CHAPTER XXXVITHE NEW YEARATGreat Masterhouse the mist clung round the doors and crept like a breathing thing against the windows, as though it would envelope and cut it off from the rest of the living world. Inside the house there was that sense of subdued movement which is caused by the presence of many people all bent upon the same purpose, and the kitchen was half-filled with men and women ranged on benches and chairs round the walls and near the table. The light illumined their faces and threw their shadows in varying degrees of grotesqueness against the whitewash which formed the background.Beside the hearth, a little apart from the rest, sat Mrs. Walters in the straight chair which she usually occupied, the upright pose of her figure bearing a silent rebuke to some of those who had fallen into glaringly human attitudes. Opposite to her was Nannie Davis. Between them the great fire burned and glowed in the chimney under the high mantel with its rows of brass candlesticks, which stood “with their best side towards London,” as the old woman said.The man in black who had preached in the little chapel when George had been discovered asleep there by Anne was standing by the kitchen table. His hand rested on an open Bible and he was reading from it in a loud monotonous voice. In stature he was small and mean, but he threw out his syllables with the assurance of one accustomed to sway his audience.To-night he was lodged at Great Masterhouse, for the farmwas his head-quarters whenever his tour of preaching brought him to the Black Mountain district. He had seldom visited the house without holding a service in it at least once during his stay, and now, on the last night of the old year, he had settled with Anne that a meeting should take place near midnight, so that he and his hearers should have the chance of beginning the new one in prayer and supplication. It was a thing which had never been done before, and he hoped that some who might otherwise have failed to be present would be drawn to it by curiosity and the novelty of the experience.But, in spite of this, the room contained hardly more than thirty people, as the thickness of the fog had made it very difficult for those at a distance to push their way through the heavy darkness. As a result it followed that the whole congregation was made up of really earnest persons, and the preacher found himself so much in accord with it that he was stirred to the depths by the moral support he felt in the very air around. He threw his keen glance over the figures before him, over the rough coats, heavy boots, and the hands clasped together or resting open in the lassitude of physical weariness. To him they were the little remnant saved from the burning, out of the many who dwelt in bondage round them. He was a narrow man, zealous, untiring, faithful in the least as in the greatest, sparing neither himself nor others. He had walked many miles that day and he was to set out before sunrise on the following morning for a far-off place, holding a meeting half-way to his destination and preaching again in the barn which would also be his shelter at night. It was no wonder if his influence was great, for he possessed that which could drive his own soul and body forward through physical as through mental struggle, through hunger and cold, through fatigue and pain. He had the courage of a lion and it shone out of the eyes in his small, fierce face. It was the mighty heart in the little body, the little man and the big odds, the thing which, through all time, will hold and keep and fascinate humanity while there is an ounce of blood or nerve left in it.The hands of the large, eight-day clock which stood with its back to the wall were on their way from eleven to midnight, holding on their course with a measured tick that had neither haste nor delay. It was the only sound which seemed to have courage to defy the preacher’s voice, and it appeared to impress him in some way, for he glanced towards it now and again during his reading and the prayers he offered. Anne sat stiff and still in her place, and Nannie, who was weary with the day’s work and the unwonted vigil, began to nod. He prayed on and on.It was a quarter to twelve when he rose from his knees to begin his sermon, and those whose flesh was weaker than their spirit and whose heads had begun to droop roused themselves as he stood up.He took his theme from the parable of the rich man who pulled down his barns and built greater, saying to his soul, “Eat, drink, thou hast much goods laid up for many years,” and whose soul was required of him that night. As he dwelt on the folly of looking forward, the danger of spiritual delay, and the remorseless flight of the time which should be spent in preparing for eternity, every face was turned towards him, and even Nannie felt her attention compelled by his words and by the force which poured from his vehement spirit. The eagerness of his expression was almost grotesque as he leaned forward calling upon his hearers to forsake their sins and to repent while there was yet time, while the day of Grace yet lasted.“You are on the verge of another year,” he began when he had read out the parable, “and your feet are drawing nigh to the shores of eternity. Are you ready—you, and you, and you—to face that change that waits you? Can you meet the Messenger who may be in the middle of your road as you return to your homes this very night? There can be no looking back, no halting when the summons comes, as come it will, no changing of a past that is the test by which you will stand or fall. Every day that you live is an accountsealed, a leaf turned over for ever, a thing no one can take back. What is your account in the past?”He stopped and wiped the sweat from his face with his handkerchief. The clock warned, and the hands pointed to a few minutes before the hour. The preacher looked towards it.“And, as you sit here,” he cried, “the Old Year is dragging out its last moments and the New Year is coming up—even now we can hear its footsteps drawing closer and closer——”He paused, holding up his hand as though to convey to his hearers’ minds the picture that he saw in his own. And, in the pause, it began to be actually plain to their bodily senses.There was a dead silence and they sat holding their breath, rooted in their places, for the sound of an approaching tread was surely coming up the passage.The tension in the room was almost a tangible thing; men sat with eyeballs fixed, and women grasped each other. On it came, nearer, nearer, till it stopped at the door. The latch turned, and on the threshold stood Rhys Walters.He did not come further, he only remained standing where he was, looking at the familiar place and the people gathered in it. His clothes were stained and torn, his hair was wet with mist, and the angles of his thin shoulders were sharp beneath his coat. He looked at Anne, rigid and spellbound upon the hearth, and a strange fear stirred within her. Each in the room stared at him, dumb, and all were conscious of something that had set its seal upon him and divided him from themselves.Nannie’s cry, as she ran to him, broke the bond of silence which held them, and they rose, pressing towards the figure at the door. Before she could reach him through the crowded medley of chairs and human beings he had gone and his steps were echoing again down the flags of the passage.Anne was behind her as she stood at the outer door straining her eyes into the night and the thickness. The preacher, who had caught up a lantern from a nail in the passage on which it hung, was holding it up, and a bar of light stretched out anddied in the fog; the men and women came round, whispering and peering.Mrs. Walters went out into the courtyard calling Rhys’ name, and Nannie, down whose cheeks tears were running, began to implore the bystanders to go out and find the man who had been, but a minute before, in their midst. There was no sign nor sound, and through the still air came only the monotone of a distant stream in the mountain, heavy with recent rain.Anne turned mutely to the preacher; her lips were closed and she put out her hand towards him; she looked strange and shaken.“I will go,” he said. “Men, will you come with me?”About a dozen responded. The people belonging to Great Masterhouse began to hunt in every outhouse and stable for more lanterns, and, when they had found what they wanted, they filed out of the yard with the little man in front of them.Anne and Nannie stood together watching the lights disperse on the plateau. One was weeping; the other stood with her stony face to the night.* * * * * *The dawn was near when Rhys toiled up a steep spur that jutted out from the mass of the mountain. Though morning was at hand the fog reigned below and only the levels above him were emerging from the pall which had covered them for days. The summit of the Twmpa would soon be lifting itself in the chill of daybreak.All night he had wandered, wandered. Once or twice he had seen the flicker of lights in the hands of the searchers and, with an unexplained instinct, had avoided them. He could not tell where he was going, but he groped along. Twice he had sunk down exhausted and lain in the bitter cold upon the hillside; once sleep had overtaken him and he had spent a couple of hours on the earth, to awake numb and chilled to the bone. But the force of his consuming spirit had driven him on, and he now stood on a height and saw faintly the heavywaves of mist that lay below him over the hidden world like the Valley of the Shadow.His feet were on the utmost edge of a great chasm, but the driving vapour which curled round them up to his knees hid from him the depths that were down, sheer down, within a dozen inches of where he was standing. Had any one been beneath him on the hills, and able to see up through the density and the dark hour, they would have beheld the solitary figure, erect, still, looking out over the space. There was nothing before him but thick, stifling atmosphere. But he was unconscious of that.For some time he stood, neither moving nor turning, facing eastwards. As daybreak began to grow, he lifted his head, and, throwing out his arms towards the coming light, he took one step forward.And so, in the dawning, passed the soul of Rhys Walters, beyond the judgment or the mercy of man, into the unfaltering hand of the Eternal Justice. In this sorry world it is one who can get justice for the hundreds who get mercy—the mercy which, we are told, “blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”But Justice carries no perquisites.THE ENDRICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,LONDON & BUNGAY.
ATGreat Masterhouse the mist clung round the doors and crept like a breathing thing against the windows, as though it would envelope and cut it off from the rest of the living world. Inside the house there was that sense of subdued movement which is caused by the presence of many people all bent upon the same purpose, and the kitchen was half-filled with men and women ranged on benches and chairs round the walls and near the table. The light illumined their faces and threw their shadows in varying degrees of grotesqueness against the whitewash which formed the background.
Beside the hearth, a little apart from the rest, sat Mrs. Walters in the straight chair which she usually occupied, the upright pose of her figure bearing a silent rebuke to some of those who had fallen into glaringly human attitudes. Opposite to her was Nannie Davis. Between them the great fire burned and glowed in the chimney under the high mantel with its rows of brass candlesticks, which stood “with their best side towards London,” as the old woman said.
The man in black who had preached in the little chapel when George had been discovered asleep there by Anne was standing by the kitchen table. His hand rested on an open Bible and he was reading from it in a loud monotonous voice. In stature he was small and mean, but he threw out his syllables with the assurance of one accustomed to sway his audience.
To-night he was lodged at Great Masterhouse, for the farmwas his head-quarters whenever his tour of preaching brought him to the Black Mountain district. He had seldom visited the house without holding a service in it at least once during his stay, and now, on the last night of the old year, he had settled with Anne that a meeting should take place near midnight, so that he and his hearers should have the chance of beginning the new one in prayer and supplication. It was a thing which had never been done before, and he hoped that some who might otherwise have failed to be present would be drawn to it by curiosity and the novelty of the experience.
But, in spite of this, the room contained hardly more than thirty people, as the thickness of the fog had made it very difficult for those at a distance to push their way through the heavy darkness. As a result it followed that the whole congregation was made up of really earnest persons, and the preacher found himself so much in accord with it that he was stirred to the depths by the moral support he felt in the very air around. He threw his keen glance over the figures before him, over the rough coats, heavy boots, and the hands clasped together or resting open in the lassitude of physical weariness. To him they were the little remnant saved from the burning, out of the many who dwelt in bondage round them. He was a narrow man, zealous, untiring, faithful in the least as in the greatest, sparing neither himself nor others. He had walked many miles that day and he was to set out before sunrise on the following morning for a far-off place, holding a meeting half-way to his destination and preaching again in the barn which would also be his shelter at night. It was no wonder if his influence was great, for he possessed that which could drive his own soul and body forward through physical as through mental struggle, through hunger and cold, through fatigue and pain. He had the courage of a lion and it shone out of the eyes in his small, fierce face. It was the mighty heart in the little body, the little man and the big odds, the thing which, through all time, will hold and keep and fascinate humanity while there is an ounce of blood or nerve left in it.
The hands of the large, eight-day clock which stood with its back to the wall were on their way from eleven to midnight, holding on their course with a measured tick that had neither haste nor delay. It was the only sound which seemed to have courage to defy the preacher’s voice, and it appeared to impress him in some way, for he glanced towards it now and again during his reading and the prayers he offered. Anne sat stiff and still in her place, and Nannie, who was weary with the day’s work and the unwonted vigil, began to nod. He prayed on and on.
It was a quarter to twelve when he rose from his knees to begin his sermon, and those whose flesh was weaker than their spirit and whose heads had begun to droop roused themselves as he stood up.
He took his theme from the parable of the rich man who pulled down his barns and built greater, saying to his soul, “Eat, drink, thou hast much goods laid up for many years,” and whose soul was required of him that night. As he dwelt on the folly of looking forward, the danger of spiritual delay, and the remorseless flight of the time which should be spent in preparing for eternity, every face was turned towards him, and even Nannie felt her attention compelled by his words and by the force which poured from his vehement spirit. The eagerness of his expression was almost grotesque as he leaned forward calling upon his hearers to forsake their sins and to repent while there was yet time, while the day of Grace yet lasted.
“You are on the verge of another year,” he began when he had read out the parable, “and your feet are drawing nigh to the shores of eternity. Are you ready—you, and you, and you—to face that change that waits you? Can you meet the Messenger who may be in the middle of your road as you return to your homes this very night? There can be no looking back, no halting when the summons comes, as come it will, no changing of a past that is the test by which you will stand or fall. Every day that you live is an accountsealed, a leaf turned over for ever, a thing no one can take back. What is your account in the past?”
He stopped and wiped the sweat from his face with his handkerchief. The clock warned, and the hands pointed to a few minutes before the hour. The preacher looked towards it.
“And, as you sit here,” he cried, “the Old Year is dragging out its last moments and the New Year is coming up—even now we can hear its footsteps drawing closer and closer——”
He paused, holding up his hand as though to convey to his hearers’ minds the picture that he saw in his own. And, in the pause, it began to be actually plain to their bodily senses.
There was a dead silence and they sat holding their breath, rooted in their places, for the sound of an approaching tread was surely coming up the passage.
The tension in the room was almost a tangible thing; men sat with eyeballs fixed, and women grasped each other. On it came, nearer, nearer, till it stopped at the door. The latch turned, and on the threshold stood Rhys Walters.
He did not come further, he only remained standing where he was, looking at the familiar place and the people gathered in it. His clothes were stained and torn, his hair was wet with mist, and the angles of his thin shoulders were sharp beneath his coat. He looked at Anne, rigid and spellbound upon the hearth, and a strange fear stirred within her. Each in the room stared at him, dumb, and all were conscious of something that had set its seal upon him and divided him from themselves.
Nannie’s cry, as she ran to him, broke the bond of silence which held them, and they rose, pressing towards the figure at the door. Before she could reach him through the crowded medley of chairs and human beings he had gone and his steps were echoing again down the flags of the passage.
Anne was behind her as she stood at the outer door straining her eyes into the night and the thickness. The preacher, who had caught up a lantern from a nail in the passage on which it hung, was holding it up, and a bar of light stretched out anddied in the fog; the men and women came round, whispering and peering.
Mrs. Walters went out into the courtyard calling Rhys’ name, and Nannie, down whose cheeks tears were running, began to implore the bystanders to go out and find the man who had been, but a minute before, in their midst. There was no sign nor sound, and through the still air came only the monotone of a distant stream in the mountain, heavy with recent rain.
Anne turned mutely to the preacher; her lips were closed and she put out her hand towards him; she looked strange and shaken.
“I will go,” he said. “Men, will you come with me?”
About a dozen responded. The people belonging to Great Masterhouse began to hunt in every outhouse and stable for more lanterns, and, when they had found what they wanted, they filed out of the yard with the little man in front of them.
Anne and Nannie stood together watching the lights disperse on the plateau. One was weeping; the other stood with her stony face to the night.
* * * * * *
The dawn was near when Rhys toiled up a steep spur that jutted out from the mass of the mountain. Though morning was at hand the fog reigned below and only the levels above him were emerging from the pall which had covered them for days. The summit of the Twmpa would soon be lifting itself in the chill of daybreak.
All night he had wandered, wandered. Once or twice he had seen the flicker of lights in the hands of the searchers and, with an unexplained instinct, had avoided them. He could not tell where he was going, but he groped along. Twice he had sunk down exhausted and lain in the bitter cold upon the hillside; once sleep had overtaken him and he had spent a couple of hours on the earth, to awake numb and chilled to the bone. But the force of his consuming spirit had driven him on, and he now stood on a height and saw faintly the heavywaves of mist that lay below him over the hidden world like the Valley of the Shadow.
His feet were on the utmost edge of a great chasm, but the driving vapour which curled round them up to his knees hid from him the depths that were down, sheer down, within a dozen inches of where he was standing. Had any one been beneath him on the hills, and able to see up through the density and the dark hour, they would have beheld the solitary figure, erect, still, looking out over the space. There was nothing before him but thick, stifling atmosphere. But he was unconscious of that.
For some time he stood, neither moving nor turning, facing eastwards. As daybreak began to grow, he lifted his head, and, throwing out his arms towards the coming light, he took one step forward.
And so, in the dawning, passed the soul of Rhys Walters, beyond the judgment or the mercy of man, into the unfaltering hand of the Eternal Justice. In this sorry world it is one who can get justice for the hundreds who get mercy—the mercy which, we are told, “blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”
But Justice carries no perquisites.
THE END
RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,LONDON & BUNGAY.