For half an hour the four men in that room sat watching with painful interest the one who sat motionless in the chair at the end of the table. There was not one of them that had not a feeling of being a watcher by the side of a bed on which a dead body was lying. Not a word was exchanged between them. In the room there was a complete silence—the silence of a death chamber. The sound of the machinery of the mill—the creaking of the wooden wheels, and the rumbling of the grindstones—went on in dull monotony in the mill, and from the kitchen, beyond the oaken door, there came the occasional clink of a pan or kettle; and outside the building there was the clank of the horses of a waggon, and the loud voices of the waggoners talking to the men in one of the lofts, and now and again directing the teams. A cock was crowing drowsily at intervals in the poultry run, and once there was a quacking squabble amongst the ducks on the Mill race. And then, with the lowing of the cows that were being driven to the milking shed, came the laughter of a girl, passing the waggoners.
But in the room there was silence, and soon the dimness of twilight.
And then John Wesley prayed in a low voice.
Enough light remained in the room to allow those watchers to see when consciousness returned to the man's eyes: he was facing the window. But before the expression of death changed to that of life, his arm, that was still stiffly outstretched, and seeming all the more awkward since he had ceased to be on his feet, fell with a startling thud upon the edge of the table. It was as if a dead man had made a movement. Then his eyes turned upon each in the room in turn. He drew a long breath.
“You are among friends, Dick; how feel you, my man?” said Jake Pullsford, laying his hand upon Pritchard's that had fallen upon the table.
“I saw it again—clear—quite clear, Jake,” said Pritchard.
“What saw ye, friend Dick?” asked Jake.
“The vision—the Vision of Patmos. The heavens rolled together like a scroll—blackness at first—no mind o' man ever conceived of such blackness—the plague of Egypt was snow-white to compare. And then 'twas all flame—flame—flame. The smith's furnace hath but a single red eye of fire, but its sharp brightness stings like a wasp. But this—oh, millions upon millions of furnace eyes, and every eye accusing the world beneath. Who can live with everlasting burning?—that was what the Voice cried—I know not if it was the strong angel, or him that rode upon the White Horse, but I heard it, and all the world heard it, and the most dreadful and most unusuallest thing of all was the sight of that White Horse, plunging and pawing with all the fiery flames around it and above and below! And the Voice said, 'There shall be no more sea,' and forthwith all the tide that had been flowing in hillocks into Porthawn and teasing the pebbles where the shallows be, and lapping the Dog's Teeth reef, wimpling around the spikes—all that tide of water, I say, began to move out so that every eye could see it move, and the spikes o' the reef began to grow as the water fell, till the bases of the rocks appeared with monstrous weeds, thick as coiled snakes, and crawling shells, monstrous mighty that a man might live in; and then I saw the slime of the deep, thick as pitch and boiling and bubbling with the heat below, even as pitch boils over the brazier when the boats lie bottom up on the beach. And then I saw a mighty ship lying in the ooze—a ship that had become a wreck, maybe a hundred years agone, half the timbers rotted from the bends so that she was like some monster o' the deep with its long ridges of ribs showing fleshless as a skeleton. And then the Voice cried, 'The Sea gave up its Dead.'... You shall see it for yourselves on Monday—ay, all that came before mine eyes.'Twas Mr. Wesley preached on the great moving among the dry bones—they were dry in that valley, but in the dread secret depths where the sea had been these were damp with the slime of ages, and they crawled together, bone unto bone, throwing off the bright green seaweeds that overlaid them like shrouds of thin silk. They stood up together all in the flesh, and I noted that their skin was the yellow pale skin of the drowned, like the cheeks of a female who holds a candle in her hands and shades the flame with one of her palms. Flame—I saw them all by the light of the flaming sky, and some of them put up their saffron hands between their faces and the flame, but the light shone through their flesh as you have seen the sun shine through a sere leaf of chestnut in the autumn.”
He stopped suddenly and drew a long breath. For some moments he breathed heavily. No one in the room spoke. A boy went past the door outside whistling.
When the man spoke again it was in a whisper. He turned to Wesley.
“Mr. Wesley, I knew not that I had the gift until I heard you preach,” he said. “I only suspected now and again when I felt the twitchings of the twig between my hands when I was finding the water, that I was not as other men; but when I heard you preach and saw how you carried all who listened away upon your words as though they were not words, but a wave of the sea, and the natural people the flotsam of the waste, I felt my heart swell within me by reason of the knowledge that I had been chosen to proclaim something great beyond even all that you could teach. And now 'tis left for you to stand by my side and tell all that have ears to hear to prepare for the Great Day. It is coming—Monday. I would that we had a longer space, Sir, for, were it so, my name would go forth through all the world as yours has done—nay, with more honour, for a prophet is ahead of the mere preacher. But you will do your best for the world in the time allowed to us, will you not, Mr. Wesley?”
He laid his hand on one of Wesley's, firmly and kindly.
“My poor brother!” said Wesley gently. “God forgive me if I have been the means of causing hurt to even the weakest of my brethren. Let us live, dear brother, as if our days in the world were not to be longer than this week, giving our thoughts not to ourselves, but to God; seeking for no glory to attach to our poor names, but only to the Name at which every knee must bow. Humility—let us strive after humility. What are we but dust?”
The man looked at him—there was still some light in the room—and after the lapse of a few moments he said:
“You have spoke a great truth, Mr. Wesley. Humility is for all of us. Pray that I may attain it, brother. It should come easy enough to some that we know, but for such as you and me, especially me, dear brother, 'tis not so easy. The gift of prophecy surely raises a humble man into circumstances so lofty that he is above the need for any abject demeanour. Ay, now that I reflect on't, I am not sure that I have any right to be humble. 'Twould be like flouting a gift in the face of the giver. 'Twould be like a servant wearing a ragged coat when his master hath provided him with a fine suit of livery.”
He had risen from his place, and now he remarked that the evening had come and he had far to travel. He gave Wesley his hand, nodded to the others and went through the door without another word.
The men whom he left in the room drew long breaths. One of them—the farmer—made a sound with his tongue against his teeth as one might do when a child too young to know better breaks a saucer. The miller gave an exclamation that went still further, showing more of contempt and less of pity. Mr. Hartwell, the mine-owner, who was a quiet, well-read man, said:
“I have heard of cases like to his; I have been reading of revivals, as some call such an awakening as has taken place through Mr. Wesley's preaching, and every one of them has been followed by the appearance of men not unlike Dick Pritchard in temper—men who lose themselves in their zeal—get out of their depth—become seized by an ambition to teach others before they themselves have got through the primer.”
“For me, I call to mind naught but the magic men of Egypt,” said Jake Pullsford. “They were able to do by their traffic with the Evil One all that Moses did by miracle. I always had my doubts about the power that Dick Pritchard professed—finding water by the help of his wand of hazel—as 'twere a wizard's wand—maybe the staves of the Egyptian sorcerers were of hazel—I shouldn't wonder. And now he falls into a trance and says he sees a vision, equalling himself to St. John at Patmos! For myself I say that I never knew of a truly godly man falling into a trance. My grandfather—you are old enough to remember him, farmer?”
“I mind him well—pretty stiff at a bargain up to the end,” said the farmer with a side nod of acquiescence.
“We be talking of the same man,” resumed the miller. “Well, I say that he told me of one such mystical vision seer that came from Dorset in his young days, and he saw so many things that he was at last tried for sorcery and burnt in the marketplace. Ah, those were the days when men wasn't allowed by law to go so far as they do now-a-days. Why, 'tis only rarely that we hear of a witch burning in these times.”
Wesley held up his hand.
“I had my misgivings in regard to Pritchard from the first,” he said. “And when I got news that he had been causing you trouble I felt that he had indeed been an agent of the Evil One. But now—God forbid that I should judge him in haste. I scarce know what to think about him. I have heard of holy men falling into trances and afterwards saying things that were profitable to hear. I am in doubt. I must pray for guidance.”
“The man is to be pitied,” said Mr. Hartwell.
“You heard the uplifted way he talked at the last—like a fool full of his own conceit? Have you heard yet, Mr. Wesley, what an effect his prediction has had upon the country?”
“I heard naught of it until I had entered the parlour at the inn where I dined to-day, but I think I heard enough to allow of my forming some notion of the way his prediction was received. Some were jocular over it, a few grave, and a large number ribald.”
“You have described what I myself have noticed, sir,” said Mr. Hartwell. “Only so far as I can see there are a large number who are well-nigh mad through fear. Now what we may be sure of is that these people, when Monday passes, will turn out open scoffers at the truth. And you may be certain that your opponents will only be too glad of the opportunity thereby afforded them of discrediting your labours; they will do their best to make Methodism responsible for the foolishness and vanity of that man?”
“I perceived that that would be so the moment I got your letter,” said Wesley. “And yet—I tell you, brethren, that I should be slow to attribute any imposture to this man, especially since I have heard him speak in this room. He believes that he has been endowed by Heaven with the gift of prophecy.”
“And he only acknowledges it to boast,” said Mr. Hartwell. “It is his foolish boasting that I abhor most, knowing, as I do full well, that every word that comes from him will be used against us, and tend to cast discredit upon the cause which we have at heart.”
Wesley perceived how true was this view of the matter, but still he remained uncertain what course to adopt in the circumstances. He knew that it was the fervour of his preaching that had affected Pritchard, as it had others; he had heard reports of the spread of a religious mania at Bristol after he had preached there for some time; but he had always succeeded in tracing such reports to those persons who had ridiculed his services. This wras the first time that he was brought face to face with one who had been carried away by his zeal to a point of what most people would be disposed to term madness.
He had known that there would be considerable difficulty dealing with the case of Pritchard, but he had also believed that the man would become submissive if remonstrated with. It had happened, however, that, so far from becoming submissive, Pritchard had reasserted himself, and with so much effect that Wesley found himself sympathising with him—pitying him, and taking his part in the face of the others who were apparently but little affected by the impassioned account the man had given of his vision when in the trance.
It was not until the night had fallen that they agreed with Wesley that it might be well to wait for a day or two in order that he should become acquainted with some of the effects of the prediction, and thus be in a position to judge whether or not he should take steps to dissociate himself and his mission from the preaching of the man Pritchard.
He had not, however, gone further than Port-hawn the next day before he found out that the impression produced by the definite announcement that the Day of Judgment was but forty-eight hours off was very much deeper than he had fancied. He found the whole neighbourhood seething with excitement over the prophecy. It had been made by Pritchard, he learned, in the course of a service which had been held in a field on the first Sunday after Wesley's departure, and it had been heard by more than a thousand of the people whom Wesley's preaching had aroused from lethargy to a living sense of responsibility. Religious fervour had taken hold upon the inhabitants of valley and coast, and under its influence extravagance and exuberance were rife. Only at such a time would Pritchard's new-found fervour have produced any lasting impression, but in the circumstances his assumption of the mantle of the prophet and his delivery of the solemn warning had had among the people the effect of a firebrand flung among straw. He had shouted his words of fire to an inflammable audience, and his picture of the imminent terror had overwhelmed them. The shrieks of a few hysterical women completed what his prediction had begun, and before the evening the valley of the Lana was seething with the news that the world was coming to an end within the month.
All this Wesley heard before he left the Mill, and before he had ridden as far as the coast village he had ample confirmation of the accuracy of the judgment of his friends, who had assured him that the cause which they had at heart was likely to suffer through the vanity of Pritchard. He also perceived that the man had good reason for being puffed up on observing the effect of his deliverance. In a moment he had leaped into notoriety from being a nonentity. It seemed as if he had been ashamed of hearing his own voice a short time before, and this fact only made him appear a greater marvel to himself as well as to the people who had heard him assume the character of a prophet of fire and brimstone. It was no wonder, Wesley acknowledged, that the man's head had been turned.
The worst of the matter was that he was referred, to by nearly all the countryside as Wesley's deputy. Even the most devoted of Wesley's hearers seemed to have accepted Pritchard as the exponent of the methods adopted by Wesley to get the ears of the multitude. In their condition of blind fervour they were unable to differentiate between the zeal of the one to convey to them the living Truth and the excess of the other. They were in the condition of the French mob, who, fifty years later, after being stirred by an orator, might have gone to think over their wrongs for another century had not a madman lighted a torch and pointed to the Bastille.
It was only to be expected that the opponents of the great awakening begun by Wesley should point to the extravagance of Pritchard and call it the natural development of Methodism. Wesley's crusade had been against the supineness of the Church of England, they said; but how much more preferable was this supineness to the blasphemy of Methodism as interpreted by the charlatan who arrogated to himself the power of a prophet!
He was pained as he had rarely been since his American accusers had forced him to leave Georgia, when he found what a hold the prediction had got on the people. He had evidence of the extent of Pritchard's following even during his ride to Port-hawn. At the cross roads, not two miles from the Mill, he came upon a large crowd being preached to by a man whom he had never seen before, and the text was the Judgment Day. The preacher was fervid and illiterate. He became frantic, touching upon the terror that was to come on Monday; and his hearers were shrieking—men as, well as women. Some lay along the ground sobbing wildly, others sang a verse of a hymn in frenzy.
Further along the road a woman was preaching repentance—in another two days it would be too late; and in the next ditch a young woman was making a mock of her, putting a ribald construction upon what she was saying. Further on still he came to a tavern, outside which there was a large placard announcing that the world would only last till Monday, and having unfortunately a large stock of beer and rum in fine condition, the innkeeper was selling off the stock at a huge reduction in the price of every glass of liquor.
Wesley had no difficulty in perceiving the man's generosity was being appreciated. The bar was crowded with uproarious men and women, and some were lying helpless on the stones of the yard.
On the wall of a disused smithy a mile or two nearer the coast there was chalked up the inscription:
“The Methodys have bro' about the Ende of the World. Who will bring about the Ende of the Methodys? Downe with them all, I saye.”
He rode sadly onward, with bowed head. He felt humiliated, feeling that the object for which he lived was humiliated.
And the worst of the matter was, he saw, that these people who were making a mock of the Truth, some consciously, others unconsciously, were not in a condition to lend an ear to any remonstrance that might come from him. The attitude assumed by Pritchard was, Wesley knew, typical of that which would be taken up by his followers, and the mockers would only be afforded a new subject for ridicule.
“Is it I—is it I who am an unprofitable servant?” he cried out of the depth of his despondency. “Is it I that have been the cause of the enemy's blasphemy? What have I done that I should be made a witness of this wreckage of all that I hoped to see accomplished through my work?”
For some time he felt as did the man who cried “It is enough! I am not better than my fellows.”
He let his rein drop on his horse's neck when approaching the house where he was to be a guest. The day was one of grey mists rolling from the sea through the valley, spreading wisps of gauze over the higher slopes, which soon whirled into muslin scarfs with an occasional ostrich plume shot through with sunshine. At times a cataract of this grey sea vapour would plunge over the slopes of a gorge and spread abroad into a billowy lake that swirled round the basin of the valley and then suddenly lifted, allowing a cataract of sunshine to pour down into the hollows which were dewy damp from the mist.
It was a strange atmosphere with innumerable changes from minute to minute.
“For me the shadows of the mist—the shadows touched by no ray of sunshine,” he cried when he felt the cold salt breath of the vapour upon his face.
And then he bowed his head and prayed that the shadows might flee away and the Daystar arise once more to lighten the souls of the people as he had hoped that they would be enlightened.
When he unclosed his eyes, after that solemn space in which a man stretches out weak hands, “groping blindly in the darkness,” hoping that they will touch God's right hand in that darkness and be guided into a right path, he saw the tall figure of a man standing on a crag watching him.
The man had the aspect of a statue of stone looking out of a whirl of sea-mist.
Wesley saw that it was Bennet, the man by whom he had been met when he was walking through this Talley for the first time with Nelly Polwhele. He had heard a great deal about the man during the few weeks that he had sojourned in the neighbourhood. He found that he was a man of some education—certainly with a far more intimate knowledge of the classics than was possessed by most of the parsons west of Exeter. He had been a schoolmaster in Somerset, but his erratic habits had prevented him from making any position for himself. He had become acquainted with Nelly Polwhele at Bristol, and his devotion to her amounted almost to a madness. It was all to no purpose that she refused to listen to him; he renewed his suit in season and out of season until his persistence amounted to persecution. Of course Nelly found many self-constituted champions, and Bennet was attacked and beaten more than once when off his guard. When, however, he was prepared for their assault he had shown himself to be more than a match for the best of them. The fact that he had disabled for some weeks two of his assailants did not make him any more popular than he had been in the neighbourhood.
There he stood looking at Wesley, and there he remained for several minutes, looking more than ever like a grey stone figure on a rough granite pedestal.
It was not until Wesley had put his horse in motion that the man held up one hand, saying:
“Give me one minute, Mr. Wesley. I know that you are not afraid of me. Why should you be?”
“Why, indeed?” said Wesley. “I know not why I should fear you, seeing that I fear no man who lives on this earth?”
“You came hither with a great blowing of trumpets, Mr. Wesley,” said the man. “You were the one that was to overthrow all the old ways of the Church—you were to make such a noise as would cause the good old dame to awake from her slumber of a century. Well, you did cause her to awake; but the noise that you made awoke more than that good mother, the Church of England—it aroused a demon or two that had been slumbering in these valleys, and they began to show what they could do. They did not forget their ancient trick—an angel of light—isn't that the wiliest sorcery of our ancient friend, the Devil, Mr. Wesley?”
“You should know, if you are his servant sent to mock me,” said Wesley.
“You have taught the people a religion of emotion, and can you wonder that the Enemy has taken up your challenge and gone far beyond you in the same direction? He found a ready tool and a ready fool in your ardent disciple with the comical Welsh name—Richard Pritchard, to wit. He has shown the people that you were too tame, and the water-finder hath found fire to be more attractive as a subject than insipid water. You are beaten out of the field, Mr. Wesley. As usual, the pupil hath surpassed the master, and you find yourself in the second place.”
Wesley sat with his head bent down to his horse's neck. He made no reply to the man's scoff; what to him was the scoffing of this man? When one is sitting in the midst of the ruins of his house what matters it if the wind blows over one a handful of dust off the roadside?
“John Wesley, the preacher, hath been deposed, and Pritchard, the prophet, reigns in his stead,” the man went on. “Ay, and all the day you have been saying to yourself, 'What have I done to deserve this? What have I done to deserve this?' Dare you deny it, O preacher of the Gospel of Truth?”
Wesley bowed his head once more.
“Mayhap you found no answer ready,” Bennet cried. “Then I'll let you into the secret, John Wesley. You are being rightly punished because you have been thinking more of the love of woman than of the Love of God.”
Wesley's head remained bent no longer.
“What mean you by that gibe, man?” he cried.
“Ask your own heart what I mean,” said the man fiercely. “Your own heart knows full well that you sought to win the love of the woman who walked with you on this road little more than a month ago, and who ministered to you on the day of your great preaching—you took her love from those to whom she owed it, and you have cherished, albeit you know that she can never be a wife to you.”
“The Lord rebuke thee,” said Wesley, when the man made a pause.
“Nay, 'tis on you that the rebuke has fallen, and you know it, John Wesley,” cried Bennet, more fiercely than ever. “Nelly Polwhele would have come to love me in time had not you come between us—that I know—I know it, I tell you, I know it—my love for her is so overwhelming that she would not have been able to hold out against it. But you came, and—answer me, man: when it was written to you that you were to return hither in hot haste to combat the folly of Pritchard, did not your heart exult with the thought singing through it, 'I shall see her again—I shall be beside her once more'?”
Wesley started so that his horse sprang forward and the man before him barely escaped being knocked down. But Bennet did not even pretend that he fancied Wesley intended riding him down. He only laughed savagely, saying:
“That start of yours tells me that I know what is in your heart better than you do yourself. Well, it hath made a revelation to you now, Mr. Wesley, and if you are wise you will profit by it. I tell you that if you think of her again you are lost—you are lost. The first rebuke has fallen upon you from above.'Tis a light one. But what will the second be? Ponder upon that question, sir. Know that even now she is softening toward me. Come not between us again. Man, the love of woman is not for such as you, least of all the love of a child whose heart is as the heart of the Spring season quivering with the joy of life. Now ride on, sir, and ask your reason if I have not counselled you aright.”
He had spoken almost frantically at first; but his voice had fallen: he had become almost calm while uttering his last sentences.
He took off his hat, stepped to one side, and pointed down the road. He kept his arm stretched out and his fingers as an index, while Wesley looked at him, as if about to make a reply.
But if Wesley meant to speak he relinquished his intention. He looked at the man without a word, and without breaking the silence, urged his horse forward and rode slowly away.
John Wesley had ample food for thought for the remainder of his journey. He knew that the man who had appeared to him so suddenly out of the mist had for some time been on the brink of madness through his wild passion for Nelly Pol-whele, which brought about a frenzy of jealousy in respect of any man whom he saw near the girl. The fierceness of his gibes was due to this madness of his. But had the wretch stumbled in his blindness over a true thing? Was it the truth that he, Wesley, had all. unknown to himself drawn that girl close to him by a tenderer cord than that which had caused her to minister to his needs after he had preached his first great sermon?
The very idea of such a thing happening was startling to him. It would have seemed shocking to him if it had not seemed incredible. How was it possible, he asked himself, that that girl could have been drawn to love him? What was he to attract the love of such a young woman? He was in all matters save only one, cold and austere. He knew that his austereness had been made the subject of ridicule—of caricature—at Oxford and Bath and elsewhere. He had been called lugubrious by reason of his dwelling so intently on the severer side of life, and he had never thought it necessary to defend himself from such charges. He was sure that they were not true.
That was the manner of man that he was, and this being so, how was it possible that he should ever draw to himself the love of such a bright creature as Nelly Polwhele? What was she? Why, the very opposite to him in every respect. She was vivacious—almost frivolous; she had taken a delight in all the gaieties of life—why, the first time he saw her she had been in the act of imitating a notorious play-actress, and, what made it worse, she was playing the part extremely well. To be sure she had taken his reproof with an acknowledgment that it was deserved, and she had of her own free will and under no pressure from him promised that she would never again enter a playhouse; but still he knew that the desire for such gaieties was not eradicated from her nature. It would be unnatural to suppose' that it was. In short, she had nothing in common with him, and to fancy that she had seen anything in him to attract her love would be to fancy the butterfly in rapture around a thistle.
Oh, it was incredible that such a thing should happen. The notion was the outcome of the jealousy of that wretch. Why, the first time that the man had seen them together had he not burst out on them, accusing him of stealing away the child's affection, although he had not been ten minutes by her side?
Of course the notion was preposterous. He felt that it was so, and at the same moment that this conviction came to him, he was conscious of a little feeling of sadness to think that it was so. The more certain he became on the matter the greater was the regret that he felt.
Was it curious that he should dwell upon what the man had said last rather than upon what he had said first? But some time had passed before he recalled the charge that Bennet had brought against him almost immediately after they had met—the charge of having Nelly Polwhele in his thoughts rather than the work with which he had been entrusted by his Maker. The man had accused him of loving the girl, and declared that his present trouble was the rebuke that he had earned.
He had been startled by this accusation. Was that because he did not know all that was in his own heart? Could it be possible that he loved Nelly Polwhele? Once before he had asked himself this question, and he had not been able to assure himself as to how it should be answered, before he received that letter calling him back to this neighbourhood; and all thoughts that did not bear upon the subject of that' letter were swept from his mind. He knew that he heard in his ear a quick whisper that said:
“You will be beside her again within four days;” but only for a single second had that thought taken possession of him. It had come to him with the leap up of a candle flame before it is extinguished. That thought had been quenched at the moment of its exuberance, and now he knew that this accusation brought against him was false; not once—not for a single moment, even when riding far into the evening through the lonely places of the valley where he might have looked to feel cheered by such a thought, had his heart whispered to him:
“You will be beside her again within four days.”
She had not come between him and the work which he had to do.
But now the man had said to him all that brought back his thoughts to Nelly Polwhele; and having, as he fancied, answered the question which he put to him respecting her loving him, he found himself face to face with the Question of the possibility of his loving her.
It came upon him with the force of a blow; the logical outcome of his first reflections:
“If I found it incredible that she could have any affection for me because we have nothing in common, is not the same reason sufficient to convince me that it is impossible I could love her?”
He was exceedingly anxious to assure himself that the feeling which he had for her was not the love which a man has for a woman; but he did not feel any great exultation on coming to this logical conclusion of his consideration of the question which had been suggested to him by the accusations of Bennet; on the contrary, he was conscious of a certain plaintive note in the midst of all his logic—a plaintive human note—the desire of a good man for the love of a good woman. He felt very lonely riding down that valley of sea-mist permeated not with the cold of the sea, but with the warmth of the sunlight that struck some of the highest green ridges of the slopes above him. His logic had led him only into his barren loneliness, until his sound mental training, which compelled him to examine an argument from every standpoint, asserted itself and he found that his logic was carrying him on still further, for now it was saying to him:
“If you, who have nothing in common with that young woman, have been led to love her, what is there incredible in the suggestion that she has been led to love you?”
Then it was that he was conscious of a feeling of exultation. His own heart seemed to be revealed to him in a moment. Only for a moment, however; for he gave a cry, passing his hand athwart his face as if to sweep away a film of mist from before his eyes.
“Madness—madness and disaster! The love of woman is not for such as I—the man spoke the truth. The love of woman is not for me. Not for me the sweet companionship, the fireside of home, the little cradle from which comes the little cry—not for me—not for me!”
He rode on, and so docile had his mind become through the stern discipline of years, not once did his thoughts stray to Nelly from the grave matter which he had been considering when he encountered bennet—not once did he think even of Bennet. What he had before him was the question of what steps he should take to counteract the mischief which had been done and was still being done by the man who had taken it upon him to predict the end of the world.
A change seemed to have come over his way of looking at the matter. Previously he had not seen his way clearly; the mist that was sweeping through the valley seemed to have obscured his mental vision. He had been aware of a certain ill-defined sympathy in regard to the man since he had shown himself to be something of a mystic; his trance and, his account of the vision that he had seen had urged Wesley's interest into another channel, as it were; so that he found himself considering somewhat dreamily the whole question of the trustworthiness of visions, and then he had been able to agree with his friends at the Mill who had certainly not taken very long to make up their minds as to how Pritchard should be dealt with.
Now, however, Wesley seemed to see his way clearly. He became practical in a moment. He perceived that it was necessary for him to dissociate himself and his system from such as Pritchard—men who sought to play solely upon the emotions of their hearers, and who had nothing of the Truth to offer them however receptive their hearers' hearts had become. He did not doubt that Pritchard would take credit to himself for the non-fulfilment of his prophecy. He would bring forward the case of Jonah and Nineveh. Jonah had said definitely that Nineveh would be destroyed on a certain day; but the inhabitants had been aroused to repent, and the city's last day had been deferred. He would take credit to himself for arresting the Day of Judgment, his prophecy having brought about the repentance of his neighbours at Porthawn and Ruthallion, and thus the fact of his prophecy not being realised would actually add to the fame which he had already achieved, and his harmfulness would be proportionately increased.
Wesley knew that not much time was left to him and his friends to take action as it seemed right to him. The day was Friday, and he would preach on Sunday and state his views in respect of Pritchard and his following, so that it should be known that he discountenanced their acts. He had seen and heard enough during his ride through the valley to let him know how imminent was disaster to the whole system of which he was the exponent.
He had succeeded in banishing from his mind every thought which he had had in regard to Nelly Polwhele; so that it was somewhat disturbing for him to come upon her close to the entrance gates to the Court. She was carrying a wicker bird cage containing two young doves; he heard her voice talking to the birds before he recognised her. For a moment lie felt that he should stop his horse and allow her to proceed so far in front of him that she should reach the village without his overtaking her; but a moment's reflection was enough to assure him that to act in this way would be cowardice. He had succeeded in banishing her from his mind, and that gave him confidence in his own power to abide by the decision to which he had come respecting her. To avoid her at this time would have been to confess to himself that he was not strong enough to control his own heart; and he believed that he was strong enough to do so. Therefore he found himself once more beside her and felt that he was without a trouble in the world.
Of course she became very red when he spoke her name and stooped from his saddle to give her his hand. She had blushed in the same way an hour before when old Squire Trevelyan had found her with his daughters and said a kindly word to her.
“I have been to my young ladies,” she said, “and see what they have given to me, sir.” She held up the cage and the birds turned their heads daintily in order to eye him. “They were found in a nest by one of the keepers, and as my ladies are going to London they gave the little birds to me. I hope they will thrive under my care.”
“Why should they not?” he said. “You will be a mother to them and they will teach you.”
She laughed with a puzzled wrinkle between her eyes.
“Teach me, sir?”
“Ay, they will teach you, I would fain hope, how becoming is a sober shade of dress even to the young.”
“Do I need to be taught such a lesson, Mr. Wesley?” she cried, and now her face was in need of such a lesson. She spoke as if hurt by his suggestion.
“I have never seen you dressed except modestly and as is becoming to a young woman,” he replied. “Indeed I meant not what I said to be a reproach. I only said what came first to mind when I saw those dainty well-dressed creatures. My thought was: 'Her association with such companions will surely prevent her from yielding to the weakness of most young women. She will see that the dove conveys gentleness to the mind, whereas the peacock is the type of all that is to be despised.' Then, my dear child, the pair of turtle doves is an emblem of sacrifice.”
“Is that why they were chosen as the symbols of love?” said the girl, after a pause.
He looked at her curiously for some time. He wondered what was in her mind. Had she gone as far as her words suggested in her knowledge of what it meant to love?
“I think that there can be no true love without self-sacrifice,” said he. “'Tis the very essence—the spiritual part of love.”
“Is It so in verity, sir?” she cried. “Now I have ever thought that what is called love is of all things the most selfish. Were it not so why should it provoke men to quarrel—nay, the quarrelling is not only on the side of the men. I have seen sisters up in arms simply because the lover of one had given a kindly glance to the other.”
“To be ready to sacrifice one's self to save the loved one from disaster—from trouble in any shape or form—that is the love that is true, he assured of that, Nelly,” said he. “Love, if it be true, will help one to do one's duty—to our Maker as well as to our fellow-men, and to do that duty without a thought of whatever sacrifices it may demand. Love, if it be true, will not shrink from the greatest sacrifice that can be demanded of it—separation from the one who is beloved—a dividing asunder forever. That is why it is the noblest part of a man's nature, and that is why it should not be lightly spoken of as is done daily.”
“Ah, sir,” she said, “that may be the love that poets dream of; I have read out of poetry books to my ladies at the Court, when they were having their hair brushed. There was the poet Waller, whom they liked to have read to them, and Mr. Pope, in places. Mr. Marlowe they had a great regard for. They all put their dreams of love into beautiful words that would make the coldest of us in love with love. But for the real thing for daily life I think that simple folk must needs be content with the homelier variety.”
“There is only one sort of love, and that is love,” said he. “'Tis a flower that blooms as well in a cottage garden as in the parterres of a palace—nay, there are plants that thrive best in a poor soil, becoming stunted and losing their fragrance in rich ground, and it hath oft seemed to me that love is such a growth.”
“And yet I have heard it said that love flies out at the window when poverty comes in by the door,” she said.
“That never was love; 'twas something that came in the disguise of love.”
“I do believe that there are many such sham things prowling about, and knocking at such doors as they find well painted. Some of them have heard of silver being stored away in old jugs, and some have gone round to the byres to see exactly how many cows were there before knocking at the door.”
He smiled in response to her smiling. And then suddenly they both became grave.
“Have you had recent converse with that man Bennet?” he asked suddenly.
She swung the bird cage so quickly round that the doves were well-nigh jerked off their perch. She had flushed at the same moment, and a little frown was upon the face that she turned up to him.
“Why asked you that question? Is it because you were speaking of the sham loves, sir?” she asked.
“I ask your pardon if I seem somewhat of a busybody, Nelly Polwhele,” he said. “But the truth is that I—I find myself thinking of you at times—as a father—as an elder brother might think of—a sweet sister of tender years.”
Now she was blushing rosier than before, and there was no frown upon her forehead. But she did not lower her eyes or turn them away from his face. There was about her no sign of the bashful country girl who has been paid a compliment by one above her in rank. She did not lower her eyes; it was he who lowered his before her.
“'Tis the truth, dear child, that I tell you: I have been strangely interested in you since the first day I saw you, and I have oft wondered what your future would be. I have thought of you in my prayers.”
“I do not deserve so much from you, sir,” she said softly, and now her eyes were on the ground, and he knew by the sound of her voice that they were full of tears. She spoke softly—jerkily. “I do not deserve so much that is good, though if I were asked what thing on earth I valued most I should say that it was that you should think well of me.”
“How could I think otherwise, Nelly?” he asked. “You gave me your promise of your own free will, not to allow any further longing after the playhouse to take possession of you, and I know that you have kept that promise. You never missed a preaching and you were ever attentive. I do not doubt that the seed sown in your heart will bear good fruit. Then you were thoughtful for my comfort upon more than one occasion and—Why should you not dwell in my thoughts? Why should you not be associated with my hopes? Do you think that there is any tenderer feeling than that which a shepherd has for one of his lambs that he has turned into the path that leads to the fold?”
“I am unworthy, sir, I have forgotten your teaching even before your words had ceased to sound in mine ears. I have not scrupled to deceive. I led on John Bennet to believe that I might relent toward him, when all the time I detested him.”
“Why did you do that?” he asked gravely.
“It was to induce him to come to hear you preach, Mr. Wesley,” she replied. “I thought that it was possible if he heard you preach that he might change his ways as so many others have changed theirs, and so I was led to promise to allow him to walk home with me if he came to the preaching. I felt that I was doing wrong at the time, though it did not seem so bad as it does now.”
“But you did not give him any further promise?”
“None—none whatsoever. And when I found that he was unaffected by your preaching I refused him even the small favour—he thought it a favour—which I had granted him before. But I knew that I was double-dealing, and indeed I have cried over the thought of it, and when I heard that you were coming back I resolved to confess it all to you.”
“I encountered the man not more than half an hour ago,” said he.
She seemed to be surprised.
“Then he has broken the promise which he made to me,” she cried. “He gave me his word to forsake this neighbourhood for two months, at least, and I believed that he went away.”
“By what means were you able to obtain such a promise from him?” asked Wesley.
She was silent for some time—silent and ill at ease. At last she said slowly:
“I fear that I was guilty of double dealing again. I believe he went away with the impression that I would think with favour of him.”
“I fear that you meant to convey such an impression to him, Nelly.”
“I cannot deny it sir. I admit it. But I got rid of him. Oh, if you knew how he persecuted me you would not be hard on me.”
“My poor child, who am I that I should condemn you? I do not say that you were not wrong to deceive him as you did; the fact that your own conscience tells you that you were wrong proves that you were.”
“I do not desire to defend myself, sir; and perhaps it was also wrong for me to think as I have been thinking during the past week or two that just as it is counted an honourable thing for a general in battle to hoodwink his enemy, so it may not be quite fair to a woman to call her double dealing for using the wits that she has for her own protection. Were we endowed with wits for no purpose, do you think, Mr. Wesley?”
Mr. Wesley, the preacher of austerity, settled his countenance—not without difficulty—while he kept his eyes fixed upon the pretty face that looked up innocently to his own. He shook his head and raised a finger of reproof. He began to speak with gravity, his intention being to assure her of the danger there was trying to argue against the dictates of one's conscience. If cunning was the gift of Nature, Conscience was the gift of God—that was in his mind when he began to speak.
“Child,” he began, “you are in peril; you
“A woman,” she cried. “I am a woman, and I know that there are some—they are all men—who assert that to be a woman is to be incapable of understanding an argument—so that——”
“To be a woman is to be a creature that has no need of argument because feeling is ever more potent than argument,” said he. “To be a woman is to be a creature of feeling; of grace, of tenderness—of womanliness. If your conscience tells you that you were wrong to deceive John Bennet, be sure that you were wrong; but Heaven forbid that I should condemn you for acting as your womanly wit prompted. And may Heaven forgive me if I speak for once as a man rather than a preacher. 'Tis because I have spoken so that I—I—oh, if I do not run away at once there is no knowing where I may end. Fare thee well, child; and be sure—oh, be sure that your conscience is your true director, not your woman's wits—and least of all, John Wesley, the preacher.”
He laid his hand tenderly upon her head; then suddenly drew it back with a jerk as if he had been stung upon the palm. His horse started, and he made no attempt to restrain it, even when it began to canter. In a few seconds he had gone round the bend on the road beneath the trees that overhung the wall of the Trevelyan demesne.
He had reached the house where he was to lodge before he recollected that although he had been conversing with Nelly Polwhele for close upon twenty minutes—although they had touched upon some topics of common interest, neither of them had referred even in the most distant way to the matter which had brought about his return to the neighbourhood; neither of them had so much as mentioned the name of Pritchard, or referred to his prophecy of the End of all things.
As a matter of fact a whole hour had passed before John Wesley remembered that it was necessary for him to determine as speedily as possible what form his protest against the man and his act should take.
His sudden coming upon Nelly Polwhele had left a rather disturbing impression upon him—at first a delightfully disturbing impression, and then one that added to the gravity of his thoughts—in fact just such a complex impression as is produced upon an ordinary man when coming out of the presence of the woman whom he loves, he knows not why.
The sum of his reflections regarding their meeting was that while he had an uneasy feeling that he had spoken too impulsively to her at the moment of parting from her, yet altogether he was the better of having been with her. A cup of cool water in the desert—those were the words that came to him when he was alone in his room. After the horrible scenes that he had witnessed while riding through the valley—after the horrible torture to which he had been subjected by the gibes of John Bennet—she had appeared before his weary eyes, so fresh, so sweet, so gracious! Truly he was the better for being near her, and once more he repeated the word:
“A cup of cool water in the desert land.”