CHAPTER XII
The next day was Sunday, and when the party assembled at breakfast, at half-past nine, it appeared that Mrs. Courtly had already been to early communion at the neighboring church.
"The carriage will be here at eleven for any one who wants to go to morning service. I am going to evensong instead, and shall take Mr. Laffan for a drive this morning. What will you do, Miss Ballinger?"
Grace said she wished to go to church, whereupon Miss Planter declared she meant to go also, adding,
"I hear Samuel Sparks is near here, and will probably preach."
"Yes," said Mrs. Courtly. "That is the reason I am not going."
"Is he not a very great preacher?" asked Grace.
"Yes, but I do not consider him orthodox. He is too broad in his views to suit me."
Grace had been under a vague impression that all American religion was "broad"; she had no idea that a section of the community cherished a rigid ritualism.
"Samuel Sparks is a lovely man," said Mrs. Planter, shaking her head gently, "but perhaps a littletoo—"
Her criticism was left to shift for itself as best it might in the minds of her hearers. All the men had heard the famous preacher except Sir Mordaunt, and he was not a very regular church-goer. However, on this occasion, he declared that his curiosity was fired, he would accompany the ladies. Mrs. Courtly smiled blandly across the silver urn at him.
"Mrs. Van Winkle will no longer be able to compare you to Guy Livingstone. I am glad you go to church.You, I know, Quintin, are past praying for—"
"Quite." He cut her short, decisively.
"In England it is thought good form for men to go to church. They did so when we stayed in country-houses there all the time," said Mrs. Planter.
"All the time?" repeated Sir Mordaunt, interrogatively, with a look of amused wonder.
"Mamma means every Sunday," explained her daughter; then added, laughing, "All, except a few old heathens, politicians, and philosophers, and people who buried themselves in the library."
"I am not a politician, but I hope I am a philosopher," said Ferrars, with a tolerant smile.
"I am neither one nor the other," sighed Burton, with an appealing look at Mrs. Courtly. "But when the music is bad, my soul is in revolt; it makes me so cross, I go away worse than I came. And the music in your church here is very bad—you know it is, Mrs. Courtly."
So the three drove off to church together. Nothing in the service invited comment (the music being no worse than the Ballingers were used to in their own country church), until Mr. Sparks began to read the first lesson. He had not opened his lips till then. Apparently there was a storage of sound waiting to escape, and it rushed forth with a volubility truly astounding. Ballinger looked at his sister with elevated brows. It was clear that the minister expected the congregation to be conversant with the text of Holy Writ; otherwise it was impossible to follow him. He read also a portion of the Communion service in a manner that seemed to Grace little short of irreverent. But all this was as nothing compared to the rapidity of his utterance when he reached the pulpit. His sermon was a splendid piece of oratory, charged with noble thought, clad in language that seemed, like lightning, to strike and tear the ground. Then, as the thunder rolled along, the scorn of self-seeking and of sloth, the denunciation of envy and uncharitableness, fell like hail, smiting the consciences of some who heard. But the electric rapidity with which the words poured down was such that, as flash succeeded flash, many of the congregation were blinded, groping their way feebly, and clutching at his meaning here and there. It required long usage (and to some of those assembled he was almost a stranger) or a sharp, retentive vision, not to be dazzled as the lightning struck peak after peak, and the wind swept by, and the great storm drove on, relentless, without pause or hesitation.
Miss Planter only removed her beautiful eyes from the preacher to glance surreptitiously from time to time at her companions, and judge of the effect produced on them. Grace listened, eager and absorbed; her brother gnawed his moustache, and looked ill at ease. When, at last, the torrent of words stopped, and the congregation slid out of church, in various mental conditions, the American girl's curiosity found its vent.
"Well?" she asked, addressing Mordaunt. "What do you say? Is he not just wonderful?"
"Wonderful! I believe you. I never heard a chap pour out so many words to the minute before. It's perfectly awful, going on like this, for more than half an hour without stopping!"
"How I wished I could write shorthand!" exclaimed his sister. "It is too sad to think it is all gone beyond recall. I never heard anything so splendid, so stirring!"
"I am awfully glad you think so," said Miss Planter, who clung fondly to the English slang she had acquired. "I hoped that you, Sir Mordaunt, would have felt a little moved. Samuel Sparks alwaysdoesmove me so!"
"Move me! Why, I felt as if I were being hurled down a precipice, and were clutching wildly at twigs, roots, anything, to save myself. But it was no use; as fast as I caught hold of anything it slipped from me, and I felt just as if I'd come an awful cropper, bruised and stunned, when he stopped."
The conversation was renewed at luncheon, when Mrs. Courtly expressed a desire to know how her English guests had been impressed by the famous preacher. Her feelings as a patriotic American and a stanch churchwoman were divided. Miss Ballinger satisfied one sentiment, Sir Mordaunt the other.
"As far as I could make out," he said, "it was more of a lecture than a sermon. But then I made out very little."
"Whatever it was, it was exceedingly fine," said his sister, with decision. "I have come to the conclusion that Americans are much more eloquent than Englishmen. We have no orator in either House to compare with Mr. Sparks."
"A preacher has every other sort of orator at a disadvantage," said Ferrars, grimly. "He can say what he likes, he can scourge you, without fear of reprisal."
"Yes," said Mrs. Courtly, "and there must have been many present, who—like myself—object not only to Mr. Sparks's manner, but to his doctrine. His ability is undoubted, of course."
"How is it, Mrs. Courtly, that he comes to be preaching in a ritualistic church?" asked Grace.
"In former years the division was very great. Doctrine was paramount—before eloquence, or anything. Latterly there has been a growing tendency to let pastors of different views change pulpits. It is a practice I do not care about, but I suppose it has its advantages."
"If peoplewillbe preached at," said Ferrars, "it is better that the subject should be looked at from different points of view, with more freedom and liberty than from the narrow plane of one parsonic mind."
"Oh, my! Mr. Ferrars," exclaimed Mrs. Planter, "why should ministers have narrower minds than any one else?"
"I did not say they had. All minds looking at one subject from one point of view become narrow. I know mine has," he muttered. Then, with a satirical smile, "And yours. Like a good mother, it is concentrated on your daughter, and I am sure you only take one view of her future. You can't take an all-round survey of the position."
Mrs. Planter bristled; she did not know how to receive this odd speech. As she said afterwards to Mrs. Courtly, "it was so very—"
But her amiable hostess threw herself into the breach. With a smile at the girl, who was coloring, "There can be but one view of Clare's future," she said, quickly. "She has already most of the good things of this world. She will find the best, and be clever enough to know when she has found it."
It was a clear, still afternoon, though very cold. The recent snow had left the roads ankle-deep in slush, which there had been neither frost nor wind, the previous day, to dry. Now it was freezing, but not hard enough to affect the mud to any depth. The road on which all the party set out to walk was certainly very bad; it would have been difficult to match it in any country district in England; but then, they did not walk on the road. The system, unknown in England, of laying down planks on the wayside for pedestrians, secured them a dry foot-path. But only two could walk abreast. Mr. Burton had timidly endeavored to place himself beside Grace; Ferrars's dominant perseverance, however, secured that privilege.
"You behaved very ill last night, Mr. Ferrars," began Miss Ballinger, with her characteristic fearlessness; "and again to-day at luncheon. You sulked, because you were not allowed to talk, and because I wanted to listen to the music; and to-day you attacked poor Mrs. Planter in a most unjustifiable way."
"I am not aware that I attacked her. I said her thoughts were concentrated on her daughter's future—"
"You know very well what you meant; andsheknew. Cynics like you are always crying out against the follies and weaknesses of the world, and you have just as many yourselves. It is Hudibras over again—what you are 'inclined to' and what you 'have no mind to.'"
"I dare say you are right," he returned, with unusual gentleness; "but if you knew how the world has treated me, you would be more lenient in your judgment, you would understand how I have come to be misanthropic and bitter. Perhaps some day you may know."
She felt sorry for him; she liked the man, with all his faults; perhaps she was not superior to the womanly love of influence over one whom few attracted. But her clear sense prevented her being blinded by the sophism of his defence, and she said, impulsively,
"You expect leniency, but you show none. And, then, you are like a spoiled child, sulking, as you did last night, or running away, as you did more than once in New York, because somebody came into the room you did not like! I think suffering ought to make men stronger, not weaker, Mr. Ferrars."
"You are severe, but you don't understand—you can't." He beat the long, yellow grass, that sprang up beside the planks, with the blackthorn in his hand. "If I were under your influence always," he added, in a low voice, "I should become more tolerant, I believe. I should look at things from a different point of view."
"Oh! If I were your sister," laughed Miss Ballinger, "I should lecture you. I should keep you in better order. As it is, I can't think, judging by your conduct, that my presence has a very beneficial effect."
"Perhaps not at the time; it marks the contrast more strongly." He paused a moment; how could he explain his feelings without startling her? And yet he felt some explanation of this enigmatical sentence was needed. "You see," he continued, "I have avoided society for years. I suppose I have become brutalized. I have lost the habit of concealing what I think, or doing what bores me. When I see you with such people as the Hurlstones, or Mrs. Van Winkle, or these Planters, my contempt of the world is increased. I want to talk to you or to go right away. If I enter into general conversation, I am sure to say something which will offend them."
"So little self-restraint? That comes from having shut yourself away from people, and having had your own way too long. All the men I have heard you speak so slightingly of, because they devote their whole time and energies to amassing big fortunes, lead really healthier lives than you do. They rub up against all manner of people; they give and take."
"They take more than they give," he said, with a sneer; "and because they rub up against all manner of people, they become callous. Is it well to become callous? to grow indifferent—almost blind to evil? to pass through life shrugging one's shoulders? Well, perhaps it is. And yet, I've had enough to make me callous. But one can't alter one's nature."
"That is the defence of every one who gives in," she returned. "And it is horribly weak—quite unworthy of a man,Ithink. I am a great hero-worshipper, and all my heroes fight something—either their own passions, or something else they are resolved to conquer. And, as to growing callous, I don't see that any one need become so because he mixes with his fellow-creatures, even the very worst. We have a Great Example of that; and all the devoted workers among the poor of big cities do not lose their sense of right and wrong because they are pitiful and forbearing."
Here Mrs. Courtly, who was in front, turned round. They had reached the village, or rather small agglomeration of houses of the lower middle class—as they would be called in England—which were clustered around the church. The bell was ringing; one or two elderly women, a young girl, a pale-faced man carrying some books, were hurrying along. Mrs. Courtly said,
"Here I leave you; and I give Mr. Laffan into your charge, Miss Ballinger. What! Quintin, are you coming with me to church? Well, wonders will never cease. Good-by, all of you, till tea-time."
And so the bright, genial little lady, with her unwonted escort, left the rest of the party to find their own way home.
Quintin Ferrars had not entered a church for years. What prompted him to leave Grace, and accompany his friend? Was it the girl's words? Was it Mr. Laffan's joining her? Was it some inexplicable working of conscience?