For some time all had not been well among the Saints. There was evidence of worldliness, backsliding, apostasy and sin. The Devil was active in our midst.
Certain Saints, after tasting for years the privilege of fellowship, had left us: for chapel, or church, or nowhere. Others were becoming irregular in their attendance or took part in our devotions without fervour. There was moral backsliding too: chambering and wantonness. Blind Joe Packe had been discovered by Brother Quappleworthy in a drunken stupor on the floor of the attic in which he lived, when the latter was paying him one of his customary visits of Bible-reading and exhortation. There walked abroad also a vaguer, darker sin than drink that I did not clearly apprehend, of which certain of the younger Brothers who were "keeping company" with certain of the younger Sisters were whispered to be guilty. The most flagrant example, I gathered from a shrouded conversation between Grandmother and Aunt Jael, was Sister Lucy Fry, who had a baby, but no husband. I thought this a curiosity rather than a crime. For whatever reason, it aroused a sharp difference of opinion; Aunt Jael denounced the awfulness of Lucy's sin, Grandmother urged that she was more sinned against than sinning.
Then Sister Prideaux had been to some concert or "theatre" during a holiday at Exeter. The precise nature of the godless entertainment was not ascertained. Nor was it clear how the news had reached us, though most thought it was wormed out of Sister Quappleworthy by Sister Yeo. The latter openly taxed Miss Prideaux with it.
"So you went to the theayter did you, over to Exeter? Next time you're there I suppose you'll be a-going to theCathedril!"
Then there were the parliamentary elections in which some of the Saints had been taking an unsaintly interest, voting forand championing this candidate or that; a form of meddling with this world's affairs which Pentecost regarded with special disfavour. Indeed Rumour had it that one or two of the younger Brethren took part in the famous polling-day brawl in the vegetable market. Several of even the most prominent Saints expressed preferences. Brother Browning being a draper was Radical, Brother Quappleworthy being an intellectual was Whig, Brother Briggs being an oilman was Tory.
Aunt Jael was an unbenevolent neutral. "They're all much of a muchness and none of 'em any good to folk, neither in the next world nor in this either. In our family,ifwe had been anything at all, we'd always have been Whig—except the child's mother. She was Tory, or liked to think she was. All the gentlefolk belonged to the Tories, and that was always enough for Rachel."
I was henceforward a fanatical Tory, though I had not the dimmest notion what it meant, except that it was somehow connected with London and the Parliament. Aunt Jael refused to explain; Grandmother said it was not worth explaining.
Brother Brawn related how on the occasion of a visit from some canvassers he had struck a blow for righteousness. "They knocked at my front door," he told Aunt Jael, "folk as I'd never spoken to avore, nor so much as seen; 'Good mornin' sir,' said one of them, a tall, thin man with spectacles he was, 'whose side are you on? Davie and Potts[2]I trust.' 'No,' I said, 'I'm on the side of the Laur Jesus Christ,' and I slammed the door in their faces. 'Twas a word in season."
About this time there was an epidemic of minor illnesses, which Grandmother said could only be the hand of the Lord extended in chastisement for sins which the suffering ones had committed. More modern folk would have sought explanation in low vitality, indoor habits or bad drainage, but point was given to my Grandmother's contention by the fact that Sister Prideaux and Lucy Fry, prominent among the sinners, were about this time laid low with illness—the latter not unnaturally. Her own attack of bronchitis, she attributed to the selfish indulgence she had shown of late in perpetually studyingher own favourite portions of the Word and neglecting (comparatively) those she favoured less.
Worst of all, that piece of sugar which for nineteen years—the period is always the same in my memory—had been placed in our offertory as an insult to the Lord had now for two Sundays past becomefourpieces, one in each of the four partitions, a little bit of sugar for Expenses, a little bit of sugar for Foreign Field, a little bit of sugar for Ministry, a little bit of sugar for Poor. It had been serious enough years ago when the box with the narrow slits had been substituted for the bag, and the sinner had merely retaliated by putting a small piece through one of the slits instead of a large lump down the gaping abyss of the bag. But now—four pieces, one in each partition,—what deftness in utter sin! What zeal in ill-doing! Who was this wolf in sheep's clothing, this sinner who could sit at the Lord's table for nineteen years and harden his heart Lord's day after Lord's day by offering this mockery of an oblation to his Saviour? Who was this evil spirit slim-fingered enough to perform this fourfold naughtiness, and yet remain undetected, unguessed? We all peered at our neighbours. Brother Brawn even began following the box in its voyage round the Meeting, instead of merely handing it to the first giver and taking it from the last; for all his spying he could find nothing. Washethe man?
Thus in devious ways was the Devil active in our midst. He must be exorcised.
Sister Yeo's idea of a Special Extraordinary Meeting to chase him out was finally adopted. All the Saints should assemble on a week night to pray for help, and for the discovery, confession and true repentance of all the various sinners; to purge the repentant of their sins and to praise the Lord for pardoning them; to purge the Meeting itself of the stubborn and unrepentant—to cast them into the outer darkness. There should be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
A preliminary meeting to decide on procedure and agenda was held in our dining-room. The committee which assembled was chosen by Aunt Jael and consisted of herself, Grandmother, Pentecost, Brothers Quappleworthy (despite theatre-going sister-in-law and known electioneering lapses), Brawn and Browning. Also, at Pentecost's special plea—"'Twillbe a sacrifice of self, I know, dear Sister Vickary; that is why I urge it"—Sister Yeo was admitted. As soon as all the committee had arrived I was bundled out of the room, so I knew nothing of what was to happen except what I gathered from ear-straining on the staircase, and chance conversation between Grandmother and Aunt Jael afterwards. I gathered this much: that the Extraordinary Meeting was to be preceded by a Tea.
To this same Tea on a memorable Saturday afternoon we proceeded; Grandmother, Aunt Jael, Mrs. Cheese and I. It is the only single occasion in my memory when the Saints met together for public eating. In nothing did we differ more from the general body of nonconformists with their socials, bun-fights, feastings, reunions, conversazioni and congregational guzzles.
The Room presented an unusual sight. There were four long trestle tables covered with white cloths and laden with food, with forms drawn up beside them. The Saints, dressed in their Sunday best, were standing about in groups when we arrived. Aunt Jael, puffed with the energies of her walk, sat down at once on the end of a bench. Her weight sent the other end soaring gaily into the air while she landed on the floor with a most notable thud. The form banged back, not into position, but with a swirling movement on to a plate of bread and butter.
There is proof of the awful respect in which Aunt Jael was held in this: that not a soul dared to smile as she sat there on her broad posterior. For a moment or two no one even dared to help her to her feet, fearing an outburst, for people like Aunt Jael are most dangerous when you try to help them out of a predicament. Then by a sudden gregarious instinct every one ran forward together in a sheep-like mass, and bore Aunt Jael—red, antagonistic and threatening—to her feet.
After a blessing had been asked by Pentecost, we sat down to tea. I recall ham, bath-buns and potted-meat sandwiches. After tea the tables were cleared, the trestles packed away and the crockery and cutlery, all of which had been lent, were put back uncleansed in clothes-baskets in which they had been brought by the owners; for the Room possessed no washing-upfacilities. The forms were then rearranged as for Breaking of Bread. Pentecost sat in his accustomed place at the right of the Table as you faced it; we in our usual front row; Brother Briggs to the right, Brother Quick to the left, Brother Marks, the old Personal Devil of my imagination, far away in his goggled corner. In the pulpit or dais, which was only used for the evening gospel meeting, were ranged Brother Quappleworthy—in the centre, in charge of proceedings—Brother Brawn on the right and Brother Browning on the left. Precedence and position had been arranged at the committee meeting in our dining-room, when Brother Quappleworthy had been chosen as chairman. The whole staging was as for a meeting in the secular meaning of the word. Indeed I remember feeling that the whole affair was a sort of excitement or entertainment rather than a religious service. This feeling vanished like dew with the dawn when Pentecost stood up and in a short prayer of exceeding solemnity craved the Lord's blessing on our proceedings. The keynote was SIN, its detection, confession, atonement; "and Sin, Lord, is a terrible thing."
Brother Quappleworthy rose to deal with the business before the house. "First now, brethren, there's the question of those Saints who have absented themselves from our—ah—mutual ministrations, those backsliders who have left the Lord's table for other so-called Christian bodies or the walks of open indifference and—er—infidelity." Brawn and Browning murmured agreement.
Sister Yeo's voice rang out accusing and metallic: "You're a fine one, Brother Browning, to um-um-er, and to sit in judgment on others. First cast out the beam from thine own eye! What of your own wedded wife who goes openly to the Bible Christian chapel, and 'as done these fifteen years; a source of stumbling and error to all the weaker brethren." (Sensation.)
"Silence, Sister," cried Brother Quappleworthy, "none may speak here to accuse others, only to accuse self."
"True," murmured the Meeting, and the Chairman resumed his discourse. "A list has been—ah—prayerfully prepared of all the Saints who have withheld themselves from fellowship for a space of time. Do all our Brothers and Sistersagree that they be struck off our roll of grace? Shall we say 'Ay' as we call each name? Brother Mogridge."
"Ay," arose murmurously.
"Sister Mogridge."
"Ay."
"Sister Polly Mogridge."
"Ay."
"Brother Richardson."
"Ay."
"Sister Petter."
This time our tongues (I say "our" because I had joined unctuously in the Ay's) stopped short just in time as we remembered that Sister Petter was present. We all turned towards her. Her hand was over her eyes, and she was weeping.
"Sister Petter," called Brother Quappleworthy in a solemn voice. "You who scoffed to unbelievers of the ministrations of the Saints,You, I say!..."
"Lord forgive me," she moaned. "Oh Lord forgive me."
Pentecost arose with beaming face. "There's joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." He went over to her and put his hand on her shoulder saying, "Sister, be of good cheer, the Lord hath forgiven thy sin."
"Amen," said we all.
Drink and theatre-going and elections and illnesses were all dealt with then in their turn; I remember them hazily. When the denouncing voice uttered the name Lucy Fry, I woke up into the most wide-awake interest, for avisiblehush descended on the Meeting.
Brother Quappleworthy had lost his usual urbanity: "Sin of sins, abomination of abominations." His face was hard and fanatical.
My eyes kept straying to the place where Lucy sat. She was a young fresh-faced country girl. Tonight her rosy cheeks were pale, her eyes drawn and she sobbed quietly but continually as her shame was exposed before us.
"Sister, repentest thou? Stand up, I say! Repent!"
It was too much. The poor girl fainted. They bore her out insensible. "Her first time out of doors," I heard it whispered, "since the child was born."
A feeling of pity was evident among the Saints. BrotherQuappleworthy realized this and was determined to crush it. "Remember, brethren, it is a sin too grave, too vile for God to wink at. No dallying with sin! I put it to you that Sister Fry be excluded from fellowship. A fleshly sinner must not pollute the Lord's table."
"Chase her out, Lord," cried Brother Brawn, "this adulterous woman!"
"No," said Brother Browning, nervously, bravely. "She repents; the Lord will be for mercy." The three Brothers fell to disputing on the dais, and the discussion spread to the whole body of the Saints till there was a veritable hubbub in the Room. Brother Quappleworthy quelled it by calling out in a loud voice: "The Lord will show His will by means of a vote. Now those brethren who think it right that Sister Lucy Fry, the self-confessed sinner, be excluded from the Lord's table put up their hands."
Thirty-six hands were counted.
"Now those brethren who think that she, the sinning woman, should remain in fellowship."
Twenty hands only were shown. Thus by sixteen votes the Lord, who is merciful, voted against poor Lucy.
Then a surprising thing happened. My Grandmother, for the only time in my experience, stood up: "I have one question, brethren. Who is the man?"
No one had thought of that. No one does.
There was a whispering. It was confirmed that Lucy's guilty partner—whatever that might mean—was not a Saint and that nothing could therefore be done.
Brother Quappleworthy with sure dramatic instinct had reserved till the last the super-sin: Sugar. "This work of Satan persevered in over so long a period in a human heart ... For nineteen years ..." and so on. He wound up by conjuring the sinner to confess, to repent ere it was too late.
There was no response to his appeal, and a flat and rather foolish silence ensued. Then Pentecost Dodderidge prayed lengthily and earnestly that the sinner might be moved to reveal himself. Then another long fruitless silence.
Pentecost arose again, solemn and determined: "Brethren, we must slay the Evil One working in one poor sinner's heart, now, this evening—now or never. No one shall leave thisroom until the guilty one has confessed, not if we stay here for forty days and forty nights. Let us pray silently that he may be moved."
A new silence followed, but this time I was somehow expectant. The minutes, however, dragged on, five, ten, fifteen; I watched the crawling clock. Surely it could not last for ever, surely the patience of the sinner must be worn out by our unending vigil.
There was a noise of some one moving. Every one opened their eyes and looked up. It was only Pentecost Dodderidge on his feet again. "The Lord hath made it plain to me. He saith 'I will send a sign and then the sinner will confess.'" Hardly had he sat down than there was a great pelting of hail on the roof which continued for two or three minutes. With the noise no one heard Brother Marks, my spectacled Personal Devil, until he stood in front of the Lord's Table facing us all with a countenance of ghost-like white.
What followed I could never have believed had I not seen it with my own eyes. He took a dark blue paper package from one pocket and emptied it on one side of the Lord's Table; a shower of sugar came forth: little white lumps, the sort with which he had fooled us—preserving sugar the grocers call it, the sort with which jam is made. Then he took out from his other pocket a little cloth bag and poured out into a separate heap on the other side of the Lord's Table a shining heap of golden coins. Then he knelt down in front of us all and sobbed and groaned and rocked himself to and fro in an extreme agony that was terrible to see.
No one knew what to do, no one except Pentecost, who went up to him and lifted him to his feet; "Jesus forgives thee," he said, "let all of us praise His Holy Name."
The whole Meeting sprang to its feet, and burst forth into a hymn of praise. A solemn fast was declared for seven days, and we sang the Good-night Hymn:
Good night, dear saints, adieu! adieu!Still in God's way delight;May grace and truth abide with you—Good night, dear saints, good night.When we ascend to realms above,And view the glorious sight,We'll sing of His redeeming love,And never say Good night.Good night, dear saints, adieu! adieu!Still in God's way delight;May grace and truth abide with you—Good night, dear saints, good night.
Good night, dear saints, adieu! adieu!Still in God's way delight;May grace and truth abide with you—Good night, dear saints, good night.
When we ascend to realms above,And view the glorious sight,We'll sing of His redeeming love,And never say Good night.
Good night, dear saints, adieu! adieu!Still in God's way delight;May grace and truth abide with you—Good night, dear saints, good night.
FOOTNOTE:[2]Colonel Ferguson-Davie of Crediton and Mr. George Potts of Trafalgar Lawn, Tawborough, the two candidates successfully returned for the Borough at the Election of 1859.
[2]Colonel Ferguson-Davie of Crediton and Mr. George Potts of Trafalgar Lawn, Tawborough, the two candidates successfully returned for the Borough at the Election of 1859.
[2]Colonel Ferguson-Davie of Crediton and Mr. George Potts of Trafalgar Lawn, Tawborough, the two candidates successfully returned for the Borough at the Election of 1859.
Soon after this, somewhere about my tenth birthday, in the early spring of 1858, an important relaxation in my rule of life was made. I was allowed, under strict limitations, to go out on the Lawn for a certain period every afternoon, and to mix with the children there.
In view of my Great-Aunt's principle, namely, to make my life as harsh and pleasureless as possible, and of my Grandmother's steadfast prayers and endeavours to keep me pure and unspotted from the world, this was a big concession. The reason was my health. Grandmother saw that I never got out of doors half enough, and that a couple of hours' play with other children in the open air would be likely to make me brighter in spirit and to bring colour to my cheeks. One Lord's Day, as we were walking home from Breaking of Bread, I overheard Brother Browning: "If you don't take care she will not be long for this world,"—nodding his head sadly, sagely and surreptitiously in my direction. Anyway, the amazing happened, and with stern negative injunctions from Aunt Jael not to abuse the new privilege, nor to play "monkey tricks," for which I should be well "warmed," and with more positive and more terrible instructions from my Grandmother to use my opportunity among the other children to "testify to my Lord," I was launched on the sea of secular society, the world of the Great Unsaved.
Except for what little I saw of them at the Misses Clinkers' I had no acquaintance with other children, nor any knowledge of their "play." While in the obedient orbit of my own imagination, I was bold, none bolder, in the situations I created, the climaxes I achieved, the high astounding terms with which I threatened the attic walls; face to face with flesh-and-blood children of my own age, I soon found I was shy to a degree, until they were out of my sight, and I was alone again, when they joined the ever-lengthening cast of my puppet show, and, like everybody else, did as they were bid.Not that I was shy of grown-ups; it was the fruit of my upbringing that I was at ease with any one but my equals.
It was a horrible ordeal, that first afternoon, when I stepped through our garden gate on to the Lawn. I walked unsteadily, not daring to look towards the grass slope at the higher end, where all the Lawn children were assembled in a group. "Waiting for you! Staring at you!" said self-consciousness; and fear echoed. I flushed crimson. I was half sick with shyness. It seemed to my imagination that every child was staring at me with a hundred eyes—they knew, they knew! Marcus had heralded the fact, had played Baptist to my coming—they were all assembled here to stare, to flout, to mock. How I wished the earth would open and swallow me up or that the Lord would carry me away in a great cloud to Heaven. I dared not fly back into our garden: that way lay eternal derision. Yet my legs would not carry me forward to the group of children who stood there staring at me without mercy, without pity, with the callous fixity of stars. I was filled with blind confusion, and prayed feverishly for a miraculous escape.
Miracle, in the body of Marcus, saved me. He came forward from the group.
"Hello, Mary Lee, we've been talking about you." (Of course they had.) "I've told everybody you're allowed to play on the Lawn now, but we don't know which League you ought to belong to."
"What do you mean? What's a League?"
"Well, all Lawn children are in two sides for games and everything. Leagues means that. If your father and mother go to Church, you belong to the Church League, if they go to Chapel, you belong to the Chapel League."
"I see." Secular distinction based on religious ones was a principle I understood.
"Yes, but you're not one or the other. Brethren aren't Church, are they? And they aren'treallyChapel."
"You're a Brethren too."
"Not like you are. Mother goes to the Bible Christian Chapel, and father really belongs there too, for all he goes to your meeting. So I count as Chapel."
"What do Papists count as?"
"There aren't any. If there were any and if they were allowed to go about, they'd be like you, neither one thing nor the other."
"Like me indeed! Papists like Brethren! Saints like sinners!"
"Not really, not like that; Brethren are more like Chapel, I know. BesidesIwant you to belong to our League, but—Joe Jones says you're not to. There's a meeting about it tomorrow. All our rules and sports and everything are decided at the meeting we have—not like Brethren meetings—usually up at the top of the bank, near the big poplar. Joe Jones sits on the wall, and he's our president. I'll let you know what happens about you afterwards. Till then I don't think you'd better play with us.Idon't mind, but the others say you'd better not. If Joe Jones caught you!Idon't like Joe Jones,—don't you ever whisper that, it's a terrible secret—but he doesn't like you, and he's the top dog."
Joe Jones, topmost of dogs, Autocrat of the Lawn, pimpled despot against whose evil pleasure little could prevail, was a good deal older than the rest of the children, by whom he was obeyed and feared. From what Marcus said his heavy hand was against me from the start. I knew why. He lived next door to us at Number Six, with an invalid, widowed mother (whom I had only seen once or twice in my life, as she was kept indoors by some mysterious infirmity which some described as grief and others drink) and his sister Lena, a big freckled flaxen girl about a year younger than himself. We rarely saw any of the three, and our household of course had nothing to do with theirs (Church of England, strict). But one morning as I was walking up the Lawn path on my way from school, Lena had called out to me over the privet hedge.
"Hello, you!"—and then something else, including a word I did not know, though instinct told me it was bad. The obscenity of the traditional filth words lies as much in their sound as in their signification. She repeated the words several times, combining artistic pleasure of mouthing the abomination with sheer joy of wickedness in shocking me and staining my imagination.
I went straight indoors and appealed to the dictionary.No help there; Lena Jones had wider verbal resources than Doctor Johnson. Grandmother would be sure to know. I went to that dear blameless old soul with the foul word on my lips.
"What does —— mean?"
"Nothing good, my dear," she replied calmly, imperturbably, without a trace of the flush that would have appeared in the cheeks of ninety-nine parents out of a hundred. "Nothing good, my dear. Where did you hear it?"
"Lena Jones—just now."
Grandmother walked out of the house and rang the next-door bell. What passed between her and the grief- (or gin-) stricken Mrs. Jones I do not know, but the results were, first, that Lena was sent away to a boarding-school, where I have no doubt she added suitably to the virgin vocabulary of her companions; second, that Joe, taking up the cudgels for his sister's honour, became suddenly and most unfavourably aware of my existence. He would threaten me if I passed him on my way to school, when I would cower to Marcus for protection. Once he chased me with a cricket bat. And now that at last I was near to gaining the status of "one of the Lawn children," he was going to revenge himself by standing in my way. With the Lawn community a word from Joe Jones could make or mar. If he forbade the others to speak to me, they would not dare to; if he ordered them to persecute or tease me, they would obey. He was the typical bully ruling with the rod of fear by the right of size. He was the typical plague-spot too, polluting the whole life of the little community.
For the Lawn was, in the true sense, a community. The well-defined bournes that were set to the oblong patch of greensward—the steep, poplar-crowned grass bank at one end, surmounted by a wall over which you looked down into a back lane and a stable some twenty feet below you; at the opposite end that marched with the street the high brick wall with one ceremonious gate in the middle for only egress to the outside world; then the two rows of houses the full length of both sides—gave to it a separate and self-contained character; the charm and magical selfishness of an island. All the children who lived in the Lawn houses played there,and played nowhere else. Though divided into two mutually hostile leagues, they felt themselves to be one blood and one people as against the strange world without the gates. Of this community Joe Jones was the uncrowned King. Like the early Teutonic monarchs he was limited in power by the folk-moot, or primitive parliament of all his subjects. Questions of Lawn politics were decided at democratic meetings under the poplars at the top of the grass bank. There were equal suffrage, decisions by majorities, and the feminine vote. Unfortunately Joe Jones had the casting vote, and as there prevailed the show-of-hands instead of the secret ballot, a look from his awful eye influenced a good many other votes as well. In short, the Lawn, like all other democracies, was, as wise old Aristotle saw, always near the verge of tyranny. At the tribal meetings were discussed and decided sports and competitions, penalties and punishments, ostracisms and taboos; unpopular proposals were consigned to Limbo, unpopular persons to Coventry. In all doings that allowed of "sides"—cricket, nuts-in-May, most ball games, tug of war, tick, Red Indians, clumps (what were they, these mysteries?)—the two leagues, Marcus told me, were arrayed in battle against each other.
The Church League was of course led by Joe Jones, seconded, until her departure for wider spheres of maleficence, by his devoted sister Lena. Then there were Kitty and Molly Prince, also fatherless. Their late parent was a "Rural Dean," and they were thus our social élite (Mr. Jones, Senior, had been a mere butcher;—nay, pork-butcher even, said the slanderers, with a fine feeling for social shades). Kitty and Molly were dull, stupid girls. Molly was as sallow as a dried apple; Kitty lisped; they were always dressed in brown, with large brown velvet bows in their hats. There was a dim George Smith; a loud-voiced Ted King, Joe Jones' principal ally, with his two sisters Cissie and Trixie. I hate them vaguely to this day, that silly giggling pair with their silly giggling names. I do not forget or forgive that they wore nice clothes, and mocked cruelly at mine. About this time, Aunt Jael had my hair shorn—it was my one good feature, and Aunt Jael knew that I knew it, and decreed that I must "mortify the flesh" accordingly—and sent me out intoa mocking world in school and Lawn, with my face full of shame and my hair clipped to the head like a boy's. How those King girls sneered and giggled, and how I loathed them. Finally there was little John Blackmore, of whom it was whispered abroad that "his father died before he was born." The import of this fact was dimly apprehended, but Lawn opinion was unanimous in regarding it as something unique and special, something sufficient to endow little Johnny Blackmore with an air of quite exotic velvet-trousered mystery. He was a gentle, dark-eyed, olive-skinned child, and the only member of the Establishment party I could abide. He shared the fatherlessness which was common to his League—the Kings were an exception—and which probably accounted for their eminence in ill-behaviour. Another coincidence was that all the members of the Church League, except George Smith, lived on our side of the Lawn, i. e. the same side as my Grandmother's house. In defiance of Number Eight, Fort of Plymouth, halting-place for heaven, they called it "the Church side!"
The leader of the Chapel League was Laurie Prideaux, whose father kept the big grocer's shop in High Street; a tall, pretty, picture-book boy with golden curls, a Wesleyan Methodist, and I think the nicest of all the Lawn children, with whom his influence was second to Joe Jones' only, and for good instead of evil. The power of one was because he was liked, of the other because he was feared: those two forms of power that hold sway everywhere—Aunt Jael and Grandmother, Old Testament God and New Testament Christ; fear and love. If there was any weeping, Laurie was there to comfort it; any injustice, Laurie would champion it. Against Joe Jones he was my rod and my staff. His second-in-command was Marcus, Marcus who hovered on the marge between Bible Christianhood, which qualified him for admission to the Lawn, and Plymouth Brethrenism, which qualified him for admission to Heaven only. He was a nice boy, Marcus, for all the uncertainty of his theological position, and I remember him as one of the few bright faces of my early life. The strength of Lawn Dissent lay in the unnumbered Boldero family, a seething brood of Congregationalists, who lived over the way in the corner house opposite Number Eight. Only fiveof them were of appropriate age to possess present membership of the Lawn—Sam, Dora, Daisy, Bill and Zoë—but on either side of the five stretched fading vistas of babes and grown-ups. Dora was clever, Daisy good-natured, fat, dull and bow-legged, Zoë fat only, Sam and Bill rough, stupid and friendly. Finally there were Cyril and Eva Tompkins—twins; Baptists: a spiteful couple who vied with the Kings in mocking me.
To sum up. On the whole, despite Joe Jones, the boys were kinder than the girls; a first impression which life, in the lump, has borne out; and on the whole, despite the Tompkinses, the Chapel League was the nicer of the two; the brainier also, despite the Boldero boys, and Johnny Blackmore, who was the shining intellect of the Establishment. Though I have no longer the faintest hostility to the Anglican Communion, I find inside me a dim ineradicable notion of some moral superiority, some higher worth, however slight, which I concede to the Nonconformists; and I trace it back to my first experience of the two. If I bow my head in reverent humility before the Dissenters of England, I know that the real reason is because Laurie and Marcus and the happy Bolderos were such, while Joe and Lena and the Kings and the Princes—Beware of Kings! Put not your trust in Princes!—were not.
Church League and Chapel League, and I could belong to neither! My first feeling should have been sorrow that among that score of young souls there was not one single sure inheritor of glory; I fear it was pride instead; in my heart I rejoiced as the Pharisee, that I was not as other children, and that in me alone had the light shined forth. Yet at the same moment, parallel but contradictory, I found this question in my heart: why am I not as other children? Why cannot I mix with them as one of them, and belong to their Leagues and joys? After all, my right to belong to the Church League was about as good as Marcus' Chapel pretensions: had not Grandmother and Aunt Jael both been Churchwomen once? Or again, if Marcus, who was at least half a Saint, was allowed to belong to the Chapel League, then why not I, who was only half a Saint more? I had for a moment a rebellious notion of forming a new League of my own, a Saints' League, a Plymouth League, a League of the Elect; but reflection soon showed me that one member was barely enough. Could I convert others though? The notionwarmed my heart, the more luxuriously because though at root ambitious, it seemed so virtuous and noble. Missionary zeal would further personal ambition. In testifying to the Lord, I would raise up unto Him followers who should bemyfollowers too; forming at one and the same time the Lord's League andmyLeague. There burned together in me for a queer exalted moment the red flame of ambition and the pure white fire of faith; burning together in Mary as in Mahomet; as in the souls of the great captains of religion. The fires died down; till there burned within me just the candle flicker of this humble hope: that the morrow's meeting would suffer me to join the Lawn at all, as the lowliest novice in whichever League would take me.
Next day after tea, I watched from afar the deliberations of the assembly that was handling my fate.
Some one shouted my name; I approached and appeared before the tribe. On the wall that surmounted the mound of justice sat Joseph Jones, surrounded by his earls and churls. I observed his pimples, his ginger hair, his fish-like bulging eyes.
"Come here. Stand straight. Look at me."
I obeyed. He faced me. The tribe surrounded me.
"Your name?"
"Mary Lee."
"You're allowed now to come out and play on the Lawn?"
"Yes."
"You can't just play and do as you like, you know. There are Laws of the Lawn. And there are two Leagues, and you must belong to one of them."
This sounded encouraging; he was not going to stand in my way after all.
"I know," I said. "Which shall I belong to?"
"We'll see. Let me see, which are you, Church or Chapel?" He was too dull to conceal the wolf in the sheep-like blandness of his voice. Well, I would fight for my footing.
"Neither. You know that."
"Neither?" incredulously. "How do you mean?"
"I belong to the Brethren, the Saints. That's neither Church nor Chapel."
"Well then, you can't belong to the Church League or the Chapel League, can you, if you aren't either? Of course youcan't. We'resorry, but you can't belong to the Lawn at all. Still" (generously) "we'll let you walk about." He dismissed me with a nod. I did not move.
"But—"
"Now shut up. No damned chatter. You should belong to a decent religion."
"It is a decent religion," I cried. "Don't you talk so; it is my Grandmother's. 'Tis as good as any of yours, and a lot better. And 'tis not a good enough reason for keeping me out."
The Lord of the Lawn was not accustomed to being addressed thus. He darkened—or rather flushed; gingerheads cannot darken.
"If you want another reason, 'tis because you are a dirty little tell-tale sneak."
"Hear, hear! Sneak, Sneak!" Chorus of Kings and Princes.
"I'mnota sneak. I'mnota sneak, and I don't want to belong to your miserable Lawn. I'm a Saint anyway, and better than you churches and chapels."
I turned and moved away. "Saint, Saint, look at the Saint! The sneaking Saint, the saintly sneak. The Brethering kid. Plymouth Brethering, good old Plymouth Rocks. Three cheers for the Plymouth Rocks!" Church and Dissent mingled in this hostile chorus that pursued me to our gate.
"Look at the corduroy skirt, he, he, he!—just like workman's trousers," was the last thing I heard. My cheeks burned with rage and shame.
I ran up to the attic to sob and mope in peace. I was Hagar once again, turned out into the wilderness alone. Every child's hand was against me. I sobbed away, until at last the luxury of extreme grief brought its comfort. Mine was the chief sorrow under the heavens, it was unique in its injustice; I was the unhappiest little girl in all the world. I regained a measure of happiness.
After this experience, I went out on to the Lawn as little as possible; which achieved the result of Aunt Jael driving me there.
I could take no part in games, but after a while I became a kind of furtive hanger-on in the outskirts at the frequent "Meetings" of the Lawn, at which the division into Leagues did notusually persist. I only dared approach the company when Joe Jones was absent, which, however, inclined to be more and more usual as he became absorbed in gay adult adventures in the world outside the Lawn gates. The moment Joe was gone, and Laurie Prideaux had stepped without question into the shoes of leadership, the bullies who, under Joe's encouraging eye, would have driven me off, were silent and left me alone, obeying with slavish care the whim of the new Autocrat. So I stood away, just a little outside the ring of children, and listened.
Under Laurie's influence, the meetings were more concerned with affairs of universal moment and abstract truth than with the intrigues and vendettas so dear to Joseph Jones. Is the moon bigger than the sun? How far away are the stars? Does it really hurt the jelly-fish like the big yellow ones you see at Ilfracombe and Croyde, if you cut them in two with your spade? Do fish feel pain? Is the donkey the same as an ass, or is ass the female of donkey? What is the earliest date in the year you can have raspberries in the garden, or thrush's—or black-bird's—or cuckoo's eggs out in the country? What is the farthest a cricket-ball has ever been thrown? and will there be a war between England and the French Empire? With any insoluble question, i. e. a question to which nobody brought an answer which the meeting regarded as final, the procedure adopted was for every one present to refer it to his or her father or mother, and to report the result at the next meeting. Much valuable information was gleaned by this means. The final decision was by a majority of votes. Then if five parents said the moon was bigger than the sun, and only four that the sun was bigger than the moon, then the moonwasbigger than the sun. Voting was by parents. Thus the Bolderos counted as one vote only; which was not unjust, for the brood, who were inclined, under Dora's orders, to stand or fall together, would otherwise have swamped the meetings; as indeed they frequently did when the question was not one which had been referred back to parental omniscience.
One day the supreme problem was raised. Joe Jones was not present, but perhaps he had inspired the discussion. It came breathlessly, with the swift tornado-strength of great ideas. Every one of us knew at once that we were face to facewith something bigger than we had ever encountered before. Into our camp of innocence it fell like a bursting bombshell, scattering wonder in all directions. Of the innocence I feel pretty sure; I do not believe a single child knew.
"They areborn, of course," said one, sagely.
"Yes; buthow?"
"Storks bring them," said little Ethel Prideaux. "On my panorama, there is a picture of a big white stork carrying a baby in its beak, and it puts it down the chimney."
"Where does it get it?" objected Marcus. "Besides storks are only in Holland and places abroad; there aren't any left in England, and there are babies in England just the same."
"I think it has something to do with gooseberry bushes," said Trixie King. "I overheard my Auntie saying so."
"Well, we have nothing but flowers in our garden," said Billy Boldero, "and there are twelve in our family, and no gooseberry bushes."
"It is neither storks nor gooseberries," said Dora Boldero, aged thirteen, importantly. "These are only fairy tales for children. The real reason" (she lowered her voice impressively) "is this. Doctors bring them. Whenever we have a baby born" (at least an annual event in the Boldero ménage) "the doctor comes. He always brings with him a Black Bag.That's it!" (Sensation.)
Marcus was the first to recover. Even Black Bag was inadequate as First Cause.
"Yes, but where does he get the baby first, before he puts it in the bag to bring? He must get it somewhere."
"From the gooseberry bush, of course," said Trixie King, in a bold effort to recover her position. "I expect there is a special garden behind doctors' houses where they grow."
"But if there isn't?" objected Marcus pitilessly. "Doctor Le Mesurier has no garden at all, neither has Doctor Hale."
"No," said Laurie Prideaux. "And I don't believe the Black Bag story one bit. Because if it were that, the doctor could take the bag anywhere, and give whoever he liked a baby, just whenever he liked. And he can't, I know. Anybody can't have a baby just when they like. Mother says Mrs. Pile at Number Three has wanted one for years. Besides, any one can't have one. Only mothers have babies."
"Andfathers," said some one.
"Fathers and mothers together; there must be both. At least there alwaysisboth."
"Except—" We all looked awkwardly at Johnny Blackmore, the posthumous one. He flushed slightly under his olive skin.
"No, I had a father too; hewasmy father, though he died before I was born."
"Well, if your father can die before you are born, what makes him your father? What does 'being your father' mean?" We were getting to fundamentals.
"Can a mother die too before her baby is born?"
Nobody could answer this. Somehow itseemedmore improbable. Besides, we had no motherless counterpart of Johnny Blackmore to support the notion.
"Whether they die or whether they don't," said Laurie, summing up, "all that we've found out so far is that there must be a father and there must be a mother; a gentleman and a lady, that is, who are married. They must be married."
"No, they needn't be," I cried eagerly. "Sister Lucy Fry at our Meeting is not married, and she has a baby four months old!"
The sensational character of my information allowed my first utterance in a Lawn assembly to pass unreproved. There was an impressed silence. Everybody waited for more.
"It is not often, I don't think," I went on. "It was a mistake of some kind, and a sin too. Much prayer was offered up, and Aunt Jael nearly had her turned out of fellowship. It iswrongto have a baby if you are not married. Wrong, but not impossible."
"That's important," said Marcus, "but we've really found nothing out. How are they made? What makes them come?"
"The Lord," said I, sententiously. This was a falling off.
"I know. Buthow?"
Marcus was final. "This is a thing that has got to be asked at home. Tomorrow evening at half-past-five you will all report what you have found out. It is a thing we ought to know. We shall have to have children ourselves one day."
"I don't like to athk," simpered Kitty Prince. "Mother'd not like me to I'm thure."
Perhaps she really knew, though more likely vague instinct coloured her reluctance.
It was a reluctance I did not share. The meeting was about to disperse, and I was resolving in my mind the words I should use when asking my Grandmother, wondering what her answer might be, when "There's Joe coming in at the gate," was shouted, "let's ask him."
We crowded round him as he approached.
"Well, what is it, kids?" he said, in his royal cocksure way.
Laurie told him. He smiled: an evil important smile.
"And nobody knows anything," concluded Laurie.
"Don't they?" leered Joe, looking around to see that all the Lawn children were listening, and no one else. "Don't they.Iknow."
He told us. He told us with a detail that left no room for doubt and a foulness that smote our cheeks with shame.
"It is not true." I kept whispering to myself. My cheeks burned, and I was shaking all over. Against myself, I believed him. It was horrible enough to be true.
He gave us fatherhood as it appeared to him. When he came to the mother's sacrifice of pain, and desecrated it with filthy leering words, I could bear it no longer, and eluding all attempts to stop me, I fled wildly into the house, and upstairs to my Grandmother.
She looked up from the Word, surprised in her calm fashion.
"What is it, my dear?"
I told her. "O Grandmother, it is not as cruel as that, is it? It is not true? Tell me it is not true!"
"It is true, my dear."
"And does it hurt like that?"
"Yes, my dear."
"Why—why isn't there some easier way? So horrible the first part, and then so cruel. It is wrong."
"It's the Lord's will, my dear. It always has been and always will be. Meanwhile, you are not to go on the Lawn again till I have spoken to your Aunt. I must seek the Lord's guidance. Leave me to lay it before Him."
The look on Aunt Jael's face at supper-time soonbanished the far terrors of motherhood: Grandmother had clearly told her all. It was unjust, of course: it was no crime on my part to have heard something—and something true—to which I could not help listening, which I had not sought to hear, and which terrified me now that I had heard it. It was unjust that she was angry. But there 'twas.
All through supper she said nothing. I feared to receive her wrath, yet I could not bear that visit should be delayed till the morrow, which would mean a sleepless night of visualizing. As we rose from our knees after evening worship, Aunt Jael turned a grim eye on me and spoke.
"I shall write to Simeon Greeber tomorrow."
I knew what that meant. It had been hinted at on several occasions since the birthday party. I was to go to Torribridge to live with Uncle Simeon.
I disliked Uncle Simeon, and did not want to leave my Grandmother. On the other hand I longed to see the world, and to get away from Aunt Jael. I must show her how glad I was at the prospect.
"You mean you're going to write to him about my going to live there?"
I said it in a cool pleased fashion, then at once regretted I had done so, for I knew Aunt Jael well enough to see that the pain the punishment she proposed would cause me was a more important thing than saving me from baneful Lawn influence; if I showed her too plainly I was glad to go to Torribridge, which on the whole I fancied I was, she might cancel the plan without more ado.
So I repeated: "You mean you're going to write to him about my going to live there?"—but this time my voice had a note of mournfulness; Aunt Jael sat up and stared. She failed to see through me, however; could not probe the depths of my cunning, as I the depths of her ill-will.
Grandmother comforted me: "'Twill be a change, my dear. Your Aunt and I think 'twill be a good and useful change for you. Your Aunt Martha will teach you many new things. Don't 'ee be tearful, my child: the Lord will watch over you."
Two days later Uncle Simeon arrived to take me. Pasty faced, white-livered, cringing little wretch, with his honeyed smile and honey-coloured hair. He sniffed as always.
"Good day, dear Miss Vickary. Good morning, dear Mrs. Lee. You too, dear little one. One is well pleased to see all one's kinsfolk looking so well in mind and body, well pleased indeed! One scarce knows how to express oneself. But one can give thanks, ah yes, one can give thanks."
We sat down to dinner. Food punctuated but did notcheck his flow of eloquence. He got the food on to his fork, but did not lift it. Instead he ducked his head and snatched, tearing the food from the fork as a wolf warm flesh from a bone. His eyes glistened as Mrs. Cheese placed a steaming mutton-pie before Aunt Jael.
"Your daughter, dear Mrs. Lee? Yes, dear Martha was well, when one left her this morning, and—D. V.—still is. She sends her fond greeting to you both. One took leave of her with a heavy heart, though 'tis only for a day, for one's love is so jealous, one's absences so rare. One took the eleven o'clock railway-train from Torribridge.... There were two ladies in the compartment with one. One was glad, ay glad indeed, to observe that ere the train started, they both whipped out their Bibles. One entered into earnest conversation with them. One was overjoyed, if surprised, to find that, although they were Baptists, they were good Christians."
"There are many such," interposed my Grandmother. "Don't 'ee be narrow, Simeon Greeber."
"Maybe, maybe, dear Mrs. Lee. God gives grace in unlikely places. Be that as it may, however, at Instow both ladies got out, and a gentleman entered the carriage, a man of means from his appearance, one would say. One remembered that he was but a sinner. One remembered the heavenly injunction: In season and out of season. One spoke a quiet word to him as to the Gospel plan. One was polite, if earnest. Alas, the poor sinner answered roughly. The Devil spoke in him. He used an evil word one's modesty forbids one to repeat. But in the Lord's service one must endure much. One suffered, but one forgave. Tonight he will be remembered in one's prayers. One was pained, hurt, wounded, grieved—but angry,—no! Anger is not the sin which doth most easily beset one." (What was? I wondered. Gluttony perhaps, I thought, as I watched his staccato snatches at a big second helping of the mutton-pie.) "One looked again at the face of the handsome sinner opposite. A voice spoke within one: 'Be not weary in well doing,' but a second effort at godly conversation yielded, alas, no better result. One had done one's duty, and for the rest of the journey one reflected on the different Eternities facing the poor sinner's soul and one's own. The railway train reached Tawborough in the Lord's goodtime, and here one is, rejoiced to see all one's dear relatives ... rejoiced indeed...."
The moment Mrs. Cheese had cleared away the table-cloth, Aunt Jael was curt: "To business, to business!" And to me, "You're not wanted. Make yourself scarce."
I went upstairs to the spare bedroom, meaning to sit on a settee by the window and daydream away the time. I opened the window. The dining-room downstairs must have been open too, for I could hear Aunt Jael's voice booming away. "Eight shillings" and "Child" I heard. I should never have tried to overhear, but now I found I could hear without trying—by the window here, whither I had come quite by accident. I could not help hearing if I tried—perhaps I had beenledto the window-seat by the Lord, perhaps it was providential, perhaps Ioughtto listen. Besides, Mrs. Cheese did it: I caught her red-handed listening outside the door one day when Aunt Jael and Grandmother were discussing a rise in her wages. And eavesdropping was not asin. There was no commandment, "Thou shalt not eavesdrop"—Our Lord had never forbidden it—there was nothing in the Word against it. And what harm would be done? As they were discussing my future, I should know soon enough in any case what they decided, so why not know at once?... No deceivers in the world are so easily deceived as self-deceivers. I leaned right out of the window.
"Agreed then, Simeon Greeber. You will take her for twelve months, treat her as your own boy, and have the same lessons taught her by Martha. And eight shillings a week for the board."
"Eight shillings?" queried a treacly voice, yet pained as well as treacly. "Eightshillings?" It is impossible to describe the sweet sad stress he laid on the numeral, or the wealth of poignant sentiment that stress conveyed. Not of greed or graspingness, oh dear no! Rather of pained sorrow at the greed and graspingness of Aunt Jael. "Eight? One fears 'twill be difficult. If it werenine, one might hope, one might struggle, one might endeavour—"
"Stuff and nonsense. A child of nine years old, eating little; and your table don'tgroanwith good things. Eight isenough and to spare. Not one ha'penny-piece more. Yea or nay?"
A pause, ere Christian meekness gave in to unchristian ultimatum.
"Well then, dear Miss Vickary, one will try, one will hope—"
"Call the child," she cut him short.
I fled from the window guiltily. "Yes, Grandmother, I'm coming," I called back.
Uncle Simeon stayed the night: my last at Tawborough. Grandmother was kind. I did not know how I loved her till I felt I was going to lose her. This was my first big step in life. I was losing my old moorings, and sailing off to a new world. My mouth was dry, as it is when the heart is sick and apprehensive. Aunt Jael was adamant against my spending even occasional Lord's Days at Tawborough. I was to visit Bear Lawn but once during the year, though 'twas but nine miles away. There was no appeal against this: Aunt Jael had decided it.
Grandmother came to my bedroom. We read the twenty-third psalm together. Then she prayed for me, and we sang an old hymn together. At "Good-night, my dearie" I clung to her more than usual.
"There's only you in the world that really likes me."
"No, my dear, there is your good aunt. And there is God. Don't 'ee say nobody loves you whenHeis there. Don't 'ee think all the time of yourself. Think of making others happy. There'll be your little cousin Albert to befriend. Your Aunt Martha is kind, and will treat you well. That is why I'm letting 'ee go. Your Uncle Simeon too—"
"He'snot kind," daringly.
"Hush, my dear, don't 'ee say so. He's a godly man, and fears the Lord exceedingly. He will treat you in a Christian way. And God will always be near you. Pray to Him every night, read in His word, sing to Him a joyful song of praise. Never forget that threefold duty and joy. Never forget, my dear. You will promise your Grandmother?"
"Yes, Grandmother, but 'twill be lonely."
"Your mother—my little Rachel—had worse trials thanyou, please God, will ever know; yet she praised God always. Will you be brave like her?"
"Yes, Grandmother," huskily, and I kissed her twice.
Next day, after an early dinner, we left Bear Lawn. I had a grim godspeed from the old armchair.
"No highty-tighty, no monkey tricks, no stubborn ways. Fear the Lord at all times,"—and a swift formal peck which was not swift enough to conceal perhaps a faint tinge of regret.
* * * * * * *
We left by rail. Uncle Simeon read his Bible the whole way to Torribridge, and never spoke a word. It was only my second journey by railway, and I had enough to interest me in looking out of the window. The country-side was bright with spring. Little did I foresee the different circumstances of my return journey.
I well remember our arrival. There was a tea-supper on the table, so meagre that my heart sank at the outset. There was my Aunt Martha. She seemed like a weak tired edition of my Grandmother. She looked miserable and underfed; I soon came to know that she was both. I regarded Albert, a dull heavy-faced boy with a big mouth and thick lips.
The latter soon opened. "Don't stare,you! Father, she's staring at me."
"It's not true. I'm not staring. I was just looking at him."
"Come, there, no answerings back in this house, learn that once for all." There was still a good deal of honey about Uncle Simeon's, still small voice, but it was flavoured with aloes now and other bitter things, whose presence he had kept hidden at Bear Lawn. The honeyed whine was now very near a snarl, as he showed his shiny white teeth and repeated, "Once for all." The Tawborough mask was being put aside already.
A clock outside struck the hour. I looked at the time-piece, which registered eight o'clock. So did he.
"She knows her bedroom, Martha? Yes. At eight she goes to bed, and eight in the morning we take our humble breakfast. Come now, to bed!"
I was faced with the Good-night difficulty. Albert I ignored, and he me. Aunt Martha was plain sailing. She looked kind, if weak and blurred. We kissed each other listlessly on the cheek. But from Uncle Simeon I shrankinstinctively as I came near him. He saw my feelings, I saw he hated me for them, he saw that I felt his hate. That refusal to kiss was a silent declaration of inevitable war.
He took the offensive that very night, as the clock hands showed next morning.
I went upstairs with my candle, and sat down on a chair in the middle of the room. There was an unused smell about everything which seemed to add to my homesickness and sense of lost bearings. Bear Lawn had never been a gay and festive place, but it was home, and here in the dreary room the first-night-away-from-home feeling overcame me badly with all its disconsolate accompaniments of damp eyes and dry throat. The old injustice burned in my heart, the old bitterness came back. Why had I had to leave my Grandmother, the only one in the world who cared for me? Why was there nobody who loved me even more than that, in whose bosom I could hide my face and cry, whose love to me was wonderful? Why had the Lord left me no Mother who would have loved me best of all? The same old questions reduced me to the same old tears ... I pulled myself together and remembered my three-fold duty: to say my prayers, to read my psalm, to sing my hymn. I decided, with a true Saint's whim, to choose my nightly psalm by opening my Bible at random—I could gauge the whereabouts of the Psalms well enough, if only by the used look on the edge—and reading always the first psalm that caught my eye. Whether the Lord guided me to a choice of His own, or whether it was that my Bible opened naturally at so familiar a place, I do not know: anyway, there before me was the dirty, well-loved, well-thumbed page (page 537 I remember), and in the middle of it, plastered around with affectionate red crayon, stood my favourite 137th Psalm. I read aloud:
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
At once the appropriateness of the words came to me. Never had I felt till now what I had been told a hundred times, that the Bible was written forme. Here was a psalm which expressed my identical sorrow: