CHAPTER XI.OUR PARISH.
The harvest was over, and it had been a good one. The usual festivities were held, and were more really joyous than such occasions frequently are. Already in many parts of the country the true leaders of the people were looking forward to the winter, not only in preparation, but with resolution, and were manfully determined that, if they could not prevent the usual sin, they would prevent some of the attendant misery of the days of cold and gloom. Arthur Knight was doing the work of two or three men. His brain was busy in regard to his own people; but whenever and wherever it was possible he was preaching his Gospel of Christian unity for the world’s good. By the seaside, in the mission hall, in drawing-rooms, in chapels by the dozen hewas entreating, in words made eloquent by feeling, that the Church would no longer mourn over the evils of the world, but would set itself by one great united effort to remedy them. And, happily, Knight was only one; there were a dozen other men saying and writing the same thing.
And it was little Darentdale that led the way. By the aid of quiet visits and persuasive talk a number of persons had been led to acquiesce in the plan of making this special harvest festival the occasion for a new start, which made almost every heart in the village glad, for most working men and women had the surprise of a rise of wages—“for no earthly reason,” the people said, but for a very heavenly reason, as all knew who were in the secret. This was what everybody could appreciate, and did. The additional money was no great sum; in many cases it was only a shilling a week, and with it was expressed, as delicately as possible, a hope that it would not find its way into the publican’s hands; nor did it, for the event made the men desire their families to share it. The beauty of the increase lay in the fact that it had been voluntarily and freely given, without any threat of a strike, and even without the asking. That was the wonder of it!
Nor was this all. There were a few loafers in the parish, and every one of these received on the same day an offer of regular work at good wages. There were several who had lost their characters, and each of these had another chance given him. The lads and girls who had left the Sunday-school received an invitation to tea at some ladies’ or gentlemen’s home the next Sunday. Work was found for all who could work, and even for poor old people who could do very little, so that they might still feel themselves independent, and not fear the workhouse. In connection with each of the churches a room was to be fitted up for the purpose of “a girls’ parlour,” or a “boys’ reading-room.” An invitation to an “At Home,” with music and coffee, was signed by Margaret and Tom, and sent to every man who was known to frequent the public-house; while those who were steady, and especially those of the people who were members of Christian churches, were urged to “Come themselves and bring their mates with them.”
So Darentdale led the way. It was all arranged quietly and without ostentation, and this is what was accomplished—there was no poor person in the parish to whom no friendship and help was offered. It was the gladdest day the place had ever known; for there is no joy so great as that of “offering willingly” that which we have to men for Christ’ssake. “Itismore blessed to give than to receive.” “Thereisthat scattereth and yet increaseth.” There was no man who took the extra money (which was not given as a favour, but yielded as if it were a right—as, indeed, in most cases it was) who did not resolve that he would put in a better week’s work for the better week’s wage; but it was no shrewd anticipation of this which gave to such men as Whitwell, Dallington, and others the exuberance of that never-to-be-forgotten-day. It would mean more work and self-denial for themselves, they knew; but they faced most joyously all that was involved in the effort which they were making.
Of course there were a few people who shut themselves out of the feast, and sneered at the music and dancing, all the more angrily because they knew that they were not sharers in some strange joy which they could not understand. Mrs. Hunter and her stepson were among the number. William smoked more cigars in that one day than he had ever consumed in the same space of time before, for his nerves needed soothing.
“It is more than a sane fellow can comprehend—madness, I call it,” he said, between the whiffs; “throwing money away on the lower orders. I told John so this morning; and what do you think he said?”
“I cannot tell, indeed; something about universal brotherhood or other nonsense of the same kind,” said John’s mother.
“He said there were no lower orders!”
“Indeed?”
“Yes; he said there must always be masters and men—persons who represented property and persons who represented labour: those who worked with the head and those who worked with the hands; but no Christian man had a right to selfishly keep his riches to himself; and that in this country, with all the money that is going, no one ought to know the meaning of the word ‘poverty’; and that it was adding insult to injury to speak of lower orders.”
“And what did you say?”
“‘Bosh!’ and he said ‘Perhaps,’ and then I said ‘Rot!’ and he laughed. And I told him he was going dead against the Bible, and casting pearls before swine; and that, instead of thanking him, they would turn again and rend him. And he said he was not doing it in the hope of getting thanks, and was paid as he went on, whatever that might mean; and I called him a fool.”
“You did?”
“Yes, I did; but I thought it better not to let him hear me.”
“He will bring ruin upon us all with these stupid, new-fangled notions.”
“He says they are not new-fangled, but as old as the Gospel and the Sermon on the Mount.”
“I cannot understand it. Somebody has got hold of him. I suppose Margaret Miller and Arthur Knight have between them turned his brain.”
“A set of hypocrites, pretending to be so much better than their neighbours! I have no patience with them. But it won’t last.”
“No; it won’t last.”
There were four or five other houses in Darentdale where those who stood aloof from the new movement tried to comfort themselves also, as well as they could, by declaring that it would not last, and no good would come of it.
Margaret Miller and Tom Whitwell had a royal time, assisted by the other young ladies of the village. “Margaret, can you find out what they do at ‘the public,’” asked Tom, “because I am going to compete with the publican for the favour of the men of our parish?”
“There is, first of all, the drink.”
“Yes; but my sisters are clever in the matter of eating and drinking. They have coached me up in a few facts, the most important of which is that the way to a man’s soul, as well as his heart, lies through his stomach. We have acted accordingly, and I really think that our viands are appetising enough to insure any man’s reform.”
“And the men like to be amused, you know; they cannot get on without that.”
“Well, Margaret, you must sing your sweetest, and I will talk to them. They liked to be talked to, don’t they? especially about politics.”
“Most of all, I think a man likes to spend his evenings in an armchair in a warm, well-lighted room, with a pipe in his mouth, something to drink at his elbow, and a newspaper in his hand.”
“If they could but do without the pipe! But I suppose that would be too great a sacrifice. And it is no use to try to ‘wind them up too high for mortal man beneath the sky’; we must take them as they are. Old Benham once said to me, ‘I ham as I ham, and I can’t be no hammer!’ There is a profound truth in that remark, don’t you think so, Margaret? But I am glad we have made up our minds to do something for our brothers and sisters. The inequalities of life have often made me bitter.”
“And how must poor women have felt who have struggled to bring up respectably a family of children on the money that it has cost us for dress!”
The “At Home” was a great success. Two better persons to manage it could not have been found than Margaret and Tom. They had the rare gift of always being natural. Many a philanthropic endeavour fails because the ladies and gentlemen, though striving to do their best, and longing to be useful, cannot feel perfectly at home among the poor, and make them feel the same. The latter often mistake the stiffness, which is more the result of nervousness than anything else, for patronage and condescension, and they are very quick to resent anything of that kind. It was greatly because Margaret and Tom were already respected and beloved that their invitation was so almost universally accepted. They had some fun, both with the men and the women.
“Christmas comes early this year, Miss Tom, don’t it?” one asked, with a wink at the men who sat opposite to him.
“Does it, Nelson? I think it is about the same time as usual. My almanack declares it to be on the 25th of December, as it was last year, if you remember rightly.”
“Oh! I thought tea-fights and such things only comed at Christmas. What’s all this mean, miss? Are religious people more religious than usual, or what?”
“It only means that they are more friendly than usual.”
“They want to get us, don’t they?” The man’s eyes were twinkling; but Tom answered quite seriously, “Yes, Nelson, they want very much indeed to get you.”
“And they are willing to bid for us in tea-fights, and coffee, and even fires and newspapers?”
“Yes; and anything else that they can think of.”
“Ah! that’s just what I says to my mate. I says, ‘It’s like the ’lections used to be.’ I’ve had many a glass of whisky for a vote; and I ain’t much of a hand at politics, so I voted honest for the man as treated me most liberal; and so I will now. I ain’t much of a hand at sermons and prayers neither, but I wouldn’t mind obliging either church or chapel for once in a way, if they’re after bidding for us; but, of course, Miss Tom, I values myself at the highest price, as is only natural.”
“Quite natural, Nelson. But you are mistaken this time. The churches and chapels are not bidding against each other; the people who”—Tom hesitated—“who are good, you know, are joining together to try and make things a little better andmore happy for those who are not as well off as themselves. That is all it means.”
“And ain’t we agoing to be persuaded to go neither to church nor to chapel?”
“No; though we should all be glad if you went somewhere—we don’t care where. You would have a welcome in either case, of course.”
“Well, that beats all!” said Nelson. “And is this ’ere room to be lighted up comfortably every night for us?”
“Yes, it is; and we shall be glad if you will all come every night and enjoy it.”
“What’s this stuff I’m a-drinking, Miss Tom?”
“Beer.”
“What sort o’ beer?”
“Very nice beer, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it’s A 1, and I’ve had four glasses; but it ain’t reg’lar beer, cause, however much you drinks, you don’t get any forrader with it. It won’t make you drunk, will it, now?”
“You surely do not want it to make you drunk, do you?”
“Well—no—not as I knows on,” said Nelson, slowly; and the men around him laughed.
“I used to go to church when I were a boy,” said another man, Benham; “but if I go anywhere now, I goes to the Methodists when they has the open-air service. It don’t agree with my health to be shut up in a close church or chapel.”
“I suppose you find a bar-room better ventilated?” said Tom; and this time the laugh was against Benham.
“I used to go to church when I were a boy,” echoed another man. “My father were one of the singers, and he left all through a quarrel about a anthem. He wanted ‘All people that on earth do dwell’; but another man wanted ‘I will arise’; my father wouldn’t give way, nor the other man neither. Father says, ‘It shall be “All people that on earth do dwell,”’ and the t’other says, ‘Cuss “All people that on earth do dwell”’; and my father put on his hat, and walked out of the church forthwith, and he never entered it again till he were carried there; and that is the truth, and I do not deceive you.”
The last words were spoken so solemnly that Tom had to beat a retreat. But the evening passed pleasantly enough, and Margaret’s singing was greatly appreciated.
The next night the attendance was less, for some of the men spent the evening at the public-houses, talking the matter over; but our friends were not discouraged. They resolved to keep on—and wait. They were trying to feel theirway, and by a wise judiciousness overcome the suspicion and opposition which they would probably encounter.
But from that seed-sowing harvest day could be dated a most beneficent change in Darentdale. The homes of the people put on a more comfortable appearance, and the spiritless women, feeling that something was expected of them in return for the sympathy and help which they received, began to be more sprightly, and to take some pride in making their rooms not only clean but pretty. By the end of the year but few had grown weary in well-doing, and in many hearts that had been hopeless before new hopes were springing up.
No one more approved this effort for the people than Mr. Harris. He contributed nothing to the cakes and tea, but he had done a kindness on his own account that was very acceptable, for he had presented every poor person with an armchair! And this he did as a sort of thank-offering for the pleasure it was to him to know that a good man cared for his Margaret.
But a few days after the harvest festival Margaret’s mind was considerably disturbed by an anonymous letter. It ran thus:—“A friend sends you this word of warning. Why do you try to tempt a gentleman from his duty and fealty to another? Already you and yours have wrongful possession of a house and money that by right belong to him. Will you rob him also of his good name, and cast a blight over his life? If you care for him you will not do this; unless, indeed, you are false and fast. Two hearts will break if he be drawn into your meshes; for who and what are you, andwho were your parents?Has he come back to his native land to be beguiled by one who will but try to drag him down to her own level? His friends are determined to prevent this sacrifice; so you will but cause him and them the more trouble by your guile. A stigma attaches to you, which God forbid that he should share.”
To the last sentence Margaret breathed a fervent Amen. But it will be readily imagined that this letter caused her a very bad half-hour. Had she really an enemy—she who was used to seeing nothing but kindness in every face? And, if so, what was the enemy’s name? She could not tell.
But the pain had a greater sting in it when the thought suggested itself that perhaps this letter was not the work of an enemy, but of a friend. For, after all, there was some truth in it. Who and what was she, and who were her people? She really could not answer the question, for she did not know. And that was the reason why she had hesitated to accept John Dallington.
“The time has surely come for me to know,” she said. “I have had vague fears, but they must be either dispelled or confirmed now. It is not fair to me or any one else that I should be left in any uncertainty.”
Mr. Harris had a cosy little room opening out of the shop, and here he usually sat during eight hours of every day in case a customer should come and require books, papers, or stationery. “I am for the eight-hour movement,” he used to say, with a significant smile at Margaret. “Eight hours are long enough for any man to work.”
And she always agreed with him. “Especially when it is such arduous work as yours, Graf, requiring such close attention to detail, so exhausting for the brain and the arms, as indeed all work is in these days of fierce competition. How much did you take over the counter yesterday—fourpence halfpenny?”
“Oh, I had a good day! I sold a copy of Browning’s poems, and the purchaser appeared much pleased with it.” The purchaser in almost every case would be himself, for few Darentdalers bought books or read them, and those who did sent to London or ordered them through a bookseller in Scourby. But Margaret and her grandfather had much quiet fun over the shop, and were decidedly its best customers.
Margaret loved the old man, and was as tender as a daughter could be toward him; and how much he cared for her all the years of her life had told. It was, nevertheless, difficult for her to broach the subject that was uppermost in her mind.
“Has there been a great rush of customers to-day, Graf?”
“Well, I have been quite busy enough for the greater part of the day. Newspapers have sold well; they are very interesting, for Parliament was last night discussing the question of adopting that new gun—a noiseless, smokeless weapon which can kill at the distance of a mile and fire three hundred shots in succession. Other nations are adopting it, and Christian England must not be behind. One good thing about it is that any number of armies could be annihilated in a day; so if the battles are fierce they will not be long.”
“Dreadful! Surely they will never fight again now that killing is so easy and so certain?”
“I don’t know; I hope not. I think not, if England would lead the way, as she ought, and would be always for peace.”
“I am feeling very warlike this evening, Graf.”
“Are you, Margaret? You are young to suffer from nervous irritability. Do you feel as if you want to bang something?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Go up the house and down the house and bang all the doors. No? You want something human? I am quite at your service, my dear—bang me! I am substantial enough for anything.”
“Graf, you are generally young and frivolous when I want you to be staid and serious. Something has happened to me, and I need help and advice.”
“Really and truly, my child?”
“Yes; very really and truly, indeed. I have had an anonymous letter.”
“Don’t read it, Margaret. I have had many such in my time, denouncing me as a sceptic and an atheist, and consigning me to the lowest regions. They don’t hurt you much when you are used to them. Put your letter in the fire unread, and forget all about it.”
“But I have read it, grandfather; I could not help that, and I want you to read it, too.”
“I think it would be better not.”
“Please, because I wish it.”
The old man read it through twice, and then looked at Margaret, with a curious smile. “You need not mind this in the least,” he said. “I suppose you know who wrote it?”
“I have not the slightest idea.”
“No? It was Mrs. Hunter, John Dallington’s mother.”
“Mrs. Hunter! Oh! surely not? What can make you think that?”
“I do not think it; I am sure of it. There has been an attempt to disguise the writing, but it is certainly Mrs. Hunter’s. Now, my dear, never tell any one that you have had it as long as you live. Burn it, and forget all about it. That is the only thing to do.”
“Graf, you must be mistaken; it could not be Mrs. Hunter.”
“Very well, my dear. Settle it so, and welcome. But I do not believe there is any one else in Darentdale who would have done it, unless her stepson did it, and I am sure he did not. Never mind who wrote it, Margaret, nor what is in it. Somebody is afraid that Dallington has fallen in love with you. It is a proof of his great good sense and intelligence that the suspicion is correct.”
“Grandfather,” said Margaret, in grave tones and with trembling lips, “you have seen what this letter says. Please tell me, who am I?”
Mr. Harris began to look troubled, but he answered, “You are Margaret Miller. I can tell you no more than that.”
“Oh, but you must!” said the girl, pleadingly. “It is not kind to me; it is not right to withhold anything from me that touches me so closely.”
“Margaret, I can tell you one fact. You are fit to mate with John Dallington or any other man. Your parents were good people, and occupied a high position. They were married in Spain, and I was present at their wedding.”
“Which of them was your child, grandfather?”
Harris hesitated, but Margaret was urgent.
“The time has surely come for you to be open with me,” she said. “Dear old Graf, I cannot bear to trouble you; I hate myself for doing it. If you think I ought not to ask you, I will try to be silent; but it is hard to have a stigma resting upon me.”
“Child,” he said, angrily, “there is no stigma of any kind attaching to you! Have I not told you so already?”
“Graf, do not be angry with me. Which of my parents was your child?” Margaret repeated.
“Neither,” said Harris, and he looked white and pained; “but if you had been my own child I could not have cared more for you, and you could not have given me more joy through all these years. Your parents both died of cholera in Spain—one two days after the other. There were perils that beset their only child; and from these you were rescued by Mr. Dallington, who was under an obligation to your father, and who, in order to pay it, adopted you; and whose will provided for you by leaving this house and all that is in it to you after me.”
“And is my name Margaret Miller, really?”
“Yes, that is your name.”
“But there is a secret somewhere?”
“There is; but the secret belongs to the dead. No person living is affected by it; and it will die with me, for I swore not to reveal it; nor will I, neither at the bidding of hate, nor of love. You know enough, Margaret. Be content.”
Margaret bowed her head. “Thank you for telling me so much,” she said; “and for the years of love and kindness which have made my life so happy that I have scarcely missed my father and mother.”
“I have but done my duty and kept my promise. And you see that you owe me nothing, Margaret, not even the obedience and love of a granddaughter.”
“Dear Graf, I owe you everything—all the gratitude, goodwill, and affection of which I am capable. And I will never forget it. We will be just as happy together now as we have always been, and forget the anonymous letter. I amsure that there is not a grain of truth in the insinuation that we are enjoying money that ought to belong to others.”
“You know quite well, Margaret, that a man has a right to leave his property to whomsoever he pleases. Mr. Dallington was an eccentric man; but he was only right and just when he took care that you should want for nothing. It was his duty to do this—mark what I am saying, Margaret—his duty. He would have been culpable if he had not done it. But he did it in a curious, unusual way. Some day I will tell you where you will find, on these premises, enough hard cash to maintain you in the comfort you have been used to, and, at the rate at which it is spent now, until you are eighty years old. Now, Madge, my child, you know all that I can tell you; and it is nobody’s business but ours. I want to talk to you on another subject. We have all our troubles, my dear”—the old man sighed as he said it—“and they are not very big ones either, for they give us more worry than pain. But a very little worry is large enough to spoil a life if we will let it. You will not let this thing overshadow your life—if I know you, I am sure you will not—for you are a believer in the Christ——”
“And so are you, Graf,” interpolated Margaret.
“And it seems plain to me, though, as everybody knows, I am a sceptic and an unbeliever, that He meant all His followers to live the same kind of life as He lived. Therefore, my child, you will put yourself on one side in this matter. Such petty things as anonymous letters are beneath you now; you must be invulnerable to the little stings which would force your thoughts upon yourself. Be a large-minded, large-hearted Christian, or none at all, Margaret. Christianity is not a creed; it is a life. Don’t you think so?”
“I do, indeed, thanks to your teaching.”
“Oh, no! I am a very irreligious person; but I do not want you to be.”
Margaret was right in saying that she owed everything to this old man, whom so many denounced. “He is perishing in his sins,” a man had said of him once, because, when he had been invited to a special service, he had replied with a laugh that he would rather have one to himself by the river. But Margaret, whom none ever heard say an unkind thing of another, whose very presence raised the tone of a garden party, who was the champion of the absent, whose loving nature made itself felt everywhere, had formed her opinions and habits after those of her guardian, and was much the better for it.
“Graf,” said Margaret, “a young woman has no right tocome between a mother and a son, has she? If Mrs. Hunter regards me in this way I am sure Mr. Dallington must be unhappy about it.”
“I advise you not to mention this letter to him. He gave me to understand that he was not in a position to marry immediately; and while you are waiting things may right themselves. In any case, he is of age, and has a right to choose his own wife. I am glad he has chosen my child. He took me by surprise, though, because I thought he would marry Miss Tom Whitwell—for I have fancied many times since his return that she cared for him. But everything is as it should be. Hear what Browning says, ‘God’s in His heaven, all’s right with the world.’”
But the talk and the letter caused Margaret a sleepless night, though it was not so much the letter as the suggestion about her friend, Tom Whitwell. Can it be true? she asked herself many times; and she was half afraid it was, now that she thought things through. But she did not keep the trouble to herself; and her cry, “Show me the right, and give me strength to do it!” was certain of an answer.