Chapter II: After Chapel

The chapel of the Luke Gospellers was full, and their pastor won his usual attention. With very considerable ability, through a ministry of some ten years, he had lifted his congregation along with himself to wider thinking. A tolerance rare amid the sects of Christianity belonged to him, and he had imparted something of it to those who suffered him to lead them.

"How great is man, and how small," said the preacher, as he drew to the close of his address. "How much he has grasped at; how little he can hold. He measures the journeys of the stars and the paths of comets, marked for them through utmost space by the God that made them; but he cannot measure the limit of the growing grass-blade or the breadth of the petal of a budding flower. He predicts when the earth's shadow will fall upon the moon; but he cannot foretell when the next raindrop will fall upon the earth. His intellect has reached out into the universe and read rightly among the laws of it; but the way of the wind and the birth of the cloud, the advent of the frost and the appointed day of the storm--these are hidden from him. So also with his conscious nature and his power to do and to withstand; he is sublime and pitiful at a breath; and his greatness and littleness interwoven, appear on every public page of his history and in every private tablet of his heart."

He exhorted them to know themselves, to read their souls by the light of the Word of God; he told them that within the spectrum of that light were rays that could reach to the darkest, secretest chambers of the human spirit, and search and purify and sweeten them.

They listened, were uplifted according to the measure of their understanding, and went home in the brightness of the teacher's earnest words. Then life and the fret of it came between; and some of the seed perished immediately, and some was scorched at the springing.

Agg and Joe Tapson walked together on their way back to Ruddyford, and behind them came Sarah Jane, Daniel, and their little boy.

Tapson had already dismissed the service, and was grumbling to Walter Agg. They did not know the truth concerning Brendon and the future of the farm; but of late, in certain directions, Daniel was still further advanced, and even Agg felt it hard, because he did not understand.

"He's bewitched Woodrow, if you ax me," said Joe. "'Tis the evil eye over again. Farmer can't call his soul his own now. He don't seem to care a groat for the place. Thicky big monster be always right. Why, if he wanted to pull down the house and build it again to a new pattern, I believe it would be done. Prout's no more good than a bird on a tree; though he used to hold his own very well. Now he always says 'ditto' to Brendon."

"Not that Brendon be what he exactly was, all the same," argued Agg. "He's much gentler and easier, despite his uplifting. He don't order anybody about, and he's always got a good word for a good job well done."

"I know that and I grant it. But who be he to pat us on the back so masterful? I don't want his praise any more than his blame. Damn it all! I was getting my shilling a day afore the man was born!"

"'Tis just pushfulness have raised him up."

"Why don't I go and pat him on the back and say, 'Well done, Brendon!'? I've as much right to patronize him as what he have me," continued Joe.

The other laughed.

"Well, why don't you? 'Tis beyond words to explain these things. But there 'tis. He's above us--got there somehow--how, I don't know--had to do it by vartue of what's in him."

"He may come down again, however."

"I hope not. He's a good man, and grows larger-hearted and gentler as he grows older. His child have done a great deal to his character, as I dare say you've marked."

"We've a right to be jealous of him, all the same. There's no justice in it. If I came along with great ideas, who'd listen to me?" asked Mr. Tapson.

"That's it," answered Walter Agg very placidly. "That's just it. You and me don't get great ideas. Us never think of anything worth a lump of peat. All the same, Joe, I'll tell you this: me and Peter Lethbridge was feeling much like you do a bit back. And I had a tell with Prout on the subject, and he said a thing worth remembering in my judgment. He said, 'Don't envy the man, souls; never envy nobody. 'Tis only God in heaven knows if a human creature's to be envied or not. No fellow-man can tell. How should they, for which among us can say from hour to hour whether even our own lot be good or evil?' That's what he spoke to me, and there's sense in it. King or tinker may come a cropper, but the tinker's up soonest. Not much could happen to me or you--especially you, with your wife dead and no children. Your ill fortune's behind you; and, when all's said, us ought not to make another man's good luck our bad luck. 'Tis a mean-minded thing, though common."

Elsewhere Daniel imparted a great ambition to Sarah Jane.

"I do wish that he could hear Matherson."

When either spoke indefinitely now, the other knew that Hilary Woodrow was meant.

"I believe he'd come if you made a favour of it," she answered.

"I'd ask minister to do something out of the common. Not that he don't put every ounce of his power into his preaching every week. But if I said 'Here's a soul coming to listen to you as be wandering--lost,' minister might be lifted to something special."

"He'd come for you."

"For you more likely. 'Twould be worth the effort before he goes away, for 'tis pretty certain now he won't stop here through winter. He's going to London again, just for the day, to hear what the doctor says. He's better, I believe myself. There's been a lot more heart and life in him of late, to my mind."

"You're going in to-night to have a pipe along with him, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am."

"Then ask him--as a favour to you--to come to a service. Can't hurt him--so large-minded as he is--blames nobody."

"I'll ask him--and yet, I won't. He knows there'd be such a lot of meaning in it if I asked him. He'd think 'twas a deep-laid plot against his opinions. You ask him next time you see him. Say that you'd like him to hear Mr. Matherson. Let the thing come as a surprise, not a planned attack. If I say anything, he'll know he's to be preached at, and that would anger him. But you're lighter-handed. You ban't so deadly in earnest as I am."

"I'll say 'tis to please me, then, not you."

"Do so. It should be true too. You ought to be pleased to get him to come."

Brendon now went disarmed. Even his natural instincts were lulled. Sarah Jane did sometimes see the master, and often brought messages from him to her husband or to Prout. Daniel also, at Hilary's express desire, came twice weekly to smoke with him after the day's work was over. Brendon was a man capable of great gratitude. His fortune had worked largely upon that superficial crust of his character revealed to fellow-men; and, more than this: the sun of his great worldly success had warmed his heart to the core, sweetened his inner nature, made him happier, smothered something of the canine jealousy that belonged to him as an ingredient of character. His trust in God had led to a rarer thing and taught him to trust man also. He was gentler than of old, for he found pity in his mind at the sight of those less fortunate than himself. He felt no personal land-hunger, and, had it been in his power, would have insured full term of years to his master; but upon his child henceforth he looked with respect, as one born to possessions. The unconscious Gregory Daniel already bulked in his parent's eyes as an owner of property. He longed for another boy and carefully planned small Gregory's education.

Sarah Jane went to see Woodrow a few days later, and they spoke intimately together--first of her and then of himself.

"Don't put off going to see your doctor till the weather turns."

"I have been."

"Never!"

"Yes--last Monday; and back again on Wednesday."

"'Twas good news, I hope?"

"Yes, I think so. Only I must go down to the sea for the winter. He will let me stop near at hand. I mean to take rooms at Dawlish. I shall be within reach there. You'll have to invent reasons for coming to see me sometimes."

"You wasn't no worse?"

"Not worth mentioning. I'll be all right down there. But it's rather like going into exile."

They spoke long about his health, his food, his winter clothes. She thought of these things, and had made him buy thicker and warmer garments.

Presently she asked him to come to the chapel of the Luke Gospellers.

"Mr. Matherson is a wonderful man, and that learned. The stars and the trees and the lightning come into his sermons. I do think you'd like them. As broad as charity he is--nought frights him."

"There are two Books," said Hilary; "and whether one was written by God is doubtful; but, God granted, there's no doubt about the other. Even Mr. Matherson won't deny who wrote the Book of Nature. And I'm glad he's not fool enough to forbid sane people from reading in it. But for me to hear him--would you have me play the hypocrite?"

"Why do you say that? There's no deceit. Ban't no harm to listen. Your conscience wouldn't say 'no' to that. You've often said you'd deny the light to none. He might change you."

"I only want to be changed when I feel death peeping at me by night. It might be very awkward for both of us if I was changed."

"I'm not thinking of that, but after. 'Twould be good to believe in a life beyond. You've often said so yourself."

"How many secrets will be carried on into that life--there is such a life, I wonder?"

"Some, for certain--ours for one."

He laughed.

"And yet they say all will come to light then."

She shook her head resolutely.

"We must keep it safe through all eternity."

"There's God."

"What then? He don't want to turn Daniel's heaven into hell. Too large-hearted for that. He'll never tell it."

"Perhaps you and I won't be there, Sarah Jane."

"We shall be there. What would Daniel's heaven be without me, or you, for that matter?"

"You've set Dan's God a big puzzle. However, there will be no marrying or giving in marriage in heaven."

"Maybe not. But there's brains in heaven. Angels ban't bird-witted as well as bird-winged. Suppose the first thing my husband heard when he comed to die was that I'd done--the thing I have done? What would eternity be to him then? You know him--you can tell."

"He'd have larger views then."

"Daniel's Daniel. 'Twould be fire in his bones instead of marrow, for ever and ever. But God won't tell him, Hilary."

"I wouldn't trust God, all the same--not if I believed in God."

"'Twould be too cruel; and Dan thanking God so deep and pure and earnest every day and every night--and praying for you."

"May his God bless him a thousandfold."

"He has--through you."

"He's a grand character in his way. Prosperity has sweetened him, so that he'd pick an insect out of his path nowadays rather than put any creature to pain."

"He's all for letting the world share the good that's come to him. And why shouldn't he thank God, Hilary? God's brought the good. I'll cleave to that--else how can I live?"

"Then so will I," he said. "God's my judge, but I'll believe in God too! Yet--yet once--not so long ago neither--I knew a lovely woman that claimed goodness rather hotly for man, and hated the sky to have all the praise when pleasant things were done!"

He looked out of the window, then he caressed her.

"I've changed from that," she said. "I clung to it awhile--then it gived way somehow. 'Tis easier to--to put it on God. All the same, I almost hate a man when he calls himself a lowly worm, as Daniel often does. And I know well that God don't like us to cry bad wares neither. Bain't no compliment to Him, anyway."

"Give man--and woman--the praise still. I like your old way best. You're a wonderful darling, and my whole life; and I'll think just what you please; and I'll come to hear your minister next Sunday--even that I'll do--for you and Daniel. Tell him that you nearly made me promise. Then he'll surely say a word next time we meet; and I'll relent and appear among the faithful! Is there a penitent's bench?"