Gildas Haven

by Margaret S. Haycraft



  About the Book

  For several years in the peaceful English village of Meadthorpe, the church and chapel have existed in an uneasy peace while the rector and the chapel minister are distracted by poor health. Now a young curate arrives at St Simeon's, bringing high church ritual and ways of worship. Gildas Haven, the daughter of the chapel minister is furious to discover the curate is enticing her Sunday school children away. The curate insists that his Church ways are right, and Gildas who has only known chapel worship says the opposite.

  Battle lines are quickly drawn by leaders and congregations. Mary Haycraft writes with light humour and surprising insight in what could be a controversial story line. With at least one major surprise, the author seems to be digging an impossible hole for herself as the story progresses. The ending of this sensitively told romance is likely to come as a surprise.

  Gildas Haven

  Margaret S. Haycraft

  1855-1936

  Abridged Edition

  Original book first published 1896

  This abridged edition ©Chris Wright 2016

  e-Book ISBN: 978-0-9935005-7-2

  Published by

  White Tree Publishing

  Bristol

  UNITED KINGDOM

  Website: www.whitetreepublishing.com

  Email: wtpbristol@gmail.com

  Gildas Haven is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this abridged edition.

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Author biography

  Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  More Books from White Tree Publishing

  About White Tree Publishing

  Christian non-fiction

  Christian Fiction

  Books for Younger Readers

  Margaret Haycraft Biography

  Margaret Scott Haycraft was a contemporary of the much better known Christian writer Mrs. O. F. Walton. Both ladies wrote Christian stories for children that were very much for the time in which they lived, with little children often preparing for an early death. Mrs. Walton wrote three romances for adults (with no suffering children, and now published by White Tree in abridged versions). Margaret Haycraft also concentrated mainly on books for children. However, Gildas Haven is a romance for older readers. Unusually for Victorian writers, the majority of Margaret Haycraft's stories are told in the present tense.

  Mrs. Walton's and Margaret Haycraft's books can be over-sentimental, referring throughout, for example, to a mother as a dear, sweet mother, and a child as the darling little child. In this abridged edition overindulgent descriptions of people have been shortened to make a more robust story, but the characters and storyline are unchanged.

  A problem with Victorian writers is their tendency to insert intrusive comments concerning what is going to happen later in the story. Today we call them spoilers. They are usually along the lines of: "Little did he/she know that..." I have removed most of these.

  The value of money since 1896 when the story was written has increased by over 100 times, although it is difficult to compare the prices of items with the value of wages.

  Margaret Scott Haycraft (1855-1936) also wrote under her maiden name of Margaret MacRitchie. There are plans for White Tree to publish more abridged eBook romances by Margaret Haycraft -- Amaranth's Garden is next in line. Silverbeach Manor is already available as an eBook.

  Chris Wright

  Editor

  NOTE

  At the end of this book are advertisements for our other books, so the story may end earlier than expected! The last chapter is marked as such. We aim to make our eBooks free or for a nominal cost, and cannot invest in other forms of advertising. However, word of mouth by satisfied readers will also help get our books more widely known.

  Chapter 1

  On Meadthorpe Moor

  A RAINY day in the heart of November. Hour by hour the downpour has been steady and incessant. Beneath grey, leaden skies the noontide bell struck from the old ivied church to the music of splashing drops on bare furrows and amid the yellow leaves.

  But now it is sunset time, and there is a beautiful calm over field and wood. The rain has ceased; a soft breeze shakes the wet, swaying boughs, revealing here and there a gleam of crimson berry, or the fading splendour of blackberry leaves shining late within the hedges.

  Jasper Ruthven, crossing the moor, looks towards the western horizon. His is a life keenly in touch with Nature's power, and this fair sunset at the end of the cheerless day is full for him of joy.

  Not that he forgets the little cares of the everyday round, the possibility of losing his situation of tutor at the Grammar School, the uncertainty as to the ever-varying number of his private pupils, the lack of leisure time until late evening for the literary work he loves, the need of little garments before the winter for his young brothers and sisters at home -- Milly's face pain, the increasing appetites of the twins, and the baby caring nothing at all for its food, losing weight from its tiny limbs and its anxious face.

  Not so the girl with whom he presently comes face to face, just as he turns into the pathway leading to Burrows' Farm. She does not see him for a moment, and he, who has learnt to read her every mood, knows the meaning of that thoughtful, shadowed look, that firm, resolute step, those lips compressed, those dark eyes where trouble and perplexity reveal themselves, unconscious of his close observance.

  "Gildas, it's a wet day for you to venture so far," he remarks, feeling as he always does that what he says to her is tame and stupid (for what he would wish to say he must not, while teaching pays so badly, and the little mouths need food so plentifully). "I hope you are wearing good boots; the moor is almost like a bog."

  "Cousin Jasper!" The girl looks glad to see him, as though relieved to outpour her confidences to one who will sympathize. "Oh, never mind the wet. My boots are thick, and this cloak is waterproof. Oh, I have such things to tell you. It makes me so indignant, I feel I must take some decided step -- write to the Bishop or something. If you only knew how that man Pendrill is going on. I'm certain he's a Jesuit!"

  "It is possible,'' says Jasper Ruthven, who likes to agree with the girl looking up into his face for sympathy -- the girl who by courtesy calls him cousin, her father and his having had connections by marriage. "But no one has the right to assert such a thing as a fact, Gildas."

  "Every right!" she cries, hotly. "Wherever I go it's the same story of superstition, bigotry, and priestly assumption. Why, Jasper----"

  "You must tell me another time, cousin," he says, reluctantly. "You know I have a couple of hours at the farm on Tuesdays and Fridays, coaching Frank Burrows in commercial arithmetic. He has to go into business soon. And, Gildas, I wouldn't worry your father with Pendrill's doings if I were you. When anyone is not very strong, troubles are apt to seem magnified."

  "Oh, Father doesn't assert himself sufficiently. He takes things too quietly. He could soon put an end to what's going on if he'd rouse himself as of old," says Gildas with decision. "Bu
t if he will not act, I must -- and I mean to. I'm not going to have Rehoboth Chapel emptied just because Mr. Bertram has unfortunately taken a curate who goes about spreading falsehood, and sowing contentions like a snake in the grass."

  "Now your metaphors are getting mixed, Gildas," says her companion, smiling. "We know little of Mr. Pendrill as yet. He has only been here a month, remember. It is rather early to credit him with being a serpent in our Eden."

  Looking back with his pleasant smile, as he lifts the felt hat which has too evidently seen its best days, he is troubled to discern the girl's distress and indignation. The gloom has not lifted from her usually sunny face, and she looks drearily down at the sodden grass, too discomfited to be aware of glories that grow faint and fainter now in the western sky.

  "It is only natural," he thinks, "that she, the soul of Rehoboth Chapel, should resent the new curate's activity in the parish church. I remember the last one, Mr. Colson. He was very much the same when he first came, but he soon fell into the rector's quiet, easy-going way. Gildas need not worry herself over these attempts to alter our convictions. Most likely they will only be a passing whim."

  "Oh, Mr. Ruthven!" says the burly farmer, meeting him in the lane, "didn't ye see my carter? I told him to call at your place and leave word that our boy's gone to London for a week. I'm real sorry now you've had the walk for nothing."

  "I have not been home since the early morning," says Jasper, "so I will have missed your message, Mr. Burrows. Will Frank be here for Tuesday's lessons, then, or shall I come this day week?"

  "Today week. He'll be away until then," says the farmer. "You'll be no loser because the lad's gone to London. I'll pay you for the two lessons he misses all the same, you know. And by adding half an hour now and again, you'll be able to get things square."

  Jason Ruthven bids him good day, and turns back patiently, wondering how those extra half hours are to be worked in, seeing it is all he can do after leaving the farm to get back to Meadthorpe for his evening pupils. At any rate, there is more than a gleam of compensation today for his needless walk, in the thought of returning across the moor by the side of Gildas. A rush of gladness thrills his pulses as he hastens to catch up with her, and she is soon outpouring her grievances like a flood into his attentive ears.

  "You know, Jasper," she says, "how pleasantly we've gone on with Mr. Bertram, the Rector -- dear old gentleman, and with Mr. Colson our last curate, too. They worked away at their Chaldean History (or whatever it was) together, and collected their rare manuscripts and things, and spoke to Father when they met, and sent nice letters of apology to be read at meetings Father asked them to attend; and not a shadow of disagreeable feeling between church and chapel existed at Meadthorpe."

  "Mr. Colson was a great loss," says Jason; "but with his large family he must be thankful to get a good living."

  "Then because this new man is his third cousin, or something like that, Mr. Bertram goes and engages a curate who steeps the whole place in bitterness!" cries Gildas, indignantly. "Perhaps he counts on having everything his own way because Father is old and he's been so ill. But he will find in the Havens the same strong Puritan spirit that bowed neither to king nor clergy, but owned the rule of Scripture and conscience alone in religious matters. Were not my ancestors and their followers fined, imprisoned, and branded by the hand of oppression? How fearlessly Father himself fought in the past for the right of preaching on our common, and again and again in his time he has suffered for resisting Church rates! To the core I'm Nonconformist, Cousin Jasper, and I will keep Meadthorpe Nonconformist whatever wiles this Pendrill may bring to bear on the place."

  "I scarcely think you need fear for Rehoboth Chapel," says Jason Ruthven, soothingly. "Our chapel has withstood many a storm in the past, and in these late years it has prospered more than any other in the county. Even when I was little I remember the place being thronged to hear your father's sermons. I used to be wedged against the wall in the gallery, and emerge with my back regularly whitened each Sunday. Of course, the place fell off a little, while your father's long illness necessitated guest preachers, but since you left school you have worked it up splendidly, Gildas. Rehoboth Chapel is the flower of our denomination hereabouts. We have nothing to fear from the opposition of the new curate, I assure you."

  "You always cheer me up, Cousin Jasper," replies Gildas. "You're sure, somehow, to look on the bright side of things -- I suppose poets always do."

  "Fancy calling a matter-of-fact tutor like me a poet, Gildas! I don't think I have written a line for weeks. I have been far too busy."

  "Ah, but you're a poet in your heart, Jasper, and one day the world will know it," says Gildas, with proud confidence. "One day you will lead the world's hosannas, and your songs will go on echoing when the superstitions of men such as Pendrill have vanished like mists. How proud I'll be of you when you wear the laurel, Jasper!"

  The shadows of gloaming are bright for Jasper at that moment. A sweet, golden vision seems beckoning from the future -- the poet's wreath, the world's acclaim, the treasures of greatness laid down before the girl who filled his boyhood's dreams, the heart of his manhood.

  Passionate words, of which "Cousin Gildas" guesses nothing at all, are almost on his lips. A flush rises to his face, and for once his life-secret has almost been revealed, but commonsense returns just in time. In his mind he sees his sister Milly in the boots that need patching, the twins just ready for school, Gordon with much-darned knickerbockers, and baby who will need support and care for many a long year yet. The elder brother of these children, who have no helper save himself, puts aside the wild, sweet longing, and tries to listen with his whole heart to the girl's further revelations of her trouble.

  "Last Sunday," she says, "I noticed a difference in our Chapel School. I attributed the smaller attendance to the wet, but the teachers tell me the new curate is systematically visiting all over the place, insisting that the Church Sunday school, and not our Chapel Sunday school, is the right place for Meadthorpe children. And the same with our day schools. You know how some of the parents are so easily persuaded. The truth is, Jasper, the parish church has the power over distributing a great many gifts, and this has weight, I expect, with many fathers and mothers."

  "I hear Mr. Pendrill is introducing improved methods into the Church School," says Jason Ruthven, gently. "Hitherto we know it's been at a low ebb. If some of our children are removed, we must search out others to fill their places. There are plenty who go nowhere yet."

  "I know," says Gildas; "but it is nothing more nor less than stealing to take our scholars away. You know he has gone to lodge with Mrs. Abbot, and I hear now that the Abbot children are leaving our school -- children that began in our infant class, and have been under our care pretty well all their lives! He has gone and put young Willie Abbot in the church choir, and Mrs. Abbot thinks 'Mr. Pendrill would not like him to sing at the temperance festival at the chapel,' and you know he was down for a solo. I have spent hours training that boy's voice."

  "That is a pity, Gildas," says Jasper. "I know how you have worked for that festival. I think my young brother, Gordon, could take his place, though. I hear him humming the piece at home, and I could give him some practice to save your time."

  "Gordon's upper notes are nothing like Abbot's, but I suppose he must do," she answers, feeling too much hurt to respond very gratefully just then. "But think of the bigotry of such ways, Jasper! First he steals our children, and then objects to their helping a society which is really non-sectarian, though it is held in our lecture hall. But that's not the worst. When I met you I had just been to see Mrs. Burrows. Cissy, the third girl, is in my Sunday school class, and for two Sundays she's been away. So I called to ask after her, and whatever do you think, Jasper? That curate Pendrill has talked Mrs. Burrows into letting all the girls join some guild he is working up in connection with the church -- and the meetings take place on Sunday afternoons. I think it's really Miss Rowena Bertram's Bible class, but they
call it Saint Somebody's Guild. And he told Mrs. Burrows it was time Janet and Cissy should be confirmed -- they were 'quite old enough.' Fancy anything in the nature of a religious profession depending on age instead of personal faith!"

  "I'm sorry," says Jason, sympathetically. "I know you felt you had a part and share in your chapel girls, Gildas, but Miss Bertram is the Vicar's daughter, and she likewise spares no pains to benefit her class. So let us hope and believe they will get good teaching under her care. I think some of my own little class must have been removed to the church Sunday school, for I noticed last Sunday we were reduced as to numbers. Well, perhaps we all need to learn a lesson of patience"

  "I'm sure you do not!" Gildas cries impulsively. "I never remember you anything but patient, Jasper, and I have known you all my life. As for me, I cannot see we are called on to submit meekly to all that emphasis on sacraments, rituals, and ceremonies. I wonder how the church people can put up with the new order of things! I hear he has altar candles now, and adopts the 'eastward position.' Such superstition, putting ceremonies in place of sincerity! However can the man have taken up such false ideas?"

  Jasper Ruthven is silent for a moment, then he gently quotes:

  "Call no faith false which e'er has brought

  Relief to any laden life,

  Cessation from the pain of thought,

  Refreshment 'mid the dust of strife."

  "Oh, I hope I am not narrow minded. I detest bigotry wherever found!" cries Gildas. "But, Jasper, what help or comfort or relief can any sensible person find in lights and altar cloths, and all the changes of Church millinery?"

  "You see, Gildas, you and I have been brought up in a school of thought removed from types and symbols. But often the Lord taught heavenly lessons by means of pictures. And today some see sacred meanings in the imagery within the church building. However much we may differ from their opinions, let us respect them as devout worshippers. Our Master has His saints and disciples among those reverencing Church traditions as well as in our own old chapel -- that is certain!"