desire a quiet hour without a whisper from the world. She wished to recall every word of the sermon, while every syllable remained in her mind, and then to write it all down and to possess it for ever. Such was her first feverish resolve; nor, analytical as she was, did she stop to analyse this. The stable gates were open; it never occurred to Gwynneth to wonder why. There was a good way through the stable-yard to the garden, whose uttermost end she might thus reach without being seen from the house. And Fraulein Hentig had known where she was thinking of going, had shaken Gwynneth not a little with her remonstrances, but would be none the less certain to ask questions when next they met.

  Near the Italian garden was a certain walk, with stark yew hedges on either hand, and fine grass stretched like a drugget from end to end. Across this strip the old English flowers, poppies and peonies, hollyhocks and larkspur, faced each other in serried lines as in a country dance; and the vista ended in a thatched summer-house where it was always cool. The spot was a favourite haunt of Gwynneth, who would catch herself humming the old English songs there, and thinking of patches and powder and the minuet. It had not that effect this morning; she neither saw nor smelt the flowers, nor heard the thrush which was singing to her with persistent sweetness from the stately trees upon the lawn beyond. Gwynneth was in that other world which had existed all these years within half-a-mile of this one. What she heard was the virile cadence of the voice which had always thrilled her; strong and masterful in the beginning; softening all at once, as the people pressed in to hear; then for a little high-pitched and hoarse, spasmodic, tremulous, too touching even to remember with dry eyes; then that last pause, and the silver clarion of his proper voice once more and to the end. And what Gwynneth saw, through her tears, was the sunlight resting on that stricken head, as though God had stretched out His hand in final mercy and forgiveness.