A Knight of the Nineteenth Century Part 32

"No, nothing more, please. Isn't there something I can do? I've sat still long enough."

Mr. Growther looked at him a moment, and then said:

"Are you sayin' that because you mean it?"

"Yes."

"Would you mind helpin' me make a little garden? I know I ought to have done it long ago, but I'm one of those 'crastinating cusses, and rheumatic in the bargain."

"I'll make your garden on the one condition that you stand by and boss the job."

"O, I'm good at bossin', if nothing else. There ain't much use of plantin' anything, though, for every pesky bug and worm in town will start for my patch as soon as they hear on't."

"I suppose they come on the same principle that I do."

"They hain't so welcome--the cussed little varmints! Some on 'em are so blasted mean that I know I ought to be easier on 'em just out of feller feelin'. Them cut-worms now--if they'd only take a plant and satisfy their nateral appet.i.tes on it, it would go a good ways, and the rest o'

the plants would have a chance to grow out of harm's way; but the nasty little things will jest eat 'em off above the ground, as if they was cut in two by a knife, and then go on to anuther. That's what I call a mean way of gettin' a livin'; but there's lots of people like 'em in town, who spile more than they eat. Then there's the squash-bug. If it's his nater to eat up the vines I s'pose he must do it, but why in thunder must he smell bad enough to knock you over into the bargain? It's allers been my private opinion that the devil made these pests, and the Lord had nothin' to do with 'em. The idea that he should create a rose, and then a rose-bug to spile it, ain't reconcilable to what little reason I've got."

"Well," replied Haldane with a glimmer of a smile, "I cannot account for rose-bugs and a good many worse things. I notice, however, that in spite of all these enemies people manage to raise a great deal that's very nice every year. Suppose we try it."

They were soon at work, and Haldane felt the better for a few hours'

exercise in the open air.

The next morning Mrs. Arnot brought some papers which she said a legal friend wished copied, and she left with them, inclosed in an envelope, payment in advance. After she had gone Haldane offered the money to Mr.

Growther, but the old man only growled:

"Chuck it in a drawer, and the one of us who wants it first can have it."

For the next two or three weeks Mrs. Arnot, by the dint of considerable effort, kept up a supply of MSS., of which copies were required, and she supplemented the prices which the parties concerned were willing to pay.

Her charitable and helpful habits were well known to her friends, and they often enabled her thus to aid those to whom she could not give money direct. But this uncertain employment would soon fail, and what her protege was then to do she could not foresee. No one would trust him, and no one cared to have him about his premises.

But in the meantime the young man was thinking deeply for himself. He soon concluded not to make Mr. Growther's humble cottage a hiding-place; and he commenced walking abroad through the city after the work of the day. He a.s.sumed no bravado, but went quietly on his way like any other pa.s.ser-by. The majority of those who knew who he was either ignored his existence, or else looked curiously after him, but some took pains to manifest their contempt. He could not have been more lonely and isolated if he were walking a desert.

Among the promises he had made Mrs. Arnot was that he would attend church, and she naturally asked him to come to her own.

"As you feel toward my husband, it will probably not be pleasant for you to come to our pew" she had said; "but I hope the time will come when bygones will be bygones. The s.e.xton, however, will give you a seat, and our minister preaches excellent sermons."

Not long after, true to his word, the young man went a little early, as he wished to be as un.o.btrusive as possible. At the same time there was nothing furtive or cringing in his nature. As he had openly done wrong, he was now resolved to try as openly to do right, and let people ascribe whatever motive they chose.

But his heart misgave him as he approached the new elegant church on the most fashionable street. He felt that his clothes were not in keeping with either the place of worship or the worshippers.

Mr. Arnot's confidential clerk was talking with the s.e.xton as he hesitatingly mounted the granite steps, and he saw that dignified functionary, who seemed in some way made to order with the church over which he presided, eye him askance while he lent an ear to what was evidently a bit of his history. Walking quietly but firmly up to the official, Haldane asked:

"Will you give me a seat, sir?"

The man reddened, frowned, and then said:

"Really, sir, our seats are generally taken Sunday mornings. I think you will feel more at home at our mission chapel in Guy street."

"And among the guys, why don't you add?" retorted Haldane, his old spirit flashing up, and he turned on his heel and stalked back to Mr.

Growther's cottage.

"Short sermon to-day," said the old man starting out of a doze.

Haldane told him of his reception.

The wrinkles in the quaint visage of his host grew deep and complicated, as though he had tasted something very bitter, and he remarked sententiously:

"If Satan could he'd pay that s.e.xton a whoppin' sum to stand at the door and keep sinners out."

"No need of the devil paying him anything; the well-dressed Christians see to that. As I promised Mrs. Arnot to come, I tried to keep my word, but this flunky's face and manner alone are enough to turn away such as I am. None but the eminently respectable need apply at that gate of heaven. If it were not for Mrs. Arnot I would believe the whole thing a farce."

"Is Jesus Christ a farce?" asked the practical Mr. Growther, testily.

"What is the use of jumping five hundred miles from the truth because you've happened to run afoul of some of those Pharisees that he cussed?"

Haldane laughed and said, "You have a matter-of-fact way of putting things that there is no escaping. It will, probably, do me more good to stay home and read the Bible to you than to be at church."

The confidential clerk, who had remained gossiping in the vestibule, thought the scene he had witnessed worth mentioning to his employer, who entered with Mrs. Arnot not very long after, and lingered for a word or two. The man of business smiled grimly, and pa.s.sed on. He usually attended church once a day, partly from habit and partly because it was the respectable thing to do. He had been known to remark that he never lost anything by it, for some of his most successful moves suggested themselves to his mind during the monotony of the service.

To annoy his wife, and also to gratify a disposition to sneer at the faults of Christians, Mr. Arnot, at the dinner, commenced to commend ironically the s.e.xton's course.

"A most judicious man!" he affirmed. "Saint Peter himself at the gate could not more accurately strain out the saints from the sinners--nay, he is even keener-eyed than Saint Peter, for he can tell first-cla.s.s from second-cla.s.s saints. Though our church is not full, I now understand why we have a mission chapel. You may trust 'Jeems' to keep out all but the very first-cla.s.s--those who can exchange silk and broadcloth for the white robe. But what on earth could have brought about such a speedy transition from jail to church on the part of Haldane?"

"I invited him," said Mrs. Arnot, in a pained tone; "but I did not think it would be to meet with insult."

"Insult! Quite the reverse. I should think that such as he ought to feel it an honor to be permitted a place among the second-cla.s.s saints."

Mrs. Arnot's thoughts were very busy that afternoon. She was not by nature an innovator, and, indeed, was inclined to accept the established order of things without very close questioning. Her Christian life had been developed chiefly by circ.u.mstances purely personal, and she had unconsciously found walks of usefulness apart from the organized church work. But she was a devout worshipper and a careful listener to the truth. It had been her custom to ride to the morning service, and, as they resided some distance from the church, to remain at home in the evening, giving all in her employ a chance to go out.

Concerning the financial affairs of the church she was kept well informed, for she was a liberal contributor, and also to all other good causes presented. From earliest years her eye had always been accustomed to the phases presented by a fashionable church, and everything moved forward so quietly and with such sacred decorum that the thought of anything wrong did not occur to her.

But the truth that one who was endeavoring to lead a better life had been practically turned from the door of G.o.d's house seemed to her a monstrous thing. How much truth was there in her husband's sarcasm? How far did her church represent the accessible Jesus of Nazareth, to whom all were welcomed, or how far did it misrepresent him? Now that her attention was called to the fact, she remembered that the congregation was chiefly made up of the _elite_ of the city, and that she rarely had seen any one present who did not clearly present the fullest evidence of respectability. Were those whom the Master most emphatically came to seek and save excluded? She determined to find out speedily.

Summoning her coachman, she told him that she wished to attend church that evening. She dressed herself very plainly, and entered the church closely veiled. Instead of going to her own pew, she asked the judicious and discriminating s.e.xton for a seat. After a careless glance he pointed to one of the seats near the door, and turned his back upon her. A richly dressed lady and gentleman entered soon after, and he was all attention, marshalling them up the aisle into Mrs. Arnot's own pew, since it was known she did not occupy it in the evening. A few decent, plain-looking women, evidently sent thither by the wealthy families in whose employ they were, came in hesitatingly, and those who did not take seats near the entrance, as a matter of course, were motioned thither without ceremony. The audience room was but spa.r.s.ely filled, large families being represented by one or two members or not at all. But Mrs.

Arnot saw none of Haldane's cla.s.s present--none who looked as if they were in danger, and needed a kind, strong, rescuing hand--none who looked hungry and athirst for truth because perishing for its lack. In that elegant and eminently respectable place, upholstered and decorated with faultless taste, there was not a hint of publicans and sinners. One might suppose he was in the midst of the millennium, and that the cla.s.ses to whom Christ preached had all become so thoroughly converted that they did not even need to attend church. There was not a suggestion of the fact that but a few blocks away enough to fill the empty pews were living worse than heathen lives.

The choir performed their part melodiously, and a master in music could have found no fault with the technical rendering of the musical score.

They were paid to sing, and they gave to such of their employers as cared to be present every note as it was written, in its full value. As never before, it struck Mrs. Arnot as a performance. The service she had attended hitherto was partly the creation of her own earnest and devotional spirit. To-night she was learning to know the service as it really existed.

The minister was evidently a conscientious man, for he had prepared his evening discourse for his thin audience as thoroughly as he had his morning sermon. Every word was carefully written down, and the thought of the text was exhaustively developed. But Mrs. Arnot was too far back to hear well. The poor man seemed weary and discouraged with the arid wastes of empty seats over which he must scatter the seeds of truth to no purpose. He looked dim and ghostly in the far-away pulpit, and in spite of herself his sermon began to have the aspect of a paid performance, the effect of which would scarcely be more appreciable than the sighing of the wind without. The keenest theologian could not detect the deviation of a hair from the received orthodox views, and the majority present were evidently satisfied that his views would be correct, for they did not give very close attention. The few plain domestics near her dozed and nodded through the hour, and so gained some physical preparation for the toils of the week, but their spiritual natures were as clearly dormant as their lumpish bodies.

After the service Mrs. Arnot lingered, to see if any one would speak to her as a stranger and ask her to come again. Such was clearly not the habit of the congregation. She felt that her black veil, an evidence of sorrow, was a sort of signal of distress which ought to have lured some one to her side with a kind word or two, but beyond a few curious glances she was unnoticed. People spoke who were acquainted, who had been introduced to each other. As the worshippers (?) hastened out, glad to escape to regions where living questions and interests existed, the s.e.xton, who had been dozing in a comfortable corner, bustled to the far end of the church, and commenced, with an a.s.sistant, turning out the lights on either side so rapidly that it seemed as if a wave of darkness was following those who had come thither ostensibly seeking light.

Mrs. Arnot hastened to her carriage, where it stood under the obscuring shadow of a tree, and was driven home sad and indignant--most indignant at herself that she had been so absorbed in her own thoughts and life that she had not discovered that the church to build and sustain which she had given so liberally was scarcely better than a costly refrigerator.